He picked his way by the red emergency lights.
Saskia lifted her head. She licked her lips. They were covered with dust. Her eyes were dry and raw. She looked around for Bruce and saw that he had gone. She was not disappointed. She needed no further demonstration of his heroism. He was a blind man in a collapsing building. She must have lost consciousness and been unable to answer his calls.
As much as she was scared, she was satisfied. Hartfield was dead. The time machine had killed him.
The structure had stabilized. Although it was barely moments before that the walls and ceiling had ground together like teeth, they were now still and the illusion of strength had returned. It was a feeling that something this big could never crumble. Like a mountain, it was eternal.
Saskia stood. She was quite fearless. She was destined to survive this catastrophe.
Ahead of her, southwards and away from the nearest stairway, she could see that some emergency lighting had been knocked out. She had seen Helen Proctor fall into that blackness. She clambered over. She stepped on glass, cabling, masonry and other debris. Her intention was clear. She would save this woman’s life and restore the lives of David and Jennifer, give them the opportunity to avoid that future pain.
But Helen was destined to die; Saskia was destined to survive, just as the young girl called Ute Schmidt was destined to be raped and Kate Falconer destined to be killed and live again as a digital facsimile.
Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos: who were they? What were they?
A tear of frustration cut through the dust on her cheek. Her arms were pinned by Time, by an unthinking, controlling God-not-God that would never ask her permission, would only pull her strings this way and what. For what was fate but the pulling of strings?
And at what scale was her destiny planned out?
She had been destined to travel backwards in time. She had been destined to enter the building at, say, 3:55 p.m. because that was what she had already done. She had no control. She placed here foot here and here not because she wanted to…she placed them because of the determined arrangement of the muscles in her legs, the state of the nerves connected to them, the state of her brain. And what determined the state of her brain?
The state of her brain a micro-second before.
She was a doll, a puppet with strings, and none was her own. Jobanique had not controlled her because he could not control himself. He was as predestined as every other man, other woman, any other object in the whole universe from the beginning of time.
She could see it so clearly now. History was fixed and unchangeable because everything was unchangeable. She had never worried about the fixedness of the past because its fixedness seemed self-evident. But she had not realised the implication of this: the future was fixed too.
She screamed.
“Are you OK?” someone asked.
Saskia blinked. She wiped the hair from her eyes. There was a woman stood before her. It was Helen Proctor. Helen smiled. Déjà vu. Jennifer smiled. “Listen to me, you’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”
I know. But you will die.
“Listen to me,” Saskia said. “I am front...from the future. Your daughter, Jennifer –”
The woman frowned. “Who are you?”
The ground rumbled. Saskia felt and heard a small stone hit her head. “My name is Saskia. Your daughter will grow into a beautiful young woman, I’m from the future – she says that she loves you.”
Helen smiled. Saskia smiled too; she had got through to her. “You’re going to be alright,” Helen said. “We’re going to talk you out of here. You’ve have a knock on the head.”
Saskia’s smile switched off. “No, listen to me!”
There was a splintering sound from above them. They were three metres from the spot where, twenty years later, David Proctor and Harrison McWhirter would look up to see a crack appear. The gap grew wider. Saskia was spellbound. It was like a time-lapse film of a geological event.
The ceiling opened. Saskia saw the steel joist bending under its deadly cargo. Fist-sized pieces of concrete began to fall. She grabbed Helen and pulled her to the floor. She made sure that David’s wife was completely covered by her body.
She turned to look up into the abyss
Prove me wrong.
The ceiling caved. She felt the building hit the ground around her. Edges cut and scratched her. Twisted fingers of metal ended their journeys bare centimetres from her neck, her abdomen and her legs. Then it was over. The dust was thick. She remembered the hood on her suit and pressed the button. Nothing happened. The computer was broken.
She climbed to her feet and tried to waft the dust away. “Helen, get up.” But as the dust thinned, Saskia knew that Helen was dead. The ceiling had fallen to leave her own body untouched, but a finger of steel had passed through Helen’s head. She was conscious. Her breathing was shallow. Clear fluid ran from the wound.
“I am so sorry,” Saskia said.
Helen’s eyes were fixed and black.
If Saskia had not been there, this woman would not have died. And yet that thought seemed to give the illusion of choice. There was none. Saskia held the woman’s hand until she just stopped living, like a clock not wound.
She heard a man calling, “Helen! Helen!”
It was David. He had black hair that was long enough to tie in a pony tail. Saskia stepped back. He took Helen’s hand and held it to his cheek. He did nothing. Both of them were a tableau.
Saskia touched his face and left. She was not destined to know him. David gave a long, guttural wail. It reminded her of a wolf howling at the moon. An instinctive, unthinking behaviour.
