Written circa 2000
The train was early that day, and many would consider that to be lucky, but this was nothing to do with luck.
The November night was bitterly cold and all across the rain-washed countryside people were rushing home from work. The thunderous rattling of the downpour upon the roofs of southern England ensured that only the brave and foolish went out that night.
The 18:35 train from Edinburgh to Kings Cross sped through the dreary night, crammed full of every kind of passenger imaginable. But there were some other, more unimaginable passengers too.
As Blaine stared across the carriage at Carver, he was convinced that this time they would get him. Carver hadn’t spotted him yet, and Blaine intended to keep it that way.
Blaine’s jacket beeped, and he discreetly removed the communications device from his pocket. Written across the screen was a message from Hoyle.
BUFFER TRANSFER PRIMED
‘Damn! Too early!’
Blaine wanted Hoyle to hold off activating the buffer transfer unless there was absolutely nothing else they could do to apprehend Carver.
Blaine knew he couldn’t respond to Hoyle’s message here, not without Carver noticing him, so he put the device back in his pocket, stood up, and made his way to the toilets at the end of the carriage. Once inside he extracted a microphone.
‘Hoyle, can you hear me?’
Hoyle stood in the driving rain on the rails of the track, a few minutes up the line. He would only have one chance, and he didn’t want to ruin it. Blaine was ruining it. His voice spluttered over the communication device.
‘Hoyle?’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t activate the buffer. I think I can apprehend Carver.’
‘Blaine how many times…’
‘Hoyle!’ Blaine interrupted, ‘Let me try. If it goes wrong then you can activate it, okay?’
Hoyle remained silent for a moment. He let out a sigh, ‘Okay.’
Blaine stared at himself in the broken mirror of the carriage toilet. He could see lines of tired weariness on his face. He needed sleep.
He opened the door and began to walk back to his seat.
Carver was gone.
Blaine scanned the carriage. No sign of him.
‘Damn.’
He spun on his heels and approached the toilet again. Locking himself in, he activated the device once more and contacted Hoyle.
‘Hoyle! He’s gone. I took my eyes off him for just a few seconds.’
‘Don’t worry Blaine,’ crackled Hoyle’s voice, ‘I’ve got it covered.’
Hoyle could hear the train coming. He raised his head to the noise, and moved his index finger over the button on the binary light device in his hand.
Through the wind and rain he could see the glistening light upon the tracks as the train sped round the bend two-thirds of a mile away.
He was soaked through to the bone. The water permeated every part of him, but at that moment none of it mattered; Carver would soon be his.
As the train came closer, rushing forth with brutal speed, Hoyle spoke to Blaine through his device, ‘Good luck, Blaine. I’ll see you in there.’
A few seconds later Blaine’s voice returned to him, ‘Just do it, Hoyle.’
Hoyle pressed the TRANSFER button and there was a strange buzz-whistling sound. A sound that was all too familiar to Hoyle.
The train started to dissolve in front of him. Streaks of light began to populate the contours of the carriages and wheels. A black spot emerged within the train, and it expanded to fill Hoyle’s vision. For a short moment he was gazing into a rarely seen realm. Because the particles that made up the train were being accelerated to the speed of light, to a point where they could just be nudged beyond.
Then the hole consumed the train, and all Hoyle could see was the railway track stretching off into the distance around the bend. It had all happened in a fraction of a second.
Where before he could hear the sound of the train rushing toward him – sure to splatter him had he not activated the device – all he could hear now was the howling of the wind, and the drumming of the rain on his coat.
Hoyle stepped off the track and walked up the bank. He clicked on his communication device.
‘Blaine? Are you still with us?’
After a brief moment Blaine’s voice reassured him.
‘Yes I’m still here. Good work. Now get in here and help me find the bastard.’
Blaine had been holding his breath throughout the transfer. Even though he was perfectly safe, the process put him on edge every time. He let out a sigh of relief when Hoyle’s voice came over the device. Hoyle was on his way.
By now the passengers would be panicking. Blaine exited the toilet and made his way through the train. All around him people were pressed up against the window, looking out into the blackness. Surprisingly, they weren’t particularly panicked. Yes, they were confused and agitated, but they weren’t screaming, not like the time they transferred that BA flight over Greenland.
When he arrived at the driver’s cabin, he rapped on the door. When it opened, Blaine saw a pale-faced gentleman aged about fifty. He looked confused.
‘You better let me use your public announcement system,’ said Blaine.
Without the slightest change in his facial expression, the driver took a step back and let Blaine into the cabin. The poor man was in a state of shock.
Blaine pressed the button to make his voice heard across the train.
‘May I have your attention please?’
Behind him, along the carriage, he could see people turning away from the windows and looking along towards the driver’s cabin.
‘Please do not be alarmed. I would like to reassure you that you are all perfectly safe. This is not a hijack, and you are not hostages, but if you all do as I say then this whole thing will be over very shortly.’
He paused for a moment to let his words sink in.
‘Can you all please return to your seats and await further instruction.’
The door at the opposite end of the carriage slid open and Hoyle came through, marching along the aisle towards him. He had a stern look on his face. When he drew up next to Blaine, he addressed his partner sternly.
‘You’re wasting time. Let’s find Carver. He would have known we were on to him right from the moment we transferred.’
‘Carver isn’t going anywhere. He’s stuck in the buffer until we let him out. And the only way he’s getting out of here is in our custody. The train won’t be any later, no matter how long this takes.’
‘What if he has a binary light device? Have you considered that? He could reverse this train straight out of the buffer and escape.’
‘If he had one he would have used it by now.’
Blaine turned to the public announcer and spoke into it.
‘We will shortly be continuing our journey to London, after I’ve conducted a little test.’
The driver plucked up the courage to speak, ‘What the hell’s going on here?’
Blaine stared at him for a moment, ‘Okay look. We’ve transferred the train into the universal buffer. It’s a sort of holding zone for things. It’s on the other side of light.’
The driver stared blankly at Blaine.
‘It’s complicated,’ said Blaine. ‘You see, we’re looking for someone. His name’s Carver.’
‘Have you seen him?’ interrupted Hoyle.
‘Carver’s a criminal. He’s sort of an interstellar rebel-scientist who stole some stuff from a – well, a planet. Look I don’t expect you to believe me. It doesn’t matter either way, but I may need your co-operation. You see, this-‘
Blaine pulled his binary light device out of his pocket.
‘This is a binary light device. It uses a fast pulse of light that can corrupt certain files in-.’ He was struggling to explain his life’s work in one sentence, ‘You see, Carver’s a member of a species of bio-mechanoid organisms called the Pheltae, and because half a Pheltae’s brain is computerised we can use the device to update files and install viruses.’
Hoyle spoke, ‘Look driver, this is none of your business, we’re only telling you this because we like you. Just keep your head while we examine the passengers and we can all go home.’
‘Don’t you know what he looks like?’ asked the driver. ‘Why do you need that device?’
‘You know what?’ said Hoyle, ‘I changed my mind. I don’t like you.’
‘Look,’ said Blaine, ‘You see, Carver – or rather the whole Pheltae species – they’re shape shifters. We don’t have a grasp on their shape shifting ability so we have to use the binary light device to find them.’
‘They’re all assholes,’ said Hoyle, ‘Every last one of them. Blaine and me. We reel ‘em in.’
The passengers were – for the most part – very co-operative. Some of the children put up a resistance to the test, mainly because they didn’t like the flashing light in their eyes. For one woman, the binary light device triggered an epileptic fit that Hoyle spent twenty minutes trying to help her out of.
The device was fairly simple to use. Blaine had mastered the art of Pheltae spotting within two days of joining the team. When placed over the subject’s eye, the device would trigger a series of binary light programs, which would update the software in the computerised portion of a Pheltae’s brain. For a non-Pheltae, the process would be harmless. For a Pheltae – and this was the method used to weed the filthy race out – the Pheltae would experience a series of “compliance-spasms” which would result in a sensory overload – paralysing the Pheltae.
Blaine packed up his device and stood. He was at the end of the last carriage on the train. He had spent four hours testing every passenger, meticulously attaching the binary light device to every one of them.
None of them was a Pheltae. None of them was Carver.
Had he missed a passenger? Was Carver hiding somewhere? He couldn’t go outside. The universal buffer was surrounded by an event horizon, which was unreachable. It was like a black hole. Anyone trying to get to the edge of the buffer would be travelling for eternity, because his journey time would always be doubled, even though the buffer was microscopic in size.
No, Carver was on the train somewhere, and Blaine knew he couldn’t send the train back across the light threshold until they’d got him.
He made his way through the carriages, looking at the passengers as he passed. Trying to remember if he’d missed anyone.
The driver. He didn’t do the driver.
Blaine picked up speed as he made his way to the front carriage, bewildered passengers to his left and right. He lifted his microphone, ‘Hoyle, are you there?’
No response. Blaine began to run, jumping over a folded up pram and a couple of bags in the buffet car as he bolted through.
He found Hoyle lying dead in the drivers cabin. His skull split in two, and most of his brain spilled out across the floor. God knows what strange alien weapon had been used on him.
‘Dammit!’
Carver was too damn clever for them. They should have used three agents on this mission. Blaine raised his microphone and switched his binary light device to contact their ship, which was orbiting seven hundred kilometres above the Earth’s equator.
‘This is Blaine. Hoyle’s down. I need backup. The co-ordinates are…’
But that was all he managed, because the same alien tool that had been used on Hoyle, was now being used on Blaine. He didn’t even get a chance to turn to see his assailant. The last thing he felt was the binary light device being removed from his grip.
And the last things he saw were the railway and the trees fading back in, rushing by as the train sped through the night towards London.