I knew that McWhirter had made attempts over the years to confront David Proctor, the man he blamed for the bombing of 2003. The complexity of the situation involving Shimoda would provide him with the reason he needed to bring Proctor back to the scene of the crime. Proctor’s summons duly arrived via the Home Office and made clear that Shimoda had broken into the West Lothian Centre.
Proctor and Shimoda had grown estranged over the years. I knew that Proctor would accept the summons, but in order for him to kill Shimoda—that is, complete his suicide—I needed to motivate him sufficiently and give him appropriate means to circumvent McWhirter’s security. So I travelled to Oxford and entered his home office as he worked at his desk. I put my gun to the small of his back. Without revealing my true identity, I introduced myself as a militant NeoHuman opposed to experimentation on artificial organisms. I gave him the two Ego computers, the instructions on how to most effectively disable Onogoro once and for all, and an overnight bag.
As Proctor walked from the house, I set fire to it. You will find traces of carbon disulphide, the accelerant I used, on the staircase. I watched Proctor rush back into the house to get something. It was the drawing his daughter, Jennifer, had made when she was a child: a stick-figure family in a house. Why did I set the fire? Proctor was about to risk everything. He needed to know there was no going back.
The reader will detect a conceptual difficulty here. Why would I feel the need to act as though I am part of the chain of causation, when I know that Proctor must go to the West Lothian Centre, and that I must travel in time? As an older Jennifer Proctor once told me: If the arrows strikes the target, the archer must have shot. One cannot have the former without the latter. All my arrows were loosed before I became aware of their flight. This is no small madness. My statement is not the place to explore my psychology, but I am stalked by these indifferent monsters. You, reader, cannot see them clearly. For me, the light of time travel illuminates them. For you, they remain shadows.
Following Proctor’s escape, other events took place as they have been described to you by him. I prepared Proctor’s motorbike and stored it along with other supplies in the shed near his ultimate landing. Then I assisted his escape. He performed wonderfully. In Proctor’s rucksack was a third Ego unit. It contained instructions for Proctor: reach locker J327 at Terminal Five, Heathrow Airport. It also contained a programmable logic controller rootkit that would compromise the Met Four Base security system, as well as those computers dedicated to Project Déjà Vu. This rootkit would enable the Ego unit to alter the temporal trajectory of John Hartfield’s journey, redirecting his body to the power plant of the West Lothian Centre in 2003.
When they put Scotty into an ambulance at Heathrow, I was there for him, as I promised. I was by his bed the following day when his phone rang. I spoke to myself. This is not as stretching as it sounds. Doesn’t everyone talk to their past selves and their future selves?
In the ruins of the West Lothian Centre, on a wall near Proctor’s old laboratory, I wrote: ‘Das Kribbeln in meinen Fingerspitzen lässt mich ahnen, es scheint ein Unglück sich anzubahnen.’ By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes. Whose idea was it to write that? I wrote, after all, what I remembered reading. This is the small madness. Where does meaning come from?
Time travel or no time travel, where does it come from? Ask yourself.
The circle closes. Nothing ends, or begins. This is the last you will hear from me, and the last time I will use the name
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Saskia lifted her head and licked her dust-covered lips. Her eyes were dry and raw. She looked around for Bruce and saw that he had gone. She must have lost consciousness and been unable to answer his calls. With luck, he had already been evacuated.
As much as she was scared, she was satisfied. The coincidence was extraordinary but the explanation clear. Hartfield was dead. The time machine had redirected him according to Ego’s instructions, who in turn had been carrying out her own plan.
That said, it was difficult to feel responsible.
The structure seemed solid again. Though, moments before, the walls and ceiling had ground together like teeth, they were now still. The illusion of immobility had returned. Saskia stood.
Ahead of her, southwards and away from the nearest stairway, the emergency lighting had failed. She had seen Helen Proctor fall into that blackness. Saskia clambered over. She stepped on cabling, masonry and other debris. Her intention was clear. She would save this woman’s life and repair the lives of David and Jennifer. She would give them the opportunity to avoid the pain that was in store.
But no.
Helen was destined to die and Saskia was destined to survive, just as the young woman called Ute Schmidt was destined to be raped and another woman was set to be killed, diced, and live again as data—as Saskia.
A tear cut through the dust on her cheek. She collapsed, defeated.
‘Are you okay?’
She wiped the hair from her eyes. There was a woman standing before her. It was Helen Proctor. ‘Listen to me, you’re going to be fine.’
‘You listen,’ Saskia said. ‘Your daughter, Jennifer—’
The woman frowned. ‘Jennifer?’
‘My name is Saskia. Your daughter will grow into a beautiful young woman. I am from the future—Jennifer loves you.’
Helen smiled. Saskia smiled too. She had got through. ‘You’re going to be all right,’ Helen said. ‘You’ve had a knock on the head.’
Saskia’s smile switched off. ‘No, listen to me.’
The ceiling opened. Saskia saw the steel joist fail. Fist-sized pieces of concrete began to rain. She pulled Helen to the floor and flung herself on top.
She turned to look up into the abyss. Daggers of twisted steel reinforcement were poised.
Kill me, then. Prove me wrong.
She screamed as the ceiling buckled and fell. Ribbons of metal stopped centimetres from her neck, her abdomen and her legs. The dust was as thick as smoke. Coughing, she remembered her hood and pressed the button to close it. Nothing happened. The computer was broken.
She wafted the dust away. ‘Helen, come on.’ But as the murk thinned, Saskia turned and knew that Helen was dead. The ceiling had fallen to leave her own body untouched, but a chunk of reinforced concrete had struck Helen’s skull above the eye. Her breathing was shallow.
Saskia put a hand to her cheek. ‘I am so sorry.’
She heard a man calling, ‘Helen! Helen!’
It was David. His face was young and angry. She stepped back. David looked at Saskia once, questioning, then turned to kneel by Helen. He took her hand and held it to his lips.
Saskia touched his shoulder and left. She was not destined to know him. She found a stairwell and pushed at a door marked with a green exit sign. Then she remembered. She still had to write the message to herself.
The door immediately to her left was hanging from its hinges. She wandered inside. It was a storage room. There were cans of spray paint on a far shelf. She put her hand among the cans, closed her eyes, and pulled one at random. She checked the label. It described security paint visible only in infra-red light. She remembered her confusion when she had read that cryptic message on the wall, seconds after McWhirter left her alone in the darkened corridor. And she remembered the envelope.