Wake Me In The Future (26 page)

‘You do realise how dangerous that could be?’ she said.

‘I agree with Earl, but if that’s what we’re going to do I want to keep Rachel and Ankit out of this for as long as we can,’ I said, ‘they’re not Cryogens so they’re not in any danger. We need to keep this between ourselves until we find out what’s really going on.’

'Ok,' said Earl, ‘Let’s all try to find out as much as we can about the protesters, then get back together tomorrow to draw up a plan.’

‘Agreed,’ was all I could say, ‘right now I am just emotionally exhausted and need to get some rest.’

On the way back to my apartment I was wondering just how I was going to keep Rachel and Jane from knowing there was something terribly wrong. It was going to take a Herculean effort to act as if everything was just as it had been before I’d discovered this awful truth. But for everyone’s sake, I had to be strong.

That night Helen visited me in my dreams. The vivid image of her filled my vision but it was a different Helen than I’d known, accusing and bitter. ‘I never demanded anything from you Richard.’ She said accusingly, ‘I asked for nothing more than you were prepared to give and I always gave you everything you wanted. Whenever you wanted; I gave, gave, and gave. But I was happy in the knowledge that I was your soul mate, the only person that you’d ever love. But I must have been mistaken; you weren’t so loyal after all, were you? What sort of man could do what you’ve done to me? You gave up on me Richard, left me to the void, and I’ll never forgive you. I hate you, I hate you....’

‘Arrgh,’ I sat bolt upright in bed, covered in perspiration, but Rachel didn’t rouse. I must have shouted inside my dream, I wasn’t sure.

But there was one thing I was sure of, Ramoon had lied about Helen. And now, however dangerous it was going to be, or whatever the consequences, I knew I had to make contact with the protesters, and tomorrow I was going to try.

My search for the truth about Helen, was back on.

Chapter 27
- Contact

Despite all of our efforts things looked no better when we met the following day. We'd uncovered absolutely zilch about the protesters, which just served to reinforce our suspicions of a cover up.

‘I can’t find any pattern in their appearances.’ Jennifer confessed, ‘There’s no way to predict when they’ll show again. Their activities seem totally random.’

‘I’ve nothing to report either,' admitted Simon, ‘I keep coming up against a brick wall. The Information System seems to be preventing anything about them from being revealed and it looks like they’ve employed an information blackout to stifle any support.’

Jennifer was nodding ‘We should have expected it really. They’ve learned from our past how powerful the control of information is in fighting your enemies. Remember how our governments won the war on terrorism by reigning in the excesses of the media and effectively cutting off the terrorist’s access to the wider community. It was the most powerful weapon they had.’

Earl shrugged and said in a bitter tone, ‘Yeah, I remember how controversial that was. What a price to pay.’

Jennifer looked at him reproachfully, knowing how the measures had been detrimental to his investments. ‘We were at war Earl, how many 9/11s were prevented because of that sacrifice?’

‘I was just saying…’ he began.

‘We were at War,’ she repeated bluntly, and with an air of resentment.

‘You’re being a little unfair, Jennifer. It’s not Earl’s fault that society let the media get so out of control.’

‘Okay, okay,’ she said with a sigh. ‘We’re all under stress, I apologise Earl. I guess I am letting this all get to me.’

I looked at Jennifer and then to Earl and felt the tension between them. This was the first time I’d seen any signs of anything but affection between my friends. ‘Well it was an emotive issue back then,’ I interrupted, ‘and it obviously still is, but this isn’t getting us anywhere. We need to think of a way of contacting the protesters.’

‘I think we may have no choice but to bring Ankit and Rachel into this,’ said Earl, ‘they may know something more, or even have access to information that we don’t.’

‘No!’ It was almost a shout and it made Earl recoil instinctively. Then realising how harsh it had come out I checked myself, before saying more calmly, ‘sorry, I didn't mean to be sharp, but I don’t want to do that unless we really have to, I couldn’t live with myself if I put either of them in danger.’

‘OK,’ Earl conceded, ‘I agree we should keep them out of this if possible. But we may have to consider it in the future. I think we should review our position at the end of the week and if we haven’t got any further we bring them in?’ They all looked at me in expectation.

I was totally unconvinced but couldn’t see any other way forward. ‘All right,’ I sighed and reluctantly agreed. I'd just have to hope that something would come up before we had to risk putting Ankit and Rachel in harms way.

As I walked home later that afternoon, I was struck by the magnitude of the task before us. The cities were enormous, allowing anyone who wished, to become lost and wonder for days without coming across another soul. The protesters could be in any of them, or even outside them, or on any one of the worlds orbiting the Sun. Then I shook my head when the thought struck me that even this didn’t narrow things down.
Who’s to say they’re not on a moon or one of the asteroids,
I thought.

As I approached home I considered it a real possibility that we’d have to involve Ankit and Rachel. If we had to, I’d speak to Ankit first. Perhaps I could raise the subject in general conversation and get something from him without having to reveal everything. Yes, I’d do that, and why wait. I could do that immediately, if only I knew where my friend was.

He still hadn’t returned from his travels round India and the last update I’d had from him was a week ago when he was in Delhi. He could be anywhere now.

Then it dawned on me that I wasn’t using my new abilities.
I can close my eyes and think of him and find out where he is, just like in the library, just like when I got that message from....
. I stopped short, as if walking into a brick wall. ‘Idiot, idiot, idiot!' I shouted out loud as I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand.
Of course, why didn’t I think of it before?

When I got home I was relieved to find that Rachel and Jane were still out; I didn’t know how I'd have explained rushing about like a madman, or my dash to the bedroom and enthusiastic dive onto the bed. I was so convinced that this was going to work I didn’t want to waste any time.

I closed my eyes.
Now what did they say you have to do?
Just think and imagine his face
. I tried to imagine the man I’d seen at the protest and again in my mind when I’d looked for Ankit.
What was his name? Yes, Jon. Jon Numan.

Jon
,
where are you,
I thought, trying to make the image clearer in my head and project my thoughts.
I need to speak to you.

Come on senses, kick in for God’s sake, I need to find this man
. But nothing happened; I tried for almost an hour, concentrating until my head ached, before reluctantly deciding that it wasn’t going to work. I sat up and wondered what I was doing wrong. The image had come to me while I was concentrating on Ankit so it should come even easier by concentrating on the man himself. And then I said to myself,
you’re an even bigger idiot than you thought earlier
.
It must be something to do with trying to contact Ankit.

I lay down again and this time did exactly as I’d done in the library. In my mind I was calling to Ankit, asking where he was. I closed my eyes tighter hoping that this would boost the power of this new ability in some way.

Then an alarming dizziness threatened to consume me and I started to open my eyes in panic and terror, but just a little too late because suddenly everything went black. One second I was conscious and the next, I was gone.

When I woke it felt like the last stages of my revival in the White Room. I felt surprisingly refreshed and when the mist suddenly cleared the man standing before me was Jon Numan!

‘Richard’? He asked.

I nodded, and my head fell forward like I was nodding off to sleep and I had to jerk it back because it felt heavy as if it didn’t belong to me. I looked around and realised I wasn’t in my bedroom anymore. ‘Where am I?’ came an unfamiliar voice. My tongue felt swollen and the tightness in my throat had altered my tone.

‘Don’t worry about the disorientation, it’ll soon pass. We weren’t sure if you were familiar with jumping, so we fixed the template of this spare body to one belonging to a member of our group who’s jumped to another planet.'

I just stared at him nonplussed, as if what he’d just said was in a totally different language.

‘What?’

‘So my guess was right then. You’ve never jumped before?’

The vacant look on my face must have been all the answer he needed.

'Body jumping is a form of travel, used mainly to move between the planets as it doesn’t require your physical body to be moved. The content of your brain pod can be transmitted to a spare blank template which reforms to your own image as soon as you’ve taken possession of it, essentially becoming you. And the body you’ve left behind gradually reverts back to a blank template.’

I looked down at my hands. They were darker and far larger than mine. ‘Why hasn’t this body taken on my shape then?’

‘As I just mentioned, we fixed it because we weren’t sure if you’d ever jumped before, because if you weren't aware that you have to consciously will the new body to take on your form, you'd be stuck in a featureless shell.’

‘So will the body I’ve just left behind now be a faceless dummy then?’ I was wondering what Rachel and Jane would say on finding a human sized amorphous blob on my bed.

‘Normally it would, but we’ve fixed that too.’ And he frowned, ‘Yet another law we’re breaking, because it’s not normally possible to fix a template on a body once the core conscience has left it. Our techs had to find a way to do it so we can carry out what we’ve got planned.’

Amazed yet again – there was just no way to predict anything with any degree of certainty anymore. In fact, in this world it seemed like surprise was the only certainty. I really was learning something new every day, and it just seemed to be getting more and more bizarre.

I swung my legs off the cot, and took the hand that was being offered to me.

‘We’ve been trying to make contact with you Richard but because we didn’t have your body signature we've not been able to get an accurate fix on you. So we monitored Ankit for anyone trying to contact him, who we didn't have on our records. And we knew when you started to practice using your senses that you’d try to locate him.’

‘How could you have possibly known that?’

‘Didn’t someone suggest it at the library?’

Remembering what the librarian had suggested to Jennifer when I first got my senses turned on, I said, ‘You mean the librarian is a protestor?’

‘No, but she is a sympathiser, we have quite a few of them in the Manooran ranks. Anyway, we know Ankit’s body signature so when you tried to link up with him we were waiting to pick yours up. It wasn’t ideal so that’s why the message was cut short but at least we were able to communicate and get something across. Unfortunately though, we weren’t able to completely establish your signature and we’ve had to wait for you to try to contact him again. I knew it was just a matter of time before we could transport you here.’

‘And where exactly is here?’ I looked around at the empty grey walls, it was hot and a boiler room sprung to mind, a circular table
and four chairs sat in one corner. Apart from those and the cot I was sitting on, the room was bare.

‘This is part of our headquarters,’ said Jon, ‘It’s near the power core for the main water processing plant next to the cavern where the Manoorans first found us.’

‘You mean on the Moon!’

‘You know what they say about the best place to hide Richard. In the place those looking for you are least likely to suspect.’

Well being close to the plant’s power core explains the constant low thrumming sound in the background
, I thought.
But what about the heat, it was sweltering.
Another reason a boiler room had come to mind.

‘Can’t you regulate this heat?’ I said, ‘or is it this body I am in?’

‘I am afraid not, we’ve had to learn to live with the temperature down here. If we regulate it we risk being discovered by the authorities.’

‘So if you can just transport people out of their bodies at will why didn’t you bring me here sooner?’

‘No, we can’t, that’s not possible; the person being transported has to want to make the jump, or at least be receptive to it, and that happened as soon as you actively started looking for us.'

Then he looked at me, like a doctor about to give a patient a bad diagnosis, and knowing what the question to his next words would elicit, he said.

‘We knew you’d eventually try to make contact with us Richard.’

‘How could you possibly know that?’

Then looking me directly in the eyes he said quite clearly.

‘Because Helen told us you would.’

Silence

Chapter 28
– The Plan

Despite my efforts, I was unable to prevent whatever currently passed for blood rushing to my head. And if I’d not been supported by this artificial body, I knew my old heart would have probably stopped on hearing what Jon had just said. But as I’d thought to myself before, I wasn’t even sure I had a heart anymore.

I jumped off the table and nearly fell over in the unfamiliar body, ‘Whaat!!’ I almost screamed, ‘what do you mean Helen, Helen who?’ I demanded; knowing full well what the response was going to be.

‘Your Helen Richard.’ Jon said, emphasising the word
your
.

‘Where is she?’ I blurted out in my gruff new voice. These artificial bodies must have amazing system control, because I knew my old biological one wouldn’t have been able to cope with the increasing agitation building inside me. My voice rose again, as I grabbed at Jon’s arm, ‘I said, where is she?’