Through Your Eyes Page 12

  I opened the door to the cottage. Initially, the cold country air was a shock to the system, but as I breathed it in, I started to feel more human again. I staggered across a field full of cows, still feeling dizzy, avoiding the large dung mounds and trying to reach a familiar road running at the bottom of the hill. I trudged along the road in a daze, as it snaked around for about half a mile, until I saw some road lights in the distance.

  I saw a pub and civilisation. Now, I just needed to borrow a phone from a kindly local. The irony of my unwillingness to embrace mobile telecommunications, i.e., not owning a phone, and simultaneously being involved in advanced travelling through time and space, was not lost on me. I entered the pub, and was immediately noticed by the landlord who must have recognised me, even though I had not been here for at least five years. We exchanged pleasantries and he could see I was in a rush and in trouble. His name was Dave Briggs, and he took me to one side behind the bar, just to check if I was ok. I explained to him that I had taken a fall, and needed to get to my laboratory; fortunately, he didn't ask too many questions, ordering me a cab to the station.

  I thought to myself that I hoped my younger self was looking after Abby, and behaving myself. I knew what I was like in those days. Actually, I had no problem remembering that. I was hopeless with the ladies, like one of the guys from the 'Big Bang Theory!' She would be safe, I chuckled to myself.

  An hour later, I was sitting on a train going towards Manchester. I ordered food from the buffet car; it was surprisingly good, although I got some strange looks from the train inspector and staff. Fortunately, the remaining time went quickly as I snoozed fitfully in my chair. Once the train had arrived at Manchester Piccadilly, I caught another cab, and before I knew it, was in my laboratory. There appeared to have been no unwelcome visitors and no evidence of tampering, I was beginning to feel more human again. The neurones in my brain were starting to fire a little better now.

  I was safe.

  And then it hit me. Neurones.

  Even though I had been the brains and inspiration behind all our research, I was one now, when we had been four. How could it have escaped me? But I had never expected the last day to have turned out the way it had.

  I had no separtacle. And more importantly, the neural interface? My god, I needed her. She was supposed to have been with me in the event of an emergency, or at least be contactable. There was one crucial step in the process that Abby and only Abby could do.

  But she could be anywhere, and he was most likely to have taken her with him to see this future Sam!

  I was right royally screwed. Up shit creek without a paddle. How was I going to get back to them?

  I was trying to get back to the future without the Delorean. I hadn't forgotten about my love of movies in my younger days.

  "Shit," I said out loudly, and slumped into my work chair, with my head in my hands.

  What the heck was I going to do now? Would I sit and wait for them?

  And more importantly, when would they appear? We had our instructions, both Sam and I. To get this god forsaken device to that future version of us. But when would that be?

  20.

  We moved.

  Through time and space.

  Abby had fitted the crystals under my skin, two had sufficed. She had good surgical abilities, as it was a quick and easy procedure, although quite painful. I could feel the flap of skin on my forearm once they had been fully inserted, and it felt weird. I was using my original device, but I had possession of the other one, although it wasn't activated. I didn't even know if it would work for me, as it had been designed for the Professor's use only. What I did know was that we were both able to move imperceptibly and smoothly, and that an extra energy surge was definitely palpable.

  When we were moving, however, I couldn't really sense my forearm or any other part of me. But I could certainly feel her holding on to me. She was not holding hands or any other part of my body; it was certainly not a physical contact. It felt more intimate than that, like a melding of our minds; an embrace of our very souls.

  We moved for a long time, through lights and ribbons of time, and even though I didn't have a plan, I knew wherever we needed to be would be appropriate, and part of whatever plans the universe had in store for us. The whispering voices also followed us. I had got so used to them now, that I didn't notice them anymore. I didn't fear them now; they almost kept me company in the same way I listened to music on my headphones when I went for a long run.

  And then we slowed and stopped abruptly, as I was drawn to an exit point in time.

  I knew where I was very quickly, but it did look disturbingly different to the last time I had laid eyes on it.

  I was still in London, but everything had changed.

  I was standing on a tall building high up on a roof top, somewhere in the city on the north bank. I could see the whole London skyline before me, silhouetted in the evening sky, looking as impressive as ever. However, closer inspection revealed it had all changed, and the more you looked, the more horrific those changes appeared to be. There was purple neon everywhere. Some of the buildings were still recognisable, the Shard, Canary Wharf, St. Paul's Cathedral, but that was about it. I could see the London Eye, but it formed part of a vast, sprawling building complex that was about one hundred storeys high. It had no windows and seemed to be built of some strange brown stone that made it look more like a fortress.

  Vast empty buildings that used to be offices filled the darkness around the neon, and these were surrounded by massive piles of rubble. Where there once ran a dark and dirty river, sat a gigantic glass dome, snaking across London. Inside the dome, tiny red and white lights were moving around like bees, working furiously as if they were part of a hive. Perhaps it was some kind of fuel line or new power source for all the lighting I could see?

  The rest of the buildings were covered in neon signs advertising for Novertium, and at the centre of it all was a huge monstrosity of a building, dominating the centre of London, mainly on the south bank. It was constructed more of beams of light than conventional stone and brickwork. All around it I could see red and yellow searchlights moving over its walls and the sky, as if they were searching for some invisible intruder. This building was truly massive, extending up into the sky for what could have been half a mile.

  No other building in the skyline appeared to be lit independently other than with the Novertium logo strewn across windows and stone.

  In the air were balloons and those airships you see over golf championships working for the TV. Thousands of them. How they did not crash into each other or into the ground or buildings escaped me. These ships all had multiple red spotlights shining on the ground and adjacent buildings, a sea of red lights from all corners of this odd visage before me. Was it for effect or were they actually looking for something?

  There were countless small hovering objects about six inches in diameter, with blue search lights, roving closer to the ground, entering buildings, tunnels, even going underground on the tube network.

  And sirens, constant sirens with indecipherable words, though on closer listening, they were not just words as they sounded like commands or orders.

  And no other sounds.

  No sounds of people or real indications of people living. No taxis hooting at each other and buses steaming over bridges. No church bells ringing or children playing in school playgrounds.

  In simple terms, there was no life at all.

  And then the strangest thing of all. An image, a face, the facade of a person that was projected up on huge electronic billboards, like those you would see at Piccadilly Circus, but of a totally different magnitude. They were the size of large skyscrapers and there were three in total. Not just that, because there were multiple similar but miniature versions of this image, plastered on some of the smaller buildings, and these were moving around. The face was older and distorted, but I knew who it was.

  Mr Christopher Jonathan Stowe.

  The amusing
thing was that the image looked a little like the late Jocky Wilson, the darts player. I wondered if anyone had cottoned on to this yet.

  Was this the dystopian universe I had seen in so many movies? Not quite the oddness of 'Blade Runner,' but perhaps more sinister. Perhaps a Terry Gilliam movie, I believed Stowe was a fan of his; there were plenty of films to choose from. But the more I looked at the skyline, the more it reminded me of some cheap 'Doctor Who' set, depicting a futuristic London, and from this distance it didn't look like it was even real. It was as if it had been made up in some BBC CGI department, only not very well. But the noises, smells and pure gut feeling about this place put all that to bed. An airship hovered down over my position, and a searchlight ran over me, narrowly showing me up, like a beacon in the night sky. This was indeed a nightmare future. The fear started to rise up from my belly, as I looked around where I was standing.

  Why had I arrived at this point? I certainly didn't feel I had a huge amount of control of where I would end up, but why here? The intention had been to help future Sam, and to give him his device back. To help him. What had I hoped to achieve by arriving at this exit point? Maybe it was to prevent the catastrophe I had already had a brief glimpse of, but I couldn't see how I would fulfil this mission without some kind of guidance. God I missed Siris, and wished he were still around to tell me what I needed to do.

  I turned round and started to look for Abby. This was an old style roof top, with a number of small metal huts and even older style chimneys, bellowing smoke into the atmosphere. I couldn't see her, but I could hear something, and ran up and looked behind one of the little huts. She was throwing up a few feet away from it. Unsurprising, I thought, she hadn't endured a jump this far before, but proved she was human after all. At least I had got over the vomiting problem I thought to myself, and then promptly fell back as my legs gave way. I was totally exhausted and couldn't move. My arm with the home made surgery was killing me.

  "You need to recharge," she said, as she wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

  "Come here and I will show you how to replace the crystal," she added.

  I got up wearily and went over to her, showing her my arm. She found the flap of skin on my forearm and very delicately felt under it with her finger. The rummaging didn't hurt anymore as it just felt like a skin appendage, similar to touching my own earlobe. There was a pouch inside, and after some more fumbling, a rusted, smelly object fell out, only it was now black like a piece of coal.

  She asked me to remove two of the crystals from the velvet pouch in my pocket; she replaced mine and then did hers.

  Instant relief! I felt like my iPad coming back from 0% charge.

  Back from the dead.

  I sat back on the rooftop, breathing in the sulphurous air and listening to the sounds of the airships.

  I asked her, "What would happen if you didn't remove one of these fellas? What would it do to the skin on your arm?"

  Abby looked at me with surprise, a look I was already getting used to receiving.

  She said, "Think about it. Have you ever seen a dead battery left in an electronic device? Have you never seen it corroded and fuzzed up? Forget about your arm, a battery can destroy a device, just like this crystal can poison your entire body. You wouldn't be around long enough to find out."

  I swallowed back some imaginary spittle in my mouth and gulped.

  "Thanks for letting me know," I replied.

  We both got up and examined the view before us more carefully.

  "What year do you think it is?" I asked Abby.

  "Impossible to tell," she replied. "But we need to get the device to this Sam you saw."

  "How do we find him?" I asked.

  "Can't you make use of your magic device? Won't it take us to him?" she replied, mocking again.

  I was beginning to understand when she was being sarcastic now.

  I held it in my hand, squeezing it. Nothing. No sense that this, or any Sam, was here in this place. For some reason, I gave it a shake, in the vain hope it would work. Abby rolled her eyes at me again.

  "It doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Have I broken it?" I exclaimed, showing it to Abby.

  And then something. It was a faint feeling through the device, but something was coming from below, and whatever it was, it appeared to be close by. We listened closely to the sounds of steps, the distinctive chink of rapid footsteps on metal stairs approaching. In fact it felt like the sound was directly below us.

  "There's something very nearby, it's getting closer. I can't be sure what it is," I shouted.

  "We'd better take cover, it could be anyone, or maybe one of Stowe's people," said Abby.

  We moved around frantically on the roof terrace, and saw a door which hopefully led to a fire escape on the other side of the building. If we were quick, we could out manoeuvre whoever was approaching.

  "Quickly, go that way!" I shouted to Abby, pointing at the door.

  We sprinted across and opened the door, and then fell back in wonderment at the person looking back at us.

  There standing in front of us, with greying temples and wild eyes, Professor Samuel Berner. Abby's Sam.

  "Can I have my device back now, please!" he asked politely, while panting furiously.

  All I could think about was the fact that at least future me had held on to a full head of hair, irrespective of its colour.

  21.

  He was older. The hair was greyer. There was scarring over his right face, minimal, but nevertheless still visible.

  Abby grabbed him, and they embraced. It was her Sam. Thank goodness, I thought to myself, what better way to get some advice and guidance than from a better version of me. Where was the dude I had seen then? Could this point in history cope with three versions of me? I was getting confused with all the timelines and needed a lie down and maybe a swift beer.

  He shouted at us, but at the same time was laughing out loudly, trying to hold back his obvious overwhelming joy at seeing us again.

  He said, "It was the neural interface, I couldn't create a new one without you, Abby!"

  "But I had shown you how to do it!" she exclaimed, there were tears in her eyes.

  They held each other for a long time looking into each other’s eyes. Before I knew it, he had grabbed me as well, and started to hug me. I moved quickly, and managed to wriggle out of the uncomfortable embrace with myself.

  "And you, young Sam. Thank you. Thank you for what you did for both of us. For saving Abby. I will never forget what you did," said the Professor.

  He was now shaking both my hands with great fury.

  "N-n-no problem, Professor," I said, nervously.

  I surprised myself as I started to feel my own eyes welling up a little. For the first time in my life, I felt like I had achieved something. Had I been a hero? My actions might have made up for my cowardice in leaving Siris to be slaughtered like an animal in an abattoir.

  And then he started talking, excitedly.

  "Abby, there was one big problem. There was the part with the neural interface regarding time movement and exit points. I never mastered that bit, my love. You know I didn't. I could have created a device, but I might have ended up anywhere in time, with no way back. So I did the only thing I could. Wait. I knew for sure you would get back to here."

  "You mean you've been waiting all this time for us, all by yourself?" asked Abby. "How long has it been Sam?"

  She was stroking his cheek tenderly with her hand. He cleared his throat, his voice, wavering with emotion.

  "Twelve years, Abby. Twelve miserable years. I didn't know exactly where and when you would return, but I had the means to track you. I am a Professor after all," he said, winking at her.

  "As soon as you arrived, I was waiting for you, and I am sorry for startling you in the way I did, but you know I like creeping up on people!" he added.

  They stood there looking at each other. He thinking about the time he had lost; her thinking that she had gone off with the wrong
Sam. She could at least have been with him for the last twelve years, and could only imagine the fear and loneliness he had gone through over these years, completely on his own.

  He broke away from his trance and was suddenly very agitated.

  "We must move to somewhere that is safe, we cannot stay here, go now!" he commanded.

  Who was I to argue with a Professor?

  We moved down the stairs to ground level. It was an abandoned building, but could have been the major headquarters of a bank, left behind many years ago. On the street it was dark and raining. On this ground level, there was no neon, no light at all, just decay and death. He urged us to follow him as he walked on ahead of us at a remarkably fast pace. We wandered down streets of boarded up shops and abandoned coffee outlets. Litter was strewn everywhere. Much of the rubbish was made up of leaflets and propaganda, with pictures of our friend, telling people how to live their lives.

  'Welcome to Harnfeld, Join us at Novertium, your future is our business.'

  Interesting logo, but I wasn't hugely convinced, especially with the picture of Jocky underneath it.

  Around us, the stench of human waste and decay was overpowering. There was nobody. Not a soul to be seen. There was no one home in this particular future. Where were all the people? This last question was abruptly answered when we looked down the next road. A pile of maybe twenty or thirty, stacked on top of each other, in the middle of the road.

  People that is.

  In varying degrees of decomposition.

  It was absolutely revolting, and this time it was me that lost control of the contents of my stomach. I looked at Abby, and she just looked at me wide eyed and said nothing, like she was numb with the terror before her eyes. The Professor just continued on, as if oblivious to the hideous sight before us, I presumed he had become immune to the horror, if that was possible.