Dispel Illusion (Impossible Times)

by Mark Lawrence

He began to spout out high-speed mathematics, stuff he couldn’t possibly have understood. I was amazed he could have even memorised it. It seemed to be connected to a temporal overspill. The others stood, bewildered, as John led me away to a workbench, still reciting facts at ninety miles a minute.

  ‘You said you would need to send another pulse through to break the cycle and you narrowed the parameters down to . . .’ He began to scribble down figures.

  ‘But what—’

  ‘Ssshhhh!’ He slammed a hand to the desk. ‘I got a decimal point wrong on the last cycle and Mia and Halligan were killed in the explosion.’

  I shut up. Rust wheeled Guilder over to watch us, the others following. Somehow John’s uncharacteristic intensity silenced all of them.

  I focused on the paper before me, figures and equations swimming, sweat trickling from beneath my arms and down across my ribs as I strained to make sense of what looked like hours or even days of work.

  ‘One minute left. You have to tell me what new stuff to tell you next cycle.’

  ‘Already? You’re fucking kidding me?’

  ‘Fifty-five seconds.’

  ‘I think this should work. Let’s give it a try.’

  ‘You said that last time. Fifty seconds.’

  ‘No, I’m sure of it. This will work.’

  ‘You said that too. Forty-five seconds.’

  ‘Lemon, kumquat, banana! Did I say that last time?’

  ‘Actually, it was “Lemon, lemon, banana.” Forty seconds.’

  ‘Get away from the magnets!’ I shouted. ‘Get behind something!’

  I gave them fifteen seconds then hit the ‘run’ on the current sequence I’d coded into the workstation. Behind me the great banks of capacitors, all sizzling with stored current, dumped their load of electrons into the thick copper cables linking them to the electromagnets. A whine built rapidly, the huge chunks of iron creaked in their housings bolted deep into the concrete floor . . . and . . . nothing happened.

  ‘Shit . . .’ I picked up my notes and squinted at the last equation I’d written. ‘I think—’

  ‘Five seconds.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Oh, dear God! Thank Christ for that.’ John collapsed dramatically to the floor, letting the helmet roll away. As I helped him back to his feet, he pulled me in close and hissed, ‘Rust has a gun. He’s a head-case. Don’t let him—’

  ‘A gun?’ I hissed back. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He fucking shot me! Twice!’

  ‘Christ! Why?’ I pulled away, but not too far – he still looked unsteady.

  ‘It bloody hurt, too! In case you were wondering . . .’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘I made the mistake of pointing out that there were no consequences in a loop. I only made that mistake once!’

  The others had gathered at a lab bench where some cold coffees still stood. Halligan raised a quizzical eyebrow and beckoned us over.

  ‘C’mon.’ I went to join them, John following, making sure he had me between him and Rust at all times.

  Guilder had John and Mia sign non-disclosure documents and sent them packing. John practically dragged Mia out with him. She looked apologetically over her shoulder. ‘See you at the flat. Don’t be long!’

  We watched them go. It was a shock to see that it was dark outside. Like when you come out of a cinema and the world has changed while the film held you timeless. I don’t think Dr Creed or any of the others noticed.

  ‘Non-disclosures? This is huge!’ Professor Halligan declared as soon as the distant main doors began to close on Mia and John. ‘We can’t keep a thing like this quiet! The government will—’

  ‘We can and will,’ said Rust, gesturing toward Guilder to indicate that he was speaking on the man’s behalf.

  ‘This is dangerous is what it is!’ I raised my voice to get the floor. ‘I can’t believe it’s my job to be the grown-up here. We were all caught in a loop there, in case you didn’t notice. And if it hadn’t been for John messing about we would have kept on failing to get out of it in our allotted five minutes. Christ knows how long we’ve been stuck in there. And what if it had been a five-second loop? We’ve no idea how long these things take to unwind – if they unwind at all, that is.’

  I looked at Guilder for some kind of response, but he just shook his head and waved Rust on.

  Rust continued as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘You’ve been well paid to ensure your discretion and those monies would need to be returned, along with additional severe financial penalties, if you were to break our agreement. In addition, there would be other severe penalties which I myself would be delegated to hand out. Trust me, gentlemen, you do not want to go there.’ Rust raised a hand against any protest. ‘These experiments have been well documented and filmed. Your place in the history books and your undoubtedly deserved share of a Nobel Prize are assured . . . but must be delayed a while yet.’

  Halligan blustered. ‘But why? And how long do you think those kids who just walked out of here will hold their tongues? And Nick here, he didn’t sell his soul to you.’

  Rust shrugged. ‘I trust them.’

  This sounded wholly unlike Rust, who I doubted had ever trusted another human soul in his life, but it also sounded unlike Guilder, who sat there studying me. They were right to trust me, of course. I had no interest in making my work public. Publicity meant government interest, and that meant regulations, it meant losing ownership of the work, it meant being watched and controlled more thoroughly than Guilder could ever achieve.

  It worried me, though. My memories of the whole paradox incident that came to a head just after I arrived in Cambridge were hazy in the extreme, and fleeting. When we solved the problem it had technically stopped having ever existed, but however well we had managed to stitch reality back together, a few stray recollections seemed to have found their way through the gaps. Had the same thing happened to Rust or Guilder or somebody else involved in the whole strange business? Did they know I came back to 1986 from 2011? Or did they have other trump cards in their hands?

  ‘Look, I’ve got to go.’ I wanted to see if they would let me.

  Rust’s eye flickered towards Guilder. ‘Sure, Nick, you run along.’

  I made for the door, keeping a brisk stride and calling back. ‘And for God’s sake don’t throw the switch on any more tests before I figure out what went wrong with that one!’

  ‘Sure thing, Nick,’ Rust called after me. ‘We’ll be around to pick you up at 9 a.m. sharp.’

  I turned at the door, halfway through, and shouted back, ‘Pick me up?’

  ‘Nine sharp! Mr Guilder has something to show you. Bring your girlfriend if you like.’

  With that I pulled the door shut behind me and ran for the main gate. I knew the sort of things Rust liked to surprise people with, and if Guilder thought he could show me a pile of money big enough to get me on board the crazy train, he had another think coming.

  CHAPTER 4

  1992

  According to my watch, reset against the laboratory clock, it was just after 11 p.m. by the time I got back to the flat. John was already bedding down on the sofa, pleading exhaustion. I felt as if I’d only just choked down the breakfast he’d incinerated for us. Mia was as wide awake as me.

  ‘Well, if you’d had to suffer through those same five minutes a million damn times you’d be exhausted, too.’ John yawned mightily and set his head on the pillow. ‘That was some weird shit. Someone should make a film like that. Only not just five minutes. Draw it out so there’s time to do something. A whole day on repeat.’ He yawned, mumbled something else, then closed his eyes.

  I retreated to the bedroom with Mia, closing the door as quietly as I could.

  Mia sat on the bed and patted for me to join her. ‘So not sleepy.’

  I took her up on her invitation. ‘Good.’

  When the bell rang, Mia and I were ready to go. We hadn’t done much sleeping. Even when we tried
, we just couldn’t. It was like how John described jetlag, something neither Mia nor I had had the chance to experience. Either way, by 6 a.m. we were physically exhausted and mentally buzzing. By nine we were practically waiting at the door, ready to see whatever it was Guilder wanted to show us. Mia reckoned it might be a sports car or an actual bucket full of cash. Some kind of bribe, anyway.

  For his part, John slept like he was in one of those stasis pods in Aliens. I hated him in the way that only someone who can’t sleep hates someone who won’t wake up can. He hadn’t been invited on Guilder’s little trip, so after shaking him, taking his blankets and doing my best impression of a very annoying alarm clock, I left him to it. He grunted some sleepy dismissal at us as we left.

  The man at the door was the chauffeur we’d seen the previous night, a small fellow with curly grey hair and pale eyes, younger than his looks might first imply. He looked at us not with the disdain that a rich man’s servant reserves for social inferiors, but with the mild disgust that is usually kept for dog mess in the street.

  Guilder’s black Rolls Royce looked wholly out of place parked in the slightly rundown residential street where I rented a flat on the second floor of a terraced townhouse. The chauffeur opened the car door and Mia and I bundled in, finding ourselves opposite Guilder in his wheelchair and Rust beside him. The interior had been adapted to allow the chair to be wheeled in and secured.

  ‘Good morning.’ Guilder wheezed the words out with effort. ‘Trouble sleeping?’

  I narrowed my eyes in reply. Being sick didn’t change the fact that Guilder was a bastard. It just made him a sick bastard. He employed psychopaths and used them to terrorise people to do what he wanted them to. I wasn’t exactly a stranger to illness myself. I’d never felt it gave me a licence to treat the rest of humanity like dirt.

  ‘We have a long drive,’ Rust said. ‘Should be there by lunchtime.’

  ‘You could just tell us where we’re going and what we’re going to see,’ I said.

  ‘Allow. A dying man. A little drama.’ Guilder leaned back and closed his eyes.

  I found myself yawning, tired at long last. I put my arm around Mia and looked out to watch the world go by.

  ‘Getting close.’ Something prodded my leg.

  I cracked an eye open and yawned again. ‘. . . must have dozed off . . .’ Guilder had used his cane to poke me. I turned my head and found Mia was resting hers on my shoulder, so fast asleep that she’d actually dribbled a bit on my T-shirt. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Almost there,’ Guilder repeated.

  Mia lifted her head, blinking. I guess we both must have fallen asleep, though I never would have thought that possible with a creature like Rust staring at us. I imagined that if he ever slept it would be like a snake, motionless and with his eye open.

  We were somewhere rural. Fields, hedges, cows, brilliant yellow rapeseed. The car made a sharp turn and we were no longer on a metalled road. The suspension absorbed most of the lumps and bumps but I could hear stones pinging up from the tyres to hit the undercarriage, and the hedges on both sides reached out to scratch at the paintwork with twiggy fingers.

  ‘Where are we?’ Mia asked.

  ‘Not far south of Bristol,’ Rust said. ‘Mr Guilder owns fifteen square miles out here. We’re on his land now.’

  We rumbled on for a while, making several turns. At two points Rust had to squeeze out to open and close gates. That lazy weakness that often visits on waking after a daytime sleep had me in its grip and I was prepared to sit and yawn and lean against Mia, who seemed content to do the same to me.

  At last we stopped in a small clearing in front of a patch of woodland. It seemed out of place among the intense agriculture of the area. The outer trees seemed young, mostly saplings. Perhaps Guilder had forbidden his tenant farmers from clearing them . . .

  ‘The last bit’s on foot.’ Rust slid across the seat and opened the door.

  Mia and I got out the other side while Rust positioned a ramp and wheeled Guilder from the car. It would have been a nice day for a walk. Lazy summer heat, a light breeze, crops, the warm slow press of green things rising from soil. I’d been too long poring over papers; it was good to be out among the bees and birdsong, good to fix my eyes on distant things.

  A concrete pathway, painted in camouflage green and brown, led from close to the car and allowed Guilder’s chair to be wheeled in among the trees. Mia and I followed on for fifty yards or so, in among thicker, older trees, until the path ended abruptly on a brown metal plate the same width as the path and about six feet long. Rust wheeled Guilder on to the plate and put the chair’s brakes on.

  ‘One at a time here,’ Guilder said. ‘Try . . . not to fall . . . off.’

  He took out a device that looked like the garage door remote controls you see in American films. When he pressed the button the metal plate beneath him began to descend, thankfully with none of the shuddering that garage doors usually display. Guilder disappeared smoothly from sight down a rectangular concrete shaft just a hair’s breadth wider than the plate.

  We moved in close and watched him go down. A dank smell rose from the hole, and water stains fringed the walls where rain had trickled through the gap between the platform and its housing.

  ‘Is this his James Bond supervillain hideout?’ I whispered to Mia.

  She sniggered. ‘He just needs a fluffy white cat in his lap!’

  As Guilder went deeper the shadows swallowed him and a sense of unease rose through me, extinguishing my good humour. I took a step away from the edge, worried for a moment that Rust might just set his hand to the small of my back and pitch me in.

  A minute later the empty platform rattled back into view.

  ‘You next, Nick.’ Rust gestured for me to take my place.

  I hesitated, meeting Mia’s eyes.

  Rust snorted, reading my mind. ‘This isn’t the fox-chicken-corn puzzle. You either have to leave Mia alone with me at the top or alone with me and Mr Guilder at the bottom. If I wanted some of Miss Jones I would have taken it a long time ago.’ He nodded again to the platform. ‘Get on.’ The amused malice in his eyes reminded me of his brother, who certainly had had designs on Mia.

  ‘Go on,’ Mia said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  With a sigh I took my place and almost immediately the iron plate began descending again. I watched the world reduce to a shrinking rectangle of daylight. For a while I had nothing to study but the walls. The water stains followed me for a surprising distance and after that it was just featureless concrete and the two notched steel tracks that some toothed wheels beneath my feet must be engaging with in order to raise and lower the platform.

  Finally the shaft opened up into a dimly lit natural cave where Guilder sat waiting. He sent the platform on its way back up as soon as I stepped off it. I watched it go until it vanished into the ceiling, making the cavern even dimmer.

  ‘I knew I . . . was dying . . . seven years ago.’ Guilder looked up at me. In the half-light his wasted face took on a ghoulish aspect. ‘I started financing . . . Halligan at about the same . . . time that a brilliant fifteen-year-old was told . . . he had cancer.’

  ‘That doesn’t make us friends,’ I said.

  ‘It creates . . . a shared understanding . . . of the value of time,’ he wheezed back.

  I couldn’t deny that. Demus and his revelations had been a lifeline to me just as the world had become a very dark place. If I had had nothing to do but contemplate my fate, I couldn’t imagine how I would have kept from falling apart. The fact that Demus existed had saved my body from self-destruction, but it was the idea that he existed that had saved my sanity.

  We watched in silence as Mia descended into view. When she stepped off the platform Guilder made no move to send it back up.

  ‘Not bringing your pet snake down?’ Mia asked.

  ‘I employ Charles . . . to keep me safe,’ Guilder said. ‘Here, I feel safer . . . knowing he is . . . up there.’ He raised a shaky hand, i
ndicating a concrete walkway. ‘Push me.’

  Evidently wheeling himself off the platform had been his limit, so I did the honours. I had to be careful not to steer him off the edge on to the natural rock, where the ground was too uneven for the wheels. Mia followed close behind, one hand on my upper arm. The sporadic lightbulbs just gave a sense of emptiness, their illumination failing to reach the opposite wall.

  As we followed the path it got darker and darker until I could barely see the concrete ahead of us. The only sound was Guilder’s breathless voice, pausing every few words as he gasped for more air.

  ‘It took me a long time to find this place. It’s a previously unknown cave system. Caves are not uncommon in this region. It’s the limestone. I had extensive surveys carried out on the land I owned. Purchased more land. Commissioned more surveys. And here we are. My secret cave.’

  ‘Like Batman!’ Mia observed.

  Guilder ignored her. ‘I started looking as soon as Robert explained that those travelling forward in time would not vanish from our world but would merely pass through it in a greatly accelerated manner. It occurred to me then that a man wishing to leap forward a significant number of years would require a safe and secret place in which to do it. Imagine if I were to simply begin the journey in one of my houses. Who is to say that my enemies might not take possession of me and entomb me in a wall? Who is to guarantee that the time to which I travelled would be one in which I would be welcomed? Better to be in control of when and if I chose to make myself known.’

  ‘You?’ asked Mia from the darkness behind us. ‘Why would you—’

  ‘He’s dying. He wants to travel to some time when they can cure him.’ I wondered how I hadn’t figured that one out ages ago. I guess I had been so fixed on the idea that Guilder’s unseemly haste had been driven by a greed for more money that I hadn’t really thought about other motives. Besides, for the first few years he had always seemed to be in rude health and yet obsessed with forcing the rate of our experiments beyond all reasonable caution.

  ‘Correct.’ Guilder’s wheels bumped against a low barrier. We had come to the end of the path. A single low-wattage bulb managed to create a small island of light for us, showing nothing but a few yards of smooth stone floor strewn with stones dumped by whatever river had carved the place way back when.