Irregular Verbs (32 page)

He was nearly blind now, and realized he would have to leave that question for later. Just about ten metres away, buried in a fissure that ran most of the way across the island, was one of their two bolt holes—caches of emergency supplies, in case they should be caught outside the shelters. Something in there might help him, if he could get to it.

Though this end of the island sloped more gently it was still a rough climb, especially since he could not see his feet. He had to be near the fissure now: he dropped to his knees and began to crawl, feeling the ground ahead of him as the world outside faded to white. Finally it was gone entirely, the only evidence of it the wind howling in his pickups.

His left hand touched something softer than rock, and he knew he had made it: the fissure was one of the only places on the island where snow collected. Stan thrust his arm into the snow as far as it would go, slowly crawled along the fissure until he felt hard plastic. Still fighting to keep his breathing even he cleared the snow off the bolt hole’s lid and began to pry it open, both arms fighting against the stiff hinge. For a moment all his strength left him; after a second’s rest he tried again, a loud crack telling him that he had not opened but broken it.

Stan reached into the box, felt around for the tools and supplies that lay inside. There was no question now of repairing the seal, not without being able to see what he was doing. Instead he fumbled for the ice-knife he knew was in there, part of the igloo-building kit, and drew its butt end sharply towards his visor.

It did not feel right, swinging a sharp, heavy object at his face, and his first few blows fell lightly. On the fourth try he closed his eyes, brought the knife full force into the blinded visor. At first he could see no effect, but as he kept swinging cracks appeared, lines of darkness crossing the pure white of his vision. He switched hands and swung again, bashing the wooden handle against the plastic until finally it splintered and cracked.

Now it was truly dark: he had no IR to see by, no night-vision. At least the storm had stopped, just enough light falling from the hazy sky for him to make out the shape of the ground around him. As he stood and looked around, the wind cold on his face, Stan suddenly realized he was bright where the visor had broken. He scooped snow up from the fissure and packed it into his visor and rose again, his face burning, and tried to sight the trail that would lead up to the flare station.

The flare would be easy enough to find, probably only twenty metres or so away, but it was also the one place a Dane would be sure of finding him. He had no choice: he didn’t know if Gord had succeeded in firing the morning flare, so if he didn’t fire this one nearly a year spent on the island could go to waste.

Despite his freezing face Stan forced himself to move slowly, again being given unwanted time to think. What could have happened to Gord? If there was a Dane on the island, why now? It wasn’t the longest night of the year, or the coldest day; those had both passed weeks ago. There was nothing he could think of that might have upset the balance of power, unless it was some new technological development—

“Son of a bitch,” Stan said, cursed himself as his exhalations puffed out like word balloons. That had to be it: the Danes had perfected the heat-silenced gun.

There were two reasons nobody had expected an attack. The first was that the suits, when they were working, made Stan and Gord almost invisible; since any Danish operation would have to be covert, not an all-out assault, that by itself would probably be enough to prevent it. The Danes probably had similar suits, which brought up the other reason: every time a rifle was fired the barrel got hot, lighting up the shooter in IR. That meant that even if you could sight your target you had just one shot before you made yourself extremely visible, and given the Kevlar layer of the suits one shot was unlikely to finish anybody off.

Defence had spent a lot of time and money trying to solve the problem but eventually gave up, consoling themselves that the Danes had probably failed as well. But what if they hadn’t? What if the Canadian presence on the island had pushed them to develop some way to instantly cool the gun barrel, or mask its heat signature? With a heat silencer you could fire any number of shots without giving your own position away—and heavy though they were, the suits weren’t made to stand up to serious fire.

By now Stan’s heart was beating fast, his strides quickening as the flare station came into view. He looked from side to side; seeing nothing in the dark he broke into a run. At the edge of his vision something moved, and he froze: covered his face with his arm, hoping to block whatever heat was coming from his face as the snow melted. The storm had picked up again, making too much noise for him to hear anything else. He turned to face into the wind, dropped his arm and waited until his face began to numb. Then he slowly turned around, watching.

He started as he saw a shape, tall and clear against the sky; let out a breath when he realized it was the flare station, just a few metres away. Once more covering his eyes with his arm he walked blindly for it, feeling ahead of him with his free hand until he reached it.

The flare station was a simple structure, mostly wood and stone, a framework tower three metres tall. In the middle sat the flare cannon, just a tube and a foot-trigger; two hourglasses, one red and one blue, were hung from the frame on horizontal spits. They were meant as a backup in case the time displays in their suits failed, as electronic things so often did here, and also as a sign that the flare had been fired: once that was done they turned their hourglass over. Both the glass and the sand inside were made of synthetics that did not expand or contract with temperature, so that they would reliably tick out twenty-four hours every day. The sand was supposed to be luminous as well, but at this time of year it did not absorb enough light to glow. Without his visor, Stan could see neither whether Gord had turned his over nor if his had run out.

The storm had let up once more, and something on the ground shone with a hint of starlight. Moving slowly, Stan moved to see what it was. He crouched down, felt the smooth barrel of a rifle. Once it was off the ground he could see that it was a Ross Polar, which made it Gord’s: the Danes used Arctic Magnums.

Stan straightened up, looked around once more. If the rifle was here and Gord was nowhere nearby, then he had probably dropped it after firing, to escape its heat signature. Wishing he could tell whether the barrel was still hot Stan hung the rifle from the tower by its shoulder strap, scanned the horizon once more. Now that the storm had cleared the ocean reflected the dim light from the sky, surrounding the dark rock of the island and stretching out as far as he could see. If Gord hadn’t been able to make it to the base he might have gone out there: in their training they had learned that sea ice was a better place to make a shelter, at least in winter, since the liquid water beneath was warmer than the ground. Even if he had still had his visor, though, it would have been impossible to spot anyone among the endless frozen waves.

He turned back to the hourglasses. He needed light to see whether his hourglass was near empty, whether Gord’s had been turned, but anything that let him see would let the Dane see him. On the other hand, if someone weren’t expecting light. . . .

Leaning against the flare station, Stan drew his flare pistol with his left hand while shading his eyes with his free arm. He turned towards the hourglasses and fired the flare away, out into the dark; in the brief light he just had time to see that his hourglass, the blue one, was nearly empty. The satellite was overhead, its eye on the flare station for no more than ten minutes. Hoping the Dane, if he was out there, was still blinded by the flare Stan turned his back on the tower and hit the foot-trigger.

A sizzling ball of fire flew straight up out of the cannon, for a moment illuminating the whole island. In that second Stan saw a dark shape off to his right, spun towards it and brought up his rifle. His stiff and clumsy fingers found the oversized trigger and he fired without thinking, heard a dull wet sound that told him he had hit his target.

“Shit!” Stan said, twisting to shrug out of his rifle’s shoulder-strap. Now he had two useless rifles, at least until he could be sure Gord’s had cooled. He circled to the other side of the flare station, keeping his back to it, and tried to slow his breathing. The snow on his face had melted; he was unarmed, visible, and had just marked his position for the world to see. He brought his forearms up together to cover his face and chest, waiting for the volley of shots that were sure to come, forced his stuttering breaths down into his mask so that no wisps of steam would betray him.

Eventually his heart slowed, and he risked a look out between his arms. Why hadn’t the Dane attacked? He would never get a better opportunity. Unless—Stan remembered the wet sound he had heard when he fired. If Stan’s shot had burst one of the Dane’s gel packs he would be leaking heat, and if the Dane didn’t know Stan’s visor was broken he would think Stan could see him. That was why he hadn’t fired back: a hot weapon could be dropped, but you couldn’t shake a bright spot on your chest.

Where was he, then? Not still lurking out there, if he thought Stan could see him. He would have to go for shelter, somewhere he thought he could repair his suit or just make a stand. That meant either Base Hearn or Base Franklin. Stan moved slowly around the flare station, keeping his back to it, spotted one of the inuksuit a half-dozen metres away. There was only one of those on the plateau, the one they called Hulla or “turn right,” which pointed the way to Base Franklin. The other way, then, led back to Base Hearn.

During the storm snow had piled up against the flare station; Stan picked up a double handful and packed it into his broken visor, leaving just enough room to see out. This time he did not feel the cold, his skin numb to the snow’s touch. Now he was invisible again.

At this end of the island the edge of the plateau was a sharp drop, nearly two metres to the next ridge. Only at the point marked by the inukshuk was the slope manageable, but Stan could not see it: either it had been knocked down or the night was simply too dark. He traced the edge carefully, the ground a murky darkness below, until he felt sure he had sighted the heat baffle that hid Base Hearn. He sat, dangled his legs over the edge and slid down, not knowing how far he was going to fall until his feet hit the ground. His right knee flexed painfully with the impact and he fell onto his side, the wind knocked out of him and rising like a cloud. He stood up carefully, sighted the heat baffle and began limping towards it, once more following the path of least resistance.

He would not have noticed the heat baffle if he had not known it was there. They had built it from their supply crates, then covered it with the same fabric as their suits so that it looked like part of the island. He crept towards it, holding his breath. His heart thudded heavily in his ears with every step.

A thought occurred to him, and he stopped. The passage between the baffle and the base was narrow, just over a half-metre wide; if the Dane was waiting for him there, rather than inside the base, he would be impossible to miss—and the suit would not protect him from a few well-grouped shots to the chest, or a single lucky one to the face. It was more likely that the Dane had gone inside—he couldn’t wait forever—but there was no way for Stan to know. If he went in there he might be stepping right into the face of death.

A moment later he thought of a worse possibility. What if there was no Dane? What if it was Gord?

He hadn’t wondered before how the Dane had come to the island—he had supposed it was by snowmobile or dogsled, which he had left out on the ice—but now it felt suspicious. And how had he known how to reprogram the heatlock to Base Franklin? How had he made his way around the island so easily?

But if it was Gord, why was he doing it? Was it just that the dark, the cold, the isolation had driven him mad?

Had
he
been driven mad?

Had he mixed up which inukshuk he was looking at, at the very beginning? Had the heatlock at Base Franklin simply been jammed? He had fired at a shape in the dark, though: if it wasn’t the Dane it had to have been Gord. Gord might think he was the Dane, or just that he had tried to kill him. That he was crazy.

Stan stood there for a long time. He was starting to feel hot, beads of sweat forming on his forehead and dripping down, frozen, into his eyes. The gel packs in the suit were near their limit: he would have to take it off soon, let them cool down again, or they would overload and start to shed heat. Finally he decided what he had to do.

It made no difference whether it was Gord or a Dane, who had attacked whom, who was mad and who was sane. He could not risk the narrow passage between the heat baffle and the base, and Base Franklin was closed to him. It didn’t matter, though. All that mattered was that the flare was fired at least once a day. He only had to make it a few more months, until spring came and his year was up.

Stan turned, started to make his way back towards the bolt hole. He could not stay on the island. It was too small and exposed, and without a shelter the rock would draw heat from him so quickly he would be dead by morning. Better to go out on the ice where it was warmer, build an igloo from the snow that was out there, piled up against the waves. He had been trained to build one in just a few hours, and once inside he would be warm enough to survive. In the brief light of the next noon he might even be able to repair his suit: there were tools in the bolt hole, a spare faceplate he could put on when he had time and privacy, as well as a stash of flares and emergency rations.

He made sure to take more than he thought he would need. After all, he might be gone for some time.

Dave glanced over his shoulder, leaned in close so that his body blocked the screen. He had been sifting through old TV comedies for weeks now, screening every episode frame by frame for inconsistencies, but today he had made a real find—a few lines of dialogue on Family Ties that referred to Richard Nixon.

There was no predicting where remnants like this would appear. The device that had changed time was more like a shotgun than a scalpel: it had established the present its makers wanted through hundreds of different changes to the timeline, some contradicting others. The result was a porous, makeshift new history that made little sense, but the old one had been thoroughly smashed to bits. It was those bits that remained that he and his whole department were tasked by the new history’s makers with finding and erasing.

Most of what he found was much more innocuous, references to things that had little ideological power but simply had not existed in the new history. This one, though, had meaning, a direct reference to a political event in the old history. He looked around again, drew a tape from the bottom drawer of his desk, slipped it into the second recorder and hit COPY. He could feel his heart beating more quickly as the seconds ticked by, felt the pressure of seen and unseen eyes on his back; finally the inconsistency was over, ending as abruptly as it began, and he was able to breathe.

The danger past, he felt a rush of exhilaration. It had been more than a month since he had had anything to present to the group, but this would more than make up for the dry spell. He logged the original clip and then deleted it, consigning another inconsistency to the dustbin of history. He decided it was no use trying to work for a while, after the excitement of making and hiding the copy, so he got up out of his chair and went to the kitchen.

Maura was there, biting open a bulb of milk and squeezing it into her coffee, a few strands of her long red hair loose and stuck to her mug. She looked up as he came in and smiled, and for a second he thought about reaching out and brushing her hair off of the cup; instead he simply gestured to it. She smiled again, her cheeks colouring a bit, and freed it with a toss of her head.

“Working hard?” she asked.

He shrugged. “No harder than directed,” he said.

She laughed, threw him what he thought was a conspiratorial look. Maura was one of the few people in the office he could talk to at all: most of the others were either Party members striving to be noticed or else had been ground down to grey dullness by the endless frame-by-frame searches that filled their days. “Big plans for the weekend?” she asked.

“Nothing too exciting. I might have to buy new shoes.”

“There’s a sale at Ogilvy’s, I think,” Maura said. “You should try there.” She blew on her coffee, took a sip. “I might go there this weekend myself.”

Dave nodded. Could he bring himself to suggest that they go together, maybe out for lunch or a drink afterward? Was she fishing for that? When he opened his mouth, though, his earlier confidence had left him, and he felt the moment pass in silence. “Maybe I’ll see you there,” he said at last.

“Sure,” she said, moved to step past him. “I’d better get back to work, before Chadwick sees I’m away from my station.”

“Me too.”

Maura frowned. “Shouldn’t you get your coffee first?”

“Oh—right,” Dave said, laughed. “Well, see you later.”

“Bye.”

He watched her go, trying not to be too obvious about it, then turned to the coffee machine. Stupid, he thought—but had he been wrong in seeing something there, hearing an invitation? If only he hadn’t lost his nerve. . . . After tonight’s meeting, he thought, and the reception his find would get, he would have confidence to spare. Tomorrow he would try again, and this time he would push the conversation as far as it would go.

The rest of the day passed slowly, but finally it was over. After checking again to make sure no-one was looking Dave ejected the tape from the second recorder, slipped it into his briefcase and went to clock out. He put on his coat and his outdoor shoes, stepped outside. The snow had finally been cleared, three days after the storm, and already the banks were grey with dirt. A half-dozen cars, their ancient chassis recovered with plastic shells in jolly hues, moved slowly down the street; like the road the sidewalk was slick with ice, the cold seeping right through his thin plastic shoes as he turned left, headed for downtown.

Halfway down the first block his right shoe cracked. Looks like I will be shoe shopping tomorrow after all, he thought to himself as he crouched down, opened his briefcase and took out some briefing papers; separating out one page he folded it and then stuffed it into his shoe, hoping it would keep out the slush until he had reached his destination.

As he began to straighten up Dave noticed someone behind him, half-hidden behind the high stairway leading to the Justice building: a tall man in a dark coat, looking nonchalant but coincidentally stopped at the same time as he was. Careful not to look too long at the man, Dave set out again, starting on a zigzag path once he was out of the government district and into downtown. Here the streets were more crowded with pedestrians, most dressed in bright colours that fought against the creeping grey mist. The new history weighed relatively lightly on its subjects: they were still free to shop, to enrich themselves as best they could, to wear or consume what they liked—and for most people that was enough.

After a dozen twists and turns he risked a glance back behind him. Confident that he had lost his shadower—if indeed the man had been following him at all—he returned to his original route and made his way to the meeting place. This week they were gathering at Paul Beatty’s house; Paul, an electrician, was one of the few members of the group who could be sure they weren’t being watched. Paul was already there, of course—he had the freedom to make his own hours, and always quit work early when the meeting was to be at his place—and as Dave rounded the corner he saw two figures silhouetted in the light of Paul’s open door. Dave knew Gilberto Lorca by his slouch hat and ever-present umbrella, but he did not recognize the young woman with him. He waved but they did not see him, and he was forced to knock on the door when he got there. Dave stood still, careful to be in full view of the spy hole, until the door opened.

“C’mon in,” Paul said. He was wearing jeans and a heavy sweater, as usual, and a pair of thick-framed black glasses around whose arms were twisted wires of various colours. “We’re just about to start.”

Dave followed Paul into the hallway and took off his shoes, careful not to worsen the crack in the right one, then hung his coat on the crowded hook. “Am I the last?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Paul said, not turning back as he spoke. “We may not get anyone else. Give it five more minutes.”

Nodding, Dave followed into the living room. Gil and the woman Dave didn’t know were already seated on the couch, another man next to them and a half-dozen others in chairs around the room. Dave knew most of them by face but not by name. They each knew as few names as possible: this was dangerous work they were engaged in, committing a crime so grave the law could not even name it. They were studying history.

“Why don’t we get started,” Gil said, his tone making it a statement rather than a question. Gil had recruited the earliest members—it was he who had brought Dave in, back when Dave had been an undergraduate studying the new history—and he had a tendency to hold court at meetings, even when they were at other people’s homes.

“Fine,” Paul said, taking a seat in the chair nearest to the front door.

Dave sat down as well, his briefcase in his lap; his fingers played on the catches, waiting for his chance to tell the others about his find.

“My young friend here has made a very exciting discovery,” Gil said. He turned to the woman sitting squeezed between him and the arm of the black leather couch. “My dear, why don’t you tell everyone about it?”

Dave’s fingers gripped his briefcase as the woman stood. She was not tall, just an inch or two over five feet, and a bit heavy: she wore a blue mock-neck sweater and a denim skirt that stopped just above the knee, her brown hair cut in a bob that had been allowed to grow shaggy. “Hello,” she said, glancing around the room. “I’m—”

“No names,” Paul said.

The girl nodded quickly. “Right,” she said, then twisted around and leaned down to pick up an artist’s portfolio that was leaned against the arm of the couch. “I’m— I’m a student in Professor— I mean—”

“It’s all right,” Gil said. “We all know
my
name.”

Dave frowned. He had been looking forward to this all day, had little patience now for Gil’s flirting with his latest protégé. “What do you have to show us?” he asked, trying to sound supportive of the girl while he hurried her along.

“Well—I—I found this at a yard sale.” The girl unzipped the portfolio carefully, drew out a flat, square object about a foot long on each side. It took Dave a moment to recognize it as an LP; the side facing him had only white text on a black background, too small to be read. The girl flipped the record over so that the front cover could be seen. It bore a picture of a blonde woman with a guitar, dressed in black leather, and some nonsense words in large, jagged letters. After a second Dave remembered to read them left to right: TOP HITS OF THE EIGHTIES.

“The number one hit for each year,” Gil said. “The whole decade.”

Dave leaned forward. Despite his jealousy he could not help feeling excited about this, a physical survival of the old history. It wasn’t just that such things were illegal; they were terribly fragile, even if they were plastic or metal. Accidents had a way of happening to them, as though the new timeline itself wanted them destroyed.

And now—the girl drew the record itself carefully out of the sleeve, eliciting a gasp from her attentive audience. Ten songs the new history had erased; ten songs that did not exist anywhere but on that flimsy piece of vinyl. . . .

After a few moments the excitement began to wear off. There was something different about this artefact, something dangerous. The other things they had collected were oddities, pieces that did not fit into the new history, but this directly challenged that history in a way its masters could not allow. If you were found with it they would not bother with self-criticism or re-education: you, it, and everyone who knew of it would simply disappear.

If any of the other group members shared Dave’s worry, though, he did not see it. They passed the record carefully around the room, reading song titles aloud and humming as the memory rushed back—four of them singing “Every Breath You Take,” piecing the words together. When it had gone all the way around the group, back to Gil and the beaming girl, the other finds were presented; a postcard from Washington, a Mutt and Jeff cartoon, a newspaper article about a baseball game between two teams that had never existed. When Dave’s turn finally came the excitement had been drained out of him and he presented it with little fanfare, responding with just a nod to Gil’s praise.

When the last artefact had been presented and logged—it was Gil who took the risk of recording everything, keeping the information in one place so that one day he would be able to reconstruct the old history—Paul brought out a bottle of Glenfiddich that would have been thirty years old if it had ever existed and poured out glasses for everyone in the room. Now the conversation turned back to Gil’s student and her find. Gil’s pride in both was clear, and while he still felt a gnawing worry in his stomach it was hard for Dave to remain jealous. Before long the meeting broke up and they started to head out, singly or in pairs, careful to space out their exits and take different routes away from the house.

Dave slept poorly that night, awoke feeling little rested; he brewed an extra cup of coffee, breaking his own rule, and paid for it as he was forced to find a restaurant halfway to work that would let him use their washroom. Finally he stopped at a doughnut shop, bought another cup of coffee in exchange for the privilege and made it to the Broadcast and Media building fifteen minutes late. Hoping his tardiness would go unnoticed, he made his way to his workstation and sat down.

“Lawson,” a voice came from behind him. It was Chadwick, his supervisor.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Dave said, trying to remember the excuse he had concocted on his way there.

“Never mind that. I’ve got someone here who wants to meet you.”

Dave nodded and stood up, followed Chadwick out of the work area and into the conference room. It was designed to house two dozen people but now held only one.

“This is Mr. Geraci,” Chadwick said, stepping aside to let Dave pass into the room. “He’s from upstairs. Does performance reviews.”

Geraci stood. He was a heavy man but all muscle; he wore a black plastic overcoat, a red plaid scarf crossed loosely over his chest. Two beige folders sat open on the table in front of him. “Mr. Lawson,” he said, reaching a hand out. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Dave said. Geraci’s hand was extended straight out across the long oval table, and Dave had to bend awkwardly to take it. “What do you—what can I do for you?”

“We have received good words about your performance,” Geraci said, not releasing Dave’s hand. “Your logs, your records are very good, without blots.”

“Thank you,” Dave said, struggling to unwind Geraci’s syntax. He glanced behind him, saw that Chadwick had left. “I do the best that I can.”

“Yes,” Geraci said. At last he let go of Dave’s hand, waved his own casually to let the sweat that had collected on Dave’s palm evaporate. “Your record shows that you are very diligent, very thorough.”

“Well—thank you.” This was no performance review, Dave knew that. A message was being sent, but what? If Geraci was with the Agency then everything he said was some kind of code; words that sounded positive, like diligent and thorough, instead were criticisms. Was he being told they knew about the clips he hadn’t reported? Or—his stomach clenched tight, bitter coffee rising up his throat—did they know about the record?