All the Dead Are Here (31 page)

It was then he saw the terrorist, barely a few feet in front of him drop the vial. Once again it seemed in slow motion but it was adrenaline that made time slow. The bright sunlight glinted off its glass surface as he dived forward, right hand outstretched to catch it. He stretched his whole body forward to its full extent, but it wasn’t enough and his fingers flicked it forward as he landed face first on the floor. The vial span and skidded across tiled floor before being crunched under the foot of one of the FBI agents who still stared at the Scientist in surprise.

The scientist stared at the bundle of coloured wires that ran from the nearby cabinet up onto his lap. His hands shook as he tried to solder what he thought was the positive detection wire to the multi pin connector. The smell of burning solder stung his nostrils and to his malnourished brain it smelt like burnt toast. The only light in the ruined laboratory emitted from the screen on his workstation. He couldn’t get the wire in position and solder it simultaneously, so he put the soldering iron back in its cradle and took the bottle of water from the table. Its chemical taste was a remnant from its life in the cooling system of one of the now defunct supercomputers. Even the long process of filtering out the chemicals couldn’t improve the taste.

He used his thumb and fingers to rub his forehead. The headache was now a permanent fixture since the food had run out a few days ago. He looked down at his emaciated hand, now more like the Dead outside than his remembered self image.

“Joe. Are you online?” he quietly asked the AI.

“Yes sir,” the cool mechanical voice replied.

“Run through the video again. Please recheck the timings. Ensure that the Atomic clock in the view is synched with the Quantum wave initiator. Then compare it with the clock time on the video. Ensure any errors are compensated for with the synchronisation algorithm I completed yesterday. Finally, do you think that my appearance behind the terrorist will affect any of the quantum waves taking me to that location?”

“That is extremely difficult to predict.”

“Hmm,” said the scientist. His first viewing of the video had spurred him on. The fact that he had appeared behind the Terrorist had showed him that the time machine worked and could take him to the correct location. It looked like pure dumb luck that he had missed the vial, consequently he had considered appearing a few minutes earlier and warning the FBI agents of what was going to happen but he had a hunch that they wouldn’t believe him until he appeared behind the Terrorist, at which point it would be too late.

“The synchronisation operation will take four hours thirteen minutes.”

“Good. Will that impact on the main program compilation?”

“No sir, I still have twenty functioning cores that can be used for that operation alone.”

“Good. Thank you, Joe.”

“I thought you may want to know that the main program compilation will be completed in five hours, twenty-five minutes and eighteen seconds.”

“Ok,” the scientist muttered quietly. He picked up the wires and the connector and began to solder them in position. He reckoned that within eight hours he could be ready to go. It needed to be today otherwise he may not have the strength. Then of course there was the problem of the Dead.

“Joe. How many are there now?”

“Please specify.”

“How many Dead are trying to get into the LHC?”

“Approximately six point four billion.”

“All the Dead are here,” said the scientist quietly to himself. Joe interpreted this as a statement and remained silent.

On the screen the image played silently on loop. In the grainy CCTV footage the large LAX sign was clearly visible, as was the main clock on the concourse. The scientist had no way of knowing if it was an atomic clock, but had assumed it was. The image showed people running in panic and a line of FBI agents in black jackets pointing guns at the scruffily dressed man holding the vial. The man was ranting silently at them, his face red with rage. The scientist had watched the footage so many times the sound played through his mind even though it was turned down. The man’s motivation for releasing the plague was some vague and meandering hatred of society and humanity’s ability to destroy itself. The irony of this action was lost on everyone as he dropped the vial and the Scientist appeared with a pop behind him. The footage slowed to a crawl as Joe checked each frame remotely. Over a period of a few seconds the vial tumbled down before the prone Scientist flicked it forward with his stumbling hands. Simultaneously, there was a flash from the FBI agents’ guns and slow bullets traced their way to the terrorist. Finally, they impacted into the man’s head and chest in several locations as the vial skittered under the foot of the leftmost FBI agent. The agent looked down as he crushed it. The terrorist tumbled as crimson blood sprayed in slow drops from the impact sites, each bullet taking seconds to trace through his body before exploding from his rear. Languidly, he fell to his knees and the FBI agents started their sprint towards him. In slow motion the screams of the onlookers became a low howl, not dissimilar to the noise he heard on his infrequent visits to the blast door that prevented the Dead from stopping his long months of work.

The video sped up to its normal rate. The FBI agents crowded around the body as the onlookers started to gawp in horror. As the final few seconds of footage rolled the terrorist jerked, as if having a seizure and then lashed out at the Scientist. The FBI agents fired as if in a frenzy, sending further sprays of blood out of the corpse as it gripped the arm of the Scientist and bit deeply into it before one of the shots found its head. The footage ran for a further three hours but what it showed was not worth seeing again and the footage looped back to the beginning as Joe continued the analysis. The scientist didn’t want to see himself as a Zombie again. The first viewing had shocked him enough.

Connector finished, he placed the snaking cables on the floor and slumped in his chair.

“Joe, I’m worried about hitting the spot. I know we’ve done it once but how confident are you of the final placement location?”

“There is a ninety-eight percent chance of hitting the right location, given local gravity variations in the rotation of the Earth. There is only a seventy percent chance of getting the exact time index,” said Joe. The scientist had become convinced that the AI had become more morose over time, almost as if it didn’t want to be left alone. He put this down to nothing more than his own fevered imaginings.

“Do you believe that there is anything further we can do to improve the accuracy of either parameter?”

“Given the fact we cannot yet analyse the previous successful relocation I do not have enough data at this time to make a prediction.”

“So we need some luck then?” the Scientist smiled thinly. Joe didn’t have any parameters that coincided with the concept of luck and so remained silent.

Several hours later the Scientist sat in the pod, crudely made from interchangeable aluminium struts. The walk from his lab to the staging platform just off one of the detector corridors had robbed him of the last of his strength. He hoped the adrenaline from the jump would allow him to knock the leftmost agent to the ground or do whatever was required to stop the event. He shook his head. There were too many variables, too many intangibles. He controlled his breathing and shut his eyes.

“Joe. Initiate the countdown,” he said shakily.

“Sir?” said Joe.

“Yes?” said the Scientist, slightly confused.

“Good luck.”

The scientist paused. He realised he would miss his companion. “And you,” was all the Scientist could think to say.

“Jump in ten… nine… eight… seven… wormhole power at one hundred per cent… five… four… Quantum wave initiation complete in… two… one… fireeeeeeeeee.”

For a moment the Scientist’s perception of time stood still and he thought that the wave had failed. Then, with a scream, his vision turned to grey and the pod disappeared around him. His entire nervous system turned to liquid fire and yet, for some reason, all he could think about was a large mahogany hat stand. Finally, the thought left him to be replaced with screaming pain and finally he realised it wasn’t him screaming. It was something else. The scream was inhuman and quickly he realised it was playing in reverse, like the video being rewound. It lowered to a bass rumble as the LAX coalesced around him. Finally, there was a pop as he re-entered the time stream and heard the screams, exactly as they had been on the video, but in glorious stereo.

He had appeared in the wrong place. He was far on the other side of the concourse as he saw himself dive for the vial. He shoved an old woman to the ground and started sprinting toward the vial as it skidded across the floor.

The scientist appeared in between the terrorist and himself and the FBI agents. He reached down to catch the vial but it hit his hand at speed and flicked up into the air past his astonished face. It tumbled up and over a waiting area, over the empty seats.

The scientist appeared in between the rows of seats and sprinted towards the tumbling vial. He leapt up onto the plastic seats and dived for it, missing it by scant millimetres. It tumbled on.

The scientist appeared in the darkened concourse. The room was empty and the main lights off. He looked at the clock on the wall. He realised he was several hours early.

The Scientist appeared behind the seats as he saw himself grasping mid air to catch the tumbling vial. He realised with horror that we wouldn’t make the distance in time to stop it shattering on the tiled floor.

The scientist appeared looking down at the shattered vial. He heard the moans and looked up in horror as the assembled ranks of bloody commuters, FBI agents and scientists turned as one towards him with a low moan.

“Fuck,” he said quietly to himself.

The scientist appeared behind the seats. The vial tumbled over his head. He leapt straight out ,anticipating its trajectory, arm outstretched and watched as it rotated towards his hand. He skidded across the cool tiled floor on his belly. In slow motion the vial fell and contacted his hand, straight into his palm. Still sliding, he closed his hand around it, safe and secure. Around him the massed group of scientists jumped for joy in the air, shouting and whooping, while the FBI agents and commuters looked on amazed at the group of remarkably similar looking scientists that had appeared before them.

The Scientist appeared above the Scientist clutching the vial to his chest. The standing Scientist looked down at the prone Scientist smiling. “Don’t clutch it too tightly my friend,” he said calmly. The prone version of himself opened his hand and passed the small vial up to the standing figure. He took it gingerly and placed it inside a small aluminium box that he had brought with him.

Then there was a popping sound like balloons that all popped simultaneously, as each Scientist disappeared, time fixing itself.

The Scientist walked over to the seats and placed the aluminium carry case gently on the seat beside him. He then slumped in the chair and started to giggle. The giggle turned into a laugh and as he howled, with tears running down his face, the FBI agents and commuters looked on with utter bemusement.

Thomas lay back, sucking on a long piece of grass that he manipulated in slow circles as he chewed. He lay in a nook on the dry stone wall, with his feet up and his back cushioned by a thick layer of moss that had dried over the summer months to form a comfortable seat. His hands were crossed behind his head and he kept a scant eye on the sheep around him. With lazy torpor, his eyes formed slits as sleep nibbled at him. The day had been warm and the breeze cool so he let out a long sigh and closed his eyes for a second. The late afternoon sun was getting ready to dip behind the distant olive and ochre hills. Soon he would have to work the sheep back to the village from their summer pasture before it got dark. For the moment he let the warmth flow over his form, and smelt the honeysuckle and heather that grew close behind over the decayed wall. One of the sheep came close, knowing the time of day, and Thomas opened one eye and stared at it. “Not yet. Just a little longer,” he muttered to its quizzical face.

Over on the distant tree line a small flock of starlings rose quickly to the sky as if disturbed and Thomas looked to see what had made the commotion. From the trees emerged a tall figure. Its silhouette was dark against the sunlit trees. Its walk was purposeful and steady yet ungainly, as if one hip sat forward from the other making the figure do a kind of half-limp shamble. Thomas opened his eyes fully, and shielded them from the sun as he sat up. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes then looked again as the figure, still far across the pasture, moved inexorably toward him.

In the distance he saw it wore a long coat of leather, and a wide brimmed hat. Could it be a horror or one of the monsters of old? Thomas stared intently trying to make it out. Then he saw a single glint from the rod on its back and the cross of the hilt. Thomas’ heart raced. Could it be? Finally he saw the light reflect from the figure’s black glass eyes and that sealed it.

The boy Thomas leapt from the wall and sprinted towards the village as clumps of dried moss fell from his back. He pounded his legs for all his worth and as his heart thumped and lungs hurt from sprinting so hard, yet still he found the breath to bellow, “The Teller is coming! The Teller is coming!”

By the time the Teller had rounded up Thomas’ forgotten sheep and manoeuvred them slowly down to the paddock outside the village, it was dark. The villagers huddled together, in hushed, rippling excitement as they watched him latch the gate with his long gloved hand. He turned towards them and they saw, in the torchlight that illuminates the stone houses, the fire’s reflection in his black glass eyes. His face was covered in strips of leather and cloth. The wide brimmed hat, of a fashion a few years back, sat atop his thin head. He wore a long coat of leather and patches of dark stitched cloth covered him. The thin, dark, trousers were mended in the same fashion down his stick legs to his leather boots, which, although scuffed, looked considerably newer than the rest of his attire. The whole apparel gave him the look of a scarecrow. In fact it was tradition in some parts to fashion scarecrows in his image and it was said he found it amusing.