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“Good morning, Bridgeway Savings and Loan. You’re speaking with Rachel.”

“Hi Rachel, this is Zach. I don’t have a customer number, but I’d like to talk about my financial management needs.”

“Absolutely. I can help you with that.”

“Great, now that we’ve that out of the way, I actually need your help with -- oh shit, they’re here!”

“Sir?”

“No - no, please! I don’t have access to any of ---”

“Hello? Zach? Are you still…? Huh... that’s weird...”

“Good morning, Bridgeway Savings and Loan. You’re speaking with Rachel.”

“Hello?? Oh, thank God!”

“Hello sir, can you hear me?”

“Sorry, yes. Yes, I can hear you -- what was your name, sorry?”

“My name is Rachel. What can I do for you this morning?”

“Rachel. Hi. - uh… oh God… my name is Zach.”

“Do you have your customer number handy, Zach?”

“My customer…? No. Sorry, no I don’t have a -- I’m not a customer.”

“What can I help you with today, Zach?”

“I… I need you to listen closely, okay Rachel?”

“Go ahead.”

“Okay… oh boy…”

“Is everything all right, sir?”

“Ha! Not really, no. Rachel, what’s today’s date?”

“Today? It’s Tuesday, April 14th.”

“What year?”

“What… year? 1998… Do you need --”

“I need you to connect me to someone in charge at your Newport branch.”

“We can’t connect customers to our branches directly, but I can have someone from there call you?”

“No! I - I’m sorry. I… I can’t be reached from here”

“Zach… what’s going on?”

“Okay... I need you to go out on a limb and trust me on something okay? I know it’s a lot to ask…”

“Is this a prank call?”

“Rachel, I’m deadly serious. I’m sorry, I know how badly I’m doing here, but I need you to listen carefully… Please. There is a lot at stake.”

“I’m listening.”

“Okay… So here’s the thing. Later this week your Newport branch will be robbed by a small group of guys with sawn-off shotguns. They know that the van comes to clear out the cash towards the end of the day and have timed everything out so that they can make off with hundreds of thousands.”

“They… it - sorry, what?”

“I need you to do whatever you can to alert the authorities and have them standing by so that they can catch these guys red-handed.”

“If… if you’re worried about security, I can assure you that all branches have security personnel on-site, and all customer-facing staff are trained to deal with a robbery.” 

“The gang will shoot the security guard in the leg, he won’t die, but he will never walk again.”

“... Zach… how do you know all this?”

“I uh… I have some prior knowledge.”

“You know the gang involved?”

“Not personally, I mean - not exactly. I know of them. They're notorious.”

“You know of them?”

“Yeah… the leader is a guy called Thatcher. Listen, I can’t get into all this right now, but you gotta trust me, this guy is bad news and it’s imperative that he get locked up tomorrow. If he isn’t… well let’s just say that we’re all fucked.”

“Zach…”

“I’m sorry. I uh - oh shit. SHIT!”

“What happened?” 

“The battery. Rachel, I don’t know how much longer I can stay on the line.”

“I really think the best thing to do is contact the police --”

“I TRIED - sorry, I tried that already. A few times. I couldn’t convince anyone to take me seriously because -- actually, never mind.”

“Zach, what are you not telling me?”

“Oh boy… uhhh - no, I cant…”

”Try me.”

“Gaaaah! Okay! Umm, so I don’t expect you to believe me, but I guess I’m asking you to trust me on this. If Thatcher successfully robs this bank this he will use the funds as seed money for a very lucrative criminal enterprise. He will become a powerful - and fucking ruthless - underworld figure. Jesus, I sound like a bad movie…”

“You think that preventing a robbery which might happen at some point this week will stop a mobster?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but the implications of this are… well, they’re catastrophic.”

“Zach, I’m going to level with you here - our policy is to terminate calls we suspect are hoaxes or pranks - but... but I feel like you’re genuinely distressed about something you believe will happen --”

“It will happen! Rachel, I assure you this will happen - I was there.”

“You were where? Zach, what are you trying to tell me?”

“Oh boy. Okay, here goes… Rachel, I’m talking to you from what you’d call ‘the future’.”

“... the future.”

“More precisely I’m calling you from Thursday, February 16... 2023.”

“2023?”

“I work in a lab with a man called Dr Thomas Stockland. About a year ago he developed technology that - well it was the first baby-step towards full-blown time travel.”

“Uh… So let me get this straight - your colleague invented time travel, and you need my help - from what I think is the present, but is actually the past - to stop some guy robbing a bank and becoming a powerful criminal?”

“Rachel, I know how crazy this sounds --”

“It does sound crazy, Zach. And - no offence - but it’s illogical. I mean, if you’ve got a time machine why not go back and stop this guy yourself? Take out baby Hitler while you’re at it.”

“Okay, first off I don’t have a ‘time machine’. Second, we are only just scratching the surface of this breakthrough. I’m talking to you on a prototype device that we built into an iPhone. It can only transmit low-level radio frequencies backwards through time.”

“... what’s an eye-phone?”

“Urgh, never mind. Look - I can’t send a person back in time, or a person with a gun back in time, or go into the future and get tomorrow’s lottery numbers. Not yet.”

“Not yet? So you’re working on it then? Why not wait until you’ve got the ability to do it and then go back and stop Hatcher?”

“It’s Thatcher - and it will take at least another 10 years of R&D to be able to transport physical matter. The most pressing issue too - oh boy. I really shouldn’t say.”

“You shouldn’t say? Zach, I’m about 80% sure that I don’t believe any of this, but I’m intrigued, which I why I haven’t hung up. Why can’t you tell me?”

“... do you know about the space-time continuum?”

“How you can’t reveal too much about the future because doing so might destroy it? Yeah, I do. I know about the Grandfather paradox too. I read stuff, Zach.”

“I don’t have time - ironically - to get into it, but things will be bad if Thatcher isn’t caught.”

“If you want my help, you’re gonna have to tell me what happens Zach. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, fuck it. If Thatcher gets away with this money he will build up his empire very quickly and will be very good at what he does. He will find out about Dr Stockland’s work and kidnap him - we think so that he can use the same technology we’re using now to contact the past.”

“Really?”

“Yes really. He took Dr Stockland this morning. I’m hiding in a workshop at the lab and I don’t know if his gang are still here or not.”

“What will happen if Thatcher does get his hands on this device?”

“I really don’t know. Call the Russians and tell them to push the button on the Cuban missiles? Dial up Bin Laden and suggest he gets his ass to a cave before they kick in his door? Thatcher is on record as saying he wants to see ‘Hell on Earth’ - so whatever he’s got planned, it ain’t good.”

“Suppose… suppose I do believe you. What good would telling the branch manager that his bank is going to be robbed this week do?”

“If they can get a heightened security presence on-site Thatcher will go down. He's got a record, but he's slippery - the cops couldn't get anything to stick. If they are there to intercept him they’ll catch him red-handed and he will get locked up.”

“I really do think you need to talk to the police about this Zach…”

“Rachel, you’re not the first person I’ve asked for help with this. I’ve been calling the police for over an hour, each time I call I have to go back to the point in time before my most recent call and try different approaches - if I want any kind of shot of convincing anyone I can't have them remember me.”

“And you couldn't persuade any cops to help?”

“No. I - I couldn't. So I had to go straight to the source. You.”

“Zach, I think I've spent too much time on this call already - not as much as you have it seems -”

“Don't say ‘but’”

“But… I do have to go now.”

“Don't hang up!!”

“Goodbye, Zach. If you would like to talk to us about your financial management needs we are here to help.”

“Don't ---”