Flo, feeling that she’s being watched, turns her head a little. The girl is looking right at her and smiling broadly. Flo gives a short smile back. This makes the girl grin. She rolls her eyes knowingly at Flo. Flo frowns, but the girl shrugs and gives a short nod towards the bar’s exit. Flo glances that way, briefly, but no one new has come into the bar. The only other customer is still sat at his lonely table, still pondering over his newspaper, his puzzle, still in his raincoat and hat, as though he might suddenly leave, at any moment, as though he has only dropped by.

  Flo turns back for further silent explanation but the girl seems to have lost interest and is now attending fully to her boyfriend as he carries the drinks back to the private gloom of their corner table. Flo watches them go.

  ‘There is of course another theory. Would you like to hear it?’

  Mr Jacks is watching her again, just as intently as before. Flo doesn’t know what she wants any more. This has not been the direction of discussion she was hoping for. She nods politely. Mr Jacks continues eagerly.

  ‘That there’s no actual travel involved in the process. Well, not as such. The machine destroys you at one end, truly, utterly, and the other machine, at the other end, doesn’t exactly re-form you so much as build a brand-new version of you, an identical version to the one that, just an instant beforehand, ceased to exist. So there’s no actual flow of you in between.’ Mr Jacks pauses briefly. He laughs. ‘No flow at all.’

  Flo does not laugh. Flo is starting to feel more than a little uneasy about the situation. Flo feels she is, perhaps, not the person she thought she was. But if Mr Jacks is in any way aware of this, he doesn’t show it.

  ‘I’m quite keen on this theory, you know. It feels somehow more plausible. In that you don’t actually travel the wires. Not you you. Not in particle form. Only the information of you is sent. So in a manner of speaking the you that comes out the other end isn’t you at all. And yet it is. Because what does it matter what matter has gone into making the new you. As long as everything’s in the right place, in precisely the right order, and direction, and speed, then it’s just as much you as that other you was really you. Or arguably so.’

  ‘And—is that what you think really happens?’ Flo clutches vainly at the suggestion. ‘Because I don’t think people would like that. If they knew. If they thought it wasn’t really them. If they thought they’d first been—’

  ‘But it would be them, don’t you see? So long as the replication is accurate. Just as a body replaces its cells, its atoms, over a period of years. We all do it, all the time. The person we were yesterday is not composed of exactly the same stuff as the person we are today. Just as we can’t be sure we are the same person who wakes up each morning, unless we stay awake all through the night. We can’t tell for sure what happens in that intervening period. That void of sleep. The muddle of dreams as our thoughts are reorganised, reconstituted. But what that makes of us when we awake, well—’

  Mr Jacks spreads his hands and shrugs. Flo opens her mouth to speak, to bring the conversation back to her original aim. She has to at least try. But as she searches for the right words another voice gets in before her.

  ‘I too have a theory. A good one. Might even say it’s true.’ It’s Carol. He is standing with both hands flat to the bar. He has a serious look. ‘If you don’t mind my interjecting.’

  Mr Jacks motions for him to go on.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, and what I think is—it’s kind of like time travel. You know what I’m saying?’

  Flo feels her eyes widen. She tries to hide this look of dismay by transforming it seamlessly into one of curious intrigue, tipping her head to one side, nodding and smiling in general agreement.

  ‘You know? Like what Mr Jacks said about the reorganisation of matter? Well, that sounds a lot like time travel to me. Because all that reorganising, that reconstituting, that’s from an earlier state, right? I mean, maybe only a fraction earlier, because sure, it may all happen at the speed of light, like electricity, or radio waves, or whatever, shooting down the wires like that. But it’s still a speed, it’s still a gap of time, right? And so what actually are you during that time? Because if you are when they put you back together exactly what you were when they took you apart, then what have you been in that tiny gap between? So like, when you’re travelling, if we can call it travelling, do you really exist at all?’

  ‘Oh, I like that.’ Mr Jacks wags an encouraging finger at the barman. ‘That’s good, Carol. You’ve excelled yourself.’

  Flo nods again. She refreshes her smile. But she remains silent. She feels heavy. She puts extra effort into sitting up straight.

  ‘Sure, and if you could then, like, maybe extend that gap in between?’ Carol is beaming. He addresses his grand idea equally to Mr Jacks and to Flo, turning to look at them both with his eyes shining. ‘If you could, like, slow it down? Like through even more loops of wire? Like massive long coils of that same cabling going round and round for millions of miles?’

  ‘Like a giant resistor! Yes!’ Mr Jacks thumps his fist on the bar in approval.

  Carol shrugs. ‘Well, I don’t know about that, but sure, I guess—a resistor. Anyway, if you could really slow it down, staying in the wires all the while, then bam! there you’d have it—time travel.’

  ‘But only forwards, mind.’ Mr Jacks points at the barman. ‘With such a system you could never go back—to an earlier era, a younger you.’

  Carol considers this. ‘Sure. Only forwards. I guess.’

  Flo slides from her stool. She stretches a little. She looks at her watch. ‘I like it, Carol. It’s a fine theory.’ She reaches for her purse. Her hands are shaking. She doubts anyone will notice. ‘But I’m afraid I need to be getting along.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry.’ Mr Jacks does not look especially sorry. ‘Here, we’ve been prattling on for so long, we’ve not come close to resolving your problem with Alice.’

  ‘It’s fine, I—’ Flo stares at him suddenly, the strap of her purse half-hoisted to her shoulder. ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m just saying we never resolved the question of your sister’s infertility. Though I stand by what I said, that it was not in fact the fault—’

  ‘I—don’t have a sister called Alice.’

  ‘Really?’ Mr Jacks looks momentarily perplexed. ‘Then who is it I’m thinking of?’ The perplexity soon evaporates. ‘In any case you really can’t go blaming the transporter network given that those who profess to be—’

  ‘Mr Jacks, please.’ Flo has had enough. She realises now that she has made a mistake, that she has picked the wrong man after all. She realises now that he is nothing less than a crank, a nutcase. It isn’t that what he is saying makes no sense, it is that him saying the network makes no sense in itself makes no sense. The idea angers her and for a moment her rising anger cuts through the haze of her evening’s drinking. ‘If you’re honestly suggesting they don’t understand how their own machines work, that they never knew, then really I’d say they are very much to blame. There would have been tests. There are always tests. And with those tests there would have been accidents, no? Things would have to go wrong before they went right. And things could still go wrong now. People could be—changed. The network could fail. And furthermore—’

  ‘Oh, no no no. Nothing like that.’ Mr Jacks taps the bar with his forefinger. ‘That’s not the issue here. That’s not the problem at all. The real issue is our acceptance of a system that nobody quite understands. A system that doesn’t even make sense. And yet we all trust it. We all buy into it. It’s a matter of blind faith. We use it because we’re told it works. We accept that. We have no reason not to believe it. And now we’re locked into that system. We’ll go on using it no matter what anyone might say. So what does that make of us? It’s not about what the machine does or doesn’t do to us as we go through it, but rather: what has the very existence of the machine already made of us? What people have we become? It rules us. It orders the way we live. We allow it to do so. We invite—’

  ‘Please stop, Mr Jacks.’ Flo has held up her hand. The trembling is now quite evident. She doesn’t care any more. ‘Please. Just—stop.’ She takes a deep breath. She will try one last time. ‘Are you saying that in all these years, and with millions, if not billions, of people using the network, putting themselves through these machines again and again, that you’ve never heard of even one serious incident? Not one fatality? Not one—something? Anything?’

  Mr Jacks stares at her. He gives no indication he is about to speak. It’s Carol who breaks the silence.

  ‘I think what Mr Jacks is trying to say—’ The barman’s voice is low and steady. ‘—is that it’s not about the machines not working, it’s about them not needing to work.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The whole network. It’s not necessary. Aside from maybe, you know, employment. Though I guess all it’s really doing is replacing one employment with another.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s quite correct.’ Mr Jacks has rejoined the debate. His manner is calm, sober. ‘We’d be better off simply pretending, wouldn’t you say? You know, we could use cardboard boxes and taut string.’

  ‘Right.’ Carol nods heavily, seriously. ‘Just use your imagination.’

  ‘Swap places for a day.’

  ‘A whole lot less fuss.’

  ‘All this rigmarole. And for what?’

  ‘Sure, we may get to places a mite quicker.’

  ‘And we’re all very happy with that.’

  ‘Or that’s what they want us to think.’

  ‘But what do we truly become if we persist—’

  ‘Gentlemen.’ Flo holds up both hands this time. ‘Thank you. It’s been a blast. It’s been—enlightening. But I have to go. I’m leaving. I’m going home because, to tell you the truth, though I think you both already know full well, this is all nonsense.’

  ‘That’s it exactly!’ Mr Jacks smiles broadly. ‘You know, Carol, I think she may be coming round to our way of thinking.’

  Flo turns on her heel. One step forward and she spins round again. ‘You know what? I thought, I really hoped, I might just get a straight answer.’

  ‘Everyone starts off that way.’

  ‘I thought that perhaps you of all people—’

  There is a pause.

  Mr Jacks raises his eyebrows. ‘Go on?’

  Flo opens then shuts her mouth. She turns and heads for the door. She approaches the man in the raincoat and hat, his head bowed, his drink undrunk, still scribbling into his newspaper. He shifts the paper over as Flo passes by, covering his right hand. He doesn’t look up.

  Outside the night is cold and damp. A narrow red-brick stairway leads up to the street. Flo halts on the pavement and swings her purse round, unzipping the front pocket and drawing out the small black dictaphone. She stops the recording and, firmly, ejects the tiny cassette.

  She grits her teeth. She has a good mind to drop the damned thing in the gutter and put the whole sorry evening well and truly behind her. Instead she merely sighs. Such items aren’t cheap. The tape goes back in the machine. Flo presses rewind.

  The street is very quiet. No one will be out at such an hour. Flo unfolds a small tatty-edged map from her pocket. It shows there should be a public booth just two streets away. So long as it hasn’t been vandalised, and so long as she has the right change, Flo could be home again in as little as five minutes.

  In her hand the tape stops rewinding and the machine clicks itself off, ready to record another story, a more convincing story, a story Flo’s readers might actually want to hear. Flo zips the device back into her purse and steps forward, making her unsteady way along the street.

  7. Last Suppers

  HE WAS a boy who took everything apart. He would unstitch bears to get at the growler, curious over the source of each unhappy moan. He would ease the limbs off action men to see how the ball-and-socket joints were fixed. Given a puzzle pre-muddled he’d dig a kitchen knife between the blocks and, breaking the object apart, lay all the individual segments out, to reassemble again in just the right order.

  His parents thought this behaviour was not unusual, they’d tell themselves he was just a typical boy, always inquisitive, never resting, never taking anything for granted; even though other parents did not report the same of their children.

  His first computer he built himself out of various electronic goods others discarded as junk, upgrading it over the years as further unwanted items were discovered. To most the machine looked ugly, a hotchpotch of parts, with exposed circuit boards and bare-ended wires and soldering points on which a loose sleeve might catch. With this in mind his parents hesitated whenever it came to buying new devices for their home, for fear such items would end up being pulled apart and plundered. But this was a misplaced worry. Nothing they bought ever failed. Or if it did it wasn’t because of their son. If any issue did arise: he’d find the fault, he’d fix it.

  And so it was, eventually, as with nearly every other household, they bought a family transporter unit and had it installed.

  ¶

  ‘And it’s them you blame? Ultimately? Your mother and father?’

  The man was very large, dressed all in black. His suit and shirt were so deep a black you couldn’t see where one fold of cloth overlapped another. The black tie and black collar and black neck above all blended together into a singular shadow. As he talked his broad head swayed slightly, as though its great weight was precariously balanced. He stood in the corner of the room where the light was at its dimmest. His eyes were not visible, a pair of dark glasses obscured them, though the small round lenses stayed fixed upon the boy all the while the man spoke.

  ‘My parents? Ultimately? Hmm. I don’t think so. If I tugged on that thread where would it all end? At my birth? Theirs? At the beginnings of the whole human race? At existence itself? No. I can’t allow myself to think like that. I don’t even blame the manufacturers. I don’t suppose I blame anyone. Not even me. Why would I? Blame seems, hmm, it seems the wrong word somehow.’

  The boy was tall and pale, with spindly limbs and long dark hair that ran in soft wavy locks to the tops of his shoulders. He sat on his wooden stool with his slippered feet perched on the chair’s upper rung so that he could lean his forearms easily upon the points of his knees. He wore a pale blue boiler suit. It fitted him badly, even after being turned up at all four cuffs and cinched around the waist with a canvas belt. He didn’t look directly at the man as they spoke. He would gaze at the opposite wall, or the floor, or the caged light-fitting above, addressing his words to the air.

  ‘I understand that’s what they want: someone to blame. That’s up to them, I suppose. And maybe, yes, maybe they’re right to want it.’

  ‘You don’t have to say such things. There is nothing you need to believe any more. Nothing to accept.’ The man shifted. For a brief moment he leaned forward from his corner and the lights overhead caught upon him but didn’t soften the blackness of his form, they only made that blackness seem more stark, cutting a man-shaped hole in the paler surround. He settled his body back against the wall. ‘You have no obligations. Repentance will not change the situation. They cannot be seen to go back on their word. This is not a matter of mercy. It is one of example. Its intent is to deter.’

  The boy gave a short sniff of a laugh. He swivelled his eyes surreptitiously upwards, glancing at the ceiling corners, marking out the fine black holes: microphones, optics, etc. He knew he was not speaking in confidence. He knew they’d be eager for him to let slip something of use. But there was nothing to let slip. Nothing more than what he’d already told them.

  On the table in front of the boy was a clipboard. It held a single printed sheet. A menu. He looked down at the long list of options, an empty tick box standing ready at the end of each line.

  ‘And if I don’t want anything on here?’

  ‘It is but a guide. Some can’t think what to choose, can’t think of food in such a circumstance. A bit of prompting, a little triggered recognition, they start to recall those things they used to like. Or perhaps they see something they always wanted to try.’

  The boy unclipped the sheet and turned it over. Uncapping the felt-tipped pen provided, he began writing down his choice.

  ¶

  The new unit was to be housed in their old walk-in larder. Installation was quick and efficient. A team of men came and assembled the apparatus on the kitchen floor before sliding the whole chamber very slowly into its allotted space, as easily as if they were fitting a new washing machine. Cabling was laid, checks were made, and soon it was all up and running and ready to go.

  The unit fitted its hole very snugly. It would be hard for the boy to get at if he wanted a proper look, but not impossible. He showed little interest in the device for a few weeks, aside from occasional use. But when his parents had gone out one afternoon, and knowing they’d not be back for several hours, he wheeled his ungainly computer into the kitchen, located the service port on the transporter unit, and plugged in.

  As simple as that. He didn’t even try to mask his actions. He wasn’t going to do anything. He only wanted to look.

  He sat for an age, watching the data flow by on his screen. It was a strange language, but there were aspects he recognised, patterns that revealed a clear linguistic structure. So the boy sat and watched, and he learned, and he saw after a while that something about the coding was not quite right.

  ¶

  ‘You saw a fault. You wished to correct it. This is understandable. Many have done worse.’

  ‘Not really a fault. Not as such.’

  The menu had been taken away and several stiff foil containers now lay upon the table, each with a thin cardboard cover. The boy was leaning forward, examining symbols scribbled between the oily stains that leaked through from beneath. He hovered his hands over each container in turn, moving his palms between them, never touching foil or lid. Then he sat back again and folded his arms.