Quotes from book
Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Name: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait
Author: K. A. Bedford

Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait is a 2008 science fiction novel by Australian writer K. A. Bedford. It follows the story of Spider who repairs time machines for a living until he discovers a corpse inside one of the machines he is fixing - leading the Department of Time and Space to take over the situation.

“The coffee, when he tried it, was strong almost to the point of being unbearable, but not quite. In short, it was divine.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 209)

“The future was not what it used to be.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 13 (p. 156)

“It was hard to just sit and relax. Everyone he saw somehow looked suspicious, especially all those people who appeared perfectly innocuous: nobody who looked that innocuous could be anything but guilty, Spider thought.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 17 (p. 200)

“He swore, pissed off, trying to keep the past in the past instead of stinking up the present.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 11 (p. 130)

“He felt a trickle of cold fear in the depths of his belly, a dread that he was going to get his wish.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 13 (p. 159)

“Maybe he was crazy, he thought. It would explain everything. Insanity was good that way.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 7 (p. 80)

“To change the subject, he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“What about?”
“Free will.”
“Free will?”
“Yeah,” he said, trying not to fidget, a weird feeling in his head. “I reckon free will is bullshit.”
“You need to get some sleep, Spider.”
“No, no, I feel okay, more or less.”
“Free will,” she said, shaking her head.
“It’s an illusion. That’s all it is. Everything is already sorted out, every decision, every possibility, it’s all determined, scripted, whatever.”
Iris was looking at him as if she was worried. “Where’d all this come from?”
“I’ve been to the End of bloody Time, Iris. From that perspective, everything is done and settled. Basically, everything that could happen has happened. It’s all mapped out, documented, diagrammed, written up in great big books, and ignored.”
“You’re a crazy bastard, you know that, Spider?”
“Maybe not crazy enough,” he said.
Iris was still struggling for traction on the conversation. “You think everything is predetermined? Is that it? But what about—”
“No. You just think you have free will.”
“So, according to you,” Iris said, looking bewildered, “a guy who kills his wife was always going to kill her. She was always going to die.”
“From his point of view, he doesn’t know that, and neither does she, but yeah. She was always a goner, so to speak.”
“There is no way I can accept this,” she said. “It’s intolerable. It robs individual people of moral agency. According to you nobody chooses to do anything; they’re just following a script. That means nobody’s responsible for anything.”
“I said free will is an illusion. We think we’ve got moral agency, we think we make choices. It’s a perfect illusion. It just depends on your point of view.”
“It’s a bloody pathway to madness, I reckon,” Iris said.
“I dunno,” he said. “Right now, sitting here, thinking about everything, I think it makes a lot of sense. Kinda, anyway.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

“Think you’ll find that’s just an illusion,” she said, and flashed a tiny smile.
Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 22 (pp. 271-272)

““So what is this Final Secret? Any Ideas?” Spider asked, trying to sound reasonable.
“We don’t know. We just don’t know. All we know is what the Vores have communicated to us so far.”
“Right,” Spider said, nodding, hating every moment of this nonsense. “And when you say ‘we’ and ‘us’, what you really mean is ‘you’, yes?”
“They communicate through a living channel, yes, and that is, of course, me.””

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 18 (p. 219)

“You up for it, or am I going in again? Please note, by the way, there is only one correct answer to this question.”

K. A. Bedford book Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait

Source: Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait (2008), Chapter 23 (p. 284)