Transition (47 page)

Looking carefully, comparing and searching, I think I can see what to do. It’s a little problematic, but I can’t spot a humane
alternative.

Turning the seat to face the open doorway, I sit back and put my hands up.

Ms Tobbing spins across the doorway, legs spread and slightly bent, gun levelled. Dark blue trouser suit, hair bunned. That’s
all I have time to confirm before she Tasers me and I end up on the floor, jerking and spasming. It’s more painful and distressing
than I imagined. I almost wish I’d chosen a different route through those futures, but the others were even bloodier. Not
that I’ll expect any thanks, of course.

The rest arrive mob-handed seconds after Ms Tobbing stops zapping me and Dr Jildeep himself administers a syringe full of
tranquilliser. I dare say they thought of including something supposed to stop me transitioning too, but those drugs can be
permanently damaging and they’ll want me intact.

Wait. This path leads to me killing most of them. Another set of futures bursts into my mind, one of the areas or volumes
I couldn’t see into clearly a minute earlier, but which – now that I’m closer to them – have become more distinct. Can I do what
this implies I can do? Seriously? I’m slipping away here; I need to decide fast. If I just think in through here—

Ms Tobbing spins across the doorway, legs spread and slightly bent, gun levelled. Dark blue trouser suit, hair bunned. Combined
earpiece and microphone. Nice blue blouse. That’s all I have time to confirm before she fires the Taser at me. I’ve used the
five seconds and the high-def clarity of my X-ray-specs vision of the palace to pull open a drawer, grab a long boxed roll
of aluminium foil and – knowing exactly the trajectory that the Taser’s two little barbs are going to take – feel them whack into
it, letting the gun’s charge go zapping down the wires to discharge harmlessly into the foil. My other hand is wrapped in
a kitchen towel taken from the same drawer; I use it to grab the wires connecting the barbs to the gun and yank them hard,
pulling the still-in-the-course-of-being-surprised Ms Tobbing towards me before she can think to let go of the Taser.

Well, now we find out if the future-path vision thing is going to work or not. According to what I’ve just visualised this
looks almost easy.

My hand closes round Ms Tobbing’s right wrist.

I sneeze suddenly, explosively.

My old self stares at me blankly.

Hmm. One of my more handsome incarnations. Though now with snot hanging from his nose. But not even a “Gesundheit.” Really.

I let go of the Taser’s trigger and the gun stops firing uselessly into the packet of foil, now fallen to the floor where
I – he – was standing a moment ago. I prise his fingers off my wrist. He smiles vaguely, then shakes his head, his expression
changes profoundly and he starts talking loudly in what I think is Slovenian (I have English, German, French, Italian, Mandarin).
I use the gun to smack him under the jaw, shutting the kitchen door on him as he’s still staggering backwards.

“Tobbing,” I tell the radio as I turn back down the corridor, letting the expended Taser cartridge fall to the floor and digging
a new one out of a pocket to snap onto the gun. “Just dropped an unidentified civilian in the kitchen.”

“Civilian? You sure?” Jildeep’s voice says. “There isn’t supposed to be anybody else here.”

“Well, I’m sure.”

“You still with him?”

“No, I’m heading—”

“Stay with him! Stay – get back there!”

“Oh, forget it,” I mutter.

Sneeze.

No, still no “Gesundheit.”

Same as before except this time I don’t use the radio, I just start jogging down the corridor. There’s some chatter about
somebody hearing a Taser go off, but when I’m asked I say I heard nothing. Being a woman is interesting. Moving feels different;
broader hips, I suppose, and altered weight distribution. Breasts move very slightly with each pace, but constrained. Sports
bra.

Two corners, two corridors and one door later I’m at the entrance to the jetty, cracking the door. I can see Gongova and the
blocker – a weedy-looking guy smoking a cigarette with a look of intense concentration. I Taser him and he falls into the waters
by the side of the moored launch. Gongova starts, turns, her hand goes for a gun inside her jacket, then she relaxes again
and stands there, the gun held loosely in her hand, pointing straight down at the jetty’s timbers. When Jildeep gets here
to see what’s been going on she’s going to shoot him in the groin for cheating on her with Tobbing (this is even true, so
not entirely all my own work). Appalled at what she has done she will then sit down and sob until this is all over. Which
will be in about two and a half minutes.

The weedy blocker guy will drag himself out of the canal coughing dirty water in about a minute, but he won’t be blocking
anything for a while and in the meantime the side of the palace he was covering is open.

What I’m doing here is conventionally impossible. You can’t transition into the mind of somebody who can themselves flit,
or indeed has ever flitted, even with help. The target individual has to be unAware. As long as they are in that sense innocent
and virginal, they’re completely vulnerable; as soon as they’ve completed a single transition, even an assisted one, even
one where they’ve simply been taken along for the ride, they’re immune. There would appear to be no exceptions to this rule
and it has become so accepted that the Concern has never thought to prepare its agents against the possibility of somebody
exercising this ability against them. So I can flit from mind to mind here and cause any internal mayhem I want with seeming
impunity.

I still don’t feel I can transition to a different reality altogether and so escape completely – at least not without an incentive
so immediate and powerful that I’d rather not subject myself to the experience in the first place – but if this new ability
is the trade-off, I’ll happily accept it.

In other words I still need septus, unless I’m feeling feeling very brave or especially desperate, but that shouldn’t be a
problem here; these guys ought to be loaded with it. I’d rather have the stuff in the box which Adrian is bringing from London,
because it’s Mrs Mulverhill’s finest, untainted with the contaminants that make it easy to trace the flitter, but I’ll take
these guys’ supply just in case.

Two of the people searching the upper floors realise they’ve always loved each other and have wasted far too much time already;
they fall to fucking on a hallway floor. Another stares fascinated at his own reflection in a bathroom mirror, like he’s never
seen himself before. Another loses herself in the depths of a – to be fair – fabulously patterned Persian rug – a Kashan, I’d guess – while
another decides to take off all his clothes and dive into the Grand Canal from the roof. The guy at the controls of the launch
on the canal sees this, decides he’s in love with the world and vows never to use an internal combustion engine ever again.
He takes the keys out of the ignition and drops them into the milky-green waves with a wistful smile. The other guy in the
launch just falls into a deep and peaceful sleep. One of the people guarding the calles is absolutely convinced he’s just
seen his years-dead father walk past and takes off after him. The rest are still covered by the second blocker, but by the
time Jildeep’s even half worked out what’s going on I’ve arrived at the entrance hall and Tasered him as well. Dr Jildeep
escapes, skittering down a narrow service corridor – it was him or the blocker with the Taser – but that’s okay.

I’m in Jildeep’s mind now and discovering something galling (I mean apart from the fact he wanted to shoot me in the legs
just there, even though his orders forbade this). None of these people have any septus on them. They’re in here clean, just
in case I do overpower one of them and take their supply from them and disappear. They were thinking about a conventional
physical whack over the back of the head rather than my rather more subtle consciousness manipulation, but the same precautionary
principle defeats either, which is irritating.

They’ll be approached by somebody unknown to them after the operation’s over and get their supplies that way. Ha! These poor
fuckers are here on faith and are going to have to stand around waiting for the Man. That’s too bad for them and, as it turns
out, for me. So I still need to rendezvous with my Londoner mate Ade after all. This cuts back my options significantly, but
even a fairly deep rummage through Dr Jildeep’s mind finds nothing that can help the situation. I suppose I could stay inside
one of their minds for longer than I was intending to, but long before their supplier arrives they’ll have the blockers up
and functioning again, or – if I disable these two blockers permanently – they’ll bring in new ones and I’ll be trapped at best.
More likely by far a good blocker will spot the wrong ’un in their midst like a badly bruised thumb and I’ll be caught.

Whatever; with the second blocker down nobody has the power to stop me and there’s no point interfering with anybody else.
I’m free to go.

A man – an unremarkable man, about thirty, black hair, medium build – sitting at the stern of a passing vaporetto bound for Santa
Lucia sees a naked man run along the dark roof of an impressive white and black palazzo on the western side of the Canalasso.
Along with the rest of the passengers – now turning to each other, muttering, saying things like “Oh, my goodness” and “Eh?
Cosa?” and so on – he turns to watch as the man throws himself from the roof and hurtles into the water just in front of a water
taxi, which swerves and goes astern to rescue him, even though he does seem rather intent on swimming down the canal towards
San Marco. Nearby, a man in an idling launch turns off the engine and casually drops the keys overboard.

The unremarkable man at the stern of the passing vaporetto looks surprised for a few moments, then sneezes.

(Italian, English, Greek, Turkish, Russian, Mandarin.)

Mavis Bocklite, a genial pensioner from Baxley, Georgia, USA, who is sitting across from him, says, “Bless you, sir.”

Finally! I smile and nod. “Grazie, signora.”

Patient 8262

I
think I am well,” I tell the broad doctor who had the dolls in her desk. I know her name now. She is called Dr Valspitter. “I think I am okay now to leave.” My grasp of the local language has improved markedly. It is called Itic. Dr Valspitter looks at me, lips pursed, brows gathered in the middle as though by a pulled thread. “I appreciate everything all here have done for me,” I tell her.

“What do you remember of your past life?” the doctor asks me.

“Not very much,” I confess.

“What would you do if you returned to the outside world?”

“I would look for a place to stay and for work to do. I am able to work.”

“Not at your old job, perhaps.”

“Ordinary labourer. I could do ordinary labour. I know building sites. That I could do. Ordinary labouring.”

“You feel you could do this?”

“Yes, I feel I could do this.”

“How would you find a place to live?”

“I would go to the Municipal Available Local Lodgings Clearing Office.”

Dr Valspitter looks approving, nods and makes a note. “Good. And how would you find work?”

The obvious next question. “I would approach building site managers, but also I would go to the Municipal Local Employment Exchange.”

The doctor makes another note. I think I’m doing all right here. I need to. I have to get out. I have to get away.

Last night I found I could not sleep and took another small-hours wander along the corridor, down the stairwell and along to what I still thought of as the silent ward. I could not help it; I felt drawn there. I don’t think that’s what woke me up but once I was awake I found myself thinking obsessively about the rows of still beds with their vacant-eyed, near-silent patients, and the contrast with their appearance in daylight when they were awake. I couldn’t think what good padding down to look at them would do, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do either and maybe just seeing them for real rather than in my mind’s eye would let me get back to sleep eventually.

So I went, I looked – they were all just the same, though there were cards and personal items on the bedside cabinets and a few chairs scattered throughout the ward, all the things I’d convinced myself hadn’t been present on my first two visits but which I suppose were always there – then I came back again.

There was somebody in my room. I had left the door closed and my light off, but now I could see some light showing beneath the door, reflecting dimly off the shiny floor. At first, of course, I thought it would just be the duty nurse again.

Then I saw more movement, at the far end of the corridor, somewhere inside the day room. A pale figure, moving across the dark space, disappearing then reappearing and coming towards the low lights of the corridor. The figure in the day room emerged into the half-light of the night-dimmed corridor lights and was revealed as the duty nurse, walking back to his desk at the end of the corridor holding a magazine and flicking its pages, intent on it. He did not look up, so did not see me.

I felt a sudden terror and shrank back against the wall as far as I could, hiding behind a metal cupboard holding fire-fighting equipment. The duty nurse sat down at his station at the far end of the corridor, feet up on the desk, still flicking through the magazine. He stretched out to one side – I could hear the wheels of his chair squeaking – and turned on the radio at a low volume. Tinny pop music sounded.

I could no longer see the door to my room. Who was in there if not the nurse? Was it my former attacker, whoever had tried to interfere with me? Perhaps I ought to go to the door, fling it open, confront them, the noise and commotion of course attracting the attention of the duty nurse. Or perhaps I should just approach the duty nurse directly and tell him there was somebody in my room, let him deal with whoever it was.

I had decided on the latter course and was about to step out from behind the fire-equipment cupboard and walk towards the duty nurse’s station, when, from the far end of the corridor, I heard a toilet flush.