Chaos reigned in and around St Thomas’ hospital. A full evacuation of all patients and staff was underway. The major incident policy had been invoked and fire, ambulance and police were racing to the scene. Patients, staff and the pubic wandered around the streets that surrounded the hospital bewildered by what had taken place. The damage from the blast was largely isolated to the basement areas but flames had breached doorways to the ground floor and a series of small fires were spreading into larger ones. The fire was flowing across the ground floor café and out-patient areas making evacuation difficult. Acrid black smoke billowed into the surrounding streets.
Oliver and Mary walked across Westminster Bridge Road and descended the steep steps that would drop them down onto the esplanade in front of the County Hall. The Hall was a large nineteenth century designed council building. An opulent cavernous building with a striking riverfront façade.
Whilst Oliver and Mary approached the Hall, the tourists that had been queuing for the attractions to open (the Aquarium, the Salvador Dali museum) went in the opposite direction. They wanted to climb the steps and watch a potential major disaster unfold before them.
It would be thirty minutes before the Police secured control of the area, closed the attractions and evacuated the hotels, cafes and residencies in the streets across a quarter mile radius. Oliver and Mary arrived at the door of the London Aquarium which now had almost no queue.
Mary took out her purse from her coat pocket as they walked in and paid their admission with her Visa card. The staff noticed their dishevelled state but everyone was too distracted by events outside to take much interest in them. Along with around a dozen determined tourists they were the first visitors in the three storey aquarium which descended into the enormous subterranean cellars of the County Hall.
Oliver and Mary wandered through the exhibits, meandering down the semi-dark levels showing little interest in the giant tank of blue water that formed the central piece of the aquarium. A three story underground lake containing hundreds of exotic fish from around the world. An exhibit polished off by six eight foot tiger sharks. They elegantly circled the tank they were held in. In half an hour it would be feeding time, something the early doors tourists had specifically arrived for.
“What the fuck happened Oliver?” Mary eventually asked once they found themselves alone.
They stood over the Ray Pool exhibition and watched small manta rays swim around the large open tank. One swam towards Oliver’s hand which he dangled in the water. He stroked the human friendly fish.
“You remember Jack Splinter?” Oliver said.
“The guy who was getting you connected with Bell-Smith.”
“Yeah, well the same agency that is hunting me got to Jack. Turned his mind, somehow got him to build a bomb and bang. You just saw for yourself.”
“Jesus, how do you build a bomb?”
“I have no idea, but there it was in a big rucksack. He tried to detonate it with me there, tried to wipe me out.”
“My god,” Mary slipped her arms around Oliver and they held each other tight.
“What now?” Mary asked.
“I still have no idea,” Oliver replied his mind vacant of options.
Mary pulled away from Oliver when an elderly couple entered the Ray pool area, joining them in the dimly lit room. The elegant senior pair positioned themselves a polite distance away on the next side of the square tank. The four exchanged smiles and nods. The elderly couple spoke quietly in a foreign language not distinguishable from across the water. They too traced fingers across the top of the water to attract the rays to them.
“Well, we have bought some time to think hopefully,” Mary said.
“That bomb should confuse any search you would imagine, I reckon we have about fifteen, maybe thirty minutes until they evacuate here,” Oliver said.
Mary noticed the fizzing popping noise first coming from the water. She looked up and across the smooth surface of the clear water to where the noise was coming from.
The old mans fingers were stirring the water but as he did the water was steaming and bubbling at his touch. Blue static danced from his fingers and evaporated as it touched the water.
“Not already?” Mary said tugging at Olivers arm.
“What?” Oliver asked as he responded to Mary’s call for his attention.
The old lady was staring at her husband confused at his sudden vacant look and ignorance of her conversation. Frustrated she raised her voice to gain his attention.
“Gerben.”
Gerben was no longer home alone. His face contorted and he set his chest back, cracked his fingers together as the visitor in him secured control. Energy flowed into Gerben giving him the strength of a much more youthful man. The lines and creases filled out and in an instant he looked twenty years younger.
“GERBEN.” his wife shouted. His response was to strike her so hard she flew across the room and fell hard to the floor.
Oliver and Mary were too exhausted to run yet again but both could see the foe who faced them would be difficult, if not impossible, to beat.
Oliver watched as Gerben gained years and physical strength as he slowly walked around the tank towards them.
“They’re advancing the technology all the time,” he said to himself.
Mary looked around the room, searching the dark corners and exits. The light from the water cast ripples across the walls and ceiling. And across Gerben whose visitor was adapting his body for attack.
“Lift,” Mary said and pointed towards the lift by the exit. She pulled Oliver and they ran a dozen steps to the lift.
Mary pressed the call button and turned to check on Gerben’s progress. He was now lined up thirty metres away and about to run.
“We don’t have time,” Oliver said.
The lift doors opened. Gerben broke into a sprint. His wife rolled around the floor behind him stunned and in pain. Oliver bundled Mary in and they pressed for the top floor. Gerben rapidly traversed the Rays room towards the lift. His bulking frame quickly filled the view of Oliver and Mary as he advanced upon them.
“Go, go go,” Mary cried hitting the door close button repeatedly.
“Wrong move,” Oliver said and stood side on to react to the attack.
The doors began to ease together. Gerben stretched out his arm, his hand outstretched. His face was contorted but determined, black eyes staring at them and blue hues tracing across his face. Just as the doors were about to close Gerben caught one door sliding his fingers in the gap. He eased them through, Oliver punched and scratched at their assailant’s hand. The doors sensed the pressure and opened again.
“Shit,” Mary said. Gerben stood back and smiled a grotesque joker’s grin.
Oliver noticed Gerben had stepped back and instinctively tried to steal an advantage. He dipped his shoulder and burst forward to tackle Gerben. As strong as he had become Gerben was surprised by the rapid strike and fell back. Both men fell to the floor.
“Oliver, get back in, get back in,” Mary shouted.
Oliver and Gerben grappled together. Oliver knew he had to escape his clutches, he could be no match for the powerful beast the old man had become. Oliver gouged hard into Gerben’s eye with his thumb, making the old man cry out and unbeknown to Oliver sending a shot of pain to the visitor. Gerben’s grip softened slightly and Oliver shuffled down Gerben’s body and freed himself.
The lift doors were closing once more and Oliver ran back in, just squeezing between the closing doors. Gerben was up and in close pursuit. The doors closed and Oliver and Mary jumped at the loud fist that struck the door from outside. The lift started to rise.
“Where now?” Mary asked.
“We need a desert island. An unpopulated area.”
“Not central London then?”
“Shit no,” Oliver replied.
The lift arrived at the top level of the aquarium. Oliver and Mary stood anxious half worrying Gerben would be there waiting for them. The doors opened and they carefully
stepped out. The area was deserted.
“Shall we leave?” Mary asked.
“No, let’s try here,” Oliver said. He took Mary’s hand and led her a dozen steps across the corridor with its ocean painted walls.
He stopped at a ‘Strictly Staff Only’ sign on a code controlled door. Oliver took three steps back and put his force into kicking the door hard, it broke and splintered around the lock but didn’t open. Oliver checked around that they were still alone. He repeated his effort and the door gave way. They both stepped inside the restricted area and closed the door behind them.
Once inside they could see they were in a complex that served the main tank. Steel stairs rose up onto a series of gantries and store rooms. This was the area where the tank was serviced for feeding and cleaning.
“Let’s find somewhere to hide for a while,” Oliver said. He led the way and ran up the steel stairs.
Lost for any wiser options Mary followed. They walked along a steel gantry which had bridges off of it that stretched across the top of the tank. The clear water rippled a few feet below. Access hatches, for feeding and maintenance divers, were dotted around the steel mesh that stretched across the main exhibit of the aquarium. Pipes of different sizes and lengths intertwined and ran along walls and above the bridges.
A second set of stairs went up above to what appeared to be a control room for the various pipes and regulators needed to keep the tank working. Underneath the stairs were large boxes of fish meal and behind the boxes a space.
Oliver ran to the second stairs and went to the space beneath.
“In here,” he said gesturing to Mary to climb under the stairs.
“What?”
“Get in here, we can catch our breath and think through our options. Without some tourist or staff member getting possessed and attacking us. Come on, in here.”
“Okay,” Mary said reluctantly and she crouched down and squeezed into the space.
Oliver ducked in after her and they sat together in the small space. They had their backs against the wall and knees tucked up. Oliver slid a large box of fish meal across to completely conceal them.
“Unless they know how to regress into fish food we should be okay,” Oliver said with a weak smile for there was no fun to be found in the moment.
“Okay, we need to think. Think.” Mary said and she closed her eyes and tried to collect her thoughts and generate a master plan.
“God I’m thirsty,” Oliver said and he tried to lick his dry lips with his dry tongue.
Oliver also closed his eyes and for a moment they had found solace. A private place to draw a second wind and plan.
“Tempus Genesis is truly destroyed?” Mary asked.
“Gone up in smoke. Completely, without a trace, nothing left in my place either.”
“If we can get away, disappear for a while, even a day or two, the fact it is now extinguished might cause another ripple, like you said. It might stop things again,” Mary wondered in a whisper.
“When I stopped the research, the warnings stopped. Your right it could happen again it might settle down as the destruction of the research feeds into time. We may well be okay. I should have heeded the warnings earlier. God what have I done,” Oliver said.
Mary offered no words of condolence and they fell quiet and began thinking some more.
Oliver broke the silence, “I am sorry.”
Mary opened her eyes and looked at Oliver. Mary’s eyes widened in fear as she realised Oliver’s apology was not for what he had done but was for what he was about to do. Oliver turned to face Mary revealing the left side of his face. Mary recoiled in horror. She stared at the side of his head that had been turned away from her. His twisted eye gazed coldly at her and from his drooping mouth a protruding lolling tongue. Blue static crackled around his face.
His left arm shot across his body and grabbed Mary by the throat, slamming her back against the wall.
“No,” Oliver hissed to himself.
“Oliver please, don’t let them control you, fight back,” Mary cried.
Oliver slurred, “I’m trying. Sorry.”
His possessed left arm tightened on Mary’s throat. He tried to pull back from the damage he knew this was causing, by grabbing his left hand with his right. There was no contest.
Mary held on to Oliver’s powerful grip. Her eyes were shut tight as she railed at the pain and fought to breathe. His hand relaxed slightly for a moment.
Mary looked into Oliver’s unaffected eye, she felt the grip loosen on her throat.
“Oliver that’s it fight them.”
The loosening was merely an adjustment to secure a better purchase on Mary’s neck. Oliver’s visitor had full control. He pulled Mary’s head away from the wall and then rammed it back hard. Her head struck the wall and the force dinted the wall and burst her skull open. Blood and cerebral matter exploded outwards. Oliver released his grip and Mary remained upright for a second. Slowly she slid away from him, blood streaking down the wall in an arc, as she slumped to the floor lifeless.
Oliver’s conscience emerged from within his imprisonment. He screamed a loud protesting wail.
“Why?” he sobbed. Then he heard the voice inside his head. It spoke to him from a distant plane.
“Well done agent Oliver, you have served us well.”
Oliver recognised the voice and clipped tone, Marmon.
“I don’t get this, you didn’t have to kill my friends,” Oliver spluttered through his Quasimodo contorted face.
“Oh but we absolutely did have to kill your friends. We are close to our goal and here at HOPE we thank you for your able assistance.”
“I have done nothing to help you you murderous bastards.”
“On the contrary we would have not been successful without you. Feed him the memory images, stimulate the parietal cortex.”
Images, memories and feelings all poured painfully into Oliver’s mind.
“Your first strike was your noble mentor the Professor.”
Oliver could see a replay of his life through his minds eye. He was arriving at Dyers residence in the Vinh Long region. It was the night he had been invited for dinner. An image of Dyer and him talking. Oliver leaving briefly and returning, in the reflection of the glass he was naked. Dyer’s look of shock and surprise. Then his hand lifting the sharp chopping knife. Then the attack and the clean strike opening up Dyers throat. A further image of Oliver bathing in the river, cleaning the blood spray from himself and dressing. Then his return to find Dyer dead and the grieving housekeeper.
“Never. I would never do that.”
“Look at the crumpled body by your side Oliver, you are more than capable of taking life.”
“The housekeeper she saw Dyer take his life, stop fucking with my mind.”
“We did in fact fuck with her mind. Planted a false memory to provide you with the perfect alibi. Then your big friend,” Marmon continued.
More images. This time Oliver was on Hungerford Bridge and walking across it. He saw Minnie arrive at the far side.
“No way. No way.” Oliver thrashed around under the stairs kicking out and bursting the boxes by him, sending fish feed pouring across the floor of the maintenance room of the aquarium.
Oliver grabbed hold of Minnie. The look Oliver had seen on Minnie’s face was not just of horror, but of horror and recognition. He propelled Minnie and him over the bridge. Once under the water he forced Minnie down, ensuring sufficient disorientation to prevent him from finding the surface. Murky darkness and then he emerged breathless at the edge of the Thames, clambering onto the embankment to safety. The energy of his visitor giving him the strength to escape the strong currents of the river.
“Remember how wet you were when you stood at the foot of the bridge,” Marmon reminded him.
“Fuck off out of my head you arrogant prick,” Oliver screamed.
His cries attracted the attention of staff in the control room. They looked down and could see thrashing amon
gst boxes at the foot of the stairs. They dialled three threes for security.
“And just this morning, you’re finest moment in my opinion.”
Back in Oliver’s flat. Jenny emerges from the kitchen simultaneously with Mary stepping out from the bathroom. The shock on their faces as they see Jamie’s limp body hanging from Oliver’s powerful grip. Jenny screaming and Mary simply running to the door to escape.
“This is not real, I will not believe this, you are just trying to break me,” Oliver began clawing at his face and head, ripping open the skin with his bare hands. He rolled out of the space under the stairs and writhed on the gantry by the bridges over the tank.
“Well we are trying to break you, that is correct,” Marmon conceded.
Oliver laid still for a moment, “Brown. Brown. David Brown. I wasn’t even in the country when he died. None of these images you’re feeding me are true.”
“The truth is a sideshow agent Oliver. David Brown was a combined effort. A simple task with a paranoid schizophrenic. You called him time and again warning him we were looking for him, telling him Dyer chose death over the living torment we would bring. He tried to argue with you but you ground his paranoid mind down. By the time one of our own entered his mind he was only too willing to end his life.”
Oliver could see an image, a memory? He was on the streets of Ho Chi Min talking on his mobile, insistent, persuasive tones. Then David Brown in his flat stomping around arguing into his phone. David falling to his knees, dousing himself in lighter fluid and taking out his lighter. Then whoosh.
The two staff watched from the control room with puzzled and frightened looks on their faces. Oliver had emitted yet another protesting scream. Not only was the behaviour bizarre but when the figure looked up towards them they saw the face of a demon with contorted features spitting blood and bile.
More images. Oliver dumping Jamie’s body to the floor and setting off in pursuit of Mary. Rushing down the stairs, bursting out of the flat into the street. Mary some distance off down the avenue. Jenny chasing after him pleading for him to stop.
“I thought at this point we had lost the moment and might have to regroup. However, you are very resourceful.”
Oliver curled up and moaned a low groaning wail.
Mary disappearing off of Balham High Road. Jenny catching up with Oliver as he considered his next move. Oliver slamming her into the shop door, smashing the glass. Then stepping to one side and a confused look on her face as he backed away. Just before the taxi slammed into her killing her instantly.
“Nice choreography don’t you think agent Oliver,” Marmon applauded the coordination of Oliver and the visitor controlling the driver of the black cab.
Oliver stood to his feet, “Got to escape, need help.”
Two security guards entered and stopped short at the hideous disfigured sight in front of them. Oliver staggered forward.
“Hold on mate, look just calm down and we can get you some help,” was the best the guard could muster in the freakish situation he had walked into.
Oliver steered away from him and stumbled onto a bridge across the large three storey sea water filled tank.
“You are just trying to break me, feeding me sick visions to destroy my mind,” yelled Oliver.
“We’re not trying to harm you mate, look come back over here,” offered the second guard to try to engage the disturbed creature on the bridge.
“Time to die Oliver, you know you’re time has come,” Marmon said more gently than he had ever spoken to Oliver before.
A final image. Mary on a different bus ahead of the bus Oliver was on. Abject fear on her face. He could see her dialling on her mobile, summoning help.
“Jack Splinter?” Oliver muttered.
“We needed him to destroy the Tempus Genesis Framework in your laboratory. The timing of it couldn’t have been better.”
Ahead of the bus Mary was on Oliver could see St Thomas’ hospital a short distance in front. Then the explosion and both his bus and the bus Mary travelled on braked hard. The blast burst flames out from under the hospital and across the road they were driving down. Panic set in and the passengers evacuated the buses and set off in different directions fearing for their lives. All Mary could do was watch Oliver as he disembarked from his bus and walked towards her. She set off running screaming into her phone.
“Jack’s bomb distracted the police sufficiently to prevent them from being able to respond to Mary’s cries for help.”
Mary entering the aquarium her panic and pleas ignored by the panic around her from the explosion. Then finally Oliver finding her, hidden in the backroom of the aquarium, cowering behind a makeshift defence of fish food boxes under the stairs. One final final image for effect of Oliver bursting her head open against the wall.
Oliver arched his head back and tore at his eyes whilst screeching frantically.
“Noooo,” he howled at the steel ceiling above him.
“Calm down mate, calm down,” the first guard shouted. Neither guard wanted to approach the howling beast on the metal bridge.
The two staff from the control room had come out of their base and watched on from the top of the stairs.
The second guard look at the mess of fish food and scattered boxes. He saw two feet sticking out from under the boxes, then noticed the blood stained wall and a woman’s head in the corner. He nudged the first guard and pointed to the body.
“Oh no,” the first guard muttered as he saw the dead woman under the stairs, “It’s no good, phone the police,” he called to the staff outside the control room. One of them hurried back inside to dial three nines.
Oliver crouched down and rocked up and down on his heels, his voice faded to a low growl.
“The survival of the human race Oliver, that is all we can hope for, sleep well,” Marmon said.
Oliver burst up into the air, one hand swiftly inoculated his left eye, another ripped his throat open. He popped up and over the side of the gantry bridge. The guards and maintenance staff all reeled back at the ferocity of Oliver’s leap. His body hit the steel mesh once and then rolled forward through an access hatch into the aquarium tanks water. As his body struck the water hot steam billowed up in reaction to the critically hot temperature his skin had reached. The guards shielded their faces at the jets of steam that burst up around them.
Helen and her daughter Rosie stood in front of the tank on the lowest basement floor of the aquarium.
“Do those sharks want to eat me mummy,” asked Rosie as would any four year old.
“No darling, they just like fish and seafood, they wouldn’t want to eat you, you’re two sweet,” Helen tickled Rosie who shrieked and giggled in response.
Around twenty people had resisted being panicked by the explosion outside. Some of them had no knowledge of the incident having arrived at the aquarium from a different direction. These tourists were determined to see feeding time for the sharks.
The visitors to the attraction looked up as they saw movement in the water above. A million fizzing bubbles, forming a cloud in the water, was descending through the centre of the tank towards where they stood.
“Look Rosie, feeding time for the sharks,” Helen said as she pointed up to the mass falling through the water.
The fish and especially the sharks became excited by the disturbance in the water and the scent the object was emitting. The cloud of bubbles rolled around a darker mass that could be seen at its centre. Blue and red coloured bubbles mixed in the swirling foam as Oliver’s blood and energy flowed out and around him.
As Oliver’s body neared the bottom of the tank it rolled out of the bubble cloud. His disfigured face stared blankly at the visitors who were expecting hunks of fish. They screamed as his empty eye socket stared back at them and his torn throat flapped like a diver’s flipper. Then the sharks attacked. They could not believe the feast that had been thrown in for them and they nipped and tore at Oliver’s body pulling it around the tank.
; Electrical sparks fizzed as they bit but they were not put off by the tingling sting it gave them each time they snapped at his flesh. The sharks were ignorant to the fact that it took vast tightly bound energy, piped through time, to connect with a human several hundred years in the past. That energy had to be discharged somewhere if the connection was broke.
The dominant bull shark burst forward and took hold of Oliver’s head by his gaping throat. With several rapid shakes and bites the head severed and came away in his razor toothed jaws. By now horrified visitors and staff were evacuating the exhibit, running screaming from the horror they had witnessed. Oliver’s disfiguring of himself probably saved their lives as they had started to flee the minute his ghastly face was revealed to them.
Once his head had been removed the regression energy had a conductor in the water and an exit through his neck to draw it from the future and out through his body. Oliver’s headless corpse detonated emitting a powerful electrical discharge. The blue force slammed into the glass walls of the tank and exploded the thick viewing windows outwards. Countless shards the size of doors were propelled across the viewing area and washed out by the discharge of two and half million litres of sea water. In amongst the Piscean bedlam of three hundred different varieties of fish was Oliver’s severely mutilated body and some distance away his head was hanging from the mouth of a flailing shark.
The corpse, barely the torso was left from the blast, came to rest many feet from the tank having washed down and around the corner away from the main exhibit. It bumped backwards and forwards against an exit door that did not open, undulating in the tidal flow created by the breached tank. A shark had suffered the same fete and though it was dying it instinctively bit at the body it was next to. Its jaws opened and closed slowly, repeatedly, on the jagged and torn flesh on what was left of Oliver’s back.
42.