‘I don’t know, I think maybe I crashed it.’
The screen was sort of – fizzing, not like a snowy TV screen, but more like a carbonated drink, it looked like the actual screen was bubbling, and if there was an image there, then it was badly distorted. It was kind of worrying.
Tamar was pacing the room furiously, and it was a large room. She was moving so fast she was practically a blur. Denny tried to catch her by the arms; it was like trying to catch a psychotic windmill.
‘Tamar! Tamar! Stop it! If it crashes then we go and get another one, and try again. The screen bleeped, and they stopped and turned – Tamar stopped so suddenly that her feet created scorch marks on the floor. The screen had cleared, and there, clear as a crystal ball, were the words.
< WELCOME TO MAINFRAME >
Tamar whooped. ‘YES! We did it, oh we did it, we – did it. Well, okay you did it. You’re a genius. A genius!’ She flung her arms around him and gave him a huge kiss.
She noticed that he was not really sharing her enthusiasm. ‘You don’t seem very excited,’ she said.
‘Well, no, I am, it’s just that … well, we’re not quite there yet, are we?’
He pointed at the screen. What file do we want?’ he asked. They both stared at the screen. Neither of them had ever seen anything like it.
It was the most densely packed list of files and sub-files that was ever seen. The type was so small, that human eyes could never have made it out. And this was evidently only the menu.
‘Oh my God,’ said Tamar, ‘try pressing “help”
Denny did so. The screen changed. It was now a representation of what was presumably the entire universe. ‘Oh, shit,’ he said, ‘now what?’
‘Try “help” again’ said Tamar, unable to think of anything else.
This time the screen cleared and a message appeared
WHICH GALAXY DO YOU WISH TO ACCESS?
Denny rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. ‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere,’ he said. ‘Er, does anyone know what galaxy we’re in?’
No one did. Denny sat there for so long that a rather disturbing screensaver came up. A relic of Askphrit no doubt, as it depicted Tamar being brutally and rather messily chopped up into tiny bits.
‘Well, that’ll have to go,’ Denny observed, glancing warily at Tamar, who was laughing. ‘Oh I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I rather like it. It’s good to be reminded of our own mortality now and again.’
‘I’d rather be reminded of Askphrit’s mortality,’ grunted Denny.
‘Good idea,’ responded Tamar. ‘We’ll change it to a picture of him being hacked to bits.’
‘Later,’ said Denny, getting rid of the picture and asking the computer for a list of galaxies to choose from. The idea having just occurred to him.
The list proved to be alarmingly long.
‘We’ll just have to go through them one by one and hope Earth’s galaxy is near the beginning,’ said Denny
‘It won’t be,’ said Tamar gloomily.
‘Oh, don’t be so negative,’
‘I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic.’
‘No you’re not, you always …’
‘Always what? No, you know what just shut up, and I …’
‘M32,’ announced Stiles triumphantly, from behind a huge encyclopaedia.
Denny and Tamar stopped fighting. ‘What?’ they said together.
‘The name of our galaxy,’ Stiles told them. ‘M32. Says so right here.’
‘Oh,’ Tamar was momentarily staggered.
Denny grinned. ‘Thanks mate,’ he said, ‘glad one of us is thinking anyway.’
He went back to the previous menu and typed it in. ‘I just hope that’s what they call it too,’
Tamar opened her mouth and then shut it again. Denny was right, there was no point in being negative.
Denny had found it. He scrolled through the solar system and was fascinated to discover that there had indeed, never been life on Mars. ‘So much for that theory then.’
‘Oh do get on with it,’ said Tamar impatiently.
‘Here it is. Earth,’ he announced, ‘what now?’ he added, as he brought up the files relating to humanity.
The list of files included: -
Deleted files.
Archives – historical – all.
Archives – prehistorical.
Personal files – historical.
Personal files – current.
Mythical files – historical.
Mythical files – current.
Mythical files – personal – historical/current.
Miscellaneous.
There were of course a lot more than these, but this is what it narrowed down to.
‘So, what do we want?’ asked Denny. ‘Historical – all, or personal – historical?
‘That’s people I guess,’ she replied, can you imagine how many of them there’ll be? Everybody who ever lived, and if they’re numbered, not named …’ she left the sentence hanging.
‘Okay, so historical – all?’
She nodded. ‘And that’ll be bad enough.’
Denny selected the appropriate file and hit “enter” the screen popped up.
PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD
‘Oh,’ said Tamar.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Denny, rubbing his hands together. ‘I can break in I think, I expected this; you didn’t think the files would be unprotected did you?’
‘We should never have been able to get this far,’ she said. ‘Not without the codes to mainframe, I never thought … you’re sure you can do it?’
‘I should be able to, but before I do, are we sure this is the file we want? I mean if we can access the personal files, might we not be able to go straight to him? My granddad I mean, Askphrit’s bound to be there.’
‘Not without the codes to the files. We won’t know which file is his.’
‘So, how will we know which file to go to in the historical files?’
‘We won’t, but there won’t be as many to choose from.’
‘What about, mythical – personal?’ said Stiles. ‘To find Askphrit, would that work?’
‘It might, but there are at least three of him floating about out there now, and two of Ran-Kur, because of what we did. Historically speaking, it’s a whole big mess. If we access the historical files, we can search different periods of history for him, I hope. Look I know it’s not a perfect plan, even with the codes, we wouldn’t know where to start looking, but we have to start somewhere.’ She looked at them imploringly. ‘Just getting into the past at all is a huge accomplishment. And once we’re there, we’ll have all the time in the world, literally. We will find him.’
Denny cracked his knuckles. ‘Okay, this shouldn’t take long.’
* * *
It was not really three hours later, because time had stopped, but it sure felt like it to those waiting, when Denny finally said. ‘Okay, I can’t do it.’
Tamar was surprisingly calm at this news. ‘Never mind,’ she said, ‘there might be another way to break in.’
‘What?’ asked Stiles.
She turned to Denny. ‘Do you need a rest?’
‘No,’ he said, surprised. ‘I’m fine, it’s like I only just sat down.’
‘That’ll be because time’s stopped,’ said Tamar. ‘I keep forgetting, I suppose it’s because we’re all moving about like normal.’
‘Normal?’
‘Well … normal for us anyway.’
‘What’s this other way to break in?’ reiterated Stiles.
‘Well, we just break in, in a more literal sense, from the deleted file. We can get into that – we know we can.’
‘But we don’t know that we can get out,’ Denny pointed out. ‘Last time it was Clive who helped us out.’
‘Who’s Clive?’ asked Stiles.
‘A clerk, who looks after the files,’ said Tamar. ‘And we didn’t know he would be there when we went in, that didn’t stop us.’
>
‘I don’t propose that it should stop us now,’ said Denny. ‘I just want Jack to know what he’s getting himself in to.’
‘I thought you said that Hecaté could pull us out, if things got hairy,’ said Stiles.
Tamar looked awkward. ‘That idea rather depended on us getting in to the historical files from here,’ she admitted. ‘The problem with this way is: we might not get into the mainframe at all. We could end up stuck in the deleted file. And even if we do get in, Hecaté won’t have access to the files from here.’
‘I will work on it,’ offered Hecaté. ‘Maybe I will have luck.’
‘Well, I’m going,’ said Tamar. ‘Bring up the file.’
‘How come the deleted files don’t have passwords?’ asked Denny. ‘I never thought of it before.’
‘I guess they don’t bother, because there’s nothing in them. Besides, we got given the “back door” way in, and that’s how we’ll get into mainframe.’
‘We?’ said Stiles.
‘Yes,’ said Denny. We, at least, I’m going.’
‘Then I guess I am too,’ said Stiles.
Hecaté sighed.
~Chapter Three ~
The file had been emptied since Askphrit’s time there, when he had been hiding out there as Kelon – a sorceress. This incarnation, as a woman, he had explained away as a ruse to prevent Tamar from finding him, as she had good reason to want to do, since he was responsible for her slavery as a Djinn. But, since then, they had reason to wonder about this – there was definitely something camp about him.
The file was now just empty space; it felt strange to be standing on a surface that, to all intents and purposes, was not there. Even Tamar could not claim to be used to this sort of thing.
‘So,’ said Stiles, ‘this is the middle of nowhere, is it? I like it, I might build a holiday home here. A real get away from it all.’
‘That’s an entirely feasible plan,’ Tamar told him. ‘Maybe we’ll come back to it, but for now, we have to – EXIT FILE,’ she finished loudly.
A gap appeared in the nothing (if you can imagine that) but they all saw it quite clearly. As they approached it, a door slammed in the gap. It bore the legend, “FIRE ESCAPE DOOR”, and it had the proper bar to push and everything. It was painted red.
Tamar pushed the bar; beyond the door was a wall of fire.
‘Firewall,’ said Denny laconically, and somewhat pointlessly. ‘It’s not real fire I guess, but then again, we’re only data ourselves, I don’t know if we should risk it.’
‘We won’t have to,’ said Tamar. She was busy with a piece of chalk. On the “wall” she had drawn a crude facsimile of a fire extinguisher.
Chalk is not, perhaps, the most obvious of supplies to bring on an adventure, but it all depends on where you are going, in this case, it was invaluable.
‘Software,’ she said, as the fire extinguisher became solid in her hands.
Denny nodded and grinned. ‘You think of everything.’
* * *
Once the “fire” was out, they walked through the door into a long corridor with doors all along it; each door was labelled much as the file list had read except they were all deleted files. At the end of the corridor was a door marked “MAINFRAME”. They went through it, into another corridor lined with doors.
‘Mainframe,’ gasped Tamar in awe.
‘It’s huge,’ said Denny complainingly and not at all in awe at all.
It was indeed vast; the corridor in front of them stretched on into infinity and possibly further. The human brain is not designed to register this, which might explain why Stiles said, ‘It’s not as impressive as I thought it would be, somehow,’
He had a point in a way. If you disregarded the immense size and complexity of the place, with its labyrinth of corridors and its multi-layered dimensional effects, which some Maori painters have tried to represent with their dream paths, which, of course is, what Stiles did – his brain just short circuited what it could not handle – then the place had a flat utilitarian look about it, like the world’s biggest tax office.
‘We won’t find it any easier to get into those files from here, not without the passwords,’ said Denny, discouragingly.
‘Oh God, you’re such an old woman sometimes,’ said Tamar. ‘Do you have any idea where we are? It’s amazing. We’re actually in mainframe. All the universe is controlled from here, no mortal, or anything else has ever been here before.’
‘Except Askphrit,’ said Denny.
This comment brought Tamar back down to earth. ‘Right, right, except Askphrit – the bastard. We have to find the historical files.’
‘Shouldn’t be too hard, just look at the doors,’ said Stiles pragmatically.
‘But it’s so big,’ said Denny again.
It took them fourteen hours of searching to find the right file. It had taken them nine hours to even find the department of Earth.
The door, when they finally found it, was not even locked. They opened it, and a guard appeared out of nowhere. ‘Password?’ it demanded. (I say “it”, because gender and even species was indeterminate under all the armour. It looked more than anything like an oversized chess piece.)
‘Told you,’ said Denny.
‘Um,’ said Tamar. It was a mistake.
The guard started up a wailing cry. ‘UNAUTHORISED USER!’ over and over again.
‘Shit!’ said Tamar.
Denny had an inspiration. ‘Password?’ he snapped.
The guard stopped wailing. ‘What?’ it said.
‘I wish to be assigned a new password,’ said Denny.
‘That’ll never work,’ Stiles hissed to Tamar.
‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ said Tamar. ‘This is a closed network, the security’s laughable. They don’t expect anyone to get this far.’
‘Assign new password – working,’ said the guard. ‘New password is XXC241D.’
‘XXC241D,’ Denny repeated. The guard vanished.
‘Brilliant,’ said Tamar.
‘No,’ said Denny. ‘I should have thought of it before, back at home, if I had, then Hecaté would have it too, she’d be able to monitor us.’
‘She could look for Askphrit too,’ said Tamar.
‘Is there any way we can get it to her?’ asked Stiles.
‘Only if one of us goes back,’ said Tamar.
‘Goes back, how?’
Denny grinned. ‘You click your heels together three times, and repeat after me – there’s no place like home,’ he said.
‘I’ll punch you in a minute,’ said Stiles.
‘Actually,’ said Tamar. ‘He’s not kidding. Well he is about the heel clicking, but you can go back if you want to.’
‘You’re assuming I’ll be the one to go back. – Okay, okay, I’ll go, it has to be me, doesn’t it? What do I have to do?’
‘Go back to the deleted file and well – just make a wish.’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘No, wish really hard that the file is still open at our end and then say “close file” you should find yourself back at home.’
‘Should?’
‘Hey give me a break. I’ve never done this before.’
‘Okay, I’ll give it a try. Better write down that password for me.’
Denny did so. ‘Know which file you’re going to?’
‘Um, better write that down too. And er, got a map?’
*
‘Which one?’ asked Denny, as they surveyed the vast array of small doors, each about the size of a serving hatch, and numbered, as Tamar had predicted, not named. ‘There’s millions of them.’
‘More,’ said Tamar, gloomily.
‘So, let’s start by looking in a few, see where they lead, maybe there’s a pattern in the codes. I mean, what are we looking for, 1944?’
‘Presumably. If Askphrit’s even still there. I mean he might have gone anywhere. You do have other ancestors.’
‘Okay, well we have to start somewhere, I suppose
. This is going to take forever.’
‘Longer.’
‘So, pick a door – any door.’
She opened the nearest one; behind it was a black hole, so no clues there. They would have to wait until they reached the other side, before they knew where they were.
‘Great!’ said Tamar, meaning anything but.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Denny. ‘How do we get out again? I mean we could end up anywhere, dinosaurs – the middle ages – the seventies!’
Tamar smiled and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. She stepped to one side and pulled open the door. ‘File open,’ she said, and closed the door, ‘file closed. As long as we leave the door open we just have to say “close file” to get back here. I think.’
‘You think? Oh never mind, we could do this all day, let’s just get on with it.’
* * *
Stiles re-materialised in almost exactly the same spot he had left from. Which was unfortunate since Hecaté was occupying that spot at the time, seated at the computer, trying to hack her way into the files. But the universe compensates and Stiles was shifted out of her way, just in time, giving him an uneasy feeling of disorientation.
She was shocked, but pleased to see him. He had, she informed him, only been gone for a few minutes. And why, she felt compelled to ask, was he all charred looking? He explained and had a few questions of his own.
Time, it transpired, is relative after all, and the time spent in the deleted file, Hecaté surmised, did not count as time at all, all this, further confused, by the fact that time in the present was frozen.
Stiles did not know whether he was coming or going. ‘Am I getting any older at the moment?’ he asked. The idea of retarding the ageing process was extraordinarily alluring to a man somewhere past forty.
‘Mortals,’ snorted Hecaté. ‘Of course you are! Although no one else is – being frozen, as they are.’
‘Oh,’ Stiles was disappointed. ‘Oh well, never mind. What are you doing there?’
‘I have, thanks to this very useful password, reached the mainframe, historical files, if I am correct, this anachronism here – ’ she indicated a highlighted report, ‘Would seem to indicate that our friends are in Mediaeval Europe. Why, do you think?’
‘Lost, probably. Are they all right?’
Tempus Fugitive Page 3
