S.W.A.T. (book 2 of the hexology in seven parts)

The name’s Bruce, Bruce Whachado. And I’m not here to wipe your bums. I’m here to make sure you don’t end up dead in a coal seam. Now anyone new to time travel might say, “Bruce what about causality. Can’t I go back and kill my grand pop.” Well yes you can, and yes you won’t exist. But here’s the good news. Life goes on, and I’ll still be chugging down tinnys of the amber nectar, probably with the new bloke who’s taken your place.

It’s due to a little law of nature called temporal elasticity, discovered by this institutes founder and the inventor of time travel, Caren Evens. Now you may have heard about her before, but as I’m being paid to be informative you’d better listen up. Or I might just mess up my head count when we come back.

So Caren Evens has done a number of things in her time. First she invented a time machine, but not to change her life, not on your nelly. She hatched on a plan to keep countless bank clerks in work, while she raised the money she needed for the Caren Evens time institute or C.E.T.I. for short. Which apparently isn’t a crime. The law is a little vague on going back in time and investing your money, only to collect it back in the present, repeatedly. Seems there’s not been too many cases of it happening.

Meanwhile S.E.T.I. who had long since given up on alien contact, saw Mrs Evens’ rival named institute as the final nail in their coffin. Good riddance I say, we don’t want any more Pommie, I mean extra terrestrials cluttering up the place. So with the tools and the money, Mrs Evens finally proved what would happen if you went back in time and changing the past, not much apparently.

Caren Evens discovered that paradoxes, although troublesome at times, soon sorted them selves out. The multiverse takes care of itself, in a kind of elastic way, hence her theory of temporal elasticity. Now she could have got the Nobel Prize for giving time travel to the world, but she’s a canny bird is Caren. Just imagine everyone hopping back in time and messing the present up, it would be chaos. Even if it does works it’s way out in time.

So she came up with blue box technology. It’s a bit like black box technology, but she painted the boxes blue. Mrs Evens said she liked that colour better, makes you think I suppose. Anyway if you try to open one of her time boxes, the electrics go poof. And the poor sap caught with it gets fired. So don’t go asking to play with this box, or you’ll have my boot to recon with. Now with that in place, all she had to do was set her temporal displacement device so they could only travel back to prehistoric times, and then back again. It gives the multiverse time to straighten itself out by the time any changes reach us.

But I’ve yacked enough about our founder. What you want to know is, how you lucky people get to spend your well-earned money, on the trip of your lifetime. At least for anyone not in the elite group of scientists mapping the Earth’s history, both prehistoric and historic. And before you ask, he was a happy little lad with a keen interest in woodwork. Who would be appalled if he ever found out he’d been the cause of the Spanish inquisition, or the crusades. But as you should know if you’ve been listening, members of the public are kept to safe areas in time, at least as far as mixing up names and dates in the history books.

The other side of safety, your safety is in my hands, so no chatting at the back. Today we are heading back to the late Jurassic period, about one hundred and fifty two million years plus change. And this site, along with one in Portugal is the only place we know about that stegosauruses lived. Or is it stegosauri, well it doesn’t matter as long as you get your photos. Now these fellows were dug up here back in the eighteen hundreds, and their name literally means roof lizard.

Mind you if one of these beasties was crawling about on your roof, you’d soon know about it. At about two tonnes, they’d soon bring the house down with no standing ovation. Now they’ve got these thick armour plates on their backs, to stop other dinos from chomping on them. But as far as the stegosaurus is concerned, its purely vegemite only. Still you don’t want to go head to head with one, so when I say jump, don’t wait to say how high.

I remember like it was yesterday one dolt wanted to get a close up shot, poor sap didn’t stand a chance. One minute he was snapping away filling up his memory card, the next he was a red mess on the Jurassic jungle floor. You ever see sushi with ketchup on, well he was worst. There’s a bucket over there sir, try not to get it over the sides, its my job to keep this area clean. Now you might feel a bit queasy during the transition back. Some people get time sick, the same way some are susceptible to travel sickness. I can’t see the sense in it myself, but there you have it. But don’t worry, the barf goes back with us and ends up on the prehistoric floor. Not my problem, end of story.

Now back to the beasts. Your basic Stegosaurus is happy munching down on late Jurassic forest. And will gorge himself on it until the cows come home, which won’t be for a fair few millennia. But a few of his buddies don’t share the same point of view, namely the Allosaurus and his mate the Ceratosaurus. They’d chomp you up soon as look at you. I remember a few trips back, what’s that madam, basic right to safety. We’re talking a tad of time before human rights came in to law, by a fair few million years give or take. If you remember the waver you signed at the start, it did clearly state on page twenty-seven, that you fully understood the institution could not be held responsible for any aspect of your safety, both physical and mental.

So where was I, oh yes that bloke that got chewed up by the Allosaurus. I did get his left foot back for the family, and his wig, although I don’t know if you can call it a family heirloom. We were stalking our prey, the Stegosaurus; I can usually tell its droppings from other dinos. When Mr Popwell jumped up all excited. “Will we see the beast”, he shouted. I remember his words well, as they were the last he uttered. Unless you count the inarticulate screams he made, as an Allosaurus swung his torso back and forth. There’s an exit through the gift shop, but as you will no doubt recall from page twenty-one of your waver, no refund is available in cases of guests not wishing to continue with the trip.

So as I was saying the Allosaurus can be a bit of a ferocious beast, if it catches you unawares. But that’s nothing to the Ceratosaurus. I will always remember that look on Mr Hirokito’s face, as the jaws of a Ceratosaurus chomped down on his leg. And he was dragged screaming off our jungle path. The pitiful whimpering growing fainter, as he was no doubt taken to the lair of the beast, to become food for its ravenous young. Yes you push the bar and the door opens out.

Right lets get that head count done, not too bad considering the number of Sheilas among you. I bet last bloke was a pommie; I could see it in his eyes. Now where was I, no don’t stop me. I was going to tell you how you lucky people ever got on a trip like this. It’s all down to taxes. Turns out that the tax office has powers to trace money even through time, to follow the trail of someone’s finances. So faced with a huge bill for her financial exploits, Mrs Evens opened up Dino tours to you lucky folks.

Not like the public liability laws, they definitely don’t cover temporal displacement accidents. Such as getting dragged off by some dino mother to feed her brood, talk about a row. I recon Mr Hendry got eaten from his toes up, from his pitiful screams. It fair put me off my lunch I can tell you. As I recall that trip was particularly short; some of the party got quite insistent about returning to the present. No sir you signed the contract when you paid. It’s right there on page seventeen of our brochure, just after the graphs explaining temporal displacement temperature differences between present day, and the late Jurassic period.

Yes the exit is just there, Oh hello Mrs Evens. I didn’t see you there behind that last couple. Well with them gone, I suppose the trips off for the day. Want to catch a beer or three? You do, well let’s go. So do you think I’m suited for this job. And you can pay in cash?