Trans-Temporter by Christopher M Robinson - HTML preview

Chapter 7

Trojan Horse

According to Greek mythology, somewhere around the twelfth century BCE, Greece went to war with the City of Troy because it’s Prince, Paris, had eloped with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. However, the City of Troy was too well defended with impenetrably high walls and a massive gateway.

After ten years of getting nowhere, the Greeks appeared to give up and were seen sailing away. However, they left a gift behind of a massive wooden horse on wheels, which they said was an offering to the goddess Athena that had been supposed to make them invincible in battle.

The Trojans, having witnessed the end of the siege and seen their attackers depart, claimed this statue as their prize and wheeled it inside the city. However, the horse was hollow and filled with soldiers. That night, under the cover of darkness and whilst the Trojans were celebrating their victory, the soldiers climbed out of the horse and opened the city’s gates to admit the rest of the Greek army who had returned. They razed the city to the ground.

…

“You cannot do this,” my worried father exclaimed, knowing that, whatever he said, I was determined. From the moment I saw the ‘simps’ message and ‘Love Clodagh’, I knew what Valu was suggesting. I was going to be her Jack-in-the-box but there was no time to lose.

“Take a taser,” was Chris’s advice. Although the ethos of SSS was anti-violence, I acceded and climbed into the spare temporter whilst Saanvi and Tanvi supervised the loading of it into the awaiting transparent pod and Noah submitted the immediate transportation request of one pod to Marquise.

“I’ll bring her back safe, I promise,” I said as they closed the box and set the dials and closed the pod.

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The training I had gained playing those forbidden games some years ago, had helped with what I now immediately experienced. I hadn’t existed during that journey and it was almost if, having closed the pod door, they had changed their mind because now it was opened again but the view was entirely different and I had to instantly recognise I was in a different time, and place, and adapt to the fact my brain was trying to tell me my eyes were playing tricks. The disorientation can make you feel nauseous until you accept it.

Grasping the taser, I dramatically flung open the box and leapt up brandishing the weapon not knowing what to expect but not prepared for what I found.

The pod had been delivered to a parking lane in the Marquise Pipeway terminal adjacent to a retro style French auberge. The building was constructed in one of those new 3D printed materials resembling the antique stone structures with painted wooden shutters hinged beside the windows, looking like those still preserved in some parts of rural France, offering overnight accommodation to those logistics companies who would meet delivery pods to be transferred to other means of onwards travel, but the most thriving part was the café with tables outside. Although there wasn’t one in evidence, I could imagine a pétanque court with elderly men leisurely putting the world to rights.

Sitting at one of the tables were Valu, an elderly woman and a middle-aged man cosily drinking coffee and pernod. The elderly woman looked decidedly unwell. She looked gaunt and had a distinctly yellow complexion. They turned to look at me and Valu waved sheepishly.

I didn’t know what to feel or how to react. There was such a confusion of emotions fighting each other. First and foremost was the relief at finding Valu looking in fine health and no obvious threat but who were this couple and what was going on? My face must have said it all as Valu leapt up and gave me a hug and a kiss – more than just faire la bise, which is how the others greeted me when they were introduced, though the elderly woman was too frail to get out of her seat.

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“This is Pierre,” said Valu introducing me to the man, “And c’est ma mère, Madeleine,” he continued.

“Bonjour, nous sommes ravis de vous rencontrer,” she said feebly obviously having problems gasping for air.

“Sorry, her English isn’t too good,” said Pierre, “but I can translate.” I assured them I thought my French was up to understanding that response. “Je suis contente que Valu aille bien,” I said and then, finding it easier to continue in English enunciating clearly for the lady’s benefit, “but I am so confused.”

“Il est tellement perdue,” translated Pierre.

“J'ai compris ça!” his mother chided.

“Can you send Madeleine to Ark Medical par temporter tout suite, s’il te plaît?” asked Valu. “Then I’ll answer all your questions.”

I confirmed that, whilst it would be technically possible, following the reverse route I had taken, it may be hazardous.

“Je prends tellement de pilules. Ça ira,” was Madeleine’s response.

“And it could save my mum’s life,” pleaded Pierre.

“My elder sister will know what to do,” added Valu. “I contacted her whilst you were on your way here. We think she has a severe form of primary biliary cholangitis. Tanvi feels sure that with the new techniques and implants Ark Medical are developing, they may be able to save her life but there’s no time to waste.”

A matter of moments later, Pierre and I gently lifted the frail woman into the Temporter; he kissed her fondly but was horrified when the button was pressed on the temporter; he had never witnessed anyone disappear in front of him, especially his mother. We had to reassure him it was an illusion and we waved goodbye to the pod entering the pipeway on its way back to SSS.

…

Valu related her story.

Staying in a backpackers’ hostel in Montpellier, she had met up with a group of students and they had spent some time together. Valu had wanted to visit a climate laboratory on top of one of the Monts which

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provided a spectacular viewpoint over the mountainous gorges. In return for having accepted a lift there, Valu agreed to join them for some rock climbing. Even though she hadn’t done it before, it was another adventure and experience to put under her belt.

“Mercifully, I survived that,” she joked, “but I hadn’t realised at what price.”

Chatting in the bar that evening, somehow or other the boys had started talking about the temporter; she couldn’t remember how they’d got onto that topic.

“How cool would it be to get hold of one of those,” Jacques had said. “I’m sure we could make a mint by selling spaces to old people on the promise of finding them a cure in the future. Anyone with any ailment, we just promise them. I reckon we could make a fortune. We just despatch them to the future and when they arrive there, we’re nowhere to be found of course. Then another sucker comes along and we send him off too.”

Valu had thought, or hoped, he had been joking.

“But,” she had said, “it doesn’t work like that. If you try sending someone else off in the same box, the first one would reappear and there would be the risk of an almighty explosion.”

“You sound as if you know a lot about it,” Jacques had interjected.

“I should have stayed quiet,” recounted Valu, “but I’m afraid, I took the bait,” and continued to relay how she had boasted her mum’s best friend was it’s inventor.

“I know Lei only worked with the inventor but I’d had too much to drink and didn’t want to be put down by an arrogant man.”

“That’s when he showed me his other side. He said he was sure if any woman could have invented it, it couldn’t be too difficult to understand. He decided he wanted to get a machine so he could make lots of copies for his nefarious plan. He snatched my phone and locked me in a room for days while he was ‘working on a plan’.” She went on to describe the conditions she’d been kept under.

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“He was wanting me to get the plans for him. He had me send texts using a burner phone to SSS to ask them to send me the plans but I guess they were ignored?”

I told her SSS often received hoax messages and did ignore them.

“That’s why I told him, I’d have to send the text from my own phone so it would be recognised as being legitimate. He wrote the text and then, watching me, told me to append sufficient proof it was me and to then send it. I did write the text but, although he thought I’d pressed send, I switched the phone off again instead. When he discovered the subterfuge he was very angry and went to attack me but my self-defence training kicked in and I left him feeling the worse for wear with his bike’s D lock connecting his neck to a water pipe in his bathroom.” She didn’t know or care if he was still there. She’d grabbed her phone and run.

Feeling shaken, she’d found a bar and was recovering when Pierre found her. He was also obviously distressed and, although neither had felt like talking, they had managed to unburden themselves. Pierre had shared his devastating news that his mother had been given just days to live. When he heard Valu’s story of the temporter and the possibility of sending someone to the future for a cure, he brightened up.

“I explained to him that that plan wasn’t really workable but that my clever sister was training to be a surgeon and worked for Ark Medical who may already have some way of helping her.”

Assessing the situation, Pierre had suggested, “First you need to let your folks know you’re okay and then ask if they can help, but I’m afraid it will be too late.”

“That’s when I realised Jacques’s text was still sitting unsent on the phone. I suggested we get him and his mum to the rendezvous point Jacques had stated and if we sent it then, it may be the most useful way.

“I know I should have done something different but I was still too shaken to think clearly,” she said. “I don’t really know how much of the plan was mine and how much Pierre’s. The only thing we’d needed to change was the deadline in the message. I knew you’d follow the bait.”

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