The Dead Boy (21 page)

            'It
is. No further questions, please. I will return for your tray in ten minutes
and the second part of the test will commence. Sir.'

            The
man left. After O'Dell ate the sandwich and drank the tea, he took the pills
with a sip of water for each tablet. They were chalky, and coated his mouth.

            In
seconds, he found he could get no moisture in his mouth. His tongue stuck
against the roof of his mouth. When the man returned to take his tray, O'Dell's
nose was a torrent of blood and he could barely see.

            The
man took O'Dell's pulse, nodded, and then handed O'Dell an even thicker stack
of papers. Readouts, data, some schematics. Maps and news reports from various
newspapers, photographs of men and women that O'Dell did not know, and a few
that he did.

            'Same
test, Mr. O'Dell. One hour, then you may return to your business.'

            O'Dell's
vision wavered while he read over the information.

            As
he read, he began to see things.

            A
boy with a scarred scalp only sparsely covered by hair.

           
Barbaric,
he thought. He didn't recognise the boy, but other images he did. Trains on
fire in some Asian country he could not place - China or Japan, perhaps. A
church on fire in America, the president of the United States of America with
blood on his face, the Beatles, a ship burning and sinking into the sea, men
and women with serious faces in Government rooms, none of whom he recognised
though while these pictures were in his head his hand moved, constantly, over
the sheet of paper. His handwriting was far from neat this time, but a hurried
scrawl.

            The
boy with the scars on his head peered over his shoulder, looking at what he
wrote.

           
I
know this. I've heard of this. It's called acid. They gave me acid. I'm
hallucinating.

            'The
test is over, Mr. O'Dell. You are free to go. I suggest you clean up before you
leave.'

            O'Dell
glanced at the notes he had written. Page after page of insane ramblings,
drawings, graphs, pictures which were mostly dark and simple - doodles of men
burning, or blown apart, or screaming figures dying.

            'What...'

            'Good
day,' said the man and swept the papers up.

            O'Dell
did not hear from anyone again until January, 1964.

*

People
make millions of memories in a lifetime, if not more. A cup of tea every
morning for  decades, or more. Cigarettes smoked, magazines read on toilets in
different houses, winters and summers and storms and time spent in the garden,
or in a pub, family weddings, a funeral, good dinners, bad dinners. Among those
memories, a few will make people who they are. A few, like pins that hold a
soul together, to which the memory returns. A single moment, or ten, but things
that affect each individual powerfully enough to mark them.

            For
George, his memory was short - just a boy, still. As he grew, he would remember
a place called the Mill. He would never forget his friend Francis. Other
people's faces would pass. In a year, his father's face would be no more than a
blur. The men on this very rig would mean nothing to him, their names, their
faces, simply gone.

            For
Edgar, the moment he met his wife, and the moment she died.

            For
Francis, of all her memories, she returned time and time again to the one that
made her happiest - the sound of rain on a tin roof.

            O'Dell's
core memory was 1962 and it would not let go.

            O'Dell
shuddered, hundreds of miles distant, his nose bloodied. On a rig battered by
storms far out to the North Sea, George and Francis held hands, still. George's
too-large jumper was awash with red. Francis' nose gushed across the table top.
She jittered in her seat, her eyes white, her feet kicking out. Like a woman having
a seizure. Her tongue bled from her snapping teeth.

            George
could feel her distress, deep inside O'Dell's mind, but when he tried to place
a foot on that dark highway and run from O'Dell, to return to Francis, to set
her free, he found it impossible to leave. The pull of O'Dell, the lure of
1962, was far, far too strong.

            In
a pub, again. The Eagle and Child.

            George
felt O'Dell's confusion as the man walked toward them - he and O'Dell both,
George peering, hidden within.

            'Hello
again, Kurt.'

            'Please
excuse me, but I think you have to wrong man, Sir,' said O'Dell, and George
felt his confusion.

            'Mr.
Fenchurch, Mr. O'Dell. You remember me. Of course you do.'

            'Have
we met before?'

            'Certainly.
We met last year.'

            'Last
year? I don't...Sir? Were you one of the lecturers?

            'Mr.
O'Dell, you graduated in 1962. It is 1964.'

            'Sir?'

            'Please,
Mr. O'Dell. Not here. Shall we walk a while? It is a beautiful day.'

            George
had no choice but to follow. Outside, it did indeed to prove a beautiful day.
The sun was warm. George was deep enough within O'Dell's mind to feel the
warmth, and to forget a frozen oil rig.

            'Mr.
Fenchurch,' said O'Dell, walking beside the man, through the town and toward
the river. 'I'm sorry, but I honestly have no idea who you are.'

            'Understandable,
Kurt. Understandable. In June 1962 you were the subject of a test. Experiment,
perhaps.'

            'What?
How dare you? You...who the hell do you think you are, Sir?'

            Mr.
Fenchurch did not reply, but took a sheaf of papers from a briefcase he
carried. O'Dell noticed a pistol in the case, but it was the papers Fenchurch
passed to O'Dell. 'Before you lose your temper, Mr. O'Dell...this is what you
wrote during the test last year. It is your handwriting, yes?'

            It
was. A scrawl, unlike his usual script, but unmistakably his.

            'Mr.
O'Dell, at first we failed to understand the significance. But we believe you
have worked out original, vast improvements to integrated circuit technology,
replicated equations we can't even understand from work as yet unpublished. The
compound you took allowed this to happen, but more. We believe some degree of
precognition is there in your writing.'

            'I
saw the future. Sir.'

            'There
is a date, there, isn't there? You wrote over and over that date. Do you know
what that date is?'

            'Sir?'

            '22nd
November, Mr. O'Dell. Ring a bell?'

            'Kennedy?'

            'Yes
indeed.'

            'What
is this? Fake? A joke?'

            'No
joke, my friend. The drug you were given is an early iteration of an experimental
treatment. We, the branch and I, are working toward something great, Mr.
O'Dell. And now, I'm offering you the chance to join us.'

            'Why
can't I remember...'

            Fenchurch
wavered in O'Dell's memory and his sight, and George felt himself dragged
forward, like a ghost brought out into the light. For just an instant, O'Dell's
gaze was on George, rather than Mr. Fenchurch.

            Then,
gone.

            O'Dell
clutched at his head. Blood ran from his nose, and Fenchurch stared at him.

            'What's
happening to me?'

            'Similar
effect to LSD. This, I suspect, is rather like a flashback. Extensive research
was undertaken by America's Central Intelligence Agency. The compound you were
given is rather different, though the basic, primary effects are comparable.
The secondary effects, however, are more unpredictable. Like precognition,
telepathy...'

            'Are
you saying I...saw the future?'

            'Mr.
O'Dell, that is
precisely
what I am saying. We would like you to
participate in some further test on your abilities, with a view to including
you in our bureau. A bunch of thinkers, really. Philosophy of the future,
seeing patterns and the like. Trying to stay ahead of the game, as it were...'

            'Mr.
Fenchurch,' said O'Dell, but he fell to his knees. Fenchurch reached out to
steady O'Dell. And as they touched, something happened that O'Dell had never
expected.

            He
saw everything that would be, and the fire that must follow.

*

George
saw through O'Dell's burning eyes and recoiled from the sights to come.

            He
ran, his legs pumping and his young heart pounding, back into his own memories.

            He
was just a frightened boy in a basement. The cold concrete on his bum made him
want to pee. He had a can of fizzy orange before the supermarket.  

            There
was a man above him.

           
He's
dangerous,
thought George. Then.

            But
he'd been wrong. It was The Man with Fire in his Eyes. He was the one to fear.

            George
understood, deep down, that he was lost. His remarkable inner voice, that wiser
and older heart that beat in time with his, tried to push George from that
memory, and be the boy he was now.

           
You're
inside O'Dell's mind,
it told him.

            But
O'Dell's mind was crushing George's thoughts. O'Dell's mind was cavernous. It
reeked of smoke, of ashes and dirty fires that burned in plumes of blue. The
sickly feel O'Dell smothered George. Everything was suffused with that awful,
rank stench.

           
Concentrate,
George told himself. His own voice, but an
older
him.

            Concentrate.

            It
was hard, trying to breach O'Dell's mind. Like how sometimes he'd knock over a
drink, misjudging the length of his arm, perhaps. Then panic, overreact, move
too fast, and instead of small spill he would pitch the whole cup on the floor
and O'Dell would shout at him.

           
No.

           
O'Dell
was never there.

           
Go
slow,
thought George, with a child's thoughts.
His mind is one of mum's
glasses. She let you have a big boy glass. Don't break it. Go slow...

            There,
in that great cavern, something glinted. Not entirely bright, like platinum or
polished steel on a kitchen draining board. But metal, unmistakeable. Hanging
there, inside the cavern.

           
A
memory?

           
No,
he thought.
Not a memory. A...keepsake of a memory. Something left behind, maybe,
to remember something taken.

            It
was a bullet. The bullet was the doorway to the past.

           
Run
along the bullet, George. Run it down.

            George
ran, following the bullet back to the past, to the right moment. From O'Dell's
brain, through skull and skin, through gun smoke and a steely barrel full of
fire...

            He
looked back along the line the bullet would fly. Into O'Dell's eyes.

            Not
madness, or hate, or fury.

            George
saw sorrow.

*

Kurt
William O'Dell's eyes filled with fire for the first time. In that instant,
George, the child he was and the wiser man he would become, saw why O'Dell put
a bullet in his brain.

           
George...get
out. This is too powerful. This is the core of him.

            George
always trusted that voice. It was never wrong.

            He
ran along the path of the bullet, back through the sadness in O'Dell's eyes.

            As
he did, he saw it all. Decades of history, and O'Dell ruling it all along. A
man with no memory, no conscious, but a singular drive and terrible power.

            His
goal was to burn the world. The only thing that saved the world for fifty years
was technology.

            George
understood O'Dell's frustration, the man's impatience. To know his life's work,
to know how to achieve it, and yet still be forced to wait over half a century.

            O'Dell
bending politicians to his will, guiding scientist in their studies. Paying for
research into computer technology with money that he persuaded rich men to give
him, and forget.

            A
man who could see the future, and who had the power to push the world toward
it. He saw O'Dell speaking to soldiers, statesmen, travelling the world and
shaking hands or holding a gun to heads. Scientists, whirling test tubes,
slides under microscopes. Old towns, a lecture hall or a classroom, figures and
numbers like complicated maths on blackboards. A dog, somewhere deep and distant,
maybe when O'Dell had been a child.