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heavily. Nik looked aghast.
    “ Joe! Don’t
say that! He… you… wouldn’t do that!”
    “ Sorry guys…”
he said pressing the phone’s screen.
    “ Joe, no !” Nik shouted running
towards him. But too late – he was gone.
    “ I don’t
believe what just happened,” I said shaking my head.
    “ So now
what?”
    “ I don’t know
– I really don’t know.”
    *
    We left the park and
found a Starbucks close by – at least that hadn’t changed. But, as
Joe2 had told us, everything was in Euros now. Fortunately, though,
I still had the 500 euro note he’d given me, and we used that to
buy two cups of coffee. As we sat looking out the window, we
reflected on what had just happened – and what we could do
next.
    “ Unbelievable,
isn’t it? Here we are, millionaires, and we feel like we’ve lost
everything. How could I have been so stupid?”
    “ You couldn’t
have known,” Nik said holding my arm.
    “ I suppose I
might have done the same thing in his situation. In fact, I guess
I did do it – ten
years in the future.”
    “ It doesn’t
matter – it’s done Joe. What we’ve got to do now is get the phone
back. I don’t want to stay here in this time zone – not with
another Joe and Niki, and not without the phone.”
    Niki was right. Somehow,
we had to get the phone back from Joe – but how? Where would he go
next?
    “ He’s got to
go back to Niki – he won’t leave her,” Nik continued. “And she
won’t be pleased with what he’s done, I can tell you.” I was still
staring out of the window. “Joe, snap out of it! We’ve got to solve
this… we’ve got to find Joe!”
    I looked back at her and
smiled. She was great in these situations – always positive. That
was one reason I loved her.
    “ You’re right
– sorry. You go to your parents – and I’ll try our apartment.” I
doubted that they lived there anymore, but I might get a forwarding
address. And Gloria and Tang might have a spare key to Joe and
Niki’s new house.
     
    ***

Twelve
     
    Our plans to see how the
World would change in the near future had suddenly been put on hold
- by my mistake. Without my phone, we were stranded in 2030,
sharing the planet with a couple of clones of ourselves. It was not
a satisfactory situation, to say the least. I suggested that Niki
talk to her parents to try to locate our double’s whereabouts,
whilst I returned to where we’d lived ten years earlier in the hope
of discovering the same information. We were both in for a
surprise.
    *
    Ten years previously, the
entrance to our second floor apartment was above a dress shop.
Today, it was above a vegetable store. Maybe a sign of the times. I
pressed the buzzer of our apartment, and a man’s voice answered. It
wasn’t mine.
    “ Yeah?”
    “ I’m a friend
of Joe Cooper,” I said. “He used to live in your apartment…
previous owner.”
    “ Yeah, I
remember him. What’s the problem?”
    “ I need some
information… can I come up?” The door buzzed and I pushed it open.
The entrance way and stairs seemed old and neglected – which was
not a surprise when I saw the apartment. The man who greeted me was
unshaven and smelled of alcohol – whisky I’d guess. The flat was in
a mess: plates of food on the floor, empty beer and whisky bottles,
and a rubbish bin overflowing. I recalled the man’s voice, and
thought that I’d met him in Finchley one time – but I could hardly
recognise him now. When we’d met, I’m sure he was newly married,
but I guessed that had ended some years ago. The flat definitely
lacked a woman’s touch.
    “ A friend of
Joe’s you say? I’d swear you were his twin,” the man
said.
    “ Younger
brother,” I replied, “Jim Cooper.” Normally I would do the social
thing and shake hands in such a situation; but seeing the state of
the man and the apartment, I kept my hands firmly in my pockets.
“I’ve lost touch with Joe, and wondered if you had a forwarding
address?”
    The man, who