‘The non-technical version,’ Josh added, pushing the papers away.
Sim seemed to be a little put out. Phileas stepped in to explain.
‘We think that cornerstone — the death of your friend — caused a significant shift in your timeline. Lenin became a far more dominant influence in your life as a result — your guilt stopped you from challenging him. The belief that you were solely responsible for Gossy’s death, and that he saved your life, has allowed Lenin to exploit you for years.’
Phileas reminded Josh of the psychotherapist they’d sent him to after the physical injuries had healed. There was a lot of talk about a missing father figure and authority issues.
Sim leaned forward and pointed to something in one of the notebooks. ‘Caitlin thinks if we alter the outcome of the accident here, it will release you from the subservient role that you have assumed ever since.’
‘And he won’t abduct my mother?’
‘Basically yes.’
‘Or we could just pay him the money — I know the Order can afford it.’
Lyra smiled. ‘Yes, we could. A thousand times over, but it would never end. He would always find another way to bind you to him. He thinks you’re his property — like a slave, I suppose. You will never be able to free yourself until one of you is dead. It’s quite the most destructive kind of relationship.’
Josh had never really thought about it that way. He’d always hated the way Lenin bossed him around, and had lost count of the ways he should take him down. But there was always that small voice in the back of his head that reminded him of how he’d saved Josh’s life — he could never shake the feeling that he owed him.
‘Okay. I suppose it can’t hurt to try. Can it?’
‘Good, now we need something from that time. Do you have any personal effects here?’ Phileas asked as he looked around the kitchen.
‘I have a diary that goes back that far.’
‘Perfect. Let’s have something to eat and go over the plan.’
Sim grabbed some bowls and began to ladle out the food. It smelt amazingly good for four-hundred-year-old rabbit.
57
Splitting Up
During the meal a text came through from Lenin. It read, ‘PIRATES MIDNIGHT 2MORROW.’ Josh replied and switched off the phone. He didn’t want to think about the future when he was about to relive the worst moment of his past.
There was a slight issue with his diary, as they discovered when he showed them the blank pages from the time of the accident.
Lyra tried to read his memories, this time without sticking her tongue down his throat. She gently took his face in her hands and slid her mind into his. He caught glimpses of old events as she sifted back through his long-term memory, but when she reached the right time frame she shrank back in horror. Her face went ashen, and Sim had to catch her before she fell over.
‘What happened?’ Josh asked as they all went to help her.
Lyra pushed them away and got back to her feet. Phileas gave her a glass of water.
‘You’ve got some pretty serious defences blocking those memories. It’s kind of like scar tissue, but with added demons, all wrapped around a six-metre-thick wall of pain.’
‘So you can’t get in?’ asked Sim.
‘I didn’t say that,’ she snapped. ‘I just think, well, it’s like an old carbuncle — you wouldn’t want to be around when it burst.’
Phileas was sitting on the sofa deep in thought. ‘How are you with music?’ he asked casually.
Josh thought back to Ella’s song the night before. ‘I can use music to go places. It’s weird — I don’t even need to touch the record.’
‘You may have latent audiophilic abilities. Sound can be a very powerful vestige, but only some of us can use it to actually move through time.’
Josh shrugged. ‘If you say so.’
‘Okay. So think back. What were you listening to around the time you had the accident?’
It was a track that Josh had spent years trying to forget about. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to hear again.
‘It’s not something you guys would have heard of,’ Josh said, trying to avoid the subject.
Phileas laughed. ‘We’re not all into Mozart and Sibelius, you know.’
Lyra could see Josh was uncomfortable and took his hand. ‘It’s alright, Josh. I know this isn’t easy.’
Josh sighed. ‘It was called “Speed of Light’, by —’
‘DJ Laser. I know that one,’ Sim said. He pulled out an old iPod and started flicking through the songs. He went over to the stereo and dropped the iPod into a dock. ‘Rufius tends to be an old fart when it comes to music. It took me ages to persuade him to get one of these.’
‘Does he ever use it?’ Josh asked. He couldn’t imagine the colonel using anything so modern.
Sim shook his head, cued the song and turned up the speakers. The others stood in a circle around Josh as the bass kicked in.
Josh felt nothing. The song was right, but it didn’t initiate any timelines or events for him.
‘Something’s wrong. It’s not like the last time with Ella.’
Sim scratched his head and shrugged.
Lyra stepped in. ‘It’s digital, you idiot. We need an analogue recording.’
Sim’s eyes lit up. ‘Back in a min.’
He disappeared for less than a heartbeat and returned with a twelve-inch record under his arm.
‘Bloody hard thing to find — this is a bootleg from one of their concerts. Took me nearly a day to track it down.’
He placed the shiny black vinyl onto the turntable and dropped the needle gently onto it.
You won’t see it coming
The power builds inside
Motion taking over
Moving out into the night
Taking on the world
At the speed of light
We’re gonna go farther
We’ve gotta go faster
Josh let the music flow through him, feeling his heartbeat match that of the song. He was instantly transported back to all those times in the car, so many good memories of driving fast down empty lanes in the middle of the night, the music so loud he could feel the bass in his chest.
‘Good,’ shouted Lyra over the noise. ‘Now focus on that time. Find the point nearest to the accident.’
He fast forwarded through the days until he got close to the time, then slowed towards the fateful day and stopped. He was close enough. He held out one hand, and Lyra took it. The others joined her and the room began to vibrate.
You won’t see it coming
We gotta go faster
We gonna go farther
Taking on the world
At the speed of light
58
NCP
[London, UK. Date: 12.011]
A moment later they were all standing in the lower basement level of a NCP car park with the music playing somewhere close by. A Subaru Impreza squealed out of one of the far bays and sped past, skidded round the corner and onto the up ramp. Two boys were sitting in the front. The driver looked no older than twelve.
‘Was that me?’ Josh asked, trying to remember if he had ever stolen a Subaru.
‘Uh-huh,’ muttered Sim, checking his almanac. ‘We need to make sure you don’t actually meet yourself. Things can get a little complicated — unpredictable if you know what I mean.’
‘I thought you said there were safeguards.’
‘There are, but it’s better if we don’t have to find out what they are.’
Phileas checked his watch. ‘We have an hour or so before the Copernicans send the Protectorate to investigate this — so we need to hurry up.’
‘Where would your friend be now?’
Josh took a moment to think. ‘I unlocked a Porsche for him on the second floor, but I left first. He must’ve had problems getting out. He was a couple of minutes behind me at the start.’
‘Second floor, ten minutes,’ said Sim, doing some quick
calculations in his head. ‘Okay, got it. Everyone hold on.’
They grabbed each other instinctively and shifted up to the second floor.
Josh spotted Gossy’s mop of sandy hair through the window of the Porsche. He held his breath and watched the head of his friend bob around as he adjusted the seat — a car alarm was going off somewhere nearby.
‘Is that him?’ asked Sim.
‘Yeah,’ confirmed Josh. ‘He always used to have trouble with the seat controls — legs were too short.’
‘How are you planning to stop him?’ asked Lyra.
Josh hadn’t really considered what he was going to say to Gossy to stop him. It wasn’t as if the kid would recognise an older version of his best friend, and telling him that he was from the future and that he was trying to save his life wasn’t going to fly either.
‘We could just lock him in the boot,’ suggested Sim.
‘No,’ whispered Phileas, ‘he needs to —’
Lyra made a strange kind of whimpering noise, and everyone looked around.
‘Dalton is searching for you. He’s close,’ she said, holding up a lensing prism and rubbing her temple.
‘We need to split up,’ declared Phileas. ‘Sim you stay with Josh. Lyra and I will create a diversion.’
‘How?’ asked Josh.
‘Give me your tachyon. Dalton is probably using it to track you.’
Josh didn’t like the idea of handing it over. He hesitated before giving it to Phileas.
‘It’s okay. You still have Sim. He can pull you both out of a crisis. Just make sure your friend survives.’
Lyra and Phileas disappeared into thin air.
‘What are we going to do now?’ Sim asked.
‘I have an idea, but it means I have to do something illegal.’
‘Great!’ said Sim with a wide beaming grin. ‘I’ve always wanted to do something bad.’
59
Gossy
They were driving fast, trying to stay in sight of the tail lights of Gossy’s Porsche.
Sim’s knuckles were white where he gripped the seatbelt, and he kept making small frightened noises whenever Josh got too close to the car in front.
‘Better than Xbox?’ shouted Josh with a hint of sarcasm.
‘Yeah,’ Sim groaned through gritted teeth.
Gossy was pulling away from them. Josh had forgotten how good a driver he was. In his rearview mirror he could see his younger-self coming up on the inside lane. Weaving between the slower moving cars like a pro.
Josh had to stop himself from getting carried away. The car he and Sim had broken into was a late model Mazda MX5, and it had some serious power. His plan was to stop the accident by getting between the two cars at the right moment, but both of them were driving so recklessly that it was proving difficult not to cause an accident of his own.
Sim checked his watch. ‘Two minutes, fifteen seconds,’ he said nervously.
Reading the road ahead, Josh could sense an opportunity, and he pushed the accelerator to the floor. A car moved across to the middle lane as they came up the outside, allowing them to draw level with Gossy. Josh looked over to him. The twelve-year-old was staring straight ahead, his face set in deep concentration as he focused on his next move. Josh could remember the way the two of them had argued about who took which car — Gossy almost always went for the silver ones. He thought he was James Bond.
‘One-minute-forty.’ Sim’s time check brought Josh back to reality.
His other self was only two cars back and gaining on them. Josh let Gossy move ahead and then slipped into his wake.
‘I’m going to try and sit between them,’ he shouted to Sim over the roar of the engine.
‘Okay. Forty-five seconds.’
‘Count me down from ten.’
He thought back to the way that Gossy had tried to block his attempts to overtake, playing through the memory of those last few seconds. He saw the cars and the lorries beginning to move into their final positions.
‘Ten . . . nine . . .
Josh felt the ABS kick in as he braked hard to avoid a mini that pulled out unexpectedly. That hadn’t happened last time. He felt the sweat begin to bead on his forehead.
‘Eight . . . seven . . . six . . .’
There was less than a metre between him and the back of Gossy’s Porsche. Josh could see the approaching traffic through the windscreen of his friend’s car. He saw Gossy look back in the rearview mirror and his hand come away from the wheel to flip Josh the bird.
‘Four . . . three . . . two . . .’
Josh pulled back into the middle lane, leaving a gap for his younger self.
‘Hold on,’ he screamed, spinning the steering wheel and braking hard. The rear of the vehicle kicked round, but he controlled it, counter-steering until he had the car sideways across two of the lanes.
The Subaru ploughed straight into them. He watched his younger self disappear under the airbag as it deployed and felt the judder of their collision run up his spine. An adolescent version of Lenin bounced in the passenger seat next to him, held back by the seat belt. As he’d planned, the front of their car buried itself into the back door of the Mazda, which crumpled as it absorbed the impact.
Josh looked to his right to see Gossy’s car slipping ahead through the traffic.
‘Now,’ said Josh as the smell of fuel leaked into the car. Sim gripped his hand and activated his tachyon.
They reappeared amongst a stand of trees on a hill overlooking the scene of the accident.
The Mazda was on fire, and there were people running around with phones trying to get everyone away from the danger. Josh couldn’t see any movement in the car with Lenin and his younger self, and there were no signs of the emergency services. Two brave men were trying to open the doors but they were having trouble getting anywhere near it.
‘Did your calculations predict this?’ asked Josh. ‘What happens if I die?’
‘You won’t,’ Sim replied confidently. ‘Don’t you remember what happened?’
‘No — wait, what’s he doing here?’
A familiar figure in a military greatcoat appeared from behind a truck and starting yelling at them to back off. The colonel marched up to the car and wrenched open the door. Josh watched in amazement as the old man pulled both himself and then Lenin out of the car, and dragged them over to the side of the road.
‘So Lenin didn’t pull me out of the car?’ Josh said under his breath.
‘No, and Gossy survived. See?’
Josh could just make out the silver Porsche heading south, oblivious to what had happened behind him.
‘Do you feel any different?’
‘Nope,’ replied Josh. ‘Why? Should I?’
‘No reason. It was just a pet theory of mine. Do you still remember what is was like to lose your friend?’
‘I didn’t lose him, he drove off and left me to die — selfish bastard.’
‘So no memories of him dying?’
‘What are you talking about? You saw for yourself he just took off.’
Sim made some notes in his book.
‘Okay. Well, we’d better get a move on before Rufius sees us.’
60
Bad Odds
‘So did it work?’ Caitlin enquired the moment Sim appeared in her room.
‘Yes, and no. He has no memory of his friend’s death, but for some reason Lenin is still holding his mother to ransom. He’s not happy.’
Caitlin closed her eyes and chewed on her lip, something she only did when she was deep in thought.
‘I’d hoped it would have fixed the mother issue too.’
‘Too many variables. You know it’s always difficult to predict emotional outcomes.’
‘So there is no escaping the showdown?’
‘It’s plus ninety-five now,’ Sim said, consulting his notes.
‘Bugger.’
‘Have Lyra and Phil returned yet?’
She nodded. ‘Dalton didn’t take too kind
ly to their little diversion. His mother’s actually had them arrested,’ she muttered, her eyes still shut.
Sim laughed. ‘I wish I could have seen his face. When did they take him?’
‘Oh, they dragged him around the seventh for a day and then back to the second. You know how much he hates that particular millennia.’
She opened her eyes.
‘Where is Josh now?’
‘Safehouse in 11.884. I can’t believe Ravana has actually locked them up!’
‘Currently under investigation,’ she said with air quotes.
‘Wait until Methuselah gets to hear of it. He’s going to crucify them.’
‘I doubt it. She’s getting more powerful within the Council and Dalton says she’s destined for greatness, or so he keeps telling himself.’
‘What did they ask you?’
‘You know, the usual stuff. When had I been and where, but they already knew everything. The Copernicans had given Dalton a log of my movements for the last three months. It makes for quite interesting reading when you see it written down.’
‘Josh has had quite an effect on us,’ Sim agreed. ‘Do you really think he is the one? Lyra has convinced herself.’
Caitlin’s voice changed, becoming more serious. ‘You have to keep him safe, Sim. Just for a bit longer.’
‘I know. I’m trying, but he’s so —’
‘Impulsive?’ she interrupted.
‘I was going to say unpredictable, but impulsive is better — he just doesn’t play by any of the rules. It’s really hard to calculate his next move.’
‘I know,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Did you check the safe house for weapons before you left him?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Because he’s angry and wants to take it out on Lenin. In their culture, that always tends towards violence. What do your latest calculations predict? I assume you have a scenario running at the moment.’
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