I let Kayla drive. Her reflexes are better suited for the speeds we’re going to need to hit. And I need to make phone calls.
First up is Hannah. I need her to get the hell away from the London Underground. If I’m right, I just sent her wandering into a death trap, and while she’s not exactly my BFF, we’re still several notches of antipathy away from me wanting robots to tear her limb from limb.
She doesn’t answer. Which, to be fair, is a reasonable reaction given our working relationship. Still, frustration has me flinging my cellphone into the footwell. “You call her,” I tell Kayla. “She might actually talk to you.”
It’s a mark of Kayla’s concern that I get no back-chat. But she gets no more of a response than I do. Which probably means that Hannah is underground already.
Shit.
I retrieve my phone, leave a message. It is slightly panicky and mostly consists of the phrase, “Get the hell out of there before something turns you into a person patty!” Hopefully it makes up in urgency what it lacks in eloquence.
“An ear bud,” says Kayla, apropos of nothing.
“Is this an artificial insemination thing?” I ask. “Because now may not be the time.”
“The feckin’ things we use in the feckin’ field to talk to each other, you dumb feck.” I think it’s a good thing I had Kayla drive. It hampers her ability to skewer me.
“Oh right.”
I speed-dial Tabitha.
“What?” she says as she picks up.
I think, if the world survives I should talk to Felicity about MI37 getting a slightly better receptionist. Then I remember that Felicity has stormed off and MI37 is destined to die even if the world chooses not to do an impersonation of a wet tissue meeting a bullet today. So maybe a receptionist isn’t our top priority.
“Has Hannah got an earbud?” I ask. Then for clarity, “Something she can put in her ear. Something you can talk to her through.” And then for good measure, “Nothing to do with artificial insemination.”
There’s a chance I need to calm down a little.
“Jesus,” I hear Tabitha say. And then something like, “Need to include an instruction manual with them.” Then she says more clearly, “No. Range is only a few miles. She’s in London. Me: Oxford. So, pointless.”
I curse. “Can you try her mobile?”
“Oh sure. Was doing important work to determine fate of the universe. But a secretary. Yeah, can totally be that.”
I almost check to see if the venom coming through the phone has damaged the touchscreen.
I try to remember what I’m interrupting. Tabitha had an idea, was doing research. About… About… About the damned bomb.
“What did you find out?” I ask.
“Oh,” Tabitha switches from acidic to petulant with the ease of a teenager. “Now you want to know?”
“I know where the bomb is,” I say. There is a satisfying pause after that.
“For sure?” she asks.
I need Clyde to answer that exactly. But I’m building my way up to Clyde, maximizing the time he has to cool off. I imagine Clyde loses his shit about as often as Halley’s comet passes the earth, so it might take him a while to put the pieces back together. I will have time for just one shot to get him back on board with us, and I don’t want to waste it. Still, Tabitha won’t benefit from any of that information, so I go with, “I’m certain enough.”
“OK,” Tabitha says. “So… what I have. Theoretical. Not as rigorous as I’d like it to be. Needs confirmation.” Despite the staccato rhythm she’s waffling as much as Clyde.
“Just hit me with it,” I tell her.
“This is weird.” Weird enough that she’s still hedging. Which is worrying.
Still, “I’ve dealt with weird before,” I point out.
“OK.” Tabitha takes a deep breath. “Bomb goes off. Massive damage. Damage so monumental it causes echoes in reality.”
“Intimately aware of that,” I point out. My sinuses are still stinging from my last encounter.
“Except the bomb never goes off.”
“Say what now?”
“Manipulating realities. Playing with them. Lang’s whole thing. The Uhrwerkgerät—his biggest plaything. See, the echoes get larger and larger closer we get to the big boom. Eventually it causes one so large, it destroys the Uhrwerkgerät itself.” She pauses for effect. Because despite herself, Tabitha, loves a little drama. “Destroys it before it goes off.”
OK, I concede the point. That’s weird.
“A future echo of the Uhrwerkgerät going off destroys the Uhrwerkgerät before it goes off,” I say, just to make sure I’m still playing along at home. From the driver’s seat, Kayla gives me an odd look.
“Yes.”
“But that’s—” I start.
“A paradox,” Tabitha finishes. “Fucking huge one.”
And that does seem a fair assessment of the situation.
“Nature hates a vacuum,” Tabitha states. “Reality hates a paradox. Same thing. Making an analogy. But our reality is actually a composite reality. Made of many realities. We perceive the most likely realities. But have spare ones. So to fix the paradox the composite brings less likely realities forward to plug the hole.”
“OK,” I nod. “So no problem.” But even I can’t deny that sounds like wishful thinking.
“Right,” Tabitha agrees with me for about half a second. “Except paradox is too big.” Another deep breath. “The Uhrwerkgerät—Lang designed it to be highly reality permeable. Exists in many, many realities. So it causes paradoxes throughout all of them. So finding an undamaged reality in the composite to fix things is hard. Means the solution is a really unlikely reality. Means bringing it forward ends up being worse than the original problem. Causes more paradoxes. And the composite tries to fix them. Brings forward more realities. Even more unlikely ones. But just makes more paradoxes. And more. And more. Keeps trying to fix them, keeps making it worse.”
I picture it like a tear in cloth. The Uhrwerkgerät ripping through the weave and weft, leaving a ragged hole in its wake. So you try to patch the hole, but the cloth is too weak to hold the thread. And the rip gets worse. So you bring in more patches, more thread. But everything keeps ripping, and ripping, tearing itself to shreds. Except it’s not cloth. It’s reality. It’s everything I live and breathe. Tearing itself to shreds.
“How bad does it get?” I ask.
Kayla looks over at me again. Considering she’s going in excess of a hundred and twenty miles per hour, I wish she’d keep her eye on the road more.
“Everything ends,” Tabitha says. “Everything. Just gets worse and never gets better. Until there’s nothing.”
Shit. Shit and balls. “Lang designed this thing?” I check. “Designed it to do exactly that?” The mentality behind that decision is beyond me.
“Total Nazi fucker with a hard-on for mass destruction. Saw humanity as tainted. This was the ultimate purge.”
I’ve actually tried time travel before, and I know how awful and dangerous it is, and how, in the long run, it would probably cause the same sort of damage as Lang’s bomb. But still, I would so sorely like to go back in time and neuter Lang’s father with a handsaw.
Not a helpful thought, unfortunately. I reach for something more relevant. “How do we stop it?” I ask.
“Actually,” Tabitha says. “Opposite problem. You have to make sure it goes off. Only way to stop the paradox.”
“The huge bomb that causes a detonation so large it ripples backwards and forwards in time? The bomb that is going to kill me? I have to ensure it goes off?”
And for a moment I really do think Kayla is going to take us off the road.
“Echoes have already happened. Means it’s gone off. Only way to stop the paradox is have that happen.” There is no give in Tabitha’s tone. Ugly little truths handled with professional dispassion.
And… Shit, she’s right. That is the only way. Sacrifice this… what? City? Country? Continent? But save something. Maybe not all the world, but at least part of it.
Just not my part.
“Brilliant,” I say. “Just brilliant.”
Kayla keeps driving, but part of me wishes she’d take us to our destination just a little slower.