The Trouble With Time

by Lexi Revellian

  20/5/45

  Heraclitus observed that big results require big ambitions. And sometimes big decisions, too. Not the easiest of days, and I was obliged to modify what I flatter myself was an extremely elegant plan. This irked me; Scott was the ideal scapegoat, given he shot McGuire. I wish Jace had not guessed. But at least I encountered him before he’d spoken to Scott, else I’d have had to get rid of both of them, and I’m not sure IEMA investigators would have swallowed the idea that they’d worked in collusion.

  It pains me to lose Jace. I liked him a lot, and he’ll be a loss to the Department. On reflection, it’s a pity I let him get under my skin. I hadn’t had time to decide whether to untie him or administer a coup de grâce before I left, and being angry, I did neither. I’d have shot Scott. It wouldn’t have been much of a life for Jace, alone in London, had I released him. The last human died around 2170.

  As she read this, Floss became very still. In her brain, synapses and neurons processed new information. She read on.

  It’s interesting to speculate in what sense Jace is dying in the London of the future. The ability to time travel changes things. I feel as if he is lying there dying now, since I left him less than an hour ago; though you could argue he will not begin this process for more than a century. But in that case, where is he now? A question for a philosopher.

  “Ryker!” He got up, alarmed at her expression, and came over. “Read this!”

  He bent to the screen. “The evil scheming bastard . . .”

  “We have to rescue him! He left him tied up, dying slowly of thirst and starvation. We can go into the future and save him.” Floss leaped to her feet, in a fever to be off.

  “Hang on a minute. I haven’t sorted out the CCTV yet. Does he say where he left him?”

  “London.” Leaning in to the computer screen, Floss scrolled down frantically, as if Jace would die if she didn’t hurry. “I can’t see anything more . . .”

  “Perhaps it’s in the history.” Ryker tapped and swiped at the TiTrav’s display. “Nope. He’s wiped it. There’s nothing in here. Does he say the date he left him, I mean the future date?”

  “I don’t think so . . .”

  Ryker turned his attention from the TiTrav to stare at Floss. “London’s a big place. We can’t rescue him if we don’t know where or when he is. If he’s tied up, we’ve only got a window of a few days to turn up before he’s had it . . . how lucky would we have to be to hit that?”

  “It’ll be after 2170. Probably Quinn allowed a bit of leeway to be certain of not meeting anyone. We don’t have to get it right first time. There might be remains and we could work out from the state of them when to go back . . . you finish that, I’ll go on looking.”

  She put ‘contraceptive virus’ into Find. As she had guessed, this was the cause of humanity’s demise, and the reason IEMA had thought her responsible. Confirming her theory took only seconds, and she went back to looking for clues to where Jace had been left. She skimmed the journal for place names, then checked everywhere Jace’s name cropped up after May 2045. He got a mention when Quinn went to the Colosseum; then another when Quinn moved in on Kayla and started doing the sympathy routine with which Floss was familiar. It seemed to have worked fine, if slowly, on Kayla. Then a passage where Quinn recounted a recurring bad dream he had of Jace, filthy, in tatters and vengeful, appearing from behind overgrown tombstones and moving menacingly towards Quinn who then woke up. Nothing else.

  Tombstones . . . Something clicked in Floss’s brain. She remembered Quinn turning to stare out of the pod window on the way to the restaurant that first evening.

  “Bunhill Fields. He left him in Bunhill Fields.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Missing person

  Ryker set the TiTrav for 2175, June 1st. “Might as well have nice weather for it.”

  They were back in his workshop. After checking no traces remained of their visit to Quinn’s apartment, they had left discreetly via the TiTrav. Ryker got out a long wrecking bar, and tucked it in his belt. Floss wondered if she should have a weapon too. Ryker hadn’t suggested it.

  “Bunhill Fields is quite big – how will it choose which part to take us to?”

  “It’ll go for the clearest space.”

  She held his belt with one hand and his arm with the other. He pressed the buttons.

  They materialized into a grassy clearing, scattering rabbits. Floss looked around her, and the more she looked, the more astonished she was by the beauty of the place. Left to its own devices, nature had turned this corner of London into an earthly paradise. Dappled sun shone through the leaves of trees that soared, unspoiled by chain saw, towards a blue sky. Different textures and shades of rampant green covered everything, ornamented with the white of bindweed trumpets and the brilliant massed purple of buddleia flowers. The sweet-scented air was loud with birdsong. There was no litter. Litter, like humanity, had been and gone. A movement caught Floss’s eye; a mallard led her six yellow ducklings between ox-eye daisies towards the iron gate.

  Ryker was not admiring the view. “We can’t do this,” he said, gazing around. “A dead body would get covered up in no time, even if it didn’t get eaten first. It might take hours to find.”

  “I don’t know, if this is the only clear spot, wouldn’t the TiTrav have brought Quinn here too? He’d most likely have left Jace where they arrived, if he was tied up. And even if animals did disperse the remains, there are two hundred and six bones in the human body. Bound to be a few still here. I think we only need to check the edges.”

  “Right.” Ryker did not sound convinced. Using his wrecking bar, he began to cautiously part the thicker undergrowth that bordered the clearing. Floss got herself a stick and did the same the other side.

  “I’ve found a bone.”

  Floss went to see. “That’s a rabbit femur,” she said, remembering old biology lessons. “Let’s try a year later.”

  June 1st 2176 was grey and spitting with rain. Twelve months’ growth was marked by taller saplings and an advance of the encroaching ivy. The stick she’d dropped the year before was still there, softened by weather and in pieces.

  After a quick and unproductive search, Ryker said, “I reckon people think in round numbers. Why don’t we try 2180? Or 2185?”

  “Good point. Let’s go for 2180.”

  June 1st 2180; a breezy, sunny day with scudding clouds. Again, they found no trace of a body. Floss’s first urgency to find Jace had diminished a little; she was losing her feeling that he was dying now. She felt curious to see more of London in the future, and wondered if the skyscrapers were still standing. “I’m just going to have a quick look outside,” she said.

  “Okay. I’ll carry on poking around here.”

  Floss picked her way to the gate and climbed up. Wow, amazing. To see nature reclaiming her own was a mixture of entrancing and strangely upsetting. She dropped to the ground, and walked towards a pond that covered half the ruined road leading to the heart of the City. At this distance, the skyscrapers looked much as they had in 2050. The pond was more interesting. Grass and ferns surrounded its margins, with narrow tracks leading through the vegetation. This must be the local animals’ watering hole. A frog plopped from a brick into the water at her approach. Floss walked to the edge and stared below the surface. Newts darted about; one gulped down a tadpole head first as she watched. Her gaze travelled across the road to where the far pavement had once been. A few York stone slabs could still be made out under the carpet of ivy. Sycamore saplings competed with tall grasses and bamboo escaped from a City garden . . . something made her look twice, not sure of what she was seeing. The light changed as a cloud swept across the sun. She stared. The something blinked; a pale green eye, watching her among the undergrowth. Peering, trying to identify the animal, she made out black and white V-shaped stripes some way below the eye, then long tawny forelimbs . . . she looked back at the face. The tiger licked its nose with a big pink tongue, still watching her.

  L
ittle by little Floss backed towards the gate, maintaining eye contact, her heart banging about in her chest. If you ran they gave chase, she’d read somewhere, or was that polar bears? The ground was uneven, and tripping would be fatal, literally fatal. Very slowly, hardly moving, the tiger got smoothly to its feet, head lowered, staring at Floss. Still in slow motion, it emerged from cover, looking a lot larger than tigers do on television or at the zoo. From this angle, she could only see the massive head, the hump of its shoulders and the big front paws crossing each other to land softly, almost hesitantly, on the ground as it felt its way, eyes never leaving her. The tiger was imperceptibly accelerating, shortening the distance between them. Pure terror nearly robbed Floss of the ability to move, but she forced herself to back away a little faster. Halfway across the road the tiger dropped to a this-means-business crouch, focused and intent. Floss froze. Suddenly there was a great clanging and shouting behind her; Ryker was running his wrecking bar along the railings like a maniac and yelling his head off. With dignity the tiger rose, turned, and sloped back into the undergrowth.

  Floss hurried to the gate and grabbed Ryker’s outstretched hand. She clambered over, sweating and palpitating. “D’you think they can get in here?”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  Together they walked round the perimeter of the Fields. Though the edges were overgrown they could make out that all the walls and railings were still intact. The gate at the far end from the one Floss had climbed was padlocked.

  “Maybe that’s why there are so many rabbits.”

  “I dunno, foxes and cats can get in between the bars.”

  “Shall we try another five years’ time?”

  “Okay.” He thought of something and turned towards her. “How long are you thinking of spending on this?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “It could take weeks. Longer. Look, I’m sorry for the geezer, but I got stuff to do.”

  “You don’t have to come with me. I’ll be all right on my own.”

  Ryker’s eyebrows went up. “Oh yeah? I just saved you from being a tiger’s dinner. I can’t save you if I’m not here. If we don’t find anything in 2185 let’s go home and talk about what to do next over a cup of tea.”

  Thursday, 5th May 2050

  Quinn wasn’t told that Floss had failed to come in to work until he was about to go home, an hour later than usual. He’d had a lunch appointment with the Secretary of State, and meetings all afternoon and into the evening; he was just clearing his desk before leaving when Kayla knocked and walked in to his office.

  “Ansel, I thought you’d want to know. Floss hasn’t come in today. She called Farouk to say she’d overslept and would be in late, but she hasn’t arrived and she’s not answering her phone.”

  Quinn frowned. “You should have told me earlier. Why didn’t you ring me?”

  “I did. I rang this afternoon. If you checked your phone more often . . .”

  Quinn ignored this. “Maybe she’s ill. Have you sent someone round to her flat?”

  “No. I couldn’t see the point.” Kayla added, barely concealing her satisfaction, “Perhaps she’s run off. She didn’t want to be here, after all.”

  “Where could she go? She doesn’t know anyone here. You should have done something this morning.”

  “D’you want me to send someone to her flat now? Farouk’s still here.”

  “No.” Quinn got to his feet. “I’ll go myself.”

  On the way Quinn rang Floss, and got her voice mail. He wondered what had happened. Even Kayla admitted that Floss was a conscientious employee; if she was ill, she would have rung the department. She’d rung to say she would be late. Perhaps she’d had some accident. It even crossed his mind she might have attempted suicide; though she seemed level-headed enough, he did not know her well and she might be more fragile than she appeared. If, as he was convinced, she was in love with him, she might have heard that Kayla was his girlfriend and despaired, alone in a strange world. He remembered her telling him he was her only friend.

  He reached Floss’s block of flats and pressed bell number 633, paused, then rang it again, allowing plenty of time for her to answer. When she didn’t, he went inside and explained the situation to the concierge, prepared to write a warrant if the man was awkward. In the event he was helpful; he got out his master key and went up in the lift with Quinn, opened the door and let him walk in first.

  The place was just as Quinn remembered it; as neat and tidy as if she had never been there. Then he noticed her phone lying beside the computer. He checked the bathroom; empty; then looked inside the wardrobe. The clothes they had bought together were hanging there. No note. The concierge, though he recalled Floss, could not remember when he last saw her. Quinn got rid of the man and opened her computer. Nothing at all; it had been restored to factory settings. His frown deepened.

  Quinn left the building. Whether something had happened to her or she had run off, he would have to alert the police. He did this on the short walk between Floss’s block and his own, sending them a photo of her and confidential details of her move from 2015.

  Back in his own flat a couple of hours later than usual, he poured himself a Glenfiddich single malt and ordered a meal. He remembered it was a Thursday, his day for checking out the future. Perhaps his journal could throw some light on Floss’s disappearance. Before writing up the day’s events as he would normally do, he went into his dressing room, knelt by the ottoman and reached for the TiTrav in its hiding place. It was not there. He felt around, thinking it had slipped off the ledge. His fingers encountered stiff paper. He pulled out an envelope with his name handwritten on the front, and tore it open.

  Hi Ansel,

  You always said if there was anything you could do to help me, you would – so I imagine you must be pleased to find there was a way after all. Fancy your turning out to have a TiTrav, the very thing I need!

  Thank you so much,

  Floss

  X

  Quinn sat down heavily on the ottoman, staring at the disingenuous note. He’d misread Floss; had thought her resigned to her new life; had missed her determination to return to her own time. Had he even guessed right, thinking her in love with him? This no longer seemed likely to be the case. She’d played him. He’d known she was intelligent; had not realized she was intelligent enough to run rings around him. He didn’t understand how she had got into his flat and discovered his TiTrav. No one knew about it except Ryker, and he didn’t know where it was hidden. And Floss didn’t know Ryker. Even if they’d somehow met, he had no reason to help her – he was a self-serving cowardly little rat. And if Ryker had been involved, what could Quinn do? Blustering at him would be humiliating and achieve nothing; shooting him would be foolish. He would need Ryker once he had got the TiTrav back or obtained another one, which he was determined to do.

  Floss now had proof that he, the Chief of IEMA Intelligence, was involved in timecrime. On the plus side, she was unlikely to use this knowledge. Having got what she wanted, she had no reason to return to 2050 to make trouble for him. All the same, he went to the living room and sat at his desk. With the TiTrav gone, the only incriminating evidence that remained was his journal.

  “Computer.”

  Quinn had an emergency deletion system already in place. He now went through the process, which overwrote the files multiple times, scrambled the file name, and truncated the file size to nothing before finally and irrecoverably unlinking it from the system.

  He fetched a lighter, went on to the terrace and set fire to the edge of Floss’s note. A crescent of flame, bright in the twilight, spread across the paper, consuming her writing. Grey flakes scattered in the wind, until only the corner he held remained, burning his fingers. He let go and watched it swirl away from him into the heart of the city.

  CHAPTER 33

  Gone fishing

  June 1st 2185 was hot and humid, but the temperature wasn’t the first thing that struck them. Bunhill Fields ha
d changed. There were trodden pathways through the trees, and stacked timber and galvanized water tanks surrounded the warden’s house. A sizeable pyramid of empty wine bottles glinted greenly in the sun. Behind the house an attempt at a vegetable garden doubled as a rabbits’ café, with a naked shop window dummy standing in the middle. Probably intended as a scarecrow, she was covered in bird droppings and leaned at a drunken angle with a pigeon on her bald head. Floss and Ryker stood and contemplated this incongruous sight.

  “Be fair, it’s sort of working,” said Ryker. “I can’t see any crows.”

  They walked towards the little house and Floss knocked on the door while Ryker peered through the window into the dark interior. When no one answered, he joined her, pushed the door open and went in. Floss followed him. They were assailed by a badgery smell of unchanged bedding made worse by the heat, and a fly buzzed and banged against the window panes. But the room was tidy and organized; someone had been living here for some time. There were stacks of books, and tools in a row. A church candle burned inside a tall glass jar, strings of onions hung from the ceiling and there was a bowl of small apples on the table.

  “D’you think it’s Jace?” Floss said. “Or maybe Quinn dumped someone else here, without leaving him tied up.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Ryker said, helping himself to an apple. “Let’s wait for a bit, then if he doesn’t turn up, try again this evening.” He took a bite, then looked closer. “Ugh, this one’s got a maggot.”

  They went outside again. Ryker took off his jacket. So did Floss. They sat on a nearby tombstone under a shady tree to wait.

  For a long time after his arrival in 2180, Jace had felt uneasy going more than a few minutes’ walk away from the Fields, afraid he might miss a chance of escape. Gradually, as the years went by, though he still wore the locator on a chain round his neck day and night he’d given up hope; he no longer expected Quinn or an IEMA research team to appear. At night he dreamed of escape; but in his dreams something always went wrong at the last moment, and he remained stuck here.