Spencer finished her wine and placed the empty glass on the coffee table, in front of where she and Victor lounged on the sofa. She reached over the arm of her seat, grabbed her bag, placed it on her lap and pulled out her purse.

“I just want to have another look at them,” she told the others. “Do you think they’ll get suspicious that we both used the same numbers?”

She looked at the pair of lottery tickets, identical save for the signatures on the back. One of which was hers, the other Simon’s.

“I doubt it,” Simon said, “coincidence is perfectly plausible. Even if we’d bought three of four tickets with the same numbers, the only thing they’d think to question would be our intellect, since there’s nothing to be gained from it without rigging the draw. They know that’s impossible, so they just go back to thinking we’re idiots. Who would ever accuse us of having knowledge of the future?”

“No one,” Spencer said, “you’re right. If we bought more tickets, they would conclude that we’re morons, but there would be an investigation before they came to that conclusion. That would have caused trouble for our plans, so I’m glad we stuck to just the two.”

“The jackpot for tomorrow is over eight million,” Victor said, “so our two-thirds should work out at over five million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three pounds. I agree, two was enough.”

“So, we cheated someone out of a million and a third?” Spencer asked.

“We’ve been over this. They still have over two and a half million, I’m sure they’ll be happy with that.” Victor said. “Maybe our work will affect him or her in greater ways than those extra millions would. If not, when we’re turning in a profit, we can send whoever-they-are the extra if it makes you feel better.”

“It might,” Spencer said with an exaggerated sulky pout, then changed the subject. “Let’s watch the video again.”

She had made a copy of the video when it arrived with the numbers and stored it on her phone. Spencer cast it to the TV so they could all watch. The screen filled with the faces of all three friends, Simon on the left of the frame, Victor on the right and Spencer centre frame. Spencer was first to speak.

“Hi, alternate us!” the on-screen Spencer said.

“Hey!” Simon and Victor said in unison from either side of her.

“We decided to conduct an experiment regarding alternate timelines created via our actions.”

The original trio stared at the screen in silence, they watched themselves as they spoke words that they had no recollection of ever having voiced. It was like nothing they had experienced before, not one of them could remember being so intoxicated that even a video replay couldn’t cure their amnesia. The knowledge that this had happened in an entirely independent reality added another layer of idiosyncrasy to the circumstance. A part of their consciousness had been split from their allegorical soul and removed permanently. Even second time around, the effect was eerie.

Video Spencer continued. “In our original timeline, we received the winning lottery numbers, but not the number of winners. We decided to try and leave evidence of our reality in the one that supersedes it. Yours. If this is to be a learning experience, it would be impractical of us to allow our participation to become eliminated. We suspect that this timeline will cease to exist once you know the number of winners, so in a sense, you’ve killed us.”

“Thanks for that. What did we ever do to you?” On-screen Simon said.

“Earn this.” On-screen Victor whimpered, overacting a tearful breakdown.

The video ended, leaving its first frame as a still on the screen. Simon, Spencer and Victor stared for a few more moments while their minds absorbed the unusual events once more. Watching the video made the reality of what they had accomplished all the more tangible. Simon was first to snap out of the reverie.

“It takes some getting used to.” he said.

“It does,” Spencer said, still a little stunned despite the knowledge of their own technology.

“They taught us a valuable lesson,” Victor said. “We should keep a diary of all our work, even the small stuff, we might not recognise the acorns that are destined to become mighty oaks. Data can be attached to any messages we send back, then we know that we haven’t completely erased any important puzzle pieces when we manipulate reality.”

“I wish I could show this to every creationist,” Simon said. “Proof of reality manipulation would really put a hole in their theories of divine plans. They’re not going to like it.”

The group had always found the religious — and their ability to ignore even the most compelling of evidence — immensely frustrating. Their vexation was a large part of their motivation in creating the time drive; a substantial portion of the human race was disposed to remaining stagnant in our pursuit of knowledge, others even choosing to regress. If the masses were unwilling to advance, either through apathy or fear of what they might find ahead, the team were more than prepared to give them a firm push.

“I don’t think there’ll be any part of this that the religious will be fans of, to be honest,” Victor said. “Do you think our alternate selves felt it when they were replaced?” Victor asked.

“I very much doubt it,” Simon replied. “Maybe it’s more like being rewound on a video. Time gradually runs backwards until it meets the point where the timeline skews. Not literally of course, but time is relative. It could be that time is moving both forwards and backwards simultaneously, the future and the past both existing in the same instant; or maybe there is no time, it’s just our physical nature that makes us experience time linearly.”

“It’s not like they’re new theories,” Spencer said.

“Of course not,” Simon replied. “I’m just trying to answer Victor’s question by illustrating that, even though we have harnessed it, our minds still can’t comprehend the nature of time itself. We’re unlikely to be conscious of reality being manipulated around us while our brains’ ability to perceive it is so limited. If the theory of the multiverse is correct, then we haven’t caused anything that doesn’t already occur naturally. If infinite universes are existing alongside ours, one for each and every variance of possibility, then our changes are nothing new, you can’t add to infinity. We won’t be conscious of the realities we create if we can’t perceive the alternates that are already there. Alternate universes could be like cul-de-sacs, the reality ends when a new event takes place, it goes no further linearly, but still exists in its own bubble of time and space while future events play out in the universes that sprung from the parent’s possibilities. Then there’s the possibility that the reality from which our video originated could still exist, continuing on after they sent the message.”

“I think we’ve learnt more about quantum physics over the past few hours than anyone in the whole scientific community for the past century,” Spencer said, “but we’re still not really sure what the hell is going on.”

“Like I said,” Simon reminded her, “it’s unfathomable via our limited perceptions.”

“I wonder how different this timeline is now,” Victor asked.

“Well, we only decided to get another ticket because of the winner message so our share will have increased by over a million in comparison to the previous reality,” Simon replied, “but who knows what other smaller changes occurred. Especially since the video didn’t go into any other detail. One thing’s for sure, all this has highlighted the rudimental nature of the drive system, it does need some rework to incorporate all this new information.”

“Yeah, first we need to fix the notifications for new messages. Maybe we can write a phone app and send via push, so we don’t have to be at the drive.” Victor said.

“That would be much more convenient. Then we need some kind of indicator for attachments that are a record of erased timelines,” Simon added.

“I’m getting a headache from all this sciencing, plus I’m probably a little bit too drunk to handle it,” Spencer said.

“Yeah,” Victor said, “Let’s take a sciencing break until after the win tomorrow. It’s all a little overwhelming.”