A Window into Time (Novella)

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “Not if we crash. Statistically, very few people survive a crash.”

  “Jules!” Dad growled. “Be quiet. Now. I mean it.”

  The flight attendant winked at me. “It’s okay. I saw the flight plan the captain filed, there’s no crash scheduled for today.”

  I think she was being sarcastic. Or possibly patronizing—that’s always a hard one to call. Two things. One, she’s a cabin flight attendant; I don’t believe she would get to see the actual flight plan. One (b): unless she was having an affair with the captain, in which case he might have tried to impress her by showing it to her. (The tabloid sites say airline pilots and flight attendants are always having affairs.) Two, she said scheduled, which made me wonder if she actually did know we weren’t going to crash—and there’s only one way that could happen. She was getting future memories from someone, the same as me. Two (b), future-me was sending her the information about not crashing to reassure now-me. But why wasn’t he sending that to me?

  “Do you remember the future, then?” I asked her.

  She did this strange double blink and frowned at the same time. Then she turned to Dad. “We do offer counseling for nervous fliers, sir. It’s a new service. I can see if we could get you on a later flight if your son would like to use it.”

  “We’re just fine, thank you,” Dad said in a strained voice. “Because Jules is going to Shut Up now, aren’t you, son?”

  “But she said—”

  “SHUT UP.”

  I could feel my cheeks go all hot that way they do when I blush. I looked down at my knees so I didn’t have to see everyone staring at me. I hate that. They were all stupid and don’t like that I’m smarter than them.

  “You’ve got to pull yourself together, Jules,” Rachel said. “It’s just a flight to Spain.”

  I didn’t say anything, just sort of hunched up tighter in my seat. There was a safety briefing before we took off. Which was pointless, as far as I was concerned; it was purely to reassure the stupids. The cabin crew went through all the stuff about life belts and oxygen masks, then told you to go into the brace position if there was an emergency landing.

  I looked at Rachel, but she was reading a magazine and deliberately ignoring me. I wondered if she knew that the brace position isn’t to help you survive; the airline only wants you to do it because it helps protect the human skull on impact. That way, it makes it easier to identify your corpse from dental records.

  I thought about telling her but decided not to.

  —

  Victoria and Barney, Dad’s mother and father, were waiting for us at the Malaga airport.

  Grandma gave a huge shriek in the arrivals hall and flung her arms around me. She was wearing a bright-pink blouse and some kind of beige safari suit. Big gold necklaces clinked around her neck, and her wrists were covered by gold bracelets. Grandma looked like an upmarket fortune-teller, and she smelled of very sweet perfume. I couldn’t escape the smell. She wouldn’t let go.

  “My little boy, my little boy,” she kept calling as she hugged me. “How are you? You coping all right? I’ve been praying for you every day since…you know. It happened.”

  “I’m okay, Gran.”

  “You poor thing! You’re going to have a fab time here, I’ll make sure of that.”

  She finally let go before I started coughing from the smell. Then Granddad moved in. He had more gold chains than Gran, and a lot of thick gold rings on his fingers as well. He did look a bit like Dad, except he’s wider, and shorter, and a bit stooped—sort of the goblin version of Dad.

  “Hey there, champ,” he said as he mock-boxed me. “You holding up there? You’re a good lad, you.” I flinched. He’s got scars on his fists. Last time I saw him he was always telling me about fights he got into when he was younger. His company used to run several pubs in the East End of London. Tough man’s game, he called it.

  Then he hugged me, even tighter than Gran. “Sorry about your mum, lad,” he said quietly.

  “Thanks,” I said, just as quietly.

  He went on to give Rachel an equally strong hug—him and Gran went to the wedding. “How’s my lovely new daughter-in-law, then? Give us a kiss.”

  “Doing all right, Barney,” she said, and wiggled free.

  “How was the flight, love?” Gran asked.

  Rachel looked away from me. “I need a drink,” she said.

  “Oh I know,” Gran said. “They cram you in so tight these days. I don’t know how they get away with it. I really don’t.”

  “It’s the CAA,” I told her. “They analyze the passenger seating density and work out evacuation statistics.”

  “Oh Jules, you’re so clever,” Gran said with a smile. “Don’t know where you get that from—not Barney’s side of the family, that’s for sure.” She laughed loud again.

  “Oi,” Barney said. “I got plenty of smarts, me. Let’s get you all back to the villa, then. Swimming pool’s ready for you, Jules.”

  “Oh great, thanks.”

  “And you can get yourself into a nice bikini, Rachel. Hey! That’ll be all right.” He rubbed his hands and smirked like a pedo.

  “Cheeky!” Gran exclaimed and slapped his arm. “He don’t mean no harm, girl,” she told Rachel.

  “Yes,” Rachel said. She’d wound her arm around Dad like a boa constrictor gripping a goat.

  It was amazing. I’d never felt any sympathy for Rachel before, but Barney can be a bit overwhelming. Intimidating, if I’m honest.

  He and Grandma live on the edge of a golf course just north of Marbella. And I do mean on the edge. The wall at the end of their garden is the boundary of the fifth hole’s fairway. Grandpa has a garage for his golf buggy; the swing-up door opens directly onto the course, and he plays every day. The whole perimeter is lined with villas just like it. They’re all owned by British expats.

  But it does have a small pool. Swimming is the one thing I do like; not that I want to race or anything.

  “You’re so skinny,” Gran exclaimed after I’d jumped in. “Rachel, don’t you feed him properly?”

  “He eats loads,” Rachel protested.

  “I do, Gran,” I assured her.

  “I’ll cook you some proper meals while you’re here, Jules, don’t you worry.”

  That evening, Barney came into my room. “Got you a little present,” he told me, holding up a slim white box. “Sorry we couldn’t make it to the funeral, lad; I’ve got all sorts of tax rubbish going on back home, have to watch how many days I spent in the UK. But this’ll help take your mind off things. You deserve something nice right now.”

  “You didn’t have to do that, Grandpa,” I told him, but he wasn’t listening.

  “Grandpa! Gawd help us. I keep telling you, lad, call me Barney. Go on then, open it.”

  It was the latest-model MacBook Pro, with a fifteen-inch screen that had amazing resolution. “Seriously? For me?”

  “Aww. That’s the smile I remember belongs on your face. ’Course it’s for you, lad. Only fair. Is it what you wanted?”

  “Yes! It’s brilliant. Thank you, Barney.” My tablet was old and slow and had practically no memory left.

  He gave me a hug. “You’re a good lad, you. Go on then, you get on with your fancy computing stuff. I expect you to make a million for me by the time you’re sixteen. Bloke what invented Facebook did, and you’re smarter than him.”

  I spent half an hour setting the laptop up with my email and preferences. Still no reply to Big Russell’s Facebook messages—I’d sent six now. I opened a new file, gave it a password lock, and called it: Michael Finsen.

  Chapter 10

  I Know This

  I started with the facts. Stuff like his age, and the flat number, and that he’d moved in there with Jyoti Tanark—it was a joint mortgage. She was half Egyptian, I remembered that. I think I’d gotten even more of his subconscious memory this time.

  He worked at GTB Venture, which had an office in Docklands close to Canada Square, where the bigge
st skyscrapers were. They were angel investors. I looked that up, and it meant they put money into tech start-up companies. Michael worked in their assessment division, working out if the technology was going to be worth developing and if it could make a profit.

  Here’s a thought: Future-me was doing all these brain-to-brain time-traveling memories to demonstrate to Michael that my exotic matter technology worked, so it was worth GBT Venture investing in it. That was completely logical, and not a paradox at all. And that would explain why future-me chose him.

  It took time to enter everything I knew, but Barney has decent broadband; he uses it to stream the sports he can’t get on his premium satellite package. The morning after I got the laptop, I sat on a sun lounger by the pool calling up all kinds of sites (the battery life is really good). The more data I could tabulate like a real scientist would, the more chance I would have of understanding what was happening.

  As soon as we finished breakfast that morning, Dad and Barney took the buggy out for a round of golf. Gran told them they had to be back for lunch. “And not pissed, either,” she shouted after them as they vanished into the buggy garage. Then she went out to get food. “Decent portions,” she said, squinting at me as she left.

  That gave me hours to do uninterrupted research with nobody questioning what I was doing. Rachel was sunbathing at the other end of the patio, not that she’d ever bother asking me what I was doing.

  Showing an interest in someone is part one of caring about them.

  I opened a browser and called up the block of flats by Royal Victoria station where Michael lives. The developers had a site with virtual tours of a “typical” flat, with mocked-up window views that made the O2 look even bigger—I suppose stupids fall for things like that. There were three local estate agents with flats in the block for sale; they cost over half a million pounds. Best of all was the land registry office, which listed all the property deals in the UK; Michael had bought the Docklands flat twenty-two months ago—a joint mortgage with Jyoti. So that confirmed when his last memory came from.

  That was really satisfying for me. I was like Sherlock Holmes closing on a murder suspect. Better than that, it meant I wasn’t imagining any of this. Mum’s death hadn’t made me insane; it was all real.

  I went on to GBT Venture’s site. It was surprisingly small and didn’t have any useful data. Arty pictures and flowery sentences that don’t actually mean anything—corporate puff, as Uncle Gordon calls it. I thought companies liked to brag about how big and successful they were. But nowadays everyone hates banks and The City, so I suppose GBT Venture was trying to keep a low profile.

  I actually found more concrete information about Jyoti Tanark than I did Michael. I remembered she was a junior partner in a GP surgery group in Woolwich. Their website was one of those patient-friendly ones, giving lots of information about their staff. It told me she trained with the practice as a GP registrar and joined as a full-time GP two and a half years ago. She was the practice leader in inflamed joints; she spoke fluent Arabic, and her hobbies included reading and badminton.

  There was a nice picture of her, smiling at the camera. Obviously that triggered the memory of her standing in the flat, framed by the window, holding her arms out to me/Michael. The smile on her face was a lot less forced than in the photo. It was like a scene from one of those rom-com films I used to watch with Mum—they were her favorite after she and Dad separated.

  I realized how pretty Jyoti is; no wonder Michael didn’t stay with Karen. Jyoti’s got thick dark hair that comes down over her shoulders, and large brown eyes. She’s smart, too, and funny, and they have the same taste in music (it’s all old rubbish, from like five or six years ago). Michael was so proud and delighted that she was his girlfriend. When he was looking at her, he just kept thinking: She’s the one.

  And she kissed him. That memory keeps replaying in the front of my head. It’s not completely gross, having someone else’s tongue in your mouth. Michael rather liked it. Kissing a girlfriend is pleasant. I imagine it’s the same effect adults get from drinking alcohol: The sensation is mild, but it goes everywhere.

  I glanced over at Rachel, who was lying on a sun lounger in a scarlet bikini. Actually, she’s very pretty, too. Her face is heart-shaped, which gives her a dainty chin. Her eyes are blue-gray, and her hair is blond—genuine blond; it doesn’t come from a bottle like most of the women on TV. I know that because her makeup and hair product bottles take up every surface in the bathroom. She’s a bit taller than me, almost as tall as Dad. And she’s a fitness bunny (that’s what she calls herself); she goes to her gym three or four nights a week after work. I could see how toned she was from all that exercise; her legs and tummy were all lean muscle.

  “What?” she asked, pushing her sunglasses up to look at me.

  I blushed a bit, because I must have been staring. “Nothing. Taking a break, that’s all.”

  “What are you surfing?”

  “Flats in Docklands.”

  “Really, why?”

  “You and Dad said we were going to sell up and move to somewhere better.”

  “Oh. Yeah, well, Jules, I don’t think Docklands is where we’ll be going.”

  “Where do you want to go then?”

  “Not sure. Maybe south of the river. Somewhere nice, a place with a garden, maybe, and more bedrooms.” She pursed her lips. “Might need them eventually.”

  “Okay, I’ll look south then.”

  “You don’t mind moving again?”

  “No. I won’t have to go to St. George’s.”

  She sat up. “Is it really bad?”

  I shrugged. “All schools are. I’m used to it.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “You know your dad will do everything he can to help, don’t you? You just have to tell him what’s wrong.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll help, too, if I can. If you want me to.”

  “Okay. Uh, thanks.”

  “I know it’s not easy for you, but I do want us to be friends, Jules. I love your dad.”

  “I get it.”

  She gave me a small grin and sipped some iced juice. “All right then. I’m going to get me some more sun before Barney gets back. I’ll be washing eye-skids off for hours if he sees me out here like this.”

  I blushed again. “Right. Good idea.”

  She turned over so she was lying on her front, then unclipped her bikini strap so it wouldn’t interfere with her tan.

  It was really hot out there on the patio.

  I wondered if Dad loved her as much as Michael loved Jyoti. I’d never thought about it before because thinking those kind of things is difficult for me. I suppose Rachel’s as pretty as Mum, and a lot younger. She must love Dad; otherwise she wouldn’t have married him. And she said they wanted a house with more bedrooms. That must mean they were going to have children, which is also why you get married. I never thought of that, either: me with a brother or sister—well, half brother, half sister. That would be weird. I don’t even know how I’d feel about that. Hopefully I’ll be at university doing my physics degree by the time that happens, so I won’t have to get involved.

  Chapter 11

  Off to the Office

  Spain wasn’t as bad as I’d been expecting. Actually, I got quite a surprise out there, and what made it even more remarkable was that it came from Barney.

  Dad and Rachel went out clubbing every night. But three evenings, we all went out to dinner together first. Going plush, Gran called it. We got taxis down to Puerto Banus each time. Barney said it was the posh end of Marbella. I think he was right. The streets were so full of supercars it was like being on the set of Top Gear. People wore clothes that you normally only saw on mannequins in windows of exclusive shops. And all the white people were so dark—either murky orange or a really weird brown like their skin was coffee-stained. The older they were, the darker the shade and the more wrinkles they h
ad—same as Barney.

  There were whole streets that were mostly bars and restaurants and clubs. Everything was so much cleaner and smarter than back home. I kind of saw why my grandparents liked living here, and the warmth was supposed to make it easier if you had arthritis—which all old people have.

  We went to Cono’s on the first night. It had a huge open courtyard in the middle, with a fountain right at the center. The vines overhead were combined with tiny lights, like bright stars in the leaves. It was kind of cool, and Barney got all excited when he saw some Premier League footballers at a table down the other end. The girls sitting with them had dresses a lot shorter than the one Rachel wore. And I’d thought that was small enough. They were younger than Rachel, too, like they could’ve been senior pupils at St. George’s.

  “You going to have a beer then, lad?” Barney asked me with a laugh as we sat down.

  “You leave Jules alone,” Gran told him.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I don’t like beer.”

  “You’ve tried some then, lad? Good on you.”

  “I don’t like the smell,” I told him. “Olfactory response is a strong indicator of taste.”

  “Blimy. A Proctor who doesn’t like beer. Can’t have that. We’ll have to break you in slowly, eh, lad? Start you off on some ladybeer.”

  “On what?”

  “Ladybeer: a shandy, lad. A shandy.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Dad said to Barney.

  “Now, you make sure you order a starter as well as a dessert,” Gran told me. “I still think you’re too thin.”

  I opened the menu. It was huge, and mainly fish, which is the biggest cause of food poisoning (apart from rice in takeaways), but fortunately all the dishes had an English translation underneath so I could avoid the really dangerous bits.

  Barney clapped his hands loudly. “Come on, come on, garson; a man can die of thirst in here.”