Chapter 91 Forward into the past

Tuesday 24th August

Anna looked worried and confused. ‘I’ve searched the plane and there’s no sign of Sahadeva. That’s ridiculous. There’s no way out of the cabin in flight.’

Sam and Max looked at each other. Max was the first to speak. ‘Let’s go over this again, step by step. When we took off from Folkestone, the three of us were on board, together with Sahadeva and the two pilots. About ten minutes ago, Sam and I noticed that Sahadeva wasn’t here. We alerted you, Anna, and you checked the plane and also spoke with the pilots.’

‘That was very weird too,’ Anna interrupted. ‘They both recall the two of you as passengers, but neither has any recollection of Sahadeva having ever boarded this plane.’

Sam suddenly looked at Max. ‘You were wearing a blue shirt when we boarded. You’re wearing a white one now.’

Max looked at his shirt and then at Sam. ‘You had a white top on. It’s got a floral pattern now.’

‘Have you done anything that might cause this?’ said Anna, anxiously wondering if the anomaly might somehow relate to her passengers.

‘I don’t think we have,’ Max replied thoughtfully, ‘as yet.’

A smartphone sounded from Anna’s pocket. She took it out and looked at the screen. ‘It’s Colonel Li Xiu Ying. She’s messaged that she wants to speak to Sam.’

Anna touched the screen, and Zoe’s face appeared on the large monitor that was suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the cabin.

Zoe appeared very anxious and launched into what she had to say without introduction. ‘Something’s happened, Sam. It’s like I’m in a different world. Some things are the same, but a lot is different. I thought I was going mad, but I then wondered if it was in some way connected with Starchild. Nobody I’ve spoken to today can recall exactly the same yesterday as I remember.’

Sam nodded her head. ‘The same thing’s happened here.’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Zoe.

‘I have a theory,’ Max interrupted.

Sam and Anna looked at Max. He moved across his seat to the edge of the aisle to ensure Zoe could see him via the camera on the monitor. ‘Li Colonel, I’m Max Paterson. I look like Peter Rogers, but that’s a story for another time. I wrote the algorithms on which Starchild is based, and I developed much of the theory which underlies them.

‘One of the consequences of the theory is that the future affects the past. In the normal course of events, you don’t notice this because the influence of past and future on the present meld like two tributaries flowing into a river. There are theoretical circumstances, however, where there can be apparent temporal discontinuities. In reality, there is no past or future, just an eternal now. Time is a construct of the mind. As a result of that, the influence that Starchild can have on the Universal Consciousness can cause us to perceive a temporal displacement.’

‘Does that mean somebody has implemented Starchild?’ asked Zoe.

‘I don’t think so. I think I may be the only one in a position to do that, and I’ve no recollection of doing so. I think Starchild technology will be implemented, however, at some point in what we think of as the future. I believe the effect of that will be to change the past. The four of us seem to be experiencing that past now as our present. We seem to be in an anomalous position because it appears from what Li Colonel said that, unlike others on this new worldline, we can recall the worldline that we were tracing before the transition.’

‘I don’t quite understand all of that, Max,’ said Sam, ‘but is it reasonable to assume that at least the four of us will be together when the transition to a new worldline takes place – when the past and future change?’

‘I think so, and I believe the most likely location for that to occur is the facility in Tibet that we’re heading for. Wherever Grace Clarke’s words came from, she was very specific about us going there.’

Zoe scratched her head. ‘I don’t fully follow that either, but at least it implies that I’m probably doing what I should be doing. I’m what you call in the West “on the run”. When I reached the Ministry this morning, loyal colleagues advised me to leave at once and hide. There had been orders issued by the Party for my arrest.’

‘What for?’ asked Sam.

‘I don’t know. It may be that I’m not aware of a reason because I can’t remember further back than this morning on what Mr Paterson has called this worldline. It may relate to something I can recall – like trying to bring unknown foreigners to the facility in Tibet. Alternatively, any charge might be a complete fabrication for political reasons.’

‘Where are you now?’ asked Max. ‘Are you safe?’

‘I’m in the air. I have sufficient loyal associates to allow my free movement at present. I’m in a private jet heading for Lhasa Gonggar. There’s no reason for the Party to assume I might have fled to Tibet, and my impending arrest would have been kept a secret. I should be able to maintain my authority for the moment at Lhasa Gonggar. Even before Mr Paterson explained what might be happening, I’d planned to meet you all near midnight at Lhasa Gonggar and join you on the final stage of the journey to the facility.’

Max looked at Anna. ‘You can obviously remember the same past that we can. You’re still associated with the worldline that included Sahadeva boarding this plane. If my guess is right, you must have remained with us until the worldline transition took place.’

‘Does that mean I don’t have any choice in the matter?’

‘I think you can make any choices you like, but I also think that all roads for each of the four of us will lead to the facility.’

‘Does that mean I could order the pilots to land at the nearest airport and events would conspire to still get us to the facility you’re talking about?’

‘It would be an interesting experiment to try, but it might be more straightforward to take the most direct route. If we were delayed in getting to the facility, then any worldline transition might lead to a different outcome. I don’t know if that would be better or worse, but getting to the facility as quickly as possible seems like a good rule of thumb on which to base a decision in the absence of other information at the moment.’

Anna turned towards the large screen. ‘Li Colonel, what was the plan for transporting our passengers from Lhasa Gonggar to the facility?’

‘The distance is about four hundred kilometres. There is a Robinson R66 helicopter waiting at Lhasa Gonggar. I had been intending to ask you to fly it, Anna.’

‘OK,’ concluded Max, ‘it looks like we’ve got a plan.’

Sam withdrew her mobile phone from her pocket. ‘Do phones work on this plane, Anna?’

‘Yes, and the calls will be encrypted and secure.’

‘In that case, I think we could all be usefully employed making calls to clarify what’s changed on this new worldline.’

‘I can confirm,’ said Zoe, ‘that the international standoff as a result of Starchild seems to have remained exactly the same.’

‘And,’ said Max, pointing out through a window, ‘Beth's still in the sky.’

Chapter 92 Things ain’t what they used to be

Tuesday 24th August

‘So, when are you coming down to see me, Ben?’ Grace Clarke demanded. ‘You’ve been on that project in Norfolk for nearly a month. For how much longer are you going to desert your poor old mother?’

‘The project's pretty much over, Mum. I’ll probably be coming back to Kent next week. I’ve had an unexpected delay here.’

Ben’s phone was in loudspeaker mode, and Sue could hear the conversation. She smiled at the thought that she was the unexpected delay. Ben was clearly waiting for the right moment to say that he had met someone, and now was not quite that moment.

As soon as the call from his mother had ended, Ben’s phone rang once more.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello, is that Ben?’

‘Yes, who’s that?’

‘Sam Martin.’

‘Oh, hi Sam. Great to hear from you. I really got a lot out of that retreat you ran on Lindisfarne.’

‘Have we been in contact since?’

‘No, but it’s good to hear from you now. What can I do for you?’

Sam rapidly invented a story about her planning another retreat in six months and wanting to know if Ben might be interested.

‘I would be interested,’ Ben confirmed, ‘and I know someone else who might like to come.’

‘Sue,’ said Sam in a questioning tone before she thought of the implications of what she was saying.

‘Why doesn’t it surprise me that you can read my mind and tell me things you couldn’t possibly have known about. Having said that, you might like to explain how you did that some time.’

‘I hope I get the chance, Ben. But it’s a bit of a long story for the moment.’

Chapter 93 Fogbound in San Francisco

Tuesday 24th August

Mike Han’s phone rang. ‘Mike Han.’

‘Hello, Mike.’

‘Ah, Prime Minister.’

‘How’s it going at Shorncliffe?’

‘I’ve started the phase two testing and included all the known and monitorable subjects. I activated all the sub-ego imperatives that were implanted in phase one. Al Smith’s booked the Sandgate Beach Hotel for exactly one hundred and two of the subjects who were at Bodhiisha unit. All those who’ve accepted his invitation are the ones we’d randomly chosen to do so, and the remainder were all on the decline list. Every embedded SEI was successful.’

‘What about channelling?’

‘Ollie Fenchurch got here this morning, and I want to undertake channelling tests with him as soon as possible. I don’t foresee a problem though. I think Starchild is ready to go. It’s now up to the Inner Circle, Sir, to give the final order to initiate channelling to China and Russia.’

‘I’m sure the IC will instruct us to initiate Starchild. They don’t see any choice but to go for the fourth of September when the SDCO takes the Chinese satellite offline. Of course, if Beth smashes into the Earth, it’s all going to be a little academic.’

‘When will NASA know about that for sure?’

‘It’s on a knife's edge. They say they’ll be able to calculate what she’s going to do, one way or another, at the start of next week. What about Paterson? I know you can implement Starchild on your own, but it would be safer if he was with you.’

‘As far as I know, he’s still fogbound in San Francisco. I’ve sent him an urgent text to update me on his status.’

After the call, Mike had planned to walk to the camp cafeteria to eat, but before he could leave the lab, his phone rang again. ‘Hello, Max, thanks for ringing. You got my message then?’

‘Yes, you asked me to contact you urgently.’ Max sat back in his seat on the plane and reflected that this had been a remarkable piece of luck. The text from Mike had given him a reason to ring someone who might be closely related to Starchild in the UK – albeit that this person was the Chinese spy who had given the Starchild manuals to Beijing on the previous worldline, and who had almost certainly done the same thing in the current reality.

The fact of Mike contacting Max also indicated that Max was still alive on this new worldline, although the rest of the call’s context was unknown. Max pondered on what might be the roles of Mike and himself in relation to Starchild on the worldline on which they were now interacting. He also wondered where Mike believed Max currently was.

‘Is this line secure, Max?’

Max continued to do the best impression he could of his old voice using the vocal cords of Peter Rogers. ‘Yes, Mike.’

‘Good. Where are you now?’

Max thought for a moment. ‘Where you’d expect,’ was the best reply he could come up with.

‘So, you’re still fogbound at San Francisco airport.’

‘So it appears.’

‘I thought so. I can hear aircraft noise. Are you going to be able to get back to Shorncliffe by the fourth of September?’

‘I don’t know. Have things moved on?’

‘The PM thinks the IC will almost certainly want to initiate Starchild on the fourth. As you know, they believe if we don’t strike first, then we’ll be attacked in the same way by the first enemy state that’s ready to do so. They see us as having no choice. Ollie Fenchurch arrived this morning. I can implement your algorithms without you, but I’d feel happier if you were here. I don’t understand the underlying physics and mathematics in the way you do. I can only press the buttons. I can’t tweak the programs.’

Max was gaining useful information. He now knew that he was actively involved with Starchild. It was also helpful to have a credible reason in this reality to be somewhere other than Folkestone. Finding reasons why he couldn’t get from London would have been trickier. Max pondered on how to phrase further investigation into what the current world looked like. ‘Peter Rogers,’ he said decisively, without further clarification.

‘What about him? He died ten years ago.’

‘No, what am I talking about? I mean George Mackenzie,’ Max said in the same decisive tone, in the hope that he might get lucky twice in a row before Mike thought he had completely lost his mind in stating random names.

‘I’ve never heard of him, Max. Are you OK? Your voice sounds different.’

Max was again reminded that he continued to inhabit the body that had once been that of Peter Rogers. ‘Sorry, I haven’t been getting much sleep. I was thinking of something else, and I’ve got a bit of a sore throat. Was there anything else you wanted to say to me right now?’

‘No, Max, I don’t think so. Just keep me updated and look after yourself.’

Chapter 94 The past is another country

Tuesday 24th August

Sam walked from the back of the aircraft to where Anna and Max were sitting. Zoe’s face was still visible on the large screen.

Sam had been the last to complete her exploratory phone calls. On her way to join the others, she had also stopped to check the luggage they had stowed in a rear locker. Their Teterodat still existed on this worldline.

‘Ben and Sue are an item,’ said Sam to Max as she sat down, ‘but they’ve not been working with us in Diss or in Folkestone. Sahadeva is the abbot at the Aashirya Temple in Hampshire, but he never received a letter from an anonymous informant in late July about Starchild.

‘The Bodhiisha Temple in Diss doesn’t exist, although the treatment unit does. I’ve no way of checking where Shingetsu, Eric, is – or even if he exists on this worldline. That’s about all I’ve got. What about the rest of you?’

‘As far as I can judge,’ said Max, ‘Mike Han’s involved at a senior level in managing Starchild in Folkestone. I get the impression that he and Max Paterson are the two key figures in the way that Peter Rogers and George Mackenzie were in our previous reality. In the absence of Peter Rogers and George Mackenzie, that could make sense because Mike Han was very involved in the production of the Starchild manuals on our last worldline. He had a scientific background but wasn’t a high flyer. He constructed the manuals so he would be able to implement Starchild from them. He reasoned that any reasonably educated person could then do the same.’

‘What happened to Peter and George?’ asked Sam.

‘Peter Rogers died some years ago, apparently. I couldn't find out anything about George Mackenzie, but it doesn’t sound as if he’s involved with Starchild on this worldline.’

Max looked at Anna. ‘You’ve been making calls too. Has anything come from that which might help us?’

‘I called my mother and some of my friends. I can’t identify anything that’s different. The whole world around you guys seems to have changed, but mine’s just the same – as far as I can see.’

Max nodded. ‘I’m not surprised. I think the most obvious changes will have befallen those of us who’ve been closest to Starchild. The world’s likely to be very much the same for everyone else. We seem to be in a space-time bubble on a worldline that’s intersected the one we inhabited when we boarded this plane.’

Anna looked at her watch. ‘We’ll be landing at Lhasa Gonggar in half an hour.’ She stood and began to walk towards the front of the plane. ‘I’ll check in with the pilots.’

‘I’ll sign off now,’ said Zoe. ‘I’ll be at Lhasa Gonggar at around the same time as you.’

The monitor went blank.

When Sam and Max were alone, she turned to him. ‘What did you mean earlier when you said you might be the only one in a position to initiate Starchild? I thought your manuals meant that any skilled technician could do it.’

‘What I meant was that I’d be the only one in a position to use a version of Starchild with sufficient quantum computing power to transition to an alternative material reality. The manuals only address dissociation, remote viewing, transmigration and channelling. There’s nevertheless another problem for anyone who tries to initiate Starchild.’

‘What’s that?’

‘There were some errors in the quantum AI algorithms in our previous reality. I’m guessing they also exist in this reality. I already told you about the problem with random suggestibility in subjects – the issue I fixed. There’s another problem which could lead to any induced changes, such as channelled sub-ego imperatives, lasting only for short periods. It’s about phases. As you know, the way the material world develops over time can be described by probabilistic wave functions. As a huge simplification, you can imagine any self-consistent material reality as if it were a single wave. You can then imagine any alternative reality as if it were another single wave. Those two waves can only fully manifest at the same time if they’re in phase. If they’re out of phase, then parts of each waveform will be cancelled out. In relation to small changes like implantation of sub-ego imperatives, a phase issue would mean that changes could be completely cancelled out by the existing reality without the existing reality being affected.

‘Phase matching doesn’t happen by chance, so if Starchild is launched using my uncorrected algorithms, the changes in the mental states of the targets would be unlikely to persist.’

‘How long would they last?’

‘I’m not sure. Maybe a few days. Maybe less.’

‘How long have you known about that?’

Max smiled. ‘I knew about it from the very beginning.’

‘But you didn’t correct the algorithms.’

‘No.’

‘An ace in the hole?’

‘I could never guarantee the first use of Starchild would be done by me for the Final Awakening. It might be done instead by someone else for military purposes. The lack of phase matching would mean that any SEIs they induced would quickly fade away, whereas when I had the opportunity to use Starchild for the Final Awakening, I could match the phasing, and my SEIs would persist. I expect the other Max Paterson on this worldline is planning exactly that.’

‘You’ve just talked about the impact of phase issues on small changes like the implantation of sub-ego imperatives. What would happen to any major changes in material reality – the sorts of things you talked about earlier and the sort of thing we’re experiencing now.’

‘Without phase matching, any new worldline would be unstable. New objects or events might last for a while and then just fade away.’

‘Do you think the worldline we’ve just transitioned onto is stable?’

Max looked thoughtful. ‘That’s a very good question. I’ve been thinking about that since our transition happened, and I don’t think it can be stable.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘If the realities were in phase, I might have expected one to grade into the other more seamlessly. We’ve seen some very stark transitions. One minute Sahadeva was in a plane over central Asia and the next he’s in a monastery in Hampshire. If we flew to Norfolk now, we could meet Sue and Ben, but we would have had logically incompatible experiences. Recreating the consistency inherent in a causally connected reality would probably require either them or us to cease to exist. If I went to a fogbound San Francisco airport now, I could even meet myself. One of us could not continue to exist. I think the space-time bubble we’ve found ourselves in is most probably unstable.’

‘Do you think we somehow created this reality at the Chinese Starchild facility?’

‘I don’t have a better theory right now.’

Sam sat in silence for a long time before speaking again. ‘Why might we have put ourselves into a new and unstable reality?’

‘It could be a mistake or we may not have wanted this reality to persist or there might be something special about this worldline which allows an option that doesn’t exist on others. I’ve no way of guessing what that might be because I don’t know what’s going to happen next. If we did create this reality at the facility, however, the quantum computing capacity behind the Chinese version of Starchild must exceed the threshold for reshaping the material world.’

Chapter 95 Arrivals and departures

Wednesday 25th August

It was shortly after midnight, and there were just two aircraft being guided by air traffic control into Lhasa Gonggar Airport. No others were due until dawn.

The Comac ARJ21 touched down and taxied to the terminal building.

As Zoe descended the steps from the aircraft, she noted that an unexpected official was awaiting her on the tarmac. He was accompanied by three security guards with rifles slung over their shoulders.

‘Good morning, Li Colonel. Welcome to Tibet,’ said the man when Zoe had reached the bottom of the steps. ‘If you and your companion will follow me to the terminal, we can deal with the formalities.’

Zoe sensed that something was not right. No one other than a few trusted allies had known she was travelling to Tibet. A welcoming committee was distinctly odd.

‘Thank you, but there is no need for formalities. I’ve made arrangements to be met at hangar three.’ Zoe pointed one hundred metres across the tarmac towards a large prefabricated structure. In front of the building stood a Robinson R66 helicopter.

The official glanced at one of the guards and all three began to lift their weapons from their shoulders.

Zoe quickly crouched. There was an intense burst of machinegun fire that lasted perhaps five seconds. When she glanced up from the tarmac in front of her, she noted that the official and the guards were lying motionless on the ground.

‘Well done, Chun,’ Zoe said to her bodyguard as she stood, ears still ringing from the sound of the gunfire. ‘Come quickly.’

They both began to run across the tarmac towards the helicopter.

As they neared the halfway point, blinding lights suddenly lit the surrounding concrete. Zoe looked towards the glare, sheltering her eyes with her hand. The light was not coming from the direction of the terminal building, and it was accompanied by the sound of engines from a taxiing jet.

‘It’s Li Colonel,’ shouted Anna, moving quickly from the cockpit of the Bombardier into the passenger compartment where Sam and Max were unfastening their seat belts. ‘It looks like there was a firefight on the tarmac near her plane. I could see it from the cockpit. Li Colonel and someone else are running towards the helicopter that’s in front of hangar three. I’ve told our pilots to stop as close to it as possible.’

Anna punched a code into the keypad of a forward locker. She removed two pistols and two magazine clips from the locker. ‘Do either of you know how to use these?’ asked Anna urgently as she handed a gun and an ammunition clip to Sam.

Sam looked at the weapon. ‘I haven’t fired a gun for years, but small arms training was routine when I worked for the MOD years ago.’

Sam checked the safety catch and slid the ammunition clip into the pistol. It clicked into position.

‘It looks like you’ve remembered enough,’ said Anna. ‘What about you, Max?’ she added as she gave him the second gun and clip of ammunition.

‘I was a member of the Territorial Army for a while. I must warn you, I was a terrible shot.’ He also checked the safety catch and slid the magazine into the weapon. ‘But I can remember how to load, unload and fire.’

Anna thought for a moment and then returned to the locker, returning with two boxes of ammunition. ‘In that case, you both may as well have more bullets…’ Anna abruptly stopped speaking as she suddenly became aware that the plane had come to a halt. ‘Let’s go.’

Sam stood up and then quickly ran to the rear locker, returning with the rucksack that contained the Teterodat. By the time Sam and Max had reached the plane’s exit, the door was open and Anna had deployed the emergency escape chute. Max jumped first, then Sam and finally Anna.

The helicopter was around fifty metres away, and they began to run towards it as soon as they had got to their feet.

After just a few metres, Sam heard gunfire. She quickly looked towards the noise. Several people were running towards them from the direction of the terminal building. She heard the ricochet of bullets from the metal cladding of the nearby hangar.

Lights, fixed high on hangar three and the adjacent buildings, blazed into life. The whole area was now brilliantly lit, and that included Zoe, her companion, Sam, Max and Anna.

Sam noted bursts of flame from the guns of those running towards them.

‘Down!’ shouted Anna, throwing herself to the ground.

Max and Sam hit the tarmac.

Sam, lying on her stomach, looked up to see another burst of machinegun fire. This time, it was coming from the weapon held by the man who was accompanying Zoe. He and Zoe had both reached the helicopter.

That burst of fire caused those approaching to stop and run towards the buildings. There were some sporadic flashes of gunfire as they did so, but their priority was clearly to gain cover. There was no shelter on the open tarmac.

‘Go!’ shouted Anna. She stood and began to run towards the hangar.

Max and Sam followed. There was little time for either to think about their situation. They made the unconscious, pragmatic decision to follow Anna and head for the helicopter.

Chun continued to fire in bursts in the direction of the terminal building while Zoe opened the doors of the helicopter. As Sam reached the helicopter, she glanced towards the terminal building and saw two of their attackers fall to the ground.

‘Get on board!’ shouted Zoe.

Sam threw the rucksack containing the Teterodat into the rear of the helicopter. She and Max then propelled themselves after it while Zoe and Anna climbed into the front. Anna sat in the pilot’s seat. They closed the doors.

‘What about your friend?’ shouted Max, noting that Zoe’s companion continued to cover them without attempting to escape.

The starting of the helicopter’s engine drowned any reply to Max’s question.

As the R66 rose into the air, Max could see Zoe’s bodyguard reload his weapon. He then fired in a continuous burst while running towards the attacking force, spraying the adjacent structures with bullets.

The ground was lit as brightly as if by daylight, and, as the helicopter rose and turned, Max could clearly see all the action below. Two further members of the attacking force fell to the ground. Then Zoe’s bodyguard suddenly stopped, fell to his knees and fired his final burst of gunfire unaimed into the sky. He had clearly been hit.

Max blinked as if to improve his vision, although the illumination below made everything so clear that no improvement was needed. He focused on the bodyguard, who remained on his knees on the open tarmac. Max expected to see him topple to the ground. Max blinked again. That expectation had not been met. Instead, the man had simply disappeared. It was as if he had evaporated into the air.