Second Lives

by Scott K. Andrews

  'That's not necessarily true,' she said. 'There are some fundamental differences between Quil and me.'

  'Such as?' asked Dora.

  Jana flashed Kaz a 'help me' look that he did not at first understand. Then he remembered Quil's husband and his face must have registered his surprise and confusion because Jana rolled her eyes, a brief moment of her old sarcastic manner breaking through her uncertainty.

  'We have been comparing our memories. They are not consistent,' said Quil.

  'How's that possible?' asked Kaz.

  Quil looked to Jana as if asking an unspoken question. Jana nodded.

  'We think it would be best if we showed you,' said Jana. 'Quil has offered to take us with her on a kind of sightseeing tour.'

  'Call it my life in ten time jumps,' said Quil, smiling. Kaz was taken aback to realise this was the first time he had ever seen Quil's smile. It was more feral than Jana's, but it seemed honest enough.

  'First Jana will take us through her youth - there are some things she feels I should see,' continued Quil. Then I will pick up the tale and show you what happened to me between 2141 and today.'

  'We think that when we return here, we will all have a clear understanding of what's happening, and maybe, please God, some idea about how to fix it all,' added Jana.

  Kaz considered. 'What do you think, Dora?' he asked.

  'Count me in,' she said, her voice low with menace. 'But Quil, if you try anything underhand I will kill you without hesitation. What you did, what you will do, might do, to my family demands punishment. So do not test me.'

  Quil nodded. 'Understood,' she said. 'And Dora, I am sorry about shooting you. I was not entirely in my right mind at the time. You will understand once you know my story and I hope you will be able to forgive me, both for what I have done and for the things I might do in some possible future.'

  Dora grunted non-committally, then nodded to Kaz.

  'But listen,' said Kairos urgently. 'No matter what you discover, you must go back in time and set up this place, recruit me, rescue Quil - if you don't, the consequences could be—'

  'Yeah yeah, we know,' said Kaz, rising from his seat. 'OK, how do we do this?'

  Quil and Jana stood too and walked round the table to Kaz and Dora.

  'If we all join hands,' said Jana, 'I think I'll be able to steer us to the first stop.'

  'I'll just wait here shall I?' said Kairos, still seated. Everybody ignored him as they linked fingers and the quartet formed a ring of red fire and stepped out of time.

  Kairos didn't even have time to sip his tea before they popped back into existence exactly where they'd left. They looked tired and drawn. Their clothes were different and Quil staggered once she'd solidified and had to be held up by Jana, who helped her to a chair.

  'Right Professor,' said Dora, stern-faced and visibly angry. 'Tell me what we have to do to get this place set up. We've got work to do.'

  Henry flexed the fingers of his new right hand, amazed at how they felt. Supple and sensitive, they were completely of a piece with his arm. If the hand hadn't been missing a couple of scars and a few wrinkles, he'd never have known it wasn't the original.

  He reached for his wife and took her hand in his. It felt good there.

  Paris was like a dream to him. Until Quil had brought him here, 2014 was the furthest forward he had travelled. That was miraculous enough, but the Paris of 2158 would have driven him insane had he not had time to adjust to 2014 first. Everything was so alien to him. Vehicles that flew, buildings that grew, implausibly tall people who Quil told him came from another world. It was dizzying and wonderful and he never wanted this holiday to end.

  It was not completely flawless, though. His wife was different here. There was a tension in her that confused him. On the surface she was enjoying herself, and he could tell not all of it was for show. Freed from the endless preparations for the attack, she showed signs of a lightness that reminded him of the woman he had first met in 1640. As their time together had passed, and her responsibilities had weighed more heavily upon her, she had lost some of the frivolous capacity for fun that seemed to have returned, briefly, during their sojourn here.

  But there was anger too, hidden but unshakeable, that he had not known in her before. Being in this place, amongst these people at this time, fostered a cold, hard nub of hatred deep within her. This was only a few months away from the intended date of her attack. This was the world, and these were the people who would feel her vengeance.

  Despite this, and he suspected for his sake, she had thrown herself into enjoying the Expo. He had experienced zero gravity for the first time, and while he had clumsily crashed into everything and everyone he could, he had wondered at how comfortable she was when weightless - balletic and graceful, controlled and precise, she was like a fish in water.

  They had immersed themselves in simulated environments, exploring asteroids and planets far out in space, unable to discern any detail that hinted at the unreality of it. He would take the beauty of Pluto's icy mountains to his grave.

  They had enjoyed music, theatre and dance so far removed from that which he had known as a child that he would not have known them as these things had he not been told. He would only have known that they were beautiful and they stirred his soul to joy.

  They ate fine foods, drank fine wines, stayed in the finest suite of the finest hotel in town and lived like royalty for two weeks.

  And then, in an instant, it was over.

  'I am bored with my mask,' said Quil, out of the blue, as they walked hand in hand along the Seine by Notre Dame. With a flick of her wrist she switched off her chameleon shroud, and the face she had been wearing vanished, her true face revealed.

  'What are you doing?' asked Henry, suddenly panicked, looking around and seeing two surveillance cameras covering the place where they stood. 'I thought you were afraid to be recognised? We're on camera!'

  'Oh come here, you lunk,' said Quil, pulling him into a passionate kiss to which he wholly surrendered - kissing her shroud-face had always felt oddly like being unfaithful. When they separated, she took his arm and firmly led him on with their walk.

  'It is only a short distance to the hotel,' she said. 'We shall collect our things and pop back to 2014 to make our final preparations.'

  Henry's mind was racing to keep up. This lightning change in her demeanour was startling. Could their interlude be over so suddenly?

  'Why have you removed your mask?' he said again.

  Quil sighed, playing the coquette. 'You see, darling, when I was being interrogated by that awful little man I told you about . . .'

  'In my house in the future, I remember,' said Henry.

  'Well, he showed me some pictures,' she said. 'Pictures of me in Paris with a mysterious, tall, dark stranger. At first I thought they were fakes, but then I realised they must be photos of my personal future. So here we are. Closing the circle. Posing for the cameras. Call it a statement of intent.'

  Henry walked alongside his wife, struggling to process this sudden and unexpected development.

  'So you knew we were going to come here?' he asked, unsure whether to be amused or surprised, so completely was his understanding of events being rewritten.

  'Uh huh,' agreed Quil.

  'Since . . .?'

  Quil gave him her biggest smile. 'Since the day I arrived at Sweetclover Hall, all deep-fried and broken, and saw your face. It was destiny, hot stuff.'

  Henry felt a cold chill wash over him and a sudden twinge of the fear he had felt in Beirut. She had known so much more than him at every step of their relationship. She had known from the start that they would become lovers, that they would travel to this time and place - more, that they had to travel here to keep time on track.

  Every certainty that he relied upon was suddenly called into question. Did she really love him, or was he just a means to an end? Had their entire marriage been one long manipulation designed to bring him to this moment? Once they returned to 2014 wou
ld he be . . . disposable? Worst of all - she had always sworn that she had not used the mind- writer on him, but could he now trust this? Were his own feelings for her manufactured by machine? Never mind whether he could still trust her love for him, could he trust his love for her?

  One simple admission was all it had taken to make him question the very core of his life. His paranoia threatened to run away with him. He forced himself to be logical, keeping step with his suddenly suspect wife as they strolled by the Seine, making a show for the cameras. But logic was no help.

  His heart told him that she could not have faked her love. His heart told him that no machine could have conjured his passion from the air.

  But logic told him that she could, and that he could not trust his own mind. All the time he had known her, the one defining characteristic of Quil had been her single-minded determination to return to her own time at the head of an army. Anything that stood in the way of that was swept aside. Anything that could aid her cause was ruthlessly pursued. He had thought himself her ally and equal. Now he had to wonder whether he was really only a pawn.

  Logic had failed him, so he concentrated on the one thing that had carried him this far.

  The feel of her hand in his, of their fingers intertwined, the certainty, calm and happiness it gave him. In the face of such strength of feeling, all logic crumbled.

  And if a tiny voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he might not have been in control of his own thoughts, that his free will might have been an illusion, he ignored it.

  Dora wasn't talking. She sat at the cafe table staring out at the street, nursing her coffee without a word. Kaz had tried to winkle an explanation out of her. All she would say was that James was fine but he would not, as she had hoped, be joining them on their mission to rescue Quil from Sweetclover Hall and create the quantum bubble. Dora had only been in her parents' bakery for five minutes, but it was clear that whatever happened in there had shaken her deeply. He wasn't sure whether she was distracted by it, or whether it had hardened her resolve. He tried to match her eyeline - was she keeping watch with extra focus, or just staring into space?

  He exchanged a glance with Jana who shrugged; she had no idea either. The smell of fresh coffee and pastries swirled around the trio as Kaz dipped a croissant in his coffee and bit off the soggy end.

  The two women who worked here had been surprised to find three young people waiting patiently for them to open. At this time of year, when the ice was thick and the mornings dark, early birds were few and far between. One of the women - Kaz couldn't remember her name - had stared at him quite openly, confused and trying to place his face. He had caught her a couple of times since, stealing glances at him, puzzled. He smiled back and she looked away, embarrassed. Had he changed so much in just over a year?

  He checked the clock on the wall.

  'Any minute now,' he said.

  He looked out across the street to the apartment block opposite. Unlike the tall, solid concrete monoliths that ringed the old city centre, this was a refurbished pre-war building, clean and bright. The lights in a few apartments had come on while they had been watching, as people pulled themselves out of bed and prepared for work. The window of Zbigniew and Kaz's apartment remained dark, however. Kaz remembered sneaking around, using the light from his mobile to illuminate his way to the door, carrying his backpack over one shoulder, holding his new boots in his free hand, walking on stockinged feet lest he wake his father. At the time he had thought he was being stealthy, but now he knew that Zbigniew, far from being asleep and oblivious, was probably sitting in his room listening to his son steal away, knowing that he had to let him go.

  The double doors at the front of the building cracked open and Kaz saw a hunched figure exit into the cold, pull a backpack over his other shoulder so it was seated properly, and then take off walking confidently towards the railway station. His younger self did not look back at the home he was leaving, did not spare his father a second thought.

  Kaz remembered feeling only relief and excitement as he made his break with the past and set out on what he was determined would be a new life lived on his own terms. Now he felt angry with his younger self's uncaring selfishness.

  'You want me to go warn him?5 asked Jana, as if reading his mind.

  Kaz shook his head. 'He wouldn't listen,' he said, watching himself being swallowed by the gloom. He looked up and saw the lights come on in his apartment. So his father had been waiting for him to leave.

  He felt a hollow ache at the thought.

  'I think you're up,' said Jana.

  Kaz nodded, drained his coffee and rose from the table.

  'Good luck,' said Jana as he walked to the cafe door. Dora remained silent, still staring.

  The bitter air was a sharp contrast to the steamy warmth of the cafe, and Kaz pulled his coat tight around him as he picked his way across the street, careful not to slip on the ice. He paused when he reached the blue door to the apartment block. He remembered thinking that he would never set foot in this place again - in fact he was thinking this even now, half a mile down the road. How strange that he should be walking back through the door both five minutes and thirteen months later.

  He had purposefully left his key behind on the dining- room table as a statement of intent, so he had to press the button to buzz his apartment. The door clicked open without a challenge, and Kaz climbed the stairs to the third floor where the apartment door was open a crack.

  Taking a deep breath, he pushed through and stepped into his old life.

  His father was sitting at the table, staring at the front door key. He did not acknowledge Kaz.

  Kaz closed the door gently behind him, then walked over and took a seat beside Zbigniew. They sat silently for some minutes, Kaz waiting for his father to speak first, his father just staring at the key.

  T tried so hard,' he said eventually, looking up at Kaz, who was startled to see tears in his father's eyes. Tm sorry.'

  Kaz didn't know how to respond. He had never seen his father show a moment's weakness in his whole life. Even when his wife was killed (or was lost, or whatever had happened to her), Zbigniew had been stoic and controlled. He was not a man for emotion unless it was anger, and those times when it burst free were few and short-lived. Practical, undemonstrative, even cold on occasion, he was not a man who cried.

  So taken aback was Kaz that he couldn't bring himself to reach out a comforting hand, let alone attempt a hug. He felt sorry for him, but he did not think his pity would be welcomed. More than anything, Kaz felt embarrassed for his father, aware that he would later feel ashamed by this show of weakness.

  'It's OK,' he said. 'I'll make some coffee.'

  Leaving his father to compose his thoughts, Kaz calmed himself by mechanically filling the moka pot and putting it on the stove, a task he'd performed for his father countless times before. He boiled the milk, frothed it, layered it on top of the coffee to make a leaf pattern and laid it before his father, who was now sitting watching him, dry-eyed.

  'Thank you,' said Zbigniew quietly.

  He took a few sips and then, seeming to take strength from the drink, he looked up at Kaz, who could see his father was more himself, his brief moment of vulnerability quickly banished.

  Kaz had been fixated on returning here and making it right with his father for so long, but now he was here, he couldn't think of what to say.

  'I - my younger self - owes some money,' said Kaz, nervously. 'To Jacek's mob.'

  His father rolled his eyes and scoffed. 'Idiot,' he muttered.

  Kaz pulled an envelope of money from inside his jacket and pushed it across the table to his father.

  'That will cover it,' he said.

  Zbigniew left the money where it was, not rejecting it, but not accepting it either.

  'Your mother?' he asked, staring into his coffee.

  'No,' said Kaz.

  Zbigniew grunted and sipped his coffee.

  This is intolerable, thought Kaz. A
nd so, falling back on the tried and trusted techniques he had seen his mother deploy over and over again, he decided to give his father a task to perform; he was always happy when he had something to do.

  'Dad,' said Kaz. 'I think I need your help. As a soldier.'

  Zbigniew looked up at Kaz then, and Kaz fancied he saw a glimmer of life return to the cold eyes of his broken dad.

  'Tell me,' he said.

  The sky was clear but there was no moon, so the night was cold and dark, which suited Kaz. Dawn was a couple of hours away, so even the birds were silent.

  Kaz lay on his stomach on the damp grass and looked down at Sweetclover Hall. Strange to think that the stately house was now over 500 years old; it had still been in its thirties when he'd first set foot inside. It wore its age well. The stone had weathered, there was more ivy clinging to the walls, the clock tower was no longer there and the garden was lively and well kept, but aside from that it was recognis- ably Dora's old place of employment. There were, however, a thousand new security measures - motion sensors, pressure traps, guards, dogs, fences, drones - not to mention the subterranean extensions and all the work done inside to turn this house into a fortress.

  Even given that they could materialise inside the house, thus bypassing all the external security, this was still going to be a dangerous and challenging infiltration.

  'Everybody ready?' asked Dora.

  'Yes,' said Kaz.

  'Yup,' said Jana.

  'Against my better judgement,' said Professor Kairos.

  'And mine,' said Zbigniew.

  'Remember the plan,' said Dora, calmly. 'If we all remember our parts and stick to what we rehearsed, this should go smoothly.'

  Dora could draw the original floor plan from memory, but none of them had any idea how much of the original layout remained inside the building's shell. It was possible it had been completely gutted and rebuilt from within.

  Quil had given them as much information as she could about the room she had been held in and its relative position, but if they tried to arrive in the main body of the house they would essentially be going in blind. The solution Dora had suggested was simple - they would arrive in the area they knew best, the basement beneath the undercroft. They would then have to work their way up to rescue Quil as quickly and quietly as possible.