CONNECTED

by Denman, Simon

  “I'm the plasterer!” said the man.

  Peter nodded and led him to the upstairs landing. The man stood frowning, hands on hips, studying the two jagged holes in the ceiling, tutting and making various other noises presumably intended to prepare Peter for the unfavourable verdict to follow.

  “Just do what you have to do, but don't overcharge me,” said Peter, deciding on the pre-emptive approach. “I know exactly what's involved in repairing this ceiling. I just have neither the time nor the skill to do it myself.”

  The man looked at him for a moment as if trying to determine whether Peter had just questioned his integrity in some way. “Well I'd best get started then,” he said finally, clearly still unsure.

  “Help yourself to tea and coffee in the kitchen,” said Peter, “I'm going to take a shower and then get on with my work.”

  As the steaming high pressure jets stimulated the nerve endings of his scalp and shoulders, Peter closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind. A recurring, yet frustratingly transient image had been presenting itself ever since the first full Dream-Zone experience on Sunday evening. It was a complex, yet symmetrical, multifaceted geometric shape, whose iridescent surface shimmered every colour of the rainbow, like some impossibly convoluted cubist interpretation of a sunlit soap bubble in the breeze. It was a thing of indescribable beauty which, during its fleeting apparitions, hinted of deeper significance. On a number of occasions, he had tried to draw it, but the resulting two-dimensional representations had utterly failed to capture its essence, now once again so vividly revealed as Peter showered.

  Coming out of the bathroom, he heard voices from above and looked up to see not one, but two identical scrawny heads peering through the dual holes in the ceiling.

  “This is my brother John,” said one of the heads. “Sorry if we startled you - we're twins you see!”

  “Nice to meet you!” said the other.

  Peter stood staring at them for a moment, as the whole ceiling became overlaid with the same shimmering shapes of his erstwhile visions. Although the heads clearly belonged to two separate bodies, the initial impression of the same object appearing at two distinct points in space, had triggered a thought process, which pointed to an answer he had been seeking all his life. “That's it!” he shouted, rushing into the study.

  For several hours he scribbled frantically in his notebook, filling the pages with equations, comments and sketches. Periodically, he would return to the Zone, snatching confirmatory insights into the hypothesis that was gradually unfolding before him. The imagined shape was both multi-dimensional and fractal, and the revelation upon which Peter was now fixated, was that this strangely beautiful form was in fact the underlying shape of space-time itself. Unlike the existing models of string theory though, this configuration was not infinitely repeated in discrete sub-Planck-length nodules, but interconnected throughout the entire universe. The specific fractal nature of the shape meant that its mathematical description was likely to be simpler than most of the Calabi-Yau forms previously put forward.

  From the equations now flowing furiously from his ballpoint, it looked as though every point in the cosmos could be connected to every other through at least ten spacial dimensions. Through a startling property of reciprocal equivalence, which appeared to derive from the fractal nature of the shape itself, the cosmically large scales of the universe were inextricably linked to the sub-atomically small, and if Peter was correct in his assumptions, the resulting physics would be consistent throughout. Everything appeared to be slotting into place: the quantum entanglement of two particles, was in fact just the same particle appearing at two points within three-dimensional space, the multi-location of a single photon as it passes through parallel slits giving rise to the familiar wave-like interference pattern, was also an artefact of the photon's true multi-dimensional nature – the apparent weirdness arising only from the mistaken belief that the object was just a point in Cartesian space.

  There was a knock at the study door, and one of the heads peered hesitantly through the opening. “It's all finished, if you want to take a look,” said the head.

  Peter stared blankly at the man for few seconds, while his brain's current train of thought pulled into the station of consciousness, allowing its cognitive passengers to disembark onto the page beneath his pen. Peter surveyed the smooth dark patches of fresh plaster where the two holes had once been.

  “Your wife said you'd be painting it over yourself, is that right?”

  Peter nodded, went back into his study and wrote out a cheque.

  “I haven't told you how much it is yet,” said the man watching him from the doorway.

  “Okay, tell me,” said Peter, folding the cheque in half and tucking it into his shirt pocket.

  The plasterer pulled a calculator from his tool bag and hit some buttons, all the while mumbling something about materials, labour and tax. “A hundred and eighty-five quid!” he said proudly after a few minutes.

  Peter handed him the cheque and started walking downstairs.

  “How the hell did you do that?” came a startled exclamation from behind.

  Peter opened the door and winked, as the two men shuffled out, exchanging baffled glances. He looked at his watch. Damn! He was thirty minutes late for the kids' pick-up from school.

  As he was getting into the car, the mobile rang. “Peter, I've just had a call from Sam,” came Abigail's angry voice, “He says he's been waiting...”

  “I'm on my way. Tell him I'll be there in five minutes.” He hung up, too excited to listen to another of his wife's beratings. Although he still had a lot of maths to get through, he was already starting to allow himself to believe that he might have discovered the ultimate theory of everything.

  Sam and Kate were tired, hungry and restless, but Peter scarcely noticed. His mind was filled with the equations and permutations of existence itself. Nothing else mattered. His bodily automaton set about reheating the leftover spaghetti in the microwave, while his conscious mind entertained the possible scenarios of his imminent universal acclaim as a visionary theoretical physicist. People would soon be comparing him to Einstein, he thought grandly. How did you come up with this radical new theory all by yourself, Dr. Sawyer? they would ask. But how had he come up with it? Had Dream-Zone inspired him to find the answer from within his own memory and experience? How could his mind have suddenly conjured up the underlying shape of space-time? Even Crick and Watson's discovery of DNA's double helix structure had been based on some pretty strong clues, although a good deal of insight had certainly been involved. But what had been the clues for this? Could Dream-Zone have allowed him to tap into some external reserve of knowledge? This is what it felt like, but how could that possibly be? And earlier, how had he been able to guess the plasterer's bill? If indeed it was a guess. The separate Dream-Zone audio and graphics files had only served to enhance access to existing memories, but the effect of the combination video seemed to do more. The hitherto undiscovered shape of space-time could not have come from memory – neither his nor anyone else's. The only conceivable explanation was that clues had existed somewhere in the depths of Peter's mind, and that these had somehow combined in a sudden flash of insight to produce the final gestalt. But perhaps he was getting ahead of himself; the mathematical proof for his discovery was still some way off. Unless he could show, in an independently verifiable way, how the elementary particle masses and forces implied by a universe organised in this way were in fact those observed, it would remain no more than idle speculation. He watched, without appetite, as the children twirled the strings of pasta around their forks, cramming the resulting tangles into their mouths.

  CHAPTER 20

  Having dropped Doug off at the university, Nadia drove back to her apartment feeling both exhausted and frustrated. They had spent most of the afternoon being questioned by a couple of well-meaning, but none-too-bright detectives at a North London Police station. She and Doug had agreed to come clean about Dream-Zone, bu
t downplay her involvement to that of friend and mutual acquaintance of the deceased. They had tried to explain the potential danger of the video file reaching the Chinese, but it was clear the officers had neither the slightest understanding of what they were saying, nor any intention to follow up. Someone had beaten the young Russian to death, and judging mainly by the lack of blood spatter on Doug and Nadia's clothes it seemed, the police had appeared satisfied that this someone was neither one of them. All the subsequent talk of computer files though had only served to confuse the poor dears. She and Doug had both aired their suspicions that Markov was the assailant, but what, if anything, their interrogators had made of this was hard to read.

  She activated the garage door and drove slowly down the ramp. A large white minivan was parked in the spot next to hers, forcing her to shunt back and forth several times before slotting the Porsche into the allotted space. Grabbing her bag from the passenger seat, she stepped out of the car. At that moment, the driver's door of the van swung out in front of her, blocking her exit, while the side door slid open. “Get in!” said Sergei Markov, sitting smugly in the back. There was a click and something cold and hard pressed against her temple.

  “Better do as he says,” came a low voice from behind.

  “And give me bag before you get crazy ideas,” added Markov.

  She climbed in and tossed the handbag over to his feet, where it landed on the white metal floor with a clank. He turned it upside down, emptying the contents into a pile, and picked up the training weight. “Aha!” he said, tossing it from hand to hand and smiling with approval. “One could do damage with this.” He started to put the weight back on the floor and then jabbed it at her with lightning speed. The steel caught her on the chin, sending her flying back against the driver's seat.

  “Unless you want to look like our friend Dmitri, you do exactly as I say and no more games!” he continued coldly. “Now put hands behind back.”

  Nadia felt a plastic cable-tie tighten around her wrists until it bit painfully into her flesh. Markov produced a role of tape, tore off a six-inch strip and stuck it across her mouth. He nodded to the man behind her and a cloth sack was pulled over her head and secured around the neck. The sack smelled of fertiliser. The image of Dmitri's mashed face flashed before her eyes, and a cold harsh terror began to consume her. The doors of the van slammed shut, and the vehicle pulled away with a jolt. The tyres squealed on the smooth concrete of the garage floor and then they were out on the street. For a while, she tried to follow the bends and turns in the road, but soon lost track.

  She now regretted having manipulated him into paying up, the other day. Sure, it had been her money, but Markov was not someone who liked to be made a fool of. She had heard rumours that he once killed a man, but had always assumed they were just that – rumours. He and his macho friends liked to boast and flash their big guns at one another, but despite a quick temper, which seemed hard-wired to his fists, she had never imagined him capable of beating someone to death – let alone his own family. Now she knew differently, and in her current predicament, that knowledge was deeply unsettling. Surely the sack was a good sign though - it meant that he didn't want her to know where they were going - which presumably meant that he intended to let her free at some point. But then again, what difference would it make? She already knew who he was, where he lived, and quite a bit about his various business interests. What could be so secret about the location used to intimidate her? Unless of course the sack was just a ruse to increase her level of fear and disorientation. Could that be it? He just wanted her to be terrified? This might explain why he wasn't talking to her now; he would know that these thoughts would be running around in her head, driving her crazy. Is that all this was? Just payback for putting him to sleep like a baby in front of his idiot bouncer. It seemed over the top, even for Sergei, but what else could he want from her?

  Through the cloth, her eyes registered nothing but the periodic flashing of passing street lamps and the occasional headlight beams of oncoming vehicles. Gradually these too died away into a rolling monotonous blackness. The road had changed too – rougher surface and more winding - a narrower country lane perhaps.

  After maybe half an hour, the van made a sharp left and started to rattle along what felt like a dirt track pitted with ruts and deep pot holes. Each time the wheels hit such a depression, the van bounced noisily, flinging her against the hard metal floor. Her whole body now ached in sympathy with the painfully throbbing jaw.

  Finally, they came to a stop, and the side door slid open, letting in a blast of cold wind and the overpowering stench of a sewage treatment plant. She was dragged roughly from the van and made to walk across twenty or thirty yards of what felt like muddy gravel. Through the weave of the sack she could see the quivering beam of a flash-light on the ground below. A clink of chains was followed by the grating of rusty hinges, as some large wooden door shuddered open in front of her. A hard push from behind sent her stumbling into the dark dank space beyond. The odour of old straw mixed with that of the sewage. She was out of the wind now, and the space echoed like a large wooden shed or barn. Suddenly her feet were kicked away from under her and she crashed to the ground. A pair of hands were rolling her face-down into the dirt, pinning her by her shoulders, while something was tightened around her ankles – it felt like another cable-tie. The hands were gone - footsteps moving away - the door was being closed - again the rattling of chains - footsteps in the gravel outside getting fainter – now nothing but the wind gusting around the building. She was alone, she was scared, and she thought of Doug. He would have tried calling her by now, but the phone had been in her handbag – now with Markov. Would Doug call the police, or would he just assume she had ditched him yet again? She hoped the former. But even if he were to call the police, how would they find her? She knew Markov had several properties in London and Colchester, but had never heard mention of anything out in the country.

  The ground was cold. Sitting up, drawing her knees to her chin and then straightening her legs, she found she could shuffle backwards across the dirt floor. After a dozen such moves, her back met with a solid wooden surface she took to be the wall. Pushing with her legs, twisting, and using her tied hands as leverage, she struggled painfully into an upright position. Swivelling her feet from side to side, and shifting her weight from toe to heel, she gradually made her way sideways along the wall and towards the door. An acute pain stabbed her in the back as it caught on something sharp. Feeling with her fingertips, she realised it was a thin nail protruding from one of the wooden slats. Something the size and consistency of a large cockroach, crunched under her foot. She hated bugs even when she could see them. The sound of the wind grew louder and a cold draft chilled her hands. She had reached the door. Pushing against it with her shoulders, it gave a little, then stopped with a clank of chains. She felt through the gap with her fingers, finding the cold metal links and following them to a heavy padlock. Hearing footsteps approaching in the gravel outside, she shuffled quickly away from the door and sat back against the wall. The chains rattled, cold air rushed in and a light was clicked on.

  “There you are!” came Markov's menacing voice. “You wonder what you doing here, yes?”

  Hands were fiddling with the sack around her neck, and at last it was yanked off. Nadia blinked, looked up at the Russian's ugly face and then glanced around. Behind him, a short, stocky, oriental-looking man with an ominous bulge under his jacket was pulling the door closed. The place was a large wooden storage shed with a solitary hay-bale at the far end. A single bulb dangled from the vaulted roof, swinging slightly with the draft and causing the men's shadows to dance erratically on the walls and floor. Markov reached down and ripped the tape viciously from her mouth, taking with it a thin layer of skin. He leant over and peered at her face for a few seconds then grabbed her chin and squeezed. She winced.

  “Not broken – yet!” he said. “Now listen to me. I ask questions and you answer. Any funny business - I h
urt you. When I get tired, my friend here hurt you too. Understand?”

  Nadia nodded, looking over at the other man who was now standing sentry-like in front of the door with arms folded and feet apart. He was obviously trying to look hard and cruel, but something in his eyes and general demeanour told Nadia he wasn't entirely comfortable in the role.

  “Why you go to Dmitri house?” asked Markov suddenly.

  “Sergei, Dream-Zone is dangerous. Two people have committed suicide, and we think Dream-Zone made them do it!”

  He slapped her hard across the face with the palm of his hand. “You lie. You do deal with Dmitri to double-cross me and take money for yourself.”

  “I don't care about the money. You can have that lousy ten grand back if you want, but don't risk exposing thousands of innocent people.”

  The hand twitched, but remained at his side, the man behind shifting nervously.

  “No, you lie!” he shouted, kicking her hard in the thigh with the toe of his boot. “What you tell police?”

  “Nothing!”

  This time he backhanded her across the other side of her face, his ring tearing at the skin of her cheek. “What you tell police?” he said again, raising his voice.

  “Nothing! Really! Just that he was a friend who had some computer games we wanted to borrow. The police here are stupid. They wouldn't understand anyway.”

  Markov had never been able to tell when she was lying. He studied her face for a few seconds, scowling. She felt a trickle of warm blood run down her chin.

  “You not mention me?” he asked, lowering his voice to a snarl.

  “Of course not Sergei! Dmitri was a creep. I wouldn't say he deserved to die, but I won't lose sleep over it.”

  He looked at her for a moment. “If you lie, you will not live to regret it.” Standing up straight, he paced around the shed, his fists clenching and unclenching rapidly.