Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits

by Darren Humphries

  “But Gavin, I don’t want you to die,” she whimpered.

  “Give me anything less than your best and I won’t,” he said, hoping that he was lying.

  Projectiles flew out from the enemy ships, bent on wiping out his annoying wedge formations, but the target ships overloaded their drives and took out anything that was in the immediate vicinity with them. Both fleets were decimated.

  “That was sneaky,” Sall... Lorelei complained in complimentary fashion.

  “Sneaky’s all I’ve got,” he told her.

  “You’re the best I’ve ever played,” she told him as the scattered remnants of her fleet were pulled together. They outnumbered his own meagre forces by a factor of three. “I’m glad you finally asked me out. It’s not fair that we’re not going to get to find out what it would have been like.”

  That burned at him, too. For so long, he had been admiring her, actually loving her, from a distance, not knowing that she liked him as well. All those occasions, all those opportunities lost and now, just when they were finally going to get together, this... this impossible situation had come out of nowhere. It was insane. It was horrifying. It was just not fair.

  “It would have been great,” he promised her.

  “It would have been awesome,” she agreed.

  Stevie started to back away toward the door to Gavin’s room and Gavin nodded his understanding. Stevie turned and fled.

  What remained of the Opalstone fleet was together and bore down upon his own beleaguered forces to deliver the final blow.

  “Gavin,” Sally cried, her voice begging forgiveness. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” he concurred, launching his reserved stealth fighters from out of the nebula.

  The Opalstone fleet was completely outflanked by this manoeuvre, helpless, completely at his mercy and in his gunsights.

  All he had to do was just to press the button.

  ...just press the button.

  ...just press...

  ...press...

  Ice, Ice, Baby

  For Arnold J Potter, it was the ultimate cheat…

  …and Arnold J Potter knew a lot about cheating. Almost every penny that he had ever made in his life (and that was an awful lot of pennies, hundreds of millions in fact) had come from cheating people. Buyers, suppliers, investors – he’d cheated them all and had never once been caught. Which is to say that his companies had been hauled into court on many occasions, but he himself had managed to avoid prosecution at every turn. He had also cheated on every woman who had been attracted into his life by the bright lights and wealth that he flaunted in front of them. That, though, had been his right as a man. If they were so stupid as to think that their good looks and amenability were going to stop him straying to others with equally good looks and amenability then he could hardly be held responsible now, could he?

  To cheat Death, though, that was a real achievement. The chumps he had fleeced in his business dealings were too easy. Honest businessmen and greedy bankers deserved having their money taken by him, but Death was an implacable, undefeatable enemy.

  Or so everyone had thought.

  Enter Potter Cryogenics Ltd. He had, of course, cheated control of this high-tech start-up company away from the science types who had developed the next generation in cryonic freezing. Though geniuses in their field, they hadn’t known what they had in business terms and so it had been easy to steer them into making the wrong funding decisions and pulling ownership of the company out from under them. Since all their research was held in the company name, Potter had been able to fire their asses and bring in other brilliant, though admittedly less brilliant, scientists to continue their work.

  At that point, Arnold J Potter hadn’t even needed the services of his legally stolen company. It had just been something else that he had cheated others out of, an opportunity to be taken for no other reason than it had been presented to him. Three years later, however, a regular check up with his Harley Street doctor had showed up some worrying symptoms. A number of uncomfortable and invasive examinations later and he was presented with the news that his body was failing from multiple and widespread cancers.

  There were treatments, of course, and Arnold J Potter could afford to try every single one of them. Each and every one of them had failed. In his rages and depression, he had taken aggressive revenge actions on many of the private concerns offering these treatments, tying them up in so much expensive litigation that they were eventually driven out of business. If they couldn’t help him then they weren’t going to help anyone else. The headline, though, remained the same; Arnold J Potter was going to die.

  So he was frozen.

  Entering cryogenic suspension was a much more pleasant and peaceful affair than coming out of it. One small pill and he floated away into unconsciousness. The return involved so much pain, disorientation, nausea, more pain and hallucinations that Arnold J Potter had begged for it to end, and Arnold J Potter never begged for anything.

  But now here he was, sitting comfortably on a curved white sofa, looking out through a glass wall at a vista of fields and trees and grazing wildlife. In the distance, most excitingly, he could glimpse the pinnacles of what seemed to be impossibly slender towers.

  As best he could understand it, the year was 17,354 AD, though the human race had long since stopped using the Gregorian calendar to measure the passage of time. They had also abandoned the use of language, having unlocked and developed the human mind to the point that directed telepathy was the preferred mode of communication. In order for him to understand them, there was a glowing sphere in the middle of the circular table in this room that simplified and translated their communications into spoken form. The silence in even a crowded space was often disconcerting. As well as improving intellect and mental capacity, mankind had perfected their bodies. The men were strong, fit and glowed with health. The women were all beautiful and proportioned in ways that made even the supermodels that had thrown themselves at him (or, more accurately, his money) in the past look frumpy.

  Arnold J Potter was certain that he was going to enjoy this bright new future.

  And he was going to have time enough to enjoy it. Human medicine had ended sickness and disease. The ageing process had been overcome and no fountain of youth had been involved. Deliberate acts of murder (they were still essentially human after all) and accidents aside, people had become, to all intents and purposes, immortal. Arnold J Potter had intended to cheat his body and its sickness into gaining a few more years of life, but it seemed that he had managed to cheat Death entirely.

  A soft chime signalled that a guest was waiting outside his door. The Controller was considered a very big deal in this future and the medical staff that had managed the recuperation of the recently revived man from the past had been very excited that their facility was to be visited by such a luminary. Such a person was someone to foster a connection with, all the better to exploit that importance.

  “Open.”

  The voice-controlled door (considered to be very low tech by the locals) slid soundlessly open.

  The man who entered was, like all the men in this time, at the peak of physical fitness and conventionally handsome. He looked older than most of the people that Arnold J Potter had seen since being defrosted, but people could control the point at which they stopped ageing and even restart it for a while when they became sufficiently important to desire a greater air of authority. Since perfect health was assured, looking and being older was not considered to have a downside.

  “Good morning, Mr Potter,” the glowing orb on the table conveyed the newcomer’s greeting. He did not proffer his hand and Arnold J Potter had learned that bodily contact to convey such a greeting was no longer acceptable.

  “Good morning, Mr Controller.”

  The new arrival smiled as he took a seat on the far end of the sofa, revealing the standard perfect teeth. “Please, my name is Jared. Controller is the role that I am fortunate enough to fulfil.”

/>   “It sounds impressive, important.”

  “No more so than any other role that must be undertaken for our society to function properly,” was the inflection-free response, which would probably have sounded pompous even before the orb removed the emotion from it. “I believe that you requested me to come here to discuss your future.”

  “That’s right. Nobody here seems to be able to give me a straight answer about that.”

  “I am sorry about that, but your situation is somewhat unique,” the orb stated smoothly. “I will answer whatever questions you have.”

  “Firstly, I wish to thank you for thawing me out from the cryogenic suspension.”

  “A crude process that does significant damage to the body,” the Controller’s face showed the slight distaste that the orb was not able to project, “but fortunately not irreversible. The medical staff here have confirmed that the process is now complete and you are returned to the state in which you were frozen.”

  “I had cancer, several cancers in fact. That was the reason I was frozen in the first place. It is my understanding that these can now be cured.”

  “That is correct. All illnesses and bodily malfunctions or malformations can now be corrected before birth and all injuries can be repaired where death or irreversible brain damage has not occurred,” the Controller confirmed.

  “Then when can I expect for my cancer to be cured?” was the answer that Arnold J Potter sought the most.

  “And why would we do that?” the Controller asked, apparently puzzled.

  “And why would you not?” asked Arnold J Potter, definitely shocked.

  “As I have already said, your situation is unique,” the Controller responded via the orb. “We have eliminated disease, illness, inherited disorders and can correct the damage of all but the most significant of occurrences. As a result of this, death is relatively unknown to us. We have very limited opportunities to study it. Your resuscitation presents us with just such an opportunity, one that I am informed is too good to pass up.”

  He stood up from the couch before adding, “But please be assured that we will make you as comfortable as we can whilst we watch you die. I have many, many researchers requesting access to the telepathic feed. It should be fascinating.”

  With that, and before an astounded Arnold J Potter could think of a response, the Controller turned and left.

  The dying man walked slowly across to the window.

  “Open,” he ordered.

  Whilst the command would not work on the door, the window shimmered and dissolved into non-existence. At this height above the ground, there was a stiff breeze blowing that did not disturb the trees below. Arnold J Potter considered the ground at the base of the building in which he was housed. In which he was imprisoned.

  Death, it seemed, had won again, but Arnold J Potter still had one last cheat to play and this time he could cheat the entire human race.

  There is No Sanity Clause

  DCI Clarke slipped through the ring of bored onlookers that grew, almost organically it seemed, around any urban crime scene in the early hours of an investigation. At this point, there were lots of marked police vehicles and, it being the middle of December and early evening, their blue lights proved to be a beacon to the jaded citizens for whom a real-life serious crime was an irresistible promise of unexpected entertainment. They soon learned that a real-life criminal investigation was actually a rather dull thing to watch and all those interminable, not to mention laughable, American crime shows airbrushed out an awful lot of standing around and waiting for information to become available.

  Since she was the very definition of non-descript in looks and presence, something that she had developed studiously and which her colleagues took for granted at their peril, the bored members of the public ignored the plain-clothed investigator’s passage and continued with their half-hearted conspiracy theories about what was happening inside the Georgian terraced house upon which all the attention was focused.

  The uniformed officer at the edge of the cordon placed around the house’s entrance lifted up the yellow and black tape to allow her to pass under. They had both been in the Met for enough years to have crossed paths and be recognisable to each other. What he was still doing as a PC pulling crime scene protection duty, she did not know, but not every copper was hell bent on climbing through the ranks and getting off the streets. Many of them were beat cops to the core and preferred the direct contact with the communities they served that came with roles in neighbourhood policing. Personally, she’d hated her time in the cold and wet on uninteresting assignments like keeping the gawpers out of crime scenes and off football pitches and couldn’t get off patrol and onto investigations quickly enough.

  The officer, whose name she couldn’t remember even though she recognised him, nodded as she passed and she returned the gesture before heading up the short set of steps leading to the building’s front door. There, she knocked sharply and was immediately admitted by a PCSO who looked as though he had only just swapped a school uniform for the one that he was currently wearing.

  You know you’re getting old... she chided herself… Policemen and doctors.

  Once the outside door was shut, she was directed to a side room where she shrugged into a disposable blue hooded onesie. That was another thing the TV shows got wrong. The Detective grades always showed up and wandered around the crime scene having put on a pair of gloves. The fact that they were shedding skin cells and hair follicles and all kinds of stuff from their clothing and thus contaminating the forensics seemed to be lost on the writers. Still, considering how stupid she felt wearing the damned things, she supposed you couldn’t put Hollywood stars, no matter how minor, in them.

  As she was zipping up the onesie, DI Mike Phipps entered the room, all but bounding in. He was like that; small, compact, in such good physical shape that the new mandatory fitness tests were barely a consideration and possessing of enough energy to put a young child to shame. It would have been extremely annoying had had he not also been one of the nicest people on the force, possessing a sharp wit that he could use, along with his good looks, to devastating effect on the female population Policemen and doctors of the city.

  “Evening, Boss.”

  “What’s good about it?” Clarke asked rhetorically.

  “I didn’t say it was good,” Phipps pointed out. “It certainly wasn’t for the vic.”

  “What do we know that wasn’t in the brief?” the DCI enquired, referring to the sketchy information that had been sent to her smartphone with the assignment.

  “Well, he’s definitely dead,” Phipps reported dutifully, “and famous, sort of.”

  “Famous?”

  That was a surprise. The street on which the house was situated wasn’t in one of the worst parts of the city, but it wasn’t the sort of neighbourhood that the rich and powerful stayed in. It was large, but it had been broken up into several small flats that the landlord could charge London rents for and therefore earn a good living.

  “His name is, or was, Simon Beecham,” Phipps revealed, waiting for a response that never came. Clarke just shook her head to signify a lack of recognition. “You know, the photobomber, the anti-Santa guy?”

  “It’s like you’re talking a foreign language,” Clarke admitted.

  “OK, he is, was, a student – psychology, sociology something like that...”

  “If he’s got an ology, he’s a scientist,” Clarke quoted from an old advert. Something to do with phones, she recalled.

  “Now who’s speaking in tongues?” Phipps challenged cheerfully, being several years younger.

  “I always use my tongue when I speak.”

  “Amongst other things,” he said slyly. Clarke’s sexuality was no secret.

  “Can we get back to the dead guy?” she suggested. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance it was an accident or suicide?”

  The notes on her phone had specifically used the word ‘homicide’ instead of the ‘unexpect
ed death’ that was more often the designation so early in an investigation.

  “Not unless he found some way of swinging the axe into the back of his own head,” Phipps denied.

  “Axe?” that was one of the more unusual weapons to be used in the middle of the capital city.

  “Axe,” Phipps confirmed, “long handle, about three, four-foot long. The kind that you chop down trees with.”

  “You’re suggesting the suspect’s a lumberjack?”

  “And he’s OK,” Phipps added with a grin. That reference wasn’t too old for him. It was his kind of humour, so he probably had the boxset at home.

  “That’s got to have made a mess,” Clarke said, wincing involuntarily at the thought of it.

  “It did,” Phipps agreed. “You’re gonna be glad of your bootie covers.”

  “So why is this psychology student famous?” She asked, indicating for the more junior officer to precede her out of the room.

  “He’s been popping up all over the place,” Phipps said as he left the suiting room and crossed the hallway to the stairs. “Social media, radio, TV, photobombing news reports... that’s when you get in the back of the shot...”

  “I know what photobombing is,” Clarke assured him. “I’m older than you, but not a dinosaur quite yet.”

  “It’s a campaign, something he’s doing for his course,” Phipps continued, walking up the stairs as easily as he had walked across the hallway. “He put up fake ads on the Underground, fly posters, even graffiti.”

  “Is this the ‘Santa doesn’t exist’ guy?” Clarke demanded.

  “Ah, the dawn of recognition,” Phipps intoned facetiously as they reached the first landing. “He’s been putting out that message that there is no Santa Claus every which way he can, apparently to study the response.”

  “Bet he wasn’t expecting the response to be an axe to the back of his head,” Clarke suggested. “I saw him being interviewed on ‘This Morning’, this morning. There won’t exactly be a shortage of suspects; he pissed off the parent of every young child in London.”