Chapter 29: Home

Tom stepped up to the empty bus driver’s seat that Monte had previously sat in.

“Bus, take me to Lor... , no, a question first. If you take me home for a few years, can we still go and see Lorena when she is about a year old, so I can finish healing her?” He wasn’t sure why, but he felt the need to go home first.

“Yes, Master. As long as we don’t try to go to a time and a place that you have occupied, we can pretty much go anywhere in time and space. That includes your future on your world, because to you, you haven’t lived it yet.”

“However, any time on your world you skip over can’t be relived, so I suggest you don’t do that for more than about fifteen of your minutes. Due to phenomena that I can’t explain, some places in some time zones in reference to your now, will take more time to get to than others, as far as your timeline is concerned.”

“Thank you, Bus. I am delighted that I can communicate with you even though I will miss Monte as my bus driver. Oh, now that I know that I can talk to you, are the new systems and modifications to the bus adequate for your needs?”

“Yes, Master, a vast improvement. The new crystals and spells shall keep me in good repair and amply fuelled for many centuries. They will also make our travels much faster and easier to do. I have also come to like this quaint convenience to travel in.”

“Good, as long as your happy, Bus. Can you take me home to the day, and a time just after I left?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Tom, please, Bus. Just Tom is fine. Being called Master, feels odd to me, and it is not a practice we adhere to on my world and in my time. How long will the trip take?”

“About four of your hours, due to where and when we are in relation to that time and place, Tom. I have calculated that I will have to do several jumps and navigate some distances between different portals. I have no idea why time, as you think of it, is fractured in this universe, but I can take advantage of it for you.”

“Good, I’ll get some food and go have a nap while you do your thing, Bus,” Tom replied as he turned to make his way to the back of the bus. The whole time and space discussion was giving him a headache.

“Your wish is my command, Tom.”

Tom chuckled as he walked away.

Tom blinked as he realised the bus was travelling down Commercial Road in Brisbane City.

He was sitting in the driver’s seat, as Bus had suggested it would look odd if the bus didn’t have a driver. Tom hadn’t changed the windows in the front of the bus just the rest of them. While his hands were resting on the steering wheel, he wasn’t really driving the bus.

Tom had conflicting feelings as he watched the cityscape pass him by. He had been away for five months as far as his mind was concerned. A lot had happened to him in that time. He wasn’t the same man he was before.

Just down the road from the apartment building that he lived in was a multi-storey carpark. It also had a zoned area behind it where delivery trucks and tourist buses could park. Tom had Bus pull into that area. He then dropped a glamour over the bus, so it looked like an old tour bus rather than an old city-transit bus.

He knew some people would question it being there all of the time, so he had instructed Bus to activate the invisibility spell when he felt it was safe to do so. The bus also had a keep-away spell so people wouldn’t walk into it or try to park where it was.

Tom wasn’t sure how long he was going to stay in his current location, as a lot depended on his half-baked plans. Even so, he was thinking of putting his apartment on the market. Realistically he could live on the bus and either buy a block of land to park it on or even move to a caravan park. The city did still have some.

He could even just place the bus in the back of a city park or toss in his job and go touring. He was very tempted to do that. He hadn’t truly made up his mind one way or another.

Tom decided that what he did with the bus would depend on what he chose to do while he was back here on Earth. He didn’t know how long he would stay before going to visit Lorena on Utopia or even if he planned to come back home after that. He was very conflicted on the whole subject.

One thing he was worried about was hiding his magical abilities. He had spent most of the last five months using them every day. Many of the spells he used were now ingrained. Floating things across the room, like his coffee cup, was one thing he was going to have to stop doing.

He was sure that he was going to stuff-it-up and forget at some stage.

Tom had dressed in his gym gear to wear home.

He had thought about dressing in his work clothes but decided no one would notice the difference anyway. After he got out of the driver’s seat, he checked himself over to make sure he looked okay.

Tom checked his watch as he shouldered his pack. His smartwatch showed the time as 04:25 p.m. It was about fifteen minutes after he had left work on Friday the 10^th of January 2020.

Just as Bus had said, he was only missing fifteen minutes of his life. Considering he had packed five months’ worth of living into that fifteen minutes and increased his life span by ten times, he felt it was a fair trade.

Bus opened the doors for him, and Tom stepped down into the sultry heat of a mid-summer evening. He predicted the temperature was in the low thirties and he looked to the sky to see only a few clouds. He took his time getting to the street, as he had to adapt to being slightly heavier due to Earth’s gravity.

Tom looked both ways and then hurried across the street so he could walk down to his building. The smells of the city, cars and the river tickled his nose as he turned to his left to go down a side road.

Since his single bedroom flat was on the back of the building, this was the best way to get to it, no matter which direction you came from. He was on the second floor and near the stairs that were accessed from the rear entrance.

Tom fished for his building keycard and room-keys to let himself into the building. He had put them into one of his pockets along with his wallet and phone when he was making sure he had everything he needed after his nap.