by Nick M Lloyd
He waited. ‘Standing by.’
Aytch looked around the room. This was real. His first operational executive decision. The rules are clear. For the greater good. I have the responsibility of stewardship.
He took a deep breath, and held it. His hands were shaking. A grainy video feed from the inside of Mike’s car showed them all sitting in quiet contemplation; all except Louise, who was scribbling furiously.
Aytch reached for his communications tablet and prepared to send the kill order.
‘Ahh!’ A searing pain slashed across his back. Instinctively, Aytch reached behind to rub where he had felt the pain. Another pain hit him—his nerves were on fire, his back muscles locked.
He managed to turn to face Bill. ‘Is that you? What are you doing? It’s necessary!’
‘I’m the one doing what’s necessary. We can convince them.’ Bill looked at Aytch solemnly, an arm around Tom, who was stifling some sobs.
Aytch’s expression turned from incredulous to resolute. He reached for his communications tablet again. Yet again, a searing pain slashed across his back.
Bill stood. ‘Let me speak to them. They’ll come in.’
Aytch looked pained. ‘I have a responsibility. I have a job.’ He advanced towards Bill. I’m going to have to put him in a coma in an Earth hospital for 40 years.
Bill lashed out mentally again and managed to trigger a nerve firing in Aytch’s hip. Aytch’s leg collapsed and he tumbled to the floor. He kept crawling towards Bill. If I can reach him, I can disable him.
But Bill skipped backwards, keeping out of range of Aytch’s enormously muscled reptilian arms. ‘Give me fifteen minutes to convince Louise and Jack to let us help them. Fifteen minutes. Then you’ll have my complete cooperation, either way.’ Bill paused, contemplating for a few seconds, then continued. ‘But if you break the fifteen minutes I’ll forget your back and hip—I’ll delve into your brain and fire up the whole thing.’
Aytch lay panting on the floor. The pain had been excruciating, not least because he had contemplated lashing out with a mental attack himself and his subconscious conditioning had kicked in to punish him. Aytch looked quickly at the screens showing the police activities, then nodded his assent. ‘I can spare fifteen minutes.’
Bill passed Aytch his communications tablet; Aytch opened a channel to the Special Forces. ‘Hold position, there is uncertainty about targets’ identities. Do not act until you hear from me.’
Lying on the ground, but feeling his strength returning quickly, Aytch gave Bill a cold stare. ‘Fifteen minutes.’
Chapter 64
Louise scribbled furiously, the scratching of her pencil across the page making the only noise in an otherwise silent car: Jack dozed, Mike watched the school entrance, and Jeff watched the skies.
Suddenly, the silence was broken. The phone rang. Jack’s eyes came open immediately and he answered. After a moment he held it out to Louise. ‘It’s for you, says he’s Bill Jones.’
Bill? Louise put the phone on speaker mode and they all huddled round it.
‘Do not be alarmed. This is Bill Jones. I believe you spoke to Mary.’
Louise gasped. The others shared looks of disbelief.
‘I’m safely aboard an alien spaceship with my son, Tom. We have been here for fifty years, in a state of suspended animation. The alien mission to Earth is deadly serious but not hostile, as long as they get what they want.’
Louise replied. ‘What do they want?’
‘They want to manage an orderly alteration of humankind. An alteration from the current one in which almost no-one can do what Jack can do, to a state where lots of people can do what Jack can. They want to do this with as few nuclear wars and mass uprisings as possible. They do this all the time on other planets and there’s a set pattern of activity to make things safer for everyone. A key tenet is secrecy until the time is right, to avoid people feeling mistreated.’
There was silence. Bill continued. ‘They need Jack’s cooperation. He’s currently the only known person on Earth with this capability.’
Jack scratched his head. ‘Is there an alternative?’
‘Not a nice one. Your car is currently surrounded by armed Special Forces who have been led to believe you are a bunch of terrorists. You will be shot dead if you don’t agree.’
Louise recovered from her initial shock. ‘How do we know you’re Bill? Tell me something only you would know about Mary.’
There was a pause. ‘She has a scar on her left calf where she was bitten by an Alsatian on the beach at Whitby in 1953. You can check with her, but please don’t let her know I’m alive.’ There was a pause. ‘It’s too late for that.’
‘You seem to be able to control the phones; can you put me through to her?’
Pause. ‘The Gadium Commander says we can patch you through.’
Mike shook his head. ‘They could fake her voice.’
Louise looked around the car. No-one else offered any other advice. ‘Okay…I’ll ask her something about my visit to her. Of course you probably had her bugged as well.’
A few moments later the phone started ringing. It rang for quite a while. ‘Hello, Mary Jones here.’
Desperately thinking fast, Louise took a breath. ‘Mary, this is Louise Harding; we met the other day. I know it’s late but would you mind a two-minute chat? I have one really random question about last week’s meeting, and then I may have some good news.’
‘Okay, dear, go ahead.’
‘When I came to your house, I loved your flower arrangement on your dining room table. What flowers were they?’
Silence.
‘Mary?’
She sounded guarded. ‘Such a strange question. Well, unless they had moved, they were on my coffee table, not my dining table. And I’m surprised you don’t know, it was just a simple Lily of the Valley display. So what’s your news, dear? Surely you haven’t got me out of bed to talk about flowers.’
‘Silly me.’ Louise nodded to the others. ‘I found some Project Hedgehog boxes, I really can’t tell you where, but in one was a few pages from what seemed to be a personal diary.’
‘Oh.’
‘The wording was smudged, but the writer seemed to be reminiscing about a dog bite his wife had got on a beach.’
‘Heavens, that’s me! You found Bill’s diary.’ Mary sounded elated. ‘I was bitten in Whitby, an Alsatian. Nasty business, iodine swabs and tetanus shots.’ She started to cry. ‘Oh my dear, you’re so clever. You will give it to me?’
‘Of course.’ Louise sighed, her eyes were starting to fill up. ‘I will get them to you in the next few days.’
‘Please come in person. You’re so clever.’
Click.
Louise sat back. She looked to her left. Jack was sitting there, head back and eyes closed. There was a steady flow of tears tracking down his face. Louise leant over and gave him a comforting squeeze on the arm. His eyes remained closed, but he smiled.
‘So, shall we go and meet the aliens?’
Jack opened his eyes and gave them a wipe with his sleeve. ‘Jeff? Mike?’
They both nodded.
Aytch came on to the phone. ‘Get yourselves to Newgate Golf Course, it’s about four miles north of you. I will dismiss the soldiers here and slow down the UK government.’
Major Sebastien watched the road as they drove northwards. He was concerned recent radio communications were pushing the search further eastwards, but without any confirmed evidence.
James Chambers sat behind him watching the news screens. ‘Police in Potters Bar had a possible sighting of Mike Littlejohn’s car. They chased, but it disappeared before they could confirm its identity.’
‘How did it get away? Towed into the air by a giant spaceship?’
‘Apparently the police car got stopped at a railway barrier and the trail went cold.’
Major Sebastien sighed. ‘Okay. No evidence. No people. Things are a
s low as they can go.’
The engine of the truck gave a cough and died. The driver pushed it into neutral and they freewheeled off the main road into a layby. There was a small but audible click and the lights went out; all of the electrics. Major Sebastien tried the door. It was locked.
Major Sebastien pulled out his mobile phone; no signal. ‘I guess I spoke too soon.’ He swore at thin air, but without much vehemence; he just felt it was expected.
Then James Chambers’ mobile rang. He answered it on speaker phone. ‘Hello.’
The voice was unrecognisable. ‘This has been an extensive training mission. There will be no debrief. Tragically there have been casualties; there will be generous compensation. Please return to your homes. Debriefs will occur individually over the next few weeks.’
James looked quickly at Major Sebastien, then turned to the phone. ‘But we need answers. We need to understand why Bob and Willis died.’
‘This will be covered in the extensive debriefs.’
James’ eyes went wide. ‘You’re them, aren’t you?’
Silence.
James’ hands were shaking. He spoke again. ‘You’re them, aren’t you?’
After a few long moments the silence was broken.
‘Yes, I’m them, and I regret the heavy intervention you have been subject to. However, my responsibility is to the whole planet, not just a few of the humans.’
‘So you’re stopping us in our discoveries.’
‘Slowing them down, for now, until you’re ready.’
A whine crept into James’ voice. ‘But we’re ready now.’
‘I’m sorry to say your civilisation is not ready. And, to be clear, there are no plans to interact with humans in an open bipartisan way.’
Major Sebastien interrupted. ‘So what happens? You’ve helped Louise Harding escape. She has the experiment data. Are you going to kill her or Jack Bullage…or us?’
‘Nothing, no and no…Nothing happens now, excepting that you all forget entirely about it. All of it. You never mention it. You never try to recreate it. You never induce anyone else to recreate it. You never even discuss it amongst yourselves.’
James looked across to Major Sebastien. They shared a look of resignation. Then James spoke into the phone. ‘Why?’
‘You’ll have to be more specific. Why what?’
‘Why don’t you want to talk to us?’
There was a pause before Aytch replied. ‘As I said, you’re not ready. You’re not mature enough, as a civilisation, to join the galactic society.’
James was not finished. ‘How will we know when we’re ready?’
‘You’re ready when we tell you you’re ready, not before.’ There was another pause. ‘But we’re probably talking centuries rather than years. Your planet is not sufficiently enlightened, or safe. Sorry, but this is simply the way it is…And remember, you cannot even discuss it amongst yourselves. Be aware, I will be employing blackmail to enforce this. Albeit, initially, in the spirit of cooperation, it will be towards the bribery end of blackmail.’
James shared a look with Major Sebastien.
Aytch was not finished. ‘Additionally, there will be no contact, observation or any other interactions with Louise or her companions.’
There was an audible click as Aytch killed the connection.
Chapter 65
Jack could not believe he could feel so tired and yet still be alive. He turned and looked at Louise. ‘How’s the leg?’
She looked up. ‘Fine, I think.’
The car started first time and Mike reversed out of the car park. Jack looked out of the window, shielding the internally reflected light to try to make out any shapes or movements in the trees. There was nothing.
Louise turned to Jack. ‘Well, it’s been an adventure.’
Jack took a coin out of his pocket, flipping it and catching it, not really looking at the results. He focused on his hands, and the coin. ‘Thanks for trying to preserve my anonymity. And sorry for most of what I have done and been over the last few years.’
He looked up at her and for a moment they held each other’s gaze. They shared a moment, nothing magical or mysterious, no harnessing of probability—just a brief moment, a few muscles subconsciously moving around their mouths and eyes. Just the subliminal signals between two members of a sociable mammalian species with a few million years of evolution under its belt. A declaration of peace.
Louise nodded, smiled and turned her head to look out of the window.
Jack coughed, and muttered under his breath. ‘You could have said sorry for your over-zealous reporting. For the brick, perhaps.’ Then he laughed.
Louise turned back and smiled. ‘I already said sorry when you went berserk in the laboratory.’
Jack raised his eyebrows. He gazed at Louise, but there was no malice or menace. ‘You could say it again.’
‘Nope, I’m not that sort of girl.’
Jack raised his hands in surrender. ‘Okay. Okay.’ He turned to Mike. ‘So, what are you going to do?’
‘I suppose I’m going to try to prod this Gadium guy for a sensible discovery of some type, something in lieu of this probability effect. Maybe he can give me a few clues concerning fundamental particles, or Grand Unified Theory.’
Bill’s voice came over the speaker phone. ‘We’re currently getting the recovery vehicle to you. The technology is pretty advanced…but it will still be about six hours. As for some scientific breakthrough, I will mention it to him. I think he was mostly expecting to bribe you with money.’
Mike chuckled. ‘Legacy and history be damned. I love science, but I like the sound of what Bill just said…I’m going to study science from the presidential suite at the Las Vegas Four Seasons.’
Bill spoke again. ‘All the police are stood down. I suggest you get to Newgate. We’ll scramble the official records of the last few weeks. We’ll also lean very heavily on those government people who do know—you won’t be touched.’
Dawn was only a few hours away when Jack looked wide-eyed at a spaceship. A spaceship! The door opened and Bill Jones walked out. ‘Come on, Jack. You’ve a life of luxury and adventure to attend to. You’ll be rehoused in great luxury pretty much anywhere on Earth you want, but it will need to be a remote location. Tahiti?’
Jack stepped forward.
Louise watched as Jack walked away. He turned, smiled, looked her directly in eyes, waved, and mouthed call me!
Bill held out his hand to Louise and she reluctantly gave her notepad over to him. Bill smiled. ‘Now, you others, I suggest you start using online poker sites, online casinos and online electronic lotteries. You’ll be amazed at how well you’ll do.’
Bill walked back into the spaceship. At the top of the ramp he turned back. ‘Ah, Louise, I recognise what you’ve given up here. So if you get an anonymous tip-off in the next few weeks don’t ignore it. Particularly if it’s about a major scandal involving politicians, bribes, industrial firms domiciled in dodgy jurisdictions and national security.’
Mike called out. ‘And so what’s the answer to Jack’s powers: particle emissions, quantum mechanics, or multiple universes?’
Bill turned and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I’m not a scientist, Mike, but from what I have gathered from the Gadium crew here, they don’t know themselves. It’s treated as partially mystical.’
‘That’s it? They don’t know?’
A crackle came from the communications tablet that Bill was holding. Then a voice. ‘This is Commander Aytch of the Gadium mission. I will, if you will forgive me, Mike, partially quote you. As a species we have decided unilaterally to utterly reject any explanation which includes multiple universes on moral grounds. We choose to live in a single reality.’
Mike’s shoulders dropped and he looked at the ground. ‘Bob talked about moral grounds.’
Bill interrupted. ‘The Gadium call it The Parallels. It has been used to ease grief, bu
t it’s also been used to justify atrocities.’
There was silence as they digested the information.
Jack was ready to go but, out of kindness, decided to allow Mike one more story. ‘What does it mean, Mike?’
‘If you allow yourself to believe that every event spawns a new set of universes in which every possibility of that event happens, it means everything happens somewhere. So you can kill your boss and justify it by saying he was going to be killed by me in one universe so it may as well be mine. Actually, I am saving his life in another universe—because if I don’t kill him here, I will kill him somewhere else.’
Jack nodded. ‘Not one of your snappiest.’
Mike chuckled. ‘It’s a complicated subject, and a recipe for total moral breakdown.’
Bill waved for them to hurry up. ‘We have to get away before we’re seen.’
Another set of goodbyes followed.
Jack settled down in the spaceship, and it lifted gently into the air.
Back on Earth, Jeff was not comfortable that the conversation had resolved. ‘But there are so many events every second, there’d be billions and billions of worlds in which you killed your boss, and billions and billions in which you didn’t. So one more either way wouldn’t make a difference.’
Mike shrugged. ‘Statistically, maybe…but if I really hate my boss and I only need a little justification, then I can convince myself that technically it would make a difference: one extra death here, one less death elsewhere—one for one. We’re talking a slow, slippery slope here. Firstly, a few particularly bad people use the justification, and then it becomes acceptable amongst the criminal fraternity, and then amongst other fringe cultures, and then mainstream. It may take a few generations…people love to be told they can do whatever they want.’
On Vantch, Klope sat in quiet contemplation with his Prophet. He’d been trained to ride the parallels—navigating across realities. Now he was a Paladin—a defender of The Many—and in his world he’d just returned from an attack on the Supreme Prelate of the True Faith. The Staff of Wisdom lay broken at Klope’s feet, next to the Prelate’s head.
