The Race Read online

  “Just so there’s no misunderstanding,” she said sweetly into his ear. “Not only are we Sir James’ assistants, we’re also his bodyguards. And just so you know as well, Saskia over there can do your job, she can fly your damn helicopter for you. Now, I’m going to help you up and dust you off, you will not read more into it than that, clear?”

  “Clear, yes.”

  Saskia lifted Pilot off the ground. She used a little more super strength just to give him the idea. She brushed the worst of the dirt off the front of his jacket with her hand.

  “I think we should start again, don’t you?” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Saskia, and that’s Saskia over there as well.”

  Pilot took the proffered hand. “I’m Mark,” he said ruefully. “Pleased to meet you.”

  A sudden though occurred to him. “Oh no! You’re the two girls who took over when Dave had his heart attack in the air. I’m sorry. I feel such an idiot. I should have realised.”

  “Don’t worry. All forgotten. I didn’t hurt you did I?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  James decided enough was enough. “Come on you lot, pack it in. Can we get to Aberdeen today please?”

  Saskia whispered, “Yes, Boss, three two one go.”

  “Yes, Boss,” we both said in exact unison. Then we climbed easily into the back of the chopper, naturally needing no help whatsoever. James just shook his head and grinned, Mark the pilot didn’t know what to think.

  This time, I watched carefully as Mark started the engine and went through his pre-flight checks. Might as well complete my ‘education’. I watched just as carefully as we took off. I already knew how to fly and land the thing, now I could take off as well. What I still couldn’t do was read all the information the instruments were displaying. That didn’t count as ‘experience’ and so couldn’t be transferred in this way. Probably if I really needed to know how high we were, for example, I’d automatically know which dial to look at. For now, though, it was all a mystery.

  Normally in a noisy helicopter you wear headphones so you can talk to each other. I wanted to try an experiment. I motioned to Saskia to take her headset off. By leaning towards her I could speak directly into her ear.

  “I think we ought to be able to filter out noise we don’t want to hear to leave just the noise we do - like speech. Let’s try whispering to each other and give it a try.”

  Saskia was whispering to me, I could tell, but the noise of the engine drowned it out. I found that if I concentrated on her words, I could hear them clearly, despite the noise all around.

  “... can tell you’re trying. I think you can hear me, let’s see, Mark is an over-sexed guy who needed reminding of his place. Ah, you’re grinning! You can hear me. Now you talk and I’ll try.”

  “Hello, Saskia calling Saskia. You just need to concentrate on what it is you want to hear. Everything else is still there but sort of irrelevant, if you see what I mean.”

  “Perfect. Communication established. Wish we’d figured this out during the twister thing. Would’ve made life easier.”

  “Can’t have everything at once. We have a long time to discover stuff like this. Nice though.”

  “Hm. Interesting. I can still hear the sound from the headset. I can hear James talking to Mark.”

  “That’s good. Means we can tell when we need to put ‘em back on.”

  We chatted between ourselves, ignoring the men in the front. I knew James had figured out what we were doing, he’d seen us do this before, I saw him look at me, noticing I wasn’t wearing the headset.

  Eventually we were north of Ripon, the point where we’d turned back last time. I gave a sigh.

  “Ok, Twin? We haven’t needed to take over this time.”

  “Yeah. Don’t think we’ll have a problem with Hormone Man up the front this time.”

  She chuckled at that. How you can whisper a chuckle I didn’t know, but we could.

  The Robinson plant in Aberdeen is in the industrial areas on the southern outskirts of the city. Flight time by helicopter is about three hours, we were there by mid morning. Landing at the actual plant cuts out all the tedious travel from the railway station or the commercial airport, which in Aberdeen is well out to the north, on the other side of the city. James had arranged to meet the plant manager to discuss the problem. For some reason, he chose to begin the meeting in the cafeteria - I couldn’t think why.

  “You will have noticed I’ve not told you girls anything about the problem yet,” he said. “This is quite deliberate. I’m going to let Andrew here explain.”

  “This is going to sound really, really strange,” said Andrew, the Aberdeen plant manager. “We can’t get the inventory to tally up. At least we can over a month but not over a week. You know we make the keyboards for the cash registers and cash machines?” We didn’t but we nodded anyway.

  Andrew continued. “The arrangement is, we ship at the end of each month, down to your plant by truck. We always ship the correct number, we always make the correct number. In between is where the problem is. If we go and count now, today, we’ll find there are quite a lot missing from the warehouse. They go in, they come out, but they aren’t there in between. See, I told you it was strange.”

  James said nothing, letting us ponder what Andrew was telling us.

  “So, you make a certain number, that number is recorded,” I said. “Then you ship the same number, which is also recorded. These two numbers are the same, but if you do a stock check in the middle, the numbers don’t add up?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I suppose you’ve eliminated the obvious - a member of your staff putting them in the wrong place and then finding them again because he knows where he put them?”

  “Oh, yes. We’ve had members of management riding on the forklift footplates to check that very thing.”

  “Hm. Don’t like to give us easy problems do you,” said Saskia. “Right, register our badges and give us the tour. Let’s see what’s going on.”

  “First thought was stock being stolen,” I said to James. “That can’t be right because everything’s there at the end of the month. Seems silly that somebody’d be borrowing them, which is what it seems like.”

  We were shown the keyboards being assembled and packed into boxes. The boxes were loaded onto pallets and forklifted to the warehouse. The aforesaid warehouse was a large cavern of a place, full of aisles of shelving. There was a specific area for finished goods. There did seem to be a lot of empty space.

  “Can we look at the records?” asked Saskia. “Over lunch’d be nice.”

  “Come on,” said James. “Back to the cafeteria. Andrew, can you get your people to produce the paperwork.”

  “No problem. Just the last couple of months?”

  “That’ll do fine,” I said. “We can see for ourselves what the quantity in stock should be, then we can go look at what it actually is.”

  Saskia and I read all the figures between a couple of bites of burger in a bun. I think Andrew thought we’d just glanced at them for the look of the thing, but James knew we’d read them thoroughly, and could probably answer any question he cared to ask.

  “I have a feeling about this,” whispered Saskia. “I think the staff are looking but not seeing. I think the stuff is actually there all the time.”

  “How d’you mean? Like displaced in time or space somehow? If it’s that, then how come it’s there at the end of the month?”

  “Dunnow yet, Twin. Needs more looking at.”

  After lunch, we repaired back to the warehouse. I asked Andrew, “How come there are so many empty areas? You know what the maximum number should be, why not just allocate the space accordingly?”

  “I - don’t know. That’s odd. I’m sure we did do that. No point in wasted space.” He had a frown.

 
“Let’s do a count,” said Saskia, waving the paperwork.

  One quick count later proved there was only around half the number of pallets there should have been. “Count the spaces as pallets,” I said. “Ignore the actual number of keyboards, just take the number of pallets.”

  “Hm. If you do that, then there’s the correct number. It’s as if the pallet was there but isn’t now - which is the original problem.”

  “But why don’t the spaces get filled up again? Can we talk to a forklift driver?”

  A suitable person was produced. “You stack these pallets?” asked Saskia.

  “Aye.”

  “So why don’t you fill up the holes?”

  “I ... I cannae tell you. There’s already - but no, that’s no right is it? There is a space - I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Aye,” the poor man looked confused. “Ye cannae put two things in the same place - but there’s ...” He was getting really quite agitated.

  Saskia touched his arm and spoke to him quietly, “Don’t worry, It’s all right. Be calm. You can do this. We’ll sort it all out. Go have a tea break.”

  “Andrew,” I said. “Will you take the poor man for a cup of tea while we talk with Sir James. Please? Do you mind?”

  James watched the other two men walk off. “Now, what the hell is going on!” he demanded.

  “Don’t know yet, James,” I said. “I just need to - ah! Thought so. There’s a pallet in this space.” I’d tried to wave my hand through the space where a pallet should have been but wasn’t. I could clearly feel it. With a lot of concentration I found I could see it as well.

  “There’s nothing there,” said James.

  “There is - trust me. It’s here. Look hard Saskia, you can see it if you concentrate.”

  “Oh wow, there it is - and all the others.”

  “James,” I said, “we need some more expert help. I’m going to involve Voice. We’ll see you in a few minutes of our time. Voice? You there?”

  “I am here. Interesting. You appear to be standing next to a shunt in the fabric of time. One moment while I investigate further.”

  “What’s happening? Who are you talking to?”

  “James! You’re still with us!” exclaimed Saskia. “Voice has included you in the suspension. Look around you, everything else is frozen. Lucky you. The only other person to have this happen to them is Ellie.”

  Voice was back. “There is a circular shunt. It is only a fraction of a millisecond deep with a period of roughly two times ten to the power nine milliseconds, that would equate to about three of your weeks. The area affected is really quite small, encompassing only the structure in front of you.”

  “So the stuff is actually there, just displaced very slightly in time?”

  “That is correct.”

  “So why isn’t all of the stuff displaced?” I asked.

  “It will depend on the point of the displacement cycle and also the exact position of the displacement locus at that time.”

  “So it’s moving round in both time and space?” asked Saskia.

  “That would be implicit. As you know, the two are more or less the same thing.”

  “So why don’t we see half a pallet? Why always a complete one?”

  “That is presently beyond your capacity to understand. Suffice to say that the contents of the pallet are entangled at a quantum level, anything outside the locus of displacement would naturally be drawn in also.”

  “What on Earth does all of that mean?” asked James.

  “It means the stuff is here, just shifted slightly in time. For instance, if Saskia and I were shifted back to last week, you wouldn’t be able to see us here. It doesn’t matter how small a time interval is involved, you can’t see the stuff anymore.”

  “You’re lucky you ship at the end of a month,” I laughed. “If you shipped in the middle, you’d be a lot of stuff missing. At least at the end of a month it’s all here.”

  “But you two can see it. How’s that possible?”

  Voice spoke directly to James. “You should know that your two assistants are no longer completely human. I think you realised that for yourself. They exist partially outside of your normal time and are therefore able to perceive things normally hidden.”

  James was looking a little glassy-eyed so I tried to move things on a bit. “What can we do? I assume the workers here are using a sort of sixth-sense which is telling them where not to put things. They can’t understand it or explain it.”

  “That is correct. Two options present themselves for our consideration. The first is the simplest. Cease to use this area of the warehouse. This would have the effect of the workers knowing why and not knowing why at the same time. This could give problems of its own.”

  “You mean they might go potty?” asked Saskia.

  “Extremely crudely put but essentially correct. The second option is more difficult. Given that we cannot stop the time displacement - we would need to find it’s beginning in time and eliminate the cause, that would be dangerous and lead to potential disasters throughout the rest of time, we must therefore move the displacement locus to a position where it can do no harm.”

  “How can we do that?”

  “That is relatively simple to persons with your abilities. You must take an object affected by the displacement and physically move it. In the same way as the locus affects objects, the objects can affect the locus.”

  “Ah. So moving an affected object will take the locus with it?”

  “Correct. You must decide on a suitable place.”

  “But won’t that move all the stuff currently affected as well?”

  “It would. However, I can arrange for all the objects to be released, except for one, which will be needed to move the locus.”

  “Are you ok with that, James? The solution to the problem is to lose one pallet of keyboards,” said Saskia.

  “Whatever it takes. The staff are already beginning to suffer. Is it because of this sixth-sense stuff?”

  “Yes. Their brains are having difficulty reconciling the stuff they see - or don’t see - if you see what I mean.”

  “Then one pallet of stuff is cheap at the price. Go for it.”

  “Thanks, Boss. Voice? Can you release all but one?”

  “It will take a moment.”

  “Saskia,” said Saskia. “Where shall we stash the locus so it won’t bother us again?”

  “We’re close to the North Sea. How about on the seabed a few miles off shore?”

  “Should be ok. Look. The pallets are back, all but that one. How are we going to move it without being seen to be super girls?”

  “You may do the work while suspended.”

  “What about James? Can he collapse the suspension?”

  “That is not possible. He would have to wait here until you return.”

  “You ok, James? We’ll be as quick as we can.”

  “Yes, go on. I’ll just wait here.”

  I picked up the one remaining affected pallet. As far as James was concerned I was holding nothing but to me it was quite real. I lifted into the air with Saskia alongside me and we flew out through the open warehouse doorway. It was odd to be flying along with all the rest of the world frozen around us. Out over the sea for a couple of miles then we dived down under the surface. As I did this, I changed to my super costume, I saw Saskia copy me. We deposited the pallet gently on the seabed a couple of hundred feet down. Then Saskia thought of a problem.

  “If we just leave it here, every now and then it’ll appear in normal time. What if some fishing boat trawls the damn thing up?” I didn’t hear her words as sound - we were under water - but I heard her clearly in my head.

  “Let’s just bury it then. Ten or twenty feet dow
n should do.”

  This was easily accomplished, after which we returned to the surface and into the air. On the way back to the plant we changed to be dry again wearing the same clothes as before. By the time we returned to James, we’d been away less than half an hour. Actually, of course, no time at all had passed in the plant.

  “One last thing,” said Saskia. “Voice? What do we tell the plant staff?”

  “An integration of the available data reveals that not many people are affected. Would you authorise a memory change?”

  “Yes. That would be best,” I said. “This never happened.”

  “It is done. You may resume at your discretion.”

  “Thank you, Voice. James? You ok with all this? D’you need a moment?”

  “I expect I’ll need to talk to you later about all this but for now, go for it.”

  We did the deed - however we did actually do it - to find Andrew hurrying back. “I’m sorry to be so long Sir James. We’ve tracked down the error. All down to paperwork as usual. We’re not actually a pallet short at all. We’ll sort it all out later. Would you like to continue your tour of inspection?”

  Saskia and I assumed attentive, assistant-y expressions and lined up behind James. He took the hint magnificently, “Why not. I don’t think there’s much more to see is there? It’s all looking good.”

  We did actually finish the tour of the plant. James made approving noises while Saskia and I said nothing. Andrew more or less ignored us - which suited us perfectly. By late afternoon we were back in the helicopter. I could tell James was a bit bombed out by the whole thing, we’d need to sort him out soon.

  As it turned out, we needed to do that sooner than we thought. I could see him beginning to shake slightly in his seat. The flight home was giving him time to think. I reached forwards and touched his arm where Mark, the pilot, couldn’t see. I thought very hard about being calm. I knew it’d be ok when James put his hand over mine. I saw Saskia nod as she saw what I was doing. He’d get a hug when we got back.