The Temporal AmbulatorBy theidiotmachine

Elias Smith tapped his top hat into shape, picked up his cane, and pushed open the polished wooden door of his temporal ambulator. He drew a breath. This would be his first visit to the future in his new invention.

He stepped out of the little control booth.

White smoke swirled around him, and he tried hard not to cough; he didn't want the people of this time to think he was anything other than a gentleman. It was somewhat worrying that his machine was producing so much smoke, but he hadn't encountered a problem he couldn't fix yet.

He strode out, ready for another adventure in time; and the smoke blew away and he took measure of when and where he was.

It was unmistakeably the City of London: grey buildings loomed around him, horseless carriages hummed along the street, and crowds of people in dark clothes filtered past. They stared at him and his ambulator, and took photos with tiny pocket cameras. He smiled and doffed his hat, glad that he hadn't spluttered in the fumes.

'Hello, my good friends!' he said, enjoying the attention.

This number of people with cameras meant they must have known he was coming. Well, that's time travel for you.

He'd set off from Cheapside in 1895, and, sure enough, here he was again. The road hadn't moved, and some of the buildings even looked familiar, although with significant external modifications. Animated panels covered with glowing adverts shimmered on them, inviting him to... well, he wasn't sure what exactly, but they looked very exciting.

A man in a bright yellow waistcoat pushed his way through the crowd.

'Oy!' he shouted. 'You can't park that there!'

'Good sir,' Elias replied, his mood elevated by the appreciative audience, 'I most certainly can! For I am not from around here, but from the past. I am Sir Elias Smith, traveller in time!'

The crowd chuckled.

'Yes, I can see that's a time machine,' said the man. 'It's a class one, and a clunky one at that. Do you have a permit?'

'What...?' Elias spluttered, amazed that this rough, common man wasn't awed by his time feats.

'I said, do you have a permit? A form TT36A?'

'I...'

The crowd laughed again. Elias felt a horrible feeling that they were, in fact, laughing at him.

'Thought not. We'll tow it and you can fill in the form at the office.'

A flying machine, held aloft by great spinning blades, descended from the grey sky above. It spooled long thin threads from its innards, which wrapped around his temporal ambulator. Then it hoisted it up, the blades making a thunderous noise and causing dust and rubbish to whirl up around him. The crowd backed away from the wind and flying detritus. The man in the yellow waistcoat seemed unmoved, however, and took Elias by the elbow and lead him to a carriage.

#

After a brief but dizzying journey, Elias was taken to an office. It didn't seem so different to the kind of place where clerks worked in his time, although it was rather noisier, with more typewriters and glowing panels. The walls were adorned with amusing bon mots.

'"You don't have to be mad to work here, but it helps." Very clever!' Elias said, keen to endear himself to his new companion.

The man did not reply. Instead he pulled out a chair, and handed Elias a rectangle.

'You need to fill in this. Someone will be with you once you're done.'

Elias looked at the thing held in front of him. 'I don't quite understand. What do I fill it in with? Water? It won't hold much!'

The man sighed, and tapped the box; it lit up, showing a set of questions. He pulled out a short stylus from his pocket and passed it over to Elias.

'Use this to write on the bright bit. Fill in all the questions to best of your ability, and then tap the thing which says "Done."'

'Well, fantastic, thank you! And a good day to you.'

The man walked away without a word, and Elias got to his new task... a task in the future! It was less exciting than he'd hoped, but then, this was just the beginning. He was sure the parades and meeting the Prime Minister would happen later.

As he filled in the form, he reflected on what had happened. Presumably his invention had caught on, and now gentlemen thought no more of popping around time than they did going to their local club. Perhaps even ladies time travelled, although that seemed unlikely to him; there were limits, after all.

But this meant he wasn't just any traveller in time, he was the first! The progenitor! The prospect of medals at Buckingham Palace filled his imagination.

He hummed while he filled in what he could. Most of the text made no sense to him, but he assumed that those boxes where for the little people, so he skipped them. Finally he was done, so he leaned back on his chair and waited for something to happen.

And waited. And waited some more. He stood up to see if he could see the chap who'd brought him in, but the man had vanished. Damn rum thing to do.

Elias was just about to say something when a lady walked up to where he was standing. She carried her own glowing rectangle – they seemed to be ubiquitous in this world – and she put it down on the desk and then sat. Elias wasn't sure whether to bow or offer her his hand, but she ignored him, fiddling with her rectangle; and so he did neither, and sat, feeling foolish.

'Hello. My name's Lisa,' she said, not looking up.

'Good day! My name is Elias Smith.'

'Yes, I saw. Now, you're a traveller from 1895, correct?'

Elias beamed, glad that she recognised his unique position. 'Yes! I imagine that's new for you?'

She sighed and scratched her ear, and then smiled back at him, revealing alarming metalwork across her teeth.

'Not really, sweetie. Now, you didn't fill in this form completely, so let's just get some extra details. Given your source period, would you describe yourself as colonizer for the crown, gentleman adventurer, intrepid explorer, or audacious scientist?'

'Ah...'

She looked him up and down. 'Well, you're too polite for a coloniser and too scruffy for an adventurer, and you said you built your device, so shall we say scientist?'

'I suppose this is for some kind of award category?'

She flashed another smile, again showing the metal in her mouth. Elias was prepared this time and didn't so much as flinch.

'Ooh, it's nice to see someone with a sense of humour,' she said. 'You scientists are so much nicer than the colonizers.'

Elias may have been discombobulated, but he knew a compliment from a lady when he heard it, so he bowed his head.

'I thank you, ma'am.'

'Don't be silly sweetie, you don't need to "ma'am" me. Now. Who was on the throne when you left, and what year did that person ascend?'

'Why, Queen Victoria, of course.'

'And the year?'

'1837.'

'That's good news. It means you're from a time stream quite close to ours, so it'll be nice and easy to get you home. Oh and, here's another good piece of news: the history computer can't find any record of you.'

Elias nearly forgot his manners, so shocked was he by this.

'Then tell your computer to look harder! I am Elias Smith, original inventor of the temporal ambulator and progenitor of all this time... stuff,' he tailed off, too flustered to think of a better word.

She put her rectangle down, and gazed at him. She had enchanting brown eyes, he noticed.

'Oh dear. Has no one had the talk?'

'Um...'

'No, not that one. The one where we explain what's happened to you?'

'I don't believe...'

'You're in the year 2025, in a reality which is not your future. Around ten years ago we had an accident where a meteor hit a nuclear power plant near a clock factory and... well, it doesn't matter too much, but now, all time travellers from all past realities come to this one if they go beyond the year 2013. It's a bit of a pain, frankly. So we process everyone and send them home. You're welcome to apply for a residence permit if you like, but that takes quite a long time and most people are keen to go home. Apparently the coffee isn't very good in this timeline.'

Elias considered this. He was, after all, a scientist of high regard, and his gimlet-sharp mind lost no time turning this fact over.

'I'd long wondered about the consequences of free choice with regards to time travel. I see. These "timelines" seem a natural result. So, I'm not the inventor of the temporal ambulator here?'

'Nope. You never even existed. Which might not seem it now, but I can promise is actually a fantastic piece of news. The tax implications can be terrible otherwise. You can end up accumulating interest on unpaid revenue, and some people owe rather a lot of money when they arrive.'

'I see that death and taxes are still a constant,' he said, flashing a smile at the young lady before considering his plight.

She ignored him and tapped something onto her rectangle.

'So, what's do be done? Should I just pop back into my machine and ambulate back? I suppose this is what I came for, to understand the boundaries of science.'

Liz looked up again. 'I think so, don't you? It seems like it's for the best.'

'Although the boundaries of science are infinite, and so perhaps I could just do another brief jaunt...'

'Mmm. Is there a special someone who might be missing you? Surely they will want you back?'

Elias blushed somewhat. 'Well, there was a Miss Withershaw, who seemed rather taken with my tales. I had hoped that she might want to ambulate with me. I saw a spectacular sunset around a thousand years ago which I thought she might wish to share.'

'That sounds like a lovely idea. Now, Ron will have fitted your time machine with a regulator which prevents you from coming further than 2012. We'll give you the designs for a few era-appropriate inventions which will make you rich and famous in your time, and in return we ask you to found a secret organisation to suppress knowledge of time travel until after the year 2013. You can do what you want after that point, it's not our problem.'

'You're asking me to be a rich yet shadowy figure, controlling humanity as if they were puppets?' asked Elias, shocked.

'That's one way of putting it, yes. We find that works best with the Victorian gentlemen. The Victorian ladies seem a bit more sensible... Now, do you agree to this?'

'What if I don't?'

'We don't let you go home. You stay here. Some people do choose this, although, as I said, the coffee isn't very good. There's a club for Victorian scientists. They go bowling every other Wednesday.'

'Ah. Um. Well I suppose being rich and powerful in my timeline is something of an incentive.'

'Good, good. So now, you go through that door over there and, you can choose from an assortment of era-appropriate inventions. And... Elias. You seem nice. May I suggest that just because you don't understand these inventions doesn't mean they're not useful? Yes, everyone thinks radio and zeppelins and tractors are exciting. But just consider how much happiness air conditioning and vacuum cleaners and instant coffee might give to a certain someone in your life?'

Elias nodded, baffled but determined not to show it.

'I see. Well, that's a lot to think about. Speaking frankly, this hasn't been the adventure through time that I was expecting. But, yes, if one has a personal vacuum, I can see how it might need cleaning from time to time, and one would probably need quite specialist and expensive equipment for that.'

'Great. Through that door. It was lovely meeting you, Elias.'

'And you too, Miss Lisa.'

#

Elias Smith, inventor of the temporal ambulator, tapped his top hat into shape and picked up his cane. Cheers filtered through the ambulator's wooden door. Well, as far as they were concerned, he'd only been gone for five minutes.

He drew a breath and wondered what he was going to tell them.

Maybe he didn't have to be completely honest. It wasn't like anyone would ever find out.

He pushed open the door, and strode out; whereupon he stood, arms aloft, in front of the crowd assembled on Cheapside in 1895.

'Friends, I have such marvels to tell you...'