Escape Velocity: The Anthology Read online

  On the pretence of taking Dolly for a walk I ask all the neighbours who are home if they know Sara and so ensure no anxious parents are desperately searching the local estate for a missing child. We draw a blank and by then Sara has walked far enough and is asking for her mother. She thinks I know her mother and her whereabouts. We go back to my house and, as she uses the toilet, (thankfully with no need of my help) I look up Social Services, and explain that I have found a little girl in my house and I don’t know what to do with her. Social Services are, surprisingly, no slouches and two of them arrive with a policewoman within twenty minutes.

  So you go over the day’s events, careful not to say the doors were locked, and then they ask if you’re sure you’ve no children.

  What man can be entirely sure? But certainly I have never spoken to, or heard of, any further generations.

  Then they want to know about your relations, your ex - and where she is now, your divorce date and if she has any subsequent children. So you answer these and then they start asking Sara questions.

  Sara has fallen asleep, obviously weary, and not very cooperative when woken. All she wants is her mother so they take her away. There’s nothing I can do. All I have left is the model, somehow forgotten in the confusion.

  The house seems even lonelier after she has left and the words won’t come at all. You play the radio but just get inane noise echoing in empty rooms. You try to see Sara, try to return her doll’s bedroom but access is denied. You’re not even allowed to know her whereabouts.

  You worry about her; should you have taken care of her until publicity made it obvious that a child was missing? Or was calling Social Services a betrayal? But what else could you do?

  You’d be in prison if you hadn’t called. Worst thought of all, is she happy now, being well treated?

  Of course it was, and still is, a big mystery. The local papers pick it up first but the nationals aren’t far behind.

  Soon you find yourself answering questions on radio and TV. And Sara’s everywhere, in the papers, on TV and in your dreams but not in your life. And no one comes forward, well no one credible, and the whispers start, or perhaps you imagine they do. Your ex-wife looks at you as though you were the one who strayed, as though you broke up the marriage. The police come with more questions and you know, because you see it in their eyes, where they would look for Sara’s mother. You know they want to dig up your garden. Next they want a DNA sample and you don’t object: you’ve nothing to hide. But soon you begin to wonder, to doubt your own sanity, your own memory, and your own records. So you look through old letters, diaries and old photo albums, well those remaining after the divorce; but find no clues.

  You find it hard to leave the house. The journalists and photographers make every attempt a misery. Suddenly your ex is in the news and she loves it. The neighbours tire of the perpetual scrums in the street so they are happy to help with small but necessary tasks to spite my tormenters. They let me pay their older children to mow the lawn, wheel my waste out for collection and the myriad other small tasks you never think about until you can't do them yourself. Worst of all you can't go out for a simple walk.

  My dear ex-wife manages to reveal my writing ambitions to the media and now I'm getting calls from Sunday Supplement editors to see my stories. Even Den Emery, editor of 'Specsector' the one British SF mag I subscribe and submit to, has called and asked me to re-send a couple of stories he rejected last year. "Any publicity is good publicity," he says. Apparently my stories 'weren't too far off' but he had better at the time.

  I still try science fiction and one common theme is multiple, or parallel, universes. The theory goes that each universe differs slightly from its ‘neighbour’ and the variation, such as a small change in history, has set it upon a different path. Is there a universe where I stay married, or remarried, have a family, children, even grandchildren and Sara? It was the model that set me on this track. You see it’s the sort of thing I could easily have made for a child.

  I can see it now, sections from polyester bottles for the windows, curtains cut and sealed from woven polypropylene sacking, a tri-wall corrugated bed with bubble wrap and foamed polythene sheets as bedding. Wardrobe and dresser made from microflute board and mirrors from metalised polyester. There are cosmetic jars, carefully cut out from aspirin blister packs, and aerosol valves to use as exercise weights. A half shampoo bottle makes a stool to sit by the dresser. Small pieces of adhesive Velcro tape are stuck to surfaces like the bed, the stool and the walls to secure Dolly and her accessories when Sara is in motion. Not forgetting my addition, wastebasket, and contents.

  The question you keep asking, but can’t answer, is how did Sara get here? You do know that light can be regarded as both particles and waves. This phenomenon, wave-particle duality, has consequences for light that is internally reflected at a surface inside a prism or optic fibre; a minuscule proportion of the energy leaks through that surface. Physics has now learned how to catch onto that evanescent wave and tap a fraction of its energy to reveal things that are impossible to see under normal circumstances. Physics also says everything can be a wave or a particle. Essentially we are all waves and particles, all wave-particle dualities.

  But whatever physicists can do here on Earth happens somewhere and some time in this universe – so did my loneliness seize on Sara’s evanescent field? Did I ‘pull’ her 'through' from her grandfather's house in another universe and strand her here?

  So back in that universe are you frantic about your missing grandchild, trying to console a daughter, or daughter in law, while the police search and look at you with suspicion?

  Have I trapped Sara here? And, if so, what can I do about it?

  I want to send her back but if I am keeping her here then there’s only one way to put matters right. But Sara would have to be here in this house, because if I can send her home then she must arrive in a safe place. If she disappeared from your house in that parallel universe then I must ensure she returns there.

  Next the police return with results from DNA tests. Apparently they had them for a while but they were so puzzled they felt the need to repeat them and do more tests. Now they tell me I’m related to Sara, either a grandfather or an uncle and my ex is no relation at all. Obviously they have many more questions but I am not much help.

  The police questioning gets quite hostile and their suspicion gives me an idea. I offer to tell them everything, confess, but only if I can see Sara here again and return Dolly’s bedroom. They are reluctant but I phone my solicitor, who points out I am Sara’s only known relative and he will write to the court.

  I wanted to write a will but that could have made my plans obvious. Now I have a reason. Sara is my only relative I can leave everything to her with my ex as executor. If Sara gets back to you my wife gets it all, which would be annoying, but I hope she does get it and you get Sara.

  Eventually my solicitor’s actions have an effect and social services agree though I can’t be alone with her, but that’s OK because I don’t want Sara to be alone. I want her happy, joyful, and sparkling again. But it needs careful planning; the quick exit at the right moment, the memory stick hidden in Dolly’s bedding, the file for the local constabulary. I don't keep cyanide around, and I can't buy any now, so a polyethylene bag seems an apt method for me, though suffocation is not an easy way to go. It is fast and speed is essential to ensure a happy return for Sara. I wonder; am I deceiving myself, is this the right way? What other choice have I? Sara is paramount, she is being missed, she is missing, and she is unhappy. I hope she and Dolly, once here in my home, will leave your parallel house, happily back home with her family; but I’ll never know.

  From here in the bedroom window I can see down the road. Today there are fewer reporters parked outside my house, probably stringers and freelancers. These days I provide them with so little, in the way of news that most have given up. Today they will get something but I can't do much about that. Ah there's the police car; Sara will be h
ere very soon now, the door is open downstairs, with Dolly’s bedroom close by.

  Oh, Sara, what would I give for a few more minutes with you, adding a few more bottle cap beakers for Dolly, labels as placemats for her table? I want to hear your voice again, see that gleeful smile, and set you and Dolly on the spinning chair. But, in compensation for the absent years, I’ll make do with the joyous memory of that hour and finish here with the tight chest and that somehow so shaming, for a man, tickle in my nose and eyes. Oh Sara, I hope you get home.

  Auditory Crescendo

  Geoff Nelder

  Abner hoped safety would come in the wide plains of Kansas. Open miles of no one. At least the noises there were two-dimensional, unlike in the military hospital. No voices wheedled into his wrecked ears from above, or from below like when he was imprisoned on the eleventh floor of the Silverstein Institute of Audiology in Florida.

  A plant with tiny red flowers caught his eye. He’d been a sucker for wild plants even back when nerd accusations hurt him. He’d left high school and joined up for Iraq only to be roadside bombed. He squatted to examine the Scarlet Pimpernel, otherwise known as The Poor Man’s Weatherglass. The open petals meant it was going to stay dry. Good to know; he couldn’t take the deafening noise of rain any more. He teased it with a fingernail while enjoying the earthy aroma from a nearby molehill. Resisting the temptation to pick the lonely blossom, he stood. Arrgh, here came a voice. There must be a nearby cabin. He stuck his index fingers in his ears to bring a temporary respite.

  He ran up the steps to the trailer home – a temporary sanctuary – but then had to unplug his right ear so he could open the jammed door.

  ‘Sit on him, Enrico. Now dislocate all his fingers.’ This time the heavy Kansas female voice raised a quarter octave from her demands an hour ago. Four miles away. The sound pierced his brain; not painfully but it intruded, swamping and numbing his own thought processes.

  ‘He’s jus’ airin’ his lungs with that cussing. Go for that finger. Go on, why yer waiting?’

  If they were much closer, their voices would hurt; vibrate his brain to migraine jelly. Abner struggled to open the jammed door and risked using both hands.

  ‘I will then.’ This time, masculine. ‘But not because you say so.’ Californian accent, in his fifties, chewing gum, so the inside of his mouth made wet noises.

  A shriek from a younger man but thankfully Abner had entered his trailer home and his fingers were back in place. He sank to the floor with his back to the door, fingers worming their way deeper into his ears. The thin door would make little difference, nor the bare aluminium walls. He could still hear muffled cries. He’d have to use his earplugs.

  He’d a new worry hearing that threat, and maybe a beating. He should call the authorities but he couldn’t, rather wouldn’t – he needed more days of freedom.

  After the first round of hearing tests he’d been summoned for another consultation.

  Different audiologist too. Susan McBain. Charming Scottish woman, who seemed as tall and as thin as a street lamp – with a red fringed lampshade. Her lips moved.

  Damn, he hadn’t switched his aids on. He’d have heard better if they weren’t acting as ear plugs when they were off. He’d arrived by taxi and had refused to listen to the driver’s presidential-election-blathering.

  ‘I’m sorry. Repeat?’

  ‘Abner Skelton? At twenty-six you are younger than normal to have to wear external hearing aids. We’d like to use an experimental cochlear implant...’

  He shut out input – a feat he’d practised years before his ears lost efficiency. The implant concept needed to inveigle its way through to be considered. He’d never had surgery. He quivered at the idea of being lacerated even for his own good. The blast had rattled him in the humvee but his body had no visible damage. He put his right hand up to finger his aid. Felt the smooth plastic, which enabled an instant smile, then off again. Initially he wouldn’t wear his aids, especially in public – all those stares. But in time it’d become part of him. As normal as teeth fillings and spectacles. His fingers caressed and inadvertently upped the volume.

  ‘... Clinton has one. Are you with me, Mr Skelton?’

  ‘Course. In each ear?’

  ‘Who, you or the former president? Doesn’t matter. Yes to either. Your auditory tests need to be more rigorous than before. Come through to the lab next door. There’s forms to sign too.’

  ‘Aren’t there always?’

  ‘You’ll need your hair off.’

  Instinctively, he stroked his spiky hair. ‘I bet Bill didn’t.’

  ‘Bill? Oh, his was simpler and cosmetically expensive. Why worry? That cut is a number two isn’t it?’

  ‘Four.’

  ‘It will be four again soon, but with the advantage of your ears not needing those outdated contraptions and with enhanced facilities. You just wait.’

  Two hours later he’d lost all his ability to make decisions. Soundproofed cubicle it might have been, but his tinnitus kicked in louder than ever. They must have heard it too was his private joke but the internal whistling soured when they made him press the button when he heard a note. Focussing on a sound-to-be was Chinese torture. After half an hour he wasn’t sure whether he was pressing the button because he’d heard a ping, or his tinnitus called, or he was just hurrying them on. He should’ve told them he’d had listening fatigue but he pressed on, or not.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, with no awareness of his weariness. ‘Luckily, the computer does the rest.’

  After inserting temporary beads into his ears, electrodes led from them to itchy pads on his shiny pate and to her box of tricks. ‘You’ll hear strange beeps and bops but ignore them. The program will sense the sound patterns and make equalization adjustments. Just relax.’

  ‘So my ears and head link to this Moog Synthesizer thing?’

  She threw him a pitying smile.

  Finally she said, ‘We’re done.’

  Finally wasn’t the end.

  ‘I can’t go home?’ He stood, his left hand in his pocket rearranging his undercarriage after so long on a lab stool.

  ‘We have a slot tomorrow morning. You’ll have a private room,’ said Doctor McBain. She hadn’t looked up from tapping on her electronic tablet, synchronised with satisfied smiles as the graphs animated with dancing numbers.

  ‘But I haven’t brought—’

  ‘Everything is provided,’ said a male nurse whose black beard must have infringed health regulations.

  ‘I’m expected—’

  ‘You’re single, living alone here in Florida while your parents are a thousand miles away,’ said the doctor still playing with her virtual copy of his ears.

  The nurse, maybe he was an orderly, pushed gently but firmly at Abner’s back, heading him towards the lab door.

  At last the doctor looked up at him. ‘You are the perfect patient for this procedure, Mr Skeleton.’

  ‘Skelton.’

  Abner put his hand on the doorjamb wondering if he was allowed to refuse this operation.

  He dreamt of being back in his apartment that night, and the next six nights. ‘Settling in’ problems they said. At least they avoided referring to the cacophony in his head as being teething problems.

  Doctor McBain glared down at him with her green eyes. Her with all that verticality and he could still make out those bottle-green orbs sending hostile emanations into him. She tap scratched on her pad and showed him her recrimination: You should have mentioned your tinnitus.

  So it was his fault.

  Maybe she was right. At first his head imploded with so much noise he thought his new aids had amplified his tinnitus and he had yet to hear external sounds. He had tried to filter out some of the frequencies. His former girlfriend had often accused him of selective hearing, and it was true. But now he suffered booming echoing inside his skull. Before the operation his tinnitus threw him a random selection of twittering birds, single tones and a drunk playing a harmonica. None pa
rticularly distracting or hateful. Until now.

  Then he saw a nurse five metres away drop a pen. The detonation burst in his head accompanied with a kaleidoscope of coloured stars. He told the doctor. She mouthed back: Stop shouting. Maybe she’d said it too, but his head was so full he couldn’t distinguish the lower frequency noises any more. The audio equivalent of a colourful painting turned brown by over-fussing.

  Don’t worry. We’ll sort it.

  It took a whole day with those electrodes buzzing instructions to the implants before the sounds settled to deafening. It was driving him crazy, not just the sounds reverberating behind his eyes and up and down his spine, but the time it was taking. Abner loved the outdoors. Born in a hurry in a hospital parking lot, he yearned for fresh air, earthy smells, insects and other unencumbered creatures. School was a nightmare, this worse because he wasn’t allowed home.

  If his acoustic problem wasn’t enough, another concern was the increasing number of senior military personnel ogling him and nodding to the doctor. They didn’t speak to him, or if they did their words were lost in the sound fog – turned down now by a joint effort of computer and earplugs. He couldn’t resist a smile at the irony of having cochlear implants that were so good he had to wear earplugs. So he ended up with external devices after all.

  This was a military hospital, and they paid his expenses for the experimental implants so he couldn’t object to being peered at like a caged orang-utan. Even so, his stomach knotted when he noticed white-helmeted guards at his door with fingers on the trigger guard of their M-16s. Were they afraid he’d run off with their precious implants? But that was going to happen anyway. He felt sick when he realized they were keeping people away from him. He’d no family near enough to visit, no friends – only acquaintances at Spiro’s Bar. Was that a factor in choosing him for this implant? He’d enquire when McBain returned.