She takes it, wincing at the weight. ‘No.’
The blue light blinks off, then back on. She picks the sunglasses up from the side and nods at Ben while pushing them on.
‘I don’t mind coming . . .’
Miri hears Ben’s words cut off as she steps through to a dazzling sun reflecting off a gorgeous blue sea.
‘Miri!’
A transition of character. From cold to warm. From austere to friendly. She smiles warmly at Bertie rushing towards her and drops the heavy bag on to the rocks not far from the water’s edge.
‘Look what I found . . .’ he gabbles, holding up a seashell. ‘These were extinct for, like . . . like, tens of thousands of years in our time . . . Look! It’s what? Two or three years old? So amazing.’ His gaze flicks from her to the seashell the size of a house brick clutched in his hand.
The island is tiny. Just a rocky outcrop with thick vegetation somewhere in the Aegean Sea between the coasts of what will eventually become Greece and Turkey. It’s not the Cretaceous period, but old enough to be safe.
‘How are you?’ she asks, softening her tone.
‘Oh, fine, totally fine . . . Like, yeah, fine and . . . Oh, I saw a meteor shower last night! So beautiful. Like, just amazing. Never see anything like that in our time. Light pollution. Yeah, so, um . . . it’s all just binary really . . .’ He stops talking and stands with the now-forgotten seashell in his hand.
‘Ria?’ Miri asks.
Bertie looks round. ‘Somewhere . . . I think she’s at the shack. I woke her up for the meteor shower last night and she cried again.’
‘Grief, Bertie.’
‘Yeah,’ Bertie says with a slightly vacant look on his face.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Talk?’ He looks stunned at the question.
‘In the shade?’
‘Oh, totally,’ he says, nodding seriously. ‘Miri. Would you like a drink? I’ve rigged up a rudimentary cooling system using those solar panels you got me. Could you get some more? And some wiring . . . And I need a few capacitors and transistors, diodes and, like, don’t get new stuff. Get old stuff, like old computers and I’ll, like, totally strip them down.’
‘You said that yesterday.’
‘What’s in there?’ he asks, looking down at the bag with genuine interest.
‘The things you asked me to get yesterday.’
‘Oh,’ he says slowly, ‘what was that?’
‘I need some shade.’ The sun hurts the scars in her scalp hidden beneath her tangle of hair.
‘So,’ he says, waving the seashell at her while leading the way. ‘I had a thought while I was watching the meteor shower last night. I mean, it’s just binary, isn’t it? Like, everything so . . . um . . . we’re over-thinking the whole space-flight problem.’
‘Are we?’ she asks, glancing across at him as he drops back to walk by her side. He doesn’t offer to take the heavy bag, but she knows it is only because he hasn’t thought to ask. Bertie is not thoughtless. He is the opposite of thoughtless.
‘Oh my god, Miri. Is that bag heavy? Let me take it . . . um . . . So you hold the seashell and . . . No, actually I can put the seashell down here and . . .’ He gently places the seashell on the flat rocks. His movements are childlike, overly precise, and the way he squats and stands suggests someone with learning difficulties instead of possibly the greatest genius that may have ever lived. When he stands, he beams at her, as if he has already forgotten why he put the seashell down in the first place.
‘Bag,’ she says. ‘It’s heavy.’
‘You should let me take that . . . What’s in it? Wow, that is super heavy.’
‘Can we go to the shack now, please, Bertie?’
‘Of course,’ he says with a huge grin as he shoulders the bag. ‘So I rigged up this cooling system using the solar panels . . . I mean, the sunshine here is just epic. Like, so pure. Anyway, so, like, I’ve got the average temperature down to two degrees above zero . . . Celsius, of course . . .’
‘Of course.’
‘And, yeah, so, haha! The space-flight problem. Like meteors don’t ever run out of steam do they? Haha! Can you imagine if meteors used steam-engines? So . . . I mean . . . it’s the propulsion, isn’t it? They get going and they go . . . and, I mean, like, they have gravitational pull forever pulling them towards a larger body, but . . .’
Miri listens, and everything he says makes sense. Meteors will simply keep going like, forever and ever, like, epic. So what keeps them going? What made them go in the first place?
Miri has lived a life of many places and many peoples. She has killed for many reasons, some true and righteous, others blurred and indistinct, but in all those years and in all those places, she has never met anyone like Bertie.
He catches her looking at him and smiles before switching subjects in the blink of an eye and starting to describe the mating habits of the local crab population.
Miri didn’t factor for Ria and Emily coming through the portal, but she’s lived a life of adaptation and changing expectations, and moved swiftly to assess, evaluate and take action to ensure everything is still done correctly.
Everything had to be done right.
Bertie had to be kept away from his father and everyone else. Roland had to be kept away from his son and everyone else.
Harry, Safa and Ben had to be debriefed. Roland and Bertie had to be debriefed. Emily had to be debriefed.
Every day for the last month, Miri has gone to each in turn to debrief and go over everything they know and exactly what happened before she arrived. Their isolation was key. Retaining sterility of the subjects during the debriefing stage was crucial. Bertie and Ria were brought here, and whereas Roland was tricked into going, she simply asked Bertie and Ria and said she wanted them kept apart until she had spoken to everyone. A month is a long time to debrief, and by asking the same questions each and every session she knew she was irritating them, but therein lies the subtlety of the manipulation.
Now Roland is dead and Emily is a member of the team. This is the game, and Miri is back in it. The thrill is there. The lust to be in the lead and winning.
‘Hi,’ Ria calls out, rising from the patch of sun she was lying in. She looks better, but the same sadness is in her eyes. The same drawn, introspective look that comes from deep personal grief. The bruises on her face now almost gone.
‘Ria, how are you?’ Miri asks, her tone still soft and warm.
Ria offers a smile and shields her eyes as she looks at Miri.
‘You’re taking the sun,’ Miri says, observing the glow on Ria’s skin. ‘Be careful you don’t burn.’
‘I shall, thank you,’ Ria says politely. ‘How is everyone?’
‘Fine,’ Miri says.
‘Bertie would love to see them again . . . He adores Harry and Ben . . .’
‘Soon,’ Miri says.
Ria offers the smile again, weaker this time. ‘Bertie, can you get Miri a drink, please.’
‘Totally,’ Bertie says, nodding eagerly as he strides off, still with the heavy bag over one shoulder.