“Yes.”
“But that’s—” I start.
“A paradox,” Tabitha finishes. “Fucking huge one.”
And that does seem a fair assessment of the situation.
“Nature hates a vacuum,” Tabitha states. “Reality hates a paradox. Same thing. Making an analogy. But our reality is actually a composite reality. Made of many realities. We perceive the most likely realities. But have spare ones. So to fix the paradox the composite brings less likely realities forward to plug the hole.”
“OK,” I nod. “So no problem.” But even I can’t deny that sounds like wishful thinking.
“Right,” Tabitha agrees with me for about half a second. “Except paradox is too big.” Another deep breath. “The Uhrwerkgerät—Lang designed it to be highly reality permeable. Exists in many, many realities. So it causes paradoxes throughout all of them. So finding an undamaged reality in the composite to fix things is hard. Means the solution is a really unlikely reality. Means bringing it forward ends up being worse than the original problem. Causes more paradoxes. And the composite tries to fix them. Brings forward more realities. Even more unlikely ones. But just makes more paradoxes. And more. And more. Keeps trying to fix them, keeps making it worse.”
I picture it like a tear in cloth. The Uhrwerkgerät ripping through the weave and weft, leaving a ragged hole in its wake. So you try to patch the hole, but the cloth is too weak to hold the thread. And the rip gets worse. So you bring in more patches, more thread. But everything keeps ripping, and ripping, tearing itself to shreds. Except it’s not cloth. It’s reality. It’s everything I live and breathe. Tearing itself to shreds.
“How bad does it get?” I ask.
Kayla looks over at me again. Considering she’s going in excess of a hundred and twenty miles per hour, I wish she’d keep her eye on the road more.
“Everything ends,” Tabitha says. “Everything. Just gets worse and never gets better. Until there’s nothing.”
Shit. Shit and balls. “Lang designed this thing?” I check. “Designed it to do exactly that?” The mentality behind that decision is beyond me.
“Total Nazi fucker with a hard-on for mass destruction. Saw humanity as tainted. This was the ultimate purge.”
I’ve actually tried time travel before, and I know how awful and dangerous it is, and how, in the long run, it would probably cause the same sort of damage as Lang’s bomb. But still, I would so sorely like to go back in time and neuter Lang’s father with a handsaw.
Not a helpful thought, unfortunately. I reach for something more relevant. “How do we stop it?” I ask.
“Actually,” Tabitha says. “Opposite problem. You have to make sure it goes off. Only way to stop the paradox.”
“The huge bomb that causes a detonation so large it ripples backwards and forwards in time? The bomb that is going to kill me? I have to ensure it goes off?”
And for a moment I really do think Kayla is going to take us off the road.
“Echoes have already happened. Means it’s gone off. Only way to stop the paradox is have that happen.” There is no give in Tabitha’s tone. Ugly little truths handled with professional dispassion.
And… Shit, she’s right. That is the only way. Sacrifice this… what? City? Country? Continent? But save something. Maybe not all the world, but at least part of it.
Just not my part.
“Brilliant,” I say. “Just brilliant.”
Kayla keeps driving, but part of me wishes she’d take us to our destination just a little slower.
67
I try Hannah again, though I don’t even know what to tell her now. Head to the southern hemisphere for a while? She doesn’t answer anyway, so I don’t have to work it out.
Clyde is next. He lets it go to voicemail. Unless he’s underground—or being beaten to a pulp by a World War II-era robot—as well. I almost fling my phone out the window at that point, but I give him one more shot.
He picks up on the sixth ring.
“I really don’t want to talk about it, Arthur,” he says before I can even say hello. “I know that’s probably very rude, but I really am very upset about the whole thing. About my own behavior as much as anything else. Really an unforgivable way to act. Not to say that I am the only guilty party. See, I don’t want to get caught in that trap. You see, I know myself, Arthur. I know what happens when I get to talking. I’ll end up talking myself into coming back and making apologies that really I’m not sure I’m ready to give, or really should give. But if we get engaged in this whole thing, well that’s what will happen. And sometimes a man just needs to let himself stew for a bit, get it out of his system. Well, I say man, but really it could be anyone of any gender. Or of indeterminate gender. Though I don’t think that’s the term. My upbringing was rather conservative, and sometimes it means my terminology is a little south of the politically correct term. But hopefully you catch my intent.”
“I—” I try to break in and fail.
“No, Arthur. I’m sorry. I really don’t like being firm. Firm things in general are generally not my personal favorite. Foodstuffs, mattresses, even book covers. Always go for the soft version. Cheese being the exception, actually. Always been a fan of those super-hard Italian cheeses. A bit of Asiago. Oh my. Actually that was something Tabitha and I really connected on. Both big Asiago fans. Wouldn’t think it to look at her. I had her pegged as a Brie girl myself. A lot of people really do like Brie a lot, but I just don’t understand the appeal. And don’t get me started on cottage cheese. Thoroughly revolting. Got excellent taste in cheese, Tabitha. Makes her own smoked Gouda as well, which you have to respect.”
“I—” I start again, but apparently I have lost all control of this conversation.
“Oh God, it’s already started,” Clyde blunders on. “See this is why I didn’t want to answer the phone. But that always seems terribly rude in this day and age. We’re always expected to be accessible twenty-four hours a day. Which isn’t really a reasonable expectation, if you ask me. This whole social media thing. It’s the death of alone time. And I mean, I know that one can disengage if one chooses. It’s not like they’ve got a gun to your head, though sometimes I think it’s only a matter of time before that becomes the advertising campaign. But there is so much social pressure to conform and engage. And I do like to be polite, Arthur. Today’s little outburst standing as a notable exception of course. But as mentioned, I do feel very bad about that. Not to mention embarrassed. And I do really understand the pressure Tabitha is under. I tried to explain that. Did you think I explained that?”
I open my mouth, but before sound manages to escape he’s off again.
“Well of course you do. You’ve always been a very reasonable person. And very supportive. Really the best of friends. And an excellent field lead. Though, I suppose… gosh, I hadn’t even given it much thought, but you’re more than field lead right now. Felicity left you in charge. And what’s the first thing I do? Storm off in a cloud of my own self-importance. And I know I was just railing against social media, but that shouldn’t be taken as me wanting to deny that humans are social creatures. Terribly important. It’s just the pressure with the media thing that bugs me. The idea that our social nature is being commodified. But being part of a close-knit social group is important to me. And I betrayed that impulse today. Not that we don’t all need moments of selfishness. Everything is a balance, of course. But there’s a time and a place. And maybe this morning wasn’t my time or my place, and really I could have dealt with it a lot better. But I didn’t. I really left you in the lurch at the worst possible time.”
“Look—” I try to say.
“Well that’s very kind of you to be understanding. But then that is your nature. To be a good and kind human being. Except I really must say that you’re being too kind. It was pretty shitty of me, Arthur. Not to beat around the bush. Honestly, I’m almost too ashamed to show my face. But that would just be compounding the problem, not solving it. No, that’s
not the course of action at all.”
There is a genuine pause then. Except I am too disoriented by the swirls and eddies of conversation to work out which way is downstream.
“I really should thank you for calling me,” Clyde says into my confusion. “I was very caught up in myself, but you really helped me sort it all out. As you always do. And I must apologize. Ready to throw myself back into the fray. I’ll meet you back at the office, shall I? I really do apologize for the inconvenience.”
“Erm…” I manage. “Actually Lang’s pocket reality in the London Underground would be the best place to meet right now.”
“Oh all right then.” Clyde’s voice is as bright as the summer sun. “See you there then. ASAP and all that. Love acronyms. Wonderful things. One of the whole reasons I was so tempted by military intelligence in the first place actually. But I won’t chew your ear off about it now. Do it in person. Good gosh, I have been wasting time. OK, on the move now. Moving even as we speak. Joy of the cellphone. Totally mobile. The clue is in the title, I suppose. All right. Totally off. Except I’m talking. Going to stop that. And hang up. Both at once. Not something to brag about really. Hardly a complex maneuver. But I’m going to do it. Wait, how do I… Is it this button? Bear with me for a second. Barely ever use this thing. Maybe if I—”
The line goes dead.
I sit for a moment trying to work out what just happened. Then I decide I don’t need to know right now. Clyde is coming to London. And with him comes the sliver of a chance to succeed.
68
LONDON. IN THE SHATTERED REMAINS OF BROKEN SPEED LIMITS
I cannot claim to be exactly sure how Kayla parks the car. It seems to involve rotating through seven hundred and twenty degrees and using the curb as a brake. The car rocks up on two wheels for a moment, then settles. My stomach takes slightly longer.
We’re beside a brown brick building with a sign that announces in crisp white letters that this is Hammersmith Station. Clyde or Tabitha are nowhere to be seen on the street outside.
We bundle through to the station, shove tourists aside, and hurdle the gates. Several yells pursue us. I bat the objections away with wild waves of my badge.
Clyde and Tabitha aren’t on the station either. There again, if Kayla had driven a handful of miles per hour faster and pointed us against the spin of the earth I think we would have traveled back through time, so perhaps the fact that we got here first is not that surprising.
I grab my phone from my pocket.
“Just feckin’ text,” Kayla says, already heading for the tunnel. “Hannah is already down there.”
I tap keys on my phone, send “Going down,” to the rest of MI37, and hurry after Kayla’s rapidly retreating form.
Just before the tunnel swallows me, the phone buzzes again. Tabitha has replied. “No time for sex talk.”
Well, at least we’re going into this with a professional attitude…
IN THE TUNNEL
One plus of racing to save the world is that it leaves you less time to worry about the dangers of oncoming trains. Plus there’s much less wrestling with the rusty door leading down to the service tunnel now that Kayla has kicked it open a second time. Still, I will admit to blanching when my foot hits the sixth step and a train’s passage slams the door shut behind me. It’s about now that some situational awareness might come in handy.
Time to slow down. Kayla is still well ahead of me, but I stop taking the steps two at a time. Lang’s pocket reality is about a hundred yards to my right once I’m through the door.
And if Friedrich has guards posted? He didn’t last time. Unless the mad machine we found last time was a guard who had slipped a few gears. But we saw no evidence of Friedrich last time… Wouldn’t he have stopped us raiding the place? Except, what if I have picked the wrong place? What if Friedrich is, right now, in a totally different pocket reality putting the finishing touches on his plan?
And about then I realize that I’ve stopped, paralyzed by indecision, and I’ll never know if I’m in the wrong place or not if I don’t make it to the bottom of these stairs.
I take another ten steps. The light of the workmen’s lamps in the tunnel beyond outlines the door before me.
If there are sentries, was there cover? I seem to remember a few piles of wood, and maybe one of electrical equipment.
Who the hell was doing work down here anyway? God, I wonder if Friedrich’s forces killed them. Jesus.
There weren’t sentries last time. It’ll be fine.
“Just so you know,” says Kayla’s voice from nowhere, “you breathe much louder and you’ll have the whole bloody lot of them down on us.”
So much for situational bloody awareness. I scan the darkness of the stairs, but can’t pick out her shadow from any of the others. I decide to forgive myself a little. Kayla is as close to a real life ninja as I’ve ever met.
“Crap,” I say quietly. “He left sentries, didn’t he? How many?”
“About ten.”
“Double crap.” I look around for silver linings. “At least we know we found the right place.”
“Or it’s a great big feckin’ trap.”
“Or that.” I close my eyes. It makes no real noticeable difference to my surroundings. “Any sign of Hannah?”
“No.” There’s an edge to her voice. I can’t tell if it’s fear or anger.
“Any sign of any large blood stains?” I probably could have phrased that better.
Kayla snorts. “Hannah is like a feckin’ black belt at stealth infiltrations of enemy-held facilities. Kind of her whole feckin’ thing. You read her file, right?”
I decide to skip right over that. “Think we might have similar luck?” I ask instead.
“I’m generally a wee bit feckin’ louder than that.”
It’s unsettling talking to Kayla in the dark. The black humor of her violence is more menacing without a wiry red-headed frame to fit it to.
“I wish I’d held onto that steel pipe,” I say.
There is the sound of steel being unsheathed.
“Ach, feck it,” Kayla says in the darkness. “You take this.”
It takes me a moment to work out what she’s trying to give to me. I mean, it’s obvious what it is. But… but…
“Your sword?” I say, complete in my incredulity. It’s like Kayla is offering me her arm, or her leg. Here, just use this body part for a while. I don’t need it.
I expect sarcasm, but instead there’s just a pause. Just long enough for me to feel how insubstantial everything seems in this much darkness.
“You know where I got this sword?” Kayla says finally.
I have no clue. I’ve never imagined her without it. “Is it a family thing?” I ask. It seems like something where the sentimental value would be high. The way she treats it I can imagine it being handed down from generation to generation. Some ancient MacDoyle heirloom won at a great price by some long-ago ancestor on a long sea voyage to Japan. Five hundred folds of steel and all that sort of thing.
Kayla chuckles, low and brief. “No. It was a feckin’ renaissance fair. I was sixteen. Trying to hunt down some lass with an alien in her head.”
I am forcibly reminded that Kayla’s teenage years were rather different than mine.
“I had this kitchen knife stuffed down the back of my shirt, and then I passed this good-looking chap, soot all over his arms. And he was bashing at some feckin’ bit of metal, and had a rack of all this medieval shite. And then there was a bucket with a bunch of samurai feckin’ swords sticking out of it. Should be feckin’ mentioned that the wanker hadn’t actually made any of the shite he was selling. Imported it all from Taiwan and then set up the wee forge to make himself like a big man. Feckin’ stupid. But I was feckin’ stupid too. I was sixteen. Comes with the feckin’ territory.” Another low chuckle. Something mocking in it, though I don’t think I’m the one being mocked. “Set me back ten feckin’ quid that sword did. Worth it though. Much easier to kill someone with
that than with a feckin’ kitchen knife.”
I have to admit, it’s not quite the legend I expected. And yet the sword seems almost more personal for the telling.
“Why are you giving it to me?” I ask. I feel like I missed something.
“Because I stand a chance against those feckers without it. Not sure I can say the same for a skinny wee shite like yourself. And according to the plan you need to live long enough to get blown up by a feckin’ bomb.”
She’s a practical girl, is our Kayla.
Our Kayla.
I’ll miss her. The full impact of that thought takes a moment to hit me. And maybe she’ll miss me. Maybe that’s what that story is about. Letting me past her guard a little is a farewell gift.
I reach out gingerly, worried about cutting myself, but Kayla has the handle held unerringly close to my hand.
“Way I figure it,” Kayla says as I take the sword, “time might be best spent with me kicking these arseholes’ arses. You try and sneak past them, get to Hannah. Try to do something feckin’ right by her. It’s about feckin’ time you did.”
Kayla just gave me her sword, so I don’t object to that. There’s likely some truth to it.
“Ready to go on your feckin’ say so and everything,” Kayla says. “You being all acting head of MI-feckin’-37 and all that shite.”
“You want to take on ten Uhrwerkmänner unarmed?” I say. Just because there’s homicidal and then there’s suicidal.
“Feck, yes.” Kayla’s voice is a blade in the night.
“Well all right then.” I put a hand on the door. “Let’s go fuck some people up then.”
69
It’s not like subtlety has ever been MI37’s strong point.
Kayla’s foot crashes against the door, the impact tearing it off its hinges, and sending it flying across the tunnel outside. It smashes against an Uhrwerkmänn’s leg, folds around the limb.
By the time it’s figured out what’s going on, Kayla is on the leg as well.
Broken Hero Page 35
