Collision

by John Williamson

“Do you want sex — I mean coffee?” she said, correcting herself as her face went crimson with embarrassment. She was not sure if she mumbled it or thought it.

  He put his head out of the shower cubicle and stared at her.

  “Did you say something?”

  “Coffee?” she said.

  “Coffee’s fine.”

  Elle rushed out of the bathroom and went over to the kitchen to put the kettle on. She made two coffees and sat down on the settee, still wrapped in the towel. She tried to calm herself down; but she could not get her daytime fantasy out of her head. He was trying to deal with the breakup with his former lover; she was fighting the desires of a nymphomaniac.

  The front door opened. At first it didn’t register with her. It was Jane shaking out a golf-sized brolly. She turned towards Elle.

  “Hi Elle, Ben not around?”

  At that point, Ben came stumbling out of the bathroom covered only in a towel wrapped around his waist.

  A wicked smile came over Jane’s face.

  “Oh,” said Jane, “have I interrupted something?”

  “No,” said Ben, “we were caught in the downpour… just like you.”

  Jane just smiled back her I-don’t-believe-you smile.

  “You’ve got this all wrong,” said Ben, fumbling to keep his towel wrapped around his waist.

  “Oh yeah,” said Jane.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Ben.

  “I need to get dressed,” said Elle, as she hurried off to her bedroom. She could hear Jane and Ben continuing to argue. It sounded as though Jane was enjoying teasing him. Fifteen minutes later, she came out of the bedroom and saw only Jane in the room.

  “Are you okay, Elle?” said Jane. “Do you want to talk?”

  Jane was smiling at her.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “You still haven’t explained about the catsuit.”

  “I will, but not now, please. I have to go out,” said Elle.

  “Talk to you later then,” said Jane.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Cappuccino, please, medium,” said Elle to the waitress in the Union bar. Elle stood at the counter watching the waitress operate the coffee machine. It was a ritual she must have performed hundreds of times a day.

  Elle took her cappuccino and sat down in a booth. She felt confused and needed time to think. If Jane had not come back to the flat, she wondered what would have happened. Every time she saw Ben, her tummy filled with butterflies and her legs went wobbly. She felt like a love-struck teenager unable to deal with the rush of hormones. Perhaps she should just get it over with; sneak into his room at night and jump him. That’s what her friend Jenny would do. But what if he’s not interested? That would be embarrassing. Her mind was spinning. Having sex with Ben was a silly distraction; she should be concentrating on getting back to 2046 before she’s discovered.

  “Hi, can I join you?” said a woman.

  The question brought Elle out of her daze. She looked up — it was the woman in black she had seen last week in the library.

  “I am Natasha, Richard’s friend.”

  Without waiting for Elle to reply, the woman sat down next to her.

  “I’m sorry I was day dreaming. You know Rick?”

  “Yes, we share an interest in UFOs. I am doing Russian Studies here”

  “Oh,” said Elle. “I saw you in the library.”

  “I’m sorry if I spooked you. I wasn’t sure if you were the one or not?”

  “The one? What do you mean?”

  “The one that had the close encounter with the UFO.”

  Elle felt her jaw drop. “What has he been saying about me?”

  “That you were on the beach that night when the UFO landed. Do you deny it?”

  Elle got up from the table. “I’m sorry there has been a misunderstanding I have to go.”

  Elle walked briskly towards the exit of the coffee bar. As she glanced around the bar, she noticed the three men she had seen at the disco. They seemed to be watching her every move. As she moved towards the exit, they started to get to their feet.

  Elle darted down the corridor and disappeared into the ladies’ toilet. She waited while a female student washed her hands, and she was on her own. A window at the end of the row of booths was open on a latch. Elle pushed the window open. She looked outside and saw an alleyway below. She climbed onto the window ledge and jumped down, and ran down the alleyway until she reached the main central pathway. There she mingled with the other students and headed towards Richard’s place. She was furious.

  Natasha waited in the corridor keeping her eyes on the ladies’ toilet that the Masters woman had entered. Ten minutes later the Masters woman had not re-emerged. Something was wrong. Natasha walked into the ladies’ toilet and found no one there. She pushed each of the doors to the booths in turn. There was a noise behind her as a female janitor came into the room pushing a trolley and carrying a mop. Natasha turned back and saw one of the windows was slightly ajar. She walked over to the window and looked out and into the alleyway below. The Masters woman was gone.

  Natasha was about to turn around when she felt a bolt of pain tear through her body. She collapsed on her back on the floor in a state of shock, unable to move as all her nerve endings seemed to be in a state of spasm. She looked up, and there staring back at her was the female janitor; except when she looked more closely, it was a face she recognised — someone she despised.

  “So what are you doing here, Natasha? And what do you know about the UFO sighting? Guess what? We’re going to have some fun together, and you’re going to tell me,” said Daniels.

  She tried to say something, but her muscles would not respond. She looked at her attacker as she injected her with a hypodermic needle. Soon after, she lost consciousness.

  Elle knocked on Richard’s bedsit door. A student had let her into the house and had pointed her in the direction of Richard’s room. She was seething with anger and wanted to vent it on Richard. There was no answer.

  She knocked again and the door moved open and inch. She pushed the door further and it swung open. She caught sight of Richard’s fuzz ball of hair on the bed and pushed her way into the room.

  “You bloody idiot,” she said.

  A groan came from the bed. Something was wrong.

  “Richard?” she said, “Richard!”

  He didn’t answer. She strode into the room and saw that he was lying on the bed, naked and staring at the ceiling.

  “Oh, what have you been doing, Richard?” she said, not knowing whether to walk back out of the room. But as she looked closer, his eyes were dilated and he was staring at the ceiling. There was something wrong. Was it drugs?

  “Are you awake?” she said.

  She leant over his face and could feel his breath. She held his wrist and felt for a pulse. A pulse was there. She pulled out her computer out of her bag.

  “Dial Jane,” she said to the computer. While she was waiting for a reply, she looked over his body again. She felt sorry for him; his body was a bag of bones with little if any muscle definition. Then she noticed his genitals. Oh my God, it’s enormous.

  “Doctor Turner,” came the reply, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Jane, it’s Elle. There’s something wrong with Richard. He needs help. His eyes are open, but it’s like he’s unconscious. I think it’s drugs. And there’s something else…”

  Two hours later, Elle was in Jane’s office in the Medical Centre waiting for news about Richard. Ben came through the door.

  “I just heard. What happened?” said Ben.

  “I don’t know,” said Elle. “A Russian woman came up to me in the union bar, saying she was a friend of Richard. She started talking about close encounters and freaked me out. Remember those guys at the ball who were bothering me. I think she has something to do with them. Anyway, I was furious with Richard for speaking to her, and I went to his bedsit to see him. He was out cold.”

  “On the phone, Jane said it
was drugs. But Richard would never take drugs. Then again I didn’t think he could find a girlfriend and he did. You said this woman was Russian?”

  “Yes,” said Elle.

  “I think I’ve met her,” said Ben.

  Jane came through the swing doors and into the waiting room. She smiled at them.

  “He’ll be okay in a day or so. It’s drugs related: I think he’s suffering from the after effects of a combination of Viagra and some hallucinogenic drug. But I’m going to keep him in for observation. He’s been awake, but not particularly lucid. He’s talking about close encounters and women in black. I think he’s confusing reality with his UFO magazines,” said Jane.

  “Can we see him?” said Ben.

  “He’s sleeping now, Ben; maybe tomorrow. You might as well go for now. Don’t worry we’ll look after him,” said Jane.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Jim was an ex-navy seal and had seen action all over the world. Since he joined the Agency, he had taken part in a dozen black operations. He was good at what he did, a marksman and an expert at close-quarter combat. Killing in combat was part of the business, and he could live with that. But what he found more difficult to deal with were some of the less agreeable activities of the Agency, euphemistically referred to as ‘interrogation’. The building he was in was an old deserted abattoir that stank of rotten meat, and was situated on a deserted section of the docks. He was enjoying a coffee with Allie and Doug in one of the offices and trying to ignore the screams that were coming from the main slaughter room.

  “What’s she doing?” asked Allie. “She’s been torturing that poor woman for hours. I thought we were meant to be the good guys.”

  “Sometimes you have to do this stuff,” replied Jim.

  “It doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it. I swear that bitch gets off on it,” said Allie.

  “Now, now, be careful what you say. She has friends in high places in the Agency.”

  “She’s a sociopath,” said Allie.

  “No, she’s a patriot; just like her old man. You know he got the medal of honour; died in Afghanistan rescuing his team under fire.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You could say we’ve got history together,” said Jim, “but, I would prefer to forget it. She’s no angel; but she’s certainly good at what she does.”

  His mobile phone rang, interrupting their conversation. “It’s her,” he whispered.

  “I’m finished with her. Come and get her,” said Daniels.

  Allie guessed what the call was about and feared the worst.

  “Jim, she’s got kids. I saw the pictures in her handbag. Please don’t let her kill her.”

  “It’ll be okay, Allie,” said Jim. “She’s only after information, and she’s got it now.”

  A minute later, Jim walked into the slaughter room. What he saw made him want to vomit. The Russian woman was hanging in the middle of the room. Her hands were tied together over one of the large meat hooks that ran on a carousel through the abattoir. She was naked and her body was covered in grease and grime. As he got closer, he noticed the bruises and black marks around her breasts and genital area that must have been caused by electric burns. Her face was bloody and there was a stench from the excrement beneath her. She only looked half a live.

  “What took you so long?” said Jim.

  “I had to be sure. I’ve got the name of the cat woman,” said Daniels. “It’s Elle Masters. Get Allie to check everything about her. She’s living with that university lecturer, Turner. I want them all under surveillance. I want to know everything about them, even down to when they took their last dump.”

  “I’ll get Allie and Doug onto that. What do you want done about her?”

  “Just get rid of her; she has no value to me now.”

  “She’s got diplomatic status. They’ll be reprisals.”

  “I don’t care. Get rid of her and clean up the mess. Use your initiative, Jim I’ve got other things to worry about right now.”

  She left Jim alone with the woman. He cut her down from hook, and she collapsed onto the floor into the grime and her own excrement.

  “Get up,” he said.

  “I’m tired. If you’re going to kill me, just do it,” she said, getting onto her knees. “No more pain. Just be quick, please.”

  Jim looked around, him. They were alone together. He picked up the nail gun, used to kill the animals. She turned her head towards him and looked him in the eyes. For a moment she was just a woman. Her eyes were pleading with him. He pushed her head down, held the nail gun to her head, and paused for a second. He lowered his head down to hers.

  “Play dead,” he said.

  The noise of the nail gun firing echoed through the building, and she fell to the floor.

  Daniels came back in the room.

  “What’s taking so long,” she said.

  “I’m just clearing up the mess,” he said.

  He found a hose used for cleaning the abattoir floor, and turned it on.

  Daniels walked out of the room.

  He turned the spray on the naked body on the floor, rolled it over, and cleaned it. He then picked her body up and carried it out of the room and into a basement car park, where a Mercedes was parked. He opened the boot and dumped the body in boot. He then returned to the slaughter room, picked up her clothes, took them back to the car, and threw them in the boot.

  As he drove out of the car park, he saw Allie standing at the exit. Her face was ashen as he drove past. He wanted to comfort her, but it was better she didn’t know the truth. She needed to come to terms with the fact that their business could be brutal; and telling her would increase the risk of Daniels finding out what he was doing. Daniels had told him to use his initiative, and he had. It was just not what she expected; and he didn’t want her to find out too soon.

  Craig Stanway was shattered; he had just pulled a double shift in the emergency unit at the hospital and was outside in the car park taking a break. He knew junior doctors were overworked, but he never thought it would be this bad. Nicotine and coffee were the only things that kept him going. As he drew into his lungs the smoke from his last cigarette, a black Mercedes with dark windows pulled into one of the ambulance bays.

  “Hey you can’t park there,” he yelled at the vehicle as he walked towards it.

  The rear door of the vehicle opened and a woman staggered out.

  Craig’s jaw dropped as the Mercedes sped away. He looked at the woman who was hardly able to stand on her feet. She tried to move her legs as she staggered forward, before she collapsed.

  “Wheelchair, wheelchair,” he shouted, as he ran towards her.

  A porter was already moving towards them with a wheelchair.

  Craig checked her vital signs; she was extremely weak. Her face was bruised. He checked her pulse and noticed the lacerations on her wrist that looked like she had been bound tightly. He looked down at her feet: they were bare and burnt black in places. The porter arrived with a wheelchair and took her away.

  Who could do this, Craig thought, must be a monster.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Elle stood in the darkness outside the Physics Building. She looked at her watch; it was 10:30 p.m. It should be safe now, she thought. She didn’t like going there without Ben’s knowledge, but she couldn’t explain to him what she had in mind. She wanted to find out once and for all if Rider had an answer to the time-displacement equation. And at night, it was unlikely that anyone would be around. She typed in the security code ‘2046’ and the lock buzzed open. She headed to the lifts and called the lift, anxiously looking around her. The building was in darkness; no one was around to catch her, she thought. The lift took her to the top floor. As it got there the lift gave the usual “ding” sound. As the doors opened she peaked down the corridor. No one was around.

  She walked down the corridor to Professor Rider’s office. She turned the handle; as before the door opened and allowed her into the office. Now without, Ben,
she could take a proper look at Rider’s office. She sat down at his desk and switched his computer on. The same prompt for a password came up on screen. She typed in ‘Eureka’ and the computer let her in. She searched the documents file with the key word ‘Tachyon’ and a page of file references filled the screen. She inserted the flash drive into the USB port and copied the files across. She looked through each of the drawers in the desk. Nothing of interest in the first drawer except an old worn out copy of Playboy magazine and a key to what must have been a heavy duty lock. She closed the drawer and opened the next. This drawer only contained one item: a handgun. The sight of the gun sent a shiver down her back. She slammed the drawer shut, and walked out of the office. Now she had to get out of the building without being discovered.

  As she approached the lift, she heard the ‘ding’ sound. She was near the ladies’ toilet and slipped into the room. She listened as the lift opened and footsteps came along the corridor. The sound of footsteps passed her as someone walked by, and she inched the door open to peer out. She could see the back of an old man in a white overall with white hair. She knew at once, it was Professor Rider. She heard him open the top draw and retrieve something metal. Must be the key, she thought. He walked back down the corridor and opened the door into the stairwell. She heard him going up the stairs. Intrigued, she followed to the stairwell door and inched the door open. She could hear him up the stairs struggling to remove some chains. Then a door opened and light poured into the stairwell. She heard his footsteps on the roof walking away from the door. She took off her shoes and walked up the stone staircase to the open emergency exit door on the roof. With each step she listened for any noise that might betray him coming back. The steps felt ice cold on her feet.

  She reached the exit door and peered out. He was on the other side of the roof and she could only see the bottom of his legs. Between them was a large object on legs covered in a tarpaulin. She only needed to look once, as she recognised what was under the tarpaulin. It was time for her to go. She retraced her way down steps to the entrance to the top floor, but could hear his footsteps above coming across the roof. She realised that she had no time to get back to the lift, so she continued down to the next level and withdrew into the shadows underneath the entrance above her.