by Matt Hilton
Mina sat quietly. Her attempt at remaining aloof was spoiled by the occasional fearful glance she made towards the gun. Finally she lowered her head. ‘My sister was raped.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘My sister was raped. Five years ago. Grace was raped by a brute who not only gave her AIDS, he also gave her a baby.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but what has it to do with anything?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? When my sister gave birth, the baby was also infected. Do you understand what that meant? Full-blown AIDS. Neither of them survived.’
Rembrandt pinched his lips, guessing where she was leading.
Mina looked up and her gaze had softened. ‘Their final days were awful. Grace outlived her baby by a few weeks, and I spent much of that time by her hospital bed. She was broken. Despite the manner in which she was impregnated, she truly loved that child, and hated that her baby suffered so badly. More than anything she wished that things could have been different, that she had not brought Melody into this fucking diseased world.’ She paused, trying to control her breathing, and Rembrandt almost put out a hand to touch her shoulder. He refrained though, taking a step away instead. Mina sobbed. ‘Grace wished that she’d gone against everyone’s wishes and had Melody aborted. But only to save her baby girl from the suffering.’
‘Why didn’t she? Abortion isn’t illegal, is it?’
‘As a matter of British law, abortion has been legal since the early sixties. But that means nothing if your religion doesn’t permit it. Don’t you see: my sister was placed in a position where her child had to suffer just to appease the religious sensibilities of hypocrites and close-minded politicians.’
Rembrandt nodded. There were still some religions that forbade the act of abortion and it wasn’t unknown for some politicians to be swayed by religious opinion and campaign against it in favour of votes. Ronald Reagan, Rembrandt had learned, had recently been outspoken on the subject of abortion-on-demand. In a skewed sense he could understand why Mina would hate Reagan so much; but to try to have him murdered?
‘I had to make a statement,’ Mina explained, as if she’d read his silence. ‘It didn’t matter to me if Reagan lived or died, but I wished to make a statement that would be heard the world over. Today’s rally at Grosvenor Square…what difference would it make? Unless something dramatic happened and placed the story on the world stage?’
Rembrandt grunted at the irony.
‘You’ve no idea of what would’ve happened if you’d been successful.’
‘My message would have been heard loud and clear.’
Rembrandt knew otherwise. He merely shook his head. It saddened him that the birth, and subsequent horrible death, of one child had led to the deaths of billions. Or would have, if he hadn’t intervened. He thought again about his friends, and how they were now lost to him, and how it was all down to this woman’s insane attempt at making a political – or “humanitarian” from her point of view – statement. He checked his wristwatch. ‘One thing’s for sure,’ he said, ‘there’d have been fewer children born in the future.’
‘What?’
‘Forget about it. Stand up.’
Mina sunk deeper into the vinyl couch. ‘What are you going to do? You promised to release me…’ She looked again at the gun.
‘I did. But I can’t. Not here. Not now. No one can ever learn what you planned to do.’
He leaned down and grasped her by her injured right arm. Mina let out a cry, brought up her knees to force him away with her feet. Rembrandt didn’t release her; neither did he force her up out of the couch. He merely aimed the gun at her lazily, while checking again his wristwatch. ‘Maybe you should close your eyes,’ he suggested.
Chapter 36
April 5th 2018
Tempus Facility, England
There was no refuge from her fate in the vinyl couch that Mina Feeney attempted to sink into. Because Rembrandt held onto her, and she to it by clenching down with her bent legs, couch and all was transvected by the power of the Tempus chamber. One second they were in the locked room at the deserted industrial complex, next they were all in the eerie white chamber. The couch, a relic of the 1970s, was an ugly turquoise bruise against its surroundings. It was too wide to sit at balance on the walkway, and one corner cocked over, threatening to spill its riders into the tubular space beneath. Rembrandt had prepared himself though, and immediately hauled Mina out of the couch and onto her feet. She fell against him, eyes wide with bewilderment at what she’d just experienced. She had expected a bullet to the brain, and being snatched through a wormhole in time and space might just blow her mind all the same.
‘Steady,’ he told her. ‘You’re going to be fine.’
‘What did you do? Where am I?’
Rembrandt only offered an explanation of sorts. ‘I couldn’t leave you there, not after everything you’d witnessed. It was shoot you or bring you here. Once you’ve settled down, you’ll thank me for sparing your life.’
Mina stared around, the weird lights playing along the ceiling and walls reflecting in her pupils. ‘You…you said you’d let me go.’
‘I have…’
Rembrandt hauled her along by her cuffed wrists, until her hobbled ankles caused her to trip and fall. He caught her up, pushing his gun in his waistband so he could carry her towards the airlock. Mina didn’t struggle. Overcome by emotion and confusion, she lay in his arms. She was fearful of her surroundings, but he also detected a relaxing of her muscles as she settled into his grip. He glanced down at her, and was reminded of how beautiful she was. Beautiful but dangerous.
The intercom switched on.
‘Welcome back, Rembrandt,’ Elizabeth Heller said.
‘I’m glad to hear you remember me.’
‘I’ll never forget.’ Heller’s voice sounded strange, as if even she were surprised by her words.
‘Then open the door.’
‘Who is your unauthorized passenger?’
‘Just cycle the hatch, goddamn it,’ Rembrandt said.
Heller said, ‘I’ve implicit orders from Governor Semple not to open the Tempus chamber.’
‘And you’re still going to obey, even though you know he’s a murderous piece of shit?’
‘Of course not,’ said Heller, coming to a decision. ‘I don’t owe him my allegiance.’
The hissing and whirring of machinery filled the air, bringing a slow smile to Rembrandt’s face. As he suspected, the re-alignment of both this dimension and the one he’d come from had caused ripples down through time. Doctor Elizabeth Heller had embraced a new set of memories, one that included James Rembrandt saving her friend’s family from death. Rembrandt had lodged the memory when instructing Jessie to seek out Elizabeth Heller and tell her to remember him. He was thankful that she had, because he doubted that he’d have been jumped from 1988 to the present without that grain of suggestion set in place. Having sent assassins to murder him in Old City, he doubted that Semple would be in a hurry to bring him back again.
The odourless gas sprayed them down, and Rembrandt adjusted his weight from one boot to the other as he waited for the routine of sterilization to conclude. He felt Mina tense at the first billow of spray. But it was as if she sensed she was in no immediate danger and relaxed. She placed a cheek against his shoulder. Rembrandt chewed the inside of his mouth. Why the fuck had he brought her back here? He had no idea, only that it was the correct thing to do. Sure, she had a capacity for murder, but who was he to talk? He told himself that he had to snatch Mina out of her other life, because he could not leave her there to try for another go at assassinating President Reagan, and perhaps kick-starting the war he’d averted. But he was lying. There was something else that had caused him to return for the woman, to carry her back here with him at the appointed time. He’d saved a world; perhaps he could also save this woman from herself.
He looked down at Mina, and as if she sensed his scrutiny, she looked up. ‘Don’t say a word about your part in
the assassination plot,’ he whispered, ‘and everything will work out just fine.’
She held his gaze, and he watched as colours shifted in the depths of her eyes, but this time it had nothing to do with the twinkling lights in the Tempus chamber. After what felt a long time to him, she nodded.
The airlock door whirred open.
Rembrandt stepped out into the anti-chamber, and saw Elizabeth Heller and Professor Doherty regarding him from beyond the large observation windows. Dozens of techs were at their stations but it didn’t surprise him that either Semple or Coombs were conspicuous by their absence. He set Mina down, and then knelt to uncuff her ankles.
‘What is this place?’ she asked at a whisper. ‘Who are those people?’
‘Your new employers if you play your cards right.’ He straightened up. ‘Put out your hands. I’m going to unlock you, but no funny business and no trying to escape.’
‘Where am I going to run?’
Rembrandt pursed his lips, but he’d no reply. He unlocked her handcuffs. Mina stood beside him, working at the flesh around her wrists.
Elizabeth Heller’s eyes almost sparked as her gaze settled on Mina. She stared hard, but after a few seconds she shook her head softly. Rembrandt wondered if she’d learned anything about Mina from Jessie, but couldn’t see how. Mina had no part in the abduction of Marjorie and Jessie, and even if Barry had described her, he doubted that Jessie would have mentioned her to Elizabeth. It didn’t escape his notice that there was no apparent bewilderment from either Heller or Doherty as to where his team had disappeared.
His first instinct was to feel disappointment that his team had been so readily forgotten, but it was replaced a moment later by relief. If by averting the war his friends had never existed, then that meant that he’d been successful in his mission to stave off the effect of the war-torn dimension spilling over into this one. Hadn’t he?
One look at the screens on one wall of the lab told him otherwise. Real time satellite feeds showed the devastation of Scotland, the breach now threatening Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and Carlisle, at opposite corners of northern England. The pocket of destruction appeared to belch and expand, belch and expand, almost like a single cell splitting and duplicating in size. He cursed under his breath. The sacrifice of his team had been for nothing. Everything he’d done was for fucking nothing.
He banged on the observation window.
‘Let me outta here now!’
‘Who is your companion?’ Heller demanded.
‘She’s collateral, a witness, that’s all,’ was all that Rembrandt allowed. ‘Forget about her. What the hell happened to me halting the destruction here? The assassination was stopped back in eighty-eight, things should have righted themselves here.’
The door whisked open and Rembrandt moved for the opening. Heller and Doherty greeted him in the doorway.
‘You stopped the assassination?’ Professor Doherty queried.
‘I did,’ Rembrandt said. ‘But it seems like all my efforts were wasted. What’s going on, Prof?’
‘It’s as I feared all along. You might have very well changed the course of history in the parallel dimension, and closed the breaches themselves. But here the anomalous reactions are no longer artefacts, they’ve taken on a life of their own and are now part of our reality.’
Beside Rembrandt, Mina was stunned to silence. She stared around the laboratory at equipment far beyond the technical capacity of the world she’d come from. She could make no sense of the conversation between her captor and the older man. Rembrandt was unconcerned by his prisoner overhearing.
‘Do you recall my team?’ Rembrandt asked to a nod from Doherty.
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Once the timeline was changed, the nuclear war averted, they blinked out of existence. It was as if they’d never been flesh and blood. I guessed it was because they were a product of their upbringing in Old City, and if the bombs didn’t drop, then they would never be.’
‘That’s sounds logical,’ Doherty said.
‘So how come the same can’t be said for the effect of the breaches? If the war never happened, how is it the planet’s still being contaminated?’
‘It’s apparent there’s much to be understood yet about temporal paradoxes. All I can surmise is that the devastation began when first we pulled you out of the past. As long as you exist, then the anomalies are part of you. It’s almost as if a timeline is trying to rebuild around your existence.’
‘What? I’m fucking responsible for this?’ Rembrandt scanned the nearest screens with a sick sense of dread.
‘Not you directly, but the fact that the breaches are tied to your life presence, to your subatomic vibration. It’s almost as if there’s an umbilicus between you and whatever force gave them life.’ Doherty rubbed a hand over his mouth. ‘It’s the only hypothesis that I can come up with.’
‘So what are you saying? That I have to die to save the world?’
‘Somehow I doubt you’d give up your life so readily.’ Elizabeth Heller said. ‘You strike me as the kind who’d fight tooth and nail for survival.’
Rembrandt didn’t answer. A virtuous man would willingly give his life to save others. But he didn’t believe there was anything to be gained from putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He looked at Mina briefly. ‘This woman needs help. She requires feeding and rest and a bullet wound that requires attention.’
‘A shower wouldn’t go amiss either,’ said Doctor Heller, wrinkling her nose in distaste at the other woman. ‘What’s the story, Rembrandt? You said she was a witness. Is that all?’
‘Maybe it’s best that she’s watched until she’s had time to acclimatize to her new surroundings,’ Rembrandt said. His ambiguity didn’t detract from his meaning.
‘I’ll arrange a room for her.’ Heller called over an orderly, and told him to take Mina to the med lab. Still overwhelmed by all that had happened to her, Mina didn’t resist. She moved away with the orderly, with only a lingering glance at Rembrandt. She looked like a child on her first day at school, seeking encouragement from a loved one. Rembrandt nodded at her. ‘Go on. Everything’s going to work out fine.’
‘We’ll need to talk about your plans for her,’ Heller said as she watched Mina leave the lab.
‘I think we’ve more to concern ourselves with just now,’ Rembrandt said.
Heller turned her attention back to the present dilemma. ‘What do you plan on doing?’
‘Where’s Semple?’
‘In cahoots with Vincent Coombs and George Fox.’ She explained how the three had concocted the plan to murder Rembrandt in Old City, and how she and the Professor had been ostracized due to taking Rembrandt’s side. She also mentioned overhearing a discussion where Semple, Coombs and their lickspittle technician planned utilizing the transvection chamber to jump to a safer location. Nothing he learned surprised him.
‘I asked where he is?’
‘Probably in the conference room, but I doubt that Terrence will be around for long. Sterling, the MOD man, has already left, and I believe that the governor won’t be too far behind him. He isn’t going to stick around for Prime Minister’s Question Time.’
Rembrandt indicated the satellite imagery, and their impending doom. ‘How long have we got?’
‘Under two hours,’ Doherty said. He approached and laid a hand on Rembrandt’s shoulder. ‘There is a way to stop this at source, but it holds an element of risk.’
‘Risks I’m willing to take,’ Rembrandt said.
‘Even if it could mean stranding you in another time and place once more?’
‘Better that than ripped to pieces when the anomaly hits here,’ Rembrandt said. ‘Care to come along for the ride with me, Prof?’
‘I’m afraid I’d only prove an encumbrance to you, Rembrandt.’
‘And I’m needed here to initiate the Tempus chamber,’ said Heller. ‘Fox has well and truly joined the bad guys. You’ll want someone at the controls that you can tru
st.’
Rembrandt nodded slowly.
Briefly Doherty outlined his plan, along with a second warning that its success could also mean no way back for Rembrandt.
‘I feel out of place and time wherever I am,’ Rembrandt said with resignation.
‘So are you ready to go?’ Doherty enquired.
‘No. Not yet. There’s something I must do first.’ He said to Heller, ‘Get the machine booted up and ready for me. I won’t be long.’
Heller had good sense not to question him. There was little she could do to halt him at any rate, and argument would only slow down the inevitable. Rembrandt leaned close to her, an intimate gesture. Heller almost expected a kiss on her cheek, but then she felt his hand touch her side, and Rembrandt had moved away again. He was holding her electronic key card that would allow him access to any room in the complex. He moved away, heading for Governor Semple’s private quarters.
Chapter 37
April 5th 2018
Tempus Facility, England
‘There’s no change, Governor,’ said George Fox.
‘Dear God, there must be something we’re missing. If Rembrandt was killed then how could he subsequently be brought back, opening the bloody breaches? This should have been averted.’
The Scottish anomaly now covered most of Scotland, already eating at the fringes of the English border.
The other technicians had been cleared from the lab, and only Semple, Fox and Coombs were in attendance. To allow them the necessary secrecy to continue with their plot, Coombs had already ordered an evacuation of the facility and his military team was ushering personnel out as they spoke.
‘I can’t profess to understanding any of this,’ Coombs said wearily. ‘But by the virtue that we are still talking about “Rembrandt”, doesn’t it mean that nothing has changed? If your men had been successful in their mission, then he wouldn’t have been brought back, and we wouldn’t have a clue about who we were talking about.’