The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 267

With that, he pulled on his coat, grabbed his crappy littlebriefcase which he thought made him look important, and left.

“Oh, you’ll see me sooner than you think,” I said, out loudthis time, but not until he had shut the front door behind him.

With him gone, I went to rummage around in the medicinedrawer for some cold and flu remedies. I knew that this cold was going to be anabsolute stinker – almost flu-like. It was so bad that I had been sent homefrom work with it at 2am first time around. That had been when I had found himand Emma at it in our bed.

I wasn’t going to be going to work, this time. I was goingto call in sick again, but at least it would be genuine this time. That wouldallow me to be right here waiting to catch him out, but it wouldn’t be likelast time. This time, the whole world was going to see what a scoundrel hereally was.

That was all to come later. Meanwhile, I had something elseI wanted to do first. I returned upstairs to dress and make myself presentable,then left the house and headed into town.

I didn’t live in Headington now, but just off St Clement’s,closer to the city centre. I could have easily walked it, but there wasactually a bus at the bus stop for once so I hopped on that. I was right, therewas hardly any traffic on the roads and the journey only took about fiveminutes.

I was glad to have the shelter of the bus. It was raining, atypical dreary December drizzle, and I felt bad enough with this cold as it waswithout getting soaked to the skin as well.

My plan was to track down Professor Hamilton. I had done myhomework on him and my destination was the college at which he lectured.Unfortunately, I was to be disappointed.

Other than the tourist area outside the front of thecollege, where tourists of various nationalities were wandering around thequadrangle, the whole college had been pretty much mothballed for the Christmasbreak. Most of it was locked up and when I did finally manage to find a memberof staff she informed me that Professor Hamilton had gone back to Scotland forHogmanay, as he did every year.

That was a real blow. It wasn’t as if I could wait around afew weeks for term to start again. In the time frame I was trapped in he wouldalways be away. The only other option I had was to try and track him down inScotland and again the short time frame was going to render that difficult. Icould try, but was it worth it?

The whole idea of getting help from him was a long shotanyway. This Professor might be some sort of expert in the field of time travelbut that didn’t mean he actually knew how to make it happen. All he had donehad been to write a few academic papers about the theory of it.

Having me turn up in the middle of his Hogmanay celebrationslike some wild-eyed lunatic claiming I was from the future was unlikely togarner a positive response, unless he really did know how to time-travel andthat seemed improbable.

In the end I decided to write him a letter and address it tothe college. He would get it when he got back for the new term, by which time Iwould be long gone, but that didn’t matter. If he ever did find out how totime-travel, he ought to be able to track me down as long as I spelled out theexact details of the situation.

I walked back down Cornmarket Street, reassuringly familiarwith its age-old buildings. I passed the building that had once housed HMV, ashop I had spent countless hours in during my youth. Perhaps I would get tovisit it again soon, but in 2020 it had become a branch of NatWest bank.

I turned left at the end of the street, just as Carfax Towerchimed for 12 o’clock. You wouldn’t have thought it was midday, so dark werethe midwinter skies overhead. It was beginning to drizzle again and I was keento get undercover. I sneezed, feeling increasingly poorly despite the threelayers I was wearing.

I called into Ryman’s and browsed through the writing paperpads. It was reassuring to see they had so many, even in this electronic age.Ignoring the more flowery and colourful ones, I picked up a plain white pad. Ididn’t want my letter to the Professor to look like some teenage girl’s loveletter or something in crazy, fluorescent colours from some unhinged fantasist.I needed it to appear as ordinary and professional as possible.

Adding an envelope, I headed for the till where I picked upone of those BiC 4 colour pens. I had always loved them. I’d been using themsince school and they were one of the few things that had stayed comfortinglythe same throughout my entire life.

It was always the black or blue ink that ran out first. Irarely used red because I thought it made me look like a teacher, or green,which someone had once told me was the colour the mentally ill used. I had noidea if that were true or not but I certainly wasn’t going to be writing myletter in green.

Armed with my newly acquired stationery I headed a littlefurther along the High Street and into the Covered Market. I was making abeeline for my favourite café which had been a long-term fixture in the market.I also had fond memories of the place from when I worked there for a few monthsas a teenager. I was going to need these familiar points of reference as theyears went by to give me stability in what was going to be a rapidly changingworld.

I sat down and ordered a large breakfast and more coffee.Despite feeling poorly, I still felt hungry. What was it: feed a cold andstarve a fever? That was alright, then, and I didn’t have to worry about thefat content of this fry-up. Just like being able to spend whatever I wanted,food and drink was unlimited, too. The calories from this meal weren’t