Ute looked once more at the handwritten word on the reverse of her ID card. ‘Try “munin”.’
‘The chip has accepted the password. Your mind construct been reactivated.’
Nothing happened.
David said, ‘Listen, we need to get after him. We don’t know whether he will make it or not. That’s not certain.’
The English made sense.
‘Hör zu—’
‘I understand him,’ said Saskia, her implanted skills returning. She crouched to retrieve the gun. Three bullets remained. ‘Let’s go.’
You will return, the witch had said, as you have returned before.
Chapter Thirty-Four
David felt dizzy. The spacious blackness was reminiscent of the 2003 bombing, although there was no undercurrent of panic. Jennifer led the way through the corridors behind the infra-red eye of Ego, whose exterior displayed a crisp representation of the view ahead. Saskia was in the middle and David was at the rear. Saskia bridged the gap by holding both their hands. David stumbled as Jennifer pushed them against a wall. A guard ambled by with a line of high-spirited personnel.
When they neared the base of the stairwell, the infra-red view on Ego’s screen became dark. They stopped. David whispered, ‘Ego? What’s happening?’
Some words appeared on the screen: ‘System is busy. Please stand by.’
‘Ego,’ David said, ‘you have no business but ours. Belt up.’
Nothing happened.
‘Should we wait?’ Jennifer asked.
‘We could reset it,’ Saskia suggested.
There was a beep and the infra-red view reappeared. Ego said, ‘Task completed.’
‘What task?’ David demanded.
Ego did not answer.
‘We’ll discuss this later,’ he said to the computer.
They emerged onto the level zero corridor. Ahead of them was an airtight door. Jennifer located a panel and pressed it with her palm. A dazzling bar of light swept beneath her hand. In the brief illumination, David read ‘Project N83261 (Déjà Vu)’.
‘Wait,’ Saskia said. She withdrew Hartfield’s gun and handed Jennifer her shoulder bag. ‘Me first. I have the training.’
The door began to open on a vertical hinge.
Saskia ran through the door. She found herself in a well-lit, cylindrical chamber with sparkling walls. The floor had been levelled to form terraces. To her left, higher up, was some kind of control room. To her right, she saw two centrifuges. They were rotating in opposite directions. A short gantry led to the middle terrace, which was a reservoir of sand. She double-checked that there was a round in the chamber of the gun and, holding it both hands, swept her gaze around the immediate area. Hartfield was nowhere to be seen. She hurried along the gantry to a metal boardwalk that ran lengthwise up and down the chamber. There, she crouched behind an equipment crate and strained to hear footsteps above the groaning centrifuges.
Saskia put her finger on the trigger and ran in a zigzag towards the lower terrace. She put her back to the safety baffle. Then she rose on tiptoe and looked into the first centrifuge. The gondola and the operator’s cabin were empty. The second centrifuge was empty too. Both, Saskia realised, were slowing.
Jennifer put a hand on Saskia’s shoulder.
‘Too late. He’s already gone.’
Saskia lowered her gun.
‘So what now?’
Chapter Thirty-Five
They hurried to the control room. It reminded Saskia of a lecture theatre. It had been evacuated, like the rest of Met Four Base, but the telemetry on the transparent screen that overlooked the rest of the chamber was a blaring wall of warnings, diagrams, and flashing numbers.
‘Jennifer,’ said Saskia, ‘is there no way that the machine can bring me back to now—to 2023—if I go?’
The young scientist looked at her. ‘Let me be absolutely clear: the insertion is a one-way trip. When you come back to 2023, it’ll be by the usual route. Are you having second thoughts?’
‘You sound like I have a choice.’ Saskia tried to smile.
‘Perhaps you do.’
‘Ute Schmidt didn’t have a choice when she was attacked. I, whoever I am, didn’t have a choice when I was killed. What choice does Saskia Brandt have? Klutikov is still out there, in our time, with orders to arrest me. Beckmann still wants me back. From where I stand, 2003 does not sound like a bad option.’ Saskia folded her arms. ‘Perhaps you should brief me on the procedure.’
Jennifer looked as though she might embrace Saskia, but her expression of pity transformed into something more steely as she turned towards the centrifuge.
‘We don’t have much time. There are automated systems designed to alert us to unauthorised use of the machine, and Hartfield’s jump is sure to have triggered them. Security will soon be here. The short version is this: We will accelerate you to a speed of forty metres per second. That’s one hundred and forty-four kilometres per hour.’
‘That is quite acceptable. I have been driven faster.’
David walked down the central aisle towards them. He was pale and sickly. ‘Cars drive in a straight line, dear. This will feel like the mother of all corners.’
‘Dad’s right,’ said Jennifer. ‘You will experience almost four gravities.’
‘What does that feel like?’
‘It’ll hurt. But you’ll be wearing a pressure suit and we’ll release you almost immediately.’
‘Through time?’
Jennifer smiled. ‘Through the wormhole—through time.’
Over the next few minutes, Jennifer patrolled the rows of computer screens. Occasionally, she called to her father and explained, in simple language, aspects of the procedure. Saskia remained at the prow of the control room. She watched the huge arm as it began to turn.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Jennifer. She had stopped at a terminal. ‘In which year did Hartfield receive his nano-treatment?’
‘1999,’ said David.
‘The readout says he went back to 2003, four years later. Why would he return to a time after the damage was done?’
‘Perhaps the new treatment can reverse the old,’ said Saskia.
‘I don’t think so,’ Jennifer said. ‘If that were the case, he would have taken the treatment now.’
‘When in 2003, Jenny?’ asked David.
‘May 14th.’
‘That’s the day the West Lothian Centre was bombed.’
‘Fine,’ said Saskia. ‘He wants to stop the bomb.’
David shook his head. ‘No. Hartfield is interested in one thing: himself. He can be cured with the correct nano-treatment. It no longer matters to him that the centre will be destroyed.’
Jennifer tapped the readout pensively. ‘There’s more. This date was entered into the computer only two minutes before Hartfield went through the wormhole.’
‘Meaning?’ asked David.
‘Hartfield must have been in the gondola when the insertion data were changed by a third party. He didn’t intend to return to this date.’
‘Do you remember when we came down here from the lab?’ said David. ‘Ego stopped working briefly.’ He paused, listening to the voice in his ear. ‘Yes, Ego says he hacked the time machine’s computer and changed the date. He won’t tell us why.’
‘This is part of my future self’s plan, is it not?’ said Saskia. ‘She sent you that Ego unit.’
‘Very probably. I hope you’ll know what you’re doing.’
‘We need to keep moving,’ Jennifer said. She pulled a two-piece flight suit from a locker at the rear of the control room and brought it to Saskia, who accepted it apprehensively. ‘Dad, explain how the suit works. I’ll start the ignition sequence.’
David got up from his chair, where he had been making notes on a pink sheet of paper. He pinched the rubbery flight suit between his finger and thumb. ‘Oh, I wish I had one of these.’