The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 306

“And I thought writing that letter had been a waste oftime,” I replied.

“It’s a good job you did,” said Josh. “It made tracking youdown a lot easier. I was able to track your family history and eventually traceyou to your grandparents’ home in 1992. It was very fortunate you running intome when you did, really. As luck would have it, I spent several months inOxford in 1992. But that’s another story.”

“Well I’m pleased my letter wasn’t written in vain,” Ireplied. “Now, perhaps you ought to explain how all this happened in the firstplace.”

“I’ll do my best,” he said. “But it’s quite complicated.”

“Just give me the edited highlights,” I replied. “You don’tneed to go into the technicalities.”

“OK, well, in a nutshell, I was doing research into theexistence of parallel universes and traced the origin of many of them to aspecific point in the past. That was 2025 in the hospital room where we met.”

“So you’re from my future?” I asked.

“Yes, many decades in the future,” he replied. “When thatall happened, I had come from 2055. But even that was fifteen years ago for menow. I came here today from 2070.”

“Wow!” I replied. “Is it all flying cars and teleporting bythen?” I asked.

“Not really,” he replied. “But we do have a lot of robots.Anyway that night in the hospital, both myself and another version of myselffrom a different universe attempted to open the time vortex at the same time.It caused a massive feedback loop which transported you, me, and the dead manon the bed back through time in three different ways.”

“So Thomas Scott went back through time, too? Have youbrought him back to the present day, too?”

“Unfortunately not,” replied Josh. “There would be no point,as he had already died.”

“So what happened to him?” I asked.

“He travelled back in time just as you did, but on a muchslower trajectory. He lived his entire life day by day in reverse, all the wayback to the day he was born.”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“The only thing I could was to reverse the effect,transplanting his mind into a newborn body in a separate universe moving forward.Effectively he gets to start his life again from scratch.”

“So you can do that?” I asked. “Transfer consciousnessbetween bodies?”

“That’s what I’ve been working on these past fifteen years.And not just me, come to that. The whole scientific community has been workingtowards uploading brains to robot bodies so that we can all now live forever.”

“Is that how you got me back to the present day?” I asked.

“Yes. I’ve managed to adapt my time travel technology toallow people to visit their own past by transferring their consciousness intotheir former bodies. This is effectively what was happening to you, butspontaneously in your case. I just whisked your mind out of your 1992 body andinto this one.”

“And what happened to you?” I asked. “You said the accidentsent you back in time, too.”

“It wasn’t just back in time in my case,” replied Josh. “Iwas shifting between different universes as well. It wasn’t just my mind, butmy body, too. That’s why I didn’t look younger when you saw me in the park.”

“But you got back eventually?” I asked. “You wouldn’t behere otherwise.”

“Eventually, but it was a long and tortuous process. I’veseen things in other worlds you could scarcely imagine. And as for my sixmonths in 1992, they weren’t straightforward by any means!”

Remembering Gary and all the other things that happened, Iknew what my next question would have to be.

“So what about all the stuff I did back in the past? Someoneended up dead because of me. Did you know that? Is he still dead?”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he replied. “Everythinghere is exactly as it was when you left. That’s the thing about time travel.Every time you travel back in time you create a new universe with a newtimeline. So as far as your life here is concerned, nothing’s changed.”

“Gary’s still alive?” I asked.

“He is,” replied Josh.

“And Rachel?” I said, already fearing the answer.

“Like I said, everything here is as it was.”

“So all that effort I went to in order to save her was fornothing?” I said despairingly.

“Not at all,” he replied. “There are several other universesin existence now where she is alive and well, thanks to your warning about thetsunami.”

“But I can’t see her?”

“No,” he confirmed. “But isn’t it enough to know that she’sout there somewhere in another universe, alive and kicking – thanks to you?”

He was right. I was no worse off than I had been before allthis started and this was some consolation.

“Have you seen everything I’ve done?” I asked, feeling nakednot just in my body but also in my mind. How much did he know? If he couldtransfer my mind from one body to another, could he peer at my innermostthoughts, too?

“Relax, I’ve only seen the edited highlights,” he said,grinning. “Your secrets are safe with me. I must say those stunts you pulled onyour ex were pretty entertaining. The incident with the vegetable knife wasunfortunate, admittedly, but who could have foreseen that?”

“Does that mean that I’m in jail in the world where thathappened? I got hauled in by the police, you know.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you that you gotoff scot-free?” asked Josh. “Or, even better, that Rob went down formanslaughter?”

“Yes, it would,” I replied, and it did make me feel better.Even if I had engineered the whole situation, none of it would have happened ifhe hadn’t been messing around with that bitch next door.

“All’s well that ends well, then,” I added. “Is that it,then?”

“There’s just one more thing,” said Josh. “I’ve brought youback to the afternoon before the accident. You need to go into work and doeverything as you did before with one notable exception. When the time comes toprepare Thomas’s body to be taken down, stay clear of the room until 3.30am.Make sure Carmen stays away, too. I’ll be in there cleaning up.”

“Cleaning up?” I enquired.

“Yes – putting right what went wrong before. In fact, I’vealready done it, but you need to stay out