Ripples of the Past

by Damian Knight

  ‘Yes,’ Nora said matter-of-factly. ‘I’m the oldest so I go first.’

  ‘By all of five minutes,’ Marcus grumbled. He rolled his eyes but withdrew his hand all the same.

  An anxious silence settled over the table as Stephen began peeling back his daughter’s bandage. She bit her lip as he reached the gauze covering her palm, then let out a quiet gasp as he prised it away to expose a long, puffy scab, still red around the edges.

  ‘It didn’t work,’ she said, lowering her head.

  Stephen rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and looked up him with tear-rimmed eyes, ‘it does.’

  ‘Me next,’ Marcus chimed in, showing no concern for his sister’s dismay.

  Stephen nodded and slowly unwrapped the boy’s bandage. The gauze over Marcus’s palm came away with almost no resistance. On this occasion there was no scab, only a faint white line in place of the cut Stephen had delivered with a scalpel the week before.

  ‘It’s healed!’ Marcus exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, that it has,’ Stephen said, tracing the line with his finger.

  Nora let out a sob, pushed her chair back and ran from the farmhouse, slamming the door behind her.

  * * * * *

  Stephen gave his daughter thirty minutes to cool off before going after her. It was a beautiful summer’s day, barely necessitating the sheepskin coat he wore, and the never-setting sun of the summer months had long since melted away the snows around the farmhouse to reveal a lush scrub dotted with wildflowers.

  After meeting Clifford Whitman in the autumn of 1940, Stephen had used his gift from above to subtly influence the direction of the war. The Normandy landings had originally been repelled after the location of the landing sites was leaked to the Germans, allowing them to secretly strengthen their defences in key positions along the coast, but when the source of the leak had been identified a few days after the failed assault, Stephen was able to relay the news back to Whitman weeks beforehand, after which the mole was fed a constant stream of misinformation that ultimately led to the enemy fortifying positions hundreds of miles to the east.

  Once Hitler was defeated and peace returned, Stephen and Nell had purchased a remote plot on the west coast of Greenland. Although the family still lived modestly, Stephen had used his gift to predict the rise of several emergent post-war industries, making a series of profitable investments, not least shares in a combine harvester firm that continued to bring in a significant income. In the face of the looming threat of a new conflict between East and West, he had channelled this newfound wealth into expanding his network of operations, acquiring high-ranking contacts in both the American and the Soviet governments.

  And now, with the discovery that Marcus shared the healing ability that made travel through time possible, there was the prospect not only of an apprentice to join Stephen’s work but also a successor to continue it.

  It didn’t take long to find Nora; she had taken herself off to the stream that ran through the edge of their land, and was sitting on a rocky outcrop, tossing pebbles into the freezing water that flowed from the snow-capped hills on one horizon down to the head of the murky fjord that lead into Baffin Bay on the other. Although she must have heard her father’s approach, she didn’t look up as he sat beside her, but selected another pebble, assessed its weight and then pitched it into the stream, resulting in a sizeable splash.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Stephen said. ‘I know how much you wanted this.’

  Nora remained staring steadfastly ahead.

  He picked a pebble from the ground by his feet and sent it after hers, missing the stream and striking the slope of the opposite bank.

  ‘It’s not fair,’ she said eventually.

  ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but it is what it is.’

  She turned to face him at last. Although her eyes were dry, her cheeks remained blotchy and red and streaked by recent tears. ‘Why him and not me?’ she asked.

  ‘Because that is God’s will, poppet. It isn’t our place to question it.’

  ‘But isn’t that what you do every time you alter the past, Father? Question God’s will?’

  Stephen chuckled; it was a theological dilemma to which he had devoted much contemplation. ‘God gave me my gift for a reason,’ he explained, ‘therefore to not use it would be against His will.’

  She paused to consider this before looking away again. ‘It’s still not fair.’

  ‘Often that’s the way of life.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘Now?’ Stephen ran his fingers through his hair, which these days contained more silver than it did black. ‘In a few days time I’ll perform surgery on Marcus to recreate the cranial injury I sustained in 1916. Afterwards – God willing – he should develop powers similar to my own.’

  Nora sniffed and tossed another pebble into the stream. ‘You knew I wouldn’t heal, didn’t you?’

  ‘I had my suspicions. When you broke your arm so badly two winters back…’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Then why go through with it?’

  ‘Do you really have to ask?’ She paused to stare angrily down at the scab on her right palm, managing to look a great deal like her mother while she did so. ‘Ever since I can remember, all I’ve ever heard is how important your work is. If I can’t heal like you and Marcus then what am I supposed to do? What’s my role?’

  Stephen tucked a curl behind her ear and smiled. ‘My child,’ he said, ‘you are a Rutherford, and there will always be a role for you in this family.’

  2

  Present Day

  On Sunday morning Chrissie jolted awake to the view of dull dawn light slipping in through a gap in her curtains. She sat up, her chest tightening. Lance groaned, rolled onto his side and tugged the covers over his head.

  Was this a new timeline? And, if so, why could she still remember the old one? Surely if Sam had used the Tetradyamide she’d given him to prevent himself from ever getting involved in Malcolm Fairview’s murder then her memories should have been replaced by those of a timeline in which her brother had never been arrested.

  It appeared there was only one way to know for certain, so she climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the door. As she crept down the stairs, the sound of Grandpa’s radio drifted out from the kitchen.

  Chrissie paused outside Sam’s room to collect herself before knocking. There was no answer, so she opened the door and peered inside. Her brother’s bed was empty and the floor was still strewn with the mess left by the forensics team the week before, confirming her fears. The logical conclusion was that something must have gone wrong at Knotsbridge and the guards had found the pill before Sam could take it.

  Shaking her head, she turned back to see a shadow move across the other side of the frosted panel in the front door. Suddenly there was a colossal thud. The wood around the lock splintered and the door flew open on its hinges.

  Standing on the other side was a policeman in full body armour with a red battering ram in his hands. Several armed officers poured past him and into the house. They split up, two racing up the stairs towards her and the remainder sweeping through rooms on the ground floor.

  Chrissie stepped to one side as they bustled past, her hand over her belly. Several calls of ‘Clear!’ echoed around the house and then, one by one, the armed officers re-emerged with their weapons lowered.

  The policeman with the battering ram stepped through the demolished door frame and raised his goggles. ‘Your brother, where is he?’

  ‘His cell at Knotsbridge, I assume,’ Chrissie said.

  ‘No,’ the man said. ‘Someone broke him out yesterday evening.’

  3

  It was as though Sam’s consciousness had been severed from his body and left stuck in the space between timelines. With emptiness stretching out in every direction and nothing on which to orient himself, he had no idea how long he’d floated there; it c
ould have been minutes, days, weeks or even months.

  As if from nowhere a force exerted itself. It felt like Sam’s disembodied mind was being sucked through the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner. He experienced the sensation of falling but without the awareness of movement, nor up or down. Dark scratches began to etch themselves in the whiteness, carving the outline of an image. Gradually objects took shape around him. At first everything looked blurred and faded, but as new scratches added definition and detail, colour slowly bled into the picture.

  He blinked and found that he was lying in a grand four-poster bed made with plain white sheets. His head ached like his brain had been torn apart and then crudely stitched together again. It sounded a lot like a storm was raging outside, but his only view was through the parted white drapes at the foot of the bed, where he could make out the interior of a dimly lit room with a fireplace directly opposite. A log crackled in the hearth, throwing out a soft orange orb that illuminated a stuffed stag’s head on a placard above the mantelpiece. Glancing down, he saw that he was wearing brown-and-cream-striped pyjamas that weren’t his.

  Groggily, Sam propped himself up, his stomach churning as though he hadn’t eaten in days. He had the vague impression that something bad had happened, but thinking about it only made his headache worse. Suddenly he heard a faint plop like a droplet of water landing in a half-full bucket, and a memory of his cell at Knotsbridge and the roof with a thousand leaks came rushing back.

  What had happened, and where was he? Wherever it was, it definitely wasn’t Knotsbridge. At least he didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger, and in the comforting warmth of the fire he let his head flop back to the pillow and massaged his eyelids to the sound of rain lashing outside.

  Little by little fragments of his memory returned. He recalled the single dose of Tetradyamide that Chrissie had given him. He had planned to reverse Fairview’s murder, but something had gone wrong and…

  …Esteban Haufner had been at the crime scene.

  Sam threw back the sheets and leaped from the bed, his pulse racing. He had failed to prevent Fairview’s murder once again, and in the process had re-established many of the conditions that had led to his arrest.

  There was a window set in the wall to his right. Bare-footed, he staggered over, pulled the curtains back and found himself looking down onto a dark, wet and wind-swept country garden. The landscape beyond its hedge borders was empty and barren in all directions, without so much as the light of another house as far as the eye could see.

  It didn’t make sense, because any changes Sam might have made on the day of Fairview’s murder should have created a new timeline in which he was either still in Knotsbridge or was going about his old life at home with his family. What could he have possibly done to end up here, wherever here was?

  ‘Good evening,’ a voice with an American accent said from the other side of the room.

  Sam spun around, his heart in his mouth. At that moment a fork of lightning tore through the sky behind him. The flash of pale light through the window briefly lit up a figure on a sofa on the far side of the bed.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Sam called out.

  As darkness returned to the room, the figure heaved itself up and, using a walking stick for support, hobbled towards him. It was an elderly man, hunched and frail, and as the rumble of thunder reached them, the glow of the fire revealed a round, egg-shaped head devoid of hair, the right side of which was covered by a faint burn mark.

  ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,’ the man said. ‘My name is Michael Humboldt.’

  4

  It felt as though an elephant was standing on Sam’s chest, squashing the air from his lungs, and his knees wobbled beneath him. He floundered backwards and had to grab hold of one of the curtains in order to prevent himself crashing to the floor. Michael Humboldt, the man who had turned Esteban Haufner, was standing less than ten feet away.

  ‘Y-you!’

  ‘Ah, you already know who I am,’ Humboldt said, leaning on his walking stick and nodding with understanding. ‘So our paths have crossed in another timeline then?’

  Sam closed his mouth before he could give anything else away. Humboldt was right, of course; in this reality Sam had never met Lanthorpe and Phelps at the Tempus Research Facility and had never been tasked with tracking down Humboldt’s location prior to a missile strike. In theory, he should have no idea who Michael Humboldt was.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, playing for time.

  Humboldt gave a tired sigh. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes and a pale, sickly complexion to his skin. ‘Drop the games, would you? I know exactly who you are, Sam, and what you’re capable of.’

  Sam hesitated, unsure how to respond. Somehow Humboldt already knew about his ability, which, come to think about it, was probably the very reason he was here. And if that were true it might mean Sam had something to bargain with.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asked. ‘How did I get here? And what do you want with me?’

  Humboldt blew air through his lips. ‘Phew, that’s a lot of questions. But let’s deal with them each in turn. Firstly, we’re in south Wales, not far from the Brecon Beacons. I purchased the property almost thirty years ago as part of an investment portfolio. Sadly it hasn’t worked out as much of an investment, but I’ve never had the heart to sell the place. As for your second question, since you managed to get yourself arrested and charged with murder, the only way I could speak with you was to break you out.’

  ‘That was you?’ Sam asked, remembering the sound of gunfire at Knotsbridge.

  ‘An associate of mine,’ Humboldt said. ‘Sometimes extreme circumstances call for extreme measures. Anyway, I believe that answers your first two questions. As to what I want with you,’ he turned and pointed to the sofa he’d been sitting on with the handle of his walking stick, which, Sam now noticed, was shaped like a dragon’s head, ‘the answer to that is a little more complicated. Please, let’s sit and I’ll do my best to explain.’

  ‘I think I’d rather stand,’ Sam said, trying not to teeter.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Humboldt hobbled to the sofa and lowered himself on one side, the ancient leather cushions creaking under his weight. ‘Age and ill health mean I no longer have the luxury of that choice.’

  ‘Get on with it,’ Sam snapped, frustration getting the better of his fear. ‘Why am I here?’

  Humboldt smiled, shadows from the fire playing across his face. ‘You’re here because we’re two of a kind, Sam.’

  5

  Sam’s vision wavered and he suddenly found himself reeling again. Unable to remain upright, he stumbled to the sofa and slumped beside Humboldt. ‘Two of a kind? I…I don’t get it.’

  ‘Why, did you think you were the first time traveller?’

  Sam swallowed the lump in his throat and cast his mind back to the day last autumn when he’d been recruited to the Tempus Project. Lara McHayden had told him the story of an injured American soldier who claimed to have become unstuck in time. She’d also told him the soldier had killed himself, which couldn’t possibly have been true because, in that instant, Sam knew beyond any doubt that he was talking to the same person.

  ‘Dr McHayden told me about you,’ he said. ‘You’re the soldier, the one she worked with in the 60s.’

  ‘The very same.’ Humboldt cracked a smile, turned his head and pointed to the base of his skull, indicating a scar of a different texture to his faded burns. ‘The source of my powers,’ he said, turning back. ‘You have something similar, I presume?’

  Without his noticing, Sam’s fingers had strayed beneath his hair, feeling out the ridge of his own scar. He quickly lowered his hand.

  ‘Such an injury would kill an ordinary person,’ Humboldt went on, ‘but you and I are different. We share a unique genetic trait, Sam, one that enables our cells to heal at a vastly accelerated rate. That trait is the only reason you survived and recovered from the damage to your brain. The resulting
scar tissue is what gives us our ability to travel through time.’

  Sam blinked at him, momentarily lost for words. Back at St Benedict’s they had described his recovery as extraordinarily rapid, and suddenly his entire life seemed to unravel into a succession of rapidly fading bruises and too-soon-healed scabs. Was this all somehow connected to what Dr Wallis had told him about the abnormalities in his cells? He glanced down at the thin white scar on his knuckle from the time Chrissie had put his little finger between the teeth of a pair of pliers when they were kids. Back then the doctors had said he might lose the finger, but now you could hardly tell.

  He looked up again. After months of nothing but questions, he was finally closer to getting some answers. Of course he still didn’t trust Humboldt one bit, but if McHayden had lied about the man taking his own life then what other mistruths might she have spun?

  ‘I don’t know why you expect me to believe anything you say,’ he said, as much for his own benefit as Humboldt’s. ‘You’re a criminal, a terrorist. You turned Esteban Haufner and that makes you just as responsible for my father’s death as he is!’

  ‘I can only apologise about Esteban,’ Humboldt said, staring down at the floor. ‘For a time he was a highly valuable asset to my organisation. Then, last year, it became apparent he’d stopped following orders and was operating under his own agenda. I made the decision to have him eliminated, which, it turns out, was a monumental misjudgement on my part. Esteban set about exacting his revenge and, since he knew he would never be able to get to me directly, targeted my research instead. I hate to disappoint you, Sam, but the sabotage of Flight 0368, the Thames House bombing and Malcolm Fairview’s assassination were not acts of my doing, but acts of retaliation intended to cause me harm.’

  ‘Cause you harm?’

  ‘If it’s any consolation, he’ll be getting his comeuppance soon enough.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘But what have any of those things got to do with you? It was my dad who died in the crash and me who got blamed for Fairview’s death. How does any of that affect you?’