Now that he knew what the Professor had meant for him
to do and the reasons why, Leo was no longer sure if a life of penury would
be so bad after all. But then Judith and Harriet saw the Professor’s house
and they fell in love with it straight away. And that was that; he was to
continue working on the Professor’s schemes, no matter how crack-pot they
seemed to him.
The Professor owned a cottage five miles outside of Stourmouth, on the
road to Salisbury. The cottage was set back behind a clump of trees and was
rumoured to be nearly six-hundred years old. The timbers certainly looked
like they could be that ancient. What was of greater interest to Judith was
the large enclosed garden which would make an excellent place for the ever
curious Harriet to explore in safety. Judith still kept her job at the hostel,
but could afford to cut down her hours now that she was no longer having
to pay the rent. All in all she felt they had landed on their feet;
especially after the nightmare of the last year.
Rosy as everything seemed to her, she was no fool and she sensed the unease
within Leo, however much he tried to keep it to himself.
Eventually it all came to the surface one night after they had got Harriet
to bed. Leo came into the living room in a state of agitation and paced up
and down on the circular rug in front of the fire muttering to himself darkly.
“Whatever is the matter?” she asked, taking her eyes from the magazine
she was reading.
“I feel such a fraud!” exclaimed Leo. “Such a bloody fraud!”
“But why? What’s wrong?”
Leo paused from his circling and looked at Judith with wild eyes. “I didn’t
tell you much about why it was the Professor left us all this, did I?” he
asked, indicating he was talking about the cottage.
“You said it was something about continuing his work, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Leo with a worrying smile. “And what work that is!” He disappeared
from the room, leaving Judith none the wiser. He returned a moment later
carrying a big cardboard box from the spare room downstairs that they used
as a study. Judith anxiety about her husband’s state of mind wasn’t helped
by the frantic look in his eyes. The box seemed to be full of papers and computer
disks as well as graphs and rolls of paper tied together with elastic bands.
“This is how I always understood the world to be,” he said unrolling
a large sheet of paper that had a diagram printed out on it in black ink
with white lines. One line represented by a vertical axis was for time, the
other line, the horizontal axis was marked ‘space’. Both axes had arrows attached
to them, although for the vertical axis the arrow was pointing in only one
direction. “In my universe time has always gone forward,” he said, tapping
the vertical axis where it said ‘permitted’. “Travelling backward in time
or into other dimensions was always out of the question,” he continued, pointing
to the areas where diagram had the word ‘forbidden’ printed. Judith had only
ever caught minor glimpses of the world that her husband worked in before,
enough to know it was beyond her much of the time. Now, as she looked at
this graph, she finally understood how much it drove his life.
“That seems, fairly straight forward,” she said carefully.
“Yes, perhaps a little too straight forward, because physicists have been
aware for many years that there are certain circumstances where you could
bend or break those rules.”
“And they are?”
“In a black hole, beneath the event horizon, where the normal rules cease
to apply, and at the quantum level where the basic stuff the universe is
made out of is in a constant state of flux.”
“Wow!” she said holding her hand out. “Back up a little- could you tell
me what they are and why the rules as you call them cease to apply?”
“Not without a crash course in astrophysics,” he said moodily. “It is
enough for you to know that up to now these have been mostly armchair exercises,
theory driven and with no actual practical consequence on anybody else.”
“But, your saying things have changed now?”
Leo paused to retrieve one more object from the box. It was a black memo
machine that the Professor used to keep track of the ever flowing river of
ideas that tumbled from his mind. Judith gave a start as Enrico’s voice crackled
from the tiny speaker.
“-and in essence I arrived at the conclusion that the only explanation
for my experiences at Distant Star lay within the quantum foam.”
“What’s he talking about?”
“Sh! Listen!”
“The mind was some how able to stir up the quantum foam in such a way
as to cause ripples in the fabric of space-time, to perceive events
through the transmission of quanta of energy/information through minute
wormholes in the matrix. This would mean therefore, if my theory is correct,
that the mind itself is a kind of singularity. A point of infinite mass
in zero volume, a pinch in the space-time matrix. A very queer place to
be sure.”
The tape would have carried on in this way if Judith hadn’t made it very
clear she had heard enough.
“Christ Leo!” she said with uncharacteristic exasperation. “It sounds
like he may have gone completely mad!”
“But that is not all of it,” said Leo. “Listen to what else he has to
say on the matter,” the tape squealed angrily has he fast forwarded to the
relevant bit. Once more the Professor’s voice articulated on the nature
of the universe.
“And it has occurred to me that if I’m right in my assumption that the
mind itself is a kind of singularity than it goes to follow that maybe our
own limited minds are but part of one universal mind that holds all creation
together. This would be the cosmic singularity, the original ‘I’ from which
all creation emerged. The evolution of consciousness could therefore be the
emerging of the universe’s awareness of itself.”
Leo stopped the tape there. “Madman or genius, eh? Never thought how much
truth that old cliché had before. Now we know, eh?”
Judith reached out and tentatively touched her husband’s estranged hand.
Surprised by her gesture he turned to face her with a look of lost agony.
She drew his tired face into her arms and held onto him for dear life.
“You do whatever you have to Leo,” she said tearfully. “I’ll support you
either way, I wouldn’t have wanted to move here if I knew it was going to
bring you such misery.”
“I-I just wanted to do my best for you and Harriet.”
“I know, but it’s alright. I know we can manage, we’ll always have each
other.”
“I just don’t know what to do!” he sobbed into her shoulder.
“Sh! It’s alright, we’ll sleep on it.”
Later that night Leo lay awake contemplating the ceiling while his wife
slept. He knew that whatever else he’d said today he couldn’t run away from
this legacy. For there was something else he hadn’t told his wife, which
stemmed from the video recording he’d watched at Vole’s office. The Professor
had explained the result of his forays into the future with his remote viewing
abilities.
“What I saw Leo was my own death at your hands. I knew that this was a
great irony, because you were the most likely person to be able to carry
on my researches. I therefore tried to see if there was anyway I could avoid
this, but whenever I translated my consciousness forward I would only ever
come across different ways in which my life would end because of you. And
all the time you were never really intending to kill me. I concluded that
it must be some form of predestination. I therefor beg you, if my observations
turn out to be true, to continue my work to the best of your abilities and
to realise the dream of reconciling the paradox of being I have found myself
in.”
The madness of the reasoning behind this statement did not detract from
the moral truth that Leo perceived there. Moral truths that may well have
stemmed from his own guilt about the Professor’s death and the way he had
unintentionally profited from it. He felt he had no other alternative but
to try and finish what his dead, possibly insane mentor had started.
Over the next three years Leo threw himself into Professor’s work with
all the fervour of a guilty disciple. Now as he stared at the diagrams of
the quantum foam and tried to imagine what these grotesque shapes actually
portrayed. Minute disturbances in the space-time continuum that Professor
Enrico had said could be manoeuvred by telekinesis, widened so that information
or objects could be transported through them. Worm-holes, telekinesis- the
stuff of science-fiction. Then there was the time-travel and the cosmic
singularity. At which point Occam’s razor should have cut the conversation
off. However the Professor was no respecter of silence and had dug on, deeper
into the very foundation blocks of matter and energy.
“The human consciousness is I believe, a manifestation of that original
consciousness from which all the universe sprang. I am referring of course
to the original, cosmic singularity that existed at the dawn of time.”
Leo found it hard to resist the mixture of intellectual challenge and
moral responsibility he felt for the project the Professor left him with.
So he had stuck to it, had forced himself to keep an open mind. There had
been no further evenings like the one where he had poured out his soul for
Judith to see.
She had often thought about that evening, over the last couple of years
since it took place. She had been surprised by the way in which everything
seemed to fall into place for Leo once he had got it all off his chest.
She felt that maybe it was just Leo off loading and nothing to concern herself
with too much really. Nevertheless she couldn’t help but wonder, it had
seemed all so scary at the time.
Then there were all the people who came to see Leo after he made up his
mind to continue the Professor’s “Great Work”. Never had she seen such an
unlikely group of obsessives and fakers as these. Psychics, mystics, healers,
alien abductees, physicists- her home was like Piccadilly Circus much of
the time. Then there were the strange men in the sharp expensive suits who
were just leaving as she came in one day.
“Who on Earth were they?” she asked Leo, a little sharply.
Taken aback by her irritability Leo told her. “They were from the M.o.D.
They’ve finally allowed me to have access to records and equipment left over
from the Distant Star project.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Anything interesting?”
“Oh yes,” he said with delight. “I’ll finally get to play with the Professor’s
time-machine.”
Chapter VI
“It had been known for many years that electromagnetic waves could have
profound influences on the human brain. Experiments in the United States
had shown it could cause dramatic changes in mood and cause subjects to have
inexplicable feelings of terror and helplessness. Such raw primitive emotion
emanates from the primeval part of brain-the Limbic System. I knew from my
work with Distant Star that this was also an area most commonly active during
psychic experiences. I suspected that a strong electromagnet could be used
to boost the mind’s ability to view distant events.”
(excerpt from Professor Enrico’s audio records)
Leo couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed when he saw the final
fruit of the Professor’s last work at Distant Star. He had travelled
hundreds of miles up to this remote laboratory in North Wales to see this
contraption. The ‘time machine’ consisted of a black leather couch wired
up to a crudely constructed electromagnet that fitted around the skull like
an oversized American Footballer’s helmet.
Alongside this were an host of monitors, sensors and machines that made
noises- to measure heart beat, blood pressure, EEG, galvanic response, and
so on.
“Has all of this been risk assessed?” he asked his assistant nervously.
“Oh yeah, health and safety were in yesterday,” said Brian cheerfully.
“They said it was basically okay but thought you’d be best to do a couple
of animal experiments first.”
Leo turned pale at the thought; he was a theorist not a vivisector: “There’s
no need for that in my view, as those kind of tests were completed during
this machine’s initial development, I see no reason to repeat them now.”
Brian, a young man with dark curly hair and a goatee beard, looked at
him quizzically.
“Does that mean you’re going straight to human testing?”
“Yep,” said Leo, looking at the machine warily. “I’ll be testing the machine
myself.”
Brian smiled broadly: “Bit of an adventurous type than?”
“No, not really,” said Leo. “I’m just very curious to see if I’ve been
wasting my time all these years, that’s all.”
___________________________________________________________
As his assistant strapped him into the couch, Leo concentrated on his
breathing. This served the function of helping him to stay calm and opened
his mind up to the flood of images that formed the basis of distant viewing.
Leo had learnt these techniques whilst he had been working on the Professor’s
legacy.
“Got anywhere in particular you’re thinking of going?” asked Brian, wryly.
“Hmm, there’s an episode of Dr Who I remember watching when I was little
that I wouldn’t mind seeing again,” said Leo, half-jokingly.
“Sounds appropriate,” sniggered Brian.
Leo went back to emptying his mind.
“EEG and heart monitor are working fine, galvanic responses are normal,”
said Brian, distracting him again. “Let us know when you want to start the
Electro-magnet.”
“Any time now would be fine,” said Leo curtly.
“Okay then,” said Brian as he clicked open the window on the computer
screen that controlled the electromagnet. He double clicked to activate
and immediately got up a caution screen to let him know the device was working.
“Switching on at 14.55 hours, Monday 9th August.”
The machine hummed into life and Leo continued to focus on his breathing,
screening out any influence from the world around him as much as possible.
After a short while he began to experience inexplicably powerful feelings
of dread and paranoia. He felt strangely disconnected from his body, alone
and afraid. Then, just as suddenly, the negative feelings would give way
to heady feelings of ecstatic joy. All the while he rode these peaks
and troughs of emotion, observing the feelings as they convulsed through him
from some distant bubble of the self that floated through time and space.
Then came the unbidden images, voices, smells and textures of distant
places. At first it was just a chaos of sensations- a warm breeze here,
a smell of cooking there, the sound of a dog barking and children’s voices.
Then there was the music:
Dum-dum, Dum-dum, da-da, dum-dum! Dum-dum! Dum-dum! Dum-dum! Da-da! Da-da
do-hoo!
“Dr Who’s on the telly Leo,” said his mother. He opened his eyes to find
he was back in his living room when he was two. He looked at his mother in
astonishment, she had been dead for five years. The woman who he saw now
looked much younger then the mother he thought he remembered dying.
“So real,” he said in wonder.
“What’s that son?” asked his mother.
Surprised that she was able to hear him, Leo replied. “Nothing mum, can
I stay here and watch Dr Who?”
“I thought you said it scared you?” asked his mother.
“I’ll be alright,” said Leo. “I like Dr Who.”
“Okay then, my brave little soldier,” she said, giving him a hug. Leo
was forced to breath in her perfume as she held him close to her breast.
He realised finally that he was still a toddler in this strange world where
his mother had never grown old and died. “Here you are then,” she said
helping him onto the couch. “You sit with the cushion on your lap, just
in case there are any scary monsters!”
“I won’t need it!” he said determinedly. Leo was seeing life through the
eyes of his toddler self. How strange it all seemed.
“My little love!” she exclaimed, giving him one final kiss. “I’ll just
go and get some hot milk and biscuits for you.”
He settled down to watch the telly. The Doctor was standing before the
gigantic Dalek Emperor on the planet Skaro. The Emperor’s metallic voice
was issuing a sinister command.
‘You will take the "Dalek Factor." You will spread it to the entire history
of Earth!’
The Doctor looked suitably pained, Troughton’s skill as a character actor
coming through.
“No. You can't make me do it! You can't!”
The Dalek emperor seemed unimpressed by this, it’s malevolent eye stalk
focussing on the tiny figure in the dark frock coat.
“You will obey!”
As the Daleks led the Doctor away Leo felt a thrill of excitement he hadn’t
experienced in years; here was vintage Dr Who- lost for over three decades,
brought back to vivid life for his own personal consumption. It was all so
wonderful and above all else it showed how right he had been all along. The
body could be used as a time machine, just as the professor had said.
The Doctor and his companions had been taken to a cell, and the Doctor
was characteristically playing the recorder whilst the others discussed how
to escape. The infant side of Leo took over for a while and he wondered when
his mum was going to return with the milk and biscuits she’d promised. Then
the Doctor/Patrick Troughton looked up from his recorder and bizarrely his
eyes seemed to be focussing on him. Suddenly Leo felt very cold.
“Who are you?” the Doctor asked him from the screen.
Chapter VII
..“during my experiments with the Electro-magnet I discovered an area
that I later called the reification zone. This was a region of intense ontological
instability where ideas and objects could trade places as rapidly as partners
in a square dance.
“In this region there are these entities which I call memeons, who are
essentially unrealised concepts that draw negative energy from the reification
zone in order to give themselves reality. They can be very dangerous.”
(From Professor Enrico’s Audio Log).
Judith was on the phone to Leo later that evening. “So when do you think
you’ll be home,” Harriet heard her mummy say from up in her bedroom. It was
early evening and Harriet was in her dressing gown after her bedtime bath.
She was getting in some extra play before her mother came back upstairs and
insisted she got into bed. To this end she had arranged a tea party for
some of her toys. Mummy sounded cross.
“I can’t understand Leo, what are you trying to say?” now she sounded
a little scared. Harriet kept a close ear on her mother’s conversation to
keep a tag on whether she was about to come up and tell her to stop playing
with her toys or not. Being a clever girl, cleverer than the average four
year old, she could listen out for her mother whilst playing make-believe
with the toys.
“You come and sit over here Daisy," she said placing the rag-doll
with the smiling face and the glowing red buttons down on a pink stool before
her red plastic dolls table. “And you Pinchy you sit over here,” on a chair
opposite the rag doll she balanced a stuffed toy crab in red felt. “And Wendy
sits here,” she said, placing her Wendy™ pride of place at the head of the
table. Wendy was a plastic blonde with long legs and a line in glittering
outfits. There was one more visitor to the feast, who was last to arrive.
“And Mr. Dalek can sit, erm, stand over here.”
From downstairs Harriet suddenly heard her mother raise her voice: “What?
That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard! Leo I think this work is really
getting to you, too much now, just too much!”
Harriet froze, unsure of what to do with herself. She didn’t like shouting,
she didn’t like it that her mum was shouting at her dad. She quickly decided
she didn’t want to think about this too much. She listened a little more
intently for a while, but she couldn’t make out what her mummy was saying.
Thankfully the shouting had stopped.
She returned to her play: “What’s that Mr. Dalek? Not eating today?” She
placed her hand on the tiny machine and turned its eye stalk to face her.
Then in her best Dalek voice said-“ Daleks do not eat human food! Exterminate!
Exterminate!” She pretended that the Dalek had destroyed the table
with its short stubby exterminator arm. “Now look what you’ve done,” said
Harriet, taking on Wendy’s role now. “You’ve messed up our dinner Mr. Dalek!”
“Yes, I think you should say sorry!” said Pinchy.
“Daleks do not say sorry!”
“Well I think you’re very rude!” put in Daisy for good measure. If a toy
offended Daisy they needed to watch out. This Dalek however, just wouldn’t
be told.
“I will exterminate you!”
“Oh no you won’t!” said Daisy sternly.
Before she could get any further the Dalek’s headlamps started flashing.
“It’s never done that before!” said Harriet slipping out of role. Then before
her eyes the machine began to glow and take on a life of its own. Harriet
rubbed her eyes. The Dalek seemed to be getting bigger as she watched. Pretty
soon it had crushed the dolls beneath its shiny metal fender and towered
over Harriet.
‘I am a Dalek,’ said the machine, its headlamps flashing red. ‘You will
come with me!’
Then its egg whisk like arm began to revolve rapidly and Harriet watched
in wonder as the darkness in a corner of her room began to swirl and glow.
“Mummy! Mummy! The Dalek’s come to life and he wants me to come down a
plug hole with him!”
“You see what I have to put up with!” Judith harangued her husband down
the phone. “You see how much your crazy ideas are affecting your child!”
She stormed upstairs leaving the phone off the hook. “What have I told you
about making things up!”
“But mummy it’s real!”
Judith entered the bed room determined to sort out her errant daughter.
“How many times have I told you!” she began. She stopped dead when she saw
what was standing there.
“I told you it was real mummy! I told you it was real!”
“Harriet! HARRIET!”
The machine clicked and levelled its short stubby arm at Judith’s chest.
“No! Leave her alone! She’s my daughter!” she screamed in bewildered horror.
The Dalek’s headlamps flashed angrily as three metal prongs shot out of the
gun.
‘ EXTERMINATE!’
WHIRR! Went the Dalek’s Exterminator gun. The room filled with a blinding
blue flash and there was an acrid smell of burning flesh and ozone. Harriet
screamed and banged on the machine’s metal carapace to get it to stop hurting
her mummy.
‘All humans are to be exterminated!” screamed Mr. Dalek angrily.
“EXTERMINATE!’
“Mummy!” screamed Harriet as the Dalek nudged her through the waiting
worm-hole.
_______________________________________________________________
Downstairs Leo’s voice crackled from the receiver. “Judith! Judith! Are
you there? Pick up the phone please!” There was an ominous silence. After
a while Leo’s voice returned. “Please, don’t do this to me! Please, I’ll
come home as soon as I can. You know it is important I finish my work here.
Judith?”
A pale hand in a black sleeve picked up the phone and brought it up to
a set of terse, thin lips. A dry voice spoke down the line.
“I am afraid your wife cannot hear you Leo.”
“Who is that?”
“Let’s just say that I am an old friend of Professor Enrico,” said the
voice coldly.
“Who are you?” demanded Leo. “What have you done with my family?”
“Your family,” said the voice slowly, “I’m afraid your family have entered
the reification zone.”
