by Jule Owen
“He’s fine. He doesn’t know a thing.”
“So what day is it? Have I gone back in time?”
“No. Young Mathew is walking on the hills in Yorkshire.”
“What about my car?”
“It has been waiting ten minutes. You can go if you like.”
“I can’t leave him.”
“He will have no idea who you are. Besides, right now he is rather dead. I need some time to fix that. Go home. Come back tomorrow after your lesson.”
23 Yellow Flowers
DAY THIRTY-FIVE: Boxing Day, December 2055
Mathew takes the large jacket from the wardrobe in his room, layers all his jumpers underneath, finds a hat and a pair of gloves belonging to Ju Shen and sets off for a walk, shouting through the closed door of the polytunnel, where Ju Shen is working, before he goes.
“What did you say you’re doing?” she asks.
“Going for a walk,” he says.
“Don’t get lost.”
“I won’t go far.”
In all honesty, he doesn’t intend to. He wants to visit his mother’s grave without anyone hovering over him looking concerned.
The snow sets in again, and the town centre is deserted. The cafe is closed and Lea is working on something top secret with Aiden, something to do with Cadmus Silverwood. Mathew trudges past the buildings in his good boots, glad of the coat, the gloves and the hat. The snow is at the top of his boots and it is heavy going as he reaches the field. Eventually, he arrives at the place where Hoshi is buried. He spots the tree Craig Buchanan planted. A mound of snow has blown over the ground above the grave. The little plaque with the inscription is buried. He wades over, intending to clear the snow away. Then he spots something incongruous. Something yellow.
Someone has left a spray of yellow flowers on top of the snow, underneath the tree. Mathew approaches, bends and reaches for the bunch. They are the same flowers that he found in his coat. The same flowers that Ju Shen has in the little vase on the dining room table in her house. He thinks, perhaps she used the coat and brought the flowers. He remembers what she said about how they grow on the mountainsides. But how had she got them in all this snow? Perhaps she had saved some for this purpose. It is only when he puts the flowers down again that he notices the footprints. Mathew pulls on his gloves and steps into the first set. A man-size imprint and a man’s long stride. But the strangest thing about them is they don’t come from or return to the town. They lead to the forest. Mathew steps again. And again. He has to jump to reach the stride. They belong to a large man.
He travels this way deeper amongst the trees. The branches scratch his face. Snow sprays off branches and falls down his neck. He keeps going. There is an icy bank which he struggles up by grabbing at twigs. On top of the bank there is a forest road, snow-covered but not powdery, compact and easier to walk on. The bulk of the snow has been pushed to the roadside, but there are a few inches of new snow and he is still able to follow the footprints. The road climbs. The air is crisp and clear. He digs his hands into his pockets and settles into a rhythm, not thinking, letting his mind go still. Trees tower over the sides of the road. One break in the line gives him a spectacular view of the white rooftops of Elgol and fire smoke rising. After half an hour, the road peters to an end, a patch of dead vegetation and a virgin blanket of whiteness, untrodden, leaving him with a question about where the man went. He hunts about for several minutes, then sits on a log. A robin comes down to take a look at him, cocking its head, jumping and fluttering. It flies off a few feet and roots around in the disturbed ground his feet made at the end of the track. Then it flits to the base of a tree. Mathew’s eyes glide after it. The red splash in the white. And he sees a footprint. He stands and walks over. Just one print. It faces into the wood. He scans about. Then, six foot ahead, is another. They are following a path, a covered track, but a clear line through the trees. His trail is back on. Climbing again, this time at a steeper angle, he slips, and struggles. He pauses, wondering what on earth he expects to find. An old friend of his mother’s, who happens to live deep in the forest, who will not welcome uninvited guests, perhaps? But he keeps going until he breaches the bank and the trees and comes out onto open land.
He gasps at the scale of it. There is not a tree or a living thing that he can see, for miles. The land in front of him is high and flat and leads to the foot of the mountains beyond, their peaks hidden in cloud. Everything is white and glistening, when the sun breaks through. And there, above it all, in the gaps between the cloud, is the low hanging ghost of a moon.
The tracks are clear here. He tries to match the big stride, tires himself and finds a rock, clears the snow and sits. The wind is rising and the snow starts to fall again. He gets to his feet and carries on, realising the tracks are covering. It seems suddenly important and urgent that he should see where they lead.
He huddles further into his big coat, glad of its warmth, although its bulk weighs him down.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bird launches into the air, spraying snow, wings flapping, rising into the sky. He spins around to watch it, and the bottom of his coat brushes the shrubs buried under frozen water. He sees a flash of yellow and knocks the snow from the bush. The same yellow flowers. Snow is blowing into his face now, catching on his eyelashes. He licks flakes off his lips. He realises he is losing the tracks. Looking behind him, the forest he came from is hidden below the rise of the land. His own tracks are obscuring behind him. The temperature is dropping steadily. Why has he come out here? What is he thinking? He should go back, but he’s been walking for nearly two hours and there is no shelter the whole way down. He considers sending a message to Isaac, to Lea, even Ju Shen, but he feels ashamed of himself. Turning back to the mountains, he notices something, perhaps half a mile away. It looks like smoke. It gives him something to head for. He digs in, bows his head against the weather and walks.
When he reaches the trees, his hands, face and feet are numb. The wood is thickly planted and impenetrable and he spends desperate minutes walking around before he finds a break that is passable. Even so, he ducks and snaps his way forward. He is blind with cold, and tiredness when he blunders upon it.
A house. A house with a chimney with swirling smoke. A house with a fire. Shelter. Warmth. He falls through the door.
Inside, the only light is the fire. It is a rustic cabin. Much more basic than Ju Shen’s cosy house. The walls are bare stone, ancient and blackened around the chimney. Mathew stumbles to the fire. There is an old rocking chair in front of it and a pile of logs. He doesn’t worry about who set the fire and where they might be. Quickly, he pulls off his wet gloves and his boots, and warms his freezing skin, leaning as close in to the heat as he dare. When he is thawed, still in his coat, he sits back in the chair and falls asleep.
He is woken by the snap of burning wood. His coat has gone, his feet have dry socks on them and there’s a blanket over his knees. The room is still dimly lit. He sits and looks around. The chair creaks. He sees yellow flowers in a jam jar on the old table in the middle of the room. There’s a man standing with his hand on the chair. A big man.
It is his father.
The world fades to black at the edges. The earth underneath him tilts. But he knew. He knew.
They stare at one another for several minutes until Mathew realises there is actually a ticking clock in the room and the oddity makes him turn and look at the fireplace above which the clock ticks. There’s a mirror above it too, and he sees his father’s face there. His father’s eyes study him in the mirror. Mathew stands unsteadily. The blanket falls. He walks towards the big man, the wool in his socks snagging on the rough floor, and is engulfed in his arms.
“Mat,” his father whispers, kissing his hair. “Mat.” He holds him away. “You have grown.”
“You have grey hair. And a beard.”
Soren Erlang’s hand goes to his chin. “Easier to keep out here, but sit down.” Soren bustles Mathew back to the rocking chair, and
pulls the ladder-backed chair by the table over to the fire. “Did anyone follow you?”
“No… I…”
“Are you sure?”
“I walked for miles. There was no one else.”
“Any drones? Anything that could track you here?”
Mathew shakes his head. Soren goes to the window, pulls back a dirty gingham curtain. “We need the fire, unfortunately. But we’ll keep the lights low.”
“But who is looking for you?”
“No one was. But now the land around Elgol is crawling with government agents, the networks are haunted by spooks, the sky is alive with elaborate drones and spy bots because Cadmus has come home. They don’t care about me, but if some surveillance camera recognises my face accidentally, all it takes is for it to be put through the right algorithm run by the right paranoid conspiracy-fan SIS agent and I will be hauled out of here faster than you can blink.”
“But you are dead.”
“And so they still think. I would like to keep it that way.”
Soren comes back to the chair by the fire, sits down, leans forward, and takes his hands. “You’ve been through a lot,” he says.
Mathew blinks.
“How long have you been out walking? It must have been hours.”
“I don’t know, I lost track of time.”
“We should get a message to Ju Shen before she sends out a search party. It will be safer if you do it. Do you have Lenzes?”
“X-Eyte, pirated by Aiden. My original Lenzes got stolen.”
“I was told you ran into trouble. Send your message. Tell your grandmother you are fine.”
“Where should I say I am?”
“Tell her you’re visiting a mutual friend in the mountains.”
Mathew activates his X-Eyte and Studz and quickly sends the message. While Mathew does this, Soren kneels, stokes the fire and retrieves an old metal kettle from the red tiles in front of the stove. He stands and disappears for a moment. Mathew can hear the sound of a tap in another room. His father returns and places the kettle on the top of the metal stove. On the floor, he puts down two mugs with tea bags in them.
“Sorry, no milk,” he says. “I’ve not dared to go near the town since we found out about Cadmus.”
“But you came to the funeral.”
“Yes, I came to the funeral. I couldn’t stay away. I’m sorry you saw me.”
“Why?”
“Well, I would have thought it was obvious. We are both safer if you think I am dead.”
“Why? How could I possibly be better off thinking you were dead?”
Soren stares at his son for a few moments, nodding. “You need to hear the full story.”
“Yes,” Mathew can’t keep the anger and sarcasm out of his voice.
Soren gets to his feet and sits heavily on his chair.
“How did they tell you I died?”
“You were lost in the storm on the solar island.”
“The official line? Did you find out about the trial?”
“Yes, but only recently, by searching for you on the Blackweb.”
“Then you know I had been summoned to give evidence against Helios Energy. You’ll also know it put me in an incredibly difficult position with my employer. I had to choose between lying under oath or betraying the company I worked for. If you saw the Blackweb reports, you’ll know too that several other key witnesses had died in mysterious circumstances. What you won’t know is that not only was I threatened, but so was your mother and you. Officially, we heard that your educational scholarship was under review.”
“But my scholarship is paid for by Hermes Link.”
“Which is part-owned by Ares Shield, which is owned by Jupiter Surety, which is owned by Orcas, which is owned by Pluto Union Control, which is owned by Apollo Investment Management, a company that also happens to own Helios Energy. But this wasn’t what broke us. What broke us was when your medibot was hacked and you spent three days in hospital with an impossibly rare case of immune deficiency disorder, which miraculously started to improve once I said to Helios that I would lie on the stand.”
“But you didn’t lie.”
“It was impossible for me, Mat. Helios’ technology had caused colossal, widespread human misery. It had killed people and they knew it. I could not do it. In the end things just happened. Your mother and I were arguing a lot. You probably remember that, don’t you?”
Mathew nods.
“It was the strain of the trial and you getting sick. Neither of us could sleep or think straight. It destroyed our marriage. Then one night we were lying awake after another argument and I said, ‘What if I disappear?’ She laughed. She thought I was joking, but I was deadly serious. I was the problem in your lives. If I went away then you both could carry on as normal. They would leave you alone. There was no reason for them to harm you. We talked about it relatively seriously a few times. What actually happened was circumstances taking over. I was on the way to the Skerries solar island, but I never made it. The boat got caught in the storm. We were actually wrecked, but we weren’t far off the coast of Whalsay. I made it to shore; no one else on my boat did. The night I spent on the island was terrifying. The storm ripped apart buildings and cars and threw them around. I found shelter in a bunker with some locals, who saw many Helios workers come and go and in any case weren’t in much of a frame of mind to ask questions. Somehow we survived. When we came out the next morning, the island was flattened. Rescue teams moved in over the next few days. I got food and water and clothes, but there was so much confusion, and again, no one cared who I was. After five days, a boat was taking people back to the mainland where there were facilities for the survivors. When we landed, I simply slipped away. I made my way on foot to Elgol and your grandmother. It took me nearly ten days. When I arrived in the town, they thought I was a vagrant. I was exhausted and slightly out of my mind, but I kept asking for Ju Shen and eventually they brought me to her and she verified who I was. They let me stay, of course, but here I am not known as Soren Erlang. I am Magnus Mortensen, the woodsman, who happens to tinker with some projects in the research lab, and help out with the solar panels in the village.”
“You live with Ju Shen.”
“I did until Cadmus came.”
“Did my mother know?”
“That I was alive? Yes, she knew. Ju Shen wouldn’t keep it from her.”
“But she kept it from me.”
“Mathew, you are a boy and when all this happened, you were a child. How could we have explained any of it to you? It was too much of a risk and too much to ask of you to keep my life a secret. The consequences of you telling someone, of you doing something that would betray us all, were far too great to risk it.”
“Did you intend ever to tell me?”
“Yes, of course. When you were old enough.”
“Am I old enough now?”
“I don’t know, are you? You have been tinkering around on the Blackweb in a fairly clumsy fashion, from what I hear.”
“You don’t care about me at all. You want to save your own skin.”
The kettle whistle starts to scream. Soren leans forward and swipes an old cloth off the floor to grab the handle of the kettle. He pours water into the two cups on the tiles.
“You don’t believe that. I know you don’t,” Soren says. “So, I’m going to forget you said it.” He places the kettle carefully on the tiles and hands Mathew a cup. “It’s hot, at least.”
Mathew says, “Mum told me to find you. I thought she must have meant find out about you. It was the last thing she said to me. Find your father. She said to tell you she was sorry.”
Soren, who is still kneeling on the floor, looks at his son, stricken. “Did she say why?”
Mathew shakes his head, “She was sick.”
“I didn’t like the words you had Ju Shen read out at the funeral.”
“It’s true.”
Soren sniffs, “Mat, I applaud your merciless drive for the truth, but you
should be careful about jumping to harsh judgments about people, especially those who love you and whom you love. I think you should read those documents Lea found for you again, more carefully. Then you should go to every one of those people who attended your mother’s funeral and apologise.”
“For what?”
“Read the documents again.”
24 Cabin in the Woods
Mathew watches the flames in the fire die. His father has made him a makeshift bed on the floor from rugs and blankets. For the last hour he has been lying awake, trawling through his mother’s work documents, the ones Lea had hacked into Panacea to find. He reads them with a calmer, more careful mind than he did the first time. Finding the note from James Truville warning his mother about the potential need to refocus from her work on plants and insects to human grade infectious agents, Mathew finds a trail of related correspondence he hadn’t read before. Then he finds this, titled innocuously, ‘Your Note’:
James, Thanks for your note the other day. I appreciate the warning. I have been thinking about what you said. It made me reflect on my career at Panacea. I joined this company as a graduate and was lucky enough to find work I enjoyed and believed in. As you know, I have spent most of my working life focused on how to improve crop yields in ever challenging climate conditions and how to harness insects to protect plants as they grow to reduce the need for insecticides which, as we all now know only too well, have devastating long-term impacts on our environment.
I can see you sitting at your desk rolling your eyes, thinking ‘I am busy. I know all of this. Why is she wasting my time?’ The answer is that I had almost forgotten myself. In the last few years I have somehow, without thinking about it, lost sight of who I am.
Five years ago, I was moved onto a project to investigate cases of bioterrorism in order to prevent it. Eighteen months ago, somehow I got talked into assisting as the work I had done on entomological warfare and mycoherbicides was turned from a defensive to an offensive project. I know you are puzzled at my distinction between the two. You see the projects I term offensive as defensive. Perhaps you are right. But I cannot easily make the transition myself. There is a huge moral difference that worries my heart and my mind.