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By Root 684 0

their turning up in 2015 to ‘save’ Chan, they were all on the same side really, all trying to prevent the nightmare of time-travel technology from destroying the world. Same goal … different methods. He wondered how he’d never come across this agency in all the years of his campaigning, all the rallies and protests he’d been to … and no one, no one, had ever suggested, even as a joke, that there might be an agency out there actually using time travel itself to combat the corruptive effects of time travel. He wondered who was behind it, who’d set it up. Surely not the American government? Not any government, in fact. The internationally agreed penalties for that were severe. No politician would have the guts to risk having anything to do with time travel, because international law was brutal and strict on this matter. It was an automatic death penalty for any involved. The great Roald Waldstein had been a powerful speaker on the horrendous dangers of it. A great man, an influential man. Howard’s small campaigning group had achieved far less. His group was little more than bunches of students in universities and colleges around the world.

But this secret agency, they were going about matters in the wrong way. Attempting to repair history that had been damaged by careless travellers? That was very much like trying to close the barn door after all the horses have bolted. No – worse than that … it was having to go out and hunt all those horses down then drag them kicking and screaming all the way back to the barn. On the other hand, his campaign group’s approach had been far simpler.

Destroy the possibility of time travel at its very root. Instead of closing the barn door, they were burning the cursed thing down with all the horses still inside.

He looked at Edward Chan. The boy smiled back at him then looked down at the lustrous pink and purple sheen of the shell in his hand. He stroked the smooth surface, then held it out. ‘You can have it if you want it, Leonard.’

Howard shook his head. ‘No, it’s er … no thanks.’

He has to die, you know that, Howard? Burn the barn, right? Burn it long before any horses get out.

He realized he was delaying the necessary, putting it off and putting it off. And yet he knew it had to be done. In theory the future – the future after the year 2015 – must already be changing, must have changed by now. It would be a world where this boy vanished in an explosion and never got to fulfil his destiny. It was surely a world where a man called Roald Waldstein would never become the figurehead of an international campaign, never become a billionaire from all his other inventions, never become a household name. And, yes, this world would still have its problems: dwindling supplies of resources, global warming, rising seas, migrating billions and dangerous levels of over-population. But … at least it would no longer have the ever-present threat of complete and utter annihilation dangling over it.

He’d once heard a speaker at a rally ask the audience what must lie beyond the dimension of space-time we all exist in. Is it Hell? And to meddle with dimensions beyond what we know was surely no different from opening a door to the devil himself and inviting him right on in. He’d spoken of a medieval artist called Hieronymus Bosch who’d claimed he’d once caught a glimpse of the devil and the underworld and painted endless nightmarish visions of what he’d seen. Perhaps, the speaker had said, perhaps what he’d glimpsed were dimensions beyond our understanding, a momentary rip in space and time. Howard shuddered at the thought.

You know the boy has to die, Howard. Burn the barn. Burn the barn. What are you waiting for?

He was so deep in thought he didn’t at first register the voices from further up the beach. Voices crying out a warning, screaming a warning back at them.

Edward grabbed his arm and yanked him hard. Howard’s thoughts were shaken away.

‘What the h–?’

‘RUN!’ screamed Edward, pointing his finger at something behind him. Howard turned round to see an odd-looking dark wave approaching him fast.