I looked out of the window as I drove. The road wasn’t a road as such, though I liked to think of it that way. It certainly took away the monotonous feeling of empty desolation that bubbled over every few decades.
I used to be angrier, more volatile. But after a while it just didn’t matter anymore. Outside were wild fluorescent lilacs, scarlets and lemon yellows, expanding, warping and blurring into one another over the star-pricked canopy. It was beautiful. I hated it.
The echoey muted radio crackled, rudely interrupting my thoughts. They weren’t thinking anything useful anyway, regurgitated half-thoughts re-used a thousand thousand times.
“KHHRRR- Jafar? Are you there? -KHHRRR-”
Sigh. “Where else?”, I replied, not bothering to hide the frown in my voice. Maybe on purpose. Definitely on purpose.
“KHHRRR- You have a -KHHRRR-fare. -KHHRRR-”, Ccame Athena’s reply. I frowned.
“Already? Can’t they just calm down? I just did one a few years ago. Tell them I’m on a job.”
“KHHRRR- Come on Jafar, -KHHRRR- why do we have to do this every single. -KHHRRR- time? Just do it. -KHHRRR-.”
“I hate you”, I said gruffly, immediately feeling childish. But we’d done this dance so many times. I had long since forgotten the time that I finally abandoned any sense of personal dignity. My “handler” knew all of my quirks, and I knew all of hers.
“-KHHRRR- I know Jafar. Just, -KHHRRR- do the job, -KHHRRR- and you can go back to your sulking. The address is -KHHRRR- 10.3910° N, 75.4794° W, 2095A.D. -KHHRRR-”, she said and cut the transmission. She knew I had to take it.
Ugh, Cartagena. Well, at least it was the good one. Late twenty-first century too, hadn’t had such an early traveller for a while.
I let out a loud “Ungggghhhhh” to ease my irritation, and then finally, reluctantly flicked the ‘For Hire’ flag into the down position.
After an amount of time, I arrived at the destination. Burst in through the cosmic wave and alighted on the pavement, where a lady in I’d say her late twenties was stood, in a bright pink velvet suit and holding a see-through, faux-leather hand-bag, and those rimless, cool-guy-tech specs perched on her nose bridge, the fashion from this era I vaguely remembered. She climbed into the back seat.
“WelcometoTheHistorian’sDelight.Pleasefastenyourseatbelt,andbeawarethatthedoorswillremaincloseduntilwereachyourfinaldestination”, I recited, barely noticing. “Right, where to?”
“Um, Sparta?”, She said. The Wittgenstinian Universal indicated that it had translated from late 21st century Spanish. Made sense. She had a slightly higher-pitched voice than I was expecting. But she’d just answered … like that? I frowned into the mirror at her. Newbies.
“First time is it? Specifics. This only works if you know exactly when you’re going. I need details. Right, first of all, visit or return?”
“Um, visit? I think?”, she said, slightly more nervously. I smiled, still got it.
“You sure? Means you have to stay there. And you sure won’t be able to call a second cab, once you’re there. Sparta’s a nasty place, whenever you’re going, ‘specially wearing that.”
“Hey! That’s my concern. You just focus on the road.”
“Fine. Bake your own bread, etc. Anyway, specifics. Any marker’ll do; names of the kings ruling, events of the day etc.”
“Hold.” She pressed the button on the side of her tec-specs. Ohh that’s right, they still had AI in this age. Pre-war. The info appeared on the glasses. “423BCE, Pleistoanax and Archidamus the second were kings.”
“Greatoneprotectme! Rough time. Have you really thought this through? One of the toughest moments of the Peloponnesian war for Sparta.” I let out a breath of incredulity, no need to make her feel it would be all flowers and bunny-rabbits. She wouldn’t last 5 minutes. “Right, any particular day/month or dealer’s choice?”
“You go ahead. And no more comments, thank you”, she said, already sitting back on the fraying leather. Really should have got that fixed by then.
Off we went, cruising leisurely, the ride would take approximately another specific amount of time.
She didn’t seem interested in chatting so we were silent most of the way. We arrived eventually, and before unlocking the door, I checked one final time she didn’t want to just stay inside and watch the place, which she declined.
Outside we could see the simple austere style of housing of Ancient Sparta. Some of their rooves had begun replacing the thatching with clay tiles. It was odd that there were multiple farm villages making up a whole city. None of the people could see us. So, I let her out after she’d paid the fare with a barely generous tip. She tapped something on the tec-specs again, and her pink suit and bag transformed into a warrior’s uniform. Augmented reality hid her as a warrior. Huh, I thought. Maybe she’ll have a great time. Off I went, back to my slumbering nightmarish nothing.
~
It was a Thursday, somewhere. Mid afternoon. Mid morning? Mid something anyway. I was imagining the relative distance between two stars and used two drops of galactic condensation on my windshield as markers to figure it. I’d gotten lazy about mathematics recently. Or maybe I always was? Maybe if I brought a third droplet in…
“-KHHRRR-”, went the radio. I frowned. Or at least, carried on frowning. I waited for Athena’s inevitable, irritating voice. Nothing.
“Hello?”, I said into the CB.
“-KHHRRR- Do you ever -KHHRRR-…” It was Athena’s voice alright. Deeper in pitch somehow. Sadder? Melancholic! That was the word. “-KHHRRR-… Do you ever just want all this to end, Jafar? -KHHRRR-”
“What- What kind of questions is- YES!” I retorted “Of course I do, you know this. So do you. Come, what are you playing at?”
“-KHHRRR- Would I? … -KHHRRR- I think I… I’d miss you -KHHRRR-”, she said. It was eery. After all these cycles of hatred and desperation, I couldn’t understand what was happening to her. What was this weird voice? Why was she getting all sentimen… “-KHHRRR- do you think you’d miss -KHHRRR- me? -KHHRRR-”
“What are you doing?”, I said angrily. “Are you dying? You can’t die, neither can I. Come on. If you die, I’ll dance on your grave, with joy. Because I’ll finally have someone else tormenting me. Anyone would be better..”
“-KHHRRR- You mean someone else for you to torment. -KHHRRR-”. There she was, back to her regular hateful voice. “You have a fare. -KHHRRR-58.8833° N, 3.1333° W. Thursday 8th June, 6524 CE -KHHRRR-.”
I unsuccessfully tried to shake the eternal frown from my forehead, and focussed. Those co-ordinates were odd, I didn’t know them, somewhere in the UK? But north. I plugged them into the nav, ah, the Orkney Islands. Off I went. Past-future-and-presently, I arrived. A young man dressed in 66th century military fatigues was sitting cross-legged there. The side of his head was encased in metal components, ah I remember these, the cyborg guys. Ugh, weird passengers. He got in.
He was suddenly familiar somehow.
“WelcometoTheHistorian’sDelight.Pleasefastenyoursea-’ I began as he sat in the front passenger seat. He turned his head mechanically toward me as he held up his hand.
“Stop. Know. Go year twelve-thousand CE. 13 October, 07:22. Return.”
The Wittgenstinian indicated late 66th century Thulian, with their weird minimalist grammar. His voice scratched the inside of my eardrums, annoying. It was lyrical. Rythmic? No! Mechanical, imitating natural, tone oscillating in the wrong places. More than that though, more than the words. The meaning! What he said made my insides squirm in excitement, terror, rage and longing. My tiny cab of reality frayed at the edges.
“Right, but, that’s not how this works.” I turned, trying to choke down the panic in my voice. I started the cronky old jalopy engine and began to drive through some violet and red nebulae. “You can only go to the past. You need to give me details of the historic time, such as the kings of-’
“Location is Third Capital of New Essos, Mereen City. Governments dismantled, people dying ravaging area sickness previous decades. Rest of world barren wasteland”, he replied, still holding his open palm towards me.
My heart thundered in my chest. I had to hold it together. He really knew details of the future! How? Maybe these cyborgs had in fact re-engaged with AI, some hyper advanced… I don’t know. New Essos, though? Laughable. An empire named after places in a book? A fantasy! Politics and dragons. Or zombies. Both? Whatever. Needed to do this right. By the book.
“I mean, return. Return is not possible from the future. For obvious reasons.”
His head was still facing me, I could feel the strange LCD lens analysing my features. I had to hope he couldn’t read my expressions. I hadn’t practised lying in literal ages. Or any type of conversation other than why people were travelling to the past. I thought about my family’s barn and closed my eyes. Still had that memory.
“Already know all history. Knowledge of future reason I go”, he said in that strange oscillation. I opened my eyes. His analysis was broken, thank the Great One. “Lives at stake.”
“Yes, but the cab physically won’t travel back until the pass––––enger gets out”, I replied, feeling my voice calm under the weight of my now increasing confidence. “And once you get out… It won’t let you back in, and you can’t summon a cab if you’ve already been in it.”
He remained silent. Then his head finally faced forward.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just visit somewhere in the past?”, I pressed. Had to be his turn. “The turn of the nineteenth century is popular, you could…”
“No. New Essos. See how us end… Visit.” His voice was resolute. Sort of. But that was it. He’d made his choice. We sailed through the warps of time, the fabric of the universe bending ever so slightly and insignificantly around us until we arrived.
The first thing we saw was a stuffed bear, its velvet red material faded and covered in grime, an eye socket missing.
The outside was as he’d described. Eternal dark skies, clouds as black as ivory roiled and undulated overhead like wild dancers in the throes of fever pitch.
The city’s buildings were largely dilapidated, holes and lasered rips dotted them.
It felt abandoned. The land beyond was dark brown, stained like old dried blood. I shuddered. This was the end of humanity? I shook my head. Then I turned to the passenger who was staring out of the window.
He put his hand on the door and turned to me. “At least I try do something. Where evil reign, good prevail.” He stepped out and was immediately teleported, gone. This was it! My soul was released. My physical form evaporated and I ascended the heavens. Where evil reigns, good prevails. On an endless cycle. Endless cycle. How long? I don’t know. Was it worth it? The jury is still out.
~
“-KHHRRR- Hello? -KHHRRR- are you there? -KHHRRR-.”
“What? Who you? What this? Where I?”
“-KHHRRR- Welcome back. . -KHHRRR- You have a fare. -KHHRRR-.”
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