Ian Hocking - Flashback

Saskia had taken her usual seat in the rearmost row of the aircraft. Here she could see without being seen. A girl of twelve or so, travelling alone and clearly nervous, looked at her across the aisle. Saskia took her hand briefly. Then the jet engines tuned up and up and the rough take-off pushed her into a doze, eyes dry even beneath their lids, her shoulders cramped and tense, forgetting the girl but remembering the time traveller. Where was he? She had not seen him come aboard. The engine noise played on all the intensity of her anxiety, which itself was buoyed by the absence of Jem. Saskia was conscious that her outfit—a disguise, in part—had been chosen by the woman: the Loblan cowgirl boots that made her feet ache; a fancy knapsack that could carry nothing more than her mobile phone, her wallet, a tampon or two; a tight, designer shirt; a necklace that bounced on her exposed sternum. Each discomfort made her think of Jem. For a time, she had been everything. Everything. Jem with the blue hair, draped over a sofa in the changing room, yawning thoughtfully at Saskia’s new groove and calling it good with a mimed pistol shot.

Peow.

Airborne.

Saskia cuffed away the cold tracks of her tears as a steward passed her, heading towards the rear galley. She watched him return with a rattling cart. As he pushed this along the aisle, she heard a door open behind her. She frowned. It was impossible that someone could be back there. Nobody but the steward had passed her since she sat down, and he would not have allowed the plane to take off with the bathroom occupied.

Saskia turned fully.

The woman who emerged from the dark, L-shaped corridor, and who was now looking nervously down the cabin, was Jennifer Proctor.

Saskia’s memories of 2023 had been dulled by the stresses of 2003, in which she was a fugitive. But she had not forgotten Jennifer Proctor (hair held by chopsticks, arrogant but principled), the woman who had created a time machine and helped Saskia return to 2003. The version of Jennifer who stepped back into Saskia’s life was older. Her hair was cropped and oiled. Her black T-shirt was tight and her stomach was flat. She wore dark gloves and, on her right wrist, a bracelet. Even in the gloom, her eyes were azure. They moved around the aircraft with unconcealed interest.

Saskia watched her. Since appearing in the air above Scotland, Saskia had been too busy with the reconstruction of her life to consider in detail what her escape would mean for Jennifer. There was a thread of worry in Saskia’s thoughts. Had Jennifer been reprimanded? Or had she risen with the star of her invention?

‘Sweetheart,’ she whispered, reaching out. ‘It’s me, Saskia.’

Jennifer was startled by the motion. She hesitated. Time traveller looked at time traveller and Saskia’s guarded expression changed to one of delight. She had disconnected herself from her home and her time more fully than any human before. Only now, sharing a look of relief and growing good humour with Jennifer, did she understand the cost of that amputation.

She released her seatbelt and stood. She had wanted to embrace Jennifer, but something in the woman’s eyes—shame? secrecy?—checked her. Jennifer, slightly shorter, looked up at Saskia and smiled. They might have been sisters contemplating the fruition of a prank. Then Jennifer took Saskia in a fierce hug. Saskia closed her eyes and pressed Jennifer’s forehead into the hollow beneath her chin. When Jennifer stepped back, she took Saskia’s hands.

‘You’re exactly how I remember,’ Jennifer said. In her smile, Saskia noticed surgically-straightened teeth. Yes, Jennifer had changed. Once their relationship had been that of an older Saskia to a younger Jennifer. Now their roles were reversed. The teeth made Saskia wonder about further advances in cosmetic treatment. Was it even possible, for instance, to tell how old Jennifer was?

‘When are you from?’ Saskia asked.

Jennifer paused. She was reluctant to answer. Why?

‘Decades have passed,’ she said. The words were delivered with the fondness of a person recalling childhood. ‘Did you receive the Ego unit we sent you?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘Decades, for me,’ Jennifer repeated, ‘since you crossed the bridge.’

Saskia nodded, though her understanding lagged, swirled in the disorientation of this unexpected meeting. She thought, What is the bridge? and the answer came as fast as an echo: The Einstein-Rosen bridge. Project Déjà Vu. Saskia remembered the empty winds of the desert around Las Vegas. She remembered the centrifuge turning, turning. But those moments were gone; history to come. She focused on Jennifer’s face even as the uncountable years returned to her eyes and, with them, the determined expression of someone set for grim work.

‘Why did you have to be here?, Saskia?’

A slow-burning horror passed through her. They were on the cusp of something: Saskia, Jennifer, and everyone else on this flight. What did it have to do with Jennifer’s abrupt appearance?

‘Tell me,’ said Saskia.

‘DFU323,’ replied Jennifer, almost in wonder. ‘The Freedom Flight.’ She seemed to recall herself, and looked at Saskia. Her tone was confidential. ‘What’s your role in this?’

‘My role in what?’ Saskia placed her palms onto Jennifer’s shoulders. The gesture was intended to emphasise her question, to steady Jennifer, but Saskia felt her fingertips lock on her bones. ‘Tell me what is happening. All of it.’

A muscle twitched at the edge of Jennifer’s mouth.

‘We’re inside a mystery,’ she whispered. Her next words had the monotone of rehearsal. She might have been repeating a line from a multiplication table. ‘Half an hour before it was due to land, DFU323 lost radio contact and went down—straight down—into the Bavarian National Forest.’

Saskia stared at her. Her thoughts looped. Crash? How could they crash? They couldn’t, it was impossible. Saskia’s death was impossible . She had a role to play in future events that had not yet come to pass. If that role were not to be, then Saskia herself would never be able to travel in time; she would not be here. Paradox. Impossible.

Jennifer smiled. It was a copy of that schoolgirl joy that had gripped them only moments before, but now it found no answer in Saskia’s face.

She is more different than I guessed , Saskia thought. Something happened to her .

‘Nobody knows why it crashed, Saskia. DFU323 is like the Mary Celeste . A riddle inside an enigma.’

‘Why are you here, Jennifer?’

‘I was summoned by a word. It was sent from this aircraft shortly before it crashed. The news media will report it. ‘STENDEC’.’

‘What does it mean?’

Jennifer took Saskia’s hands and continued, with a subdued fervour, ‘It means the end of a great journey.’

‘For whom?’

She shook her head. The question would not, or could not, be answered.

‘Come with me, honey,’ said Jennifer. ‘I can take you back. The band is calibrated to 48.98 kilograms. How much do you weigh?’

She reached for the black bracelet on her wrist and placed her index finger and thumb around its circumference. Then, carefully, she rotated it ninety degrees. Saskia saw the ugly, ripening indifference in her face. The young scientist she remembered was gone.

Saskia pushed her deeper into the galley. Jennifer said, ‘Hey!’ as she fell against a tall rack of metal lockers, but she did not twist out of Saskia’s grip.

‘Whatever game you want to play,’ said Saskia, ‘stop it. Who will send ‘STENDEC’? A pilot?’

‘It was sent by my Huckleberry, only moments ago.’ Jennifer chuckled, as though remembering a joke. ‘He thinks that I work for a collective called the Cabinet, a revolutionary cabal that wants to put in place an American Confederacy. He thinks he’s chasing a spy.’