The whole family, including Jake’s parents and sister, had attended a special police awards ceremony earlier that evening at the Darlington Police Station. He felt uncomfortable during his entire involvement in the event. He knew the police were usually reserved with the use of words like “heroism” and “bravery”, and he was humbled by the warm appreciation he had received. One of the police officers at the presentation had stated that he had committed the lesser of two evils in shooting this man who was now going to be locked away for a very long time. Ironside was described as a torment, a plague and a terrorist and everyone was hugely relieved that his activities were at an end.
He was called a hero and a brave man. He still did not believe that he qualified for such praise. He was simply there to save his family, and consequently several others, from an awful fate. He believed any father would certainly do the same thing. If he had told them the full story he was afraid they would have replaced the cheque with a one-way ticket to a mental institution.
His feelings over the week and a half had changed from depression to hope, from hope to determination, then from determination to revenge. Although he had his family back, someone was still on the path to taking them away until he had taken Ironside out of the picture.
The Chief of Police had told him earlier in the evening that he had probably saved them hours if not days and weeks of police time, as well as millions of pounds worth of resources. The more he heard about this Ironside character, the more surprised he was by the scale of the investigation by the country’s law enforcement agencies.
Jake thought about the other people he had saved besides his own family. There were Arnold’s victims, and there would potentially be many more. He remembered the chill he felt when he discovered that his family were target six of a potential twenty one for Arnold. The trade chain would have continued. More innocent people would have lost their lives. More people would inadvertently become involved and have to be “taken care of”. By breaking the chain Jake had probably saved hundreds of lives.
He turned his silent thoughts to someone he could not have saved. He could only guess at what had happened to Will Spalder. The police had never spoken of a body outside the building. They would surely have discovered it while Jake was there. The man seemed to have simply disappeared – much like his father.
Jake remembered the conversation with this man in the factory. He had said this phenomenon was just some kind of cosmic accident. His father had created time travel and had damaged the fibres of the space-time continuum. So much of this was theory, and it was the theory of a madman and a son willing to carry the torch. Jake would not concern himself with what crazy people thought about all of this.
He contrasted all that he had learned about the Replacement Phenomenon with his own experience. He remembered the wish he had expressed from the balcony of his home. He was probably quite drunk at the time, but he was certain he had seen WISH spelled by the lightning outside. It would also be far too coincidental that he had stopped travelling backwards through time on the exact day in which he achieved his goal.
This series of events was certainly not caused by some accident. Ruptures in the space-time continuum no doubt caused all of this, but Jake was certain that some higher power was responsible for this in some way, guiding people along these ruptures. He was certain the phenomenon was not the result of some crazed scientist building a time machine in his basement. He knew where he stood as far as religion was concerned and that was nowhere. The events of previous days had prompted him to reinvestigate the matter. He now believed some force or being was watching over him, and he should probably learn how to say thank you. He could not say whether that was God, but there was definitely something there.
Will had talked of consequences to Jake’s inevitable actions. It was possible that his positive action could prompt a negative reaction, but Jake did not believe such consequences to be as disastrous as he had been led to believe. The very fact that the earth, space, and time still existed meant he had not somehow destroyed the universe by doing the right thing.
There was some truth in the words spoken by Will Spalder, but there were also large chunks of fiction. If space-time was everything he thought it was, errors would have always existed and would continue to exist. The suggestion that saving lives could result in catastrophic errors in space-time was preposterous. It was science fiction mumbo-jumbo.
In any case, if further anomalies were likely to occur because of his actions, would that be a bad thing? If these anomalies resulted in more phenomena that could save lives and change history for the better, he had probably have done the world and everyone in it a huge favour.
Another thought occurred to Jake. He had seen D.I Arnold during that the award ceremony that evening at the town hall. He had been recognised as a ‘major contributor’ to the destruction of Ironside’s trading chain. Such things illustrated to Jake that his successes were more than simply keeping people alive. He had changed this man's life forever.
He felt privileged to have been able to witness a change in history. He knew he was called upon to do what he did and no one would ever be able to convince him otherwise.
After making his was upstairs to the master bedroom, Jake prepared for retiring to his bed for some well-deserved sleep. He turned on the silver stereo he remembered throwing over the balcony several days earlier. The small stereo was used at some point on most days, but it seemed like it had been turned off, sitting dormant for weeks. It was playing another track from the Frank Sinatra album that had caused him to hurl the stereo through the bi-folding doors in the original yesterday to the tarmac below. The track "All My Tomorrows" was much more uplifting, but equally as fitting as the last track had been at the moment he had heard it.
Once again he listened to the words of the song as Frank seemed to be singing Jake's own thoughts. “Today I may not have a thing at all except for just a dream for two, but I've got lots of plans for tomorrow, and all my tomorrows belong to you.”
For the first time in a long time he thought about the future. He needed to sort a few things out in his own life, such as finding a new job, but he thought about the future in a more general sense.
How many more people would experience the Replacement Phenomenon? What dramatic world events would be changed when someone else woke up to find time running backwards? He could not imagine the scope of it.
Obviously bad things still happened to good people, and most of the bad things in the world could never be undone. As long as people could choose between right and wrong, some people would choose to hurt rather than help others.
He just counted himself among a very lucky few who had the chance to change history for the better. He had lived through many yesterdays and had improved them where he could. Now all he had to do was to look to the future and make the most of tomorrow.
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