Anything Anywhere Anytime

By Robert Parker

When Edward meets Katie, he is swept off his feet, but thirty years later, he must return through time to make sure that they meet at all. Will she believe his crazy stories of mirrors you can walk through, humans who are controlled by cybernetic yolks, journeys into the depths of space, and weapons of unimaginable power?
Luckily for us, his attempts to woo his wife anew are well documented by an academic alien who has provided hyperlinked footnotes. These give historical context (sometimes amusing) regarding Edward’s strange vision of the future – or your past, depending on the readers time of view.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Parker
• Release date: Sep 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463830109

Robert Parker

I've been an Engineer, Technician and Programmer, so naturally I like technical stuff, but my stories stretch the limits of what is plausible and focus primarily on the absurdity of human behaviour.I have the usual number of wives, children, dogs, cats, talking trees etc.I'm also very fond of the wonderful Australian birdlife that comes freely to my home.These humans and other creatures inspire me. I have little interest in politics or war.If you've tried out my stories, I'd love to hear what you think, good or bad.

Book preview

Anything Anywhere Anytime

by Robert Parker

Copyright 2020 Robert Parker

Smashwords Edition

Dear reader, please note that all characters and planets mentioned in this story are purely fictional and any resemblance to known zoological species, or the astronomical bodies on which they live, is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Other stories by this Author available on Smashwords

Egg Heads

Urchin House Blues

Eat Me Not

Alien Kidnap

Reporting Errors

For the benefit of other readers, please report errors via google forms.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Because life is short and you are beautiful

Chapter 2 - Old Beginnings

Chapter 3 - Sally Sparrow Moments

Chapter 4 – How to Make a Big Impression

Chapter 5 – Practice Makes Perfect

Chapter 6 – Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

Chapter 7 – Coincidence

Chapter 8 – Captain Light Sabre

Chapter 9 – This Is The End

Chapter 10 – For Took's Sake

Appendix I – Author's Notes (hyperlinked for convenience)

Appendix II – The One-SpaceTM Revolution (A historical review)

Thank You

Acknowledgements

About Robert Parker

Chapter 1 – Because Life Is Short and You Are Beautiful

When the guard let Katie into the stark-white interview room, the prisoner was seated, waiting, an uncertain smile hovering on his sun-burnt lips.

A transparent barrier separated them, and he was the one in custody, but she still felt like the sacrificial lamb. When the door closed behind her, and the latch made a firm click, she jumped, and the prisoner’s smile broadened.

Katie glanced in the mirror on her left. Her reflection didn’t offer much support. She looked too young to be grilling a man twice her age. She turned back to him, trying to think of a way to wipe that smug smile off his ugly mug.

What did they really know about the prisoner? A greying middle-aged Caucasian of above average height and weight. His was a solid frame, gone to seed. Twenty years of tax declarations boldly stated his occupation as an arms dealer, but before then, nothing. He might have parachuted in from another planet.

‘Tony, if that’s your real name, you wanted to see me. Tell me why?’

He remained silent, but she could hear his breathing through the overhead speakers.

She moved closer. ‘I’ve called in a lot of favours to come here, so don’t waste my time.’

His face tightened, but that was all. His recent tan had taken years off him. He looked closer to fifty than seventy.

She tried again. ‘You’re accused of murdering a close friend of mine. Did you want to tell me your reason?’

Close friend? It hurt her to call John that. John had been many things. He was a thorn in the government’s side. His death an embarrassment. But he was never her friend.

She approached the barrier and tapped the glass right in front of the prisoner’s face. He didn’t blink.

They did not share the same space, did not breathe the same air, yet she could smell him, or what she remembered he smelled like. A musky, animal scent, clouded with alcohol. They’d met several times before, but she’d not liked him then, and she doubted her opinion would improve. Still, here was a mystery, and she must keep an open mind.

‘You asked me to come. Why won’t you talk?’

He wet his cracked lips. ‘Senator,’ he began, then didn’t continue.

This was unnerving.

Too restless to sit, she backed up to the cinder-block wall and its cold hard surface helped her to collect her thoughts. This was not the craven man who had attended John’s political rally, or the sleaze who had followed her across an ocean. Apart from his tan, the stupid bandage he’d previously worn on his forehead was gone. He looked more confident, less repulsive, but still a carnivore. Men like him had circled her all her life, and she didn’t want to fall prey to this one, not when she had the advantage.

‘You’ve come because I know you,’ he said.

True enough. And she wouldn’t leave until she knew just how much he knew.

She turned to look in the mirror again. Still no sign of support there. She worried her eyes might display weakness. No amount of eye-shadow could repair her benign doe-like appearance. Squint as she might, the best she could convey was nervous resolve.

‘Naturally, I got your letters,’ she said. ‘They were,’ – how could she put it – ‘surprising. Who told you so much about me?’

He’d gone silent again. Holding his breath it seemed.

‘In your letters, you mention my friend in the past tense, but you wrote them before he died. They would be very incriminating, don’t you think.’

He shrugged. His smug expression hadn't changed, but his eyes shimmered. What had saddened him? Maybe she could make him feel sorry for himself.

‘You were caught riding a horse along a deserted beach in Fiji. That can’t have been easy with your damaged shoulders.’ There were scars from a recent operation on both. Hospital records indicated bilateral trauma, but gave no indication of the cause.

His jaw muscles twitched, but he withheld whatever response he’d intended. His eyes never wavered from hers.

Did he know the risk she’d taken to be here? If the government knew, and they would eventually, they wouldn’t say anything, but her rivals would love to hear that she’d visited a political assassin. She could live with that, but she needed to know what he knew, and, if necessary, prevent him from revealing it to all and sundry.

Katie reached into her clutch bag, felt the poly-ceramic weapon there. Undetectable by x-ray or metal detector, its ammunition would not be worried by the poly-carbonate barrier. As she fingered its trigger, she doubted even this old arms dealer would recognise it. He would never know what hit him. He might not even know why, but maybe it was time to end this farce. Then she remembered one other dubious fact they told her about him.

‘Why did you pay a farmer two million Yuan to hire an old horse?’

A neutral question, or so she’d thought, but unrestrained tears coursed his corrugated skin and descended into his greying beard.

‘Why are you crying?’ She was pleased that her voice came out more confident than she felt.

He laughed gently, his voice slightly distorted by their electronic connection. ‘I cry because life is short and you are beautiful.’ He looked up to the ceiling, blinking. ‘That’s a line from Dr Who, Episode 10, Series 3 of the second millennium series. Made ten years before you were born. They’ll make a full length holo version in a while, but it’s not a patch on the original. They left out all the good bits, including that corny line.’

Katie wondered now if she would ever get a straight answer. He’d been evasive when they’d last met, his dishonesty revealed, though she’d had her own problems at the time and she may have been too hasty to judge.

His gaze returned to her and he sighed before wiping his nose on the prison-garb sleeve. ‘Sorry. With this old body and you so young, you’ll think my sentiment inappropriate, but it was sincere.’

Katie snorted, but she wasn’t upset, only impatient. Men were always trying to pick her up, so his compliment was the least crazy thing he’d done so far. ‘Original or not, if you're going to express your undying love, please be quick. I have a tight schedule.’

‘You see,’ he continued, ‘it’s hard to be original when you’ve returned from the future. I can’t believe the fashions. Zippers, Velcro. I can’t believe I ever wore clothing like that. But yes, Senator, Dear. Let’s get down to business.’ He sat up straighter, again looked at the ceiling before reciting: ‘You once had a dog. The dog’s name was Rooks or Books - something like that.’

‘Tooks,’ she said with a nod.

‘Correct. Now please listen. I need you to do for me what you did to him.’ He suddenly grinned. ‘Of course, I’ll help.’

‘How can...’ she started, but couldn't describe the sick thing she’d done a decade earlier.

‘How can I help you? Well, you’ll need a body. Mine.’ He looked around the room, though not at the mirror. ‘Won’t be long now. What time is it anyway?’

Reflexively she looked at her ring-watch, but didn't answer him. He was playing games, a complete nutter. If he was aware of her frustration, he showed no concern, and even relaxed with a sigh. ‘Thank god, the hard part is done. I can stop performing.’

‘Performing?’

‘Yes. Couldn’t you tell? I had to stick exactly to my lines.’

She shook her head. ‘What? Who were you performing for?’

He looked at the mirror. ‘Sometime in the next thirty years, the remainder of this meeting is lost. I’ve seen the recording. It stops at the moment you look at your watch. I don't know what happens from here on. Not entirely. I do know I convince you to meet me. The question is how? You never said.’

‘I never said?’ she scoffed. ‘Well, I can tell you now. This is the last time we’ll ever meet.’

Katie was surprised how angry she’d become. Here was another madman in her life, trying to manipulate her. She'd been tricked into knowing the time, so she knew the guard would return in ten minutes. She must prove his ignorance quickly, or kill him.

She could use her gun to demand... but no; this man would never respond to any demand she made. Maybe a reward? She could offer nothing to him here, except to be a witness to his vanity. It often worked with her fellow politicians, and this guy seemed no crazier.

She used her public speaking voice to ask, ‘Will you tell me who you really are?’

‘Who I am, or who’ll I be?’ His face fell. ‘Sorry. I forget my manners. I’ve been acting like an ass. My real name, the one my parents gave me, is Edward Velcon, but please don’t bother looking me up, not yet. I am an even bigger idiot right now. Let me finish college and you’ll get to know me, that me, very well over the next few years.’

Katie blinked. Where had all the smugness gone. He’d done it again. The man was a human chameleon. Had he finally dropped his camouflage, or was this just another persona?

‘I've been lost without you, Katie,’ he continued. ‘I'm not the same man you will know. Believe me; you'll like the other me much better than this me. You must have done, for you swept me off my feet; but let me explain. It all happened thirty years from now.’

Chapter 2 - Old Beginnings

PhD Candidate, Heiborant Starchin, humbly submits this, a translation from ancient English of a recorded interview recovered from an archaeology dig on a southern island of Sol3 known as Australia. The only person speaking appears to be the same implicated in the Fiji incident of 2060AD/56BUA. He claims to have returned from 2090AD/26BUA, only 13 years before the end of non-augmented civilisation. It highlights the many dangers of time travel and is also of great historical and anthropological interest for the mention of lost technology, implied extraterrestrial contact, and the earliest mention of temporal transparency.

Artefacts on the memory device on which this recording was found indicate that an attempt was made to delete the data. The start and end of the interview could not be recovered.

General notes for historical context:

2060AD is the orbital count used by inhabitants of SOL3 for the period for which this recording took place, being 56 orbits of SOL4 Before Universal Augmentation became mandatory for humans (hence 56 BUA). No one can agree what the letters AD stood for.

Fiji, where the incident took place, is believed to have been a much smaller equatorial island off the coast of Australia, now below the current sea level.

Further notes have been provided in Appendix I. These can be accessed by hyperlink from the relevant dialogue. To return to the dialogue from the appendix, click on the note heading.

To abbreviate the transcript, periods of silence are marked by a ~ for each breathcon of silence.

The transcript begins with the following declaration:

Katie, in the future – our future – we will be lovers.

~~~

You laugh, but just hear me out. Something will happen between then and now. You will be convinced that I return to this time from the future. I’m hoping it will be this me who changes your mind, but I’m sorry to say, I never quite believed you when you told the younger me I would be making this trip; not even when they came, just as you said they would.

~~

No, you don’t understand. You haven’t told me anything yet, but you will, in about ten years, not long after our son dies. Now that I think about it, that might be what convinced you. You didn’t even want children. I pushed you to try, and he only lived a week.

You took our baby’s death well, much better than anyone expected. I guess you’d come to accept that the future was fixed by then. Set in RegocreteTM, so to speak. [Author's Note #2-1] You said, of our tragedy, that it was just the way it was, then told me I