The Man Who Turned Into Himself (16 page)

E
mma, this is for you. It's only fair you should know what happened. That much I owe you.

To begin with, I was a lot less confident than I wanted to admit that it was going to work. It was only an idea, and maybe a crazy one. But it's like they say about being paranoid: it doesn't stop people plotting against you. In the same way, being crazy doesn't mean you may not be right.

The trance was no problem. Nor was the regression. And those depth reports you wanted were very useful. Having to call out numbers like that worked a little like jet thrust, pushing me back and down, helping me figure out where I was and how fast I was going.

The past flashed by like a video on rewind, only I had the feeling I was inside the picture instead of watching it on a screen. For a while I felt like a man drowning. I started to panic.

That was when I lost contact with you. And when Richard went off after Rick to rescue him. From that point on they became one.

So who am I?

Well, now, that's the question, isn't it?

***

Scaring him awake with that apocalyptic 'fire in the skies' scenario was pure clumsiness. I was searching around in his unconscious for something I might be able to use, when I somehow drove this thing out of the undergrowth. It was like stepping on a sleeping rabbit: I scared myself as much as I scared him.

I tried my best to get his attention when he went downstairs and looked out at the garden in the moonlight, but all I managed was to make him want a cup of hot chocolate to soothe his nerves! Then there wasn't much I could do while he and Anne had their little scene in the kitchen and back in bed. Following which he fell into a deep sleep, and I had to lie low until Charlie came and told him that the cat was stuck on the roof.

The damn cat, of course, sensed something. That's why it lashed out at him. It sensed some alien presence — me — that scared the hell out of it.

I knew the fall was coming, so I braced myself, thinking I could maybe use the shock as a way of getting through to him. But he was too stunned to be aware of anything except the fact of his survival. The incident had scared him more than I had realised myself the first time around.

My next chance was when he looked in his mirror to shave. He was alone, still shaken up, but sufficiently recovered to be receptive. For a moment I thought I was getting through to him. He started consciously reflecting on what might have been ('Another couple of feet either way and it would have been like a coconut against concrete'). This provided an opening through which I might possibly have planted the idea in his mind that all the might-have-beens in his world were actual realities in other worlds. But then, sensing my presence unconsciously, he side-tracked the whole train of thought into that little waking nightmare about brain damage.

What I desperately needed was something that would affect what Anne did that morning. If only I could make him ask her some favour, to stop by a shop, post a letter — anything so that she would not be in her car at the time and place where the accident was due to happen.

But the idea had to seem to arise spontaneously within his own consciousness. I couldn't risk direct communication; there was no time to explain rationally everything that I would have had to explain.

The next time I came close to getting his attention was while he was driving to the office. The trouble was that 
I became so engrossed in leading his thoughts the way I wanted them to go that I forgot all about the truck that was due to come barrelling around the corner. His reactions were impressive. We were both alive, but I was no closer to my goal.

After that I couldn't find a crack through which to slip even half a thought into his mind. He was so scared by this second brush with death that his concentration became superhuman. His fainting spell in Crossfield's office was caused by me throwing all caution to the wind and screaming at him to listen while there was still time. He tried instinctively to shut me out, as he would a bad memory or an unseemly thought.

He knew at that moment — I know he knew! — that something in his head was urging him to call Anne, to make an excuse, any excuse, to prevent her going out in her car with Charlie that morning. And yet he wouldn't listen.

It was understandable, of course. And yet I would like to think that I, in his position, would have shown a little less rigidity and a little more imagination.

But how can I be sure? Did I ever, before this happened, really trust my imagination? We tend to think of it as no more than a distorting mirror of reality, a screen upon which cheap fantasies can be projected. How wrong we are. Imagination is the door to everything.

I knew that my last chance was in the men's room. By the time he got into the meeting and started doodling on his pad, it would be too late. I knew that I had to hit him with everything I had right there while he was dowsing his face with water and wondering what was wrong with him.

What I didn't know was how much I had to hit him with, or precisely what form it would take. I wasn't any more ready than he was for what actually happened.

Emma, this is new ground. This is where you lost 'Richard' as well as 'Rick' — because Rick needed all the help he could get. This is where this whole identity thing gets really mixed up.

He — the old Rick; the, if you like, original — was feeling like shit and looking at himself in the mirror wondering what the hell was wrong and (you'll remember this from what I wrote before) he gets the feeling that something is behind him and he whips around. There was nothing there the first time.

But this time . . . oh, boy!

I
was there!

He stared. What little colour he had left in his face drained clear away and I thought he was about to pass out.

Frankly, I didn't feel too great myself. I didn't know how I'd got there. Will power? Desperation? Was I really there at all?

I could feel the floor under my feet and I could see my reflection in the mirror behind him.

I was wearing Richard's clothes!

And I had — I can't explain this, maybe you can — I had this great gash on my forehead, like I'd been hit, or I'd fallen. But hard. It looked nasty. Does that mean anything to you?

Anyway, there I was, feeling as surprised to be there as he was to see me. But I had the edge on him — just. I grabbed him by the wrist and said: 'Don't ask questions! Just come with me.'

You may ask why did I have to drag him along. Wouldn't it have been simpler just to get into a car — any car — and take care of things myself? I knew where Anne was. I could have gone straight there without having to argue with him all the way, without having him maybe do something stupid and ruin everything. Why didn't I do that?

The answer is I don't know. I'm not even sure that I consciously thought about it at the time. What I do know is what I felt. And what I felt was that I was in some strange way bound to him. I knew at that moment that I was real to him, but I didn't know whether I'd be equally real to Anne. I couldn't be sure that if I tried to run out of there on my own and tell her not to drive her car that morning . . . I couldn't be sure that she'd even know that I was there, let alone listen to me. And I didn't have time to find out.

'Don't pass out!' I said, my first words to him. (I could say my first words to myself, but why complicate matters?) 'I can't explain,' I went on, 'at least not now. Anne's in danger. She'll die if you don't come with me.'

He — thank God, or Whatever — was too shaken to give me an argument. It was all he could do to stay on his feet and control the speed at which his head was spinning. He looked like his mouth wouldn't work. Or maybe his brain. Or both.

'Don't panic, it's all right,' I said, several times. I wanted to shout but didn't know if the others would be able to hear me or not through the door, so I kept my voice down. 'I'm going mad!' he said. His hands had gone up to his head, like he was trying to keep his skull from splitting open.

'You're not going mad,' I told him. 'What's happening is going to take a lot of understanding, but you
will
understand it. Right now we've got to get out of here.'

I looked around for a way. We could have just raced through Crossfield's office, but I didn't want to risk the tangle. Can you imagine? One guy goes to the can and comes out twins.

Or, equally undesirable, even if the others couldn't see me, they'd see him looking like a man demented and send for security!

There was a good-sized window, steel-framed, partially open. I pushed it and looked out. 'There's a ledge. We can crawl along it to the fire escape. Come on!'

He still didn't move. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. 'Don't think about it! Just
do
it! It's Anne's life!'

His eyes searched mine. I saw raw fear in them. 'I know,' I said. 'It's impossible, but it's happening. You're not going mad, and you're not dreaming. But Anne is going to be crushed to death in an automobile accident in half an hour. I've been trying to warn you since you woke up in the middle of the night. Everything that's been happening has been me. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

He nodded dumbly, as though something, somehow, was getting through to him. I half pulled, half pushed him out the window and on to the ledge. He was starting to shake, and for one awful moment I thought he was going to lose it right there — four floors above a small courtyard of solid concrete.

'Get a grip!' I hissed back at him, struggling to turn and make a grab if he keeled over. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then nodded that he was all right. At least he didn't suffer from vertigo. That much I knew for a fact — from the inside.

We didn't exchange more than three words until we were down the fire escape. The last section of it made so much noise as it swung down that I thought we were certain to be caught. In fact only one person looked out to see what was going on — Crossfield's assistant, Gaines, appeared at the window we'd just climbed out of. Luckily he didn't see me — I'd just stepped into the shadow of a doorway. But he called out, 'Rick, what the hell are you doing?'

Rick looked up, made a sort of vague gesture, didn't know what to answer. 'Come on,' I said. 'The garage.' He followed me into the darkness.

'Give me your keys.' He fumbled in his pockets and handed them over. My own keys to my own car.

He didn't take his eyes off me as I started her up, backed out of the visitor space, and swung around for the exit. I felt my face crease in a smile. I couldn't help it.

'You're looking at me like I'm a ghost,' I said. 'Maybe I am. I'm a little unsure about my exact status — but I'm here.'

'How . . . ?'

'Many Worlds theory. It's all true. Everett was right.'

'I don't . . . '

'Of course you don't. Who would?'

'But why . . . ?'

'Because if Anne dies, you make a leap into a parallel universe. And believe me, we can all do without what follows.'

'But how come you . . . ?'

'I time travelled. Used hypnotic regression to get back into my own head.
Your
head.'

'But you're not in my head.'

'Don't assume. Don't assume anything.'

He was silent for a moment, finally taking his eyes off me and looking out at the world flashing by. 'Where are we going?'

'The accident happens on Pilgrim Hill. She's going up and there's this rig coming down. I figure if we cut through Fishergate we can intercept her before she gets there.'

Again he hesitated a moment before speaking. His eyes flickered my way, and again I saw fear in them. But a different sort of fear this time.

'Will it work?'

'I know it will.' I didn't feel as confident as I tried to sound, but what else was I going to say?

He continued to look at me. 'What happened to you? How did you get that cut on your head?'

I fingered the cut, looked at the blood on my hand. I'd forgotten about it.

'I don't know,' I said. I looked down at my clothes. They were the clothes I'd been wearing in prison. But I didn't know how I got that cut. It worried me. I don't know why, but I felt there was something wrong. Still, I didn't have time to vex about it then.

We made good time through the traffic. I jumped no lights and took no risks. The last thing I wanted was a siren and a cop waving me — us — over.

Rick, the 'old' Rick, remained quiet. He was reacting just as I hoped I would have to a seemingly impossible situation: ask a few critical questions, then stay calm and let things unfold.

'You didn't tell me about Charlie,' he said after a while. 'Is Charlie in the car with her?'

'Yes, he is. But he's strapped in the back seat, as always, and comes out without a scratch. Anne's the one who takes the full impact.'

He fell silent again. Then: 'What do we do when we see her?'

'We stop her!'

'Then what? Do we both get out and tell her what you've just told me?'

'Let's worry about that later. Right now let's just find her.'

I looked at my watch. In a moment we'd be nearing the foot of Pilgrim Hill. She couldn't possibly have got there yet, so I figured that if we pulled on to the hard shoulder and waited we'd be in good time to stop her.

'We can't just park here,' he said. 'You know what the cops are like. If they see us . . . '

'I know.' I reached under the dash to release the hood. 'Pretend you're working on the engine. I'll watch the road.'

'We'll
both
watch the road,' he said.

'Okay — but not standing there like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, or she'll freak!'

He ducked under the open hood, peering around the edge, while I stood by the road scanning the two lanes of cars that were approaching the long, curving gradient up Pilgrim Hill.

I checked my watch again. She should be coming into view any second. I couldn't see her.

A shiver went down my spine. Could I have got it wrong? Was there any other direction she could have been coming from? I raced through all the possibilities, but couldn't think of one. Aside from she'd been going down the hill and made an illegal U-turn. But she wouldn't do that. She was a careful driver. And with Charlie in the car . . . !

Then I saw her. The pale green Deux Chevaux was in the outside lane between two other cars. A truck was coming up on the inside lane, and I suddenly realised that if I didn't move fast it was going to block our view.