Cloud Field

by A M Russell

  Oh Hell! My head swirled and my vision was like those over bright cartoons. I wasn’t sure what was happening until I collapsed on the floor; which fortunately had some matting on it.

  ‘Davey! Davey! Say something.’ I could smell roses, but my eyes wouldn’t open. Something was wrong. So wrong. I was sinking without a trace….

  ‘It’s easy when you think about It.’ said Jared. He was standing in my mother’s kitchen. I could see her down the garden clipping some roses. She looked up and smiled at me. In this dream I felt lighter. But there was something in my hand. Curled in the right palm was the stone from the pond.

  ‘I have to go now.’ said Jared.

  ‘No. wait!’ but he had his hand on the door. He turned and looked at me then.

  ‘It’s alright. You have everything you need.’ He stood looking so well. He was wearing a deep purple shirt, and his hair was a bit spiky like it had gel in it or something.

  ‘I need to get back tonight.’ he said. I looked at his hands. He held a casual jacket in one, and car keys in the other.

  ‘Just stay a little while.’ I said

  ‘You know I can’t. Not tonight. I have to meet the other candidates. It’s the most important decision of my life…. You know how much this means to me.’

  ‘No. Jared no… Please don’t go!’ but he opened the door and went through.

  Then I was standing on a lane. A country lane in the dark. I saw the headlights of a car, as it slowed to take the corner I saw Jared was driving, and Janey was in the passenger seat. They went round the corner. From the direction they had come in I heard a low sound; a distant rumble. There was another car behind them. The driver was not visible. But the car was marked by a strange number plate. Ordinary, but for a geek like me it really stood out. “MO 31 US” looked at as all letters read “Mobius”. A mathematical shape with only one side. An eternal path. You keep going and you get right back to where you started.

  As one does in dream I caught up with the cars a few miles down the road in a moment. There was wreckage strewn across the tarmac. They were other people who had come the opposite way. Their head lights were shining starkly on the scene. They were trying to help the man in the second car. He looked at me. ‘Didn’t brake. Didn’t slow down.’

  I saw huge scrape down a stone wall. Where one car had slammed into another without stopping. Nowhere to go. Here were narrow country lanes and walls to keep the sheep off the road. I walked towards the crumpled mess of the car Jared had been driving. I was looking for them.

  ‘Davey! We’re here.’ Janey and Jared stood in the road. They were fine.

  ‘Please don’t look over there.’ said Janey, ‘I don’t want you to see me like that.’

  ‘Why not Janey?’ I asked.

  ‘Because today is my birthday. I only want to look beautiful on my birthday.’

  ‘We have to get going now Janey.’ said Jared, ‘we can’t stay here.’

  The Ambulance Crew were lifting out bodies with the Firemen’s help.

  Then suddenly I was alone and the sun was rising. A Detective stood in the road looking at the tyre marks of the other car. His sergeant shouted from the car: ‘They’ve got it sir! The brakes had been tampered with. Those two young people didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘Someone’s daughter, someone’s son.’ muttered the detective. Then he looked up sharply. He strode up to me and prodded me in the chest with a hard policeman’s finger. ‘What are you doing here Sonny! Get back to your job at once!’ the whole scene faded like smoke. I saw more trees and a sunrise, and Janey and Jared sitting on a boulder together. There was something about the air. Fresh. Something familiar on those little breezes. Janey turned; ‘Don’t look at me,’ she said, ‘Not unless you love me.’

  ‘Jared?’ I asked, ‘Can Janey come with me?’

  ‘I’m sorry Davey…’ he looked so sad. ‘I want you to help get my Janey home. But how can you stop this?’

  ‘Tell me how.’

  ‘You have loved us both. Find us…’ here he let something fall from his hand, ‘find us before They do.’

  I tried to walk forward to see what it was. Something small, something that glinted in the sunlight. The weight on my chest got heavier and heavier and I pitched over towards rough grass. Cool grass. I felt cool again. My cheek. My mind. The scent of Roses and Jasmine. Then something sharper and more metallic.

  A cave floated into my field of vision. In the corner of my eye I saw Aiden. The lights were turned down. He took off his glasses and looked at me.

  ‘The nurse will be here in a minute. I hope you’ll cooperate.’ His easy smile reassured me.

  The young girl came back. She was efficient and took my temperature, measured my pulse. Aiden came over. ‘That’s fine you can go and change over the shift now.’ She left smiling politely.

  ‘Does she ever say anything?’ I asked

  ‘Way out of your league Davey.’ said Aiden quickly.

  ‘In what way?’ I was curious even though he’d measured my interest in that way.

  ‘She can’t speak. She is a mute.’ He put the stethoscope in his ears, listened. Moved it about some more listened again. ‘You’ll live. But just don’t do that again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stay where Janey puts you, won’t you?’

  ‘Alright…’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ Aiden’s eyes flickered for a moment with something troubling; then he said, ‘she’s just over there. She’ll come over in a minute.’

  Aiden had tapped her gently on the shoulder then as she sat chin in her palms staring at Jared’s shadowed eyes and the throb of a pulse at his throat.

  She came and sat by me, but a little more upright.

  ‘Janey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want to help you…. I mean I want to save you.’

  ‘Davey…. Thank you; but it’s too late for that. Actually it’s been too late for that for a long time…. I’m… Jared is…. We….’

  I reached out a battered hand and took hers, ‘I know…. I do. Look at me now. It’s alright, I know.’

  She moved her hands round mine gently and touched my watch. ‘The time is nearly over. You are still in the dope zone. You can’t stay once it wears off. You’ll have to leave.’

  ‘But we’ve got more in the pack…. I can take another dose.’

  ‘No…. we gave you a sedative to counter the speed hit. But it's the other concoction. I think the whole combination would really kill you. We don’t know how to split it down. George sneaked a third thing in the dose. That’s how we found you.’

  ‘Something in the dose that you can trace?’

  ‘Yes. We can trace tags here too. This has been here longer than everything else. George again.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Science….or something else.’ she shrugged in that way she did that made her hair run over her shoulders, and added firmly ‘It was before the corporate sponsors got into this.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Some guy called Rimmington seems to be behind all this. But he’s never been seen.’ She smiled then and seemed despondent at the same time. ‘You will forget what I said. Everyone who comes here forgets. We’re like ghosts. Like memories.’

  ‘Janey….. I…..’ I felt weak again. We both looked across the room.

  ‘Janey come here.’ said Aiden.

  Something in his voice alerted that cold chill inside me. I forced myself up. With the blanket wrapped round me I moved towards a chair with a back.

  Jared's breathing was very shallow, and there was a sheen on his skin like silk. He had not woken up they told me. Janey took his hand and clasped it to her heart. Aiden got a hypo; and made ready to put it in his left arm. He moved then. Tensed and relaxed and his head turned a little. I could see the reflection of light on his eyes from half closed lids. Aiden put the needle to one side. He took Jared’s other hand. Jared’s head turned slowly from side to side. His breathing became rougher for a moment or t
wo. There was a pause. His eyes flickered and closed fully. There was a breath. Then a pause…. Then another breath… I was waiting for the longest time. His hand squeezed Janey’s very hard. A breath and then a long sigh. I waited. His face relaxed into that half smile. There was a silence as if eternity had spilled down from above and held us all; until it passed like the deep pool of a summer afternoon. A breeze stirred as clouds came over the sun.

  Janey looked to Aiden. Her eyes were pleading for hope, yet within deep blue stirred misty tendrils of despair. She turned back to Jared, searching for any sign.

  Aiden felt for the carotid pulse. He did every check as Janey stood back near me. She was tearless, frozen into one last moment of that breath. I felt my own heart beat throbbing in my ears, so I looked down at the matting.

  Aiden's check was done. Janey's lips parted sharply breathing inwards.

  ‘I’m so sorry. He’s gone.’ Aiden laid Jared’s arm across his chest then. He turned away and rubbed his own face. He went and sat down heavily in his chair. Janey wrapped herself round Jared’s chest and whispered something I could not hear. She sat back on her heels, kneeling on the floor after that. Her head bowed, and her golden hair across his body like a protective shield.

  I looked at his face. So calm, that smile; so like the one that lingered when he was amused, or proud of any of us. That expression I saw at the bridge... Another lifetime of something he chose on the outside.... I supposed some truly spiritual path. A Man whose love was quiet, but enduring. There seemed to be a diffuse glow that came from nowhere in particular and rested on him. As I watched it diminished into quiet shadow. As if his spirit had lingered for a moment before he found a happier adventure. Janey I thought was weeping, but I wasn't sure. I tasted salt, and the sea blurred my vision. I had to say a last goodbye in my mind. Jared had said this was the last time for him. Whatever hope that tried to claw its way in, as the result of my dream I put aside. It only added a bitter tasting sting to an almost unendurable loss. And now it ached so much I thought I should never get up and carry on; but my part of the story was soon to find true significance. But beyond that time of gravity, for as nature works we slip away from that moment so quickly. Even so I stared at Jared's face for as long as I could. This was one pain I didn't want to forget. It would counter deception and double-talk, pricked every bubble of pretension; and sharpen every sense so that even the silence hurt my mind.

  Then, when I could bear it no longer, Aiden summoned the other nurse. She got me back in the bed and fussed over me.

  After a while Aiden lifted Janey from the body of her brother, and a young girl I had not seen before took her from the room. For a few moments Aiden left, and I was alone with Jared sleeping so peacefully in death. I shut my eyes trying to find something to cling to. I heard the sound of movement. Aiden had returned with two young men. One carried a purple cloth over one arm. They spread it out between them and with respectful care covered Jared’s body. They lifted the stretcher and bearing their burden, took him with them back through the door they had entered.

  Aiden sat with me for a while after that. Janey had gone to break the news to Oliver. I was empty. And so…. so tired. I needed to know if Jared had known what happened to him in the outside world. I trusted my vision because it made sense of everything. The lack of back story. Jared never talked about his past. Neither did Janey. With a shock I saw: There was no past. Janey could never be recruited to the project because she could not ever be found. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the inevitable thought that knocked insistently at the outer door of my mind trying to gain admittance. Janey was already dead to anyone who ever loved her or Jared out there…. back home in the real world.

  I hated the way my nature was working against me; it told me I was getting stronger. That in a few hours I would stand up on my feet and not faint. That I would walk; and not be tired. I had a mission. I thought I had a mission. As soon as I knew what it was clearly I would leave. Fuck Hanson! Thinking that didn’t exactly make me feel better but it was all I had for now. He’d stupidly helped this “Rimmington” fuck the rest of us. And I knew the face of the Detective; he had solid evidence that a crime had been committed.

  I had to get home. Do some research. Well, first I had to get home in one piece and talk to George and find out what happened to all the others they recruited. How many there were. People like the stranded Elland and all his group. Aiden’s people. Dieter. George. Anyone else who had ever been here. The soldiers were scary, but they had lives outside too. And maybe some of them didn’t want to be part of this. Someone would talk. Even maybe Jean the PA… not that I think she would be kept in the loop.

  Soon it was morning. Aiden took me to the place where all his people gathered. The mute girl Ellen, and the two younger lads Sam and Kelly. I also met Sarah, Jenny, Yvonne and Kay; then lastly Michael, Andy, and Ruben.

  ‘Are these all your team?’ I asked in wonder.

  ‘Yes. We all decided to stay. We could go back. But this is what we do. We are healers. We are not going to be made to work for the other side. Everyone here has chosen freely. The camp was set up at the initial induction stage of the project. All these people have been here more than five years. They all remember the past. They all know that while ever they are here, the project cannot be closed down. It’s defiance of the most subtle kind of all. Believing most of us to be dead, we’ve had nearly everyone’s file closed. We can contact George only once every six months. That’s when they have summer recess and the Christmas break. All the stores where brought here years ago: food, medical supplies, computer equipment. George erased us from the database at Main. We don’t exist; not officially anyway.’

  ‘That’s incredible. But just one thing troubles me…. How come no one ever finds you?’

  ‘That’s easy. I told how we officially don’t exist.’ He nodded to the mute girl who came over straight away. He showed me Ellen’s arm. She had a tattoo. This one was purple and gold and shaped like a snake wrapped round a staff.

  ‘The edge of the place you have also visited is completely inaccessible to the soldiers or anyone else. We met the tribes’ people after we had drunk from the spring water. They could see us then… they made themselves known to us. We watch over many others that are sent from Main. We watch over them… guardian angels of a rather practical kind.’

  ‘So the soldiers can’t see us in the caves down near the spring water.’

  ‘That’s right. It’s where the worlds cross over that they see us. We are seen now only if we choose to be seen. They are all given strict instructions to not eat or drink anything from that place. They were also given a drug that stops the alteration to the timeline that they personally inhabit.’

  ‘What if one of them…. is err…. killed?’

  ‘They would just cease to be here. Then they’d be back on the first transport out of here at Main base. A one shot wonder if you like; and with no memory of any of it. They’re just doing their job.’ he added.

  ‘So what of Elland?’

  ‘Elland is a useful person for all of us. They blame all the rumours on him. And we get information via Elland about them. He can’t remember us either you see. Elland was what the soldiers came to replace. Only he wasn’t into the world conquering racket.’

  ‘Why can’t he get back?’

  ‘They substituted the med packs at the last minute. So that when Elland and his men took their dose to stabilise the time line, it didn’t work. By that time a little light murder for lunch was very much in fashion with certain others the corporate developers were using. Kind of guilt free: like a film, or one of those nasty computer games.’ Here he pulled a face and then continued, ‘the only problem was for the movers and shakers back at Base, was that they didn’t reckon on Elland’s ingenuity. He wasn’t one of the pioneers on this project for nothing. He practically invented time stabilisation drugs. He is a medical chemist too, and a bloody good one, but without the right ingredients he cannot make the stuff again
.’

  ‘But what about the forest and the trees… medicinal plants; that sort of thing?’

  ‘Elland isn’t in that place. If you see him… he always looks a rather dusty character. There’s about a hundred miles of blistering desert between him and Main. Just about as good a barrier as any amount of snow and ice don’t you think? Don’t misunderstand me,’ Aiden continued, ‘we’d help him if we could, as we help anyone who needs it.’

  ‘Ok…. You saved my life. I wasn’t hallucinating then?’

  ‘Well you might have been. People see all sorts down in this world. Sometimes it’s best just to carry on with the job.’

  ‘Why did you ask Jared to come back?’ I paused uncertain, ‘you did; didn’t you?’

  Aiden turned to the others. They went about their business and we sat down at a little table that was near an arch way lit with morning light.

  ‘We are safe here Davey. When he was here, Jared knew about what had happened to him. He could sometimes tell me what happened that day, but not always.’ Aiden swallowed hard. Jared was his friend too, way back before I ever came on the scene. Beneath the leader was the man, I must not misread calm acceptance as lack of care.

  ‘I’m sorry. Do you want to talk now?’ I asked.

  ‘Now. Yes, I think that it is best.’ Aiden shook his head as if to dislodge some unpleasant vision and continued, ‘He was to bring the information back from George that I requested. If we had what we needed I wanted to persuade him to stay. There really was nowhere else for him.’

  ‘This information. What exactly was it?’

  ‘Technical stuff. All the data off the hard drives. George thinks if we pin point the anomaly we can get everyone home.’

  ‘Except Jared and Janey…’

  ‘Yes. I know. They knew that too. Janey wanted to know so badly that she says she’ll not give up.’

  ‘Even though knowing answer would kill her?’