Twelve

Zoë’s legs gave way immediately, her limp body spilling across the floor as though her bones had instantly been replaced with overcooked spaghetti. Geoff tried to catch her as she fell, but failed quite spectacularly and ended up lying on the floor with her in a tangled mess of arms and legs. The whole episode reminded him of the last time he’d been ice skating.

“Hey hey hey hey hey!” Geoff said, grabbing Zoë by the shoulders and pulling her body upright, seating her with her back against the window. “Keep calm, okay? Everything is fine.”

“Keep calm?” Zoë leapt to her feet and pressed herself against the wall on the other side of the corridor as though she’d just seen a big spider crawling toward her. “Keep calm? What the hell just happened? Where are we?”

“I told you,” Geoff said, standing up. “We’re in space.”

“Space?” Zoë cried. “Space? How can we be in space? We’re in space? This is space?”

“Yes, this is space,” Geoff said, “and we’re in it. I told you this was going to happen a minute ago, remember?”

“I thought you were joking!”

“Yeah, I know,” Geoff said. “But I wasn’t.”

Zoë started murmuring something incomprehensible to herself. Geoff sometimes found it difficult to read women, but in this instance he thought he knew what was going through Zoë’s mind: sheer panic. “It’s okay, Zoë,” he tried to calm her down.

“Oh, it’s okay, he says,” Zoë scoffed. “We’re in space and that’s fine. It’s normal.”

He walked over to the window and looked outside.

“We won’t be here for very long. I just want to show you one thing, and then I’ll take you back to Earth.”

Zoë looked at him in silence.

“I’ll even make you another tea.”

She still looked at him in silence. He had a feeling that the promise of a nice cup of tea afterward wasn’t quite enough to calm her nerves.

“Look,” Geoff said, pressing his hands against the window. “This is the moment I was telling you about, the moment I took command of an entire fleet of spaceships and defeated an alien invasion.”

He peered through the glass at the war raging outside, trying to work out at what point they had arrived. Just as he’d intended, the Sat-Nav had brought them to a point in time near the end of the battle. In front of him, the charred remains of thousands of Earth ships drifted lifelessly through space, with the Varsarians conducting an all-out assault on the remainder of the fleet. The cosmos were littered with dead bodies and space debris, with flying saucers gleefully whizzing in all directions, and laser beams and missiles were exploding everywhere like some sort of nightmarish fireworks display.

In the distance, he saw the badly damaged Concordia, the massive ship just sitting in space, biding its time. If he wasn’t mistaken, his past self would be sitting in the captain’s chair right now, getting ready to put his last-ditch plan into action.

His suspicions were confirmed when he heard his own voice come over the loudspeaker. He remembered this moment vividly—it was his first command to the Earth fleet, the bluff he knew the enemy was listening in on that he’d used to draw out Tringrall’s ancestors.

“Remaining Earth ships, your attention please! Prepare to activate the Death Bringer!” it said.

As the order came, all the enemy ships stopped firing and moved to retreat, fearing that humanity was about to fire a superweapon that didn’t actually exist. But there was one ship out there that would still be firing on the others. This was the moment when his past self was on the bridge, surveying every square inch of space to identify the right ship to attack, the one with Tringrall’s ancestors on it, which, if destroyed, would wipe him from existence and undo all the damage his sabotage had caused.

Geoff looked around and extended an arm toward Zoë.

“Why don’t you come over here and have a look at this?” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Zoë didn’t look particularly convinced.

“Come on,” Geoff said, reaching toward her. “It’s perfectly safe.”

Zoë took a few slow steps forward, approaching the window with caution as though it were the edge of a cliff face. Eventually, she pressed her hands against the glass and leaned forward, staring in wonder at what she saw like a small child looking into an aquarium for the first time. “Oh my God,” she said.

“You see that big ship in front of us?” Geoff said, pointing toward the Concordia. “That’s the ship I told you about—the one I commanded two years ago. Right now, I’m standing on the bridge of that ship, trying to spot a particular craft that I need to destroy.”

Zoë turned to Geoff. Her eyes were wider than he’d ever seen them before. “It’s real!” she exclaimed. “It’s really real!”

“That’s right,” Geoff laughed, taking her hand.

In front of them, the Concordia’s engines began to power up, a bright blue glow emanating from the rear of the craft. Slowly but surely, the ship began to move, the battered hull creaking like the bones of an old man prising himself out of a chair.

“Ah—here we go,” Geoff said, rubbing his hands together enthusiastically. “This was the part I wanted you to see, when I set the Concordia on a collision course with the enemy ship.”

Zoë wasn’t really listening. At this moment, her mind was still coming to terms with the fact that she was in space, and that Geoff had actually been telling the truth all along about being a Time Rep. She was so stunned, he probably could have said anything to her at this point and she wouldn’t have reacted, no matter how outrageous the statement.

“I don’t believe this,” she said, raising her hand to stroke the back of her neck.

“None of our weapons were working,” Geoff continued his story regardless of whether Zoë was paying attention or not, “so I had to ram the Concordia into the alien ship in order to destroy it.”

“Geoff,” Zoë placed a hand on Geoff’s shoulder to steady herself, “this is amazing. I can’t believe it.”

In front of them, the Concordia began to accelerate faster, the massive ship using every last drop of energy to catch up with its target. Just as Geoff had remembered, the ship they were standing on began to drift into the path of the flagship, and within seconds they had a full view of the bridge as the Concordia heaved toward them.

“There!” Geoff said, leaning close to Zoë and pointing her line of sight toward the bridge’s main window. Sure enough, there was his past self, sitting in the captain’s seat, looking ahead in horror at the ship that had just drifted in front of the Concordia’s path. “Can you see me?”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Zoë said, nodding. “It’s you! Can he see us?”

“I don’t remember seeing us, so I guess not,” Geoff said. “At the time, I was a little bit more concerned with getting this ship to move out of the way.”

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before an order from his past self was broadcast throughout the ship.

“Get out of the way!” his past self said. “I can’t hit it if you’re in the way!”

“See?” Geoff said.

“What was that?” Zoë said.

“That was me ordering this ship to move,” Geoff explained.

“This is extremely confusing.”

The two of them stood transfixed by the window, watching as the Concordia narrowly avoided colliding with the ship they were on and maintained its pursuit of the enemy craft. Even though Geoff knew the outcome of this chase, he still felt his body tensing up in anticipation, and when Tringrall’s ancestors began to accelerate away from the lumbering Concordia and it appeared all hope was lost, he still felt nervous, as though there were still a possibility that he might not succeed in catching them up.

But then the came his past self’s master stroke—the Concordia activated its tractor beam, the enemy flying saucer was stopped in its tracks, and within seconds, the two ships crashed into each other spectacularly, with the enemy saucer ricocheting back out into space and folding in on itself before exploding in a brilliant flash of light.

Geoff turned to Zoë. “This is the best bit,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Watch what happens now.”

With Tringrall’s ancestors destroyed and Tringrall himself erased from existence, the space-time continuum got to work undoing all the damage caused by his act of sabotage. Conveniently, this meant that all the ships that had been destroyed by the Varsarians began to restore themselves to pristine condition, with burnt-out wreckages and exploded craft unburning and unexploding before their very eyes. In front of them, the previously battered hull of the Concordia repaired itself, the giant gashes and scorch marks healing over as though they had never happened. Even the corridor Zoë and Geoff were standing in fixed itself, the cracks in the walls joining back together again, the floor and ceiling straightening out almost instantaneously. Someone in an insurance company somewhere was no doubt breathing a very large sigh of relief at this point.

Geoff smiled as he watched the fleet repair itself again—seeing it do this for the second time really was incredible. He could only imagine what Zoë must have been thinking, but he hoped it was something along the lines of: Wow—Geoff wasn’t lying! He really did save the world! I am seriously impressed with this man, and will now ask him if he would like a big kiss!

Needless to say, that wasn’t what was going through Zoë’s mind in the slightest.

It was only a matter of seconds before Earth’s battle fleet was back up to full strength, and as the last of the alien forces were being wiped out by an invigorated enemy, she turned to Geoff and gave him a look he’d never seen before.

“My God, Geoff,” she said, letting go of his hand and taking a step back from the window. Her voice was quivering as she spoke, her wide eyes looking at him from a new perspective. “I can’t believe it! Everything you said was true.”

“That’s right,” Geoff replied. “And you have no idea how hard it’s been keeping that a secret from you.”

• • •

Since there was no point sticking around to see the rest of the Varsarians being wiped out, Geoff used the Sat-Nav to bring them both back to present-day London. But he didn’t want to go back to the house—now that she knew the truth about who he really was, he wanted to take Zoë somewhere nice, somewhere he could confess his true feelings toward her, somewhere romantic. The house wasn’t really ideal for that sort of thing, not least because a) you needed an ordnance survey map to navigate your way through each room, and b) even if you found a clean spot (which you wouldn’t, but let’s pretend for argument’s sake), you were probably never more than two meters away from a stray sock.

And stray socks were a real mood killer when you were in the middle of telling someone how much you loved them.

No—he needed to take her somewhere special.

He knew he was probably going about all this a little quickly, but he couldn’t help it—he was in love with Zoë, and he had been desperate to tell her how he really felt for years. And what better time to do that than after showing her how he had saved the world?

That sort of thing was pretty impressive, right?

Of course, Geoff understood that just because Zoë had seen him save the entire human race from extinction, it didn’t mean she felt the same way about him.

He knew that love didn’t work that way.

And she was pretty fussy, after all.

And so, after dismissing a number of nonromantic locations to confess his feelings, like the comic book section in Forbidden Planet and outside the local chip shop, Geoff decided to take Zoë to a quiet area at the top of the hill in Greenwich Park, just next to the Royal Observatory. As romantic spots go, this was hard to beat—the hill offered an amazing view across the whole of London, there were no stray socks in sight, and being the site of the Prime Meridian, the place had a certain connection with time that Geoff felt was rather poetic.

They materialized on top of the hill, just as the sun was setting.

“Here we are,” Geoff said, taking a few steps forward and letting his eyes wander across the London skyline. “Back on planet Earth.”

He could see the beautiful dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, peeking over the horizon. The spike of the Shard, piercing the sky like a lone stalagmite. Tower Bridge, which he remembered he would still be visiting at some point in the near future. And in front of him, Canary Wharf, with its chunky skyscrapers lit up in the twilight like giant advertisements for how to waste energy.

Zoë was breathing heavily, her hand pressed to her chest. “I still can’t believe this,” she said, padding over to a nearby bench and sitting down.

“How are you doing?” Geoff said, sitting down next to her.

“How am I doing?” Zoë said, turning to face him. “How am I doing? Geoff—I’ve just found out that you can time travel! That the planet was nearly destroyed two years ago by an alien invasion! I’ve just been into space and back! It’s quite a bit to take in! How do you think I’m doing?!”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

Zoë shut her eyes, scrunching her face up as tightly as she could for a few seconds and clenching her teeth.

“Look—I’m sorry if I scared you, okay?” Geoff said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “It’s just—I didn’t know what else to do. I had to show you I was telling the truth.”

Zoë opened her eyes and shot to her feet, ignoring Geoff’s hand falling away from her shoulder as she stood up.

“Okay—I’m fine,” she said, breathing in slowly. She rested her hands by her sides and breathed out again as if she were doing a relaxing yoga move. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?” Geoff said.

“Absolutely,” Zoë said. “A little overwhelmed, maybe, but I’m good. Sorry—this has just all come as a bit of a shock, you know?”

“I understand,” Geoff said. “I didn’t believe it either when Time Tours first told me about time travel. Nearly walked out the door. But it’s pretty neat, right?”

“Neat?” Zoë said. “Neat? Geoff, this is incredible! It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!” She walked over to him and looked down at the Sat-Nav. “You mean to tell me that thing allows you to travel to any time or place?”

“That’s right,” Geoff said. “We can go anywhere and anywhen we like.”

“Unbelievable,” she said, straightening up and looking around. Behind her, the roof of the Greenwich Observatory was reflecting the last rays of sunlight as dusk began to set in. “So why did you bring me to Greenwich? Was there something else you wanted to show me?”

“No,” Geoff said. “I just thought this would be nice, you know?”

“Nice?”

Geoff swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Nice for what? Are we having a picnic?”

“Um…I dunno,” Geoff said. “I guess I thought…uh…”

He couldn’t believe it. After building this moment up in his mind so much, he was scared to say anything.

And with Zoë now linked to the tablet, if this went wrong, there was no way of undoing a mistake he made with her anymore. Unless he disconnected her, if he rewound time, she would have the same memories he did. And he couldn’t do that, because he didn’t have any more serum.

“Are you okay?” Zoë asked.

“I’m fine,” Geoff said. “I’m fine. Listen—do you mind if we just sit here for a while?”

“You want to just sit here?” Zoë said.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

Zoë shrugged her shoulders. “I guess,” she said. “But all this has got me a little worked up, you know? Can’t we go and visit another time period or something?”

“You want to go somewhere else straight away?”

“Don’t you?” she said, looking out across the London skyline. “Geoff—we can go anywhere! We can visit ancient Egypt, we can go and see what it was like in medieval times, we can go to the future—the list is endless!”

“I know it is,” Geoff said. “I know. It’s just that I thought…”

Zoë looked at him. “You just thought what?” she said.

Geoff stood up and walked toward her. “What did you think of what I just showed you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know that part where I saved the world from an alien invasion?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of that? It was pretty good, right?”

Zoë smiled and tilted her head to one side. “If you were trying to impress me, Geoff, you did a pretty good job,” she said. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Uh…yes.” Geoff blushed. “Yes, it was.” He felt a bit stupid now, forcing Zoë to say something.

“You know, maybe we should sit here for a while,” Zoë said, walking over to the bench. “I get the feeling we both need to calm down a little.”

And so that’s what they did. For about five minutes, neither of them said a word. They just sat on the bench in silence, watching as the sun set on the horizon.

“Geoff?” Zoë said eventually.

“Yes?”

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Well, you said you’d been working as a Time Rep for two years, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“If that’s the case, why did you wait until today to show me all this? Why didn’t you tell me about your job straight away?”

“It’s a long story,” Geoff said. “For the last two years, I wasn’t allowed to. My old company was worried that if anyone from the twenty-first century knew what I did, there was a risk that it could change the course of history. It was only today that I joined a new company called Continuum. Thanks to the Sat-Nav they gave me, I can go back and do whatever I like.”

“Like showing me the moment you saved the world.”

“Exactly,” Geoff said. “That was the first thing on my list.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I have to say I’m very flattered,” Zoë said, shifting her weight on the bench slightly. “But of all the things you could have chosen to do, why did you want to do that first?”

“Because ever since I became a Time Rep, I’ve found it so frustrating to talk to you,” Geoff said. “You’re one of my closest friends, and I couldn’t tell you any of this. Do you have any idea how hard it has been keeping this all a secret from you?”

“And do you feel better now that you’ve shown me all this?”

“Yes,” Geoff said. “I guess so…it’s just…”

Zoë put a finger to Geoff’s lips. “I know what’s going on here, Geoff. I know what you’re trying to do. Just give me some time to think about it, okay?”

Geoff nodded.

“Now,” Zoë said, standing up from the bench and taking a few steps toward the edge of the hill. “Let’s go somewhere else, shall we? But this time, I’ll choose, okay?”

“Okay,” Geoff said, standing up and joining her at the edge of the hill, Sat-Nav in hand. “Just name the time and place and I’ll take you there. How about we see if your band ever makes it? Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

“I suppose,” Zoë said, looking down at her feet and kicking a small stone. “But it seems so silly to go and see something like that now, given what we could use this thing to do.”

Geoff frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just, after being in space, it seems a bit of an anticlimax to go down the pub and watch the band play. I want to experience something else that will blow my mind. Something I’ve never seen before.”

“Are you sure?” Geoff said. “Because you didn’t handle going into space that well, if I’m completely honest.”

Zoë frowned at him. “I’m sure,” she said.

“Okay. If you want to see something that will really amaze you, this device has got just the thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“It can make time speed up.”

“Speed up?”

“It’s really incredible to watch, like fast-forwarding a video. Why don’t we travel to the future, but instead of jumping straight there, why don’t we watch how London changes over time? From here, we’ll have a great view of the city. We’ll be able to see all the new buildings go up in minutes, see the landscape change as the city gets more and more built up.”

“Sounds amazing,” Zoë said. “Let’s do it.”

“Right,” Geoff said, looking down at the tablet. “Let me see if I can remember how this works.” He pressed the WHEN icon, and then hovered his finger over the fast-forward button.

“I think this is it,” he said. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” Zoë said, and walked over to the edge of the hill to take in the view.

Geoff did the same. “Here we go,” he said, holding the button down.

Just like before when he had used the Sat-Nav to speed up the passage of time, things began to happen in front of them at a vastly accelerated rate. As the date on the screen counted up through the decades and then the centuries, Zoë and Geoff watched in awe as the London skyline rapidly evolved before their eyes. Some areas stayed remarkably similar over the years, with Saint Paul’s Cathedral remaining completely untouched. Other areas changed dramatically. Three new bridges sprang up over the Thames, Canary Wharf’s roster of skyscrapers quadrupled, and by the twenty-fourth century, the Millennium Dome was replaced by an enormous theme park.

By the twenty-seventh century, there were no signs of the old transport infrastructures of the city. With the advent of flying cars in the twenty-sixth century, which now streaked across the sky in organized lanes of red and white headlights, it appeared roads and railways were obsolete. Eventually, most of the roads and tracks were converted to long stretches of parkland, intersecting every few hundred yards and making the city look much greener, with lines of tall trees replacing most of the bands of gray and brown that had been there before.

After a matter of minutes, they finally reached the thirty-first century, with the city looking both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Some parts of it looked identical to the London of the twenty-first century; other parts looked totally different.

“Well, here we are,” Geoff said.

“Wait,” Zoë said, holding his finger down on the button. “Keep going! This is incredible! I want to see what happens next.”

“Okay,” Geoff said, keeping the button pressed down.

And so they watched as the city continued to grow. Geoff looked down at the tablet—another fifty years had passed, and the city was still changing, with buildings rising and falling in a cycle. There was a strange rhythm to it, as though each part of the city was destined to be rebuilt at a certain point.

However, by the time they reached the mid-thirty-second century, the evolution of the city began to slow down. For a moment, Geoff wondered if he wasn’t pressing the fast-forward button hard enough, but it wasn’t that—the years were still counting up quickly; it was the city that wasn’t changing that much. Not only that, but the bright lines of traffic that had consistently streaked through the sky for hundreds of years started to weaken, as though fewer people were now traveling. By the end of the thirty-second century, something looked to be very wrong indeed. There was no traffic in the sky at all, and the city wasn’t changing in the slightest. The only thing that was different was the greenery throughout the city and the parkland around them, which was now becoming hugely overgrown. It was as though there hadn’t been anyone tending to it for years.

Then in the distance, a few of the taller skyscrapers began to erode away and collapse, as if they had fallen into disrepair. It appeared that, like the greenery, people weren’t attending to the upkeep of the buildings, either.

“Geoff?” Zoë said, looking around at him. “What’s happened? Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Geoff said. He could feel his heart beating faster.

He took his finger off the fast-forward button and watched as time immediately flowed at a normal speed again.

They were now standing in foot-high grass, overlooking a decaying, deserted city. According to the Sat-Nav, it was early evening. At this time of day you would normally be able to see thousands of buildings lit up as far as the eye could see, but there were no lights anywhere—just a gray, lifeless skyline, slowly withering away to nothing.

Either there had been a massive power cut and the entire city had gone to try and sort it out, or something was very wrong here.

“What’s going on?” Zoë said. “Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Geoff said.

“Geoff, I don’t like this.”

“Oh, wait a minute,” Geoff said, tapping his forehead with the palm of his hand in that way people do when they’ve just remembered something. “I know what this is.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I do. Or at least, I think I do. If I’m right, then there’s nothing to worry about.”

“And if you’re not right?”

“If I’m not right, it still might not be that bad. There might be a perfectly reasonable, nonworrying explanation.”

Zoë didn’t look convinced. “The entire city is deserted and you think there’s a perfectly reasonable, nonworrying explanation?” she said. “It looks pretty bad to me, like everyone’s died or something.”

Geoff shook his head. “No, no no no. I don’t think that’s what happened. You remember that supercomputer I told you about? The one that predicted the future?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that computer always said that humanity would one day leave this planet to explore other galaxies. We must have just passed the point in history when that happened, that’s all.”

“I don’t know, Geoff,” Zoë said, walking over to an area that was a little less overgrown. “This doesn’t feel right.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to worry about,” Geoff said. “Pretty sure. All that’s happened is that mankind has gone to explore other worlds. And while this looks bad now, with everything falling apart, in the future, once all these old buildings erode away, Earth will revert back to being a beautiful garden world.”

“Hmm,” Zoë said. “If you say so. But it still feels a little bit strange to me.”

“Well, why don’t we look it up?” Geoff said, pressing the WHAT button on the Sat-Nav. “Will that make you feel better?”

“You can do that?”

“Yeah—this thing can tell us exactly what happened.”

Geoff found the page describing why everywhere appeared to be deserted and began reading it to himself. At first he just thought the explanation would confirm what he already knew—that mankind had left the planet to explore other galaxies.

Unfortunately, it didn’t say that at all.

And contrary to what he had told Zoë, the real explanation wasn’t a perfectly reasonable, nonworrying one.

In fact, it was kind of the opposite.

“Well?” Zoë said, peering over the Sat-Nav to try and read the screen for herself. “What does it say?”

Geoff looked at Zoë and sighed.

He handed her the Sat-Nav to read the explanation for herself. “There’s been a complete and utter disaster, and we’ve got to do something about it.”

Zoë took the Sat-Nav from him and started read aloud. “In the early thirty-second century, the population of the world had become completely addicted to the Continuum experience,” she said. “To cope with this extraordinary demand, Continuum launched an ultra-premium holiday package. This meant that instead of people using Continuum to go on holiday and come back again, they were now allowed to disappear into their own alternative timelines and never come back. This package became so popular, it was decreed to be a basic human right for someone to be able to spend their entire life within the Continuum experience if they wished. To cope with demand, the world’s entire manufacturing capabilities were dedicated to producing enough serum and Space and Time Navigation tablets to cater to the entire population of the planet. Within fifty years, over half the population had used Continuum to disappear into their own timelines forever, and by the end of the century, only a few remnants of humanity remained.”

She handed the tablet back to Geoff and looked him in the eyes. “I don’t think I can read any more,” she said.

“Me neither,” Geoff said. “Who would have thought that something like this could become so popular, it would end up swallowing up the entire population of the planet? It’s worse than the bloody Pokémon craze.”

“So what are we going to do?” Zoë said.

“I don’t know, but first of all, we need to get out of here and warn someone.”

Geoff pressed the WHEN button, selected the date he had joined Continuum, and pressed EXECUTE.

Nothing happened.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Zoë said.

“I don’t understand,” Geoff said, pressing the EXECUTE button again. “It’s not working.”

“Not working? What do you mean it’s not working?”

“I mean it’s not working!”

“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

“This isn’t an office laptop, Zoë! I don’t think it works like that!”

“So what the hell do we do?”

“I don’t know,” Geoff said. He kept pressing the button again and again, but nothing happened.

“Hang on,” Geoff said, this time moving the slider back to rewind time, rather than just trying to jump straight back. “Maybe this will work.”

He pressed the EXECUTE button again, but still nothing happened. This time, though, a message came up on the screen. It said:

FINGERPRINT IDENTIFICATION REJECTED.

ACCESS DENIED.

THIS DEVICE MAY ONLY BE USED BY A MEMBER OF THE CONTINUUM CUSTOMER SUPPORT TEAM.

PLEASE WAIT FOR ASSISTANCE.

“Customer support team?” Zoë said. “Who the hell are they?”

“I don’t know,” Geoff said, closing the message. “But given that we’ve just found out something a tad controversial about Continuum, I doubt they’ll be like the nice lady who pops up when you press the Kindle’s Mayday button.”

At that moment, the hologram of Jennifer Adams appeared in front of them, the image once again cast in a blue, pixelated light.

“Bloody hell!” Zoë said, jumping back. “What the hell is that?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Geoff said. “It’s just a hologram.”

“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Jennifer Adams. She’s the boss of Continuum.”

The hologram stepped forward and smiled at them. “Dear valued customer,” it said. “It appears your Sat-Nav is experiencing technical difficulties. Please wait here while we send someone to assist you.”

“Not blooming likely,” Geoff said, tugging at Zoë’s sleeve. “Let’s find somewhere to hide before they show up.”

They turned to leave, but the hologram quickly materialized in front of them again in a puff of blue dots.

“Please, remain where you are,” the hologram smiled.

Zoë looked at Geoff. “What do we do?” she said.

“Don’t worry,” Geoff said, leading her toward the hologram. “It’s only made of light. We can walk right through it.”

But as Geoff walked up to the hologram to do just that, it reached out and pushed him hard in the shoulder, sending him tumbling to the ground. Somehow, this thing was capable of touching after all.

“Please, remain where you are,” the hologram repeated, smiling vacantly in their direction. “A member of our customer support team will be with you shortly.”

“Are you okay?” Zoë said, helping Geoff to his feet.

“I’m fine,” Geoff winced, rubbing his shoulder.

They turned to run in another direction, but every way they faced, the hologram just appeared in front of them, repeating the same instruction.

Stay still.

Someone will be with you shortly.

In the end, the two of them gave up trying to run. Instead, they just sat together on the ground, overlooking the ruins of their once great city.

Every few minutes the hologram of Jennifer Adams would repeat her message, and after hearing it for the tenth time, Geoff and Zoë began to wonder if anyone from this mysterious “customer services team” was ever going to show up at all.

But someone did show up eventually.

And it wasn’t who Geoff was expecting.