Time Leap by Steve Howrie Read Free Book Online Page B

nineteen. He’d just passed his
driving test.
    Negative feelings about
time–travel haunted us for the next couple of days. Niki said we
should just give up the whole idea – throw away the phone and never
look back. But I couldn’t help thinking that our ability to make an
impression on history was much more powerful that I had previously
thought. Just by showing a security guard and his colleague my
phone, I’d advanced technology by several years. And by listening
to the troubles of a thirteen year old boy, we had stopped him
taking his own life. This made me realise that perhaps it doesn’t
require huge interventions in the past to make big changes. For
instance, if people in the mid–1930’s had simply been aware of the
consequences of the rise of Nazism, that could have been enough to
have prevented the atrocities occurring – and even perhaps
prevented World War Two. No need to take the dangerous path of
attempting to assassinate the leaders – just give the people in
power the information, the intelligence. Could this be the way
forward?
    This line of thought led
me to some unfinished business. Following my intervention in the
World Trade Center bombings, Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi
were now very much alive in our new World, and had formed the
Libyan–Iraq Alliance. No–one knew where this new coalition would
lead, but it was pretty much accepted that both countries had
secretly begun making nuclear weapons. With discontent and
uprisings in other Arab countries – notably Syria and Egypt–things
didn’t look too good in the Middle East. I concluded that we should
take a leap forward to the future to see where all this was
leading, and the possible impact on the World. With this
information, perhaps we could warn our governments of what the
future had in store for us.
    The big question now was:
how far did we need to jump forward in time? But before answering
that question, something very strange happened the next
day.
    I was just coming out of
the bathroom, and there in the lounge, sitting on the sofa, was me
and Niki! I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Shit!”
    “ Sorry to
startle you… it must be a shock. It’s just an
experiment.”
    A guy looking exactly
like me was sitting with what looked exactly like Niki.
    “ Where’s
Niki?” the man asked.
    “ I think
you’ll find she’s sitting right next to you,” I said.
    “ No, I
mean your Niki…”
This was very, very weird.
    “ Oh, I see…
she’s gone shopping.”
    Niki2 on the sofa nodded.
“She’ll be back any minute… you’d better prepare her.” Sure enough,
I heard the sound of a key in the front door, and I rushed to warn
Niki – but too late.
    “ Oh my god!
Joe?”
    “ Over here.”
She was looking at the sofa of course. I smiled and
waved.
    “ Do I really
look like that?” Niki took it a little better than me. Looking at
yourself in a photograph is one thing; seeing the real, living,
breathing four–dimensional you is totally different. “Why are they
here?” she asked me.
    “ Better ask
them,” I said.
    “ It’s an
experiment,” Niki2 explained. “This feels really, really strange,
doesn’t it?” We all agreed with that. The fact that Niki2 seemed to
know precisely when Nik would be home told me that they must be
from the future, rather than the past.
    “ How far back
have you jumped?” I asked.
    “ Just two
days,” Joe2 replied. “It was Sunday when we left.”
    Then I had a very
interesting line of thought.
    “ So… you know
exactly what’s going to happen between now and when you
jumped?”
    “ Pretty much,”
Joe2 smiled.
    “ How did
Chelsea do?” I asked.
    “ Lost two-nil
to Norwich.”
    “ Shit!”
    Then Niki made the
connection. “How about the lottery? Any new
millionaires?”
    Niki2 and Joe2 looked
knowingly at each other and smiled. “Maybe a couple,” Joe2 said.
“Niki’s got the numbers you need.” Niki2 handed Nik seven numbers
written down on a piece of paper. They were