The Time Traveller's Ball (The Erik Midgard Case Files Volume 1)

Chapter 15

XV

For the first time, I did not see a thing when I teleported.

            When I arrived, and my eyes re-materialised, the first thing I saw was Mirabi. I arrived behind the ghost image of her past self – six years younger, looking as she had when I'd first seen her – as her last molecules faded as she backstepped to the present. Standing before her was the grey haired and storm weathered man who had just sent her back.

            Me.

            I knew it was him because Helmcom automatically ran a DNA scan, got a perfect match and screamed a paradox warning because there were two versions of me in the same place.

            Behind him was smoke and fire. As the last wisps of Mirabi vanished, a scarlet laser bolt cut out of the haze and slammed into the man's back. He yelled and jacknifed forwards.

            And I caught him.

            "Welcome to the future," he said, looking up at me. His eyes were bright. He was almost laughing. He looked alive. I looked over his shoulder and realised – with insane relief – that the shot had not penetrated his body armour.

            I almost laughed myself, but then another laser bolt came and burnt clean through his right shoulder.

            "AAARGH! DOWN!"

            This time his scream was genuine. I hastily pulled him – me – myself – my future self – down to the floor among the burning debris.

            "Every time, we do that. Every time," said my future self.

            I scrambled for a field dressing, looking around. The space station, and the fire, was exactly as Mirabi had described it. The coordinates had been in the Outer Reaches, which meant the planetoid outside the window was probably one of Pluto's moons; where I had a string of bad experiences in my own past. Far out from the sun, and far into the future, some things never changed.

            I snapped out of it as a volley of laser fire passed over our heads, followed by strange, hissing screams.

            "Fight back!" shouted my future self, snatching the adhesive pad from my hand and slapping it onto his own shoulder. I rolled over, drew my Unigun and flicked it to automatic. I had just saved my future self, but given the circumstances, once might not have been enough. I remembered some of the early science fiction authors' theories about temporal travel; how if you did succeed in changing the past or the future, time would twist and manipulate events until the same thing happened in a different way. But not after I had come this far!

             Rearing up over the makeshift barricade, I swung it in a wide arch, spraying shots through the fire mist towards the sound of the screams. I was rewarded by more of them, and they sounded pained. But I could not see what I was shooting at. I reached up to pull down my helmet visor and switch on heat vision...

            "No!" My future self grabbed my wrist. "You can't know who they are yet. Sorry, but that's important."

            "But I can't see what I'm..."

            "Don't worry."

            "But I need to...!"

            "Read the rank!" snapped my future self, releasing my hand to point to the insignia on his own, uninjured shoulder. I astonished to see captain's bars; a detail that Mirabi must have missed. I outranked myself.