Origin Point -5 Hours

Spencer Egan and Simon Raines perused the shelves of the supermarket alcohol section.

“Any preference?” Simon asked.

“We need champagne, we’re going to have plenty to celebrate,” Spencer replied.

“Fair enough. Ladies choice.”

Spencer grabbed the cheapest bottle from the shelf and placed it in the basket that Simon was carrying.

“And these,” Spencer said as she grabbed a couple of wine bottles.

“Do we need all this? You know I don’t really drink, I’ll take a sip after the toast, and Victor will finish the rest.”

“Oh, the wine’s for me, Victor’s bringing his own beer.”

Spencer’s long blonde hair was tied back in her usual ponytail, with her light grey eyes and even features, most heterosexual males would find her attractive, but her tomboy disposition and style of dress made it clear that she was far from a ‘girly girl’. Despite this, she still had a maternal temperament, if Simon was the brains of the group and Victor was the mouth, Spencer was the heart. She had the strongest morals and capacity for compassion and empathy.

Simon took the basket to the registers and placed the bottles on the conveyor. Spencer added another bottle. The checkout girl ran the bar codes over the scanner.

“Twenty-five fifty, please.” the girl said.

Spencer brought her purse from out of her handbag and removed the twenty-five pounds, leaving the note compartment empty, she sifted out a fifty pence coin, leaving a few pound coins and pennies.

“This drive better work.” she said.

“I have full faith in what we have,” Simon replied. “Not long till we find out.”

Spencer handed over the cash then passed the packed bag to Simon.

Back at Simon’s car, he placed the bag in the back while Spencer took the passenger seat. Simon climbed behind the wheel and pulled out of his space; a few feet before they were able to exit the lot, the car began to sputter and cough, then the engine died. Simon tried the ignition again, but it failed to turn over. He read the fuel gauge, sighed and glanced at Spencer. She rolled her eyes and got out the car, luckily the supermarket had its own petrol station. Five minutes later she returned with a can of unleaded — filled as far as the coins in her purse would allow — and emptied it into the fuel tank before getting back in next to Simon.

“Like I said, it better work.”

Simon started the ignition and continued the short journey towards his flat.

Simon and Spencer climbed the stairs to the flat, Simon fished the keys from his pocket as they reached the door. He inserted the key and turned, but the lock wouldn’t disengage. He pulled the key out and inspected it, bent and stared confusedly into the hole, then gave the key another fruitless try.

“Uh, Si?” Spencer said warily and tapped on the door at eye level.

Simon looked at the door and saw the sheet of paper within a clear plastic filing sleeve. He pulled it from the door.

“Eviction notice?” he exclaimed, “How can this have happened?” If Victor were with them, he would have slapped his forehead in exasperation. “We need to get in there for the drive.”

“Maybe you can speak to your landlord, get him to let us in long enough to move the stuff.”

“I’ll try.” Simon took out his phone, brought up the contact for his landlord, Gary, and hit Call. After several rings, Simon wondered if Gary was ignoring the phone to avoid speaking with him. The call hit voice mail; Simon hung up and redialled. When the call went back to voice mail, he decided to leave a message.

“Hi, Mr Dobson, it’s Simon. Simon Raines. I’m really disappointed you’ve locked me out of my flat, we were about to make enough money to cover the rent and all of the arrears. We went out and bought alcohol to celebrate. Please don’t be mean, let us back in so we can perform our prototype experiments, get money and then we’ll all be happy. Please call me back once you hear this message. It’s Simon. Did I say that? Simon Raines. Give me a call. Please. Thank you.”

“‘Don’t be mean?’” Spencer asked.

“Well, I’m upset, and I hate speaking on phones. I like voice mail even less. Makes me anxious.”

“I see that. How long should we give him to stop being a mean ‘ol meany?”

“Let’s give him five.”

They sat on the hallway steps while they waited for a callback, which happened after a nail biting four minutes and fifty-two seconds.

Simon picked up. “Hello, Mr Dobson?... No, no I’ve calmed down a bit, and I regret calling you mean, it was harsh... Yes, maybe I was mean to live here without paying you what you’re owed, yes. If I can just get in to get my equipment maybe? You are? Yes, I promise I won’t try and cause trouble, I just want the equipment. Yes. Okay. See you soon.” He hung up. “He’s on his to let us in now. He was passing anyway.”

“Glad we got meangate sorted, I didn’t want to have to put either of you in time out on the naughty step.”

Gary appeared ten minutes later, and he let them into the flat, watching them carefully as they removed the equipment. It took Spencer and Simon a few trips up and down the steps to load everything they needed into the car. Simon felt self-conscious, repeatedly making the journey with a red face, getting damper and more out of breath progressively, while Spencer barely showed any signs of strain. Gary continued to watch, never helping. After the embarrassing parade was finally over for Simon, Gary apologised to him for how this had ended, he didn’t like having to throw anyone out, but he had a business to run. They arranged for Simon to pick up the rest of his things at a later date.

Simon and Spencer returned to the fully-loaded car and sat inside while reviewing their options.

“We can’t go to mine, I have a room-mate, and Victor’s place is like Waterloo station with the women he has going in and out of there. We’re still keeping all this confidential, right?”

“Right.”

“We were going to run everything from the warehouse eventually, why don’t we just move that up the schedule?”

“There’s no electricity. Or internet.”

“Well, we can deal without the internet access for now, but the electricity might be a problem. We could run it off a generator.”

“Do we have a generator?”

“No,” Spencer replied.

“Do we know anyone who has a generator we could borrow?”

“No.”

“Do we have enough money to rent a generator?”

“Okay, there’s no need to be a dick about it.”

Simon looked at Spencer in confusion. She realised that Simon was rarely sarcastic and, now she was thinking about it, she couldn’t remember a time when he ever was. He was genuinely trying to diagnose a solution.

“Forget about it,” she said. “I guess we can’t power it from a car battery either.” She thought for a moment. “If we’re quiet, we can run the first test at my place and hope my roommate doesn’t catch on.”

“That might be our only option. Do you really think Vicky will deduce we’re running experiments in time manipulation?”

“Point taken.” Maybe Simon could be sarcastic after all. “Okay, let’s call Victor, get him to meet us at my place instead of the one that used to be yours - sorry - and we’ll get stuff set up there for tonight, then we’ll move it once your warehouse has electricity.”

An hour later, the three physicists were at Spencer’s shared flat, setting up the equipment on the desk in her bedroom. Her roommate, Vicky, wasn’t home to see them bring the gear into Spencer’s room, but once she returned, she wondered what her roommate might be doing hidden in her bedroom with two men. As Simon had predicted, space-time experiments were not even close to being on her list of possibilities.

Once the drive was set up and engaged, they would make a note of the time, and that instant would be the used as the destination for their first message from the future. In the traditional linear way that time is experienced, they would have to wait until they had the required information, then sent it to the date and time of which they had made a note. But, in ‘Drive Time’ — their label for the altered flow of time when utilising the drive — they should receive their first message as soon as the machine was working, since the drive allowed them to effectively skip the time in between. Up until they made their first experiment, theories were all they had, they didn’t know the outcome for sure.

“Everything is set up as it should be, we just need to connect to the laptop and boot the program,” Victor said.

Simon started up the laptop and connected it via USB to the drive, and its series of photon boxes.

“Okay,” he said. “I know there are a variety of ways this could go, but if I had any money left, I’d still put it on the instant arrival theory.”

“Well, it’s that, or we get screwed by the bootstrap paradox,” Victor added.

“Well, that’s a possibility too. This is unknown territory, we could bring about the end of the universe for all we know.” Simon recognised his companion’s sudden trepidation. “But I’m sure the chances of that are infinitesimal,” he said for assuasive effect.

Their expressions relaxed. They knew the odds of something like that happening, but Simon was the smartest of the three and that caused a moment of doubt for them.

“You guys sure you’re okay with this? You know, with the morality of it? Cheating at the lottery?” Spencer said.

“It’s just the one time, we can’t do it more than once, or we’ll arouse suspicion, it’s just to get us going,” Simon said. “What comes after is probably a lot more immoral, we’re messing with the space-time continuum. I don’t think we could have a more precarious situation when it comes to our morality. Want to back out?”

“Sod that, let’s just do it,” Victor said. “YOLO, motherfuckers.”