J Henderson - Bunker 10

Two bullets left. The rest of the ammunition was back in the lean to. So were his gloves.

There was no sign of the bear.

Simon stood up, blinking rapidly. He stared at the others in the project room as if in a daze.

“Dave. Will you come and look at this?” He walked quickly to the whiteboard, wiped it clean and began writing a mass of equations. “Please. I think I’m on to something here.”

“No can do, wee man!” Dave yelled. “I’m kickin some fat boy ass.”

“I just killed you.” Barn said pleasantly.

“Oh, no! I dinnae… stupid game, anyway.” Dave struggled to his feet and came over to the whiteboard.

“You’re gonnae give yourself a breakdown working on this dippit idea,” he told Simon, bending round the still scribbling boy to see what he was setting down. “If Einstein or Neil Bors or Schrodinger couldne get round the time travel problem then neither can…”

His mouth dropped open as he scanned the last lines of notations. Cruickshank hauled himself lazily off his bed once more and wandered over.

“What crazy theory has he come up with this time?”

Dave removed his hat. His mouth was still open. Cruickshank followed his eyes, racing across the jumble of numbers and signs.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.

After an hour sitting silently Sherman could no longer feel his hands. He tucked the gun back in his waistband, unfastened his thick hide coat and tried to warm his fingers by jamming them under his armpits. It did no good. Finally he got up and began to tramp up and down on the spot in an effort to keep warm

He rubbed at his temple to see if he could feel his face. Clumps of frozen eyebrow came off in his hand. He started to cry and the tears solidified on his face. Another hour in these temperatures and he knew he would be dead.

With a sob he climbed back onto the deer track and headed towards the rim of the clearing.

The teens were clustered round the whiteboard, gazing at the mass of tangled equations.

“Excuse my ignorance,” Leslie said. “But my speciality is electronics and computer programmes. I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”

“Me neither,” Barn said. “The math seems right. But… eh… I can’t tell what it means.”

Simon didn’t care. He was so excited he would have explained what he had written to the tea lady. He turned to Barn and gripped the boy’s meaty shoulders.

“According to Einstein, the closer you get to travelling at the speed of light the slower time goes, yeah?”

“You ken who Einstein is, don’t you Barn?” Dave chipped in.

“Of course I do,” Barn said scathingly. “He had a lot of hair.”

“Let me put it this way. Suppose you were to leave earth on a spaceship that travels just below the speed of light. Because you’re going so fast, time on your spaceship is slower than on earth. So you come back after a year on your spaceship only to find that, on earth, it’s actually three hundred years later.”

“I don’t get that either,” Barn said.

“Let me put it another way,” Simon began.

“You start explaining Einstein’s theories to him,” Cruickshank interrupted. “And three hundred years will have passed on earth before he understands it.”

“Just trust us Barn,” Jimmy said. “It’s been proved.”

“Since time slows down the closer you get to light speed then, in theory, it would actually reverse if you went faster than light. In other words you could travel back in time.”

“The problem is that nothing can travel faster than light, eh?” Dave added. “Not even mah dad on his way tae the pub.”

“I had a crazy idea I’ve been working on,” Simon continued. “Suppose Einstein didn’t quite get the whole picture.”

“Aye man. Einstein was bound tae be wrong. He wasnae near as smart as you, eh?”

“Even geniuses can miss something vital,” Simon insisted. “Nothing can travel faster than light, sure, but suppose light itself wasn’t travelling as fast as it could? What if light had some kind of internal brake that kept it at a slower speed? Suppose you found that brake and worked out how to disable it?”

Barn concentrated hard.

“Light would go faster?”

“It would go faster,” Jimmy nodded. “Faster than it does now.”

Simon was trembling. “I think I just figured out how to do it.”

“Simon,” Leslie said, her voice filled with awe. “Are you saying you’ve proved time travel is possible?”

If you could disable the brake and harness light at its faster speed then, yes, you could travel back in time. And if you could apply that brake more strongly, you could also go forward in time.”

Barn grinned at his companion. “Does this mean the Machine will work?”

“No, it won’t.” Simon shook his head. “We don’t have the technology in this lab to put the theory into practice.” He clenched his fists in a small gesture of triumph. “But I bet it can be done.”

“Jesus, wee man. You’ll win a Nobel Prize for this.” Dave was still staring admiringly at the formula.

“I’m going to call it ‘Stripped Light’.” Simon turned to the others. “Help me get this written down on the computer before the whiteboard gets hit by lightning or this place blows up or something.”

“That’s hardly likely.”

“I’m not taking any chances.” Simon clutched the notebook to his chest and ran back into the dormitory, plonking himself down at his console. The others quickly followed, clustering round the ecstatic youngster.

All except Cruickshank, who was still staring, transfixed at the board.

“To hell with the Nobel Prize,” he muttered, scanning the mass of calculations.

“This thing is worth an absolute fortune.”

The fire in the clearing was reduced to glowing embers and there was no sign of the bear. Sherman had little doubt, however, that it was close by. He tried to get the pistol out of his belt but his fingers wouldn’t even move, never mind curl round the stock. He had to reach the fire and warm himself before it went out.

Sherman launched himself out of the trees and began to run towards the lean-to. After a few seconds his frozen legs gave way and he crumpled into a heap. Crying uncontrollably he began to crawl. With each thrust his uncovered hands sank into the snow, spreading the numbness past his wrists and into his forearms. Stumbling, cursing and sobbing he threw himself forwards, pulled himself upright and flung himself forwards again.

Finally he collapsed beside the fire, holding his hands as close to its glowing heart as he dared, until smoke began to form around his fingers. Agonising pains shot through the knuckles and up his wrists but he gritted his teeth and kept them centimetres from the radiant wood. Sherman pulled the gun from his belt using his palms and tried to hold it. It dropped through his worthless hands into in the snow.

There was a bellow from the edge of the forest as the Grizzly emerged from the trees and headed towards him. Sherman trapped the gun in the crook of his knee and tried to cock the hammer using the palm of his hand, but the revolver kept slipping away. He forced one finger over the trigger with his other hand but knew immediately there was no way it could pull it, even if he had been able to point the weapon.

The bear had covered three quarters of the distance between them.

Sherman scuttled over to the powder barrel, raised himself up and brought both elbows crashing down on the top. The wood splintered. He did it again. The bear steadily closed the gap, never making a sound. Its face showed no anger. There was no malice in its black eyes. Only simple determination to reach its victim and tear it apart.