A Mind of its Own

by Martyn Ford

  Rick showed Tim the tiny stitched hole in a mirror, as though he’d just had his hair cut. ‘Very neat,’ Tim said, turning.

  ‘Now, test it. Try and create something.’

  Tim looked at the desk and imagined a potato. He pictured its skin, the damp muddy smell, how it’d feel firm to touch. When he opened his eyes, there was no potato. He strained. He winced. Nothing.

  ‘It worked,’ Tim said. This was truly a bittersweet moment. He felt safe, but also as though he was now blindfolded, like he’d lost his favourite sense.

  They cleaned everything up and thanked Rick. ‘Harriet will be pleased,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some way to go to get into her good books after the whole Clarice Crowfield saga.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Eisenstone said. ‘I heard about your work on the teleporter.’

  Tim had been told all about Clarice Crowfield’s return. He’d seen Stephen, her son, essentially destroy her in her own teleporter – a very vivid and well-drawn scene in Phil’s first comic. She’d leapt into one of the chambers and Stephen – who had suffered years of abuse at her hands – pressed the switch. As the machine didn’t work properly, Stephen knew she’d never reappear in the second chamber.

  But then last year Rick repaired the teleporter’s glitchy software. And the first thing to appear in chamber B was Clarice Crowfield, in the flesh.

  ‘Harriet wasn’t happy with what you did?’ Tim asked.

  ‘She was happy I fixed the teleporter. It got me a nice promotion,’ Rick said. ‘But she wasn’t happy I let Clarice escape – especially as she managed to see a lot of TRAD’s restricted areas first.’

  ‘You just … let her leave?’ Tim asked. ‘Didn’t you—’

  ‘I tried to stop her,’ Rick interrupted. ‘And I tell ya, she called me some pretty rude names. I tried to calm her down, restrain her, but I didn’t realise quite how dangerous she was. The second I lowered my guard, she picked up a stool and clobbered me round the head – knocked me clean out. But, hey, she can’t stay on the run forever …’

  Eisenstone was staring out of the window, through that howling rain, at the familiar London skyline. ‘Indeed, I do sometimes wonder where she’ll end up.’

  Chapter 3

  Tim sat down for dinner with Chris and Elisa up in their converted living quarters. This was a couple of guest rooms which had been connected and fitted with a kitchen, in a sense making a small flat on the eighth floor of the Dawn Star Hotel. Tim used to feel as though he was visiting someone else’s house when he’d come up here, like an outsider, but nowadays he loved it almost as much as he loved his own bedroom. He loved the sunken brown sofa, the chipped coffee table, the smell that was simply of home – he loved all the ways it still looked like a hotel room and, more so, all the ways it didn’t.

  He helped clear the plates when they had finished. Chris ventured to the bedroom to pack his suitcase – he had a new job now, working with Elisa, at the family business. He would be heading away to look at and stay in another hotel. The Dawn Star was doing so well that they were considering expanding the brand. It was the start, Chris had said, of an incredible future for them all.

  Tim was excited by this – he pictured a perfect new hotel, a large building in the countryside with a neat garden, short grass and places to hide. In his mind there was a rose arch and fairy lights wrapped around some of the trees – they would glow yellow and white at night. He was already looking forward to summer evenings at the new place, just drawing or hanging out with Dee and Phil near the flowers and in nearby woods. In his head, it would be like paradise.

  At the kitchen sink, Elisa peered at the thin red scab on Tim’s neck. She stroked a finger over it.

  He shuddered.

  ‘Sorry, did that hurt?’

  ‘No, it tickles,’ Tim said. ‘I can feel the chip though, if I press on it.’

  ‘How is it to be normal again?’

  ‘You think I’m normal?’

  ‘Ha, well, you’re a little closer now.’

  ‘Honestly, it feels great.’ Tim had worried he might end up feverishly longing for things he couldn’t afford now that he had to buy stuff, like a normal person. But he felt oddly free. ‘I can still draw things, I can still make things. It’ll just take a little longer. I dunno, maybe I’m growing up.’

  Elisa nodded. ‘You are wiser than your years, Tim,’ she said. ‘But you mustn’t lose the fun.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve got a talking finger monkey. He needs regular attention.’

  The previous night Phil had finished the final edition of his comic. The monkey still had pencil lead and bright ink – reds, blues, loads of green – spattered throughout his fur when he took to the desk to present his work. He’d propped the booklet up, beneath the lamp, and read it dramatically for Tim, Dee, Chris and Elisa – his shadow dancing across the panels as he acted out each part. When the monkey read the last page, in which Tim had the chip installed, he was standing quietly, looking to his feet with water in his eyes.

  ‘And so we come to the end,’ Phil had whispered. ‘Adventures in our wake, we go on – like soldiers home from war, like the rich turned to poor, and wonder, once again, what it’s all been for …’

  ‘Good, it rhymed,’ Tim said. ‘Probably a bit melodramatic though – why so sad?’

  ‘I will just miss our wild exploits now that your imagination has been tied down,’ the monkey had replied. ‘Without them, I fear I will wander lost.’

  Elisa washed the last plate and placed it in the drying rack. ‘You do have to keep an eye on Phil,’ she said. ‘Make sure he’s happy. You made him, you are responsible for his wellbeing.’

  ‘I know.’ Tim saw something in Elisa’s eyes – something glossed over. ‘You all right?’ he asked, turning a bowl in a damp tea towel.

  ‘Nothing, it’s …’ Elisa leant on the edge of the sink. ‘It’s just … you’re lucky to have him. You created life. That’s the most incredible thing anyone can do.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tim said, nodding. ‘I suppose.’ He started drying a mug.

  ‘I’ll never know what that feels like.’ A single tear fell from Elisa’s eye and trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away before it passed the level of her mouth then tilted her head back and breathed. ‘Sorry.’ Sighing, sniffing, she composed herself.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ This issue of being unable to have babies had come up a couple of times in the past. Elisa usually dodged the topic as it clearly made her uncomfortable. Once though, she had tried to explain how important it is for many adults and how painful it can be to learn you can never become a biological parent, so Tim wasn’t shocked to see her cry.

  But then she laughed, and Tim realised these were, strangely, happy tears.

  ‘It’s so weird how things work out,’ she said. ‘I used to cry myself to sleep when I’d think about infertility, or if I saw an advert on TV for baby food or something. That’s why we adopted you so late, instead of a younger child. I just couldn’t bear the idea of holding a baby that I hadn’t carried myself. When the doctor first told me, it changed everything. I became a different person. I was … nervous, worried and stressed out with things that just don’t matter.’

  Tim had seen this for sure. There was a time you’d think the world was ending when Elisa learnt of a booking gone wrong or some pillowcases not being washed in time for the chambermaids.

  ‘But it’s a good thing,’ she said, smiling now. ‘I’m so grateful. I’m so relieved that I can’t make children. It’s truly a blessing in disguise, because it means … it means I get to have you as my son.’

  Tim was surprised but happy to hear her say that. He knew she loved him but, besides the odd hug and smile, she seemed to find it hard to express herself. And he could tell that sharing this meant a lot to her. He smiled back, but didn’t really know what to say. His instinct was to make a joke, to make light of the situation, but he stopped himself.

  A while ago, Tim had begun referring to Elisa as his mother when mentionin
g her in conversations. It was just simpler than saying, ‘my guardian Elisa’ or ‘my adoptive mother’. People always asked so many questions. However, he’d never – not once – called her ‘Mum’ to her face. It had never bothered her, he didn’t think, although recently he had got the impression she would probably appreciate it. He felt that this moment might just be the perfect time.

  ‘Thanks …’ he said, taking in a breath. ‘… Elisa.’ He gave her a firm hug instead.

  Maybe next time.

  *

  A few weeks later and Tim was back at TRAD. He had been called up to the Diamond Building for further readings and to check how the chip was working. Rick was in a good mood.

  ‘Diagnostics seem fine,’ he said, removing a small sticky pad from Tim’s temple. ‘Any issues? Accidently created any prehistoric beasts at school?’

  ‘Nope,’ Tim said.

  ‘Aye, good, I’m pleased to hear it.’

  They were sitting opposite one another in Rick’s office. Tim spotted something over the scientist’s shoulder.

  ‘What’s that?’ Tim asked, pointing at a sketch of an awesome-looking gadget on the messy desk.

  Coughing, Rick turned and moved a folder to cover it up. ‘That’s a wee bit of theory I’m working on … it’s a, shall we say, ambitious project. It’s, well …’

  ‘Go on.’ Tim was, and would always be, curious. What could a neuroscientist working at an organisation that specialises in incredible technology possibly consider ‘ambitious’? Something worth knowing about, Tim thought.

  ‘It’s … it’ll sound crazy.’

  ‘Last summer my talking finger monkey created a horde of fire-breathing bear-sharks in Nevada.’ Tim said. ‘I’m pretty open-minded.’

  ‘Fine, OK. Right, how to put it …’ Rick grabbed a wooden board rubber from the desk and started cleaning his whiteboard. He wiped the final equations off with his sleeve, leaving just a few busy numbers and symbols smudged around the edge, creating a kind of blank cloud in the middle.

  He drew a square, then pulled and twirled for a while on his moustache.

  ‘That’s a square,’ Tim said. ‘I know that one.’

  ‘All right, so this represents the imagination box. When you created something–’ Rick used a squeaky green whiteboard pen to shade in the square – ‘you changed the state of matter inside. Do you understand? Don’t think of it as creating an object, think rather that you’ve altered that piece of space and time. Instead of just air, you’ve made it so inside this place is a sausage, or a marble, or a—’

  ‘Finger monkey,’ Phil added from the desk.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Yeah, makes sense,’ Tim said.

  ‘This table.’ Rick banged the wood. ‘It’s made of atoms, just as the air we breathe, just as your flesh and bones. As I said, you literally changed the form you take when you imagined that technology inside yourself. So it’s the same with the imagination space.’ Rick drew a larger square next to the first one and started to colour it in – this time he used an orange pen. ‘You’re changing the state of things inside.’ He tapped the pen a few times on the board. ‘But, as we discussed, it worked in a slightly different way.’ Rick drew another square, this time red, much larger than the first two. ‘How far was the range, before we installed the chip?’

  ‘You mean how far away could I imagine things?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, the tiger was the other side of the playground. I’ve made shapes in low clouds, maybe miles away?’

  ‘From my calculations, I put it at a bit over a thousand metres, a kilometre – give or take,’ Rick said. ‘But what if there was no limit? What if you could look up at night and write your name on the surface of the moon, or make a star burn brighter?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Tim asked.

  ‘Now.’ Rick then used his sleeve to wipe away the edges of the red, third square. ‘What if there weren’t any restrictions on range or, and this is crucial, the amount of matter you could alter? What if you could change the material state of anything, anywhere, in an instant, just with your mind? What if it encompassed everything? Literally everything.’

  ‘Badger on toast,’ Phil exclaimed. ‘One could create a whole town … or even a whole new world.’

  ‘Aye,’ Rick said, nodding, staring at the wall. ‘You could create a whole universe.’

  ‘So, like, you could imagine a universe where the sky is green and the grass is red?’ Tim said. ‘Or where everything is the same, but rats can fly and pigeons … can’t?’

  ‘If … if that was your preference.’

  ‘Like the theory of infinity,’ Tim said, thinking aloud, ‘where every possible combination of physical matter exists?’

  ‘That’s it, aye. The implications on reality …’ Rick said. ‘I think we’re on the cusp of a new age.’

  Tim stepped over to the drawing, looked back to Rick, who gave him a ‘go on then’ gesture, and then moved the folder aside to reveal it. Although the picture wasn’t finished, the device was brilliantly sketched. It was a flat box, made of dark, brushed grey metal, with another taller box built on top. Rick hadn’t added much detail to this upper section yet, but it looked like some of it was made from glass, or something see-through at least. Next to it was a heavy-duty reader – far bulkier than the imagination box’s – connected by a thick wad of bound wires, which snaked a loop at the base. There was also a plug. Unlike Eisenstone’s first prototype, this had no exposed circuit boards, no fiddly bits of technology poking out. No, it was neat and clean. However, all around the sketch, there were equations and scribbles, question marks and notes. Rick had been doing some big maths.

  ‘Well,’ Tim said, admiring the shading. ‘It’s a cool concept. What would you call it? The infinity machine? The universe maker? The world generator?’

  ‘Hmm,’ Rick shrugged. He stroked his palm over his mouth, slowly down to the tip of his beard. ‘Or maybe … the imagination station?’

  ‘Nah,’ Tim said, humming, ‘call it … actually … yeah … that is pretty good.’

  ‘I, for one, submit that such a contraption should not be brought to fruition,’ Phil said. ‘I would draw your attention to the Greek myth of Pandora’s box. Once opened, it cannot be closed.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tim added, with a slightly nervous laugh. ‘It could … potentially mean wiping out our world, right? I mean, obviously you couldn’t … or, you know, wouldn’t build something like that?’

  ‘Pandora’s box contained the world’s evil. Technology is neither good nor evil,’ Rick said. ‘It’s how people use it that counts.’

  ‘Sort of didn’t answer the question there, Rick,’ Tim said.

  ‘Of course, no, obviously no. I wouldn’t actually build the imagination station … anyway.’ He gave Tim a gentle tap on his bicep. ‘Better get going lad. Harriet’s gonna have me head on a plate if I don’t get my work finished.’

  *

  Life and time sauntered on, months fell off the calendar. Tim’s grades were good, his home life was happy, everything was going, for want of a better word, well. His friendship with Dee and Phil had actually improved now he couldn’t create anything for them, which he could never have predicted.

  But things, by their very nature, change.

  An idle Tuesday evening came by and Tim was in his bedroom, tucked up nicely in his dressing gown and getting ready to go to sleep. He cleared away his drawing stuff, checked his phone and perched on the edge of his bed, brushing his teeth. One of the perks of having a bedroom that used to be a hotel room was that you were never more than a few paces from an en suite sink.

  The TV was on, but the volume off, yet still the news caught his eye. With his toothbrush hanging from his mouth, moving slowly around his gums, Tim turned the sound up a few notches.

  ‘… burning for a number of hours,’ the news said. ‘The cause of the blaze is unknown and countless firefighters from local and neighbouring services are tackling it both ins
ide and out.’

  The live footage cut to a skyline. One of the buildings, a tall one, was fully engulfed in thick, orange flames which glowed in each window and bellowed in fat swirls from the roof. A wide stripe of black smoke was disappearing into the sky, hiding the stars.

  Tim’s toothbrush was now completely still. He realised then that it was TRAD’s headquarters, the Diamond Building, which was burning. What he didn’t realise, however, was what this would mean for him come tomorrow morning.

  Chapter 4

  It’s a strange feeling when you wake up somewhere you don’t recognise. It sometimes happens after a sleepover, when you’re far from home. Hotel guests often experience it for the first few moments of a new day.

  Tim, however, was shocked to discover he wasn’t in a hotel room when light warmed his eyes on Wednesday morning. No, he was somewhere else. Somewhere … new.

  The ceiling above was white and narrow, with a few flecks of bubbled, peeling paint. There were long lights too, one almost lined up perfectly with his bed. Only … this wasn’t his bed. It was too firm – hard springs and bobbly sheets. He sat up.

  Wincing, he tried to remember what he did last night. Steadily, he began to feel quite sick. This became panic when, no matter how hard he strained his mind, he couldn’t work out how he had ended up in this place.

  ‘Right,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Calm down. Think. Where are you?’

  He stood. This room was small, the walls were bare and pale blue. He had a wardrobe. He opened it and looked inside: clothes on hangers. Quite normal. He inspected them, sliding and clinking a few shirts along the rail. They were his clothes.

  ‘What the … Phil, have—’ He stopped himself, then stepped towards the bedside cabinet, relieved to have one. This was where Phil would typically sleep. He pulled the drawer open. Empty. ‘What’s happening?’ he said, glaring in confusion.