What about us? (29 page)

21
^st
September 3062

As I hurried along the corridor
to my quarters, the thoughts occupying my mind were of the meeting I’d had with
that alternative version of myself almost eight decades earlier, when I’d successfully
severed the link between myself and the young woman.  My life had not followed
the same course as his and we now knew that it was possible to change a
personal timeline.  That question at least had been answered and I felt
privileged to know that I was living proof of something that we’d believed to
be impossible.  Javier had forgiven me for not being more cautious and to a
great extent had found the situation interesting.  As a result, I’d been his
protégée and then his friend, right up to his untimely and senseless death.

It was hard to compare our two
lives, because all those years ago, a thought inhibitor had been deemed part of
the solution to my predicament.  I hadn’t refused the insertion of a small
device inside my brain, because I didn’t want his memories any more than I wanted
his life.  The science relating to the problems that breaking the golden rule
invariably caused was mainly untested, but the inhibitor worked well enough
most of the time, leaving me free to think my own thoughts and recall my own
memories.  But every now and then, ghosts from his life bled through.  For
reasons no one could really explain, this happened more frequently at times of
heightened brain activity or extreme stress.

The Board allowed me to
continue with my chosen profession, but I was reassigned to contemporary
history.  Parameters were set and my time travelling was limited accordingly. 
Generally speaking, it was never a problem; the previous two centuries were
interesting enough and I’ve always been good at whatever I choose to do.

The door silently slid open and
I stepped into what had been my home for more years than I cared to remember. 
Once inside I could disable the flashing lights telling all and sundry that
soon we would be under attack again.  With all our knowledge of ourselves, all
our experience and everything that history could tell us, here we were once
more, intent on killing each other.  Would we ever learn? I wondered wearily.

At the age of one hundred and
two, I was too old to fight and anyway, I lacked both the training and the will. 
I was approaching the age the other me had been when he’d ceased to exist, but
I’d earned for myself most of the knowledge he’d had, so the danger of knowing
something before its time had passed.

I wanted only to sit for a while
in the peace of my rooms and then later, if necessary and if the opportunity
presented itself, do whatever was required of me in order to protect our chosen
way of living and dying.

Settling into my favourite
chair, I realised that the meeting with my other self was still pushing out all
other thoughts and concerns.  Over the years I’d only ever thought of him in
passing, when my mind was at a loose end and then usually it was some quirk of
curiosity that prompted me to shuffle through the echoes.  Whenever he crept
into my awareness, I was always filled with the satisfying sensation that our
lives had been very different.

I have always lived alone,
never feeling the need to make room in my life for another person.  Of course
over the years I’ve shared some very pleasant times with others.  One in
particular was a charming, intelligent woman called Suri and I always smile
when I think of our time together.  But she had been ambitious and driven like
myself, so there had never been any real chance of a long and successful
relationship.  In fact, none of the women I’d ever admired had any more intention
than I had of giving up part of themselves or their hopes in order to support
those of another and I had no real regrets in that regard.  But occasionally,
what bled through was not a memory, it was an emotion; a warm, tremendous
impression of being loved.  Not of loving, but of being loved.  I disliked that
particular ghost because of the way it mocked me.  It belittled all that I had
achieved and left me feeling empty inside.

In fact I had a lot to be proud
of.  I’d had the privilege of working closely with Javier, one of the greatest
minds of our time and together we had enjoyed teasing the truth out of a situation
and laying it bare; only then was it of any use to us.  One of my talents is
the ability to see a problem and its possible solutions from all angles and only
by doing this could we examine the multitude of potential consequences.  He hadn’t
had to teach me this, it was a natural gift, but over the years he had honed
it, with the pleasing result that we became friends.  We had made a great team
and I still missed him.

I suddenly grasped why the
memory of meeting myself was bleeding through with such force.  There was an
anomaly, something was wrong.  I smiled; a puzzle was exactly what I needed
while I waited for the conflict raging outside to cease.

I dimmed the
lights, closed my eyes and requested soothing music; a clarinet piece from the
twenty-fourth
century.  I had discovered
that sometimes I could think around the inhibitor and in that way could access
echoes of his memories.  In many ways it was frustrating, because I could never
select a specific reference point from which to explore logically; after all,
they were a record of his life, not mine.  However, over the years I had built
up a mental library of the more interesting of these echoes and it was to them
that I turned.  I shuffled through them, trying to find a clue to what is was
that was bothering me.  Then I stopped in my tracks, realising that the anomaly
wasn’t in his memories; it was in mine.

I turned my mind back to the
cafe, carefully recalling the one conversation I’d had with myself, because it
seemed to be the most appropriate starting point.  I drifted through the scene
as though I were an unseen, uninterested observer, rather than one of the
protagonists.  I’ve always found that the truth is easier to find when emotions
are not involved and during that conversation I’d given vent to a lot of
youthful and powerful feelings, which I didn’t want to be sidetracked by.

There! I had it.  I focused on
it and ran through it one more time.  The woman lying in the road was clearly
of mixed race and young; maybe twenty years old at most.  The waitress might
have been a year or so older and the other two people in the street who had
ceased to exist at the moment she’d died were considerably more so.  One was
male and must have been in his late forties.  The other was female; older still,
late seventies perhaps.  Most importantly, they were all Caucasian.  I felt
sure that this was the anomaly, but I wondered what it was that linked them all. 
How had their lives become interwoven in such a way that their very existence
was dependant on hers?

In the next moment two very
worrying yet completely separate incidents happened.  The base shook, telling
me that we had sustained a direct hit and a ghost memory was released, probably
due to fear.  It troubled me greatly, because with great clarity I saw a memory
of his that should not be; one that could not be.

He had knowledge of something
fundamental that I had no memory of, but how could that be possible? As the
base shook, so did the very foundations of my own certainties.  I had only
seconds to decide what to do; the opportunity to investigate further would be
gone all too soon.

In times of extreme threat all
parameters are disabled, thus allowing travellers to return home.  Parameters
require energy and potentially having so many people returning at the same
moment requires maximum power.  There was no time to obtain clearance, so without
hesitating I set my timepiece for London, the 10
^th
of March in the
year 2000.  It was my duty to clarify matters and more importantly, it was
something that I could do well.  There would be no chance of meeting either of
my other selves, because neither of them had been there at that time and I
would be gone weeks before they were due to arrive.  A month would be ample
time to conduct my investigation and time being what it is, I knew I could be
back before the parameters were re-established or the base was destroyed,
whichever happened first.

It had been many years since I
was last in the early twenty-first century.  I arrived in the hall of a small,
recently built house and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  My
reflection looked just as he had, that time in the cafe.  I shook my head.  I
was no longer the arrogant young man I had been then; I’d become him, at least
physically.

I left the safe house, dressed
according to the day and made my way to where the accident would happen.  As I
walked I found I didn’t have to think around the inhibitor; his memories flowed
more freely in a time when they had a right to exist.  This was useful, because
many of them were centred in and around the cafe from where the other me had
raced out to save her.

At first I was disappointed;
service was provided by a waiter, not a waitress.  There were only a handful of
people in the cafe and as I watched him clear a table, I saw him scowl at the
mean tip that had been left.  I quickly realised that I could turn this to my
advantage; gaining his confidence was going to be easy.  I called him over,
ordered my lunch and gave him a ten pound note, telling him to keep the change. 
When he brought my bacon sandwich and mug of tea out from the kitchen, it
wasn’t difficult to engage him in conversation and he more than earned the
second ten pounds that I left under the mug.

A good memory is important in
any investigation and although mine has always served me well, it is as old as
I am.  From the cafe I walked to the point in the road where I knew the
accident would occur in two months time and studied it from all angles.  Then I
walked back; beginning to understand how my other self had been injured whilst
saving the young woman.

There was nothing in my memory
or his that led me to believe that the waitress knew this person to whom her
very existence was inexorably tied, other than the fact that my other self and
the young woman often ate in this cafe and that she frequently served them.  I
would not find out much from her about this apparent link, but from the overly chatty
waiter I knew that her name was Vicki Prentice and that she was studying
economics and politics at university.  The young woman who was soon to die had
left school with no qualifications, so it seemed to me that they had little in
common.  He had also told me that Vicki worked mainly evening shifts and he even
told me where she lived.  That would help later, when I was ready to talk to
her.  But first, I had to determine what it was that she might be able to tell
me.

The other two people were a
complete mystery to me and the waiter could not help me.  Even in the memories
of my other self they were no more than nameless bystanders.  It was my memory
that told me what had happened to them, not his.  Finding out about them was
going to be the most difficult part of my search for the truth.  Instead of
letting my mind dwell on frustrations, I turned to something easier.  He had
spent time with the young woman in question at her place of work, so I could
discover from his memory where to find her.  I easily found what I needed and almost
without having to think about it, made my way to the retirement home where she
worked.

The woman who opened the door
told me that dinner was in progress, even though it was only early evening. 
She appeared harassed, but let me in anyway.

“I’m sorry, I’ve come at a bad
time.” I said.  “When is visiting time?”

She smiled and told me that
usually it was all day; any time after ten am and that lunch was at midday.

“Thank you,” I said.  “I’ve not
been before you see and...”

She cut me off, making an
assumption.  “I suppose you’re here to see Mr Anderson.  He won’t have been
able to tell any of his friends and family much I don’t suppose.”

“No, indeed not.” I replied,
playing along.  “I’ll let you go.  I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“I’ll tell him you came by
Mr...?”

“Jack.  Tell him Jack stopped
by and that I hope he’s settling in just fine.”

She smiled and agreed to give
him the message.  “He’s a little confused, but then it’s all so new for him.  I’ll
tell him after dinner.”

I returned to the safe house. 
There was no need to hide; should anyone from my own time come looking for me I
would be able to explain everything.  However, I doubted that they would; they
had far more serious things to concentrate on.  Feeling satisfied with the
knowledge that my first day had given me, I decided to celebrate with a three
course meal in a restaurant.  After all, my last one had been a long time ago
and I’d always enjoyed that part of travelling, unlike many of my colleagues.

The following morning, when I
returned to the home I discovered for myself that John Anderson couldn’t tell
anyone very much, although he seemed happy enough for me to sit and chat with
him.  It was the least I could do to repay him for giving me such a good
opportunity to observe the young woman who was my real reason for being there.

I went to visit John, as I came
to know him, every day for a week and had the perfect opportunity to observe
undetected.  The young woman worked shifts, so she wasn’t always there, but
even in her absence I learnt things about her.  She was nineteen, this was her
first job and she treated everyone equally.  It didn’t seem to matter to her
that some of the people there didn’t understand a thing anymore and couldn’t
remember much of who they had once been.  She didn’t rush anyone and she didn’t
react in any way to some of the harsh comments about her colour, that shamefully
some of them made.