Each had woken up in terror, just as Kaylee had, the memoryof the moment of their deaths etched into their minds, but the fear had quicklyfaded now they knew that they were safe.
Eventually, both Henrys turned up at the lab to fill in themissing pieces. It seemed that he had met up with the original Henry inCanberra and they were getting on like a house on fire. New Henry hadreluctantly changed his name to Harry to avoid confusion, and they had forgedhim an identity and a passport. He was now officially Harry Jones, twin brotherof Henry.
Despite there being no Vanessa in the original Henry’s life,he was aware of what had happened up to the point of being run down, so whenHarry turned up and explained what had happened, he was quite happy to accepthis version of events.
Interestingly, Henry was still working at the Canberrainstitute, largely in the field of robotics; his research was nowhere near asadvanced as it had been before. Vanessa had pushed things forward with herfinances in the old timeline and he no longer had that.
What he did have was his memories of the work he had donebefore. Sitting down and discussing it with Harry they had discovered that twominds were indeed better than one, and now they were eagerly planning newprojects for the future.
Vanessa’s removal from history had not had the massiveimpact on the timeline that they had feared. Outside of Australia, the impactwas imperceptible and even in her own country, most of the changes were largelycosmetic. The altered world simply carried on oblivious.
Only a few time travellers were aware of the changes, andthey had made no difference to life in Oxford at all. In effect, everything hadbeen restored to how it was before, in what was now the only universe inexistence.
Over dinner in Brown’s, the night they arrived in Oxford,Henry and Harry, brightly dressed in their favourite attire, resurrected theidea that had brought them all together in the first place.
“So now that the delightful Vanessa’s out of the way andeverything’s back to normal, what do you think about our original idea ofsending people back into their past lives?” suggested Henry.
“Absolutely not,” exclaimed Alice, getting her protest inbefore Josh had a chance to give a positive response. “Don’t you think all thishas caused enough trouble already?”
“That was all down to Vanessa, though, wasn’t it?” repliedJosh. “We had no way of knowing she would turn out to be a total psycho,” saidJosh.
“I don’t care,” said Alice. “This, and everything else thatwent on before we even met her, proves once and for all that time travel isdangerous. I’m sorry, Josh, but I’m putting my foot down over this.”
“What are you saying, exactly?” said Harry.
“I’m saying no more time travel – ever. It stops here and itstops now. Tomorrow morning we are going into the lab and we are going to shutit all down permanently – destroying it if necessary, including thetachyometers.”
“Are you serious?” asked Josh. “You would destroy decades ofwork, just like that?”
“That work just destroyed a whole world,” said Alice.
“But we undid that,” said Josh. “Everything worked outalright in the end.”
“Tell that to the people who used to be alive in the otheruniverses,” replied Alice.
“She has a point,” said Henry. “Can I suggest a compromise,for the time being?”
“You may,” said Alice. “But I might not agree.”
“I don’t think you can risk destroying the equipment. WhilstVanessa may no longer be a threat, we can’t rule out someone else discoveringtime travel and trying something similar in the future. If they do, who isgoing to stop them?”
“Not us if we’ve destroyed our equipment,” said Josh.
“Exactly,” said Harry, supporting his twin. “We would befoolish to destroy our only chance of foiling them if such a situation arose.”
“OK,” conceded Alice. “It’s a valid point. We’ll puteverything into a high-security storage unit and I’m going to take charge ofthe key. I’ll have to have a very good reason to give it up. Are we agreed?”
“Agreed,” said the others in unison.
“We’ll sort it all tomorrow,” said Alice. “And let’s hope wenever have reason to use those blasted tachyometers again. And now, if you’llexcuse me, I need to visit the little girls’ room.”
“Looks like our time travelling days are over,” remarkedHenry, as Alice made her way to the ladies.
“For now,” said Josh. “To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a breakfrom it all. These last few years of time-travelling have been pretty fraughtat times.”
“What if that break turns out to be permanent?” asked Harry.
“I doubt it,” said Josh. “We don’t have an exclusive licenceon time travel and there are a lot of clever people out there. I’ve got a feelingthat, sooner or later, we’re going to need those tachyometers again.”
“In the meantime,” said Henry, “we’ve got something elsegoing on you might like to get involved in. Do you remember Dani, my androidfrom Canberra?”
“Of course.”
“Well, she doesn’t exist anymore – vanished along with mostof my other research when the timeline changed, and the money taps were turnedoff. But it’s still all up here,” he said, and he tapped his head to emphasisehis point.
“And up here,” said Harry, mimicking Henry’s gesture.
“Well, we had a feeling Alice was going to put the kybosh onour time travel reincarnation plan,” said Henry, “so we’ve come up with analternative. We’ve got an idea that’s going to revolutionise android technologyand make them practically human. Taste, touch, smell: you name it, they’ll haveit.”
“Interested?” added Harry.
“Definitely,” replied Josh.
“If this all works out, we will be able to create a perfectreplica body to live in,” said Henry. “It will be true immortality, and withthe ability to enjoy all the pleasures of the flesh that we currently have,like eating steak, drinking wine and having sex. Let us tell you all about it.”
“Tell us all about what?” asked Alice, returning to thetable.
“You’ll love this,” said Henry as he eagerly began toexplain.
Josh listened, fascinated, as Henry and Harry outlined theirplans, cracking jokes and playing off each other like some Hawaiian-clad comedydouble act. It was so much nicer than having dinner with Henry and Vanessa.
As for time
