Fortuna Page 12

  He scanned the space below. It was a mass of fleeing bodies. Hundreds of people were making for the exits and preventing the guards from entering the hall. As his gasps suggested, Clavius was lying on the stage, a pool of red expanding around him. The other dignitaries were running away and ushers were escorting the king to safety. The musicians were fleeing, except for a lone trumpeter who, in an effort to instil calm, was playing a fast-paced solo. The strangest sight by far, however, was directly below him.

  Two Carolyns were locked in a life-and-death struggle. The one in the evening gown was swinging a rifle and trying to club her opponent. Her twin in Roman garb was brandishing a knife. The rifle butt caught her high on the side but she managed to roll and lash out with her blade. Blood appeared on her twin’s left rib-cage.

  “That’s for shooting Clavius!” the Roman Carolyn cried.

  “Killing me won’t bring him back!” her twin retorted.

  Felix was dying to help Carolyn — the real Carolyn — but Clavius was his priority. Being careful not to lose his footing, he climbed from his box to the one in front. He then leaped at a curtain, and, catching its folds, used it to descend to the stage. A second later he was kneeling by the genius.

  His state was hopeless. The bullets had entered his chest and belly. His shirt was soaked a brilliant red, his body was shaking, and his guts were exposed. There was no way to convey him to 2214: to create a wormhole, he’d need a second portal and the real Carolyn wouldn’t reach him in time. And even if he could jump forward, Clavius was beyond all hope of repair.

  Within minutes he’d be dead. And once he expired, Felix’s world would swiftly join him. He’d failed. Failed. Everyone would die. With a feeling of dread and bone-numbing sorrow, Felix took the scientist’s hand.

  “Who … are … you?” Clavius gasped. Remarkably, the physicist was conscious. Not only that. Despite his dying state, he was almost serene.

  “My name is Felix Taylor. I’m afraid I’ve failed you.”

  “Failed … me? How?”

  Felix hesitated. Should he reveal the truth — that he was from the future? Couldn’t that trigger a butterfly effect? The sad truth hit him that it no longer mattered.

  “I know this sounds crazy but I come from the future, the year 2214. A Temporal Projection Machine got me here, a device that was based on your unified theory. You haven’t discovered this theory yet, but you will, or would have, if the assassin hadn’t shot you.”

  “Why … kill … me?”

  “Your theory will save the world a hundred years from now. The assassin wanted the future to fail and it looks like she’s succeeded, I’m sorry to say.” Here his disappointment proved too much. The world was over. Felix started to cry.

  “You’re … crying,” Clavius said.

  “It’s over! I failed! A hundred years from now all of us will die!”

  “No,” Clavius said. With an immense effort, he raised his hand to Felix’s cheek. Catching his tears, he held them to his eyes and studied them as if they were more precious than gold. He smiled widely, as if his wounds were nothing.

  “Listen … Felix …” he gasped. “Unified theory … already … written. Papers … in … safety box. Lawyer … instructed … to open … sixty years. Your … world … safe.”

  “Are you sure?” Felix hesitated, worried he was being offered false hope.

  “I … swear. Your … world … is … safe.”

  “I … I see.” Felix gripped his hand harder. He could feel his pulse; it was getting weaker. The blood around him extended a metre. His trembling was violent and he was fading fast.

  “Don’t … leave. Company.”

  “I won’t leave. I promise. And I’m sorry I failed you.”

  “No … matter. Lived … too long. And you … give … me … hope.”

  “Hope?” Felix asked. “What do you mean?”

  “These,” he gasped desperately. He was almost gone. “In … future … there will still … be … tears. Tears,” he repeated. “Beautiful … like … rain.”

  His hand squeezed Felix’s unbearably hard as his body struggled against death’s embrace. And then it was over. A rattle sounded and the genius was dead.

  Felix stood. If he could have, he wouldn’t have moved for a year, but the police were coming and there was Carolyn to think of. With a frown of worry, he scanned the room. There. At the back. Both Carolyns were still fighting. They’d knocked each other’s weapons down and were trading blows. The problem was they were evenly matched and neither could get the best of the other. They were gasping and on the verge of collapse.

  “So it’s over,” the assassin crowed. Her gown was torn and flecked with blood. “I’m sorry I deceived you, but my mission came first.”

  “Murderer!” the real Carolyn rasped, with a bloody strip of the gown in hand. “I suppose we should congratulate you. You’ve just pulled the trigger on twelve billion people!”

  “She did no such thing,” Felix answered. “The unified theory is already written. Clavius’s papers are locked away and will appear dead on schedule. Nothing has changed.”

  The assassin looked at Felix blankly. As the truth hit home, she rolled across an aisle, grabbed her rifle and rushed toward him. Before her “twin” could intervene, she held the gun to his skull. Their eyes met and he smiled slightly. He was too worn out to experience fear.

  For several seconds she stood there, the gun at his head. Twice she made as if to pull the trigger. When a distant whistle sounded — a sign the police were near — she allowed the weapon to fall to her side. Much to his amazement (although nothing should have shocked him) she leaned in close and kissed his lips. An instant later, she was gone.

  As the police came bursting in, their rifles at the ready, they were just in time to see two figures, a young man and woman, melt into thin air.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “You should get that wardrobe fixed, Ewan. Or get rid of it altogether. It must go back three hundred years.”

  “More like four hundred, Isaiah. But it’s no common wardrobe. According to the dealer I got it from — this is eighty years ago — this cabinet inspired a man to write a book for children. Like everything old, it’s been long forgotten, but The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was well-loved in its day.”

  “Loved or not, the wardrobe is broken.”

  They were seated with Professor MacPherson in his office, General Manes, Dr. Lee, Carolyn, and Felix. Two days had passed since their return from Sweden. As soon as they’d emerged from the TPM, Felix had described their “trip” then retreated to his quarters where he’d slept a whole day. Carolyn had followed suit after she’d been treated for some minor wounds. They’d eaten upon waking, received some shots, and were getting ready for the next confrontation.

  “Let’s get to it,” the general announced. “You’re telling me the assassin is Carolyn’s clone?”

  “That’s right,” Carolyn said. “It was the strangest thing, to fight myself. She predicted every one of my moves, as I did hers. The weird part is that she’d changed so much. When we met in Rome, she was ten years old, whereas this time around she was more my age.”

  “Accelerated cloning,” Dr. Lee said.

  “I beg your pardon?” the professor asked.

  “Accelerated cloning,” the doctor repeated. He was pale and his expression was more hangdog than ever. “If you choose the right medium, you can speed the cloning process. The years it takes to ‘grow’ an adult can be reduced to months or even weeks, except that there’s a downside. The aging process can prove so rapid that the clone can’t live for very long.”

  Felix frowned. Carolyn’s clone was a menace, true, but like it or not, she was still Carolyn. It pained him to think that she would die so young.

  “I’m just wondering,” the general mused, “how my daughter was cloned. It’s illegal, after all, and can’t be easy …”

  “It’s all too easy,” the doctor replied, “once you have the right equipment.
And even this isn’t hard to acquire. The tricky part is getting cells from the victim. Once you have them, it’s like baking a pie. I considered this idea, I must confess. If I’d had leftover traces of Charlie, I’d have cloned him without thinking, despite the law.”

  There was an awkward silence in the wake of his statement. The cabinet door opened and the professor slammed it closed. The noise returned everyone to the task in hand.

  “How do you collect such cells?” the professor asked, rubbing his head where the door had banged it.

  “It wouldn’t take long. Did Mr. Taylor ever have close access to you, Carolyn?”

  “I visited his house,” Carolyn said. “Sometimes I fell asleep on the terrace. I guess I finally know where this mark comes from.” She bared her shoulder and revealed the scar.

  “That mark tells us everything,” the doctor agreed. “And he would have recorded your memories using a Mem-gauge.”

  “Recorded her memories?” the general growled. Despite his ERR he was flushed and dangerous-looking, He clearly didn’t like the idea that Mr. Taylor had probed Carolyn while she’d been sleeping.

  “The clone’s behaviour was like Carolyn’s,” the doctor said. “She must have her memories and these would come from a Mem-gauge.”

  “That’s really creepy,” Carolyn said.

  “But where did the clone take shape?” the general asked. “I mean, even if Taylor had the right equipment, he couldn’t grow a clone just anywhere.”

  “You wouldn’t need much space,” the doctor said with a shrug. “Just room for the cloning tank and the neural implants. Mr. Taylor runs the Repository, right? That must be where he created this clone.”

  The words stabbed Felix like a knife. He was thinking of that room in the Book Repository, the one his dad had made a point of locking. How had he explained this room? That it contained family skeletons he preferred to ignore? This had to be the place where the clone had been hatched. Felix felt his flesh crawl. His father was a monster.

  The wardrobe wheeled open. The professor banged it closed.

  “That makes sense,” the general said. “Let’s move on. The clone’s next destination is Alexandria, 48 BCE. We need to determine why she’s headed there. And there were four dates programmed into ‘her.’ The TPM allowed us to read the first three, but the code for the fourth is gobbledygook. We’ve got to discover what that fourth date is.”

  “We have a clue,” Carolyn broke in with a leonine smile. “I tore her gown while the two of us were fighting and managed to bring a strip of it here. It’s stained with her blood, which was programmed with a tracer. If we isolate the isotope …”

  “We can calculate the target date!” the doctor cried. “That’s very clever. Although the process can be complicated and I’m not terribly hopeful.”

  “Okay. Good.” The general patted his daughter. “And Alexandria? Can you think of a reason why she’d travel there? Professor?”

  “I’m not sure,” MacPherson mused. “In the fall of 48, Julius Caesar’s in the city. His army will meet the Egyptians in combat. But this doesn’t tell us anything. How about you Felix? Any suggestions?”

  “No,” he replied. “I’m drawing a blank.”

  “Me, too,” the doctor echoed him.

  The group fell silent. As they looked vainly at each other, again the wardrobe door wheeled open. Felix again scanned the contents absentmindedly…. the suits, the books, the spare pair of glasses.… His blood suddenly froze. How odd. He had no idea the professor used …

  The general slammed his hand on the desk. The sound drew Felix’s gaze from the wardrobe. The others were looking at the general, too.

  “There’s someone who does know,” he declared. “After all, he’s the one who created the problem. I’m talking about your father, Felix. It’s time you paid him another visit.”

  “I did before I left. He had nothing to say. Another trip to his cell won’t end any better.”

  “Except,” the general said with a shark-like smile, “he’s not in his cell. I’m proud to say I’ve delivered on my promise and found your father a different type of prison.”

  Felix was standing at the start of the Repository. He’d flicked on several lights and was gazing at an endless line of shelves. In front of him was his father’s desk, with the speak-box, keys, and a pair of teacups. There were also six pencils, all lined up: the sight of them triggered a twinge of disgust.

  It was a pity, really. Just days before, this place had been his deepest source of comfort. Because of his dad, it was now like a morgue. The books on its shelves seemed like rows of gravestones, marking ideas and stories that had longed turned to dust. If Angstrom wanted to close this space, Felix wouldn’t stop him.

  Someone coughed. It was a low, stifled rasp, but in that silence it sounded like a pistol shot. It reverberated up and down the shelves until, like everything in the Repository, it too turned to dust.

  “Hello,” Felix spoke. He was addressing a figure slumped over in an armchair.

  “Hello, fili mi,” his father answered. His tone was so hollow that his words seemed to die before they were formed.

  “So you can speak again,” Felix said. “I’m glad you’re back to normal.”

  “I can speak,” his dad replied. “But I’m not back to normal. They’ve seen to that.”

  Felix nodded. While he’d been off in Stockholm, General Manes had freed his dad, only to trap him in a worse situation. Mr. Taylor had been saddled with ERR, whose range was so impossibly narrow that his emotions were virtually non-existent. And with his emotions “zapped,” Mr. Taylor posed no risk. This was why he was back in Toronto and “relaxing” with his books.

  “Your position could be worse. You’re in your favourite spot.”

  “Hah!” his father spoke. His tone wasn’t bitter; it was merely hollow. “You don’t get it, do you? By turning off my feelings, the general’s robbed me of my interests. I’m surrounded by a million books, but the thought of reading them only turns my stomach. If his intention was to hurt me, he’s achieved his goal.”

  He tried to smile. His muscles didn’t fold the right way and the result was so hideous that Felix averted his eyes. He felt terrible for the man who used to be his father but …

  “What did you expect? Of course he’s out to hurt you, after what you’ve done.”

  “What have I done?”

  “You need me to tell you? You don’t remember hurting Dr. Lee? Or trying to awaken last year’s plague? Or plotting to kill millions of people?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “The doctor removed my latest memories so that he could scan them for clues. It’s physically impossible for me to remember.”

  His father said this matter-of-factly. While Felix hated his neutral tone, and his dad’s indifference to the disaster he’d caused, he realized at the same time he was telling the truth. His emotions were so whittled thin that he wasn’t capable of lying.

  “Well, how about this. Do you remember sending a killer to 48 BCE?”

  “No. Can we do such a thing?”

  “We can and you did. The question is why. What would your objective have been?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me phrase it differently. What happened in Alexandria on October 15, 48 BCE?”

  “That’s easy. Suetonius describes it. The library caught fire and burned to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of works were destroyed.”

  “That’s right!” Felix gasped. “I should have known.”

  “But not everything perished. One part survived. It contained a mishmash of scrolls.”

  “A mishmash?” Felix asked. “Like Aceticus’ work?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. All editions of his book can be traced to a scroll that somehow managed to survive this blaze. If it hadn’t, we couldn’t read him today.”

  “That’s it!” Felix said. “That’s why the clone’s in Egypt. She wants to destroy the scroll so I can’
t read it down the road. That’s your plan, isn’t it?”

  Felix tried to hide his fury as he asked this question. The more he thought of it, the angrier it made him. The entire world was poised on a cliff because his dad didn’t like the way the world had evolved. Last year, when his father had died of the plague, Felix had thought the earth had stopped and wondered how he would ever continue. He’d even used the TPM to save his dad, not just because he loved the man, but because the world couldn’t manage without his skills — or so he’d argued. The conscience of the modern age: that was how he’d viewed him. And now? He wasn’t the world’s conscience; he was public enemy number one.

  The “public enemy” had his eyes on the ceiling. His expression was blank, but he was thinking hard. His knuckles were white, from gripping the armrests. Then suddenly he relaxed and glanced at Felix.

  “I don’t know if it’s my plan,” he mused, “because my memories are missing. But it’s odd …”

  “What’s odd?”

  “It’s hard to describe. When I examine the memories in me still, I can’t see any lingering trace of violence. You’ve said I’m planning something awful. It involves the plague and killing people. But there’s nothing inside me that supports your suspicions. I see no evidence whatsoever.”

  Mr. Taylor said this calmly, but his words triggered an explosion.

  “You want evidence?” Felix yelled, his voice full of rage. “I’ll show you evidence! Come on! Let’s take a walk!”

  Approaching the desk, he grabbed a chain of keys. He turned to his father, seized his hand and yanked him to his feet. Ignoring the man’s cry of pain, and the fact he was still weak from his confinement, Felix half dragged him down an aisle of shelves. When they reached its end, he veered to the left and hauled him down another murky aisle. At one point they passed several piles of books. His dad stumbled and fell against them. Felix didn’t care. Still gripping his hand, he led him forward. By now his dad was breathing hard, but Felix didn’t slow until they reached a door that was set into an alcove. Pointing to the lock, Felix turned to his father.