Outside, Derek stood at the rear of a large van, devouring an apple.
‘Can I park outside?’ he asked. ‘It’s a pain lugging the equipment any distance.’
‘We’ll manage,’ said August before pointing out where Derek should drive.
‘We’ll walk round,’ he said. ‘See you there in a minute.’
‘Any excuse to avoid helping with the gear.’
‘So, “Leslie”,’ said Toby, ‘how did you first meet the heavyweight physicist?’
‘Well, “Charles”, it was during an operation in Berlin. He got me out of a tight scrape with a weaponised pack of Tarot cards.’
‘Of course he did. And now he builds time machines for you.’
‘Not for me – I’m just the one that convinces him not to patent. As he’ll no doubt tell you, his equipment has very unfortunate side effects, and while I trust him to use it with sufficient caution not to tear the universe in half, I don’t extend that same confidence to anyone else. So, I pay him an annual fee out of expenses that keeps Section 37 as his sole business partner in temporal matters.’
‘We’re patrons of the sciences as well, are we?’
‘We are when it comes to avoiding the destruction of reality, yes.’
They walked around the corner to find Derek pacing up and down behind the van.
‘Can’t find the address,’ he said. ‘I was just about to ask in the shop.’
‘Don’t do that,’ said Shining, ‘we’re being far too visible as it is. Give me your keys.’
‘Eh?’
‘The keys to the van. I’ll park.’
‘I don’t know about that, Leslie. I mean, I’m not covered with the insurance…’
‘Oh, come on, I’m only going to park it. What’s the worst that can happen?’
Derek sighed and handed the keys over. Shining took them, grinning from ear to ear, and climbed into the driver’s seat. With a rev of the engine, he performed a rather aggressive three-point turn until the van was pointing towards the gap between the shop and Cinnamon Wharf.
‘What did you say about your insurance again?’ Shining asked before hitting the accelerator and, as far as Derek could tell, aiming the van right at the wall.
The big man gave a cry of panic and waved his hands in the air as the van suddenly vanished, the air rippling around it then resolving itself into the old warehouse. Shining had driven the van through the open double doors.
‘You bastard!’ said Derek.
‘Come on,’ said Toby, laughing. He guided the big man into the warehouse before anyone spotted them.
‘You’ll be the death of me,’ Derek moaned as Shining climbed out of the van. ‘One of these days I’ll just keel over – a heart can only stand so much.’
‘I make your life interesting,’ said Shining. ‘Of course, if you were Chinese you would take that as a curse. Or not, depending on whether you choose to believe they ever said it.’
‘Interesting I can live with. It’s the bloody terrifying that cripples me.’
‘You and me both,’ said Toby.
Shining closed the large double doors leading to the street. ‘I hope we haven’t drawn too much attention to ourselves. It’s all very well three men and a van moving around the area but if they keep popping in and out of thin air, eyebrows are likely to be raised.’
Derek opened the back of his van and began to pull large, plastic crates out. ‘If we can get this set up on the far side of the room, we should be OK. It’s a pretty narrow field, but I can cover the majority of the downstairs.’
‘Cover it with what?’ Toby asked. ‘Leslie said you’d explain.’
‘Leaving it to the experts, eh? OK, well, are you familiar with the Stone Tape theory?’
‘Probably best to assume I’m not familiar with anything beyond basic school physics.’
Derek nodded and began unpacking his equipment. ‘Drag that desk over, would you? I need somewhere to set all this up.’
Toby did as he was told.
‘The Stone Tape theory,’ Derek continued, ‘maintains that an environment soaks up things that happen in it. Strong emotions create psionic energy that is then stored in the matter surrounding it. That psionic energy can then be accessed, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, by a person who visits that environment. It’s a popular explanation for ghosts. What we’re seeing is not the spirit of someone who has passed over; it is merely a psychic recording, an after image. Residual Haunting as opposed to Intelligent Haunting.’
‘Right. And that works does it?’
‘There have been arguments on both sides for years. Some say it provides a believable scientific explanation for otherwise unexplained phenomena; others claim it’s pseudoscience, dressing the impossible up in apparently convincing yet strictly meaningless terms. Various experiments have been carried out trying to test it, most concentrating on brainwaves and dopamine levels, trying to isolate what it is about certain people’s biological make-up that might make them receptive to the psionic information around them.’
‘Any of those experiments fruitful?’
‘Not for most people. Because the trick lies not only in optimising the receptiveness of the witness but also strengthening the broadcast.’
‘And that’s what you do?’
‘It’s part of it. This equipment comes at both sides simultaneously. It creates a sonic wavelength that affects and focuses the brainwaves of those in the room and…’ He looked up from the mess of wiring he cradled in his fists. ‘This part is right tricky to explain in terms of school physics.’
‘Small words.’
‘Are you familiar with Close Timelike Curves?’
‘No.’
‘How about Postselection? The observance of probability?’
Toby sighed. ‘Does the thing make time go backwards?’
‘It allows us to observe history, yes.’
‘Let’s leave it at that. Leslie told me it was dangerous.’
‘If you push at physics it tends to push back. The longer we leave it active, the further back we view, the greater the risk.’
‘And the risk is?’
‘Twofold. We’re playing with probability in a manner I’ve specifically designed to limit paradox issues, the emphasis is on observing rather than interacting. That said, I’m creating a window of temporal fluctuation – and that is always open to interference. If we stray too close to it, we could end up influencing it. That would be bad. The other problem is more complex.’
‘Hooray.’
‘The longer we push the quantum state into flux…’
‘The words are getting a little long.’
‘The more we screw with probability, the more changes could actually take effect. I’m loosening the actual timeline in order to see the probability wave. Do that for too long and the whole lot could unraveclass="underline" history rewriting itself from the point of intrusion.’
‘Which would be bad.’
‘Potentially catastrophic.’
Toby turned to Shining. ‘I hope this is worth wiping out history for.’
Shining smiled. ‘On the plus side: if it all goes wrong we won’t know a thing about it.’
It took Derek about an hour to get set up. What looked like cone speakers surrounded the ground floor of the warehouse, wires running from a portable generator in the back of the van to the various piles of equipment. Derek was established behind a bank of controls – everything from what looked like a portable recording studio to a very battered netbook balanced on top. Toby noted that the desktop wallpaper was a picture of the car from Back to the Future. He hoped he wasn’t about to die horribly as a pawn in the most dangerous game of live action role-playing ever played.
‘Nearly ready,’ said Derek. ‘Normally the focus of the machine would be a single object, not a whole room, so I’m hoping it’s not going to blow us up the minute I turn it on. Could one of you do me a favour and fetch the small, pink box from the passenger’s seat of the van?’