Day of Rebellion (17 page)

J
ack had been here before and he hadn’t liked it the first time. He stood up against a curved wall of stone. Angus and his father were next to him. They were perched on a narrow platform of stone jutting out from a very tall pillar, high above a city. Jack’s feet were close to one of the edges of the platform. The square below contained fountains and four large bronze statues of lions, lying down, arranged around the bottom of the pillar. Just above them was a huge statue of a man, which must have been nearly six metres high. The man gazed out across the city. He wore a broad admiral’s hat and his left hand rested on the hilt of his sword. The sleeve of his right hand was pinned to his tunic. He had only one arm.

However, there was one important difference from the last time that they had been at the top of Nelson’s Column in central London. There was scaffolding built around the tower.

“Repairs going on,” Christie said, “or cleaning?”

Suddenly a man dangling upside down on the end of a rope swung into view right in front of them.

“Get me out of this stupid thing!”

“Gordon?” Christie said. “Gordon McFarlane – from VIGIL?”

“Yes, I am, and I’m very glad to see you gents, ’cos, I don’t think I can take any more of this.”

“What happened?”

“If you help me down, I might tell you. Now, please, GET ME DOWN…”

With great effort, they managed to untangle Gordon from the rope and protective netting. Finally free, Gordon tried to calm himself. “Remember that time phone, Jack, the one YOU left here, back in 1940? It was too much of a risk to leave it up here, so muggins got the job of coming to retrieve it.”

“But you got into a bit of trouble…”

“No one reckoned on any cleaning work happening to the column. So the Taurus delivered me straight into that stupid netting on the scaffolding and then I got myself all tied up in that rope and was stuck. Next thing all my stuff is falling out of my pockets…”

“Don’t tell us – including your VIGIL device.”

Gordon looked sheepish, “Don’t tell the boss, I’ll get it in the neck…”

“And then?”

“Luckily, there was only one stonemason up here when I arrived – first day of work. He was a little surprised to see me. As I was untangling myself, he picked up my VIGIL device. Then he spotted your time phone on the ledge there… and started fiddling around with that, I told him to leave it of course, but then it powered up, he pressed a few buttons, I don’t know, and WHOOSH, he was zapped off who knows where…”

“I think we know…” Jack said.

Christie shook his head in dismay. “Good to see that VIGIL are keeping up their usual high professional standards… But never mind. I think we’re at the end of the trail. It’s time to go home and fix this mess for good.”

“
T
he blood trail is still here from your injury,” Jack said, as they stepped from the Taurus transfer platform and onto the gantry.

“I was lucky…” Christie said. “It looked worse than it was.”

The Revisionist base was just as they had left it: messy and in need of maintenance. Jack felt disorientated and queasy. His head throbbed, a nasty side-effect of time travel, but he didn't care. He was just glad to be alive.

Christie led them through to the laboratory.

“Where are we?” Angus asked. “I mean
when
are we?”

“We've returned to the point just after you followed Fenton Pendelshape and me to the future. And I need to do one thing, so stupid, I nearly forgot.”

Christie logged onto his computer and started typing a message.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to contact VIGIL and tell them that if they are going to send Gordon back to retrieve your time phone from the top of Nelson's Column to do it before they start the maintenance work.” He finished typing and pressed ‘send'. “That should do it – one email saves the world…” 

“Gordon going to Nelson's Column – that's what caused all the change? That was the real Point of Divergence?”

“Yes. VIGIL sends him to get your time phone back and from then on it all goes horribly wrong. A chain of events is set off which changes the future. Maintenance work is starting on Nelson's Column – the first since the war. That poor stonemason gets hold of your time phone, presses the wrong button and ends up run over by our friends in their carriage outside Harmwell Ayslum in 1830. He also gets hold of Gordon's VIGIL device which Babbage picks up from the street. Babbage's curious and brilliant mind gets to work and he realises he is in possession of something incredible. Using the app that shows how certain machines and technologies are put together, Babbage and his team of scientists in the Cambridge Philosophical Society start to recreate them. Soon, the industrial revolution has been massively accelerated, with technologies spreading to other parts of the world…”

“Including Backhouse smuggling them to the Taiping rebels in China,” Jack added.

“Yes. Backhouse found God just before he entered the asylum and made it his mission to spread the word. When the Taiping rebellion started in China, he found out they were Christians. He wanted to help them. He feels it is his mission.”

“So he starts passing secrets to them, stuff which Babbage and the CPS are working on.” Angus said.

“And the whole future changes,” Christie concluded. What we saw in China in 1860 was when many of these technologies were already taking hold. But what we didn't see was what came later.
The Taiping rebels take over Shanghai and then they defeat the Imperialists and take over the whole of China. Then, China becomes a huge and powerful country in the East and soon the whole world industrialises a hundred years before it has in our timeline. The world is hungry for new energy sources. The pace of development is break neck and it is too difficult to stop environmental melt down. Finally, the climate flips. A new ice age. Where we went, 2046, well, it was the end of civilisation. You saw it for yourselves – a dead planet.”

“But we've stopped all that happening, right?” Angus said, slightly nervously.

“Yes, Angus, because it hasn't started yet. It all starts when Gordon goes back to retrieve the time phone. I've now sent the message to VIGIL, and they'll pick that up and know to do it at another time when it is safe.”

“Will they trust a message from you?” Jack said uneasily.

“They will do their own checks, I am sure. But anyway,” Christie sighed, “my fight with VIGIL is over. It is time for me to come in from the cold.”

Angus scratched his head. “So are you saying, Tom, that if we go back up outside onto that rock now there won't be all that ice and everything any more?” Angus said.

“You saw it in 2046 – more than forty years in the future – so no, it won't be like that now, it'll just be like it was when you first came here. And it won't be like that in the ‘real' 2046 either. We followed the trail to the Point of Divergence and we stopped the future changing,” Christie smiled, “Simple, eh?”

Angus looked sceptical.

Christie shrugged, “Well if you don't believe me, let's go and see for ourselves.”

A few minutes later they were in the lift travelling up through the rock. It came to a halt and they stepped into the upper access passage.

“Remember this?”

Christie took out his access device and pressed a button. They stepped through into the cellar and Christie pointed upwards. “There are the stairs that take us up to the top.”

They walked up the spiral staircase inside the lighthouse. Jack remembered the last time they had been there – the air had been icy cold; but now it didn't have the same bite – it was fresh, but nothing like as cold as last time.

“This is it. Remember this door leads onto the lower balcony of the lighthouse – just below the lamp.” He threw it open.

When they had looked out from the lighthouse before it was onto a desolate landscape of ice and rock. The sea that surrounded the island, had been completely frozen as far as the eye could see. Now they looked out onto blue-grey waters that stretched out into the North Sea. There was no ice and no wrecked oil rig. It was a bright summer's day, the sun beamed from a cloudless sky and Jack had to squint and then shield his eyes. Hundreds of noisy seabirds circled overhead, dipping and diving into the sea. A mile across the Firth Jack saw the coastline and the great bulwark of Tantallon Castle. Everything was as it should be.

Christie turned to them, “Now do you believe me?”

Jack smiled, “It's good to be back, Dad. It's, well… it's beautiful.”

“And no ice age,” Angus added.

“Well, no, but in a way – what we saw in 2046 was a warning. In our history, the planet is still warming – because of the way we live. The climate might still flip – just as we saw it – but hopefully we have a little more time to change our ways, or fix things before it's too late.” Christie paused. “Tell you what – how about we climb up to the top of the rock? The highest cliffs are on the other side from here – they're incredible.”

It was a hard climb up the hill path from the lighthouse to the top of the rock. The island rose up from the sea with sheer black cliffs on all sides – except where the old prison and lighthouse stood. Above them, gannets swooped and dived and hundreds more nested noisily all around. There were so many of them they made the rock look white. They crested the ridge at the top of the climb and then the land suddenly dropped away, precipitously. They could hear the distant roar of the grey ocean as it churned away at the foot of the cliffs far below.

“Whoa!” Angus said. “What a view.”

The three of them stood silently gazing out to sea. The breeze ruffled Jack's hair and he felt the sun warm his skin. For the first time in a long while he felt happy. There was a sense that it was over. Before their mad trip to China, Jack had believed that his father had decided that meddling in the past to try and rectify humanity's grievous mistakes so that the future might be better was an unrealisable dream. It was a dream that threatened his own family. The risks he and the Revisionists were running
had become all too evident through the latest escapade – even though, ironically, changes had happened because of a VIGIL mistake.

Jack's eyes alighted on the far horizon where the dark blue of the sea merged with the sky. In reality, he knew that the horizon was only a few miles away, but it felt like he was gazing into something limitless – a bit like the future itself.

“So Tom, you're saying, well, everything is back as it was… that all that stuff we saw – in Shanghai and in China… and which lead to the climate meltdown… that's just…
gone
?” Angus shook his head in wonder.

“Yes, Angus.”

“And all the people we met… they're gone too… dead?”

Christie shrugged. “Well, in a way, they never existed in the first place. They were never born… so it was impossible for them to die. But remember that in many ways the alternative past that we saw was very similar to the real one. Events, people… in some ways similar, so who knows… maybe some of them existed in China's real past…”

Jack thought about what his father said and he felt a stab of sadness. The people they had met – Shu-fei, Yi, Lai, Captain Fleming – had all been passionately involved in their own lives and the trials of their own times. It was strange to think that the versions of these characters they had met had just been snuffed out, together with their entire world. These people had become friends, and now they were gone.

“How nice… the three amigos all together.”

The voice from behind took them by complete surprise.
Jack swivelled round and his jaw dropped.

It was Fenton Pendelshape.

He was standing only a few metres away and he had a
semiautomatic
pistol in his hand. It was pointing straight at Jack.

“Had you forgotten about me then?” he sneered. “You forgot to finish the job… So here I am, and this time you really are going to die. All of you. You have a choice – I can shoot you or…” he stood on his toes to get a better view of the swirling sea below and gave a little shrug, “you can just jump.”

“It's over Fenton,” Christie said.

“Over? You fool. It's only just begun,” Fenton sneered. “Once I have finished with you and taken revenge for my father's life, I will destroy VIGIL once and for all. Then I will be the only one left. I will bring my father back and together we will be omnipotent. We will recreate the world exactly how we wish it to be. We have the power to go to the past or to go to the future. Unlimited power. I will be like a god…” He took a step forward and waved the gun, “So, who wants to be first to die?”

Jack felt that sick feeling of fear sweeping up from his stomach. It was a feeling he had experienced all too often. Fenton waved the gun again and his voice became angrier.

“Come on then, I haven't got all day…”

Something inside Jack just snapped. They had not survived everything just for their lives to be taken by this madman. Jack's fear evaporated and it was replaced by something else. Rage. He darted towards Fenton, screaming at the top of his voice. He saw the look of surprise in Fenton's eyes. But although Jack's move was unexpected and brave, it was suicidal. Fenton's gun
jerked in his hand and instantly Jack felt something rip into his shoulder. It was like he had been hit by a car… the pain was excruciating and it knocked him to the ground. He stared up into the sky and felt his life draining away from him. Fenton loomed over him and pointed his gun at Jack's head as he prepared to finish the job.

But Jack would not be the first to die. For at that moment there was a muffled crack. It was the sound of a gunshot, but it hadn't come from Fenton's weapon. Jack looked up to the find the source of the sound, high up on the rock with the wind swirling around. Fenton reeled and put his hand to his chest. A growing dark patch indicated the location of an exit wound from a nine millimetre round. He dropped his gun and looked at the blood on his hand. After three more steps forward he veered uneasily beyond where Jack lay. His face was etched with anguish, confusion and pain but Fenton staggered on and, in seconds, he was falling from the edge of the cliff and into the hungry ocean below.

A new figure stood where Fenton had been moments before. It was a woman. She also held a gun, and a grey wisp of smoke licked up from the barrel.

The woman spoke, Jack recognised her voice… and then he lost consciousness.

He was lying on a bed and there was a dull ache in his shoulder. He tried to focus on the faces in front of him but we felt drowsy. There was Angus, his Dad, and…

“Mum?” Jack croaked.

“How are you feeling, Jack?”

“But?”

“You were lucky,” his dad said. “We've patched you up – you should be fine – but we need to get you to a hospital as soon as we can…”

“Yeah, you've been shot, mate.” Angus said in admiration.

Jack tried to pull himself up but he felt a stab of pain run from his neck down his arm.

“Steady…”

“But Mum, how?”

“You didn't think I would trust you boys to stay out of trouble, did you?” She smiled, “Give me a break…”

“You knew we were here…?”

“I followed you here, Jack. You might not know it, but I keep more of an eye on you than you might think. It's a VIGIL thing…” she shrugged and looked at her husband. “OK I admit it, it's a mum thing too.”

“The game,” Christie said.

“Point of Departure – Day of Rebellion…”
Carole smiled,” Your Dad and I wrote most of the algorithms it uses when we were doing our research at CERN. Right couple of nerds we were. Anyway… as you know it developed into something a bit more complicated. It was the start of all our troubles really. But later on when the program we wrote was built into a huge, bestselling game, well, sometimes I hacked in – you know – just to see how it was going. It's proved useful. When you left the house this morning in a bit of a hurry, well, I suppose I got a bit nosy. I went down to the cellar and I didn't need to hack
in at all. There was a rather interesting message from, who else, but my good husband just staring back at me from the screen. I couldn't let that go, so I followed you. Lo and behold – I make an interesting discovery. The Revisionist base, no less,” Carole Christie smiled. “And Jack how many times have I told you to shut the door behind you?” She looked at Christie. “I've got to tell you Tom – you need to sort out your security here… I just walked in. I'm amazed VIGIL didn't suss this place before.”