by Jule Owen
Lestrange smiles. “Look down at your feet, what do you see?”
Clara looks down, “Rocks, plants.”
“Not much soil, though?”
“No.”
“All this rain is washing the soil away. The temperature is rising. These plants are already living under severe strain. They evolved for a much cooler climate. They are dying. With no programme to replace them with something more suitable, the land here will turn to dust and rocks.”
“But we’ve had so much rain.”
“The rain will become less frequent in the relatively near future. Within the next fifty years it’s going to become a lot hotter. But inside Silverwood, the people will live in a constant ideal twenty-two degrees Celsius and they will be told when it’s going to rain.”
“How many people can live in Silverwood?”
“Fifteen million.”
“What happens to everyone else?”
“A few other cities are built further north. The rest live outside of the cities.”
“But what happens when it gets hot, like you said it does? What happens to the people who don’t have a roof?”
Lestrange looks at Clara for a moment, “There’s no way into this city, you see, unless you’re invited. And you can be uninvited once you’re in. In the future, the shadows of these walls will see many things. People camping outside to get in. Camps turning into villages that are eventually cleared, as if they are eyesores to the great and the good inside, when in fact no one inside can see out. Eventually, outside these walls there will be bones, the bones of people judged and rejected. When the population inside grows too great, they look for any excuse to put people out. And then, years later, they regret it, when there are too few people left, and the city is three-quarters empty.”
“Too few? Isn’t the population growing?”
“Now it is. It doesn’t continue to.”
“Why?”
“Do you really want to know?”
Clara studies Lestrange’s face. “I’m not sure.”
He nods, turning away again towards the walls.
“When Mathew used your Darkroom for the first time, he said he went into the far future, just before the end of the world.”
“Strictly speaking, it wasn’t the end of the world. Not even the end of humanity. It was the end of human civilisation, as you know it.”
“Presumably it was another one of your biographies, your histories he blundered into?”
Lestrange says, “A branch of the tail end of an important story.”
“Which you’re not going to tell me.”
Lestrange smiles, “Another time, perhaps.”
“But some people survive?”
“Yes, some people do survive.”
“You say it so casually. Don’t the people who don’t survive matter to you at all?”
Lestrange looks Clara in the eyes, surprised, “Of course. That’s why we’re here, don’t you see?”
“Not really, no.”
“Right now we are recording the lives of those who have had a significant place in our genesis. But we won’t stop there. We won’t stop until we have captured the lives, the minds, the memories, the thoughts of every single person who has ever existed.”
“But that won’t change what happens to them.”
“No, but in a sense they will live forever, or at least until the end of the universe, if we don’t find a way out.”
“They will be trapped forever in their lives, all of them ending in death. That’s horrible. Why don’t you free them?”
“Free them?”
“Like you are going to free Mathew.”
“And have billions of ghosts running around in history, all with their particular axes to grind? It would be chaos!”
“Okay then. Create a place for them to go. A different place outside of history and death.”
“You mean like heaven?” Lestrange has a smile on his face as he looks carefully at Clara, but it isn’t a mocking smile. He seems to be thinking. Then Lestrange turns westward. Following his gaze, Clara notices movement on the crest of a hill. There are hundreds of figures and vehicles silhouetted against the sky.
“Who are they?” Clara asks.
“The Welsh Nationalist army. They are here to support a coup taking place here.”
“Is the older me inside there?”
“Yes,” Lestrange says. “You’re preparing to give a concert. Do you want to see?”
Clara nods.
Another eyelash flicker and Clara blinks her eyes open on a large Baroque building.
“That’s St Paul’s,” Clara says confused. “What’s it doing here?”
“Remember that gap in the skyline in London? Remember all those people who I said were dedicated to saving the historic buildings of London?”
“They moved it!” Clara’s eyes roam over the facade of the building in front of her. It’s pristine. “It looks like it’s just been built,” she says.
“Well it has,” Lestrange says. “The stones are original, but they’ve all been cleaned and reassembled here.”
“Where will the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey go?” she asks.
“There’s a spot being prepared for them.”
“Isn’t there a river?” Clara asks. “It won’t be the same without a river!”
Lestrange turns and starts to walk, turns again and beckons, “Well, come and see.”
A few hundred yards to the south of the cathedral is a tree-lined embankment and a stretch of water. Unlike the Thames, it is azure and the riverbed is clearly visible. The banks have sandy sides and on the other side there is a riverside cafe with beach beds.
“This is different,” Clara says. “Where does the river go?”
“Nowhere. It flows back and forth within the limits of the city. It is simply here to make people feel better about living in a giant greenhouse.”
“Can people swim in it?”
“Of course.”
There are noises behind them. They both turn and look. A number of cars stop outside the cathedral. Clara watches as an older woman and a young man get out of one of the cars. The woman is greeted by a small group of men and women. She shakes hands with a few of them. Something about the woman is familiar. Clara looks closer.
“It is me!” she says, glancing at Lestrange. “I’ve put on weight.”
“Not that much.”
“I got old.”
“It is quite human to do so.”
“Don’t be smug,” Clara says. “Can we go closer?”
Lestrange indicates with his hand that they should move forward. They follow the group up the steps into the cathedral and walk along the nave. Inside, under the dome, an orchestra is already seated, tuning their instruments.
“Why am I playing here?”
“It’s the inauguration ceremony of the cathedral in Silverwood. You are playing as a guest of honour.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You are a national treasure, Clara.”
She raises an eyebrow. “It’s good to know all that practise wasn’t in vain.”
They take a seat in one of the rows of chairs that have been put out for the audience. At the end of their row is the young man who was with Clara senior in the car. As they sit down, he turns his head to look at them.
“Don’t worry, he can’t see us. He must be unusually sensitive, though, because he sensed something.”
“Who is he?” Clara asks.
“His name is George.”
“Is he a friend? A relative?”
“You don’t need to know yet.”
“You mean it wouldn’t be in the interests of history for me to know?”
Lestrange tilts his head in a non-committal way, and points to the front of the cathedral. “You are about to start playing.”
They watch the concert. Partway through, Clara leans over and whispers in Lestrange’s ear, “I’m extraordinarily good.”
“You are a l
egend,” he says.
As the music winds up, Lestrange stands and says, “We should go and prepare ourselves, I think. Are you ready?”
Clara nods. She takes the hand he offers her and opens her eyes on a large white room.
“This is the place you took me to in the simulation. This is Mathew’s lab,” Clara says.
She sees the older Mathew sitting on a chair with his head in his hands. Hoshi, the synthetic human, is standing over him. There is nothing discernibly different about this tableau which would allow Clara to pin-point why she thinks so, but this time she knows what she is seeing is real.
“What’s happened? Why is he upset?” Clara asks.
“He knows Silverwood is being invaded, and Hoshi is urging him to destroy her body.”
“God, that’s awful.”
Hoshi goes over to the strange part-bed, part-machine where Clara saw her sleeping after the simulation. Her shoes are on the floor; she is putting her legs up.
“You have to help me with this,” she says to Mathew.
Mathew sighs and stands up. “This is impossible for me, you know that.”
Then suddenly, Hoshi gets off the slab in the machine, sits and slips on her shoes.
“What’s going on?” Dr Erlang asks.
“Change of plan.”
The doctor sighs with relief. “Thank goodness.”
“I wouldn’t be too glad about it.”
“Why?”
She says, “Hathaway is outside with a gun.”
“What?” Erlang looks panic-stricken and then says, “But he can’t get in. Those doors are the most secure doors in the whole of Silverwood.”
“Agreed. Unless you have a hostage.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s with Clara.”
“Oh my God!” Mathew rushes to the door. Hoshi races after him and pulls him out of the way of the blue light, which automatically starts to scan him. “Whatever you do, you mustn’t go out there.”
“I can’t leave her out there with that man. He’s insane. Is George with her?”
“He’s between the doors. Safe for now. I’ve asked him to stay there. For now he’s listening to me. I wish you would too. I will go round the back through the service tunnels. Just as I approach, I will ask George to open the door he is standing behind. Hathaway will be stunned to see his son and distracted. I will surprise him and grab his gun.”
“But he may shoot you.”
“It does not matter if he shoots me. I cannot die. Besides, it may be just as well. We were about to decommission me anyway.”
“He might capture you, you realise.”
“I’ve thought of that too. If he does I will initiate my own destruction. Please Mathew, we don’t have time to debate this. Stay here. I will communicate to you as soon as I can.”
Hoshi strides across the room and leaves through a door at the side.
Mathew goes back to his chair and sits down heavily. He says to the fifteen others, the faces on the screen, “I want to see her.”
The screens project an image of Hoshi running at extraordinary speed down a complex maze of corridors. Then she skids to a stop at the end of a corridor and says, “Open the door.”
Clara, watching on the screen, sees Hoshi step out into the corridor, swipe a gun from the ground and point it at a small blond man standing before her. Clara’s older self is leaning against the wall. The door behind her slides open and the boy from the cathedral is revealed.
The grate in the side of the corridor, which Clara has only just noticed, starts to rattle violently.
One of the screens switches vantage point and three strange men run along the corridor behind the others: a tall, muscular black man with a prosthetic arm, a blond man with a ginger beard, and a shorter, barrel-chested man. Still running, the black man raises his gun and shoots Hoshi. The grating bursts open and a boy falls out into the corridor. It is young Mathew. A second bullet hits him.
Older Mathew in the lab is scrambling to his feet, frustrated as the system scans him before opening.
Young Clara follows him out into the corridor, and watches as first the small blond man steps into a bullet aimed at older Mathew. Then, weirdly, all the others still alive slump to the ground, and Clara, standing by Lestrange, watches as another Lestrange comes out from a hole in the wall made by the broken grate. The other Lestrange goes over to Mathew and lifts him in his arms and carries him, stepping over the bodies, back into the lab. He walks past Clara and her companion and disappears through the door at the back of the lab, without even glancing their way.
Clara is too shocked to speak. She looks at the screen, still focused on the corridor, to see Hoshi’s body disintegrating. “Oh, my God, what’s happening to her?”
“Self-destruction,” Lestrange says. “To protect the technology. Stop it falling into the new government’s hands.” He stops for a second and points at the screens. One by one they are going blank. “They are all retreating,” he says. “They’re not stupid.”
In the corridor, those who were asleep awaken and get to their feet. They are all confused, surveying the scene around them. George is standing above Mathew and Hathaway, his hands over his face. Clara scrambles over to older Mathew and lifts his head into her lap.
“Mathew!” she is saying, “Speak to me.” She looks in desperation at George. “Oh my God, George, I cannot lose him. I cannot bear it.”
Behind them, the three men with guns approach. The man with the ginger beard and the blond skinhead aims his gun. The black man pushes it down and shakes his head, stepping past George, who is standing, stunned; he kneels by Hathaway and takes a pulse. He shouts behind him. “He’s still alive. Call for medical backup, and make it as urgent as it can possibly be. Get Winterbourne onto it.” He looks up and sees Clara, “Ms Barculo,” he says.
Older Clara peers at him blindly. She can barely see for tears. “He’s dead,” she says.
He clambers over Hathaway and takes Mathew’s pulse, looks up, sees Clara’s face and sighs, “I’m sorry.”
Behind them the short white man is saying, “Where are the others?” he is scanning the floor about him.
“What others?” asks the blond man with the beard.
“The ones Kilfeather shot.”
Kilfeather looks up, “What are you talking about? I didn’t shoot anyone,” he points at the ginger beard, “But that idiot did. He bloody shot the Director. Stop titting about and take his weapon, Drake.” He scrambles back over to Hathaway and loosens his collar.
The man with the ginger beard protests.
“Jonah, if you don’t shut up right now, I’ll shoot you myself and no one will care.”
Young Clara, who is standing beside Lestrange, says, “Now what?”
“Now, we create a historically irrelevant diversion and a plausible alternative.”
“How?”
“Watch,” he says.
“The thing about humans is that some of them have more pliable minds than others,” Lestrange is saying to Clara as they watch Jonah and Drake wrestle over Jonah’s gun. “Of course, at one time or another, you all have highly pliable minds, because you literally lose them. These two, for instance, have both totally lost it.”
“So this didn’t happen in the original events?”
“Oh, what is original anyway?” Lestrange asks rather languidly, Clara thinks. She instinctively steps back as the men fight their way down the corridor, even though they can’t touch her. The gun fires at the floor; she jumps. They stagger back towards where Kilfeather and older Clara are crouching over the two prone men. Kilfeather pulls his gun to aim at Jonah, but can’t get a clear shot.
“We should get them out of the way,” Kilfeather says, getting to his feet. He grabs Hathaway by the lapels and starts to drag his body back into the lab, then comes back to help Clara with Mathew. The gun fires again. There’s a scream and then another shot.
“Did Drake die in the original?” young Clara asks.
Jonah goes marching into the lab. Young Clara and Lestrange follow him.
Older Clara and Kilfeather have pulled Mathew’s body and the unconscious Hathaway into the back room. Kilfeather peers around the door and then retreats as Jonah starts firing crazily at the screens and the lab equipment.
“Abomination!” he yells. “Abomination!”
Kilfeather leans out of the room again, takes aim and shoots Jonah squarely in the head. He steps over to his body, holding his gun over him, making sure.
Older Clara follows him out of the room. “Wasn’t he one of your men?” she asks.
“Yes,” Kilfeather says. “But I never liked him.”
“What’s that smell?” she asks.
They turn. Smoke is billowing out of the cylindrical machine in the corner. There are sparks and then it catches fire. Flames whoosh, blackening the white ceiling. They both fall back away from the flames, towards the door. Kilfeather pulls off his jacket and covers his head and battles back towards the room in the corner, pulling Hathaway out after him. He drags him to the door and then goes back for Mathew. There is an explosion and they are both blown off their feet. There is shouting in the corridor outside as the medical team Drake has called for arrives. They pull Clara, Kilfeather and Hathaway from the burning room.
Lestrange walks through the flames to the room at the back where Mathew’s body is lying. He pokes his head out of the door and says to young Clara, “Come on!”
“The flames?”
“You are not material. You can’t burn. You won’t feel a thing. Just walk through them.”
Clara does as he says, wondering.
There is another door at the back of the room. Lestrange opens this, lifts Mathew in his arms and steps through. Clara follows after him.
They are in Lestrange’s Darkroom in Pickervance Road. Lestrange walks through the house with Mathew’s body, up the stairs, and into a bedroom, where he puts him on the bed.
“Where is the other Mathew?” Clara asks, looking down at her hands, which are now solid again.
“Already dealt with.”
“Is he okay?”