Chapter 111 Armageddon minus four days

Tuesday 31st August

‘Oh, fuck!’ Hal Bennett looked in disbelief at the computer monitor in front of him.

Kathy Harris glanced at Hal. ‘The calculations aren’t marginal. There’s no room for substantial error. We’ve been over it again and again with data from observatories worldwide. Beth’s gona hit us dead centre, like a cue ball in a pool game. It’s over.’

While at work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Kathy projected an unruffled, no-nonsense persona that was taken by many as cold and emotionless. It came as a surprise to Hal, therefore, when she began to cry.

Hal stood up and walked around his desk to the chair in which Kathy was sitting. He put his arm around her shoulders but said nothing. This was a time for two human beings to share their emotions without speaking. There was nothing encouraging to say.

The Asteroid Protocol meant that government statements would transition from being flexible with the truth to being outright lies. The US, China and the Soviet Union would launch missiles at the comet in accordance with pre-arranged agreements, and each government would express confidence that a collision of the comet with Earth could thus be avoided. Kathy and Hal knew, however, that the nuclear explosions would neither deflect the comet nor fragment it sufficiently to allow burn-up in the atmosphere. The gravity of the body would more than compensate for any fragmentation. It would still hit the Earth.

Those who did not die immediately due to the shockwave would perish within weeks in the immediate global ice age. It was, as Kathy had said, all over.

Chapter 112 Back in Folkestone

Tuesday 31st August

The transmigration for Max had not been experienced by him as his awareness inhabiting a new body – as had been the case with the HT to George Mackenzie’s body and, most recently, the HT to Peter Rogers’ body when Peter had killed George. At eleven in the morning Tibetan time on Thursday the twenty-sixth of August, his outward form in the Tibetan facility had been that of Peter Rogers. A moment later, he still retained the outward appearance of Peter Rogers, but it was four in the morning in Folkestone, and he was lying in bed in Peter Rogers’ accommodation at Shorncliffe Army Camp.

The transition had felt more akin to waking from a dream, although he knew the dream from which he had woken had been the subreality in which he had resided in Tibet.

It was now Tuesday, and since his transmigration on the previous Thursday morning, Max had been busy. He had taken steps to orientate himself to his new reality by confirming facts about Peter Rogers on this worldline, and he had also been updating himself on events in the wider world. Initially, he had felt very confused. As his mind examined and sorted his recent memories, however, it became apparent that this confusion derived from there being two conflicting narratives.

It appeared to Max that these two versions of his recent life story in the form of Peter Rogers had begun to diverge on the Monday before last, the twenty-third of August. On that day, in both stories, he had attempted to rendezvous with the current incarnation of Ernest Ball at the shelter on the Esplanade, across the road from Wilberforce Road. In neither story had anyone been there. On his current worldline, however, there had been no note left at the shelter, and he had not subsequently gone to the bungalow of Grace Clarke. He had instead gone to Folkestone station to meet Ollie Fenchurch from his train.

It was with great interest that Max now waited in the main laboratory at Shorncliffe to meet with Ollie for the first time since Max had entered this new worldline. Ollie, it seemed, had been visiting an old friend in London since the previous Thursday and had been uncontactable.

The buzzer sounded to indicate someone at the door of the laboratory. Max checked the camera to see who was outside and then pressed a button to open the door. Captain Olver Fenchurch walked into the laboratory. He saluted Lieutenant General Peter Rogers. ‘Good morning, Sir.’

‘Good morning, Captain. Please join me in the office.’

Ollie nodded and followed Max into the small side room. Max closed the door. ‘Have you had a good few days away in London?’

‘Yes, thank you, Sir, although I haven’t been feeling quite myself since the small hours of Thursday morning.’

Both of them were cautious not to assume the other possessed an awareness that had resided in a body in Tibet five days previously. Ollie’s reference to not feeling quite himself since the small hours of Thursday morning had been the first exploration of how things stood.

Max smiled at him. ‘You know, I’ve not been feeling quite myself either since then. I put it down to a recent trip to Tibet.’

Ollie relaxed and sat down on one of the chairs in the office. Max sat down on the other.

‘I suggest I call you Max and you call me Mike. It will be simpler to refer to who we actually are – or at least who we started out as being at our last births. Have you had any communication from Sam?’

‘No, and I’m not quite sure how that would happen. Even in Tibet, she seemed to be able to control the Starchild system but didn’t send us a direct message. If she could have done, I’m sure she would have done.’

‘So, once again, we’re not sure what we should do next.’

Max looked at Mike. ‘I think all we can do is carry on with our normal plans in this reality until either Sam makes contact or we’re presented with some relevant situation to which we need to respond. It’s possible that the natural flow of this reality could avoid the issues that concern us without us having to do anything specific.’

‘Do you think Sam could have arranged all that?’

‘I’ve no idea, but she seems to have a plan. I’m due to have a phone call with Troughton tomorrow morning. I’m hoping he’ll provide more information about things I can’t find out about in other ways – primarily plans by the Inner Circle for the use of Starchild in this reality and also what’s really happening about Beth. The official announcement that there’s no cause for alarm makes me worry that there might be plenty of cause for alarm.’

As Max finished speaking, the phone on the desk in the small office rang. Max glanced at Mike. ‘Excuse me.’ He picked up the receiver. ‘Lieutenant General Rogers here. I see. Please show them to my quarters. I’ll join them straight away.’ He put the phone down and looked again at Mike. ‘Ben Clarke and Sue Melton are at the main gate. They say they need to see me urgently.’

‘Neither of those names mean anything to me, and they’re not in the memories of Ollie Fenchurch or Anna Lin as far as I can bring to mind.’

Max thought again about the two different worldlines he could recall from the two parallel memory narratives of Peter Rogers. Ben and Sue had only featured in the story that had led to Tibet. They had arrived at Grace Clarke’s house after Sam and Sahadeva had released Max from the cellar. ‘Assuming this reality doesn’t have some other twist,’ Max said to Mike, ‘Ben’s a freelance psychologist who was brought in by the MOD to do a routine review of the Bodhiisha Temple Rehabilitation Unit at Diss after it closed. He wasn’t given information about Starchild. The idea was for him to just comply with regulations by doing a cursory review of the unit as a therapeutic institution dealing with PTSD. Sue Melton is a psychiatrist at Lakenheath Military Hospital. She met Ben when the manager of the unit, John Henson, was admitted to the hospital after an unauthorised and uncontrolled self-experiment with Teterodat. Ben and Sue then became an item. At least that’s how things were in the reality before last that I inhabited.’ Max smiled. ‘They could be selling double glazing in this world for all I know. On that previous worldline, they were staying with Sam in a bungalow on the Esplanade – together with a monk called Sahadeva who you’ll recognise from Anna Lin’s memories.’ Max stood up and then paused. ‘I’m sorry about the death of Mike Han’s body on this worldline, by the way. You’ve probably not been able to find out much about it in the body-form of Ollie Fenchurch.’

‘I just remember my awareness leaving my body in this laboratory, and I told you in Tibet about the rest of that experience.’

‘Your body was found dead in the lab here last Thursday morning. From looking at the Starchild logs, I could see there was a fatal power surge to your helmet. The same thing almost happened to Sam in Tibet at the same time, but the safety cut-out activated there. That doesn’t seem to have happened here.’

‘That explains something I was wondering about because the bodies associated with other lost souls at Diss didn’t routinely die.’

‘I think death may also happen when a transmigration is associated with a transition to a new worldline. After a worldline transition, there may be no way to precisely return to the previous reality.’

‘Do you know where my … I mean Mike Han’s body is?’

‘In the mortuary on the base. Your death is being kept a secret for the time being.’ Max began to walk towards the door. ‘We’d better go to meet Mr Clarke and Ms Melton.’

Chapter 113 Realities

Tuesday 31st August

‘So, it really did all happen,’ said Sue.

Max nodded in agreement. ‘One set of your memories fits with one of the realities I can recall. In that world, I met you both for the first time at Ben’s mother’s house on the Monday before last.’ Max smiled. ‘I never noticed that window repair after you both broke into George Mackenzie’s flat, by the way. You’d make good burglars.’

‘I’m not planning a new career,’ Ben replied.

‘When we ate together at Mrs Clarke’s home,’ Max glanced at Sue and Ben, ‘we didn’t tell you both where Sam, Sahadeva and I were going, but now I’ve filled you in about Tibet and the related subreality, I hope it all makes a bit more sense.’

‘None of it makes sense in any conventional way,’ Ben replied, ‘and it seems that we’re in yet another illusory reality now.’

Mike handed mugs of coffee to Ben, Sue and Max. ‘In relation to the wider world, the current worldline seems very similar to the one you were all experiencing when you had dinner at Mrs Clarke’s home in Ashford. Individual histories have changed, however, for those of us who were most closely involved with Starchild.’

‘Let me just go over again who you both are,’ said Ben to Max and Mike. ‘You, Max, were someone called Robert Watson during an incarnation in the nineteenth century. Your most recent birth, though, was as Max Paterson. Your awareness transmigrated to the body of George Mackenzie a few years ago and then to the body of Peter Rogers when he killed George on the Friday before last. You then, once again, transmigrated to the body of Peter Rogers when you left the Tibetan facility, although in doing so, you transitioned from the Tibetan subreality to this current reality.’

‘That’s about it.’

‘And you, Mike, were born as Mike Han, but your awareness transmigrated to the body of Anna Lin at the Tibetan facility. You then transmigrated to the body of Ollie Fenchurch when you transitioned from the Tibetan subreality to this current reality.’

‘Yes,’ said Mike.

‘Ben and I have changed worldlines too,’ Sue added in an attempt to clarify the situation in her own mind, ‘but we wouldn’t have noticed had it not been for both Ben and I having exactly the same vivid dreams that allowed us to relive our story from the previous reality.’

‘Your simultaneous dreams went beyond just recalling that past,’ said Max. ‘Tell us in more detail about your encounter with Sam at the Kongōbu-ji Temple.’

Sue began to describe their dream once more. ‘Ben and I were in the courtyard of the temple. We were walking along the front of a long building that contained many closed doors. All the doors were divided into small translucent panes, so we couldn’t see inside. On the other side of the path from the building was a rock garden that contained blocks of stone, separated by raked gravel. There were no people in the courtyard. I recognized the place as the Kongōbu-ji Temple, where I’d once stayed.

‘We walked to the end of the building where one of the doors was open. We didn’t go in at once. We sat on a bench outside and washed and dried our dusty feet using a bowl of water and towels that had been left there.

‘We then stood up and walked into the building. Sam was standing there, and we greeted each other like long-lost friends. At that point, the earlier part of the dream that detailed our previous reality seemed more real than any recall we had of the waking world.

‘Sam invited us both to sit on the floor, and she then explained all that had happened in much the same way that we’ve just been reviewing it. She asked us to go immediately to Shorncliffe Army Camp and talk to Lieutenant General Peter Rogers. Sam said that doing so would confirm our dream experiences, which it has, but she also said that it was vital to relay information from her to you both.

‘She wanted us to tell you that Beth was on a direct collision course with the Earth. She also wanted you to know that the Inner Circle would not be dissuaded from planning to launch Starchild during the Space Debris Collection Orbit window, and she said that fear of exactly that action would, on our current worldline, lead to a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Russia or China.’

Max sighed. ‘The nightmare scenario.’

Ben continued to relay Sam’s words. ‘Sam said the IC's plan could never work. She said that sub-ego imperatives implanted to control the minds of so many Chinese and Russians couldn’t prevent every possible mechanism by which China or Russia might come to launch nuclear retaliation, and then there would be an inevitable escalation. Fortunately, Sam believed the ability of Starchild in Tibet to implement subrealities could allow the world to incrementally flow into a worldline in which the problems of Beth and of Starchild could be avoided.’

‘What should we be doing to help her?’ asked Mike.

‘Sam wants you and Max to continue for the moment as if you were going along with the plan to launch Starchild in the SDCO window,’ Sue confirmed. ‘She also wanted you to relocate the supply of Teterodat at this base to the refrigerator in the medical room, just outside the main laboratory.’

‘I wonder what that’s about,’ Mike pondered, ‘but we’ll do it.’

‘Oh, I’ve just remembered something else,’ said Sue. ‘In relation to the transitioning of worldlines, Sam warned about what she called “temporal-spatial discontinuities”.’

‘What might that look like?’ Ben asked Max. ‘I didn’t fully understand what Sam meant.’

‘One aspect might look something like I described with regard to Chun, Zoe’s bodyguard, at Lhasa Gonggar Airport. Inconsistencies with the larger reality around him overwhelmed and contradicted his existence in the subreality. As a result, he simply disappeared – cancelled out like a wave being extinguished by another wave with a complementary but opposite phase. We might also experience other discontinuities where the normal process of cause and effect doesn’t happen.’

‘So,’ Ben reflected, ‘does that mean that anyone or anything that we’re currently experiencing might simply drop out of this reality at any moment?’

‘Yes,’ said Max without further qualification.

They were silent for some time. Max seemed to be thinking particularly intently.

‘What’s on your mind, Max?’ asked Sue.

‘I keep thinking back to the transitions that occurred in the Tibetan subreality. Now I look back on them, I realise I experienced a specific sensation when Chun disappeared from the Lhasa Gonggar tarmac. It’s hard to describe. It’s like the world going mentally out of focus, if that makes any sense. I felt the same thing on the plane to Tibet when Sahadeva disappeared – and again during my recent hostile transmigration to the body-form of Peter Rogers.

‘I haven’t put it all together before. Those were all highly stressful situations, and the resulting combination of emotions made it hard to isolate a single feeling. I recall, nevertheless, that this sensation was novel to me. It didn’t happen when I transmigrated to George Mackenzie’s body-form or to Peter Rogers’ on the first occasion – when he killed George.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Mike, ‘but why it’s so important to you at the moment?’

‘I’m now wondering if that sensation might coincide with reality shifts. It seems important at this exact moment, as I’ve just started to experience it again, right now. This time I’m getting some vague recollections with it.’

‘What of?’ asked Sue.

‘The memories are like the ones I’ve retained from the Tibetan subreality – clear but dreamlike. I recall writing a detailed strategy for someone to bypass the security at this base and enter the bunker.’

Ben looked at Max. ‘Does the sensation you get include seeing colours very vividly?’

‘Yes. How did you know?’

‘I think I’m getting it too, and it’s also associated with new memories. If you hadn’t said anything, I would have thought I was just recalling a dream.’

‘What are the new memories that have just come to your mind?’

‘I can see myself passing a memory stick to a man in a dark, deserted alleyway in London. The alley’s off Ossington Street.’

Max’s eyes widened. ‘I seem to recall that Ossington Street is just around the corner from the Russian embassy.’

Sue looked at Max. ‘Is what you and Ben are experiencing related to one of Sam’s temporal-spatial discontinuities?’

Max nodded. ‘I’m guessing that Ben and I may have just retrieved partial memories of our activities on yet another worldline. I suspect something related to Shorncliffe Army Camp and Russia is part of Sam’s plan.’

Chapter 114 Encrypted orders

Wednesday 1st September

Captain Petrov of the Russian battlecruiser, Admiral Ushakov, typed the decryption code into the translator. He then electronically scanned into the machine the encrypted order received from the Kremlin on the nineteenth of August.

The text of the now unencrypted order appeared on the screen in front of him. The Captain gave a sigh of relief and then turned to his second in command. ‘I have to admit that I’m relieved. When the decryption code arrived, I feared that it would be orders to launch a nuclear weapon.’

Alexander Siderov, his second in command, also appeared more relaxed at that news. ‘I feel the same way, Captain. Can I ask what the order actually says?’

‘What’s our current position in relation to the town of Folkestone?’ asked the Captain.

Lieutenant Siderov consulted a tablet on the desk in front of him. ‘We’ll pass three miles from Folkestone at around two o’clock tomorrow morning and dock in Portsmouth at around seven.’

‘These orders are detailed instructions about when and how to infiltrate the nuclear bunker at Shorncliffe Army Camp and remove a consignment of a drug called Teterodat. The drug is apparently critical to an aggressive Western military project called Starchild. The mission plan requires four of the special forces personnel we have on board. They are to use underwater propulsion vehicles to travel from the ship to the shore and then execute the infiltration plan. Select our four best men and ask them to report to the briefing room in half an hour.’

Chapter 115 Planning for a party

Wednesday 1st September

‘This is our main reception room, Captain Fenchurch,’ said the owner of the Sandgate Beach Hotel in Folkestone. ‘I think it’ll be fine for your purposes. When Mr Smith booked the hotel, he said you’d be inviting around one hundred guests.’

It took a few moments for Mike to register that the Mr Smith mentioned by the owner must be Al Smith. It took him another few moments to conclude that he was acting on a recollection from the wrong worldline. He had clearly not booked the hotel in this reality, and so there was no need for him to be confirming the arrangements.

‘You’re checking things on behalf of Mr Smith, I take it,’ said the owner.

‘Yes,’ Mike replied.

‘Your guests are arriving on Friday afternoon and leaving on Sunday after breakfast, so you’ll get a fifty percent refund if the world ends on Saturday afternoon,’ his host joked.

‘I’m not anticipating that,’ replied Mike with a smile.

‘I’m getting fed up with these conspiracy theorists, aren’t you?’ said the owner. ‘And I think most other people are too. Every time anything happens, these nutters flood social media with crackpot ideas for which there’s no evidence and which turn out to be bollocks. No one’s been abducted by aliens. The twenty twenty-one US presidential election wasn’t rigged, anti-vaxxers are just plain irresponsible, and we’re not going to be wiped out by a comet on Saturday.’

‘If only everybody had your clarity of vision,’ Mike replied, mentally concurring with all his companion’s conclusions except the last – about which Mike felt the jury was still out.

As Ollie Fenchurch was clearly no longer responsible for the Diss Unit reunion, Mike left the hotel as soon as he politely could and began to walk back to Shorncliffe Army Camp. His next task of the morning was to move the entire supply of Teterodat to the refrigerator in the medical room next to the laboratory – as specified in Sam’s communication with Sue and Ben.

As he walked, the awareness that had entered the world with the body-form of Mike Han reflected on Mike Han’s relatives in China. He was pleased that the death of Mike Han’s body-form had been contained as top secret. His family would not have to cope with their grief before whatever events occurred on Saturday. After that, it was impossible for him to predict who would still be alive and which material reality they might be inhabiting.