The Infinity Bridge

Part 20

The morning was so cold that Rob worried that the tears would freeze on his cheeks, like tiny icicles. The countryside had been dusted a fine white. Minute speckles of frost decorated the hedgerows and the trees and the bushes. The air was still and only faint sounds of distant traffic intruded upon the serenity of the scene. It was as if Mother Nature was holding her breath, pausing, in contemplation of the events that were about to unfold.

Rob leaned against the bonnet of the black Range Rover, trying to calm the turmoil in his head.

They’re dead. My kids are dead. The fact clattered around his skull, trampling over every other thought.

What had been Merlin’s exact words? It was important at times like this to be precise. He closed his eyes and tried to visualise the moment he had found out.

They had pulled off the road a mile short of Jodrell Bank—the famous radio-telescope—in Cheshire. They had driven in the dark from Birmingham, Merlin and Albert discussing various strategies and options. Every inquiry into what had happened to Sam and Ben had met with some excuse and Rob had got progressively more and more irritated.

‘Right,’ he had said, as Albert checked his handgun and combat knife. ‘Right. I’ve been given enough BS to fill a football stadium. Just give me an honest answer—if you are capable of doing that. Where are my lads?’

‘Rob, we need to...’

‘We don’t need to do anything, Albert. I’ve played along with this macho fantasy long enough. Where are they?’

‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ Merlin said. ‘I did not mean to be evasive. My only explanation is that Sam and Ben have passed through one of the rifts to another alternate—I assume with one of the androids.’

‘Right. So that puts them in danger—if one of those things is over there with them?’

‘Well... not exactly,’ Merlin said. ‘I’m extremely sorry—but the transfer process is in all likelihood fatal.’

Rob had felt his insides freeze, a dense all-pervading cold that had flowed through his body. His heart ached so much he thought it would stop.

‘Oh my God,’ he had said. ‘You are telling me they are gone forever? I’ll not be able to even see their bodies. Like they never existed?’

‘Robert,’ Merlin said. ‘I am so very sorry...’

‘Sorry?’ he had yelled. ‘You’re sorry? You’re a bloody computer program. How can you honestly think I’d believe you were sorry, that you felt anything?’

Merlin paused then spoke. ‘I had my own family once...’

‘Yeah? Well thanks to you mine are only a memory too.’

Albert had shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Merlin’s tiny icon was a picture of remorse.