TEMPORAL ANOMALY #4127

A David Sands Competition story by Ricard Kelly

An entry in The Sands of Time Writing Competition

Martin Blackwell was having a thoroughly mediocre Wednesday. In fact, he was having a thoroughly mediocre life. Not bad, mind you. Just spectacularly average. He had a job in middle management at a company that made plastic bits for other plastic bits. He had a modest flat in Croydon that he shared with a cat he’d named Chairman Meow. He drank exactly three cups of tea daily (breakfast, mid-morning, and after dinner), never exceeded the speed limit, and possessed precisely seven pairs of identical grey socks.

So when a letter arrived unaddressed in his letterbox with only "Temporal Anomaly #4127, a.k.a. Martin Blackwell” on the front, he initially assumed it was yet another creative attempt by estate agents to make their junk mail stand out.

The envelope was constructed of a peculiar material. Not quite paper, not quite metal, and with an iridescent sheen that shifted colours when viewed from different angles. He almost binned it, but Chairman Meow took a particular interest. The envelope was not on the face of it the sort of thing the cat generally showed interest in. Food, sleep, and expressing disdain for Martin's existence was the Chairman’s usual ambit. Said existence seemed mostly, if barely, tolerated for the simple fact that the cat could not operate the tin opener.

“Alright, you furry little dictator, I'll open it,” Martin muttered, nudging the cat aside.

Dear Mr. Blackwell (Temporal Anomaly #4127),

You have been identified as a Class Three timeline disturbance, and your presence is required at the Bureau of Chronological Corrections. Report to Platform 7∂ at King's Cross Station tomorrow at precisely 11:37 AM.

Do not be late. Time waits for no man. Though in your particular case, that axiom requires several footnotes and appendices, and has been the subject of at least one peer-reviewed research paper.

Punctuality is of the essence.

Regards,

Ms. Evangeline Sharp

Senior Temporal Compliance Officer

Bureau of Chronological Corrections

Martin blinked, read the letter again, and then set it down on his kitchen counter.

“Right,” he said to Chairman Meow, who was now sitting atop the microwave with his usual expression of feline superiority. “Someone's having a laugh, aren't they? Probably Derek from Accounting. He's still upset about the Christmas party incident.”

The Christmas party incident, for the record, had involved a mince pie, a spectacularly ill-advised attempt at karaoke, and a wide selection of paper crowns. Human Resources had subsequently issued a company-wide memo, and a mandatory training in the appropriate use of paperclips.

Martin made himself an unscheduled cup of tea. He decided to forget about the letter. It was obviously a prank. Platform 7∂ didn't exist, whatever ∂ was. He wasn't a temporal anomaly. Most importantly, he had a quarterly budget report to finish by Friday.

The budget report was possibly the most exciting thing Martin had ever produced. It now contained not one but two pie charts and a bar graph that he'd coloured in shades of blue, to create what he considered to be a visual gradient of fiscal responsibility.

But when Martin went to bed that night, he placed the strange letter on his bedside table. He told himself it was merely so he could show it to Derek tomorrow and witness the man's reaction. It certainly wasn't because some small, deeply buried part of him hoped it might be real. He told himself it certainly wasn’t that he wished something extraordinary might finally happen in his painfully ordinary existence.

Chairman Meow watched from the foot of the bed, his yellow eyes gleaming with what might have been amusement.

“Goodnight, you furry little despot,” Martin said, switching off the lamp.

The cat blinked slowly, a gesture which, had Martin been more fluent in feline, he would have recognised as: “Sleep well, human. Tomorrow, everything changes.”

—

Martin wasn't entirely sure why he found himself at King's Cross Station the following day at 11:30 AM. He had called in sick to work (a first in his seven-year employment history) claiming “temporal indisposition,” which his manager had interpreted as a stomach bug.

“I’m just going to prove it's a prank,” he told himself firmly. “Then I'll pop into M&S, get a meal deal, and go home to finish that report. Perfectly sensible plan.”

The station was crowded with the usual mix of tourists and commuters, along with the people who seemed to exist solely to stand directly in front of departure boards. Martin made his way past Platform 7, looking for… well, he wasn't sure what he was looking for. There was Platform 7, and then there was Platform 8. There was no Platform 7∂. Martin had looked up 7∂, and ∂ alone, out of some hope that he might then understand the joke, but other than some ravings on an Internet forum that were clearly the output of a lunatic, it would seem ∂ was a perfectly normal Greek letter that had no business in an English train station.

“It really doesn’t,” he muttered, earning a strange look from a passing woman wheeling a pink suitcase. “Because this is a perfectly normal train station, and I'm a perfectly ordinary person who works in plastic bits manufacturing, not some kind of temporal what’s-it.”

It was now 11:35 AM, and Martin stood awkwardly between Platforms 7 and 8. He was feeling increasingly foolish, and was about to leave when he noticed a cleaner mopping the floor nearby. The man was unremarkable in most respects, except that he was mopping the same square tile over and over while humming what sounded suspiciously like the Doctor Who theme tune.

The cleaner caught Martin's eye and stopped humming abruptly.

“Looking for something, mate?” he asked.

“Er, no. Well, yes. I mean... this is going to sound completely mad, but I'm looking for Platform 7∂.”

The cleaner's face remained impressively neutral. “Ticket?”

“Sorry?”

“Have you got a ticket for Platform 7∂?”

Martin suddenly remembered the letter, folded in his pocket. He pulled it out. “I have this?”

The cleaner glanced at the letter, nodded once, and then resumed mopping, now in a complex pattern that seemed to defy Euclidean geometry and made Martin’s eyes hurt looking at it.

“You'll want to stand precisely there,” the man said while indicating a spot on the floor with his mop between two especially complicated strokes. A faint ∂ was now glowing where the man had indicated. “And think about clocks. Lots of clocks. All going backwards.”

“Think about…? Look, is this some sort of…“

“Thirty seconds, mate,” the man interrupted. “Better hurry. She doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

Martin hesitantly stepped onto the indicated spot, feeling utterly ridiculous. Nevertheless, he closed his eyes and attempted to visualise clocks running backwards. This was surprisingly difficult. His mind kept wandering to his unfinished budget report and whether Chairman Meow would judge him for buying the reduced-price cat food.

“Oh, and one more thing,” the cleaner said.

“Yes?”

“Might want to hold your breath. First-timers tend to vomit otherwise.”

Before Martin could respond, the floor beneath him seemed to twist. Not give way, not open up. Just twist, as if reality itself had decided to perform an impromptu ballet move in a hitherto undiscovered direction. Martin's stomach lurched violently.

There was a sensation of falling somehow inward, a sound like a thousand wristwatches being wound simultaneously, and then…

It looked almost like a normal train platform. Certainly, the signs displayed impossible time combinations (14:76, 25:13, 00:∞), but that could be a malfunction. A Victorian gentleman in a top hat was having an animated conversation with a woman wearing a silver jumpsuit and holographic eyeshadow. There seemed to be people waiting dressed for at least another eight different time periods. Maybe there was a convention going on.

“Temporal Anomaly #4127?”

Martin turned to find himself face to face with a tall woman holding what looked like an iPad, if iPads were made of brass and had small gears constantly rotating around their edges. She had steel-grey hair pulled back in a severe bun and wore a tailored charcoal suit that seemed to shimmer. She fixed Martin with piercing blue eyes.

“Um, Martin Blackwell, actually,” he managed.

The woman consulted her device. “Martin Blackwell, yes. You are currently operating under that designation. Temporal Anomaly #4127. Class Three timeline disturbance.” She looked up at him with an expression that suggested she was examining a particularly unimpressive specimen in a laboratory. “I’m Ms. Sharp. You're late.”

“I… sorry? The letter said 11:37, and…”

“The letter said ‘precisely 11:37.’ You arrived at 11:37 and four seconds.” She sighed. “No matter. We've adjusted for the temporal lag. Follow me, please. And do try not to touch anything or anyone. The paperwork for paradox incidents is absolutely ghastly.”

Still thoroughly confused and increasingly convinced he was experiencing some sort of breakdown, Martin followed Ms. Sharp along the platform.

“Excuse me, but what exactly is a Class Three timeline disturbance?” Martin asked as they walked.

Ms. Sharp didn't break stride. “You are.”

“Yes, but what does that mean?”

“It means, Mr. Blackwell, that your existence is causing rather significant problems for the natural flow of time. You're a knot in the temporal string, so to speak. A hiccup in the chronological narrative. A wrinkle in the fabric of…”

“I think I get the metaphor, thank you.”

Ms. Sharp stopped abruptly in front of a door marked Temporal Compliance – Anomaly Processing. She fixed Martin with a stare that seemed to look not just at him but through him, possibly into several alternative dimensions.

“Do you know why most people never notice the true nature of time, Mr. Blackwell?”

Martin shook his head.

“Because they're too boring to matter.” She pushed open the door. “You, Mr. Blackwell, would appear to have managed the rather impressive feat of being simultaneously extraordinarily boring and catastrophically important to the timestream. Quite the achievement.”

Before Martin could formulate a response, Ms. Sharp ushered him through the door and into a room that defied several laws of physics that Martin had previously considered non-negotiable.

The office, if one could call it that, stretched far beyond what the exterior dimensions of the building should have allowed. Desks were arranged in neat rows, but some appeared to be on the ceiling, others on the walls, and one particularly troubling desk seemed to exist in a state of simultaneously being and not being there.

People moved about with purpose, carrying folders in a rainbow of colours, some occasionally emitting small puffs that appeared to distort the space around them. In one corner, what appeared to be a medieval knight was filling out paperwork with the assistance of someone wearing the uniform of a 19th-century postal worker.

“Welcome to the Bureau of Chronological Corrections,” Ms. Sharp announced, gesturing to the impossible space around them. “Established in 1876, conceptualised in 2077, founded in 2183, and perpetually existing in what we call the Bureaucratic Present.”

“That… doesn't make any sense,” Martin said weakly.

“Of course it does. Think about it: have you ever known paperwork to actually go away? It merely shifts from one state of bureaucratic existence to another. Eventually, it ends up here. The Bureau simply harnesses that eternal nature of administrative documentation to create a stable pocket of trans-temporal reality.”

A young man hurried up to them, carrying what appeared to be a teacup that was somehow pouring upwards, the liquid flowing from the cup back into a floating teapot.

“Ms. Sharp, the Director wants to know if you've retrieved the anomaly yet. The timeline bifurcation has reached critical levels, and…” He noticed Martin and stopped abruptly. “Oh. Good. You have. Excellent.”

“Mr. Blackwell, this is Jensen,” Ms. Sharp said. “Jensen, please inform the Director that I've retrieved Anomaly #4127 and will begin processing shortly. Also, the photocopier is jamming again. It keeps reproducing documents from next Tuesday.”

Jensen nodded and hurried away, his teacup still defying gravity.

“Now then,” Ms. Sharp said, turning back to Martin, “let's get you processed. I imagine you have questions.”

Martin had approximately seventy-three questions, but the only one he managed to articulate was: “Am I going mad?”

Ms. Sharp's expression softened slightly. Martin estimated it softened approximately the amount that granite might soften if you spoke kind words to it for a decade.

“No, Mr. Blackwell. You're not going mad. You're experiencing a significant expansion of your understanding of reality, which can feel quite similar, but is technically distinct. Please follow me.”

She led him to a desk that, thankfully, existed in a conventional orientation to the floor. The desk was occupied by an elderly man with bushy white eyebrows that seemed to move independently of each other, as if they were having a private conversation.

“This is Mr. Hobbs, our Temporal Anomaly Registration Officer,” Ms. Sharp explained. “He'll get you entered into the system.”

Mr. Hobbs looked up and squinted at Martin, while his eyebrows performed what appeared to be an interpretive dance.

“Another one, eh? Right, let's see.” He pulled out a form. “Name as currently used?”

“Martin Blackwell.”

“Previous names used?”

“I don't have any. I've always been Martin Blackwell.”

Mr. Hobbs and Ms. Sharp exchanged a look.

“He doesn't know,” Ms. Sharp said quietly.

“Ah,” said Mr. Hobbs as his eyebrows momentarily paused their performance to adopt expressions of sympathy. “Common with Class Threes, I hear. Memory suppression as part of the condition.”

“Excuse me,” Martin interrupted, “but what exactly is going on? Why am I here? What’s a temporal anomaly? And why does everyone keep acting like I should understand any of this?”

Mr. Hobbs sighed and set down his pen.

“Young man, or perhaps I should say, being of an indeterminate chronological dispersion, you are what we call a Temporal Nomad. A person unstuck from their proper time and place. A wanderer in the fourth dimension.”

“I'm not a wanderer! I live in Croydon! I have a mortgage!”

“Currently, yes,” Ms. Sharp interjected. “But you've lived many places, and times. Your problem, Mr. Blackwell, is that you keep interfering with major historical events without meaning to. And it's causing rather significant problems with the stability of the timeline.”

Martin stared at them, waiting for the punchline. When none came, he laughed nervously.

“This is ridiculous. I've never interfered with any historical events. The most significant thing I've ever done was reorganise the supply cupboard at work. Even that was met with mixed reviews.”

Mr. Hobbs consulted another document.

“Let’s see. Martin Blackwell, current iteration. Accidentally caused the Great Fire of London by time-slipping while holding a cheese sandwich near Pudding Lane. Inadvertently inspired the invention of the telephone by mumbling about bad reception within earshot of Alexander Graham Bell. Unintentionally delayed the Moon landing by three days after time-slipping into Mission Control and spilling coffee on a crucial calculation.”

“That’s… that's not possible,” Martin stammered. “I wasn't even born when those events happened!”

“Precisely the problem,” Ms. Sharp said with the patient tone of someone explaining to a child why they can't have ice cream for breakfast. “You keep showing up when you shouldn't exist yet, or no longer exist, or exist in an entirely different form. It's causing temporal whiplash across the continuum.”

“But I don't remember any of this!”

“Of course not. Your consciousness has a self-preservation mechanism. Every time you time-slip, your memory resets to protect your sanity. You create a new life, new memories, new records. All while leaving chronological fingerprints over history like a toddler with finger paints at the Louvre.”

Martin felt light-headed. “This can't be happening.”

“I assure you it is,” Ms. Sharp said. “And now we need to fix it before you accidentally prevent the invention of sliced bread or something equally catastrophic. The timeline can only bend so far before it breaks, Mr. Blackwell.”

“What happens if it breaks?”

“Best not to think about it. Let's just say that existence becomes rather more optional than most beings prefer.”

Mr. Hobbs finished filling out the form, which folded itself into an origami bird and flew off toward what appeared to be a small black hole.

“Right,” he said brightly, his eyebrows now performing what seemed to be the tango. “You're registered. Ms. Sharp will take you to Processing now. Best of luck!”

“Wait,” Martin protested as Ms. Sharp took his elbow and steered him away from the desk. “What's ‘Processing’? What are you going to do with me?”

“We're going to fix you, Mr. Blackwell,” she said simply. “One way or another, we're going to stop you from bouncing around the timeline like a temporal pinball.”

Ms Sharp pushed open a door marked Temporal Rectification – Authorised Personnel Only to reveal a small, surprisingly ordinary-looking conference room. A long table dominated the space, surrounded by comfortable chairs. The only unusual feature was a large mirror on one wall that didn't appear to be reflecting the room correctly. The angle was somehow wrong. Martin could have sworn he saw movement in it that didn't correspond to anyone present.

Seated at the table was a man wearing an immaculate suit that seemed to shift subtly between styles from different eras. His age was impossible to determine. He simultaneously appeared young and old, as if multiple versions of himself were occupying the same space. When he smiled, Martin had the distinct impression of seeing several smiles layered on top of each other.

"Ah, Ms. Sharp. And this must be our troublesome Mr. Blackwell.” The man stood and extended a hand. “A pleasure to meet you. I'm the Director of Temporal Affairs.”

Martin shook the offered hand hesitantly. It felt solid enough, though there was a strange sensation, as if he were touching multiple hands at once.

“Please, have a seat,” the Director said, gesturing to a chair. “We have much to discuss about your condition.”

Martin sat.

“Tea?” offered the Director, gesturing to a teapot that Martin was certain hadn't been on the table a moment ago.

“Er, yes. Thank you,”

The Director poured two cups and took a seat opposite Martin, folding his hands on the table. Up close, Martin could see that the man's features were constantly shifting in subtle ways. His hair length changing slightly, wrinkles appearing and disappearing, even his eye colour shifting between brown, blue, and green.

“So, Mr. Blackwell,” the Director began, “I understand this is all quite confusing for you. Allow me to explain your situation as simply as possible: you are what we call a Chronological Nexus Point, while also being a Temporal Nomad. You are a person who, through some quirk of quantum entanglement, has become untethered from the normal flow of time.”

“But how is that possible?” Martin asked, clutching his tea cup like it was the last normal thing in his world. “I’m just me. Martin Blackwell. Plastic bits middle management. Cat owner. Thoroughly unremarkable person.”

The Director chuckled, a sound that seemed to echo slightly as if coming from multiple throats.

“That’s precisely why it's so vexing, and so interesting! Historically, or perhaps I should say trans-historically. Chronological Nexus Points tend to be people of significance. Leaders, inventors, artists. Beings whose actions naturally create temporal ripples. But you, Mr. Blackwell? You're an aberration. A statistical impossibility. A completely ordinary person with extraordinary temporal displacement capabilities.”

“Which makes him all the more dangerous,” Ms. Sharp added, her tone suggesting that Martin’s ordinariness was somehow personally offensive to her. “The timeline can accommodate known variables. Alexander the Great was supposed to create ripples. Marie Curie was meant to affect future events. But you, Mr. Blackwell? You're a rogue element. An unaccounted-for variable in the temporal equation.”

“We have several options,” the Director said, his face momentarily settling into a more serious expression. “None of them particularly pleasant, I'm afraid.”

“Are you going to… erase me?” Martin asked, his voice small.

The Director laughed again. “Heavens, no! That would create far more problems than it would solve. Erasing a Chronological Nexus Point typically results in at least three paradoxical timelines and a mountain of paperwork.”

Ms. Sharp opened a folder that Martin hadn't noticed her carrying.

“Option one: Temporal anchoring. We permanently fix you in one timeframe, eliminating your ability to time-slip. You live out your life in a single chronological location.” She looked up. “However, given the extent of your temporal instability, this would require significant neural recalibration. Side effects may include complete memory loss, personality alteration, and an aversion to Tuesdays.”

“That doesn't sound ideal,” Martin said weakly.

“Option two,” Ms. Sharp continued, “Chronological dispersion. We scatter your temporal essence across multiple timelines, creating stable, independent versions of Martin Blackwell throughout history. Each would live a normal life, unaware of the others. This prevents the concentration of temporal energy that causes your slipping.”

“So, there would be multiple … mes?”

“Correct. Though none would remember being you, precisely. They would be new iterations with their own memories and experiences.”

“That also sounds rather problematic.”

“Indeed,” the Director agreed. “Plus, the energy requirements are prohibitive. The last time we attempted a full dispersion, it caused a three-day power outage and the dinosaurs almost didn't go extinct.”

Martin blinked. “I'm sorry, what?”

“Never mind that,” Ms. Sharp said quickly, shooting the Director a warning look. “Option three: Temporal monitoring. You remain as you are, but we outfit you with a chronological tracker that alerts us whenever you're about to time-slip. We can then deploy agents to minimise any historical disruption you cause.”

“That sounds relatively sensible,” Martin ventured.

“There's the small matter of the implant, which would need to be installed in your temporal cortex.”

“My what?”

“The part of your brain outside three-dimensional space,” Ms. Sharp explained, as if this clarified anything.

Martin set down his teacup with a shaky hand. “Are there any other options? Preferably ones that don't involve brain surgery in non-existent dimensions?”

The Director and Ms. Sharp exchanged a look.

“There is one other possibility,” the Director said slowly. “Though it's still highly experimental.”

“And probably disastrous,” Ms. Sharp added.

“What is it?”

The Director leaned forward, his features momentarily stabilising into a single, serious expression.

“Option four: We teach you to control it.”

Ms. Sharp made a small noise of protest. The Director held up a hand.

“Instead of trying to suppress or distribute your temporal displacement, we train you to harness it. To slip intentionally rather than randomly. To navigate the timestream consciously.”

“Is that even possible?” Martin asked.

“Theoretically,” the Director said. “Though we’ve never succeeded with a Class Three anomaly. The potential for catastrophe could be significant.”

“But if it worked,” Martin pressed, surprising himself with his sudden interest, “I could control when I time-slip? Go where and when I choose?”

“In essence, yes. Though there would be strict regulations, of course. The Bureau would establish parameters. No-go zones in the timeline. Monitoring protocols.”

“It would require extensive training,” Ms. Sharp interjected. “Maybe years of it. And there’s no guarantee of success.”

Martin considered this. Twenty-four hours ago, his biggest concern had been whether to include an additional pie chart in his quarterly budget report. Now he was contemplating learning to navigate the timestream. It was absurd. It was impossible.

It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him.

“I want to try option four,” he said firmly.

Ms. Sharp looked like she was about to object again, but the Director smiled. A single, genuine smile that finally seemed stable, as if there was now just one of him here in the office with Ms. Sharp and Martin.

“I was hoping you'd say that,” he said. “But before we proceed, there's something else you should know. Something about your cat.”

Martin blinked in confusion. “Chairman Meow? What about him?”

“He’s not exactly a cat.”

“What do you mean, he's not exactly a cat?” Martin demanded. “He sleeps eighteen hours a day, knocks things off shelves for no apparent reason, and has successfully trained me to operate a tin opener on command. That's the very definition of a cat.”

The Director nodded. “Yes, those are indeed cat-like behaviours. Excellent camouflage on his part. But Chairman Meow is actually a Temporal Stability Engineer, or as we call them in the department, a Chrono-Minder. He was assigned to you five years ago when your temporal displacement episodes began increasing in frequency.”

Martin felt as if the floor had turned to liquid beneath his feet. “My cat … is a time agent?”

“A temporal babysitter, really,” Ms. Sharp corrected. “The feline form was chosen for its inconspicuousness and its natural ability to observe without interfering. Cats of course already exist partially outside normal space-time, which makes them ideal vessels for trans-temporal consciousness.”

“That … actually explains a lot,” Martin said slowly, thinking of the way Chairman Meow sometimes seemed to vanish and reappear in impossible places, or how he always knew when Martin was about to make tea. “But why didn't anyone just tell me what was happening? Why the secrecy?”

The Director sighed. “Bureau policy, I'm afraid. We've found that informing temporal anomalies of their condition prematurely often leads to panic, denial, or in some cases, deliberate attempts to alter history. Remember, your consciousness has been protecting itself through memory compartmentalisation. Each time you slipped, you forgot the previous incidents.”

Martin rubbed his temples. His headache possibly spanned several centuries. “So what happens now?”

The Director stood. “Now, Mr. Blackwell, I think it's time you had a proper conversation with your cat.”

—

The room they took him to was small and comfortably furnished, with a large window overlooking what appeared to be London, though a London where St. Paul’s Cathedral was neon pink and the Thames seemed to be flowing vertically up the side of the Houses of Parliament.

“Temporal bleed-through,” Ms. Sharp explained, noticing Martin's stare. “Side effect of maintaining the Bureaucratic Present adjacent to multiple timestreams. The view changes hourly.”

In the centre of the room, sprawled across a cushion with typical feline indifference, was Chairman Meow.

Upon seeing Martin, the cat yawned elaborately, stretched, and then fixed him with a stare that suddenly seemed far more intelligent than Martin had ever noticed.

“Hello, Martin,” said Chairman Meow in a crisp, slightly posh accent. “I see they've finally brought you in. About time, really. No pun intended.”

Martin sat down heavily in the nearest chair. “You can talk.”

“Of course I can talk. I've always been able to talk. I simply chose not to. Can you imagine how tedious it would be to engage in conversation with someone who thinks a quarterly budget report with two pie charts is the height of creative expression?”

“That's fair, actually,” Martin conceded. “So you've been watching me? Reporting back to the Bureau?”

Chairman Meow began grooming a paw with deliberate nonchalance. “Monitoring, not watching. There's a difference. And yes, I've been filing regular reports on your temporal stability. Which, I might add, has been consistently poor. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to maintain chronological observation while also being expected to show enthusiasm for that dreadful dry food you buy?”

“I didn't realise my choice of cat food was affecting time itself,” Martin said dryly.

“It wasn’t. But it was affecting my mood, which in turn affected the thoroughness of my reports. There’s a reason the Ancient Egyptians worshipped cats, you know. We were their first Chrono-Minders.”

Martin leaned forward. “So what exactly have you been doing? Besides judging my dietary selections and sleeping on my clean laundry?”

“Primarily, I've been acting as a temporal anchor,” Chairman Meow explained, abandoning his grooming to fix Martin with a serious stare. “Your flat has been equipped with chronological stabilisers disguised as ordinary household objects and I’ve been channeling temporal energy to maintain your stability. Why do you think I sleep so much? Channeling time itself is exhausting work.”

“What objects?” Martin asked, suddenly suspicious of his IKEA furniture.

“The microwave, for one. It's a localised time-field generator. Your thermostat doesn't actually control your heating; it monitors temporal fluctuations. And I modified that hideous lamp into a quantum entanglement beacon.”

Martin thought about his perpetual inability to make the heating in the flat work correctly. “That figures. So none of my possessions are what they seem?”

“Oh, most of them are exactly what they seem. Drearily ordinary items befitting your drearily ordinary cover life. But the important ones, the ones keeping you from accidentally erasing the Industrial Revolution? Those are Bureau technology.”

Ms. Sharp, who had been standing quietly by the door, cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand. Mr. Blackwell has chosen to pursue control training rather than suppression or dispersion.”

Chairman Meow's tail twitched in what Martin now recognised as disapproval. “Ambitious. And foolhardy. But potentially interesting, I suppose.” He fixed Martin with his yellow eyes. “You do realise the training will be incredibly difficult? It's not like learning to use a spreadsheet.”

“I’m aware it won't be easy,” Martin replied, surprising himself with his determination. “But I'm tired of being ordinary. If what you're all saying is true. If I really have been bouncing through time affecting history. Well, then I want to understand it. Control it.”

“Even if understanding means you can never go back to your simple life? Even if it means remembering every time you've been displaced, every life you've partially lived and forgotten?”

Martin thought about his flat in Croydon, his job supervising the manufacture of plastic bits for other plastic bits, his carefully scheduled tea breaks. Had it ever really felt like enough?

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I want to remember.”

---

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