As well as being a very able player Minnie had also been an avid fan of Rugby. He had never missed an England home game at Twickenham and had been to most Premiership finals there. He still knew many of the Harlequins club players, the team he had played for as a boy and as a youth player and briefly as a first team player. Minnie had never truly known whether he could have made it as a professional such was the draw of his studies and his profession. The caring gene in his parents had been firmly passed on to David. He was driven to care and treat those with disturbed psychological problems. It had seemed natural to him to step away from the demands that full time professional rugby would have asked of him. Everyone had been surprised by this, everyone that is except for his parents.
It was through contact with the Harlequin players his son had played with that Martin had managed to secure access to the home of English Rugby. Through their contacts he had gained the agreement to scatter the ashes of his child there. It had been a slow and painful drive from Tooting to Twickenham. Martin and Barbara had wanted only a smaller number of mourners to attend the service on the pitch of the eighty two thousand seater stadium. The stadium was eerily quiet and its stands vast expanses of empty echoing space.
“Take as much time as you need, I’m here until late tonight so no rush,” the groundsman said as he shook Martin’s hand.
Martin held the urn carrying his sons’ ashes with one hand and held Barbara’s hand with the other as they walked out across the pitch. The vicar walked alongside them. They were followed by aunts, uncles and cousins. Jamie, Mary, Jenny and Oliver walked with Ryan and a few closer friends of David from the team. Ryan had suggested the try line would be the area where David would have liked his ashes to be spread. Martin cried as he looked into the stands remembering the many times he had been to matches with his son, it was their thing he thought.
The vicar led the short ceremony, reading a litany, offering a pointed communal prayer and ending with the benediction.
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” the Vicars word drifted into the air.
Martin opened the urn and scattered the ashes over the scoring side of the try line. He walked up and down slowly, thoughtfully shaking the soft dust out of the urn and scattering it on to the grass. Many tears flowed from those watching him, a man broken by the loss of his only child.
The mourners drifted away after the minute’s silence that closed the scattering of ashes ceremony. Ryan and his friends walked the pitch with Martin. Barbara stood by the player’s tunnel with her two sisters holding the diamond vase keepsake she had, which retained a small amount of her son’s ashes.
Jamie, Oliver, Jenny and Mary sat up in the stands several rows up from the pitch. The three team mates had shared a few moment silence, reflecting on their loss and memories of their friend. Jenny sat quietly being the best wallflower she could possibly be.
“This is such a fuck up,” Jamie said.
They watched Martin with Ryan and friends pointing up into the stands, probably spotting places where they had sat and watched matches with David. They watched Barbara sobbing in the arms of her elder sister.
“So what’s up with you Oliver?” Mary asked pointedly, leaning forward to look at him two seats away.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Oliver said.
“More than that,” Mary said.
“What’s more than losing our best friend Mary?” Oliver replied.
“I know you too well, since Minnie died, before he died, we lost you, what’s been going on?”
Oliver put his head in his hands, he took a deep breath and then sat up straight and addressed Mary, Jamie and Jenny. Jenny placed her hand on his knee.
Oliver coughed, “It’s hard to describe what I think I have seen, without sounding insane. The experiments, all the Tempus Genesis stuff, it’s not safe.”
“Unsafe? You mean unstable?” Jamie asked.
“In a way, in a very complicated way yes, I’ve had a sign, a message to stop, or else we will all suffer.”
“A sign Oliver, from who? What on earth are you saying?” Mary asked.
Jenny joined in, “I haven’t discussed this with Oliver but I’ve been warned too, when regressing, somebody wants it stopped.”
Oliver looked at Jenny to try to understand what she knew. Clearly she too knew more now about the risks. In a second of processing he realised her gift had also sent her a warning.
Oliver explained further, “In the future, it causes problems, illness and the people in charge believe the only cure is to stop it from starting.”
“In the future, do you know how that sounds Oliver?” Mary said, “and Minnie, is this linked to him, have your experiments put him at risk?”
Oliver dropped his head, “I think I’m responsible yes.”
Jamie was shaking his head puzzled, “What? Because Minnie was involved they’ve what, like assassinated him?”
“I had a vision, I was in a vast hangar a pursuit facility, they told me they would hunt me down and anyone who knew me, I knew they were after Minnie, I tried to but couldn’t get to him in time, warn him, I was too late.”
Silence fell over them. Jenny looked into Oliver’s eyes and believed him.
Mary broke the silence with anger, “I believe you Oliver, I believe some of what you’re saying. I think there are people after you, but not this future crap. People from right now. I’m not sure why you’re dressing this up but the experiments, the big ideas, the business connections, trying to market what is essentially an illegal drug, whatever you might say different. Yes I believe you’ve crossed someone and they’re out to get you back. Minnie was so loyal to you I bet you got him mixed up in your shit and got him killed in the bargain,”
“No Mary,” Oliver raised his voice in protest, “it’s not like that, I would never have pushed on with the research if I had any idea.”
“Bullshit,” was all Mary could say in reply. She stood up, stepped by Jamie in his seat and marched off down the steps towards the pitch.
“It does sound far fetched,” Jamie said offering little consolation to Oliver.
“I know, I know, but it’s the truth.”
“Is it true someone’s after us, skipping whether it’s a future terminator or a here and now gangster type, are we in real danger?” Jamie asked.
“Yes, I believe we are?” Oliver replied.
Jamie threw up his hands in disbelief, “When did you realise this?”
“A few minutes before Minnie died, the regression had its moments but I never saw them as warnings, I was told I’d gone too far and that was it. No negotiation, they killed Minnie.”
“And the police?” Jamie asked.
“Absolutely no point, this is a relentless invisible army who have taken the control of regression to a colossal level,” Oliver said.
“I believe him Jamie,” Jenny said mildly.
In the maelstrom of madness Jamie had found himself in, he had come to trust and know Jenny. He liked her and she liked him. In this mutual regard Jamie saw enough to heed Oliver’s warning, despite his misgivings.
“So now what?” Jamie asked.
“From what I could see they trace us using multiple sources to get close to the places and times we are most likely to be. Using newspapers, diaries, I’ve burned mine now, facebook accounts, internet archives, maybe even phone records, they narrow down on our haunts and our habits. They have an army, a vast army of soldiers regressing, continually trying to find a host who is in striking distance. A day in our time could be a year of twenty four seven searching by a hundred people in their time. They made me watch their assault on Minnie, somehow they have developed the power to seize control of the host and use them for their bidding. The guy who died with Minnie was as much a victim as Minnie was.”
“So we have to escape from the lives we are about to live?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, they can’t trace us I suspect, if we make sure we go somewhere unpredictable, unrecorded.”
“You mean a completely new life, like jack college in?” Jamie asked.
“Yes, I know Mary won’t buy it, but if you and me did, it might protect her,” Oliver replied.
Jamie stood up and looked up into the giant canopy that stretched over the stadium, “One summer later and my entire life is fucked and I might be killed. I am meant to be living a charmed life.”
Oliver stood too and walked a few seats along to Jamie, “I’m sorry mate, truly I am.”
“I know Oliver, I know,” Jamie pulled Oliver towards him and they embraced.
The light had faded and the mourners in the stadium had become shadows and figures cast in half light. The groundsman had put a quarter of a flood light on to help them find their way out. He hoped they would leave soon but he had no intention to rush them.
Mary’s march had taken her across the pitch and out of the stadium. She was out of sight and Oliver hoped her anger would be sustained enough to create a safe space between them.
Jenny remained seated in the stands as Oliver and Jamie walked down onto the pitch. She told them to go on ahead and she hoped it would give them some space to talk. Minnie’s rugby friends and Martin and several uncles and cousins stood on the pitch in a loose curved line, where they had stopped to take in the stadium before they left. They looked high into the stands and towards the partially lit floodlight in silence. Oliver and Jamie walked towards them and then past each of them in turn, deliberately walking slowly behind the men so as not to break up their reflective moment.
Jenny leaned forward to look at each of the men stood in shadows and dim light as Oliver passed behind them. One by one, she saw the ripple run through them. A spray of static, a tremor as the skin on their face quivered. One by one she could see a visitor trying to take hold of each as a host. Slowly the ripple moved up the line following the path Oliver and Jamie took.
Jenny was about to shout out a warning to Oliver as he reached the last man in line, George the City Banker and Prop Forward.
Oliver was walking in ignorance of what Jenny could see and in silence with Jamie. He was startled when George suddenly swung around and grabbed him by the shoulders. Oliver immediately registered the possessed look in George’s eyes and knew this was an attack.
As quickly as it started it stopped. George looked embarrassed and tried to make some feeble joke of what was a bizarre action to take at anytime, let alone during a wake.
“Got you there, kind of thing David would have done, sort of a tribute,” George said.
Oliver smiled, “Yeah you got me George.”
“No harm done?” George asked, as others looked up the line to him.
“None whatsoever George, see you at the club for a pint,” and Oliver walked on. Jamie looked at Oliver to confirm what he thought he had seen. Jenny rushed up to them having hurried from the stands once she had seen George swing round with a blue haze glowing around him in the darkening stadium.
“We need to move quickly,” she said as she caught up with Oliver and Jamie. Jamie agreed, completely confused by the madness that now surrounded him.
37.