Experiment With Destiny (23 page)

And Fergus remembered.

The man stopped. They stood and stared at each other…Fergus and Fergus.

“So you’re saying you are me?” he said, the blood draining from his face. “But how…?” The ocean washed against the shore as the sky darkened. The village began to light up, home by home, in the deepening shadow of the headland. It was starting to drop cold…bitterly cold.

“Not quite,” said the other. “More a case of we are us…two halves of the same person, different sides and different perspectives…different personalities, you might say. Without me, you are only half of us…and vice versa, of course!” The other Fergus sneered. “Although it would be fascinating to see how long the other would last if one of us…well…perished!” His tone was clearly threatening. “My money’s on me being the survivor!”

“This isn’t happening…can’t be!” Fergus protested. “I’m not a fucking schizophrenic!”

“Oh yes it is…and oh yes we are!” The other grinned. “Think about it…every time shit happened, you’d escape into some fucked up fantasy world…dreaming of sailing across the sea, becoming an elite space pilot or rescuing damsels in distress. You’d run away and leave me to feel the pain, get mad, plot and scheme about getting fucking even! You were the flight of fancy and I was the fist of fury!”

“No!”

“Oh yes! I kept trying to drag you back, make you…make us…face up to things, work things out…make things change but no…you just kept running away and hiding in fucking neverwhere! I’ve spent so long hunting you down, trying to break through…trying to get you to see the delusion!”

“It was you!” Fergus snarled at him. “It was you all along! The glitches in the programme…the voices…the…the transcendental mirror…thing!” The darkness started to swarm around him, the breeze becoming a chilling wind and the lights of the village melting into blackness.

“It’s time, Fergus, time to wake up! Time to accept! Max isn’t sailing back…and you know why. Fergus…think! Remember…”

Fergus McFae remembered.

He remembered the pain of growing up. He remembered his mother and father – Angus and Teresa – giving him everything he ever wanted…except love. Whatever he asked for, he got. No expense was ever spared in his pursuit of happiness…but happiness somehow always eluded him. He remembered trying to talk to them…individually, together…to tell them about his toys, his games, his stories, his friends, his dreams…but they were always busy…too busy. He remembered bringing his first girlfriend home to meet them…but they were just off out to a corporate function, so he went upstairs with her and they kissed and fumbled and she’d laughed at him when she’d reached inside his pants and he’d ejaculated there and then. He remembered everyone laughing at him the next day at school…she’d told them, everyone, even his friends. Everyone laughing…calling him ‘Dicky damp patch’. His golden-haired maiden had betrayed him. He remembered lashing out at her…and the bruising and swelling of her face as she sat there silently accusing him in the headmaster’s office. He remembered his father arriving…summoned from his busy day at the office, making it all right with his money. He remembered…he swore he’d never touch a woman again after that…not in lust and certainly not in anger.

Fergus remembered…and felt the hollow ache inside that would not go away.

But he also remembered the excitement, the sheer thrill, of getting his first VR machine…nothing compared to the latest version, but a pleasure none-the-less. The machine, and the worlds it had taken him to, had allowed him to forget the pain…the dull hollow ache of never being loved. But the ache kept coming back, stronger and stronger. His appetite became voracious – every new game, every new gadget, every new upgrade that made the unreality ever more real…and then the drugs that blurred the boundaries of artificiality and took him to another dimension altogether.

And he’d forgotten the pain…until now.

“There’s nothing for Max to come back for…” said Fergus, quietly, “…he might as well stay with the wild things.”

Fergus reached up and pulled away his mask, the voice of protest in his head instantly drowned by the roar of the sea. He felt as though he was falling and, as he looked up, he thought he could see the stars shining down on him.

* * *

Part 5

Jennifer, Your Red Hair’s Burning

XIII

JENNIFER stared into the mirror…Jennifer stared back. She looked different; dark lines beneath her cold grey eyes, skin taut across her sharp, angular features and she looked pale with the promise of a white winter. Her lips, once full and vivid red, were now thin and dulled by an unhealthy plum hue. It was as if a premonition of age had crept up on her tender years and drained her of warm colour. Only her auburn hair, which framed her face in delicate curls, burned with vibrancy and gave life to the funereal visage staring back at her from the mirror.

             
Jennifer wanted to smile. She wanted to cry. She wanted to feel something. But instead of feeling there was just a hole – a crack like the night in her broken life where the fear seeped through. Behind her, the flickering image of a television screen poured out its relentless discourse on human existence in the 21st Century; mostly tragedy. It numbed her senses to the grief of daily life, but it could not distract her from the image in her mirror – the image of a girl who had stared too long and too hard at the darkness of her own soul. Distantly, like someone numbed by narcotics, she registered the information spewing from the screen, storing them randomly in the tangle of her mind, however useless and futile the cataloguing of disjointed facts might seem.

             
“Good morning Eurostate Britain. It’s six a.m. I’m Ted Hallder and this is International News Broadcasting with the breakfast bulletin. The headlines…” And Jennifer knew instantly what was coming next…she had that sense of the inevitable. They must know by now. They must have seen…and sent the cameras there to record it. And now the world would awake to the awful horror of it and she wouldn’t be alone any longer. She turned her head and tried to focus her sleepless eyes on the screen. “…a Cardiff man is recovering from shock after waking up this morning to find a human foetus pinned to his bedroom wall.”

             
Jennifer watched…and she knew. All across the world televisions would be tuned to a broadcast that would shock a generation from stupor – an assault of words and images to be repeated over and over again in so many countless languages…until revulsion subsided and the subtle transition to mild discomfort at the horror unfolding. As yet the story was still unrefined, almost sketchy. The graphics people hadn’t had time to go to town and researchers were hastily hitting the phones to summon any and all available experts-on-tap who could add the colour of speculation, postulation and moralising judgement. But for now, this was raw, real news. She stared at Ted’s studio lit face, a handsome face perfectly formed for TV, as he introduced the ‘live’ link from the on-scene reporter.

             
“It is Tuesday, November 4th and most of us in British Eurostate are waking up to our routine daily normality. But I’m standing here on the streets of Canton, a trendy suburb in the Welsh capital, where just a few hours ago it was anything but a routine start for Italian Eurostate born artist Gino Dereloni…who woke to find a human foetus pinned to his bedroom wall.” The reporter let the words hang in the air for maximum effect, red-rimmed eyes set in shadow cast cheeks, staring out from the screen with precisely the right level of solemnity required for such a story. “A preliminary examination by police forensic scientists suggests the foetus was approximately 24-weeks-old and blood samples have revealed traces of the controversial new DIY abortion drug Endterm Six.”

             
The camera zoomed out to reveal the wider panorama behind the reporter. Other journalists and camera crews were visible at the edges of the shot, forming an orderly arc around the police cordon that marked out the front of a Georgian mid-terraced house that Jennifer had seen before, with her own eyes. The familiarity, translated through the TV screen, felt surreal…like déjà vu. “Now recovering from shock here at his parents’ house, Mr Dereloni says he believes the foetus was pinned to his bedroom wall by his former girlfriend as part of some bizarre vendetta. Police have so far refused to name the woman or confirm that she is wanted for questioning in connection with the incident, but she has been named locally as Jennifer Myers.” She shuddered involuntarily at the mention of her name. “A police spokesperson released a statement a short while ago to simply confirm that the matter is unprecedented and specialist investigators have been called in. Officers are yet to determine if, indeed, a crime has been committed. Until a conclusion is reached, they do not have plans to make any arrests in connection with the incident. In the meantime, Mr Dereloni is understood to be seeking his own legal advice in relation to pressing charges against his former girlfriend or seeking damages, which could also include a civil action against Endterm Six manufacturers Global Chemical Industries.”

             
As the reporter signed off with a close up of his weary expression, the image switched back to the studio and the much fresher professionally prepared face of anchorman Ted Hallder. “We’ll be back with more on that shocking story, including some scenes which viewers may find upsetting, and the rest of the INB breakfast headlines right after these messages from our commercial partners…” His polished smile gave way to 360 seconds of early morning hard sell while the news ticker tape across the bottom of the screen scrolled through ‘Coming up: More graphic detail on the ‘foetus-on-the-wall outrage’.

* * *

              Gino Dereloni woke in fright after dozing off through sheer exhaustion. His shout echoed as his lungs gasped for breath. He sat upright, much too fast. His eyes glared at the pale white walls of his room. As he waited for his senses to recover from this rude awakening he watched the fleeting images of a troubled sleep pass into the silent abyss where they would lurk until they found him again. His vision cleared and he could see the dark stained wood of the windowsill and the first traces of frosted sunlight creeping between the heavy curtains. It was cold outside and the glass had misted over, presenting the world through a grey veil. His breathing began to settle…then stopped.

             
His head spun so suddenly he almost unbalanced. The wall behind him was bare, clinically so…bare but for the framed oil painting he instantly recognised as one of his own – Sunrise in Eden. It was an expressionist landscape of virgin green, lit by a vermilion sky and a blazing white sun. It was one of his favourites, perhaps – together with the semi-abstract self-portrait entitled Self Portrait in Gethsemane that hung above the fireplace downstairs – one of the works he was most proud of. He almost smiled…but then his eyes crept below the ornate frame to the wall beneath and saw the stain…not precisely a stain…more the lack of one. An oval patch of darker wallpaper, nearly a foot wide, where the cleaning fluids had not quite dried and the surface had been scrubbed almost through to the wall beneath. At the centre of this patch was a solitary hole…marking the place.

             
His stomach writhed at the sight of that hole. He remembered…

             
He remembered the cold fluid that had covered it, like raw egg white, clinging to its bloodied, translucent flesh. It was the fluid that had first woken him, dripping onto his peacefully sleeping brow. He’d looked up to see it hanging above his head; its partly formed limbs clenched against its feeble body, the sightless eyes and oversized head, humanity forming but not yet human…almost alien…

             
Gino remembered…and screamed.

             
His adult lungs burst with fearful expression and tore apart the fragile silence…a voice to horror…a voice that miniature, bloodied sack of fledgling humanity – crucified where the stain now shadowed – had been denied by its premature extinction.

* * *

              November’s chill Atlantic wind scythed through the streets of Canton, whipping up last night’s leaves and litter, tossing them carelessly aside before rustling the pavement-bound trees that were not yet naked to the sky. Frost glistened on the defensive hedgerows and manicured lawns and the streetlights glowed faintly against the bleak dawn. A handful of lonely figures drifted through the wintry morning, making their way to the Community Monorail Shuttle station in the centre of the precinct. The ghostly drone of the rail car rattled the tall pylons overhead, its windows of light flashing with fleeting glimpses of hollow commuter faces. In a moment it had become a metal glow-worm snaking its flickering way into the heart of the city, its turbine a mere hum in the reprise of suburban stillness. Carol Rigg listened for a moment then sighed deeply. Thinking about the inflexible monotony of that daily journey into the metropolis made her feel tired. Her jaw struggled against a yawn, relented and then gulped down the cold air…and moisture streamed from her sleep-coated eyes, blurring the pale gleam of the distant sun.

             
She checked her bearings. It was definitely the right street. She picked up her pace to put some distance between her and the precinct, counting down the numbers on the Georgian terraced homes with a niggle of envy…195…193…191…imagining a life lived inside their sturdy grandeur that had stood the test of time. This place was a world away from her cloned pop-up of a two-bed semi on the very outskirts of the city, already looking tired and ailing after less than two decades of wear. They don’t make them like they used to, she mused. Maybe one day she could afford something on a street like this, when she’d progressed to being a primary case-holder, rather than just the ‘general dog’s body’ who was sent to undertake the legal legwork of case preparation.

She wondered how her new client managed to afford to live here…it was clear from the outset that Gino Dereloni was not a successful or celebrated artist. If he was, he wouldn’t have hired a bargain basement firm to investigate his case…and she might even have heard his name being dropped into polite conversation at one of the many pseudo ‘social’ functions she had to attend to maintain her profile within her professional circle. Some of her higher achieving colleagues were very much into their fine art…but she doubted any of them had a ‘Dereloni’ on their home or office walls. But maybe all that was about to change for Gino Dereloni, now that he’d been very abruptly elevated to international notoriety thanks to his…misfortune. Nothing to do with talent, she thought…just a question of right time, right place. Whether he liked it or not, he was to be her first ‘celebrity’ client. Perhaps in time, and if he made the most of this unexpected platform he’d been given for his life’s work, he would grow to remember the events of the past few hours with fondness and gratitude rather than the horror she’d heard in his tortured tone. Either way, this was her chance to shine and she was going to take it with both hands.

Carol realised she hadn’t needed to count her way down the houses. As the street curved around, ahead – where number 139 was sure to be – she could see the gathering of reporters and cameramen and the police cordon between them and the house. She’d seen these sorts of scenes often enough…on TV. This time it was for real and she felt a sudden rush of excitement to be involved, rather than just watching. As she approached she assured herself that the media would assume she was either a curious passer-by or one of them…until it was too late and the police afforded her the privileged access they were denied and she could slip past to see her client. Her arrival barely aroused a handful of curious glances but, as she negotiated her way between the assembled equipment and cabling, curiosity grew and she began to feel a little anxious. Slow…slow…calm, she told herself, feeling her pace quicken with nerves. Someone had noticed…spotted the give-away clues like sharks scenting blood.

“Excuse me…” she heard someone call out. Eyes focused. Now was the time for more haste, less caution…she needed to reach the police line before they could circle and cut her off. “Hey, you!” She sensed them swinging into motion around her and she began to run, cursing the heels she’d chosen in her rush to dress. “Are you a doctor?” She shut out their demands, almost oblivious to the sudden cacophony of noise and flashing lights and threw herself forward. Just as it seemed they were catching her, heading her off at the pass, she reached the blue and yellow ‘police line’. Her shout of “I’m his solicitor!” was almost superfluous as the officer nearest was already lifting the tape to admit her before she’d opened her mouth. They could see she wasn’t part of the media throng…not their type. A moment later she was through, gasping to catch her breath and determined to keep her back to them.

“Use the back door,” another officer beckoned. “He won’t open the front.” He held open a rusting wrought iron gate and she found her way along a narrow passageway between 139 and what she presumed was 137.

He was waiting for her…must have seen her arrival through the curtains. He looked nothing like she’d imagined from the voice on the other end of the phone. He was short and slight, swamped beneath a blue towelling robe. His head of tight black curls was dishevelled and his chin bristled with stubble. His eyes were dark pools of anguish…shocking to behold.

“Come…” he rasped through sullen weariness.

Her legs obeyed.

* * *