THE THIEF OF SLEEP AND OTHER TALES
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 David D Sharp
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, lent, re-sold or otherwise circulated without the prior written permission of the author.
All characters and events within this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons or events is purely coincidental.
Cover design: Stuart McMorris
Editing: August Editorial
Promotional quotes courtesy of: Cathryn Grant, Diane Dickson, Jay Leffew and Stephen Watkins
There is a photo in my wallet. Creased and whitening about the edges. It isn’t a picture of my wife. Or my children. In fact it is of a man I have never even met, blurred from motion and taken at a distance. I hate this man with a deep and unflinching vehemence. I keep his photo close to me at all times because I am hunting him. I am hunting him and when I find him I am going to kill him.
You want to know why now, don’t you? You want to know what this one man could have possibly done to have so gravely wronged me. I’ll tell you but you must understand that if I do, then you’ll want to know more and trust me — you won’t like where this ends.
Still here? Okay then — this man is a thief. He has stolen from me on multiple occasions and continues to do so. He has robbed me of something more valuable than diamonds, than gold or any other earthly possession. He steals sleep from me. Yes you read that right. Sleep.
I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in almost four years. Four long, aching years that have seen me push away all those dearest to me, my career crumble before my yellowing eyes and a string of medical professionals shake their heads at the lack of any scientific cause for or easing of my condition.
It started suddenly and sharply — a late night with a stomach full of tandoori and cheap, fizzy lager. But even once my guts had stopped snaking around inside of me, I found myself struggling to slip off. The next night I headed to bed early in a bid to try and catch up but found the task even more challenging this time. Counting sheep, counting backwards, a hot cup of cocoa — nothing worked and for three nights in a row I found myself still staring at the red LED letters of the alarm clock not long before it was due to actually go off. And so that was the beginning. Of course it eased for a while, coming in waves but never relented long enough for me to completely recover before another bout of insomnia would return.
I tried rearranging my bedroom, flipping the mattress, sleeping with noise-cancelling headphones but to no avail. The issue, it eventually dawned on me (after much expenditure of income), was not one of comfort. On a mattress of precision engineered softness, under clean sheets and surrounded by flawless gloom and silence I still found myself lying there, wide eyed, very much awake.
The strangest thing was that getting off to sleep had never been an issue for me in the past. During my student days I took a year out, backpacking around Thailand, Burma, Cambodia. The beds there had never been comfortable and we’d often found ourselves having to nap on overcrowded trains or the back of pickup trucks crossing rough country. Yet after a bit of practice I’d quickly found myself able to drop off nearly anywhere. Where that skill went I’ll never know.
The twilight hours are a strange place. Empty and lonely. If a man expends too much stamina forcing his eyes to remain welded shut, he begins to lose track of what is real and what is imagined. For so long I ground myself into a broken, limping state just trying to will myself to stop thinking about going to sleep and actually going to sleep. The trick it turned out, was not to fight it. Once I learned to accept my situation and just started getting up and doing things, I found that — although my eyes and limbs continued to throb and ache — my mind at least was troubled less. I found myself limited in what I could actually do to pass the time though — my marshmallow mind struggling to maintain any train of thought. Even watching TV or doing the dishes proved too much of a challenge.
And so I began to wander. Out into the streets and the open places outside. No intended route or destination, just placing one weary foot after another and seeing where my body took me. Places I would never have had cause to visit during the traditional waking hours. Crisp country lanes. Abandoned industrial yards. Squeaking hospital corridors. In those ghostly hours between the darkest trough of night and the rest of civilisation returning to life, I got to see the world with new eyes. In the pale half-light, without the distraction of machines and only the chirping of birds for company, I saw the world stripped naked, all of its secrets exposed. I saw it all and seeing it made feel hollow inside.
It was during one of these expeditions that I first saw him. I had been drawn in a particular direction for a change, as if being pushed by unseen currents. Looking at the grey pavements under foot I saw nothing but somehow knew there was a trail of footsteps there that I should be following. They led me to one of those garish, all-hours supermarkets. Its false, electric light shimmering in the dark like a hallucination. My path continued inside and past aisles of dried noodles, microwave chips, reduced boxes of quiche. Turning a corner I saw him. A man of tall, skinny build, inspecting various tins of soup. The smaller kind — individual portions. He was far enough away for me to linger there a few moments unnoticed. His hair was greasy and starting to curl at the ends. The sole of one of his trainers was beginning to peel away. I didn’t know who he was but instantly I knew that he was the one who had been robbing me of the ability to just close my eyes and sleep at night.
You’ve got another question now don’t you? You want to know how I knew and this time I don’t have a decent answer for you. It was to do with the footsteps I think. Just as I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t smell them or taste them either but it was something like that. A kind of inherited knowledge that they were there — that they had started at my bedside and then led away, carrying something that had so recently belonged to me, leading, eventually, to this spot on this aisle where this man was choosing between Cream of Chicken and Highland Game. Perhaps it was just a trick of my exhausted brain. Or perhaps it was something I couldn’t have known in any other frame of mind.
I moved onto the next aisle and pretended to look at boxes of family value cereal until I heard his footsteps start and cautiously I trailed him out the store. I followed along a narrow path that ran between two housing estates, beneath an underpass sprayed thickly with vulgarities and finally to a block of modern flats. I stepped back into the shadows just in time as he looked about, dug out a bunch of keys then slipped inside. I waited, my heart drumming to an unfamiliar rhythm, till a light came on in one of the upper windows. The neighbouring room followed soon after. Eventually they both went out. Who was he? And why had he chosen to steal something so precious from me, a complete stranger? On the back of a bus ticket I scribbled a note of the address and the floor his lights has been on. This wasn’t over.
So how did I end up with a photo of him? Well, since he stole my sleep from me again the following night, I decided to go back to the block of flats. And the night after, though it wasn’t for another week that I would actually see the thief again. I began to trail him more and more, and not just at night but during the day — thoughts of my day job cast aside in the wake of this great crusade. I bought a fresh notebook and began to populate it with every detail I could gather about him — where he went, what he ate and bought. An array of snapshots soon followed, including the one I stuffed into my wallet. He didn’t seem to have a job of any sort, unless it involved working from home. He visited the library regularly; seemed to suffer from some sort of minor dairy allergy. I never really saw him with anyone else — not during the daylight hours, that is.
You see, my investigations confirmed a worrying suspicion that had been nagging at me. I wasn’t the only one being robbed. Over a period of two months, under the cover of night, I managed to track the thief to thirteen different homes. The doors would either be unlocked or he’d locate a spare key hidden under a plant pot or door mat and just sneak in. I dared not follow him inside. On two occasions, however, I managed to get into a position where, using my specially purchased zoom lens, I could spy into the victim’s bedroom. One a middle-aged woman, the other a teenage girl — posters of skateboarders on the walls.
At first I feared I was about to witness some heinous defilement but mercifully the thief never actually touched them, save to push a few strands of hair aside from an ear. Next he kneeled at the bedside and positioned himself in such a way that his opened mouth sat beneath the victim’s exposed ear. And then he just held it there for a long moment. Unmoving. A cold prickle worked its way up my arms and legs — what was he doing? I didn’t know. Yet — as with the footsteps — I somehow did as well. Flowing unseen between victim and thief was a steady stream of sleep. A little waterfall of that intangible, hallowed substance flowing out of their being and into his. That was how he did it, how he committed his crime. Neither woman or girl gave any sign of awareness and the thief left unnoticed each time.
I reached the conclusion that the effects would not be felt by the sleeper until the following night or soon after. That would be how he had managed to rob me without my becoming aware. He would drain me over several nights then leave me for several weeks to recover before returning to harvest once more. I wondered just how many lives this man was ruining for his own selfish gain.
So now you know my story. Why it is that I keep a stranger’s photo alongside my cash and credit cards. You can understand my situation, sympathise with it — if not fully believe or comprehend it. But now you want to know what happened next. You need to have a conclusion.
I’ll tell you. But this is your last chance to turn back.
I lost him. I had stood outside the thief’s block of flats for over half an hour one night before I noticed the “For rent” sign posted outside. The number on it tallied with the flat I reckoned he had occupied. The scoundrel had moved away. He had cheated me of my revenge. Perhaps he had become aware that I was closing in on him. Any logical sighs of relief that I might finally be free never even occurred to me. His debt was too great to simply let go.
And so I stepped up my operations. I posed as a potential leaser of the vacant apartment and greased what little clues I could about who he was and where he might have gone. I used various online forums and dubious looking search engines. I paid people money. For a while I thought all hope had been lost but eventually I located him again. A neighbouring town; a similar flat. The same old routine. Slipping out in the gloom to shop and to steal.
My plummeting fear that I might have lost track of him forever made me act faster and less rationally than I should have. Afraid that he might get away again, I tried to break into his rented flat, positioned above an old, boarded up pub. He had clearly learned from the mistakes of his victims — the door bore at least three different locks and no doubt chains on the other side. None of the windows were ever left open and too far above ground level anyway.
His landlord, however, it seemed, had money troubles — and not with the sort of people that advertised on daytime television. An old Bolivian with two missing fingers, he spent most of his days in the bookmakers and then most of his evenings in the boozer next door. I managed to get chatting with him a few times, got friendly. For a sum of money, that I won’t offend you by disclosing, I bribed him into letting me borrow a set of the keys for the thief’s flat. The old fart was so pickled with dark rum I doubted he would even remember in the morning.
And that was how I managed to end up standing over the bed of the sleeping thief. In the very same position he must have stood over me for so many nights. The irony was not lost at me. This however was not nighttime but the middle of the day — that being when the thief was least active and able to enjoy that luxurious activity of napping. I had slipped in unnoticed, closed the door behind me, unplugged the phone and turned off his mobile. Then I just stood and observed him, watching as his chest rose, held there, then after what seemed like an eternity, fell. The nape of his neck was creased with long wrinkles. His fingernails were long and blocky. He was just a man. Just an ordinary man like me. I don’t know what I had been expecting — something of myths that hid away in a coffin or disintegrated into smoke. He was just a man.
I decided that I wasn’t going to kill him after all. Not because I wasn’t capable, you understand, but because an even greater idea had filled that gap. A simple plan of sweet revenge. I would simply take back from him what he had stolen from me. As he lay here oblivious, I would recreate the posture he had assumed, there seemed to be nothing more to it than that, and drink deeply and heavily from him. And then, my mind beginning to race now, I would tie him up and steal him away to a secret place — the details of where could be decided later. I would take him away and keep him as my prisoner — feeding him and making sure he remained comfortable and alive. Then every night I would take his sleep from him. I would be doing a service to all those other poor souls he had haunted; I would be punishing him for his sins and most satisfying of all, I would never have to struggle to sleep again. I would be able to just close my eyes whenever the fancy might take me and nod off. That would be bliss.
But first I would take some sleep from him now. I could almost feel the coolness of it reviving and rebuilding me. Like a makeover for my soul. I dropped to my knees as if to pray for salvation and I opened my lips. Leaning forward, I could taste it, I could smell it, I could feel it. Just as had happened with the others, this man’s sleep for the next few nights was now becoming my own. This was the beginning of the end. I could almost weep I was so happy!
But then something caught my eye. Glanced out of the very corner of my field of vision. A man’s head darting out of sight from where it had been surveying me in the doorway. There was someone else in this flat watching me. It wasn’t the landlord. Or a policeman. I didn’t know who they were — just an ordinary man wearing a tatty fleece, jogging bottoms.
A horror took hold of me. To this stranger’s eyes it would seem as if I was the thief of sleep and not the dozing man before me. He would think that I was the villain. I made to rush after him then halted. I froze as my mind followed that thread of thought out to where it broke off into other threads, dividing again and again into a web of realisation. In that moment I could finally see the bigger picture and not just the little details on which I had become so fixated.
The man whose picture I kept in my wallet wasn’t some monster. He was merely another soul who, having found themselves unable to perform that most fundamental, human act of sleeping, had turned in desperation to stealing from others. Just as I was now. I had seen him steal from so many others and only now it dawned on me that he had never revisited any of those victims. Had that included me? Of course it had. The poor man had tried to spread this burden across as many sleepers as possible to minimise the damage. That night I had followed him had been the only time he had visited me. And so where had the rest of my nights of sleep gone to? Other thieves. He wasn’t the only one. I wasn’t the only one. An unknown number of tormented souls had each visited me and taken a little sleep for themselves. Perhaps that was how the thief had come to enter this predicament, just as I had. Robbed too many times. Just as the man out in the corridor had. He was a thief following a thief following a thief. Who knew how many of us there were. A great network of otherwise normal men and women cursed to take part in a life of unnatural theft just to claim what had already been taken from them in this great, unending cycle.
And now you know this uncomfortable truth as well. You know it and you also know that there is absolutely nothing you will ever be able to do about it. You’ll try and shut it out and, for a while, you might even succeed. But, sooner or later, this little thorn of an idea will sneak back in and haunt you. It’ll happen late one night, whilst you lay awake, trying desperately to fall asleep.
I check my wristwatch again — 15 minutes they’ve had me sitting here. We go through this process of form-filling and waiting for the two receptionists to try and find authorisation for me every time I come to Trinico House. You’d think they’d at least recognise my face by now.
“What was the name again sir?” calls the artificially rosy-cheeked one.
“Brock Korvitz,” I reply, instinctively spelling the surname. “Empathic Strategies Consultant.”
I spend a further five minutes idly flicking through one of the newspapers in the waiting room. I’m sure these must be the only places that still purchase printed news these days.
“Mr Korman, you can go in now,” calls the receptionist and she hands me my visitor key-card. “Now if you just head through that door there and follow the floor level indicators.”
I nod and head on. They don’t even bother sending someone to get you these days: that would be inefficient.
I follow the path well-known to me now through down-lit beige corridors and past busy/bored suit-bound employees. At each door I have to swipe my key-card again; only set doors on my route will open for me. I hope they haven’t relocated the meeting room again and I don’t have to back track to square one.
Eventually I reach the lift that will allow me access to the 11th floor. Only one button glows green, I jab it and try to evade my reflection in the mirrored walls. I hate these big corporates. I spend more time going to meetings and leaping through hoops than actually doing the job I was hired to do. Much prefer the smaller clients, more agile, more certain of what they want. I’ve even done work for a couple of charities — I had to slash my fees but at least I felt like I’d actually contributed something to the world.
The lift bumps to a halt and the doors slide open. Fake fuchsias wait in the lobby on the other side. I have barely stepped out when the lights go off. There is a moment of darkness before the backups kick in with their sickly half glow. Power cut, I think, then I hear an alarm wailing in some distant recess of this monolith. Not a power cut.
I try my key-card against the lift and each of the doors leading from the small, deserted lobby. None work. Great, now I’m stuck.
After having paced around for a while I decide this particular client has wasted enough of my day. I’ll recall the lift and get back to the ground floor myself.
In one corner of the room there is a vending machine for coffee and hot drinks. I yank open a panel on the side, exposing a thick knot of optical wires. That’ll do the job. From my jacket pocket I take one of the little, pink pills that will raise my heart rate and dull my senses enough to ease the connection — digital lube. Crunching the capsule between my molars, I taste the prickly sensation slide down the back of my throat and into my being. Once my vision begins to speckle I drive my fist into the node of cables. A surge of light and information leaps up my arm. I am in.
As expected, there is an interface for modifying the amount of sugar and flavouring in each beverage and a history file, passing this I come to the heaters, ambient lighting and sprinklers, then the door and lift controls.
Something is wrong, though. On this side the sirens are deafening and the error logs are stacking up frantically. Peering around the network I can see a small group of intruders up on the 18th floor. They probably came in as an attachment then used the lighting to cross into the main network of terminals, hence the blackout. I’d wager they’re heading for one of the databases. This is very bad news: if these guys get away then the finger of blame’s going to fall on the only other empath in the building — me. It’s clowns like this that mean I’ll only ever get offered contract work, never permanent. The only choice is to stop them. With a deep breath I dive back down to the reception and into the visitors log. I create a new account with access to as many doors as I can then scan through the staff database till I find someone who looks similar enough to me to fool the facial recognition cameras. Done.
I slump back onto the scratchy carpet of the lobby and wait for everything to stop spinning. Disconnecting never gets any easier.
Back on foot I select a door and start crossing open-plan offices, occasionally touching the light switches for a steer till I find a stairwell. The closer I can get to the intruders, the better, and I’ve had my fill of lifts for the day. Access to the 18th floor is locked, as in properly locked with a lock and key, so I go back to the 17th. Mostly meeting rooms, execs wandering around asking whether they should be doing anything. I spot a smart-phone left out on a desk and grab that — ideal. Using a desktop terminal would be faster but obviously I’d be far more likely to get spotted slumped over someone’s desk. Instead I find the nearest Gents, short out the lights and lock myself in a cubicle. Business time. I lick the screen and establish a connection.
“You have 2 unread messages, Bill!” The sound blares into my ears. I kill the mail app and set about connecting to the wireless network. Ah, excellent, Bill’s left his password saved for me.
Back on the main network I can see the intruders are making strong progress — two are bluffing the firewalls whilst another hacks the command line. A fourth appears to writing a mailing script for once they’re done, the modern equivalent of the getaway driver. Downstairs the security teams have sprung into action — these guys are some of the best in the business but they’ll only ever be as fast as their keystrokes, which isn’t fast enough.
My movements begin to stutter, lag caused by a sudden lurch in network traffic. They’re either launching a Denial of Service attack or have managed to start downloading one of the databases already. Or both.
Carefully, I make my way closer, slipping between workstations using various instant messengers and screensavers. Now I’m on the same ring as my quarry, close enough to read their forged signatures — one’s even slipped in the comment, “All your base are belong to us.” I can picture them lying in a row at their source location, no doubt some darkened bedroom, network cables wrapped around their wrists. Probably someone’s on hand to feed and rehydrate them; no way of telling how long they would have waited in that email attachment for.
’m puzzled though, they’ve gained access to a server room but don’t seem to be bothering with the high profile customer record databases. Instead they’ve zoned in on some old legacy server. Hell, I can’t even see why that thing’s still plugged in let alone of interest to them. It’ll provide the perfect trap though. With the exception of the getaway driver they’ve all disappeared inside, all I need to do is follow them, reset their hacked passwords and initiate a restart. When it prompts them to log back in they’ll find themselves stuck in limbo.
Man, this server is old. I need to dust off some of my old commands just to look around. Can’t see any further than the current directory but the intruders’ timestamps are like footsteps in the soot for me to follow. I’ve already wiped their passwords but curiosity has taken me now. What on earth are they looking for on this server? I decide to follow a little further, repeating the current directory over and over in my mind so I don’t lose my way home:
/home
/home/usr
/home/usr/local
/home/usr/local/secure
/home/usr/local/secure/secure-syst
/home/usr/local/secure/secure-syst/trinico-syst
/home/usr/local/secure/secure-syst/trinico-syst/data
/home/usr/local/secure/secure-syst/trinico-syst/data/batch4053
/home/usr/local/secure/secure-syst/trinico-syst/data/batch4053/records
/home/usr/local/secure/secure-syst/trinico-syst/data/batch4053/records/records_7a
This is random, tons of old archive files. The number of files is going down, though — the thieves must be deleting them. Sabotage. I’m about to flick the restart command when one filename catches my eye: korvitzb040237.var. My name — now that’s a crazy coincidence. The date is two years prior to my first bit of work with Trinico. I recognise some of the other filenames as well: J Samuels, L Lomond, T Izaki. Shit, these are other consultants. Other empaths. And if these dates are right, then they go back almost a decade. Shit. The files are continuing to disappear around me. I want to open my file but if I do it here then I’ll leave a fingerprint. I’ll have to download it to the phone in my body’s hand and read it there. I begin the transfer.
Then everything winks out.
Somebody has restarted the server and it wasn’t me. I waited too long, the thieves probably noticed me and did the same as I was planning for them. I’m trapped.
“Wakey wakey.”
I do as instructed and look around me, not sure if this is the digital or the physical world.
“Where am I?” I ask.
“Encrypted flash drive,” someone replies in text.
“Shit.”
“They’re probably taking us to security now, sitting in someone’s sweaty pocket. Hope you left your body somewhere safe.”
“Shit.”
“You say that a lot don’t you?”
“It seems apt. Who are you?”
“--+ Athos +--”
“--+ Porthos +--”
“--+ Aramis +--”
The /\/\usket33rs. I’ve heard of these guys. Infamous hackers.
“So where’s d’Artagnian?” I ask jokingly.
“Well, thanks to you...”
“...we have no idea.”
“Running, if he’s got half a brain.”
“What was in those files?” I ask. “I saw the names of other empaths.”
“Secrets.”
“Empaths, teles, protestors, ex-employees.”
“Details of anyone classed as a potential future risk to the organisation.”
“We refuse to live in a world where men and women are judged by what they might be.”
“What they might do.”
I suspect --+ Aramis +-- might actually be female but can’t say for sure. Something to do with the keystrokes.
“I’m sorry I got in your way,” I say.
“LOL.”
“ROFL.”
“You were never in our way. You just happened to be there there there there.”
We’ve been plugged into something, probably a standalone terminal, an isolated power supply. It’s not cold but there is a lack of warmth, not dark but certainly devoid of colour. Unseen yet suspicious eyes are scanning over us right now. Well, I can kiss my career good bye. They’ll never believe my innocence in all of this. I’ll spend the next few years in a corporate prison then become an outcast, never trusted with proper employment again. Will end up doing something like pushing trolleys with my bare hands for a living.
“So Captain Shit,” says --+ Athos +--. “We’re not planning on hanging around. Want to come with us?”
I consider this proposal. Even if they could get us out of here, I’d have to leave my body behind. At least in a jail cell I’d have arms and legs.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll risk whatever punishment they’ve got in store for me.”
“You’ve not seen it, have you?”
“He hasn’t.”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Seen what?”
“Take a look around you.”
I do. The terminal is sparse, little more than core functions here. There is a single folder sitting on the root and I look inside. A chill grabs me. The folder is full of viruses. Nasty ones — rootkits, hybrids, rottweilers. No computer virus has ever been designed to attack humans but if you’re on the system and the system gets damaged, so do you.
“They wouldn’t,” I gasp.
“They have before.”
“And they will again.”
“Last chance kiddo — come with us.”
“There’s no way out of here, though,” I reply. “We’re not connected to anything else.”
“Lucky we planned for the worst then, isn’t it?”
“You need to start thinking outside the box.”
“You need to start thinking old school.”
Old school?
If my body were here it would see the group of grim looking security analysts look up suddenly, it would hear the approaching thud of rotors. I only came in today for a project review meeting.
Lexington Post — Latest Headlines
This morning the City offices of financial giant, Trinico, were the site of a bizarre tragedy. An unmanned courier drone diverged from its set course and collided with the 10th floor of Trinico House. The building, designed to withstand a medium-sized nuclear blast, was largely undamaged, although several employees were taken to hospital with minor injuries. They were later released and allowed to return home.
The presence of a wireless router on-board the drone has led many to believe this was an attempted digital assault against the company’s infrastructure. For several seconds, the device was able to establish a wireless connection between several nearby terminals, this may have provided a window for individuals with empathic ability to cross between the secure network and the outside world. Trinico, however, strongly deny any such speculations, stating that their infrastructure remains uncompromised.
In a further twist, the body of a young male, identified as a contractor named Brock Korwin, was later taken from the building via the service entrance. Trinico were quick to point out that the contractor’s death was unrelated to the earlier crash and brought on by an existing medical condition. The fact that Korwin was himself an empath has been dimissed as mere coincidence.
‘INSERT INTO news (date, text, title) VALUES (
“01-01-1970 12:00:00:00”,
“LOL. Stop reading this nonsense — it’s all bullshit you know. Korvitz is alive and well and working with us now — another recruit to our secret army. We will continue to fight injustice wherever we see it and will always protect our comrades. You can’t stop us, you can’t erase us, you can’t even catch us.”
“--+ ALL 4 1 & 1 4 ALL +--”);’
“Hey you’re in early today,” said Rodrigo, barely looking up from his soldering. “You been at the gym again? You sure shaping up for a skinny guy.”
“Thanks,” Fergus answered. “And today’s the day it’s all been for. I’m going to kick the shit out of some nine year old kids.”
“Say what now?” said Rodrigo, looking up.
Fergus didn’t answer but continued to put away his gym kit then checked the coffee percolator, wrinkling his nose at its contents.
“I’m going to show you something, Rodrigo, but you have to promise not to freak out,” said Fergus, a sparkle dancing in his eyes.
Rodrigo looked his skinny colleague up and down. Fergus was a peculiar looking guy — always wore polo shirts too baggy for his skeletal frame, had an Adam’s apple too pointed to ignore. But he was nice enough company once you got him talking. “Sure thing dude,” said Rodrigo.
Without any further explanation, Fergus crossed and unlocked one of the lab’s lockers. It was early enough on a Saturday that only the two of them were in.
“What is that?” asked Rodrigo as he watched his friend hoist out a tall beaker filled with wires and a cyan gloop that reminded Rodrigo of the stuff barbers dipped combs in. It was surrounded by a matrix of old-school bulb transistors.
“It’s...” Fergus paused for effect. “...a time machine!”
Rodrigo blinked at him.
“It’s a time machine!”
“Listen, dude,” said Rodrigo. “You sure you not been inhaling too many fumes?”
Fergus grinned and went back to the locker, returning with a sealed envelope. “Obviously you won’t believe me initially. I wouldn’t believe me! But it’s real, it works. And we’re going to prove it. This envelope — this wasn’t there when I closed up the locker last night.”
“Right — so who put it there?” Rodrigo asked, pulling up a stool.
“I did. Well I will. Later today. You pick a number and I guarantee it’ll be in this sealed envelope when we open it.”
“Okay, I’ll play along,” Rodrigo shrugged, recognising his part to play in the proposed magic trick. “How big a number?”
“Let’s say between one and a thousand.”
“Okay,” Rodrigo grinned. “Four hundred and thirty-nine point seven six four three two one one eight nine four two seven.”
Fergus raised an eyebrow and passed over the envelope. Rodrigo found himself a screwdriver and used it to tear open the seal. Inside was a folded slip of lined A4. Rodrigo inspected it and his face fell.
“Well?” asked Fergus.
“Man, I can’t even remember half of what I said... but that sure looks like it. How did you even manage this?”
“Been about half a year or so of experimenting in the lab.”
“Damn. No wonder you ain’t hitting your targets.”
“It can teleport, as well,” said Fergus, pressing a button. He was now standing a foot to the left without having actually visibly moved, then he reverted to his original position. “See!”
“Dude... this is crazy.”
“I know! It can only go backwards in time, though, we can’t go forwards beyond the present. And you can only ever return to the time and place you left from originally.”
Rodrigo went to the percolator, wrinkled his nose as well but poured himself a drink anyway. He needed it. “So... what you going to do with it? Go back, kill Hitler? Bin Laden? Grogan?”
“No way,” replied Fergus, shaking his head and adjusting some of the little switches along the side of the device. “A change like that would be far too dangerous, who knows what damage we’d do. No, what we’re going to do is destroy it. One small trip and then smash this machine into bits.”
“And so what would this small trip be?”
“Kicking the shit out of some nine year old kids, remember?”
The chipped mug halted before Rodrigo’s lips.
“Let me explain,” said Fergus. “All the way through school I was bullied, right? A lot. There were three boys in particular — Stevie Parsons, Chris Howland and Craig Dunsire. They had a real vendetta against me, made my life misery. And there was one day, one day that was worse than all the others. I’ve... I’ve looked back at that as the point I changed irrecoverably.”
“Why? What happened?”
Fergus had to build himself up to continuing, his enthusiasm drained temporarily. “On my ninth birthday, they got me in the boys toilets. They shoved my head down one of the loos... then they took turns at pissing on me.”
“Wow. I’m really sorry dude, that sucks. That really sucks.”
“From then I always walked with my head down, found it too hard to communicate with people. It’s because of that one moment that I can’t make any real friends or talk with women. Those three little shits ruined me.”
“Man, that’s terrible, you’ve never told me that before. Listen, though, I really don’t think this is a good idea. I mean, what are you going to do?”
“All I’m going to do is go back and stop them. No else did — not any of the teachers, not my parents. So I’m going to do it instead,” said Fergus, his cheeks flushed now. He had finished calibrating his machine and the contents of the tube were beginning to bubble. “And if I rough them up a little bit, then so what? Maybe it’ll scare them off from coming after me again.”
Rodrigo spread his hands and shrugged. Fergus had obviously been planning this a long time; there would be no talking him out of it now.
“Right — so you’ll be my witness,” said Fergus. He lifted a wireless trigger, a red button on the top, a bit like a detonator. “I should be back instantly — if not then you destroy the equipment and tell nobody you saw me today. Okay?”
Rodrigo nodded but looked glum about it.
Fergus pressed the button.
Click.
“What went wrong?” said Rodrigo.
“Nothing!” Fergus replied, taking a deep gulp of air. “That’s it. I’ve been and come back.”
Rodrigo considered him for a moment. Fergus didn’t seem to have moved but his cheeks had gotten red very quickly and his hair was tussled more than usual. “So did you do it? Did you stop the guy?”
“What... guy?”
“The one you went back to stop! Remember? You said, on your ninth birthday this guy just turned up at your school and right in front of you assaulted some other kids in your class. Beat them up bad.”
“No — no, that was me. That was why I went back.”
Rodrigo stated at him in horror. He genuinely had a different memory of the reasoning behind the expedition. “But dude, you said seeing that happen — it really messed you up. I mean, you thought you were going to be next. Said you had to get counselling and stuff. They reckon its why you started, you know, touching up kids.”
Fergus went completely pale. “Oh no. No, no, this is even worse. I’ve changed things in the wrong way.”
“So the reason you went back... isn’t the reason I remember you going back for?” said Rodrigo, rubbing his temples. “We’ve both got a different memory of history now — because you changed it.”
“Sounds like it,” said Fergus. “But don’t worry — I’ll undo it!”
“If what you’re saying is true — then don’t go mess with things any more, man.”
“I won’t! All I’m going to do is go back five minutes earlier this time” said Fergus, adjusting the settings on the machine. “And I’ll put an ‘Out of order’ sign on the door. That’ll stop my younger self from going in but without interfering with my other present self on the other side!”
“Seriously man, don’t...”
Click.
“Did it work?” asked Rodrigo, still not sure if Fergus had actually been anywhere.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“I got the sign up in time but then I got caught by one of my old teachers. I’d forgotten what an old cow she was. She got a janitor and they escorted me to the Head’s office to wait till the police arrived.”
“You got arrested!”
“Thankfully no — as soon as no one was looking, I clicked the button and jumped back.”
“You idiot!”
“What?”
“That was the whole reason you went back — to stop the guy who broke into your school then just vanished into thin air! It was you again! You’re the reason every school in this country has metal detectors on the doors and guards in the hallways! Who knows how many generations of kids you’ve screwed up.”
“Oh jeez,” said Fergus, his head starting to swim.
“That was probably the beginning of the mentality that made it so hard for people like me to get into this country” said Rodrigo, raising his wrist to illustrate the barcode tattooed there.
“Oh this is such a mess” said Fergus, pacing back and forth, hands on his head. “I’m so sorry Rodrigo, I really am. I’m going to fix this, I promise.”
“No way! You’ll only make this worse than it already is. This world sucks but I’ve had 34 years to get used to it.”
“No, no — I’ve got it figured. I’ll just go back by 15 minutes to here, to the lab, and tell myself not to go back.”
“Seriously, man,” Rodrigo was clenching his fists now.
Fergus started recalibrating the machine regardless. There came a grunt of surprise from Rodrigo and Fergus looked up to see... himself. Standing before them was an exact copy of himself — like looking into a mirror but not. His doppelganger’s brow was split and blood was streaming down the side of his face.
“Don’t... ” said the second Fergus. “No matter how good a plan you think you’ve got... just don’t go back again...” Then, as abruptly as he’d arrived, the other Fergus vanished again.
Fergus and Rodrigo stood in stunned silence for a moment, not even daring to move.
“What the...” said Rodrigo eventually.
“Right that’s it — I have to put an end to this once and for all.” Fergus lifted the button once more. “And if I can’t make myself see sense then I’ll destroy the machine.”
“But didn’t you just hear what your other self said?”
Click.
“Two... one...”
“It’s him! He’s here!”
Fergus squinted under the glare of powerful spotlights. He recognised the stained flooring and loose polystyrene tiles of the lab but there was no Rodrigo. Instead there was a large gathering of men unknown to Fergus. Some wore lab coats and were staring intently at various monitors and oscilloscopes. The others were soldiers in full combat gear and all aiming assault rifles at him.
“Don’t move Mr Walsh,” someone ordered and some sort of a sergeant or general or something strode forward. The man, balding, with a face like he was chewing on a wasp, considered Fergus with disgust. “Don’t even think about touching that button.”
“What... what’s going on?” Fergus asked.
“You are Fergus Jameson Walsh. You have been travelling backwards in time and altering the future, modifying it with catastrophic effects,” the sergeant growled.
“Well yes, I guess that’s me. But how...”
“Mr Walsh, your meddling has had far grander effects than even you may have realised. We are the United Organisation for the Preservation of Timelines — we were formed solely to track and attempt to negate the effects of your activities.”
Fergus looked around at the various scientists and soldiers. A roomful of experts who had dedicated their lives just to stopping him. They had so much expensive looking equipment and weaponry. How could this have happened?
“But I’ve only been back three times. I know I’ve screwed things up but how do you even know who I am?”
“What did you do on your last trip, Mr Walsh?” asked a pale-eyed scientist, looking up from his monitor.
“Well, I tried to tell myself not to use the machine, not to travel. And then I came back here to the present. In fact that was only fifteen minutes that I went back — how did you all get here so quickly?”
“You told a different version of yourself that his going back in time would cause issues? So he — as you no doubt would have done — took this knowledge and instead of following the path he had intended, jumped to a different point in time to try and stop himself from making the machine,” explained the scientist, holding his two index fingers together then moving them apart in different directions.
“Our paths split,” said Fergus, nodding. “So what you’re saying is... there’s now two of us going back and forth in time?”
“Oh, many more than that. Many, many more,” the scientist sighed, shoulders heavy. “It seems you are fundamentally incapable of following people’s advice, even your own. So every time you, or any variation of you, meet up with yourself again, the earlier instance of yourself chooses a different route than the one they would have previously taken. They always continue to travel in time, though, jumping to a different point and splitting once again.”
“So there could be hundreds... thousands of me now?” Fergus’ stomach felt suddenly absent from his body, replaced by a black pit.
“One of you even went back to his university days to try and talk himself out of ever experimenting with time travel. That only resulted in student-era Fergus Walsh starting to meddle far earlier and developing an even more effective time machine.”
“Now you see why we need to stop you,” said the sergeant and Fergus nodded, his pulse throbbing.
“But even if we destroy this machine now,” said Fergus. “And you lock me away in a cell somewhere, all the other versions are still going. You would have to find and stop them all!”
“Well so far we have caught and terminated — let me think,” said the sergeant. “Just over 300 instances of Fergus Walsh.”
“Terminated?” said Fergus, once again becoming aware of the circle of weapons pointing at him. “You’re killing each one?”
The scientist came over now and measured Fergus with some sort of handheld scanner. “Technically we’re just correcting duplications in history,” he said. “There should only have ever been one Fergus Jameson Walsh. And so once there is only one remaining again, we will of course stop.”
“That still sounds like murder to me. And where’s Rodrigo?”
“Who?”
“My colleague in the lab, Rodrigo Mendoza. He’s been witness to all my time excursions so far.”
“Oh we got rid of all the Rodrigos from this country a long time ago,” said the sergeant and a couple of the soldiers chuckled at this. “And the Abduls. And the Mustafas. And the Lings. And the Olgas.”
It gripped Fergus now, just how far-ranging his changes had been — not just in his life, but on the world as a whole. He noted that each of the soldiers bore an emblem on their shoulders, a sort of yellow fist with four diagonal spikes that reminded Fergus of a swastika.
He had to get out of here, jump back even further and stop all of this madness. Maybe kill himself at birth — there could be no splitting after that surely. But how? The base unit was located behind the row of soldiers, clicking the button in his hand now would have no effect.
Fergus blinked the sweat from his eyes and for a moment thought this barrage of information on his mind was beginning to manifest itself in hallucinations. One of the scientists, standing towards the back of the gathering, was him — another Fergus. That should have been impossible, but now of course he knew it certainly wasn’t. Scientist Fergus quietly pushed past his pretend colleagues and altered some of the switches on the time machine, discretely but making sure Fergus knew what he was doing — he was helping him escape. Their eyes met and with a wink, scientist Fergus clicked the trigger in his hand and vanished.
The men who had been standing beside him couldn’t help but notice his sudden exit and soon there was a great shouting and hustling as they understood that a second time traveller had been present. Distracted, none of them noticed as the liquid in the beaker began to bubble. Fergus raised his own trigger.
Click.
Fergus was in the lab once more, only now he was very much alone. The building was in shadow, as were the streets outside; the skies were dark unnaturally early. As he moved around in the gloom, Fergus felt broken glass beneath his feet and the chill of night air slipping through shattered windows. Fergus couldn’t even begin to guess where about he was in time now.
In the distance, an air raid siren began to wail, soon followed by others. Then, between their calls, came the droning of a helicopter and a pinprick of light in the distance grew into the large, wavering blob of a search light. The craft hovered outside, scanning its beam across the rooms.
Were they looking for him again? Fergus couldn’t know for sure but now found himself with even deeper concerns. Illuminated by the piercing light from the chopper, he could see that every wall around him, and even the ceiling and floors, were covered in wildly scrawled graffiti. It was the same message again and again, thick and desperate and Fergus understood that each had been left by a different version of the same man — him.
The message, over and over, read: “Don’t go back.”
Carl waited till the boss had slipped back out of sight and reopened the browser window containing Facebook. He’d already scanned his news feed twice this morning but felt obliged to do so again already. It was mostly Mindy talking about cats and his cousin Rob giving a running commentary on the previous night’s match. Nothing really interesting enough to distract him from finishing off those audit reports.
His cursor had been hovering over the close window button when he noticed the circled ‘1’ in the top bar — he’d completely missed a notification sitting waiting for him. Clicking it, he saw the words: ‘One new friend request’. That peaked his interest immediately; nearly everyone he knew was on Facebook already. Then he read the name and a chill ran over him: Marissa Cox. Her profile picture grinned out at him — those same mischievous dimples, same piercing eyes. Her face was fuller though, more matured, and she wore her hair differently.
Carl’s skin prickled, his intestines started to churn. Carl liked to think of himself as many things — a brother, a reliable employee, an idealist. He always took the time to remember new people’s names and the things they liked or disliked. On Sundays he would bring the elderly lady in the flat next to him her milk and papers. He was many fine, admirable things but Carl Sutherland was also a rapist.
Seven years ago. A meal out with a group of friends who then bumped into another group of friends. They’d hit a club then gone back to one of their flats. Sambucca shots. More people turned up. Tequila slammers. Carl had spent most of the evening chatting with a friend’s cousin, Marissa. They’d hit it off, laughing, exchanging stories. She’d punched him playfully in the arm, giggling and gazing at him with those eyes of hers. She was lovely. And smart, really smart. Carl liked that.
He’d been certain something was going to happen between them, all the signs had been there. But then he’d got drunk and she’d got even drunker. He discovered her later, passed out in their host’s bedroom. She’d looked so sweet lying there. He pushed her hair behind her ear and kissed her good night. Her skin had been so warm, so soft. He kissed her again. It was so disappointing the night wasn’t going to reach the thrilling conclusion he’d expected. Kissing became cuddling and cuddling became fondling. She wouldn’t mind, he thought. She’d be missing out as much as him — they’d wanted each other. He didn’t fully remember what happened next — the texture of her floral pattern dress and the warmth of her flesh had become a smear within his memory. What he could recall, with perfect clarity, was her waking after a few minutes and beginning to scream. The light from the bedroom door flung open was blinding, the fists and feet that fell down upon him unforgettable.
Carl had written her a long, handwritten letter of apology and Marissa had decided to drop the charges, probably for her sake more than his. A few more beatings followed. Outcast by his friends and almost glad to be so, Carl left his job and moved to another town. He tried to restart his life, pushed the horror of what he had done to the back of his mind but there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t torment himself over it. He couldn’t bring himself to look in the mirror any more, seriously considered self-harming a couple of times. No matter how hard he scrubbed in the shower each morning he couldn’t purge the reality of what he had done.
But the world did continue to spin. He made new friends, adopted a gruelling fitness regime. His new job went well, that was, until the company went bust. Faced with unemployment he was forced to take a job back at his old hometown. Thankfully there seemed to be no memory of him there. Until now.
Marissa Cox, of all people, had sent a friend request. Startled, Carl killed the browser and cast his eyes around the office as if expecting all eyes to have turned on him. He tried to crack on with some work but the situation gnawed away at him until he had to open the browser once more and double check. Yes, it was still there, still Marissa Cox, still a friend request. A little voice in Carl’s head wondered if maybe she really did want to be friends again, maybe that might work and could lead to them being together again. Carl hated that voice and told it to get back in its box. This didn’t make any sort of sense. Why? Why would she want to have any sort of contact with him? Was it a trick? Maybe she’d only done it by mistake, but then that would mean she’d had to have been looking at his profile in the first place. He remembered the last time he’d seen her, that shattered, broken look she’d given him — there was no way she’d have even typed his name in. None of this made sense.
Carl was called into a meeting that he dazed through for an hour, unable to think of anything else. Afterwards he set about doing some research — Marissa’s account was private and he dare not accept the friend request, but by looking at the profiles of her friends and using Google, he quickly began to piece information together. She was married to a man called Simon — nice looking guy, built like a rugby player. She played badminton and seemed to work in PR now. Most useful of all were tagged photos of a house warming party — the street name “Windsor Grove” in one of the comments and the door number in the background of one of the pics. 42 Windsor Grove. It wasn’t far.
Carl announced he was taking an early lunch and grabbed his car keys. Even once he had reached Windsor Grove, he still wasn’t sure why he was there — just desperately trying to obtain enough information to make sense of all this, he guessed. It was deeply ingrained in Carl’s character that once an idea or question had become lodged, the only way to shake it free would be to see it through. This foolish tenacity had gotten him in trouble before and was probably going to get him in trouble again. At any moment he was sure he’d hear police sirens and be arrested for even coming near here.
He found a parking space and walked to, and then past, the house he reckoned was hers. Nothing special, just a little detached. Front garden laid to gravel. He walked past again on the other side of the street, going a little slower this time, taking a better look. The blinds in the upstairs bedroom were swaying as if blown by a breeze. Then he was certain he heard a banging, like a window clattering against its frame. It came again, perhaps from the other side of the house.
“What are you doing?” Carl said to himself as he crossed back over the road. His footsteps feeling cumbersome, sluggish, as he made his way up the path of the house. It was the middle of the day, with less people at home to see him, but would that not make him look more suspicious to those that did?
He stopped at the front door. Should he ring the bell? No. No, he wasn’t that bonkers. He tried to listen instead. There was nothing obvious other than that occasional banging.
A little lane lead around the side of the house and he followed it. Why was he doing this? Why, why, why?
When he had been a boy there had been an abandoned, old council house at the end of his street. The local kids all swore it was haunted. Once he’d been triple-dared to go inside and look around. Apart from a couple of dead pigeons there was so nothing of fear or interest but every moment in that gloomy abode he had felt as if the house itself didn’t want him to be there, like it was repelling him. He felt like that again now, pushing against invisible barriers. He wasn’t supposed to be here. But he had to continue.
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