by Roger Ley
“First image please,” he called. A page from a newspaper appeared on the screen behind him. “Ladies and gentlemen this is the first scan we sent back to ourselves from twenty-four hours in our future.” He turned and pointed to the date at the top of the page. “It may not look very impressive but I hope to convince you that it has tremendous implications. It is as historic an image as the photograph of Neil Armstrong’s first boot print on the surface of the Moon.”
As he talked, Riley saw Oakwood sit back, a small satisfied smile on his face. He watched with a slight feeling of distaste as Oakwood chose a biscuit from the communal plate in front of him, and dunked it in his tea. He managed to transfer it to his mouth just before it collapsed and formed an unappetizing sludge at the bottom of his cup. Riley realized that Oakwood always supplied gingernut biscuits for meetings at his office because they were the best dunkers. He looked more relaxed than he had for months. Riley expected that Oakwood’s next appointment would be to the House of Lords. Who’d have thought it; his parents had owned a fish and chip shop in Lowestoft.
He realized that he had paused momentarily and brought his attention back to the presentation.
“Next image,” he called.
When Riley had finished, Oakwood led a discussion about possible types of Temporal Adjustment which could be made in the interests of the British Government.
“We have to be very conservative in our tamperings with the Timestream,” said Riley. “We can’t be sure what effect they’ll have on the future.”
“Yes, yes,” said a white-haired Army officer whose red ringed, peaked cap lay on the desk in front of him. “But if there’s a threat to the public or the sovereign, then we will need to act immediately. We’ve got a job to do, matter of duty.”
Riley knew there was no point in trying to argue, but he was still not comfortable and spoke to Oakwood later while they broke for coffee.
“Yes Martin, it’s the old problem. Nobel invented dynamite and wanted people to use it exclusively for peaceful purposes. Einstein opposed nuclear weapons. No doubt the inventor of the bow and arrow wanted it to be used for hunting rather than warfare but unfortunately, that isn’t the way the world works. It all comes down to the interests of the people who hold the purse strings. In this case, HMG.”
Depression descended on Riley as he took the train back to Suffolk. Moodily he stared out of the window as the sky darkened and the fields streamed by. At least Einstein and Nobel had the satisfaction of recognition for their discoveries, even if they didn’t like the uses people put them to. He, on the other hand, was just another commuter on the train home from London. He hadn’t been invited to join TASC, they hadn’t even bothered to make him an official adviser. It was bloody irritating, he would have to discuss his position with Oakwood.
As time passed it became clear to Riley that he would never be invited to join the Committee. He fretted about his status. It was a weekend in August and he and Estella had driven up to Aldeburgh for a walk by the sea and a visit to, their favorite fish and chip restaurant.
“Why is it that as far as the civil service is concerned, you can have the strongest Glaswegian accent, a Brummie or Geordie accent, a Welsh accent even a bloody awful Northern Irish accent, but just a hint of Cockney and you’re a pariah, working class, sweeping the roads.”
“Oh, you’re being too sensitive Martin,” said Estella as they walked along the footpath above the shingle beach.
“It’s all right for you, you speak perfect BBC English.”
“Yes, it always surprises me when I hear a recording of my voice. I sound much posher than I feel. Anyway,” she said, changing the subject. “Just think about the work, and all the good we’re doing. It makes me proud to be part of the team. I mean, that IRA bomb in Manchester in June. It would have devastated the whole city center if we hadn’t been able to warn the Committee. Hundreds of people would have been killed or injured. Think of it.”
Riley couldn’t come up with an answer when she talked like that. He’d relaxed his guard while he was thinking, and a herring gull swooped down and snatched his ice cream.
“Fuck!” he muttered as it flew away, mobbed by its companions.
“Never mind Martin, you can have a lick of mine,” giggled Estella.
It was Autumn when Dr Oakwood summoned Riley down to his offices in London.
Another interminable meeting, he thought as he gazed at the burned fields from the first-class compartment of his train, speeding south from Ipswich towards London. The farmers seemed to begin ploughing earlier every year. The lack of an agenda or list of attendees had puzzled him. Still, it was Friday; he might get back to Ipswich for an early start to the weekend. Riley had a special interest in the racing at Ascot on the next day.
He dozed for a while then stared at his paperwork, bloody holiday rosters, the bane of his life. Admin was the thing he hated most about the job; he just wanted to work on the science. An hour later, the train arrived at Liverpool Street Station. Stepping off, he joined the crowds shuffling towards the entrance to the Underground and took the Circle line to Victoria. The walk to the headquarters of the Office of Science and Technology in Victoria Street was a pleasant opportunity to stretch his legs. He made his way up to Oakwood’s top floor office, and the secretary showed him into the inner sanctum. Oakwood and Burnley were there to greet him. They got up and shook hands.
“Ah, Martin, nice of you to come, sorry for the mystery, but I need a word in private. I am afraid that the matter is rather sensitive and, er, personal. Please take a seat.”
Riley sat in the proffered chair, and noted the air of formality that pervaded the room. A silent alarm in his mind disturbed his composure. If Oakwood wanted a private word then what was Burnley doing there? Was he here as a witness?
“How can I help, Dr Oakwood?” he kept his voice flat as he stared at the other man.
“I’m afraid that it concerns your interest in ‘the turf’ Martin. The security people say you are continuing to place bets and win tidy amounts which you are presumably salting away for personal use. Technically, you are making a profit from a government project and this leaves you open to the risk of disciplinary action.”
“I have only placed three bets since the project got official sanction two years ago,” he said. “I’ve always assumed that the racing tips are my future self’s way of validating Temporal Messaging. It’s a simple and inexpensive proof that TM works.”
“Be that as it may, it still looks rather dubious, almost fraudulent. After all, ministers are not allowed to make personal profits from their work in politics.” Riley stifled a chuckle, while Burnley stayed impassive. “You know exactly what I mean Martin,” Oakwood snapped.
“Very well Dr Oakwood,” said Riley nodding his head. “You’re right, I can see your point, and I will cease all involvement with betting at once. Next week, I’ll close all my bookmakers” accounts.”
Riley enjoyed the look of surprise on Oakwood’s face; presumably he hadn’t been expecting such an easy capitulation.
Oakwood glanced across at Burnley. “Would you be prepared to sign a declaration to this effect Martin?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“Good, I have one ready here.” Oakwood lifted a sheet of paper from his desk and passed it across to Riley, who signed and dated it after reading its brief contents. “I’ll have a copy made for your records and forward it to you.”
“I’ll take a copy now if it’s okay with you Doctor,” he said. “Is that all?”
“No, I have several other things I want to discuss while you’re here; the proposed increase in the size of our intelligence gathering team is the first item on the agenda.”
Riley’s heart sank at the thought of even more admin. His life seemed to consist of nothing but budgets, holiday rosters and stationery indents. They’d be discussing the overuse of paperclips next.
Burnley stood up, shook hands with both of them and left. He had barely said a word. Riley a
ssumed that he had only been there to witness the proceedings and report back to his masters. Bastards, wait until Monday and see who’s feeling smug then.
At the end of the meeting Riley left the building and phoned Estella as he walked towards the street entrance to the Underground. He had received a racing tip a week before by the usual method and, according to the email, it was to be the last. The Italian jockey, Frankie Detorri would win all seven races on Champions Day at Ascot tomorrow. This opened the door to an accumulator bet of unprecedented proportions. People who made such bets were known to the bookmakers as “Mugs” or “Mug Punters.” Riley had taken full advantage of the opportunity. He and Estella had broken up the bet and placed every penny they had with various turf accountants around London and Ipswich. His promise to Oakwood had been an irrelevance. He caught an early train home and took the rest of the afternoon off.
The next day, Saturday, Riley and Estella, with mounting excitement, watched all seven races on their TV, drinking champagne and cheering their horses on. By the time the winner of the seventh race, “Fujiyama Crest,” crossed the finishing line, they were both shouting at the top of their voices, even though they knew what the result would be. They hugged and jumped up and down laughing. Riley popped the cork from a second bottle. “I propose a toast to the Mug Punters” revenge,” he said, “and to the fact that, for the first time in our lives, we are financially independent of our employers, fuck the lot of them,” they clinked glasses.
“Fuck the lot of them,” shouted Estella.
Even though neither of them had any intention of resigning from the TM team, it was a nice feeling. “Let’s finish this upstairs,” he suggested. Estella smiled, picked up the bottle and led the way. They got drunk, screwed enthusiastically, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.
A couple of hours later, he sat on the loo having a piss, Estella hated floor splashes. He thought about Oakwood’s and Burley’s reactions, when the security people reported the new balances in his and Estella’s accounts. He guessed that Burnley would secretly find it funny. Oakwood wouldn’t.
Riley knew he should feel good about the way things were going, so why did he still feel hollow and scared? He worried about everything, that Estella might leave him, that he might lose his job, that they were damaging the future; he worried about who was sending the racing tips. Was it his future self or was there another game in play, a game he wasn’t aware of? His mind felt like a tangled plate of spaghetti, the worries winding and twining around each other, just as he pictured the wormholes they were manipulating. He got back into bed and looked across at Estella, blearily he noticed something wrong with her hair. Was she wearing a hairnet? He fell asleep before he could follow up on the thought.
Chapter Seven
England the 1990s
Estella walked into Riley’s office clutching a sheaf of printouts. She stood in front of his desk, slow tears slid down her cheeks. It was a shock; Estella was such a toughie and seldom cried.
“What is it?” he asked half rising.
“It’s Princess Diana. She and Dodi Fayed are going to die in a car accident in Paris in two weeks” time. These are the first reports.” She placed them on the desk and sat opposite him. He passed her his box of tissues. “I can’t believe it; Princess Diana is such a force for good in the world. Look at her work with Aids victims and land mines. It’s just not right.” Her voice shook as she talked angrily, “The Royal Family has never forgiven her for that television interview.” She paused for a moment, gathered herself, and spoke more calmly, “Remember, when she was going out with that heart surgeon Hasnat Khan. He had to hide from the press in the boot of her car, when they drove to her apartment at Kensington Palace. I thought that was so funny and romantic, she was even going to convert to the Muslim faith to please his family, but I think they still made him break up with her. I liked him better than this Dodi Fayed. Surely they won’t let her die Martin; surely the Government will intervene.” She was speaking faster now, almost gabbling.
“I never know what they’ll want adjusted and what they won’t,” Riley said. His mind was whirring with thoughts of the ramifications of Princess Diana’s death, if TASC allowed it to happen. “I can’t see the Royal Family wanting to intervene. Diana has been a thorn in their flesh for years. When Prince William takes the throne, she’ll come back into the Royal Family and become Queen Mother. She will have won.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “A nightmare for the Establishment. The new occupant of Clarence House, married to a Muslim and possibly a Muslim herself, with Muslim children and grandchildren. They might find this accident providential. I don’t think they’ll want to change a thing.”
Estella sat opposite dabbing her eyes. He read several versions of the story before he picked up the phone to ring Dr Oakwood.
Oakwood arrived by helicopter an hour later. He’d already been briefed by Paul Burnley. Riley realized that this was a big issue when members of TASC started to arrive in government limousines in quick succession. The group viewing the television footage that was being sent back grew to a dozen. They watched as the French police handled the situation, saw the mangled Mercedes, heard the pronouncement of the deaths of three of its occupants.
All other work came to a standstill in the TA laboratory as the story unfolded over the next few days. More of the Committee arrived; the admin staff booked local hotel rooms for them and equipped a conference room to show the TV footage in private. Riley watched the Prime Minister’s televised speech made on the Sunday after Diana’s death. When Tony Blair used the phrase “The People’s Princess,” he heard a politician mutter, “He owes Alastair Campbell big time for that one.”
Two days later, a disheveled and jacketless Dr Oakwood sat in Riley’s office drinking tea.
“The PM is seriously worried Martin. Footage from two weeks ahead shows the newspapers are making much of the Queen’s refusal to fly a flag at half-mast over Buckingham Palace, it’s triggered an outcry. The crowds outside have grown bigger, there are acres of flowers, and Paul Burley’s sources say there’s a dangerous deadlock between the Prime Minister and the Queen. She’s still refusing to speak publicly about Diana’s death. The Committee are getting worried.”
Riley was struck by the contrast between the mundane, present-day news reports he saw on TV at home, and the drama in those sent from just two weeks downstream to the laboratory. He and Oakwood rose and re-joined the members of TASC, who were filing back into the conference room after a lunch break.
“This is building up to be a perfect storm,” said Robin Buckley, the Cabinet Secretary, sitting on Oakwood’s right. He had arrived on the fourth day and stayed, cancelling his other business. “This could seriously damage the monarchy, we could have a revolution on our hands and be a republic before you know it.”
Riley chuckled inwardly as he thought of the titles and privileges that would disappear if that happened. They love their perquisites, these accidents of birth, these fucking inbreds. He had become more embittered as time passed and the realization grew that the recognition he deserved would never be his. It was a constant simmering resentment, he was just another nameless scientist in the service of the British Government.
Over the next few days, the crowd outside Buckingham Palace continue to grow. Even Estella was surprised at the vast numbers of bouquets the public had laid at various palace gates, on pavements outside municipal buildings and even in supermarket car parks all over the country. Meanwhile, the Royal Family stayed remote and secluded on their Balmoral estate, five hundred miles away. Despite the efforts of the Prime Minister, the Queen remained intransigent, refusing to expose her grandsons” grief to the maudlin voyeurism of the press and public.
It was on the sixth day after Diana’s death that the riot began. The Committee watched footage of the evening crowds massing outside Buckingham Palace, with its darkened windows and empty flagpole. They saw huge numbers of angry Diana supporters surge forward. The police were forced to unlocked the gates, a
t the front of the building, to prevent the crushing of the innocent. Over the screaming and shouting they heard explosions, as the police fired ineffectual baton rounds at the huge crowd funneling from the Mall into the forecourt of the Palace. They saw the front doors broken down and windows smashed, as rioters, running amok, first sacked and then set the, largely empty, building ablaze.
The Committee and scientists sat in shocked silence as Buckingham Palace burned, and fire engines battled the flames that lit up the London night skyline. It was the unsubtle rejoinder of the masses to their monarch’s inflexibility.
Like the Red Army storming the Winter Palace, thought Riley as, with secret amusement and a carefully neutral expression, he surveyed the horrified looks of the Great and the Good, sitting on their fat arses on either side of him. He remembered how easily Burnley had prevented the fire at Windsor Castle, five years earlier, after the warning from the TM team. He expected that most of the Committee were unaware of that early Temporal Adjustment; it had been before the formation of TASC. The clips of the original incident had been dramatic, but at least that had been an accident. This fire was purposeful, a metaphor, a lesson to the Establishment, the masses are a sleeping giant that will rise and roar if provoked.
One of the Generals stood up and remonstrated at the screen. Riley thought he might have a stroke, his face was red and blood vessels throbbed at his temples. “We’ll shoot the bloody lot of them, leftie scum,” he shouted, shaking his fist. “Flame throwers, that’s what’s needed, burn the bastards.”
Oakwood took a deep breath, and held up his hands for silence. Reluctantly the general sat back down, still muttering.
“We need to decide now,” said Oakwood to the rest of the Committee. “We can prevent the accident in the tunnel and save Diana if we choose to and none of this will happen; but we only have two more days. Those in favor please raise a hand and then sign the memo I am circulating.” Oakwood would never risk-taking action on his own, thought Riley. The vote was unanimous and the Cabinet Secretary, who was murmuring into his cell phone nodded.