The Power of Forgetting (46 page)

We slowly sank
into the thicker bushes. We lay there motionless. I didn't have
time to indulge any fear. This wasn't about being clever; it was
just about not getting caught.

A few minutes
later, there was no whisper of air. The night was becoming stiller
and warmer again. Set against the backdrop of this magical warmth,
we were still waiting. Oliver was right next to me; but you would
have to trip over him to know he was there. Normally I would have
succumbed to the enforced stillness, and entered some hyper relaxed
state, while still remaining alert.

But I was
anxious in a way that was creeping me out, rather than causing me
to do anything silly. Oliver had relieved me of that impulse quite
easily. So we carried on waiting, and the tension of something, or
someone watching and waiting somewhere nearby was too much. I
pressed my face further into the dirt and tried to focus. It was
beginning to feel the first pangs of panic again.

'Easy…. Easy
now.' It was the first time Oliver had spoken for at least twenty
minutes.

A few minutes
later he slowly sat up with his back against a nearby tree. He was
scanning the distance, looking for slight movement between the
boles of trees that could not be accounted for by the occasional
breath of a night breeze.

'Clear now.' He
said, and I sat up too with my back against the same tree. We
flexed our muscles to relieve the stiffness. I waited for him to
speak again.

'We have waited
long enough.' Oliver said.

'Thank God!' I
said at last.

'You've been
silently shouting it ever since last night.' Oliver was
matter-of-fact, 'something is going wrong with the whole
thing.'

'It was always
a crazy idea.' I said.

'Admitting that
you should never trust your friends is hard.' He said.

'Oh.'

'You think
they're all compromised.'

'Yes.' I
said.

'You're right.'
Oliver nudged me. I took the water canister from him without
comment.

I took a good
mouthful before responding, 'I'm right?'

'Yes.'

'Really?'

'Yes.' Oliver
inflected it with more of an accent.

I ran my hands
through my hair, which flopped annoying in my eyes. I breathed
slowly, steadily, focusing calming myself. There was time. There
was always time. I took another sip.

'Better?'
Oliver held out a hand, I gave him the water bottle back.

'Yes, now I am.
A little…'

'Ready in
five?' Oliver asked.

'Make it two
minutes.' I replied.

'How does it
work really?' Oliver asked as we crouched in a small clear space
near another tree.

'I think it's
about feeling the connection. Just think about someone keeping
tight hold of your hand. Then you should feel a sudden pull. After
that, even if you try, you won't be able to let go.'

'Like a strong
magnet?'

'Yeah, I guess.
A very strong magnet. You really can't let go.'

'Alright, I get
it. What about arriving?'

'The connection
breaks as soon as you arrive. And the time flux surrounding you
dissipates in two minutes.'

Oliver grinned
at me, as far as I could tell, from the low level of illumination,
'Two minutes again. I must start a collection.'

'Of
things?'

'Of
moments.'

'Oh,' I said,
'doesn't that end up being a bit weird?'

'Collecting
times you've had? Nah! That way I don't have it weighing down the
pack.'

I fiddled with
my jacket clips feeling a bit freaky. After all, what did I have
but past imperfect on the memory front?

'I don't
remember.' I said.

'You don't have
to.' it was understandable that Oliver was being so reassuring,
after all I was about to mess with his molecules in a way that made
anything that you saw on TV seem easy by comparison.

'Alright?' I
held out a hand.

'Are you now?'
Oliver grasped my forearms very firmly.

'Yes…' I said
beginning to focus, as I locked my grip round his arm just above
the wrist also; 'I'm…. it’s….'

'Just relax,'
said Oliver, 'I think it's working.'

I felt then a
tingle or charge pass over us both. I relaxed my grip, but my hands
felt as if they were fused to Oliver's arms, and in turn his were
to mine. I shut my eyes, and dipped down into the bright threads
that were the mental picture of the time energy within. Almost
immediately a golden thread swirled round us. My eyes sprung open.
Like fine spider webs of golden silk, they spun round us, gently
glowing in the dimness of late evening. Neither of us spoke, but I
saw Oliver's face. His eyes were wide with a look of delight, a bit
like a kid a Christmas. He smiled at me and laughed.

I felt that
lift then; it was a lightness of heart, a strange euphoria for my
senses. A sense of waking….

Then I focused
on the time and place… ten to one near the old corridor. There was
a sudden rush of gold filaments, as if we had been brushed by
someone's hair. Then a brief sensation of coolness, then….

I sat down
suddenly on the floor. Our hands broke apart. Oliver remained
crouching down, balanced on both feet. He rested his fingertips on
the floor. He seemed fine, just waiting the required two
minutes.

I was on the
other hand, having some difficulty getting back up into a crouched
position. So I opted for sprawling on the floor in an untidy heap.
The feeling then was of something disappearing down a plug hole.
The shimmer of static going to earth it seemed. I bent forward
then… I felt hollow and strange. I breathed slowly and tried not to
gag as a feeling of extreme nausea rolled over me. The sweat rose,
and my throat contracted. I leaned forward to press my head against
the cool floor.

Oliver was
beside me then, 'Come on,' he whispered, 'I think we need to get
moving straight away.'

'I…. I'm
coming….' I forced myself to my feet. We started to jog across the
wide silent dark space. Oliver kept hold of me. I had to squeeze my
eyes shut every few yards to stop the queasy feeling. Just ahead
still arches appeared in the dimness. For some reason we had ended
up in the marble hall. I didn't have time to consider the reason
why, as Oliver pulled me sideways behind a column arch. We stayed
still. Somewhere in the middle of that vast space a single light
bobbed along. It was impossible to tell whether it was near to us
or not. We waited. The light: - a lantern we assumed continued its
undulating path for several minutes, during which time the sickly
feeling eased. All at once the light was eclipsed, and no further
points of brightness came into view.

We both
breathed in relief.

'You okay now
Captain?' Oliver might have been amused, but I could see in the
semidarkness.

'Fine. Yeah,
just fine. You?'

'It was pretty
cool. I thought I'd seen everything. But that was… really good
fun.' He was definitely smirking then at my pathetically weak
stomach.

'In my
defence,' I said as we started to move again, 'I did get us to the
right place…. Well, nearly.'

'Uh….
Jared?'

'What?'

'It's
night.'

'Oh….
shit!'

'Hush now….'
said Oliver, we will need to find what time it is exactly. Let's
keep it soft and low…'

'Sounds like a
diet spread.' I said.

'No talking.'
said Oliver as we slipped into a corridor.

In a few
minutes we had found our way to those back corridors or unused
rooms. I was puzzled by the speed which we reached that same
deserted school room. Outside the moon was setting.

'It's about 4
am,' said Oliver as he hunted round the room, 'ah, here it is… I
thought so.'

'What?'

'Wiring.'

'So?'

'I'll just
connect into the system. We'll have the date, time a current
situation in a sheep shearing minute.'

I watched as
Oliver quickly attached a set of wires from his pack. He set the
small gadget onto a dim display setting. A moment later we found a
set of code.

'That one.
Environmental systems. Not protected by the main shell of the
building's security. One moment… here.'

He shoved a
pencil and paper into my hand.

'August First
112 BC.' He said slowly.

'Are you
sure?'

'Yeah, pretty
much. It is going to be one of those days. I can tell.'

'Anything
else?'

'Wait…' Oliver
moved the small cursor. 'Something…. I don't know. Something
attached to the date settings. Odd…'

'What is
it.?'

'A moment and
I'll tell you.' He fiddled some more with the small device, then
quickly disconnected it.

'I think,' said
Oliver, 'I may have accidentally stumbled upon a little bomb.'

'Tell me.'

'Not a bomb
that goes boom, but one that goes nuke ‘em through the whole
computer system.'

'But isn't that
what we want?'

'Yes, and no.
the system that this was placed in wasn't the main data core. It is
a lower security system. One that their general personnel have
access to, no one would ever think to look in it… because no one
would either be stupid enough; or brilliant enough to put something
there.'

'A bomb that
will fry the whole system?'

'Exactly.'

'What is the
problem with that?'

'We have to
stop it if we can.'

'Why?'

'It is going to
destroy everything….'

'You mean
explode don't you?'

'Well… I don't
know exactly if that will happen… most likely it might.'

'If you're
going to say boom, then say it!'

'Alright, '
Oliver regarded me with a level sense of pity, 'at midnight
tomorrow the whole thing is going to go Boom!'

'Brilliant you
say?'

'Yes.'

'Okay, so what
has She done?' I asked him.

'How did you
know?'

'Female
intuition. Where to now?'

'Erm… you do
realise that we have arrived back into last night, don't you?'

'Last night….
But that's the right date…. Oh, but it would be of course, it's AM.
Okay, sorry…. Really mucky jump; not a tidy one at all.'

'Well it does
give us time… but we need to be really careful. There is the
possibly of major…. Err, paradox.'

'That's the
one.' I said lightly. Whether this really would be the case, I
didn’t know. Perhaps that's why I felt so light. Chance to muck
things up in an entirely new way this time….

I considered
what I had already seen, before we come to this place. We sneaked
along dark and deserted corridors, with a creepy sense of ease that
somehow made my musings all the more irrational. Oliver seemed
quite stuck on one thing. That we had to make sure that the
building didn't go into meltdown. I wasn't sure why, so I asked
him.

'That's what
happens when you switch off the environmental control. Therefore….
there must be an electrical grid somewhere.'

'What on
earth?'

'Like a mini
power station. Whatever it is, it pulling one hell of a lot of
power.'

'The labs.'

'Yes, the
labs.' Oliver looked sideways at me for a moment, 'I don't think we
are going to like what we find.'

'So where is
all the power being generated from?'

'Come on!
Jared; you need the clear your mind. Start working it through. If I
thought that this…. talent of yours dumbed you down that much, I
would never have come.'

I fell into a
sullen silence for a while, as we edged along yet another
featureless corridor. He'd got a point. I wasn't at my best. But
considering all the stress that everyone had endured since the
whole experiment began, I was at least still able to make rational
assessment of the facts. Trouble was I didn't have all the
facts.

We stopped, and
listened. A sound. Something familiar, domestic even. A low
continuous note with an undulating resonance that made your teeth
feel nervous.

'It's cooler
down here.' Oliver said.

'Ten degrees.'
I said, flipping open the suit flap to view the small readout on my
arm.

'Switch it over
the wrist viewer,' Oliver instructed, 'then we can tread
carefully.'

We moved a few
more feet. Oliver put his right hand against the wall.

'There's
something behind here.' He moved his hand, then pressed his ear
against it and frowned.

I checked the
readout again. Nine degrees. Oliver straightened up.

'It's somewhere
along here. We will have to find a way in.'

'The map
doesn't mark anything at the end of this corridor, it must the
right place.'

'Very good,'
said Oliver, 'getting back up to speed.'

'Eight degrees,
' I said as we trod softly along this grey map marked dead end.

Suddenly there
it was; a door. Secure, large, formidable and a strange dark
black…. When I say dark black, I mean that there seemed to be no
reflection form its surface. It was like the black of a black
board. The darkness that is found in a cellar; like coal; or the
sleek surface of a modern electronic gadget, but with no reflection
to indicate it boundaries. The edges of the frame were the normal
grey colour; and it seemed to have no markings or joint of any
kind.

'Blast door.'
said Oliver, 'give me a hand with this panel.'

He already had
three of the screws out. I took them and he removes the last
three.

'The secret, '
said Oliver, 'to getting in through any door. Is to remember that
they have to be able to get through it when they need to with ease.
Every system is built for convenience of the end user. And therefor
always has a weakness.' With this he attached the wire of the
gadget to the connector behind a key pad.

'And the code
is?' he looked at me.