Arcadia

3

As far as Jack More was concerned, the outside world, unhealthy and artificial though it might be, was a tantalising idea of freedom. So he often came to the large display screen that decorated the space leading to the conference rooms, just to stare and remember. It wasn’t real; there were no windows anywhere in the complex, but it was better than nothing. At the moment, it was an imaginary but fairly realistic view of cows and hills and grass. Only the hills might still actually exist, but he liked looking at it nonetheless. In a moment it would change to empty snow-topped mountains, also imaginary as no snow had fallen anywhere in the world for at least a decade. He didn’t know why it was there. Few except him had any interest in the outside world; everything of importance lay inside the huge, sealed building they lived and worked in. It was dangerous and frightening outside.

He turned as he heard voices. A little group was walking along the corridor that led to the research area, talking quietly. He scowled in annoyance. He wasn’t meant to be in this part of the facility; he was meant to stay in the administrative block, and certainly he was not meant to hear anything that others might say.

Then there was an explosion of wrath from around the corner. Jack stopped in his tracks and positioned himself to observe without attracting attention. The group of scientists formed a sort of defensive gaggle, huddling together to meet the approaching threat.

The source of the noise was a mathematician by the name of Angela Meerson. She strode into sight, the look of thunder on her face contrasting strongly with the flat, compliant appearance of the others. Everything else was different as well; she was taller, dressed in vivid purple, while they wore the almost uniform grey-brown look of their type. Her hair was long, and untidy, as though she had just got out of bed. Their gestures were measured and controlled, hers free-flowing and as ill-disciplined as her hair, which had been valiantly organised into a complicated bun at some stage and then allowed to grow wild.

The researchers collectively decided to pretend she wasn’t there. This was a mistake on their part. She did not take kindly to it.

‘Where is he?’ she bellowed at the top of her voice. Some looked shocked at her lack of respect, control and decorum. Others were merely frightened. They weren’t used to such behaviour, although some had worked with her in the past and had witnessed her explosions before. They generally meant that she was working hard.

‘Well? Can’t you talk? Where is the devious little weasel?’

‘You really should calm yourself,’ said one anxiously. ‘The protocols for registering dissatisfaction are clearly laid down. I can forward the documentation, if you like, I’m sure...’

‘Oh, shut up, you moron.’ She brandished a piece of paper in his face. ‘Look at this.’

He read it with what looked like genuine surprise. ‘You are being suspended,’ he observed.

‘Is that a smirk on your face?’

‘Of course not,’ he replied hastily. ‘I didn’t know anything about it. Really.’

She snorted. ‘Liar,’ she said.

‘There’s a hearing tomorrow. I’m sure everything will be explained.’

‘Ha!’ she cried out. ‘Tomorrow? Why not today? Shall I tell you? Because he’s a weasel.’

‘I’m sure Dr Hanslip has the best interests of everyone in mind, and it is our duty to obey his wishes. We all have complete faith in his leadership and I don’t see what you hope to achieve through such a display.’

She gave him a look of withering disgust. ‘Do you not? Do you really not? Then watch me. You might learn something.’

She hurled the crumpled piece of paper at him, making him flinch, then wheeled around and marched off down the corridor, going ‘Ha!’ twice before she disappeared.

The group broke out into giggles of nervous relief. ‘Must be tanked up again,’ one said. ‘She needs it to get up to full power. She’ll come down again in a day or two.’

‘She really is quite mad, though,’ added another. ‘I don’t know how she’s lasted this long. I wouldn’t stand for it.’ Then he noticed Jack watching from the sidelines. He glared and dropped his voice.

I very much hoped my dramatic exit impressed them all; I was certainly not feeling so very confident at that moment. My relations with Hanslip had always been fragile, to say the least, but for a long time that fragility had been firmly in the domain of what you might term creative tension. He disliked me, I couldn’t stand him, but we sort of needed each other. Like an old-time musical duo: Robert Hanslip on money, Angela Meerson on intelligence. We talked, as well, and his stupidity often enough made me think and consider things anew. This time, however, it was different. He had gone too far. I had just discovered a plot to steal my work and sell it to that creature Oldmanter, perhaps the foulest, most poisonous man on the planet. That was my opinion and I admit that others thought differently. But they were idiots.

What’s more, I had found out that he had been working on this scheme for some time, all the while lying to my face. I’d known, of course, that he was up to something, but it was only by chance that I put the pieces together, because of a surprise visit by the sort of person I would normally have ignored.

‘Lucien Grange, sales representative’, it said on the daily manifest. What do I care for such people? They come and go all the time, hawking their wares. Only by chance did I notice this particular one, and then only because of a leaky pipe in a corridor, which meant that I had to take a diversion through some of the lesser passageways. Only because Lucien Grange chose that precise moment to come out of the room he had been assigned to. I remembered him; I knew I did. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew he was important to me, and not because of any facility he might have with toilet brushes. Eventually, in a small disused corner of my memory, I found it. Eighteen years previously, we had spent some time together at an out-of-the-way institute in the South of France, on the very fringes of the great desert that stretched from the Pyrenees right down to South Africa. I’d wanted to see more but fell ill, and spent my time in a coma instead; as soon as I began to recover they shipped me back north, and by then I was too drugged even to look out of the window of the helicopter.

I couldn’t for the life of me remember why, but the memory made me feel uncomfortable. Not that it mattered; the important detail was the fact that I knew him, and I was not in the habit of knowing sales representatives. I wasn’t even allowed, technically, to talk to them. It destroyed the mystique of scientific aloofness so important to us in the elite. Familiarity breeds contempt; they might see through us.

When I got to my office, I poured myself a glass of wine — medicinal purposes only, licensed and perfectly legal — then set to work. It didn’t take long to track him down. Sales representative, forsooth! In fact, he was senior vice-president of Zoffany Oldmanter’s prime research outfit, and a rapid look through his activities showed that he specialised in gobbling up lesser operations and binding them firmly into Oldmanter’s ever-increasing empire. He was a corporate hit man, in other words; a trained scientific assassin.

Now he was here, pretending to be flogging hygienic sundries. Suddenly everything made sense. I had been on the verge of finally telling Hanslip about the little experiment that proved I was correct; I had even sent a message asking for an urgent appointment, but I realised it was too late. I now understood everything, and a powerful surge of emotions ran through me. This project was mine; he wasn’t going to rip it from my arms.

I bottled it up for as long as I could, which was about ten minutes, then went to confront Grange in his room. The look of shock on his face when I walked through the door was very revealing.

‘I hope you remember me. You’re not taking my machine,’ I announced as I slammed the door shut so he couldn’t escape.

‘I beg your pardon?’

Actually quite a handsome fellow; it’s amazing what technology can accomplish. He must have been older than I was.

‘What this facility does is low-grade garbage, except for my work; one of Oldmanter’s acolytes wouldn’t cross the street for any of it. If you have travelled five hundred miles to a boggy island in the north-west of Scotland, then it is because of my machine. Don’t deny it. Nothing else could attract the attention of that crook.’

‘I will not have Mr Oldmanter referred to in that way.’

Toady, I thought.

‘Nor is it appropriate for me to discuss such matters with staff.’

Staff? Me? What was Hanslip saying about me behind my back? What role was he claiming for himself? That he had done all the work? That it was his idea? It wouldn’t have surprised me.

I decided to pile on the pressure and burst into tears. Naturally, that sent him into a panic. I had learned over the past fifty years that uncontrolled displays of emotion were capable of inducing a sense of terror when released in a confined space. I was used to them; my work depended on their judicious deployment. Most people would run a mile to avoid even being in close vicinity and Grange was now obviously feeling disoriented.

‘Oh, Lucien!’ I sobbed. ‘After all these years! You do not even remember me!’ Odd; I was most certainly putting it on, but a part of me was feeling genuine distress, although I did not understand why.

I could almost see him running through the options for how to fend me off. ‘Good God! I mean, ah...’

I collapsed on the settee and sobbed into my sleeve, taking the occasional peek to see if this was having the desired effect. Eventually, he tentatively approached. ‘Of course I remember you,’ he said. ‘But that was a long time ago and best forgotten. Besides, I am under strict instructions. Complete the deal, then leave. There is no time for personal sentiment. Much as I would have liked...’

‘How long are you staying?’

‘I plan to wrap up tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow!’ I shrieked, standing up abruptly and rounding on him. ‘You are going to do a deal for my project by tomorrow? You don’t even know what you’re buying.’

‘Of course we do. We’ve been studying the proposals for months.’

I must have seemed shocked, or perhaps he thought I had a slightly murderous air, and he went all official on me again. ‘This is not appropriate. You must talk to your employer; you are not authorised to talk directly to me.’

It didn’t matter. He had told me enough already. I swept out in tearful triumph. An hour later, I got the letter of suspension. Hanslip was one step ahead of me.

It goes without saying that I never had the slightest intention of turning up to his ridiculous disciplinary committee. It was pretty obvious, after all, that it was going to be filled with his creatures. He would pronounce, anything I said would be ignored, and then I would be bundled aside to clear the way for his nasty little plot. The stuffed toys he surrounded himself with would nod and agree to anything he wanted, and I would be locked out of my own work as he handed it over to Oldmanter and his team of overpaid half-wits.

So I had two priorities. The most important was to hang on to my property; the second was to prevent the entire universe being reshaped in the image of a bunch of thugs and reduced to ruin. I was on the verge of a major breakthrough in understanding. I wasn’t there yet, but if I was right, then a fascinating experiment could well metamorphose into the most dangerous discovery in the history of humanity. It would be better, in my opinion, to be sure before letting other people play around with it too much. Oldmanter’s lot would not be so cautious. Already I had seen alarmingly covetous looks in Hanslip’s eyes as he contemplated the possibilities.

I was not thinking quite as clearly as I should have been; I’d been working long and hard in the previous few days and my brain was still befuddled with the effects of the stimulants. As they cleared out of my system, though, I began to see a way through the problem. I had no confidence that I could persuade anyone to take my doubts seriously unless I could complete the work and prove my case. For that I needed more time. So I decided the best thing would be to get hold of some. In the meantime, I had to make sure no one else fiddled around with the machine in my absence.

Going into hiding was not an option, of course. I could, perhaps, have evaded detection for a day or so, but not for much longer than that. In fact, there was only one possibility, which was to use the machine myself. I knew it worked, but it was hard to get everything ready on my own and with no one noticing.

I managed, though; I rerouted the power supply from a few generators to ensure that all trace of my destination would be erased and the data hopelessly jumbled when I left. I had built that possibility in years ago, as I had seen enough of scientific integrity by then not to trust my colleagues further than I could throw them. If Hanslip and Oldmanter wanted to experiment, then let them. They’d have to do all the work themselves from scratch. I doubted they’d get very far.

It took a long time to prepare, but at one in the morning I was ready to go. As I heard the hum in the final moments before the power engaged, I felt very pleased with myself. I was prepared to bet Hanslip hadn’t anticipated my move. He worked purely in the realm of calculated rationality; I did not. In a world of chemically induced sanity, a little lunacy confers immense advantages.

Perhaps I should explain what this is about? There is a risk, I am sure, that I am giving the impression that I was petulant and egotistical, that my only concern was to bathe in the light of glory that was my due.

Very well; I admit that was a reason. But only one. There were other issues at stake, and my desire that the whole of humanity should not be wiped out played a small part in my decision also.

It began with my unofficial experiments, which demonstrated that the fundamental assumptions underlying the entire project were wrong. Not to put too fine a point on it, I stuffed one of the cleaning staff into the machine to see what happened. He was a somewhat nervous fellow called Gunter, who needed a lot of tranquillisers to make him cooperate. Admittedly, I should not have done this, especially as I did not ask official permission first, but — there we are. I couldn’t use an animal, or an inanimate object, as the chances of finding it again were non-existent. Only a human being could possibly be tracked.

He was. Alex Chang, one of the most junior people in the department and thus too insecure to snitch on me, was given the job and spotted the unfortunate cleaner in 1895. Three hundred and twenty-seven years back. It was a good piece of work on Chang’s part, as he had to learn a lot of new techniques to analyse the evidence. Gunter had gone mad when he arrived and, not surprisingly, had eventually entered the priesthood. Without going into the details — what I had done was not really ethical and I knew it would be used against me — I tried to tell Hanslip that we had a problem, but he couldn’t see what I was on about.

‘Don’t you understand?’ I told him one evening. ‘This whole project is based on the assumption that what we are doing is not time travel. Laws of physics. Accepted and proven for two centuries or more. All we can possibly do is transit to a parallel universe. Right?’

He nodded, looking around him to see if there was anyone he could summon for protection in case I got too vehement.

‘Wrong,’ I went on. ‘Wrong, wrong. It’s all wrong. I know it is. Think. In theory, we should be able to access any number of universes. So why can we only seem to access one, eh? No one has thought about the implications of that. I think the whole alternative universe theory is complete nonsense. We would be moving in this universe. The only one there is. Time travel, to put it bluntly. If that is the case, we have to stop now. We need to start again. From the beginning. Immediately.’

‘We can’t possibly start again,’ he protested. ‘Think of the cost. Why are you telling me this?’

‘Because I’m right. I feel it.’

At this point, you see, I could not explain properly. Still, I didn’t understand why he was so keen on dismissing my concerns. He knew how I worked, and knew that my instincts were fundamental. Besides, I thought he would be happy about overturning two centuries’ worth of physics. What better way of making a name for yourself?

Instead, he took refuge in pomposity, muttering about budget projections. It didn’t make sense until I realised that he was negotiating to sell everything to Oldmanter. A functioning, usable device that gave the possibility of infinite space and resources at no risk was his central selling point. Quite a good one, if only what he was telling them had any truth to it.

Something too dangerous to use except for small experiments would have opened no wallets. Besides, he was terribly conservative in approach. Faced with a choice between my hunch and generations of scientific labour, his only response was to demand proof. It was part of his character I never understood or appreciated. Why wouldn’t he just take my word for it?

The summons to the emergency meeting arrived at four o’clock in the morning, an event rare enough to cause all concerned to wake, dress and move with remarkable speed. Even rarer was the way it was done; no dream to jerk the sleeper awake with images of what was needed; not even a message coming through the communications system. No; a person, an individual, actually hammered on the door, and kept hammering until the occupant on the other side was sleepily, confusedly awake.

There was no explanation for such bizarre behaviour, so the six people who arrived at the anonymous underground office were suitably worried in advance. What could possibly have happened? Some speculated about a reactor melting down; the more bureaucratically minded gloomily decided it was a test of emergency procedures launched by some over-enthusiastic zealot.

Jack More thought none of these things. He didn’t think at all, and not simply because he was tired; he was the only person who had no obvious reason to be there. He was merely a security officer. He was curious, certainly, but he did not jump to conclusions. If there was any need to panic he was quite happy to let others worry themselves silly. Whatever had gone wrong couldn’t possibly be his fault. It was one of the virtues of insignificance.

His presence was enough to make the others worry all the more. They looked at him, half wanting to ask why he was there. A meeting, in person, in the middle of the night, was a good reason to think there might be something to worry about.

‘Sit down, please.’ Robert Hanslip had walked in. The boss who controlled the money, the individual on whose approval depended the lives and careers of every person in the room, everyone on the island. No one liked him, although whether they did or not was irrelevant. All admitted that he was very efficient. Some believed he was highly intelligent, although few would say so, lest they get a lengthy — and, recently, obsessive — diatribe from Angela Meerson on the precise size of the large hole where his intelligence should have been located. No one in the room really knew him anyway. He never mixed with people of a lower grade, and they had noted already that no senior figures were at this strange meeting.

Hanslip’s weakness was a somewhat ostentatious self-presentation. He affected an old-fashioned style, and had had his metabolism tweaked so that he stabilised at about ten per cent overweight: enough to give him a more solid look without requiring frequent adjustments to the heart. Not for him either the dandyish ways of the modern or the austerity of scientific garb; he preferred the carefully crumpled look, harking back six decades to his youth when such things were briefly fashionable.

He never talked loudly, but suffered no opposition. Anyone who annoyed him would soon enough find their assistants taken away, their budget cut. All done with a smile designed to make his victim feel somehow grateful the punishment hadn’t been worse.

Part of his authority lay in ensuring that everything ran smoothly, so any sort of crisis damaged him; certainly, his appearance now caused a shiver of alarm to pass through the little meeting. He looked shaken; whatever had happened, they knew the moment he walked in that it was going to be bad.

‘Forgive me for disturbing your beauty sleep,’ he said. ‘Three hours ago a serious power surge caused electricity supplies in northern Germany, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Scotland to fail for 0.6 of a second.’

Jack looked around him, wondering what it meant. Everyone else went suddenly still.

‘How much of a surge?’ one asked.

‘We’re still trying to get the precise figures.’

‘You are going to tell us it originated with us.’

Hanslip nodded. ‘I am going to tell you exactly that. The official analysis is not yet in, but I am sure it came from here. Needless to say, I have already sent out a report denying it was anything to do with us, and demanding an apology from whoever was responsible.’

‘That’s one hell of a lot of power,’ a young man remarked, after he had goggled at the figures on the paper Hanslip handed round. He must have been fairly new, or he would have known Hanslip did not approve of any sort of swearing. ‘Are you sure it was us? How could it have happened?’

‘I am sure it was us. Otherwise I would not have disturbed your rest. As for what caused it, that will be your job. There is no need to find out who caused it. That, I fear, is obvious already.’

Hanslip’s concern communicated itself to the rest of the meeting. ‘Time,’ he said. ‘We don’t have much time.’ But bureaucracies move in their own stately way, however urgent the situation. The main result of the meeting was to form a committee. Several committees, in fact; one to analyse the data to find out what the power was used for, another to investigate how someone had managed to bypass some of the most sophisticated security systems on the planet. A third took charge of destroying all evidence implicating their institute. The checks necessary to establish that their troublesome star mathematician had indeed vanished were quickly enough performed.

‘A moment, Mr More,’ Hanslip said as the meeting broke up. Jack had not said a word throughout the discussion, nor had anyone else even looked at him. ‘I imagine you are wondering what you are doing here?’

‘Yes, but I decided that you would tell me soon enough, and would ignore anything I asked until you were ready.’

‘Well judged. I may need your assistance. The closure of this facility and all of us landing in jail is one of the better options open to us at the moment. A rapid and unorthodox response may be called for. That is your department.’

‘What exactly is so bad about a power surge?’

Hanslip peered at him scornfully. ‘It blacked out a billion people, many of whom will have had panic attacks. There will undoubtedly have been many suicides and murders as a result of the chaos. We know of two airliners which crashed because all controls and backups shut down simultaneously. The death toll already is more than two thousand and rising. More to the point, our authority rests on the efficient management of society. It is a very serious disaster, and someone is going to be blamed for it.’

‘Ah.’

‘There will be a search for those responsible. A public punishment for the people who have disgraced the reputation of Scientific Government. To show we care; that sort of nonsense. Now do you see?’

‘I do.’

‘Good. We need the culprit, together with a report saying that she suffered a mental breakdown that pushed her into an act of destructive terrorism. Something along those lines. I’m sure you know the sort of thing. Come for a walk. You will need to know a little more if you are going to help us.’