The Time Travellers User Guide

Chapter One

I don't like talking about my childhood. They say that happiness writes in white, and I guess that's why my childhood memories are so vivid and painfully alive. In a nutshell, I was pushed around from pillar to post through the UK care system after being found abandoned in a shopping mall. It was the Arndale Centre in Manchester, to be precise. At least my mother had left me somewhere warm where I would be found. There is always that to hang onto, I guess. She cared enough about me not to throw me in a dustbin. I had a few years with various foster parents where things never quite seemed to work out, but despite this, I managed to do extremely well at school. It transpired that I had the IQ level of a "genius", but I secretly doubted that IQ tests actually measured intelligence. It seemed to me that all they measured was my ability to do well in IQ tests. However, I always did have a compulsive need to understand how things worked. Even as a child, I couldn't stop myself from taking toys apart, which often caused problems for me, especially if they weren't my toys. I was the proverbial boy who cut open his drum to see what made it bang.

It was my great intelligence that allowed me to see through the cracks in the system and spot commercial opportunities as they arose. So, I started dealing with ecstasy tablets when I was 15 and did very well until I was arrested and charged with possession with intent to supply. When I was convicted, I was sent to a juvenile detention centre. Here I learned many things that an adolescent boy probably shouldn't have to face. But I discovered some inner fortitude within myself and came out a different (although I would hesitate to say better) person.

I bootstrapped my way through adult education classes all the way to university and entered as a mature student reading Physics at the University of Exeter, graduating with a 2:1. It was here that I met the woman who would eventually become my wife. In common with many of the women I had known intimately throughout my life, Helen found the fact that I was an orphan somehow both cute and sexy.

In retrospect, I think it was our inability to have children that put our marriage under unbearable strain and caused it to break. Without going into any of the gory details, I now rent a bedsit-style studio apartment and live the life of a functional alcoholic drug addict. That is a potted history of my life. My name is Charles, by the way, although everyone I know calls me Charlie.

Which, in a roundabout way, gets me to where my story really starts. I was having a rather introspective evening with a bottle of vodka and some weed for company while I rewatched old Coen Brothers movies and played on my Xbox. It's not such a bad way to while away some time, so don't knock it unless you have tried it. It was getting pretty late, and I was already more than hammered when this weird old dude seemingly appeared out of nowhere, wearing a dirty grey hoodie. He made himself at home, helped himself to a drink, and had a smoke while mumbling something about giving me a present. He said something about great power and great responsibility or something like that, which at the time sounded really cheesy and pompous. At one point, I'm sure he grabbed my head in his hands and forced me to look at him while he shouted something that I couldn't remember.

The following morning I woke up with a painful hangover, unsure if I had dreamt or otherwise hallucinated the whole encounter last night. However, a tatty gift bag was still sitting on the coffee table, and when I checked inside, there was a scuffed suede-style presentation case with a strange-looking watch inside.

I often have a tendency to multitask badly, so it was while I was cooking some Bachelor's Cheese and Broccoli pasta on the stove the following day that I decided to check out the watch. The pasta had just started to come to a rolling boil, so I turned it down to simmer gently while I checked out the present that the weird old dude had left for me last night. I opened the case and had a proper look at it for the first time.

The watch had a gently curving rectangular screen, ergonomically designed to fit snugly against the wearer's wrist. The clasp appeared to be a simple square metal push button with rounded corners and an infinity symbol etched on it. This had two little rounded knobbly teeth on the back that fitted into the set of eyes moulded into the strap. The strap itself was unlike any material I had touched before. It was a sort of hybrid of leather, rubber, and flesh that was warm to the touch but not unpleasant or in any way clammy. It had a soft, somewhat inviting feel to it.