The content and use of slow-release patches was once totally deregulated, in order to allow those for whom drugs have an unavoidable lure a safer method of ingestion. The concept was simple in that it was thought impossible to overdose from a patch—but human ingenuity and stupidity know no bounds, and after two people were found dead covered in patches from head to toe in a steam room, the illegality in nonapproved patches was reconfirmed. They remain, of course, hugely popular.

Julia Scrott, The Nonsense of Prohibition

We bought Gavin a cup of tea and a cupcake and sat in the canteen while a Nemicolopterus Syntheticus flapped around above us, part of a project to revitalize the ailing home-cloning industry. The tearooms were filled with mad scientists of one sort or another, many of whom had the unkempt “wild hair” and mismatched-clothes look that seemed never to go out of fashion. Some sat quietly, too shy to order or too unaware to know that it was self-service, while others could not stop themselves and insisted on regaling the staff with logical methods by which they could serve more efficiently.

Gavin sat slumped idly in his chair, his slovenly manner, ill temper and foul mouth endearing him to no one. But he knew as well as we that if he was going to survive the next twenty-four hours, we were going to have to at least pretend to get along.

“So if I’m not murdered, I turn out to be a serial killer in thirty-six years’ time?” said Gavin once we’d explained just what we’d found out. “But why do I kill those useless and boring people? Without that dumb meeting on Tuesday night, I’d not even know them—and more, not even want to know them. Worse, I end up buying a Vauxhall. I’d never buy a Vauxhall. Not even to kill someone with.”

He took a deep breath.

“Okay,” he added, “I admit it, I can be a bit intolerant toward the mendacious savages I call my fellow man, but there’s a big jump between that and serial killing. And if I were to survive your moronic son tomorrow, why would I wait until I’m fifty-six to start a rampage? What suddenly changes me?”

“We don’t know,” said Landen. “It could be anything: death of a loved one, passed over for promotion, brain abnormality, a bet, boredom. The list is long. And yes, Vauxhalls might be shit now, but in three decades they could be like Volkswagens are today.”

“You mean driven by smug, self-important, middle-class idiots with hideously spoiled children?

“It’s possible, yes.”

He thought about this for a moment. “But if those other potential ChronoGuard are already dead in this future, how will killing me change that?”

“Because at this precise moment in time,” I explained, “you’re still around to kill them.”