Professor Allister Davies absently pulled at his thick bowtie. His scuffed boots thumped along the wooden boards like the hooves of a carriage horse. His worn jacket elbows brushed the pulpit as he adjusted a set of gears. Davies slipped his tools into his pouch and closed the cage door. His shoulders slumped. He looked every bit a madman lost. Over the last weeks the scientist felt like the defeated Atlas. For Davies had witnessed the apocalypse. Too often his distant gaze had been confused with haughtiness. His colleagues accused him of superiority. They whispered that he was an intolerant antique vase better suited on a mantel than in the company of his peers. Decades ago, his spurned fiancée claimed he had a hollow heart. She accused him of being a moldy cold cellar. His milky mane gave Davies the look of a Christmas ghost. His thick beard was a blizzard piled up on a chin of stone. A doctor once said his icy blue eyes looked like they were engaged in counting neurons. They called him cold, calculating and pretentious. Davies did nothing to correct these views. Instead, he locked himself in his workshop for days on end. If only they could see him at work. In the laboratory they would see his curious wonder. They would feel his peacemaker’s soul. Davies rubbed his eyes as he stood before the Time Pilgrim. It was his greatest invention. The instrument that looped Time back on itself. It was made of oak, brass, copper, steel, piezoelectric crystals and ivory. The dials, coils and vacuum tubes were carefully set and bound with gold thread. The pipes and gears at the base of the contraption resembled the nest of a Leviathan. Perched above a water tank the steam stack was ready to hiss and bellow. The magnificent device was enclosed in an enormous Faraday Cage. Fixed in the centre was the giant Time Clock with its dials and levers. Davies smoothed out his stained and ragged coat. The scientist who could reach out and caress the fabric of time resembled an undertaker. He turned to face a handsome gentleman lounging in a plush armchair. “Payne,” Davies said. “You refute my testament.” Professor Edgar Payne, mathematician, physicist and logician sucked on his pipe. He was Davies’ only true friend and confidant. The stylish Payne was a full twenty-five years the inventor’s junior. He had his dark hair and mustache cut to the latest fashion. His movements were as measured as his thoughts. “Davies, I am of mathematical inclination. My calculations affirm it will not come to pass.” “Perhaps there is some variable missing in your calculations,” Davies ventured. “I must remark that mankind has been at war since the dawn of time.” “You make the obvious connection between man’s base desires and the predictable consequences of his acts,” Payne reached for his brandy. “But that is the realm of the psychologist.” He shook his head. “I did the math. No army of juggernauts will destroy our England.” The mangy orange and white cat leapt up on the pulpit of the Time Pilgrim. It rubbed its head on Davies’ hand. The cat from the future. The cat who bore witness. Davies squeezed his lips. “I was there, Payne. I felt the icy hand of the Reaper grip my heart. I saw the smouldering cinders of our beloved London.” “You saw one prospect out of infinite possibilities,” Payne said. “When you arrived in the future you altered history. The event will not come to pass. It’s statistically improbable.” Payne could be quite obstinate when he spoke of probabilities. “It was a damnable thing,” Davies said. He stroked the tabby behind the ears. The cat purred as Davies whispered. “I saw the vile end of England.” “I’ve done the math,” Payne scoffed. “Even with great militaristic advances the chance of an apocalypse is nearly zero.” He exhaled and smoke tendrilled around him. “Mankind is not bent on his own extinction.” Davies had also done the math. The math said Payne was right. The Ripple Theorem stated that when a traveler moved through time and interacted the event would not occur twice. Each time Davies traveled he had been a living variable. Payne’s Ripple Theorem stated that a slight alteration in the past could change the course of history. But when Davies had deliberately forgotten his cane outside of the Commons 1831, it had not changed the results of the Parliamentary elections the year after. Davies was convinced Payne’s reasoning was flawed. The Ripple Theorem could only be partially tested by the Time Pilgrim. They had used it to travel from 1870 to observe the first War of the Roses. They had witnessed the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. They had gazed upon William the Conqueror as he marched on London. That visit had nearly killed Davies. Yet none of those trips had changed the future of Victorian England. Payne claimed small changes had undoubtedly occurred. Davies disagreed. The cat preened as Davies spoke. “Payne, I can prove it to you.” Payne waved a hand. “You probably just dreamed it. You’ve been using the machine too frequently. It has disturbed your sleep. It will fry your brain.” “Time is a cyclical phenomenon,” Davies said. The mangy tabby purred in agreement. “All has happened and all will happen.” “You’ve got your head stuffed with Vedic philosophy,” Payne said as he tapped his pipe. He crossed his legs and smiled. “Why don’t you join Agnes and I on a charming stroll through London’s bystreets? Yesterday we were down Pickwick Way. The brass knobs are gleaming and the shutters are painted a gay shade of blue. It will lift your spirits.” “I took something back with me.” Davies’ eyes unfocused as he tasted his words. They were bitter and electric. He let the astonishing revelation linger in the air. Payne gripped his pipe until his hand turned bone white. He drew back into the plush leather. His voice shook. “That—That is forbidden!” “It isn’t quite as you think,” Davies muttered. “The cat. It followed me. I had no heart to cast it out of the Time Pilgrim as the Faraday Cage came alight. The poor beast would have been lost to the Travel Kaleidoscope.” Payne rubbed his face. “You risked history for that damned ball of fleas?” He nearly shouted. Payne had always kept his even demeanor. But now he was raging. “You could have altered the course of our Empire!” “Edgar, my good man, I fear nothing has changed,” Davies shook his head. He rested his hands lightly on the dials of the Time Pilgrim. “Let me prove it by setting the clock to June 2050.” “Allister, this is madness,” Payne stood and pointed at the tabby. “You should have let it disappear into the Travel Kaleidoscope.” Davies threw a lever and the steam engine boomed. “The cat is but one spoke in the Cosmic Wheel.” With a whine the Time Pilgrim whirred to life. The tubes glowed and the clock hands began to spin. Electric arcs lit the Faraday Cage. Steam spewed out and filled the laboratory like a herd of sheep. Davies appeared mad as his flowing white hair stood on end. “Let me show you our dear London in 2050.” “Why?” Payne shouted. He stood next to the cage door. “What difference will it make now? All has changed!” “I say the future has not changed. Mankind is on the road to perdition.” The mangy tabby hissed in Davies’ arms. He pulled open the cage door as blue bolts cracked overhead. “We cannot alter events that are set by man’s hubris.” The cage door slammed shut. Steam spewed out and the room blurred. The thunderous crack of lightning threatened to topple Zeus from Mount Olympus. The roar of the steam engine filled their ears. The blur took on colours as they hurled through Travel Kaleidoscope. The circular rainbows tasted of copper and glass. Light exploded around them as the cat hissed in Davies’ arms. Then silence. The steam dissipated. The remains of a great city came into view. “Dear God, Davies,” Payne put a hand to his mouth. “This cannot be London. Please tell me we are on Venus or on Mars!” “We are in London, June 2050,” Davies cringed at a shriek in the distance. The mournful laments of the dying caused him to shiver. He turned to Payne as he stroked the cat’s mangy fur. “What will become of our descendants if we stand idle with this knowledge? If the Ripple Theorem is correct, let us put it to the test. We must stop this madness.” Around them smouldered a wasteland of brick, glass, steel and stone. Strange, horseless carts were crushed and overturned. Iron contraptions with massive cannons and segmented chains on their wheels smoked. Something that looked like an ornithopter stood on its head. The stench of rotting flesh caused them to gag. The tabby yowled. Davies put a hand on Payne’s shoulder. He had seen it all before. But Davies had neglected to inform Payne of a singular detail. This was not his second trip to London, June 2050. This was his ninth. And each time London burned. End. A special thanks to Gianluca for the apocalyptic antiwar theme, to Mary and David for showing me their Steampunk Clock, and to Aria for the cat.