The House Next Door Trilogy (Books 1-3)

by Jule Owen

  As they round a bend, on a wide stretch of water, a clearing, a small village, comes into view, smoke billowing from fires and chimneys in thatched-roof wooden houses. People working on the bank spot the boat and start to call. Others gather on the wooden jetty, where a number of other boats are secured. In the boat, Churkin starts giving orders. Klokov and Folkin come to where Mathew is sitting. They pull him to his feet and roughly turn him around.

  Metal circles his wrists. He’s being handcuffed. They stand with him at the front of the boat as it draws in to shore. Zarubin hops onto the bow, carrying a rope. He jumps onto the jetty, pulls them in with the rope, and ties it fast. Klokov and Folkin push Mathew forward. He nearly slips and falls without arms to balance. Klokov holds him up and all but lifts him onto the jetty. They wait while Churkin gets off. Evgeny comes ashore carrying a case of food. Bending to put the case on the floor near Mathew, he whispers as he stands, “We’re in Chukotka. We’re in Siberia.”

  Klokov gives the cook a shove, says something, and Evgeny goes back into the boat to continue to unload. Churkin arrives, and they start to walk along the jetty.

  As they go into the village, people stop and peer from their work. All the people here are men, and they’re all in uniform.

  The base camp is in a clearing in the jungle. They walk along a makeshift runway with a windsock at the end of a tall pole and a helipad. There’s a large, open-sided building with benches in it and a number of wooden huts with banana-leaf thatches.

  Mathew is taken to one of these smaller huts and hustled through the door, boots loud on the raised wooden floor. There’s a short corridor with a chair in it and two rooms with their doors open. Klokov shoves Mathew inside the second room, shuts the door and locks it behind him.

  There’s nothing in the room but a low wooden bed pushed against a wall. The walls are lime-washed mud and straw. The floor is wooden, dry and clean. The room is spotless. There’s one narrow window letting in bright sunlight, but it’s too high up to see out of. It’s cool in the room, and Mathew is cold. He hasn’t felt cold in days. He grabs the thin blanket off the bed and wraps it around his shoulders.

  Then there is nothing to do but sit and wait.

  He uses the time to think of a story, like Evgeny told him. Why would he be in Siberia?

  This is the strangest game I have ever played. Siberia isn’t anything like this. I saw on the news only a few months ago that it’s uninhabitable because of all the methane from the melting permafrost. But this is a game, and the game requires me to invent a story.

  Thinking hard, he starts to invent.

  Later, the door unlocks, a man comes in, and the door locks behind him. He is balding, with a salt-and-pepper moustache, and wears a uniform with a red cross sewn on his sleeve. He is carrying a medical bag, which he puts on the floor and opens. Without comment or introduction, he gets straight to business, unwrapping the dressing. Brusquely gripping Mathew’s arm, he examines the wound. He pours liquid onto some cotton wool, and Mathew gasps and flinches as the doctor swabs the weeping skin. The man grips his shoulder more tightly and holds it in place as he continues to work, using a device unfamiliar to Mathew to stitch the wound, and redresses it.

  Once he has finished with Mathew’s injuries, the doctor takes an electrical device from the bag on the floor. Pushing Mathew’s head forward, he runs the device across the skin at the back of his neck. There is a beep. The man stands back, punches keys on the device, reads something, looks at Mathew suspiciously, and then peers at the device again, punching some more buttons. The machine beeps again. He repeats the exercise, pushing Mathew’s head down, frowning at the screen, displeased. Doing the whole thing one more time makes him no happier. Standing and stepping quickly across the room, he briskly bangs on the door. The door is unlocked, and the doctor leaves. Mathew is alone again.

  Much later, the light from the high window is still bright. The guard comes into the room and places a chair in the middle of the empty floor, a few feet away from the bed, and leaves the room without having once looked at Mathew, slamming the bolt behind him.

  Several minutes pass before the door opens again.

  A new man comes into the room and sits down on the chair, facing Mathew. Short in stature, he is slight, not muscular, but something in his body language carries such aggression and malice that Mathew is immediately on his guard. He has a thick mat of dark hair, the type that forms into springy curls if it isn’t kept short, small black angry eyes, and an expression of utter contempt. Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, he assesses his prisoner like a spider contemplating breakfast, finally saying in accentless English, “So, you are Mathew Erlang?”

  “Yes,” Mathew croaks. His throat is terribly dry.

  “I am Polkovnik Grigory Dragomirov. Colonel Dragomirov.” The man’s eyes are hard, unblinking. “You don’t speak a word of Russian?”

  “Not without a simultaneous translation plug-in to my e-Pin, no.”

  “We don’t use simultaneous translation devices here,” the man says, leaning back, getting comfortable. “Firstly, they tend to break easily because of the extreme humidity. Secondly, we don’t need them, because we all speak Russian.”

  Dragomirov sits back in his chair, stretching his neck, gazing at the ceiling. He closes his eyes and sighs.

  “Why would an English or Japanese boy . . . what are you again?”

  “I’m English.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t try to say you were Chinese, which would at least make some sense. So why would a boy with English credentials be wandering around in the jungle in northeast Siberia?” He seems to be genuinely engaged in puzzling this out, trying to glean the answer from the ceiling. Then he drops his head and stares directly at Mathew. “Do you know?”

  “I was – I am – travelling with my father. He’s a research scientist.” Mathew hears the question in his tone. It doesn’t sound convincing even to himself.

  The man smiles indulgently. “And where is your father now?”

  “We got separated. I got lost. I fell into the river and got swept downstream. I was trying to find him, when a big cat attacked me. Your soldiers saved me.”

  “Yes. How nice of them.” He smiles, waits for Mathew to smile, and then hardens his face. “So if we all go back upstream and hunt, we will find an English scientist working in the jungle, presumably now searching for his son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does he have a permit to do research in the jungle?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Mathew shakes his head. The man sighs again.

  “It is odd. We have no record of any English scientist working here. Nor does anyone in the Federation government. It’s strange, given there is a war on. Why would an English research scientist be working in Russia in the middle of a war?”

  The war! He’d forgotten the war.

  “But do you know what is even more puzzling?”

  Mathew blinks.

  “Do you know?” He wants a response.

  “No,” Mathew croaks.

  “Your father is dead,” the man says.

  How could they know? Did they get it from my chip?

  “But that is still not the strangest thing of all. The strangest thing is . . .” – Dragomirov is leaning forward again – “you have been dead for 381 years.”

  20 Mathew Erlang is Dead

  “What do you mean I’m dead?”

  “Major Lapin, the doctor who came to examine you before, scanned you with a chip reader. It found your bioID. We have international records – they’re easy enough to get. It says you are who you claim to be. You are Mathew Erlang. You were born in London.”

  “So?”

  “London hasn’t been populated since the late twenty-first century. It also says you died in Silverwood.”

  “Where is Silverwood?”

  The man laughs. “But you aren’t Mathew Erlang. It upset Dr Lapin because he belie
ves in these systems and thinks they are infallible. I don’t agree. I don’t believe any system is infallible. Nothing humans build, anyway.”

  The door opens, and Evgeny brings in food.

  Dragomirov doesn’t move but watches Evgeny hand a bowl and a spoon to Mathew with the same unwavering expression of contempt. Evgeny doesn’t speak to Mathew, doesn’t even look at him, and backs away through the door, as if afraid to turn his back on the colonel.

  “What did you eat in the jungle?” Dragomirov asks.

  “Bananas.”

  “And what did you drink?”

  “Water.”

  “Where did you get the water?”

  “From the river.”

  “Then you should be dead. The river is full of disease. Have you taken malaria medication?”

  Mathew shakes his head.

  The man gazes at him with mock admiration. “Remarkable. A medical marvel.”

  “I have medibots,” Mathew says.

  The man’s face pales slightly. “Do you?” he says. “You know those are illegal for the non-Pure in 206 sovereign states around the world. And you are non-Pure, you know. We’ll have to have the doctor examine you properly later; perhaps he will help you and kill your medibots.”

  “What do you mean, non-Pure?”

  “I mean you are imperfect like most of the rest of us. Not whole. Unable to contribute to the continuance of the human race. It’s a pity for you, because it might have saved you. Even I won’t kill the Pure.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t understand much, do you? How many days did you say you were there on your own, after you lost your father, as you say?”

  “I’ve lost count.”

  “Roughly?”

  Mathew thinks and then says, “Four nights. Five if you count the night I spent with your men in the jungle.”

  Dragomirov indicates the bowl of food in Mathew’s hands. “You’re eating that disgusting bile like it’s something special. You’re either a good actor, or what you’re saying is at least partly true.”

  “It is true,” Mathew says.

  The man sniffs, watches Mathew finish his meal, stands abruptly, walks to the door, and leans his back against it, his legs crossed at the ankles, observing Mathew.

  “You know, in all my years in the military, I’ve never come across a successful chip hacker.” He says this with genuine admiration. “ATLAS may be close to annihilation, but it still has one or two clever people. It’s a shame.” He bangs on the door, which is promptly opened. “We’re taking the boy to the medical block,” he says.

  Dragomirov gives Mathew his spider smile and gestures with an open hand through the door.

  “Shall we?”

  Dr Lapin is waiting in the examination room. It’s a hut like the prison block, but the walls are hung with white cupboards, and it’s equipped with an array of strange machines. The doctor gestures towards the tall bed on wheels on one side of the room.

  “Sit,” he says.

  Dragomirov stands in the corner, his arms folded, speaking to the doctor in Russian. The doctor nods and turns to the counter underneath the cupboards, where he selects something, takes off a wrapper, and comes to Mathew holding a syringe with a long needle.

  “Blood sample,” he says in stilted English.

  Then he says something in Russian to Dragomirov.

  Dragomirov says to Mathew, “He wants you to roll up your sleeve.”

  The doctor takes the syringe full of blood to the side of the room and drops small amounts into various tubes sitting on a tray attached to a machine. Unrolling a kind of thin, transparent Paper, he snaps it to a frame. Then he presses a couple of buttons on the machine, and numbers and words start to scroll onto the Paper. The doctor stands in front of it, apparently issuing voice commands in Russian. Dragomirov stands beside him. Lapin points, and they talk in Russian. By the tone of his voice, the colonel is displeased. The doctor raises his hands defensively. Dragomirov walks to the door, opens it suddenly, and barks an order at the guard.

  He says to Mathew, “Okay, we’re done in here. You go with him.”

  The guard waits for Mathew on the other side of the door. Mathew leaves the room, blood trickling down his arm. The doctor doesn’t notice.

  There’s no way of telling what time it is in his cell. The daylight is endless. Since the guard brought him back from the medical block, he has been alone in the room for what seems like several hours, although it is difficult to say for sure.

  He marvels at this game he’s in and wonders how Lestrange created it. What kind of advanced tele-existence and haptic technologies produce such a persistent sense of reality? It must involve brain-altering chemicals delivered somehow via that innocent-looking skullcap in Lestrange’s Darkroom. Although, he thinks, as with the crudest video-and-audio-only virtual reality, the longer you’re in them, the more accustomed you become to the sensory experience provided, and the more convinced you become of their reality. There are probably some obvious seams in the program he’s not registering. But these thoughts will do him no good, when his priority should be to discover how to play and win the game. Right now, he has the distinct idea he’s losing in every conceivable way.

  There are noises in the corridor. The door opens, and Evgeny comes into the room with a tray; the door is shut and locked behind him.

  “Evgeny! What time is it?”

  “Dinner time. I am not allowed to speak to you.”

  “Please. I have no idea what is going on. You have to help me.”

  “I can’t. They will know.”

  “Why are they keeping me here? Why are they taking blood samples? What’s wrong with my bioID?”

  “I don’t know.” Evgeny is harassed. His hands shake as he passes Mathew a bowl of roasted fish and steamed vegetables. Pressing a fork into his hand, he says, “Eat.”

  He puts a jug of water and a cup on the floor. “You must drink,” he says.

  He stands to go.

  “What is ATLAS?” Mathew says.

  Evgeny looks at Mathew like he is stupid. “It is our enemy. It is where you are from. England. The United States. Europe.”

  “What year is it?”

  “You are a crazy boy. You must have fallen from the sky.”

  “Yes. I fell from the sky. What year is it?”

  “2472.”

  The soldier bangs on the door.

  Evgeny is frightened. “I must go. You drink.” He thuds back, signalling he is ready. As the door opens, the guard exchanges sharp words with him. The door closes with a bang.

  2472.

  Mathew is in the future. That’s why he’s dead.

  21 Borodin the Cat

  Whomp, whomp, whomp.

  They hear the chopper before they see it. It comes in low over the treetops, creating a mini-cyclone, flattening and splaying leaves, bending boughs.

  Dragomirov hurries from his hut, still pulling on his jacket. Major Anatoly Rostov, his second in command, is with him.

  “Who the hell is this man?” Dragomirov is asking.

  “He’s the district governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. This is his territory, and he wants to understand what you are doing here.”

  “Didn’t you send the authorisation through?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have clearance from the head of the FSB. What else does he need to know? What’s his name?”

  “Polkovnik Konstantin Borodin.”

  “What do we have on him?”

  “Not much. No one seems to know anything about him.”

  Dragomirov laughs. “He can’t be anyone then, can he? Let’s get this over with quickly.”

  They walk towards the helipad.

  The district governor is already climbing from the copter, his head bowed out of the way of the blades, walking directly towards Dragomirov. He’s a big man with a broad chest, well-muscled; he moves in a confident, curiously fluid motion. The sinews in his neck are so defined unde
r his skin they seem like they could be plucked. His face is chiselled, his jaw strong, and he has strange green eyes. They salute each other. They are of equivalent rank. This is a problem, Dragomirov realises.

  Dragomirov’s private hut has a sitting room with armchairs, a rug, and a makeshift fireplace with a mantelpiece, a painting of an old-fashioned Russian dacha above it. In front of the armchairs is an antique coffee table. There’s a hot samovar in the corner of the room, a tea service on the table. Dragomirov has poured the tea himself. Half a fresh lemon sits in a saucer, and a china bowl decorated with painted violets contains lumps of brown and white sugar. Dragomirov is sitting with his legs crossed, relaxed in his armchair, sipping his tea.

  “So, Borodin, what brings you this way?”

  Borodin’s voice is deep, guttural, a purr. Sitting in the armchair, he is a bundle of contained energy and loaded, poised muscle, as though he might leap up at any moment. He makes the chair seem like a toy. He doesn’t seem to belong in the room, or any room. He says, “You have a prisoner.”

  “Yes, we do. How do you know?”

  “I was tracking him myself.”

  “Why were you tracking him?”

  “He is a foreigner in Russian territory and doesn’t belong here.”

  “Yes, well, you don’t need to worry now. We have him. All is well.”

  “But I do have to worry. This is my territory. A foreigner from an enemy nation has fallen from the sky into Siberia. It’s concerning to me. Teenagers don’t usually wander unaccompanied around rain forests, not for long, anyway. I need to know what you know.”

  “You saw the communication from my staff?”

  “Yes, of course. Which is why I came here.”

  “Then you know I am here on classified business.”

  “I thought you would say that,” Borodin says. He is bored, Dragomirov thinks. “Check your Paper.”