CHRONOSCAPE: The future is flexible we can change it

by Roger Ley

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  UK 2040s

  A winter’s afternoon, watery sunlight, wet grass, skeletal trees drooping to catch unwary travelers, but the park was almost deserted as dusk fell. The well-lit windows of the office blocks of international banks overlooked it on all sides. It was a convenient open space at the center of London’s financial district, and in the summer, there would have been many more visitors.

  Two heavily built men entered the gates from opposite ends. One came from the direction of Liverpool Street station, the other from Moorgate Underground, each pulled a wheeled, metal suitcase, tourists heading for a hotel or the airport. The cases were heavy, and they had difficulty maneuvering them over curbs and steps. They met by the bandstand, next to the bowling green, and conferred, one of them held up a phone. Standing together, they began a tirade which lasted several minutes, they took it in turns to raise an admonishing finger as they addressed the camera, before finally throwing it aside.

  Working together, they opened the two cases. The first contained, what looked like, a partly dismantled artillery shell with a timer taped to it. The other contained a bucket sized, metal cylinder. As one of them reached to set the timer they both stopped and stood staring, then, eyes bulging, fell to the ground and lay jerking convulsively for a few moments, before lying still. Several tourists approached the bodies but nobody seemed to know what to do.

  Two black vans with police markings and blue lights flashing drove up. Four men in dark overalls jumped out of the first vehicle and bundled the bodies into the back. A man and a woman, wearing decontamination suits, climbed out of the second. They repacked the two flight cases, closed the lids, and working together, loaded them into their vehicle. While they worked, uniformed police, men and women, had appeared, and formed a cordon around the scene and moved the onlookers back. The vans drove away together. The police dispersed, leaving no trace of the incident. In one of the flower beds the abandoned phone began to ring.

  As Mary guided her host towards the drone wrangler’s car there was an elongated glistening bubble, slightly larger than man-size, about a hundred meters from the cordon. Her drone was past it before she could get a close look, and when she turned and flew back, there was no sign of it among the onlookers.

  Back at Langley Mary and Abrahams watched the recording of her drone’s transmissions. She paused it.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pointing at the bubble.

  “I don’t know,” said Abrahams. “It may be a stray reflection or aberration, an artefact of the lens perhaps?”

  Mary peered at it. “It looks like oil on water, rainbow colors, perhaps you’re right.” She restarted the clip, and they watched it to the end.

  “Fantastic,” Abrahams said, looking pleased and rubbing his hands together. “The thing is, no guns, no collateral damage, no massive death toll, and Central London is still intact. That was a redundant Russian MIRV warhead in the first suitcase, jury-rigged for manual detonation; the other contained several kilograms of high level radioactive waste, which would have added insult to the injury of the nuclear explosion.”

  “It was a close-run thing. The Elizabeth line runs underneath Finsbury Circus” said Mary.

  “Yes, in the original incident, a wall of plasma blasted through the miles of tunnels and stations at supersonic speed, destroying most of Central London’s transport infrastructure. The explosion obliterated the financial center and radioactive contamination caused area denial of a huge chunk of Greater London.”

  “Why didn’t the security people arrest the terrorists before they got this far?” asked Mary. “Like they did with the attempt on the Twin Towers?”

  “Because the Oversight Committee didn’t release the information to the UK Government until this afternoon, there was an, er, failure in the chain of command. We almost had to make our first Retroactive Temporal Adjustment. Our American cousins don’t seem concerned about incidents that occur outside the USA. I’m told the PM has made her feelings plain to the President, after all, we’re supposed to be equal partners in this technology. The Yanks have assured her it won’t happen again.”

  “Why did we have to kill them, the police could have arrested them?” Mary still found it difficult to cope with her involvement with the killings.

  “These days, our masters take a robust approach with terrorists who want to destroy billions of dollars” worth of property, and kill millions of people for the sake of their misguided beliefs,” he said. “Personally, I applaud it. Saves the expense of a trial, martyrs, unrest and explanations of how we knew about it beforehand.”

  “Yes, and bollocks to the rule of law.” Mary felt older and more strained. Her hair was still jet black although now she needed to color it, and it had lost some of its shine. The mirror showed fine lines in her face that had not been there a few years ago. She took a small drag of “mist” on her vapourette and held it down while it condensed in her lungs. The drug suffused and relaxed her. She loved the excitement of her missions but found it more and more difficult to come to terms with the ethics.

  “If the drone wrangler’s car had broken down we’d have been right in the shit, with a smoking radioactive crater where Central London used to be. What happened to the ‘Special Relationship?’ ”

  Abrahams shrugged, and the screen disappeared.

  “I can tell you’re not happy,” said Patrick that evening in her quarters. He lay on her bed holding a glass of wine. She came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her, drying her hair with another.

  “Nightmares, I’m not sleeping well.” She poured a glass for herself.

  “The spiders?” he asked.

  “No, it’s my current duties,” she said. “I’ve thought of applying for a transfer back to the UK, but I’m don’t know if they’ll let me go.”

  “The sooner you come home the better I’ll like it. Anyway, they said your tour would only last two years, it should finish about now.”

  “My military masters say they’ve changed the ‘mission parameters.’ ” She sipped her wine. “Let’s see how it goes and we can talk on your next visit.”

  The towel fell to the floor as she walked over to the bed and lay near to him. They looked into each other’s eyes, and began to make love, with carefully synchronized movements of their fingers on the Mimic patches they were wearing. She wanted to kiss him, but it was no use, he was virtual to her, as she was virtual to him.

  Afterwards, they lay back. HoloSkype was better than cybersex software, she thought as she peeled off her patches, the sharing made it more personal, but even though the link was encryption guaranteed, she still felt spied on. Mary rolled onto her side and closed her eyes.

  “Have you heard about Tel Aviv?” Patrick asked.

  “No, what about it?” she whispered sleepily.

  “It was on the news an hour ago. A dirty bomb, half a million-people killed outright, many more injured, huge damage and contamination.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  In Transit

  “You must be more careful where you make your emergences,” said Farina. “It was just luck that nobody saw you materialize in Finsbury Circus. There were plenty of private places that would have been suitable.”

  “I don’t think I did badly for my first attempt at control,” said Riley.

  “Did you observe the fly drones which landed on the terrorists as they entered the park?”

  “Yes, I did, one of them was Mary Lee,” he said, wishing that Farina would lighten up a bit. “I’m not sure how, but I could see them, and hear the pilots’ comms with their base.”

  “That’s your new implant Martin, with practice, you will find it can give you all kinds of help. Now let’s try again. I want you to move two years downstream and to a different geographical location. As you will be entering a moving vehicle, it would be better if I control your emergence.”

  “Okay, here goes nothing.” Moments later, Riley was sitting in the passenger compartmen
t of a light plane as it cartwheeled across a field, burning fiercely and breaking to pieces. In the seat next to him, a man in flames screamed incoherently and struggled to undo his seat belt. Small white beads ricocheted frantically around the compartment. Moving nozzles sprayed fire retardant foam at the furiously burning interior but they were fighting a losing battle. He glimpsed the pilot ahead of him, also strapped into his seat; his arms flailed lifelessly as the aircraft continued to tumble, flaming pieces breaking off continually. Riley withdrew immediately, but as he did, he was momentarily aware of classical music playing, and a fly drone on the ceiling.

  “What the fuck was that,” he shouted at Farina? He was shocked rigid by what he’d just witnessed.

  “Did you notice the drone?” she asked.

  “Yes, Mary Lee was operating it according to my fucking implant. But why did you send me into that? I might have been killed.”

  “No, if you look back at the data you will see that you never coalesced, you were not in danger.”

  “Well fucking warn me next time you play a trick like that, or I’ll withdraw my cooperation.” Riley wasn’t sure if he could withdraw his cooperation, or whether it would have any effect if he did, but he was angry, and shaking with reaction to the experience. Suddenly he felt calm. “You’ve switched that bloody field on, again haven’t you?” he said. “I’ve told you I don’t like to be taken over like this, it’s brain washing.”

  “But I hate to see you suffer Martin, and you do need to be familiar with the recent experiences of the people you have to deal with. I assure you that your next appearance will not be unpleasant.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  USA 2040s

  Abrahams had called Mary for a meeting with two English “civil servants” who were over from London for the morning.

  “These gentlemen are here to brief you, Mary. This is Mr Brown, and this is Mr Grey.”

  River Boys, she thought, but couldn’t tell which particular flavor they were: MI5 or 6, or perhaps something more exotic. Her gaze slid over the older one, Mr Brown; he was the personification of anonymity. Average height, average build, thinning hair. The younger, Mr Grey, on the other hand, was very easy on the eye, with his lean athletic look, his beautifully tailored suit, and his icy blue eyes. They sat around a table in Abraham’s office. Mary poured herself a glass of water and waited.

  Mr Grey took the lead, “One of the largest drug cartels in South America has sent its chief accountant over to London for meetings with his ‘bankers.’ They’re actually money launderers, and they’ve been careful about security. We want the information he’s carrying, account numbers mainly, but we need to acquire it clandestinely if it’s to have any value. We can’t just arrest him and squeeze it out of him; his bosses would change the codes. We need to place a targeting drone aboard the plane that will be taking him from London City Airport to Schiphol, and you get the job, apparently.” He looked at Abrahams for confirmation.

  Two days later, Mary’s host sat on the left epaulette of a young commercial pilot as, flight bag in hand, he escorted his passenger across the tarmac toward the Pilatus PC19, single engine turboprop. They would fly to Amsterdam that afternoon. As she bounced up and down, Mary saw that the plane was at least twenty years old, and looked a little dog eared, but presumably it was still serviceable. The passenger was a Portuguese national, Mary had scanned his passport as the pilot collected it from the company office, when he uploaded his flight plan. He was shorter and more heavily built than the slim six-foot pilot. His passport listed his occupation as “accountant” and the photo had shown a moustache but no sign of the small beard he now sported.

  “Will you be returning to London today, Capitan?” the passenger asked, making conversation as they walked.

  “No Senor, I have to fly another client back tomorrow, so I’ll stop overnight in town and probably have to listen to some taxi driver telling me that the airport is three meters below sea level, again. I hear it every time I fly into Schiphol. Bloody Cloggies, obsessed with water, that’s why they’re all so tall, fear of flooding. It’ll be a relief when Dutch law allows driverless taxis like everywhere else in Europe. Would you prefer to sit in the cockpit, Senor?” the pilot asked as they reached the plane.

  “A kind offer Capitan, but I have work I must do, and the extra space in the seats behind you will be most useful.”

  Mary thought the pilot seemed annoyed at the refusal, presumably most passengers would have jumped at the chance. They climbed the steps into the plane. The pilot showed the accountant to his seat, checked the snack box, then walked back down the steps to do a brief pre-flight check around the exterior. He climbed back in, retracted the steps, slammed the door and maneuvered himself into the left hand front seat. He called the tower to get clearance for take-off.

  “Voice ID check please,” said the aircraft’s artificial intelligence.

  “Open the pod bay door, Hal,” said the pilot.

  “ID confirmed. Good morning, Captain Hodson.”

  “Pre-flight checks. Report.”

  “There is a three percent difference in tire pressures between the port and starboard wheels. Debris, possibly bird related, partly obscures the right-hand wing camera. The digital signature for the latest engine compressor cleaning operation is missing. There are further irregularities in the maintenance record, list follows….”

  The pilot interrupted. “Are any of these issues flight critical?”

  There was, what seemed to Mary, a sulky pause.

  “No Captain.”

  “Good, let’s get on with it then.” He started the engine, and as it was winding up, spoke over his shoulder to his passenger.

  “These AIs are so pernickety. We’d never leave the ground if they had their way. I had one complain that the wastepaper basket in the toilet was full, when there were no passengers on board.”

  He taxied the plane to the end of the designated runway, rolled it around the circular “frying pan”, checked in with air traffic control again, and pushed the throttle forward. They accelerated down the tarmac, lifted away and began the climb to cruising altitude. The pilot busied himself making adjustments and set the radio navigation system to the Schiphol frequency. The plane reached its cruising height after about five minutes.

  “AI has control,” he said. He took his hands off the control column, leaned back and died a few moments later.

  He died quietly; the slight juddering of the plane masked any tremors or convulsions, and his seat harness kept him upright. Practice had perfected the Langley assassination team’s technique. Mary had moved to the top of his head to allow targeting, and her sprite had transmitted the conversation between the pilot and his AI to Satan’s Electricians in real time, so they knew when to make the hit.

  “They want you to look at the display, so they can see the instruments ma’am,” it said.

  She complied, then turned to watch the passenger working at his virtual keyboard. Presumably he was composing a message to encipher and send to his boss, back in South America.

  Meanwhile, the plane’s AI kept flying on the set heading. Mary guessed that it couldn’t monitor the pilot’s vital signs because it was old software that hadn’t been upgraded since the plane was built.

  Mary knew she should bump out, but she stayed aboard, with her host, curious to see what would happen next. She had developed a morbid interest in her work. It was unhealthy, but she’d half convinced herself that it was necessary, to confirm the success of the mission. She crawled out of the dead pilot’s short, spiky hair and flew to the dashboard, from where she looked back at him hanging supine in his straps, eyes closed and mouth open. He’d pissed himself, not unusual under these circumstances. Beyond him the accountant was leaning over his keyboard. She noted his thinning hair; he was using fiber to thicken it, rather than paying for restorative treatment. Cheapskate. She sensed the disappointment her host felt when she left the dead pilot. Once they’d started live targeting, she’d been surp
rised how quickly her hosts knew when the body they were sitting on was alive, and when it became maggot food. An hour passed, the accountant continued working. A voice broke the silence.

  “Low fuel, low fuel, low fuel,” the AI spoke over the public-address system. Mary wondered how long it had been trying to get a response from the pilot, via his sprite. The voice was middle-class, female, English, possibly the pilot’s wife or girlfriend.

  The accountant looked up and noted that the pilot hadn’t moved. He looked at his watch. They should have landed twenty minutes ago.

  “What was that Capitan?” he asked. When there was no response he tapped him on the right shoulder and repeated his question. Still there was no response, he shook the pilot’s shoulder, gently at first and then with more animation.

  “Choose alternate airfield, choose alternate airfield,” a chime began to sound regularly.

  Mary saw that the accountant was sweating now. He pressed his finger onto the pilot’s neck, searching for a pulse, and when he didn’t find one he tried jabbing his finger in, again and again.

  “Madre de Dios,” he said.

  Now this will be interesting, she thought, feeling a thrill of anticipation. She wondered how he would handle the situation. He might even try to land the plane himself. That would be worth watching.