by Tim O'Rourke
Annora glanced up to see a light come on in one of the front windows. Within a matter of moments, she heard footsteps behind the front door. She pictured Mr. Parker shuffling down the hallway clutching his walking cane. Annora felt guilty for waking the old man at such a late hour, but what other choice did she have, other than to freeze to death in the snow? Slowly, the door swung open. She turned to face the door.
A man stood in the open doorway, and it wasn’t Mr. Parker. He was far too young. Whoever the man was, he took one look at Annora, threw his hands to his face, and screamed.
Chapter Twenty-One
The year 2067…
The Bot followed Karl to the room that Sergeant Shaw had arranged for him. Karl closed the door as the Bot walked across the room, stopping at the end of a bed that was positioned against the far wall. The neon sign above the door of the Night Diner must have been directly beneath the bedroom window, as the light from it illuminated the walls in a soft blue glow. There was enough light in the room that Karl didn’t need to turn the light on. He could see enough to know his new accommodation was dingy, rundown, and sparsely furnished. He had expected as much.
Karl set his case down by a small bedside cabinet, then took off his jacket. He dropped it onto the bed and looked at the Bot who stood perfectly still, its chrome body reflecting the neon light that streamed through the window. The Sexbot stared at Karl with its giant black eyes.
“Male or female?” the Bot asked Karl, its voice soft—monotone.
“I’m sorry?” Karl frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“What is your pleasure?” it asked again. “Would you like me to be male or female?”
“Female,” Karl said.
Without another word, and much to Karl’s amazement and surprise, the robot’s chrome chest-plate began to change shape—bulge outward—taking the shape of two female breasts.
“Do they please you?” the Bot asked, its voice no longer monotone, but distinctly female. “Perhaps bigger…?”
“No, stop!” Karl said, raising one hand. “I don’t want to have sex with you. I couldn’t care less how big or small your tits are.”
“No?” the Bot said, tilting its head to one side as if it didn’t understand. “Then what is your pleasure?”
Picking up his jacket from the bed, Karl reached into one of the pockets. He took out the photograph of Annora. After unfolding the photo, he held it up in front of the Bot’s large, black eyes. “I want you to look like the young woman in this picture. That is my pleasure.”
The Sexbot’s eyes widened a little, as if studying the picture Karl was holding up. He stood and watched the Bot as its eyes began to brighten. Light began to shine from them. The light formed what looked like a transparent shell around the chrome skull of the Bot. Then, to Karl’s amazement, the light began to take shape, mould itself into the face of Annora. Tendrils of light weaved and twisted from the head of the Bot as it mimicked Annora’s long, blonde flowing hair.
Karl took a staggering step backwards as he looked at the Bot. He put a hand to his face in shock, as the photograph of Annora fell to the floor. Although the face of the Bot was slightly transparent like a hologram, it did undoubtedly look like Annora Snow. And in the dim light of the room, it looked as if she had come back from the dead and was standing before him. Karl’s heart began to race. He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d asked the Bot to look like Annora, but now that she was standing before him, he found the whole experience unnerving.
“Do I please you?” the Bot asked.
Although its voice was female, it was not Annora’s voice.
“Shhh, don’t talk,” Karl said, reaching out and placing one finger against the lips made of light. And although the face was translucent, it felt real to the touch. He could feel Annora’s soft lips against his finger. With his hands trembling, he gently cupped one hand to the side of her face and the other he lost in the soft curls of her hair. She felt so real, and the longer he stared into her eyes, the more real she seemed to become. The Bot’s head came forward, and he leaned into her, the soft swell of her breasts against him. She felt unbelievably real—too real, as her lips brushed against his.
Karl lurched backwards, turning his back on the Bot. His heart was beating so loud in his chest he could hear it thrumming in his ears over the continuous thump of music coming from the bar below.
“You can go now,” he told the Bot.
“Did I pleasure you?” it asked him.
“Just get out,” he snapped, not looking back.
He listened to the Bot walk across the room to the door. He heard the door swing open. Karl glanced up and watched the Bot step out into the passageway. As it turned to close the door, Karl could see that its face was chrome and featureless once more. The Bot’s unnaturally large black eyes met Karl’s stare.
“Just get out of here,” Karl hissed.
“As you wish,” the Bot said before pulling the door shut, leaving Karl alone in the room.
Karl stooped and picked up the picture of Annora. He held it in his trembling hands. Why had he asked the Bot to look like her? What had he been thinking of? Had he hoped that it might spark some fresh memories of her? Had he been hoping he might at last begin to remember that fateful night of the crash? The night she had died. What he’d wanted to remember the most was what Annora had truly meant to him. What kind of relationship had they had? He felt that until he knew that, he couldn’t really grieve for her—lay her to rest.
He placed the picture back into his jacket pocket and crossed the room to a door set into the far wall. He pushed it open to find himself looking into a poky bathroom. There was a shower cubical, a sink, and mirror attached to the wall. A towel hung from a nearby rail. He removed his gun and holster, then his clothes. Karl stepped beneath the shower and then switched it on. The water ran warm almost at once. Lowering his head, he let the water rain down over his body, washing thoughts of Annora away. Maybe he would never remember that night. Perhaps he would never remember what they had shared. Did it matter? Whatever they had once shared, Annora was dead. She was never coming back. Karl knew that he needed to move on—step away from the past. Perhaps that was the real reason Sergeant O’Neil had sent him to Outpost 71. Had she sensed that he needed to put some distance between him and the accident he had been involved in?
As the hot water beat off his hard chest, back, and thighs, Karl began to wonder if O’Neil had done the best thing after all by sending him to such a remote outpost. He couldn’t be further away from his past. But if O’Neil had planned for him to find some solitude—a less fast-paced place to patrol—then she had been gravely mistaken. He hadn’t been at the outpost more than a few moments before becoming embroiled in a murder enquiry. Despite what Sergeant Shaw said, he knew that Lucy May hadn’t died of a drug overdose. And it wasn’t only the snapshot images he had seen in the container that convinced him that she had been murdered. There was something else, too. But what? What hadn’t he seen? What wasn’t he seeing? He wished that his mother, Kiera, was still alive. She would have seen what he couldn’t. He missed her. Every time he thought of her, his heart ached. That pain never grew any less, however much time had passed since her death.
Pressing the flats of his hands against the tiled shower wall, Karl let the warm water run down the length of his back. He screwed his eyes shut as water dripped from the tip of his nose and chin. He tried to picture the horrific scene in the container. He saw Lucy May stretched out on the floor, the maggots burrowing in and out of her face. He saw the gaping wound in her throat. He saw those three shadowy figures, two of them holding her down while the other knelt over her. He saw the blood splash the walls of the container…
Karl snapped open his eyes.
He knew what he hadn’t seen because it hadn’t been there to be seen. Karl turned off the water and stepped from the shower. He grabbed the towel from the rail, and then wrapped it tight about his waist. As he stood dripping water over the bathroom fl
oor, he knew it was blood he hadn’t seen. Sure, he had seen it in the mysterious vision that he’d had of Lucy May’s murder, but there hadn’t been blood at the crime scene. There hadn’t been any blood on the floor of her apartment, nor up the walls. She’d had her throat torn open. Whether it had been done by rats or not wasn’t the point. The point was that the wound in her throat was gaping, so shouldn’t that container have been covered with her blood? As far as Karl could remember, there hadn’t been any blood anywhere near Lucy May’s corpse.
So where had all the blood gone?
Chapter Twenty-Two
The year 1973…
The man who stood in the open doorway with his hands to his face peeked through his fingers at Annora. “You were meant to travel forward—not backward!”
“Who are you?!” Annora said with the same level of confusion the man had spoken with.
Ignoring her question, the man lowered his hands from his face. Still looking at her agog, he said, “This is bad. This is very bad!”
“Who are you?” Annora asked again, clutching the umbrella to her. Was this man Mr. Parker’s son? As she stared at him in the light that spilled from the hallway, she could see that the man was something like forty years younger than Mr. Parker, but thought that perhaps there was some kind of resemblance between them.
Ignoring her question again, he grabbed her by the arm, ushering her into the hallway. Before closing the front door, he poked his head out into the night and glanced furtively left and right along the street. He shut the door and threw the bolt before turning the key in the lock. Fearing that she was in danger again, Annora kept the umbrella closed, but pointed the silver tip at him.
“Who are you?!” Annora asked for the third time.
But instead of answering her, the man shot forward in a heartbeat and snatched the umbrella from Annora. He looked down at the umbrella as he turned it over in his hands. “This is very nice,” he said with a smile. “Made from Vampyrus wings and silver from The Hollows. I haven’t seen one of these since…”
“Hey, that’s mine,” Annora said, snatching it out of his hands and rearming herself with it. In the tight confines of the hallway, they both looked at each other. Beneath the light that shone down from the bare lightbulb above, Annora looked at the man and gasped. It couldn’t be possible. Why couldn’t it be possible? She had seen and experienced so much in the last few hours that anything could now be possible.
She took a deep breath to calm her frayed nerves and racing heart. “You’re him, aren’t you?”
“Who, exactly?” he asked, brushing past her and heading into the kitchen at the end of the hallway.
Annora followed. She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. She stared wide-eyed into his face. “You’re younger—like forty years younger—but you’re Mr. Parker, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said with a nod of his head. He brushed her hand away, circled the kitchen table, and stooped down in front a set of cupboards beneath the sink. He yanked open the door, reached inside, and retrieved a bottle.
As he turned to face Annora once more, she could see that he was now holding a glass bottle that was full with a thick, black liquid. The neck of the bottle was covered in stringy cobwebs. These Mr. Parker brushed away before removing the lid of the bottle with his thumb. He put the bottle to his lips and gulped down some of the gloopy black liquid.
“That’s better,” he said, wiping his lips with the sleeve of the blue denim shirt he wore.
Believing he was drinking alcohol, and in need of some herself, Annora said, “Can I have some of that?”
Mr. Parker clutched the bottle to his chest, cradling it like a baby. “No, it’s mine. Have a cup of tea if you’re thirsty.”
“I need more than a cup of tea after everything that has happened tonight,” she said, lowering the umbrella, but still holding it tight in her fist.
Mr. Parker reached up and fetched down a bottle of whiskey and a glass from a nearby shelf. He placed them on the table before Annora. “Help yourself,” he said, pulling back a chair and sitting down at the table.
Not knowing whether she could yet trust this younger version of Mr. Parker, and not wanting to let go of the umbrella to pour herself a drink, she stood before the table and looked at him. Gone were the age-defying wrinkles that had once lined his face. His hair was no longer thinning and white, but dark brown and wavy. Mr. Parker’s eyes were no longer milky-white with cataracts, but clear blue and bright.
He took another swig of the black stuff that filled the bottle, then replaced the lid. “What?” he asked, cocking one eyebrow at her.
“Shouldn’t I be the one asking, what?” Annora shot at him, her fear turning into anger and frustration. “Like what the fuck is happening here?”
“You’ve travelled backward through time to 1973,” he said. He glanced up and down at the clothes she was wearing. “I thought that would be plainly obvious because of the flower-power blouse—”
“Plainly obvious!” Annora cried in disbelief. She slammed the umbrella down on the table, then snatched up the bottle of whiskey and the glass. She poured herself a shot, threw back her head, and jerked the contents of the glass into the back of her throat. Despite the burning sensation, she poured herself another.
“Hey, go easy on that stuff,” Mr. Parker said, reaching across the table and snatching the bottle from her. “You need to keep your wits about you. This isn’t over yet.”
“What isn’t over yet?” Annora snapped at him. She felt like crying, but wouldn’t allow herself to. “None of this… none of what happened tonight makes any sense.”
“What did happen tonight?” he asked, sliding a chair back from the table with his foot so Annora could sit down.
“Apart from travelling back to 1973, you mean?” Annora groaned and dropped down onto the chair.
“Hey that was your fault,” he said. “You can’t blame me for that. Like I said, you were meant to travel forward, not backward.”
“My fault?” Annora gasped in disbelief. Her eyes bulged as she stared at him. “How can any of this be my fault?”
Clasping his hands beneath his chin as if sobbing, Parker began to whine and moan like a spoilt child in the throes of a tantrum. “Oh, my life is so terrible. I have parents who don’t understand me. Why doesn’t anyone take any notice of me? I want to be a rebel, but don’t really know what I’m rebelling against. Perhaps I should rebel against my rich parents and all the material shit they’ve given me. The shit that I don’t appreciate because I’m a spoilt brat. I know, I’ll steal a car. I’ll run away. I’ll sleep with lots of guys—the sort of guys daddy would forbid me to associate with, let alone sleep with. I’ll write a book about my wretched and unfulfilled life. It will become a bestseller and that will get mummy and daddy’s attention. Then they’ll notice me…”
Realising that Parker was mimicking her and her past life, Annora pushed the chair back from the table and shot up. “Why don’t you just piss off!” She headed for the kitchen door. She wanted to be away from Parker, away from the house, and out of 1973.
Before she had taken more than a step, Parker had sprung from his seat. He gripped her by the arm, spinning her around to face him. With his face an inch from hers, he said, “The layers don’t always give you what you ask for, but they always give you what you need, Annora Snow.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The year 2067…
Karl woke early the next morning. With his eyes half open, he reached out with one hand, fumbling for his mobile comlink where he’d placed it on the bedside cabinet the night before. Through half shut eyes, he peered at the screen: 06:56 the time read. Squinting at the comlink, he could see that there was no Net connection displayed. Groaning, he dropped the comlink down onto his bare chest. Without a connection, he wouldn’t be able to open the maps of Outpost 71 and find the location of the Temporal Office. Its location was something Sergeant Shaw and her crew had forgotten to tell him the previous nigh
t. But then again, he hadn’t bothered to ask. However, he had all day to find it, as he wasn’t due into work for his first duty until later that evening.
Be at the station tomorrow evening. Come after dark. Outpost 71 is far more exciting to patrol at night, Sergeant Shaw had told him, whatever the fuck that meant.
“Don’t they have a dayshift in this shithole?” Karl groaned, throwing back the bedsheets.
Naked, he padded to the bathroom, switched on the light, and peed. While washing his hands in the sink, he looked into the mirror. He cocked his head left and right. The streaks of navy blue in his hair looked brighter than ever in the glare of the strip lighting overhead. With his hair streaked dark blue, along with his bright hazel eyes, Karl couldn’t help but now see a keen likeness between him and his mother. With his square jawline and bent-out-of-shape nose, Karl had always thought that he looked more like his father. But as he looked at his reflection, he now wasn’t so sure. He ran one hand over the dark stubble that covered his jawline before splashing cold water onto his face to fully wake himself up. He would shave later. He was keen to head back to the apartment where Lucy May had died—been murdered—and see if he had been right in his belief that there hadn’t been any blood left at the crime scene.
As he got dressed in dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and jacket, he wished now that he had paid more attention when his mother, Kiera, had gone to great lengths to try and explain the importance of blood splatter patterns found at crime scenes. But as a youth, Karl had found his father’s stories far more entertaining and amusing. His father had teased his mother about blood splatter marks, forensics, and clues of any kind. Sean Potter had told Karl that if you wanted to find out the truth, you just had to give the main suspect a good kick in the bollocks and he would soon confess.