Vigil (33 page)

Chapter Seventy-Four

Paris

2025 A.D.

Pre-Apocalypse

Tom leaped over a high fence and took some clothes from a washing line in someone’s back garden. The shirt was short in the sleeves and the trousers were far too tight, but he managed to get a few buttons done and the fly on the trousers most of the way to the top.

             
He could not afford to be choosy. He would look homeless, perhaps. If he looked bad enough then maybe people would look away from him. He did not need to draw attention to himself.

             
He jumped over the fence again and began walking. He had bare feet but people hardly ever looked down at a man’s feet. If he could get into a crowd he could lose himself.

             
He turned the corner at the end of the alleyway and emerged into a suburb, surrounded by high buildings. That they were standing was remarkable. He tried to stop himself from crying as he walked along the streets, passing people unaware of the cataclysm to come and the world darkened by death. Their clothes were bright. They spoke to each other with smiles and gentle words. Those that were alone walked down the street calmly, unafraid, the expressions on their faces something Tom had not seen for more years than he cared to remember. The people were well fed, content and safe.

             
Cars filled the road, a sight he had forgotten in the years since the fall. Even the stupid cars made tears well in his eyes.

             
He took a deep breath and walked down the street, trying to ignore the strange stares he got from people from the way he was dressed. He heard sirens in a distant street and wondered if it was the police or an ambulance searching for him. He needed to get off the city streets and reach his destination but he needed to be sure of the date before he did anything.

             
He saw a café with a newspaper stand beside it. He had no money but as he approached he could read the date well enough.

             
He had two days. Two days to save the world. He had planned for a week. The process was not accurate, but to arrive in the right city only five days late was remarkable.

             
He did not have time to marvel at the wonder of it all. If he lived through the next two days he swore to himself that he would find a quiet spot in the countryside and live out his life in wonder. But for now he had something to do.

             
He did not remembered everything about life before the fall with perfect clarity, but he remembered one thing well enough.

             
His old address.

             
He put his head down and walked toward the apartment where he would be coming home from his day’s work at Fallon Corp.

             
He hadn’t had time to worry about what would happen if he met himself after going back in time.

             
He didn’t have time to worry now. He had but one chance to save the world, but he couldn’t risk his own life. If he died before the fall, he would not be here now. The nature of paradox was uncertain, as it should be. He did not know if he would cease to exist in this world if his past self should die, but he did not want to take the chance. He had to take what precautions he could.

             
He reached his old apartment block, long since gone, and broken the front door open with a push. He climbed the stair to his floor, and waited for the sun to go down. It would be about this time that he would be coming back from work.

*

Chapter Seventy-Five

Tom Fallon's Apartment

Tom Fallon turned the key in the front door to his apartment. He pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway. He juggled his shopping and his shoulder bag out of the way, set his keys on a round table he had bought from a second hand store and checked his messages.

             
He listened to a long message from a girl he had been seeing, who he no longer intended to see. When the message had ended he deleted it, then headed into the kitchen. The kitchen was at the back of the apartment. It led onto a small balcony. He took his purchases from a hemp bag that he always carried with him, in his shoulder bag on the way to work, ready for his evening shopping. He always bought his evening dinner from the small market. He was a man who shopped day to day. He was single. He could please himself as to what he ate. Today he had fresh pasta, spoiled somewhat by the ready made jar of sauce to accompany it.

             
Lastly, he took a bottle of red wine from the bag, set it on the side. The bottle opener was hanging from a hook on the tall fridge. Once he had a large glass of wine in his hand he walked through the apartment, sat on the couch. Then he promptly dropped the glass onto the pale rug that warmed the cold floorboards as Tom Fallon emerged from his bedroom.

             
‘Don’t say anything, just listen.’

             
‘What the fuck?’

             
The elder, harder Tom Fallon walked across the room and slapped his younger self hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

             
‘Don’t make me repeat myself. I haven’t got time. If you want to live, you’ll listen.’

             
The younger Tom Fallon shut his gapping mouth and sat with his hands in his lap.

             
‘Good. I don’t want to hurt you. Believe me when I say that. Now, I’m going to tell you some things. You’re going to have many questions, but I can’t give you the answers. When I’ve finished, perhaps we’ll talk for a while,’ Tom looked at the watch on his wrist, a spare he had found in the bedroom. He was dressed in his own clothes, clothes he hadn’t seen for too many years. The trousers he had been forced to cinch tight with a brown leather belt. He was leaner that he had been in his twenties. He remembered his younger days all too well. Too little exercise, too much sitting around on couches.

             
When he heard the girl’s voice on the answering machine, he remembered the sporadic love life he had enjoyed as a young man. He’d wasted his life on work and study and forgotten the important things in life. He intended to change that.

             
How many people had a chance to go back to their younger selves, tell them a few truths about life, where they were going to end up?

             
Hopefully, this child before him would never have to see the things he had seen. He had a chance to live a full life free of fear.

             
Tom checked his watch again and forced himself to stop obsessing. He knew the time. He knew well enough what he had to do and how long he had.

             
He took a seat himself and rubbed a hand over his face.

             
‘Can I ask a question?’

             
‘No, but in answer to the question you can’t ask, I am you. From now on, don’t waste time telling yourself this can’t be happening, because it is. I’m you, a you that could be. If things go the way I hope, you’ll never be like me. Your father, our father, is in the process of creating an experiment. There is a secret facility underneath the one in which you work. The project must not be completed. It is essential that it fails, because in a two days time a plague, also the brainchild of our father, is going to be unleashed on the world. The world as you know it will cease to exist. It becomes a nightmare world. I am from that world. I have seen things I hope you never will. I have become something other than you would believe.’

             
The elder Tom nodded wearily as his younger self flicked his hand as though asking permission to speak in class.

             
‘I’ve been all over the facility. There is no secret facility. Besides, father may not be perfect, but he’s a philanthropist. Fallon Corp. research has done more good than any other in the world.’

             
‘Jesus, was I ever as dumb as you? The basis for much of the advances in his research was...is...built on a lie. He is driven by his desire to complete his project. Even in his coma he is more dangerous than you can imagine.’

             
‘You know about that?’

             
‘Don’t waste time on stupid questions. I know everything you know. Just take that as read and we’ll save time and make this quicker. I can’t stay here.’

             
‘I can’t believe this. You understand that.’

             
Tom smiled at himself. He remembered the way he had thought, as a young man. He had been an idealist at one point. He had thought he was working toward a perfect world, in a time when disease and injury could be cured, all ills healed. It was a world on the cusp of evolution, born of science. Would death itself one day be overcome? He remembered dreaming about that, fervently believing his work could help mankind. Well, death had been overcome. But the price of immortality was life.

             
Could his younger self understand? He did not think so. He didn’t have time to waste on a lecture that would last hours just to be discarded as a bad dream. The human mind had an amazing capacity to glaze over the things it could not hold.

             
Would Tom convince himself that this had never happened? He thought he probably would.

             
As long as he did what he was told until it didn’t matter anymore.

             
‘I have a few things to tell you. I need you to listen. I don’t understand enough about the nature of time to be sure. But if you die, I believe I will die, too, and I don’t want either of us to die if I can help it. I’m going to do something, and you can’t be around. When I leave, you are going to get on the first train out of Paris. Leave the country, buy a one way ticket.’

             
‘I can’t just leave,’ he said.

             
Tom was out of his chair before his younger self could move. He had him round the throat in an instant.

             
‘You will leave, or I will tear your head from your shoulders and take my chances.’

             
Tom threw himself back against the couch.

             
‘Now, don’t push your luck. You’re young, and this is left field, but there isn’t time to spend persuading you. I don’t think I’ll die if I break your arm. Bear that in mind.’

             
The younger Tom nodded, suddenly afraid as he had not been before.

             
‘You will get on the first train out of Paris. No more arguments. Paris will soon become a place you do not want to be near. I’m taking your key card to the complex. I’m close enough to you to pass muster. I have just one piece of advice for you.’

             
Tom took a breath and his eyes softened.

             
‘Many good people died for me to be here. I loved some. I respected them all. But I was alone for many years. I would not have you end up like me. I wasted my life. I can see you wasting yours.’

             
The advice a parent gives a child isn’t the same as the advice you would give yourself. A child is told, work hard, study, be kind, be true to yourself. But when you talk to yourself there can only be truth. 

             
‘My advice is this; love more. Life is for sharing.’

             
Tom rose and held his hand out for the key card.

             
The younger Tom handed it to him.

             
‘Get up.’

             
He rose. The elder Tom hugged him.

             
‘I was always a good kid. Don’t think for one minute this is a dream.’ Tom held his younger self at arm’s length and took a good look at him. ‘Don’t waste this chance. Go, now. Don’t pack. Just go.’ He pushed him gently to the door.

             
He watched him leave. He heard sirens in the distance, but he didn’t think it would be a problem for his younger self. They were different enough. After all, they were not the same person. Time had seen to that.

             
Tom leapt from the stairs and ran into the night, the key card clutched in his hand.

             
The downfall of his father’s empire must come this night.

             
Tom ran through the darkening night, running toward his destiny.

*