by Terry Kitto
Sam shook himself from Trish’s grip and stepped past James to the transfer.
‘Abidemi, who is the gywandras?’ Sam hollered. ‘Why did it kill Will?’
Trish’s eyes flitted from Sam, his fists balled, to Abidemi as she writhed within the transfer, to Vanessa swooping in toward Sam.
‘It killed Will, and you didn’t even try to help!’
Vanessa grabbed Sam by the shoulders.
‘How do you know?’ She yelled. ‘How do you know?’
‘Transcendence!’ Sam cried. ‘Is that what Will died for? Abidemi, you traitor!’
James raced toward the transfer’s console. The rest of the board members swarmed around Sam and Trish.
‘Abidemi,’ James yelled hurriedly, ‘the evidence that we have witnessed in this trial, paired with your lack of contribution, leaves me no choice but to conclude you were involved in William Reeves’ death.’
The electromagnetic grid burned brighter as James navigated the machine’s controls.
‘Abidemi,’ James concluded, ‘the river always finds the sea.’
‘You consider yourselves superior because you have bodies,’ Abidemi said. ‘Encased in flesh and bone, and therefore virtuous. It will all fade, and in death it will come undone.’
The transfer’s grid burned until white-hot light dominated the cavern. It faded as the unit powered down with an almighty groan, and the cavern was swallowed into darkness.
‘Get off me! Don’t touch me!’ Sam yelled to Trish’s right.
Hands gripped Trish’s arms tightly and pulled her from the room.
Trish and Sam stumbled in the dark, pushed and pulled around bends and up tunnels.
A board member thrust the dielectric band back onto Trish’s head. Any chance of her looking further into Vanessa’s mind was scuppered. Ahead, the terminal room loomed into sight. Sam leapt, headbutting Peter – a witness twice his size. Peter clamped Sam’s neck and shoved him against the rock wall.
‘Stop this!’ James yelled. He and Vanessa escorted Trish. She shook herself from their grip. Peter released Sam.
‘You’ve no right to do this,’ Trish exclaimed.
‘As much right as you have to meddle in things you know little about,’ Vanessa scoffed. ‘How long have you known?’
‘Long enough to know that people are suffering because of it.’ A thought struck her. She turned to James. ‘Did you create the gywandras?’
‘Getting cold, Trish,’ he huffed. ‘Ice-cold.’
‘You’re experimenting with it,’ Sam said. His nose flowed with blood. ‘You don’t want to stop it, you want it for something else.’
Vanessa turned to them, eyes sharp, and soaked up their dishevelled appearances.
‘I’ll ask again,’ she said. ‘How long?’
Trish didn’t want to say. If they’d uncovered information the board needed, it could lead to further experiments and prolonged suffering.
‘If they’re not going to tell us what they know,’ Vanessa said, ‘the archivists will get it out of them.’
‘Vanessa, that’s not going to happen,’ James growled. ‘Not under my governance as director.’
‘We’re a majority verdict, are we not?’ Vanessa said. ‘Who opposes the idea of confession via the archives?’
Not one board member blinked, no sign of hesitation. They were all on Vanessa’s side. James was powerless. As Will had said, there were no friends left in the Network.
The board members grabbed Sam and Trish and thrust them down the tunnel. Trish and Sam fought and yelled. None of Sam’s punches hit hard enough, and Trish’s repeated questions were met with silence. After a short steep incline up a narrow shaft, they arrived at the archives. Vanessa swiped her keycard against the sensor, and the door swung outward with a groan. Sam was pushed in first. Vanessa swiped the dielectric band from Trish’s head and forced her inside. The door slammed shut before the duo could climb to their feet. All Trish saw before the door clicked shut was James’s horrified grey face.
Trish gathered herself up and avoided eye contact with the six archivists. She helped Sam to his feet. His face was awash with blood. She withdrew an unused tissue from her pocket and dabbed away at his nose.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I lost control when I saw Will’s room . . .’
‘I know,’ Trish said, discarding the bloodied tissue.
‘They were about to exterminate Abi. It was my last chance to find out.’
‘I get it,’ Trish said. ‘Right now we’ve got bigger matters.’
Around them, the six archivists – their projections in various states of decay and deformity – awakened on their pedestals. Their disfigured limbs flexed and stretched, and multiple eyes blinked from sunken sockets.
‘They’re not taking anything from me,’ Sam declared. He edged to a nearby archivist as it thrashed against its electromagnetic cage. ‘Look at them. They’re just prisoners.’
Trish looked at the archivists – really looked for the first time. Before they were chained via electromagnets in the archives, they’d been stripped of all their memories. At the beginning of her witnessing career, Trish grew comfortable with imprints once she’d learnt they were just people without bodies. The archivists were less again. Without memories, they’d lost their humanity altogether.
‘The transfer is better than this,’ Sam muttered.
Trish only realised how much her heart thumped in her chest when he said that. Without her dielectric band, the archivists tugged at her mind as if it were strung on a six-thronged rope of tug-of-war. What happens after they scour our minds? Trish wondered. Will they subject Rasha to the same? A mind as subservient as hers would likely give more away.
‘Sam, what if they go after Rasha next?’ Trish said. ‘She isn’t safe. We’re stuck down here, and after everything she’s at the centre of it all.’
Sam turned to her, his hand over his pocket. He withdrew an EMP – the one used at Kasey Nancarrow’s occupation, no less.
‘Will always told me off for not putting equipment away,’ he said with a slight smile. He switched the gadget on. ‘It’s at 35 percent battery, enough for a good blast.’
‘You’re a brilliant pain in the arse,’ Trish said with a grin. The EMP would overload the archivists’ pedestals and free the imprints. They’d need not give up their memories.
Sam tapped the EMP in his hand, bottom lip between his teeth.
‘There’ll be no more Network for us after this,’ he said.
‘I don’t think there has been one for a very long time. It’s just been the board – the board, the gywandras, and misery. Light it up.’
Sam pressed a button on the EMP and threw it onto the central dais. The duo retreated to the walls. Within the pedestals’ electrical barriers, the six archivists squirmed and writhed as if they knew what was ahead.
A bright silver flash.
Frequency energy tore through the room and doused Trish’s body. It was her only chance to scour the archives once more.
Her mind rode the energy surge into the ombrederi.
Gywandras, Trish thought as the ombrederi whirled around her. Transcendence, gywandras, transcendence.
Trish was thrust into the archivists’ mist-strewn version of the collieries’ yard. To her right, the engine house chimney crumbled. Cracks ripped through the yard floor. The EMP tore the archives apart.
Gywandras, transcendence, gywandras.
She mulled over the occupations of Kasey, Ted, Rose, and Rasha, the gywandras’s body comprised of liquid shadow.
The fog parted, and Will strode from between the curtains of mist. This wasn’t his imprint but a memory of him. His skin glowed, he was clean-shaven, and there was more bulk to his lean stature than there had been in the weeks before his death. Trish supposed that this was from months ago, before Sam’s addiction and the Network took its toll.
Will ambled across the yard, and as if Trish were conjoined to him, they were both whisked into the terminal room.
Amongst the darkness, Will was joined by members of the board. James greeted him.
‘Welcome to the board,’ he said, arms out in welcome. ‘I know the answer already, but have you prepared for your initiation?’
Will smiled.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Not that I entirely understand it.’
If this was Will’s graduation into the board, Trish figured it would place the memory at least fourteen months into the past.
‘It’ll make sense soon enough,’ Vanessa said, stepping forward from the ring of board members. ‘And when it does, you’ll never see death – or life, for that matter – the same way again.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ James chortled. Some of the other board members sniggered. The board seemed to be more like an exclusive fraternity than a network designed to protect the living from the dead.
The scene changed, and Will was now sat in the chair before the terminal. Letters lit up. Trish saw a list of numbers on the adjacent computer monitor: a range of dates and years.
‘It’s not enough to ask what the gywandras is,’ Will uttered. His hands squeezed the arms of his chair. ‘We have to ask when is the gywandras.’
Vanessa stepped forward. Her face seemed rotten in the sea-green light of the terminal.
‘We have our latest board member,’ she announced.
The terminal room faded into the front of James’s people carrier. A storm lashed rain and sleet onto its windows. James argued with Will.
‘It could be disastrous,’ Will cried. ‘No, it will be. People should never be entrusted with such power. It spells catastrophe for existence.’
James slammed his hands against the steering wheel.
‘You think I don’t know this?’ James said. ‘Why do you think I’m still director?’
‘You think you can stop this from getting out of hand?’ Will scathed. ‘You can’t control Vanessa.’
‘Not alone,’ James said. ‘You know the science inside out. If anyone can steer Vanessa away from progress, it’s you.’
‘I didn’t ask for this,’ Will said. ‘If I’d known, I wouldn’t have taken up the offer. Actually, no, I wouldn’t still be a part of the Network. You think I can keep this from Sam and Trish – ’
‘You have to,’ James said. ‘Because whilst they’re with us, the Network can still do good.’
Will sat back in his seat and wiped frustrated tears from his face.
‘The ability to transcend time through emotional connectedness. It’s the most dangerous weapon man could lay their hands on. The temptation to travel through time, to alter it . . .’
‘Gywandras,’ James stated. ‘Cornish for traveller. Which is why we won’t let this happen. Which is why I need you.’
White light doused James’s people carrier.
Trish opened her eyes to the empty archives.
The six archivists were gone, just frequency particles now. Sam, with the flat EMP in hand, raced back to her.
‘What did you see?’
‘Will was trying to stop it all along. I don’t even know where to begin. They’re trying to change time, Sam.’
‘Time?’ he repeated. Forehead creased, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the paper he’d collected from the Nancarrows’ study. Sam ran a hand over the stream of numbers. ‘Intersection . . . Maybe that’s what Will meant?’
‘Gywandras. It’s Cornish for traveller. That’s what the gywandras initiative is. Something beyond human, beyond death.’
Trish continued to recount Will’s memories, how fanatical the board seemed.
‘Madness, complete and utter madness, but why us?’ Sam asked. ‘Mum, Shauna, Rasha – why are we a part of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Trish uttered.
‘I knew Will was doing good,’ he said with a small smile.
A bang caused her to jump out of her skin. Further slaps and punches rebounded off the archive door. Muffled words were shouted on the other side.
‘They’ve overloaded the power! The door won’t open.’
Sam held Trish by the shoulders. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and could see Sam’s wide eyes.
‘We’ve only got until the emergency generator kicks in,’ he said. ‘We both can’t get away. One of us has to protect Rasha. I’ll cause a distraction when they come in. You have to get out.’
‘What about you?’ Trish said.
‘I’ll be okay – pain in the arse, remember? This is bigger than me. Bigger than any of us.’
A buzz sounded, and lights popped on overhead. The archive door swung open, and hands grabbed at them. Leri joined them.
‘Don’t hurt them!’ James hollered.
The rest of the board seemed to not hear, nor care. Trish and Sam were pulled into the mineshaft, and Vanessa scoured the archives. She screamed with frustration and raced out with the dead EMP in hand. She shook it beneath James’s nose.
‘The archivists are gone!’ she yelled. ‘Our research, our shared history, erased.’
The board members grumbled. Peter, the burly man whose eye was bruised thanks to Sam, screeched, ‘Punish them!’
‘You don’t need your research,’ Sam said. ‘You want to know who the gywandras is? Look no further.’
‘Garbage,’ Peter hollered.
Leri’s grip loosened on Trish’s wrists. Trish was just as puzzled as the board. Unpredictable by nature was her friend.
‘Think about what the gywandras is. It transcends time. I’m the only one who can withdraw his imprint from his body.’
Vanessa stepped forward. Her eyes studied the terrain of Sam’s face as if she searched for lies in the bags beneath his eyes or the grey in his stubble. She grabbed his face.
‘So you’re telling me,’ she said, ‘that you killed Will?’
Sam took a deep breath. He clearly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
‘I haven’t yet,’ he retorted. ‘Transcendence, after all.’
James was to Trish’s left. She looked at him with wide eyes. She heard his thoughts. Sam, you idiot. No one had replaced Trish’s dielectric band. She thought hard, going beyond his skin, his skull, and planted into his mind, ‘Blink if Rasha is in danger.’
James went slack-jawed, regained his composure, and blinked hard.
‘I need to get out. Get me alone with someone.’
James inserted himself between Sam and Trish.
‘We need to test this,’ James said. ‘If he is the answer, then transcendence is ours. It’s in our grasp.’
‘Agreed,’ Vanessa said. ‘We have the necessary equipment at the Refinery.’
‘Sam can’t transcend alone,’ Trish said as an idea came to her. ‘He’ll need the mobile receptor.’
‘Where is it, Trish?’ James asked.
‘The Reliant.’
‘Right, Leri, escort Trish to her car,’ James demanded. ‘Bring the receptor back at once.’
Leri stayed firm. She didn’t take orders from James anymore. Vanessa looked from Trish to Leri and nodded.
Leri pulled Trish up the shaft to ground level. Trish shook herself from the nimble woman’s grasp.
‘I can walk by myself.’
Before they rounded the corner, Trish looked into Sam’s mind, swiped away thoughts of Will and the gywandras, and projected, ‘Whatever they do to you, you’re stronger.’
The activity centre was empty, so Trish placed the time in the early a.m. There were so many questions Trish still had left to answer concerning the gywandras’s agenda and the rise in occupations.
‘Sam wouldn’t tell me what the occupations are for,’ Trish said. ‘He said I wouldn’t understand transcendence.’
‘Clearly not,’ Leri scoffed, ‘if you think the gywandras is causing them.’
‘It’s not?’
‘The frequency was always going to retaliate.’
‘The frequency is fighting the gywandras.’ Trish mulled it over. So many of the occupations had been personal. Sam had ties to Angov
e Lodge, and Will had taken Kasey’s body. ‘The occupations are targeting the Network. You’ve been chasing the gywandras, and the occupied have been chasing you. That’s why you wouldn’t cure Kasey Nancarrow.’
Leri pushed Trish into the final shaft that would take them to the parking warehouse. They passed the Edward Penrose plaque.
‘Man’s greatest achievements have always come at a price,’ Leri said matter-of-factly. ‘If we have to defy nature to transcend, then so be it.’
Leri’s cold delivery sent shivers down Trish’s spine. The Network was never meant to be callous with its experiments; it should have maintain a balance between the dead and the living so that they could coexist in harmony. The obsession with the gywandras, and everything it could do and be, would spell disaster in the wrong hands.
Trish and Leri reached the parking warehouse.
‘So when you have the gywandras, and it’s willing to play your twisted games,’ Trish said, ‘what do you want with it?’
Leri pushed Trish toward the Reliant and didn’t reply. She no longer wanted to talk. Trish withdrew her keys from her pocket and opened the Reliant’s boot. The receptor remained on the back seat after she’d navigated the Reliant to the Nancarrows’ household. The boot contained an assortment of tools Sleep had provided her for emergencies, a car jack amongst them. She detached the lever from the jack and gripped it tight. A thought bothered her: Will had been inducted into the board, and ever since he’d spent sleepless nights working on the project. When James announced Will’s death that day in the birdcage, the board knew about the energy spike in Rosenannon.
‘Tell me one thing,’ Trish said. ‘Was Will meant to have been the gywandras?’
‘What does it matter?’
‘Because he died for the project.’
Trish swung the jack’s lever. It slammed into Leri’s temple with a hollow plonk, and she collapsed to the floor. Pole still in hand, Trish raced to the warehouse doors and pushed them wide open. The cold night washed over her, the darkness incomparable to the gywandras.
She raced back to the Reliant as Leri staggered to her feet. Blood veined across her right cheek.