Dr. Snip

There were posters on the wall that urged you 'To be like Dad keep Mum', and the windows had tape across them obviously to protect against imaginary bomb damage. Steve smiled to himself; it was amazing what people would do to be different these days.

He looked at the price list and to his amusement saw that a pint of 'Best' was only five old pence, all the other drinks were also marked with silly prices. As the barmaid handed him his water, he asked her where the real prices were shown.

'How do you mean real prices,' she replied with a puzzled frown 'they are the real prices, I would have thought they would be more expensive in London but not that much.'

Just then the radio behind the bar ceased playing the big band tunes, that had blended into the background as far as Steve had been concerned, and a news broadcast came on. He listened in interest as the newsreader informed them of another bombing raid on London, the previous night.

'Bloody Bastards,' the barmaid snarled with such venom that the grin Steve was about to show, was wiped off his face. Steve was a cop, and he knew about people's reactions to various events in life. This reaction was as genuine as they come, the barmaid was really incensed at the news.

'The Germans are killing everyone in London, women, kids, whoever.' she said, visibly upset. Steve then noticed the few other patrons were also listening with grim faces, he started to get a cold feeling in his stomach, and spotting a newspaper on the bar picked it up with a sense of foreboding.

It was a copy of the Daily Mirror and the date was 5th February 1943. He browsed through it and it was full of War News, and propaganda.

The cold feeling in his stomach crystallized into horror as he noticed the clothes of the other patrons were all of the 40's era. He had to get out and think this through, with muttered thanks he left the Pub and walked along the road not caring where he was going.

He ended up in a park with an old castle in it; he sat down on a shady bench and held his head in his hands. Where was he, he was in Colchester for Gods sake. Oh yes? but this was wrong; he tried to remember what he'd been doing before things got silly.

It came back to him he had just made a phone call to Peter at the Station, about the phone he had got from the accident victim. What had Peter advised him? He hadn't spoken to him at all, but he remembered hitting the enter key.

He got the phone out of his pocket and checked if he had dialed the right number. It was definitely Peter's number, but as he stared at it he noticed the last digits of the number were 1943 they rang a bell in his head.

This was the year on the newspaper 5th February 1943. He had to check this so seeing a newsagents shop a little way off he walked over and scanned the papers for sale, they all had the same date on them.

He was in the past, how and why he had not the foggiest but it was either that or he was insane. He decided he wasn't going in that direction until he had to. Looking around he noticed for the first time that the few cars that were about, were again of the 1940's era.

Steve walked back to the bench and sat for a while, it would appear that the phone may have a lot to do with this, so he decided to try an experiment. He punched in the same digits as before but he made them end in the year that he knew was correct, 2006.

He looked around as a final check on his location, took a deep breath and pressed the Enter key. Steve woke up on the same park bench, next to the same old castle. Steve hadn't moved and for a moment berated himself for believing the incredible, then he heard it, the constant noise of traffic passing close by. He hadn't noticed it had been missing until it had returned.

He shakily got up and walked to the newsagents, the papers had a familiar look to them and he was extremely relived to see the correct date on them all, 5th February 2006. One last check was to ask the newsagent where he was, after a strange look the woman informed him he was in Colchester, Britain's oldest recorded town.

Steve thanked her and after getting directions made his way to the main train station, where he caught the next train to London. He didn't get back to his flat until late and he rang in sick, using his normal phone.

He sat at the kitchen table with the strange looking phone in front of him, and wondered what to do. He had gone off the idea of telling anyone else about this just yet, he wanted to understand what was happening himself first.

The bottom line was he had not been hurt, just inconvenienced a bit. Apart from the dizziness when he had activated the device, there seemed to be no ill effects so far. He concluded that this must be a top-secret military device, and if he knew whom to contact about returning it he would, but he didn't.

Steve amongst other things was interested in science and technology, and had read a great deal of Science Fiction when he was younger. He reckoned he knew as much about time machines and parallel universes as anyone.

He knew enough about the theory of time travel to be very afraid of changing anything inadvertently in the past. The most sensible thing would be to hand the device into the proper authorities, and forget it.

Then again there was the age old tradition of finders keepers, it was inevitable that the owners would find him and take it back anyway, so for the short time he had it, he decided to use it.

Birthday 10th March

Was it a time machine or a way of jumping dimensions, Steve needed to test it on something he was sure about, some time and place of significance. He thought of the perfect test.

Before he touched the device again he wanted to know why he had moved to Colchester the first time he activated it. Also why he had stayed in the same location the second time. What exactly had he done?

The first time he had punched in a whole new number, Peters. The second time he had just changed the last four digits It appeared that the last four digits controlled the target year, so the previous digits must control something else, perhaps the location.

He had a hunch that the Latitude and Longitude of Colchester, would be similar to the previous digits in Peter's number, but he would have to check that somehow. It seemed a good theory to begin with.

He needed to visit the local Library and research some information, before he did anything else. By this time Steve was exhausted and hungry, so he made himself a light snack had a bath and went to bed.

The next morning he felt supercharged with excitement and enthusiasm. He hadn't felt so happy and excited in years and he couldn't wait to get to the Library and start work.

The Librarian selected some books for him concerning Latitude and Longitude, also a book about Global Positioning Satellites and their uses for the military. He purchased a few maps of interesting places both large and small scale.

He returned to his flat and set to work, he discovered that the co-ordinates for Colchester were 51deg 53min north 0deg 52min east, he was relieved to find a correlation between these figures and the figures on the Device.

For the purposes of his test he needed to find the exact co-ordinates of a particular place. He already knew the exact time and date. He came up with a number that if his theory were correct, would take him to a place he hadn't seen in years.

He punched the numbers into the device, and taking a deep breath hit enter. He experienced a feeling of disorientation and leaned against a nearby tree, this time he hadn't blacked out, perhaps he was getting used to it.

He could see his destination a few hundred yards away across the gardens that surrounded it; he made his way to the main entrance and went in. He asked at the main reception and was informed of the number of the room he wanted. He walked along the old Victorian corridors, his footsteps echoing off the beige tiled walls until he reached the room he sought.

He hesitated outside the door and then calling upon all his courage, and clamping an iron control on his emotions he knocked softly. 'Come in,' called a soft female voice, 'we're decent aren't we Stephen'

Steve entered the room and saw a young woman in bed holding a baby. 'Sorry to disturb you Mrs. Steele,' he said quietly ' I'm with the hospital book service, and I wondered if you would like something to read while you're here.'

'No thank you,' the young woman replied with a beautiful smile. 'I will be going home soon, and I think this little man will be keeping me far to busy to read.' Steve looked at his mother, and was speechless, his throat was dry and his eyes threatened to flood with tears.

She was beautiful, just as he remembered her from childhood. Her long black hair was put up into rolls held by Kirby grips, and even without any makeup her skin was flawless. She was so happy as she looked down at her son.

Steve just smiled at her, and walked back into the corridor and out of the Maternity Hospital as fast as he could without running. He had proved one thing, the device was a time machine and he had just traveled back to his birthplace.

What he had not anticipated was the emotional shock of seeing someone he had loved more than any other woman, once again. He had to sit on the grass for quite a while, before he could calm himself.

The baby had been him, Stephen Michael Steele three days old, and soon to be taken home to a loving childhood full of good memories. Until his mother had died suddenly of a heart attack, when she was only thirty years old.

He had planned on talking to her for a while but the reality of her had been too much for him, he had to go before he burst into tears. Steve set the device for his home time and place, and disappeared into his future.

He was now certain he had a working time machine, but what to do with it? He wondered for a moment from where, or should he say when it had come.

One of our QTs is missing.

It was the year 2525 and Agent Red was missing, or to be more precise, he was late reporting back to the British Temporal Organisation. Time Agents could be lots of things including dead, but they simply couldn't be late.

Even if their mission took years longer than planned they could still report back to base exactly on time, one of the perks of having the use of a Time Machine.

The most common cause of a non-return was the fact that although the Quantum Tunneling device's were virtually unbreakable, the Agents that used them were not. Being only human they sometimes bit off more than they could chew.

In those cases another Agent was sent back to help, or retrieve the one in trouble. Finding the missing Agent could be a problem; although they were sent to a particular era, they were free to jump around in order to achieve their mission.

If an Agent went missing, the first thing would be to try and contact them on their implant. If there was no answer, then there was definitely something wrong. Agents implants unlike normal peoples had a temporal capability, and the agent could be contacted any where or any when.

They were surgically implanted in the brain and had never been known to fail. However just in case they did, there were Dead Letter drops in locations around the world. So that any Agent stranded in time could get a message back to the Organisation.

These were normally Personal Ads in newspapers, specialized notice boards on the Web. If they were much further back in time, rock faces, cliff sides, cave walls and the like, that could be monitored in the present, for messages that might appear on them from the past.

Each Agent had a code mark, and if they were in trouble and could get access to such a place, they could carve or paint their sigil and date on the rock. It would immediately appear on the rock face in the present, and the backup agent would know where and when to go and rescue them.

In the rare occasions when this method had been used it had worked very well, so the second course of action was to check these locations for a message. When there was no message, then the final course of action was to report to the Director of the B.T.O. that an Agent was missing, and leave it to him to decide what to do about it.

The Director of the Organisation was a dour man by the name of Cameron McDonald, who could be mistaken for a tax inspector at first meeting. He went by the book, and frowned upon frivolous use of Time Travel by his Agents.

Like all top executives in the World he had reached his position by a combination of experience, a desire to succeed, and the passing of tests to determine suitability for his next step up the ladder.

The World Brain set all the tests, so effectively it could determine who got which job, and it did so. It had picked Cameron McDonald precisely because of his dislike of change. Cameron ensured that all his Agents were fully conditioned to protect the Status Quo, and never to meddle with the past.

There were only Twelve Agents in the Organisation, they were the best that Britain could produce in the Twenty Sixth Century. One from each of the major political and economic giants, and the Director knew and trusted every one of them. If one was lost he would find them, and bring them back.

Agent Red had been on a mission in the Twentieth Century. Unfortunately his mission covered a time band that stretched from the startup of the first nuclear power station, to the end of the Twentieth Century.

Nuclear waste was one of the gifts of the Twentieth Century that the Twenty Sixth Century could well have done without. Red was on loan to the Department given the responsibility of ridding the World of Toxic and Nuclear waste.

The procedure was to locate the dumps in the past, then take a portable Portal to the site in the present. The material was then disinterred and transported via the Portal into the Sun, disposing of the material for good.

This was unarguably a very good use of Time Travel and the Director was behind it all the way, which was why he had given permission for Red to be seconded to that Department.

The Director checked his implant for an available Agent and it told him that Agent Black was available for the search and rescue. He put out a call for her to see him ASAP.

Independence Day

Steve had considered going in to work as usual, but there was no way he could concentrate on anything other than this Time Travel business. He rang the Station and arranged to take a Two-week Holiday

Lots of young men fantasize about being invisible or superhuman, but he personally had always wanted to be able to travel in time. He was by nature a very curious person, and to him a time machine was a way to get answers that he could never have learned before.

He knew about paradoxes, and thinking back over his actions to date he was pretty sure he hadn't done anything disastrous, nor did he intend to.

However in order to fully explore this marvelous device he may have to be free of his duties as a policeman, which meant being independent financially. He had always been exasperated at the superheroes that never used their powers to make money. What was the harm in profiting by your skills and abilities regardless what they were.

He had a working time machine, and if he couldn't earn some money from it he was an idiot. He considered going back in time and finding lost gold or pirate treasure. However even if he did, there would still be the enormous difficulty of changing it into usable cash.

Then it struck him, of course the National Lottery. He needed to know the winning numbers for the coming draw, so he walked to a newsagent a few hundred yards past his usual one and walked into the ally behind it.

He had discovered that by just putting in the final date numbers the machine stayed in the same space, and just moved through time. He also seemed to arrive at the same time he left, as if by default. The next Lottery draw was due tonight so he set the date for tomorrow and activated the device.

The ally wall seemed to flicker and that was all, Steve walked around to the front of the shop and looked through the window at the Lottery notice board. The winning numbers were chalked up for all to see along with the news that no one had won this time. We will see about that he said with a grin, and copied them down in his book.

A quick walk around the back of the shop, and he jumped back twenty-four hours to his original starting point. He had been concerned about meeting himself when he jumped back, but it appeared the machine had a default safety margin set in of ten minutes. He arrived back ten minutes after he left regardless of the amount of time he'd spent in the future.

That's nice to know he thought, and walked to his usual shop in order to play the Lottery. He filled in the numbers from the future, and the shopkeeper entered them into the machine and gave him his ticket. He had made sure to tick the privacy box.

He had to wait for five hours until the draw so went home and had a meal and relaxed in front of the telly to wait. He was worried about this plan, as it would be the first time he had tried to actually change the future. He consoled himself by knowing that he wasn't robbing anyone else of the money, and the Lottery could afford it.

It was times like this he wished he had a close friend to talk it over with, but being a Sergeant in the Police and working odd shifts, he had never become that friendly with any of his colleagues. Like most coppers he found it hard to relax with civilians.

At last the draw came and to his relief his numbers came up with no problems at all, he had half expected a flash of lightning to fry him where he sat, but it appeared the god of time hadn't noticed him yet.

Steve wasn't a drinker or a smoker being too much of a control freak, but he decided to go to his local Pub and celebrate, he got home late and went to bed a happy man.

The next day he followed the set procedures for claiming his winnings, and was assured that everything was in order. He would receive his cheque as soon as possible, as a matter of interest he had won just over one million pounds.

He realized he would need a lot more privacy in order to experiment with the device, so he rented a smallholding that was sufficiently isolated for his purpose.

Jack the Ripper.

Steve was a cop, he had a Time machine and he hated unsolved crimes. He had studied the history of crime and certain names stood out in infamy. One of these was Jack the Ripper, Jack was not the world's worst serial Killer, he had only killed at the most eight women.

Modern serial killers had killed far more, but Jack was the first serial killer known about in England. His methods were so gruesome that they had brought terror into the hearts of Londoners of the time. Also he had never been caught, but Steve was about to change that if he could.

Steve went through all the data on the Ripper he could find on the Internet, his first recorded victim was Polly Nicholls who was found dead on the night of Friday 31st August 1888. Jack's last victim was Mary Jane Kelly a Twenty-five year old woman who was killed at her home. She was slightly better off than most of her sisters of the street as she rented a room at Miller's Court, 26, Dorset Street, and took her customers there to satisfy their desires in a modicum of comfort and warmth. She was found dead at 4am Friday 9th November 1888.

All of his victims were Prostitutes, mostly part-time. However in their defense the area known as Whitechapel was in its day the poorest part of London. An uneducated woman with no means of earning money would often be forced to take to the streets for survival.

These women were the lowest class of person in society, and were often found dead of hunger and drink abuse in the streets. However when Jack the Ripper was the cause of death, he made it clear that the deaths were unnatural.