by Hocking, Ian
Hartfield put the computer in his jacket. “Thank you. I am on my way,” he replied. The switchblade found his palm of its own accord. It gave him an idea. When the guard walked past, he jumped on his back. Hartfield heard laughter. Surely it was the guard. They fell to the ground. Hartfield wrenched his head back, the better to cut his pipes. He frowned like a cellist. When the man was butchered, he dragged him to one side.
Gently, to see how distant his emotions had gone, he touched the blade to his tongue. The blood tasted like soy sauce and copper, or jewels. He put the switchblade back in its holster and took the guard’s gun. If someone discovered the body it would scarcely change things.
There were twelve more flights of stairs. His ears clogged with air as he sank.
In the lull, he thought about Proctor and Brandt. It had been an interesting conversation. Advantageous. He had not planned to stop on his way down to the time machine, but he had wanted to check Frank Stone’s work. The man was an idiot. His failure was not unsurprising.
His prediction that David, Jennifer and Saskia would be in the computer had been a masterstroke. Hartfield’s face was blank. He did not smile without an audience. But he savoured the reasoning once more. He had been informed of a data-burst from the West Lothian Centre only seconds before it had been destroyed the previous Monday. The burst had been a simple text file containing about one-and-a-half times the amount of information required to build a human. The other half was some kind of compressed representation of human mind: fitted together, they had to be none other than Dr Bruce Shimoda making a clean getaway. It was a sensible conclusion. Hartfield knew a great deal about the New World computer from experimental reports. He knew that, once Bruce had transferred himself inside, he needed the physical body as much as a snake needs its old skin.
Hartfield tracked the data burst until it disappeared. A cold trail was no problem: there was only one place in the world where the digital Bruce could be reassembled. Hartfield owned it. And, by coincidence, Jennifer Proctor worked there too.
But Hartfield left nothing to chance. He had already honeyed the trap by warning Jennifer of her father’s activities. Next, he arranged for Jennifer to meet Mikey, the researcher in charge of Asgard. Mikey had been given clear instructions to ensure that Jennifer and Bruce met.
It was all for nothing. The whole plan. He almost smiled. Hartfield had orchestrated the situation for two reasons: to gather evidence of David Proctor’s complicity in the first bombing of the West Lothian Centre and to observe a digital human. The first was born of a petty revenge, the second as another solution to his illness and a means to immortality. Both had been superseded by the time machine. All bets were off.
He smiled.
Hartfield would return and cure himself. There would be no West Lothian Centre. He would never meet Proctor or any of the others. He would live a full life. For, while Hartfield could feel nothing towards others, he felt everything towards himself. He hastened towards his own death and the rebirth of something that he, even in his psychopathic world, held above anything else: the wish to be real again.
When the lights failed, Michaels had been moments from sending a chimpanzee to half an hour ago. He had been waiting patiently for an error because, half an hour before the scheduled trip, no chimpanzee. He patted his pockets. No torch. He sighed and relaxed in his chair. The gantry wobbled perceptibly. He heard the centrifuges slow. Below him, personnel left the chamber. He whistled a French nursery rhyme and waited for the emergency lighting.
Nothing happened.
Over the intercom, a military-sounding man said, “Attention, ladies and gentlemen. There has been a failure of the centre’s lighting. Please proceed carefully to your exits. Flashlights will be provided by your team leader. Repeat, please proceed carefully to your exits.”
Michaels was on a gantry sixty feet in the air. He couldn’t proceed safely anywhere. He watched the torch-lit procession below. The stars were at his feet. He patted his pockets. Still no torch. He would have to wait. He was confident that the repair would not take long. To pass the time, he played a game of Alphabetical Cats. “My cat is an amazing cat. My cat is an amazing, boisterous cat.”
Fifteen minutes later, when his cat was becoming difficult to recall, the light returned. Michaels started. He looked down and saw that the control area was deserted.
But there was movement near the larger centrifuge. A man was working at the terminal.
“Hey!” shouted Michaels. “Step away from that computer.”
The man looked up. From such a distance, he was unrecognisable. “Come down, Professor,” he said.
Michaels grabbed his lab coat and threw it across his shoulders. His face was flushed. Within the Nevada Center, the culture of secrecy meant that project directors were territorial creatures. Michaels was no exception. He jumped into the cage and closed the mesh. He pulled a hydraulic lever and sank to the ground. Once down, he hurried to the control platform. Keys jangled in his pockets. He found the man and swept his hands from the computer.
“I told you to take your –”
Hartfield had a gun. There was blood on his fingers. Michaels searched his face for an explanation, but saw only emptiness. “Mr Hartfield. How can I help you?”
Hartfield smiled. “That’s better. You see that I have a gun.”
Michaels raised his hands. It felt foolish. “What do you want to do?”
Hartfield stepped closer. He grinned – but it was not a grin. It was an imitation. It had no more meaning than the teeth-bearing response of Pliny, the chimp who was waiting in a cage not ten metres away. “I want you to send me back in time. Start your calculations. You have five minutes.”
David was dizzy and nauseous. The corridors were black. It was reminiscent of the bombing back in 2003, although there was no smell of panic in the air. Twice they ducked away at the sound of boots. It was not difficult to avoid detection. The guards were leading groups of scientists, not hunting for fugitives. Perhaps they would begin a search when they realised that three people – no, four including Hartfield – were missing.
Jennifer led the way behind the infra-red eye of Ego. Saskia was in the middle and David at the rear. Saskia held both their hands, bridging the gap. She pulled faster than David wanted to walk.
“Are we there yet?” he moaned.
“Shh,” replied Saskia as Jennifer pushed them against a wall. A guard marched past with a trail of personnel in high spirits.
To David’s relief, they reached the stairs moments later. They crept carefully down.
He found the steps problematic, even with Saskia and Jennifer tucked under each armpit. The slope of the staircase fought to become the true horizontal. He stumbled twice. On the second occasion he twisted his ankle.
When they neared the bottom of the stairs, Ego’s screen became dark. They were blind. David whispered, “Ego? What’s happening?”
Some words appeared on the screen: “System is busy. Please stand by.”
Saskia said, “Busy doing what?”
“Ego,” David said. “Stop being busy. Ego? That’s an order.”
Nothing happened.
“Should we wait?” Jennifer asked.
“We could turn it on and off,” Saskia suggested.
There was a beep and the infra-red view reappeared. Ego said aloud, “Task completed.”
“What task?” David demanded.
Ego did not answer.
“Come on, we may be too late,” Jennifer said.
They emerged onto the ground floor corridor. Ahead of them was an airtight door. Jennifer located a panel and pressed it with her palm. A dazzling bar of light swept under her hand. A green light came on. It was small, but illuminated their section of the corridor. David looked at the two women.
“Nice to see you again. Shall we go in?”
“Wait,” Saskia said. She withdrew Hartfield’s gun and handed Jennifer her shoulder bag. “Stay here. I’ll call you in.”
Jennifer t
ouched the green light. The lock rolled audibly and the door began to open on a vertical hinge. David was reminded of a bank vault, but beyond was a cavernous enclosure. The light was blinding.
She stepped through. The gun followed her gaze. The cavern was enormous. The roof was thirty or forty metres above, adorned with daylight panels that provided diffuse illumination. Aside from a metal catwalk, the walls were bare. The ground, however, was littered with countless and unidentifiable pieces of machinery.
Immediately to her left and right were buildings surrounded by wire and danger signs. They had exhaust chimneys that extended to the roof. They were electricity-producing plants. The road continued between them towards a walled area. Because her position was slightly elevated, she could see over the wall. There was a large spinning arm inside. It was almost stopped. Beyond the centrifuge was another, smaller arm. It did not turn.
Saskia hurried forward and crouched behind a buggy. The sound of the electrical plants and the spinning arm masked any noise. Hartfield might appear from anywhere. She ran over to right-hand plant and sheltered by its fencing. She put her finger on the trigger. She continued her zigzag until she reached the wall of the centrifuge. Through a transparent panel she saw it flash past. The intervals became wider apart.
She was relaxed. She stood strongly: her legs slightly apart, the gun in her right hand, her left cupping the handle for stability. She was utterly comfortable. She could turn in any direction with the confidence that her eyes and the barrel of gun would aim at the same object. Time would slow. She would react faster than her adversary because she was relaxed.
“Hel-,” said a voice behind her, and Saskia jumped, turned, and fired before the man had completed his second syllable.
Snip.
Too fast. The moment shot straight into his memory. It bypassed his mind. He remembered seeing the woman turn. She had a gun. She fired. He remembered the heat of the bullet across his shoulder. His muscles pulled themselves taut. He held his breath.
Now, afterwards, he let the breath escape.
The woman was trembling. She smiled. “Sorry about that.”
Michaels opened his mouth to ask a question, but he was too preoccupied to draw air. His eyes rolled up and he fainted.
When, as a teenager, Jack Michaels fell asleep, he would contemplate nothing less than the universe. He started with the Earth, zoomed out beyond the Moon, then beyond the Solar System, beyond the arm of the galaxy, beyond the galaxy itself until his mind was stretched to nothing. He watched the turning Milky Way. It obeyed the same law that made his blanket feel heavy. Behind closed eyes, galaxies rushed into the vista. They became a pin-point. Finally, he was in darkness, in the zone. He was outside the universe. He could feel it, ask questions.
Snip. His enlightenment would vanish.
He had been forbidden.
Half a century later, Michaels felt that presence again.
His eyes opened. The pin-point of the universe remained like an afterimage. He jumped to his feet. “Hello,” he said preemptively.
A pretty young woman – the one who had just tried to kill him
– reached over and shook his hand. “Hello, Professor Michaels. I’m Saskia.” She shrugged. “I thought you were Hartfield.” Michaels felt his collar. It was torn. “I understand your enthusiasm. Hartfield was just here.” “Where is he?” asked a middle-aged man to his right.
Michaels squinted. He looked a little like Jennifer.
“David Proctor?”
“Yes,” said the man. He smiled. “I’m glad you remember me.”
“Very well,” Michaels said. “I believe I subjected you to a rather drunken discussion about time travel some years ago.” He smiled. “I was looking for funding.”
Jennifer said, “Professor, did Hartfield go back in time?”
“You bet.”
Saskia groaned. “Then we’re too late.”
Michaels put his hands in his pockets. He asked, “Too late for what?” David said, “Hartfield has been developing these technologies for one reason only. To cure himself.”
“Ah, yes. He said as much. However, using people can work in more than one direction. I consider that I have been using him. After all, the time machine works.”
“But Hartfield will change time,” Saskia said. “He went back.”
“I doubt that time can be changed, my dear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Take that bullet as an example. You fired the weapon a yard from my chest. You were aiming at my chest, weren’t you?”
Saskia nodded. “Yes.”
“But you missed.”
“My aim was off,” she said. “It was a thousand-to-one chance, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
Michaels said, “I agree with you. If the odds are a thousand-to-one, then we should be surprised if it didn’t happen once every thousand times. But I have another, more crazy explanation. Want to hear it?”
Nobody objected.
“OK. Let’s say I’m a crucial component in a process that has already happened, but has already happened in the future. In other words, I cannot be killed because I’m required to help with something that has already taken place; if I were to be killed, then I would not be able to play this role. Understand? I am a cause. The effect has already happened. Any effect must have a cause that triggers it. It is a law that cannot be violated. Killing me would violate the law. Therefore I cannot yet be killed.”
David nodded. He said, “If the cause and the effect have been swapped around as you suggest, then it must mean that your time machine in involved.”
“Agreed,” Michaels said. “Any ideas what I’m going to do?”
Saskia reached into her shoulder bag. She took out a sheet of paper and handed it Michaels. She explained that she was destined to travel backwards in time to stop Hartfield. That this was a message from her older self. That the paper had been found in Scotland in a similar research centre. “The West Lothian Centre?” asked Michaels.
“Yes, why?”
“That’s where Hartfield has gone.”
David Proctor fixed him a stare. “I beg your pardon?”
Michaels nodded. “That’s right. My calculations were set for the year 1999, but the computer relocated the time insertion to 2003. I have no idea why. You used to work at the West Lothian Centre, didn’t you, David?”
“Indeed I did. Until it was bombed back in 2003.”
Michaels nodded again. “Guess what date Hartfield went back to?”
David was frowning. “14th May 2003?”
“Yes.”
“The day of the bombing.” David turned to Saskia. “Could it be that Hartfield bombed the place?”
“Why would he?” she replied. “It makes no sense. 2003 is four years after the young Harmon received his nano-treatment. It’s too late.”
“What might have made the computer change the date?” he asked Michaels.
Michaels ignored him. Instead, he took Saskia by the hand. “My dear, you must come with me immediately.”
David trailed behind. A pad of pink paper caught his eye. He snapped his fingers. “Of course,” he said, and took it.
Pliny, the chimpanzee, looked up from his cage as the buggy approached. He wore a black flight suit. Outside his cage was a screen that showed his heart rate, blood oxygenation and brain activity. The humans arrived. Pliny leaned on his knuckles to watch them.
“We don’t need to be concerned, Saskia,” Michaels was saying. Saskia agreed. He didn’t need to be concerned with very much; only one person would be going back in time: her. “Hartfield’s plan has not worked. If it had, then there would be no research centre, but here it is! It is solid.” He kicked the cage. Pliny moved towards the back. “However, that is not to say that we can afford to do nothing. It is possible that Hartfield has failed because you will go back in time and stop him. In one sense, we already know that our plan has worked. Of course, we do not yet know how it will work, or if the eventu
alities will be comfortable for any of us. I suspect, Saskia, that you are the most at risk.”
Saskia folded her arms. Below them was the larger of the two centrifuges. “But I am completely safe. I have been seen at the age of forty.”
Michaels paused over a computer terminal. He gave her a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t say that you were at risk of losing your life. Risk comes in many forms.”
“But if Hartfield does go back in time and change it, then he will have removed the reason for his future self to go back…”
“Exactly,” David said. “For some reason he thinks he can avoid a time paradox.”
“I know why,” Saskia said. “He hasn’t got all his cups in the cupboard.”
There was silence for a while as Jennifer and the professor busied themselves with the time machine. Saskia and David waited to one side. The control centre was a cluster of computers on a raised dais. A ramp led up from the road and another led away to the lip of the wall that surrounded the large centrifuge. At the end of the gantry was the open gondola. David reached over and squeezed Saskia’s hand. She smiled. Perhaps, when she returned to the West Lothian Centre, she would meet him as a twenty-three-year-old researcher.
“We have no time for explanations,” Michaels announced, though none had been demanded. “The huge centrifuge has little to do with the time travel process itself. It is merely a device designed to throw you, at some speed, through the worm hole we create over there.” He pointed vaguely towards the other centrifuge. Saskia could see a channel linking the two sections of the machine. “The second centrifuge also has little do with the process. It is merely designed as a convenient method of catching the object when it returns.”
“Why does that part need to rotate?” asked David.
Jennifer opened Pliny’s cage. She said, “It’s just a way of having a vat of water oriented at ninety degrees to catch the returning object.”
Pliny jumped into her arms. He looked sadly at Saskia, who rolled her eyes towards the distant sky. First Michaels, then David; now she was getting sympathetic looks from the chimp. “So an object can be returned?” she asked hopefully.