Thankfully for Jon and Karyn they managed to get back to his house without further incidents. Given how different this world seemed to his own, he was mildly surprised to discover his key actually unlocked the door to his home.
Inside they'd quickly ran up the stairs to Jon's room. They spent several minutes examining the new decor. Jon found it embarrassing. Karyn found the situation hilarious.
"This so damn peculiar," Jon said as he looked at the poster of the feminine looking Captain Kirk on the wall. "William Shatner had some really nice legs too." He shook his head in attempt to remove the distasteful thought.
Karyn smiled as she sat on his bed. She picked a discarded pink crop top that was lying there. "I think it is kind of fun," she said as she stretched the fabric between her fingers, emphasising the fact it belonged to the Jon from this world. "No toxic masculinity"
Jon angrily snatched the top from her fingers. "I'm being serious," he said before throwing it back down on the bed. "I think we should hop out of here."
"So now we're in a world where feminine aesthetics are dominant. When hopping, we have to accept things might not be as we expect or is your fragile ego feeling threatened again?"
"I've just spent a day in a female body. I think I've come to terms with any hang ups I might have had about embracing femininity."
"Says you," Karyn said sarcastically.
"It's more the way people have been reacting that is getting me concerned." He picked up a couple of small leaflets from the side of his bed and looked them over.
"To be fair, to them we are the ones dressed weird." Karyn said as she pointed at her own clothes.
"Did you see how those people that saw us reacted? It wasn't surprise or curiosity. It was a mixture of fear and anger. If we'd hung around in public much longer we'd have got lynched."
Karyn sighed, "I think you are overreacting. Maybe everyone here likes looking feminine. It is what they do to feel good about themselves."
"Really? Take a look at this," he said as he handed her a leaflet.
Karyn read the large text out loud. "Remember, short hair is evil, keep those locks long and thick. Your weekly reminder to never leave home without your favorite cosmetics." Karyn looked up, "Did this come in the mail?"
"I'm guessing so, it was sent out by some government department."
Karyn started to read the next one. "Have you seen anything suspicious? Neighbours wearing unflattering outfits? Remember peace and harmony of society requires us all to make an effort to look pretty. Report them to the local fashion centre." She looked up again. "What the hell!?"
"It is population control. This place isn't some fun liberated land of feminine goodness. The people here are actively being oppressed."
Karyn laughed nervously as she let it sink in. Her brain had trouble reconciling the idea that the main tool of subjugation by this society was fashion. "Okay let's go then. Try and find us a universe that isn't it too screwed up," she said as she got on her feet.
"Hey you wanted the DTH set to random," Jon reminded her. He pulled the handheld device from his pocket which released a small cloud of particles into the air. "Hm, interesting," he said quietly before wiping the residue from the case.
"What was that?" Karyn asked.
"Dust," Jon said as he focused on programming the DTH.
"How can there be dust on the DTH, you used it minutes ago."
"Not important," he said. Suddenly he was caught by surprise as Karyn grabbed his wrist, stopping him from pressing the buttons on the DTH.
"Bullshit! You are hiding something from me, again," Karyn said, clearly upset.
Jon paused before replying. "I wasn't hiding it..., I just wasn't telling you."
"That is the same bloody thing."
"I thought it..., I mean..." He gasped for air, his enhanced mind unable to find another way around this topic. He resigned himself to telling her the truth. "I was trying to protect you. I wasn't sure what would happen if I told you the truth. Besides we haven't exactly had a lot of time to ourselves to discuss it."
Karyn let go of him. "Discuss what? I don't even know what the hell this is about."
"It is about time. It is messed up, the stone has corrupted it, like everything else."
"Time?" Karyn asked.
"Yes, time is not passing in a linear fashion. Judging by the amount of dust that fell off the DTH, I'm guessing I haven't used it for maybe a year or longer."
"It has been in your pocket for minutes, not months."
"No, that is just our perception of time," Jon said slowly. "In reality, time is passing irregularly. The smart version of me, explained the effects to me. He told me I got the stone in the year 2000, had the idea to create a device in 2006 and didn't create the DTH till 2018. I think the DTH is resistant to the effects of the damaged time continuum. That layer of dust indicates another long period of time has just passed."
Karyn's face was one of disbelief. "Let me get this straight - months and years are just passing in random spurts and we are completely unaware of it?"
"That is about the size of it. Although history must be getting rewritten on some level to avoid paradoxes. A 'state of flux' the other Jon called it."
Karyn pondered what she just heard. "I thought our history was fixed, which is why we create a new timeline each time we hop into the past."
Jon was impressed at her continued grasp of the dimension hopping physics. "Essentially yes but there must be some sort of change going on. I wasn't born till after the year 2000 but if I got the stone in the year 2000, how could that have happened before I was even born?" Jon smiled at the absurdity of it all.
"And you never thought to mention any of this till I caught you out?" Karyn asked.
"I told you I was worried it might mess you up." Jon said, a tone of concern was obvious in his voice.
Karyn sighed, "It would have been nice to know. Okay, how do we fix it?"
"Fix it?" Jon asked, completely baffled by her question.
