Timeshock - I Want My Life Back Read Online Free Page A

holding the gun up to the captive Nigel, who asked “Where to?”
    “You know where.   The cottage,” Nigel replied.

    In a tense journey the captive Nigel thought about how things had gone wrong for him.   He had made the right choice when Raymond had visited him and now he worried he might lose everything.   He never expected this.
    Slowly the car came up to the disused cottage.   Nigel forced his captive inside.   He forced him to strip to his underwear and aimed his gun at the captive Nigel’s head.

    Nigel aimed and prepared to fire.

Chapter 6
    Suddenly Nigel lowered the gun down.   “I can’t do it.”   Nigel wept.   He handed the gun to the petrified other Nigel.   “I am so sorry.   I just wanted my life back.   Kill me.   I want to die - I have nothing.”

    The other Nigel took the gun and he aimed it at Nigel but then spoke: “Give me my clothes back.”
    Nigel returned his clothes and possessions.   He felt relieved.   It had struck him - he did not want to be a serial-killer.   Whatever the gain.   He would rather die a good man than live with a dark secret.

    “I am not going to kill you,” the other Nigel stated, once he had finished dressing.   “It occurred to me after we last met that there might be another way.   You still have the time machine?”

    “Yes,” a humble Nigel replied.
    “Well, given you are already out of time, why not go back in time and set yourself up a lot of bets and share purchases and then live like a prince on the winnings for the rest of your life.   Of course who knows what the Nigel in that reality will be like but you can start again and live out your life as a rich man.”

    Nigel’s mood improved. He thought - yes, that is a good idea.   As a millionaire he could do what he liked.   It wasn’t his old life, but it would be fun.
    “I am so sorry for what I was about to do.   You are right - I should just use the machine to set myself up with a new life.”

    Nigel was directed to the door at gunpoint. The other Nigel pointed him to the car by gesturing with the gun.  
    “This time you drive.   Drive me to where your time machine is.   I want to see you go back into the past.   Even a microsecond in the past changes the time-line - so I’ll never see you again.   I wish you well.”
    Nigel was impressed by the other Nigel’s magnanimity - and then wondered if he would have done the same thing himself.

    They parked outside the hotel and walked up to Nigel’s room.   All the hotel staff pointed at the two identical twins and joked about them.
    The hotel room had recently been cleaned, but Nigel saw the time machine was still sitting in the corner.   He climbed inside the machine, sat on the control seat and set the machine to go back five years into the past.

    Just as he was about to activate the machine he stopped.   The other Nigel was perturbed by this. “Why aren’t you going back yet?”  
    “I will. I just want to look up some sport winners for the last 5 years first.”   Nigel fiddled with his smart phone to upload a series of sports results.   He would put a giant accumulator bet on those results and claim the winnings from his unlikely bet.

    Once he had the results he pressed the button on the machine and time began to slow down and reverse. Nigel then remembered what had happened the last time he had time travelled in a hotel room.   He prepared himself for another moment of great embarrassment.    

    Thankfully for Nigel, this time his luck was in.   There was no cavorting couple; this time it wasn’t even still a hotel.   It seemed the building had previously been a gym - and Nigel arrived right in the middle of a large room full of gym exercise bicycles.  
    This presented a very different problem.   Nigel was now worried how he would get the machine out of the gym.   He didn’t want to look like he was stealing an exercise bike.   He concluded that the best thing to do was to leave it in the gym.