CHRONOSCAPE: The future is flexible we can change it

by Roger Ley

  “The PM says to go ahead,” he said.

  Oakwood called Paul Burnley into the room. “We need to stop the accident. Can you arrange that?” he asked. More meddling, thought Riley, can’t they see the danger?

  “The early French police reports say that the driver of Diana and Dodi’s car, was drunk. If we change the driver the accident won’t happen.”

  “How can you change the driver?” asked Oakwood.

  “We have an asset in their hotel in Paris, she’s a waitress. She can give the driver a Mickey Finn an hour or so before he’s due to drive Diana and Dodi. I’ll get straight onto it.” He left the room pulling his mobile phone out of his suit pocket. Riley was impressed, he and Estella always referred to Burnley as “Mr Bond” when they spoke of him at home.

  Two days later, in the Ritz hotel Paris, Dodi Fayed’s driver, Henri Paul, was kneeling, throwing up in the staff toilet. The bodyguard who was standing next to him phoned the head of security. “He isn’t fit to drive the Boss,” he said, his tone indifferent.

  “Okay, get somebody else to drive. Make sure it’s somebody careful. Send the car around the back now, they’re ready to leave.”

  The Mercedes S280 drove up to the rear entrance of the hotel, security guards escorted Diana and Dodi to it. The driver was a well-trained, reliable member of Dodi’s security team. He felt nervous and knew he needed to resist the urge to drive fast to get away from the paparazzi, waiting outside with their cameras and motorcycles. He didn’t want to put his passengers at risk. As he let out the clutch, he looked into the rear-view mirror.

  “Monsieur, Madam, please buckle your seat belts,” he said. Surprised at the driver’s presumption his passengers glanced at each other and then complied.

  The next weekend, Estella, and Riley were spending a pleasant morning relaxing over coffee, croissants, and the Sunday papers, in their large modern kitchen. “How wonderful that we could save Diana’s life,” said Estella? “It makes me proud to be doing this job.”

  He took a deep breath. “Yes, but what about the ramifications? What effect have we had on the future?”

  “You and your ‘ramifications’, we’ve made things better, that’s all. Why beat yourself up?”

  “Because Diana was supposed to die, and now we’ve changed history. We’re living in a radically altered Timestream. For all I know, there might be two Timestreams, one with Diana dead, and one with her alive.”

  “How many Timestreams could there be?” asked Estella.

  “There might be an infinite number of Timestreams, ask Stephen fucking Hawking.” Riley was becoming agitated, he was jealous of Professor Hawking, and usually avoided mentioning him. “It worries me that our masters are manipulating history for their own ends. Power corrupts, and I have no idea where Temporal Adjustments of this significance will lead us.”

  “Yes, but if the government are working in the public interest, what’s wrong with that. I may not be a royalist exactly, but I wouldn’t have liked it if there had been a revolution or a coup or something. I think the Queen does a good job, it’s the next incumbent that worries me.”

  Riley didn’t reply. She popped another piece of pastry into her mouth and took a sip of coffee.

  “Have some croissant with your jam why don’t you,” he said.

  “Mind your own damn business Fatso; I’ll have as much jam as I like.” She smiled brightly at him. “Anyway, pregnant women often get an appetite for sweet things.”

  Riley had returned to his newspaper, he paused before looking up.

  “Pregnant?” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  England the 1990s

  Riley sat next to Estella’s bed with the baby cradled in his arms. Estella was still tired and sleepy from the labor, the birth and the anesthetics. The new baby was mewling quietly and making vague tentative movements with its arms. Riley felt more relaxed than he had for months. It was as if a huge emotional switch had operated in his brain. He pictured the one Dr Frankenstein pulled, in the movie, when he connected the lightning conductor to the monster. In Riley’s case, the switch had a label over it that said “Fatherhood.”

  He had shown the baby to several of the other mothers in the recovery ward, but had become embarrassed because his baby was so superior to theirs. He tried to be polite, but the other babies were such an ugly, puny bunch compared to his. Later he’d phoned his mother to tell her that the baby was safely delivered and that Estella was all right. She’d laughed when he told her how wonderful the baby was, and how he’d never seen one as beautiful.

  “Why are you laughing?” he’d asked.

  “I’m laughing at you,” she said. “Don’t you realize that everybody feels like that about their first baby.”

  He knew she’d agree with him when she saw Hank. They had decided to call him Hank, because Estella had a crush on the lead guitarist of Cliff Richard’s backing band when she was a girl.

  When mother and baby were sleeping, Riley drove home from the hospital for a shower and a shave. He needed to sleep, but first he sat in the garden, smoked a cigar and drank two fingers of whiskey. He decided that things had to change, for Hank’s sake, they had to change. He decided that the TM technology should be put into the hands of the United Nations, so that it could be used for the benefit of all mankind. The fact that this would inevitably make him famous and very rich was immaterial. He owed it to humanity. He went into the house and lay on the bed, fully clothed. As he fell asleep, he pictured himself walking up the steps to shake hands with the King of Sweden, and accept his Nobel Prize for physics, or even the Nobel Peace Prize. His TM technology could help bring world peace under the right circumstances. What a wonderful gift to give to Hank’s generation, world peace.

  At work the next day, there were congratulations, backslapping and cake at the morning break. Paul Burnley rang to offer his congratulations as did Dr Oakwood. Riley started to tell him about his idea for making TM technology available to the world, but his boss cut across him.

  “I think you’re a little emotional at the moment Martin, perhaps you should have a few days off, take your paternity leave, we can manage without you for a while. Actually, I insist, go home Martin, we can discuss this later, and please don’t mention your ideas to anybody else before we’ve discussed it.”

  Riley left the office and went to see Hank and Estella at the hospital. Estella was feeding Hank while he was there, and as he watched, Riley realized the changes that the baby would make to their lives. It wasn’t about Estella and himself anymore, it was about Hank, and would be for the next twenty years.

  “I’ve decided that we need to offer TM to the United Nations,” he told Estella.

  “You know we can’t do that Martin,” she said, looking up from stroking Hank’s cheek and suddenly serious. “Talking like that is dangerous, we have Hank to worry about now, so stop thinking about your legacy and start thinking about his future. I hope you haven’t talked about this to anyone? You haven’t, have you?”

  “No, no,” he said. He went home and tidied up the house to prepare for the mother and baby’s arrival next day. Estella and Hank came home, his emotional state calmed as they adapted to their changed priorities. She had decided to stay off work for a year. It was going to be a different life, he thought. His mother told him he was a proper grownup now, and she was right, as usual.

  A week later, he was still on leave, the home phone rang, it was Oakwood.

  “Hello Martin, I’m in the café at Holywells Park, it’s not far from your house, meet me here as soon as you can please. Walk, don’t drive, and please check you are not being followed,” he rang off. Puzzled, Riley put a coat on and made his way to the Park. He looked around several times but had no way of knowing whether or not he was being followed, and anyway, by who? As he walked into the warm café, he smelled coffee and fried food. Several tables were occupied by older couples, out for an afternoon stroll. They all seemed to have small dogs on leads, looking out from under the ta
bles.

  Oakwood sat huddled at a corner table, with his overcoat collar turned up, he was wearing a dark trilby, pulled low, and looked furtive and conspicuous. Martin drew out a chair and sat opposite. Oakwood was pale and nervous, his hand shook as he lifted his tea cup, his gaze flicked around the café as he spoke.

  “This meeting never happened Martin, nobody knows I’m here. Things are changing Martin, it’s the new Prime Minister. He has turned out to be a politician of a very different cut from Mr Major. Please do not mention handing TM technology over to the UN again. Not to me, not to anyone else, not at the office, not on the phone, not even in your home. You must assume that Paul Burnley or his minions are listening to every word you say.”

  “Has something happened Dr Oakwood?” said Riley.

  “I’m afraid I cannot discuss the matter, but if I tell you that when the Cabinet Secretary and I first told Mr Major about TM, some years ago, he was shocked. As you know, he wanted to use the technology cautiously.

  When we briefed Mr Blair, soon after his election, he grinned, rubbed his hands together, and said, ‘Control of the future, God wait till I tell Alastair about this.’ He calmed down after we explained the level of secrecy that we work under. In fact, he saw the ramifications and asked us about TASC. He looked at the list of members and immediately wanted to make changes. That was a year ago, I can’t say any more. All I can say is that we need to watch our backs.”

  “Could I talk to him?” asked Riley. “Perhaps I could convince him that we should use the technology for the benefit of the whole human race.”

  Oakwood sighed, “Please don’t do anything like that Martin. Wait until you’ve regained your emotional balance. Finish your paternity leave, try not to think about TM, just concentrate on your new arrival.” As he rose to leave, his knee caught the table and a jug of milk, a plate, and various cutlery fell noisily to the floor. Most of the people in the restaurant looked over as, clutching his coat around him, Oakwood left hurriedly. Riley noticed that one of the couples hadn’t looked up at the noise but had continued looking at their menus. Their Spaniel had stayed supine under the table and cocked its ears as if it had seen it all before.

  Riley wondered if the couple were deaf, but they were murmuring to each other without seeming to gesture or lip read. He decided to stay and have something to eat. The couple left the café, and he watched as they set off in different directions, the woman leading the dog, the man in the same direction as Oakwood.

  Chapter Nine

  England the 1990s

  A dozen members of TASC sat in the committee room at Martlesham, Riley stood below a large overhead screen as he addressed them.

  “My team have done a first-rate job of editing the video files to make this presentation,” he said. “There are cameras all over the Sizewell B nuclear power station site and their output is continuously copied to the Électricité de France central office in Paris. The local files were destroyed during the incident you are about to see. Remember, this will happen in less than two weeks’ time.” He signaled for the room lights to be dimmed and pressed a button on the remote control he was holding.

  The sleek, matt black, Zodiac rigid inflatable boat, with its three occupants, bounced at high speed across the low swells of the North Sea. It had probably been lowered from the deck of a freighter, a few miles off Felixstowe, on the Suffolk coast, while the ship continued its journey north.

  The three men, masked and dressed in black, looked fit and thoroughly dangerous as their boat slowed and crunched ashore on the pebbly beach. They jumped out, dragged it a few yards further from the water and unloaded their back packs and light machine guns. Shouldering their equipment, they made their way up the beach, in single file, towards the huge white dome of Sizewell B. Nobody challenged them as they cut through the few strands of barbed wire and, using flash cord, cut through two of the eight-foot-high steel railings and stepped through onto the site.

  The station was “guarded” by only half a dozen retired prison officers, plumbers, and traffic wardens, wearing the black “livery” of a local security firm.

  The three masked men unerringly approached the airlocked entrance to the white domed concrete containment building. Reaching into his pack, the leader extracted a black box which he attached to the outer door. He twisted one switch and pressed another, they all took cover as, moments later, an explosion blew the lock to pieces and the door swung outwards on its hinges. Before the smoke had cleared the second man moved into the airlock, and came back out again almost at once. Moments later another explosion blew open the inner door. The first two men moved through the airlock and into the containment building while the third crouched and guarded the approach.

  A door opened in a nearby office and, framed by the light inside, two guards came out carrying torches. Before they had moved more than a few steps, the watching mercenary gunned them down with four shots of silenced fire. He remained in position.

  Inside the containment building, the two men made their way up steel stairways and along the walkways to the top of the reactor, where one of them placed a grenade. They took cover, as an explosion distorted the array of control rods which clustered there. The reactor was now out of control.

  The soldiers calmly strapped two shaped charges to the heavy pipe work coming from one of the four heat exchangers. They made their way down the steel stairways and back out through the ruined airlock. Once in the open air they dumped their weapons and stripped off their outer clothing, revealing the blue overalls worn by all employees on the site. It was a short walk to the staff car park. There were two muffled explosions from the containment building as the mercenaries climbed into the side door of the van, which was waiting for them. They passed through the security barrier and drove away towards Yoxford and the A12.

  Cameras in the containment building showed super-heated steam and boiling water gushing from the breached and ragged pipework. In the operations center, one of the technicians suddenly shouted, “We’ve lost primary and secondary cooling water, the core temperature’s rising.”

  The shift supervisor could see the hopelessness of the situation on the flat screen displays. She picked up a microphone and her amplified voice could be heard above the noise of alarms and the flashing of emergency lights around the installation. “Attention. Emergency. All personnel must evacuate immediately. I repeat all personnel….”

  Over the next hour, the core temperature rose unhindered until the fuel rods melted. The molten fuel burned through the bottom of the reactor flask and spilled through the pipework and open steel lattice floors of the containment building. There was a spectacular display of fire and sparks as the building filled with smoke and flames.

  The fuel pooled under the reactor and melted through the concrete floor. It continued to burn deeper into the ground until, a few meters below, it reached the water table. Fire and water met and battled, there was a colossal and continuous steam explosion.

  A jet of radioactive fuel particles, flames, gas, and water vapor roared horizontally out of the open containment airlock and over the sea, a volcano gone askew. The roar could be heard for miles across the quiet countryside. The concrete around the airlock began to melt and crumble. As the seaward side of the building disintegrated, the dome cracked, and large pieces of the roof fell crashing onto the ruined reactor.

  A huge plume of radioactive smoke and steam rose above the small fishing village of Sizewell. The patrons of the Vulcan Arms public house stood speechlessly staring upwards from the outdoor smoking area. They inhaled fatal doses of radioactive dust as it drifted down onto them, their relatively harmless cigarettes held forgotten at their sides.

  “This last clip was taken from a press helicopter flying upwind of the site next morning,” said Riley, still seated. The screen showed a huge plume of radioactive steam and smoke slowly billowing from the hollow, jagged, concrete stump of the containment building. They could hear the emotional voice of a journalist reporting on the scene. Ri
ley turned the volume down. “The plume is drifting towards Ipswich,” he said. “If you look carefully, you can see that the reactor building has a double skin but both have been smashed to rubble.” Nobody spoke, they were too stunned by the TV footage.

  The presentation ended, and the lights came back on. Riley stood as the rest of the group sat in shocked silence for several seconds.

  “What’s the estimated death toll?” asked one of the committee.

  “In the hundreds of thousands,” said Riley.

  “How can this have happened?” He turned to look at Oakwood. “You scientists have always assured us that nuclear power is safe.”

  “Nuclear power stations may be safe from accidents, but they have never been safe from informed targeted attack,” Oakwood replied. “These men are professionals, mercenaries, possibly ex-French Foreign Legion. CCTV cameras show them boarding a scheduled flight at Norwich Airport, they were on their way home two hours after the reactor breached.”

  “This is a bloody shambles!” said another member of the group angrily. He was wearing civilian clothes but Riley suspected that he was military. “We need to protect installations like this. There should be soldiers or at least armed police patrolling. We’re very vulnerable. Bacton Gas Terminal is only a few miles further up the coast, that could be next. I could easily list a dozen industrial sites as nationally important as this. It’s really too bad.”

  “I don’t imagine we need much discussion, ladies and gentlemen,” said Oakwood. “Can I have a show of hands for an intervention? So, it’s unanimous then, I’ll speak to the Cabinet Secretary, I’m sure the PM will recommend that the military take measures to prevent the attack. Paul Burnley can initiate it. Although technically this comes under the auspices of MI5, as it’s going to happen on home soil. We don’t want to step on anybody’s toes.” He picked up the phone. “Send in Commander Burnley please Rachael.”