The Light Between Us

by Katie Khan

  ‘Don’t bring them into this,’ she warns. ‘They just wanted their little girl to go to Oxford – tick. Job done. My dream is time travel.’

  ‘Your dream is to be right,’ Isaac says. ‘This is typical Thea-logic. What if you get caught? What if they involve the police?’

  ‘I have to go now.’

  He nods, resigned to her stubbornness. ‘Most friends call to say hello. But you got in touch to say goodbye.’

  She flashes a sarcastic smile. ‘Then it’s a good job we’ve never been like most friends.’ She looks at Isaac, bathed in daylight, surrounded by skyscrapers on the other side of the world. Then she hangs up and tucks her phone away – because if she’s going to break the rules, she’s going to do it alone.

  At five past nine exactly, Great Tom – the bell at Christ Church College – begins sounding its nightly chimes, ringing exactly one hundred and one times. Thea silently counts each one, certain the college chaplains will one day miss a strike – or rebel, thinking no one is listening, that no one would notice. But she is listening. Thea always counts, finding solace in the routine, excusing the folly of the bell ringing at five past the hour no matter how frustratingly … off, that is. Maybe, if she gets caught tonight, that could be her defence. I’m sorry, Professor, she will say, I was merely upholding the University’s love of rule-breaking. She smiles, for just a moment, a sense of peace falling in the aftermath of Great Tom’s final toll as she returns her gaze to the street.

  Focus.

  Lamps are blinking on in the ramshackle houses along Turn Again Lane, while above, small pinpricks of light mar the smooth blackness of a cloudless sky. Other than a few students laughing and calling to one another as they head out for the night, the atmosphere is calm.

  At five past eleven exactly – observing Oxford Time, five minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time – Thea picks up her holdall and the portfolio case, and turns out the light. She flicks it on and then off again, for luck. Three is her lucky number, and she could do with a bit of luck tonight.

  It’s time.

  She must be quiet. Thea pads down the stairs of her shared house, just outside the college grounds. On a whim she grabs the old-fashioned egg timer from the kitchen, an hourglass full of blue sand. She soundlessly tucks it into the bag and steps outside.

  She pulls the front door to, catching the weight. She leans the artist’s portfolio against her leg as she puts the key in the lock so it will close without a clunk. Slowly, she takes the key from its groove and stands on the pavement. The tiny houses don’t have front gardens in this tumbledown enclave. She exhales, feeling the chill of the air in her lungs. She has been silent, she thinks; the first hurdle has been jumped successfully. She bends to pick up the portfolio, the night around her still—

  ‘Hey, Thea.’

  She startles at the sound of her name. ‘Visha,’ she breathes, sucking in the air through her teeth. ‘You scared me half to death.’

  Urvisha Malik, her housemate and fellow DPhil – Oxford’s word for what the rest of the world calls a PhD – stands in the middle of the lane, examining her nails. Despite her relaxed demeanour, Thea knows there’s a lot happening beneath the surface: Urvisha’s intelligence is tightly wound, a predatory bird aware of its surroundings, ready to swoop and snatch the prey between its teeth. ‘Nice night for it,’ Urvisha says.

  Thea nods, slowly. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Beautiful light.’

  ‘Is it? I hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Urvisha’s face is pitying as she flicks her fingers against the gel of her varnish. ‘You didn’t really think you would do this without us?’

  Thea’s surprised. ‘Us?’

  Urvisha turns towards the entrance to the small lane, where a figure stands guard beneath the first streetlamp. ‘Hi, darling,’ the woman calls quietly.

  ‘Rosy.’ Thea sighs.

  It’s a three-way standoff:

  Urvisha, arms crossed like a stern matron, her expression unyielding.

  Rosalind, illuminated by the lamppost, a question behind her eyes.

  And Thea, making a what-the-fuck? face at her two friends. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Did you think you could cut us out?’ Urvisha accuses from her spot in the road. ‘We’re coming with you.’

  ‘Why are you both wearing black?’ Thea picks up the portfolio case. ‘What are you, my coven?’

  ‘We’re your friends,’ Rosalind says, walking towards them, ‘and we’re coming with you.’

  Thea shakes her head. ‘I can’t let you. Not tonight.’

  ‘Let us? You can’t stop us,’ Urvisha says.

  ‘We’ve already talked about this,’ Thea says, agitated. ‘Multiple times.’

  ‘What can I say? We changed our minds.’

  ‘Not all of you,’ Thea says quietly, looking around. ‘Where’s Ayo?’

  Rosalind steps forward, rangy and athletic, a walking juxtaposition of haughty breeding and innate warmth. She puts a hand gently on Thea’s arm. ‘Ayo has a small child; she didn’t feel she could put herself in the path of any … potential danger.’

  ‘But you two are happy to break the law?’

  ‘We’re only going to borrow it, right?’ Urvisha says, shrugging her shoulders. ‘It’s not that illegal.’

  Rosalind’s hand still lies on Thea’s forearm. ‘I’ve learned the hard way that when you’re sticking your neck out – and I mean really sticking your head above the parapet – you need like-minded people beside you.’

  ‘When did you learn that, Rosy?’ Urvisha says, curious. ‘Being captain of the Upper Fifth lacrosse team? During your Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award? Skiing in Zermatt?’

  Rosalind cuts Urvisha off with an eye-roll. ‘Thea, you need us with you tonight. I know I’m not a scientist, but I’m here to help. I believe in you. And you need a team.’

  ‘No.’ Thea shakes her head.

  ‘Stop trying to leave us behind, will you?’ Urvisha says. ‘Or do you want all the glory for yourself?’

  Thea sighs. After the confrontation with Isaac, she can’t face another. At least Rosy and Visha are trying to support her. ‘It’s not like that at all. At the very least, what I’m about to do could get us in serious trouble with the college.’

  ‘The college who ignored you,’ Rosalind says, her voice almost maternal. ‘It’s criminal how they overlooked your proposal.’

  ‘They didn’t overlook it,’ Thea shrugs, ‘so much as forbid me to explore any aspect of what they deem an embarrassing nonsense. But it doesn’t matter.’ She starts down the street. ‘I’m going to prove them wrong.’

  Urvisha mirrors the shrug. ‘And we’re going to do it with you.’

  Rosalind nods. ‘All of us. We’re here for you.’

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Will you stop protesting? They won’t kick us out.’ Urvisha smirks. ‘Not when we succeed.’

  Urvisha nods to Rosalind, who parries left then feints right next to Thea, grasping the portfolio and swinging it off down the street before Thea even notices it’s out of her hand. ‘Come on, girls! We’ve got some rules to break.’

  ‘Never thought I’d appreciate lacrosse skills,’ Urvisha murmurs.

  ‘Please …’ But Thea sees it’s fruitless as the two women cajole her down the lane.

  ‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ Urvisha says, bringing up the rear, ‘being called “girls”, or the fact Head Girl over there is the one successfully leading the charge.’

  ‘It’s Thea’s project,’ Rosy says like a true Head Girl as they walk towards the college campus, ‘therefore Thea’s leading the charge. So, Thea: what’s the plan?’

  They decamp to the building adjacent to the University of Oxford’s brand-new, state-of-the-art Beecroft Building for Theoretical and Experimental Physics, which they can just glimpse across the campus. The Beecroft is the glittering jewel of Oxford’s Science Departments, a strikingly contemporary building of glass and copper, nestled amid Grade
I listed collegiate buildings and ancient treelines. Hard to miss, the Beecroft provides Oxford with a world-class research centre – with all the security measures expected of such an expensive and sensitive scientific facility.

  ‘The Beecroft has seven storeys: five levels above ground, and two below,’ Thea says. ‘We need to get to the basement laboratories. They’re temperature-controlled, low-vibration, totally secure black boxes.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ Urvisha yawns. It’s approaching midnight, and they’ve all been up studying since seven. ‘This is sounding more like Mission: Impossible every minute.’

  Rosy perks up. ‘Do I need to abseil down through the atrium? Because we could.’

  ‘Not quite,’ Thea says with a smirk. ‘We need the laser in Basement Lab 3.’ They’re currently borrowing an unused study room for PhD students, a cramped space featuring an ancient orange sofa with springs breaking free of the arms, a huge bookshelf teetering under textbooks, and the desks of some other – thankfully absent – students. ‘We tried the time travel experiment using normal light, and nothing happened. Tonight I want to try it with the Beecroft laser.’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ Urvisha says restlessly from where she’s sitting at somebody’s desk, trying not to disturb the mountain of papers. ‘So what’s the plan? How are we getting in?’

  Both sets of eyes turn to Thea.

  ‘I was planning to charm Tony. The night guard.’

  Urvisha’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. ‘Thea Colman was going to set a honeytrap?’

  Rosy, laughing, stops suddenly. ‘Isn’t that – Is that quite a good idea, actually?’

  ‘No.’ Thea is firm. ‘I was going to tell him I left the form from Professor Schmidt at home, but I have permission to check on an experiment—’

  ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘I’m sure he’d let me. Tony’s always friendly.’

  ‘Thea, that’s ridiculous,’ Urvisha says drily. ‘I can’t believe this is your plan. You’re usually so thorough.’

  ‘Is there any way into the building without going past the security desk?’ Rosy asks, while Thea stays quiet.

  Urvisha opens the laptop she carries everywhere with her, and pulls up the Beecroft Building details on the Oxford website.

  ‘Maybe if we—’

  ‘It won’t work,’ Thea says, her voice a pin drop. ‘I need Tony to let me in.’

  ‘Oh?’ Visha says.

  ‘Security controls the power to the lab. When they grant you access, they grant you power. We won’t be able to use the Beecroft laser without it.’

  ‘Ah,’ Rosy says thoughtfully, from next to the bookshelf.

  ‘Tony has to let you in,’ Urvisha echoes. ‘You don’t have the form, and if he checks the online system …’

  ‘He’ll see there’s no permission from Professor Schmidt, nor any experiment running at all,’ Thea finishes.

  ‘We need him distracted when you go in there. I mean, really distracted.’ Urvisha scans the Beecroft site.

  ‘Maybe some sort of diversion outside?’ Rosy suggests.

  ‘Maybe. Or …’ She looks at Thea, eyeing her up and down.

  Thea narrows her eyes. ‘Whatever you’re thinking – it’s a hard no.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rosy says.

  ‘Yes,’ Urvisha agrees.

  ‘No.’ Thea looks between them. ‘Absolutely not.’ She pauses, cocking her head. ‘Actually, if we had time …’

  ‘See? Told you it was a good idea,’ Rosalind says, her tone smug.

  ‘Not like you’re thinking.’ Thea rubs her temple. ‘Tony’s into online dating – you can always see dating sites open on his monitor as you exit the labs. If we had time, we could’ve hacked his profile.’

  Urvisha Malik, studying for a DPhil in Computer Science at the end of a hard-fought and expensive education, shrugs. ‘I can do that.’ Under her breath, she mutters: ‘Because of course my cross-disciplinary research in Quantum Computing and doctoral training in Cyber Security is all so I can hack some guy’s Tinder.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Thea says, offhand, as she considers the idea, turning it over in her mind. ‘How long would it take? One of the professor’s undergrad classes is running a lab experiment tomorrow for the next few weeks. We need to get into Lab 3 tonight.’

  But Urvisha’s already typing fast, her fingers a blur on the keys. It takes just over a minute for her to pull up Tony’s search history and generate a profile for Tony’s perfect woman, scraping the internet for suitable images and populating the account with enough updates and comments to lend it credibility.

  ‘What are you doing, Visha?’ Thea asks.

  ‘I’m writing – quite quickly, I might add – an Autonomous Intelligent Machine and System,’ Urvisha says. ‘An AIMS – also known as a bot.’

  Rosalind looks blank. ‘I’m a historian,’ she complains. ‘In English, please?’

  ‘You know – a bot. An automated program that will engage with Tony, responding with a range of tantalizing answers, keeping him distracted just long enough to serve our purpose,’ Urvisha concludes.

  ‘Gosh,’ Rosy says, looking suitably impressed. ‘You are clever.’

  Urvisha finishes creating the fake profile for Tony’s dream woman, and Thea starts laughing as Visha populates the siren’s bio with the line ‘Looking for a dreambot.’

  Urvisha completes the coding and sits back, satisfied. ‘Shall I set it live?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Thea says.

  Rosy watches, clearly fascinated – despite herself – by the technology. ‘This is a bit much, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t have swiped The Boy left on this.’

  Thea sucks in her lips, trying not to laugh, as Urvisha types furiously into her laptop, mouthing ‘The Boy’. ‘You’re both enjoying this way too much,’ Urvisha says as she hits enter.

  ‘So we know Tony will be distracted. But how are we going to get into the building after you’ve slipped past him?’ Rosalind says more seriously. ‘And how do we stop him coming to check on us?’

  Thea flicks off the lights in the study, eyeing the glowing Beecroft Building across the darkened walkway. ‘I think we’ve got a few more tricks up our sleeves, tonight.’

  Two

  As Thea walks up to the security desk of the Beecroft Building, she feels the flutter of adrenalin sitting uncomfortably in her chest. Fight or flight: she knows adrenalin will either make you feel empowered, or terrified.

  Terror, she notes with disappointment. She’d so hoped she’d feel braver.

  The glass building is ultramodern: behind the security desk Thea can see meeting spaces and offices designed for the discussion of theoretical physics, and a multi-storey glass atrium with skylights looking up to the stars. It’s the below-ground levels that have been designed for experimental physics, which is where they need to get to.

  It’s time for stage one of the plan.

  ‘Hi, Tony.’ She forces herself to beam at the guard behind the huge desk, a bank of security monitors in front of him. The University of Oxford spent more than £40 million on the Beecroft, and it’s manned twenty-four hours a day.

  ‘Hi there, Thea. You’re late today.’ Tony looks up only briefly from where he sits, busily tapping on his phone. Their voices are loud against the hush of midnight, and bounce off the shiny surfaces of the cavernous hall.

  She crosses and uncrosses her fingers behind her back three times. ‘I’ve got permission from Professor Schmidt to check on a night experiment we’re running in Basement Lab 3.’

  Tony chortles, amused by something on his screen – presumably a message from Urvisha’s dreambot.

  Thea starts rummaging in her bag. ‘I’ve got some paperwork here, somewhere, if you need it—’

  ‘Professor Schmidt said it’s okay?’ Tony smiles, not looking up.

  ‘Yep.’ The flutter grows, as she feels her heart begin to patter against her ribcage. ‘We’re running an overnight experiment.’

  ‘In Lab 3?’

&nb
sp; Thea continues to fish around in her bag, her eyes doggedly watching the air just above the security desk. ‘Yes. It requires a refresh.’

  ‘And you drew the short straw?’ Tony says, so Thea automatically makes a regretful face, wishing she hadn’t given up amateur dramatics class at the age of eleven, disinclined to pursue something at which she displayed no skill.

  ‘Yes.’ Poor little me, she auditions mentally, but as she hears the line she knows self-pity would be overkill to a man like Tony. Who, she reasons, works nights all the time. This isn’t even late for him – he’s just making conversation. She adjusts her next response accordingly. ‘Someone’s got to do it, huh? Someone’s got to stay up.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says, only half listening. ‘It always comes down to the people like us. Well, I’m sure you want to crack on.’ He presses the release for the security gate, still holding on to his phone.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, remaining where she is, still half-heartedly searching through her bag for the non-existent paperwork as Urvisha, crouched beneath the desk, accelerates with a burst of speed, staying low. She clears the open security gate and disappears round the corner towards the flight of stairs, just as Tony looks up.

  He waves Thea towards the gate. ‘Head on down, the power’s on. I know you won’t be causing any trouble.’

  ‘Thanks, Tony,’ she says with some over-acted relief, her voice too loud in the echoing reception. She walks to the entrance but, exactly as she had expected, the gateway doesn’t give – because Urvisha’s already gone through on the single release.

  ‘Tony? Do you mind opening the gate? It won’t let me through.’

  Tapping away to Urvisha’s dreambot, Tony nods and again presses the release without putting down his phone. ‘There you go.’

  She heads through the gate and towards the steps that lead down to the labs. From the top of the stairs she can see Urvisha crouched low next to a panel in the wall, the laptop on her knees hardwired into the building’s system, typing furiously. Thea tries to meet Urvisha’s eyes, to share in their success, when—

  ‘Hey!’ comes the shout.