FAST FORWARD: A Science Fiction Thriller

by Darren Wearmouth

  Maria swept her hand across the envelope symbol and it unfolded to reveal the text. The order came from the office of Gideon Lynch, president of Timetronic and founder of the corporation. Ignoring his instructions guaranteed being placed on a corporate blacklist, meaning a one-way ticket back to the cramped housing blocks of Zone Seven. Not that the company knew she grew up there, otherwise she wouldn’t have a job.

  Maria scanned the main body of the message. Her eyes widened, and she read the words again to confirm she hadn’t imagined them. A request for the immediate reintegration for TS03. A member of Lynch’s personal team was already on their way and expected to find the him in recovery.

  Patient TS03 resided in Timetronic’s transport management facility longer than any other person. No personal details existed for him. Records only reached back to when the facility opened for business thirty-three years ago, and according to former employees, he was already there before that. Rumors of his identity had swirled, ranging from him being Lynch’s competitor to his former lover. Maria didn’t believe any of them. Only the president knew for sure.

  The ops room doors parted with a smooth electronic whine. Ali Khan, her colleague for the shift, walked in holding two steaming cups of tea.

  “You claimed nothing ever happens on the graveyard shift,” Maria said.

  “It doesn’t. That’s why we like it, right?”

  “Check out what’s just arrived in our inbox.”

  He placed the cups down and squinted at the holoscreen. “TS03, eh? Open his high-level facility file. Let’s see if he’s had any prep work.”

  “Aren’t you surprised?”

  “Did you think they’d keep him here forever?”

  “I mean the timing. Why four in the morning and not during business hours?”

  “No idea, but I don’t plan to attract the attention of Lynch or one of his cronies.”

  Maria expanded the library system across her screen and scrolled to the top. Plenty of people had accessed this file before out of pure fascination; delving deeper into the jargon-heavy medical records, stuffed with organ function tests and biological data, held less allure.

  TS03 - Record

  5/3/2037 – Stored in facility

  10/4/2039 – Treated for hypothermia

  15/10/2039 – Treated for hypothermia

  2/7/2042 – Treated for hypothermia

  8/10/2043 – Treated for hypothermia

  12/12/2047 – Treated for hypothermia

  7/2/2050 – Cybernetic foot and hand operation

  8/8/2070 – Microsurgery and Man Machine Interface installed

  8/8/2070 – Cybernetic modification

  8/8/2070 – Pre-integration scan and therapy – Bio age 35

  Therapy started two days ago, which was standard practice, although TS03’s name didn’t appear in the reintegration calendar.

  “All looks good,” Ali said. “You want to handle it downstairs?”

  “Fine with me.”

  Ops staff tried to avoid the recovery rooms, but had no option during the night shift when the facility went down to skeleton staff. Patients making a comeback, typically affluent members of society trying to extend their lives, often woke in a foul mood.

  This time Maria wanted to do it. The secretive circumstances of TS03’s comeback— slang for reintegration—tugged at her natural curiosity. Excitement rose inside her at the thought of being the first person to know his real name, where he was from, and what stories he had to tell about the old world.

  Ali rolled his chair in front of the holoscreen, sipped his tea, and tapped commands on his glassboard. “Vitals are consistent. I’ll go with an easy unplug. No need to rush.”

  “Which room?”

  “R-two.”

  Maria headed out of Ops and along a dark corridor. She peered through the glass wall to her left at the black, cavernous storage area, waiting for the reintegration process to start.

  A row of fifty ceiling lights thumped on in sequence, revealing massive steel racks against the side and back walls. Each held a thousand graphite colored transport systems, a hundred across and ten high. The facility currently had an eighty-two percent occupancy total.

  A metal platform, with a robotic arm at one end, powered its way around the storage area on its rail toward the far right corner. It stopped by the facilities oldest versions of the system and rose up on its four pneumatic legs to its programmed location.

  Maria’s heart raced as the arm extended toward the handle of TS03’s home for last however many years, clamped around it, and slid the rectangular box out of the rack. A thin cloud of vapor belched out of the dark space left behind.

  The platform lowered and headed back in the direction it came. Maria quickened her pace to ensure she made it to the recovery room first. She reached the elevator, pressed its fingerprint recognition pad, and waited for it to ascend.

  TS03’s system still had to go through the car wash— a retro label she loved for the conveyor belt cleaning process. Sterilized water jets sprayed the shell and air nozzles blew it dry before delivery.

  Maria studied her reflection in the elevator’s shiny black doors, straightened her company issued coverall and smoothed back her long brown hair.

  Part of TS03’s attraction was her love of the old days. Being a child of the fifties, she found virtual reality and automated travel fairly standard compared with the convoluted lives previous generations led. The organized chaos of roads where people drove personal vehicles, clunky laptops and smartphones, traveling overseas in fat airplanes on pleasure trips, and no security drones outside city limits to protect resources.

  The doors parted and a neutral voice informed the empty elevator that it had reached the fourth floor. Maria selected the ground level and descended to the corporate area at the front of the building.

  A male security guard sat behind a desk in reception. Chunky chrome letters spelled out TIMETRONIC on the wall above him. He straightened in his chair and placed a hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn.

  “Look sharp,” Maria said as she crossed the marble floor. “One of Lynch’s team is heading this way.”

  “At this time a night? Why?”

  “TS03’s making his comeback. He’s in the car wash.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. I’m heading to his recovery room.” Maria looked through the rain-spattered glass entrance at the night sky. A weak light hovered below distant clouds. “That’ll be them. Message me when they land.”

  “Hey,” the guard called after her. “Let me know his name.”

  Maria held up a thumb and continued through to the quiet open-plan waiting area. Clusters of leather bucket chairs surrounded wall-mounted dark marketing screens. A patient’s family and friends would gather here to visit or collect them.

  She authenticated her print on the recovery zone’s security pad. A locking mechanism clicked, and the door opened. Whatever the criticisms of Lynch and Timetronic, and there were many, none could deny they had their security in order.

  R-two was the thirty-ninth room on the left. All forty had south facing windows overlooking farmland. Apparently, one of Lynch’s psychologists claimed a view the outside world was the best form of relief for a waking patient. Maria had no intention of ever using a transport system but thought the realization of being alive would be more reassuring.

  She entered R-two and dimmed the lights to an ambient glow. A waist-high three-meter hatch had already opened along the left wall and a rubber conveyor belt inside it hummed along its channel, transporting TS03 to the recovery zone.

  A jet black VR headset, bottles of water, a packet of reintegration drugs, and a bowl of fruit sat on a table on the opposite side of the room. TS03 wouldn’t have a clue how to use the headset, and it gave her an idea for an ice-breaker. Rather than bombard him with questions, she could demonstrate how to use modern technology.

  Maria’s smart-strap beeped. She twisted her wrist, rotating the square central panel to
ward her eyes. Iris recognition confirmed and her strap accepted the call.

  Ali’s face appeared on the thumbnail-sized screen. “TS03’s due in sixty seconds. No problems reported.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I don’t know why you’re looking so pleased. He might be a maniac.”

  “Is your glass always half empty? Do you seriously think Timetronic would risk it, with all the important people in here?”

  Ali leaned closer to his screen and lowered his voice. “I know, but like you said, why reintegrate him now? Just be careful.”

  “You worry too much.”

  Maria tapped the side of her strap and cut the call.

  The hum from the conveyor lowered in tone.

  A gleaming graphite transport system appeared from the left and stopped.

  Two metal arms pushed it through the hatch with an electronic grind, easing the system onto a support platform inside the room, before retreating inside the delivery channel.

  All five sockets at the near end of the system were clean, ticking off Maria’s first visual check. Plugs inside the storage racks fitted into these circular holes and provided power, gas, food, monitoring link, and an outlet for waste. Sometimes even the car wash’s water jets couldn’t dislodge a stray piece of crap.

  The hatch lowered and closed, filling the room with silence. Maria took two tentative steps toward the system. Her hand trembled as she reached for the lid. A six-foot man, dressed in a customary rubber suit, lay inside.

  Whoever carried out his cybernetic modification two days ago must have also shaved his hair and face. The pre-integration therapy drugs had helped to restore some pigmentation, but he still had the characteristic pale pallor referred to on the street as a transport tan. Automatically administered stimulants, part of the unplugging procedure, would kick in at any moment, bringing him to his senses.

  Maria heaved open the lid. Cold air yawned out and brushed against her face. She removed the waste tube from between TS03’s legs, clipped his mask off, and placed both by his side on the padded plastic surface.

  TS03’s body twitched. He screwed his eyes, and clenched his fists. Maria stepped back to give him some space, aware disorientation was a usual symptom and patients often lashed out in fear.

  A message notification beeped on her strap. A rotorcraft had landed outside the facility with a single passenger.

  A low growl filled the room. TS03 convulsed into a fetal position, breath hissed between his clenched teeth, and his eyes blinked open.

  Everyone making a comeback suffered this initial shock and pain. It never got easier to watch, but at least in this facility patients volunteered to be plugged, which gave Maria a sliver of consolation. People serving transport time in prison didn’t have the same luxury.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’m here to take care of you.”

  TS03 raised a quivering hand and grabbed the edge of the system. He attempted to raise himself but slumped back down.

  “Take it easy. Give the stimulants time to work.”

  Footsteps echoed along the corridor.

  “How do you feel?” Maria asked.

  TS03 parted his lips and mumbled something. He swallowed hard and let out a dry cough. Somebody stepped behind Maria. She knew who it was by the stench of his spicy aftershave. Lynch’s right-hand man and Timetronic’s head of security.

  “I’ll take it from here,” Dave Meakin said. “Return to your position.”

  Staying would test Meakin’s famously short fuse. Maria turned, squeezed around his lean frame, and headed out of the recovery room disappointed not to find out TS03’s name. She stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder.

  Meakin took off his jacket, folded it at the end of the transport system, and rested his hands on its ledge. “Luke Porterfield, I’ve heard a lot about you. Do you recognize me?”

  TS03, Luke Porterfield groaned.

  Maria moved away from door and grinned as she made her way back to ops. A name was enough to carry out some online research and find out more about the mystery man.

  Chapter 7

  Luke gasped and emptied his lungs. Every muscle in his body burned as he flexed his limbs and tried to focus on the blurred shapes surrounding him. A larger man had taken the place of a small female figure. Both of their speech patterns sounded like incomprehensible babble, and an unrecognizable sickly sweet smell invaded his nostrils.

  He searched his memory for any hint of how he ended up in this situation. It wasn’t the explosion in Cairo and tracking a terrorist in Benghazi happened before the embassy attack. Wheezing on a treadmill and learning to walk again wouldn’t have led to this.

  Other images crystallized in his mind. A trip to Clifton Hall, Penshaw and Lynch in the barn, and eating a sausage roll at the dining table. His blackouts were usually short in length, and he feared waking in a hospital meant he had suffered something worse.

  Luke hugged himself and shuddered. His mind registered a full set of fingers on his right hand. He rolled his left ankle and wiggled his toes, and the realization hit him like a brick. The coldness, a new foot and fingers, the promise in an email, and the outline of a dark rectangular shape surrounding him.

  It had to be a dream. He wasn’t prepared to believe Penshaw’s plan for him had come to fruition; not yet.

  “The stimulants help,” the man said, his words now clear. “You’re safe. Nice long deep breaths. You’ll be okay.”

  Okay felt a million miles away. Unless the man’s definition of the word meant going ten rounds with a heavyweight boxing champion before being dragged backward through a blackberry bush.

  “Relax. They’re fast acting. We’ll have you up and around in no time.”

  Shapes around the room formed into single vivid objects; soft glowing lights around walls, a strange helmet on a table, and the man above him. Luke raised his hands and turned them in front of his face. Both had exactly the same movement and sensitivity.

  “Pretty good job, huh? The wonders of cybernetics.”

  The man looked vaguely familiar, around fifty years old, wrinkled skin around his piercing blue eyes. Maybe it was just his thinning hair, swept back over a monk’s crown like many men his age tried in a weak attempt to conceal their baldness.

  Luke sucked in deep breaths, and swallowed to moisten his parched throat. Wherever he was, trying to fight in this weak state wouldn’t improve his situation. The man acted in a non-aggressive way, and he pushed back the urge to strike.

  The man reached back, grabbed a bottle from the table, screwed off the cap, and held the plastic neck to his lips. He swallowed small amounts, not daring to a take a big gulp, and as the water worked through his body, it reminded him of drinking an ice-cold beer on a hot summer day.

  “Do you know me?” the man said.

  “No. Should I?”

  “Dave Meakin. We met at Sir Henry’s barn.”

  Luke grabbed the sides of the transport system, hauled himself to a sitting position, and scrutinized Meakin’s face. The statement explained his familiar appearance. His stern features were similar to his grandfather’s—Richard, the SIS’s chief… or rather, former chief.

  Everything pieced together; sitting in a transport system, what appeared to be a hospital room, his transplants, and middle-aged Meakin confirmed his fears. Penshaw and Lynch had cast him into the future before he gave them his full consent.

  “What year is it?” Luke asked.

  “2070. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  The visible evidence backed-up Meakin’s answer. Luke thought fifty years in a transport system sounded outrageous when he clearly recalled Clifton Hall as his last memory, and it seemed like only minutes ago. But he also knew a person under anesthesia experienced a blank period and woke having no idea about the passage of time. He stared down at his ghostly white torso, hoping someone would burst through the door and tell him it was one big joke
. “What is this place?” he asked.

  “Timetronic’s transfer management facility. You were moved from the barn thirty-three years ago. I was a patient here too.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “For a new a life. My advice is make it easy for yourself and accept reality.”

  Denial had never been part of Luke’s make-up, apart from the State sanctioned variety imposed on the SIS, and no amount of Sherlock Holmes style deduction would change what was staring him in the face. Without any frame of reference, he decided to work his way through questions in a logical manner.

  “What do you know about my history?”

  “Sir Henry Penshaw plugged you, or whatever it was called back then. You had a severe seizure in his dining room and suffered brain damage.”

  “Did they take me to hospital?”

  “Yeah, your prognosis was pretty grim by all accounts, and you were facing a low quality of life. Sir Henry and Gideon took a risk and gave you a second shot. Timetronic can provide everything you were originally promised at Clifton Hall.”

  Meakin’s words sent a chill down Luke’s spine, though the shock of waking in 2070 had turned to a sense of relief after his last response. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms. “Is Penshaw alive?”

  “Declared dead last month. He was stolen from the facility in 2060. Our best guess is that the thieves planned to ransom him. You can’t just unplug someone and expect them to survive, especially without an appreciation of their condition. Penshaw probably died pretty quick. We beefed up security after that.”

  “Why was he in a transport system?”

  “He suffered a stroke in 2026. Ended up next to you in the barn, coincidentally, until the move here in 2037.”

  “I don’t see a coincidence. Did he meet his daughter?”

  “Afraid not. She was cured in 2061. Took his death quite hard.”