The Past Read online

  Led to his box by an usher, he sits down and leans over the balcony to check for anything suspicious. In the boxes opposite, he quickly locates the European delegates, already seated, helping themselves to glasses of wine and champagne, which the ushers serve freely.

  The usher leads a woman into his box, VanWest recognises her instantly, it is the attractive blond lady from the hotel bar. By chance, she has been seated next to him. He cannot help but stare at her as she walks seductively to her seat in her skin-tight long blue dress, which pushes her cleavage together and out, as with her black cocktail dress from earlier. Equally captivating are her sultry brown eyes. She gifts him a quick smile as she bites her lower lip before taking her seat. Her sweet scent making him slightly dizzy.

  The conductor holds a black baton half-raised in his right hand, waiting for the audience to quieten down - hush. In the year 3000, the only remaining philharmonic is exclusively for the entertainment of the Elites. He feels oddly privileged, very few ever get to witness such a sight and hear live music from such instruments. VanWest forces himself to temper his enthusiasm and remain focused. His mission is to guard the delegates and stay alert for signs of the Most Wanted, in particular, the man he believes to be Jaaro The Finn.

  The composer wields his baton, the auditorium now completely silent, to begin his rendition of Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties. The programme lists five movements:

  Rêveries - Passions (Daydreams - Passions)

  Un bal (A ball)

  Scène aux champs (Scene in the Country)

  Marche au supplice (March to the Scaffold)

  Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath)

  VanWest can’t help but be moved by the music, each note stirring his emotions. He imagines the scenery and setting behind each. Each so different, each with its own unique story. The music also brings back sad memories, tears start to well up as it casts him back to the burning slums in ColaBeers. The screams of innocent citizens caught in the destruction, of women incinerated whilst shielding their children. The NEA rebel leader being tortured to death. He struggles to comprehend how any of this could be justified.

  The captivating woman spots his tears and with a smile offers him her white handkerchief. Their eyes lock, transfixed on one another for a moment.

  ‘I adore a man with emotion’, she whispers in a velvety voice.

  ‘Thank you’, VanWest replies, slightly embarrassed.

  Glancing at the UNESCO delegation on the balcony opposite, she says, ‘I admire a man like you that can follow the music and its tales. Those hedonistic creatures over there I bet cannot… Look at them, lining their guts with wine and champagne, can you imagine how they live’.

  VanWest is bemused by her comments, acting as if she is an observer like him, not quite at ease with this scene and from this time. Before he can reply, he notices that his hands are trembling. Looking back at this balcony, the pretty lady has alerted him to a potential danger as one of the ushers looks a lot like the hotel porter, Jaaro. If so, he’s very close to the UNESCO delegates. Panicked, he excuses himself. Forgetting to return the handkerchief, he hurries out into the semi-circular corridor behind, quickly pulling out and cocking his Luger pistol.

  As he runs to the other side of the orchestra, unbeknownst to him the porter come usher has noticed him too. Now hidden behind a pillar, he lies in wait armed with a cutting wire. The usher leaps out as VanWest passes, attempting to wrap the wire around his neck.

  As a well-trained Enforcer, VanWest reacts instinctively by blocking the wire with his pistol and forcing the usher backwards, slamming him against the wall, knocking - crash - a glass vase, filled with long-stemmed roses, to the floor. The fifth act commences as he struggles to break free, with only the pistol keeping the wire from slicing his neck open.

  ‘Monsieur Jacques, or should I say Captain VanWest… don’t make this more painful than this needs to be’, he taunts.

  VanWest hooks his right leg behind Jaaro’s, throwing them both to the floor. With the wire still pressed against his pistol, he manages to grab hold of a shard from the broken vase, and despite it cutting into his hand, he stabs it into the usher’s shoulder, releasing himself. VanWest does not hesitate, he rolls over and fires a volley into Jaaro’s chest. The shots fire in rhythm and tempo of the music muffles the loud bangs as red blood splashes across the wall behind.

  Immediately, the usher’s body starts to twitch, his face and hands transforming, growing paler and paler, to reveal his true form, of the Most Wanted, Jaaro The Finn.

  VanWest looks up and down the corridor to check if anyone has seen or heard the commotion and for any more incoming threats. Fortunately, there is no one, all remains quiet. Still, he must leave fast. Mindful not to change the time continuum, he first strips Jaaro of his implants and anything that could identify him. For if he was found with these items, none of, which existed in the mid-20th century, it could change the future. In Jaaro’s chest pocket, he finds Mad Newton’s prototype Quantum Accelerator rod. It has been dented by one of his bullets and is no longer useable.

  His best option is to escape before the alarm is raised and the police arrives. VanWest runs down the stairs to the front of the building, sneaking past a couple of ushers. Pulling in is a black Citroën 11, a vehicle he could use to get away. He waits for the valet to exit the car, and with no one else close by, knocks him out cold with a swift and discrete blow to the side of his head. Careful and precise, so not to cause permanent injury to the valet - just as he was taught by his Enforcer academy professor, Master Jiang.

  VanWest jumps into the driver’s seat but is slightly stumped by the unfamiliar car controls. He has raced with a shift-stick car in a Hypersphere simulation but the real thing is quite something to behold. With a turn of the key he starts the ignition, causing the car to lunge forward followed by a loud vroom. Shifting the gear stick left and forward, he presses his foot on the pedal to accelerate.

  The car swerves out into the traffic - screech! His erratic driving lets him down as he catches the attention of a police car stationed nearby. The blue police sign at the top of a small black and white Renault 4CV car starts to flash and a siren sounds - Wah-Wah! Two officers on the sidewalk race towards him, flagging for him to stop. When he fails to do so, they draw their guns and fire at his tires to try to disable his car - pop, pop - one of the bullets ricochets and shatters his windscreen, narrowly missing his head. VanWest spins 180-degrees and manoeuvres down a narrow side street.

  Much to VanWest’s dismay, the small police car is faster and more manoeuvrable than it looks, it closes in. He floors the gas pedal and turns into a busy street heavy with traffic. Swerving onto a packed sidewalk, he crashes through a series of souvenir kiosks, narrowly missing the shocked pedestrians. Without slowing down, he aims for a bridge not too far away, a crossing over La Seine. Unfortunately, because of the conference the area is heavily guarded and several more police cars lie in wait ready to block his path.

  Pop! Pop! The waiting police fire at his tires, piercing this time his front driver-side tire and sending his vehicle careening off the road - bang - crashing through the black iron and stone railing, down into the river. His head smashes into the steering wheel as the black Citroën 11 splashes into the water, knocking him unconscious. The strong currents quickly dragging the car beneath and filling it with the dirty brown water that flows through his shattered windscreen.

  VanWest finds himself no longer in the car, he is instead standing opposite Alpha who holds a laser dagger against the neck of the frizzy-haired woman he saw before. Although her hair partially covers her face, he notices that she looks very much like the woman in Ward B, Nurse Rose. There too is a familiar and cold voice, that of Dr King repeating the same sentence, ‘Lest I must say, she is evil’. Ignoring the voice, he calls out to this woman, only to wake gasping.

  His body is submerged in icy cold water, which reaches his neck and threatens to drown
him; panic sets in as he furiously tries to swim out but the current is too strong, especially for his now weary and cold body. He spots his O2Breather pills, dislodged from his watch’s compartment, floating above the dashboard. He stretches out, just able to grab hold of one. Swallowing quickly, the oxygen reinvigorates him and gives him enough energy to force his way out through the shattered windscreen. Swimming against the force of the water, like he did during his time-travel training, he reaches the surface and manages to clamber onto a moored dinghy. The Colonel’s training and recommendation of taking these pills have saved his life.

  After coughing up the brown water, he lies down for a minute in the dinghy. Exhausted but very much alive, he is relieved to spot the lights of the Eiffel tower. As luck would have it, the current seems to have taken him downstream, away from the police, and close to his hotel. His clothes soaked and his body shivering from the cold, he takes off his jacket and wrings out the river’s water.

  Fortunately, the darkness allows him to make his way back to the hotel unnoticed. He, nevertheless, keeps his head bowed to conceal his face, sneaking through the lobby and past the reception, careful not to draw attention. He then hurries up the stairs to his floor. Shivering uncontrollably from the cold, his skin is pale, hypothermia is a serious risk if he doesn’t warm up fast. He struggles to unlock the door to his room, his hands shaking so much. Once inside, he strips off and runs a hot bath. The hot water returns a tinge of colour as he scrubs his body with a bar of soap, trying to cleanse himself of the river’s dirt.

  Chapter 8 Beware the Seductress

  Soaking in the warm water, VanWest hears a gentle knock on his door. Slipping out of the bathtub, he grabs a towel and wraps it around his waist before tiptoeing to the door. He no longer has his Luger pistol, lost in the river, and after the events at the orchestra is quite wary of what will happen next. To his amazement, he sees through the peephole the captivating blonde woman still dressed in her gorgeous blue dress. Excited and without thinking, he opens the door.

  ‘Hello there’, he welcomes her.

  ‘Well, hello there too… I’ve come for my handkerchief’, she asks with a suggestive smile, her sultry eyes locked onto his.

  ‘Oh! My apologies’! VanWest replies in a serious tone, not quite understanding her intent.

  She moves closer, ‘Why did you leave? A man was shot, and I was so scared it may… be you’, she tells him in a concerned tone, now looking lustfully at his muscular upper body, gently stroking it with her fingertips as she steps inside his room.

  ‘Oh, really? That’s terrible, I had to leave for an urgent matter. That’s shocking to hear’, he feigns shock.

  After retrieving her now soaked handkerchief, tucked in the trouser pocket of his tuxedo, he turns to find her no longer standing at the door. Instead, she is sitting on his bed half undressed, her long slender legs stretched across, revealing a small green tattoo with the letter U. He walks over transfixed by her sultry brown eyes and luscious lips. Sitting down beside her, she strokes her hand up his arm to his neck before locking lips as they kiss, sending his body into a blissful rush.

  He arrives in a room filled with rows of desks, packed with hunched over men with clunky looking headphones. The men look familiar, Francois de Rose sits at the front, facing the delegates. He’s speaking into a metal microphone, ‘assist and encourage the formation of laboratories in order to increase international scientific collaboration’.

  As Francois talks, VanWest notices something odd, a woman hiding in the far corner of the room. Her face is partly obscured by her large Russian Cossack Ski hat. He tries to step forward and get a better view, but as he does so - bang - he is knocked to the floor. He attempts to stand up but awakens back on his hotel bed, covered from head to toe in sweat.

  He looks around for the captivating blond woman but she is gone. Checking the nightstand, in the hope that she might have left a note, he’s alarmed to find that all his items are missing: his Quantum Communicator and, most worrying, both Quantum Accelerator rods, including the dented one he took from Jaaro. Furthermore, his identity card with his alias Monsieur Frederic Jacques is gone too and his ticket to the UNESCO meeting. It finally dawns on him that this was no normal woman or ordinary fling, that he has been well and truly duped, another victim of the infamous Ling Ling ‘The Seductress’. Her photo was even on the Most Wanted list.

  Even after Dr King’s mission briefing, he allowed himself to be tricked, spellbound by her allure and charm. His lust having clouded his common sense. The U tattoo was another missed sign, as well as her odd comments about the ‘hedonistic’ delegates in the orchestra. Smacking his palm against his forehead, he rues his stupidity. He and his mission are in serious jeopardy!

  ‘The Seductress has effectively trapped him in 1951 Paris if he cannot find her before she leaps. With over 48 hours the future will be changed, having past the required time to stabilise the Quantum Accelerator between each leap, she may already have leapt. The noise of revving automobile engines and people shouting draws him to his balcony.

  Peering down, he notices that the street is bustling with officials and delegates. Furthermore, he is alarmed to see a large sign directing everyone to the hotel’s conference centre. UNESCO! He has slept all the way to the morning of the 15th of December. The meeting is today. The Seductress must have drugged him!

  Still half-dazed, he walks into the hallway, forgetting he’s undressed, and steps on a scrunched-up piece of paper. Opening it up, there is a number written, the number corresponds with the wing accommodating the Swiss delegates. It suddenly dawns on him what exactly is happening. Finally, he links the pieces together: his visions of the woman in the Cossack hat, the drugging, the blast. Today being the UNESCO meeting, it’s clear that the Seductress and the Utopians have plotted an event so enormous that its ramifications would be felt far longer than just a year or a decade. It’s all starting to make sense.

  Barely six years since World War II, Europeans scientists have only begun to work in an organised and collaborative way on new scientific projects. He concludes that the Seductress must be seeking to break the trust between them in the most harmful way possible. The Utopians interpret this creation of CERN as part of the 20th-century philosopher Hans Ashtar’s warning that the rapid advancement of technology and machines would bring an end to an Utopian Earth.

  VanWest continues to piece together the clues. At both the bar and orchestra, the Seductress was close to the Swiss delegates including Albert Picot and Paul Scherrer. She was also watching Francois de Rose, the Chairman for the meeting and the CERN site’s Kingmaker, a key decision-maker on its formation and location. During this time, the Swiss, led by Picot and Sherrer, have been trying to persuade Francois that their country should be the headquarters of this new agency, in Geneva.

  Could it be that she is plotting to not only kill Francois but also implicate the Swiss in his murder? It would be very smart indeed. Not only would the location of CERN not be in Switzerland, but it would also sow distrust between already sceptical European nations. And CERN itself would likely not come into formation for decades, if not centuries.

  Fortunately, seeing that the delegates, scientists and businessmen are all still arriving, there is time to stop her. She hasn’t acted yet! Robbed of his pistol and identity card, he wonders what he can actually do and how he even can enter the conference.

  Clatter! A loud noise, like that of plates and cutlery rattling, disrupts his thinking. At the other end is a man in a red uniform pushing a trolley. Whilst rationally he knows this cannot be the assassin Jaaro, his newfound paranoia of hotel staff leads him to retreat into his room and shut the door. After a couple of minutes, the trolley stops outside his room and a knock follows. VanWest cautiously peers through the peephole to get a better look, finding that he carries his grey three-piece suit meticulously folded across his forearm. He reasons this man to be a genuine employee of the hotel. Galleries Lafayette must have returned it this morning. It’s g
ood to have his suit but the employee’s red uniform gives him a better idea. If he were seen to be hotel staff, he might be able to enter the conference without needing his pseudo-identity card. This uniform might just do the trick! Furthermore, he could use the employee’s master key to search the hotel for the Seductress and delegates.

  Executing his plan, VanWest opens the door to let the man in and, upon entering, he slams his head against the wall, knocking him out cold, a blow likely to keep him out for the next few hours. Just like with the car valet, he is careful to not cause permanent damage. He strips the employee of his uniform, before laying him on his bed and taking his master key.

  He leaves to first check Francois de Rose’s room, nothing out of the ordinary. Then follows the number on the paper, which takes him to the wing housing the Swiss delegates. Knocking on the doors, he lets himself into their rooms and conducts a swift biometric sweep of each. Besides the fact that their briefcases are gone, they already have left, he finds nothing out of the ordinary. He sighs, ready to leave for the conference but, being naturally thorough, checks the last remaining room at the end of the hallway, which belongs to Albert Picot.

  Whilst the room is clean, a peculiar black powder on the bed catches his attention. Kneeling beside it, he wonders what it is. He checks the bathroom and finds yet more black powder spilt over the floor. It all supports his hypothesis that the Swiss are being implicated in a plot. This powder is some sort of primitive explosive. What’s more, it looks like it was left here on purpose, not to kill anyone as its amount is too little, but rather to incriminate Albert Picot. The visions, the powder, the pieces of the puzzle all start to fit into place.