Ruthven settled back in the passenger seat of the flyer. “Now you know what it’s like when people keep secrets.”
“Too soon,” Oxford growled, but his warm smile came back again, soon enough.
1 In the decade that followed the War of 2034, many sanctions were placed upon personal and corporate wealth. The environmental reparation responsibilities placed upon those of the highest tax bracket were so demanding that 50% of the billionaires gave up their fortunes voluntarily in a movement that went down in history as the Billionaire Badger Sanctuary Revolution.
2 Several months after this conversation, Ruthven finally decided which three Cramberleigh episodes he would personally choose to be preserved in the future, if someone put a gun to his head, and didn’t mind waiting several months for him to finalise his list. His choices were: 1F: Where Butlers Fear to Tread, 8D: Why Didn’t The Petunias Eat Evans? and 14H: Knight and Dead, though he agonised over which of these he would definitely sacrifice in order to preserve “Full Moon Over Whitechapel, his favourite of the Tales of Cramberleigh tele-movies. Who was he kidding? He would walk over hot coals to save the entire Caligula West arc of Seasons 12-14, as well as (to his shame) the two appearances of that particular villain in Return to Cramberleigh. Three episodes? Impossible.
3 The archiving habits of cats also explains why the most recognised human science fiction author in the thirtieth century is C.J. Cherryh, and the only Shakespeare text Aesop had heard of before she began her career as a time traveller was the Bumper Book of Cat Quotes.
Fifty-Three
The End of Time Travel
Did ya miss me?
So much has happened since I’ve been gone. We have a whole new understanding of time, space, and the fucked-up personal history of this college.
Meanwhile, I’ve picked up a whole lot of costuming skills I never had before. Not to mention a Viking helmet with two horns which I am keeping, Cressida. Don’t get lost in time if you want to hang on to your stuff.
Here are the headlines: the Founders are gone. Seriously gone. After a week of the most pointless committee meetings AKA screaming matches anyone at this university has ever suffered through, they packed their gold-plated luggage and shipped out. All of them.
Including my dad. We’re not currently on speaking terms. Apparently Monterey’s folks tried to drag him off with them but Lovelace threatened to bite their faces off, and they went without too much drama. Oxford’s mothers assumed he would leave with them and it all got very chilly in the quad for about half an hour.
Was the Violet Sunflower involved in making them all agree to leave so quietly? Of course not! That would be unethical.
Not a single cat went with the Founders. Nero and Boswell faced down Melusine in the quad and made her hand over the Basalt Sphinx into their custody.
Every cat who has ever been part of the time travel program formed a guard of honour to watch the Founders leave. Cheers to the solidarity and strength of all those cats refusing to be part of their bullshit for a moment longer.
(Solidarity! Unions work, y’all!)
No one’s ever going to find the Violet Sunflower. I made sure of that, once I triple checked that everyone who wanted them had their memories back.
We’ve already had the notification that the termination of the lease for Satellite 12 is coming up. Chronos College is no more. Banksia College has put in a Global Government application to turn themselves into a nature sanctuary. Gotta put all those rescued koalas somewhere. (And I’m guessing the Global Government are pretty excited to find out that they saved a whole bunch of formerly extinct species already, talk about getting the most out of your funding.) Shout out to my bro Bell Kincaid who is leading the charge to keep the Banksia mission alive.
No one knows what’s happening over at Aleister College, but my sib Zephyr heard a rumour that Claudius, Anne Boleyn, Christopher Marlowe and Fleur Shropshire haven’t been seen in days. Mysterious…
You’ve probably been packing your bags, like the rest of us. I know that many of you are scared about what happens next. Most students, staff and travellers of Chronos College don’t have anyone waiting for them planetside — and those of us whose parents dropped us in this mess aren’t looking forward to seeing them any time soon.
This has been our home, our safe space, for as long as we can remember. And yeah, I’m going to miss it. But it’s for the best, I think, that we say goodbye to time travel.
Let it be a cool thing we did once, that no one will ever believe.
And if you think otherwise — if you wish we could give time travel one more go and get it right this time…
Well, go say hey to Ruthven in the Media Archive. He’s distributing drives packed with travel highlights and extant Cramberleigh episodes (I recommend you pick up Monterey and Lovelace Greatest Hits, so hilarious). He also has a new project in the works that may or may not be time travel related, and he’s looking for volunteers.
Don’t tell him I sent you.
Zadie Kincaid, a Love Letter to the End of Time Travel, final blog post before we shut down the Chronos College intranet once and for all. I’ll be at the bar until they close us the hell down, come buy me a drink and tell me your story
Fifty-Four
A Conversation in the Office of Professor Boswell
“A pen,” said Boswell, smacking his face with his paw. “A fucking pen.”
“More importantly,” said Cressida. “Was it on the blue felt or the red felt? Either Monterey or I have just been disqualified from our little contest…”
“Keep dreaming, Cress,” broke in Monterey. “The contest will never be over, even if we have to wait for new celebrities to be born.”
Ruthven twirled the stylus — not even yellow and green, whoever named it the Jade Pineapple was seriously deluded — between his fingers.
The secret of time travel did not look all that impressive.
“Ruthven thinks we could start again,” said Oxford, leaning against the door. He hadn’t wanted to come — had insisted to Ruthven that they were more likely to listen to him if Oxford wasn’t there. “Do it right this time around.”
“Should we?” asked Tunbridge. “Can humans be trusted with time travel after the mess we made of it?”
“Can cats?” challenged Ptolemy, pressing his cold nose against the side of her neck.
“Do we make the sensible choice?” mused Monterey. “Or the fabulous choice?” No one even slightly doubted that he was in.
“There have to be rules this time,” insisted Tunbridge. “Rules.”
“Guidelines, at least,” said Lovelace. “Let’s not go wild.”
“We need a base of operations,” said Cressida. “Not a college, right? And I’m assuming we don’t have the budget for a space station.”
