by Jule Owen
Lestrange brushes this away with his hand. “Newspapers,” he says scornfully. “Bah! Sensationalist.” He gazes at the nails on his right hand and says casually, “Why did you come here, Mathew?”
“Don’t you know?”
“Your mother is sick.”
“Yes.”
“What I mean is, what do you think travelling here will do to help her?”
“She is dying. I need to do something to try and save her.”
“Yes,” Lestrange says. In spite of what he has just said, Mathew is stung to hear it confirmed. “But what is your plan?”
Mathew says, “I want to ask myself, my older self, what to do. I’m sure I would have spent my whole life investigating an antidote.”
“So you think this,” he indicates around him, “is real?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. It feels real.”
“The drone you think I sent, how would I make it appear if all this is real? How could you or I even be here?”
“I don’t know.” Mathew is crestfallen. “It’s too real to be a game. Is it a game?”
Lestrange cocks his head on one side. “Not exactly a game. More of a deterministic narrative you exist in.”
“Like a holofilm?”
“A little like a holofilm.”
“That would explain it. When I was in Siberia I thought it was a game; I did at first, at least. But I couldn’t figure out how to win. But there’s no winning, is there?”
“No.”
“It’s a lot more real than a holofilm, though. It’s very impressive.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you make it?”
“Partly, with others.”
“Others like you?”
“Many others.”
“Do you work for an entertainment company then?” Mathew scans his brain for an organisation large and sophisticated enough to pull this off.
“I told you. I’m a historian.”
“A historian who makes incredibly real holofilms?”
“It’s a means to an end, a way to explore scenarios.”
“Why did you make it? Why do you have books on me and Clara?”
“That must seem pretty strange to you.”
“Yes it does. And creepy.”
Lestrange nods sympathetically.
“Won’t you explain?” Mathew asks incredulously.
“What do you think is happening?”
“I’ve no idea.” He thinks. “Does the title of the book change depending on who reads it?”
Lestrange brightens and smiles, “How clever you are!”
“So does it?”
“No.”
Mathew frowns. “But the book on the table does determine the game or holofilm the darkroom plays.”
“Of course.”
“Why go to so much trouble?”
“Whimsy. We are given to whimsy. Quite frankly, I think we would be frightening without it.”
“What?”
“Playfully quaint, fanciful behaviour. It’s in one of your dictionaries.”
Mathew stares at Lestrange.
“I liked the idea,” Lestrange says and shrugs. “Do you want some more water?” He offers Mathew another bottle.
Mathew reaches across the sacks and takes it. “Where did you get this?”
“Officer’s supply truck.” He picks up a canvas bag and peers into it. “Do you want some chocolate?”
“Chocolate?”
“Yes. It tastes real, too.” He throws a bar to Mathew.
“You made the holofilms because you felt playful?”
“The books are whimsical. The worlds are deadly serious.”
“But they are only VR worlds after all. Why do you say they are deadly serious?”
“Eat your chocolate.”
Mathew peels back the paper wrapper and breaks off a piece of chocolate. It’s been a long time since he’s tasted anything so good.
“If you’re just a historian who builds virtual worlds, why did Clara’s guard listen to you?”
“Just a coincidence.”
“Really?”
“A lucky break.”
The chocolate is incredibly good. He wolfs another piece, then another and then needs a drink. “Do you know what I want because you’re the author of this world?” Lestrange smiles. Mathew drinks, his eyes on Lestrange. He says, “What will you do if Kiefer comes back?”
“He won’t come back.”
“How do you know, if you’re not omnipotent?” Then Mathew thinks. “How can you be omnipotent if this isn’t a VR?” Mathew’s voice trails off. He’s confusing himself now.
“Ha!” Lestrange says suddenly and Mathew jumps, but the strange man smiles.
“We’re going in circles,” Mathew says. “I’m going in circles.”
As he drinks from the water bottle, Mathew takes in Lestrange’s long, thin, insect-like limbs, his legs folded like a grasshopper at rest, his spindly arms and thin, hairy wrists. His long pale face hangs like a moon in the sliver of pallid winter sun slicing the floor of the truck.
“Why did you come?”
“As I said, I thought I’d drop by.”
“To check on me?” Lestrange’s face dips back into shadow. He doesn’t respond. “I’m going to Silverwood. You can’t stop me.” Mathew says.
“I’m not going to try.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
Mathew considers this and takes another sip of water. “Why not?”
“We need to go that way to get home.”
“You should leave me alone,” Mathew says. “Or help me.”
“I can’t.”
“If this is a story, why do you need to take me home? Why won’t you let me do what I came to do and then leave?”
“Well, for a start, you’re likely to disrupt events pretty badly.”
“If you screw up a game or a VR, you just restart it from the beginning.”
Lestrange pondered this, “Everything we do here has consequences.”
“Games don’t have consequences.”
“But they do. All the time.”
“Your friend tried to take me home.”
“My friend…”
“Quinn.”
“Oh, Quinn!”
“He’s dead.”
“He’s not dead.”
“He is. I was with him. I saw him die.”
“You shouldn’t worry.”
Mathew frowns, “Shouldn’t worry? He was shot to pieces in front of me. It was horrible.” Lestrange looks really unconcerned. “Weren’t you friends? I thought he was like Borodin?”
“He is. He’s just like Borodin.”
“So he was your friend?”
“Yes… I suppose you would describe him as… He’s one of us.”
“Us?”
“He’s another historian.”
“He is dead. I’m sorry. I saw it. It was my fault He was trying to make me go through the door.”
“I know what happened.”
“You do?”
“Of course. I saw it.”
“You were there?”
“Not exactly.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, I know. Sorry. I am trying to explain.”
“You mean you watched the holofilm with me in it from your Darkroom?”
“Yes. Sort of.”
“So did you manage to save him?”
“Who?”
“Quinn?”
“Save him?”
“Did you take him to hospital? He lost a lot of blood. I thought he’d stopped breathing.”
“Actually, my friend’s real name is Berek. That wasn’t his body; therefore, he wasn’t killed.”
“What? Who the hell is Berek?”
“He – or she, we don’t distinguish – is a historian like me. He didn’t die because he can’t. When Quinn’s body died, Berek moved on. This body here,” his palms touch his chest, “it’s not mine.”
>
Mathew frowns and tries hard to understand, and then his face suddenly brightens, “So, your friend Berek was playing the character Quinn in the holofilm. And when you say you don’t know if Berek is a he or she, is it because you are playing online? You have never met?”
Lestrange regards Mathew for several moments, his hand rubbing his chin. He considers whether to say more or not. He opens his mouth to speak and then closes it. “You are a smart boy, Mathew,” is all he says. “How’s the chocolate?”
Mathew has nearly finished the bar. “Really good, thank you,” he says appreciatively. He crumples the empty wrapper and hunts for somewhere to put it, settling on the box where he found the blanket. “So what happens when we get to Silverwood?”
“Dr. Erlang’s lab in Silverwood has a door to take us back to your time.”
“In my lab?”
“In the lab that belongs to your older self.”
“So I will get to meet him? Me.”
Lestrange sniffs, “I didn’t say that.”
“I wrote to him.”
“Yes, I know. Ingenious. He thinks you’re a lunatic hacker. He’s had the university IT department investigate whether anti-AI protestors have breached his bioID.”
“But I wrote stuff only he would know.”
“What’s the most likely conclusion he would come to, do you think; some stalker-like person with a lot of knowledge stolen from personal files has hacked his bioID, or his sixteen-year-old self has broken into the future to recruit him to save his mother from a deadly virus? He is you, after all; you should know.”
“Once he sees me, he will help me.”
“But he won’t see you, Mathew. We are going back through the door together and you are going to leave your future self alone.”
“Why does it matter, if this is a holofilm?”
“If this is a holofilm, your older self can’t help you even if you ask him to.”
Mathew considers this, rubs his increasingly muddled head and drains the last of the water.
25 Something in the Way
The journey north is never easy. They never have a straight run. Sometimes flooded roads slow them down, or a broken bridge, or sabotage. Sometimes there’s an ambush. Dr. Roberta Calvin has travelled this route north and south many times. She should have got used to it by now, but she never has.
Mike sits with her hands pressed between her knees, her toes pressed to the floor, jiggling nervously. Her head is cocked slightly to the side, her eyes stare right and upwards. She is listening.
They are in the back of an old transit van on a makeshift seat, surrounded by crates of carefully packed, recently retrieved treasures dug from the mud of Westminster Abbey. The van used to be white, but it is now a kind of cream and russet colour, where rust has eaten away at the metal and stained the peeling paint. Most vehicles are rusty. It rains a great deal and there is not always enough time to make repairs.
They haven’t moved for twenty minutes. Bob shuffles forward to talk to the three soldiers they travel with. Their names are Coulson, Marsden and Perez. Perez hangs up from a conversation with his commanding officer. “The whole of the M40 is blocked with vehicles. It is Non Grata, or Accountants.”
“Is it a protest?”
“No one is sure what it is, but the traffic goes on for miles. The road to Silverwood is completely gridlocked. Command is investigating a safe viable alternative way, but it’s possible you won’t get to your do tonight, Bob. I’m sorry.”
“Frack!” Bob says.
“I know, it sucks.”
“We should have gone with last week’s party, like we discussed,” Mike says, as she clambers to the front of the van.
“Coulda, woulda, shoulda,” says Bob.
“Hold on,” says Perez. “Here’s a new message.” He cups his hand around his right ear, and listens with concentration. He acknowledges the command, turns to Coulson and says, “OK, we have an alternative route.”
Coulson speaks to the on-board computer and the van receives the new route and starts up.
“Thank God,” Bob says, and she and Mike retreat back to their seats.
“I don’t like this,” Mike says.
“We’re moving again, aren’t we?”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“When does it ever feel right?” Bob says, but she senses it too. Something is awry.
They take an exit ramp off the motorway, follow a tight loop, and head onto local roads, passing through rows of incinerated, abandoned houses. The local roads are always the most dangerous. It is much easier for opportunists to pick off individual vehicles. Periodically, Mike peers through the windshield.
They are on the Oxford Road. They gather speed and start to make good progress. As they come onto White Hill, they are parallel to the motorway.
“Dear bloody God,” Perez says. “It’s a frackin’ army.”
Bob scrambles forward as the van ahead of them explodes into flames. Machine gunfire peppers the tarmac.
The van immediately turns sharply to the right, onto the wrong side of the road and then the wrong way up a one-way side street. A wing mirror scrapes off against the wall and sparks fly, but the van continues to drive at speed. Bob and Mike exchange glances. For the on-board computer to make an error of judgement is unknown. This dangerous scenario must be the safest available to them - not good news.
They barrel along a narrow road. They reach a junction and the van turns right in its attempt to get them as far away from the motorway as possible.
Coulson speaks to the on-board computer, “Narration on. Please speak the journey.”
The computer responds, “I have coordinates for us to reassemble. We will take the next left, sharply. Prepare.”
They are flung to the side as the car makes the turn.
Coulson thumps the redundant steering wheel with his hand angrily. “Tshuma was in that van. And Bakowski, Bauers and Johnston. She has a four-year-old.”
“Had,” Perez says.
The others glare at him.
“Jesus,” says Coulson.
Silence falls as they weave their way through the deserted streets.
The forty vehicles that form their convoy, now minus one, reassemble slowly in the abandoned car park of an old supermarket, chosen because it is beyond the range of tall buildings and hidden snipers. As the most senior soldier in the van, Coulson gets out to join his comrades congregating in the centre of the car park.
“We’re going to abandon this trip, don’t you reckon?” Bob says to Perez.
“Who the frack knows?” Perez says.
Coulson walks back to the vehicle and gets into the driver’s seat, belting himself in. “We’re going back to London,” he says.
“What’s going on?” Mike asks.
“It looks like we ran into the Accountant army heading north to Silverwood. They didn’t want to announce it over the airwaves, hence the pow-wow.”
“An invasion?”
“They haven’t issued a press release, but if you know anyone who lives in Silverwood, I would call them and tell them to get the hell out.”
26 In the Cadmus Tower
Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Nystrom stands in the window of the penthouse suite on the 250th floor of the flagship mile-high Cadmus Tower and surveys the city it has been his life’s work to build.
From this vantage point he sees right across the three-quarters-built metropolis, and through the gap in the unfinished city roof, to the parched yellow-brown countryside beyond that many years before had been the lush green Welsh Marches.
There was huge opposition to this project, from the environmentalists and conservationists, protesting against the destruction of greenbelt land, to the anti-technologists, who opposed the cutting-edge science that made the task of constructing such a huge city from scratch, at such speed, feasible.
He resisted them all.
He took his mentor’s plans and turned them from dreams, drawings, and written specula
tion, into material reality.
Many people resisted his insistence that they pursue Cadmus’s original preferred location. They said it was too near to Wales, but they didn’t know how close the government is to peace with the Welsh; how soon the 20-year-old tit-for-tat border conflict will be resolved.
In theory, it is already. Somewhere in that arid landscape, Rhys Llewelyn and his paramilitary friends wait, ready to support Director Hathaway should he meet any resistance.
Which he won’t.
Directly below Nystrom’s window, robot builders are at work on the complex multi-level road and rail system, designed to deliver people part-way up skyscrapers, via centrally controlled electric cars and trains.
The bioID will be the passport to all aspects of Silverwood. It will not be possible to pass through the walls of the city, hail a cab, get onto a train, open your front door, or buy a drink without one. There will be no need for prisons, because criminals will simply be excluded, put outside the walls, with their access rescinded. Doors will simply not open for them.
Nystrom believes that the benefits of Silverwood residency, and the threat of them being withdrawn, will discourage crime. Indeed, once the city is completed, it will be nigh on impossible to commit a crime. BioIDs will track every physical and virtual movement each citizen makes. Gone, the chaos of constant energy blackouts, unreliable supplies of food, water, energy and materials. Gone will be the constant threat of violence, the daily insecurity caused by terrorism and insurrection. From tomorrow, there will be no more opposition. It will simply melt away. He has made absolutely sure of it.
All this, Oliver Nystrom has imagined and made real. But, he supposes, if it had not been him, it would have been someone else, because he believes it inevitable. There is no other way forward from the morass the country is in.
When people see the benefits of city life, they will build other cities.
The penthouse apartment belongs to the state and is the official residence of the Prime Minister, Bartholomew Dearlove.
Dearlove is sixty. He doesn’t look a day over forty, thanks to the rejuv treatments he receives at the taxpayers’ expense.
Rejuv is a set of advanced medical procedures available to people like Dearlove and Nystrom – senior government officials, presidents of companies – to keep them young. It is cutting-edge, phenomenally expensive science; the sort of medicine the Edenists want to ban. It has been six months since Dearlove’s last visit to a clinic and he looks frayed at the edges. Nystrom, on the other hand, had a full treatment six weeks ago, knowing what was to come, knowing he would be constantly on camera from this day.