Through Your Eyes Page 13

  We turned the corner and the Professor pulled us down the steps of what could once have been some kind of trendy cellar bar. We went down and entered a dusty room, with pictures of jazz singers on the walls. Close. It was a former Jazz bar. He gathered some chairs, blowing the dust off them, and we sat down together to listen.

  I said, "So, Professor, what's been happening over the last twelve years? Fill us in with Stowe's next great plan. Have you located future Sam yet?"

  He looked at me with exasperation and with weary eyes.

  He said, "This is not a joke, nor is it one of your movies rolling around in your head. Sam, we have much to discuss. Please don't trivialise any of the things that are happening around us. Did you not see the piles of people on the streets, left out like rubbish for collection? This is for real. People are dying! Do you have any idea how bad things are?"

  "I'm not making light of the situation, just that it's so surreal to be here, in this place, and to be talking to myself," I said, genuinely, in my serious voice.

  "Ok, guys, let's all calm down. Garlan, sit down! Sam, please tell us what happened to you after the day at Novertium? How did you escape?" asked Abby.

  She filled the Professor in about my nickname, and he gave me a knowing smile. Who was this Garlan that Abby was now making me share a name with? It was obviously a private joke, and this guy Garlan was probably some imbecile they had both known. I left it alone, as they seemed happy to be with each other again.

  The Professor then gave us a brief account of his time in the torture room, and how he had not expected to escape. He told us about the most interesting discovery of how he was able to move without the device. Of how he had only used the residual energy of his crystal and whatever I had loaned to him during our meeting within the chamber. I stood there for a while wondering how that was all possible, without the power of the wonderful device, but then found the Professor clicking his fingers in front of my face.

  "Wake up, sleepy head! I think you have something of mine?" he asked, beaming at me.

  "Oh, oh yes. Sorry Professor, it's here somewhere," I said, nervously, as I rifled through my pockets for his toy.

  I gave him his device, and he looked at it with a proud smile on his face. He paused for a moment, deep in thought, and then he started.

  He filled us in about how he got out of the torture room in much greater detail, and of how he ended up in the peaks, eventually making his way to the second laboratory. I was particularly interested in his movement without the device, and using our residual energy after our first meeting in the chamber. He was very keen to repeat that point over and over again. I had thought of something amusing to say at that point regarding my obvious virility, but under the circumstances decided to button it.

  "How did you track us to here?" asked Abby.

  "That was fairly straightforward. I used this," he said.

  He pulled something out of his jacket that looked like a phone, as it had a smartphone screen. It wasn't a device like mine, but had green dots moving around on its front viewer. It looked like radar read out.

  "This was one of the first things I made. It is a temporal locator. Basically, anybody who moves in and out of my timeline is monitored with this. That was how you came to my attention today. You showed up like a Christmas tree and nearly gave me a heart attack!"

  I said, "So how many such movements have you seen over the last twelve years?"

  "You're the first," he said, glumly, putting the device back in his pocket.

  "Well that's good isn't it? Stowe either isn't interested in the device, or has not mastered the technology to use it properly or build a new one. What is his grand plan? Can you tell us about why everything has changed? The London skyline is looking somehow different, Professor, and it's a little scary to say the least," I said.

  He sat down and started to tell us a long story.

  "He's a madman. It all started insidiously, pretty much from the day all the commotion started. He's a computer expert and started to take control of the financial world using some clever market manipulation. It was all totally illegal of course, but he got away with it. Nobody saw it coming, and then one day he was a majority share owner in every single major British company. He then repeated this in every major economy in the world and then gradually put every other major company out of business.

  Gradually, he was global business, a total monopoly on every single commodity there was. He owned everything. He owned you and me. Governments had to go cap in hand to him to prevent catastrophe and even starvation. Eventually, some of the powers that be got fed up with him, and decided to take action against him. The major governments of the world put together a joint military task force in an attempt to overthrow him.

  And that was when the problems really started.

  Follow me and let me show you some of his fine work."

  We went upstairs, and climbed a wooded ladder up to the loft and eventually on to the roof. We stood on top, and looked down at the macabre view before us.

  The Professor said, "Look down at the Thames where it used to be. What do you see down there?" he said, pointing down below us.

  We saw the same snaking dome, with a myriad of red lights darting around in it, like fireflies in the night sky. I thought that at least this river flowed better than the previous one.

  He continued, "I have footage of what's inside. I managed to sneak in to find out what was going on. Let me show you."

  He produced an electronic viewer from his jacket pocket that I presumed he had either constructed or stolen, and pressed the play button.

  It showed darkness, and then the Professor appeared on the screen. He was tearing a hole through the globe with a hand held laser. As he entered the giant building, there were thousands of red lights darting around.

  But the lights were attached to sources.

  People. Thousands upon thousands of people.

  There were not only adults but small children, and they all appeared to be busy at work, milling around, working circuitry and manning monitors. Some of them looked as if they were entering commands into virtual keyboards in front of them. My god, this dome was the powerhouse of Novertium, but it was powered by everyday people whether they wished it or not.

  On either side of their faces were small red lights attached to their temples.

  "They are his work force," he said.

  "And if you look in the sky, they are also his army. He never understood the time element of our research, but he knew enough about computers and neuro-cybernetic implants. Mind control. He controls most of the human race to his own end. Anybody who doesn't like it will get annihilated by his armies," he added.

  "These red lights you have seen everywhere are an advanced version of the pre-cursors you have already experienced, young Sam. Siris also experienced them during the very last moments of his life," he continued, his head dropping with sadness.

  "They are weapons in every sense of the word; of the flesh and the mind. So this is it; your future and my reality. This was the plan Stowe had hidden from us all this time. He had just wanted our contribution for the neural interface, and he nearly got all of our technology except for the device," he added.

  "What now?" said both Abby and I, simultaneously.

  "We put a stop to it," he said.

  "With these."

  He was pointing at our devices.

  22.

  I stood up in the cellar room. I had the plan all clear in my mind. I was confident, and was sure it was going to work. I would explain it all, perhaps in a Michael Caine voice, involving driving mini cars and blowing the doors off the dome.

  "Easy, Professor, we just go back and stop Stowe when this all started. Stop him at the beginning and all this depravity will never have happened. We have two devices don't we? He won't be able to stop the two of us, we could be an amazing team, you and I," I said.

  I looked at him and gave him a wink, and immediately regretted it, as I willed him to nod and agree
with me. I daren't even peek at the look on Abby's face.

  The Professor stared at me and I was correct; he didn't look too impressed.

  He said, "Not so easy. He has developed something called temporal jamming that blocks the use of our devices, and come to think of it, any device other than his own equipment. Remember, he owns and runs everything in this world. He wants you Abby, as well as me, he wants to make sure we can't ruin this utopia he thinks he is living in. It's not enough for him to dominate the world like this; he wants us, and the technology we possess. You can come into this time, but you cannot leave. It is a bit like a telephone that takes incoming calls only. You can't dial out. Try it," said the Professor.

  He was smiling and pointing at my device.

  I fumbled around with the gadget, placing my finger in it with a swagger, like a gunslinger, I thought. I had done it so many times now that it was almost second nature. I was a master of time after all, according to Abby!

  I flicked it.

  Nothing.

  I tried again, breathing heavily and panicking a little.

  Nothing. It was dead.

  I said, "Sorry guys, a bit embarrassing. Maybe it's malfunctioning and I need to try something else. Why don't you see if your one works?"

  I pointed at the Professor.

  However, when I looked at him properly, he was showing me his hand with the device on it, fully engaged. He must have had it like that for the entire time I was talking. Was he trying to make me look even more foolish than I already was?

  He said, "Sam, it was the first thing I did when you gave me my device. Nothing works. Sure, the device can perform rudimentary tasks and movements, but that's about it. It's like there's a giant protective shield preventing us from moving out. He wants us here. He wants us out of this history, so that we cannot change his future, his history making."

  I said, "But he sent his goons back to get me. They killed Siris. How did they get back from your timeline? Did they come back?"

  The Professor was shaking his head and looked angry.

  "Oh, he had technology alright to send them back. But he didn't tell them it was a one way trip. They still work with him, but have aged as I have, or at least one of them still works with him. I don't know what kind of hold he has over him but he is still here, your friend, the one with the nickname we have for him, Solomon Grundy, he is definitely here, I've seen him. Their plan had been to return and kill me which technically meant killing you at the beginning, and then to steal my, I mean your device. But they failed, you escaped them somehow."

  I felt an involuntary shiver go down my entire body. I really never wanted to see that guy ever again, and he was already here, waiting to pounce on me when I wasn't looking.

  I wondered if he still had the pork pie hat.

  I asked, "But Professor, your escape from their prison. You managed to do that without a device. Can we not do that again?"

  He replied, "That was a tiny movement in space, not time, and you were instrumental in that happening. I don't exactly know how that happened, but think you would almost certainly need a working device."

  Abby said, "There must be a way we can manipulate the devices past this shielding. The three of us should be able to do something?"

  The Professor smiled and looked at Abby, while tapping the side of his nose with his finger.

  He said, "Now that you are here, Abby, you can help me put the final finishing touches on these," he said.

  He put his hand in one of his jacket pockets and pulled out what looked like a jumble of wires and lights.

  I looked at them with incredulity.

  I said, "That's it, that's your plan, they look like some jump leads. Are you going to hot wire a car and drive it through the dome? Is that how you're going to destroy Stowe?"

  The Professor looked at me and for the first time, I noticed he was disappointed in me, though didn't comment on it.

  He said, "We are not hot wiring vehicles and we are certainly not destroying anything, there are too many innocent people working in the dome. Stowe has got a fortress down there and we will not be able to bring him down by conventional means. Governments have tried and failed and there is no one left to even challenge him now. We have got to get inside this machine of Stowe and these are our tickets in. He knows a lot about computers, so think of us as the Trojan horse, but of the human kind. He won't see us coming!"

  I stared at the Professor like the chimp I knew I was and shook my head.

  Abby nodded and snapped her eyes back at me, giving me her familiar tut.

  "Don't be an idiot, Garlan. I can see what you want to do, Sam. Infiltration. We get inside the dome with fake neural links. If we can get in, we won't be attacked by his forces, and can take Stowe's power source out from the inside. Maybe we can destroy the dampening field while we're at it."

  Abby and Professor Sam smiled at each other. The chemistry was still there. I thought to myself, he was still attractive to her despite being twelve years older now. Although his appearance looked comical to me, I knew he was me, or at least the way I would look someday, but he looked like one of those guys in movies, where the actor has make up done to 'old up'. You can always see through it, and I was sure if I wiped the hair on his temples, the white dye would come off in my hands, although those wrinkles looked pretty real.

  I was just jealous. Jealous even though he was me, that he could be with someone like Abby, even after all this time for him.

  He still 'had it.'

  My efforts at attracting the opposite sex were at best hopeless and I was supposed to be in the prime of my life! What had changed in my future to give me the confidence that I saw before me?

  "Can I help?" I asked.

  Well I had to offer, but didn't really see what I could do to assist them, other than being a tea boy. They looked at me with raised eyebrows like I was a child, which was probably a fair reflection seeing as I was a lowly researcher, and these guys were Professors at the cutting edge of their field.

  "Ok fair enough," I said.

  I was waving my hands at them, in acknowledgement that this was grown up business. I got up and went to sit in the corner. As they got to work on the fake mind controllers, I started playing with the device, getting it out and placing my finger into the back of its casing. Pulling it out of my pocket like a gun and saying 'stick em up' to some imaginary intruder. This plan was far-fetched, but the Professor had spent many years collecting information and getting ready for this infiltration. I was sure he would have looked at all the problems and possibilities of this heist.

  They laughed and joked as they worked together, almost as if none of the last twelve years had ever happened. They were able to just pick up from where they had left off, both on a professional and personal basis, or at least that was what it appeared to me. Screwdrivers and micro spanners and the smell of hot solder and burning plastic. This industry continued for a good couple of hours, as they chatted and chuckled away, pretty much working their socks off. I didn't mind being excluded from these moments and, after a while, closed my eyes and rested my head on some sort of large hessian sack on the floor in the corner.

  My last vision was of the Professor and Abby working away furiously. Chatting, laughing and bantering. Was this the way it always was when they were working together? God I envied them. I thought about this Stowe and how he linked in with the future version of me. What had happened in this timeline and was there an inevitability that we would still end up at that same point in the future? Would future Sam lose Abby again and were we facilitating this terrible ending again, either by following our instructions to the letter or by disobeying them and doing something different this time? The ramifications of this time conundrum started to make my brain ache and I tried to rid my mind of all potential eventualities.

  Gradually, I felt myself drifting away into a deep sleep. I dreamed of the chasm and the future Sam looking down into it, holding Abby in his arms, dragging me down into it, a feeling of fa
lling that I had experienced since I was a kid. As we started falling, I was desperately holding my device trying to get it to work, to save us all from the hell that lay below us. Then I realised that I had no device, it was gone, and I had nothing to help me but streaks of stars and eyes all around me.

  When I awoke, I was startled.

  Somebody was speaking to me and red lights were shining in my eyes that were blinding, bringing back horrible memories of my past encounter. What had happened? Had we been discovered by Stowe and his cronies? The ugly man with the teeth must have got here? The pork pie hat suddenly appeared in my mind. Come to think of it, pork pies appeared in my head as well.

  "What's happened. Who's there. What do you want?" I shouted, flapping my arms in the air.

  Laughs. Cackles. Followed by sniggers from my supposed friends.

  "Calm down, calm down, sorry but we couldn't resist the temptation!" said Abby.

  "What is it?" I shouted, still disorientated.

  "Buckle up junior, this is our ticket to the dome," said the Professor.

  He was standing with Abby and they both wore the head devices with the red lights activated. They looked very convincing, especially when Abby rolled her eyes impersonating one of the poor souls I had seen on the Professor's covert video shoot. They passed me another head device, and I placed it over myself, switching the light on. Ready to rock and roll.

  At that precise moment, after he called me junior, he reminded me of Sean Connery with hair.

  Although that would mean I was Indiana Jones and this version of me was not just afraid of snakes.

  23.

  The old man slowly got up of the floor and looked up at the chair at the top of the marble staircase. He was weak and had not eaten a proper meal for months, more bone than flesh. As he peered up, he was forced to shield his eyes with an arm, as he was hit by a dazzling light from above him, making the person he was looking up at look ethereal. His entire body only appeared as a silhouette.