The Creative Sponge

  Chapter 9

  Two weeks, six days ago

  Kathy was sitting nervously in the foyer. She was alone, apart from the presence of Mrs. Wilson, who was quietly sobbing into her handkerchief. The story had come full circle: we began with Mrs. Wilson calling on Kathy to help find her missing son, and now he has been found. The worry of the days when he was missing has been etched into Mrs. Wilson’s face: although already old when we first met her, now her wrinkles have become even deeper and her eyes even more world-weary and aged.

  Yet we have not quite come full circle, for many mysterious events have occurred. Mrs. Wilson originally sought Kathy’s help in investigating her son’s disappearance. Now, however, she barely recognises her. The woman who was once the best friend of her son has become a virtual stranger. Whatever has happened that caused Kathy to be removed from the minds and memories of all around her has clearly not yet unhappened. Yet today, there is minor progress. While yesterday nobody showed even a hint of recognition, today there is a faint glimmer in people’s eyes when they look at her, as if half remembering her from a dream.

  It was quite bizarre- traumatic, even- for Kathy to be here. She was sitting in the foyer of her old offices. People she knew and had worked with were wandering past. She wanted to greet them, but when she did they did not return the greetings- or if they did, they would do it in a merely polite manner. Friends and colleagues no longer knew who she was.

  She had spent the night in a hospital. After calling an ambulance to attend to Thomas/Gregory, she had travelled with him two miles to the nearest hospital and been allowed to stay in the waiting room overnight. The hospital staff had initially been hostile to her presence until she explained that she was now homeless and had nowhere to live. Besides, this was a dead man- unsurprisingly, the hospital had not been able to resurrect him. Medical science is not yet that advanced.

  The police had been called in to investigate. It was by all accounts a suspicious death, and Kathy had been the only person at the scene of the “crime”. Kathy was, therefore, their chief suspect- although at this point there was not enough information to determine whether a crime had even taken place. Nevertheless, whatever her title, the police had wanted to interview her in connection.

  So the police had arrived at the hospital around half past ten the previous night. They had interviewed her, and she had told them all she knew- except, of course, about the distortions in reality she had experienced. She would save that for the court, if indeed the police concluded that she was responsible for his death and decided to press charges. If worst came to worst, she reasoned, she could always plead insanity. Of course, she did not expect it to get that far, given that she had done nothing illegal- but she wanted to cover all possibilities. A miscarriage of justice was not impossible.

  Nevertheless, she had told them about TGN; about his disappearance, and what Mrs. Wilson had told her, and how she had been investigating the incident in her capacity as a friend and as an investigative journalist; how she had then been sexually assaulted and stayed at home for several days; how she had then been given a tip-off by a strange man in the park, and then found Thomas at the precise time and place she had been told; and how he had simply keeled over and died, randomly.

  She had, to all intents and purposes, told the truth. Yet she forgot that she had been forgotten. It seemed that the world had lost all trace of her: so the police had been unable to find record of a policeman rescuing her from a sexual assault; when questioned, Mrs. Wilson admitted feeling depressed over her son’s disappearance (so soon after her husband’s death, it may be remembered), but denied having ever met Kathy before. Her landlord and her employer denied having ever met her. Thus her story had seemed implausible. The police had pressed her for “the truth”, but of course she could not say anything other than what she had already said- for that was the truth. After a stressful hour in an interview room, the police had told her not to “leave town” and left her to sleep in the hospital.

  The next day had been slightly different. Suddenly, her landlord and employer remembered her- although only vaguely, and continued to deny having ever employed or housed her. Mrs. Wilson, too, had a similar level of recollection of her, and the policeman who had rescued her from Arnold admitted he “may have” rescued her from a sexual attacker, but that the intensity of his work meant that he could not remember every criminal he ever apprehended, nor every victim he had ever rescued.

  This was progress. Yet Kathy was impatient to get on with investigating TGN and the mysterious Cybertech Industries. She remembered that Arnold and his companions had been mentioning a Cybertech Industries on that fateful morning when all the trouble had begun. She wanted, as soon as possible, to discover who Gregory was, what he was doing in Thomas’ head. And maybe, just maybe, TGN and Cybertech Industries would be able to explain what had been happening to her.

  So Kathy now found herself sitting in a foyer on the ground floor of the office block where she worked. This was where they put all the visitors and guests; had she been recognised as an employee, she would have been allowed straight in.

  She had hoped that they would recognise her, or that she could at least sneak in and find her old desk. Why? The decision seemed irrational in hindsight- after all, if nobody else could recognise or remember her, how would her colleagues? Why should they be different?

  So her approach had changed. She decided, if people could not remember her, to pose as a person with a story to sell. She would find a reporter, or the editor, and she would tell them about the mysterious events which she had experienced; about what she knew about Thomas’s disappearance. Maybe, then, she could get some help in investigating TGN and Cybertech. If she could no longer access the resources of a national newspaper, then she could damn well find someone else who could.

  The problem was that she was, as has been mentioned, prime suspect in Thomas’ death- assuming the police concluded that a crime had been committed. As such, she had found it difficult to get anybody’s attention. The few people she had tried to call over had ignored her or seemed preoccupied. She had originally walked straight into the offices, as if she worked there, but had been escorted out into the foyer (where she now was) after several of the journalists complained of her “harassing” them.

  As she waited for someone to pay heed to her- either to discipline her, or to talk to her; she was not sure- she took out the sheets of paper again which had been given to her by the Man. These were clearly of paramount importance to Thomas/Gregory’s case. She could see that Gregory had been in Thomas’ head, and that TGN and Cybertech were somehow connected to what had happened to him. She remembered how he had been glancing around nervously just before his death, as if frightened someone was watching.

  His death… Kathy was surprised at her emotional response to it. She had initially been distraught, but by the next day her mourning had descended into a mere numbness, more manageable and yet more frightening than her previous emotion. She had busied herself in investigating what had happened to him. For hours now, she had been absorbed completely by the mystery of who Gregory was and how the two sinister organisations were linked that she had almost forgotten just why she was so absorbed by it. Yet now the fact of his death hit her once more, like a frozen wave of ice descending onto her shoulders and causing her to shudder with grief.

  Yet she could not allow it to swallow her. She had always strived to be a doer, determined and resolute: she was not about to give in to tears.

  So she gripped the paper and studied it hard. She had read it several times since the night before, and had begun trying to come up with theories about how the three sections- on Quantum Brain Dynamics, Thomas and Gregory- were linked.

  The first section was a fairly short paragraph which read:

  Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD) is a theory of human consciousness. It is based on quantum mechanics, which is the scientific theory governing the movement of particles at subatomic level. In quantum mechanics, there are t
hings called “quanta”, which sometimes behave like particles and sometimes behave like waves. There are different types of quanta, and these can form “quantum fields”. QBD explains human consciousness as the action of the cortical field, which is a field of quanta called “corticons”, on the water molecules in the brain. Electrical signals travel down the dendritic networks of the neurons in the brain and stimulate the water molecules in the neurons. When they are stimulated, they emit corticons, which create the cortical field.

  The ink was smudged in places. It seemed that someone had grabbed the paper as soon as it left the printer in an eagerness not befitting the content of the writing. The words were slightly faded in places too, presumably through the repeated pressure of sweaty thumbs as Thomas/Gregory and, now, Kathy eagerly devoured the content in an attempt to understand what it said, and thus to understand, perhaps, what had happened to them respectively.

  Kathy had never been a scientist. She could vaguely recall doing science at GCSE level, but even then she had only come out with a C. Thus while she tried with all her might and wit to fully understand what this paragraph was saying, in all honesty the subject was as much a mystery after reading it as it had been before.

  Underneath the first paragraph was a handwritten note about a Doctor Jones. The handwriting was alien to Kathy. It was certainly not that of Thomas (whose handwriting she had got to know); but then, with “Gregory” inhabiting his head, he may also have inherited Gregory’s handwriting style too. It was illegible in places, but made more sense than the preceding paragraph:

  Doctor Jones, Cybertech Industries: inventor of the cortical manipulation matrix. It __________ the cortical field to other _____. Must not be seen. They can monitor _________ you- through time, too.TGN investigating. You are not Thomas. You have ______ cortic__ _______.

  The handwriting was frustratingly hard to decipher, and it seemed that the most crucial details were missing. It was evident that it had been written in a hurry. Yet Kathy had a vital lead now: if she could find this Doctor Jones, then maybe the mystery would begin to unravel.

  Other clues were to be found on the paper. The next paragraph to catch her attention was the half-page biography of the mysterious Gregory, surname unknown:

  Gregory, surname unknown, born circa 1989. Grew up in Yorkshire. His father was a shopkeeper, his mother an au pair. Educated at a state comprehensive school, where he gained seven GCSEs before leaving to pursue a career in boxing in 2005. Gave up on professional boxing in 2007, although he continues it as a hobby. Studied for an A level in English Language and Literature between 2007 and 2009. Employed as reporter for local newspaper since 2009.

  Important people in his life: Gregory has a long-term girlfriend who he has been seeing for five years. His parents’ whereabouts and identities are unknown.

  Significant events in his life: At the age of five, Gregory had a traumatic experience when he almost drowned and had to be rescued by a passer-by. Since then, he has had a psychological condition whereby he panics easily when not in control of a situation.

  At the age of 13, his parents divorced due to his mother having an affair. He then lived with his dad for three years, after which his parents remarried.

  At the age of 18, he suffered a serious injury to his jaw in an amateur boxing match which put an end to his boxing ambitions. After submitting a short story to a magazine and having it published, he decided to develop his writing talent and pursue a career in journalism.

  So that was Gregory: the alleged yet incomplete life-story of the man who took over Thomas’ mind. Kathy was unsure what to make of this: was this “Gregory” a real person, or was this biography a malicious attempt to take advantage of a man with mental problems? The idea seemed plausible that Thomas had begun to suffer from some sort of multiple personality disorder, and that “Gregory” was one of the voices in his head. To supply this fictional creation with a life story may have been simply a sick joke, intended to confuse an already mentally disturbed man.

  The final piece was a longer biography of Thomas. This interested Kathy less, as she knew Thomas already; she did not need a biography to tell her who he was. Nevertheless, she decided to examine it once more to see if it contained any clues:

  Thomas Wilson, born 29th July 1988 to Mr Francis Wilson and Mrs. Barbara Wilson. Educated at St. Barnabas’ High School, Leeds, where he gained 10 GCSEs: 1 A*, 3 Bs, 5 Cs and 1 D, and Treebrook Sixth Form College, Leeds, where he gained four A levels in Maths, English, History and Physics. Studied English at Bristol University, where he gained a 2:1 on graduation in 2009. He was then employed by the Daily Herald in their graduate recruitment programme, where he has worked ever since.

  Important people in his life: Parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Francis Wilson, deceased, was a retired wrestler; Mrs. Barbara Wilson is a housewife. Jimmy McDougal, his childhood friend. They haven’t seen each other in a year, owing to the fact that Jimmy has moved to Italy for work; nevertheless, they remain in contact. Simon Carbrook, his other childhood friend; he remained in Leeds, but whenever he is in London or Thomas returns home, they meet up. Kathy Turner, close friend, ex-girlfriend and colleague; they met when they both joined the graduate recruitment programme at the Daily Herald. Mr. Jacob Wilson, brother of Francis and uncle of Thomas. Sarah and Jane Wilson, children of Francis and cousins of Thomas.

  Childhood: Thomas was born and raised in Leeds by Mr. and Mrs. Francis and Barbara Wilson. He enjoyed a happy childhood in a stable, loving home. Every other weekend, the family would visit his uncle’s house. While the adults would sit drinking tea and discussing what seemed to Thomas to be boring adult stuff, he would play with his cousins Sarah and Jane. Sarah was five years older than him, and Jane two; so it would often happen that Thomas and Jane would have a whale of a time, while Sarah would secretly wish she had other children closer to her age to play with. The three of them would often play a game of their own invention called “frong trong”, the name of which was based on something they had heard on a children’s TV show and which was a strange mixture of tig, hide and seek and hopscotch.

  This was Thomas’ life until he started school at the age of four. Although he was a slow learner in many subjects, he stood out when it came to English. He had read all the children’s classics by the age of seven and was consistently reading two years ahead of his age group. After reading Marlfox by Brian Jacques in just one night, he conceived the idea that one day he might be a writer. He dreamed of spending his life creating new worlds on paper for the enjoyment of other children. His goal led him to enter a creative writing competition at the age of 10, which, sadly, he did not win.

  This setback nearly crushed him. His dream had suddenly been stolen from him, crushed beneath the feet of a heartless competition judge. So he rebelled. Showing a complete lack of talent for maths, science, history, language, etc., his sudden apathy when it came to English meant that his grades began to drop as he went into secondary school and, at the age of 14, he began to experiment with weed. At first, he did it as a social activity with friends. This is where he met Jimmy McDougal, who was seen as the head “stoner” at his school. The two of them would sneak out at dinner-time and find somewhere to hide and light up. Thomas enjoyed the sensation of blissful apathy that the drug inspired in him as a kind of escape from reality and teenage angst.

  One day, when Thomas was 15 years old, he and Jimmy were found behind the school shed by Simon Carbrook. Simon was seen as something of a nerd; he was unpopular with his fellow pupils and often seen alone. On this occasion he had been walking alone mumbling to himself when he had stumbled upon the pair of stoners quite accidentally, and seemed completely shocked by what he had seen. His initial instinct to run and tell a teacher was overridden when Jimmy and Thomas had offered to let him hang out with them. Simon, who had never really had many friends before, jumped at the opportunity- nevertheless, he refused to smoke any weed with them. The three were a good influence on each other: Thomas and Jimmy brought out a
somewhat confident, more outgoing side to Simon; at the same time, Simon’s example eventually persuaded Thomas to give up on the drugs. Simon turned out to be a very optimistic and encouraging person, through whose influence Thomas began to believe once more in his potential. He began to use the weed not as a recreational drug, but as a tool for inspiration; soon, he found that the weed merely hampered his writing. It made it more creative and surreal, but led to a confused and incoherent plot.

  Yet Thomas was never meant to be an author. Though his stories were never good enough for publication, Simon managed to reignite his love for the written word- so, Thomas chose to study English at university. Having spent his teenage years as a stoner, by now he had lost interest in weed and passed off his friends in his halls of residence with ease when they offered him a joint. He became quite the student, spending his first year at university almost as a recluse. Nevertheless, it paid off: his first year exam results were among the highest in his class.

  At university, he joined the amateur dramatics society, where he met Dora Day who was to become his first serious girlfriend. They met in Thomas’ second year and stayed together for over one and a half years. Thomas had been deeply smitten with her; so deeply, in fact, that they had occasionally discussed marriage and family in the future. Yet their dream was not to be: as the pair came to the end of their course, they both reached the painful realisation that their love was doomed. Thomas had secured a job in London, while Dora- who was a biology student - had found a placement in Brazil working with marine wildlife.

  So Thomas graduated and left Bristol for London- alone. Yet he had a dazzling future ahead of him in the form of a graduate placement scheme at one of the nation’s biggest newspapers. After two years with the Daily Herald, he had worked his way up to being a full-time professional journalist: the boy who wanted to write stories had grown up into the man who did just that.

  Kathy had read this biography so many times she almost knew it off by heart. Choice segments of text had been highlighted in a seemingly random fashion. It must have meant something to Thomas/Gregory, who had presumably been the author of the highlighting, but was a sheer mystery to Kathy. The code was like an enigma to her, and she unfortunately did not have an enigma machine. Next to each highlighted segment was a patch of almost illegible scribbling.

  A grunt distracted her from her ponderings. She looked up and saw a suited figure before her. He had a strong, muscular frame bulging out from within his suit and an expression which gave the impression that he was utterly unimpressed at having been assigned her case. That was understandable: Thomas had been found dead, with her as the only person at the scene, and she had been completely forgotten by the world. He would have no memory of the fact that she actually worked there, and was probably suspicious that she was responsible for Thomas’ death.

  In fact, she had never seen him before. He must have been a new reporter at the bottom of the food chain who had been employed within the past few days. She could guess his story: he had probably just earned that big promotion to a national newspaper after years of local journalism and become excited at finally having caught his big break, but had found himself a minnow in a big pond full of sharks, his hopes shattered as he realised he was little more than an office junior again. He certainly looked as if he felt that way. A slightly disgruntled look pervaded his whole body: it was subtly visible in his posture, in his expression and the way his eyes refused to focus on anything before him.

  “Kathy Turner?” he called nonchalantly. His voice expressed boredom and a hint of annoyance.

  “Yes,” Kathy replied with hope. “That’s me.”

  “Come with me,” he said simply.

  With that, he turned and walked into the main newsroom without waiting for her to follow. She lifted herself from the chair. It was remarkably difficult for her to do so: she had become so engrossed in her thoughts and her reading that she must have been in that seat for hours without noticing. Plus, the effects of physical and emotional exhaustion had finally caught up with her body, which had simply sagged into the chair and stiffened like a rock. It was a battle of mind and matter to force herself to rise and follow her guide.

  He led her into the newsroom which was so familiar to her. On the left were huge windows overlooking the London skyline, the winding track of the Thames being the only relief in a landscape of grey artificiality; on the right, a series of doors spaced evenly apart, which led into the editors’ offices. Between the two was the newsroom: that busy, bustling hub of scoops and investigation. The air was abuzz with the sound of fingers busily typing and telephones ringing. As Kathy walked in, a pair of journalists- who she recognised as Emile Johnson and Ellie Summers, with whom she had shared many conversations- were rushing out with exasperated looks on their faces. When Kathy had been there, they had specialised in uncovering groundbreaking stories of political scandal. They had inspired the awe of the media world with their impossibly wide and deep network of informers, who had leaked to them stories from the heart of government. Although Kathy knew them, there was not a hint of recognition on their faces as they breezed out.

  Lines of desks filled this vast room for as far as the eye could see, each with many people busy on their laptops or mobile phones. The desk which was furthest away- where the reviewers lived- was barely visible where Kathy stood, such was the size of this operation. Nobody paid any attention to the red haired woman who had just walked in with the newbie reporter. The unknown woman and the unknown man: who would recognise either of them? For they were both nobodies, nothing, and both were equally bothered: one, because yesterday many of the people here had been her colleagues and friends; the other, because the glamour of working for a national paper had failed to materialise. It took all of Kathy’s effort to prevent a tear falling as she was reminded of her newfound invisibility in the world; Gregory, meanwhile, was merely annoyed. His brows furrowed and his lips stiffened as he motioned to Kathy to move to her left, towards an until-now-unseen door which opened into an interview room.

  Kathy followed. She stared at the back of him as he walked and tried to discern his character. His shoes were brown leather, polished to perfection; his trousers were neat and trim; his shirt, an otherwise plain white number with a red criss-cross pattern, was tucked in all the way around; his curly auburn hair was cut short. The whole look was designed to portray that of a serious, professional person, confident in himself and tough. He looked young, but he dressed old. He seemed a serious man.

  He opened the door and beckoned for Kathy to follow.

  The room inside was small and cheaply decorated. It had simply one table, two chairs and a writing pad in its centre. Her guide pulled out one chair for her benefit, and then sat down on the other side of the table, ready for the interview to begin.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked curtly.

  “It’s about Thomas Wilson,” she said.

  His eyes narrowed at her. He was clearly suspicious of her. Being new, he had never met Thomas; yet it was doubtless that he had heard about the missing reporter through office gossip, and about how- and with whom- he was found on the night of his death. This was not going to be a pleasant interview for either of them.

  “You were found with him on the night of his death,” he said darkly.

  Kathy sighed, “Yes.”

  “So what did you want to say?” he asked glibly. This was not normal interview procedure, and it startled Kathy.

  “I wanted to explain what happened. And then I wanted to show you something- something important,” she said.

  The reporter looked at her carefully. After a few seconds of visual probing, he opened his mouth to speak. “Explain away, then,” he invited her.

  “I-” Kathy began, before stopping herself. She was going to need to think through what she said, because unless she censored certain parts of her story, she was going to seem thoroughly insane. Truth be told, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was- but for the moment, she wanted him to l
isten to her and to believe her.

  “I was in the park yesterday,” she began, “when a strange person approached me. He sat beside me, and after a while he told me to go to Oxford Street at precisely 9:13 p.m. that night. I didn’t know what I’d find when I got there, but I decided to go anyway-”

  “Why?” cut in the reporter. He could tell where the story was going because he knew that Thomas had been found on Oxford Street shortly after 9:13 p.m.

  This question startled Kathy. Why had she followed the stranger’s instruction? Or, more importantly, how could she explain it without revealing what had happened to her? The great fear right now was that she may seem insane to her clearly sceptical questioner, and so she paused quickly to think of a suitable explanation.

  She wanted to tell him that she worked there, and that she had been evicted by her landlord when he had forgotten her, when all trace of her existence had vanished from her flat- oh, how she wished she could simply say that! But it was clear that some sinister force was manipulating her life, and her very reality, and so she confined herself to the world she was in: a world where she was homeless and jobless, and had apparently always been so, for nobody would remember that she had ever worked here. And so she began:

  “I’m homeless,” she smiled glumly. The words left her mouth with the bitter taste of shame. “I’m homeless, and I had nothing else to do. So I thought I’d follow the lead up.”

  Her questioner hardened his gaze. A cynical look passed across his face as he asked her, “How did you end up on the streets?”

  “My landlord threw me out,” she said. “I returned home one day, and… and he evicted me.”

  “Why?” asked her questioner, in the same monotone voice he had been using throughout the questioning. It didn’t display a lack of interest; rather, a rage seething beneath the surface, fuelled by suspicion and hidden almost successfully behind gritted teeth. He clearly distrusted her whole account of what had happened, and was searching for any hole with which he could tear her story apart and expose her as the fraud- and murderer- he thought she was.

  Kathy frowned. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “He simply didn’t recognise me. I returned home, and all my stuff was missing. He denied that I was his tenant, or that he had ever seen me before, and threatened to call the police.”

  Her questioner smirked. “A likely story,” he said. “But, carry on.” He beckoned with his hand as if interested in hearing the rest of her story, even though he viewed it merely as fiction.

  Kathy was near exasperation, but hid it well. Her success here depended on her convincing her questioner of the truth of her account, and he would not be convinced by a sudden outburst of emotion.

  “Anyway, I arrived at Oxford Street at 9:13 p.m. precisely,” she continued calmly. “Where I saw Thomas standing on the other side of the street. He was just outside the offices of an organisation called TGN, which I don’t know much about but which may turn out to be important in the investigation into Thomas’ disappearance…”

  She glanced up at her questioner. His eyes had become sharp and glazed over with accusation when she had gone onto the topic of TGN. She had lapsed into talking to him as if she was still a journalist employed here and he was her editor. He clearly did not like her attitude one bit and thought her presumptuous. Kathy bit her lip. She had to remember the situation she was in.

  “I approached him,” she continued. “I was so happy to see him- I…” She wanted to express her joy at having found her best friend, but suddenly remembered that she couldn’t- in her new reality, nobody remembered her. Colleagues of Thomas would report that he had never met or mentioned a Kathy, and that would poke a huge hole in her account. So she toned her account down slightly: “I mean, I’d heard he was missing. And I knew him from somewhere. I’d met him before.”

  “Where?” probed her interrogator.

  “I… I can’t remember exactly.”

  “You can’t remember exactly?”

  “No,” she said, shamefully. But of course she could remember! They had met on their first day on the job. They had become firm friends instantly. She could remember many times going to the cinema with him; going out for a drink after work; a few bowling trips on the weekend. Yet how could she tell this man? Her story would soon crumble, and she would have to explain what she had really experienced in this mad, mad time of her life, and would soon find herself in a mental institution. So she looked down as she spoke, hoping his eyes would not meet hers and see the madness and lies within.

  “So you were overjoyed at being reunited with a man who you can’t quite remember having met? So, what, you vaguely recognised him?”

  “That must have been it, I suppose,” she stumbled. This was not going well. But she continued nonetheless: “I spoke to him, but he seemed mad, confused; he didn’t recognise the name Thomas and swore his name was actually Gregory. He insisted upon it- shouted it in fact.”

  At this detail, her interrogator’s interest had perked. His expression now included simultaneously an increased amount of contempt and of curiosity. His eyes were accusing, asking an inexplicable and unclear question of his interviewee, which puzzled Kathy- but she could not stop speaking now.

  “Before he collapsed, he gave me something. Something which could be very important.”

  She thrust the papers she had been clutching so tightly towards the man before her. He eyed them hungrily and suspiciously at the same time, before taking them and reading them intently.

  Minutes passed in a tense silence. Kathy watched his face with baited breath: it was difficult to read, but gradually his mouth grew agape and he finished scanning the documents with an expression of unwilling shock on his face. His eyes were not empty of suspicion, but that emotion had been overtaken by burning curiosity- an urgency that surprised Kathy and took her aback.

  “My name is Gregory,” he said suddenly.

  “I’m sorry?” asked Kathy, incomprehensibly.

  “My name is Gregory. I have a gammy jaw from a boxing injury. My parents divorced for a while when I was a teenager. I did have a long-term girlfriend, but we have recently married.” He smiled. “Your information is a little out of date, I’m afraid.”

  “Wha-?” said Kathy, just about grasping what was happening.

  “I can fill in the details, if you like. Your paper says “surname unknown”. I can tell you: my surname is Smith. The man here, on this piece of paper”- he pointed to the paragraph about Gregory- “This is me.”

  Kathy was taken aback. This was beyond what she had been expecting. This was another strange, strange twist in what had been an already very maddening period.

  The implications began to form in her head. Thomas had been holding these papers, clutching them dearly as if his life had depended on it. He had said that Thomas was gone, and that he was Gregory instead, and then he had died. Could it be that the man before her had been the man she had met at 9:13 p.m. on Oxford Street? But she had seen him die…

  The very same thoughts were going through Gregory’s head, and both were as confused as each other. They suddenly both viewed each other with complete suspicion. Kathy, for her part, was wondering whether the man before her was at least partially responsible for the recent distortions in reality. Had everything she had experienced been a cruel trick on his part, through some strange new technology or telekinetic powers? The logic behind such an assertion was foggy to say the least, but it was clear that the man sitting in front of her was somehow linked to everything that had happened.

  She did not know what to say. He began the conversation for her.

  “Where did you get this?” he suddenly bellowed. Kathy was scared- he had suddenly transformed from a calm, inwardly strong person into a bear, a monster, bursting out of his shell; a wounded lion, lashing out at the most likely cause of his injury. “How do you know all this about me? Why do you have this document?”

  “I... Thomas… you…” she spluttered. Presently she experienced a fortificat
ion of her spirit. “You!” she said in a burst of realisation. “Were you there? Was that you? Is Thomas even dead? Were you masquerading as him, pretending to be him for a joke? A laugh? Why are you doing this?”

  The pair were now in high emotions, but Kathy was taking the floor. Her rational mind had taken a back seat as her unrestrained, illogical passion took centre stage. All the emotional pain and confusion that she had been through so recently was now projected onto this man, and she grasped onto him for answers to her desperate situation. She continued:

  “What do you know about all this? How did you do it all- the walls, the paintings, the hallucinations, the forgetting? How did you make the world forget me?”

  “Make the world- forget you?” he responded incredulously. “What kind of madness are you on about?”

  “A few days ago, I had a pretty decent life,” Kathy explained, close to tears. “I had a flat. I had a job. And then, one minute- poof! It’s all gone! My home is empty, my landlord has thrown me out- nobody recognises me, nobody knows who I am and I turn up here for work and I’m treated as an interviewee- nay, worse, a suspect in my best friend’s murder.”

  “You worked here?”

  “I did!” continued Kathy indignantly. “I’ve been working here for two years. My desk is over there” she said, pointing. “I’ve written some very good stories for this paper, and now nobody knows who I am.”

  “And Thomas was your best friend?”

  “Yes. We met when we first got here. We both started on the same day.”

  Kathy glared at her questioner, the mysterious Gregory who could take another man’s form or enter his head, or something…

  And all of a sudden, it ended. Her emotional outburst ended, and she realised how irrationally she had behaved. She had blown it- there was no way he would believe or respect her now. He would rightly think her mental, mad, an untrustworthy news source. There would be no investigation, and TGN would get away with…

  Away with what? Yet her mind was now on the right path, and she began excitedly:

  “But look! Look at the scribbling on the paper! It talks about TGN and Cybertech Industries. Are you linked with them? What can they do?” she suddenly accused him.

  “Look, lady, you sound insane,” yelled Gregory. “You come in here with all these claims, but nobody here knows who you are. Nobody’s mentioned you. You’re just a mad homeless lady. But a mad homeless lady with my personal history! How did you get it?”

  “I’d like to know the answer to that myself,” said Kathy. “You gave it to me.”

  “I? What do you mean, me?” asked Gregory.

  “Well, you were pretty insistent on it when I met you, or Thomas. I don’t know what you did- took on his appearance, or entered his head, whatever. But when I found Thomas, the man talking out of his mouth was you.”

  A tense silence followed, in which both of them glared at each other. Neither knew what to do. Yet both knew they were bound to the other in some way: Kathy knew that Gregory was inextricably linked with the fate of Thomas, and Gregory knew that Kathy had somehow, and for some reason, been in possession of a sheet of paper with his personal life story on it. Both had something they wanted to know from the other, so neither wanted to leave for the moment.

  It seemed fate had drawn them together, down a road that defied explanation and it had not been a pleasant trip. Yet here they were. And suddenly hope appeared in Kathy’s heart, as she realised that here was a contact that may be vital for her to unravel the mysteries of her dilemma.

  “Look,” she began calmly. “It seems that your fate, Thomas’ fate and my fate are all tied together somehow. And perhaps the rope tying us together is TGN. Thomas disappeared, and then I find him- or you- outside the headquarters of TGN. He mutters something about TGN helping and not being the enemy. Now, that’s all we have to hold onto right now, but it’s something.”

  “Both of us have an interest in this. You want to know why I have a piece of paper with your life story on it. So do I, to be honest. I could say that Thomas gave it to me, but that doesn’t explain why you’re on it, or why fate brought us together today in this meeting. We both have something to investigate here, and it seems that TGN is the place to start investigating.”

  Gregory was silent. He was still glaring intently at her with an unreadable expression on his hard face. Kathy continued, unperturbed.

  “We are in the offices of a national paper here. We have the resources to investigate this thing. One of our journalists is dead, and a shady organisation called TGN appears to be linked to it. There’s a potential scandal here. We’d be doing a public disservice if we didn’t get into a bit of investigative journalism here.”

  More silence. Kathy began to get worried.

  “I came here for this reason: to get help, to investigate the death of my friend. So- will you help me?”

  Gregory didn’t reply for a while, and Kathy waited in suspense. Finally he bellowed, “No!”

  Kathy’s heart sank. “Why?” she asked, with faux-confidence in her voice.

  “You’re a mad, homeless lady. I can’t trust you.”

  With that, he let out a guttural roar and went to storm out of the room.

  Before he could exit, though, a female head appeared round the door. Neither Kathy nor Gregory recognised her, but her interruption instantly dissolved the tension in the room. She wore a huge grin on her wide, freckled face and shouted the good news:

  “Thomas is alive!”