Car Questions

Rædis and Traveler were making good time on a long road trip from one race track to another across the continent of a world where they had entered and qualified for a series of races that took place at key points around the planet.

      Rather than fly to the next circuit with their team, they opted to drive so they could explore a little and see more of the place than they would had they traveled by air. They had ample time in which to do this so no one had a problem with their impromptu excursion.

      At present, they were going flat out in an inexpensive but functional and  comfortable rental car that was not particularly powerful but had a battery that could hold a charge for a very long time and was powered back up again quickly enough for a decent meal and a rejuvenating rest before they continued on.

      The terrain they traversed at the moment was flat and the road, a nearly straight line of six lane tarmac that was mostly full of large cargo hauling vehicles that stuck to the outermost lane in the event they had to pull off the highway in a hurry. This terrain also suited their rental because of how unchallenging it was.

      The land they past through was densely wooded with grandly beautiful and enormous old trees, some of which stretched nearly one hundred meters into a sky that was rapidly clouding over with rain clouds. Soon, it was and the boy's progress was slowed considerably.

      "Man, the clouds are really chucking it down." Traveler said as he stuck his hand out of the window to sample the warm rain. The drops were rather large and pelted his palm almost painfully as they plodded along the highway, reduced now to almost a crawl.

      Rædis had the wipers on full swing but they did little to wipe the water from the windshield as they went.

      "They certainly are. I wonder if this is typical for this area. I also wonder how long it will last." Rædis stated as the road became more of a shallow river than a highway. Traveler was unconcerned by this as his friend was brilliant at driving in the wet plus the speed they were now moving at was almost pedestrian.

      "Given the size of these trees, I'd say it is certainly an environmental aspect of this particular place. I can't imagine the amount of water it takes to sustain so many, so big." said Traveler.

      "I don't think we have to imagine it." Rædis said as he pulled the car over and switched on its flashers. Forward progress had become unsustainable.  "Now I know why all the trucks stick to the outside lane."

      The two friends sat in the car and listened to the rain pound on the poor car like a thousand children given tom-tom drums, sticks and a lot of sugar.

      "Perhaps we can find a weather report on the radio?" suggested Rædis, raising his voice above the din. He pressed a button to retract the sunshade that covered the window in the roof of the car. The volume of water falling across it reduced the view of the overhanging limbs of the giant trees to merely a blur against the dark grey of the sky. Traveler found a radio station of news and weather after asking Rædis how to spell the required words in the language that was spoken where they were so he could type his request onto the screen in the center of the dashboard. He understood it enough to clumsily converse but could not read its rune-like letters.

      Having tuned in the first selection to appear in a brief list, a man's voice eminated from the vehicle's speakers. He had to turn it up above the noise of the rain.

      After a few moments of the tail end of a news report followed by a string of commercials, a weather report finally aired. It was conveniently accompanied by a map that appeared on the screen which, until the report, had been nothing but advertisements, or at least Traveler supposed by their garish fonts and colors.

      "Ah, well...it appears these downpours occur regularly around this time of day but rarely last more than an hour. Still, that's a bit for us to not be moving."

      Rædis agreed and shifted his attention to the road.

Water drained off of it in sheets or rather, small waves at this point but he was pleased at how well it dealt with the downpour.

      "They certainly constructed these roads well enough to drain such a torrent. Had we a better equipped vehicle-" he began.

      "Or a boat." Traveler quipped.

      "Or a boat." smiled his friend. "We could continue. Even if at a moderate pace."

      Just as he said this one of the cargo trucks passed by launching a wave of water at them that actually rocked the car upon hitting it. Rædis pulled them over as far off the road as they could go without the worry of being washed off of it.

      Neither Traveler or Rædis cared for the music on this world so the man switched off the radio and leaned his seat back to close his eyes to rest a moment and wait out the storm. Rædis watched the weather pattern move across the map on the car's display. In little time, however, the noise of the rain got to both of them. To break the monotony of the sound of the rain Rædis asked one of what Traveler came to call his 'car questions' because it was usually at times like this, when they were stuck in a vehicle with nothing to do but wait, the curious robot asked such things.

      "Have you made plans about what to do when you are nearing the end of your natural life?"

      Traveler opened his eyes as the question quickly got his attention. It was something that had never come up before between them.

      "You mean when I'm an old man and realize the end is imminent? Or have I made plans were I suddenly killed or die unexpectedly?" he asked, looking over to his friend who he saw was already looking at him.

      "Yeah, towards the end of your life and you are still lucid enough and perhaps even spry enough to move around. Y'know...not bed ridden or something like that." said Rædis.

      "Indeed, I have given this thought and I've even come up with a plan."

      "Oh?" the curious robot said. "Do tell. If you care to, that is."

      Traveler brought his seat back to an upright position. He reached behind him and grabbed a drink and a bag of salty chips from the bag of supplies they obtained from a convenience store earlier in the route. He popped open the carbonated drink and sampled it. He smiled.

      "What's it taste like?" asked the other.

      "Lager." Traveler said. He gave the can to his friend. "What's it say?"

      "Basically it is beer. And a larger, at that."

      Traveler, who did not usually drink alcohol, was not above a cool refreshing cold brew now and again and, as he didn't want to smoke anything in the car, alcohol was just fine by him at present. Plus it went well with the salty chips in the bag.

      "So, my plan..." he continued. "...I'm going to take the time machine back to just before I was originally given the ship in which I found the bloody thing and give it to myself, instead. It will contain all the temporal coordinates and knowledge of all the places we've already taken it and already be tuned to use by me. Then, I'll teach myself how to use it and introduce myself to you. Then I will slip off to one of my more favorite places until I pass on to whatever awaits a human when we...well, stop functioning." he shrugged as if his plan were simple.

      "You're shrugging as if your plan is simple." Rædis said.

      "Well, it is." said Traveler. As he did, a passing truck sent another wall of water cascading over their car. "Isn't it?"

      "You're the time traveler, mate. But wouldn't your plan have serious repercussion in time? I mean, wouldnt that negate all the things you originally did when you first began using the machine?" Rædis asked.

      "Not to me. I've already have done them." Traveler shrugged again.

      "But what about me?" the machine asked trying to wrap his head around the plan.

    "Well cripes, Ræ! It's not like you aren't a part of this plan. You will be right there with me. And with you as a friend and myself as an initial guide, I may even avoid some of the more horrible mistakes I made when I first began using the thing.

"We could all come right back to your ship and you and the younger me can pick up right where ya left off. I dig it. Think of it as my final experiment in time. Well, this me anyways."

      Rædis thought for a mechanical minute about all this would entail.

      "But again, once we get back to the future, what about all we already have done together?" he posited.

      "Well, we'd have already done them, right? I don't know man. It's never been done before. At least not by me. Or, us, as it were." the man answered back as another sluice of water pelted the poor car.

      "What about meeting yourself in time? Doesn't  that create some sort of paradox or temporal loop or something?" Rædis asked.

      "Again, I don't know. I've never done it. Time, as I've told you before, isn't a straight line of simple cause and effect. I mean, from a certain, easily observable point of view, sure. But if we've learnt anything it is that for us, as time travelers, it's not. Or, doesn't have to be. We kind of exist outside of that linear progression of time. Who knows? The point is we'll still be together, still have a time machine and a big ass ship to play with and well...there ya go. What more could ya want?" Traveler seemed satisfied with this and thought the conversation over but the curious robot persisted.

      "But the young you won't be the same you I came to know."

      Traveler sighed.

      "Of course he will. We'll just need to bring him up to speed on a few things first. I'm a fast learner. I'll get it. No worries friend." Traveler assured Rædis. "In fact, I recall once having to travel to your homeworld to retrieve a new copy of you after our little accident destroyed your original. Your creators told me pretty much the same thing about you. That you may not be exactly the same Rædis that I knew and yet, here we are. So, yeah...it'll be fine."

      By now Traveler had grown weary of talking about himself which was a rare thing in itself so he asked Rædis the same question.

      "What about you? What are you gonna do once you're ancient and all fallin' apart?"

      Rædis knew how to answer this without hesitation.

      "Me? I'm just gonna go back to my homeworld and zap myself into a new copy and carry on doing what I do." he said simply.

      Traveler ate a finger full of chips.

      "Ah. Well. Simple then. I like it." he nodded as he crunched on his chips. He washed them down with a swallow of lager. Rædis turned his silvery gaze on his friend.

      "Yes, well...y'know. Why complicate things like screwing around with time as we know it."

      Traveler laughed and the rain began to subside. In a few moments the torrential downpour trickled more to a normal shower before stopping entirely. Rædis pulled their rental back onto the road and the pair were back underway through the forrest of enormous trees. The subject never came up again.