Sand Glass

by A M Russell

‘Marcia rang my mother.’

  ‘But how did I get here?’

  ‘A friend told you. Jules I believe. He spoke to them too. The request came from another who my parents do trust.’

  ‘Psyche Girl?’

  ‘I believe that is how you Men refer to the Dear Doctor. You really must be more inventive.’

  This was so like my Janey that I started to smile.

  ‘The name is also wrong.’ I said without glancing at it again.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You were always “Janey Amber”. I never knew about the “Arden” until later. And you didn’t either; I mean the You in there….the expedition we were on together. It’s as if they want to get rid of you permanently.’

  ‘You mean it was them?’ she turned away, then looked at Marcia who rolled her eyes sideways towards me.

  ‘Tell me what you think. I know it is speculation. Tell me the truth.’

  ‘I think there is a danger of them trying to stop you.’

  ‘Then why involve me?’

  ‘Because you were the key to the experiment itself.’

  ‘You mean all my initial trials actually led to something that worked? In another reality….the reality you have just come from?’ her eyes went round and hungry with curiosity.

  ‘Of course they did! But if they needed to get rid of you.’ I struggled a little on how it would be; she was after all a scientist and a very clever one; ‘You invented it. Everyone knows you did in that place. And I believe that they only would try to get rid of you after you invented it.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’ She went quiet.

  ‘There is a point to consider,’ said Marcia, ‘that if they were really fitting in with this they would have addressed it to our Harriet here.’

  ‘Then we would have known they were lying.’ I said, ‘Inside the anomaly she was always called Janey Amber. They knew because they already knew… which means.’

  ‘I killed him!’ Janey stood up quickly.

  ‘He’s not actually dead.’ I was startled by her sudden movement.

  ‘He did suffer it.’ said Marcia, ‘And that is more the issue.’

  I looked to Marcia, ‘We need to get the people who remember together. Then we need to get back to Main Base, and take a transport to the ice fields. Marcia, I need you. Your knowledge, your memory. I need you to give me my tag back as well.’

  ‘What about the pendant?’ Janey eyed me strangely.

  ‘Oh!’ I drew the chain over my head, and slowly gathered it into her palm.

  Janey looked away, and she spoke in such a low voice I could barely hear it: ‘Jared was wearing this; in the crash. He didn’t have it on when the ambulance crew took us from the wreckage. The investigators searched for it for us. It had disappeared.’

  ‘He took it with him.’ I pressed her hand shut over the small oblong mirror edged with a quotation.

  ‘It’s Psalm 32. Did you know? I had it made especially for Jared.’ She got up and left the little plant-fronded sitting room, shying from the bright natural light.

  ‘Give her a little time.’ said Marcia. ‘We are about to do something that has never been done by normal people.’

  ‘Walk on water?’

  ‘Don’t be facetious. But yes, if you like, perhaps something similar to that.’

  ‘What does Psalm 32 say?’

  ‘It the one that starts: Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him…. And so on. It not one of the longest but has four or five verses I think.’

  ‘What was Jared going to be interviewed for?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘You can’t or you won’t?’

  ‘I won’t.’ Marcia’s eyes narrowed, she was giving it all to be strong. I hated the blundering idiot that I was. Upsetting Janey and Marcia within the space of five minutes.

  Janey choose that moment to come back in. she looked like she had been crying, but since I didn’t want to appear more of an insensitive Oaf, I opted for pretending I’d not noticed.

  ‘What can I do to help?’ she asked.

  ‘You can get us back in.’ said Marcia. ‘Davey?’

  ‘Yes. Good. She is the boss of the thing. We just need the others on the team as well. They can get us equipment, supplies, batteries etc.; and rope.’

  ‘Rope?’ Janey seemed cheered by the thought.

  ‘Yeah…, always a good idea in a tight spot.’ I said, ‘Marcia. Anything I’ve missed?’

  ‘Tags. That’s what we need from George. Preferably blank ones, so we can dump them if needed.’

  ‘Ok.’ said Janey, ‘So shall I get in touch, and accept their gracious invitation?’

  Marcia and I looked at each other. ‘It’s dangerous.’ I said;

  ‘It’s difficult to fool people unless they’re idiots.’ said Marcia.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘I think I have the perfect plan.’

  *****

  Three

  Alex seemed quite at ease with all of us crammed into his front room. He dispensed chocolate biscuits with largesse.

  Jules was next to me on one squashy settee thing. George, Sam and Kyle were on the large one. Everyone else was perched or sunk onto an assortment of chairs and stools. Violette was sliding down onto Jules from the arm of the chair. He finally tipped her and she relaxed onto his knee. Her fine blonde hair was flopping over her jumper and on Jules and sticking like static to his hand. He smoothed his palm over her hair to stop the flyaway.

  ‘I’m quite happy to allow anything up to the horizontal Mambo.’ Alex boomed, ‘But you will have to help me get the tea first.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Violette left the room, and Janey and Marcia both frowned as all the blokes seemed transfixed by her lush thighs in the leggings undulating out of the room beneath her oatmeal giant chunky knit.

  ‘Definitely a ten.’ said George.

  ‘You work with her!’ Marcia was clearly disgusted.

  ‘Not anymore. Anyway professional judgement is easier to accept if wrapped up in the right parcel.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t say “baggage”!’ Marcia was crossly trying to make us behave.

  The other lads were Joe, James, and Adam. The latter declared that the whole thing had been a trick, but if there was compensation to be had he was in. he seemed like he was joking. Janey sat by herself in a little corner by one of Alex’s plants. She said hardly a word. But murmured a thanks as the tea came round.

  Alex brought in another kitchen chair and parked it next to Janey. Violette promptly sat down in it. She had a whispered conversation that I couldn't quite overhear. Not that I was exactly trying to. Just a few stray words escaped. Violette put her arm round Janey's shoulders in the way that girls do when secrets of an unhappy nature are being discussed. I noticed Janey's eyes flicker upwards towards me. She turned away then and Violette handed her a tissue.

  ‘Come on Jules!’ said Adam, ‘You really are the darkest horse ever.’

  ‘Well….when I was five I could win chess matches.’

  ‘You played chess when you were five?’ Sam was fiddling with an unlit cigarette. He put it back in the box. ‘You were five?’

  ‘Yes. But it was against my cousin.’ Jules winked at me.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ said George, ‘But isn’t she….’

  ‘Five?’ Sam said again. The lads spluttered tea and biscuit crumbs.

  ‘He doesn’t know.’ said Joe.

  ‘Ok Genius.’ Alex interrupted, ‘So how do we save the world?’

  ‘Five?’ Sam was fixated.

  ‘Someone punch him out.’ said James.

  ‘Has anyone heard from Oliver?’ George flipped open a lined reporter pad.

  ‘No,’ said Joe, ‘he did say he would be out of touch for a week or two.’

  ‘We could do with Oliver.’ said George.

  ‘Let me get this straight;’ Alex said loudly, ‘you are going to stop s
omeone who has the ultimate weapon at their disposal. They can simply change history itself?’

  ‘But they cannot make people choose things against their will.’ said Jules, ‘we always have the freedom to act.’

  ‘But choices often depend on what you know. Without certain bits of information different choices are possible… but still within the boundaries of what a give person would act upon?’

  ‘Yes.’ said Jules.

  Kyle offered Alex the biscuits packet back, ‘Hey! You get it!’

  ‘Yes of course I do.’ Alex waved a biro at the group, ‘I’m at least as intelligent as Davey here. And I have a better level of scepticism about the origins of self-indulgence of obnoxious people.’

  ‘He’s trying to work out if it’s a compliment.’ James glanced at me.

  For the next twenty minutes we talked around the subject. And George made notes on the pad. We theorised on the exact nature of the doubles and put forward the idea that at least more than one coexisting reality could continue to operate after the experiment was at an end. Jules spoke to the group, and I knew was simplifying for their sake. Kyle and Sam just had a puzzled but concentrated look. George a worried frown, and after about ten minutes of advanced level statements by Jules, and ignorant questions the group started to get fidgety. Trying to pick apart Jules’ largesse in sharing the kind of things that are normally only heard in among fellow physicists with about three degrees each; they got rowdy and began demanding more tea. Alex seemed quite at ease, as if he was waiting for something. He stood with a calculating expression on his face, and began to gather up the mugs.

  ‘Perhaps a game of scrabble?’ asked Joe.

  ‘It certainty couldn’t be worse than getting nowhere.’ said Kyle.

  The serious discussion, if there had been one at all descended into chit chat, and idle banter, with the occasional rude comment thrown in. Violette, who had been quiet for some time, left the room, and went upstairs. Bathroom I guessed, or to get away from us lot for five minutes.

  ‘The problem, gentlemen…., Marcia….’ said Janey firmly from the corner. The room settled into an expectant silence, and they all turned towards her. I saw a bewildered curiosity in Jules’ eyes in particular. This was, for him, eerie and discomforting in the extreme.

  She waited until they had settled down and stood up. She took a deep breath and spoke with that melodious hypnotic tone that I so associated with Janey from Cloud Field: ‘The problem can be stated thus: there is a day and an hour at some point in the past when our destinies diverged away from what would have happened.’ She moved among us talking; she took the pen from George’s hand; ‘You don’t know when that was. And because it was induced by Someone rather than Something, we are now waiting for this divergence to resolve itself. Homeostasis is the concept I need you to consider gentlemen. Things have a system built in where the balance will always be maintained. If there is a kink in the line, it will kink somewhere else too. Unkinked, then the other will too. As anyone knows who has ever played with a garden hose.’

  There was a ripple of amused agreement, she had their full attention now.

  ‘You may laugh, but there is a serious matter of how we affect each other. We are connected. Lives are connected. And while the wave form that was generated can only directly touch those in the immediate area of its effect, the change thus wrought travels outwards; multiplying up as you go. Some things are dead ends. Some are active as consequential sequences for a long period of time. But in the end everything will balance itself. Heat cools, cold warms up. The alternate place has environments; that is to say, if you took out all the bumps and hollows, it will cancel to a flat line.’ She turned towards me then, and her tone although it seemed not to change was more brittle like the hard gleam on glass, rather than the warm reflection in a pearl; ‘That is why… if Davey here is kissed by a woman who prefers his company to any other; She will have started a chain reaction of consequence that can only result in one thing.’

  ‘And what pray is that?’ I tried to be even toned, or nonchalant perhaps.

  ‘He will want to go back.’ Janey was staring into my eyes, seriously regarding me. It was like a deep well; ‘he will think that he can change the outcome. He will think that he, of all people can find the source of the anomaly and stop it from happening. He thinks he can save everyone, and do anything. He believes that because I am not the other Janey; sacrificing himself will be enough. And everyone else can go home. And that he won’t remember.’

  I felt frozen in my seat; ‘Please…. Janey….’ I whispered, ‘please don’t…’

  ‘I invented this thing!’ he eyes were like bright blue fire. ‘I was the culprit; you see it, don’t you. And all we have to do; is to undo that moment!’

  ‘What moment?’ said Jules, ‘this is not as easy as all that.’

  ‘Easy?’ Janey’s voice grew stronger, ‘Do you think this; is easy?! To be surrounded by people you have never met who know so much about you.’

  ‘They don’t. They really don’t…’ I said, but my voice had no real impact, and Janey was ignoring me.

  ‘Yes. The way is simple. We use a new modulator that Jules can construct for us, to stop me from finding the equations and finding the way to do this.’

  ‘You’re talking about paradox.’ Jules said, and stood up quickly, his cat’s eyes gleamed as if ready to pounce on the mouse, ‘The tension would be unbearable! Everything would have to follow in some kind of perpetual circle….It’s insane!’

  Janey stomped to the window and stared out of it.

  ‘We must not do that!’ Jules was sounding quite anxious. And it seemed as if professional jealously was not at work here. He was simply scared.

  ‘That is the only way. I have all the notes. I have the people. I can do it.’ She spun on her heel, ‘I don’t actually need you Dr Rosen. There is no reason why this cannot fix the problem, and end this.’

  ‘You know that cannot be true,’ Jules said, everyone else was standing and adding in their share. The room became very loud and the stress level in the atmosphere was rising rapidly. Alex stood silent in the middle of it just watching. At that moment Violette returned. She came to Jules and took his arm, an enquiring look. He was getting really worked up again. ‘I don’t think we can do anything to make her change her mind. It will be a disaster, the maths has only to be out by one number on the tenth decimal place and you could create something monstrous…. Christ! That woman needs a bloody collar and lead…. Sorry, sorry.’ His voice went into a fuzzy mumble, which didn’t make much difference, because everyone else was talking at once.

  He turned to me, ‘You have to say something to her. Please, before she wipes out everything that has ever happened.’

  I clumsily patted his arm, ‘It’s ok. Without you she can’t act on it….’ I got up suddenly, and strode over to her, ‘Janey. Kitchen. Now!’ I hooked my left arm through her right and pulled her out of the group. When we were in there I shut the double doors.

  She looked like she was about to slap me.

  ‘Before you say anything. Shut Up!’ I was speaking swiftly and keeping my voice low enough so that the others didn’t hear. ‘You can do the crazy self-sacrificing bit on someone else. I will go back. And I will find the source of this. There’s more going on than just your mistake... or trusting the wrong people. There are hopes and fears and friends we made. Not everything was bad. Not everything didn’t work. You are not the only person to consider in how this started. And everyone is responsible for the things they do. You can play the game by your scientific rules Janey Arden, but until you feel it inside.’ I touched her lightly just below her collarbone, ‘In there… you will make the same mistake over and over again; for eternity.’

  Janey was white. A little colour stained her lips, but my words had driven deep.

  She swallowed and licked her lips before speaking: ‘So nothing I do means anything. I can do nothing to help.’

  ‘You can do what you’re supposed to. Yo
u can work with the team. Some of them have been to Hell and back. And you should respect the fact. Playing God, is not something that we want to encourage in anyone. That’s what happened…. Someone. Probably this “Rimmington” that everyone seems to have heard of but nobody’s met, got trigger happy with the modulator and has been making more and more realities one after another. Some may have popped like bubbles. Some may still be hanging around somewhere. But we all have a choice on how we live… every time. If you attempt to take that away from us, you’ll be just like them. Arrogantly playing God, and thinking you’ve got the absolute right to do it. You will be the enemy. I promise you this, Dear, Sweet, Janey; should that happen, I will make it my job to destroy you.’

  She backed away from me. Eyes like dark spaces in the relative gloom of Alex’s pantry door area.

  ‘I hate you.’ she hissed.

  ‘As you wish.’ I said with a complete determination set to stop her should the need arise.

  ‘Why did you like her?’ she said in a cold tone, and clutched the back of one of the remaining chairs.

  ‘Because,’ I said calmly, ‘we travelled together into the ice fields. We got to know each other. She was a beautiful adventurer… always ready for the next horizon, the next corner. The next discovery….’ My voice started to crack, ‘I saw how she loved the days when we saw the clouds, and when the temperature dipped so low your breath would turn to mini cloudlets right there in front of you. I loved her laugh, and the way she sometimes curls her hair more. And I remember the scent of roses, and mint. And it mingled with the snow. The scent of snow. And as long as I live and breathe, I will not wish to take one moment from any of that. And Jared didn’t want to give away anything of that either…. You know that. Don’t you? He was free to choose out there. Out there he took control and guided others. We are all the better for it. Ask any of them. Anyone. Let them tell you.’ I pointed at the doors to the front room; ‘Take your pick. They’ll all let you know what he was. Don’t you presume to understand something you could not, and to decide what we can keep and what we can erase… you have no right to do that.’