Catherine Fisher - Obsidian Mirror

“Did he.” I tried to smile.

“And other stuff.”

“Such as?”

She wriggled back in the chair and placed her muddy boots one by one deliberately on my velvet footstool. “That depends. I suppose I wouldn’t mind staying for a bit. Skimble’s is too lairy these days. They know it was me what stole the bracelet; they’ve been through my stuff and if I go back there, I’ll get a lammering. Or worse.”

I had no idea what she was talking about but smiled brightly. And for a brief moment sensed the precariousness of her life. “A hot meal. Some fresh clothes. And then you will begin to talk and I will take detailed notes. Because I must discover this bracelet of theirs, Moll. Do you see, it may also be here, in our time. And I must discover more about Maskelyne. Will you help me?”

She gazed at her feet. “Wages too?”

“We might consider a small stipend.”

She looked up. I saw the light of greed in her eye, and confess to a slight doubt as to who would be the shrewder negotiator in this bargain.

With a great show of consideration she said, “Okay.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Okay. That’s future talk. Code. It means I will. Jake said it.” She glanced at the mirror among its gleaming, useless levers. “He’ll come back here for me, you know. Jake. He said so.”

That was also my most secret hope.

“Tea. Cake. Plenty of cake.” She sat back. “And I’ll tell you all the other secrets what I know.”

I was pleased, but I sighed as I touched the bell. This was going to be expensive. And it was not I who was in control here.

Moll grinned.

She really is quite an intelligent little thing.

She will run rings around me.

No one moved.

In the new harsh light Sarah saw they were all staring at her; it was with almost an effort that Wharton said, “No world?”

“In July of 2104 a disaster destroyed…will destroy…the Earth.” She kept her voice calm. “There will be no warning. Janus, his origin”—she pointed at the Replicant—“is to blame. He built the Labyrinth, a government research establishment into heightened human abilities, deep under London. We—I mean ZEUS—knew he had some device of extraordinary power; every time it was used, we detected power spikes of terrifying intensity.”

She shook her head. “I was part of the group, I joined because…well, my parent were lecturers in the Academy…until they were arrested.” She frowned. “I shouldn’t talk about any of this.”

“Arrested?” Jake whispered.

She hurried on. “We were just a small secret group—crazy kids with wild imaginations. They had given us strange abilities, so we used them. Those that survived. It got so that there were only a few of us left, and we were scared, because time was running out and no one— no one —was listening. So we made a plan. We would break into the heart of the Labyrinth and get evidence that the world couldn’t ignore.”

Janus snorted. Jake saw Wharton take a stealthy step nearer the Replicant, holding something behind his back.

“Six of us got through the wolves, the razor-wire, the security. We found, linked to a network of computers, an ancient, black glass mirror.”

Venn came up to her, fascinated. “It still existed?”

“Yes. But it was brittle, dangerous.” She glared at Janus. “He had been using it, burning it out, replicating himself in vain journeys. Speculating, forestalling inventions, making himself rich. But there was a price. It was clear to us that the mirror wouldn’t last much longer. It had begun to break down, and it was sucking matter and light into itself at a terrible rate. When it exploded—and that would be in hours, maybe only minutes—it would create a black hole that would engulf…who knows what? The world, the solar system, the universe? Because whatever the mirror is, it holds a terrible darkness at its heart.”

She looked at Jake. “It was too late to destroy it then. Don’t you see? We had to enter it, to go back. To get some time. Each of us made a vow that we’d enter the past, there and then, with no guidance, no safety, no bracelet, and wherever we found ourselves, in whatever time, we would seek out the Chronoptika and destroy it. So that there’d be no Replicants. No Janus. None of it would ever have happened.”

Venn said, “You can’t.”

She shook her head, fierce. “They were my friends. My only friends. We shook hands, we kissed. I was the last to go. Alarms were ringing—the wolves were out. We only had seconds. I don’t know if the others made it. But it’s true, what that creature says. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I’m here to destroy the mirror.”

Jake shook his head, struggling with the paradoxes. “But if you do, in the future it won’t exist, so how could you return…”

A small sharp laugh interrupted him. Summer sat on a stool, knees up. “What fools you are with your reasons and your fears. So all-in-a-straight-line! We could tell you about time. Time is a circle, Jake. An eternal now. A drop of dew falling from the bracken. Time is only there if you say it is.”

Jake stared at her, then back at Sarah. He was so devastated, he couldn’t think. “How do we know it’s true?”

She shrugged. “You don’t. But if it is, what’s finding your father—or Leah, even—against the fate of billions, Jake? Think about that.”

He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

The Replicant smiled, mild. “Well. Perhaps we can make an arrangement here.” It took a step toward Venn. “Let me deal with her. Take her off your hands. You—”

“Don’t move another step,” Wharton said.

“If you think some crude shotgun can…” The Replicant turned and saw the glass weapon. It stared, curious. “What is that? Some sort of primitive Victorian firearm? Do you really think it can injure me?”

“I know it can.” It was Maskelyne who answered. He moved past Rebecca. “Because it was designed just for that purpose. To kill Replicants. To obliterate reflections.”

Did Janus believe it? Possibly, Jake thought. He edged forward.

“You can’t kill me, fool. I’m not even here. I’m three hundred years in your future, sitting in a steel-lined bunker under the ruins of Parliament.”

It moved, turned, grabbed Sarah and pulled her in front of it. She struggled, but the wiry strength of its hands held her tight.

“Fire it,” Maskelyne shouted.

Wharton stared. “I can’t. She…”

“It won’t hurt her! Only him. Fire it, now!”

Wharton glanced at Venn. He raised the gun. His finger tightened on the frail trigger. Sarah stared at him, frozen in mid-fight, the weapon pointed straight at her heart.

His hand trembled. I can’t do this, he thought.

Instantly, out of nowhere, a small dark object swung from the shattered webbing, snatched the glass gun, and swung away with it, screeching with delight.

Wharton yelled. Jake stared up. “Horatio!”

The marmoset leaped from cabinet to vault and down to the ropes of the web. It clung on with its tail, hung upside-down, and with one long arm brought the weapon up and sniffed at it.

“Oh God,” Jake gasped. “Don’t!”

The shot blasted out like a white laser. It cracked across the room and they all leaped aside; the beam hit the mirror and instantly with a great snap it was reflected everywhere, a vast spider of light that exploded across the room. The mirror shuddered from its frame and fell, with a terrible crash, glass down.