My mail order time machine
Ninth
Baldie dropped in. He fell on my carpet, bleeding from multiple wounds. Before he died, he managed to hit me over the head screaming that the robot overlord was able to track him down just because I had mentioned the general location of the safe house. I watched him die with mixed feelings. I did find him rather annoying in general and did not really care for his visits, but did I want him dead? I activated the return marker and his body went back to the future. I think things are going to escalate pretty fast now, but I can’t help wondering why the attack is going to be successful when I already know it’s going to happen. This time travel stuff is doing my head in. Tomorrow I’ll have to go shopping for something to clean the bloodstains in my carpet. Or maybe I’ll just pretend they are part of the design.
I woke up feeling reasonably good. I felt rested, energized, and notably free from headache. It had been a while since I did not wake up with a headache.
I should go out for a run, I thought. When was the last time I did that?
I couldn’t remember.
I went to look for my shoes. I found them in the wardrobe in bedroom. I tried them on, and they still fit. My feet hadn’t changed their size. Not sure if that is even a common problem, but I was happy it wasn’t my problem.
I thought the chip in the shoe probably wouldn’t work anymore. But to find out I would have to find my iPod. Which would probably need to be charged. And that of course means that I would need to find the charger too.
I may need to explain to younger readers that the chip I mentioned was a tracking device of sort that would connect with the iPod to track distance of the run. And iPod was a device for listening to music. I used to do that while running. Listening to music, that is. And I would take note of the distances I would run. The device could not track the route, or calories, or anything like that, I think. Just the distance, and pace.
Anyway, I wanted to see if it would still work.
So much to do before I could head out to take my run.
Luckily, my apartment is small and there are not too many places in which small electronic devices could be hiding. There’s a couple of boxes for assorted small devices, there’s a random plastic bag at the back of the wardrobe for temporary storage, and, if my memory is correct, another random bag in one of the kitchen cabinets. Some items may also be stored in the bookshelf, either at either end of any of the shelves or anywhere in between, on top or behind books or other items on the shelves.
I started to look through every possible place where the iPod, and its charger, could be, starting with the boxes. Emptied both on the floor and started going through the resulting pile of assorted items. Found many interesting things, but not the iPod, nor the charger. I did find an old HTC phone on which I’d been meaning to install Linux for some time already, and I set it aside next to my computer keyboard for later. Would just need to find the memory card, which should be somewhere in these boxes too. Or maybe in one of the bags, I thought and moved on get the bag from the wardrobe and dumped the contents on the floor.
Couldn’t find the memory card, so went to look for the other bag. Opened all the kitchen cabinets and looked everywhere, even pulling things off the shelves to make sure nothing was hiding behind. I did find some spices which were out of date and which I set down next to the stove. I’d have to check if they could potentially still be used. I also made a mental note about coming up with a joke about old spice for when I potentially talk about this with someone at some point. Probably a future me, who will then reply with something like ‘oh yeah, that’s a good one, I remember when I came up with it – but this one’s better’ and then of course proceed to tell a vastly superior joke that is a result of several years of honing and polishing.
I then returned to my search for the memory card, and that bag that was supposed to be in one of the kitchen cabinets. In that moment, however, I remembered that I had moved the bag, probably into the little closet that houses the boiler. I went there and found the bag. And another two I didn’t know about. All full of wires, old chargers, cables, all kinds of hardware. I found four different memory cards, but not the micro-SD-card I was looking for.
Which, I suddenly remembered, was of course already in the old HTC phone. I had put it there so I wouldn't have to look for it. I reached out to pick up the phone, and after a couple of minutes of turning it around in my hands I managed to figure where the slot for the memory card was and how to open it, I managed to confirm that a memory card was indeed in the slot. It might even already have the files needed to run Linux, I couldn’t remember. I would investigate it later. For now, I placed the phone on my computer desk in front of the monitor.
It was in that moment that I was reminded of the original search for the iPod. I looked at messy pile of a collection of various electronic devices and accessories on the carpet. What does my iPod look like? It is blue. What was it? Nano? No, mini? No, nano. Or something. I couldn’t really remember. Blue, with whitish round controller thingy, that also probably had a proper name. And the screen. I think it had some kind of grey-black LCD screen. Or was it green? Black on white? No, grey. I think. I looked at the pile. I didn’t see anything resembling what I thought I was looking for.
I moved a couple of things in the pile. No, still nothing. I started picking up things one by one and moving them to a new pile. If the iPod was here, I’d certainly spot it at some point, latest when I’d pick it up to move it to the next pile.
I went through the whole pile, moved everything to a new pile. I saw many interesting things I forced myself to ignore, and concentrated on finding the iPod. But I did not find it.
It must be somewhere else.
I looked around, trying to think. Where else could something like that be?
I turned my attention to the bookshelf, and went through every shelf, systematically emptying each shelf and putting all the items on the table, and then putting them back on the shelf. No sign of the iPod.
Where else could it be?
Where else?
I had a sudden realisation. Where else indeed. I looked at my computer desk.
Exactly where I left it after the last time that I used it. Where I always had it when I was charging it up. In the far corner of my computer desk, to the side of the monitor stand. There it was, with the headphone cable wrapped around it and the charger right next to it with the charger cable wrapped around the charger.
When was the last time I used it? Must have been couple of years ago. I picked it up and tried to turn it on. Nothing happened. I unwrapped the charger cable and plugged in the charger then connecting the iPod to it with the cable. I could see the charging indicator coming on the screen, so I placed the device back on the desk.
Now it was time to clean up the mess on the carpet. But this time, I’d be smarter about what is stored where.
I always think that, and next time I need something it is even harder than before to find what I’m looking for. But this time I will do better.
I divided the items on the carpet to three roughly similar sized heaps, based on whether they were cables, chargers, screws, backplates, front plates, phones, etc. Unrecognized items got their own little pile, which I in the end combined with heap number 3.
Then I put all the items in the separate heaps into three separate bags and placed all three bags into a bigger bag. Then I took the bag and looked around for where to put it.
Next to the computer desk? It was my first choice for almost everything. But no, I decided against it.
In the bookshelf? I supposed if the items were in boxes, that could work, but a bag on a shelf would just seem unsightly. So that was a no.
I decided the wardrobe was the best choice, and so I headed into the bedroom, opened the wardrobe doors and made some space on the bottom shelf to shove the bag into. Tried to close the door, opened it again to push the back in a bit further and tried to close the door again. It still didn’t fully close, so I opened it again and pushed the bag in further. The shelf above lifted slightly, so I pushed it down while adjusting the items on the bottom shelf to occupy the space more evenly. When I was satisfied that nothing was sticking out from the front and the shelf above seemed to be positioned as it should be, I closed the door again. This time it closed properly.
I came back to the living room and just as I was entering there was the now familiar rush of air being displaced with a swooshing sound. I felt at once annoyed. Then I saw baldie materialize midair and I watched him fall on my carpet.
I saw he was wounded, bleeding. Badly. I went down on my knees next to him, trying to see if I could do something. He was screaming.
You idiot!! You f*cking idiot!! You f*cking had to tell the whole f*cking world where the f*cking safehouse was, you absolute f*cking total f*ckface of a f*cking idiot!!! Shit!!! ~F*CK!!!
As he was screaming, his arms were flailing, hitting me on the head with his clenched fists. He hit me once, twice. Then once more, slowly – more of a glance than a hit really, as his voice trailed off repeating his last word. And then his arms fell, and his head slumped to the side.
I looked at the dead body lying on the floor in front of me. My dead body. That was me, from the future. How far in the future was it again? Does it matter?
It’s me. From the future. Dead. This is how I will die.
This. Is. How. I. Will. Die.
Or ...
Or is it?
Can I change it?
I pulled myself away from my future version’s lifeless body and perched myself on the edge of my sofa.
What am I going to do now?
Are the robots going to come after me now? They know where I live. One of them already paid a visit even. And I killed it.
Why didn’t they come after me to begin with? I am the one that started everything by getting the time machine. Get rid of me and they get rid of all the future versions of me as well.
What are my future versions doing that calls for killing them, but not me? Was it the world domination plans? But I was supposed to create those, and I think I had completely forgot about it since that day I went and stole the time machine from my future self.
What am I going to do now?
What am I going to do with this body?
I looked at the dead body. What am I going to do with it? Do I need to chop it up and try to distribute to neighbourhood garbage containers? What if someone finds the remains? Things could get interesting if the remains were identified as being me.
How else could I get rid of the body? Should I try to dissolve it in the bathtub?
Maybe I can take the body back to his own timeline. When did he come from?
If only there was a button to press just to send it back. Is there? When I travel, I don’t press anything to return, I just think about it. Obviously, a dead body cannot think but maybe there is some kind of backup.
The machine didn’t come with any device or anything that I should take with me when I travel. The machine itself has only one button and everything works pretty much by thought.
I pressed the button on my time machine.
I concentrated on a single thought, how does one return a traveller to the traveller’s own timeline?
I need to activate the return marker, I thought. Obviously, the return marker. What and where is it though? I immediately thought of the wrist.
I investigated the body and found a little circle on the underside of the left wrist. I looked at my own wrist and didn’t see one.
I decided to run a quick test and jumped to yesterday.
I materialized in front of myself. I looked at my wrist and saw the little circle.
“Hi, just had to try,” I said.
“Ok,” said the me from yesterday.
I pressed on the circle and was at once sent back to my present time.
Well, that was one mystery solved. Perhaps I should have explained to myself from yesterday what I was trying, but he’ll find out soon enough.
I pressed on the circle on the wrist of the baldie’s dead body, and it dematerialized. The air rushing to fill the space his body had occupied ruffled my hair. I felt sudden sadness. His dead body, my dead body, was now back in his own timeline. That was it. The End. His life had ended. And his body was now lying somewhere. Someone or something would find it and then what? Would the body be treated with respect? Were there friends and family that would take care of him, who would mourn, who would miss him? Would there be a funeral? Or would it just be dumped into trash, maybe burned for energy? The finality of the moment was almost too much to bear. He was dead, and now he was gone. I regretted sending the body back. I had no way of knowing what was happening there. I didn’t want to try to go check it out either. Not now.
I sat on the floor of my apartment, with blood on my carpet, on my hands, on my face. I had blood on my clothes and in my hair. I sat there and I felt helpless and scared.
I sat there for a long time. I didn’t want to end the moment. When I move again, I go back to my life and I start forgetting about what had just happened, about the future version of me who had just died. I did not want that.
But I knew that eventually I would have to move.
And eventually I did.
I got up and went over to my computer. I thought about whether I wanted to post an update online. I thought about long and hard, and in the end, I decided to do it. As I was writing my update, I noticed I had already managed to distance myself from what happened. I didn’t particularly like being able to do that so quickly.
“Baldie dropped in. He fell on my carpet, bleeding from multiple wounds. Before he died, he managed to hit me over the head screaming that the robot overlord was able to track him down just because I had mentioned the general location of the safe house. I watched him die with mixed feelings. I did find him rather annoying in general and did not really care for his visits, but did I want him dead? I activated the return marker and his body went back to the future. I think things are going to escalate pretty fast now, but I can’t help wondering why the attack is going to be successful when I already know it’s going to happen. This time travel stuff is doing my head in. Tomorrow I’ll have to go shopping for something to clean the bloodstains in my carpet. Or maybe I’ll just pretend they are part of the design.”
I checked my iPod. It was fully charged. I turned it on and tried to detect the chip in the shoe. It didn’t seem to work. I was probably doing something wrong. The last time I used it was such a long time ago that I didn’t even fully remember how it works. I decided to try to find a manual and try it again later. For now, maybe I could run without,
Suddenly I heard the patter of heavy rain through the gap of the partially open balcony door.
Maybe I can run tomorrow.
