The past doesn’t exist
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Samantha and Bork settled in to the flyer, which had returned to its smaller size. She took the manual override.
“Hands off,” said the flyer, “Turbulence, enjoy your trip. I am heading for a food centre.” The controls locked rigid then slid into a panel. Samantha leaned back in the seat. Bork studied the control panel and stuck a tiny pin into a small hole on the bottom.
“So Bork, if you are free, what are you going to do?”
“You forgot already, so many long talks, I’ve a brother nearby, want to meet him?”
“I don’t care, let’s go.” She watched him work with the wand.
“Where did you get that pin?”
“I had a lot of things hidden in the prison, you have no idea,” he said, “Now leave me alone for a few minutes while I reset this thing.”
Samantha felt dizzy. She didn’t know why she felt this way, maybe from escaping the disaster in one piece, or the shock of losing her job as a nurse, or the blow to her head, or having no Blink for the first time in years. She got a medical patch from the flyer’s supplies and used it, but nothing showed up as wrong, just high stress hormones. Then she checked the flyer’s maps.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said to Bork. “The prison’s completely gone, I don’t get it. How can it just go up like that? After the last time, they said they’d fixed the uplift generators.”
Bork put the wand on the console and it flashed green twice. He started laughing.
“Can you stop laughing, it’s getting on my nerves. Are you hysterical?” Bork looked sad for about a second.
“This is a message. It’s history, the past doesn’t exist,” he said.
“Good riddance I guess, if they don’t want me. The past doesn’t exist,” repeated Samantha, “But we do, so what do we do?”
“Survive?” said Bork. “I mean, look at that.” He pointed to the view of the smoking wreck-filled landscape, slowly turning ruddy brown. “Where are all the people?” He shuddered. Samantha stared ahead.
“So where’s your brother?” she asked brightly. “Is he really your brother? You never mentioned him before.” By some chance, Bork was Samantha’s only patient for the last few months. So many people had nothing to do, prisoners were usually crowded with carers, putting them on the right path. Nurses were the experts, and were given only a couple of prisoners for intensive talking.
“I did actually, you’ve just forgotten, you banged your head, remember.” She put her hand to her temple and was surprised to feel dried blood.
“I don’t know what I’ve lost.”
“Yeah, and it’s long lost,” said Bork.
“So mysterious,” said Samantha.
“You like it that way.” She read a lot of suspense novels, he knew that much about her.
“Landing, landing, landing,” said the flyer in a new voice.
“Can you please be quiet?” asked Bork.
“See, you’re now well-mannered to robots,” smirked Samantha, “The training worked.”
The flyer and Bork were silent.
With barely a bump the flyer landed on a dark shining plain next to a large plain black block, probably a warehouse. Bork looked surprised.
“Are we there already? Flyer, what is this surface, is it water, dangerous?” asked Bork.
“Base concrete, average 5 centimetres of mud.”
“Mud?”
“Water and fine soil. Neon worms. High density of ants.”
“Ants? Origin?”
“Origin of ants unknown.”
“The mud?”
There was a pause.
“Composition is matching Safeish valley, do you want coordinates?”
“That’s miles away,” said Bork. The flyer beeped agreement.
“Call this,” he commanded, reciting a long list of characters and numbers.
“It’s me, Bork,” he said as the line opened. He knew Peterkin would check everything before answering.
“Hey, bro,” said a squeaky voice, “So the Borkian has returned. You got out of the prison? Have you seen the news, it’s all fucked up. Literally up. What’re you doing here?”
“I got friends in high places,” Bork replied, “Open the doors, we’re coming in. I need a quickie on this flyer. Pilot, in you go,” he commanded. “There’s not much time, and don’t call me the Borkian, I’m not an alien,” he added. Peterkin knew a quickie meant a quick hack on the flyer. A large door slid sideways to show an open space and the flyer jumped in and landed softly. The canopy opened and then the flyer went completely dead, all lights off, everything stopped.
“Peterkin, you are the best,” said Bork and hugged his brother. “What’s this new place?”
“I moved some of the gear here yesterday, from practically next to the prison, lucky or what?”
“Not kidding.” Bork shuddered. “Is the flyer already ours? That was quick.”
“Flyers are very stupid. Bit like you,” he laughed kindly. Samantha stared at them, a little shocked. Brothers or friends? Different parents? They didn’t look alike at all. Bork was a tall droopy man with a weird blond quiff, and Peterkin was a small young black guy with a lot of hair.
“Was the flyer tracked here?” asked Samantha. Peterkin stared at her as if she was crazy.
“Bork switched it off, obviously. I replaced the log back on the host, so it went down in the most smashed up part of the prison, where it all started. I wasn’t born yesterday you know.” He went to the flyer and opened a small panel by the engine to take out a tiny block, like a dice, which he put in his pocket.
“Where did you get this flyer anyway?” he asked.
“Some arsehole called Prince,” said Bork, “He must’ve lent the flyer to someone at the prison, another problem. Can you check that out?” Peterkin looked at some data.
“Unpaid parking tickets,” he grunted. “No high connections, what are you talking about?”
“His house was destroyed and he went mad. Samantha got him to lend us the flyer while he has his breakdown. He’s very upset.”
“When you got locked up I checked the area around, this so-called Prince lives nearby. Some sort of has-been.”