Ripples of the Past

by Damian Knight

  ‘With Tetradyamide, I’ll be more than a mere mortal.’

  ‘No, Michael, you’ll still be capable of dying,’ Barclay said. ‘Just like the rest of us.’

  Michael reclined in his chair and crossed his legs. ‘You might not know this, but I tried to kill myself too once. Didn’t go through with it, needless to say.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. But, thinking about it, it was a bit of a turning point in my life, like what they say about hitting rock bottom and bouncing back. Sadly I don’t think the experience will work out that way for you.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘My offer of partnership has now expired, Isaac. Here’s my new offer – you give me the formula for Tetradyamide and, in exchange, I’ll give you the quick death you seem to want so badly.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘Then as before, I’ll break a different bone in your body for every day you hold out on me. Once you’ve healed, we’ll start all over again. If you die from your injuries, I’ll just bring you back to life. If you try to escape, I’ll undo it. And if you kill yourself again? Well, I’m sure you can work out what will happen. You see, Isaac, there really is no way out of this. You have two options – a quick death or a drawn-out, agonising one. It’s up to you which you choose, but one way or the other you will give me Tetradyamide.’

  Barclay stared back, his eyes smouldering.

  Michael stood, pulled a rolled exercise book and a pencil from his jacket pocket and tossed them onto the bed. ‘From here on out you’ll no longer play an active role in production. I’ll be back tomorrow morning for the book. If it doesn’t contain the complete formula by then, I’ll instruct Bruno to go to work on your legs. From what I understand, a broken femur is especially painful.’

  13

  Isaac pressed the tip of the pencil to the first page of the exercise book, creating a meandering smudge that he didn’t seem capable of extending into a recognisable letter. In spite of the numbing effects of whatever cocktail of drugs he’d been pumped full of, the bruising around his neck still burned like a collar of fire; a constant reminder of his failure. Even in death there was no escape, for whatever Isaac did, Michael would always be there, ready to turn the tables before he had the chance to see it through. Either he gave up Tetradyamide in exchange for a quick end to it all, or he held out and was subjected to daily torture until he cracked. The end result was the same both ways: Michael would at long last have the unlimited power he craved, while Isaac was done for.

  Emitting a sob, he lowered the pencil. As he’d dangled from the looped end of his belt, his life flashing before his eyes, he had believed that he’d reached his lowest point, only to discover there were still further depths to sink to. It might all have been so different if Isaac hadn’t had run into Betty Mclean outside Stribe Lyndhurst, if he’d somehow managed to cut short his last, lingering gaze at Lara and kept his head down. But, unlike Michael, he didn’t have the power to undo his mistakes, even those only a day or two in the past.

  And then it came to him in a blinding flash of inspiration, and he suddenly realised he had been thinking things through back-to-front. What if there was another way out, a way of somehow blocking Michael’s ability? Isaac had, after all, already discovered a means of chemically enhancing it, and if that were possible might not the opposite be true? All he really needed, in fact, was to incapacitate Michael for the brief window during which the man could alter the past, and then anything that took place in that time would be set in stone. Provided, of course, that Michael never had access to Tetradyamide again.

  Isaac raised the pencil and started to write, a grin on his face. Perhaps Donna had been right and the solution to his predicament really did lie in his own ingenuity.

  14

  Michael stared glumly at a mounting stack of paperwork on his desk in the office of the presidential suite. The first document awaiting his attention was the contract for a land purchase in Florida: what would soon become the second Sandstone Springs Resort. Although Donna had attached detailed notes from his lawyer, it was hard to concentrate on anything so dull when he was this close to getting Tetradyamide at last.

  Pushing his chair back, he lit a cigar, then crossed the room to the door onto the balcony. The sun was going down on another sweltering summer’s day, lighting the underside of the wispy cloud cover in a pink glow. From up here on the fifteenth floor he had an uninterrupted view of the entire west side of the site, from the pool and spa complex directly below to the last of the sparkling green fairways in the distance. At the far edge, near the rocky outcrop where his domain met the desert, he could just about make out the unremarkable grey cube of the sprinkler control room, beneath which Sebastian was supposedly hard at work in the annex.

  That morning Michael had arrived at Barclay’s quarters fully expecting to find the exercise book he’d left there empty, but the doctor had instead handed it over filled cover-to-cover with spidery writing, equations and molecular diagrams. Suspecting a trick of some kind, Michael had locked Barclay in his room and passed the book directly to Sebastian, who had flicked through with growing excitement before looking up with a glint in his eye and saying, ‘It’s all here, sir, everything I need!’

  Leaning against the railings of the balcony, Michael caressed the hand of his prosthetic arm. Once Tetradyamide was within his grasp, his true potential could be unleashed and he would become capable of sending his mind to any moment in time since his injury, no longer shackled to a day or two in the past or future with no degree of accuracy. Who knew what industrial secrets and innovations he might bring back from the 1980s? Flying cars? Portable nuclear reactors? He would find out soon enough, he supposed, but whatever possibilities the future held, their exploitation was only limited by his ambition. Once a few skeletons had been erased from the closet and he could finally drop the ‘Harrison’ alias, perhaps a foray into politics might be on the cards? Governor Humboldt. That had a ring to it. Or Senator, maybe? Or even – whisper it – President Humboldt? Now that definitely had a ring to it.

  Michael’s daydream was disturbed by a ring of a different sort, that of the telephone on his desk. He hurried back inside and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Sebastian, that you? What’s happening down there?’

  There was a brief pause on the end of the line, then: ‘I think I’ve done it, sir.’

  ‘What, recreated Tetradyamide?’

  ‘I’m testing it as we speak, but provided the results are above a certain purity then, yes, I think so.’

  ‘I’ll be down soon,’ Michael said. ‘If you’re as good as your word, Sebastian, then you’re about to become richer than you ever believed possible.’

  Sebastian gave a nervous laugh. ‘Thank you, sir. I’m very much looking forward to it.’

  * * * * *

  Some fifteen minutes later Michael strode down the steps to the lab in the annex with Donna and Bruno close on his heels. The place was in disarray, with dirty apparatus strewn across almost every surface and a burnt smell that the large fan hadn’t quite managed to extract from the air. Sebastian was standing behind a particularly untidy workbench, his hair tangled and grime smeared across his face and lab coat. Before him was a glass tray containing a white crust that looked like the salt left over from evaporated seawater.

  ‘That it?’ Michael asked, unimpressed.

  Sebastian beamed with pride. ‘I present to you the very first batch of Tetradyamide, Mark II. Obviously I haven’t had time to capsulate any yet, but once I’d deciphered Dr Barclay’s handwriting I followed his instructions to the letter.’

  ‘Does it work, though?’

  ‘The tests I’ve just completed indicate a purity of seventy-two percent, which isn’t bad for a first attempt.’ Sebastian used a small metal measuring spoon to scrape up a portion of the white residue. ‘As for whether it works…well, as far as I can tell, there’s only one way to find out.’

  Michael stepped for
ward eagerly, then hesitated. ‘It is safe, isn’t it?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir. It had crossed my mind that Barclay might try to palm us off with the formula for something else, maybe even something toxic, but the process he described in the book closely matches what little information we were able to salvage from the fire at the old Bereck & Hertz building. There’s nothing even remotely harmful about it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Michael said. ‘I’m gonna trust you on this.’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about, sir,’ Sebastian said, looking him straight in the eye as he presented a small mound of powder balanced on the end of the spoon. ‘You have my word.’

  Michael nodded and stepped forward again. Like a kid taking his medicine, he swallowed the powder down and immediately retched, doubling over with his hands on his knees as he fought the urge to puke the dose all over the floor.

  ‘Boss, you okay?’ Bruno asked, knotting his brow as he helped Michael upright.

  Michael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I’m fine. I guess I’d forgotten how bad the stuff tastes after all these years.’

  ‘Would you like some water?’ Donna asked.

  ‘No,’ Michael said. ‘You two fetch Barclay. I want him here to see it when the stuff kicks in.’

  15

  Isaac was sat on his bed, reading a year-old copy of National Geographic, when the keypad in the corridor sounded. The door slid open and Donna and Bruno marched in.

  ‘Boss wants you,’ Bruno said, glaring at him.

  ‘He does, does he?’ Isaac dog-eared the magazine on an article about the indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest, swung his feet down and tugged on his boots, then followed the pair out into the corridor and down to the lab.

  Michael was standing behind a cluttered workbench, his chest thrust out and his arm around Sebastian’s shoulders. ‘Isaac!’ he exclaimed. ‘Good of you to join us. How’s the hand?’

  ‘The hand?’ Isaac said, gazing down at his bandaged appendage. ‘You’re really asking me how my hand is? Hurts like hell, if you must know, but at least it’s a distraction from my impending demise.’

  ‘Glad to hear you’re looking on the bright side. You’ll be happy to know that your pain will soon be at an end.’

  ‘So your flunky’s done it, has he? Been a busy boy, Sebastian?’

  The little man gave him a satisfied grin and gestured to a glass drying tray on the workbench. ‘Following your instructions, there was really nothing to it,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Dr Barclay, the molecule is quite beautiful in its simplicity.’

  Isaac looked back to Michael. ‘So what now?’

  ‘Well, the possibilities are endless, aren’t they? But here’s a thought that’s often played on my mind – how about I return to New Year’s Eve, 1969, and kill you before you try to cave my head in and set fire to the Bereck & Hertz building? It would give me back six years of lost time and, in addition to the quick death you wanted, erase a whole lot of unpleasantness on your part. What do you say?’

  ‘You’ve already taken it then?’

  ‘I have,’ Michael dropped his arm from Sebastian’s shoulders and stepped around the workbench, ‘and in a few minutes you’ll witness…’ He tailed off, pulling up with a frown.

  ‘Feeling all right?’ Isaac asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  Michael blinked and shook his head. The colour had drained from his face and his eyes had taken on a glazed-over appearance. ‘What’s up with the lighting in here?’ he muttered. ‘Bruno, take a look at the switch, would you?’

  He took another step forward and froze, the features of his face pinched together. His left eye rolled back in his head while the glass one still pointed down, giving him the appearance of a chameleon looking in two directions at once. Then, with a low moan, he keeled over, hitting the floor of the lab face-first.

  Isaac fought to keep his expression neutral as his heart thudded against the wall of his chest. The drug he had designed in the space of a single, frenzied, breath-taking day appeared to be working, binding with Michael’s neural receptors and inducing a seizure. Its production process and molecular structure were nearly identical to those of Tetradyamide, meaning Sebastian hadn’t spotted the difference, however the drug’s effects were the opposite, suppressing the regions of the brain associated with time perception instead of stimulating them. A user would, in theory, experience a period without the ability to perceive time: a period of timelessness, in essence.

  ‘Boss!’ Bruno rushed over to his master and rolled him onto his back.

  ‘But-but…what?’ Sebastian said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Donna turned to Isaac, her fingers over her mouth. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he lied.

  She stared angrily at him for a moment and then hurried over to Michael’s side.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Bruno asked.

  Donna lowered her cheek to Michael’s lips and held it there for several seconds. ‘No, thank goodness,’ she said, looking back up. ‘He’s still breathing. I’ve seen his seizures before, but they were nothing like this.’ She stood and began striding toward the door.

  ‘Wait, where’re you going?’ Bruno called after her. ‘You can’t just leave me here with him.’

  ‘To call a doctor,’ she answered sharply. ‘You keep an eye on Barclay.’

  As she passed him, Isaac stepped to block her way. ‘I am a doctor,’ he said. ‘Let me take a look.’

  ‘You? I’m not letting you anywhere near him, understand?’ Donna narrowed her eyes in disgust and made to sidestep around him. ‘I don’t know what you did or how you did it, Dr Barclay, but I’m not giving you the chance to finish the job!’

  ‘Listen, Donna, apart from give him the formula he wanted so badly, I haven’t done anything. But you’re right on one count – he is still breathing. For now. By the time another doctor gets here that might no longer be the case. Hey, Sebastian, how much did you give him anyway?’

  Sebastian, who had been glancing between the glass tray on the workbench and Michael’s unconscious body, suddenly snapped back to awareness. ‘Who, me? One milligram, like you specified in your notes.’

  ‘I specified point-one milligrams, Sebastian. He’s overdosing.’

  ‘Overdosing? Is that even possible?’

  ‘Damn right it is if you gave him ten times the specified dose,’ Isaac said, unsure whether or not this was true.

  Now it was Sebastian’s turn to look like he’d seen a ghost. Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, he paced to the back of the lab, then switched tack and doubled back, Isaac’s exercise book gripped in one hand. ‘Uh-uh, no way!’ he yelled. ‘You’re not pinning this on me. Look here,’ he opened the book and thrust it toward Donna, jabbing his finger at a page near the end, ‘one milligram. That’s what it says, one milligram!’

  Isaac leaned in to get a closer look and cleared his throat. ‘That’s a point-one,’ he said, indicating the place where he had deliberately smudged a zero and dot to make them look like a correction. ‘I know my handwriting’s bad, but look again. It clearly says point-one.’

  Sebastian and Donna bowed their heads and scrunched their brows in tandem. After a moment Sebastian looked up. ‘Well how was I supposed to know that? It looks like a one, see?’

  ‘If you weren’t sure, you could have just asked rather than giving him a lethal dosage.’

  ‘A lethal dosage?’

  ‘Potentially.’

  Sebastian gulped, swaying like a sapling in the wind. There was a greenish tinge to his skin. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘That’s it, I’m going to jail. We’re all going to jail!’

  ‘Quit jabbering, you baby!’ Donna snapped. Then, turning to Isaac, she lowered her voice: ‘Please, Dr Barclay, can you help him?’

  Isaac nodded and knelt beside his fallen nemesis. As he reached to check for a pulse, Bruno caught him by the wrist.

  ‘Don’t you try nothing funny, you he
ar?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ Isaac said.

  Looking Bruno in the eye, he slid his injured left hand into the back pocket of his pants and, trying not to wince at the pressure on his broken fingers, withdrew the sharpened two-inch stub that remained of the pencil Michael had given him. Piercing Michael’s jugular vein would take all of his strength, which meant he only had one shot at it. Even if Isaac succeeded, he would, in all probability, be killed immediately afterward, but at least it would be in the knowledge that Michael Humboldt hadn’t won their little game.

  Bruno maintained eye contact for several more seconds before releasing his wrist, which gave Isaac the chance to make a show of shaking his right hand while secretly switching the pencil into it. He focused on his target – a spot about an inch below Michael’s jaw – and visualised the arc of his arm as he raised it and brought it back down. And then he spied the gun hanging in the unclipped holster beneath Bruno’s jacket, and a new plan suddenly materialised in his head.

  ‘Help me roll him onto his side, will you?’ he asked, dropping the pencil.

  Bruno grunted and slid his hands under Michael’s back. As he levered him over, Isaac lunged forward and snatched the gun from its holster. Bruno released Michael and shuffled back, his mouth agape.

  ‘Don’t do anything you’ll regret,’ Isaac told him.

  Sitting on his haunches, Bruno narrowed his eyes as his slow brain worked through its options and their potential outcomes. Then he nodded, drew himself up and began backing toward the wall.

  ‘A sensible move,’ Isaac said, and turned to Sebastian. ‘I’m afraid the drug you manufactured, while sharing many similarities with Tetradyamide, in fact has the opposite effect, shutting down the areas of the brain necessary for time travel.’

  ‘You mean like an antiserum?’ Sebastian said, his expression an odd combination of shock and curiosity. ‘What about the overdose?’

  ‘Yeah, I lied about that. The drug will probably take a few days to fully wear off, by which time it should be too late for your master to return to this moment. He’ll be back to his old, rotten self before you know it.’