The Forever Man

by Eoin Colfer

Chevie closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, tried to think about flowing water and gentle breezes, then opened her eyes again. The dog and the ghost were still there. That was OK because, if they were still there, they were probably real and she wasn’t losing whatever mind she had left. Maybe. After all, she had seen some weird stuff since her FBI special-consultant days in Los Angeles.

  But nothing this weird.

  ‘ OK, there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this,’ she said with a depth of calm to her voice that only Tibetans and Californians can achieve. ‘It’s all wormhole-connected, I’m pretty sure about that.’

  ‘You got that right, kitty,’ said Pointer.

  Chevie kept her focus on Charles Smart. ‘My strategy is to ignore the dog because he really bugs me for some reason, so what I would like is for you to tell me where I am, why I’m here and what the hell is going on. In your own time, so long as it’s right now.’

  Smart settled into a lotus position, hovering before Chevie. ‘You are here because there is a tear in the wormhole. A rift, if you will –’

  Chevie interrupted after only two sentences, which was doing well for her. ‘Yeah? Let me guess. You tore it.’

  Smart’s miserable expression deepened. ‘Yes. Yes, I did, heaven forgive me. I thought it was science, you know. I thought that if I followed Einstein’s quantum theory then I could stabilize a transversable wormhole through space–time.’

  ‘Maybe you should dumb that down for the dog,’ suggested Chevie.

  Pointer growled. ‘Maybe I should dumb you down, kitty.’

  ‘That doesn’t even make any sense,’ snapped Chevie.

  ‘And so I built a time pod that opened a negative energy hole,’ continued Smart, moving his hands rapidly so they created a ball of energy that hung in the air. ‘And I thought that when we pulled the plug the energy would dissipate or be absorbed by the wormhole.’ The glowing orb dissolved slowly, strands floating upward like a cobweb in a chimney. ‘But …’

  ‘But the energy wasn’t absorbed?’ Chevie guessed.

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Smart miserably. ‘It was anomalous and so couldn’t mix with the wormhole’s dark matter.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Chevie. ‘I hate it when that happens.’

  Pointer raised a bandaged paw. ‘Let me take over, Professor. I’ll make it simple for the kitty cat.’ He turned his long face to Chevie. ‘Imagine the wormhole is like a big toilet and all the plumbing that goes with it.’

  Chevie nodded. She was prepared to swallow a few insults for the sake of clarity.

  ‘ OK, puppy dog. A big toilet, got it.’

  ‘Right. So if you flush a jug of heavy acid down the bowl, where’s it gonna collect?’

  As it happened, Chevie had once flushed her phone down the toilet and so knew the correct answer to this question. ‘In the U-bend. That’s where all the blockages end up.’

  ‘Ten points for the kitty cat,’ said Pointer. ‘In the U-bend is right. So all this exotic matter the professor was using to open doors in the wormhole ended up in the U-bend and bored right through to the world underneath.’

  ‘Which is here,’ said Chevie.

  ‘Right again. So now all these quantum mutations, which have been floating around for who knows how long, are being pooped out in seventeenth-century England.’

  ‘I was so wrong about everything,’ Smart wailed. ‘So wrong. I thought the tunnel was a tunnel. It’s not a tunnel; it’s an inter-dimension. I thought it could be calibrated and controlled but it can’t. It has a consciousness, for heaven’s sake. Now I’m not saying it’s sentient – it would be premature to say that – but it can interact with time travellers. It seduces them.’

  ‘Seduces them?’ said Chevie. ‘Like with dinner and a movie?’

  Pointer chuckled. ‘That’s funny, for a cat.’

  ‘No, missy,’ said Smart. ‘Not with dinner and a movie. With dreams of immortality. With promises of understanding beyond the dreams of man.’

  Pointer actually winked at Chevie. ‘Which is catnip for a scientist.’

  ‘I was in the wormhole more often than anyone, even Albert Garrick,’ Smart continued.

  Chevie forgot all about the cat–dog repartee. ‘You know Garrick?’

  ‘I was aware of him,’ replied Smart. ‘I felt his evil spirit. He has more dark matter in him than I have. There is no telling what he might do.’

  Professor Smart was silent for a moment but for the cracklings of small sparks in his innards, then he continued his story.

  ‘So, yes, I know Albert Garrick. And I hate to say it but he is a stronger man than me. Garrick’s core was so solid, so bright, that he was a beacon to all souls adrift in the quantum foam. He took what it had to offer but would not give of himself.’ Smart drooped mournfully so that half his torso disappeared through the floorboards. ‘Which is more than I can say for myself.’

  Chevie reached out gingerly and stroked the professor’s arm, and felt pins and needles at the contact.

  ‘What happened to you, Professor?’

  ‘I was weak,’ muttered Smart. ‘On the surface I held fast to my mission, but underneath my subconscious couldn’t resist. I had to know, to be made aware. And so on my last trip back from Victorian London my unconscious mind peeled away, like a pale shadow, and the wormhole showed me everything.’

  Chevie was fascinated. ‘What did it show you?’

  Smart sank even lower. ‘It showed me what I had done. How my tamperings had ruptured the inter-dimension, creating a dumping ground here in this time. All these splicings that come through are my fault, or the fault of a version of me from some other reality. My body continued on into twentieth-century London but my subconscious was sucked down through the rift and it brought my FBI escorts, Special Agent Pointer and Special Agent Isles, and our field kit along with me.’

  The dog saluted. ‘Special Agent Donald Pointer, ma’am. Fidelity, bravery and –’

  ‘Integrity,’ completed Chevie.

  ‘I imagine the rest of me wrote the agents off as casualties,’ said Smart, and his expression perfectly suited his voice.

  ‘No,’ said Chevie. ‘You shut down the programme shortly after. Then you disappeared into the tunnel and took all your secrets with you.’

  Smart levitated above the floorboards and brightened considerably. ‘That’s right. Of course I did. Well done, me. Sometimes it’s difficult to distinguish other people’s memories from their dreams.’

  Now that Chevie was as up to speed as she was likely to get, given her limited understanding of quantum science, she felt it was time to summarize so they could press on with the business of rescuing Riley.

  ‘ OK, so the time tunnel isn’t a tunnel and there’s a hole –’

  ‘Rift,’ said Smart.

  ‘Rift. Got it. There’s a rift in it so that anything floating around in the tunnel –’

  ‘Inter-dimension,’ corrected the professor.

  ‘Anything floating in the inter-dimension gets dumped –’

  ‘Pooped.’ This from Pointer.

  Chevie expected Smart to correct the correction but he simply shrugged. ‘Pooped is pretty accurate.’

  ‘So anyone or anything or any mutation floating around in the inter-dimension gets pooped out here in –’

  ‘The infamous decade of witch-born monstrosities.’

  Chevie knew she should probably know about this from social-studies class but after all the trips through the inter-dimension she wasn’t even sure which history was the real one.

  ‘Except they aren’t witch-born monstrosities,’ she said. ‘They’re mutations from the wormhole.’

  Smart opened his ghostly mouth to correct her but Chevie cut him off.

  ‘I’m used to saying “wormhole”, OK? Or “time tunnel”. Those are catchy phrases. So let’s just take it that I mean “inter-dimension” and not correct me every single time.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Pointer. ‘Kitty has a point. You do that a lot, Prof. That wh
ole correcting bit. It’s getting old, man.’

  Smart smiled sheepishly. ‘Sorry. I’m an educator. It’s in my nature.’

  ‘And this has been going on for how long?’ Chevie asked.

  ‘Years,’ said Pointer. ‘Decades, actually. Which proves I am still part Donald Pointer. If I was really one hundred per cent dog, I wouldn’t be alive any more. I’m just a dog-shaped guy.’

  The professor drew another spark-shape in the air, which reminded Chevie of the zip on her old book bag that had split in the middle. ‘But recently it’s got much worse. The rift is open almost continuously now and is expanding as more and more energy collects; soon it will be visible to the human eye. If it opens permanently and I can’t figure out how to close it, then …’ The zip split wider and wider until a tumult of sparks spilled out and exploded in the air.

  ‘I get the zip and the sparks, but what does the explosion mean?’ asked Chevie, afraid that she already knew.

  ‘Oh, that’s the earth,’ said Pointer conversationally. ‘End-of-the-world kind of thing. We all get absorbed by the inter-dimension.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Smart.

  ‘Yeah, I remember. Either the earth is absorbed completely or it’s ravaged by mutations before being sterilized forever by dark matter.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Smart. ‘Nothing could survive, except me, of course. If you can call this surviving.’

  ‘And Garrick,’ said Chevie.

  Smart nodded. ‘Oh yes. Garrick. He would be king of the mutations. His atoms are saturated with quantum foam.’

  ‘Inter-dimensional foam, I think you mean,’ said Pointer, wagging his tail.

  Chevie rubbed what she still thought were her own eyes. ‘I feel like I’m in one of those shampoo advertisements.’

  Pointer pranced, suddenly excited. ‘Yeah, kitty. I know exactly what you mean. Here we are, all cool and attractive, waving our hair around and whatnot, then in comes Professor Sparkles with the science bit. Boring.’

  ‘You don’t seem too worried about the world being sterilized and all that other bad stuff,’ said Chevie.

  ‘That’s the dog genes,’ explained Pointer. ‘I can’t get too concerned about the long term. Not much of a concentration span, to be honest. It’s all about the next meal with me, kitty.’

  Chevie snapped. ‘What’s all this kitty stuff?’ She jerked a thumb at Pointer and spoke to Smart. ‘Is this a thing with him because of his condition, or am I special for some reason?’

  Smart and Pointer exchanged a loaded glance and Chevie got the feeling she would not like what it was loaded with. Following the glance, Pointer gave a nod, which Chevie interpreted as: You tell her.

  So she said, ‘Tell me.’

  Smart did not speak. Instead he held up one palm in front of Chevie’s face and concentrated so that the density of the sparks increased and the palm became a reflective surface.

  Chevie took a second to be amazed at this clever parlour trick, but it took less than half a second more for her to notice that her eyes were not what could be called human.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, stunned. ‘Kitty. Fair enough, I guess.’

  Chevie was morosely silent for a long moment and Smart filled the vacuum with science.

  ‘The inter-dimension deconstructs the physical body and reassembles it according to the host’s subconscious wishes, so if the host happens to be thinking about something –’

  ‘Not the time,’ said Chevie. ‘Unless you can fix it, I don’t want to know right now.’

  Smart apologized. ‘Sorry, I can’t fix it. We tried.’

  Chevie was almost afraid to ask. ‘How did you try?’

  Smart winced. ‘I’ll tell you later when you’re feeling stronger, but the truth is there’s only one way to fix your mutation and that’s to go back into the wormhole, as you insist on calling it. And even then it might not work. If it’s any consolation, when the rift ruptures entirely, if you concentrate really hard you will be yourself again for a few seconds before the dark matter obliterates you.’

  ‘Because you’re worth it,’ quipped Pointer, flicking his ears.

  ‘That is no consolation, Professor,’ said Chevie. ‘Zero.’

  Smart lowered his hand. ‘No. I suppose not.’

  Chevie patted Pointer’s head. ‘So, I’m a cat and you’re a dog. What a life!’

  Pointer twisted away. ‘I’ll give you one head pat, because you didn’t know. But never do that again unless you want me to start leaving out saucers of milk for you. I ain’t a mutt, got it?’

  ‘Yeah. I got it. You ain’t a mutt. And I ain’t a kitty.’

  Pointer held out a paw. ‘Fair enough, Chevron.’

  ‘ OK, Special Agent Pointer,’ said Chevie, and shook the paw.

  A shadow fell across the group as Fairbrother Isles ducked through the doorway. ‘Well, ain’t that cute. A truce in the animal kingdom.’

  ‘Meet my partner and your saviour,’ said Pointer. ‘Code name Fairbrother Isles, if you can believe that. His wormhole mutation is that he’s a tactless moron.’

  Isles grinned behind his dense hedge of black beard. ‘That’s bull, Pointer. I was a tactless moron long before the wormhole got hold of me.’ He waved away Smart’s objection before he could make it. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s an inter-dimension. I’m just a field agent, so give me a break.’

  Chevie would have smiled at the effortless camaraderie between the federal agents, but she could not allow herself to be happy when Riley was in danger. God only knew what horrors Garrick was subjecting him to now that she’d escaped his clutches. Plus she had cat’s eyes.

  ‘Good to meet you, Agent Isles. Agent Chevron Savano. I know that a thorough debriefing is the standard protocol. I’m sure you have questions.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Isles. ‘Like how a teenager gets to be an FBI agent, for one.’

  ‘I’m not an agent exactly,’ admitted Chevie. ‘I’m more of a consultant. A lot of stuff happened in the years after you guys skipped out of the twentieth century, but I can bring everyone up to speed later on the internet and Terminator developments, etc. For now, we need to come up with a plan to save my partner. Albert Garrick has him captive back in the town and you can bet your last dime that a slow, painful death is part of his plan.’

  Smart was immediately panicked, his luminosity increasing until Chevie was forced to shield her eyes.

  ‘No, no. I will not have another death on my hands. That boy must be saved. I will go. I will play at being a ghost and scare them silly.’

  ‘No,’ said Pointer. ‘You are our mission, Professor. I cannot allow you to put yourself in harm’s way.’

  ‘But, if the professor can help, couldn’t he at least try?’ said Chevie. ‘Riley tried to save him once upon a time.’

  Isles made certain the door was tightly sealed and then turned the solar-powered lamps out altogether, which didn’t make much difference since the professor was lit up like a firework.

  ‘He can’t help,’ said Agent Isles. ‘The rift moves around a little but it’s more or less right over the town, as you found out.’ He nodded at Smart. ‘This little ball of energy goes anywhere close and he’ll be back in the wormhole quicker than you can say: It’s not a wormhole; it’s an inter-dimension. In fact, the only reason that he isn’t sucked up from here is that I managed to rig up a magnetic field around the field office when the rift grew too powerful. Am I right, Professor?’

  Smart took ghostly spectacles from a transparent waistcoat pocket and settled them over his glowing eyes. ‘Aye, it’s true. The tunnel wants me back. I’m like a runaway sheep, shedding quantum wool all over the material world. I live in the office and sleep in a silver-lined, battery-powered box. Soon my power will run out and the rift will have me. But not before I figure out how to close it. All I need to do is generate a small field of dark matter and I could sew up that rift for good. If only there were two of me, then I’d have the power.’

  Sheep. Wool. Sew, thought Chevie. An
extended metaphor. Not baaad.

  Then she giggled. I’ve got cat’s eyes.

  A thought struck her. ‘What’s with the silver? Doesn’t the inter-dimension like silver?’

  ‘It certainly does not,’ said Smart. ‘I would go so far as to say that the inter-dimension is allergic to that particular transition metal. Silver is its Achilles heel. And perhaps if I knew why then it would help me to understand quantum material. But so far my tests have failed to yield any positive results.’

  ‘So, you’re stuck in a box, Riley is stuck down a hole probably and I’ve got cat’s eyes.’

  Fairbrother Isles’s features softened. ‘Hey, kid. I know this is hard. We’ve all had to make adjustments.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ muttered Pointer.

  Isles glared at him. ‘Not now with the self-pity, OK, Donnie? I’m trying to give a motivational speech here.’ He focused on Chevie. ‘As I was saying, we’ve all had to make adjustments but we have each other. And we will get your guy out of there, but just not right now.’

  This hit Chevie like a slap in the face. ‘Why not now? He could already be dead.’

  Isles moved around the treehouse, checking the shutters were sealed. ‘Because Garrick is leading a witch-hunt through the swamps, heading right this way. And guess who the witch is?’

  Chevie fluttered her eyelids in what could have been the first sarcastic eyelid fluttering in history. ‘Oh, I dunno. Who could that be, I wonder?’

  ‘So we sit tight until they pass by.’

  Pointer raised his nose and sniffed. ‘They got dogs, Fender.’

  ‘I saw,’ said Isles. ‘A couple of pointers.’

  Pointer sniffed again. ‘That’s Rosco and Duke. Clowns, both of ’em. Smaller versions of me. Let me go pee on a couple of tree trunks, maybe show them my butt. That drives them nuts.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Isles. ‘Go pee, partner.’ He stepped on a knot in the floor and see-sawed one of the floorboards to allow the sleek brown hunting dog to slip out.

  Isles chuckled. ‘Pointer loves secret hatches and all that spy stuff. Makes him feel like an agent.’ He winked at Chevie. ‘Maybe I should make a hatch for you too?’

  Chevie glared at him. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing, Special Agent. Including me in the back and forth. But my best friend is in danger. So pardon me if I don’t join in.’