The Tourist

by Robert Dickinson

  But there are barriers: fire breaks, precautions against the tech nightmare of uncontrolled energy. There hasn’t been an accident since the very early days but precautions are still taken. Every few hundred metres there’s a point where a barrier can drop and the corridor be sealed. In theory our client could be boxed in until the Safety Team arrive to escort her out again. At the least, they can stop her reaching the zone. Each time we turn a corner I expect to see her and the Safety standing by one of these barriers. This wouldn’t present a problem for me. I have a reason to be there: she’s my client, after all. Riemann might have a harder time of it. Any good Safety would be wary of a second civilian without a detectable signature.

  But they don’t seem to have lowered any barriers yet. Possibly because they don’t know where she is (no signature) and can’t tell which doors to close; possibly because this is the approach and the barriers have developed a fault. They’re relying on the old-fashioned method of having a Safety run after her.

  Riemann doesn’t run. He keeps to a steady, almost casual pace. His expression remains one of alert amusement. He doesn’t seem inclined to talk and I don’t expect him to tell me anything.

  I ask anyway. It’s going to be a long walk. “Why has she come here?”

  “You know I can’t tell you.” He sounds almost regretful. “But I’m interested in what she does next.”

  He might have a reassuring calm and an air of competent authority but I preferred him when he was ten. He’d been serious and quiet, the sort of boy who always thought carefully before he spoke. Back then his reserve came across as respectful. “Can you give me a hint?”

  “Have you seen Cantor lately?”

  He’s trying to change the subject. “Not for years. Not since I went to the Tunnels.” I change it back. “We thought she was carrying tonin.”

  This stops him. “It was more than that.” He keeps his eyes fixed on the corridor ahead. He still thinks carefully before he speaks. Then he starts walking again. “Cantor used to talk about you.”

  “We were friends for a long time.” I don’t want to be distracted by reminiscences. “What else was she doing?”

  “I liked you, Spens. I could never see why you were Cantor’s friend. You never had much in common. You were more mature than him. He was always getting obsessed with stupid theories.”

  “He didn’t believe in them. He thought they were funny.”

  “That didn’t matter. He couldn’t tell when people were bored. You were always patient with him even when you didn’t have to be. I always thought you had more in common with me. I used to think we’d be friends when I was older. And even now there’s a part of me that still thinks the same way. You’re always that friend I might have had. But you have to understand I can’t tell you anything.”

  I understand. It’s still infuriating. You’re always at a disadvantage. You can’t tell if someone is exploiting what they know or trying hard not to. Either makes them look smug.

  It’s not hard to see why some natives hate us.

  “But you don’t care that I’m following you.”

  “I can’t stop you.”

  Interpret that. He could mean he doesn’t care if I follow him; he could mean he can’t stop me because in whatever report he once read (in his past, my future) I was among the people recorded as being present. If that’s the case he wouldn’t be able to stop me: his weapon would jam (we’re in the approach, after all, where tech fails all the time) or he’d walk onto one of my Level Three punches. I know he can’t hurt me: it’s not in my line. I’m about to be sent home for breach of protocol. A few years after that I join a kin, and, forty after that, die. It’s not his job to hurt me.

  At least, not for another forty-odd years. Perhaps that’s how it ends, with me looking up one morning to see him walk into wherever I am, just the same as he is now, or slightly older or younger. Perhaps that explains his little speech: somewhere back on his line he’s already killed me, when I was an old man and he was a bright young recruit for whatever department selected him. The talk about a friendship that might have been is his way of saying there are no hard feelings.

  It’s the delirium of the approach. When a translation is scheduled you reach a point about halfway in when your skin begins to tingle and then crawl. Even behind several metres of shielding, you feel nauseous. The walls seem to move, the ground ripples and lights seem brighter. In the transport itself it’s not so bad: you’re strapped into a comfortable seat and soothed by gentle lighting and ambient noise. The translation itself is easy. It’s the effects on the periphery—the hallucinations and mood swings—that are unsettling.

  Riemann stays calm, as if he’s used to this.

  “Were you at the airport?” I ask. I have to say something.

  “Why would I be?”

  “We tracked her there. I talked to Gurley and Knight.”

  He frowns. “Who?”

  “Locals. They were following her.”

  “Oh. Them.” He assesses this new piece of information. “Did they tell you anything interesting?” His tone is amused, smug.

  “Nothing useful. Do you know why she was at the airport?”

  “Spens, you have to stop asking questions. I can’t tell you anything.”

  He knows I know why he can’t. Protocol, as well as common courtesy. If you know something about a person’s future you don’t tell them. The next time you see me I will be younger and you will be about to die. You don’t say it. It’s an abridgement of agency.

  It doesn’t stop me asking. “Does that mean you don’t know? What does she have to do with Alexander Metzger?”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Not much. Fringe politics. Greek lyric poetry. She wasn’t here long enough to have known him.”

  He nods. I’ve told him nothing he didn’t already know. “Why did you think she was carrying tonin?”

  “We were told by an extemp. Picon Delrosso.”

  There’s the faintest flicker of surprise. “You traced it to him?”

  “Gurley gave me his name. When I asked Picon he admitted it.”

  “I can see why he’d admit to that. What did you make of him?”

  “We thought he might be from City Two East.”

  Another faint flicker. “What made you think that?”

  “His accent.”

  “City Two East. Did you draw any conclusions?”

  “Not yet. Should I?”

  “It’s not worth it. He isn’t the problem.”

  “But she is?”

  Ahead of us I can hear what sounds like a faulty air pump. We turn a bend and find the Safety leaning against a wall, noisily sucking in mouthfuls of air. His face is pale pink. At first I think he’s hurt, but he’s just winded. He watches us approach as if he’s been expecting us. “She’s a runner.”

  “She would be,” Riemann says mildly. “Have you closed the final gate?”

  The Safety nods miserably. He’s gasping at a slower rate now and the colour is leaving his face. I guess he’s in his sixties, too old to be running along a corridor even in a lightweight Safety suit. “It was the first thing I did when I lost her.” He speaks to Riemann. He’s spotted the authority and is trying to impress him with competence. “I was going to retrieve her. Once I got my breath back.”

  “Good work,” Riemann reassures him. “You stay here. We’ll retrieve her.”

  The Safety looks grateful. “Do you know who she is?” He’d do whatever Riemann asks.

  “His client.” Riemann indicates me. “We think she spent too long in the open.”

  “I thought so,” he says, as if it’s something he sees every day. “Why else would anybody come in here? Should I alert medical?”

  “Good idea.” Riemann has started to walk away. “Don’t call them here yet, but you can let them know they might be needed.”

  “Yes, sir.” The Safety does his best to stand to attention. “I’ll let them know.”

  We leave him.
Once we’re out of his sight Riemann lets himself smile. “A runner. I bet she didn’t have to run very fast.”

  We keep walking. I let Edda know I may be longer than I thought. I don’t know if she’ll get the message through the shielding. I wonder if we’ll meet our client coming in the opposite direction. She could stand and wait to be retrieved or try to slip past an exhausted Safety. I doubt she’s the kind to stand and wait. We keep walking.

  “What has she done, Riem? What is she going to do?”

  “Spens, stop.”

  “Why is she so important to you? You can tell me here. Nobody’s listening.”

  He sighs. “I’ve broken enough protocols already.”

  We keep walking.

  Riemann says, “I’m trying to correct a mistake.”

  I don’t say anything. If he’s going to talk I don’t want to interrupt.

  “I’ve tried to understand this for years,” he says. “Ever since I first met her. I can’t tell you the circumstances. I shouldn’t tell you the circumstances.” His voice has changed. He talks rapidly, almost nervously. It’s disconcerting. “So I came here. I volunteered sixteen years of my life for the chance to come here. You’ll learn how they work. They let you travel, but you have to do something for them in return. So I worked for them and now I’m here. But the events aren’t any clearer. You should turn back. It’ll be easier for you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I tried talking to her. I told her what would happen. It didn’t work.” He grins like somebody finally understanding a joke. “Of course it didn’t work. How could it?” He takes a thin tube from a side pocket. “So now I’m going to try something else. I’m going to try to change history. Like an Anachronist. What do you think will happen when I push the button?”

  It’s a mad question. Some people, when the delirium hits, crack completely. “You told me she returned safely.”

  “I wanted to protect you.” He walks more quickly now, brisk, neat steps as if he’s eager to finish this. “Do you think we’ll find ourselves somewhere else with no memory of this? Or does the paradox apply? The first time I met her—the first time I met her here—I began to think I might be wrong. I warned her about the consequences of her actions. I thought I’d made an impression. The second time it was obvious she didn’t care. I should have ended it then, this afternoon. I had the means, the right location. Instead I tried to talk. That’s what stops us. Fear. No matter how badly things turned out, at least the past is known. What if you can change things, and they’re worse? The devil we know. There isn’t much further she can run, Spens. You should leave.”

  We reach the marker for the last hundred metres. The gate is ahead of us. It’s still open.

  “What now?” I ask him.

  Riemann keeps walking. “You should leave.”

  “So? She’s trapped, isn’t she? What can she do now?” Ivan had said she was dangerous: he may have been exaggerating. She beat up one local in extreme circumstances. That doesn’t make her a threat. “Can’t we just wait for a Safety Team?”

  “There’s a protocol. If she knows that…” Riemann shakes his head. For a moment he looks helpless. He reaches into his coat as he’s about to call for help. “I have to do this.” But he sounds uncertain; he doesn’t move.

  “Riem.” The nausea hits me before I can say anything else. Hits is the verb: I stagger backwards and fall to my knees. The walls seem to pulse around me. Even Riemann looks queasy. His own knees buckle and he drops whatever he’s taken from his coat.

  There shouldn’t be a translation. There is. And the gate is open.

  “Either we’re wrong about everything…” Riemann somehow manages to stay on his feet. He steps into the cordon. “Spens, you have to get out of here. The next time you see my brother—”

  I don’t hear the rest. I start crawling away. It’s instinctive. After a few metres I’m able to get off of my knees and start stumbling. The floor still seems to ripple and shift and the soft approach lights have turned into sharp-edged stars. I move faster. Or try to move faster: it’s hard to tell if there’s any difference. I feel heavy, the way I did for the first month after I had the Tunnel augs. But that was because I was heavier, and hadn’t yet adapted. This is just a side effect of travel when there isn’t a barrier between you and the cordon. I could be sprinting or I could be lying on the floor, hallucinating that I’m sprinting.

  I run into a wall and fall over. Behind me, very close behind me, is the click of a lock releasing.

  The gate is closing with Riemann on the other side.

  I get up again and run. I hit another wall. The approach lights go out, which doesn’t help. I manage a dozen or so steps without a collision. If one gate closes the others should close. It’s the protocol. I can’t tell if I’ve run into a wall or a gate. I might be running in the wrong direction.

  I keep moving. If I am moving.

  For a second the corridor is flooded with light. I see everything with ridiculous clarity: the whorls of fingerprints on the walls, the impressions of hundreds of different shoes on the smooth floor, the glow of the power lines behind the walls, the corridor itself, spiralling all the way out to the concourse where a Safety Team is reassuring onlookers that the sudden dip in lighting is nothing of concern, that nothing’s happening, and beyond them, the resort and the surrounding trees, and, further out still, more cities and fields, the images superimposed but every single one distinct and perfectly clear: our client, standing in a dark room and Li and Edda walking across a yellow field while the sky overhead is a terrifying unbroken blue.

  Long walk home

  Back at the safe house your phone rings. It’s the woman again. “What did Riemann tell you?”

  “He took the box.”

  “That isn’t important. What did he tell you?”

  You repeat everything you can remember: how he mentioned an airport; that he claimed to have been following the locals and that he allowed you to face them alone for the first minute; that the locals seemed to recognise you; that both of them had also mentioned an airport; that Riemann hadn’t been surprised when you shot one of them. That you let him take the box. You didn’t think he’d followed you. “What is he?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Did he mention any other names?”

  “Alexander Metzger. He said he was also at the airport. And that he died. Who is he?”

  “Did Riemann say what he thought was in the box?”

  “He thought it was information. Or something to bury in a mine. He asked if we were contaminating their sites. He said he would meet me again. He said he was here because of that meeting. He took the box.”

  “The box isn’t important. Did you tell him you were going back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Because that is what you’re going to do. You’ve done well, and now it’s time to go home…”

  She explains how. You’re to go to a particular tourist bar and meet a woman, Arne Vasilis. She’s travelling with Heritage and has a room at Resort Six. She’s due to return in a few days and wants to stay for longer. She thinks she can swap signatures with you and the authorities will treat it as a minor breach of protocol. Once you have her signature you’re to go straight to the Resort and stay in the public areas and then…

  The instructions are detailed. The woman makes you repeat them back to her. “Good. You’ve done very well.”

  “How do I recognise this woman?”

  “She will recognise you.”

  “How?”

  “That is not your concern. When you get back you need to report to the Defence Committee. This is what you need to tell them…”

  It’s a long report. You had a good memory then.

  You find the bar, take a table and wait to be recognised. Travellers come in, some accompanied by reps. None of them pay attention to you. They seem more intent on a screen that shows images of a building on fire.

  A woman joins you. Mid-thirties, bright clothes, their s
trange cheerfulness. “Adorna! I didn’t think you’d come.” She seems to know you.

  “Here I am.”

  “I nearly didn’t come myself.” The woman leans in, excited, conspiratorial. “I’ve never done anything like this,” she whispers. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

  You do your best to smile back. “It’s possible.” You take out the new bracelet and find the tiny panel. You ask her to put it on and count to fourteen and then remove it.

  She does what you say without asking questions. She trusts you more completely than you’ve ever trusted anyone. “I did have second thoughts about this when I heard what was happening.” She glances at the screen, which, instead of the burning building is now showing film of a man driving alone on a mountain road. The woman seems mesmerised. “There’s a rumour they’re thinking of calling us all back to the resorts. But then I thought: I’m never going to be here again, I might as well make the most of this. If they ask I’ll just say I missed the message. Besides, I read all about this time before I left. I don’t remember anything about any serious trouble. I’ll be safe.”

  You take the bracelet. “I keep this one,” you tell her. “This is yours.” You pass your old one across in its pouch. “You must remember not to put it on until you’re ready to go back. As soon as you put it on it tells them you’re me, understand?” It’s not true but she believes you. You slide the new bracelet onto your wrist. “And now, as far as they’re concerned, I’m you.”

  “Where did you learn how to do this?” The woman is delighted. She puts the pouch with her bracelet into her bag. “No, don’t tell me. It’s probably better I don’t know! Thank you so much for this. I’m so grateful for all this extra time. And I’m just sorry it didn’t work out for you.”

  You try to look sad. “Thank you for helping me.” For a moment you wonder if you’ve gone too far. But the woman looks pleased. The Number Cities like excessive courtesy.