Whole areas of the city seemed to have been burned to theground. It wasn’t bushfire season, which led them to conclude that they musthave been started by electrical faults or gas explosions. It was alsoremarkable how quickly the vegetation was taking hold, with giant weedsspringing up everywhere, cracking roads and running up the side of buildings.It truly was a post-apocalyptic scenario.
“I imagine it’s like this all over Earth,” remarked Josh.“Give it a few centuries and most evidence of humanity will have disappeared.If aliens ever came to visit, they would find about as much left as we do whenwe dig up old Roman villas.”
“Perhaps that’s just what the planet needs, given the damagehumanity has done to it,” said Henry. “Time to recover.”
“Maybe it does,” said Josh. “But it’s not going to get thechance. We’ve got a timeline to restore.”
During their long voyage they haddecided that Henry would be the one to travel back on their mission. He wasthe obvious choice, being born and bred in the area, as well as having a goodknowledge of Australian history and traditions from the time they werevisiting.
He would have to track down Vanessa’s father in the past asthere was no way of finding out more about him in the present, and even ifthere was, it was far too dangerous to travel into the city in its currentstate. As soon as Henry was off the yacht and onto the harbour side he jumpedback in time, while Josh retreated to the sanctuary of the yacht to wait fornews.
Henry set the tachyometer to take him back to a week beforethe concert in 1985, to allow enough time to track Vanessa’s father down beforehe left for the concert. Fortunately, Vanessa’s maiden name was comparativelyrare and there were only about ten of them in the local phone book. He rangeach one up and asked if he could speak to Mike. All bar one answered thatthere wasn’t a Mike there, at which point he apologised and said it must havebeen a wrong number.
Only one did have a Mike, and when the lady who answered thephone, presumably his mother, went off to get him, Henry promptly put the phonedown. He was pretty certain he had located his target, but he needed to beabsolutely sure, so he decided to stake out the house.
He had no luck the first day, and with a lack of money andresources meaning he had nowhere to stay, he decided to return to the harbourand jump back to 2058 where he could update Josh with his progress and get adecent night’s sleep on the yacht.
He got lucky the second day, when a teenage lad emerged fromthe house not long after he had arrived in the street. It was just as well, ashe couldn’t keep hanging around outside the house forever: someone wouldnotice.
It would have been so much easier if he had acquired a carto stake the place out, like a proper detective, or even a dog, to give himselfa valid reason to be wandering up and down the street.
Mike emerged on foot and made his way to the local coffeeshop.
Henry was pretty sure that this must be Mike, even though hedidn’t recognise him, but he had only ever met the man when he was in hissixties, and the overweight, bald, middle-aged man he had been then bore noresemblance to this skinny youth. He followed him at a distance towards thelocal shopping centre where he entered a small coffee shop.
Henry followed to discover Mike had met up with a friend whoclearly had similar interests judging by their attire of rock T-shirts andtheir long, curly hair, which reminded Henry of the old heavy metal bands ofthe period. He sat down at the table behind them, ordered a coffee, andlistened, as they eagerly discussed their plans for their trip to Oz for Africain Sydney.
There was no doubt now that Henry had found the rightperson, and by the time he had finished his coffee he knew exactly when theywere leaving and how they were getting there.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have any money, so he had toscarper through the fire exit next to the toilets at the back of the building,something that felt quite exhilaratingly naughty. He had never done a runnerfrom a restaurant before in his life. It was something he was going to have toget used to, as his lack of funds meant it probably wouldn’t be the last crimehe would be committing before he saw this task through.
When he returned to the yacht in 2058 he took out a gun thathe had found stashed below decks. Josh was initially alarmed, but when Henryexplained that he wasn’t resorting to killing his erstwhile father-in-law andexplained his plan, Josh relaxed.
With the plan in place, he set the tachyometer to take himback again to 1985, on the morning two days before the concert when Mike andhis friend Paul were due to leave for Sydney.
He had heard Paul tell Mike what time he was coming to pickhim up for their two-day road trip, and when he arrived in his battered old redFord Falcon, Henry was waiting.
As soon as Mike had slung his bag into the back of the car,Henry struck, gun in hand.
“Hand over the keys, now, and no one gets hurt,” hedemanded, trying to sound as convincing as he could.
Terrified and speechless, the two teenagers had no optionbut to comply.
“Now stand back.”
“Please, mister,” said Mike pathetically, sounding nothinglike the gruff, old father-in-law Henry had once known, “take the car, but canI have my bag back? My concert tickets are in there.”
“Good,” said Henry, getting into the car and driving off.That was an unexpected bonus. Mike wouldn’t be able to get into the stadium noweven if he could find another way to Sydney.
He drove outside the city, then stopped at a station toponder his next move. He could just ditch the car at this point and head backto 2058, but he couldn’t be completely certain that the job was done. A checkof Mike’s wallet confirmed that the ticket was indeed in there
