It took Geoff another eight attempts to adequately explain to Zoë how the Sat-Nav worked, and another fifteen to convince her to drink the serum. As it happened, the correct conversation path was to first of all invite her back to his place for a cup of tea, sit her down on the sofa, and then gently introduce the idea that she would need to drink a serum as well. He then needed to do a bit of reconvincing that this whole time travel thing was a good idea, tempting her with ideas like the fact that she would be able to see if her band ever made it, and that he would take her back to visit her favorite time period, which just so happened to be ancient Egypt. Then they had to talk about how amazing ancient Egypt would be to visit, and then Geoff had to listen to an anecdote about how Zoë had actually been to Egypt quite recently and lost her phone. Then the conversation took a detour to talk about what the best phone was to get these days, then they talked about Angry Birds, and finally the conversation returned to the subject of time travel. All in all, it took about two hours and three cups of tea for Zoë to finally understand how the Sat-Nav worked, and to agree to drink the serum so that her mind and body were synchronized with the device.
“That tasted awful,” Zoë said, handing the empty bottle back to Geoff.
“I know,” Geoff said. “But it will be worth it—trust me.”
“Just for the record, I still don’t believe any of this,” Zoë said, wiping her mouth. “But since you seem so convinced by all of this, I’ll humor you.”
“I do appreciate it,” Geoff said. “And I promise—I won’t let you down.”
“So what happens now?” Zoë asked.
“Now, I’m going to show you something I did two years ago,” Geoff said. “Not long after I was hired to be a Time Rep. It’s something I’ve been desperate to talk to you about since the day it happened, something you are not going to believe.”
“And what would that be?”
“Well, you might have a little trouble believing this, but two years ago, I saved the world from an alien invasion.”
Zoë looked out of the window for about fifteen seconds before appearing to register what Geoff had said. She seemed distracted. “Sorry—I thought I saw a starling. You don’t see many of those around this time of year. What did you say?”
“You heard me. I saved the world from an alien invasion.”
Zoë took a sip of her tea. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious,” Geoff said, getting to his feet and walking over to the other side of the room. “They were called the Varsarians, and two years ago they sent a massive fleet of spaceships across the galaxy to wipe out the human race. The only thing that stopped them doing that was me.”
“You stopped an entire fleet of spaceships from wiping out the human race.”
“Yup. That’s correct.”
“And how did you do that exactly?”
“I broadcast a message over the Internet while playing a computer game called Space Commando. And when the Varsarians heard it, they thought it was meant for them.”
“What did you say?”
“‘I see you alien fuckers, and the Death Bringer is coming your way!’”
“The Death Bringer?”
“It’s a weapon in Space Commando.”
“Right.”
“Of course, I had no idea they had picked up this message, but the second they heard me say this, they called off their attack to make sure they hadn’t underestimated humanity’s technological capacities. It took them two hundred years to realize their mistake, but by the time they sent their fleet back to wipe us out, we had invented time travel. So this time, when the Varsarians turned up again, we projected a portal into space sending the entire alien fleet forward in time by six hundred years. When they materialized in the future, the human race had massively improved its military capabilities, and the invading forces were defeated.”
Geoff paused for a moment to catch his breath. He wasn’t sure his explanation was making a huge amount of sense, especially since Zoë looked more confused than a protestor at an antiprotest protest rally.
“Are you with me so far?” he asked.
“I think so,” Zoë said.
“Good,” Geoff said, “because the next part is where it gets pretty complicated.”
“The next part?”
“Yes. You see, some of the aliens survived the battle, and spent the next couple of centuries hiding on Earth in human form, infiltrating different aspects of society. One particularly nasty alien called Tringrall managed to put himself in charge of Time Tours, and once he was there, he began plotting a way to use the time tourism industry to change the outcome of the failed Varsarian invasion.”
Zoë leaned back on the sofa. She appeared to only be half listening. “So…what did this Terlingown do?”
“Tringrall.”
“Right, Tringrall. What did this Tringrall do?”
“Well, once he knew it was my Internet broadcast that was responsible for delaying the original invasion in the twenty-first century, he realized that if he could stop that from happening, the Varsarian invasion would succeed. But there was just one problem—all time travel was strictly monitored by a powerful supercomputer to stop anyone going back and changing history. However, the supercomputer did have its uses to him—it showed Tringrall that with the exception of stopping the Varsarian invasion, my life was completely insignificant to the space-time continuum.”
Zoë laughed.
“Now there’s something I don’t find hard to believe,” she said.
“Oh yes,” Geoff said. “In fact, if you must know, that computer said I was less important to the world than certain types of mushroom.”
“No kidding.”
“Anyway, that was when Tringrall came up with the idea for Time Reps—hiring nobodies from throughout history to meet tourists from the future. But the project was invented for one reason—it was a cover to allow Tringrall to get to me. You see, Tringrall figured out a loophole in the supercomputer’s programming—one that would allow him to stop me from broadcasting the transmission that stopped the invasion. Fortunately, we were able to realize enough of what was going on before it was too late, and Earth’s entire battle fleet was sent back in time to the twenty-first century to defend the planet.”
“Wow,” Zoë said, standing up from the sofa in that way people do when they kind of want to leave. “That’s quite a story.”
“It’s quite a story that isn’t finished yet,” Geoff said.
“Oh,” Zoë said, sitting down again.
“You see, there was one last problem. By this point, we still didn’t know who Tringrall really was, as he was continuing to hide in human form. This meant he was able to get on board the Concordia—the flagship of the battle fleet sent back to the twenty-first century to defend Earth—without raising any suspicion.”
“Whoops,” Zoë said. She didn’t look like she was taking this story very seriously.
“Right, whoops. Anyway, in the middle of the battle, he sabotaged a computer that was controlling most of our spaceships, sending the entire fleet into disarray. His actions nearly wiped us out completely, but at the last minute, when it appeared all hope was lost, I figured out a way to undo everything he had done. I worked out a way of identifying the ship that had Tringrall’s ancestors on it, took command of the ship, and destroyed that ship by ramming it with the Concordia. The moment that happened, Tringrall ceased to exist. The damage he had caused never happened, all our ships instantly repaired themselves, and the tide of the battle was turned back in our favor.”
Zoë looked at Geoff in silence.
“That it?” she said eventually.
“That’s it,” Geoff said. “The planet was saved.”
“You know I don’t believe you, right?”
“I know,” Geoff replied, placing the Sat-Nav on the table. “That’s why I’m going to take you there right now.”
“Oh, this I’ve got to see,” Zoë said.
“Right,” Geoff said, pressing the WHEN button. After entering the correct date, two years ago, he pressed the WHERE button. Fortunately, he was able to zoom the map of Earth out far enough to get a view of outer space, and as he did, he could see a visualization of the battle taking place just as he remembered it, a few thousand kilometers away from the planet.
“You see?” Geoff said, showing the screen to Zoë. Explosions were flashing against a backdrop of stars, ships were flying around everywhere in a torrent of laser beams and missiles, and the burnt-out wreckages of several destroyed craft were drifting lifelessly around like corpses made from scrap metal.
“Wow,” Zoë said.
She didn’t look particularly impressed, but then that was understandable. To her, this probably just looked like some sort of basic computer game.
If he truly wanted her to believe him, he would need to take her there.
But where should they go? He zoomed in on the battle again to get a good look at the different ships. He wanted Zoë to see him at the moment he took command of the fleet, but he didn’t think plonking them on the bridge of the Concordia was a great idea—he couldn’t just show up out of thin air, turn to the past version of himself, and say, “Don’t mind us, Geoff, you just carry on!” No—that might be a tad distracting at such a critical moment.
He needed to think of something else.
Perhaps if there was another ship he could get on board, one that was near enough to the Concordia so that they could see him take command on the bridge, maybe that would be enough?
He thought back to the battle and remembered a ship that had drifted right in front of the path of the Concordia, just as he was trying to ram Tringrall’s ancestors. Maybe if they were on that ship, it would be close enough for Zoë to see him on the bridge when he was in command.
It wasn’t hard to find the ship he was thinking about—it was one of the last remaining craft toward the end of the battle, just as the Concordia was about to set its collision course toward the ship with Tringrall’s ancestors on it.
Geoff looked at Zoë.
“Here we are,” he said, using the Sat-Nav to select an empty spot in a corridor on the starboard side of the ship that he knew was going to drift in front of the flagship while he was in command. The corridor looked a little bit damaged from the battle, with hairline cracks beginning to appear across the ceiling, but it still looked safe and had huge windows, which he hoped would give them a perfect view of the Concordia’s bridge as they drifted by. He stood up, took Zoë’s hand, and pulled her to her feet. “You ready?”
“I’m ready,” Zoë said, throwing her arms up in the air in mock excitement. “Beam me up, Scotty.”
Geoff smiled, pressed the EXECUTE button, and the next moment, he and Zoë were standing in the corridor on the spaceship, right where he had intended.
For a second, Zoë didn’t say a word. She just looked at Geoff in silence as though they’d just gone out for a walk and she’d remembered that she’d forgotten her handbag.
“Well, we’re here,” Geoff smiled, reaching for her hand “You okay?”
“Agggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” was Zoë’s response, screamed directly at Geoff’s face at the top of her voice.