Time Travelling Teenage Dirtbags
Barnaby stood on the beach next to the temporal pod. Grey waves slapped listlessly at grey sand under grey skies. A lystrosaurus, startled by the hiss of the pod’s door, scampered off over the low dunes.
Vanya was the first of Barnaby’s charges to exit, his SoberUps having kicked in. He tugged a stolen hussar’s coat around his shoulders against the wind.
The others followed him -- Nan looking queasy, Francie staggering as her heels sank into the sand, Rhodes still bleary-eyed and bleary-minded.
“Chronos’s sake, when are we?” Vanya demanded.
“The Permian-Triassic transition, young sir,” Barnaby said. “The tail end of the Great Dying.”
“Smells like there was a Great Dying in your ass,” Vanya snapped.
“Why are we here?” Nan said. She tried to put a hand to her head and discovered she was still wearing a Roman centurion’s helmet.
“Lords of Time, we’re in detention again,” Francie moaned.
“Blrggnhrl?” Rhodes managed.
“I’m afraid your parents are aware of your recent activities,” Barnaby said. “All your parents.”
“Damn it Barnaby, you ratted us out!” Nan snarled.
“Worthless cybernetic Judas,” muttered Francie.
“Judas was more fun,” said Vanya. “Remember Galilee?”
“Good wine there,” said Nan. “Is that where I got this?” She dropped the centurion’s helmet to the sand.
“I think… we went to Rome after that?” said Francie.
“Before or after we picked up those velociraptors?”
“Oh, after. Remember, we let them loose in the Forum?”
The memory gave Nan the giggles, but her SoberUp hadn’t kicked in sufficiently, and she clutched her head. “Chronos, I’m so fucked up. Where did we get that coke?”
“Hrrrhhgggwhh?”
“Traded an anti-grav harness and three wooly rhinos to Escobar for it,” said Vanya.
“Oh yeah! Remember, his bodyguard just shot up into the sky! Whooooosh!” Francie said. “Wonder if he ever figured out the controls?”
They all laughed, save Barnaby.
“C’mon, Barns, y’gotta admit that was a good one!” Vanya said.
“An excellent jape, young sir,” Barnaby said without a hint of mirth or approval.
“Then why’d you tell our parents? And how long we gotta stay here? This place is dead boring.”
“I’m afraid you are under a misapprehension. I did not inform your parents. Your reprogramming of my guardian sub-routines has quite prevented me from ‘grassing’ any of you.”
Vanya took a bow as the others applauded.
“Then how?”
“I’m sorry to tell you that your recent activities have come to the attention of the Court of Chronology. A detection array in the Ordovician picked up your pod's activity.”
“Oh no,” said Nan.
“We’re so screwed!” said Francie.
“Aarrggghhpphhtthh!” said Rhodes.
“No, c’mon guys, we’ve been in worse trouble,” said Vanya. “We didn’t break too much stuff, right? We can always go back and loop the worst of it! Remember the time we borrowed Gandhi and got him wasted at Club 54?”
“Could not hold his liquor,” said Francie with a sniff of disapproval.
“I’m saying, that’s why we borrowed the looper! Zip zap, loop off from the timestream, no harm no foul.”
The others briefly looked more hopeful.
“Right. No problem,” said Nan. “We go back and we loop… well, the thing where we tied those fireworks to Barnaby and had him run through the Forbidden City, definitely.”
“The Cadillac in the Jurassic might get noticed.”
“Hijacking the Titanic to Ibiza. Even if that was an arguable improvement…”
“The thing where we made Barnaby the god-emperor of Ur?”
“Oh yeah! Ha!”
“Yes, a merry jest, young miss,” said Barnaby. “Though looping leaves those people caught in an endless cycle of, if I may say, your debauchery.”
“Oh who cares?” said Vanya. “The only person who remembers a loop is the one who uses the looper, right? They won’t know a thing.”
“You are hoping for lenience from the Court if you undo some of the damage?” Barnaby said.
“Look, we were just having a few laughs,” Vanya said. “How can they hold us responsible if we fix everything?”
“Young sir, I must inform you that creating loops is itself a restricted activity. Excessive looping can cause damage to the timestream, and is therefore highly discouraged…”
“Oh blah blah blah!” said Francie. “Vanya, why didn’t you program out the lectures when you were fixing his squealing circuits?”
“Yeah, shut up Barnaby,” said Nan.”
“Huuurrgghhh,” said Rhodes, but it was less a comment and more of a dry heave.
“Wait,” said Nan, screwing up her face in thought. “He didn’t actually say… he didn’t say we’re in detention. Francie said we were and… he just said our parents knew.”
“There will be no mitigating circumstances,” Barnaby said, a new harshness in his voice. “Your many violations of the timestream have already been looped. By professionals, to prevent you from damaging history any further. You have already been arrested, charged, and tried by the Courts of Chronology.”
There was a long silence.
“What?”
“When?”
“Why don’t we remember?”
“It is part of your sentence,” said Barnaby. “You are being rewound, so there is no point in preserving your memory of your recent hearing.”
“Rewound!” shrieked Francie. “No! My sixteenth birthday party was so damn good, I don’t want to forget that!”
“How far, Barnaby?” said Vanya, who now seemed entirely clear-eyed. “How far?”
Barnaby allowed himself a slight smile.
“Seven years,” he said.
Rhodes’ eyes crossed as he tried counting on his fingers.
“Eleven? I can’t be eleven again!” said Nan. “Puberty all over? No thanks!”
“But young miss, as you and the young sir were just discussing, none of you will remember any of this. A rewind is quite similar to a loop. And the courts are hoping your lives will take a quite different track this time. The judges were very severe in instructing your parents…”
“Chronos, Barnaby, what’s going on?” yelled Vanya. “If we’re being rewound, how are we here and now?”
“Your current instances were deemed to require a punishment that would be instructive and act as a deterrent to others.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, young sir, that you’ve been looped.”
The silence across the grey beach was broken only by the steady beat of the surf.
“But only the person who activates the loop remembers that it’s a… oh shit.”
“The courts felt I deserved some recompense for having been subject to your ministrations,” Barnaby said. “I suggested this.”
Barnaby savored the look of horror on their faces for a long moment before he reached into his coat pocket and activated the looper.
The grey sky juddered and the grey waves re-arranged themselves into a familiar configuration.
A lystrosaurus, startled by the hiss of the pod’s opening door, scampered off over the low dunes.
“Chronos’s sake, when are we?” Vanya demanded.
Barnaby suppressed a smile for the fifty-three thousandth time.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Next week I’ll likely be going back to talking about science fiction instead of writing it, possible topics include: The New Weird, Why’d it Take 20 Years to Come Back?; Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, What’s Up With That, Anyway?; or Why Can’t LitFic Writers Keep Their Grubby Hands Out Of Our Toolbox!
If you have a preference, leave me a comment or tag me on Twitter, where I am @ouranosaurus.
No self-promotion this week!