by Seth Rain
‘It’s the only way,’ Freya said. She stared at Noah. ‘Please, tell me there’s another way.’
Noah’s shoulders fell.
Freya took the band from her pocket.
‘Is that a tracker?’ Gabriel asked.
Freya nodded, her face pale, her eyes focused on the band.
Gabriel didn’t move.
‘And I want Juliet to come with us. She will help with the AI.’
‘Has she agreed?’
‘She wants to help,’ Freya said.
After several seconds, Gabriel nodded. ‘Once I have helped Juliet speak to the AI,’ he said, ‘will you give me the tracker and code?’
Freya stared at him, then nodded.
Forty-Three
‘Isaiah,’ a familiar voice called out from the other side of the room. ‘You’ve been in the wars, my friend.’
Isaiah blinked hard, straining to lift his head from the pillow.
‘Please,’ the voice said, ‘don’t hurt yourself. You are recovering from the anaesthetic. You will be well soon.’
Isaiah stared at where his legs were, shrouded in blankets.
‘Is my ankle going to be okay?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ the voice said. ‘All fixed.’
‘Mathew?’ Isaiah asked, squinting. ‘Is that you?’
‘You’ve done a wonderful thing bringing Scott here. I can’t thank you enough. He will be safe with us.’
Isaiah swallowed, his throat sore, his breath catching. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s resting.’
Isaiah tried to sit up straight but his elbow slipped.
‘Stay where you are,’ Mathew said. ‘Please.’
‘The AI,’ Isaiah said. ‘What happened?’ He stared at Mathew and rubbed his eyes.
‘As we suspected. There is no issue with Scott’s date.’
‘No?’ Isaiah asked. ‘Are you sure?’
Mathew smiled. ‘You sound surprised.’
Isaiah rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, then leaned over for the water on the table beside the bed. He slipped and knocked the full plastic cup to the floor.
‘Steady,’ Mathew said.
Isaiah flopped back into the pillows. His vision jerked, left to right, up and down, making him nauseous.
‘Gabriel was certain,’ Isaiah said. ‘He … almost had me…’
‘Not you too?’ Mathew said with a smile in his voice.
Isaiah shook his head, and again wiped his mouth. ‘No.’
‘From the very beginning,’ Mathew said, ‘this was Gabriel’s doing. Spreading rumours. Making people believe there was a problem with the AI and the dates.’
‘Gabriel is relentless,’ Isaiah said.
‘He is. Relentless is a good word for what he is.’
Mathew edged closer to Isaiah’s bed, nudging the tube coming out of the machine and down into Isaiah’s arm.
‘Are you in pain, Isaiah?’
‘I can barely feel … a thing.’
‘That’s good, that’s good.’
‘I need to sleep.’
‘Yes, you sleep, Isaiah.’
Isaiah listened to the low humming of machinery. He squinted, focusing on Mathew standing over him.
‘You have a date now,’ Mathew said, touching Isaiah’s palm.
‘The clan did it,’ Isaiah said, his eyes heavy.
‘It’s the same as Scott’s,’ Mathew said.
Isaiah lifted his hand and read the tattoo. His skin was red and sore.
‘Scott’s tracker,’ Mathew said. ‘What happened to it?’
A cool breeze blew through the room.
‘Tracker?’ Isaiah asked. ‘Paul must have destroyed it.’
‘That so?’ Mathew said. ‘Makes sense, I suppose.’
Isaiah waited for Mathew to move away before he could relax again.
‘Relentless,’ Mathew said. ‘Gabriel is certainly that. You’re exactly right.’
Then Isaiah felt the room closing in on him, the ceiling shifting.
‘You see, Isaiah, that’s what confuses me.’
Isaiah opened and closed his eyes slowly. He watched Mathew press a button on the machine and felt a cool thread of liquid move through his arm.
‘What’s … that?’
‘Painkiller,’ Mathew said. ‘I don’t want you to feel any pain.’
‘What’s confusing?’ Isaiah asked, his words slurred.
‘I thought we agreed.’
Isaiah frowned.
Mathew’s form loomed, the silver of his revolver glinting.
‘As soon as you had Scott,’ Mathew continued, ‘we agreed you would kill him. Kill Gabriel.’ He opened then closed the cylinder of the revolver.
‘I couldn’t … kill him like that.’
Mathew scoffed. ‘Why not? You still felt loyal to him, didn’t you? I searched you out because I thought you understood. You wanted to do all you could to protect the 144,000.’ Mathew’s voice grew louder. ‘To protect the AI’s integrity.’
The room spun even more. Whatever was fed into Isaiah’s arm seemed to bring the walls of the room towards him, the darkness in his peripheral vision edging closer to the centre.
‘I told you, Isaiah. To kill him. Gabriel will not stop – he’ll never give this up. You had the chance to end it. There and then.’
‘Scott’s date,’ Isaiah slurred. ‘Is it true?’ He focused on the O of a revolver barrel staring back at him.
‘You are a fool, Isaiah. You know that? You always have been.’
Isaiah fought the tiredness. He knew what was happening. ‘His date is wrong, isn’t it?’
Mathew sighed. ‘It is only a matter of time before the AI works out what’s happening. Scott is not the only one the AI can’t get a fix on. But all the AI needs is time.’
‘No,’ Isaiah said. ‘It is free will.’
Mathew shook his head slowly. ‘Thank you for bringing Scott to me. I can’t imagine the confusion it would have caused if Gabriel had managed to kill him.’
Isaiah closed his eyes and listened for the words he knew were coming. He glanced at the date tattooed on his skin; it was wrong.
‘The Watcher’s revolver has five bullets and one empty chamber,’ Mathew said. ‘This empty chamber belongs to Him, to do with as He wishes.’
Forty-Four
Scott clenched his teeth as the needle buzzed against and then into his flesh.
‘How many have you done?’ he asked.
‘You’re my second,’ the tattoo artist said. ‘The first guy, his date was the day after yours. He was young. I didn’t like doing it, if you want the truth. He was too young. But the kid wanted it.’
‘The day after mine?’
The tattooist didn’t answer; he screwed up his eyes and leaned in closer, the needle in his hand buzzing.
‘I want a tattoo,’ Rebecca said. ‘With my birthday, though.’
‘That’s not quite the same,’ Scott said.
Rebecca shrugged.
The tattoo artist glanced at her. ‘I’ll call Shelly if you want it doing.’
Rebecca paused. ‘What – now?’
Scott smiled at the tattoo artist. ‘Chicken. When it comes to it…’
‘I will,’ Rebecca said.
‘I have to do this. You don’t.’
‘What are they going to do if you don’t have it done? Kill you?’
‘Very funny,’ he said. ‘They can lock me up.’
‘I hate that they’re making you do it.’
Scott shrugged. He winced as the needle again pressed into the fleshy part of his palm beneath his thumb.
‘Try and keep your muscles loose,’ the artist said.
‘Was it really the day after?’ Scott asked. ‘The kid? The twenty-third of April?’
‘Yup,’ the tattoo artist said, leaning in closer to the tip of the needle.
‘That’s strange.’
The artist shrugged. ‘Suppose. Would be odder if it was the same date.’
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‘He must live around here,’ Scott said.
‘I suppose.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Rebecca said. ‘I want to think about what I want. Maybe leaves growing up my back and across my shoulders.’
‘You do that,’ Scott said. ‘Remember, you’ve got a lifetime with yours. I don’t.’
‘What do you mean?’ Rebecca asked. ‘Just because you have your date, it doesn’t mean I’m going to outlive you, does it?’
The tattoo artist glanced up at him. ‘She’s got a point.’
‘They’re dropping like flies,’ Scott said. ‘I think the men who got their dates aren’t going to last long.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Rebecca said. ‘You know you have at least eight months left. It could be eighty-eight years and eight months, for all you know. I could have eight minutes.’ She pointed outside.
‘Done,’ the tattoo artist said.
Scott flexed his hand. It was heavy and sore. He peered down at the date inked into his skin then rubbed across it, trying to feel for the tracker within him. He couldn’t feel a thing, except for the burning sensation of that tattoo.
‘What they track is in the ink itself,’ the artist said.
Scott stared at the tattoo, his skin red and angry.
‘How much is it?’ Scott asked.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ the artist said. ‘I don’t know how you live with it.’
Scott flexed his fingers. ‘Thanks.’
‘It was a good choice – the green ink.’
Scott clenched his fist and the date disappeared.
Then Rebecca kissed him on the forehead.
Forty-Five
Scott woke to knocking on the door, the last one sounding like a gunshot.
‘Mr Beck,’ a voice said from the other side. ‘I wanted to check whether everything was okay.’
‘I’m fine.’
He used the sides of the bath to stand, then step out. He wrapped a towel around his shoulders and dried himself before dressing in the clothes the Watcher had given him. They had the clean and purposeful feel of those worn by the Watchers. When dressed, he opened the door to be met by one.
‘Mr Beck,’ the Watcher said, gesturing the way. They walked down the hall and into a bedroom. ‘Mathew will be up to see you shortly.’
Scott sat on the bed and gazed out of the window at the London skyline. The sun shone but it looked cold. So many more people had lived and died than there were on the Earth at that moment. And as he breathed in and out, many more would die. And more still would have come into the world. The AI was able to predict all of it: past, present and future. Yet, even now, with every small movement, with every thought that came to him, it felt like choosing. Then again, he was not in control of what he thought. His thoughts happened without his input; they were predetermined. To think about what he would think made no sense. He felt the cogs and arteries of wires working inside him. And being aware of all this happening was cruel, he thought.
Next to his leg was a small set of drawers, upon which was a lamp. He flicked the switch. Inside the top drawer was a red leather-bound New Testament. He sat back on the bed and opened it to Revelations. He flicked through the pages and found the line he’d seen and heard so often since the Chosen were revealed:
“Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.”
The Lamb. Jesus.
Scott stared at his hand. It wasn’t on his forehead.
He turned the pages.
“And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the Earth.”
Scott knew no song. And redeemed?
“For it is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as first fruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.”
No lie was found. Blameless? He closed the book and lay down. Blameless? He saw Paul on his knees, felt the gun against the back of his own head. He saw Rebecca on the station platform. The choices he had made, falling backwards through time up to that point, meant he was a part of what happened. Blameless? He wasn’t blameless. No one was blameless.
He lay on the bed, closed his eyes and rested for a while until a knocking at the door brought him out of his rest.
‘Mr Beck?’ a voice called.
Scott opened the door. Mathew walked into the room.
‘London really is beautiful,’ Mathew said, standing in front of the large window.
Scott had not thought of London in that way. It was different from the rest of the country. Maybe it always had been. It was a country in its own right. And now, with clean fusion power – the only city to have this – it really was a city that was separate from everywhere else.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mathew said. ‘About how things have worked out for you. Discovering your date must have been difficult. Sometimes I think we forget about that. I can only imagine how you must have felt.’
Scott lifted his face and followed an aeroplane gliding across the sky from left to right, lights blinking on its wings.
‘I spend most nights awake,’ Mathew said, ‘going over it in my head. How every thought I have is predicted. How everything I do is set out before me. It’s impossible to truly comprehend.’
‘That we have no control?’ Scott asked.
‘That’s what’s confusing, isn’t it? We are in control. We must be. You have to see things differently, that’s all. We’re choosing, just not in the way we originally thought.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You might not be consciously aware of the choices you’re making until after you’ve made them. But it’s still you making them. Your brain, your arms, your legs. It’s all you.’
‘But the AI knows what we are going to do. Every decision.’
‘Every choice, yes,’ Mathew said. ‘But that doesn’t mean that in the moment, my brain isn’t choosing.’ Mathew scanned the London skyline. ‘Like I say, I’ve lost a lot of sleep trying to work it out.’ He placed a hand on Scott’s shoulder. ‘There is more to you. To all of us. I know it. He has given each of us a soul. We must remember that.’
‘A soul?’ Scott said. The word sounded foolish.
Mathew shook his head and smiled, clearly avoiding Scott’s question. ‘We must leave soon,’ he said. ‘There is somewhere we must go. You will be safe there until we can work out what to do. Will you come with me?’
‘How is Isaiah?’
‘He’s asleep. His ankle is broken. But we have fixed that. He’s no longer in pain.’
Mathew waited by the door. ‘Your date,’ he said. ‘It is right. Which means everything that has happened is the way it should have been.’
Scott went to speak but stopped.
‘Your wife,’ Mathew said, ‘what happened to her was not your doing. As I’ve told you, the notion of choosing is different to the way you think. Although you made a choice, it was the only one you could have made. You can take solace in that. If we wound back time and you were faced with the same events, you could only make the same choices. To do any different would mean you were a different person. And then you wouldn’t be the person she fell in love with.’
Scott’s throat closed and his chest tightened.
Just then, a Watcher appeared in the corridor, his face flushed. He leaned towards Mathew to whisper. Mathew said something in return and the Watcher took a step back, glanced at Scott and nodded.
‘What is it?’ Scott asked.
Mathew tilted his head, his eyes soft, his left hand clasped in his right.
‘Tell me,’ Scott said. ‘Is it Freya?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Mathew said. ‘Freya and Noah.’
‘Are they…’
‘Gabriel has killed them. Both of them.’
Scott sat on the bed. If he’d have known their dates, he could have…
‘You couldn’t have done anything,’ Mathew said. ‘You know that, don’t you? All of this was always going to happen this way.’ He pursed his lips. ‘I’m truly sorry about your friends,’ he said, then left.
Scott stared straight ahead at the wall. He’d been so wrapped up in his own date, his own possible death, he’d not really considered Freya dying. Not really – not enough that it made him behave differently, like he should have if he’d known. He’d only known her a short time, but in that time he’d wanted to be near her, to listen to her as much as possible. From the first time he’d seen her, he’d been drawn to her – and she, he thought, to him. None of it had been a choice. It was just the way it was. He should have known better.
He lay back on the bed. He imagined the words Gabriel had recited before doing it, for both Freya and Noah.
The time would come when he’d meet Gabriel again. He knew it. And when he did, Scott vowed, he would have a revolver himself – and it would have no empty chamber.
Forty-Six
Scott followed Mathew through an alleyway and out into a large courtyard surrounded by tall Victorian town houses. At the centre of the courtyard was a fountain that shot jets of water into the air. The sound of splashing water rose and fell as the jets increased, then decreased, in pressure.
‘You will be safe here,’ Mathew said, pointing to a building on the other side of the fountain.
Scott’s vision was blurred with tiredness. He shouldn’t have listened to Freya. He knew that, when she suggested they separate, it was a bad idea. And now she was dead. ‘Where’s Isaiah?’ Scott asked.
‘There were complications,’ Mathew said. ‘His leg needs further work to ensure he will be able to walk again. But he is fine. He will be with us soon.’
The noise of the fountain increased, its spray cool against Scott’s face. The high glass buildings reflected the sky: blue and white, clouds moving slowly from one building to the next. If he could stop and think … get some rest… He couldn’t believe Freya and Noah were dead. There was an emptiness in his stomach. None of it made sense. It didn’t feel real. Why would Gabriel kill them?
