Chapter 23

The Unravelling

Ernest saw it too, and was as surprised as me. Yvette, however, was unaware, until she realised we were both gazing at the same thing, as if spellbound.

“And why are you both staring at my breasts?” she said, before looking down to find the answer herself. She jerked in surprise.

Ernest was the first to gather his wits enough to speak. “Is this some sort of joke?” He looked into Yvette’s eyes. “Is that you Wilbur?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Yvette, staring back at him. “For all I know, you’re Wilbur.” She turned her gaze on me. “Or you. One of you must be. Surely!?”

Was I a dreaming Orlani? My discarded theory flashed to mind. With difficulty, I forced myself to ignore it. “Hold on,” I said. “None of us is Wilbur. Not unless he’s decided not to wear that bracelet he’s supposed to have on all the time.”

“But then, how can there be two of you?!” demanded Yvette, eyes wide.

“You must have heard of clones,” I said, suddenly inspired.

She blinked, but Ernest raised his eyes skyward.

“I know enough,” said Yvette, her fear verging on anger, “to know there were none born forty years ago.”

“Thirty-nine,” corrected Ernest, discreetly.

I was at an utter loss. “Right, er… Did I ever tell you I have a twin brother?”

Yvette’s incredulity spoke more eloquently than words.

“Forget it, Steven,” said Ernest. “We cannot avoid telling her the truth.”

“Steven!?” Yvette’s face betrayed a flurry of confused emotions, from hope to despair.

I walked cautiously toward her, slowly took her by the arm. “You had better sit down,” I said. “This may take a while to explain.”

It did not take as long as I expected…

“So it wasn’t a masquerade!” said Yvette, distractedly. “You were telling the truth all along.” Her face flared suddenly into focus. “Yet none of this explains my shirt… unless… it temporally resonated with this.” She tugged at the grey stripes she now wore. “It looks like it comes from another age.”

“That does not make sense,” said Ernest, shaking his head. “But then I’m not sure what would.”

“Maybe Wilbur?” I suggested. “If anyone.” I extracted Ernest’s Babel, still in my pocket and called Wilbur’s number. Before he answered, I guiltily realised I had all but taken ownership of the Babel from Ernest.

When Wilbur answered my call, I briefly filled him in. Initially, he was sleepy—not surprising given the sun was on the verge of setting—but once he learned what we’d just seen, he snapped to full attention. Rather than offer any thoughts, however, he suggested we move to his house. I returned Ernest’s Babel to him, and then, compelled by a strong sense of urgency, Yvette drove to Wilbur’s with Ernest—using the car I had unthinkingly left under the carport without putting on its ‘not in use’ indicator. To avoid being seen with Ernest, I followed separately on foot, as soon as they were out of sight.

When I arrived, another baffling event occurred. The showers of late afternoon had quickly passed, leaving patchy clouds. While waiting on Wilbur’s front porch, after knocking, I was distracted by stunning salmon pink cumulus, low in the west, thin but expansive, full of fine traceries illuminated by backlight from a sun just barely below the horizon. As I watched, the clouds disappeared. They weren’t swept away by sudden winds, they simply vanished from sight without transition, as if they had never been. The sky was suddenly, utterly, devoid of clouds, in every direction.

Was the dream disintegrating? Was reality starting to creep back in, perhaps by small degrees? I could not avoid the thought that I might be on the verge of returning home in an unexpected fashion and, more disconcertingly, that home might be Orlanos.

Wilbur opened the door, but I still had my back to him, looking westward in vain for the missing clouds.

“Did you see that?” I said, spinning to face him.

“Did I see what?”

“The clouds. They just disappeared. As I was looking at them.” I pointed in their direction.

“Clouds?” Wilbur frowned and beckoned me inside. “As far as I recall, there’ve been no clouds all day. Or yesterday.”

“You aren’t serious,” I said. We moved to the room with the time viewer, where Ernest and Yvette were waiting. The viewer seemed to be on, but its screen was blank. “It rained this afternoon, and there have been clouds ever since.”

“You must have been dreaming this time, Steven,” said Yvette. “It hasn’t rained for days.”

I looked at Ernest for support, but his face pre-empted his words. “I don’t remember it raining today.”

“What’s wrong with you all? Of course it did. I distinctly remember it.”

“Perhaps…” began Ernest, and then tantalisingly lost himself in thought. All eyes were on him, waiting, but he didn’t continue. Instead, a thick but well-trimmed moustache suddenly sprouted on his hitherto hairless upper lip. Our eyes must have widened, or else our faces registered surprise some other way, because his thoughts seemed to freeze to a halt, and he looked from one to another of us with mounting alarm. “What!? What has happened? What are you looking at?”

“It quite suits you,” said Yvette, burying her surprise.

“What suits me?”

“Nothing to worry about,” said Wilbur.

“Go have a look in a mirror,” I suggested.

Ernest rushed out of the room to follow my advice.

“What is happening, Wilbur?” I said.

From the neighbouring room, we could all hear Ernest’s thin gasp.

“I’m not sure,” answered Wilbur. Abruptly, he left the room and wandered in deep thought to the kitchen, Yvette and I in his wake. There, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. “But I have an idea. Would you mind making a call please Steven?”

“I’d rather hear your idea.”

He extracted his Babel and tapped it on. “It could help me settle my idea. Would you mind?” Ernest joined us, evidently perplexed, rubbing and fingering his new facial hair like a budding RSI victim.

“Fine,” I said, trying to put aside my immediate concerns.

Wilbur tapped some more, then handed me the Babel. “Who am I calling? Dial-a-pizza?”

“Close,” said Wilbur. “Dianne.”

I held the Babel in front of me, confused. “What do I say to her? Noticed anything transform lately?!”

“If I’m right, it won’t matter what you say.”

Irritated by his vagueness, I attempted a scathing gaze, but then a crystal clear image of Dianne’s face appeared on Wilbur’s Babel.

“Ernest!” said Dianne, clearly surprised.

“Hello, Dianne,” I said, pushing my imagination to its limits, still holding the Babel in front of me.

“It isn’t like you to make a video call,” she said, peering at me with obvious curiosity. Then her eyes widened. “O?! That’s why. You’ve shaved your moustache.”

Standing in front of me, behind the Babel, Ernest and Yvette on either side, Wilbur caught my eye. Nodding repeatedly, he silently mouthed ‘say yes’.

“Um, yes,” I said.

“Well,” said Dianne, scrutinising me. “If you are after my opinion, then I quite like it. Though it will take some getting used to. How long did you have it? Fifteen years?”

Ernest’s level of shock mounted beyond the scale. Wilbur nodded again.

“Uh, yes,” I assented, “something like that.”

Wilbur repeatedly moved a pointed forefinger rapidly across his neck, a gesture I took to mean either the same thing it did in my time or that he really did not like the moustache.

“Uh, well,” I said, “that was about all I called for, Dianne. Thanks for your opinion. Be seeing you.”

“Sure,” she muttered, expression contradicting word. “Any time.”

I hung up, looked at Wilbur. “Well?” I said, returning his Babel. “Is that supposed to help?”

“Yes, I believe it does,” said Wilbur. “As far as Dianne’s concerned, Ernest has had a moustache for years, and yet we in this room believe otherwise.”

“I’ve never had one,” said Ernest, with an expression as if he had just caught an unpleasant whiff. “And I still do not understand how I could have one now.”

“I think…” said Wilbur. He drew a deep breath and finally let us in on his thinking. “I think the timeline may be fluctuating. Possibly unravelling.”

“O?” I drawled. “Is that all?!… What does that even mean?” I demanded, too anxious to heed manners.

“The past and present may be in flux. Probably a side effect of Ernest’s return to the present. Remember: you two swapped time coordinates five days ago—but today only one of you returned. You, Steven, should be back in 2030 to balance Ernest here. Because you’re not, the timeline may be unbalanced. And seeking to re-balance itself: trying to compensate, adjust to suit your presence here. How, and to what extent, I can only guess. Subtle adjustments here and there, or—” A moment of obvious shock flushed Wilbur’s features. “Or your whole life may have become a temporal anomaly—perhaps to be dealt with by removal.”

“Removal?” I said, appalled. “The timeline is trying to write me out of history?!”

“Trying to make a certain Mr Stone sink without trace?” said Ernest, with the tiniest hint of a grim smile.

“Perhaps,” said Wilbur, worriedly.

“You make it sound as if the timeline’s alive,” said Yvette. “Conscious.”

“Not at all,” responded Wilbur. “But it is subject to physical laws and their underlying principles of symmetry. If anything is pushed out of balance, those laws will ultimately force the timeline back into balance—if that is possible.”

“By a change of shirt!” I cried. “A new moustache?! That’s how the timeline is restored to balance? What’s next? A top ten single by a yodeller?”

“The changes we have seen,” said Wilbur, “may only be trivial consequences of more significant changes. And many events could have altered without us necessarily knowing about them. For example, Jibilee may no longer have that name, but we would not know, not without seeking out that information.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Why are we different? And why do we see things changing? It contradicts what you said when Ernest returned: that if he’s altered history, the original history would in effect have never been—we would never know about it. If my presence here is causing the last forty years to alter, why aren’t we like Dianne, blissfully unaware Ernest’s moustache is not fifteen years old but brand new?”

“I can only speculate,” said Wilbur. “But the fact is that each of us has seen the effects of the temporal disturbances only when you’re with us. Which suggests your presence here, the likely cause of the temporal flux, acts something like a protective bubble.”

“Protective!?” I said. “We aren’t protected from the disturbances. Yvette’s shirt and Ernest’s upper lip weren’t protected.”

“Perhaps protective is the wrong word. But you, and it appears anyone in your vicinity, are at least able to recognise when events alter. Others are not, as your call to Dianne indicated—to her, the adjusted timeline is the one that’s always been. Not that your field of influence would appear to extend very far. When you were alone on the doorstep and saw clouds disappear, each of us just a few steps inside the house weren’t aware of the change, and remembered the day as being without clouds.”

“The changes seem very trivial,” suggested Yvette. “A moustache and an altered shirt.”

“Could the timeline have a fashion sense?” I asked.

“Must be a poor one,” muttered Ernest.

“There was also the weather,” said Wilbur. “And who knows what else we are unaware of. Regardless, as long as Steven’s not where he’s meant to be—when he is meant to be—the changes are only likely to escalate, to happen more frequently, and probably with increasingly greater impacts. Perhaps Ernest’s return here could be annulled—that might be one way to restore balance. Or perhaps I and the time viewer might suddenly vanish, so as to prevent the original resonant swap that led to the current instability.”

The room fell into sudden threatening silence, which I soon felt compelled to break—with exaggerated emphasis: “Then it’s not serious at all.”

Everyone ignored me—especially when the mud-brick walls around us suddenly changed to plaster.

“We all saw that one, right?” I asked.

Everyone nodded sombrely.

“Of course, only some adjustments will have visible effects to us,” mused Wilbur. “Many might affect other parts of the world. Or have less tangible, less obvious results. I suspect that’s why the first one was not noticed until some hours after Ernest returned.”

With no warning, Wilbur abruptly disappeared. Before our eyes, he vanished in an instant.

“O shit,” I said. I looked to the others who seemed every bit as worried as I was, then ran to the room with the time viewer, expecting it to have vanished as well—but it was just as I’d last seen it.

I returned to inform the others. “The viewer is still there.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Yvette. “Why would the timeline remove Wilbur but not the viewer?”

“The timeline hasn’t removed me.” The voice was Wilbur’s and seemed to come from where he’d been standing when he disappeared, yet he was nowhere in sight. “I’m right here with you.” A shimmer appeared in his place, gradually growing more substantial. With a sudden jolt, Wilbur reappeared.

“What the hell was that all about?” I said.

Wilbur looked embarrassed. “There’s no human word for it. The only thing I can compare it to is hiccups.”

“Hiccups?” parroted Yvette and Ernest in unison.

Wilbur disappeared again. Eerily, his voice remained. “It’s something Orlanis occasionally develop when tired or stressed—a mild physical disturbance that alters the body’s refractive index. We turn invisible.” He popped suddenly back into visibility. “Then alternate rapidly back and forth.” He disappeared again.

“Just what we need,” I moaned. “Just when things were getting dull.”

“I am sorry,” said Wilbur, returning more gradually to view. “This hasn’t happened for years.”

“Isn’t there something you can do to stop it?” said Ernest.

“It’s harmless,” said Wilbur, “but if it’s bothering you, there are a few folk remedies that sometimes work.” He disappeared again. “I’ll try one.” A glass in the dish rack on the sink suddenly floated upwards, then across and down, to rest suspended under the tap. The tap handle lifted as if on its own, and the glass filled with water. The tap returned to its off position, then the glass floated higher before tilting. Its contents spilled over its edge, but they did not fall to the floor—instead they vanished. Wilbur popped back into view, the glass to his mouth, one hand pinching his nose shut—in his natural Orlani form. A demon.

I shuddered briefly.

Wilbur drained his glass, put it on the sink, held a hand in front of him at arm’s length—watched it studiously.

For long still moments, nothing happened.

Wilbur sighed, then resumed his familiar human features. “It appears to have worked.”

“Shouldn’t we get back to more pressing concerns than Orlani hiccups?” I said, peeved at the delay, yet relieved Wilbur was back to normal. “The timeline is unravelling, remember? And there’s still something I don’t understand. How can the disturbances reach us one by one? If the timeline between now and 2030 has been altered, why aren’t we seeing the net effects in one big hit, instead of this piecemeal account?”

“Because, if my theory is correct, the timeline hasn’t yet regained balance. Events are altering gradually or in sudden increments perhaps. I don’t know. In any case, everything I’ve said is essentially just speculation to explain the facts apparent to us. For all I know, the true cause may be entirely different.”

“Which leaves us where?” said Ernest. “As spectators, simply watching events unfold.”

“No,” said Wilbur, forcefully, concern apparent. “We must attempt to rectify the situation. I suspect the only way to properly end the temporal imbalance is to return Steven to his time. If we can achieve that, the changes already made may even be annulled.”

My sci-fi novels had come home to roost, but with me the unwitting and reluctant star: I had to return to my own time in order to safeguard the timeline—to maintain reality itself. “But you don’t know how to return me. You said that.”

“Indeed,” said Wilbur. “The last attempt should have worked. I set up everything exactly as it was for the original transfer. It was even roughly the same time of day.”

“Would that have mattered?” said Ernest.

“Probably not, but I can’t be sure. I only have a theory as to what has happened.”

“Your theory got me back,” said Ernest.

Wilbur seemed momentarily lost in thought. “Suggesting perhaps,” he finally said, “that everything of relevance was the same for you for both transports, but something was different for Steven.”

“What something?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” replied Wilbur.

“Could there have been something in Steven’s bedroom,” said Ernest, “containing some element or compound capable of making a difference.”

“Possibly,” said Wilbur.

“Kryptonite, perhaps?” I suggested, frustrated by the lack of progress.

Wilbur ignored me, but Ernest and Yvette both gave me scornful glances.

“What were you doing at the time you were transported?” said Yvette, looking straight at me.

“I…” The question discomforted me, and I was reluctant to answer.

“Are you blushing?” said Yvette, puzzled, then smiling. “O! That’s what you were doing?” Her smile vanished as a fuller understanding arrived. “Talk about coitus interruptus!”

“Hold on,” I said, outraged. “You’re not suggesting that to go home, I need to be having sex!?”

All eyes turned to Wilbur. He paused long in thought. “It’s possible.” He shook his head vigorously. “Anything’s possible. It could have been the air temperature, for all I know. Food you’d consumed. The fullness of your bladder.”

“Great!” I said. “That narrows it down considerably.”

We all fell silent, struggling for useful thoughts.

Ernest opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped by a loud crack of thunder—through the living room window, cloudless deepening twilight snapped to almost night, overcast, full of threat. The thunder rolled on, accompanied by blinding lightning bolts.

“I take it,” said Wilbur, “that we all saw that change?”

A louder peal of thunder. Everyone nodded or muttered assent.

“These storms seem to be following me everywhere,” I mused aloud.

Simultaneous with another blinding lightning burst, Ernest’s and Wilbur’s eyes snapped wide open—stares of surprised recognition.

Wilbur turned his gaze on me. “There was a storm raging when you were transported here—correct?”

“Yes. But haven’t we got more pressing things to do than discuss the weather?”

“And there were storms,” said Ernest, deep in thought, “both times when I transported.”

“But not here when we transported you back,” said Wilbur. “Of course! That must have been where the energy came from. Not from the quantum vacuum. From lightning!”

More bolted down.

“But the lightning didn’t funnel down some pole into your viewer, did it?” I objected, not at all convinced. “Surely it’s not that gothic and clichéd. I didn’t arrive here with bolts in my neck.”

“Localisation of the storms’ energies may not be necessary,” said Wilbur. “Lightning may merely need to be in the vicinity of the time viewer or what it’s viewing. But if that’s true, we might now have a way of returning you to your time.” To my surprise, he suddenly yawned.

“Sorry if all this is boring you, Wilbur,” I said—with considerable grumpiness; after all, it’s not every day you find yourself responsible for an unravelling timeline.

“Anything but,” he responded. “Only the fascination I hold for recent events is keeping me awake. But I won’t be able to put off sleep much longer.”

“Then you had better hurry up,” said Ernest, his expression betraying fear of more than an unfashionable moustache. “What do we need to do?”

“Not much,” said Wilbur, heading to the time viewing room (every home should have one). We followed on his heels. “At least, as long as this storm lasts. We just view the right location and time, just as we did earlier, and, with any luck, all Steven has to do is touch the screen.”

“That didn’t work before,” I objected.

“There was no storm here then,” said Yvette, following things better than me.

Silently, we watched Wilbur tap at the viewer’s keyboard, press panel buttons. Outside, thunder and lightning were suddenly joined by heavy rain.

“Does it really matter where you view?” I asked, uncertainly. “Now that Ernest is back.”

“Perhaps not,” said Wilbur, “but best to stick to what previously had at least some success.” He stifled another yawn. “I’m setting this up to view the location midway between here and your house, just as when Ernest was returned.”

“I don’t want to arrive there!”

“You won’t, Steven,” said Wilbur, patiently. “These transfers only alter your time coordinates, not your spatial location. You should arrive back where you are now.”

“That’s no good, either!” I cried. “It’s kilometres from home. What about Yvette?”

Wilbur and Ernest turned to her, puzzled.

“My wife!” I said. “I don’t want her to have to deal with me suddenly disappearing. I want to return home, where I disappeared. In my own bed.”

“I’m sorry, Steven,” said Wilbur. “That’s not possible. Here and now, you need to be in the vicinity of the time viewer.”

“Can’t it be moved to where my home was?”

“There is no practical way of powering it in a such an isolated location.”

“Are you sure Steven will stay put?” said Ernest, to Wilbur. “I returned here, despite being elsewhere in 2030.” He jolted. “Now that I think of it: could that have been because Steven didn’t return?”

“Possibly,” said Wilbur, looking thoughtful. He turned to me. “But even if you do return to your bedroom, it will be more than five days after you left. As it was for Ernest. That’s what the viewer is set for: the same time after you left as you’ve been in our time. Your wife will have to deal with your sudden disappearance whatever the outcome.”

“No! That isn’t fair on her.”

“Doubtless, said Wilbur, tapping a final key to bring up a night-vision image of the non-descript paddock viewed for Ernest’s return. “But it’s what would have happened to you earlier today when Ernest returned, if only there had then been a storm here. Probably.”

“I didn’t realise. I thought I was going back to when and where I was.”

“I don’t think the symmetry principles at work in these resonant transfers will allow it, Steven. But then, my theory could be completely wrong. This may not work at all. Lightning may have nothing to do with it—or if it does, there may be other unforeseen factors. And dangers.”

“Like what?” I said, hopes diminishing.

“I don’t know,” said Wilbur. “That’s why I called them unforeseen. The point is, without a more precise understanding of what brought you here in the first place, I can’t be certain about anything. For all I know, you could end up in a completely different time. Conceivably, you could even split temporally into multiple versions, at several different times.”

A particularly loud crack of thunder erupted.

“Your viewer could Xerox me?!” I groaned loudly. “This had better be a damned dream.”

“He couldn’t arrive before he left, could he?” said Yvette.

“No,” said Wilbur, certain—before immediately wavering. “Probably not. Maybe. I’m really not sure.”

“You mean I could end up in the nineteenth century? Or the Roman Empire? Or surrounded by Neanderthals!?”

“I can’t be certain, Steven,” said Wilbur. “But ultimately, your final destination will depend not on what I think, but on the fundamental physical symmetry principles re-balancing the timeline. And we’re never going to find out as long as we keep talking.”

He was right. I had to get home. So I had to face the risks. “I don’t know why this dream is so endlessly troublesome,” I said, angrily, “but the sooner it’s over the better.” A double take of regret. “Nothing personal. I just want to see my wife and family.”

Yvette put a hand on my arm and gently squeezed, forgiving, understanding.

With an effort, I turned my attention to the time viewer’s screen. “Let’s get on with it then.” But I was immediately distracted. On the screen, above the paddock, was a bright star-lit sky, Scorpio arching on high. Not a cloud in sight—it confused me no end. “There’s no storm there?”

“I don’t believe there needs to be a storm there,” said Wilbur, patient as ever, “only here. In our attempt today, the storm at Ernest’s location provided the energy to transport him back, but the absence of a storm here left you stranded. The storm raging here and now should send you back. Are you ready?”

I exchanged a long glance with Wilbur, then with Yvette and Ernest, keen to leave yet not to have seen the last of them. As if to remind me there was no time to lose, Ernest’s moustache disappeared.

“Changed its mind again,” said Yvette. “Just when I was getting used to telling you two apart.”

Ernest was baffled, until Yvette stroked a gentle finger above his upper lip. He immediately brightened.

“Okay,” I said, moving closer to the time viewer. “See you all in my next dream. Maybe.” I lifted my hand towards the screen, retracted it in sudden doubt, paused, then thrust it forward in one quick motion to touch the screen.

An especially bright lightning bolt dazzled my eyes.

For a split second, I saw nothing. Then, vision slowly cleared…

There, standing next to me was Yvette.

But not Yvette my wife. The other Yvette. Next to her, Ernest. Sitting in front of the time viewer, facing me, dismay writ clearly on his features, Wilbur.

The attempt had failed. I was still trapped in the future, the timeline unravelling around me.