A Gathering of Twine Read online

  Ultimately, no-one had cared, but it had provided reasonable office banter for a few months, and it was due to this that Little Anna had later sued, and won, on the grounds of harassment. It did not make it to court, and there were rumours of a substantial payout. Needless to say, the company did not meet its targets that year, and Big Anna did not get her bonus. Well, she was not going to let some trollop take her bonus away again. No way.

  “Have a nice time with your little friend?” she asked.

  “Hmmm...” Ben said noncommittally. He knew that his manager did not like his crush. Probably because she was old and lumbered with a kid, and Fiona was young and so so so hot. He had once seen Anna’s breast leak milk through her top. She had been apologetic, but Ben felt traumatised. He did not know they could do that.

  Whenever Anna mentioned Fiona, he kept his own counsel, just like Fiona had said he should do. At lunch, Fiona had confided in him. Ben knew that she had a secret. For months he had sensed that there was something that she was not telling him. Something that absolutely needed to get out, but was held in check. And over a coffee at lunchtime, Fiona had finally told him.

  She was a Born Again Christian and had invited Ben to her Church on Sunday. He had thought about saying no for a moment. He had met a few BAC’s at university and they were not his bag. But, he remembered that by the end of their third year, all that pent up sexual frustration had been absolutely bursting to get out. He had not seen any of that action, but two of his friends had got hook-ups at the Summer Ball. They had not stopped talking about it for weeks.

  Fiona had been going to her church for a few years. The way Ben saw it, she was just about to ripen and, for once, he was in the right place at the right time.

  So he had agreed that he would go along and see what it was all about. It was not in a traditional church, but rather in a central London theatre. The church had the use of it in the morning, and in the afternoon it was turned back over to whatever production was on that season. That left plenty of time for lunch, a few coffees in Leicester Square, then maybe some dinner. He knew this great Persian restaurant on Garrick Street - all mezes. For some reason, girls loved the whole eating-with-your-hands thing. He knew the secret; make her happy and relaxed, and then don’t make a move. Her own insecurities would make her throw herself at him. His older brother had taught him that after too many beers.

  Anna could see that she was not going to get anything out of her student, and turned to the monitor. “Right, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  The image resolved on the screen. It was still mostly snow, but faint outlines could be made out. On the right, the silhouette of a forest was forming, and to the left there seemed to be the impression of a body of water – possibly a large lake or a sea. Shadowy figures seemed to be focussing on a central point near an unidentifiable building, and in the foreground, these eldritch forms gained solidity.

  “Do you see?” Anna asked. “The program is finding uncorrupted data from the other frames and marrying it into this one. Position…colour gradation.”

  “Won’t that just create a jumbled mess?”

  “No. It’ll only look five seconds in each direction, but with a camera running on twenty-five fps; it should give us just over two hundred frames. It’ll still be a composite, but it should be enough to start filling in some of the other frames. We may even be able to get a short sequence out of it.”

  Ben shrugged. “This is the longest set of unbroken data. All the others are pretty mashed.”

  “You’d be surprised what the program can do. Now, how many more passes will it do between now and say, four o’clock?”

  “Hundred?”

  Anna smiled. “Half that. Remember, it’s picking pixels from the surrounding frame. It’ll go for the easy ones first, so each successive pass will take longer as it has to work harder. Go for,” Anna looked at the clock, “say forty-six.” She would like to be back at the station as it finished the last pass, just to say ta-da!

  Ben was looking at the image on the screen. “Does this look a bit weird to you?”

  “Ben!” Anna’s voice had an edge. “You know the rules. We just recover the data. Nothing more. No reading emails. No gazing at whatever porn they’ve got stored on their hard drive,” and there was always A LOT of porn. “Just do the job.”

  “But... just look.”

  “Ben. No buts.”

  “Please,” there was whine to his voice. He was still twelve years old underneath all those spots and lank greasy hair.

  “Ok.” She was exasperated, and wanted to get on, but if it never hurt to give in to a student’s pleadings. Once in a while, they saw something she missed. She had learnt that the hard way.

  She looked at the image. There was still a lot of snow, and what had been resolved was blurry and out of focus.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “There,” he pointed to the far right of the screen. There seemed to be a figure, standing side on, half in and half out of shot, in the foreground.

  “What?”

  “The pattern on that blouse. On the cuff.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t you have a blouse like that?”

  Anna turned to look at the boy, her frustration threatening to boil over.

  “Ben! Can we get on now?”

  “What? It is! That’s your blouse!”

  “Well I’m very flattered that you pay so much attention to what I wear, but perhaps you might like to think how many women also buy their blouses from bloody Primark!”

  *

  Four o’clock came around too quickly. Ben had worked with Anna for a few hours on the Fiji problem before Steve had called on him.

  Anna had worked quicker without him. She knew how important training was, but why did she have to be the one to give it? She had her own workload.

  Ben was late. Anna was half relieved as it meant that she could get on without having to explain everything, but also half annoyed. This was part of his training.

  She called up the retrieval programme, and the system clock told her that the last scan would be finished in three... two... one.

  And Ben was not there to see it. Damn!

  The image resolved itself on the monitor. A few patches of snow remained, but on the whole, it was clear, albeit not entirely in focus. A number of areas were sharper than others. She could make out the sky, some sort of coast, odd looking buildings, a large crowd in the mid and foreground.

  Her eye was drawn to the figure Ben had pointed out before.

  That’s not right.

  Anna felt an involuntary shiver.

  It had moved. It had turned towards the camera.

  Anna could see more of the features now.

  There has got to be a glitch.

  Anna opened up Ben’s working folder.

  There was only one file it.

  “Ben!” she exclaimed to herself, more in frustration than anger.

  “Yes?”

  Anna spun around. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “It’s ten past four. You’re late!”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I was with Steve.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I want you to explain this to me. You’ve not been backing up your work!”

  Ben looked baffled.

  “You’re supposed to create an individual file every time a pass is completed.”

  The look of confusion did not leave Ben’s face.

  “Ben, you’ve been overwriting the same file. There is no way to go back and undo any mistakes!”

  Ben flushed. The option had been there, on the menu. ‘Create new file after each pass’. But Anna had been with him and she had not told him to check that box.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, looking at the floor like a naughty school boy.

  Anna wanted to remonstrate with him again but held herself back.

  “Did you do anything to the program whilst I was gone?” she asked, half accusingly.

  Ben frowned. �
��No.”

  “Sure?”

  “Yes.” He remained defiantly firm.

  Anna turned back to the screen with a huff. She knew it was unlikely that Ben had interfered with the program. In all likelihood, the program had just reconstructed a composite image from the surrounding frames, and in those, the woman in the blouse had been turning. Those frames had just contained more recoverable information.

  She ran a single pass, this time, making sure to save the file.

  A minute or so later, the image resolved itself.

  Anna felt her stomach knot, and her chest constricted as though someone had tightened a steel band around it. The figure had moved, again. It was now staring right at whoever had been holding the camera. It was staring right at her.

  Anna divided the desktop into two, keeping the newer image visible at all times. She opened the previous file.

  It was more than a winter chill that crept into her blood, and she felt the hairs on her neck begin to rise. The position of the figure in the older file was exactly the same as the newer one. It was not possible.

  She had seen, with her own eyes, where the figure had been. She ran another pass, feeling her heartbeat begin to rise with the urgency of a drummer boy dictating the beat of the final charge.

  The image resolved itself.

  It’s not possible!

  The figure had moved forward. She could make out the features more clearly now. A woman in her early thirties. Blue jeans. White blouse. With a pattern on the cuff. Just like hers.

  Her heart was pounding. She ran another pass. Despite the cool of the office, she could feel her back begin to bead with nervous sweat.

  What the...?

  The figure had moved forward again. Her hair had lightened. Almost to Anna’s shade of brownie-blonde.

  It had been dark before! I know it was dark before. Almost black.

  She called up the previous files. They all showed the same woman in the same position. And she had always had the same brownie-blonde hair.

  This is a joke. This has to be a joke. Someone is in the server room, rewriting the files as I go along!

  She turned around. Ben was still there, looking sheepish and offended at her last accusation. Everyone else was at their workstation. Heads down, and desperately trying not to meet her eye. They all knew when their team leader was in a mood and they had no wish to be the next victim of her well-known temper.

  Everyone else was there. Except Fiona.

  “Where is your little friend?” It was not a question. It was a demand.

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play with me.” His voice was like a sharpened blade.

  Ben shrugged. “She was waiting to see Steve as I left his office.”

  Anna punched in Steve’s speed dial on her phone.

  “Wotcha,” Said the voice at the end. “How is that police...”

  “Is Fiona with you?”

  “Yes.”

  Anna did not know what to say. She had not thought this far ahead in her fog of bewilderment and frustration.

  “Do you want me to send her out?” Steve asked.

  “Yes. No, I mean no.”

  “You ok?”

  “Yes. Fine.” She paused. “There’s a problem with your blue job. I don’t know if it’s the programme or the data, but the best I can....”

  “Hang on. We’ll be right out.”

  “No. Wait...” The line had gone dead.

  Anna ran another pass. The image resolved.

  Anna felt sick. The figure was much further forward now. Anna could start to make out features. A long oval face. A slightly hawkish nose.

  Anna caught a smell. Bleach?

  She turned around again. Had someone used a table wipe? She could not see anything other than her team hunkering lower and lower behind their monitors.

  “Do you smell that?” she said to Ben.

  Ben grunted and nodded. He looked around but likewise saw nothing. Anna turned back to the monitor. Steve would be there any minute.

  She ran another pass. The image resolved itself.

  For a moment Anna thought she had heard something. Distant chanting. Like one of those Gregorian monk CDs she’d bought and then listened to once, because she thought that by just having it in her collection Ryan would think she was intellectual.

  She opened the background file and looked for any semblance of a partially recovered audio track. She was not surprised that there was none.

  The figure had moved forward again.

  I’m losing my mind, she thought. I’ve actually gone crazy.

  The door at the end of her floor opened and she saw Steve. And of course, Fiona was with him.

  Of course. They were both in on it. And Ben too probably. Ha ha! Ha ha DAMNED HA!

  Anna ran a final pass. The program was still running as Steve approached. With Fiona.

  Anna felt her insides grind like cogs that had run out of oil. God alone knew how much she detested that woman, all smug and pert. Bile and vitriol rose up inside her like a leviathan from the deep, roaring at the heavens before devouring all around it.

  “So? What have we got?” Steve said cheerfully.

  The image resolved once again.

  The figure was almost on top of the camera, taking up nearly a third of the screen, her hand held out. A single finger was raised as if reaching out or beginning to grasp.

  Anna could hear Steve breathing behind her, waiting expectantly.

  The smell of bleach came again, and with it came that brief distant chant, somehow guttural and full of resonance.

  The woman in the image was looking right at her. Directly into her eyes. There was something there. An imploring. An unspoken cry. It was almost primal, a wild last desperate begging for... for what? She felt a deep sadness well up, dousing her anger and frustration.

  All is lost, came an unbidden thought.

  In the days to come, Ben would struggle to really understand what happened next. He could remember the smell of bleach. Like toilet cleaner.

  Steve had been standing there. “Well?” he had asked.

  Anna had half turned to answer but had then turned back to the monitor. She had looked as if she was about to cry.

  And then she touched the screen, meeting the hand of the frozen figure.

  Ben’s ears popped and he felt sick.

  The smell of bleach made his eyes sting, and they watered. In that moment, Anna looked like she was two-dimensional. Flattened and without any depth. And then it was gone.

  His eyes stopped watering, and he worked his jaw to clear the uncomfortable sensation from his ear.

  He could see just over Anna’s shoulder. The figure of the woman was still there. Side on, but with her head turned slightly towards the camera. Looking slightly confused. Just as she always had been.

  He realised that his first impression that it had looked like Anna was wrong. The woman in the image had browny-blonde hair, whereas Anna had always had black hair. He suspected a dye job. No-one had hair that black.

  Anna turned around and looked through Steve to Fiona. She smiled her usual hawkish grin.

  “It’s alright,” she said sweetly. “I’ve fixed the problem.”

  *

  Danielle was quiet for a moment.

  Freeman added nothing more and let the silence grow between them.

  “What happened?” she asked eventually. “Possession? A body swap?” Her sense of incredulity had long since left her.

  “All of that. None of that. Who knows? But I think that something crossed over.”

  “Crossed over? From where? And what was it?”

  “What crossed over? Who can say? But from where?” He held up Kandian’s canvas, and one of the stills. “The Land of Sumer.”

  “You’re still going with that?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  Danielle paused again. She could feel the romantic part of her mind wanting to believe. Yet her rational brain reminded her that it was the twenty-first cent
ury, and the world had long ago stopped believing in fantasy realms and unicorns.

  She caught herself. She had not though - she still believed. Maybe not in Narnia or Castle Rock, or Mossflower. But she did believe. Deep down in the secret court of her heart. She believed in... what? Something more. Something else. The next place. Maybe.

  She put the thought from her mind and avoided Freeman’s question.

  “I’m not biting,” she lied. “If something did genuinely come through and either possessed Anna Hyde, or swapped bodies with her, or whatever, then her behaviour would have changed. Somebody would have noticed.”

  Freeman answered slowly. “It did and they did.”

  Danielle frowned. A story that was corroborated? Well, there was a first time for everything.

  “Who?” she asked, leaning forward.

  Freeman paused, mulling his answer. “Before I tell you, I want you to consider something.”

  Danielle did not like this delaying tactic. “What?”

  “What if words have power?”

  “Of course they have power… the written word is…”

  “No,” Freeman interrupted. “What if the spoken word has actual power? Tate’s translation of the steles frequently speaks about Words of Power. Gravity is powerful enough to bend light, and everything we know in the universe has a gravitational field, albeit a weak one. A single photon of light leaves a gravitational wake.”

  “What does this have to do with your source?” Danielle asked.

  Freeman’s tone was sombre. “My source… he’s a tortured man, and he was brought to do certain things that he can barely live with. You will ask why, if he knew what he was doing was wrong, he just did not leave, and I will tell you that it was because he unwittingly agreed to a life of servitude. And because he agreed, he was bound.”

  “And you’re telling me this because you think he was under the influence of these Words of Power?” Danielle tried to suppress her incredulity.

  “Yes. I know that you don’t believe it but just think about it; every time someone sees Sumerland, they hear chanting. Before the explosion at Paternoster House, Andy Cullum heard George muttering in some arcane language… probably to rend a hole between worlds.

  But it is more than that. Every time someone has… has an experience, they have a physical sensation. John Lennox told how his ears popped as he crossed over. Dennis King and Harry Gordon made similar comments. Ben Buckley said he felt his ears pop as Anna and the thing from Sumerland swapped places. I think that they feel their ears pop when… when something about our reality changes, and I think that these Words of Power can do that. They can actually change our reality. Just think about it. The creatures that have come through… they know how to use these words and they can make you believe in anything, just by forcing you to agree with them.”