by Roger Ley
The yoke in front of the pilot shook noisily as the AI attempted to wake him.
“Pilot resume manual control, pilot resume manual control,” the alarm was louder and more insistent.
The accountant became more agitated, and pulled a satellite phone from the inside pocket of his jacket, held it up and said, “Don Roberto.” Mary heard the ring tone.
“Ola, who is this?” said a voice. “I am trying to concentrate on a difficult putt.”
“It is Matias, Don Roberto. I have a problem.”
“Que pasa?”
“Don Roberto, I am flying in a plane and the pilot he is dead, I do not know what to do. We must crash soon. I do not know where we are.”
“Don’t worry my friend, these aero planes they have clever computers, they can fly themselves. You do not need a lazy gringo pilot, just relax and let the computer look after you.” There was a pause, and Matias heard muttered conversation in the background. “Did you finish the business with our European friends?”
“Si Patron, I have the details of the accounts here. I planned to send an encrypted copy of them to you as soon as I reached Amsterdam.”
“Tell them to me now Matias.”
“But, Patron, this is bad security, it would be better for you to help me now, and let me send the account numbers securely, after I have landed.”
“Tell them to me now, Matias, and then we will help you. My personal pilot is here with me, he will speak to your plane’s computer, and talk you down to a safe landing. Do not worry my friend, give me the numbers, all will be well.”
“Fuel critical, fuel critical,” said the AI.
Matias recited the details of a dozen accounts, from memory.
“That is all Patron, what shall I do now?” There was a continuous tone from his hand set. The turbine engine began to wind down, the propeller continued to turn, but more slowly, and the nose of the plane dipped.
“Automatic landing sequence engaged, searching for suitable landing site,” the voice of the AI was passionless. The accountant threw away his phone, reached into a side pocket of his jacket and withdrew a set of white Rosary beads. He stared unblinkingly at the back of the pilot’s head and muttered, while telling them through his fingers.
“Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres de gracia,
el Senor es contigo.”
“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday this is BritAir Flight 235 logged for Schiphol.”
The AI switched off the alarms and continued to give details of their position and altitude. It began playing a recording of the Flower Duet from the opera Lakme. It was programmed to offer soothing music if turbulence disturbed the composure of its passengers.
“Bendita tu eres entre todas las mujeres,
Y bendito es el fruto de tu vientre Jesus.”
Mary was aware of the relative quiet, now that the engine and alarms had stopped. She ought to bump out, her part in the mission had been over as soon as the pilot died. Instead, she took off from the dashboard and let her host perform the tricky maneuver of flipping over, and landing upside down on the cockpit ceiling. She’d practiced doing it herself, it was only a half barrel-roll, after all, but she didn’t want to risk missing the excitement. Her all-round vision allowed her to take a professional interest in the AI’s attempt to land the aircraft, and to watch the accountant’s increasing panic at the same time. The air became more turbulent closer to the ground, and the plane pitched and yawed. The accountant groaned at every jolt. As she watched him experiencing his last few moments of life, her host rubbed its front legs together as if with glee.
“All passengers check harness. All passengers check harness. Brace, brace, brace.”
“Santa Maria, Madre de Dios,
ruega por nostoros pecadores,
ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte.”
They should have made a successful landing on the empty farm track near Kiel, that the AI had chosen, but a broken telephone pole severed the starboard wing and spun them around into a rocky outcrop, just before the wheels touched the ground.
The plane cartwheeled and burst into flame as the vapor in the fuel tanks exploded. Mary had tucked her host into a crevice between two sections of the ceiling, but the sections shifted and trapped her. She saw the attempts of the accountant as, enveloped in an excruciating conflagration, he struggled frenziedly to release his harness. Damage to her external microphones meant she couldn’t hear his screams. The beads from the broken Rosary flew around the cabin, bouncing off windows and walls as if trying to make their own panic-stricken escapes.
At the back of the passenger compartment Mary glimpsed something rounded, shiny and liquid swelling in one of the seats, but her drone lost vision at that moment, its eyes seared by the heat.
The bird crap on the wing camera lens had obscured the AI’s view to the right during landing, it didn’t see the broken telegraph pole. As the starboard wing smashed into it, the plane spun around and started its cartwheel. The AI battled to save its craft as it plunged across the rocky field, leaving a trail of flaming debris. It triggered those fire extinguishers over which it still had control, but died as it fried in the fireball. Its last conscious act was to eject a capsule, containing all its data and a copy of its processor state, several hundred meters into the air. It fell to earth well away from the flames and lay, flashing, its position also marked by its hi-vis parachute. Unlike Matias, the AI had died confident of its resurrection.
As her host crisped and burned Mary was “back in the room.” She cried out as a series of small convulsions racked her. Ruth was at her side, eager to help, but the software quickly damped the tremors. After a few minutes and a glass of water she was ready to resume life as a human being.
“Fucking Hell, that was intense,” she said, still shivering as the shock wore off, “much worse than a simulator.”
“You shouldn’t do this to yourself, it’s not good for you, you’ll burnout, or get sick, or both.” Ruth had followed Mary’s progress throughout the mission, using her observer’s VR headset.
“Yes, but I love the work,” said Mary, knowing the irony would be lost.
Ruth removed Mary’s visor and gently sponged her face. Mary lay back panting, her eyes closed; Ruth began to unzip Mary’s sensuit and to sponge the bare skin of her neck and shoulders. As Ruth peeled the upper part of the suit off, Mary sat up and swung her legs off the couch. She noticed a look of intense disappointment on Ruth’s face. Holding the suit about her, she walked towards the changing room. She was lonely, but she wasn’t sure she was that lonely.
That night Mary’s dreams were dark and terrible. In the morning, she couldn’t remember their content, but she saw that she’d run out of sleeping tablets. Her mouth was dry and her head ached. She was full of doubts. Was it worth killing an innocent young pilot to get the product that SIS and the CIA wanted? “Just following orders” was no defense for illegal and immoral behavior. Why had she stayed onboard to watch the plane crash and the accountant’s death? It was voyeuristic, unhealthy. Sitting in her tiny kitchen, drinking coffee, she drafted a request for a posting back to England with her old squadron, and pinged it to Abrahams. Fuck the consequences, the humdrum world of Royalty Protection would suit her very well, and she needed to be with Patrick permanently. She’d had enough of killing, somebody else could do it.
The next day Patrick was in touch. “They’ve offered me a job at Langley,” he said. “It’s a two-year secondment as a senior software engineer. They need someone with security clearance to work on your drone control system, I guess they want to keep it in the family. I assume you approve?”
Mary realized that she’d been outmaneuvered; it looked as if she was staying at Langley after all.
Chapter Thirty
USA 2051
Mary watched as Peter Abrahams gestured at the vscreen in front of him. He appeared to be working on one of his pet projects. It was late, the office was empty, he kept his own hours these days and apparently this worried the powers tha
t be. She was lodged in a corner near the ceiling, engaged in what was euphemistically called “routine security” but was in fact spying on friends. Of course, it begged the question, who was spying on her?
A flash of light reflected in one of the office windows distracted her. She suddenly became aware that a figure was standing in the doorway to the main work area. It was covered by a shining multicolored membrane which disappeared after a moment, to reveal a casually dressed, middle aged man. He walked into the office and stopped opposite Abrahams.
“Hello Peter,” he said smiling, and extending his hand.
Abrahams shook it automatically, staring speechlessly at the newcomer. Mary saw the apparent solidity of the handshake. Not a hologram then. What the fuck was going on?
“Bloody Hell….” exclaimed Abrahams.
“Come on Peter, you’re not that doddery are you, don’t you remember me? My name is Martin Riley; I’m the inventor of time travel,” he laughed.
Abrahams continued to stare at the newcomer, “I know who you are Martin, but you died in a car crash forty years ago. How can you be alive, you don’t look a day over fifty?”
“Perhaps if you think about it for a while you’ll work it out, Peter. Do you mind if I sit down?” He looked around, “Well, it’s nice to be back in familiar surroundings, glad to see you’re still with the old firm Peter. You look good for a man in your seventies, the rejuv drugs must be working, or have you led a blameless life?” he laughed again. “Any chance of a drink?”
Whoever he is, he’s enjoying this, thought Mary.
She watched as, looking dazed, Abrahams opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle and two glasses. He placed them on the desk without taking his eyes off the visitor.
Riley picked up the bottle and examined the label.
“Real Scotch, the ersatz stuff is good, but knowing it’s just a rearrangement of molecules that never went near an oak barrel makes a difference, somehow. This’ll be the first I didn’t make myself for over five years.” He poured a finger of whiskey into a glass and raised it towards Mary’s corner of the ceiling. “Slangevar,” he said smiling directly at her as he downed it in one; he sat back for a moment eyes closed, his face a picture of contentment. “Oh, very smooth, much smoother than my rocket fuel,” he said.
Did he know she was there? Mary asked herself.
“Have you come to any conclusions yet Peter?”
“How can you still be alive?” asked Abrahams sitting on the opposite side of the desk. He looked as puzzled as Mary felt. “Now I think about it, they never recovered your body. We buried an empty coffin.”
Riley poured himself another, Abrahams had ignored his, Riley sipped this time.
“I know, I was there, strictly as an observer of course. Farina took me to see it, what a strange experience.”
“Farina?”
“She was the one who extracted me from my car, after our employers blew it off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.”
“Extracted, who extracted you, why?”
“Time travelers, they wanted to talk to me about our meddling with the Timestream.”
“So where have you been for the last fifty years?”
Good question, thought Mary, if you are who you say you are, where have you been?
“The future Peter, they took me far into the future. For me, it’s only been five years or so. But now they’ve sent me back to sort out the mess you and I have made, and I need your help to do it. We have to make a Retrospective Temporal Adjustment. We have to realign the Timestream. Millions of lives are at stake; in fact, the whole future of mankind depends on us.” He put his feet up on the desk, made a gesture of helplessness, he reached forward to retrieve his glass, and gave a wry smile.
Abrahams looked shocked. “We can’t do that, what will happen to us all, what about our families Martin? If we change the past what will the altered present be like?”
“We’ll all still have a life; it’s just that it’ll be a different life. The Commonwealth has convinced me that we must do this, we’ve no choice.”
“What Commonwealth, the British Commonwealth?”
“No Peter, the Commonwealth of the future, the world government. Our tamperings have put their whole civilization at risk. We have to undo the damage we’ve done.
“How far back do we have to go, to make our RTA?”
“About fifty years, apparently it was when we prevented Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed’s car crash that the Timestream became seriously distorted.”
“I’m sorry Martin, you were my mentor, you guided my early career, but I can’t help you do this. You’re asking me to destroy the world as we know it. It’s all too much, I can’t take it all in, I need time to think.”
“Yes, it’s not easy. I have something prepared to help you.” He stood and walked around behind Abraham’s chair and placed his hands on his shoulders. To Mary’s amazement they both became momentarily iridescent, then disappeared.
Mary realized that she was out of her depth. A dead man appearing and disappearing, people from the future, it was as bad as when she first tried to get her head around TM. Altering the past was a whole new ball game, she needed time to think. After bumping out, she didn’t upload the recording to the registry, but told her sprite to load it into her personal log. She needed to show it to Patrick.
The next day Mary was off duty. Drinking coffee in her lounge, she stared out of the window, took another pull on her vapourette and felt the tension go out of her shoulders.
“You have a visitor ma’am,” said her sprite.
“Who is it?” she asked. There was a momentary pause.
Her sprite relayed a voice to her ear. “Hello Mary, it’s Peter Abrahams. Sorry to bother you at home, I need a word in private.”
Why am I not surprised, she thought, and went to greet him?
Abrahams sat in an armchair drinking coffee. “The thing is Mary I need your help. It’s complicated.”
“Let’s take a walk in my garden,” she said, “There’s a lovely show of fuchsias.” They walked on the lawn surrounding the apartment building. Mary didn’t grow fuchsias.
Abrahams whispered, “I’ve had a visit from an old friend, my mentor actually, a man called Martin Riley. You must have heard of him, he invented TM, he used to run the science team at Langley.”
“I thought he died in a traffic accident, decades ago,” said Mary. “Drove off a bridge into the Potomac, didn’t he? You told me about him when I first came to Langley.”
“Well yes, but apparently he survived. Look Mary, I know it sounds far-fetched, but he says he was abducted by people from an organization called ‘the Commonwealth.’ They’re the world government of the future. I know it seems crazy but I can prove it.”
Mary had already decided to let him off the hook.
“You don’t need to,” she said, “I was on duty last night, spying on you. They seem to be worried about your ‘pet projects’ and what other uses you’re finding for Temporal Displacement.”
“Well, all my ideas are peaceful: mining, manufacturing, medical. The Government only ever think about weapons and security. But anyway, did you see Martin Riley arrive?”
“I saw how he came, and how you both left and I’ve kept the recording to myself. They’ll notice eventually, but you’re safe just for the moment. So, where did you go?”
“He took me into the future.” Abrahams looked at her as if he was expecting a rejoinder but Mary remained silent. “I met a woman called Farina, and they showed me Metrotowers, a necklace of huge memory modules girdling the planet, enormous space vehicles, Earth’s rings. It was amazing.”
“Did you meet any ‘future people,’ what were they like?”
“No, I couldn’t leave the vehicle; I might have altered the Timestream because I belong here, not there. Farina told me she’s some sort of artificial person, although she seemed human. According to her we should never have invented TM. It was a fluke, something they didn’t know about until she
was researching social history in our era. Our activities over the last few decades have put a severe strain on the Timestream; we’ve bent it out of shape, and now we have to realign it by reversing our first significant intervention.”
“Slow down Peter, you’re gabbling. So, you observed all this from a closed vehicle, you didn’t touch any of it. Did this Farina have any special powers?”
“Not as far as I could tell, she seemed completely human.”
“Maybe because she is human. Why can’t these Commonwealth people do the realigning themselves?” she asked.
“They don’t want to interfere with their past, they’d rather leave it to us because they already know that we did it, if you see what I mean. ‘If it’s not broken don’t fix it,’ isn’t that what they say?” He shrugged but she sensed his fear, his hands were trembling. He hadn’t mentioned the massive effect their actions would have on the present. “I realize it sounds unbelievable,” Abrahams repeated. He began rubbing his hands together.
“I’m not as surprised as you might expect Peter” she said. “The thing that originally stretched my credulity was your explanation of TM, when you first recruited me. It’s all been downhill since then, just one shocking discovery after another. But I still wonder if this is some sort of wind-up.”
“Martin needs to talk to you. He says he needs a drone pilot and wants to meet you tomorrow. What I don’t understand is why there wasn’t a huge explosion as he materialized from the future. The quantum matrix should have tried to neutralize him, like when we do our Temporal Displacements.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“He just fobbed me off, said it was ‘too much detail Peter, let’s concentrate on the bigger issues.’ ”
Abrahams left soon afterwards, she watched as his car drove off, taking him back to the lab. Mary still needed to speak to Patrick; it had been too late when she got home last night, he was asleep but he’d be back in a couple of hours.