Million Eyes

by C. R. Berry

  “We hit some snags but we’re almost there,” said Salazar. “Should be about fifteen minutes.”

  Miss Morgan looked at the clock. Just under four hours until the Shield failed. “Let me know the second we have access.”

  “Of course.”

  Miss Morgan started back to her office, stopping as she detected Melanie Cox behind her. She recognised the sound of her walk – small strides, fast footsteps.

  She turned and faced her, “What is it, Miss Cox?”

  “Miss Morgan, please can I ask what you’re doing about the incursion?”

  “No, you may not.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Morgan, but I feel that we all have a right to know exactly what you’re doing to fix this.”

  The audacity of it. “You have a right to know exactly nothing about anything until I am ready to tell you. And at this moment I don’t have the time or the inclination. So get back to what you were doing.” She turned and continued towards her office.

  “Miss Morgan, please!” Cox wailed. “The Shield’s going to fail in less than four hours – I want to know what’s going on!”

  Miss Morgan stopped again and faced her, silent.

  “I – I’m sorry.” Cox’s face was crimson, her hands trembled and the glint of tears was in her eyes. “Please. Please just tell us what’s happening. How can you expect us to work under these conditions? I don’t even know if I’m alive or dead out there, or if I was even born at all. When I finally got hold of my fiancé, he had no idea who I was. Called me a crazy bitch and hung up the phone.”

  “That’s normal, isn’t it?” shouted Anthony Graves, smirking, from across the room.

  “Fuck off, Tony,” said Cox. “Look, my point is, if you want us operating at optimal capacity, you have to give us something. Please. Just something to reassure us and put our minds at ease.”

  Highly strung Melanie Cox had worked in the C-Suite for the last year. Her anxiety issues were tiresome but, annoyingly, she was also Million Eyes’ most talented analyst.

  Miss Morgan stepped towards her, got right in her face and said gently, “Miss Cox, I want you to take a breath and think very carefully about what you do next, because if you challenge me once more, I’ll have you escorted to the Room so fast your face will turn inside out. Is that clear?”

  Cox visibly swallowed, paling instantly, and gave several small, frightened nods.

  “Good. Now what I suggest you do is turn around and go back to your desk and we’ll forget this.”

  Cox turned and scuttled over to her desk like a mouse, and Miss Morgan carried on to her office.

  Not long after, Lara Driscoll was at Miss Morgan’s door again with another printout from Ferro’s blog that had been misfiled. Thank God for shit archive staff.

  In it, Ferro mentioned having learned about the recently discovered journal of Sir Lionel Frensham, one of Edward IV’s courtiers, and the pertinent section read:

  I spoke with the Bodleian Library, which now has possession of Frensham’s journal. They told me that the journal references an incident that occurred in June 1482, namely an encounter between Edward IV and a mysterious intruder who broke into his bedchamber and interrogated him about a book.

  I’m heading up to Oxford tomorrow so I can study Frensham’s journal in detail and find out if this book was The History of Computer-Aided Timetabling for Railway Systems by Jeremy Jennings. I highly suspect that it was, and if so, then Edward IV’s intruder was another time traveller.

  “Fuck me,” Miss Morgan whispered. It was now all but certain that the book Ferro had been chasing was the one Jennifer took with her to the past. And she suspected that Edward IV’s intruder was not another time traveller at all, but the same one. Robert Skinner’s next stop was Edward IV’s bedchamber in June 1482.

  She called Skinner.

  “Yes, ma’am?” he said, sounding fatigued.

  “Report, Mr Skinner.”

  “Nothing yet, ma’am, but I will find it. I just need a bit more –”

  “Please don’t say time.”

  She heard him swallow. “I promise, I will find it.”

  “No, you won’t. Not there, anyway. You’re done with 1348.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have a new lead. I’ve found evidence, courtesy of Gregory Ferro, that the ‘Godfreys’ – whoever they were – may have returned the book to the Royals. And this information tells me that you’re due to pay King Edward IV a visit in June 1482 and interrogate him about it.”

  Skinner sighed. “You want me to jump again?”

  “Yes. Was that not clear by what I just said?”

  “I – er – yes. It was. I just…”

  “What is it? Spit it out.”

  He paused, then, “Nothing, ma’am.”

  “Good. Get it done, Mr Skinner.”

  She hung up.

  Moments later, Juanita Salazar informed her that they had gained access to the internet of the altered timeline. Now she could find out what was really going on out there. She told Salazar to give her – and only her – access. She didn’t want everyone distracting and worrying themselves googling their alternate lives.

  She immediately connected her MEc and tried to navigate to Google. She ended up at a search engine called ‘Spoggle’, so it looked like either Google had been erased or had undergone a desperately ill-conceived name change. She ‘spoggled’ her most important consideration: Million Eyes.

  Spoggle brought up nothing. Million Eyes’ official website and social media pages – gone. All the sites for their products, subsidiaries, and subsidiaries’ products – gone. All the recent news articles about Million Eyes winning nine awards at the Vantage Point Innovation Awards – gone.

  Wait. There was an entry for Million Eyes on something called Omnipedia, which looked like this timeline’s version of Wikipedia. She clicked the link.

  Million Eyes, originally known as Thousand Eyes, was an English secret society founded sometime in the 10th or 11th century. Its goals are unclear, but it is believed by most modern scholars that it wanted to control the monarchy and government of England.

  Not good. Not good at all. Miss Morgan swallowed hard and took a drag of her latest cigarette.

  Very little is known about Million Eyes, its members and what they did. What is known is that when James VI of Scotland succeeded to the English throne as James I in 1603, it sought an alliance with the king to attain a direct influence over the government. James was immediately presented with evidence that Million Eyes was planning to destroy the monarchy at some point in the future and, in consequence, a large number of its members were arrested, tried and executed for treason. James subsequently passed an Act of Parliament banning Million Eyes.

  It appeared from the rest of the page that nobody knew what this ‘evidence’ presented to James I was, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to work that out.

  The book. The transcription. Miss Morgan was right about what effect it would have on Million Eyes’ rise to power. Thanks to that transcription, Million Eyes never rose to power. Centuries of hard work had been erased from history.

  She called Skinner.

  The phone rang and rang. Where the bloody hell was he?

  Finally, the call connected. “Why did it take you so long to answer?”

  Silence. “Skinner?”

  No one answered, but she could hear breathing.

  “Mr Skinner! What the hell are you doing?”

  Finally, an answer. “What sorcery is this?”

  Shit. Not Skinner’s voice. “What? Who is this?”

  “You are speaking with King Edward IV of England. What is your name, madam?”

  Fuck! How could he have got hold of Skinner’s phone? She pounded her desk with her fist, “Jesus!”

  The king took her curse as an answer. “You dare to impersonate our Lord Jesus Christ? You must be one of Satan’s apostates.”

  She played along. Since her chronophone had a translation matrix allow
ing her to communicate with non-English speakers without having to learn the language – including medieval kings speaking archaic forms of English – there was a chance she could get through to him and find out what had happened to Skinner. “Yes. That’s right. I am. And I have great power, too. So I suggest you do as I say or I will release a plague of” – she thought quickly about what would sound most frightening in the 1400s – “cats upon you.”

  A pause. The king probably didn’t like the sound of that, but held firm nonetheless, “I am not afraid. I serve the Lord, and Him alone. Whatever power you possess is no match for Him.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Where is the owner of the device we are using to speak?”

  “You mean the man I just killed?”

  No! She gritted her teeth. “Fuck!”

  Skinner had failed. He’d failed and fucking got himself killed. Now she’d plummeted right back to square one.

  She felt a stab of guilt. She was the one who tasked him with this, even though he’d failed once before. She should’ve seen this coming.

  She hit a sequence of buttons on her phone and transmitted a feedback surge across the phone line. The effect would’ve distorted the chronoton energy in Skinner’s phone and displaced it in time. She couldn’t leave a medieval English king with a chronophone.

  That being said, Skinner had a bottle of chronozine with him. Where was that now? Presumably he would’ve kept it on him, which meant Edward IV might’ve got his hands on it. She could only hope that he’d be none the wiser about its capabilities.

  Wait a minute.

  Glancing back at the Omnipedia page for Million Eyes, still displayed on her MEc screen, she noticed something.

  The wording had changed…

  Million Eyes was an English secret society that amassed great power in the Parliament of England shortly after James VI of Scotland succeeded the English throne as James I. It maintained this power until it was found to be plotting against the throne in the late 19th century.

  Now it was the 19th century?

  How could this be?

  She read further. The subsequent paragraphs had changed too…

  Million Eyes’ exact motives are unclear. It is believed the group was initially founded in the 10th or 11th century. After James I came to the throne, Million Eyes sought an alliance with the king to attain a direct influence over the government. James I agreed to grant an undisclosed number of peerages to high-ranking members of Million Eyes (although their affiliation with Million Eyes was kept secret).

  Million Eyes’ influence in Parliament grew over the next few centuries. Then, in September 1888, evidence was presented to Queen Victoria via an anonymous informant (revealed years later to have been Mary Ann Nichols) implicating Million Eyes in a plot to destroy the monarchy of Britain and completely take over the government. As a result, Million Eyes members of both Houses of Parliament were exposed, tried for treason and imprisoned. Queen Victoria subsequently passed an Act of Parliament banning Million Eyes.

  She stood up and walked over to the window.

  Everything had changed again. Had it changed back? No. The bronze statue of Egyptian goddess Heket and the parade of skyscrapers were gone, but a couple of unfamiliar towers still remained. County Hall and Buckingham Palace were back and the royal parks were green again, but the London Eye, Miss Morgan’s regular Starbucks and the statue of Arthur Pell were still missing. And although the Houses of Parliament had returned, there was no sign of Big Ben.

  Actually, the lack of Big Ben was the most disturbing change. If the timeline had been restored up to 1888, Big Ben was already built by then, which suggested that, in this timeline, someone or something had destroyed it.

  Miss Morgan hurried back to her desk and continued reading the Omnipedia page. As before, whatever this ‘evidence’ presented to Queen Victoria consisted of was unknown.

  It had to be the transcription. Had to be. Somehow the path of the book had changed. No longer did it make its way to James I and lead him to block Million Eyes’ rise to power in Parliament. That all still happened as it was supposed to.

  Now it was Queen Victoria who was responsible for bringing down Million Eyes.

  How?

  Of course. Me. It was my fault.

  Miss Morgan had changed the path of the book by sending Skinner to retrieve it from Edward IV. Steered it out of James I’s hands and into the hands of some woman called Mary Ann Nichols.

  So Skinner’s journey to 1482 to confront the king wasn’t pre-destined.

  Or was it?

  Fucking time travel. There were times when she really hated it.

  But, even though she’d altered the path of the book, she hadn’t stopped it. It still ended up in royal hands, and Million Eyes was still erased. All she’d done was delay its erasure to 1888.

  She needed to move quickly. Three hours, ten minutes left till the Shield failed.

  She remembered Driscoll telling her that James Rawling was working the night shift in Time Travel. She called Driscoll from her MEc, “I want James Rawling sent up to my office immediately.”

  33

  When the lanky and strange-looking James Rawling crossed the C-Suite and entered Miss Morgan’s office, Melanie Cox felt a twist of angst in her gut. Why was he getting involved? Where was Robert Skinner? It wasn’t fair of Miss Morgan to keep them all in the dark like this.

  “Why do you think he’s here?” she whispered to Lara Driscoll as Rawling closed Miss Morgan’s door.

  “That’s none of your business, is it?” Driscoll said like a teacher to a naughty schoolchild. “Did Miss Morgan not make that abundantly clear when she threatened to send you to the Room?”

  Oh shut up you brown-nosing bitch, Cox thought but would never say. She wasn’t sure why she asked her, to be honest. Driscoll had her head so far up Miss Morgan’s arse she was surprised she could see for shit.

  Cox had chewed off all her fingernails while she waited for answers that just weren’t forthcoming. How Miss Morgan expected her to concentrate when potentially her whole life had been changed, perhaps even erased, she had no idea.

  Enough was enough. She wanted answers and she’d waited long enough. She got up, walked over to the office of Juanita Salazar, the CTO, and knocked at the door.

  “Come in,” said Miss Salazar, looking up briefly from her MEc as Cox entered. “Ah, Miss Cox, have you calmed down after your little outburst earlier?”

  She had, but she stood by everything she said. She just should’ve phrased it differently and, well, not shouted. Shouting at Miss Morgan was never a good move.

  “Y-yes, ma’am,” said Cox, swallowing.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I, er… I’m sorry to disturb but I wondered if you knew why Miss Morgan has summoned James Rawling to her office?”

  “I didn’t know she had.”

  “So she hasn’t told you what she’s doing about the incursion?”

  “No, Miss Cox, she hasn’t.” There was an irritated edge to her voice. Cox couldn’t tell if it was because Miss Morgan had kept her in the dark too, or if she was similarly annoyed with Cox for prying for answers.

  Cox pretended not to detect any irritation. “Doesn’t that concern you, ma’am?”

  Miss Salazar looked at her, frowning. “We’re all concerned, Miss Cox. The whole world has been rewritten.”

  “Exactly!” said Cox, a bit too excitedly. “That’s what I’ve been saying. And we don’t have a clue what’s being done about it.”

  “We know Miss Morgan is trying to restore the timeline. We’ve already seen changes.”

  “Yeah, okay, so Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament are standing again, and that giant Egyptian statue is gone, and some of the streets are back where they’re supposed to be. But scattered changes here and there – surely that means she hasn’t managed to nail what caused this. Otherwise she’d be able to restore everything all at once. Wouldn’t she?”

  “Miss Cox, why don’t
you get to the point?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Salazar, I don’t mean any disrespect. I’m just… I’m struggling to just sit here and have absolute trust that Miss Morgan can fix this singlehandedly without any input from the rest of us.”

  “That’s how she works most of the time. She keeps her own counsel.”

  “Yeah, and she’s been criticised for it before.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “People talk, ma’am. The point is, this situation is entirely different. All our lives are at stake here. She should be consulting us. And what worries me is if she’s enlisted Rawling, it means Robert Skinner’s failed.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “I just wondered if you could… if you might just consider… talking to her. Just to find out what’s going on.” She glanced at the clock on the wall of Miss Salazar’s office. “Because in three hours, the Shield around this building is going to fail and, if Miss Morgan’s not on top of this, all of our lives will change permanently.”

  “That might not be a bad thing for some of us.”

  Cox couldn’t tell if that statement was directed at her. She knew everybody thought Ian, her fiancé, was a nasty, abusive drunk, but they only knew the half of it. They didn’t see him when he was tender, when he brought home yellow roses for her every Monday, when he massaged her feet at the end of a hard day’s work, when he made her breakfast in bed at the weekend and bought her jewellery and beautiful dresses just to thank her for being her. He loved her and, for all his flaws, she loved him too.

  Right now, all of that was gone. Everything they had together, good and bad, had been pinched out of existence. Screw what anybody else thought. She wanted him back.

  “I’m sure all of us have things in our lives that we want back,” said Cox. “If we get absorbed into this new timeline, they’ll be gone forever, or worse. Some of us might not even exist in the new timeline. Some of us might never have been born.”