Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 2

Gabriel got off his bike and pushed it up the steps into his mum’s flat. He left it in the hallway, along with all the rubbish that his mum seemed to collect. She seemed to collect junk from everywhere and then just leave it lying about. Gabriel’s mum’s ways really ground him down. He really needed to find a place of his own; if he could only manage to get enough for a deposit and a regular salary to cover the rent. Barney seemed pleased with his work, and that gave him hope, but he wasn’t sure that the paper could justify keeping him on. He thought that maybe Barney might only be able to keep him on for a short while, and then what would he do?

“Are you going to tell Ginny about me?” Vicky asked.

“Are you home, mum?” Gabriel shouted, knowing that it was highly likely that she would be out at this time of day.

As he expected, there was no answer, and Gabriel made his way into the kitchen. As he had expected, there was no food of any description. He had shopped yesterday, so there should have been stuff left, so God knows what she had done with it. It wasn’t like she ever cooked anything. Not unless you considered putting boiling water into tubs of Pot Noodles to be cooking. “For God’s sake,” he mumbled to himself, getting himself into the frame of mind to do another shopping expedition.

“So, are you going to tell her about me?” Vicky asked again.

Gabriel paused in his food deliberations to have this conversation that was evidently important to Vicky.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think about her?”

“She seems very nice ... very kind,” Vicky proffered. “I think she likes you a lot.”

Gabriel pondered on Vicky’s words. He hadn’t been sure what to think, and he felt that he was too inexperienced to make a clear judgement.

“I think that you’re right, Vicky. She ... well ... she excites me.”

Gabriel felt his cheeks glowing.

“I can feel that your heart rate is going up, Gabriel,” Vicky said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m not used to girls who ... well ... I’m not used to girls, full stop. But Ginny ... well, I can’t ...”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t seem to stop thinking about her.”

“Oh,” Vicky said.

Gabriel started to pull out the rucksack that he used when going to get some shopping.

“Shall I provide you with some food?” Vicky asked.

“Sorry ... what do you mean?”

“Well, as I mentioned before, I can request stores and equipment to my location.”

“What sort of things?”

“Well, food supplies for example.”

“Isn’t that stealing?”

“Well, I think that there is an argument to say that, as at this time, that you are my client, and since I was designed to provide for the needs of my clients, then I think I would just be doing the job I was built to do.”

“That all sounds very plausible,” agreed Gabriel, “and to be honest, I would be intrigued to see what you can actually do.”

“Ok. I will request a standard three-day traveller’s food pack. You might want to clear a little bit of space on the table next to you.”

Gabriel pushed some rubbish to one side, and then stood up to watch.

A faint shimmering could be seen in the area that he had cleared, and then suddenly a container appeared. It looked to be made of some sort of creamy plastic, semi-transparent, with various packets stacked neatly inside it.

“There is a small green button on the top of the container, in the middle. Press that and it will open,” advised Vicky.

Gabriel could see the green button and pressed it gently. There was a vague hissing noise, and then the container peeled itself open. It was like watching flower petals slowly open.

“These ration packs are designed to be tasty, nutritious and very light to carry. Take one out. There are food sachets and water sachets. The water sachets are all pink. The food sachets are pale green, and they each say what they contain. Each food sachet constitutes a single meal for one person. Each of the sachets has a trigger to activate them. The trigger on the food sachets activates a cooking process.”

Gabriel took out a pink sachet.

“These water sachets are empty,” Gabriel remarked. “They are just flat. There is nothing in them.”

“That’s for reasons of weight, Gabriel. The trigger on those sachets activates a process to pull the necessary chemicals from the air to re-constitute water. Try it. Press the button on the side, then lay the sachet down.”

Gabriel did so, and the sachet started to purr. Over the space of a few seconds, the sachet started to expand, and then the sachet started to glow a pale green colour.

“Ok, it’s ready,” said Vicky. There is a small teat at one end of the sachet. You can either suck on that or squeeze the sachet into another container.”

Gabriel picked up the sachet whilst looking around in the kitchen for a clean cup. Not finding one, he put the end of the sachet into his mouth and sucked on the teat. The water was cold. It was very tasty. It was like he would have imagined water would be like coming from a mountain stream.

“Wow ... I didn’t know that water could taste so nice,” he said.

“Try one of the food sachets,” suggested Vicky.

Gabriel took one at random.

“You can use the container sides as a plate if you like. If you hold one of the container sides, it will disconnect itself from the rest of the box.”

Gabriel did as suggested, laying the container side on the kitchen table. Placing the food sachet on the top, he pressed the activation button. As with the water sachet, it started to make a soft purring noise, and then after maybe half a minute it began to glow a pleasant pale pink. A small tab extruded itself from next to the trigger button, blinking with a soft red light.

“Pull on the tab,” suggested Vicky. It will peel open.”

Gabriel pulled gently at the tab, and the sachet opened up, revealing a pale creamy paste. Steam rose from it slowly.

“It looks like mashed up chick peas,” suggested Gabriel.

“There is a small pack of cutlery in the container,” said Vicky. “Give the food a try. It is supposed to be quite nice.”

Gabriel looked in the container, and sure enough, there was a packet with a spoon and fork. Presumably the food sachets didn’t contain anything that needed cutting up. He took out the spoon. It seemed to be a semi-rigid plastic. Very light and very strong. He scooped up a small portion of the creamy paste and put it in his mouth.

“Wow. This stuff tastes incredible. It seems to have all sorts of flavours in it. Nothing like I would have imagined,” Gabriel said.

“Remember, Gabriel,” said Vicky. “ACME INC clients have paid vast sums of money for their time and space tours. They only expect the best. You are eating food designed for those customers. And this food, the one you are eating now ... this is just their travel pack food. Designed to be stored in a back-pack ... to be eaten on the move.”

“It’s pretty amazing, anyway,” Gabriel said.

“I’m glad that you like it,” Vicky said.

Gabriel pondered as he ate the food.

“Vicky?”

“Yes? “

“Did you get these sorts of things for John? Did he know that you could do this sort of stuff?”

“Yes, he did, Gabriel. He was fully aware of what my features and functions are. I think that is why he gave me to you.”

“You know when Ginny said that she thought you didn’t feel right, somehow?”

“Yes, I remember that, Gabriel.”

“What do you think she meant?”

“I think that she had recognised the difference between my actual physical form and my holographic representation.”

“What?” Gabriel said, scooping up another mouthful of the creamy paste.

“Well ... this form that you see in front of you ... it is just an image that I thought would be acceptable when I first arrived.”

“So, this old watch isn’t really you then?”

“No. Would you like to see my actual physical form?”

“I suppose so,” Gabriel said, sounding a bit nervous. A sudden image of some sort of garish spider-like creature strapped to his wrist suddenly made him feel very apprehensive.

The air around his left wrist shimmered briefly, revealing a dull matte black band, maybe one-inch wide, quite thin, with no visible markings on it. He touched it. It could have been made from some sort of rubbery substance. It felt vaguely warm.

“It’s made from plasteel,” said Vicky. “Very, very strong, but with flexibility. It was found to be the ideal material. Very well suited to the purpose.”

“Why couldn’t I feel what you are actually like ... you know, when I put you on?” said Gabriel.

“The technology used to create the effect is called HOLO-FORM,” said Vicky. “It isn’t just a localised physical representation. The technology generates a hologrammatic field which expands out roughly sixty feet from the object itself. Anyone within that field will be influenced to believe in what they see, even when they touch the physical object itself.”

“So why could Ginny tell that there was a difference?”

“I don’t know,” said Vicky.

“So, can you just leave the form looking like it is now, but maybe with a clock face on it?”

“Certainly, if that is what you want. Would you like a traditional clock face, or a digital display or ...?”

As Vicky spoke, the simple black band went through a series of transformations, with various configurations of time and date appearing.

“That one,” said Gabriel. “Yes, could you leave it looking just like that, please.”

Vicky’s physical form now retained the simple matte black surface, but with slightly depressed luminescent green dimples for the hours and slightly raised faint pink hands depicting the time.

“Is that alright?” asked Vicky. “You could display whatever you wished you know.”

“That’s just fine, thank you,” replied Gabriel.

“Anyway Gabriel,” said Vicky, “as I was asking before, when you meet Ginny tonight, are you going to tell her about me?”

“I don’t know,” replied Gabriel. “I haven’t known her for very long at all. I don’t know what she would do if I did tell her. Maybe she would tell her friends, and that would not be good.”

“I imagine that it would not.”

“And she probably has lots of friends. She seems to be very outgoing. I mean, she knew the waitress in the coffee shop, and ...”

“Would you want to tell her,” asked Vicky, in a way that struck Gabriel as being quite understanding of his thoughts.

“I think that I would like to tell her,” he said. “I think I would like to tell her everything. Everything about me ... but ... but I don’t know why.”

“I think maybe you have had a lonely life,” suggested Vicky.

“I’ve had loads of mates,” Gabriel said, somewhat defensively, “but nobody I felt I could really get on with.”

“I think that’s why John gave me to you, Gabriel,” Vicky said.

Gabriel pushed some old magazines off a kitchen chair and sat down.

“How do you think he is?” said Gabriel.

“Who?”

“John. How do you think he will be? Will he have started to get worse yet?”

“I’m not sure, Gabriel. It’s difficult to say, but certainly as the days pass, he will surely deteriorate.”

“Maybe if we went to see him, you could check his condition. Maybe that way, if we went to see him every few days ...”

“I’m not sure that is what he wanted,” said Vicky. “I suspect that he wished to stop having any further treatment that would extend his life. He had a hard life, you know. Better than he could have expected, but losing his child, and then losing Mary to dementia ... it was very hard for him. I am sure that if he had had the choice, he would rather that Mary had been well, even for a little longer, so that he could have continued to enjoy her company.”

Gabriel pushed his spoon through the remaining creamy paste in the sachet.

“I think if he could have changed anything, it would have been in his past; not looking for any pleasures in his future,” Vicky said.

Gabriel stood up, picking up the empty food and drink sachets and shoving them into a black waste bag. Then he took the food pack container and shoved it behind the sofa bed that he slept on. He couldn’t imagine his mum finding it, not when she didn’t see all the rubbish already littering the flat.

“I’d better get going,” he said. “I’d like to get to the Horseblanket before Ginny does. I don’t want her to think that I’m late for every meeting we have.”