Flashback

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Berlin, before the crash

Saskia Brandt, who was certain of most things, could be certain of the exact moment she realised that the tall gentleman walking away from her on Bismarck Strasse was an anachronism. There was nothing unusual about his appearance. He was elderly, slim, and walked with a cane. He was one man among the hundreds taken in her glance.

An instant before, she had experienced an utter violation. It had not been maleficent. More a neutral excavation of her mind by a force that overpowered her. Thoughts had been inventoried: the position of her body mid stride, the rubbing sensation of her canvas bag’s shoulder strap, her satisfaction in picturing, at will, Jem’s blue hair; the loss of her loneliness, hair strands falling across her left eye; hunger. Everything in her awareness, and perhaps the unconscious layers below that, had been breached by some form of electronic, viral attack. Fortunately, before this information could be transmitted back to the originator of the virus, safeguards in her wetware device had been tripped. The virus was contained and killed.

Saskia had stumbled in the street and looked for the source of the assault. It could only be a time traveller. The encryption on her device was unbreakable by contemporary technology.

There he was.

The elderly gentleman paused on the corner of the block, tipping his head to one side as though he had half-heard his name. He looked in her direction and she turned away. She turned back when he continued walking with his easy, imperious gait.

Saskia matched his pace. It was ten minutes later that she sensed a GSM transmission from the man. Saskia felt the information as though it were a gossamer strand trailing from his gentlemanly hat, sunlight glissando on its lone string. The transmission contained TCP/IP packets—easily decrypted—destined for an online travel agency. He had just booked a flight to Milan.

Why Milan? And was he aware of Saskia? Did he know Jennifer Proctor and her father, David? Saskia worried at these questions for every step of the return journey to her apartment. Part of her curiosity was a need to know what had happened to her friends. Had Jennifer become the Einstein of the twenty-first century, a media eminence? And what of David? Had he been fully reconciled with his daughter? It was carrying these thoughts, along with breakfast from the local shop, that she re-entered her apartment one full hour earlier than she had told Jem with a plan to follow her time traveller to Milan. She found the woman in the secure room, where Saskia kept her more personal souvenirs, her financial paperwork, and her weaponry.

‘What the fuck are you doing, Jem?’

Who was

‘I bought us Battenberg cake… and proper English teabags. I was going to invite you on a trip.’

the time traveller? Where was

‘Where?’

he going?

‘Milan.’

Milan?

‘Milan.’

Echoes of her former life.

Sounds dying but not dead.

Saskia boiled with the implications of her discovery—a time traveller, like her—for the short hours of the day with Jem, the barren night, and the morning.

Saskia had taken her usual seat in the rearmost row of the aircraft. Here she could see without being seen. A girl of twelve or so, travelling alone and clearly nervous, looked at her across the aisle. Saskia took her hand briefly. Then the jet engines tuned up and up and the rough take-off pushed her into a doze, eyes dry even beneath their lids, her shoulders cramped and tense, forgetting the girl but remembering the time traveller. Where was he? She had not seen him come aboard. The engine noise played on all the intensity of her anxiety, which itself was buoyed by the absence of Jem. Saskia was conscious that her outfit—a disguise, in part—had been chosen by the woman: the Loblan cowgirl boots that made her feet ache; a fancy knapsack that could carry nothing more than her mobile phone, her wallet, a tampon or two; a tight, designer shirt; a necklace that bounced on her exposed sternum. Each discomfort made her think of Jem. For a time, she had been everything. Everything. Jem with the blue hair, draped over a sofa in the changing room, yawning thoughtfully at Saskia’s new groove and calling it good with a mimed pistol shot.

Peow.

Airborne.

Saskia cuffed away the cold tracks of her tears as a steward passed her, heading towards the rear galley. She watched him return with a rattling cart. As he pushed this along the aisle, she heard a door open behind her. She frowned. It was impossible that someone could be back there. Nobody but the steward had passed her since she sat down, and he would not have allowed the plane to take off with the bathroom occupied.

Saskia turned fully.

The woman who emerged from the dark, L-shaped corridor, and who was now looking nervously down the cabin, was Jennifer Proctor.

Saskia’s memories of 2023 had been dulled by the stresses of 2003, in which she was a fugitive. But she had not forgotten Jennifer Proctor (hair held by chopsticks, arrogant but principled), the woman who had created a time machine and helped Saskia return to 2003. The version of Jennifer who stepped back into Saskia’s life was older. Her hair was cropped and oiled. Her black T-shirt was tight and her stomach was flat. She wore dark gloves and, on her right wrist, a bracelet. Even in the gloom, her eyes were azure. They moved around the aircraft with unconcealed interest.

Saskia watched her. Since appearing in the air above Scotland, Saskia had been too busy with the reconstruction of her life to consider in detail what her escape would mean for Jennifer. There was a thread of worry in Saskia’s thoughts. Had Jennifer been reprimanded? Or had she risen with the star of her invention?

‘Sweetheart,’ she whispered, reaching out. ‘It’s me, Saskia.’

Jennifer was startled by the motion. She hesitated. Time traveller looked at time traveller and Saskia’s guarded expression changed to one of delight. She had disconnected herself from her home and her time more fully than any human before. Only now, sharing a look of relief and growing good humour with Jennifer, did she understand the cost of that amputation.

She released her seatbelt and stood. She had wanted to embrace Jennifer, but something in the woman’s eyes—shame? secrecy?—checked her. Jennifer, slightly shorter, looked up at Saskia and smiled. They might have been sisters contemplating the fruition of a prank. Then Jennifer took Saskia in a fierce hug. Saskia closed her eyes and pressed Jennifer’s forehead into the hollow beneath her chin. When Jennifer stepped back, she took Saskia’s hands.

‘You’re exactly how I remember,’ Jennifer said. In her smile, Saskia noticed surgically-straightened teeth. Yes, Jennifer had changed. Once their relationship had been that of an older Saskia to a younger Jennifer. Now their roles were reversed. The teeth made Saskia wonder about further advances in cosmetic treatment. Was it even possible, for instance, to tell how old Jennifer was?

‘When are you from?’ Saskia asked.

Jennifer paused. She was reluctant to answer. Why?

‘Decades have passed,’ she said. The words were delivered with the fondness of a person recalling childhood. ‘Did you receive the Ego unit we sent you?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Decades, for me,’ Jennifer repeated, ‘since you crossed the bridge.’

Saskia nodded, though her understanding lagged, swirled in the disorientation of this unexpected meeting. She thought, What is the bridge? and the answer came as fast as an echo: The Einstein-Rosen bridge. Project Déjà Vu. Saskia remembered the empty winds of the desert around Las Vegas. She remembered the centrifuge turning, turning. But those moments were gone; history to come. She focused on Jennifer’s face even as the uncountable years returned to her eyes and, with them, the determined expression of someone set for grim work.

‘Why did you have to be here?, Saskia?’

A slow-burning horror passed through her. They were on the cusp of something: Saskia, Jennifer, and everyone else on this flight. What did it have to do with Jennifer’s abrupt appearance?

‘Tell me,’ said Saskia.

‘DFU323,’ replied Jennifer, almost in wonder. ‘The Freedom Flight.’ She seemed to recall herself, and looked at Saskia. Her tone was confidential. ‘What’s your role in this?’

‘My role in what?’ Saskia placed her palms onto Jennifer’s shoulders. The gesture was intended to emphasise her question, to steady Jennifer, but Saskia felt her fingertips lock on her bones. ‘Tell me what is happening. All of it.’

A muscle twitched at the edge of Jennifer’s mouth.

‘We’re inside a mystery,’ she whispered. Her next words had the monotone of rehearsal. She might have been repeating a line from a multiplication table. ‘Half an hour before it was due to land, DFU323 lost radio contact and went down—straight down—into the Bavarian National Forest.’

Saskia stared at her. Her thoughts looped. Crash? How could they crash? They couldn’t, it was impossible. Saskia’s death was impossible. She had a role to play in future events that had not yet come to pass. If that role were not to be, then Saskia herself would never be able to travel in time; she would not be here. Paradox. Impossible.

Jennifer smiled. It was a copy of that schoolgirl joy that had gripped them only moments before, but now it found no answer in Saskia’s face.

She is more different than I guessed, Saskia thought. Something happened to her.

‘Nobody knows why it crashed, Saskia. DFU323 is like the Mary Celeste. A riddle inside an enigma.’

‘Why are you here, Jennifer?’

‘I was summoned by a word. It was sent from this aircraft shortly before it crashed. The news media will report it. ‘STENDEC’.’

‘What does it mean?’

Jennifer took Saskia’s hands and continued, with a subdued fervour, ‘It means the end of a great journey.’

‘For whom?’

She shook her head. The question would not, or could not, be answered.

‘Come with me, honey,’ said Jennifer. ‘I can take you back. The band is calibrated to 48.98 kilograms. How much do you weigh?’

She reached for the black bracelet on her wrist and placed her index finger and thumb around its circumference. Then, carefully, she rotated it ninety degrees. Saskia saw the ugly, ripening indifference in her face. The young scientist she remembered was gone.

Saskia pushed her deeper into the galley. Jennifer said, ‘Hey!’ as she fell against a tall rack of metal lockers, but she did not twist out of Saskia’s grip.

‘Whatever game you want to play,’ said Saskia, ‘stop it. Who will send ‘STENDEC’? A pilot?’

‘It was sent by my Huckleberry, only moments ago.’ Jennifer chuckled, as though remembering a joke. ‘He thinks that I work for a collective called the Cabinet, a revolutionary cabal that wants to put in place an American Confederacy. He thinks he’s chasing a spy.’

‘Thinks?’

‘That’s what counts. Now, are you coming back with me? It’s what you asked for in your letter.’

Saskia was not listening. She looked along the length of the plane. Halfway up, a steward was leaning into a row with a coffee flask. The view beyond him was blocked by the first-class curtain. Saskia turned to Jennifer, hesitated, said, ‘Sorry,’ and pressed a nerve beneath her chin. She met Jennifer’s surprised expression with determination, then worked the bracelet from her weakened, quivering arm.

‘Is your so-called Huckleberry going to crash this aircraft? Tell me or the bracelet gets flushed, and you’ll be joining everyone for the ride down.’

‘Last chance,’ said Jennifer, hoarse with pain. ‘Are you with me or against me?’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

Before her last syllable was spoken, a storm entered Saskia’s head. The surrounds of her vision sparkled and she felt an intermittent immobility, as though a fundamental connection in her mind were working loose. Her awareness opened and closed, opened and closed. The waves of disorientation reminded her of passing above and below the threshold of sleep.

She opened her mouth to speak, but her breath caught.

‘Let me tell you about stupidity,’ said Jennifer. ‘Complaining about events is like complaining about the weather. Just stop. Enjoy the rain, the thunder.’

Saskia gasped, ‘What have you done to me?’

She tried to move back from Jennifer but her balance was upset. She succeeded in turning towards the front of the aircraft. Her arms were wide, bracing. Ten metres away, the steward was still pouring coffee. The hairs on his wrist moved in and out of focus.

‘The technology in your head is old-fashioned, Saskia.’ There were years of telling in that voice. Years of telling and not being told. ‘Asymmetric encryption went out with the dinosaurs. Now, we’re going to wait here a while longer until I’m ready to make my appearance.’

Dinosaur, thought Saskia. Exactly.

She pictured a huge, lumbering Tyrannosaurus rex clawing through a forest, ripping at branches with its tiny hands. The visualisation brightened. The up-and-down plunging of her awareness steadied to a slow, manageable numbness. Dinosaur. Exactly. She stumbled into the aisle and clawed along, headrest-to-headrest. Jennifer’s attack on her wetware device had to be based on radio communication. It must, therefore, weaken with distance.

Inverse square law, she thought. Interference. From the avionics.

The passengers barely noticed her, but Saskia focused on their details, conjured lives from their scant exteriors. Some were businessmen. Others were boys on first holidays unaccompanied. These mothers and fathers and wanted and unwanted children. Retired, precise ladies and gentlemen. A police officer. A musician. Those who constructed their personal spaces from Evian, iPods, their lap-held fictions. Saskia scrambled along the aisle. Dinosaur. Her fingers groped for gross visual features; seat-backs, armrests. Exactly. She fought her way towards the steward.

The storm in her head redoubled. She lost her sense of orientation. Spokes of sunlight, anchored by the portholes, slit the compartment like swords through a box. It became a shaft down which she stared.

Not enough interference, she thought. More. How many passengers had forgotten to switch off their phones?

Inside her head, she screamed, Answer me!

The first call came through on the phone nearest to her. The woman said, ‘Preggo?’

Another phone, two rows back: ‘Yeah?’

‘Hallo?’

‘Si?’

As the handsets punched signals through the fuselage to masts thousands of feet below, the high-strength defence washed through her. She crouched in the aisle, having regained control of herself, and turned back to Jennifer. Their stares met. Jennifer was frowning.

Saskia hurried towards the steward. As she ran, she transferred Jennifer’s bracelet to her pocket. The steward was talking to a passenger. Saskia put a hand on his shoulder and whispered into his ear. He laughed, but the noise slurred into a snore and Saskia guided him into an empty seat. She tugged his collar to cover the red marks made by her fingertips. She glanced back and saw Jennifer walking up the cabin.

Three flight attendants in total: two remaining, both women. Are there sky marshals on this flight?

No.

Saskia swept beneath the curtained arch that marked first class. A sense of the cabin became part of her proprioceptic awareness before her second footfall. As naturally as she knew the position of her left hand, she knew that the width of the cabin was four metres. She felt the exits: six, evenly spaced. She saw the halo of a wiring bundle where its current leaked and, from that, she pulled an instant of flight deck sound (static and a steady bleep) as it passed to the (black box) rear of the aircraft.

There was a stewardess on the other side, and she turned with a bright smile that presaged a rebuke.

In Italian, Saskia said, ‘Behind me, there’s a lady dressed in black. She’s just left her seat and is scaring the other passengers. She won’t sit down.’

Saskia put a firm hand on her arm and pushed her towards the rear of the aircraft. It worked. The stewardess made a soft, placating noise and moved to intercept Jennifer. Saskia continued along the cabin. She smiled at those passengers who met her eyes and concentrated on reaching the captain.

There was a food cart near the door to the flight deck. Saskia glanced at it for weapons. The trays looked like they contained snacks in plastic wrappers, bottled water, and ice. Saskia pulled out one of the trays. Cutlery: plastic. Useless. She took the coffee flask from the top and turned to the keypad next to the door of the flight deck. No time to pick it.

Saskia lifted the wall-mounted phone and pressed the button marked ‘flight deck’.

‘Capitano, la serratura è rotta. Per favore apra il portello.’

She looked back once more and saw Jennifer passing through the first-class archway. There was no sign of the stewardess that Saskia had spoken to. Two flight attendants down. One left. The last had to be with the pilots.

Saskia turned back to the flight deck and was surprised to see that the door had opened. An elderly man stood on the threshold, regarding her with equal surprise. He wore a light suit and leaned on a cane. Saskia dropped her glance to the red spatters of blood on his left hand. The man looked behind her, probably at Jennifer.

The time traveller.

Her Huckleberry.

Saskia turned in time to see her nod.

His age belied the fury of his attack. She had room to turn and loop the phone cord around his cane, which cut through the plastic (How? she thought, angry at this miscalculation) and licked at her ribs. She saved her heart by bringing the coffee flask down on top of his wrist. The flask struck the sword’s handle—for it was a sword, not a cane—and spoiled his thrust. He had the advantage of her, though, and followed through with his elbow, which sent her tumbling into the fuselage at the foot of the exterior door.

‘That’s enough,’ shouted Jennifer. ‘You’ll damage the recall band.’

The man stepped away from Saskia. In a moment, she was submerged into lake-cold paralysis once more. She could not turn, or blink. Her eyes were stuck in their sockets. She watched the man move back from her statue. His form was clear, but the surroundings—beige plastic, a little of the flight deck door, a galley cart—blurred with static, then faded. Saskia became blind.

He asked a question in a language she did not recognise. The translation came in her native German: Who is she?

‘Never mind,’ Jennifer replied in English. ‘You did the right thing.’

‘She damn near knocked my head off.’

‘You got old, Cory. Look at you.’ The words carried contempt. ‘She’s stolen my recall band. If you’re still my Huckleberry, take it.’

Saskia felt hands enter her pockets. She was sickened by her immobility. Where were the passengers? Why weren’t they helping? She wondered how she could recover from this. The aircraft was still due to crash. As she had feared, she had become part of events. She could face the likelihood that her actions would lead to the loss of the aircraft; indeed, she could embrace this and trade it for the chance that Jennifer was mistaken, or that lives could be saved. Saskia waited for another opportunity to take control. The man, Cory, had left the pocket of her shirt until last. The recall band was there. But before he could reach it, one of the passengers spoke.

‘Leave her alone,’ said the stranger. ‘Now move away from her. That’s right. Jennifer, you too.’