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Normally - Brian reflected - if any trouble was to be had by someone fiddling with someone they shouldn’t, it came from Roger, maaaaaaybe Freddie. And then John, the expert in all things electrical buttons related, would have to sweep in and fix or undo whatever it was that Roger (or maaaaaybe Freddie) had managed to do….
But this time, this was on him . Brian Harold May, physics graduate of Imperial College London, so called genius rockstar of the established band Queen. The one who at one point, tried to teach children basic maths, morals and, most importantly, not to touch things they diddn’t personally own and/or don’t understand….
Because he just had to pick up the slightly tarnished, chrome spherical calculator-looking thing that looked something like a film prop from a fancy futuristic victorian cinematic production that had been sitting innocently (ominously) in the back of a cupboard.
Well, to be more specific, the back of a cupboard, which Brian had wandered into after finding a partition to a brown wooden door in the gap of a plaster wall, down a dusty corridor, at some point behind a lecture theatre, in the Royal Institution of Great Britain Building, in London.
Which they did have legitimate reasons to be in - they were trying to see about recording a music video there. The corridor…. Behind the door… in that specific cupboard, however. The permission for there exactly was a more grey area…
And that may have been a long explanation, but it wasn't as long as Brian's physical wandering that led him to the dusty corridor behind a lecture theatre, in the Royal Institution of Great Britain Building, in the first place .
And if Brian was asked, he would very carefully point out they had very real, very special permission to be there. And, to pick at the fine details, nobody had told any of them that any part of the area they were allowed to be in was off limits.
And okay, it very, very special permission, with a lot of clauses and caveats to the agreement and insurance which might as well said yes we'll cover you for any and all eventualities, but if we have to pay out, we will own your soul as well as charge you sky high premiums.
One of the clauses, repeated in the instructions before they arrived, and then verbally by a curator and care taker of the building, just might have specified that nobody, not one of them, was to touch anything that they had not been personally handed by the head curator, or at least a member of staff wearing the official badges and lanyards of the instute under the guidance of the chief curator. Absolutely nothing.
But, that didn’t cover doors… or corridors…
And really, there was a break in filming, and Brian had found a false wall, where he found a door, which led him down a corridor….
And then, looking at the spherical calculator device he was holding, he found a switch . And in all his infinite wisdom of a 70something inquisitive child, he flicked said switch, thinking "I wonder what this does?"
So really, who’s fault was it that, in a flash, a blink of an eye, nothing short of an instant, Brian Harold May, physicist from Imperial College London, residing in London, England, The Earth, Milky Way Galaxy, found himself standing in the hallway of an unknown and unfamiliar house?
Well…..
Now wasn’t the time to quibble over petty matters such as blame . Because Brian was, and not to put too fine a point on it, now in the aforementioned hallway of an unknown and unfamiliar house. Without so much as a blink of an eye.
As in transported.
Perhaps even transponded.
Hopefully not transmogrified - he’d heard that was painful to reverse.
Brian looked down at the device in his hand, and the device's casio-esque calculator number screen said "39", a number he was always thinking about and which, Brian figured, could not have been a coincidence.
As he raised his empty hand to his mouth in shock, he let his other hand drop, but kept hold of this strange sphericalesque device in his right hand.
Looking around him, Brian noted that the house was rather large. There were tall ceilings, long narrow windows going up the side of the staircase, and the staircase itself had a mid-way landing that then continued the stairs in a left direction. He was in a foyer more than a hallway. There was no real way for him to tell from the inside, and not much of a view giving away details other than a lush green front garden out of the bay window, but Brian was sure this house had to be at least semi-detached. He turned around and walked over to peer out the crescent window on the door. What he saw was a nice big driveway, with a small fountain to the side between where the porch ended and the bay window in what was either a living room or a study revealed. No cars in the driveway there, though. Either the owners were out or they had a garage somewhere around back, maybe. Probably.
Brian knew he was technically an intruder but, with no idea of where he was, he wanted clues.
So he did the logical thing any scientific minded person would do, he looked for pictures, handwritten notes on the phone stand and sideboards by the door, but the foyer hallway didn't reveal anything. The pictures on the wall were beautiful, but simple, sunset scenes and the only note to be found was pen scribbles on a notepad that had clearly been borrowed from a hotel desk.
So Brian had to make a decision. Either turn back, or try a door or doorway. He could tell through the open archway that to his right at the end of the foyer, was a kitchen. To his left, though, was a long narrow hallway with two doors at the end, one that led to a room seperated by the wall, and one facing him directly. Brian was just sure, somehow, the door to the left was a small half bathroom, The one facing him however was a mystery.
There was something inside his mind telling him to go down the hallway, but there was a heavier feeling in his stomach, maybe even his soul, telling him not to. So he didn't, but mainly because if the owners proved at home, or if the owners come back soon, he would be trapped in the room and have no reasonable explanation as to why he was there in the first place if found. He could hardly say “So sorry, perfect stranger, I was in the area and needed a bathroom…”
He was curious, but not stupid. If he was spotted at least somewhere near the door he could feign elderly confusion and legitimately make his plea that he didn't know how he'd ended up there, he thought he was in his own house…
He didn't get too far into the tiled, 1950s throwback design of a kitchen when a picture on a shelf caught his eye.
It was, to Brian’s complete shock, a picture of himself and Roger, sitting at a table in a restaurant, much younger than they were today. Curious, he walked a few steps over to really look at it, and leaned in even closer for good measure.
The clothes they were wearing were the kinds of things they both would wear, though Brian couldn't be sure he had actually ever owned or wore such outfits. They half matched, Brian's waistcoat similar to Roger's, though different coloured jackets and different cuts. They looked smart. More importantly, from the expressions on both their faces, they were happy. Brian was looking at the camera, his own familiar yet rare relaxed face captured in soft lighting, but Roger was looking at Brian, with a soft look in his eye.
They were each holding a flute of something, a clear liquid, though Roger looked like he was just about to drink from his, or maybe had just had a drink when the photographer came over to them.
Brian, as if he knew deep down without having to really think about it, stood up straight, wanting more proof to fully reach his conclusion. But just as he went to back up, and turn to once again to go into the kitchen, he saw something else in the photograph,
Matching rings on their fingers.
Wedding rings.
Brian whipped his head around the hallway, and then headed into the kitchen. He wanted to call out to Roger but it was if there was something in his brain telling him not to, that that wasn't how this worked. He felt something bad could happen if he risked being found out. Maybe a paradox like in the film with the delorean…
Which was why, as he realised there were no answers to his question in the kitchen and decided to walk back through the house to another door, he scrambled for the buttons on the device.
He heard his own voice, he heard Roger's.
And he knew he could not be found here. Because being found here, could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe!
Brian pressed the button aside the calculator face, feeling as if he was resetting a simple stop watch.
The dizziness slowly cleared and his vision returned, and when it did he found he was standing once again in the dusty stock cupboard, down the corridor, behind the partition, facing the door.
Or, rather… Facing an unimpressed man in a dark grey suit with his hands in leather black gloves, who was standing in front of the door. The man was old, greying, with very little hair. His angular face was pale and lined with age, and he was blocking the doorway and frowning at Brian.
"You found the Bell's alternator.” The man said in a way that made Brian feel like he’d been caught misbehaving at school.
"I found the what, sorry?" He looked down at the device in his hands, knowing this was what the man meant. He would never have guessed it was called that.
The man sighed and gestured to what Brian held in his hands with his own, "Alexander Graham Bell's chronospherical alternator. In all honesty, we lost it some time ago when we were refurbing the place, but we couldn't admit that we'd lost it otherwise the, um,” The man looked away briefly at the wall and tugged on his own sleeves uncomfortably, “Well let's just the say the british government wouldn't be very happy. So we just kind of…” He looked at Brian again, pained, “We erased all mention of it so it was like it never existed in the first place."
Brian took a moment to process that information. "That sounds rather unethical.”
The man breathed in slowly, pointedly, and then dryly replied “ No , a treasure hunt by people wanting it for nefarious purposes is unethical, we just saved face.”
Brian conceded the point with a placating hand gesture in return. “Careless of you to lose it, though.” He said, because he couldn't help himself.
“Says the man flicking switches on devices he doesn’t know a thing about,” The man levelled back, “Nor should never had hold of. You were given access to the main rooms, Dr May, not the old corridors.”
Brian felt himself truly scolded, as he should have been. “Yes, I’ll give you that. Sorry.”
“Talking of….” The man replied, and then held his hand out for Brian to pass over the device; The Bell's alternator. Brian handed it over without argument. “You didn’t do anything whilst you were there, did you?”
Brian shook his head “No. I was there seconds, maybe minutes. And I somehow just knew what to do to get back when I heard voices.”
The man nodded, “That would be the chronospherical shadow you are placed in when you transpose in time.” And then his face softned. ”Out of curiosity, did you like what you saw?”
Brian thought about the domestic feel to the grand house, the warmth in the air, and most importantly, the picture. “I’m not sure.”
“The last person didn’t, either.” The man replied.
Brian couldn't help himself gesturing with his hand in requesting a pause for thought. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
“You said you weren’t sure…” The man argued.
“True.” Brian again conceded, “What does it mean?”
The man looked at him confused. “In what capacity?”
“The things I saw, what do they mean?” He pointed behind him as if what he saw could be manifested by peering further back into the cupboard. “Is that the life i should have had, or something?”
The man shook his head and as he spoke, he took a cloth out of his pocket and then wrapped the device up in it. “No. Not should. It just is.”
“What does that mean?” Brian asked, even more confused.
“Dr May… Brian.” The man placed the device into his suit jacket pocket. “There are infinite universes out there, and each one a degree different to the one we live in here. Some of them have you in them, and some of them won’t. You just happened to visit one with another you doing things differently to the way you did them here. It just is. ”
“But why?”
“Why?” The man repeated in exasperation. “We’ll never know why. Why did you do the things you do here? Elsewhere there are other social influences, other biochemistry, other brian matter in another universe’s atmosphere that will give us different results. You know this, you’re a scientist.”
“The butterfly effect.” Brian proffered.
The man conceded to Brian with a shrug. “Perhaps. We’ll never know.”
“Maybe one day.”
“No.” The man replied, bringing the conversation to an end by his tone. “Not from us, anyway. Not from Bell’s. And hopefully from no else's time alternator's, either.”
“Are you destroying it?” Brian asked, horrified.
“We can’t destroy it. British Institute Decree. We can put it away, though. Safely.”
“Not just hidden in a cupboard.” Brian replied, knowing he was pushing his luck.
The man sighed and looked away again, shaking his head fondly. “I bet it was that Hawking boy. He was always misplacing things, always running off as soon as equations and solutions popped into his head.” The man then cocked a smile, “It's a shame we stopped finding mouldy sandwiches some decades ago. He was a marvelous student.”
Brian tried not to dwell on the use of we and the implication for the man's age and instead asked a more urgent question. “What do I do now?”
“You still have your music video to record.”
“No, I mean, what do I do with the knowledge I have?”
The man looked at him sympathetically, which quietly surprised Brian. “You have to forget it. Ignore it.”
Brian mulled it over. “It seems a shame to.”
“Was what you saw really so life changing? As you said, you were only there seconds”
“... It wasn’t frightening, or disgusting, if that answers the question.”
“Well enough.” The man looked at Brian closely, but spoke gently. “You can’t tell anyone, Brian, not unless you preface by saying you had the most realistic dream you’ve ever had in your life.”
“Hmm… But it was real?”
The man paused in a turn and looked wistful for a second. “Oh yes. Very real.”
The man dusted himself off from dust that wasn't even there, and then opened the stock cupboard door to lead them both out.
“I suppose I best get back to the music video.” Brian offered in conversation.
“Yes.” The man replied.
Once shown back to the room Brian was not meant to leave, Brian offered his hand to the old man. “Sorry again.”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” The man said, before shaking Brian's hand. “Just please don’t touch anything else you’re not familiar with, alright?”
“Scientist’s honour.”
The man let go of Brian's hand and fixed him with a wry look, “That's the kind of sentiment that formed my department in the first place.”
And with that, the man simply turned and left the room by the normal door, leaving Brian alone with his thoughts.