The Last Enemy, page 6
part #3 of A Time Traveller's Best Friend Series
“You—” he stopped, frustrated, and said, “I’ll stay, but this isn’t the last I’ll say about it.”
“Yeah,” said Kez. “You keep talkin’ ’til you’re blue in the face. Ain’t gunna change nuffink.”
Tuan’s head ducked in a laugh that he tried to hide. He cleared his throat and asked, “Where are we, by the way?”
Kez grinned at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
He looked around him, frowning. “No matter how far away I am, they’ll still find me eventually.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But it’ll take ’em a while, and that’s all we need, see? Just long enough for you to do that liddle brain thing you do and figure out ’ow to send me back—and ’ow to save me friend.”
“What friend?” asked Tuan, still gazing around the room. His head tilted to one side, and his eyes grew very wide. “Wait. Is this—is this one of the staff recreation rooms on the Chaebol?”
“Got it in one!” Kez crowed. “They know you left ’cos I made sure to leave a bit av a trail, see? It’ll take ’em at least a day to figger out you’re still on the sip and that it’s not just the sensors playin’ up and makin’ two of ya. I popped us here a bit earlier.”
“You’re actually terrifying,” Tuan said, in wonder. He asked again, “What friend? Not the other me, I take it?”
“Marx,” Kez said. She explained, “’E’s the one wot looks after me. Only he can’t here ’cos Uncle Cheng did summink wot made sure ’e died instead av livin’.”
“You think his death is the aberration that broke the Fixed Point?”
“Yeah,” she said shortly. “Tuesday, you said. An’ I bet I can tell you where the things started—started wrinklin’ when it comes to this bit av the universe, too.”
Tuan stared at her. “I believe you can. Where was it, then? If you’re wrong, I’m going to leave you here and go back to the party just before you kidnap me.”
“Last Tuesdee, on a Fifth World orbitin’ fuel station, innit?”
“You—how did you know that? My instruments are the only ones of their kind in the known Twelve Worlds, and—”
“Firteen,” muttered Kez.
“What?”
“You forgot Thirteenth World,” she enunciated clearly.
“There’s nothing there but trees and beasties,” said Tuan. “There’s not much to remember. And it’s not classified as a world, technically.”
“Yeah, and I ain’t classified as a person,” Kez told him. “Technically. Technically, I’m s’posed to be dead.”
“I’m honestly very surprised that you’re not,” Tuan said. “And yet, somehow I’m not. All right, I said I would stay, so I will. How do you know that’s the place?”
“Told yer,” she said. “Some av these Fixed Points is attached to us—this one was where Marx wos meant to escape, an’ I reckon someone made sure ’e died instead.”
He took in a deep breath. “How is it possible—no, never mind that. You can move unaided through time and space. You’re obviously connected to the roots of the universe and anyone connected with you would be likely to get attached, too. Very well; your friend is the mooring for this particular Fixed Point, and it’s likely that the unloosing of it has created this particular version of reality.”
“Got it in one,” Kez said, gloomily congratulatory.
“No doubt they picked the one that would benefit them the best,” mused Tuan. “They would have dismantled the one that gave them the best benefit for the danger it brought about. Do you know what it is they want? The people who split this Fixed Point from its moorings?”
Kez shot her fiercest grin at him. “Reckon that’d be me: real popular, I am. But they ’ave an ’ard time getting’ at me wiv Marx gummin’ up the works.”
He muttered something that could have been, “I’ll bet.”
“An’ prob’ly they don’t wanna die. That sorta thing.”
“Both good reasons. Are you trying to kill anyone, by the way?”
“Nope,” Kez said, succinctly. “But sometimes stuff ’appens, and Marx ain’t always careful if ’e thinks someone’s tryin’ to ’urt me.”
“I see,” said Tuan, eyeing her warily. “Very well, if we want to figure out which Fixed Points they’re most likely to have meddled with, I’ll need to update my software. I’d only found one aberration, but if I can refine it enough with what you’ve told me—”
He trailed away into a thoughtful silence; but while he was silent and apparently unresponsive, his fingers were busy about the controls of the console. Kez, well aware by now of the vagaries of her own TuanTuan, allowed him to continue so for quite some time without either interruption or inconvenience.
When it appeared that his face was beginning to work again, and his eyes began flickering across the screen as his fingers moved, she asked, “Wot you doin’?”
“I’m running my scenarios again,” he explained. “But I’ll only finalise the software this coming week, so I’ve had to update it manually with what I already know. I want to know if anything’s changed exactly today to bring about the changes I discovered earlier.”
That didn’t make much sense to Kez, but Tuan’s explanations often didn’t. She let him do what he did, and wandered closer to the training pod that was attached to the console. It said do not touch, so she poked it and received a tiny electric shock for her trouble that made her scowl at it.
When she turned around again, already bored, Tuan was typing at the console with great speed and efficiency; he didn’t seem to be doing so with success, however, because as she watched, he stopped, perplexed, and frowned.
While she watched, he fiddled with the controls and frowned again. Aloud, he said, “From my calculations, there are another two realities that have now split off. It wasn’t like this last time I looked—I’m fairly certain, at any rate. This reality split was from today, but the other realities—”
“’Ang on!” interrupted Kez. “You mean there are more av these other realities right now?”
“As many as there are Fixed Points that are altered. If it was me, I would have picked the three most likely to bring about the effects I wanted, and dismantled them one by one to see which one got me what I wanted. If I got what I wanted after the first, I wouldn’t need to use the others.”
“Flamin’ ’eck!” Kez said, going cold. “It’s happenin’ here, too! Reckon there’s about five Fixed Points wot are attached to us; he’s got enough to play wiv.”
He stared at her. “You—that—the universe will fall apart!”
“Only if they undoes all of ’em,” she said, trying to be comforting. She couldn’t help the grin that came out, though. Since hope of comfort was gone, she added, “They’re gunna, too. That’s why I’m here—it’s wot we’re tryin’ to stop in my reality, TuanTuan.”
“There are only twenty Fixed Points in the entirety of time and space!” Tuan said, in shock. “Are you trying to tell me that five of those are connected to you?”
She grinned at him. “Oi.”
“W—what?”
“One av ’em is attached to you, too.”
“Don’t—I didn’t want to know that!”
“Yeah? But it’s ’elpful, ain’t it? That’s back when we met for the first time: reckon they did summink to that one, too.”
That made him more thoughtful. “If they’re trying to disconnect me from your influence, I suppose they would have done.”
“Reckon they knows ’ow ’elpful you are,” Kez said. “’F I was them, I’d try to get rid av you, too.”
“That’s very comforting,” muttered Tuan. “However, even if they’ve done something to the one that’s connected to me, you’re certain it’s the death of your—your other friend that caused this one? Tuesday, Fifth World Orbiting Fuel Station?”
“Reckon,” she said.
Tuan frowned down at the console. “Very well; I can do something about that.”
“Wot you gunna do?” asked Kez, wandering back to hang over the console as well. “Gunna blow summink up?”
“Why on earth would I blow something up!”
“Blowin’ stuff up is fun,” Kez told him, disapprovingly. “You ain’t no fun, TuanTuan.”
“It might be fun, but there’s no need for it in this case,” Tuan said, keeping a wary eye on her. “We want to join things, not break them apart.”
“Wot you lookin’ at, anyway?” demanded Kez, craning to try and see the screen. Perhaps instinctively, Tuan had been shielding much of the screen from her.
“I’m looking for ways in,” said Tuan. He moved slightly to one side—reluctantly, it seemed to Kez. “People we can use as a proxy; someone we can give a few extra memories to.”
“’Ang on!” said Kez, chuckling deep in the back of her throat as she caught sight of a name on the screen. “’Ang on, TuanTuan! Go back! Wot’s that one say, eh?”
“Sergeant Gormley, Evidence Collection. He signed in to the fuel station on that day and—”
“Ha!” Kez crowed. “Still around, is ’e?”
Tuan’s eyes fastened on her sharply. “You know him? Perfect! That gives us a proxy! You can approach him and ask for his help—just don’t go into specifics, or you’ll risk breaking the Fixed Point all over again.”
“’Ang on,” interrupted Kez. “’E won’t know me though. Not if Marx ain’t ’ere.”
“That’s where I come in,” said Tuan. “I’ve got an idea of what your Tuan did to bring the realities close enough to cross over. Enough so that we should be able to layer the two realities right next to each other. It won’t quite do what your Tuan did—I suspect he’s got a head-start on me in terms of software—but if I can pull them together for long enough, I can give this Sergeant Gormley your Sergeant’s memories and get them to act in concert: the original and this one. If you’ve imprinted strongly enough on this Sergeant Gormley’s memories, it shouldn’t be a problem to give this reality’s sergeant those memories.”
“Yeah,” said Kez, grinning. “Reckon that ain’t a problem.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “I’m not even slightly surprised. Well, it’s all for the good, at least.”
“’Ow do I get back, then? To me own reality?”
“You don’t—not exactly. If everything goes right, and if my suspicions are correct, your own reality should come back to you: correcting the Fixed Point will zip up both sides of the fractured reality and make it one again with everything where it was to start with and a few extra bits. A few extra memories, too, maybe; I’m not quite sure about that bit.”
Kez frowned. She often understood very little of what TuanTuan said when he was talking about things he was enthusiastic about. “So wot, we’re tryin’ to kinda sew up the Fixed Point?”
“That is a very rough description of what we’re doing,” Tuan said severely. “It’s barely accurate and highly unhelpful.”
“Yeah, but I can understand it,” Kez argued. “Told ya: I ain’t got the brains. That’s TuanTuan.”
“So I see,” Tuan said, sliding a look sideways at her. Kez rather thought he was smiling, and that was nice to see again.
“An’ if we can get this bit all sewed back up again right and tight—”
“If we recalibrate the Fixed Point, it won’t do any good for someone to try and unmake it a second time. By remaking it, we’re making a Fixed Point of a Fixed Point, and anyone trying to unmake that would have to be mad or attempting to bring about the end of the Universe in one fell swoop. I don’t know that it’s even possible, because everything would be trying so hard to get back into the right place.”
“Orright. So wot do we do? ’Ow do we get this version of the sergeant to remember me?”
“It should happen quite naturally if I get the calculation correct,” he said. “I can’t layer everything exactly, but I can do it for the span of today. Just one Tuesday. I’ll be able to make a sort of corridor for you to walk between the two of them; you should be able to interact with both worlds, and hopefully influence your proxy to do what needs to be done.”
“Right, corridor,” said Kez, all at sea.
“I can only make a door into that corridor for a brief moment of time,” he said; a warning. “I’ll do it in the training module; it has some nice, strong locks on it.”
Kez looked at him suspiciously. “You ain’t gunna try to lock me in, are ya?”
“Good heavens, no! Would it do any good?”
“Nah.”
“Why in heaven’s name would I go to the effort for no result?”
“Fair enuff,” said Kez, grinning. “Orright. I just go in ’ere, yeah?”
“That’s right,” he said, still typing away madly, a frown between his brows.
Kez stepped into the training module and the door sealed itself behind her. She was rather sure it locked itself after her, too. It was cold and hollow inside, and the room outside it looked slightly curved due to the maxiplex.
“Don’t like it in ’ere,” Kez said, and her voice echoed in a way that was somehow curved, too. “’Urry up, TuanTuan.”
“I can’t hurry,” he murmured. “If I hurry, things will go wrong. You need to learn to be patient.”
“Don’t even,” muttered Kez, but Tuan must have heard her, because she saw his lips curve as he stood over the console with his head ducked to read the screen.
And despite his warning, it seemed to Kez that his fingers began to type more and more quickly, flying over the keyboard while he seemed to hold his breath. It was just like TuanTuan to get so enthused in what he was doing that he did everything at super-speed, but she felt as though there was a new urgency to his work, and that made her worried—and thus, annoyed.
When a cold stillness sprang up around her, limning the inside of the training module, that crabbed annoyance made her grumble, “It’s cold, TuanTuan.”
He gave a breathy sort of laugh and turned from the console to look at her properly through the maxiplex, one hand resting against it.
“Make sure you go when the light stops flashing,” he said, tilting his chin up toward the light that was now flashing above her. “Just shift into the Other Zone and come back at exactly the same time, but somewhere close to your sergeant. When the light is solid, it’s time to go. If you don’t go then, and the connection is lost, I won’t be able to do this again.”
“’Ow come?”
“Whatever happens, go as soon as the connection occurs,” Tuan said again, his eyes steadily on her. “Don’t stop; don’t look back.”
“Wot you talkin’ about?”
Why hadn’t she seen it before: his hand up behind his ear, tugging on the hair there?
“TuanTuan!” Kez said, more sharply. “Wot you talkin’ ’bout?”
“They’ve found me,” he said. “I needed the power, so I was a bit too free with the mains system and they’ve picked up on the double versions of me.”
“You’d better come wiv me, then,” Kez told him. She hadn’t meant to say that: he couldn’t take over her TuanTuan’s life. But something had to be done—some way could be found. And when everything zipped up again, or was sewn up again, he would disappear anyway, leaving only her TuanTuan in his place.
Kez’s eyes grew dark and pebbly: whether or not he was her TuanTuan, that thought made her sad and angry.
“I’ll come back out,” she said. “Move us to a diff’rent place, yeah?”
“I think not,” Tuan said. “Once you shift through that lot, it’s all up; you’ll be pulling the realities together. I’d rather you did it at the right time and made use of it. At the moment, it’s only security coming. Besides, if I’m manning the mains out here, it’ll take them longer to get into the room.”
“You gunna be all right out there?”
“I should think so,” he said. “They’re not bringing along the beastie, at any rate: and they’ll be more careful with me once they see I haven’t got on the collar. You might think you can kick me with impunity, but I doubt they’ll think so.”
“Yeah, but I reckon they might shoot you,” Kez said.
“I’ve sealed the door,” he said. “By the time they manage to get it open, you should be gone. Make the most of it, Kez.”
“’Course,” she said. The tube of maxiplex around her went suddenly black, obscuring her view of the room, and Kez yelped. “Oi! Wot’s goin’ on? TuanTuan, wot you doin’?”
“It’ll be better if they can’t see you,” said Tuan’s voice, reasonable and even.
He didn’t sound worried, but Kez’s last vision of him, one hand pinching at the hair behind his ear, was burned brightly into the blackness of the maxiplex.
She waited, shivering, and thought she could hear the sound of Tuan’s breath, soft and too quick, but perhaps it was just her own heartbeat. Then the sound of the outer door swishing open sounded in the module, surprisingly loud to be coming through only via Tuan’s comm to the pod’s speaker. Things were starting.
Kez bounced on her feet a little, her eyes flicking up to the light: it was still flashing.
“Here you are,” said a voice through the comms, as if from a distance.
“Here I am,” Tuan said, his voice echoing through the module with great clarity. “What do you want? I’m busy.”
“That’s interesting,” the first voice said. “Because we just had confirmation that you’re busy upstairs, as well. And that version of you has a collar on. What are we supposed to do with that?”
Tuan laughed. “That version of me, as well as you, and you, and you, and Auntie Li, can get—”
The sound of light discharge weaponry singed the air and crackled around the module. Kez heard a gasp, then a groan, and the sound of Tuan falling, perhaps to his knees.
“TuanTuan,” she said, in a hushed voice. “Oi. TuanTuan. Get up.”
