<meta name="LineWrap" content="true"><TITLE>SR_Bk1 0020</TITLE><A HREF="SR_Bk1-0021.txt">Next (Page 21)</A><BR> "What do you mean, set up a new life? If you're a time traveller, why not just travel through time forever. There's gotta be more than enough to, y'know, explore."<P><P>"I do! I do do that. But a lot of stuff about past times is disturbing. Violence and bad smells, and lots and lots of fucking assholes. I'm telling you, people are real assholes in the past. Don't get me wrong, I like visiting the past. But I like living in the present, in these days, the eighties. But once 4:22 finally came the first time, for real, I had to say goodbye to everyone I loved. All my friends, my family, everyone. I couldn't just go back to my life in the past, because I was already there. If I went back, there would be another me there. And I'll do anything not to be around another me. It's creepy, it's just wrong. I wouldn't do that to myself, to my family. So I had to go back, start a new life for myself. New friends, new loves. But I stay close to 4:22. I stay close. I should go back farther, but I don't like living in those times. I like these times."<P><P>Burchard's mind was racing.<P><P>"But why not... why not bring everyone back with you? I mean, can you transport other people?"<P><P>"Yes, yes. One at a time, but I can do it. But that's not the problem. The problem is, I have no idea if the world ends for everyone at 4:22, or if it just ends for me. There's no way I can know. I cannot personally get past 4:22 PM on January 12, 1687. But I can't say for sure that the world is ending for everyone else. So to tell people about it, take them back in time... it may be depriving them of a true, rich future."<P><P>"Wow, I see what you meant when you said it would put me in a bad situation."<P><P>"I'm so sorry."<P><P>"No... you know, it's weird. I remember reading that with BDA, if it was played every day, it would inevitably crash in mid-January this year. Yeah like, every time the program self-modified, it writes to a portion of the disk. So when it inevitably ran out of room, the disk would crash and the program would be completely destroyed. But they said it would be around this time, mid-January. Of course, the computer died three years ago, from other causes. But that is just too weird. Unless..."<P><P>"Unless I'm making all this up. I know, I know."<P><P>"No no no, no, I'm not saying..."<P><P>"I tell you, I don't know," Keepy said. "I'm 52 years old, and I still don't know. I don't know if it's just me."<P><P>"52? What the hell are you talking about? You're not 52. There's no way."<P><P>She smiled at him, tears streaming down her face.<P><P>"I didn't expect that it would happen like this. But time itself, maybe, is repulsed by the thought of time travellers. Won't touch people like me maybe. I haven't aged a day physically since I started time travelling. And you know what? I'm not a 52-year-old woman. I'm a 22-year-old woman, who's just happened to experience 52 years. And, I assume, hundreds and hundreds of more years to come. Wow. I can't wait."<P><P>"I can't really process this," Burchard said. "How exactly do you do this time travel? How did you get this power?"<P><P>"I really don't want to talk about that now. I just want to say that... I'm tempted to face the end again. Try and hold on for more time. Maybe it's just a few seconds of void that I need to get through! There's no way to know. But if I could get through it... I'd get back not just one, but four separate lives, one of them being here at Thatterine College. But I have to get past 4:22..."<P><P>"Keepy, let me tell you something. If you really are a time traveller, I have to say that all my life I have wanted to travel through time. If you want someone to go with you, to help you, I would go without any hesitation, even if it meant throwing away my entire future, I would go. I mean I think you might know this, I mean... my game... it deals with time travel a lot. Is that why...<BR><A HREF="SR_Bk1-0021.txt">Next (Page 21)</A>