Oliver and Mary attracted the attention of the occasional Londoner. Oliver’s face was bruised and his lip swollen. They were both grubby from having spent time on the dusty pavement in Balham Grove. They had made a sharp exit from Balham High Road, cut through back streets and rejoined the road higher up. As they boarded the bus they could hear the wail of sirens in the distance.
The red London Bus followed a similar route to the underground, through Clapham and Kennington towards Waterloo.
The bus was thankfully sparse of passengers. Oliver and Mary sat in the middle near the automatic doors, ready to exit the bus even if it was in motion should another attack arise. The few passengers that were on the bus would have assumed the discussion they had was a lovers tiff.
“I can’t believe this is happening. Why are they after us Oliver? Can’t we reason with them? Mary asked.
“They’re beyond reason, they won’t rest until we’re dead,” Oliver hung his head exhausted by the fear that gripped him.
“We should go to the police.”
Oliver took Mary by her arms, “Mary, you don’t understand. In the future they have built a vast army of soldiers with the power to regress, to take over people in the way you’ve just seen. That’s how they killed Minnie. They have thousands upon thousands of them searching, hunting, with a single goal to extinguish me and wipe out the legacy of Tempus Genesis.”
“The police can protect us,” Mary said.
“If we go in we will get arrested. Think. Jamie was killed in my flat. That arrest will become a record and in the future they use all records to pinpoint where I or you have been. We’d get killed in our prison cell by another prisoner or even a cop. They’d just send a soldier back, regress into someone in the cells and we’d be like rats caught in a trap.”
“I can’t cope Oliver, you have to do something, I’m going to lose it,” Mary’s voice raised with escalating panic.
“Hold on, just let me think,” Oliver took Mary’s hand and held it in his. He fell quiet on the bus and closed his eyes to concentrate.
Mary broke the silence, “What about Blooms?”
“Blooms?” Oliver opened his eyes and gave Mary a puzzled look.
“I know it sounds mad, but he is a reputable scientist, show him your laptop, the work the research, explain how our friends died. He could think of someway of protecting us, a way to break our link with them.”
“That’s it,” Oliver said.
“You think it could help?” Mary asked.
“Not Blooms, no, it’s the laptop. I should have thought of it, before. I did its just I should have just got rid of it when I first thought of it,” Oliver looked bereft.
“I don’t get it?”
“Once I burned my diary, stopped the experiments, it all went quiet for a while. Over time, I guess, that lack of activity rippled into a possible future where Tempus Genesis was not developed. But the longer I’ve left it the more chance the laptop and all its data could kick it all off again. I have to destroy the laptop.”
Mary tried to understand his reasoning, she hoped it would be true. She had nothing else to hang on to. They sat in silent vigilance as the bus worked its way towards the Thames River.
“Let’s get off here,” Oliver said as the bus drove along Lambeth Palace Road. They stood up and rang the bell, when the bus stopped and the doors opened they cautiously exited the bus onto the pavement. They walked to the pathway that ran adjacent to the Thames. Down the river and ahead of them they could see the London Eye, County Hall and St Thomas’ Hospital.
It was only eight thirty but the riverside was more popular with tourists and there was a notable swell in the numbers of people around. Oliver could not decide whether this was a good thing or not. They were made more anxious by the sudden increase in noise of sirens and police vehicles speeding around. An unmarked BMW with a blue light blazing and siren blasting screamed by at high speed.
Oliver put his arm around Mary, “I think this is where we say goodbye Mary. They need to kill me not you, Jenny’s DNA put her at risk from them.”
“And Jamie? Why did they kill him? I know as much as Jamie did. Anyway I can’t just walk away and leave you, our lives have changed for ever now. Get the laptop, tie it to a rock and throw it in the Thames. It might work, burn your papers, just kill the whole project,” Mary took his arm off from around her.
She held his hand and pulled him forward, “Come on let’s do whatever it is needs doing, let’s do it now.”
Mary seemed determined to see this through with Oliver. He walked on with her, his heart racing at the thought of returning to the laboratory. Oliver had a heady cocktail of emotions racing through him, fear, regret and loss. However grief stricken, sick and confused he felt, he did not want to destroy the Tempus Genesis framework. But he knew he must.
It was quiet around the foot of St Thomas’ Hospital. They walked across the grass and approached the fire exit where Oliver had first greeted them some weeks ago. Oliver pulled at the door, it was locked from the inside.
“Do you have a key?” Mary asked.
“Yeah, I hid it around here somewhere,” Oliver walked away from her and went to a nearby bush. He rummaged around in the undergrowth and returned with a large rock. Oliver tapped the rock on the glass, then struck it. The pane shattered, Oliver threw the rock away and reached in carefully. He found the metal bar release mechanism and lifted it up and away from him. The door clicked and Oliver opened it outwards towards him.
Oliver said, “Wait here. I’ll be ten minutes max. Once it’s done we need to go somewhere unpredictable. Somewhere we’d never go, never have gone. Then we can think and think some more. We need space to think.”
“The Aquarium,” Mary said.
“What?”
“We always said we’d never go to the Aquarium, Minnie said it would be a pile of crap and full of brats.”
“The aquarium it is then, ten minutes,” Oliver disappeared into the gloomy stairwell leaving Mary alone.
Mary eased the door to so it appeared closed. She paced up and down the walls of the hospital and walked in circles around the grass area in front of the hospital, trying her hopeless best to look casual.
Oliver walked down the stairs slowly, nervously. His heart thumped in his ears and his hands trembled. The basement complex was in silence. When he had studied during ‘working hours’ he had to remain locked in his laboratory to avoid discovery. Oliver often preferred to work at night when he could worry less about noise. He had developed sound to accompany the regression images and he preferred to allow them both to be recorded when he was regressing. Oliver would marvel at the playback knowing he had unravelled the most fantastic discovery. Even once he had developed the vaccine for Jenny he had relentlessly developed the technology he felt certain would earn him millions.
As he reached the bottom stair he was disgusted by this memory and the greed that had driven him on blindly. Oliver walked silently along the labyrinth corridors until he reached the door to his laboratory. The door was open. Given the contents of the room Oliver was angry his well paid security guard had left the lab unlocked. He wondered if the guard was inside.
“Jonathan?” he called in with a whisper. There was no reply.
Oliver quietly slipped inside the room and closed the door behind him. He walked across the darkened room to the desk and turned on the first of two lamps on the desktop. The desktop lamp light shone on the laptop and he unplugged the charger and USB wires that led to the brain scanner and smashed television. Underneath the desk was Dyers original leather holdall and Oliver placed the laptop inside. He collected up papers and reports, every record or note that indicated any link with the study of regression. He packed them into the bag. As he packed he thought he would set the bag on fire and once ablaze hurl it into the Thames. Oliver hoped this would seal the jar shut.
“You’re doing right losing the lap top Oliver,” said a soft voice from the shadows across the room.
Oliver jumped at the
sound but recognising the voice he lifted back the lamps head to illuminate across the room. Jack Splinter shielded his eyes a little, he sat on one of the sofa beds in the corner.
“What are you doing here Jack? Look I’m sorry if I’ve led you up the garden path with this but I’ve closed down the research.”
Jack said, “You see in another ripple in time, you were due to leave for Vietnam and you had decided to ditch the laptop. But just before you unplugged that laptop, you uploaded all the research onto your store and share account. Leaving the Tempus Genesis framework in some form of online stasis. That really pissed them off. They can’t be sure you haven’t already done that, yesterday maybe, a few days ago?”
“What are you talking about Jack?” Oliver lifted the bag and stepped to the other side of the desk.
“Marmon sends his regards subject Oliver,” Jack said in a less than friendly voice.
Oliver switched on the second lamp shedding more light on Jack sat there in amongst the shadows. The extra light revealed a large rucksack by his side with wires protruding from the open zip. Two wires ran from the bag into Jacks hands. He held them along with a large battery in both his hands. Large bags of what looked like garden compost were piled up either side of Jack.
“What’s in the bag Jack?” Oliver asked not wanting an answer.
“A large bomb Oliver. Do you like it? I made it myself,” Jack smiled a soft insanity infused smile.
“You don’t have to do this Jack, they play with your mind, manipulate you. This bag is going in the Thames, the research is over. Jenny is dead there is no future plague, they are deceiving you Jack.”
“Oh, they’re not so bad Oliver, I’ve quite gotten to know them in the few weeks they have been parked inside my mind,” Jack placed the battery between his knees and took a wire in each hand. At the top of the bag a syringe protruded from the zip. Jack worked smoothly though he had sweaty hands, a clammy face and staring eyes as if possessed by madness.
“Don’t do this, I was just trying to help a friend,” Oliver pleaded quietly.
“In searching for a cure for Jenny Oliver, you condemned the future of mankind. I’m sorry son, you have to be deleted. And they’ve promised to spare my wife,” Jack plunged the syringe sending a catalytic agent into the large container of volatile chemicals concealed in the rucksack.
Oliver raised his voice, “No don’t Jack.”
O liver dropped the holdall, raised his hand and stepped forward. Jack hooked one wire onto the negative terminal of the battery.
Oliver worked his way quickly around the room, dodging the desk and the regression chair. Oliver had his arm outstretched ready to grab Jack’s hand holding the red wire he was aiming to hook onto the positive terminal.
“Sorry kid,” Jack hooked the second wire onto the battery.
Oliver stopped and half crouched and raised his arms to shield his body with his hands in a futile attempt to protect himself from the blast.
Nothing.
Jack rambled to himself angrily and examined his beloved bomb, he checked the wires. Oliver slowly stood up and watched Jack check for a fault.
“Shit. Why hasn’t it worked? What? Do what? Oh, just tighten the wire, okay,” Jack smiled at Oliver as if to say ‘simple’.
Oliver was too far away to stop Jack, too close to the lab door to resist the urge to run for his life. He sprinted for the door, flung it open wide and ran as fast as he could.
“You won’t escape this baby,” Jack called after him.
Oliver ran.
“I am tightening it. I’m going as fast as I can goddamnit,” Jack muttered to himself.
Oliver could hear Jack still shouting to himself as he ran hard down the corridor. He ran through several turns and round the final corner that presented the steps ahead of him. Nothing, no explosion, hopefully it had failed. He kept running and hit the steps at full speed taking them two at a time. He climbed the three flights and on the turn for the final flight he began shouting.
“Mary get back, there’s a bomb, run, run.”
Ten steps from the top he heard a distant zip, a sucking sound and he felt the air draw from around him. Then he heard a whoosh and the air went warm. Then the full blast came. He glanced down and saw a ball of fire racing up the stairwell below him.
Mary was unsure what to do. Oliver had been more than fifteen minutes let alone ten. She had decided to follow him in when she heard running up the steps, fast steps sprinting towards the fire exit door.
“Run, run Mary,” she recognised Oliver’s voice and began to step back away from the exit. As his screams got louder she quickened her retreat. Then she heard the explosion.
Oliver burst from the door way and sprinted hard, within a second his fleeing figure was consumed within a blast of flames and smoke. The force of the explosion rocked the hospitals concrete pillars and threw Oliver forward. The energy from the blast threw him clear of the escaping flames and knocked Mary to the ground.
Oliver dragged himself up to his knees with the blast ringing in his ears. He looked across to Mary, she was splayed out face down. Mary stretched out and rolled onto her back and sat up. Oliver slowly stood up and checked himself over, no bones broken.
“Did you do that?” Mary asked looking behind him to the jets of flames that gushed out of the burning doorway. Fire and smoke licked its way out from the basement areas at several points around the entire hospital’s ground floor. The bomb had caused extensive damage and fire was breaking out throughout the hospital.
Oliver shook his head, “We’d better get away from here.”
He helped Mary stand and they walked away towards the direction of the County Hall.
41.