Five To Doomsday – Day 1: Interview with a time-traveller

Through the magic of tinternet, we’ve managed to get a message to Josh Garcia in Ek Naab. (I posted a comment on his blog, is how. If you haven’t found Josh’s new blog yet, take a look: myinvisiblecity.com)

The prize for BEST QUESTION goes to Tobias Nottingham, who will be receiving a rare signed first edition of any Joshua book. THANKS to everyone who sent a question!

If you had the chance to go to another alternate reality, what would it be like and why? (From Tobias Nottingham)

Hi Tobias. Well you know what? I’ve been to a couple of alternate realities already. I went to a pretty darn horrible alternate future, in which the Sect of Huracan had won. To be frank, I still have nightmares about that. But there was one alternate reality that I can’t get out of my head. There’d been a nuclear war and some really nightmarish stuff in the 1960s, (The Cuban Missile Crisis didn’t turn out so well in that reality.) And quite a lot of the world was basically wiped out.

But there was a whole different attitude there. Nuclear weapons has been completely dismantled. There was no Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, no problems in the Middle East (to be fair, that’s because they’d been bombed badly, too.) The USA and Russia weren’t big powers any more. Brazil, India, Australia and China were the big superpowers. And Mexico was very chilled. It wasn’t like now. In that reality, I had all the money I could every need and my girlfriend and I could have lived pretty happily on the beach. I’m ashamed to admit it, because I shouldn’t have enjoyed a place where so many had suffered so much to make it such a peaceful world. All I can tell you is that I was happy there. Although I missed my Mum, Tyler, Benicio and Emmy.

And I’d go back there. Please don’t hate me for it.

What have you found hardest about your life? (from Henry DeFerrars)

Hmmm – I try not to look backwards too much, so right now I feel pretty good. The moon machine is up and running OK and everything should be cool for the 21st/22nd December (you wouldn’t know about it, since the media seem to have it well under wraps!). Some of the physical stuff was hard at the time. I don’t think about it much now but being shot in the leg was very not-good. But if anything niggles at me, it’s this – Tyler. He’s the real hero, if you ask me. He stood by me when I needed him and what did it get him? He’s ended up back in the Sect of Huracan’s future. And even though I know that we need that alternate reality to exist so that our reality can be the way it is, I feel bad that my best mate had to suffer  – and still has to struggle in that world.

Why didn’t you go back in time to save your father? (from Andrew Lemerand)

I tried, man! I did. That was my whole plan, the main reason that I fixed the Bracelet of Itzamna. Look how that turned out – I found my dad, but he still ended up being transported to the slopes of Mount Orizaba. After that, honestly, I was too sh*t scared to try again. I kept thinking – and I still do – what else could go wrong? You think things can’t be worse but they CAN! Jeez. If I’ve learned anything with the time-travelling it is that.

If the Hurucan do take over the world what will you do and how? (from Calum Webb)

You’re right – it’s not a sure thing that the Sect still won’t find a way to bring about some kind of doomsday! I’m just hoping that we’ve done everything we can to stop the superwave. That would just have made it so much easier for the Sect. But they might not give up. One thing we’ve really got going for us is that we know the formula for hypnoticin – the Sect’s mind-control drug that only they can use. So we’re already working on a drug to block that. If the Sect tried to take over, we’d make that drug available freely, worldwide. If they found some way round that…I dunno. I guess I’d stay in Ek Naab and do what I could from here. But don’t worry. The Sect of Huracan are my sworn enemies. While I’m alive I’ll fight them. 🙂

What if forecast is correct? What can we do to ourselves each if it really happened? Whether there is any relevance to the present situation? (from Amelia Nurkasih)

The thing forecast by the Mayans is going to be OK. It’s all under control now – finally! But if something like that really happened . . . wow. I think your only bet would be if you were one of those ‘doomsday preppers’. Have you heard about those types? Kind of like my dad (Andres Garcia) in the alternate future. He was fully prepped out. had his ‘bug-out’ plan all ready and when the time came, he was off up to the hills with the family (to the Lake District) where he’d been prepping a house with food and stuff that could last them years. (Here’s a website about a TV documentary about Doomsday Preppers.)

Do you sometimes wish you could go back to that Capoeira night, before you went home? (from Jens Hildebrand)
also Josh, do you want your old life back without knowing Ixchel, Ek Naab, Montoyo or you are glad what you have and don´t want to change it (from Viktória Malotová)

Hey thanks, Jens and Viktoria, that’s almost the same question. Short answer – no. I’ve been through all that.  You might say – well if you could go back, then Camila would still be alive. Well maybe. Or maybe she’d have tried to go after the Ix Codex without me, and been killed anyway? I can’t let myself think that way. It’s like what other-Tyler told me – you can’t stay anywhere for ever. You have to keep moving forward. Might seem like a weird thing for a time-traveller to say, since I can kind of go back. But I can’t go back anywhere inside myself, if you get me.

Do you wish you could’ve done something different? Something to save your sister or your dad? (from Kaelyn Cook)

I wish I’d done lots of things different! I wish I’d spent more time with people that I never saw again. Like my two sisters, Camila and Sofia. I wish I’d hung out more with my dad. It’s weird, now that I actually like all that jazz music, after listening to his iPod, I keep thinking of stuff I’d say to him about Miles Davis and Stan Getz and all those guys. I have this little fantasy where we hook up in some alternate reality, in the past, and go to the Montreal Jazz festival together. (maybe this should have been part of my answer to Tobias…?)
But as for saving them – Kaelyn – no. It’s been hard to accept that there are things I can’t change. It’s like that Butterfly Effect film, have you seen it? I watch it a lot, it all feels verrry familiar now. In that film, he keeps trying, over and over, to go back to a time where things can be perfect. Looking for his own zero moment to correct. You can NOT imagine the temptation to do that.

Maybe I’m starting to get religion again, but I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a force, call it the Universe, or Fate, call it God, that controls certain aspects of our lives. And that some events are like fixed points that can’t be changed, because the  Universe/Fate/God will always arrange things so that one way or another, they happen. I’ve stopped believing in a proper multiverse, in which every possibility is played out. I think, instead, that the different realities are in some kind of relationship with each other. Maybe the Erinsi time-jump device actually created them? I keep wondering about that thing. Why did the Erinsi make it? How? Was it from knowledge they gained from the dying universe, the one that transmitted it’s ‘world memory’ through a black hole? And what is the Oracle that Bosch-I-mean-Itzamna mentioned?

It’s strange to think that Arcadio and Bosch are both still out there, time-travelling. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want to get into it again. Too many cooks spoil the cookies, as my mum says.

 Hey Josh, since you knew that the alternate you loved Emily, do you sometimes wish you could see how things could have turned out with her instead of Ixchel? (from Jeremy Mallia)

Dude…have you got a girlfriend?! Ixchel would NOT like it if I answered that any way except NO!!!

(actually I just asked if I could answer and she said sure why not. Her face was kind of a bit ironic when she said it but I’m going to take girl at her word, K?)

OK. The truth is that – I kissed Emmy a few times, back in Yr 7. In fact – she’s the first girl I kissed. It was at school, in one of the music practice rooms, where we were supposed to be ‘putting a band together’. But it never got beyond a smooch session. I just didn’t know what to do after the kissing bit. I mean, I didn’t know what to say. So it was like, we kissed and then I was just like, you wanna practice doing G-D-A-E a few more times so we can learn this song? and she was just like, OK and putting her gum back in her mouth. And then we went home with our mates and kind of just went ‘see ya’ to each other in front of them. And then she had this mysterious strop at me, honest to God I don’t even know why? And then we basically didn’t speak until Year 9, when we were in the same class for physics and did a coursework project together. Last I heard – swear to GOD – is that Emmy likes girls now. So when I heard that other-Josh and Emmy got it together in a serious way I was like – whoa. Strange days, right?

Thank you Josh Garcia for your answers! Be sure to let us know what you’re up to on 22nd December 2012…

N.B. Beady-eyed fans of a certain TV show will have spotted the reference to a certain TV show’s episode in the title. A free signed book if you can tell me what the reference is, with a full explanation about why it is relevant!