Fracture - A Window Overlooking the Universe

  Chapter Seventeen - Mortality

  Fenton stared in terror at the dead body on the table; his body.

  'No…no…no.' He shook his head slowly. He was trembling, shaking; shock, fear and panic rushing in; great waves of nausea crashing and breaking in his body, in his mind.

  They were all staring at him, measuring his reactions like those of some laboratory rat. No, not all of them: Alizen's face held just the hint of anguish, of concern.

  'Any views, Mr Fenton?' From Paize's tone he could have been asking him his thoughts on some complex mathematical equation.

  He just stood there, lost. He seized the edge of the table with his hands and shook and shook and shook. His teeth were chattering. He was going to die. He was already dead.

  For a moment nobody reacted then Alizen grabbed a hypodermic from the table and dashed to him. She seized his left arm to steady him before plunging the needle into his neck. More happy stuff flooded his system. The shaking stopped. But he was so cold. His legs were rubbery, glutinous, folding under him. Alizen gently helped him down onto the floor. Her hands were cool and soft.

  'For God's sake, Darvad,' she spat angrily. He was sitting on the floor now, her arm round his shoulders. He could feel the sweet warmth of her body.

  'Dr Retta, may I remind you that you are a member of my team, a probationary member? I've already had cause to reprimand you once for letting sentiment cloud your judgement. It must not happen again. All of our lives could depend on it, including Mr Fenton's; and Dr Dezlin's.'

  'Leave her alone!' snapped Fenton instinctively, furious, trying to stand but collapsing back onto the floor. She caught him, helped him to sit upright again but now the touch was clinical, professional. Then she withdrew, returning silently and sullenly to her master's side.

  He sat there alone and cold and abandoned for what seemed an eternity until he could find the strength and courage to raise his head to face them. He was going to die. Here. Soon.

  'How?' he demanded.

  'Shot,' said Dr Bainz, 'from behind. Point blank. The muzzle of the gun must have been pressed right up against the base of the cranium, the occipital bone, just under the occipital crest, there's a tell-tale burn on the skin at the ingress point and there's bruising. Death would have been instantaneous. The gun, I'm afraid, is a complete mystery. We haven't found the weapon or the bullet but the entry and exit points indicate an unusual calibre. The muzzle flash at that range leaves a chemical trace around the burn. It should be easy to identify the weapon by that. But this one's like nothing I've seen before. Central tried to match it for me before we lost contact. They drew a blank. Their only guess was it might be an antique weapon.'

  'Graeme was very interested in guns,' Fenton spoke slowly, in a daze, almost drifting into a dream. 'He collected them. He only had one real antique. It dated from the Old Calendar. He was very proud of it. I always wondered how he could afford it.'

  'Graeme never told me that.' Alizen's voice was indignant, challenging, the tone of a woman who had been with the man for almost a year and felt she had the right to know everything. Was she still hurt he'd had secrets? He'd never told her the money had come from his work for the administration, that he had contacts there at the highest level, that he'd sold them his soul. It had been left to him, Mark Fenton, to tell her that. Was that why she'd joined the SSD, to prove something?

  'It's not the sort of think you'd tell your girlfriend.' Girlfriend cut him as he spoke it. 'It's a boy thing; it's pretty geeky to be interested in that stuff. Collecting is anal enough but at least it only suggests you're some harmless lonely nutter. If it's guns then there's always a risk you're a closet psychopath. Women would run a mile.' He was holding himself out as an expert in feminine psychology. Oh, the irony. But then he'd had plenty of experience of their rejection.

  'Darvad,' said Julia, 'that broken display case. It fits.'

  'What case?' asked Fenton.

  'We found a broken cabinet in Dr Dezlin's office,' confirmed Paize. 'We thought it might have held a weapon. Your information is useful corroboration.'

  So, he had been killed by Graeme's gun, Graeme's pride and joy. Or rather he would be killed by it. He wasn't dead yet. But he was going to die. The evidence was in front of him. Would Graeme pull the trigger? Would he kill him? Perhaps he was just finishing the job. He had already mortally wounded him. He had stopped living when Graeme took Alizen away.

  'The body, my body,' he was trying to understand, 'you think it's one of these time anomalies, an echo of what's going to happen? You said they could be solid.'

  'Yes, Mr Fenton,' Julia agreed, 'but remember, I'm not sure the echoes prefigure what must happen. They may just point to possible alternate futures. We're going to try and stop it; together.'

  He knew she was trying to be positive, trying to be helpful, but it sounded lame, hollow. He glanced up at the table, rose unsteadily back to his feet. Was it all inevitable? He'd never believed in fate before, so why now? Because now his own dead body was lying stretched out in front of him: if that wasn't conclusive proof of destiny then what was? No, there were always possibilities, a multitude of them. He had to believe that. He forced himself to take another look at the corpse. It looked all too real. It was definitely him. They'd said long ago he'd checked out on both counts. The first was the recording, this must be the second.

  'So, this is the other ''evidence''. It's definitely me? You've checked?'

  'It's you, Mark.' Alizen's voice was resigned. 'We took DNA samples. Central agreed them to your file. I just took a sample from you to double check. Your DNA matches both your file and the body. There's no mistake.' So that was the reason for the swab.

  'How old, how old am I, was I?'

  'We haven't done a full tissue analysis yet,' commented Dr Bainz,'we're about to do the autopsy. We had to wait until you'd had the chance to see the body relatively undamaged.' Her voice suggested irritation, that he had profoundly inconvenienced her, disrupted all her plans. 'My estimate on the basis of current evidence is about twenty-six, twenty-seven.'

  Twenty-seven. His age. He glanced back at the broken face. He could see it. There was no time difference, it was him now, even the hair was the same length. He couldn't have long. But then none of them had. Twenty-seven hours Paize had said. How long ago was that? If only there was some way out, some way to beat the future. Of course:

  'Wait, what was I wearing?'

  The others stared at him in surprise. Fenton couldn't help but smile. An obsession with clothes at a time like this? A fashion conscious corpse? What did they think? That he was worried he'd been shot wearing something he shouldn't have been seen dead in?

  'Don't you see?' He glanced down at the blue undersuit. 'If I can put different clothes on, never wear what the body's dressed in then I've changed something. What was it you said? Future knowledge is beyond price? If I can break the pattern just slightly then I've already changed the future!'

  Should he cut his hair? Would it be enough to save him? He'd always believed beauty was in the detail. He'd been accused at Gadder of missing the big picture while concentrating on the minutiae. Could it be his salvation now? Or had they been right all along? Was he fiddling while The System collapsed? Was the grand sweep of the future already set, immutable, the intricacies mere trivia?

  'It's possible,' declared Julia enthusiastically, 'it might work. It's worth a try. Danielle, wasn't the body dressed in one of the station's standard issue tunics?'

  'Yes,' Danielle Bainz confirmed.

  'What about the recording, what was I wearing on that?' He was chattering with excitement.

  'The same I think. Darvad, what do you reckon?'

  'I agree, Julia,' said Paize, 'didn't we have a hard copy of that frame blow-up?'

  'We did, but I've not seen it for a while. Jemmie might have had it. We could go back and look.'

  'Wait a second. Where did you find the body?'

  'The lab, Mr Fenton. It was with the others. Why?'

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; 'Because,' he paused for a second, how was he supposed to address her? He decided to risk her first name. 'Because, Julia there is no way I am setting foot in that lab again or wearing one of those tunics.' For the first time since all this had started he was making an active contribution. He was making decisions again.

  'Doesn't follow, Mr Fenton, I'm afraid.' There was disappointment in Paize's voice. He'd only just realised it himself, he too had thought there were cause for celebration. 'We found the body in the lab but there's no evidence that was where the injury was inflicted. In fact the evidence suggests the contrary: there should have been signs, blood stains, scratches, damage. There's nothing of the sort. The body may have been moved. And the clothes may have been changed after death; possible, Danielle?'

  'Unlikely. I don't think it was moved. I think it fell where we found it, it hadn't been disturbed. However, I do agree with what you say about the lack of evidence around the body. There's a serious discrepancy somewhere. That applies to all of the bodies. Some of them are in a very fragile state. It was obvious they hadn't been moved, there would be detectable damage if they had. The injuries inflicted though are so severe there should have been an equally significant impact on the surrounding environment. But there's nothing.'

  So there was a slim possibility of escape. Was there anything else he could learn from the body, anything that might help? He forced himself to look down again at the mangled head. Point blank was what she'd said, instantaneous death. He'd had no chance. He would have no chance. The assassin couldn't miss from that range. But how had they got that close? Had it been someone he knew? Someone he trusted? Graeme? He hadn't trusted Graeme Dezlin for a long time.

  'Dr Bainz, you said the shot was fired point blank. Can you tell if there would have been any kind of warning? Or was it a surprise shot?

  Bainz seemed momentarily disorientated, confused at being questioned by her own subject. She paused, thinking. 'I see what you mean. The gunman, or woman, had to get right behind him, or rather behind you. Why didn't you hear them coming? The trajectory is perfect, textbook, the projectile must have clipped the cerebellum and gone straight through the centre, the thalamus, exiting though the frontal bone. That argues against a quick shot. Precision like that takes time. I suppose it could have been a lucky strike.' Bainz suddenly stabbed her fist upwards, the index finger extended to an accusing point, the thumb sticking up, the classic childhood representation of a gun: 'BLAM!' Fenton jumped in surprise, Alizen looked dismayed at the insensitivity. 'But you're right,' she continued, oblivious to their distaste, 'with a wound that clean it's far more likely they would have taken things slowly, ensured they got it right. She slowly raised her hand, the imaginary gun, stopped it in mid-air, held it there for a second and then: 'BLAM!' She lowered the hand.

  'But why didn't you try to run, Mr Fenton? You must have felt the muzzle at the back of your head, if only for a moment. Why didn't you try to twist away? You obviously didn't or you would have disturbed their shot and I'd have a much messier corpse to deal with.' She sounded disappointed, as if he had robbed her of a much more interesting and challenging assignment. Fenton glanced back at the corpse. It was messy enough already. 'You probably wouldn't have had time to think,' she continued, 'so you would have been acting on instinct. There are three classic reflex responses, Mr Fenton: fight, flight or freeze. Two of them might have given you a chance. It looks like you went for the one absolutely guaranteed to get you killed.'

  So, he hadn't resisted. He hadn't even run. Had he been resigned to death? Had he given up caring? No, he would never give up. But there had been a pause, an instant between the moment when the muzzle had touched the base of his skull and the final moment when it had fired. Had he frozen?

  'There's another possibility,' said Julia. Bainz had been carelessly brutal, casually critical. Was Julia trying to soften the blow, to reassure him that it wasn't his fault, that he hadn't really lost control just when it mattered most? 'Something may have stopped you from fighting, from running.' She paused. 'You may have been executed.' No, she wasn't being comforting. He was still dead.

  And there would still be that final terrifying moment of suspense, the moment when he knew the game was well and truly up, that it was all over, that he was going to die and there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it, a moment of exquisite, all-consuming fear.

  He felt it now.

  'I want to get out of here. I want to get out of here.'

  'Julia, get him outside,' said Paize, 'Danielle, we're finished here. I need the results of the autopsy as soon as possible. Central's put a Security Hazard Area order on us. We probably have about twenty-six hours before they shunt us out of orbit and close down this investigation for good.'

  Danielle Bainz grunted her assent impatiently, she'd been ready and waiting for hours, Paize had held her back. 'Dr Retta, please power up the cutting tools and get me some sterile sample dishes.'

  Alizen bent down over the trolley. Alizen was her assistant. Alizen was going to help her with the autopsy. She had probably already cut and sliced her way through all the bodies in the room. Now it was his turn. He felt sick. So, he could never be part of her world. He could never be part of her work. Well, now he was her work. She glanced up and he was looking straight into her eyes. She returned his gaze steadily and without flinching, inscrutable as ever. They had to talk, while there was still time. Then she was looking down again, busying herself. He felt a gentle pressure on his arm. It was Julia. She was leading him out of that stinking vault, the mausoleum, and back into the cold, dark corridor. He glanced back for one last look at the body before it was desecrated forever. Bainz was standing over it, a surgical mask in her hand. She was about to pull it over her face.

  'Mr Fenton. If I was you I'd run.'