So, he thought, aware that time was slipping away from him, the way everything lately was slipping away from him, even his entire line of work, there’s nothing left to do but take it like a man and watch the whole world, the world he had known all his life, go away, like colorful Christmas paper after all the presents are opened and revealed. It was a hard thing to contemplate, even harder to accept, the inevitable tide of technological progress, which even as it created careers for some, also destroyed careers for others. It felt, weirdly, like a punishment, Spider was thinking. He’d done his best, he’d always done his best, whether for his parents, the police, for Molly, for Dickhead. He’d struggled always to be his best self, to do what he had to do, and to always work in his own timeline, to keep from needlessly complicating the nature of reality. Even as he’d veered off into other realities for work purposes, he’d always come back here, to this world, to this time, because this was home. It was hard, now, to escape the possibility, as what he laughingly called his career hung in the balance, that he had been a mug from the beginning.
And now things were happening and changing so fast it was hard to keep up. These days even the small details of everyday life changed from moment to moment but nobody much commented on them. But with the Chinese doing their damnedest to sell off US treasury bonds as fast as they could possibly do it, not caring that they were sinking much of the rest of the world in the process, it was as if everything he recognized and understood about the world, and how the world worked, was simply going away. Even Molly was off in New York, squired about town with lovely Stéphane, chatting about “negative space articulation,” and “alienated weltanschauung”. It was all Spider could do to hang on against the receding tide, worried it might be the sort of receding tide that occurred just before an enormous crushing tsunami rolled ashore, spreading everywhere, sweeping everything aside in black chaos. He remembered the video he’d seen, years back, of the tsunami that hit Fukushima, the darkness of the water, spreading across the land like a cancer, claiming everything.
“Mr. Webb,” the receptionist said, startling Spider so much he jumped and spilled the water all over himself.
“Shit,” he said, getting to his feet, dizzy, hardly able to balance, feeling like a man about to be led to the gallows. “Yes, yes, sorry, look, sorry, I just — Mum always said I had two left feet,” he mumbled, trying to make a joke of his embarrassment.
“Mr. Patel will see you now.”
Chapter 6
Spider steadied himself, pulled his pants up a little, and switched his phone-patch to route any incoming calls and messages to his watchtop. Satisfied, he took a moment and polished the scuffed toe of each of his Doc Martens on the back of the opposite leg. “Right,” he said. Everything is going to be fine, he told himself. It might not even be bad news. It might be a promotion. It might be all kinds of things. Why assume the worst? Spider made his way across the floor to Mr. Patel’s door — was that real, living grass he was walking on here? — knocked once, heard Mr. Patel say, “Come in, Mr. Webb!” The door seemed to melt away to one side. Impressed, but trying not to blurt out stupid remarks, Spider said, quietly, “Whoa.”
Then he stepped inside. He felt his scrotum tighten. The office, he thought, glancing about, was like a big white hangar, an immense space, with great dazzling blocks of harsh white light angling across opposing walls from the floor to ceiling windows. The rent, he thought, must be crippling. It was less a room, less an office, and much more a — what was the word? Yes, it was a chamber. For a moment he could imagine a symphony orchestra in here, playing something by Wagner, maybe.
And there was his employer, Mr. J. K. Patel, a small dark-skinned man in a big white room. In place of Patel’s eyes, Spider saw he now sported the new and hideous black “eye-plugs” that served as a combination visual sensor array and high-speed data antennae. Despite this, Spider did have an impression that Mr. Patel looked like a man in his last hour of waiting on Death Row. There was a strange heaviness to the otherwise immaculately dressed man, a weariness, that did not go with his youthful appearance. As far as Spider had been able to find out, Mr. Patel was only about twenty-nine years old. His short dark hair was already greying.
“Mr. Webb!” Patel said, calling from over by his desk, forcing cheery enthusiasm into his voice. “Welcome to the Bharat Group, to the Nerve Centre, if you will!” He managed a light laugh. “Thank you for coming. I trust you are well, that things at the Malaga workshop are proceeding smoothly. How are those key-point indicators shaping up, good I hope? Yes?”
Spider stood there, not knowing quite what to say. Mr. Patel was still coming across the great gulf of space between him and his desk, its smooth surface like a frozen pond of something sinister. Patel’s vivid white teeth gleamed, betraying his otherwise well-presented Indian heritage.
There was, Spider thought, something odd about meeting Mr. Patel, in the flesh. In video conferences, mail messages, and his constant online exhortations to Spider that, even though Spider was doing a great job, he could still do better; Spider had an impression of his boss as a young man in a big hurry, keen to achieve great things for the company, as soon as humanly possible. He always seemed to have a billion items on his to-do list, and they all had to be actioned by close of business, or there would be consequences from his superiors in Sydney, and maybe even from the board, back in Mumbai. Spider always felt like he was taking up Mr. Patel’s precious time, and Patel never did anything to correct that impression. His meetings with his boss had always been over and done with in less than two minutes. Messages he received from him filled no more than two lines of heavily compressed prose that sometimes resembled Orwellian Newspeak by way of phone texts.
And now here he was, coming toward Spider like something inevitable, like death itself, only smiling, and wearing a five-hundred-dollar business shirt, with the sleeves rolled up.
“I trust you had no trouble getting here today, Mr. Webb?” Patel said, almost there, beginning to stick his hand out for Spider to shake.
“Charlie drove me in, in the shop van. I hope that’s okay, sir.” Spider hoped that the thought of using work-related resources wouldn’t be an issue.
Then, all at once, as if by magic, Mr. Patel was there, in Spider’s face, smiling up at him with too many teeth, shaking his hand so hard Spider thought he was going to lose all feeling. It was those teeth, more than anything, so white, so luminous, and so many: for a moment Spider thought of sharks, with their rows and rows of spare teeth, all lined up like troops, ready to step into the front rank if one of the front teeth fell in battle. Another thing that was strange, and that Spider had failed to notice before: Patel’s shoes made no sound on the glossy marble floor as he came over to greet Spider. You would have thought, if you were paying attention, and not simply freaked out over the whole situation, that in such a cavernous space, with such a hard floor, his footsteps would have boomed and rung and echoed about, multiplying — but there had been none of that. As if Mr. Patel had glided over, on a cushion of air. The impression added to the sense of eeriness, of stepping from a place of mere luxury into something unearthly.
As Mr. Patel made welcoming small-talk, his hand wrapped around Spider’s right arm as if holding on to a life-preserver for dear life, he walked Spider across to a low, white leather sofa big enough to seat ten large people. As he sat down, and down, and down into the thing, knowing he was never getting out of this seat ever again, he happened to glance upward into the great vault of empty space above: that ceiling, he thought, must be, what? Ten metres? Fifteen? Oh, what’s that? There was something up there, dangling by wires from the ceiling, some kind of large mechanical sculpture thing? An ode to Victorian engineering? He’d lived with a mad sculptress for long enough that he knew (believed, really) that much of what passed for art these days was bullshit, all naked emperors and nobody commenting on it. In any case, as soon as he registered, “ah, sculpture”, he lo
st interest and looked away. But there was something about it that reminded him of something familiar.
Then, Mr. Patel was blathering — nervously, Spider thought, surprised — about offering Spider a beverage. “Tea? Coffee? Chai, perhaps? What would you like? Nothing is too much trouble for our VIP guests, Mr. Webb.”
Spider felt as if he were floating in space, cut off from reality. VIP guests? “Nothing, thank you, sir, I’m fine,” he said, hoping to get on with the business at hand. Patel bustled about the coastline of his desk, fussing with things, rubbing his face, brushing at imaginary dust on the great empty surface of that desk. He was clearly trying to convey a sense to Spider that things here at head office were going just swimmingly, and that he was an honored guest, but Spider felt there was something very wrong with this picture, and that he was about to find himself right in the white-hot center of that trouble, just as soon as Patel settled down. It was all he could do to keep from telling his boss to take a seat and get on with it.
At length, Patel took a small gold stylus from his shirt pocket and touched several points on the desk surface, which extruded various intricate structures. Patel watched these developments, frowned a moment, then tapped the structures twice more, which caused other, smaller structures to rise up, which he tapped with his fingers. That done, Spider watched the structures subside as the smooth surface of the desk returned. Satisfied, Patel set the stylus down on the desk, and leaned back, hands clasped across his stomach, making a performance of being relaxed and comfortable; a leader in charge of great things.
“So, Mr. Webb,” he said. “It is good of you to see me today, so soon after I requested an interview.”
This was something Spider had not expected. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I know you’re terribly busy attending to business at the workshop there in Malaga, fighting the good fight, doing your best for the Group. You certainly don’t need Management getting in your way, demanding your presence, now do you?”
“Actually,” Spider said, not sure why he said it, “business is…” He was going to say, “business is pretty quiet, we’ve only got one unit…” but he hesitated before saying it in case Mr. Patel took that as evidence that Spider and Charlie were somehow slacking off, and that perhaps it might be an idea to review the staffing levels at the Malaga operation. Spider did remember that he had been summoned here today to discuss “the terms of your employment.” If that didn’t mean a reduction in hours, or a shift to part-time, or, worse, casual hours, Spider didn’t know what did. It would explain Patel’s erratic behavior. Spider knew that some managers were very uncomfortable with delivering bad news to employees, and would resort to all manner of weird measures to avoid it, or even to couch a “radical change of status” as somehow a positive thing for the employee in question. “An opportunity for growth!” such a manager might say. Maybe Patel was one such manager, knowing today was the day he had to fire Spider, but feeling terrible about doing so, particularly in the current awful business conditions. Who wouldn’t? With all this in mind, Spider thought, what have I got to lose, other than absolutely everything? He was not a man who would beg to keep his job. If the axe was indeed swinging, he would take it and move on, somehow.
Patel said, “That is good to hear, very good to hear, Mr. Webb.” His boss got up again and stalked about, before settling at last, in front of his desk, leaning against it, steepling his thin fingers. “Of course. Which is why we must all redouble our efforts. We must strive to achieve our greatest effort — do you see, Mr. Webb—?” He broke off at this point, shaking his head, and then grinning, a little sheepishly. “I cannot keep calling you Mr. Webb. Please, may I call you Aloysius?”
Spider winced. “Um, look, sir. If you want to call me anything, call me Spider. Everybody calls me Spider. This ‘Mr. Webb’ bloke is my old man, right?”
Mr. Patel smiled. “Yes, of course. I know just what you mean. It always bothers me when people call me ‘Mr. Patel’, for the same reason.” All the same, Spider noticed, Mr. Patel did not invite Spider to call him by some friendlier name.
So far, so weird, Spider thought as he glanced around the office, finally looking upward, at the sculpture thing up there — but this time, he recognized it, and, pointing, said, “Wait a minute. Is that…?”
Patel beamed. “Yes, it is, Spider. The original prop from the movie.”
“The original prop?”
“Ah, yes. It took a long time to find it, and then have it restored,” Mr. Patel said, also looking up, his face now radiant with genuine happiness.
“There is no way that’s the original from the movie! That was… God, that was” He counted decades in his head. “Nineteen—”
“Nineteen Sixty,” Patel said. “It took a great deal of finding, I can assure you.”
It was The Time Machine, from the George Pal 1960 movie of the same name, complete with its great spinning disc, the beautiful gleaming brass-work, the control panel from which Australian actor Rod Taylor, playing the mysterious Victorian-era Time Traveler, propelled the fabulous device through time at breathtaking speeds, the world blurring past, mountains rising and falling, cities forming and dissolving into dust, all the way to the unthinkable year 802,701 AD. And now it was hanging up there, tilted over at a rakish angle, to show it off. How could he possibly have written that glorious thing off as just another pointless bit of post-post-modern art? It was, well, it was a piece of magic, right there.
Mr. Patel went on, “And guess what, Spider?”
“What?” Spider said, still staring up at it, captivated despite himself, all other concerns shunted momentarily aside.
“It works.”
“It works? How can it — oh, wait! Did you—?”
“It is, of course, a film prop. Mostly made of wood, some cheap metal, then dressed up to look good on screen. When we had it restored, we used real brass, for example. We rebuilt it the way it should have been, if such a device had existed in the real world. And, yes, we gave it a fuel-cell, hidden under the pilot’s seat, and a custom engine, combining scanning and translation into one unit, concealed in the control panel, and we rigged an interface for the controls, so that the original controls would work as they do in the film.”
“And the big … spinny thing?” Spider said, losing control of his speech capability for the moment.
“Spins very nicely,” Mr. Patel said. “Purely decorative, of course.”
Well, bugger me! Spider thought, but did not say out loud, still looking at it, this unexpected thing. He kept staring at it until he noticed his neck was getting sore, and he managed to look away, and saw that Mr. Patel had gone back to sit behind his desk.
Patel said, smiling, “I take it you are a fellow collector of time machines, Spider?”
“What? No, oh, God no, no not at all, sir. I just fix them. If you ask me, they’re nothing but trouble. But that…” Spider paused, “is a fine piece of movie magic.” From a time when movies were magic, the last days of the old Hollywood studio system. These days if a film called for a prop like that, it would most likely be rendered digitally; if it had to exist in the real world at all, it could be whomped up in a 3D printer, sintered from various powders, fused together with lasers — and utterly disposable, like most of the films that came along these days. Nobody would preserve such a thing; nobody would see the point in keeping and restoring such props. It was a sad thing, at least for people Spider’s age, who remembered better times.
It was hard to go back to business, particularly when he saw the way Mr. Patel stared up at it, his black faceted eye-plugs drinking in the sight, enjoying the way the afternoon light reflected off the brass control handles. And in that moment, Spider noticed a strange thing. He found to his surprise that he did not dislike Mr. Patel. Which, obviously, was a long way from actually liking the man, but who knew? Maybe that would come in time. Yes, the man
was annoyingly gung-ho about business matters, always sweating quarterly profit margins and business cycles and retail paradigms — to say nothing of those bloody key-point indicators — but, and this was the crucial thing, he was not simply a manager who had no grasp of what his company actually did or produced. Mr. Patel was, he saw, an enthusiast — a time machine enthusiast. Someone who, even if he had not wound up in the business, would still have been mad keen on the damn things, despite their trickiness, and their lure of false hope.
The thing Spider hated about time machines was that people got them, thinking they could fix everything that had gone wrong in their lives. Thinking they could go back and make amends for things they wished they’d not done. Thinking they could save loved ones from terrible fates, or magically improve their love lives. Too many people thought of time machines as magical “Get out of Personal Responsibility Free” devices. In times past, if you did something rotten, or hurt someone you loved, or didn’t do so well with the ladies, you tried to learn from it, and maybe become a better person in the future. Now people who’d done those sorts of things — and worse — simply figured, Oh well, I’ll jump in my time machine, and fix it. Which was fine, but in ninety-eight percent of such cases, time machine operators succeeded only in making their situations worse. Only two percent of time machine operators ever managed to achieve success, because they had taken the time to read up, both on the tubes and in countless how-to downloads, on time theory, which said, in part: If you tweaked the timeline at exactly the right nodal point, you could achieve just about anything. It was tricky, required expensive software and charts, but the ordinary home time machine operator could do it. Spider used to explain this to frustrated time machine owners who came to see him, wondering why everything they did with their time machines only made things worse. He told them what to read, which videos to watch on the tubes, where to get the appropriate software. He had, at one time, been very helpful to these people, because it was important to keep people enthused about time travel, because that helped sell units, and that meant more business. Except the great majority of them came back a week later, complaining that it was all Spider’s fault. Yes, he thought, it was his fault. It was his fault for trying to help idiots.
Paradox Resolution Page 5
