Jack had never been one for contemplation or philosophical thinking, but he had found himself turning to it more and more lately, if only as a way of keeping sane. He would ask himself questions to try and occupy his mind and then obsess desperately over the answers. It was one of the few good ways to pass time. He knew, though, that it would only be a matter of time before his mind started to unravel from the strain of it all. The loneliness and isolation of his repeating world would eventually drive him mad. Eventually, he would run out of questions to ask and there would be no more answers to find.
“Jack?”
The sound of his name shocked him for nobody ever spoke it anymore. Nobody knew him. He glanced up to find someone standing at the edge of the pool looking down at him. The sun, shining behind, presented the figure as a silhouette, but Jack could still tell who it was immediately. It was the brunette waitress.
Jack’s mouth fell open and he tried to swallow. He tried to speak but failed. The waitress smiled at him, but she looked weak and weary. She was not wearing the uniform she’d had on when Jack had first met her; clothed instead in simple jeans and black t-shirt.
“I think you’ve been looking for me,” she said. “Come with me, Jack. I think I know what is happening.”
***
Tally’s cabin was at the aft of A Deck. When Jack had previously searched for her, he’d knocked on just about every cabin door on the ship, but most had not opened and there was no way to tell if people were ignoring him or if the rooms were empty. He’d eventually given up on finding Tally and it seemed that as soon as he did, she had found him.
Her room was nice, personal, with a wide assortment of chintzy knickknacks adding to its charm. Jack took a seat on the foot of her neatly made bed while she sat down on a chair beside the room’s cluttered dressing table.
“So, what do you know?” Jack asked before she even had time to settle in her seat.
“The day is resetting.”
Jack sighed. “I know that! The day keeps repeating over and over.”
Tally shook her head. “No, you do not understand. It is not repeating. It is resetting.”
“What’s the difference?”
“For the day to be repeating it must first exist, an unchangeable part of our timeline. That is not what is happening. For whatever reason, this day is being wiped clean at midnight and reset to start over.”
“But the same things happen every day. Repeating.”
Tally looked at Jack as though he was a child. “No. The things that happen on this day are fated to occur. They happen because they are a culmination of the almost infinite events from the days preceding them. What people do tomorrow is a product of what they do today. The world ripples and those ripples do not change.”
Jack tried to understand. He sort of did. People kept acting the same way because they were acting however they would have if the day had just gone on as normal. There were no factors to make them behave any differently, so they didn’t. Things only changed if Jack did something to directly influence events.
As if reading his mind, Tally said, “This is why you can change things, Jack. If the day was repeating, so too would you repeat. Your free will exhibits that the day is being reset, and that you are the only passenger of this ship who can still remember the previous version of events that have been erased. Whoever did this chose you for something.”
“And you,” Jack quickly added.
Tally shook her head. “No. At first I was like everybody else. I didn’t realise what was happening.”
“So what changed? How come you know now?”
“I am Romany. My people have dealt with magic for centuries. We have built up certain…resistances. At first, I was oblivious, the same as everybody else, but the longer the spell was in effect the more it failed to get through my natural defences. At first I just felt a little odd, daydreaming about things that hadn’t happened – or at least I believed so at the time – but then, gradually, I became aware of what was happening. I stayed in my room for many days, trying to make sense of things. On one of those days, I saw you knocking on doors and asking about me. I was frightened, of course, and I hid from you, but I also realised that whatever is going on wasn’t just happening to me.”
“What is happening?” Jack urged her to tell him because the anticipation was killing him. This woman sitting in front of him perhaps held the knowledge to end his suffering.
Tally sighed. “I do not know for sure, Jack, but I believe there is a pathwalker aboard this ship.”
Jack swallowed a mouth full of saliva and stretched his eyes wide to clear them of their fuzziness. He wanted to make sure he had heard her correctly. “Did you say a pathwalker? What the hell is a pathwalker?”
“A pathwalker is a very powerful being. Human, yet…changed. They undergo a ritual at a young age, which allows them to see across the many threads of time. They are the true seers of the future and the past. They can also see sideways.”
“Sideways?”
“Yes, sideways. Every time you make a decision, Jack, there are a thousand paths you did not follow. Each of those paths play out in an alternative version of events, with alternative versions of you.”
“That’s sounds a bit Movie of the Week to me,” Jack said.
Tally did not seem to understand his incredulity. She carried on with her explanation as if she were reading it from a textbook. “Think of time as a piece of string made of many tiny threads. Each time you choose left, another version of you chooses right, and the string is pulled apart into two separate threads. This happens millions of times every second and the strings eventually become a tangled weave, a tapestry of existence. We call this tapestry the celestial pathways. And a pathwalker can grab a hold of every one of these tiny threads and see the events that transpired there. They can even, sometimes, affect those threads. I think we are seeing an example of that now, although there are consequences.”
Jack rubbed his forehead and let out a long, laboured sigh while he tried to absorb everything. It sounded like a bunch of hocus-pocus and new-world superstition but, with what he had been through for the last six months, he really had no option but to believe what Tally was telling him. He had to believe in something.
“So, this pathwalker?” he said. “He’s evil, right? Like some kind of witch?”
Tally shook her head. “No, Jack. Not at all. Pathwalkers are good. They are protectors of the world. I do not know one might be doing this, but it will be for good reason.”
Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t agree that anyone responsible for the hell he was in was good. There was just no way. Jack had to find out who this pathwalker was and force him to stop doing whatever it was he was doing. This madness had to stop. Even if it meant he had to kill the son of a bitch.
Day 199
Jack had gone back to his room after talking to Tally. He’d needed to think things through. What Tally had told him, about pathwalkers and time-threads, was a lot to take in for a sane person. His already-crazy world had suddenly grown to include time-controlling wizards and magic-resistant Romany gypsies – and, for some reason, he’d been selected to play some part in a plan he knew nothing about. Tally hadn’t even gotten around to discussing the virus onboard. It had almost seemed like a background event to her.
Previously, Jack thought he was in Hell for the sins he had committed, but now he found himself struggling to believe in another version of events. Why had this pathwalker – he felt stupid even thinking the word – picked him over a thousand other passengers? What was so special about Jack?
He’d woken that day at 1400hrs, as always. In some way he had hoped that the new knowledge of the situation would have been enough, all by itself, to break the spell.
No such luck.
He’d agreed to meet Tally again at around four. It was now a quarter-to and Jack was still lying on the bed in his cabin, fully clothed and ready to leave. His depression had lifted at the realisation he no
w had a companion onboard – someone with whom he could share his fate. Not being alone made a huge difference to his world. One of his basic human needs had been restored.
He got up from the bed and went into the bathroom, glancing in the mirror. Although it had been the best part of a year since he’d boarded the Spirit of Kirkpatrick, it looked like he’d aged a whole decade. It was hardly surprising, considering the stress and misery he’d been subjected to, but he was also concerned that he might actually be aging. The day was being reset at midnight each night, but he wasn’t. He was living through every day as if they were sequential, his life ticking away.
Jack left his room and took the elevator up to the Broadway Deck. He was going to meet Tally by the pool and together they were going to search the ship for the pathwalker. Hopefully, whoever it was would be shrouded by a sphere of glowing light and wearing a mage’s robe.
Tally was already waiting when Jack reached the pool. She was again dressed in casual clothing and seemed to be hiding out from the other members of staff. If they saw her, she would probably have to explain why she wasn’t at work like she was supposed to be.
“Hey,” he said, walking up to her. “How are you?”
“I am fine, thank you. Are you ready?”
“I guess so. Do you have any ideas where to start?”
“No. It could be anyone. Pathwalkers have belonged to every race since the dawn of time. They could be as normal as you and I. My mother taught me stories about them from far and wide.”
“Great. Just a thousand or so passengers to check on then.”
“Plus three-hundred staff.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you know if it was a member of staff?”
Tally shrugged. “I’ve not spoken to most of them. It is a big ship and we all have our own areas.”
“So, where should we start?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we should try to make a plan.”
“Okay, is there anything to look for specifically to find a pathwalker?”
“They will be outside of the spell, like us. Have you noticed anybody else not following a pattern?”
Jack stared at his shoes and thought about it, before looking back at Tally. “I honestly haven’t. You were the first person I realised was like me.”
“Okay, so we have nothing. We should just start at the bottom and work our way up.”
“You mean at the bottom of the ship?”
“Yes. Let’s go down to the Orlop Deck – that is the lowest part of the ship. There is a small amount of cargo onboard. Maybe that will give us some clues.”
“Cargo? I thought this was a cruise liner.”
Tally sighed impatiently. “The ship is owned by BR shipping. They take advantage of their cruise itineraries by offering free freight service to their subsidiary companies.”
Jack scratched his chin. “BR? BR? Where do I know that name from?”
“Black Remedy. They are the largest commercial entity in the world. I would think they are familiar to everybody. Samuel Raymeady is the richest man in the world.”
Jack clicked his fingers. “Yeah, that’s it, Black Remedy. Jesus, they have their fingers in the holiday business?”
Tally shrugged. “Looks like it. Now come on. We may feel like we have eternity to find the pathwalker, but we do not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Enough!” Tally took Jack by the arm and dragged him away from the pool. “No more questions,” she said. “We have to get started.”
***
Tally took them down to the bowels of the ship via the elevator. She first had to key in a code on the console that allowed her access to the non-passenger parts of the ship.
The Orlop Deck was stifling, lit only by fluorescent strip lighting and possessing no windows or soft furnishings of any kind. The floor was uncarpeted, leaving the metal walkways exposed, and the sound of machinery was constant.
“The cargo hold is aft,” Tally said. “This way.”
They headed down a walkway towards the back of the ship. There were no doorways on this level and everything was wide open. Up ahead there were several cargo pallets, wrapped tightly in saran wrap and secured to the floor by ropes and buckles. Some of the pallets were stacked ten feet high.
“What is all this stuff?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know. BR usually transports medicines from their plant in Portugal to other countries in Europe.”
“How do you know so much about Black Remedy?”
“Because I like to know who I work for. Plus, all the staff know that the lower hold is used for shipping. It is no secret.”
“Then, what do you expect to find down here?”
“Evidence of a spell.”
Jack frowned. “Huh?”
“You cannot just reset time without having certain things prepared. Somewhere on this ship there is a candle burning. If we find it, we find the person who cast the spell.”
Jack looked suspiciously around the cargo hold at the various boxes and crates. “We’re looking for a candle?” he said. “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”
“Because if you saw the candle in question you would have mentioned it anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because the candle will be burning with a bright blue flame. It’s probably being kept somewhere private, undisturbed – like the cargo hold.”
Jack moved between the pallets, prodding at various boxes and crates. Sure enough, they all had printed labels reading: BR PHARMACEUTICALS.
“You think this stuff has anything to do with the virus onboard?” he said. “What do you make of what has been happening to people every night?”
Tally hoisted herself up onto a pallet with the agility of a circus performer and began scanning the area from an elevated position. “I know nothing of the virus except that it is man-made.”
“How do you know it’s been engineered?”
“Because nature does not bring back the dead to kill the living. Only man is wicked enough to create such a thing.”
Jack pulled at some of the wrapping around a pallet and attempted to get at the contents inside. “Maybe there’s some nasty substance in one of these boxes that got loose. I’ve read things about Black Remedy being involved in all sorts of dodgy practises and corruption in the past – that’s how they got so powerful in the first place. Maybe they’re into weapons and chemicals and stuff.”
Tally sounded uninterested. “Perhaps. It all sounds a like conspiracy to me. I think, if we find the pathwalker, we will find answers for all our questions.”
“You think the virus and the day being reset are related?”
She jumped down from the top of the pallet and landed right in front of him. “Of course they are. You really think that two unnatural things happening at the same time in the same place are mere coincidence?”
Jack saw her point. “I suppose not. Then how are they related?”
“I told you,” Tally said irritably. “Pathwalkers are a force of good. They protect the world. And right now one is trying to protect people from the virus aboard this ship. That much is clear. There must be some way to save all of these passengers. That must be your mission.”
Jack grunted. “If this pathwalker is so righteous and helpful, why doesn’t he just come out and help us directly. Why is he hiding?”
“I don’t know. I think it might be against the rules.”
“The rules?”
“Yes, the rules.” Tally seemed to be getting impatient with his questions. Her temper was growing consistently short. “For magic to be successful,” she said. “It must be performed within the realms of certain restrictions. To break those rules could bring about catastrophe; especially when manipulating time itself.”
It was all sounding a little too hocus-pocus again for Jack, so he resumed his search of the cargo hold. He had the strange feeling that he was being watched, but he shook it away as paranoia. Up ahead, was a pallet stacked severa
l feet high with blue, plastic crates. They looked like beer coolers, and when he went over to check the contents, he found no labels or identifying marks at all.
“I’m going to take a look inside one of these boxes,” Jack shouted over to Tally. “They don’t look like the others.”
“What do you think is in there?”
“Only one way to find out.” Jack ran his fingertips over the box’s seams but could no obvious way to open it, so, carefully, he tipped the crate onto its side, cringing when he felt something shift inside.
“There,” Tally said, pointing her finger at the crate. “In the corner.”
Jack examined the base and saw that one corner featured a keyhole. As he looked closer, he could see that the cargo pallet had been stacked upside down, with all the crates positioned with their lids pointing down. He could think of no reason to pack everything upside down, other than to prevent people looking inside.
“We need to get this box open,” he said.
“I think you should just step away from there, right now,” came a voice Jack did not recognise. “No sudden moves, pardner, understand?”
Jack turned around to see a man standing behind him: medium height, average looking, and rather dumb-sounding when he had spoken – despite the threatening intent of his words. He sounded like one of those drawling cowboys from grainy westerns. And, just like a cowboy, he was pointing a revolver at Jack.
“Who are you?” Tally asked, not seeming to notice the firearm in the man’s left hand. “What are you doing down here?”
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