* * *
“Thank God you’re here, Jack,” Doc Mitchells yelled as we strode into his laboratory. “There isn’t a moment to lose. The whole of reality could unravel at any second. Something amazingly unbelievable is happening.”
I could see why Frank was so concerned. The Doc was frantically scrambling around the floor, madly throwing papers around, snatching up one after another and peering at them through a large magnifying glass.
“Yes, yes,” he cried. “Here’s another one. It’s incredible. Absolutely impossible. It defies all logic. History is literally rewriting itself as we speak.”
I didn’t care if history was rewriting itself, or scribbling its own laundry list, all I was concerned about was the location of my missing masonry mix.
“Look, Doc,” I began, “I can see you’re busy on… something …and I don’t want to interrupt the end of the universe or whatever but I need to ask you about–”
“Anomalies,” he gasped, grabbing first me then Frank by the lapels. “Anomalies in the sequential framework of time and space. See? Look, look…”
Eyes popping, and white coat flapping wildly, he snatched a grainy black and white photograph from the pile and thrust it eagerly into my hand. Sighing, I glanced at the image. It showed a group of First World War soldiers, relaxing in a trench between bombardments.
“Very nice,” I told him, “but unless they happen to have a stash of pilfered pollyfilla hidden up their sleeves I don’t get the relevance. What am I supposed to be looking at?”
His finger jabbed at the left hand side of the snap. “There,” he said, “the third man in from the right. Don’t you see it. Don’t you notice anything unusual!”
I peered at the figure. He looked much like the rest of his comrades, apart from some wires coming down from his ears.
“A radio operator of some sort?” I ventured.
Mitchells didn’t answer but threw down another photo. This time the scene was Victorian. Three young girls not older than eight, each pretty and delicate… and each balanced precariously on a space hopper.
I grabbed the snapshot and stared at it through his magnifying lens. “But that’s not possible. It can’t be…”
Frank picked up the WWI scene, and stared in disbelief at the man with the wire. “Not a radio operator. It’s not a radio – it’s a Walkman. A bloody Sony Walkman. He’s sitting in Flanders Field in 1917 listening to a personal stereo.”
My mind spun. Today was getting too weird, even by Institute standards.
“They’re fakes,” I told him and the Doc. “They’ve got to be. You can do wonders with computer trickery. They are good, I’ll grant you that, but they’re doctored images. Just a wind-up.”
Frank didn’t seem convinced. “They look like the real deal to me. You can’t do touch up work that detailed on Photoshop.”
“They ARE real,” the Doc yelled. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Something is altering the course of history. Consumer items, household appliances, gadgets are popping up years, centuries, before they were invented.”
He gathered up more pictures; flashed them at us. “A portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh in the National Portrait Gallery – introducing tobacco to Good Queen Bess.” He paused for effect. “He’s holding a packet of 20 filter tipped!”
Another picture.
“And this: a period wood carving of William Shakespeare at the height of his fame… sitting at his laptop keyboard!”
And another.
“Alexander Graham Bell. Snapped after inventing the telephone… the mobile telephone!!!”
I held up my hand. “Enough,” I said. “I get the idea. But I still say they’re all fakes. This is one huge practical joke.”
Mitchells gave me an old fashioned look. “Well, how to you explain the conference call I got not thirty minutes ago from my colleagues at the British Museum.”
My stomach lurched. There was something about his tone that told me I was about to drop down the rabbit hole.
“They’ve just unwrapped an Egyptian mummy that’s lain undisturbed for three thousand years. They know he was a high ranking official – from the artefacts in his tomb. And the quality of his sarcophagus… and the Rolex wristwatch he was wearing!”