Eight

“From now on,” Jennifer said, “the fate of the world is in your hands. All you need to do is ask yourself one question: What will you change?”

She smiled, just as she had done before.

As far as Geoff could tell, she looked completely unaware that Geoff had already been and come back.

Geoff rested the Sat-Nav down on the table, took a step back, and sneaked a look at his watch.

Three twenty.

Ten minutes until his back had an appointment with that bullet, unless there was any way to change things.

Jennifer tilted her head to one side. “Something the matter?”

“What’s that?” Geoff said, looking up. He knew he had to appear relaxed, so he adopted what he called the “Xbox avatar pose,” which basically meant putting all his weight on one leg and leaning to one side. “No, nothing’s the matter. I’m fine.”

Jennifer’s eyes looked to the left, then to the right, then directly at him.

“Really,” he insisted. “I’m fine.”

“Did you change your mind?”

“No, not at all,” Geoff said. “I wonder if I might use the loo first.”

Jennifer blinked. “The loo?”

“Yeah. It’s a bit embarrassing, but I really need to go. Dodgy cheeseburger I ate earlier, I think.”

Jennifer narrowed her eyes at him. “A dodgy cheeseburger.”

“Yeah. I think it’s repeating on me.”

“No problem,” she said. “The bathroom is just down the hallway and on the right.”

“Thanks,” Geoff said, turning to leave the room. He tried not to move too quickly, so as not to arouse suspicion.

“Oh, before you go,” Jennifer said, “do you mind leaving that spare serum I gave you here?”

“The spare serum?”

“Yes. We don’t like people carrying it around with them outside of the Continuum experience. I know your friends at Time Tours have already stolen a couple of bottles to analyze, along with a Sat-Nav or two, and I wouldn’t want them getting hold of any more. You understand, right?”

“Sure,” Geoff said, taking the bottle out of his pocket and putting it on the table. “Here you go.”

“I knew it,” she said.

“You knew what?”

Jennifer picked up the bottle and showed it to Geoff. “This bottle is empty.”

Geoff swallowed. He’d forgotten that the serum wouldn’t have returned to the bottle when Zoë undrank it. This was a bit of a giveaway that he’d already returned from his journey, unless he could think of a clever excuse.

“So it is,” he said.

“When I gave it to you a moment ago, it was full.”

“Was it?”

“Yes, it was.” She put the bottle down again. “Care to explain?”

“Are you sure it was full?” Geoff said. “Maybe you gave me an empty one by mistake?”

“What?”

“You know like when you buy a game in the shop and the cashier forgets to put the disc in the case? That happened to me once—I got home with a new game, and the bloody disc was missing. Couldn’t believe it. Maybe it was something like that?”

“Maybe,” Jennifer said, taking a step toward him, “Or maybe you’ve already been into your Continuum experience and come back out of it again. Maybe you’ve just reversed your way right back to the beginning and you thought I wouldn’t notice.”

Geoff nodded.

Then he nodded a bit more.

Now he was nodding too much.

He stopped nodding.

“Yes,” he said, taking a step back. “Yes, that is another possibility. But that’s not what’s happened here.”

Jennifer didn’t look convinced. “So why are you trying to leave all of a sudden?” she said. “Did you see something while you were gone, perhaps? Something that maybe you shouldn’t have?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Geoff said, taking another step back toward the door. “I just need the loo.”

“Nonsense! Out with it! What did you see?”

Geoff thought about carrying on with his “I really need the loo” charade—in fact, he even considered wetting himself to really complete the illusion. In the end, though, he thought he might try and appeal to Jennifer’s better nature, not least because he didn’t want to walk around in wet trousers for the rest of the day. And besides, if the future success of Continuum really was responsible for bringing about the end of humanity, surely she would want to stop that from happening, right?

“Okay, okay,” Geoff said, holding his hands up. “You’re right. I’ve already been and come back.”

“That’s better,” Jennifer said. She appeared to calm down a little now that she felt Geoff was being honest with her. “And what did you do?”

Geoff sighed. “First of all, I went to see Zoë—you know, the girl we talked about? I showed her the moment I defeated the Varsarians. I didn’t quite manage to tell her how I really felt about her, but at least it was something.”

“I’m very happy for you.” Jennifer’s voice was flat and emotionless. “Then what happened?”

“Next we traveled to the future,” Geoff said, “Only, I think we traveled forward in time a bit too far.”

“How far forward did you go?”

“Far enough to see what Continuum eventually does to the planet.” Geoff took a step forward and looked Jennifer right in the eyes. “You remember how your supercomputer predicted that humanity would one day set off to explore other galaxies, leaving the Earth to turn back into a beautiful garden world? Well, thanks to your company, that doesn’t happen anymore. Humanity doesn’t set off to explore the universe—instead, everyone becomes addicted to Continuum and disappears into their own alternate timelines. Isn’t that horrible?”

Jennifer laughed. “Oh dear.” She shook her head. “Tell me—that story about humanity leaving the Earth to explore other galaxies…”

“Yes?” Geoff said. “What about it?”

“Who told that to you?”

Geoff thought about this for a moment. “I think it was Eric,” he replied. “Why?”

“Because it’s not true,” Jennifer answered. “Never was.”

“What do you mean it’s not true?” Geoff said.

“I mean it’s made up. A lie. A fabrication. That’s what people mean when they say something’s not true.”

“I don’t believe you,” Geoff said. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’m the one who made it up in the first place,” Jennifer replied. “I’m the one who first told that story to Eric, seventeen years ago.”

“What?”

“You know the future you saw with all the crumbling buildings? The future where the city is deserted? Well, that isn’t some sort of alternate reality caused by the success of Continuum. What you saw has always been destined to happen. My supercomputer back at Time Tours predicted this years ago, only Eric never knew, because he was too lazy to get his hands dirty running all the initial predictions. That idiot left everything completely up to me. I was the one who had to write up all the reports on why the Earth appeared deserted at the end of the 100,000-year prediction cycle, so when it showed me that I would one day set up the most successful company in history and put Time Tours out of business, obviously I covered it up. I’ve always known the real reason for Earth being deserted in the future; I’ve always known it was because of the popularity of Continuum. I couldn’t let Time Tours know that, though, so I fabricated a story about humanity leaving the universe to explore other galaxies.”

“But why in good conscience would you want any of this happen?” Geoff said. “You’ve seen the impact that Continuum eventually has on the world—it brings about the end of all mankind!”

“Does it?” Jennifer said. “That’s one way of looking at it, but I prefer to see it as freeing all mankind. Thanks to Continuum, humanity is finally able to break free from the shackles of existence, and spend the rest of its days roaming through time, changing things however it pleases. Don’t you see? Once everyone is inside Continuum, no one makes another mistake ever again. Continuum doesn’t just give power back to the people. It makes them like gods. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Geoff couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Without the threat of failure, how would anyone ever feel a sense of achievement? And if people could change something just because they didn’t like it, how would anyone have the motivation to do anything anymore?

“But people need to make mistakes,” Geoff said. “Won’t everyone get bored if they know that everything they do is just going to work out exactly as they want?”

“Don’t be so stupid,” Jennifer said. “It will be paradise. And since I know the success of Continuum is already predestined, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.”

“But won’t Continuum ultimately go bust if it eventually makes all of its customers disappear?”

“Yes. Yes, it will.”

“So you’re telling me your business model is to go out of business?”

Jennifer sighed. “This isn’t about the success of Continuum as a business. It’s about so much more than that. Don’t you see? The Continuum project is an altruistic one, and it always has been. It isn’t about making money—the dream is to free us all.”

“You mean freeing people to turn into psychopaths like William Boyle? I watched him kill thousands of people without thinking twice, and it’s all because your precious Continuum made him lose perspective on the importance of human life. With the power to do whatever he liked, the people he killed might as well have been ants! Is that what you want humanity to become? A bunch of savages with no moral compass whatsoever?”

“I don’t care how people choose to spend their time in Continuum. All I care about is that they are free.”

Geoff nodded. “Well, that’s all very noble, but I still think you’ve lost your mind. What you’re talking about isn’t a dream—it’s a nightmare. And since there’s no point trying to reason with you, I think now might be a good time for me to run away.”

“I don’t think so,” Jennifer said. She turned around, reached under the table, and began feeling around for something.

All of a sudden a very loud, recurring buzzing sound started to go off, and the room was bathed in a deep red light. Either Jennifer had the sudden urge to develop some photographs while listening to a strange dance track, or she’d triggered an alarm by pressing a button under the table.

He decided he wasn’t going to stick around to find out which of those scenarios was true, and bolted out of the door faster than someone being told that their newly married friends were about to arrive with hundreds of wedding photos to show them. He was afraid to admit it, but these circumstances looked more and more like they were playing themselves out exactly as they were destined to. Maybe he should just accept that he was going to be shot on Tower Bridge and have done with it.

But Geoff was getting ahead himself. First of all, he needed to find a way out of Continuum’s basement, which was proving to be even harder than trying to find the secret exit in the ghost houses in Super Mario World.

He ran down this hallway and that, sometimes coming across a dead end, other times running into an area he didn’t recognize and having to turn around. It had been bad enough following Jennifer through the twisting corridors and passageways, let alone trying to find his way back to the lifts on his own. And it was even harder when the place was lit up in a pulsating red glow, with klaxons going off everywhere and the sound of a general commotion heading his way. Presumably, this was the sound of more nice gentlemen from Continuum’s “customer support team” on their way to meet him and say hello.

And then kill him.

When Geoff finally thought he had his bearings, the unthinkable happened—he bumped straight into someone roaming the corridors, just as he’d turned one of the last corners before reaching the elevators. It was an older man, perhaps in his late forties or early fifties. He was very overweight, with long hair, baggy eyes, and terrible skin, his arms puckered with hundreds of horrid needle marks like a drug addict. He had a jittery disposition that suggested something wasn’t quite right with him in the head.

As they bumped into each other, the man screamed at the top of his voice, his high-pitched wail cutting through the sound of the overhead klaxon in a way Geoff hadn’t thought possible. But this wasn’t a scream of fear—the man was smiling inanely, as though his mind were overflowing with joy. After recovering from the sudden bump, he ran over to Geoff and hugged him.

“G-give me your tie!” the man muttered.

“What?” Geoff said, waving a hand under his nose. This guy had seriously bad breath.

“Give me your tie!” the man repeated. He reached for Geoff’s tie and yanked it straight off.

“Hey!” Geoff said.

“I got it!” the man said, holding the tie over his head and dancing on the spot. “I got it!”

Geoff didn’t have time for this. If this guy wanted his tie, he could keep it. It wasn’t even his anyway.

After running around a few more corners, Geoff finally came across the elevators, running up to them and jabbing the call button with his fist. Within seconds, one of the elevators opened its doors, and Geoff dashed inside.

“Ground floor!” he said.

The elevator didn’t do anything.

Geoff bobbed up and down on the spot impatiently in the hope that this would somehow activate the elevator.

It didn’t.

“Ground floor!” he said again.

This time, the elevator reacted to his voice and the doors began to close. As they did, he noticed a group of men turn the corner at the other end of the corridor outside and run toward him. There must have been six or seven of them, each wearing full body armor and carrying weapons, just as William Boyle had done when he’d showed up in the future. In fact, for a moment he thought one of the men actually was William, which he knew wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

Fortunately, the doors slid shut before the men were able to catch up with him, and the elevator began to ascend to its destination. Cocooned inside the lift, Geoff was treated to some nice, gentle elevator music, played on a xylophone.

Geoff looked at his watch.

Three twenty-seven.

It seemed to be taking forever for the elevator to reach the ground floor, so much so that the music was able to complete three full loops before the doors opened. As they did, Geoff ran out into the bustling lobby and looked around. The exits were right the way over the other side of the room, right past the reception desk, the seating area, and all the corporate stands trying to sell holiday activities.

Noticing a few more members of Continuum’s customer support team on either side of the lobby, Geoff thought it best if he tried to make his way out of the building as inconspicuously as possible. He tried to blend into the crowd, not moving too quickly so as to stand out, but he had only moved a couple of meters when he heard another elevator open behind him, and seven or eight armed men in body armor poured out.

Jennifer Adams was standing behind them. She noticed Geoff immediately, pointed right toward him, and whispered some orders at the men. The men holstered their weapons and quietly followed behind, as if not to draw too much attention to themselves.

Geoff began to move a little faster, sidling his way past groups of excited tourists, families carting their luggage this way and that, and crowds of people wearing huge backpacks. Behind him, the customer support team did the same.

When he had made it as far as the large rotating C in the middle of the lobby, the number of people around him began to grow thinner, and he was able to move quicker. By the time he was approaching the reception desk over on the other end of the lobby, he was almost jogging.

Jeanette, the attractive receptionist who had welcomed him earlier, noticed him leaving. “Mr. Stamp?” she said, standing up from her seat. “Where are you going? Didn’t you take the job?”

“I’m afraid not,” Geoff replied. “I have a slight difference of opinion with your management.”

Jeanette frowned at him before noticing the number of men closing in on his position from behind. “Hey, wait!” she said. “Come back!”

At this point, there wasn’t much point trying to disguise the fact that he was running for dear life, so he started to sprint, barging his way past more and more people before diving through the revolving door and out onto the street. It was quite sunny outside, and for a moment Geoff had to raise his hand up to his eyes while his vision adjusted to the light.

Continuum’s office was located on the north bank of the river Thames, right next door to the Tower of London. A few hundred meters to his left stood Tower Bridge, and a few hundred meters to his right was London Bridge.

If he wanted to try and change history, he knew he could run toward London Bridge instead of Tower Bridge, but what was the point? It was fairly obvious things were happening exactly as they were supposed to, so why should he bother to resist? And in any case, he knew he would survive being shot, as his future self had been well enough to phone Tim just before he left for Continuum. But there was still something bothering him about all this. Didn’t this mean his knowledge of future events was influencing what he was choosing to do? Had he not known his destiny, would he have done something differently? And what did that say about his free will? He felt like a sheep being herded into a pen of causality, with his knowledge of future events the sheepdog.

However, in the time it had taken him to have this little philosophical debate in his head, one of the pursuing men had been able to catch up with him, and wrestled him to the ground right outside the building.

So much for things being predetermined.

Geoff was flipped onto his back by the man, the side of his face pressed hard against the cold pavement.

“Hold still, Geoff,” the man said.

Geoff couldn’t believe it.

It was William Boyle, but he was younger again, like the one he’d encountered at Canary Wharf. There was no scar on the side of his face, and certainly no look of conflict in his eyes. This was William Boyle before he had tried to cross Continuum.

“William!” Geoff said, trying desperately to wriggle free. “Listen to me! You’ve got to let me stop them!”

William smiled. “And why would I want that, Geoff?” he said.

All around them, a few people in the street looked on nervously. Some appeared to be unsure as to whether they should be intervening or not.

“In the future, they do something to you too!”

“What?” William said, his smile fading. “What do you mean?”

But before Geoff had a chance to say any more, Jennifer Adams emerged from the revolving doors, followed by the other men. She looked exhausted.

“Get back!” William shouted. He dug his knee into Geoff’s stomach. “This is a Continuum security situation! Everything is under control.”

“Help me!” Geoff screamed. “Continuum is going to destroy everything! We’ve got to sto—”

But that was about as far as Geoff got, because the next thing he knew, William had pressed one of his hands over his mouth. Geoff looked William in the eyes. He wasn’t smiling anymore as he had been when he’d first tackled Geoff to the ground. What Geoff had just said had clearly rattled him.

“Hold him down,” Jennifer said, kneeling next to Geoff and reaching inside her coat pocket. Behind her, the other men had cleared a wide perimeter around them.

“Get his mouth open!” Jennifer said, taking a blister pack of pills out of her pocket and popping one out of the wrapper. It was bright pink and shaped like an elongated football. “We need to wipe his memory immediately.”

Geoff assumed that the pill was unlikely to be some aspirin she was going to offer him to ease his current discomfort, and more likely to be something to bring about this whole memory-wiping business. Not being overly keen on the idea of losing his memory, Geoff clamped his mouth shut as tight as he could. Unfortunately, all William had to do to get it open again was hold Geoff’s nose until it was impossible to breathe. When Geoff was finally forced to open his mouth, Jennifer dropped the pill inside, and William clamped his mouth shut, rattling his head between his hands until he swallowed.

“There,” Jennifer said, wiping her brow. “Let’s get him up.”

William lifted his knee off of Geoff’s chest and offered him a hand to pull him to his feet.

But at that moment, a man ran out of the crowd, slamming straight into William’s side and sending him flying. “Run, Geoff!” the man said.

Geoff tried to make out who this person was, but for some reason his vision was extremely blurry. Maybe it was the pill.

But he didn’t have time to worry about that now—this was his chance to get away. Despite the fact that his eyesight was worse than if someone had tried to substitute small slices of cucumber for contact lenses, Geoff leapt to his feet and started running.

“Stop him!” he heard Jennifer shout. “Shoot him if you have to, but we can’t let him get away!”

Geoff kept running as fast as he could, but after a few seconds he was overcome by a crippling wave of dizziness, his surroundings spinning around worse than if he’d just decided to visit a kaleidoscope museum after downing five pints.

A few moments later and he’d completely lost his bearings. He couldn’t tell which way he was heading anymore—all he could see was a blur of colors in front of him, with the sound of angry car horns blaring in his ears from all around.

He kept on running, but it wasn’t long before he couldn’t remember why he was running anymore. In fact, he couldn’t remember anything. So he stopped running and looked around. To one side, he could see a long stretch of water beneath him, though he didn’t know this strange liquid was called water anymore. Back where he had just come from, a number of men were running toward him, only he didn’t know they were called men anymore. They were just things with arms and legs. The things with arms and legs were making loud noises and pointing some guns at him, but just as he’d forgotten what water and men were, so too had he forgotten what guns were.

Then there was some shouting.

He felt very confused about everything, and turned to look at the water.

What was happening to him?

What was that sudden burst of static he could hear?

Why was there now a sharp pain in his back?

And why was everything around him melting away to nothing?