Geoff materialized in the middle of the paradox scanning facility, his body appearing out of nowhere in the dark chamber as though he’d just been added into a film scene by a special effects company. He removed his earphones, stuffed them in his trouser pocket, and looked around. The place was empty.
He had to say, it felt good to be traveling through time the old-fashioned way again rather than having to bother with all these serums and Sat-Navs, although he couldn’t believe he was really starting to describe the time traveling earphones as being old-fashioned. For someone from the twenty-first century, these earphones should have been remarkable—one of the most amazing scientific discoveries ever known. To an old hand like him, though, they already seemed a bit dated. He guessed that was the problem with being human—no matter how remarkable something seems one minute, the next minute it’s completely taken for granted. Two years ago, he’d thought that a pair of earphones that allowed him to time travel was incredible. Today, he was asking himself why they weren’t time-traveling socks instead, which would have been far more comfortable.
Looking around, Geoff noticed a number of differences between the paradox scanning facility he had just left and the one he had arrived in seventeen years earlier. For a start, it was clear this place had only just opened—celebratory bunting hung down from the ceiling, the floor was littered with colorful tickertape, and various posters were hanging from the walls advertising Time Tours as “a brand new holiday experience!” Another thing Geoff noticed was that despite the facility having just opened, there were still a lot of construction materials lying around everywhere—tall ladders were leaning against walls, various pieces of equipment were draped with dirty sheets, and several areas were cordoned off with bright yellow tape that said WET PAINT. In fact, he could still smell the unmistakably nose-stinging scent, which hung in the air like a thick chemical fog.
In the center of the paradox scanning facility stood the familiar beam of light, shining down on the elevated pedestal, ready to scan whoever stepped into it. It being the middle of the night though, the beam was currently much dimmer than Geoff had seen it before. Maybe it was in standby mode or something. To his left, he saw a long corridor leading to the exit. If he remembered correctly from what he’d seen in the simulation moments earlier, this was the way he had walked when he was looking for Jennifer’s office. So he started walking.
At this hour, the place was so quiet it made Geoff want to make stupid noises to see what the echo was like. He managed to resist, although his footsteps were quite loud, the noise bouncing off every surface like an enthusiastic dog being let off of its leash for the first time in days. Each footstep reverberated around so much that the sound came not just from his feet but from the left, the right, up above, and down below. It was like sitting in the cinema to watch one of those annoying films where the sound starts coming from all around you. Because having a frog going ribbit behind you during that swamp scene is really what immersive cinema is all about, right?
“Hello?” Geoff called out as he began to walk down the corridor. “Is anybody there?”
No answer.
“Hello?” Geoff repeated. “Can anyone hear me?”
Once again, there was no answer.
He supposed not too many people would be hanging around here in the middle of the night, so he thought it was understandable for nobody to reply.
Then he heard a very small squeak and got really scared, until he realized it was actually his nose whistling as he breathed. He tweaked his nose to get rid of it and kept walking.
Soon enough, Geoff reached the end of the corridor. In front of him was the security check area, with a set of frosted-glass doors leading to the Quarantine Chamber not far behind. To his left he noticed a door that said OFFICES above it. There wasn’t really much else to say about this door. It was a pale lime green, it had a small chrome handle, and generally it looked a lot less jazzy than all of its other doormates. However, what made this door a lot more interesting than all the others was the fact that a crack of light was shining through the gap at the bottom.
Geoff walked over to the door, grabbed the handle, and opened it, just like he had done in the simulation.
Inside was another long corridor, albeit slightly narrower than the one he had just come from. The corridor was lit up by several long strips of fluorescent light, and the walls were drab and boring, a bit like the textures used in Aliens: Colonial Marines.
On either side of the corridor there stood a number of doors, each one spaced apart from the last by a few meters.
He knew Jennifer’s office was the last door on the right, and sure enough, at the end of the hallway he could see a door that was slightly ajar, with light shining out onto the corridor from the inside. He headed toward it, his footsteps dragging on the carpet as though someone had coated the soles of his shoes with glue.
Despite knowing what was about to happen, he was a little hesitant.
He was nervous.
He had another nose whistle.
He got rid of the nose whistle again and kept walking.
As he got closer, he noticed a small plaque next to the doorway. It read:
Jennifer Adams BSc, BTPh, PPQHSc.
Senior Specialist Supercomputer Supervisor
That was a lot of S’s, like a snake.
Geoff tilted his head around the doorway and looked inside. Sure enough, Jennifer Adams was sitting at her desk, scribbling something down on a piece of paper in front of her. Despite having already seen what Jennifer looked like when she was younger, it was still fascinating to look at her now. With her hair in a different style and those glasses, she really looked very different. He had to keep reminding himself that this was the Jennifer Adams from seventeen years ago, and people can change a lot in seventeen years. Geoff was living proof of this—fifteen years ago he was halfway through puberty, and looked like a cross between a teenage boy and one of those limited-edition pizza box meal deals, only far less appetizing.
Geoff knocked on the door twice.
Jennifer threw her pen across the room in fright and leapt out of her chair.
“Goodness me!” she said, holding a hand to her chest. “You scared the living daylights out of me!”
“Sorry,” Geoff said.
“That’s all right,” Jennifer said, straightening her glasses and moving over to meet him. “Please—come in.”
Geoff stepped inside the office and looked around. Much like the office of her future self, this place was quite a mess, with papers spilling out of filing cabinets, notice boards bulging with notes pinned to them, and various pieces of old electrical equipment in boxes stacked up to the ceiling. In one corner of the room he could see a mini fridge, with a box of tea bags, a couple of mugs, and a kettle on top. Jennifer hadn’t been lying when she’d told him earlier how this job had made her accustomed to being cooped up—the woman didn’t even have to leave the room to make a cup of tea.
“Are you Jennifer Adams?” Geoff asked. He knew she was, but he had to keep up the pretense of not knowing who she was, just as he had done in the simulation. In fact, he knew exactly what he needed to say to make her hand over the Sat-Nav so he could break it.
“That’s right,” Jennifer replied. “Were you looking for me?”
“Yes, I was.”
“Do you work here?” Jennifer said.
“Yes, I do,” Geoff said. He supposed it was kind of true, even if his timing was a little off. By over a decade.
“Good to meet you,” she said, extending a hand for him to shake.
“Likewise,” Geoff said. Her handshake was a little less firm than before—she must have developed a stronger grip over the years.
“So, you appear to have me at a disadvantage,” Jennifer said. “Who are you?”
“Oh, sorry,” Geoff said, quickly trying to think of a false name. Had he thought about it, he would have realized he didn’t really need to use one, but being put on the spot made him panic. “My name is Jean-Luc Picard.”
“Jean-Luc Picard?” Jennifer said, raising her eyebrows. “What’s that? French?”
“That’s right,” he said.
“Well, Jean-Luc,” Jennifer said, walking back around to the other side of her desk and sitting down, “what can I do for you? And how come you’re here so late? Aren’t you supposed to be out with the others?”
“The others?”
“Yeah—tonight’s the big night! The night Eric gets awarded his second Nobel Prize! I thought everyone was going to the ceremony with him to celebrate?”
“Not me,” Geoff said, trying to think quickly. “If you ask me, you should be up there too, collecting that award with him.”
Jennifer leaned back in her chair and smiled.
“I like you, Jean-Luc,” she said, wheeling herself in her chair over to the kettle in the corner of the room. “Can I offer you a drink? A cup of tea, perhaps? I’ve just boiled the water.”
“That would be lovely,” Geoff said, watching as Jennifer plopped two tea bags into a couple of mugs and added the boiling water.
“How do you take it?” she said, removing the milk from the fridge.
“Milk and two sugars, please,” Geoff said. “But not too much milk.”
Jennifer added the milk, removed the tea bags, and stirred in two sugars. While her back was turned, Geoff sneaked a look at what she had been writing as he’d come in.
It was the beginnings of a letter of resignation, though he noticed a number of screwed-up pieces of paper to the side.
“There we go,” she said, handing Geoff his tea and placing her own mug on the desk in front of her. “Now, what can I do for you?”
Here we go, Geoff thought, taking a quick slurp of his tea.
This is it.
“I understand you are working on something off the books,” he said.
Jennifer picked up her tea, wrapping her hands around the mug and blowing on the surface. “What do you mean, ‘off the books’?” she said.
“I know you are working on a device that would allow tourists to go back in time and change whatever they like, without disrupting the space-time continuum.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jennifer said.
“Yes, you do,” Geoff said, taking another gulp of his tea. “It’s a black tablet device, small enough to fit in your pocket. You’re thinking of calling it the Space and Time Navigator, or the ‘Sat-Nav,’ for short.”
Jennifer continued to warm her hands around her mug. “What did you say you did for Time Tours again?” she said.
“I didn’t,” Geoff said.
But then Geoff had an idea, taking inspiration from the rumors Tim had told him. Perhaps if he pretended that he was the scientist working on the serum, he could convince her to show him the prototype Sat-Nav. Then, once it was in his hands, he could destroy it, just as he’d seen in the simulation,
“Huh. Well, Jean-Luc, I don’t know what to say. But if I was working on such a device, why would I want to talk to you about it?”
“Because I can help,” Geoff said. “I know about the problems you are having with it. I know the device is complete, but you can’t get it to synchronize with the user properly.”
Jennifer narrowed her eyes.
“Go on.”
“What if I told you I had access to a substance you could use to connect people to this device? A base serum you could make infinite variations of to link different people to different devices? Would that be worth something to you?”
“This is a joke, right?” Jennifer said. “Did Eric put you up to this? Because if he did, it isn’t very funny.”
“This is no joke,” Geoff said. “I’m being serious. You have the Sat-Nav, I have the serum. Together, we could leave Time Tours and beat them at their own game. Wouldn’t you like that?”
Jennifer looked at Geoff for a few seconds before taking a sip of her tea. She put the mug down, took a small key out of her breast pocket, and unlocked the desk drawer to her right.
“I don’t know how you know what you know,” she said, taking a Sat-Nav out and placing it on the desk in front of her. “But your intelligence is very good. This is my prototype. The only one in existence.”
“May I see it?” Geoff said, reaching over to pick it up.
“Be my guest,” Jennifer said, giving it to him.
The moment Geoff had the Sat-Nav in his hands, he leapt out of his chair and threw it down on the floor as hard as he could, smashing the device to pieces.
“Ha!” he said, grinning at Jennifer. “I got you!”
He shut his eyes and waited for the space-time continuum to sort itself out.
He had done it.
Any minute now, he would disappear and exist in a world without Continuum.
But nothing happened.
Back when he’d been watching the simulation, it appeared as though things had changed immediately, but for some reason that wasn’t happening now.
He kept his eyes closed a bit longer. Maybe the space-time continuum was experiencing a lot of changes at the moment and needed a few minutes to sort things out, a bit like when you ring a call center at lunchtime and they put you on hold. He imagined what the message might have been if he had been on hold: “The paradox you have created is very important to us. Please continue to hold while we sort out the mess you have made.”
But still nothing happened.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the Sat-Nav. Maybe it wasn’t broken enough. He twisted his foot into the broken circuitry, hoping that that would do the trick.
Still nothing.
He looked up at Jennifer and gave her a sheepish grin.
“I don’t understand,” he said, sitting down in his seat again and taking another sip of his tea. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Jennifer leaned forward on her elbows across her desk and smiled.
“Yes it was, Geoff,” she said. “Yes, it was.”