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A New Continuing Story About Time Travel

CaptainWacky

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
PROLOGUE

He was lying in bed and he had no intention of getting up. He had no reason to. Sure, he knew he was supposed to try to do something with his life. But what was the point? In general, he found he was better off in bed. Life didn't suit him. He rolled over onto his other side. That was one thing he enjoyed doing. He knew he'd have to get up to eat breakfast eventually. But not yet...

He heard a creaking noises in his wardrobe. Maybe a terrorist was hiding in there. He just shut his eyes again. He didn't care.

The wardrobe door opened and a man with a beard stepped out.

He didn't know what to do. It didn't feel real. He was barely awake, barely alive. There couldn't be a man with a beard in his bedroom. He'd ignore him and he'd go away. He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the man wasn't standing by the wardrobe anymore. That was because he was now standing next to the bed. Oh fuck, this was real. He looked the man right in the eys.

"Wow," the man said. "Was I ever that young?"

"What...I'm not young," he managed to say. What a stupid thing to say. The man was just staring at him. He didn't looked threatening. He looked...familiar, somehow. Behind the beard...wait...

"Relatively speaking," said the man. "Considering what you grow up to be."

"You're...you're me," he said. He felt awake now.

"From the future!" said the man.

"What..."

"Travelled back here in our own personal time machine."

"I...I invent a time machine?"

"No," laughed the man. "You steal one!"

TO BE CONTINUED
 
Steven sat up in bed. HIs back hurt and he needed to pee. In fact he needed to pee quite badly. But he had other things to think about at the moment.

"Just...go back to the part where you're from the future," Steven said. "Where in the future? I mean, when?"

"Twenty six years, man," said the bearded man. Steven kept staring at him. Was it really him? It was the eyes. But they were different. Older. Well, of course they would be older. But also...crazier. "Twenty six years! I remember this bed! Hahaha, had some good times in there."

"No you didn't," said Steven.

"Good wanks anyway!" said the bearded man. "And...well, we'll get to the other thing eventually. Yeah, I remember being you. Sleeping all the time. So fucking depressed. Am I right? Yeah, I can see it! Bet your back hurts too. From sitting up in bed reading all those science fiction stories. Hahaha, if you only knew. IF YOU ONLY KNEW, MAN! HAHAHA!" Then he started prodding at the bed.

"I need to pee," said Steven, suddenly wanting to escape. He was finding the bearded man a bit scary now.

"Oh yeah, needing to pee in the morning, that was a thing too," said the bearded man. "Go right ahead." Steven got out of bed and went to the bathroom. The bearded man followed him and attempted to come in too.

"What are you doing?" asked Steven.

"Just feeling a bit nostalgic, you know?" said the bearded man. "Haven't pissed in this bathroom for a long time. Just want to watch you, you know. Your technique."

"I don't want you watching me pee!"

"It's nothing I haven't seen before!"

"No."

"Okay, okay...I understand. I'll just go take a look at your computer. Were you still posting on the Star Trek board? Ha! It'll be good to have a look at that place..."

Steven jumped into the bathroom and locked the door. What was going on here? A future version of him? Of course it wasn't! He was just some crazy person. He'd been hiding in the wardrobe. And now he was using Steven's computer...probably using his PayPal account. Fuck. He peed quickly and ran downstairs. He found the bearded man sitting at the computer. Crying.

"Oh man," said bearded man. "I almost forgot about Magician83. We were good friends, weren't we."

"Yeah..." said Steven. How had the bearded man known that?

"He dies in four years," said bearded man. Car accident. Not long before...well, the world changes. Really tragic."

"I don't believe you," said Steven. "You're...you're just some guy who was hiding in my wardrobe...probably wanking over me. Get out of my house!"

"I'm you, man," said the bearded man, calmly. "I'm back from the future using the time machine the aliens crashed..."

"Oh, ALIENS now is it!" said Steven. "Fucking aliens! GET OUT."

"I know about the dog," said the bearded man.

"...what," said Steven. He couldn't mean...

"I know about the dog I...you...we killed," said the bearded man. "The secret we've held on to for so long. Do I have your attention now?"

"I...could have..."

"You'd never tell anyone about what you did that day, aged fourteen," said the bearded man.

"Oh...shit," said Steven.

"Sit down, man," said the older Steven with the beard. "I have a lot to tell you."

TO BE CONTINUED
 
"I didn't mean to kill it!" said Steve, almost crying. Suddenly life felt real again. After years of being in a cloud.

"I know, man," said the older Steve. Bearded Steve. Whatever. "But we should have looked before throwing that ball..."

"I just want to play with it..."

"And we should have told someone instead of running the fuck away!"

"No one ever found out...until now."

"I always knew, man," said the older Steve. "I was always you."

"So you were me...and twenty six years from now I'll steal an alien time machine and appear in my own wardrobe."

"Well, actually I appeared in the back garden," confessed the older steve. "I just snuck into your wardrobe while you slept."

"...why?"

"I thought it would be funny?" he shrugged. "Sorry."

"So there's a time machine in the back garden..."

"It's cloaked, don't try to look for it."

"Oh, of course, that makes perfect sense!" said young Steve.

"And we need to move it before its young self crash lands in the same spot," said bearded Steve, seriously. "That's pretty important, actually."

"What are you...what..."

"Why don't I start at the beginning?" said older Steve.

"Do that, please," said younger.

"So in just two days, a cloaked alien vessel capable of time travel will crash land in your back garden..."

"Wait!" said younger. He'd noticed an inconsistency already. This wasn't real! Of course it wasn't. "You said Magician83 dies four years from now, and that's not long before the world changes. But if the aliens arrive in two days, the world will surely change then!"

"Well spotted, man," said bearded Steve, smiling behind his beard. He needed to clean that thing, the young Steven thought. "The vessel that crashes in our garden, it's an early scout ship. Wasn't supposed to land here. Something went wrong in the atmosphere...I never really understood what. Funny, that. All those great science fiction books I...we read? Turns out they weren't actually very accurate to what real alien vessels are like. Or real aliens for that matter. But what should we have expected, man? They're aliens. They're really fucking alien. They tried explaining to me why the crash happened, but I never grasped it. Anyway, yeah, cloaked alien ship in our garden. I didn't even notice it at first. We too busy in my own head. But eventualyl, well, there was a depression in the grass. It was visible. I went out and investiagted...you still with me?"

"You see the alien ship lands here," said young Steve. "And twenty six years later you travel back in it to here? So it doesn't move for twenty six years? You still live here in twenty six years time?"

"How do you know the ship isn't moved somewhere and I then use it to travel here?"

"...I just know?"

"Yeah, we're the same person! You can tell. Yeah, it's here all along. Twenty six years. Those aliens really wanted it moved too. But we didn't let them. Haha!"

"What!"

TO BE CONTINUED
 
"What?"

"You didn't let the aliens move the space ship? How did you stop them?"

"Look, the thing you've got to understand about these guys is...they're aliens. You know? But not like...what's your concpetion of aliens? What do you picture when I say the word alien?"

"I just saw Spock in my head."

"That's basic shit, man, think deeper."

"What do you want me to say? Little green men? Greys? You know...aliens."

"Yeah, I used to think I knew. But these guys...you wouldn't recognise them as aliens, man. But they're not human either. They look like...like...concepts."

"That isn't helping me." Older Steve sighed.

"Look, let's go back to twenty one years ago...or five years from now from your point of view. The aliens show up, and I'm talking in numbers. Everywhere on Earth you look into the sky and you say their ships. Their mad, impossible, out of phase with reality ships. They let us see them. All at once. People went crazy. Then they spoke to us. At first in a language we couldn't understand, but after talking for a while it changed to the language of whoever was hearing it. Amazing trick, that. I'll never forget what they said. No one will."

"What was it? What did they say?"

"Hello."

"Oh."

"Yeah, well, they said more after that. A lot more. They told us they'd travelled here across many dimensions in space and time. They said they had many gifts to give to the people of Earth, if we would accept them. Then they got serious and told us their scout ship had gotten lost. That it had disappeared five Earth years ago and asked if anyone on Earth had seen it."

"And you had."

"Couple of years earlier I'd discovered it in the garden. It was invisible, but I could feel it with my hands. I could hear it purring. I'd thought I was going crazy."

"I know the feeling."

"You really do! So I had this invisible thing in my garden, but there was nothing I could do with it. Couldn't move it, couldn't communicate with it...I just visited it every day to see if it had changed. That was, until the day the aliens arrived. Something changed then. The ship in our garden was activated I guess? It was purring differently and when I approached it...suddenly I was in another place."

"Inside the ship?"

"Right. It's strange in there. The alien was waiting for me. I couldn't tell what it was at first. Looked like a catball."

"...what?"

"That's just how I describe them, man. A catball. It told me it had heard the transmission and asked that I please return it home."

"So why didn't you?"

"Well, why is an alien asking to be returned home? Can't it just go home itself? Strange request! That's when I realised something..."

"Which was?"

"I could make some serious money off this thing!"

"Oh fuck."

TO BE CONTINUED
 
"What? I saw an opportunity and I took it..."

"Humanity had just made contact with alien catballs...and you decided to make money out of this?"

"Look, I'm not crazy. I quickly realised that I wasn't going to get any money out of it. But there were other things the aliens could offer."

"The many gifts they had to give us?"

"Right! They told the world about that shortly after. The could offer us perfect health, of one thing. They actually asked if we want that. All diseases cured! They had to ask first! They're so crazy polite, those catballs. Of course humanity said yes. They sent out a nanocloud that healed the world. I didn't even have to pee so desperately in the morning after that."

"So they gave all this away for free...and you still wanted more?"

"Well look, man, like I said they gave us all perfect health...but we still aged. We still died. Our lifespans were longer...I'll probably live 150 years, they said. But still, we're only human. It's so selfish, you know? They can cure death, I know they can. They even admitted it to me once...but they won't! Because of their stupid alien rules!"

"And you thought you could make them change their stupid alien rules?"

"Let's go back to the catball I found in the garden...I was in his ship. And it doesn't look like a ship in there, man. It looks like...like...man. I don't know, man."

"Why I do pick up the habit of saying 'man" so often?"

"Look, you'll understand when I let you visit the ship. Anyway, I made friends with the catball who lived in there. Sure he was always politely asking for me to let him go back to his people. He managed to explain - communication between us was diffcult at first - that legally I now owned him because he's crashed in my property. Ha! I owned an alien! Imagine that! I asked him a lot of questions about his people. I got to know more about the aliens than everyone else on Earth thanks to owning my own catball. He eventually told me the ship that crash landed there was also a time machine and that it could travel back in time by twenty six years in one hop. I asked why twenty six years...he didn't even understand the question. That's just how those ships work. Anyway, he kept asking to be returned...and I kept politely declining until he cured death. Hehehe."

"You ARE crazy."

"You'd do the same thing. You literally did do the same thing. You're me. This all happens to you in the coming years."

"Not now that I've met you. I'll never became what you are. When the aliens get here, I'll hand over the catball."

"Hehehehe...you say that. But I know what's in your heart. Besides, I've already changed history. The ship is already in your garden early because I took a hop back to meet you."

"And WHY did you do that, exactly?"

"You'll see..."

"Okay, enough talking. It's time for you to prove that this is real. Show me, in the garden. Show me where the ship is."

And they went out to the garden. Steve look closely at the grass...there was no depression.

"There's nothing here!"

"It's there, man, look." Older Steve pointed to a single blade of grass that was bent down.

"That's...just a blade of grass! You ARE a crazy person! You're not me from the future at all...who are you."

"Oh, I forgot to mention that part, didn't I? The time travel spaceship...well...no other way to say this...it's bigger on the inside."

"OH COME ON."

TO BE CONTINUED
 
"What?"

"IT'S A FUCKING QUOTE FROM DOCTOR WHO."

"Calm down, man..."

"NO. NO. I listened to your BULLSHIT for hours. Hours! You tried to watch me pee...I still believed you. For some FUCKING REASON I believed you were me from the future travelled back in time...but you're not. Of course you're fucking not! A blade of grass. That's your evidence. A BLADE OF GRASS..."

"Just touch it, man, you'll feel the cloaked ship. It's small but it's there."

"I'm not fucking bending down on the wet grass and touching a fucking invisible spaceship you made up, you mad man. You're just some crazy person who hid in my wardrobe!"

"I knew about the dog, man. Explain that."

"I...fuck...I can't do this..."

Steve tried to walk away. The older Steve grabbed him and pulled him back. For his age he was surprisingly strong."

"You can't walk away from this, man."

"Let me go!"

"TOUCH MY SPACESHIP!" He pushed Steve onto the ground. Pushed him up against the grass. And Steve...felt something...

Suddenly he was being sucked inside of...a tunnel? But it was flesh. A flesh tunnel. This couldn't be real. He'd hit his head. He was dreaming. The tunnel kept going on and on. He tried to touch the side...it felt soft. Then, suddenly, he was at the end, deposited on the soft fleshy ground.

"Hello?" he said. It was all he could think to say.

"RRRRRR" came a noise. A shape in the shadows in front of him. Something came...rolling out.

It could only be described as a catball.

TO BE CONTINUED
 
"I can't...oh...no," said Steve, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. This was not what he'd imagined a space ship (or time machine) to be like. It was more like he was inside some other living entity. The air tasted funny. He felt faint. And the catball...he couldn't tell how large it was. It kept rolling in and out of his perception. He felt dizzy.

He fainted. The last thing he knew he was hitting the fleshy ground...then someone was pulling him up to his feet. He looked into the eyes of his older self.

"Sorry," said older Steve. "Shit, I shouldn't have shoved you in like that. I should have come with you. I remembered the first time I was in here...I think I fainted too."

"Where is it?" said Steve, looking around, scared. "Where's the...the catball?"

"Come on out, kitty," said Older Steve, smiling. The catball appeared again.

"RRRRRRR" it said. And yet, in Steve's head, he could hear words. It was talking to him telepathically.

"You aren't supposed to be here," it said. It did not sound hostile. If anything, it sounded tired.

"I told you I was going to do it," said Older Steve. "Twenty six years back, we went. Twenty six long years."

"It is the distance this vessel can travel," said the catball.

"Why...why twenty six years?" asked Steve.

"It is the distance this vessel can travel," said the catball.

"Get used to answers like that," said older Steve. "This kitty doesn't know anything."

"Hey," said Steve. "You said these aliens injected you with nanobots, made you healthy, extended your life...you could be nicer to it."

"You have nanobots too now," said the catball to Steve. "So you can breathe our air."

"I...I didn't even feel them going in," said Steve.

"Nicer?" asked older Steve. "I've had over twenty years of talking to this thing, trying to get some sense out of it. There's no answers, man. NONE. It won't tell me shit about the universe. But I still have the power. I own this stinking ship!"

Steve found that his older self was more terrifying than the alien catball.

"What you have done is a violation," said the catball to older Steve. "Two of you existing together...it is not right. What you plan is not right either."

"But are you going to stop me?" asked older Steve, a cruel smile on his face.

"No," said the catball. "The laws of my people prevent it."

"What do you have planned next?" asked Steve.

"Oh, that's the fun part," said older Steve. "We're going to take this thing back in time another twenty six years. You and me, together, man. And then...we're going to take over the fucking world."

Steve gasped.

TO BE CONTINUED
 
"I can do nothing to stop you," said the catball. "But I ask, again, please do not do this, Steve. Just you being here like this with your past self has created a new timeline. To travel back again would create a third timeline..."

"Yeah yeah, I've heard it all before, man," said the old Steve. "Pipe down or I'll kick shit out of you again."

"You...you kicked shit out of it?" asked young Steve, shocked and appalled.

"You don't know what it's been like!" said old Steve, a mad look in his eyes. "Over twenty years I've been talking to this...thing, trying to get answers out of it. Answers about the universe, man, about life! You know the questions! You think about them lying in bed at night. These fuckdamn aliens came to Earth but they didn't tell us anything! Gave us their fucking nanoclouds...so what! We still die! They don't! I've kicked this fucking catball so much but it doesn't hurt..."

"Every kick hurt," said the catball.

"Shut up! I don't believe your lies! You're not my friend! That's why I came back for you, man. You and me, together. Twenty six years in the past...with all our knowledge. We'll be kings of the world."

"You think I want to be your friend...knowing all this?" asked young Steve. He felt sick. "And what different will it make us being twenty six years in the past?"

"We'll be far from the aliens," said older Steve. "But we'll still have our nanobots inside us...they do other things, man. Let you see things you can't normally...you can see cancer. We can cure diseases! Become rich and famous. GET ALL THE WOMEN WE WANT."

"Oh," said young Steve.

"See, now you're tempted!" said the older. And young Steve had to admit that for a moment he was. Until he watched Older Steve run over and kick the catball.

"Stop!" he said.

"TAKE US BACK NOW," said the older. "TAKE US BACK IN TIME ANOTHER TWENTY SIX YEARS, THE ONLY TIME JUMP YOUR FUCKING SHIP CAN TRAVEL FOR REASONS YOU NEVER EXPLAINED."

"There are two humans on ship now," said the catball. "They must both state the order. Such is the law of my people."

"Ha!" said older Steve. "Makes sense, I guess. We both own the land you're on. Fine. Young me, you say it too. Say it's time to go back."

But young Steve instead grapped older Steve around the neck.

"What...ack...no!" cried older Steve.

"Just just just..." said younger, trying to get his older self to calm down even as he strangled him. Older Steve fought back. The nanobots inside him gave him strength.

"You tried to kill me!" he said, pushing his younger self away.

"I thought I could knock you out, get you out of the ship or something," said younger. Was that really what he'd been trying to do? He didn't know.

"LIAR!" said older. "Fuck you! I always knew I was right to hate myself! I'll kill YOU now, then there'll be nothing stopping me from going back twenty six years by msyelf." He ran at his younger self, that same crazed look in his eyes. Young Steve felt paralysed with terror...but his older self tripped over something. The catball.

"This is your only chance," said the catball to the younger Steve. Younger kicked the tripped older straight in the face as he tried to get up. He didn't know what else to do. But because of the nanobots, younger didn't know his own strength. His foot went right through older Steve's skull. Right into his brain. He had killed his older self.

"Thank you," said the catball.

"You...you tripped him," said Steve.

"I broke the laws of my people," said the catball. "But it did not seem to matter, as this is the end of me. I must self destruct now, me and my vessel. It is the only way to stop any further damage to the timeline. In days I shall crash land here myself. Of course I'll have no memory of what has happened, as it will be a past version of myself. But you will know, Steve. And you can do things differently."

"I..." said Steve, but before he could even say anything to the alien creature he was back in his garden. He heard a small explosion. The catball and its ship were gone.

But in a few days the ship would crash there again. And Steve would end up in the same position as his older self had been. Things would be different, he told himself. He was not the twisted monster that other Steve had begun. He would never abuse the catball that way, he wouldn't hold it hostage for power...

Or would he? He was already a killer. He'd done things he should never have done. And he still had the nanobots in him. That was something the catball had forgotten. It had been so quick to self destruct that it hadn't removed the nanobots. What would the younger version of the catball say when it detected them in Steve? Would it know what had happened? Would it know what Steve was?

Would it arrange to have Steve killed the same way it had done to Steve's older self?

Steve went upstairs. A madness had taken him. He took a razorblade and slit his wrists. He'd bleed the nanobots out. Then everything would be okay.

The blood wouldn't stop coming.

THE END
 
Of course maybe none of it happened and Steve just woke up wanting to kill himself and this was all the last thought of his dying imagination etc.
 
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