A double-decker bus pulled up to the stop, blocking his view. He caught sight of his reflection in its windows; the unwashed, scruffy-headed bloke that stared back at him was unrecognisable. He turned away; he couldn’t walk up to her front door looking like a tramp.
A mother was struggling off the bus with two kids and a pushchair full of shopping. Josh went to help her without thinking.
‘Thanks,’ the woman said, taking out the shopping and placing the youngest child back in the chair.
Josh hardly recognised it was his mother; she looked so young and healthy.
She smiled at him, in the way she always had, and for a moment there was a glimmer of recognition in her eyes.
‘Aren’t you Margaret’s boy?’
‘No,’ Josh replied, looking down. He wanted nothing more than to hug her, but he couldn’t face the rejection.
‘Really? You look familiar.’
One of the kids wailed as the other one stole something from him.
‘Joshua!’
‘Yes.’ Josh looked up, relief washing through him — only to realise she was talking to one of her kids.
He turned and walked away, tears rolling down his cheeks as he forced himself not to look back, but he could still hear her voice as she walked them across the road.
She didn’t know him. Somehow in this timeline, he wasn’t part of her past. A lifetime of scenes flashed through his head, each one more painful than the last: visions of her thin, fragile body in the hospital, the nights he’d spent listening to her shallow breathing, the way she shouted at the television when she got the answer before the contestant, and the way her eyes lit up whenever he walked into the room.
Josh walked for hours — wandering the streets in no particular direction, not caring where he went. His mind was too conflicted to concentrate on anything other than dealing with the emotional overload.
He tried to focus on a logical reason for what might have happened. Since he still existed, it must mean she was technically his mother, which brought him to the only likely option: she’d given him up for adoption. She was nineteen when he was born, less than two years older than he was now. It wouldn’t have taken much for anyone to make that decision — she seemed all the better for it.
When he was younger, he used to scare himself with the thought of her dying. That he would be an orphan — all alone in the world. It was a recurring nightmare that had kept him awake in the cold, dark hours before dawn.
But she hadn’t died, he had — or at least disappeared from her world. He wondered if she ever thought about him, her lost child. It was too painful to contemplate. He wanted to go back and ask her why, but that would cause her pain and Josh didn’t want that.
He’d never been able to face the fact that he was part of the reason that she’d become so ill. All those years of sacrifice and stress he’d put her through had taken their toll.
This was the life she deserved; all he needed to do was stay out of it.
Which left him with one option: to find the Order and Caitlin. He would have to locate the Chapter House, and that, of course, would be nowhere near where it should have been.
23
Caitlin
Caitlin snuggled further down into the leather sofa and turned the page of the large book resting on her knees. This was her favourite kind of Sunday: slouching around in the library in an old, baggy sweatshirt, leggings and big comfy socks. The fire crackled satisfyingly in the hearth, and she hugged the steaming mug of hot chocolate that Sim had made for her. He was sitting on the other sofa with Lyra, playing their own version of Scrabble — one they’d invented when they were kids.
‘That’s definitely a real word!’ exclaimed Lyra, pointing at the board.
‘No. I think you’ll find “Exuderance” is most definitely not.’
Lyra flicked through the dictionary. ‘Okay, it’s a misspell, but you’re not getting full points for that.’
‘Since when did we start discounting scores for originality?’ Sim protested.
Lyra pouted. ‘Since now. It’s a new rule — write it down in the book.’
Caitlin smiled inwardly. She loved the way the two of them bickered: never quite a full-blown argument, but rather more of a verbal pushing match. Sim and Lyra were her closest friends and the nearest thing she had ever known to a family.
‘Shh!’ she berated them both, holding a finger to her lips.
They turned and mouthed their apologies before returning to the fight over the rule-book, which had been updated many times in its long career.
Her book was a thesis on the indexes of the Royal Library of Alexandria, one of the most significant institutions of the ancient world. It was a masterpiece of academic research, by one of the greatest Scriptorians that had ever served: Berinon Makepiece — her Grandfather.
He had been a kindly old man who’d taken her on countless trips to the Royal Library when she was younger. Being her only surviving relative, her grandfather had taken it upon himself to educate her on the ‘civilised world’, as he called anything before 10.000.
When she got older, she realised that it had been his way of distracting her, a diversionary tactic to avoid the gaping hole in her life where her parents should have been. The ‘adventures’ opened her eyes to the wonders of the ancient world. It was the most amazing road trip a ten-year-old could ever have imagined. They spent the best part of a year wandering around the monuments of pre-history, and when they finally came home, he’d written her a book about it — so she would never forget.
His handwriting was a beautiful, flowing copperplate that filled each page with a calligraphic beauty. The marginalia included detailed sketches and comments that brought back those days, and she could still picture him making notes as they sat amongst the papyrus scrolls. He was no ordinary bookworm, the term that the other guilds used for Scriptorians. There was a passion and art to his work, and she missed him dearly.
A polite cough broke her reverie.
‘Miss Caitlin, sorry to disturb you,’ said the quietly formal voice of the doorman, Arcadin, who had an annoying habit of being able to appear without making a sound. Caitlin often wondered if he took his shoes off before entering the room.
‘There is a young gentleman at the front door asking after you.’
Caitlin had never had a ‘young gentleman’ ask after her before, and it was both exciting and annoying at the same time. She wasn’t dressed to entertain guests, nor did she feel inclined to get changed as it would completely disrupt her otherwise serene Sunday. Yet, she had to admit, it was still intriguing to have a mysterious young man call for her.
‘Who is he?’ she asked, realising that Arcadin was waiting for some kind of reply.
‘No idea, Miss. He says his name is Joshua Jones. He has the mark of the Order, and he knew the watchword, but there is no record of him in the ledger.’
Caitlin couldn’t think of any reason why a Joshua Jones would want to speak to her. She looked over to Lyra and Sim for some kind of advice, but they were already pulling faces as if she had been up to no good and she didn’t want to have to spend the rest of the evening playing twenty questions.
‘Take him to the guest study,’ she instructed, closing the book. ‘I need to get changed.’
Sim winked at Lyra and pretended to preen himself, which prompted another fit of giggling that was still going as Caitlin closed the door and took the stairs to her room.
As Josh expected, the Chapter House was not where he last visited it. It took three attempts to discover they’d moved to a town house in Westminster. The bookshop in Charing Cross Road had closed down, and Waterstones didn’t have a clue about the London Guide by J.R. Bartholomew. He was close to the point of giving up when he passed a second-hand bookstall on the South Bank and found a copy. It was in the hands of a man, who by the array of cameras dangling from around his neck Josh assumed was a tourist. The stallholder was trying to negotiate on the price, but the language was proving too much o
f a barrier.
Josh took the book from the astonished man, flicked through it until he found the ‘House of the Hundred’, and tore out the page.
‘Damaged goods,’ he muttered, handing the book back to the tourist and disappearing into thin air.
Now, waiting anxiously in the study, he wondered what was going to happen next. He’d barely managed to persuade Arcadin that he was an actual member of the Order, and only then when he mentioned Caitlin. The old doorman genuinely seemed to have no idea who he was, but then he was half-blind and had only met him once before, so Josh tried not to think the worst.
The study was an original part of the Georgian building and saturated with history. After weeks of time travel Josh’s heightened senses instinctively picked up the echoes of Dickensian dinner parties: men in frock coats with long, grey beards; women in grand, silk dresses, and the young army officers who courted them. Everything in the room was endowed with a rich and intriguing past, and he’d had more than his fair share lately.
Exhausted, he collapsed down into a large wingback chair. Josh realised he hadn’t slept for two days — not since 11.953. His eyelids grew heavy watching the flickering light of the coal fire as it played along the gilded spines of the book-lined walls. The room darkened, as the exertion of the last few weeks finally caught up with him.
His eyes snapped open at the click of a lock. A secret door opened in the bookshelf, and there, framed by an arch of golden books, stood Caitlin.
‘Cat?’ Josh blurted, still only half-awake.
‘Caitlin,’ she corrected him, not moving from the door.
Josh got to his feet. ‘It’s me — Josh,’ he added, unable to hide the desperation in his voice. Her face was half in shadow, and he searched desperately for the faintest sign of recognition.
She took a step back. ‘So I’ve been told.’
Josh felt the last of his resolve crumbling away. This was the moment he’d rehearsed in his head so many times — the thought of seeing her again had been the only thing keeping him going. He’d imagined her rushing up to him, the feel of her arms around his neck, her lips on his, her voice whispering in his ear — telling him that everything would be okay.
The realisation froze his heart. Just like his mother, Caitlin genuinely had no idea who he was, and the last hope of friendship died — everyone he knew was gone. Josh was literally stranded in a world of strangers.
He couldn’t bear the way she looked at him with a half-expectant and slightly puzzled expression. It lacked any of the subliminal signals that a face should have when looking at someone you know or love.
Physically, Caitlin seemed different too. Her face was slightly thinner, her gorgeous auburn hair was longer and dyed to a darker brown. She’d taken out her piercings, and there were no fine Egyptian lines drawn beneath her eyes — all the small symbols of rebellion were missing.
His frustration boiled over. ‘You don’t know me, do you?’
Her mouth twisted. ‘Not that I remember. Where did we meet?’
This was Josh’s nightmare. He didn’t want to start all over again, not with her — all he wanted was for everything to be back the way it was.
‘The Colonel introduced us.’
She screwed her face up in that confused way she did, and Josh wanted so desperately to hold her, but he knew he couldn’t, and it was the worst kind of pain.
‘I’m sorry,’ she shook her head, ‘but I’ve never heard of the Colonel.’
‘Not the Colonel — Westinghouse. His name was Rufius Westinghouse! Your uncle?’ Josh was shouting now.
There was a movement behind her, and Arcadin appeared. Caitlin motioned to him to stand down.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a calm, neutral tone. ‘I don’t know anyone by that name.’
It was then that Josh understood what must have happened.
The colonel hadn’t left him behind at Gisors. He’d died, or worse, he’d been pulled into the breach. The old man had sacrificed himself so that the timeline could be corrected.
It felt like the universe was playing some cruel joke on him. Josh suddenly felt overwhelmed by everything.
Uncontrollable rage rose within him. He screamed at her, at Arcadin and the others. He would take down the whole damn timeline and restart it. He was the Paradox, he knew how it should be — didn’t they understand?
Something struck him across the back of the head.
As his legs gave way, Josh could hear voices, murmurs of others all talking at the same time. They sounded a lot like Sim and Lyra.
24
Recovery
Josh dreamed of the beach, his mother smiling at him as he devoured the largest ice cream he’d ever seen. Gulls circled overhead in the blue, cloudless sky, waiting for a chance to steal his birthday treat. The sounds of the waves rolling up the pebbled shore were like a thousand raindrops falling on a drum.
Looking along the shoreline, he recognised some of the people he’d used to move forwards from Gisors. They shuffled aimlessly around like zombies along the water’s edge. The colonel was sitting in a deck chair reading the Times, while Lenin was stood up to his knees in the shallows, shooting at fish with a gun and scooping them up with a child’s fishing net.
Lyra and Caitlin were sunbathing beside him, their bikinied bodies glistening with suntan lotion while they read aloud from textbooks whose pages were covered in ever-changing symbols. Lyra looked up and winked at him.
Sim walked up the beach towards him carrying something in his hands. At first Josh thought it was a fish, but as he drew closer, he saw that it was a brain in a jar.
‘Hey,’ he said in a soft whisper, ‘I need you to drink this.’
Josh opened his eyes to find Sim sitting at the end of the bed holding a steaming cup of tea.
‘It’s one of Crooke’s special concoctions. Earl Grey, amongst other things — helps to mask the taste of the other ingredients.’
Sim placed the cup on the bedside table.
They were in Bedlam. Josh didn’t recognise the room, but the distant screams of the insane and the strong smell of carbolic were unmistakable. The bed was remarkably soft, and Josh struggled to sit up. When he moved, he noticed an array of curious metal-headed pins sticking out of his arms and neck.
Sim stopped him from pulling them out.
‘This is a recovery room. You were in quite a mess,’ explained Sim, pulling the fine needles out one by one. ‘Lyra thinks you must have been ghosting for quite a while.’
‘Ghosting?’ Josh croaked, wondering if Lyra was partly responsible for the freaky dream.
‘Lifejacking. The seers use it to look into a person’s future — a dangerous art. Seriously frowned upon by the Protectorate of course, mainly due to the side effects.’
‘What side effects?’
‘In mediaeval times they would have called it possession and burned you as a witch,’ Sim joked. ‘Your timeline has been commingled with every other life that you touched. Nowadays they would call it Schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. You’re lucky Lyra is such a good healer.’
Sim dropped the pins into a metal tray, their fine needles leaving the tiniest pinpricks of blood on his arms. There was a pattern to it, but Josh couldn’t make out what it was.
‘Why the needles?’
‘Acupuncture — part of the healing process. Lyra has separated over seventy different entities from your timeline. Pretty impressive collection. How far have you travelled?’
‘From 11.066.’
‘Wow. Nine-hundred and fifty-one years,’ Sim gushed. ‘Without a tachyon. That’s probably a new record.’
Josh shrugged. He didn’t feel very impressive. He tasted the tea and then wished he hadn’t: whatever Crooke had put in it was foul.
Sim laughed at the face Josh pulled.
‘No one ever dares ask what he puts into it. I find holding my nose helps.’
It was good to hear Sim laugh, there was a quality to it that reminded Josh why he liked him so
much. He was always full of optimism and hope, something Josh needed more than any medicine.
‘So how did you end up back there?’ Sim asked, taking the last needle out of the other arm. Josh could see now that Lyra had picked out the shape of a dragon on his skin.
‘Long story. Do you have anything to eat?’
Sim smiled and pulled on a small rope that hung by the side of the bed.
25
Nemesis
A week passed before Dr Crooke would allow Josh to be moved to the Chapter House. Sim and Lyra had taken turns keeping him company, each doing their part to restore him, but there was no sign of Caitlin.
‘She’s not going to come,’ said Lyra on the third day. She was sitting reading a book when Josh woke from yet another crazy dream. More pins had been inserted, which he guessed she must have done without waking him.
‘Who?’
Lyra peered over the top of her book. She was wearing glasses which had slipped down her long aquiline nose.
‘The one you keep expecting to walk through the door every time it opens.’
She closed the book and came over to sit on the bed.
‘My theory is that you and Cat were lovers in another eventuality. Sim, on the other hand, believes it was to find your mother.’
Josh tried to laugh, to mask the pain, but failed.
She touched his cheek. ‘Why else would anyone ghost back through a thousand years?’
‘I had to.’
Lyra’s eyes glistened. ‘Only to find that no one knows who you are. A stranger in a strange land, as Daedalus would say.’
‘Daedalus?’
Lyra frowned. ‘You’ve never heard of Daedalus?’
Josh shook his head.
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 44