2020-04-18 - spike - Trapped again Part sixteen

Author: spike
Title: Trapped again. Part sixteen.
Date: 18 April 2020

Eric arrived at room nine and this time, no queue and the door was closed.

He sighed. “Just hope I’m not late this time.” When he swiped the panel, the door slid open, so, he entered and took his seat.

The teacher nodded. “Good. Only one more to go, then we can begin.”

Eric glanced around. On each desk, a blank sheet, a pencil, a pencil sharpener and a rubber. Some of their faces. He shook his head and held up the pencil. “Don’t tell me none of you have seen a bloody pencil before.”

Cerol gave him a nudge. “What… What is this?”

“He’s testing us. We couldn’t copy other peoples work when we were locked in our cells, but here… Bring a screen up to do it and they’ll be visible to everyone. So, we’re going old school. Then they can’t copy off us. They can’t cheat.”

“But… What are these other things?”

Eric rolled his eyes. “OK… Think of the pencil as the stylus you use on the graphic pad. The drawing tool to be precise.”

“And this?” She picked up the rubber.

“That is what’s commonly known as a rubber because it’s made of rubber and it rubs things out. Think the erase tool. In fact, the Americans call it an eraser but it’ll only rub out what you’ve written, not the stuff printed on the paper and before you ask, as it’s a physical tool, the pencil wears down so shove it into the sharpener, give it a couple of twists and it’ll sharpen the point again, so you get clearer marks.”

“Seriously?”

Eric wrote his name and pointed. “That was my name before the police got their hands on me.” He rubbed out Siyisan, brushed the flakes off the paper and pencilled in Unknown. “And that’s my name now.”

Ditton smiled. “Very good point, Unknown. Everyone, the test’s currently face down so you can’t see the questions until the test begins. As the back of that sheet’s blank, all of you, practice a little with the pencils.” He sighed. “I’m of a similar mind to Unknown. I can’t believe you’ve never used a pencil before either, but as you haven’t… A little practice won’t go amiss.”

The door opened again, a mid-grey entered and took his seat. He looked as confused as the rest.

Ditton repeated what he’d said and the man let out a surprised yelp as he made his first mark. A muttered shitting blood as he rubbed it out again.

Eric chuckled. “He did say we’d only see a computer when we were grade five, remember.”

“But it’s so… so simple!”

“And you don’t even have any menus to navigate. Everything you need’s on your desktop.”

Ditton returned to his desk, crouched behind it and when he straightened up again, he held a large circular… thing.

“As the concept of time is discouraged, you will not be informed how much of it you have. This, however, will tell you. As the disk rotates, it will slowly turn from black to white. When it’s fully white, time’s up, so keep an eye on it between questions. It’ll give you an idea how to split your time between them. I will warn you now, there are twenty questions again and I made the last five something that may challenge Baxter and Unknown.”

Again, a groan went around the room.

“I’ll give you a short amount of time to study them. You will not pick up your pencils until I say begin. Understood? Turn over your papers. Now.”

Eric did so. He scanned the questions and just as the teacher had said, the first fifteen… In his opinion at least, piss easy. His brow creased when he reached the last five. Some very odd time signatures. The questions that went with them a bit on the tricky side too. He nodded and smiled, counting on his fingers to make sure he’d got the right idea.

“You may begin.”

He flew through the first fifteen, only pausing a couple of times in order to ensure he got the rests right.

When he got to question sixteen, he glanced at the clock. It was still only one-third white.

“Good…” he muttered under his breath. “Gives me time to be a little creative with rhythm… Awkward meter time.”

He closed his eyes and chewed on the end of the pencil in concentration between answering them and was halfway through the final question when the buzzer sounded.

“Pencils down.” Ditton started collecting up the sheets and the first ones were his and Cerol’s. “The reason you’re arranged as you are is because I know which tests will be on the top of the pile when I’ve collected them all. They will be the first I mark because they were the ones who scored the lowest last time. If you persisted in your hopelessness, you will be dismissed to your cell and that’s the last time you’ll leave it until your demerits have expired. Apart from gym.”

A yelped “What?” came from the back of the class.

“I warned you what would happen. They come in handy five demerit packages. They can’t be issued individually. Privileges include time out of your cells. They include access to these courses. They include a choice of food and a choice of entertainment. They also include prison visits. Anyone who scores terribly this time loses every single one of them but that doesn’t mean you get out of this. You’ll return and it will be from the beginning… Again!”

The last of the tests collected, he took a red pen from his pocket and worked through the tests with practised ease, placing each on one of three piles when he’d done.

“Crawford! Gull! Yardley!”

Eric glanced back at the class to see three prisoners sweating, their brows creased with worry.

“Yes, sir?”

“Five demerits each! Oh and I’ve got some excellent news for you. The entertainments you do have will consist of nothing but telop programmes about flutes and musical notation. Your books and music, ditto. Flute music only. You will eat, drink and sleep the bloody flute until you return to me. The first privilege you earn will be automatic upon completion of your punishment and that will be self-improvement which means continuation of this course. Now, get out of this class!”

“But sir…”

“Get out! Or I’ll summon a couple of guards to drag you out!” Ditton stalked up to the panel and swiped it. “Unlock and open. Out…. Now!”

They scrambled out of their chairs and bolted for the door in terror.

The moment the door was locked he returned to the front. “I’ll continue by reading the rest of your scores and I’ll hand you the completed tests so you can see where you went wrong at the end of the lesson. Williamson.”

That voice sounded familiar. Eric scanned the room.

“Last time, a pitiful nine per cent. This time, sixty-five per cent. Amazing improvement. How?”

“Unknown told us his cell number and to contact him if any of us needed help, sir. I did.”

The teacher smiled. “What did you tell him, Unknown?”

“He was complaining that the notation book was boring and he didn’t see the point of it, so I showed him the score for Beethoven’s fourth as an example, sir. To show that the whole point of sheet music was to keep everyone in an orchestra in time with each other. Then I played it. Also told him the best way to get something stuck in your head was repetition. Read those chapters again and again until it sticks, sir. Seems it stuck, sir.”

“Did anyone else ask for your help?”

“Meuler got some advice during gym, sir. No-one else has though.”

“Well, it’s obvious those three wastrels didn’t. Well done, Unknown. Williamson. Very, very well done. I know I said I’d only grant privileges to people who scored over seventy, but yours is such an improvement… Which one do you want back? Dessert or a choice of visual entertainment?”

“I can do without telop for a while, sir. Looks like I’ve got a lot of reading to do and it’ll only be an added distraction. I’ll take the dessert, sir.”

“And an attitude adjustment, too.”

“After what you did to them, sir. Bloody shit… I’m going to try, sir.”

“Good.”

Ditton continued through the class. Most had only improved their scores by ten or fifteen per cent and few had scored on the last five questions.

Then he got to Meuler. “Seventy-five per cent. Excellent work. Another vast improvement. Have you ever considered teaching, Unknown?”

“Well, you know that’s what I intend to do, sir.”

“I meant outside.”

“Physical training, sir, yes.”

“Seems to me your talents will be wasted if you’re only doing that.”

“I might never see the outside world again, so, I prefer not to dwell on such things, sir. I am going to be teaching in here, so… That’s good enough for me, sir.”

“Meuler. As you improved almost as much as Williamson and scored above seventy, two privileges. I’ll allow you to choose but I do advise against distractions such as telop.”

“Thank you, sir. I already have that one, sir. I will be strict with myself though, sir. Only on assembly days.”

He continued again, as slowly, the scores increased. Finally, he got to Cerol and Eric.

“You two matched scores this time. Both ninety percent but I expected a few stumbles on the last few questions. Unknown didn’t complete his final answer, but I could see where he was going.”

Eric nodded. “I flew through the first lot, sir. I wanted to be a bit creative with the awkward ones. Give them some rhythm rather than just dump a few random notes on a page that matched the requirements, sir.”

“Yes, and I approve. A privilege lock for both of you.”

Cerol stared at him. “A lock, sir?”

“Of course! You deserve it.”

Eric chuckled. “Sorry, didn’t I tell you? The gym instructor granted you your last two privileges for helping out with that reluctant cow. When I told him what you’d done, he was impressed. You’ve got the lot.”

“Everything? Including exten”

“Including extended visits, yes.”

“Blood and shit, Eric. Making friends with you’s the best decision I ever made!”

Ditton smiled. “Now we’re rid of the useless ones, this class can finally progress. Next lesson, scales. He swept his hand across the panel at the front again and removed the flutes, this time, swiping them across the panel too. As each one passed, the panel spoke a name. He handed each flute to the respective owner.

“Practice. In all your cases except for Unknown, before lockdown. Unknown…”

“I know, sir. Between lessons in the assembly hall. I… I will have access, won’t I?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already seen to that.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Class dismissed.”

Just as the day before, the guards were waiting. Eric didn’t even wait for the command this time. He immediately faced the wall and held his hands behind his back as the restraints snapped in place.

“Sirs? Could the one who escorts me take the flute, please. I don’t want to drop it.”

“You know you’re not allowed possessions.”

“I know, sir. It’s not mine. It belongs to the prison. I’ve got to practice, sir. Don’t worry, it won’t see the inside of my cell. I’ll do it in the assembly hall, sir.”

He nodded, took the flute and they made their way to the visitor’s room again.

Eric’s visitor looked to be in his sixties, but, judging by how well Howard looked, he could’ve been a lot older and this time, the doctor was already seated.

Eric sat beside him the moment the chair had been pulled out.

Another look of distaste.

Eric sighed. “Hello, sir. I can only assume you’re professor Birk?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Thank you for coming, sir.”

“I understand you’re the young reprobate who’s ruined my manipulators?”

“Ruined them? They were in perfect working order when I was arrested, sir. Don’t tell me the police smashed them or something?”

“Of course they didn’t smash them. The data within them’s corrupted!”

“Errr… Corrupted? How?”

“Though the good doctor here did show me some very interesting images, the data indicates distances and speeds that are utterly”

“If I could hold my hand up to stop you, sir. I would. Please, don’t say impossible. That’s why I asked you to come, sir. I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“What kind of proposition?”

“Those manipulators have seen worlds the like of which you’d probably never dream of… Did you explore the world with the dinosaurs, sir?”

“What in all that’s sterile is a dinosaur?”

“Another term? How many m… I don’t know what you call them, sir. I suppose their names like Tyrannosaurus Rex and… No? Huge reptilian beasts as big as buildings that lumbered around the world a hundred and fifty million years ago?”

“Oh! Those? You know of that place? How? And why call them dinosaurs!?”

“It’s what they were named were I’m from. As to how, it’s where we encountered Medeline, sir. I assume you know what she was using them for?”

“Interesting. I wonder what the etymology is. We called the larger examples gargantuons. How did you get there to encounter her in the first place?”

Eric grinned and looked at the doctor.

Conrad sighed. “Alright, Unknown. You’re making a habit of this aren’t you? Computer, grant access to Unknown again.”

“Access granted.”

“Thank you, sir.” Eric returned his attention to the professor. “Have you attempted to find it more recently, sir?”

“Yes.”

“And you can’t, sir. It’s gone, true?”

“Again. How can you know that?”

“Sir, are you aware that you don’t need manipulators… Well, you might but some people can perform similar feats without them?”

“Preposterous. I wasted my time coming here to”

“Sir. Please begin this with an open mind. The data on the manipulators… Nearly said my manipulators then… It’s all valid. Every shred of it. Did you ever develop a sensor that could detect everything within the local area of space-time, sir? More importantly, did you bring it?”

“Doctor Conrad asked me to, so yes.”

“Then all I ask is you scan me before we continue. First to determine if I’m carrying any electronic devices, well, any apart from the chip and restraints, obviously.”

“And then…?”

“Just… Please?”

“Alright. Computer, scan the individual before me. Full statistical display.”

Two screens popped up. What they represented was anyone’s guess, as far as Eric was concerned.

“Now, keep an eye on those screens and then look under the table for visual confirmation, sir.” Eric shifted and thrust his leg out of the world again.

Birk leapt from his seat and dived for the displays. He prodded, he threw his arms wide to expand something, he swept this and that. He stared down at Eric and dove under the table.

“Bring your leg back.”

“Yes, sir.” Eric did so.

“How is this even possible? The complexities in string manipulation are…”

Eric winced as another attempted shrug failed. “Until I ran into Medeline and she named them, I had no idea the manipulation of quantum strings was even involved, sir, let alone possible. I’ve exhibited an ability to see across time since I was seven. At first, it was just the appearance of what I thought at the time were ghosts, sir. Worst part of that was, the first time it happened, I was in school. When the man entered the classroom and walked through a few desks I ran out screaming. Led to all manner of trouble, psychiatrists, bullying, overprotectiveness from my mother. That all changed when I was fourteen, sir.”

“But how?”

“All I know is, it’s a shift in perception, sir. From seeing physically into the distance, to seeing across time. As an added bonus, sir… I have the ability to hold objects. Obviously I can’t do that with my hands, but, have you got anything from another world on you?”

“No. The moment I turn off my manipulators after an experiment, any items return to their correct timeline.”

Eric sighed. “Oh well. Worth a thought.”

“But how can they show such impossible speeds. Either too fast or too slow? Rarely were they travelling at the correct speed.”

“The slow ones are easily explained, sir. Drift to nearby timelines is what I’d estimate as a brisk jogging pace. I can walk, jog or run, and when travelling back to my world, I can drift and run, which increases the speed considerably. For the extremely fast travel you’ve seen, I have some technology unknown to you, sir. That leads to my proposal.”

“And that is?”

“How would you like to experience some of these other worlds, sir. Worlds where human history played out in significantly different ways to your own. You could, on my release, come with me. In exchange… I would like to regain possession of a set of manipulators.”

“You want to”

“Sir, there’s more. I’ll tell my tale before I continue because some of it’s relevant to the other part.”

Birt nodded. There was a hunger in his eyes.

“When I was fourteen I stumbled onto two worlds that, from what I’d been told by someone else with the ability, should not exist. Similar to your world of dinosaurs, sir.”

Eric described his experiences, supporting them occasionally with videos he’d made. His first visits to canal world and the flight from the bully that led to his enslavement. The rescues. The appearance of a soldier from the world that enslaved him and the trip down to London to stalk his sister, to keep her and her new husband out of trouble. He told of the bomb that threw them into their encounter with Medeline and this world for the first time. Of the senders, recovered from the soldiers who’d been hunting in London before deploying that bomb and how fast those things could travel. Then he mentioned his own experiments when he got home. The involvement of the young prodigy, Tad. Their tests to determine speed of travel and more importantly, speed of drift.

“It’s the speed of drift that’s the key, sir.”

“How? It’s far to slow for what you say your senders are capable.”

“In theory, we believe the orbs can be made to travel a hell of a lot faster, sir. Just as drift speed slows as distance increases, when you get to the microscopic level, the pull is far more powerful. That’s what Tad came up with. Constantly pushing destination updates from a computer to the manipulator, sir. The smaller the distance and faster the updates, the faster the speed of travel. He only experimented briefly, managing ten times drift speed, just as a proof of concept but he believes far faster travel is possible.”

“And you want to take me there? To your home? To a place it’ll take thousands of years to return here from?”

“Under normal drift conditions, it’s more like millions of years, but yes, sir. I would recommend you bring all the manipulators you can. Just as a safeguard. Tad believes that pushing them too hard could cause them to fail far more quickly than with standard use. You’d be able to speak to him. Maybe he could even make suggestions for improvements to your design, just as you may be able to suggest improvements to his program and his maths. Incorporating it into them should allow you to explore the multiverse freely. A major benefit, don’t you think? Especially if you could add extra hardening to them to prevent such failures.”

“And you’d be able to return me?”

“You’d be able to return under your own steam using Tad’s program, sir. We believe so anyway. There is one major limitation to my preferred method of travel. As Omnium exists in the dimensions that represent the forking of time, it refuses to split. That’s actually the cause of the effect that allows such high-speed transport. It repels things, sir. Active things capable of generating a high number of branches and when a large enough amount of it’s present or it gets a jolt of energy, it produces a repulsion field that can be controlled. If you like, you could think of it as anti-drift. The problem is, as it refuses to allow itself to split, even now, worlds are being created around us without any. It remains only in one world, sir. That also happens to me. Those worlds also have lots of mes unable to perform that trick under the table. I’m still there, but the ability isn’t, sir.” Eric sighed. “That’s another reason I’d like to make that offer, sir. You could be my key to getting home. If I lose it, my only hope is Tad’s program combined with your manipulators.”

“And the risks?”

Eric shrugged. “You may end up spending the rest of your life there. Hell, you may even choose to. Many people who encounter my world find it preferable to the one they departed. We’ve got quite a few permanent residents from other worlds now and that’s not including the thousand slaves I rescued. It does include a man from this one. The man they accused me of kidnapping.”

“You understand this is an enormous step?”

Eric nodded. “It was a choice made by all those people I mentioned, sir. Even me. One even begged me to allow him to remain, sir. I know it’s a big decision. The biggest most people ever have the opportunity of making, but think of the possibilities. The things you could discover. The worlds you could explore. I’ll show you some more of them now, sir.”

He nodded eagerly as Eric called up a gallery. Worlds with wars, worlds with dictators and worlds where the general population of Britain didn’t even speak English as a first language anymore. He scrolled through photo after photo, video after video.

“My only request, sir, is that you consider it. And if you decide against leaving this world yourself… Please, and I’d say this on my knees if I could, sir. Allow me to regain possession of the manipulators that were taken from me by the police. They’ll see far more use in my possession, sir. They’re incredibly useful devices for someone so familiar with interdimensional travel.”

“When are you due for release?”

“Could be weeks, months, even years away, sir. If ever. I do have a pretrial organised soon which should lead eventually to a retrial where I can be at least partially vindicated. Once I’m not wearing black, I know I’ll be released. Until then, I’m treating the colour I’m wearing as just what it represents, sir. Life imprisonment. I don’t want to hope, sir. It’ll only cause torment the longer my incarceration lasts so I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will be here for life and as such, I’m treating everything here accordingly. Filling my time. Learning to play an instrument. Even offering to teach some of my skills. Until I know otherwise, I might as well treat this as my life, sir.”

“You should never give up hope!”

“Trust me, sir. I’ve been through this before. As a slave, hope was more destructive than any other emotion. It only led to anguish, depression and those inevitably led to punishment when you weren’t doing the required amount of work. Give up hope, you’re a lot more content with your lot, sir. It was a difficult lesson to learn, but it’s a very useful one. Especially in my situation.”

“But you’re only twenty-one! That kind of attitude… It’s… I’m…”

“Sir, that was a core truth for all slaves. I learned that lesson when I was fourteen. Oh, I hope, when it’s appropriate to do so. When I’m free, I’ll allow myself to hope again but right now, why even think about it? I’m here, I’m in black and if things don’t go as I’d wish it, I will be for the rest of my life.”

Birt drew a shuddering breath. “I accept your proposal. More, I’ll be outside those prison gates when you do leave.”

Eric sighed. “Thank you, sir. I do have one question I’ve been curious about, though. Maybe I can finally get an answer.”

“Yes?”

“When I first encountered Medeline, I thought it was just greed, what she was doing with your manipulators. It was only when I spoke to the governor on my first day here that I was told she was a retro. How the hell did she get a job as your assistant? A man of science. Something she seems wholly opposed to.”

“That’s a shame I’m still finding difficult to accept. She fooled me. Me! When she appeared for the job interview, everything checked out.”

“But… How? Every personal detail’s normally stored on the chip and they don’t have one, do they?”

“Retros are hypocrites. They’ll use computers when it suits their agenda, believe me, and some of them have acquired some very unsavoury skills. The assistant who made the application… I’ve got no idea what happened to her. I can only assume she was killed. How they got her details, I still have no idea, but it must’ve been a security breach of our systems. Medeline had her chip hidden beneath a fake patch of skin on the palm of her hand. Worse, she wore a holographic disguise. She looked exactly like the image presented as part of the job application.”

“But drones can see through those.”

“I know, but I’ve never been a big user of drones and she was clever about her use of it. She only activated the disguise when she was in the building, out of the sight of prying police drones. We didn’t know about it until the theft. They deliberately targetted me because of my discoveries, saw the use of my manipulators as a means to place bombs in ever more secure locations.”

“So… Medeline… It’s not even her real name?”

“It is. Her arrest, her conviction… That’s when I realised I’d been conned. The disguise device was found among her possessions when they searched her home. Once they’d identified her, they could easily track her back to it and the first in the cast of characters in that device was my assistant.”

Eric smiled. “I do have one piece of good news for you, then.”

“Really? What?”

“She’s here. More. She’s in the same cell block.” Eric pointed at his cheek.

“She did that?”

Eric nodded. “Do you understand the significance?”

“Well… Her conviction mentioned the darkest of greys and a sentence of forty years in prison with the possibility of parole after thirty. Why? What more is there?”

“The darkest greys, grey sevens, have a strict set of rules to live by. So do the blacks. The first of those is no violence.”

“And her punishment?”

“You’re looking at it, sir.”

“She’s…” Birt chuckled. “She’s a black?”

“Even better. The other blacks have already shunned her. They despise retros. The oldest of us, Howard, says he’s lost a few friends to their actions. No-one will ever speak to her again. Apart from the odd guard and me when I’m forcing her to exercise in the gym, at least.”

Birt beamed. “That’s not good news… That’s excellent news. Thank you. You’ve made my day.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

“Is there anything, anything at all I can do for you before your release? Anything you need?”

“Trust me, sir. Your assurance was enough. I suppose… If you could attend the trial, sir. As a character witness if nothing else.”

“But I don’t know you well enough.”

“No, sir, but you do know what I can do. Or perhaps what I could do. There is only one of me out of billions who can do it. I can’t do much to demonstrate, even if I do retain the ability, when I’m standing in the dock with my arms clamped behind me like this, sir.”

“I’d be glad to. Anything I can get for you?”

“No! Sorry, sir. One of those other rules I mentioned. No possessions, nothing. Anything you did give me, I’d immediately have to either eat on the spot or throw away, sir.” Eric turned to the doctor. “Didn’t you mention one of the privileges being conversations over the screens, sir?”

“Sorry Unknown… Not for you. Your only contact with the outside world is in-person visits.”

“Hmm… That seems a little cock-eyed, sir?”

“I disagree with the policy myself. I know their reasoning, though. They want blacks to fail, or some of them do, and the best way for that is the smuggling in of contraband and drugs. Two very easy ways for a black to fall down that final step.”

“Ah, the old give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves, thing?”

Birk looked at Eric in horror. “Hang? That’s gruesome! We haven’t executed anyone in”

“It’s just an expression, sir. Give them just enough freedom to do the wrong thing and the ones who do it… Well… That’s what it means, sir. Admittedly, back home, they do still have the death penalty… My birth world, though, no. Not in the UK anyway. America do though.”

He shuddered. “What crimes could possibly…”

“Murder, treason… I’m in the army so there’s one especially for us. Desertion, sir. They’re all beyond reasonable doubt situations, of course. And our laws are a lot more just than the ones here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Silence is admitting guilt? That’s not justice. Back there, you have the right to remain silent, sir. You don’t admit guilt just by keeping your trap shut, they have to prove it with actual evidence or a written and signed confession. You’ve seen how easy it is for that idiotic idea to be abused, sir. Look at me. Attempted suicide means missing your chance to defend yourself? Who’s genius idea was that?”

Conrad gave Eric a nudge. “Be careful, Unknown. Don’t voice those opinions again or you might be spending the next twenty years in prison, even after your trial.”

Eric stared at the doc in shock. “But if no-one speaks out about that kinda thing, how can things change for the better?”

“The government like things just the way they are. They don’t like to be questioned. You’d be charged with sedition and the evidence would be there for all to see. Everything’s recorded remember.”

“So, it’s not a democracy here? I was under the impression it was.”

“It is. We get our vote every four years.”

“Let me guess… Whoever gets voted in, they all try to keep the status quo? None of them are willing to change anything? What’s the point of voting at all if that’s the case?”

“Oh, they change things. Some things never will. There’ve been too many terrorist attacks… The public wouldn’t stand for anything changing the way our laws are enacted.”

“Even if innocents…”

“A few innocents falling under the maglev for the price of peace is acceptable to them.”

Eric sighed. “Understood, sir.”

“And not even a hint of this conversation during your next visit, she’s a journo. Speaking of which…”

The professor nodded. “Yes, yes. I have been here long enough. Now I know the data isn’t corrupted it seems I’ve got a lot of work to do. In depth analysis of everything they recorded. I may even be able to produce an accurate map of the temporal plane. If I do, I’ll be sure to return so you can fill me in on what those specific worlds are like.”

Eric grinned. “It’ll be a pleasure, sir. I think some of them may surprise you. Possibly as much as Jurassic world.”

“I’m sorry… Jurassic?”

“Really? I… Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Cambrian?” As the blank looks continued, Eric sagged into his chair. “Everything scientific seems to have different names in this world, sir. It surprised me enough when the police didn’t know what a volt or amp were, but… They’re geological time periods, sir. Even had a science fiction film a few years ago called Jurassic Park and a few sequels, about a so-called professor who retrieved DNA from fossilised mosquitoes in order to bring back the dinosaurs.”

“Again… DNA?”

Eric couldn’t help it, he began to snigger. “Sorry… I’m sorry. Double helix? Deoxyribonucleic acid, sir. That’s what they call it back in my birth world, sir. Not actually looked into if they discovered it’s the blueprint to life back home but I know they know about the molecule, sir.”

“Time’s a tricky thing, I see.”

“Yes, sir. Most of the scientific terms were coined in the nineteenth century back home, sir. Seems as the branch predated that, you came up with a whole slew of different ones, sir.”

“Yes… That does make sense. As time progressed it’s likely entirely new people, not even born here made their discoveries too. True?”

Eric nodded. “Include me in that, sir.”

“Thank you.” The professor stood. “This whole conversation’s been an eye-opener. I hope we’ll meet again before your release but also that your release comes swiftly.”

The professor walked to the door and waited. A guard approached, swiped and he was gone.

“Back to my cell until the next one, sir?”

“I think it’ll be safe to wait.”

“Damn, I was hoping I’d get some relief in between. This is fuckin’ uncomfortable, sir, and that was a long one.”

“I know. You’ll get your chance to work it off later. Think of it as practice. The retrial could take days and you’ll be like that throughout.”

Eric nodded.