Final Days

needing to get himself to Copernicus.’

Jeff had finished the last of his coffee and realized his hands were shaking. The whole thing sounded absurd beyond words, yet one glance at the TriView was all he needed to know otherwise. He looked back at Mitchell, and felt as if the whole universe had somehow shrunk to encompass only the Formica-topped table at which they sat, while the rest of the world had been reduced to a blurred video loop running almost forgotten in the background.

‘That simple?’ said Jeff, with a slight twist of his lips.

‘I remember waking up in that motel room,’ Mitchell had continued, clearly not appreciating the joke. ‘I headed straight for Florida, because I could see from the news feeds what was coming. I spent – will spend – a couple of days setting up a false ID, so I could get past Copernicus’s security. That’s one reason I was able to get fake UPs for both of us as quickly as I did.’

‘You said something went wrong,’ Jeff queried.

‘Getting to the Florida Array was more difficult than you can imagine,’ said Mitchell. ‘By that time vast crowds were already gathering there, but I managed to make it through them. I faked my way past the security cordons, and all the way through to the Lunar Array, except ASI agents arrested me soon after I got there. But I managed to escape, stole a spacesuit and made my way out on to the surface. By then things were starting to change fast. The face of the Earth was becoming blanketed beneath dense grey clouds. I managed to get to one of the R&D labs in the middle of all the panic, and sealed myself inside one of the cryogenic units.’

Jeff had shivered at the look on Mitchell’s face. Even though he was describing the end of the world, his expression remained soft, almost dreamy.

‘And that’s what saved your life, while every other living thing on the Moon and Earth was wiped out?’

‘Maybe.’ Mitchell shrugged. ‘At least I can’t think of any other explanation. The next thing I remembr is being revived, and I couldn’t believe it when I learned I’d been brought back into my own past. I remember staring through the window at things I was sure I’d never see again – things like trees, birds, grass. They started interrogating me straight away, but there wasn’t much I could tell them.’

‘Then you broke out?’

‘I had to, because by then I’d started to remember things. After that, it was just a matter of time before I figured a way out.’

‘And then you came looking for me,’ said Jeff.

Mitchell smiled softly. ‘And then I came looking for you.’

Jeff had hugged himself, as if warding off a chill.

A metal panel, set into Arcorex’s main entrance, flashed from red to green as Jeff approached. He half expected alarms to begin blaring the moment he crossed the threshold, but, once again, nothing happened.

Get a grip, he told himself. As far as anyone else was concerned, he was just another member of staff coming in for an all-nighter.

Jeff swiftly crossed an atrium, partly lit by moonlight spilling down through angled panes of glass, and walked past a reception area, where a single security guard sat on a mesh-backed chair. The man flicked his eyes towards the new arrival for a moment, then returned his attention to a bank of screens. Jeff gave him a bare nod and continued across the expanse of polished marble until he arrived at a row of elevators.

As the elevator carried him below ground level, his UP began flashing a standard warning that he was now entering a high-security area. When the doors hissed open, he found himself at one end of a whitewashed corridor that was bleakly illuminated by strip lights. Mitchell had said he remembered seeing the letters B3 painted on one wall, which would mean he had been held in the lowest basement level, where all artefacts from Site 17, and other far-future locations, were analysed under strictly controlled conditions.

He moved further down the corridor, peering in through windows at labs where often incomprehensible alien machinery was X-rayed, chemically tested, blasted with radiation or simply picked apart by teams of engineers. He finally stopped and looked around, feeling frustrated. There was nowhere they could possibly be keeping Mitchell down here. In that case, how could he . . . ?

Of course. How could he have forgotten? Beyond the labs, there was an emergency ward at the very far end of the corridor; but, given Arcorex’s excellent safety record, the ward had never been used – at least until now. If they were going to keep Mitchell anywhere, it would be there.

He turned a corner and kept walking, until he reached a door where the corridor ended. Looking in through a window, he spotted four hospital-style beds, all of them vacant, but noticed an airlock at the far end of the ward that clearly led into a separate isolation unit. He entered the room, squeezed inside the tiny airlock, before using a standard staff-access code to unlock the door beyond.

He found the other Mitchell lying there on a single-size cot, various pieces of medical equipment arranged around him and an intravenous tube taped to one wrist. Jeff half expected him to open his eyes and say Gotcha. It was exactly the same man he’d left waiting for him outside – but, at the same time, it wasn’t.

It was at that moment he decided to think of the man lying on the cot as ‘Present-Mitchell’. Working carefully, he pulled the tube loose from Present-Mitchell’s wrist. Present-Mitchell moaned and shifted in response.

‘Okay, Mitch, got to wake up.’ Present-Mitchell grunted and tried to push Jeff away with weak hands, as he tried to persuade him to sit up. The man’s eyes flickered open, but failed to focus on Jeff’s face. His paper pyjamas crinkled noisily as Jeff finally dragged him upright, and he nearly slid to the floor while being helped off the cot.

‘Hey . . .’ Present-Mitchell finally mumbled, looking around himself. ‘What . . . ?’

‘C’mon,’ Jeff urged. ‘Time to get moving.’ He propped Present-Mitchell up against one wall, then slapped him hard on the cheek, desperate to get him to focus. It wouldn’t be too long before those security teams he’d seen patrolling the grounds eventually worked their way round to the basement area.

Jeff pulled his hand back to deliver another slap, but Present-Mitchell reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist, spinning him around and locking one arm around his neck like a vice. Jeff was far too startled to resist.

‘What . . . ?’ Mitchell’s voice wavered, but his grip was remarkably strong, despite the drugs ‘. . . what the fuck are you doing with me?’