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Man Walks into a Repair Shop • Sam Hawksmoor 'You can fix anything right?' Ordinarily Eric Sharpe wouldn’t criticize his customers or comment on what they wear, after all this was an electrical repair shop and he was used to men walking in in their overalls or housewives in curlers bringing in a broken radio or toaster. For some reason he drew the line at a man entering his shop in what looked to him like pajamas.  It prejudices your opinion of a man even before you can begin to discuss whatever he’d brought in to repair. “What have you got there then?  Just got out of bed?” Eric asked. The man frowned. He looked shattered, as if he’d no sleep for days. Looked about thirty Eric judged and on second thoughts it wasn’t pajamas but some kind of jump suit, the sort of thing men used to wear to jump out of aircraft in the war. The man lugged a large canvas bag up onto the counter and stared at Eric as he began to unzip it. “Can you fix this?”  He extracted a compact machine roughly the size of a small power generator, not that Eric had ever seen a small power generator, only sketches in a magazine.  “You can fix anything, right?” The man added. Eric looked more carefully at the object on his counter and sensed it was foreign, German, or Italian, well designed and very functional.  Nevertheless, it did seem like something he’d seen before. “Did you see our disclaimer?” “Disclaimer?” “We can fix anything electrical as long as it is repairable.” “Well, this is definitely repairable,” the man insisted. “Do you know much about electrics,” Eric enquired. The man shrugged. “No, but the sign says you can fix it. I can travel in a car, but I wouldn’t know how to fix it. That’s your job.” Eric pursed his lips. He really didn’t like this man or his attitude. He wished he could remember why this object seemed so familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “I’ll need a deposit. Cash.” The man winced. “I’m leaving you a million-dollar time machine. I don’t carry cash.” Eric smiled. “A million dollars? Not pounds?”  Ridiculous. The man must think he was a fool.  “I have to say we haven’t a time machine in here before.” The man looked annoyed. “Got a manual for it?” Eric asked thinking he was being amusing. “No. It’s pretty unique. They’ve been banned from back where I’m from. Caused too much havoc.” Eric spotted his cat arching his back, stretching, and turning around to face the other way. Didn’t seem impressed by a million-dollar machine. “Where was it made?”  Eric asked. “China; isn’t everything?” Eric scratched his head. He couldn’t think of a single thing that was made in China. “So, you brought me a Chinese time machine. Might be a problem getting parts.” “It does say you can fix anything on the sign outside,” the man repeated. “Perhaps you should take it back to China. Might be quicker.”  He looked again at the machine and admired the engineering. Truth be told, he was a little bit intrigued. “Any idea why it stopped working?” The man shrugged. “I smelled burning, then it suddenly stopped. Dumped me just by the bridge over the docks.” Eric nodded. “Must have shorted out. How does it work? Do you sit on it. I’d have thought a time machine would be bigger.” “You don’t sit on it. You sit near it.” “Oh,” said Eric. Made no sense to him. “And any reason you have it. I mean didn’t you say they were banned?” “This is my job. I’m a time tracker. We track down unauthorized time machines and decom them. We can trace them through the temporal time shifts.” Eric was amused. Perhaps this was an elaborate prank on him by the lads at the Rotary Club. “What year are you from?” Eric asked casually. “I can’t tell you that.” “Might help in tracing spares,” Eric pointed out. “Spares would be in the future. If you can’t fix it, I’m stranded, and I really don’t want to be here. People smoke. It’s disgusting.” Eric frowned. A very sensitive time traveller, it seemed.  “If the machine is banned, wouldn’t I get into trouble trying to fix it?” The man seemed annoyed now. “It’s not illegal in your time. It hasn’t been invented yet. If it’s the microprocessor I’m screwed.” “Micro what?” “Nevermind. I can’t tell you anything. There are rules. I just need a temporary fix.” “I’ll still need a deposit. You’d be surprised at how many people come in here dump their stuff on me and never return. I’ve got four radios for sale if you need one.” “Radio?”  The man asked. He didn’t seem to know what it was. “How do you turn it on or off?” Eric asked examining the machine more closely. “You need an app. It’s on my phone.  I’m not handing that over.” “App? Phone?” Eric queried. “Apps haven’t been invented yet or mobile phones. I can’t show you. The rules.” Eric folded his arms. “We seem to be an impasse my friend.  You carry this phone in your pajamas? I didn’t notice any wires. Perhaps you can call the factory and ask them to send spares.” The man knew Eric was making fun of him now. “I don’t speak Chinese.” “Perhaps the owner of the Chinese on the corner could help you.” “I can’t call a factory that hasn’t even been built yet.” Eric conceded the logic of that statement. “I can’t call anyone. They haven’t built the digital network yet, there’s no signal.” Eric sensed there was a lot of information loaded in that statement. He was an electrical engineer by training, but it wasn’t making any sense to him. “So how do we turn it on, should I accidentally fix it,” Eric asked. “You can use Bluetooth, a close proximity signal.” Now that was something Eric had heard about. Some experiments in Sweden on short- link radio technology, not that anyone had found any use for it so far, except to turn time machines on, it seemed. “Leave it with me. I’ll run some tests. Come back tomorrow after lunch.  Got a name?” “Name?” “For the claim slip.” The man seemed reluctant to give his name.  “Er ... Smith.” Eric wrote Smith – repair to one time machine on a slip of paper and handed it to him. “If it can be fixed, I’ll let you know. Might be harder than you think.” Mr Smith seemed reluctant to leave but eventually left the shop and Eric locked up after him. “It seems we have a time machine Puss. Just when you think you’ve seen everything eh?” It was later as Eric, and his cat, were sharing a pair of kippers for his supper that he suddenly remembered Ted Harold. They had both been on the MOD Special Device Evaluation Unit at Brickley Hall during the war. Everything any boffin ever invented had to be tested by the Ministry and get the yay or nay seal of approval. There were a lot of rejections. Mr Stander, the chief engineer wouldn’t let anything bamboozle him. Some ingenious devices that Eric had thought would be very useful to the RAF or the Navy were scuppered even if the rest of the team had approved them. Some wags used to say that he was secretly working for the German’s and was never going to approve anything useful. He’d been a sceptic about all the goings on at Bletchley and dead set against Turing and his team of code breakers, but he was overruled on that one. After a particularly bad bombing night the whole MOD testing team had been moved north to Brickley Hall near RAF Binbrook.  Which is why after the war Eric had ended up in Grimsby, the nearest big town. He’d seen the bomb damage in London and couldn’t face going back there and starting over. He’d opened the repair shop to keep an income coming in and lived over the premises. It wasn’t exciting but Grimsby was a prosperous town and friendly enough.  Ted had found himself a job at the new oil refinery in Immingham leading a small team keeping the place running smoothly. He, like Eric, hadn’t wanted to go back to London. Both of them had signed the official secrets act and knew they couldn’t discuss anything they did back in the war years, so phoning Ted was out of the question. You never knew if anyone was listening in. He started up his old Ford Pilot and set off for Immingham. He took the time machine with him. Ted was listening to a drama on radio when he got there but seemed pleased to see him. “It’s been a while, Eric. What three years since we met up at the Wheatsheaf?” Eric shook his hands and lugged the time machine into Ted’s living room. He looked around at the house and was impressed. “I was lucky to get a deposit down the first day. Corner plot is always the best one. You get more garden and a bit of privacy. I could get a hundred more than I paid for it if I sold it. But where would I go?” “You’ve made a better choice than me. I still live over the shop.” “I’m out of beer. Cup of tea?” “Tea is good by me, Ted. I wanted to pick your brains.” “I knew it wouldn’t be a social visit. I wonder if any of the others ever meet up?” “Scattered to the wind I should think. Marshall went to Australia with his wife.” “Yes, ten-pound pom. Don’t blame him mind. I should have gone too. Good life there.” Eric unzipped the canvas bag that the time machine came in. He watched Ted carefully as he did it. “I’m thinking that you might have seen one of these before.” Ted stared at the time machine in astonishment. “My god, where did you get it Eric? Remember how Mr Stander went mad when that came in and completely banned any of us testing it.” “But I seem to recall you did take a look.” Ted raised his eyebrows and grinned. “Well, it was a time machine. The man who brought it in said it would shorten the war for three years, remember?” “Mr Stander didn’t want to shorten the war. He’d still be fighting it from his back office if he could.” “He was an outstanding pillock of the first order,” Ted agreed. “He certainly was. My question to you is – what happened to it? What happened to any of the devices we rejected?” Ted looked at Eric in surprise. “You don’t know?  Mr Stander had them all stored in a barn at Binbrook at the Top Farm.” “What? All of them. There has to be thousands of ...” “He didn’t want to send them back. No explanations, nothing. Then we were all let go, remember? God, they came in and said we were all to pack up, stop what we’re doing and leave. No thanks for your service. Nothing.” “They did put a bus on to Grimsby Station.” Ted laughed. “Yes, they did that. I went back to Brickley Hall a couple of years ago, just to see the place. They want to open it up to the public, but it needs a lot of work. I hear it’s for sale if you’re interested. Comes with fifty acres.” Eric smiled. “I don’t see myself as Lord of the Manor, do you?” Ted grinned. “I’ll make the tea. I want to hear how you ended up with this machine. Is it the same one you think?” “That’s why I’m here Ted. That’s why I’m here.” Over tea he filled Ted in on the odd circumstances of its arrival and the man in pajamas. Ted laughed at that. But then remembered something odd about the man who’d brought the original machine to the MOD in 1943. “He was wearing odd clothes too. Made a right fuss when he was told it could take months to evaluate it. He was quite insistent that we could use it to shorten the war.” “Well, my Mr Smith says he wants to destroy it. He was on his way to 1943 to do just that when this machine malfunctioned.” “Good luck to him getting past Mr Stander,“ he said chuckling. Eric sipped his tea as an idea came to him. “You don’t suppose we could take a look at that barn, do you?  I mean perhaps I can get hold of spares, or switch machines so we can send my Mr Smith on his way.” Ted blinked. “Well assuming any of this is real and not some science fiction nonsense I suppose you could take a look. I don’t think it’s guarded. For all the MOD cares it’s all just forgotten junk. Should be sold for scrap.” Eric nodded. “Scrap fetches a good price nowadays. Let’s hope someone else hasn’t beaten us to it.” Ted dunked a biscuit into his tea, he looked thoughtful. “I remember thinking about that time machine back then. All the American bombers taking off right over the Hall. Remember how they hated doing night flights. I kept wondering how you’d use a time machine to shorten the war.  What had the man meant when he’d offered to demonstrate it to us? Of course, Mr Stander wasn’t ever going to let anyone demonstrate anything and we all laughed that this thing could work. I mean it wasn’t a bomb. We didn’t know anything about the atomic bomb research going on back then. I’m not sure we knew much of anything to be honest. What would we have done with a time machine if we’d got it working, I wonder?” Eric had wondered the same thing. “There’s always the obvious thing. Go back and assassinate Hitler in 1920 or something. That’s probably what he had in mind. Kill him before he can get started on writing that book.” Ted shrugged. “Yeah, but how do you know someone else wouldn’t grow into his shoes. There’s a whole lot of people you’d want to pop off. Lenin, Stalin, probably Karl Marx and The Kaiser. I mean where would you ever stop.” “Maybe that’s what Mr Smith had in mind. He said his job was to track and decom time machines. They cause too much trouble.” “I’d like to meet your Mr Smith. I’d like to know what the future’s like. Wouldn’t you? Hope a better place than now.” “He said he can’t tell me. Can’t say anything in case.” “In case?” “It’s like careless talk costs lives. Remember that?” “Yes and make do and mend. It’s hard to believe they only stopped rationing last year. Treated myself to a new jacket. It’s strange to be wearing it without patches. I see you still drive the old Pilot. How can you afford the petrol? That V8 must drink the stuff.” “I don’t use it much. I don’t think the new cars are built to the same standard as pre-war. I’ll wait. I like the look of that new Zephyr mind.” Ted grinned. “I heard Ford are expanding production. Two of my lads have left and moved to Coventry to work at Jaguar. Some new saloon models coming. Things are moving ahead again at last.” “About time too.”  Eric looked at his watch. “I’d better get going.” Ted nodded. “You didn’t say if you could repair the man’s time machine. I mean, what’s wrong with it?” “There’s titanium tube that’s scorched on the inside and I suspect needs replacing. You think anyone is making titanium tubing anywhere?” Ted thought about it. “Submarines. You’d need to be talking to those people. Good luck on that. I suspect you’ll be on some kind of suspect list the moment you open your mouth. Titanium? That would cost an arm and a leg.” “Maybe titanium is cheaper in the future,” Eric remarked. Ted was looking at the time machine as Eric bundled it back into the canvass bag. “Nice zip. I wonder who makes those?” “The Chinese I suspect. Mr Smith said the machine is made there.” Ted looked sceptical. “China? Do they have any industry at all?” Eric frowned. “They must have. I suppose we don’t know much about China since they went Communist. No idea why they’d be making time machines either.” Ted stood up. “Your customer is right. You can’t have a lot of people using time machines. You could wake up every morning in a different world. I wonder what that would be like?” Eric smiled. “Maybe you’d never know. One day you’d be married, the next single or a postman with a dog. Time is best left well alone in my opinion.” Eric didn’t drive home.  He was tired, but it wasn’t more than twenty miles or so to Binbrook and if he was going to do any searching, better to do it in darkness when no one was looking.  He had a torch under the car seat, and he didn’t want Ted to get any ideas about getting hold of the machine himself. Twenty minutes later he found the old farm and the long track that led up to it. He didn’t want to disturb anyone in the farmhouse and wasn’t sure it was occupied, so switched off his lights, thankful for the bright half-moon.  He remembered coming here to buy eggs, off-ration of course back in the war. The farm kept them fed during all the shortages and the agreement was they’d keep quiet about it.  He recalled there was a secret reserve supply of timber and other essential machinery stored down at the railway spur at the bottom of the farm, all held back as a response to city bombings. He wondered if it was all still there. The barn was situated on the ridge overlooking the spur. There was talk of closing down all the country railway lines down and scrapping the steam engines. It would be a sad day if true but that’s progress for you. The barn doors were padlocked.  He should have expected that, couldn’t have people helping themselves to the scrap, could they.  Disappointed, he decided to walk around the barn in case there was another entrance.  It seemed a lot bigger than he remembered.  It was possible it might have been expanded at some time to store everything. He found a fire door at the rear, it was slightly ajar, held open by a wedged brick. Eric’s heart sank, someone would have definitely cleared everything valuable out of there. He only turned on his torch once he was inside and he kicked away the brick and closed the fire door as quietly as he could, wincing as it clanged shut. He shone the torch over the racks and his heart sank. There were thousands of objects of assorted sizes stashed four racks deep. What had he been thinking? Find a time machine would take months. He’d need an army of helpers.  He was wasting his time. He walked down one row until he came to the far end and the padlocked door.  It had taken a team of sixty-men and women to sort through and test each one of these devices and these were just the rejects. The ones that got the stamp of approval went back to the makers with notes. Four years working six-day weeks from 8 am to 6.30 pm or longer if Mr Stander felt they were falling behind. It was only as he began looking at the shelves in detail that he realized that each item had been assigned a number and letter. He should have realized Mr Stander would have insisted upon a system, even with the rejects. He spent half an hour looking for a file index. It had to be somewhere tucked away somewhere useful in a corner perhaps. The bureau was a metal cabinet with sliding drawers. He had one at his shop just like it.  Better yet it wasn’t locked. Now all he needed to know what the object he desired had been named.  He very much doubted ‘Time-Machine’ would have been used.  What was it Mr Smith had said something like ‘temporal space shift’.  He was completely surprised to find there was a ‘Temporal Shift Adjuster’ located at Row 7 – 977B.  He suddenly full of praise for Mr Stander.  He swiftly located row 7 and began to scan the racks. His torch illuminated the third shelf, head height – 977B. One Temporal Shift Adjuster wasn’t there.  He looked side to side, then on the lower shelf but most assuredly the object of his desire was not in evidence. Crestfallen Eric made his way back to the rear of the barn and the fire door. He pushed on the bar, and it seemed reluctant to open. He shone the torch onto the door. He was annoyed, these things never failed. They were designed to work first time to save lives. He set the torch down and his eyes caught something reflecting light on his left. He gasped he was so startled.  There was a decomposed body splayed out on the floor. Dried blood pooled under and around the body.  He could see without getting closer that the man had smashed his skull against the barn wall.  Unconscious, he would have bled out relatively quickly. Eric was shaken but he’d seen enough death during the war, people crushed under bombed out buildings. His neighbours in Lewisham all burned to death. His own home destroyed. Eric shone the torch on the body. He knew from the state of it that it had been here a long time. A year or more. There was a large canvas bag on its side nearby, perhaps dropped during the fall. He knew exactly what was in it. Furthermore, he thought he recognized the tortoiseshell spectacles lying broken to one side of the head. From the size of the corpse and the brown double-breasted suit he was 90 percent sure that this was Mr Stander lying there. He drew closer and the missing finger on his right hand confirmed it. He’d lost it evacuating during a heavy bombing raid in ‘41.  That was the night Eric has lost his sweetheart Kelly – a nurse at the hospital. He didn’t care to remember that. He stared at Mr Stander without any emotion. The man had tried to purloin the Temporal Shift Adjuster and somehow paid for it with his life.  Was it him who had propped the door open? Clearly no one had been to inspect the barn in a very long time. It was forgotten and discarded, like so many things after the war.  But Mr Stander hadn’t forgotten – so had he actually thought the time machine was the genuine article and just bade his time until he was sure no one would remember it?  Why hadn’t he allowed a proper investigation during the war? They had been really busy in ’43 but Ted wouldn’t have been the only one keen to inspect it. Eric checked that the canvas bag really did contain the time machine and it didn’t seem to be dented or visibly damaged.  He hadn’t noticed this with the other bag, but it seemed to be lined with a very springy rubber lining. Almost as if they knew someone might drop it one day. His grand plan was to swap machines with the one he had in the car, but he wasn’t sure now. He had no idea if dropping it might have dislodged something internally. He’d have to bring back to his workshop and examine it. Of course, then he’d have two time machines with no idea of how to repair either of them, or strip them down to cannibalise for spares. Eric decided to take if back with him. Perhaps seeing both machines side by side he’d be able to see what was wrong with Mr Smiths. He gave the fire door bar a good whack and it opened just as it was supposed to. Eric wedged a brick to stop it closing and then went to pick up the machine.  He’d decide what to do about Mr Stander on the way home. If anything. He didn’t want anyone to know he’d been here. He was sure it was still off limits. He kicked the brick away and let the door close. He had a brief thought that the barn had somehow become Mr Stander’s tomb. Quite fitting that he would be surrounded by everything he had rejected to shorten the war. The cat woke him at seven as usual, hungry and a bit cross he hadn’t had his supper the night before. Eric was still tired and a little excited as what lay before him. He brushed his teeth with unusual vigour that morning and skipped shaving, he wasn’t entirely sure he could trust his hands.  He fed the cat and let him out into the back yard and remembered he had a TV to fix as well as an iron. He wanted to get those out of the way before he contemplated the big issue of the day. It was ten o’clock before he’d finished and both customers had been in impatient to retrieve their electricals. There wasn’t much he could do about the horizontal hold on the TV and told the customer to try adjusting the aerial. Which was easy enough to say, but finding someone to go up there on his roof and move it around would be tricky. No one wanted the ‘small’ jobs. At last, he was alone with a much-deserved cuppa and sat staring at the two time machines on his kitchen table. It didn’t take him too long to realise that the machine he’d ‘rescued’ from the farm was the older model. The serial number told him that. He could see scratches from probing screwdrivers where they’d tried to get inside it at Brickley Hall and failed.  The newer machine matched the design; but he saw where they had made some modifications. The titanium tube was intact, and he could probably swap them over, but the screw heads were tiny star shaped. He didn’t have the correct tools for that.  He was pretty sure no one had. He was reluctant to try and force it loose with a Philips screwdriver and besides his was far too large.  He wondered if the jewellers on the high street had small enough screwdrivers. It was only as he was getting his coat on when he heard the clicking noise.  He rooted around the shelves until he found the source and stared at the Bendix Field Ratemeter Geiger counter. He hadn’t realized he’d left it on. He’d shown it to a customer about a week ago when the topic came up at the pub. He’d bought it a year earlier on a whim from an Army surplus auction, when there was a lot of talk of radioactive leaks from the atomic power station they were building at Calder Hall at Windscale. It wasn’t due to open for another year, but they had to be testing it and he’d heard solid rumours of problems with radioactive steam releases. He had general concern about the atomic bomb tests in America and Australia too and it seemed to him that a Geiger counter could come in handy, that and a small supply of potassium iodide tablets. He carried the device over to the kitchen table and the needle moved a fraction. He switched off, changed the setting, and switched it back on again. The needle moved marginally higher, but it stayed steady, the tick marks showing a low reading but definitely more than background radiation. He didn’t know enough on how to read the device properly as it hadn’t come with instructions, but he knew enough to realise that the time machines were mildly radioactive. Mr Smith had some explaining to do but logically he understood that if you were going to own a portable time machine, you’d need a long-life battery to power it. Nothing lasted longer than radioactive decay, so someone had made a battery. He wondered if it was lead-lined and frowned. Had Mr Stander discovered this? Was that why he wouldn’t allow anyone to open it up, although clearly someone had tried. Ted, he wondered? He doubted it. But you never knew someone entirely. He sipped his lukewarm tea and contemplated the situation. Mr Smith was using the machine, so obviously he thought it safe to use. But was it safe to fix?  That was the question.  He looked at the time and decided to pop out to the jewellers. They fixed watches and clocks so it stood to reason they would have tiny screwdrivers. Mr Smith arrived just after two pm.  He looked exhausted and certainly hadn’t shaved in a few days. He had to wait as Eric finally got rid of one of his surplus toasters to a customer for five bob. Eric nodded to him as he went to the door and flipped the sign to closed. He didn’t want any customers for a while. Mr Smith was no longer wearing pajamas he was glad to see, he’d obviously scrounged up something from the Salvation Army or such like.  “Tell me Mr Smith when were you going to tell me the time machine is radioactive?” Mr Smith stared at him uncomprehendingly. “What?” “You heard me. You came in here asking me to fix your machine knowing that it could endanger my health. Radioactivity is lethal is large enough doses. It can cause damage to skin tissue in even small doses. I looked up the numbers and this machine is emitting the same kind of numbers as I’d get in an x-ray. How long have you been using the machine? Mr Smith swallowed hard. He had to think. “I signed up two years ago. You can only do three years. It’s in the contract.” “You never asked why you can only operate the device for three years?” Mr Smith thought back to his life three years before. Broke, desperate, a useless humanities degree with a major in eighteenth century industrial history. The pay was good. The medical coverage was excellent. Come to think about it, they’d never once mentioned the time machine was radioactive. They’re main concern was always that he’d return with the machine intact (and forward the stray time machine to landfill). Eric could see the doubt on his face. He knew that look. He’d seen it often enough in the war. That ‘no need to know, just follow bloody orders’ look. “You look hungry. I’m about to make a sandwich and have a cuppa. Jam or meat paste?” “Meat paste?”  Mr Smith enquired. It sounded gross. “Er jam? Is that the same as jelly?” “Men do not make jellies, Mr Smith. We eat jam sandwiches. Or billy.” “Billy?” Eric smiled. “Marmalade sandwiches to you.  Come with me. I’m about to surprise you and disappoint you at the same time.” Mr Smith had had nothing but disappointment since he’d pitched up in this godforsaken place, he wasn’t sure he could take much more. He followed Eric through the door to the kitchen dining room behind the shop.  The cat was sitting on one of the time machines.  Eric shooed him off. “Not good for you at all, Mr Whiskers. Not at all.” Eric glanced at Mr Smith’s face as he realised there were two time machines sitting on the dining table.  He smiled to himself, happy to see the surprise on his face. He’d been thinking about what he’d tell the man. A different version of the truth might go a long way he surmised. “I’ve tested the machine. Seems to be in working order now. I popped out to 1943 and found the other machine you were looking for.” Mr Smith’s jaw dropped. “You did what?” Eric heaped two spoonsful of tea into the pot and poured the boiling water in and put the lid on to let it steep. “It was a bit hit and miss, but it was fun seeing my old friends again at the farm.” “Farm?” Eric frowned. “You didn’t know where it was being kept?” “I er... it’s pre-programmed. I mean, it’s impossible. You can’t operate the machine without the app. Or get back to here. It’s programmed to take me back to 2047. I have no control at all.” Eric smiled – so 2047, almost a hundred years ahead, interesting. “Sugar?” Mr Smith looked extremely puzzled. “Sugar?” “For your tea, Mr Smith.” “You can’t put sugar in tea it’s a class A poison.” “Milk?” Eric offered slightly confused. “From a cow?” Mr Smith seemed appalled. “It might have seen a cow, it’s pasturised, if that’s what’s worrying you.” “No, no milk.”  He put his hands in horror. “It’s homemade raspberry jam. I hope that’s not been declared poisonous. I eat some every day.”  Eric laughed and made himself busy cutting the cob loaf and spreading butter on it. He decided Mr Smith would just have jam. Mr Smith was examining both machines and looking up the serial number on his almost translucent telephone.  He seemed satisfied that Eric had indeed found the correct machine but couldn’t accept that he’d made the journey, let alone brought the machine back with him.” “You said you fixed that machine?”  Mr Smith asked as Eric handed him a sandwich.  He examined the food with suspicion, but hunger won out and he bit into it cautiously. “This is a sandwich?” Eric made one for himself. “Yes Mr Smith. It’s a plain thing I know but the bread was fresh this morning, made by the baker across the road.” Mr Smith ate quickly and seemed to appreciate it. “Very sweet.” “Yes, jam is very sweet. Sweeter now – the raspberries were plentiful this year. My neighbour makes the jam. I don’t suppose people still eat raspberries in 2047.” Mr Smith tried to remember the last time he’d eaten fruit or even seen a bush with berries on it, but nothing came to mind. “How did you know where to find the other machine?” he asked. “I can see the tracker mode is off, so how could you possibly have found it?” “Sworn to secrecy I’m afraid. Sighed the Official Secrets Act. Still in force.” Mr Smith blinked. “Official Secrets Act?” “War stuff Mr Smith. I expect there’s been a few more since the last big one.” Mr Smith ran a hand through his hair. “A few. Quite a lot actually. Its only now things are more stable.” “Who won?”  Eric asked. “As a matter of curiosity.” Mr Smith shook his head. “Can’t tell you.” Eric frowned then decided to tell the truth. “It’s alright. I took the liberty to pop to year 2000 to see what it might be like.”  He shuddered. “Grimsby isn’t what it was, that’s for certain. But I was glad to see the bomb damage is gone but they’ve done away with the trams, which I think is a mistake. This whole street is boarded up in fact. Never been so depressed in my life. I’m going to sell up here as soon as I can and move south. I’m a man of Kent originally. Grew up in Bromley. Got bombed to hell but I was assured Kent’s recovered and there’s a bridge and tunnel near Dartford now. I’d like to see that.” Mr Smith blinked at him uncertainly. “You went to the future?” “Just there and back to here to test it. I suppose they didn’t tell you there’s a manual option and a pop-up digital menu. I have to say I was very impressed by that. Diodes I suppose. Wish we’d had that in the war. Bloody Mr Stander was a saboteur in my opinion.  Anyway, it took me about a week to work it all out. You have to have exact geo map locations, longitude, and latitude or else you could end up in the middle of a very busy road or middle of the North Sea. So happens I have my old ordnance survey maps in the back. I was always fascinated by maps when I was a boy. To think I was going to chuck them out last year." Eric enjoyed seeing the astonishment on Mr Smith's rather flabby face. "By the way, turns out it wasn’t the titanium tubing that was the problem. You’d tripped the actuator and naturally it shut down and dumped you here in Grimsby. It’s quite a few miles from where the other machine was. How were you intending to get there?” “Oh, normally it would have taken me to within two miles of the machine. They would have programmed a safe space for me. Walk the rest of the way.” Eric ate his sandwich and nodded his head. “Odd sensation you get when you travel. Made me quite poorly for a moment. Couldn’t even get a cuppa. Everything had closed down. Devil’s own job to get out of my workshop. Someone had boarded it up.  I got this though.”  He went to the sideboard and waved a Daily Mail at Mr Smith. “See the headline? Running On Empty. Can you believe it they’re talking about rationing petrol. In 2000! People protesting all over the place. Labour’s back in power. Always ends badly with that lot in office. I couldn’t make head or tail of the prices of everything. I think they must have changed the money.  I dread to think how bad it is in 2047. And it was raining.  Couldn’t wait to get back here. No, Mr Smith, time travel isn’t for me. Better the devil you know.”  He didn’t mention that he’d spent a whole day wandering about the town gawping at the new cars and the shopping mall they’d built alongside Victoria Street. Spent some time laughing at what the kids were wearing and all that long hair on the boys, he’d have never predicted that. Looked up a couple of friends, they had aged really badly, and he’d enjoyed seeing their astonished faces when they saw him walk into the pub without having aged a day. He’d told them straight he was using a time machine, but they didn’t believe him. Bought him a pint at least. It had been the devil’s own job to calculate how to get back to the shop within two hours of him leaving it, he’d been pretty pleased with himself to get to that right. Mr Smith was looking at the paper. “This is news?” He checked the date. It really was September 15th, 2000. “You never seen a newspaper?” Eric asked. Mr Smith shook his head. “Never. How ...?  It’s made of paper?” “Sold at every corner shop probably. They sell millions every day. Most people buy the Mail for the horse racing I suppose; but I don’t care about gambling myself.” Mr Smith frowned. “Racing horses? Real horses?” “Can’t exactly race rocking horses now, can you? I take it there’s no horse racing in your future? Or newspapers? Or sugar?  Sounds a bit grim.  I don’t suppose you can tell me how many people live in England then. I read somewhere that they reckon the population will reach 50 million soon. That’s a big number.” Mr Smith sipped his tea and winced at the bitter taste. “More like a hundred million. Or used to be. The Rose virus ....” He looked away. “You really don’t want to know about the that or what it did to people.” Eric decided he didn’t want to know about the ‘virus’. He looked at the clock. “I suppose you’ll be on your way then. If you’re going to destroy the old one, do it somewhere safe. I don’t want any radiation in my back yard.” “There’s a return to landfill option. Is it still working?” “Landfill?  It’s radioactive?  How many of these have you send back? And where? Mr Smith had no idea. All he had to do was send the machine to the coordinates. Job done.  “I think they send them back into the past. A long way back so they don’t affect people.” Eric was not impressed. “So that’s what happened to the dinosaurs.” Mr Smith didn’t know anything about dinosaurs. “A few billion years is my guess.” Eric sneered. “Billion years. The dinosaurs lasted billions of years then suddenly died out. I suspect a few hundred radioactive time machines landing on their heads might have been a bit of a surprise. There’s no way this little machine could travel that far, even with a long-life battery. They were pulling your leg Mr Smith.” Mr Smith didn’t really care. He just wanted to go home. “Is it working?” “A bit bashed about but the actuator is working.  I did check.” Mr Smith took out his phone and aimed it at the old time machine and pressed a button on his phone. The old machine beeped three times and a light came on. “It’s on a countdown. We should go into the other room.”  Mr Smith picked up his own time machine and carried it with him.  Eric and his cat followed him into the front of the shop. “It’s not going to explode, is it?”  Eric asked looking back at the now operational machine. “No.” Mr Smith assured him. “There is the matter of the bill for fixing it.” Eric pointed out. Mr Smith set his time machine down on the counter and pulled out a little red book and studied it closely for a moment until he found the appropriate decade. “I can’t give you money, but I can give you a dead cert.” “A racing tip?” Eric was disappointed. Mr Smith shook his head. “Buy IBM. You can get in early and make a killing.” “IBM?” “Computers are the future.” “That’s it? I fix your machine and all you can give is a share tip?”  Eric was more than a little miffed. Especially as he'd been assured by someone in the Mall that Nokia phones were the future. “That’s what the red book says. It’s never wrong.  Now pick up your cat. No cats or dogs permitted in my futurel. Please step back. I’ll say thank you now.” Mr Smith switched on his time machine and sat down crossed legged on the floor nearby the counter. A curious wind suddenly blew in the back room and the door slammed shut. Eric went to investigate. The other time machine had gone. He looked back at Mr Smith as air pressure built up in the front room.  Eric held on tight to Mr Whiskers and kept well back. He had no wish to go to 2047 or any future. And suddenly with a whoosh Mr Smith was gone. Eric stared at the shop, and it was as if none of this had ever happened. He set the cat down and then he saw it. A little red book had tumbled off the counter. He began to smile.  He suddenly didn’t feel so hard done by after all. © Sam Hawksmoor December 2025 The Repossession of Genie Magee available in print or ebook. No 1 in the series. Winner of The Wirral 'Paperback of the Year'.