Anachronist

by Andrew Hastie

  ‘The guard believes you were one of a gang that tried to break into Blackett’s this morning.’

  Josh made no comment — he knew better than to talk. It would be bad enough for him when the cops arrived. The last thing he should do was answer a bunch of incriminating questions.

  ‘I realise that you probably don’t want to talk to me and that we are somehow breaching your human rights by holding you in this way.’

  He had a point, Josh thought. This probably was against the law too. The guy was either dumb or after something else.

  ‘So before the police turn up and make things complicated, I will try to simplify the outcome.’ He took something from his pocket. It was a clear plastic bag, the kind they used on CSI for evidence. Inside, much to Josh’s relief, was the tachyon.

  ‘I know you were after our ephedrine. Predictable if not a little dramatic.’ He made a gun shape out of his fingers.

  Shit, thought Josh, he knew about the weapons.

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘The chemicals can be replaced.’ He took the tachyon out of the bag and held it up. ‘This, on the other hand, interests me very much.’

  Josh watched the dials on the face of the device move round. He tested the bindings on his wrists, but they held tight.

  ‘Do you know what a Quantum Singularity is?’ Fermi asked.

  Josh shrugged. This guy was a talker. He knew it was best to let him rattle on until he saw a chance to make a move.

  ‘No, I didn’t think you would. Which is what has been bothering me since my sensors picked up the signal from the other side of the quadrant — not something one expects to encounter outside a black hole. Your timepiece is giving off a very strange signature.’

  Josh tried to look blank. He guessed the Order would be very unhappy about a scientist getting their hands on a tachyon.

  ‘I should explain,’ Fermi continued. ‘I have been researching quantum field theory for many years, mostly ways of measuring the slightest gravitational disturbances in our universe. This device just registered off the scale on every one of my monitoring systems. May I ask where you acquired it?’

  Josh was sure the professor really wanted to say: ‘steal’, but was giving him the benefit of the doubt. The tachyon was his only means of escape, but this guy was looking at it like it was the Holy Grail.

  ‘I stole it.’ Josh had always thought that a half-truth made for the most authentic-sounding lie, ‘from some old guy.’

  The professor looked disappointed, as if he were hoping that somehow Josh was a secret quantum physicist who just hung out with drug dealers for kicks.

  ‘This old man, would you remember him if you saw him again? Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Yeah. I could show you, but,’ and this was the chance he was looking for, ‘not if I’m in a police cell.’

  The professor nodded and stepped out of the room with his mobile phone pressed to his ear. Josh’s freedom was obviously a small price to pay for the secrets of the tachyon.

  The watch sat on the table, gleaming in the neon light like a new Rolex. It was the first time he had a chance to study it properly — the craftsmanship and intricate detail were astounding. Josh was tempted to try to trigger it with his nose, but the ties bit into his hands when he moved the chair.

  A minute later the professor returned.

  ‘So the police are dealt with. We can finish our discussion about the old man.’

  ‘My hands are hurting,’ Josh pleaded with a look of pain.

  ‘Ah yes, my over-zealous colleague.’ He got up and cut the zip ties with a lock knife he produced from his pocket.

  ‘Thank you,’ Josh said, as the blood rushed back into his fingers — he massaged his wrists to soothe the tingling sensation.

  ‘Now. The owner of this timepiece, where can I find him?’

  Josh was tempted to just rush the professor and grab the watch, but the guy was still holding the knife in one hand, and Josh didn’t care to find out how good his reactions were.

  ‘Have you managed to get it open?’ Josh asked knowingly. The man had probably blunted every drill and screwdriver he owned trying to get into it. The Order built them to survive just about anything, the colonel had told him.

  ‘No. Have you?’

  Josh nodded and saw a glimmer of excitement in the professor’s eye. This was what the man secretly wanted. He held out his hand. ‘Let me show you.’

  The professor reluctantly gave up his prize, laying it gently in Josh’s palm. The watch warmed in his hand as he stroked the dial with his thumb. He felt the power of the device vibrating within it, the power of a black hole, apparently.

  ‘So, it’s simple. You just need to turn the dial like so . . .’ Josh spun the outer dial to the symbol ‘phi’ just for dramatic effect. It made no difference to what he was planning to do next. ‘Now watch very carefully. I just push this button and —’

  ‘Wait!’ shouted the professor, reaching out and grabbing the watchstrap.

  As he pulled it away, Josh touched the homing button and disappeared.

  41

  Find the Colonel

  Josh reappeared back in the middle of the colonel’s collection room. That had been way too close for comfort — without the tachyon he knew he would have been in serious trouble.

  Realising he was no longer holding the watch, Josh looked around the floor, assuming that he had dropped it. Then he checked his pockets and under the surrounding furniture. Each new search getting a little more frantic, until he had to finally admit that he must have left it behind with the professor.

  ‘Shit. Shit. Shit,’ he shouted, kicking over a small stack of books. Today was turning out to be one hell of a bad day: he’d managed to get thrown out of the Order, lose the best chance of a girlfriend, get involved in a stupid robbery — get caught, and then leave an invaluable piece of time-travel technology with a guy who was totally obsessed with trying to understand how it worked. Definitely not one of his best days.

  He was just considering helping himself to something from the colonel’s whisky collection when he heard a noise from downstairs. It sounded remarkably like the front door closing, and Josh felt a small spark of hope ignite in his chest — the colonel had returned; the one man who could fix all of this had finally come back. Josh ran out into the landing and down the first flight of stairs, expecting to see the crazy mad brush of hair and the big old greatcoat.

  Instead he saw the face of Caitlin staring up at him.

  ‘Er. Hi. What are you doing here?’

  She looked at him with dark, stormy eyes.

  ‘What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here?’ she said in a voice that was trying hard not to scream.

  Josh wasn’t quite sure where to start. He thought about telling her the truth, but that would involve a lot of backstory and he wasn’t ready to explain about Lenin or the shit he’d got himself into. Nor did he think it was a good idea to mention stealing a tachyon and then losing it — which left very little of today that could be deemed to be appropriate.

  ‘Don’t tell me!’ she added as she took off her coat and shook out her wet hair. It must have been raining outside. ‘I probably wouldn’t want to know.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be in bed?’ Josh said, trying to change the subject.

  ‘They tried. But when I found out that Dalton had you excluded, I told them where they could stick their recuperation.’

  ‘Dalton?’ Josh exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. Bloody Dalton. Interfering little bastard told his mother. Our little adventure was all he needed to have you kicked out, and he’s claiming that Dracula’s tooth should be disqualified!’

  She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a towel to dry her hair.

  Josh wanted to run his fingers through it, pull her close and kiss her, but Caitlin was cold and distant. The closeness they had shared in the cave was gone. Her emotional defences were locked down, as if she were ready for a figh
t.

  ‘So why did you come here?’ he asked.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for you, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  A tiny smile flashed across her mouth and vanished.

  ‘The Council has declared Uncle Rufius officially missing in action. Methuselah sent me here to see if there were any clues as to where he might have gone. I have a sneaking suspicion that Methuselah might have known you were here too — since he told me to bring a spare tachyon.’

  She reached into her coat pocket and produced an older-looking model. ‘It’s only a Mark Two, but its functions are basically the same, just a bit heavier.’

  Josh let her strap it to his wrist. Her fingers were delicate and precise as they threaded the leather band and closed it. He tried not to think about the new Mk IV that was probably being disassembled in the basement of the university at this very moment.

  ‘So Methuselah doesn’t agree with my exclusion?’

  She shook her head. ‘No! Neither do I, not after what you did for me. It’s a formality imposed on him by the Protectorate. There is some kind of emergency meeting going on. All the elders have been ordered to attend — including Methuselah.’

  ‘To do with the colonel? I mean Rufius?’

  ‘I think there has been some kind of leadership challenge by Dalton’s mother. She has many friends in the council — including a faction that disagrees with the way the continuum is being managed. They call themselves “The Determinists”. They have a major issue with the way we allow for so much random variation within our calculations.’

  ‘What kind of challenge?’ Josh asked, imagining some kind of old-fashioned duel.

  Caitlin shrugged her shoulders. ‘Dalton was boasting the other day that his mother has some new revelation, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was.’

  Josh imagined the ways in which he could inflict pain on Dalton. There were many and most involved sharp, pointed things.

  ‘You do know you have the right of appeal? About the exclusion I mean,’ Caitlin added.

  ‘No. Why didn’t anyone tell me?’

  She frowned. ‘You would need Rufius to speak on your behalf. It’s not usual for a prospect to lose his mentor just as he’s getting excluded. In fact, I think you’re the first.’

  Josh looked around the kitchen. ‘Then I’ll have to find the old man, won’t I? Don’t the Copernicans know where he went? Shouldn’t they have a trace on his notebook?’

  She shrugged. ‘Apparently he didn’t take his almanac or it’s been destroyed. There is a “statistically low possibility of recovery”,’ she said, putting air quotes round the last phrase.

  Over the next three hours Josh and Caitlin searched the entire house. On the top floor, Josh found rooms that he’d never known existed. One was full of random notes and clippings pinned to the walls, each connected to another by lines of red twine — it looked like the work of a madman. He called to Caitlin, and she came running up the stairs. Her eyes went wide at the sight of it.

  ‘I knew that Uncle Rufius was a bit obsessive about the fatalists. We don’t really talk about it — the Protectorate aren’t too happy about some of his theories.’

  They took different sides of the room, following the string as it crisscrossed the space, connecting one random event to another in no apparent logical way.

  ‘Did he ever speak to you about this?’ she asked.

  ‘No. Who are the Fatalists?’

  ‘A group of fanatics that believes the Order shouldn’t be meddling in the timelines. Rufius believes they are sabotaging the past,’ Caitlin said as she stopped at one particular area of the wall.

  There were a large number of red lines converging on a single sheet of torn newspaper. It was a report on the discovery of a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings from the Times dated 1933.

  ‘My parents investigated this one. They never came back from it.’

  Josh couldn’t think of anything to say. He put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and wiped her eyes.

  ‘We haven’t got time for that now,’ she growled.

  Josh spotted a number written by the side of the pin that was holding the twine in place.

  ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘It’s a time co-ordinate. Written the old way, there are still some that say it’s more accurate.’

  He remembered the night the injured colonel had appeared in the study. The old man had been babbling on about a random set of numbers.

  ‘I think I know where he might be.’

  42

  The Copernicans

  [Richmond, England. Date: 11.580]

  When Josh told Caitlin about the co-ordinates that the colonel had made him memorise, she’d nearly hugged him. She made him repeat them to her over and over again, but she couldn’t quite figure it out, so she decided that they would have to go back to someone who would be able to help them.

  Caitlin left Josh in the Grand Nexus, the atrium of the enormous Copernican building — the largest structure Josh had ever seen. Like a plaza, it was a long, thin, cathedral-like nave with a high, vaulted, stained-glass ceiling through which sunlight filtered down in rays of ruby, topaz and emerald. Hundreds of floors were stacked on each side with metal stairways providing access to the inner workings of the building. Its components occupied every available space and filled the hall with the sound of a thousand gear wheels — giving the overall feeling of being inside a massive old clock.

  A crescendo of bells rang out from the far end of the hall. Josh turned to see an enormous rotating dial made up of concentric rings turning through 180º as it marked the hour. Each ring was inscribed with numerals and symbols that, by Josh’s limited understanding, told the time in at least ten different millennia. In unison, everyone on the floor around him took out their own timepieces and checked them, then went back to their work.

  The floor was tiled in a marble chequerboard of black and white, with symbols etched into the obsidian squares. Josh assumed that it was some kind of signposting since there were no other obvious ones. Hundreds of men and women in various coloured robes walked to and fro across the concourse. They were all absorbed in their work, adjusting strange-looking abacuses or flicking through thick books. An old man with a long white beard passed him, tossing a coin repeatedly and calling out ‘naive’ or ‘caput’ to a young boy who followed behind, keeping tally on a beaded rope.

  ‘The Venerable Von Neumann — he’s testing the random coefficient,’ said a familiar voice behind him. Sim was wearing an elegant-looking blue robe with the seal of Copernicus stitched into the front. The clothes made him look older somehow. He offered his hand as he approached.

  Josh was happy to see him and shook his hand warmly.

  ‘Every century they have to check how far off S.R. — Standard Random — the continuum has moved,’ Sim added.

  ‘Random has a standard?’

  Sim looked at him in disbelief. ‘Of course. How do you think we compensate for it?’

  ‘By tossing a coin?’

  ‘Classic Bernoulli process. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best.’

  ‘So how long does he have to do that for?’ Josh asked, beginning to wish Caitlin would hurry up with whatever she had gone off to do.

  ‘Oh, not long, maybe a year or two. It depends on the asymptotic equipartition property.’

  Josh watched the man wander off, his coin rising and falling through the iridescent rays above them. He had no idea what Sim was talking about, but he had a lot of respect for the old man’s dedication.

  ‘Amazing place you have here,’ Josh said, changing the subject.

  ‘Yes, she’s a beauty isn’t she?’ Sim agreed, looking into the upper levels. ‘It houses the most advanced difference engine the sixteenth century could engineer.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  Sim laughed. ‘It’s all around you, Josh. This whole building is one giant computational machine. She can process over
a hundred thousand pph — probabilities per hour,’ he explained proudly.

  Josh looked at the building and began to notice some of the details, the cogs and gears turning in the walls, the cables and pipes carrying punched cards across the space above them.

  ‘Caitlin tells me you’ve run into a bit of trouble,’ Sim whispered, reaching inside his robe.

  Josh caught a glimpse of many pockets in the inner lining as Sim pulled a small almanac out from one of them.

  ‘Here, take this. It will allow me to contact you wherever you are.’

  Josh took the book and hid it inside his own robe ‘Thanks.’

  Caitlin came out of a set of doors followed by a tall, thin man in a dark, sombre gown. He walked beside her with all the distinguished bearing of a priest.

  Sim turned to see what Josh was looking at and whispered, ‘Stochastic Professor Eddington. He’s always had a soft spot for Cat.’

  Caitlin’s face cracked into a broad smile when she saw Sim, and she rushed over to wrap her arms round him, hugging him tightly. Eddington was obviously uncomfortable with such a public show of affection.

  ‘Professor Eddington, may I introduce Joshua Jones, Acolyte of the Fourteenth?’

  Eddington raised his eyebrow slightly and bowed. ‘Fourteenth . . . That is impressive for an Acolyte — I would say in the ninety-fifth percentile.’

  Caitlin shook her head as Josh went to offer his hand and he quickly withdrew it.

  ‘Yes, it was kind of an emergency —’

  ‘I have told the professor about Rufius,’ Caitlin interrupted, ‘and he thinks he may be able to help us.’

  ‘Yes.’ Eddington nodded. ‘What is your milieu of origin?’

  Josh looked blankly at Sim.

  ‘He’s from the present, sir,’ Sim intervened.

  ‘Terrible place!’ The professor grimaced. ‘Now, if you would care to follow me. Master Simeon, do you not have work to which you must attend?’