Another Thing, Another Where, Another Time

By Robert Parker

Katie's latest adventure is mostly told through the eyes of an 80's native. Roger Rogers is the CEO of a clandestine government lie factory. His influential father-in-law has all but guaranteed his financial comfort and career success. He never expected to also score the most stunning mistress anyone has ever envied. Life couldn't be easier, until he dies, or thinks he has. Was it a dream? It seemed very real. Then a representative from the American government invites Roger to find a man suspected of meddling in their politics. Refusal is not an option. To make matters worse, his beautiful but slightly weird mistress is showing signs of disloyalty. With nothing going to plan, and frequent blackouts, Roger begins to doubt his sanity.
This novel explores the notion that history is nothing but a collection of memories which we all agree on. As with Katie, some characters have appeared in a previous novel, Anything Anywhere Anytime, but that story was set fifty years later, so there are no major spoilers. For the excessively curious reader born in this millennium, there are hyperlinks to wiki entries on the interesting developments from that period.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Parker
• Release date: Dec 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215420997

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

Another Thing,

Another Where,

Another Time

by Robert Parker

Copyright 2023 Robert Parker

Smashwords Edition

Blurb

Once a time-agent, always a time-agent. Katie Velcon must interrupt her honeymoon in 2039 to visit Canberra, Australia in the 80’s. There are fractures in the time-lattice and Katie’s cyborg overlords want them healed. While she knows she will succeed, there is a problem: her time machine only travels backwards. Will her new husband be disappointed if she returns to their nuptials sixty years older?

Katie’s latest adventure is mostly told through the eyes of an 80’s native. Roger Rogers is the CEO of a clandestine government lie factory. His influential father-in-law has all but guaranteed his financial comfort and career success. He never expected to also score the most stunning mistress anyone has ever envied. Life couldn’t be easier, until he dies, or thinks he has. Was it a dream? It seemed very real. Then a representative from the American government invites Roger to find a man suspected of meddling in their politics. Refusal is not an option. To make matters worse, his beautiful but slightly weird mistress is showing signs of disloyalty. With nothing going to plan, and frequent blackouts, Roger begins to doubt his sanity.

This novel explores the notion that history is nothing but a collection of memories which we all agree on. As with Katie, some characters have appeared in a previous novel, Anything Anywhere Anytime, but that story was set fifty years later, so there are no major spoilers. For the excessively curious reader born in this millennium, there are hyperlinks to wiki entries on the interesting developments from that period.

Dear reader, please note that all characters and technologies mentioned in this story are purely fictional and any resemblance to known persons or the devices they wear is purely coincidental. No artificial intelligence (apart from spell checker) was used in the creation of this book.

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

Anything Anywhere Anytime (Katie’s previous adventure)

Eat Me Not

Alien Kidnap

In the Spirit of Humanity

* control = total;

Cover Art

A montage from three sources:

Oil Painting by Eugene von Guerard (1811–1901):Bush fire between Mount Elephant and Timboon1857 (Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)

Oil Painting by Eugene von Guerard (1811–1901):Warrenheip hills near ballarat1854 (Wikimedia Commons - Public Domain)

Photographs taken by the author of the Australian Parliament House from Brisbane Avenue, Barton, Australian Capital Territory, 2022

Contents:

Prologue - September 2039, Melbourne, Australia

Chapter 1 - May 1980, Barton, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 2 - November 1980, Barton, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 3 - November 1980 – April 1982, Manuka, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 4 - April 1982, Barton, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 5 - April 1982, Kingston, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 6 - November 1984, Civic, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 7 - July 1987, Namadgi National Park, 30km South of Canberra, Australia

Chapter 8 - September 1987, Namadgi National Park, 30km South of Canberra, Australia

Chapter 9 - August 1987, Barton, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 10 - April 1983, Mars Base 1, The Musk Caverns, Arsia Mons, Mars

Chapter 11 - August 1987, Barton, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 12 - August 1987, Civic, Canberra, Australia

Chapter 13 - September, 1987, Batemans Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 14 - September, 1987, Batemans Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 15 - September, 1987, Batemans Bay, New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 16 - April 1983, The Kings Highway, New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 17 - April 1983, Bungendore, New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 18 - April 1983, Canberra, New South Wales, Australia

Chapter 19 - April 1983, Canberra, Australia – 1788, WoyWoy, Australia

Chapter 20 - July, 1788, Putty Beach, 80km North of Sydney

Chapter 21 - February 1789, Putty Beach, 80km North of Sydney

Epilogue - May 1980, Canberra, Australia & January 2031, Melbourne, Australia

Appendix 1 - How fast does a spinner spin?

Acknowledgements

Prologue

September 2039, Melbourne, Australia

Was she dreaming, or had someone just kissed her lightly on the cheek?

Experimentally, Katie cracked open one eye. The room was filled with a golden light. For a moment, she thought she was back on Mars.

‘Good morning, my beloved,’ said Edward, a cheerful puppy dog expression plastered across his broad face. He held out a steaming cup of coffee. ‘Welcome to your first day as the extraordinarily beautiful wife of a fabulously rich genius. As King of Regocrete, you are now Queen.’

Katie groaned and closed that eye again. Edward could be unbearable before coffee. She vaguely remembered marrying him yesterday. Would she have to wake up to this kind of exuberance for the rest of her life?

Instead of requesting confirmation, she grumbled: ‘Why is the sky so red?’

‘Oh, the usual bushfires I expect.’

Edward put down the cup (out of her reach) and went to open the curtains. ‘They used to say Red sky at night, Shepherd’s delight; Red sky in morning, Sailor’s warning – or maybe I have that the wrong way around? Either way, it means you need to get up.’

‘What? Why?’ She had both eyes open now.

He laughed, but his humour sounded forced. ‘Katie Velcon, who art renowned across the universe for her punctuality, heaven forbid she be late for her own honeymoon – our honeymoon.’

‘But we don’t leave until twelve. What time is it? Nine?’

‘Eight fifty, actually.’ He sat on the bed for a brief moment then bounced up again. ‘Stupidly, I agreed to travel to Chile with you by OneSpace, but, you’ll remember, I only agreed to do that once. So, to avoid being dematerialised twice, I shall get myself to the international OneSpace hub in Bendigo. It shall take me three hours to drive across Melbourne. Meanwhile, I expect, you will depart at eleven fifty-nine, having showered, and done the other things you women do that take forever. You will then use our private OneSpace portal, which I generously provided, and shall meet me for our allotted departure at twelve noon, looking just as relaxed and radiant as you do now.’

Katie sat up. She didn’t feel radiant. She glanced briefly at the angry sun rising outside their bedroom window, then frowned at Edward. ‘You sound a little tense?’

‘Me, tense?’ He finally handed her the cup that he’d brought in earlier – much of the coffee had ended up in the saucer. She’d barely grasped it before he strode to the other end of the room. ‘Why would I be tense? I’m about to step through a lump of rock. Someone who looks very much like me will reappear, instantly, out of another rock located eleven thousand two hundred and eighty kilometres away. Why on Earth should I be tense?’

It had been six hours since her last caffeine hit, so she took a long sip before replying.

‘It can’t be that far to Chile. The diameter of the earth is only thirteen thousand kilometres.’

That shut him up for a moment. ‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘It’s under ten thousand as the worm crawls, but it’s still a bloody long way.’

Katie snorted. ‘I’ve been further, lots of times.’

All of Edward’s bounce had gone. He looked positively terrified.

Katie wanted to wrap him in her arms, comfort him, but, at the same time, she couldn’t believe this was the same man who would, thirty years later, travel back through time just to convince her to marry this younger self. She was fairly sure she’d buried the older, braver Edward, but there were doubts. She hoped she would come to love this version as much as he loved her.

‘You’ll survive,’ she said. ‘I know for a fact that you will go on to do many amazing things.’

‘I love your optimism, Katie, but what’s your point? That using OneSpace is safe?’

She tried to smile without gritting her teeth. ‘I use OneSpace, and I’m still the same person, right?’

He nodded again, slowly, then rushed forward to kiss her – on the mouth this time.

They’d been a couple for six years, but the strength of their chemistry still overwhelmed her. She reached up to pull him down, but her hand met empty space. Edward had picked up his holiday baggage and was heading out through the door.

‘See you at twelve,’ he said in parting.

Moments later she heard their vintage Audi-Electra backing out of the driveway.

Katie shook her head. Edward just hadn’t adapted to being rich. Why was he driving?

They were not trillionaires yet (that would come next week after the Renewable Energy stocks she’d shorted paid out), but even so. Instead of driving, Edward could easily afford an air-taxi (they hardly ever crashed these days), or he could man-up and use their OneSpace portal, as any sensible rich person would.

She was only the Queen of Regocrete because he was the King, founder, and major shareholder of Regocrete Industries, with clients literally as far as the moon. But, as a couple, they could afford to do nearly anything, except spare the time to make love before their departure for Chile. This was particularly frustrating as she wasn’t certain she’d ever see him again.

Records of her future, in the distant future, were not clear. The older version of Edward – the one who she’d last spoken with in a high security prison – had implied that they would have some years together, but hadn’t specified how many.

Anyway, it was good that the younger Edward had left when he had. There were things to do.

She threw off the bed covers and quickly packed. She needed to be ready before the builders arrived to renovate their house while she and Edward were on their honeymoon. The ageing house that he’d inherited from a mysterious uncle was in desperate need of remodelling. Edward didn’t know she had planned this. If Edward couldn’t spend his billions, she would, and she wanted the work to be finished before they returned.

But, of course, home renovation wasn’t the main reason she’d begged and pleaded to have their honeymoon in the country of her alleged birth. History in the future said she would be in Chile in two days time, and since history couldn’t be changed, she had better be there.

The builders arrived in force just before eleven. Their project manager accompanied her to the domestic OneSpace portal located next to the bathroom door. She put down her travel bags to fiddle with the deadbolt on the thick steel plate covering the portal. Edward had insisted on it, but the steel plate wasn’t really necessary; the OneSpace disaster that would suck half a million people to their deaths wasn’t due to occur for another thirty three years. It also annoyed her that Edward didn’t know she had provided the seed money for his startup; there had been no rich uncle. But while all these deceits were necessary, they didn’t feel right.

‘So,’ said the project manager, ‘you want two more of these magic portals in the extension. One hidden in your dressing room and another in the kitchen pantry?’ He looked doubtfully at the plans on his holo-projector. ‘I guess you have good reasons for hiding them away like that, but do you mind me asking why you need three OneSpace portals? I thought you only needed one to reach a OneSpace hub, right?’

Katie nodded. These were the sort of questions she hated. Why couldn’t they just take her money and do the work. It would be easier to be honest, but hardly any fun, so instead she lied. ‘One of these new portals will connect directly with our country estate on New Caledonia. The other will exit on our private yacht near Bermuda. Is that okay?’

The project manager’s face remained unnaturally passive. He nodded several times, then picked up her small travel bag and handed it to her. She avoided his attempt to touch her hand – her bottom would have been his next target. ‘Well, Mrs Velcon. I hope you have a pleasant holiday. You can leave this money pit – I mean exciting renovation – with us. You won’t recognise the place when you get back.’

‘Remember,’ she said before opening the door to the OneSpace portal, ‘I may drop by, without notice, at any time, just to see how you’re getting on. Make sure this door isn’t blocked, and remind your men, if it’s damaged, then they, this suburb, and half of Melbourne will be sucked into a black-hole, never to return.’

Katie wasn’t sure if this was possible. No one really understood how OneSpace portals worked, but the project manager wasn’t listening anyway. He was staring past her at – or rather through – the OneSpace portal. He was seeing what shouldn’t be there – another room, one not located in her home. This was the OneSpace hub where the sister half of the portal’s crystal lived. Even Katie didn’t know where that other room was located – presumably somewhere in Melbourne, though you could never be sure with OneSpace hubs. Nevertheless, she didn’t hesitate to step through the door and pull it closed behind her. If she’d stayed another ten seconds, the project manager was likely to make a pass at her – men couldn’t help themselves – and then there would be the danger she’d kill him. Several undetectable methods came to mind but she brushed them away.

She’d felt no sensation arriving in the other room, apart from the relief at being alone. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sense her passage through OneSpace, not when the distance between the portals was less than a thousand kilometres. If Edward was right, then she’d been dematerialised and rebuilt, an identical but completely different person – physically at least – made up using a whole new set of sub-atomic particles. She felt the same though, so maybe the soul travelled by a different route.

There was another door hinged on the far side of the portal. She briefly looked back at the door inside her house, wondering if she would ever see it again, then she used the second door to lock the portal from the hub side where she stood. The face of the door, her door, was labelled #356.

The room which she had entered was roughly circular. It contained forty-two other doors, all hiding other portals. All, apart from one, was closed, either on this or the other side. Through the one open portal, she could see another hub, with another forty-two doors, and so on. The portals could open to anywhere in the Western world, but many countries, Chile included, didn’t allow unregulated travel. So to get there, she would need to pass through three more portals to reach the international OneSpace terminal in Bendigo, where she would meet Edward – assuming he didn’t chicken out before he got there.

It was rare to see anyone in a domestic OneSpace hub. Only the extremely rich could afford private portals, and the rich detested having to share. Commercial hubs were a different matter. The company who sold the OneSpace portals refused to sell matching pairs (for safety reasons, they said), so even the two new portals she was having installed in their home would only connect to other hubs. Still, they would provide the alternative escape routes that she needed. After her experience in the prison where she’d last seen the older Edward, she wanted to be in another room with only one exit.

She checked her smart-ring. It was nearly eleven, Melbourne time. She had an hour to kill before meeting Edward. He had probably reached the International Hub by now, but if she went to join him there immediately, her time would be wasted on bureaucracy. She would let Edward do all that passport nonsense. Meanwhile, she could catch some proper smoke-free sunshine.

Katie turned to the neighbouring door, #355, and checked that the blob of clear nail polish she’d placed on the hinge a few days earlier was still intact. As an extra precaution, she’d laced the polish with a blend of own perfumes which would morph with age. A quick sniff confirmed that the door had not been entered since she’d last used it.

Beyond the door, two steel bulkheads divided a short corridor. These bulkheads were fitted with water-tight hatches that could spring closed without notice. She entered, locked the door to the OneSpace hub behind her, and moved swiftly to the far end. Somewhere between the two bulkheads, she had passed through another portal. The only clue that she had travelled four thousand kilometres was a slight rise in temperature. As was her habit, she put her ear to the next door and was greeted with the welcoming cries of sea gulls.

The newly wed Velcons would never own an island estate, or that yacht near Bermuda, as she had bragged about to the builder, but Edward had agreed to her request for a private cabin on the Odyssey Princess, a luxury liner that continuously cruised the islands of Fiji. He would never step foot on this ship, which would be entirely understandable if he had known of his future experiences in the past on a similar ship. This younger Edward claimed that he just didn’t have the inclination for lying around on deck chairs, and the OneSpace portals meant that she could spend her days here and still join him in their home in the evening.

A small screen above the door to her cabin read: Cabin service complete.

Confident that she would be undisturbed, she stepped inside.

‘Right on time,’ said Sam.

Sam reclined on the king-size bed. He was smirking. He didn’t so much as flinch when Katie angled her poison-tipped nail-file against his wrinkled throat. This was a pathetic gesture on her part. They both knew that Sam was safe from her – future history recorded that he would live into his nineties and then disappear. The age of time travellers could be deceptive, but he didn’t look a day over seventy.

‘What’re you doing here?’ she snarled.

‘Waiting for you, my dear.’

She took a deep breath and rushed to the bar fridge. She needed something to calm her nerves but the fridge was empty, apart from fresh milk and a pair of slippers. An array of empty liqueur bottles littered the bed beside Sam.

‘You’ve changed,’ he said.

She glared at him. ‘You can talk!’

Sam looked nothing like the young man she’d worked with just a few years earlier by her timeline. Gone were the cool threads and slicked back hair. Now he wore the uniform of a cabin steward, a receding hairline, and bottle thick glasses.

‘How can you see through those things?’ she asked.

‘Laser eye surgery,’ he replied. ‘Had them done in India. Very cheap.’

Katie snorted. She never knew whether to take him seriously. She might have killed him just to see if the future really was set, but the older Edward had told her that Sam had saved his life at some point, so she held it in. ‘You still haven’t told me why you’re here.’

‘You have a new mission,’ he replied and downed the last tiny bottle of gin. ‘As I expect you knew was coming.’

Katie squeezed her eyes shut and breathed slowly. The warm salty air entering from the balcony helped, but what she really needed was time under the tropical sun, just half an hour, and to pretend that her life was normal.

‘I had suspicions,’ she said. ‘They tried to teach me things I’ve not needed to know. How long have you known?’

Sam shrugged.

Of course, he’d always known. Their cyborg masters didn’t waste resources by sending more time agents back than necessary. Sam had, or would, come back knowing everything he ever needed to know for the rest of his life, and mission, which were much the same thing. She, by contrast, as the honeypot of their team, had arrived in the year twenty twenty-one knowing almost nothing. They didn’t even warn her that she would arrive in the middle of a pandemic. It all seemed grossly unfair.

Dutifully, she sat back in an armchair to absorb what new information they would allow her.

***

An hour later, Katie stepped through a local portal into Melbourne’s International OneSpace hub. She would continue with the pantomime that was her life, every moment neatly scripted (though not by her). She’d been told since birth that she must do this to maintain the order of the universe.

Edward was standing in the hub foyer, waiting for her, as history had recorded he would.

‘I can’t do it,’ he blurted before she could form a wry smile. From her point of view, she wouldn’t see him again for many years, so she hoped he wouldn’t make a fuss. She wanted to remember him as the naive and optimistic version of a man she’d once met and hoped to meet again.

Katie opened her bag and passed Edward the airline ticket she’d purchased days earlier. ‘Don’t be upset,’ she said. ‘See, I’m not worried, really. I’ve booked you first-class. I couldn’t get a direct flight, so you’ll need to spend a night on Tahiti, but we should meet again in Santiago in two days, then onto the lakes district.’

He looked startled, his eyes flicking to the many OneSpace portals in sight. ‘You knew I’d chicken out?’

Katie blinked back her tears. ‘Darling, I know you better than you know yourself.’

According to Edward’s older self – the one who had travelled back through time – it had taken him four days to fly to Santiago. There would be trouble refuelling the ancient aircraft at Easter Island, but there was no point warning the younger Edward about that. He would join her eventually, but she didn’t know what state she’d be in by then.

While he would travel