Fisher And The Bears

by T Hodden

  “I am not kidnapping my own mother. Least of all so I can be born already carrying what ever you are in my head and working for the Horizon.”

  Yet even as I said that I could feel myself straining against my bonds, trying to obey. I tried to tell my body to stay still but it simply would not have it. My body insisted on fighting. Then suddenly I was ripping the chair apart with a strength I simply should not have had. In one strange dancing movement I had grabbed Mum by the wrist and snatched the time travel device from Musket. I kicked Wendy out of the way and pressed the big red button.

  “No!” I shouted. Then calmly and coldly I added. “Bears keep back. Please.”

  Too late Clarumcoma drew his pistol. The envelope of energy was already surrounding me and Mum as he pulled the trigger. I felt the impact of the bullet somewhere near my heart the same moment that I tumbled back into reality and landed on a cold metal grated floor in a room full of fish tanks full of swirling yellow liquid. Not all of them were filled with Musketeers. There was a line of them filled with bodies that looked horribly familiar to me. They had the same face I saw when I took a selfie. I clutched at the bullet wound in my chest, then up at my Mum. She was stood rigid, shocked, for just a second. Then ignoring the cavernous walls of the ultra modern laboratory she was on her knees, pressing a handkerchief over the bullet hole.

  “Sorry.” I whispered. “So sorry.”

  “Shh.” She said gently. “I don't think it was you who did that.”

  “Indeed not.” The voice rumbled around us from everywhere. It was thick and silky, plummy and hammy all at once. “It was me.” A hologram flickered to life, a dragon in a circle, forever eating its own tail. “Or at least the instructional programme, the Memory Seed I infected his mind with on creating the clone, before imbuing it with his soul.” It paused for effect. “I am Oroboros. Welcome back to my home. Welcome to the Horizon. Now, it is time for your son to die.”

  “No.” Mum stood. “I am not going to let that happen.”

  She really did not have a choice. I was not afraid to die.

 

  The darkness crashed over me. The body was dead, but I was not. The dead do not dream. I was laying on the stage by the magic circle. Doreen was still in there, faded and in flux. Somewhere under her out of focus mask I could see her lips moving trying to say something.

  “No. No. This is where I was before they stuffed me in another body.” I told her quietly. I pressed my hand to edge of the circle. It felt almost solid, the tingle of resistance like static electricity. “I can feel it inside my head. The programming. The infection. Now I know it is here I can feel it. I can feel the thing blocking me from noticing I was a clone. I can feel instructions.” I stopped. “If this is the end, I will find you.”

  She nodded. She mouthed the word again, her mouth movements and shapes far too large and exaggerated. RoBiiiN. Robin.

  “Robin?” I could feel the connection. For one moment, a blink of an eye, Doreen Grey was in focus. She was smiling bravely, trying not to cry. “Robin Hope.” I said.

  She nodded. I could feel her bond growing stronger. Maybe here, between life and death, it was easier for her grow stronger. For the spark to kindle a flame. I shouted her name and she grew more solid, more real. All the time I knew I was fading further. I was being dragged somewhere, not life, not another clone, but something...

  “If this is my last chance, if this is my end, I will not let you fade away.” I promised her. “Go to the other side, or find a place with the bears, what ever makes you happiest, but Robin Hope, Doreen Grey, I will not let you end here. I will find you.”

  She nodded. She closed her eyes and waited for me to fade as my grip on the dream slackened and I-

  -I was not in a new body. But neither had my soul been allowed to die with the body.

  That was Oroboros. His voice was everywhere. I can not explain what it is to be be somewhere with no body. To be a presence in a realm of data. I could feel the confines, the holding cell or data file I was meant to be trapped in, but I could also feel the connection, the programming, whatever it was, it went both ways. I could stretch out with my mind and feel the network of data and information that Oroboros had built around himself. I could feel the computers, I could feel the time travel machines, I could feel the Paladin robots and the Musketeer clones. I could feel the bodies built from my DNA. I could see through cameras and hear through the communications chatter.

  I could not read the files, but I could know what they said by absorbing the information. By wondering what Horizon was. Oroboros did not seem to know I was exploring, I don't know if he was aware I could. I reached into the files and tried to understand.

  I opened the oldest files and shuddered. They told of Oroboros before he was Oroboros. When his name was Jonah Brown, a PC on the beat in Eternity. He was met on his beat by a time traveller, the last survivor, it seemed of a terrible disaster. A war with a demonic entity that raised a city, or cities, to ash and cinders. Brown had been blessed with this confusion of memories that belonged to somebody else. Then he had been gifted a weapon, an alien computer that bonded with his nervous system. He was Oroboros and Horizon was the defence he was building against the looming disaster. The computer had gifted him the knowledge he needed to create time machines, a fort on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, clones, robots, weapons...

  Then I found files that confused me. Images of events that had yet to happen. Still images of cities from around the world rendered derelict. Sky scrapers leaning against each other and tower blocks reduced to rubble and dust. The embers of civilisation being crushed by giant figures like winged lobsters that crawled and dragged themselves through the eternal twilight of skies blood red from the dust in the atmosphere. I recognised the creatures too easily. The Expara, a nasty brood of entity worshipped by only the worst kinds of magicians. Truly nasty pieces of work like the Banewolves. Their Empire had once spread through the stars and had reached Earth millions of years before dinosaurs evolved and been reduced to near extinction a few thousand years later. There were only a few of them scattered around, but it only took a few to enslave a world.

  So these were the “demons” that Oroboros feared. It made my spine shiver. They were things of conquest. If you were not their slave, or their food, you were a toy they would delight in torturing.

  But it made my spine shiver too that Oroboros had received these images not only from the future, but from his own personal future. These were not images taken by time travellers exploring the future, these were images he had sent back in time to himself, so his younger self might do things differently. That seemed to be playing with matches, completely disregarding causality. More than this Oroboros seemed to be spying upon past and present, watching for changes to the time stream and monitoring the ways that history changed.

  Even for the Crystalline Computer that was impossible. He would need something outside of time and space for which there was no past or present, no future or change. Something from a spirit world. The Crystalline Computer had helped him find such an entity. As the data revealed its secrets to me I was not the only soul trapped in this... Place. There was something else that had been snared and imprisoned here. Something... Ancient. And huge. And... Aware of me.

  Something had changed. I could feel. I may not have had a body yet but I had the illusion of one. The dream in which I stood was like a mountain valley somewhere on the edge of Canada and America. There were endless trees, lush meadows and rivers. There was also a grizzly bear the size of a small tower block.

  “Ah.” It said letting out a long sigh. “At last somebody with a modicum of sanity I can converse with about something other than world domination.”

  “Great Ancestor Bear.” I swore.

  “Yes.” He said.

  “Hang on, how long can you have been waiting for long, if there is no past or present for you?”

  “Speaking to Oroboros teache
s one the meaning of eternity.” He said.

  “So. Wendy got told Clarumcoma must not die. But not me?” I folded my arms.

  “Yes.” The Great Ancestor Bear smiled. “You had to die to be cloned or I could not bring you here.” He leant forwards. “Little messages in tiles and the like are all I can manage with out him noticing you see. If this were a cage I could pass his messages between the bars, but if I wrote you a letter he would see me. So I have to poke a single paw out of the cage and nudge what I can into a missive. Some things need to be talked over a little more delicately. So hello.” He waved.

  “Messages. Like electronic data?” I asked.

  “Updating their orders anywhere in history, connecting their devices to new coordinates, things like that.” He grinned. “Oh, and for one little robot bear I updated the programming to be more bearlike. How is Musket?”

  “Fine when I saw him. But Oroboros had my mother, and I need a plan. It wont be long until Oroboros knows I'm not quite as trapped as he thought.” I rubbed my head. “Right. I need to save you, I need to save Mum, I need...”

  “Me to let young Wendy know you are safe?” He asked.

  I smiled, because ideas were forming in my head. “Yes. While I am in this electronic limbo I can use it as an amplifier, I can boost the gain and maybe just maybe what is left of her will have a chance.”

  “And...” I smiled. “Earlier, when I was escaping, I was not being driven into a trap, you were trying to help. Thank you.”

  “You were driven into a trap.” He answered solemnly. “I needed you to die. Please.” He pointed at the floor. “There is a danger even greater than Oroboros. The threat that the Horizon fear is terribly real and terribly close. There are too many ways that we can all lose and no easy way to win. Stopping Horizon before he invades is not enough.”

  I nodded. “The Expara.” I gave it some thought. “You nudged Clarumcoma towards sending me to Shadowbrook because you tried to warn him?”

  “Answers in crosswords.” The Ancestor bear gave a slight moan. “It was the best I could do. He got some of the answer and sent you there, but I could not make the full message clear. You found some dark secrets, but you missed the rest. You did not understand why the Banewolves, why the vampires had to be there.” He gave me a dark look. “They protect a key for a door that should never be opened. But one that will make itself known soon enough.”

  “So I need to free you, rescue mum, find the key, find the door, stop the Horizon invasion and make sure this door is never opened?” I asked. “And I don't currently have a body. I have a bit of a ghost in my head, a band of bears with no time machine trapped in the past, and you can communicate only short messages through things like the tiles?”

  The Ancestor bear nodded.

  “Right. I need a mirror.” I said. “I have a plan, if I can put it all in the right order...”

  An ornate dress mirror grew from the ground beside me as the dream adapted to my needs. I grinned at the Ancestor Bear as I saw my reflection and Doreen Grey smiled out of the mirror at me. I could see her face. I could see her tears.

  “It's okay.” I said. “I have a plan.”

  “Oh, now you see, that is very good.” The Ancestor bear approved. “If she were to be summoned while you were in here, while you have her true name and she is strong, you could bring her back. You could make her whole once more. And she could tell the bears everything you need to know.”

  “Would you do that?” I asked the mirror.

  Doreen nodded. Her head was bobbing excitedly.

  “And how exactly will the bears trapped in the past be brought here?” The Bear asked, curious.

  “I need to get a message to my mother.” I said.

  *

  I could see her pacing around her cell anxiously. My mother, Bethany Birch, soon to be Bethany King, moving like a tiger, her eyes wild with cunning as she inspected the ventilation duct and the door, her little bed and her chair for the ninth time, still looking for a way out.

  The light in the cell flashed. She glanced up at it. It flashed again. Then it flashed nine times, three short, three long, three short.

  “SOS?” She asked the light, folding her arms. “I would say so.”

  The light started to pulse through Morse code: N.O.B.E.A.R.S.H.E.R.E.

  “I know!” She said, wagging a finger at the light. “That is half the problem I think.”

  N.O.B.E.A.R.S.H.E.R.E.

  “Right. No Bears Here. I know!” She said. “None. Not a one.”

  Something heavy with paws and an anorak flopped out of the airduct. Ted stood, brushed himself down and grinned at Mum.

  “Hello.” She said, trying not to sound surprised.

  “Sorry. I was expecting Fish to be here.” Ted answered as Gwyn, Wendy, Ginger and Musket followed him out of the vent.

  “How did you get here?” Mum asked.

  “Fish told us to keep away.” Ginger said, as though it explained everything. When that did not stop the glare Mum shot him with he blushed and pointed at Musket. The silver bear had his original time travel device, the one with the dead battery. A hole had been drilled in one side and a three pin pug on a lead dangled from the bottom. “We made every circuit breaker in Eternity fire, but we got here.”

  “Yeah, well, shouldn't one of you have been on the other side of the door?” Mum demanded.

  The bears looked at each other. Ginger scrambled back up into the vent, his clunking footsteps echoed over their heads as he made his way back out of the cell.

  “And why did you expect to find Fish and not me?” Mum asked.

  “He said no bears.” Wendy said.

  “So what do we do now?” Mum asked gently, as the door swung open. “Did any of you happen to have a plan?”

  As though to answer her, the bobble hat that sat over Wendy's ears jumped with a jingle of tiles. It leapt from her head and spilt the tiles on the floor. They started to flip over one at a time.

  S (for Sugar)

  U (for Uncle)

  M (for Minster)

  M (for Mandrake)

  O (for Octagon)

  R (for Rectangle)

  O (for Ostrich)

  B (for Balderdash)

  I (for Interval)

  H (for Harrier)

  O (for Obtuse)

  P (for Pea)

  E (for Element)

  “Er...” Wendy looked around. “Any of you tried sumo wrestling?”

  “No N.” Gwyn reminded her. “Summon Robin Hope? Who is she? The butler?”

  “Right bears,” Ted said, “join hands, sing a spell for summoning.” They hurried to obey, singing a spell that sounded like sixteen different melodies tangling against each other. From the music, they formed a circle and in the circle they drew what remained out of Doreen from my mind. I could feel her leave me, but in the CCTV feed I could see her growing, from a point of light, to a pillar of indistinct smoke, to something that was suddenly vibrant, solid and beautiful. She was still ethereal, still a ghost, but she blazed in a way I had never seen her glow before.

  “Doreen?” Ted asked. “You are Robin Hope?”

  “I think I was once.” Doreen told the bears. “I remember it. What I was before I was a ghost. Who I was. I saw it all.” She smiled. “And I know who I want to be.” She knelt down and hugged Ted and Ginger close to her, so hard she almost broke them in two. “I missed you all!”

  “Er, hello?” Mum whispered.

  Doreen stood up and smiled. For a few seconds she was just revelling in the feel of having a tangible, or at least mostly tangible form. She looked my mother in the eye and tried to summon every ounce of bravery she had to her face.

  “Don't worry. Fish has a plan.” She looked up at the camera and grinned at me. I stopped watching. I had to be elsewhere. I left the dream that the Ancestor Bear inhabited and back into the network of computers. I found the files that told me how they had crammed me into a cloned body. I found the tubes that contained new copies of me, and s
et one to have a spark of life applied to it: Me.

  There was the white hot pain, light burning in my eyes, and suddenly I was trapped in a body, and the body was trapped in the tank of acrid yellow fluids. I pulled the small mesh of pipes and wires from my wrist. In a blind panic I hammered against the glass until at last there was a hiss of draining fluids and the glass slid open. I tumbled out onto the tiles and my lungs heaved as I sucked in air.

  Oroboros demanded in my head.

  “And what if I do defeat you?” I asked. “Will you send somebody back to change history again? Maybe launch your invasion in the seventies? The sixties? The fifties? Why not stop messing around! Ceaser could cross the Rubicon with Musketeers and Paladins in his legion!”

 

  “By creating your own?” I held out my hands. “I know these enemies you face. I have friends who will help stop the future you saw.” A hologram of the dragon swallowing its own tail flickered to life beside me. I covered my modesty. “But you have to stop waging a war against me.”

  Oroboros filled the words with that strange malice that only spoiled children can master.

  “Labour camps and conversion centres do not sound like something I would be happy about.” I said. “Why would that be?”

 

  “You can see it is evil and you do it anyway?” I asked. “You do not find another way? You have time travel at your fingertips yet you do not use it to find a better way?”

  There was a silence.