Timesurfers by Rhonda Sermon

the crew to attempt to
pack more passengers into each life boat. We effectively nullified
her attempts to minimise loss of life. The ship took two minutes to completely sink after it
snapped in half. The Carpathia arrived an
hour and a half after the ship sank and rescued 705 passengers. The
necessary 1517 men, women and children perished. The time line is
intact.” A tall man with grey hair and a moustache reported.
    Naitanui nodded. “Well done, gentlemen.
Dismissed.”
    “Are they talking about the Titanic ?” Cate asked.
    “Yes, Mortez regularly attempts to rectify
that tragedy.” Naitanui didn’t look up.
    “But that would be a good thing.”
    “It’s not what history intended. After the Titanic sank changes were made to how
ships were constructed. Safety regulations which are still used
today were put in place to ensure inadequate lifeboats would never
be a problem again. Now if you’ll turn your mind to the cubes.
That’s you breaking Zach’s nose and you graduating,” Naitanui
stated.
    “What?” Her heart sprinted as she searched
the cubes for her graduation. “I don’t graduate for another two
years. Do these show the future?”
    Rafe meandered into the room. “I distinctly
remember telling you that no one can predict the future.”
    Back to 2014 Austin
had said before.
    Rose strutted in behind Rafe. They both still
wore their cheerleading clothes. Their sleeveless shirts showed,
like Austin, they both had numbers tattooed in blue down their
inner arms. Rafe only had two. The numbers stretched from Rose’s
bicep to halfway down her inner forearm.
    “We’ve cleaned up the mess,” Rose said to
Naitanui. “Where is everyone?”
    “In lockdown at the Shack,” Naitanui replied
as he hit another few buttons.
    A woman appeared in the middle of the room
dressed in flared jeans and a striped turtleneck. “I need at least
ten geeky and off the charts smart Timesurfers for back up, if you
ever want the likes of Word, Excel or an iPhone, iPad, or i
anything for that matter in use throughout the general population.
Did you know Gates got 1590 out of 1600 for the SAT when he did
them? Interestingly its rumoured Will Smith got a perfect 1600. Anyway, I
can’t watch Gates, Jobs and Wozniak. Mortez has a bucket load of
her people back there engaging them. I need help. These guys shaped
our world. They’re important.”
    “I will get you backup, Elle,” Naitanui
said.
    “Right. Send them through ASAP. Mortez wants
exclusive rights and access to their technology. If she can’t have
that, she’ll try and destroy it all. Please ensure they’re über
geeky and super smart.” Elle flickered and vanished.
    “She’s very highly strung,” Austin said.
    “You really travel through time?” Cate’s
brain had reached and passed weird information overload. She
slumped on a chair someone had placed behind her. “I am going insane,” she muttered through her hands.
    Austin tapped the leg of her chair. “I told
you before you weren’t going insane.”
    “Then why am I the only person who sees all
these freaky changes?” Cate shrieked. “And there’s the
Brittany...thing,” she finished lamely. “I could literally see she
had a broken neck and her heart had stopped beating. Then she came
back to life. I brought her back to life.”
    “We see the changes,” Austin said.
    She exhaled. “And strangely that doesn’t
comfort me at all, but I’ll play. Why can we see these things,
while everyone else remains blissfully oblivious?”
    Naitanui rubbed his temple. “We’re all
Timesurfers.”
    Cate stared silently for a few seconds. “I’m
certainly not one of those.”
    Naitanui continued unperturbed. “Timesurfers
protect history from magical manipulation. So it’s imperative we recognise when history
has been tampered with. History resets at midnight each night and
only a Timesurfer sees the alternate time lines. That’s why you’re
seeing differences in your world from day to day. Right now