Can’t think. She runs, hating the way her stupid heels make her feet wobble on the pavement, hating the way her long beige coat flaps around her bare legs in an almost cinematic manner.
7.36pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Greg Randall is 68 metres away
on Camden High Street,
London NW1 7JH
He’s running too. Running after her. Catching up!
There is a 81% chance that
Greg Randall will be the killer
of Joanna O’Donnell.
And her auto increases the odds of her death accordingly.
7.36pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Joanna O’Donnell is at
Mornington Crescent
Underground Station
[Northern Line – Charing
Cross Branch], London NW1 7JE
There are people streaming in and out of the old terracotta-tiled Tube station. Joanna hesitates, nervous about going on the Underground, at being trapped down below with nowhere to run. Her auto brings up her medical monitor, which is flaring amber, responding to increased adrenalin levels and heart rate. It’s almost enough to trigger an automatic 999 call by itself, oh God what if that happens and she keels over with a heart attack...
7.36pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Greg Randall is 38 metres away
on Camden High Street,
London NW1 7JH
There’s a bus stop up ahead. She glimpses the familiar, cherry-red shape of a London double-decker bus sitting there, its front and middle doors folding shut, and doesn’t think twice as she hares towards it.
7.37pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Greg Randall is 29 metres away
on Camden High Street,
London NW1 7JH
The bus starts up its engine before Joanna reaches it. She jumps onto the open rear platform just as it begins moving, grabbing the pole and hauling herself on board, thanking sweet Jesus that it’s a Routemaster and not one of the old models. She stamps her way up the curved staircase to the upper deck, which is empty of passengers. Nobody to see her gasping and bedraggled, thank God.
As she sways with the motion of the bus accelerating, Joanna peers out through a window, back towards Mornington Crescent... but there’s no sign of Greg.
She’s escaped.
7.37pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Joanna O’Donnell is on the 88
Bus [to Clapham Common Old
Town], at Harrington Square
Gardens, London NW1 2JU.
Joanna collapses into the nearest seat. Thank the Lord, she’s made it, she’s safe now. She sits there for a minute, catching her breath. She looks down at pedestrians as the bus glides along the road, rocking her gently from side to side. So many people out there, but right now she’s never felt so alone.
What the hell is Greg’s problem?! Some weird serial killer? Was he grooming her to look like his ex-girlfriend, to replace her, until he kills her too? There’s so many freaks out there, so many perverts, so many sickos on registers, you can’t trust anybody! No bloody wonder she’s been single for so long, she’s never going on a date in this city again.
Joanna straightens her Vades™ and tells her auto to open up her messages. She needs to get in touch with her Circle, maybe the police, and definitely contact her colleagues at Global Investigations to tell them what’s happened, before they assume she’s illegally stolen their apps. No way is she risking her career over this.
She’s not surprised to see four PMs from Greg in her queue, all sent in the last five minutes, all blocked. The freak. She feels like replying and telling the sick little man what she thinks of him. In her head she’s already semi-composing her message, warning him to back off, he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with, she works for the agency that built the research apps he’s stolen, Global Investigations are going to make his life hell. They’ll find him, no matter where he goes. Hunting people down is what they do. It’s her job. Mess with me and you’re signing your own death warrant!
Joanna tells her auto to bring up details for Gordon, her senior manager. He’s the expert, her guru in many ways, the one who headhunted her from Londonwide Associates four years ago. There’s nothing that amazing man doesn’t know about timeline security, so he’ll certainly know how to deal with this.
She has the same twinge of guilt she always gets when she thinks of Gordon. He’s done a lot for her, given her a lot of projects and opportunities at Global Investigations. But she can’t forget the time she went behind his back.
He doesn’t know about this – nobody does, she’s an expert at covering her tracks. But she just couldn’t let Catriona’s ex-fiancé suffer for something he didn’t do. Her sister might have washed her hands of him, but Joanna always liked Connor, and couldn’t bear to see him with a Paedophile Index of 12% just because he walked past a primary school so many times. So she’d used her resources at work to curate enough evidence and background checks to prove that it was a mistake, and it was soon redacted from his profile. Connor had wept down the phone as he thanked her. Bless. But if Global Investigations ever find out she did that, Joanna can kiss her career goodbye.
Anyway, Gordon’s her best bet for sorting this whole mess out. According to his personal calendar he’s in Fiji right now, but she can ask his auto to –
7.38pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Greg Randall is 9 metres away
on Hampstead Rd, London
NW1 3ED
Joanna’s medical monitor flares amber once again.
She twists round in her seat, staring down at the street below... and sees Greg running after the bus as hard as he can. Arms pumping. Tie flapping. Teeth bared.
Oh God, oh God, what the hell is he doing! Why won’t he go away, why is he doing this, please bus go faster, don’t slow down for the next stop, oh please please just bloody go faster!
7.39pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Greg Randall is on the 88 Bus
[to Clapham Common Old
Town], at Hampstead Rd,
London NW1 3ED
He’s on the bus, Christ, he’s jumped on the bus!
There is a 88% chance that
Greg Randall will be the killer
of Joanna O’Donnell.
“NO!” screams Joanna, standing up and backing away from the stairwell, expecting to see Greg emerge from below, with a knife, a gun, his bare hands. She runs between two rows of empty seats towards the second stairwell at the front of the bus, stops dead, wonders if that’s the one he’ll come up from, or will he double-back, oh Jesus he’s down there waiting for her, she’s trapped!
Another PM pops up. From him.
Joanna forces her panic-wide eyes to blink long enough to open it, she’s going to reply, she has to beg with him to stop, to let her go...
Please Joanna, we need to talk,
I need your help!
...but where will she go, how can she escape from someone who knows her entire timeline, knows her every secret, knows what she’s capable of...
Joanna reads his message again. He needs her help. Surely that’s bullshit, freaky-serial-killer-girlfriend-butchering-bullshit. Why would a man like Greg ever need her help for anything?
She recalls the message she considered sending him. Reminding him that she works for the same detective agency that made the research apps he’s using.
Hunting people down is what they do. It’s her job.
And with the rush of insight that a professional data analyst learns to trust, Joanna realises the big gap in the pattern that she’s missed.
She forces herself to take deep breaths, still keeping an eye on both stairwells, and says “Run... run deep-search, Greg Randall’s timeline... all activity relating to... Raymond McKenzie.”
The unusual symbols she glimpsed, back when she first considered digging into Greg’s timeline, now flash across the top of her Vades™. Her auto is using the research apps at full power. Excavating through digital topsoil to the layer
s of history buried beneath. Unearthing skeletons.
It takes ages. Seconds. But then it appears, right before Joanna’s eyes: a list of all the times Greg tried to do to McKenzie’s timeline what she’s now doing to his.
And failing.
Failing!
She says “Run deep-search on Raymond McKenzie!”
The symbols flash, rotate, vanish.
Unable to complete deep-
search.
Raymond McKenzie timeline
unavailable.
In all her time at Global Investigations, Joanna has never, ever failed. With the software at her disposal, the technology and techniques, she can access any person’s timeline, living or dead, anywhere in the world. But she’s failed now. Somehow, McKenzie’s timeline has been sealed off, preventing her from finding out anything except the most basic profile information.
This is something new. Like the artificial timelines being sold to criminals, that she learned about on that training course. Something new and secret and cutting-edge.
7.40pm Thursday 7 April 2022
Greg Randall is 2 metres away
on the 88 Bus [to Clapham
Common Old Town], at
Hampstead Rd, London
NW1 3ED
Joanna turns round as Greg appears in the rear stairwell, slowly coming up to the top deck. He’s flushed and sweating, panting for breath, hair plastered to his brow. Holding both palms towards her in a mean-no-harm gesture, eyes huge behind rimless glasses. Big, pleading eyes aimed right at her. She knows what those eyes are saying.
Please Joanna, we need to talk,
I need your help!
Yes, you do, she thinks, imagining what it must have been like: knowing who murdered the girl you once loved.
Knowing who had killed her, probably by accident, but still, he had her blood on his hands. Knowing but not being able to prove it, not being able to contradict the fact that McKenzie’s auto placed him elsewhere at the time of Roxanna’s death. Knowing that you had to do something, that you would do anything, to get to the truth and prove that he was guilty.
Even if it meant illegally installing research apps into your own auto. Like she has.
Something else slots into place inside Joanna’s head. Greg has dug deeper into her own timeline than anyone else – he knows her secrets. Which means he knows about the time she used Global Investigations’ resources to help her sister’s ex-fiancé, get him off the sex offenders register. An injustice she just couldn’t stomach. Not when she knew there was something she could do to help Connor get his life back, even if the only way was illegal.
Greg could ruin her with that information. But instead it’s just made him more desperate to talk to her. Because it proves that they’re two of a kind.
And now one of his earlier PMs makes so much more sense:
Something tells me we have a
lot in common. Not sure how
I’ve got this far without you!
How on earth did he manage to carry on with his life after Roxanna’s death? God, how hard must this have been for him? With Roxanna’s auto still online, replying to everyone as if she was still alive, talking the way she used to talk, while he keeps on trying to prove who murdered her, failing and failing and failing...
Joanna blinks rapidly, accidentally triggering his profile display.
Greg Randall
Gender: Male
Age range: 31-35
Orientation: Straight
Relationship status:
Single/Available.
Homicide Index: 0%.
Compatibility Index: 90%.
Seeing that her auto has simultaneously worked out that Greg isn’t a killer makes Joanna relax. Her medical monitor turns from amber to green, then fades.
And look at that – an even higher see-eye now, more compatible than ever. Both of their autos have realised that Greg really does need someone like Joanna: a professional data analyst with access to the resources of a detective agency. Someone prepared to put her skills to good use, prepared to break the law to do the right thing. He needs her.
She needs him, too. This could be the greatest opportunity that’s ever landed in her lap. As they combine their efforts to crack the newest criminal development in timeline security, giving Joanna something to really impress Gordon with: a solution. Something to put a stop to that Pacific island mastermind who’s making a fortune while his criminal clients get away with murder. Something to help make Global Investigations even more of a market leader, and help her star rise even higher.
Boyfriend material, definitely, but possibly more. Possible partners.
Obviously seeing the same thing via his Spex™, Greg breathes out with a sort of half-smile, then sinks down onto one of the bus seats. She can see how drained he is. But also the relief.
Joanna walks up the aisle and sits down on the seat in front of his. As he looks at her, she reaches back and unpins her hair, allowing the long black curls to tumble onto her shoulders. She takes off her Vades™, and he takes off his glasses, so they’re looking at each other bare-faced.
They say it at the same time.
“Hello.”
Friend Request
“HAPPY ANNIVERSARYYYY!”
Nick can’t help but smile, as the voice booms through his brand-new house. He finishes pouring red wine into the glasses of Sara and Paul, who are smiling along with him. As usual he spills a bit and nearly drops the bottle, but they don’t seem to notice. They all glance at the smartscreen on the kitchen wall, already knowing whose profile it’s flashing up.
9.21pm Saturday 28 May 2022
House visitor 096:
Harry Buonsanto
Gender: Male
Age range: 36-40
Orientation: Gay
Relationship status:
Couple/Monogamous
Nick says “Now it’s a party!” and Sara and Paul laugh in agreement. They can all hear Harry calling out to people he knows. The music has changed to an old classic from two decades back, ‘Call On Me’ by Eric Prydz – his theme. It thumps from the concealed speakers in the living room, where some party guests start dancing, remembering it from their younger days.
Nick excuses himself to Sara and Paul, walks out of the kitchen and down the hallway. He feels the smile drop off his face. He wonders if relief is showing instead.
Or frustration.
Or fear.
He’s been waiting for his old friend. Bottling it all up, unable to breathe a word. But he has to talk to someone about it soon, or he’ll go mad.
It’s not every day you find out about your wife’s secret life.
Harry’s dancing to his own anthem in the hallway, swinging a bag full of bottles, shaking hands and kissing cheeks as he makes his way in. Nick is struck yet again that Harry always looks younger than him, even though they both turned 40 this year. He’s a lot shorter than Nick’s six feet three, just as broad-shouldered – they’ve been gym buddies for years – but without Nick’s beginning-of-a-belly. It helps that Harry has inherited his Italian father’s olive complexion. With his shaggy black hair, big smile, retro-ripped jeans and tight red t-shirt, he seems to be dodging middle age and clinging onto his party-animal twenties.
“There’s the man!” cries Harry when he spots Nick. “Christ, look at that face, someone needs a drink, I reckon.”
Damn, thinks Nick. Expression fail. He summons a grin, reminded how easily Harry can decode him, and says “Now you’ve shown your ugly mug, I might have to start hitting the bottle!”
“That would be worth celebrating!” Harry hugs him, strong arms squeezing tight, until Nick’s ribs creak and he punches his old friend in the kidneys to force him to let go. All the nearby guests are smiling, knowing how close they are.
Nick thanks him for coming, and especially for giving up his usual Saturday night clubbing. “How’s Gareth? I thought he’d be with you?”
“Should be coming along later, he’s popped in
to see the fam I think. Yeah, here you go.” Harry shows his smartphone to Nick. It’s a Nokia Moro 900, worn around his left wrist like a wide bracelet. Very typical of Harry, to buy a phone that’s also a fashion accessory! These designs are popular this year, made from flexible memory plastic that can be bent and shaped however you wish. Not that Nick would ever wear one – he’s a traditionalist. And he knows it would look stupid on him.
The top area of Harry’s smartphone is displaying the live video feed of his boyfriend, Gareth, streamed directly from the Vades™ he always wears. Nick can see a plump older woman eating a meal and talking, while two slim hands are using a knife and fork at the bottom of the screen: Gareth is having dinner with his Mum. According to the real-time stats, Gareth’s personal channel currently has 134 people watching everything he does.
Satisfied, Harry shakes his wrist to close down the display. “So this is the new Chéz Brady, eh? How many estate agents did you have to sleep around with?”
Sleep around with! Does he… no, it’s just a coincidence. But Nick grinds his teeth anyway. When you’re stressed about something, you see reminders of it everywhere. He knows this. He knows he’s a worrier. But his chest still aches.
Nick shows Harry around his new home, or at least the ground floor. It’s a three-storey house in a residential part of Paddington, one of the nicer areas of North-West London. The living room is huge, but already half-full with party guests drinking, eating, talking and dancing. Glass doors lead onto the patio and garden, where another couple of dozen people are keeping the barbeque going, handing round platters of burgers, sausages and spare ribs. It’s a warm evening, May’s weather has been great, perhaps this year there’ll be a proper London summer at last! But when Nick last checked the forecast it said a cold front was moving in from the Atlantic, with heavy rain forecast for the Bank Holiday Monday. Typical. Shouldn’t ruin things for tonight, though.
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