4.

A train has arrived at the platform to which John cannot get away from and it is a train John needs to get onto, so he is told. Perhaps there is somewhere he needs to go? Can this very train bring him there? With limited options, he does get on the train via the first carriage and right away he is at somewhat of a loss.

Before even beginning to decipher as for what it is he is about to deal with John, in his heart and soul, is sure that there is something in here or on here that he is meant to see, maybe not necessarily in the first carriage but somewhere within the train so he begins to move slowly from the end of the carriage nearest the engine room down towards the far end looking out for anything and everything that may catch his attention and there is a hell of a lot here which does exactly that.

The first seated passenger John sees has a sleeve rolled up on his left arm revealing what appears to be a mechanical arm, and a mechanical arm in full working order at that too. A functional, mechanical, prosthetic arm, something such as that should not exist in this time period, and such a fact of seeing this along with the fact that John is not shocked by what he sees, really has him questioning reality.

'I must be dreaming, yeah this has to be some sort of vivid dream ...'

He moves on through the carriage and sees a boy playing with a handheld device, a video game perhaps, and this certainly does not belong here. Further along the carriage, there is a long-haired young lady who has green and blue streaks running through her blonde mane and she makes eye contact with him as if to imply that he himself is somewhat odd.

'Yep, really must be dreaming.'

In between the first and second carriage there are two men, both wearing bronze star badges, one of whom has two holstered six shooter guns strapped around his waist and the other has the most unusual of weapons held across his body. The weapon is huge and unlike anything John has ever seen.

'Sheriff ...' John greets the first man.

'Sir ...'

'Deputy ...' John greets the second man before moving on.

In the second carriage things are even odder. Electronics and lighting all around that do not and should not belong here. About halfway down this carriage, there is a man with whom John recognizes to at least some degree. It is the man who left the train station twice with a briefcase, a briefcase with which John had been sure was his and when John arrives up to this man, he sees that the briefcase is still within that other man's possession.

'Ah John' speaks this fellow in a greeting manner noticing John's arrival as if an appointment had been made and kept, with a possible doubt as to if John would show up or not. 'Please have a seat, won't you?'

John does take a seat opposite this man. In between them is a steel rimmed wooden table bolted to the floor.

'I know you, don't I?' asks John, bypassing the fact that this other fellow was apparently unable to see him the last time they were in close proximity. 'Not just from the station we have just left but from somewhere else too.'

'Quite simply, yes you do' says the man as he places the briefcase on the table 'though I do not recall seeing you there. But that is understandable, you were and still are in an ever-changeable state of flux'

'And that is actually mine, right?' John says, once again doing a little by-passing.

'The briefcase? Yes, it is and you will need it to do what you have come here to do.'

'Which is to do what exactly?'

'Well, save all of time of course.'

This really is crazy; John looks around to see if anyone has reacted to what this strange fellow has just said.

'Oh, don't worry about them' speaks John's acquaintance. 'Provided you are successful, no one will even know we were here, or even that they were too.'

'And where is here exactly?'

'Now don't worry yourself with that for the moment. For right now, it is time to get down to business.'

'Okay, so what would that be?'

'First of all, John, what do you know or remember about what led to your current circumstances?'

'I was standing back there on the platform at the train station, and everything seemed as natural as it could be and as normal as it could be. I had five minutes until the train was due ...'

'How did you feel?'

'I felt fine, I felt like I belonged to that moment, and I also felt I belonged somewhere else, to tell you the truth I do not know how I got there ...'

'You remember nothing from before being at that station?'

'Everything before is kinda ... hazy ... I felt I was starting over. Then there was this boy and he ended up on the tracks ... I tried to help him but the train ... it ... it ... it killed me? Then I began again but only it was different. Train was still five minutes away though the boy and those of his company were no longer ... there.'

'Alright John, this is good, very good ...'

'Is it? Why?'

'John, do you know what year this is?'

'Yeah 1893, a man back at the station told me so. He also told me to get on this train, this very peculiar train.'

'Very good, you see John; you are not from this time. You are from the year 2142.'

'I am?' feeling somewhat numb and as if all the blood in his body was draining out of him or about to drain out of him, searching for an orifice to bleed out from, John stared at his counterpart as if to look right through him. 'You know what? I believe you. With all I have witnessed already, I believe you.'

'Good, because you are two thirds the way through your mission.'

'Two thirds? Mission?'

'Yes, and the final third is the most difficult. You have already tried this part of the mission a number of times already, and you have been reset quite a few times, this partly adds to the haziness of what you have felt before. A different approach may be worthy of consideration.'

'You say I am from 2142, when are you from?'

'The same as you, only according to you I am no longer me, I am someone else.'

'Really? How so?'

'John, you have been obsessed with time travel all your life and until not long before your mission began, time travel did not exist. You were working to discover it or invent it or prove it is possible.'

'Really?'

'Yes, we have a laboratory; well, it actually belongs to you. I, and a number of others work there too. You were close, so very close when apparently, we, or you, were beaten to it. There was a temporal incursion not created by you, so you had insisted. This ... incursion ... has broken time.'

'Broken time? How?'

'Look around, you see it on this very train. You were in your chamber, your time chamber when the shockwave hit. It protected you from the effects of the incursion, I didn't notice it as I was outside your chamber. You came out of your chamber to question what had happened only to you I had become ... different. To you, everyone in the lab was different to the point you didn't recognize some of us. Even the lab itself, as far as you were concerned, had been altered.'

'I'm not currently in some sort of a loony bin, am I? And I am imagining all this?'

'If only. See for you, apparently your work kept you protected within your chamber from the changes in the timeline as in you remained exactly who you were before the incursion. I have always been me of course but only the me who exists in an alternate timeline created by the incursion and not the version of myself you say you knew.'

'How do you know that for sure? You can't simply have just taken my word for it ...'

'No, you had your own computer system within your chamber. The information upon your terminal was radically different to that on the terminals outside the chamber. We believed you ... well because ... again just look around this train. It does not seem right even for my timeline. Does it seem right for 1893 to you?'

'No, no it doesn't.'

'Comparisons between terminals led us here to 1893 and the train station back there. The boy you saved. He is a distant relative of yours. If he had died you would never exist.'

'If he died then how do you know me?'

'I told you, I work with you in your lab ...'

'But the boy ...?'

'The boy is safe ... if he had been lost, then the results would have been ... inconceivable in more ways than one ...'

'Okay, so if time travel doesn't exist or if someone else got to it before we did, then how did we get here?'

'We worked hard and got it done. You worked full on twenty-four seven and cracked it when no one else was around. In your haste, and without testing anything first, you sent yourself back. This is why your brain is fried. You really should have waited ... it is what it is, we have just to make the most of it.'

'Alright, okay ... there was a woman who got on another train ... she and others could not see or hear me, maybe she could hear me, I'm not sure ... what was all that about?'

'We were trying to retrieve you, or at least get to you at that time.'

'Retrieve me?'

'Yep, there is plenty more to explain, safe to say she is important to the timeline you know. She was off track and your intervention oddly enough, put her back. Now you have one more thing to accomplish and we are sorted ... we hope.'

'Hope? And what about all the madness here on this train?'

'As long as you are successful, we predict a ninety-nine-point seven three percent restoration of the timeline you knew, and everything here will return to where and when it belongs.'

'Not a full one hundred percent, no?'

'Well, zero point two seven is surely acceptable as opposed to a total breakdown of time.'

'What if that zero-point two seven percent is enough to release another Hitler onto the world?'

'Another who?'

'Really? ... alright, so what if I don't want to do anything, what if I find it too difficult to believe all you are telling me?'

'Sure, you can see things for yourself, right?'

'I grant you the fact that things, certain things do not belong, I, however, have no way to confirm what you are telling me. You and others may be or at least are trying to manipulate me. You can find someone else to do your bidding.'

'Take the briefcase, get off at the next stop and see things for yourself ...'

As confused and he can ever remember being, John does exactly what was suggested to him and to add to his confusion, the station he gets off the train at is the very same station he had been at all along ...