The Impossible Boy (17 page)

Barney smirked. ‘What? Are you saying you can predict the future in your dreams now, Gab? Not like you to leap to the craziest explanation. I thought you were supposed to be the rational,
scientific one.’

She raised her eyes. ‘I know it sounds wacky. It almost certainly is wacky. But the sense of déjà vu when you came in the room was almost overpowering.’

‘Well, you know what you have to do, don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Test it. Keep a dream diary and see if any of it comes true.’

Gabby laughed, her face brightening. ‘Great idea, Vice-Pres! An experiment! I will. You are a genius. I always said it.’

In the front seat of the vehicle, behind soundproof tinted glass, the driver touched a control on the dashboard, lowering the volume of Gabby and Barney’s conversation that was being fed
to him by a secret microphone, and which he had been monitoring since the start of the journey. He touched another control and a ringing tone sounded in his earpiece. After a few rings, Sir Orville
McIntyre answered.

‘Good evening, Captain Grebe.’

‘Evening, sir. Thought you should know something about the Grayling girl. Ahead of your conversation with her.’

‘Is this to do with the hyperchild?’

‘No, sir. Something else.’

‘Oh goody. Do share.’

‘May possess some level of precognitive ability. Possibly able to dream about future events.’

‘Ooh! A dream prophet! That would be juicy. It would certainly tie in with what we know about her father’s abilities. I shall make a note in my jotter. You’ve done very well,
Captain Grebe.’

‘Thank you, sir. Just doing my job.’

‘And doing it splendidly. Goodnight, Captain Grebe!’

‘Goodnight, sir.’

In the passenger seat of the other limousine, which was thundering along the empty roads just ahead of the one containing Gabby and Barney, Sir Orville McIntyre removed a tiny
spiral-bound notebook and a fat gold fountain pen from the inner pocket of his pinstripe jacket. With one he wrote a few brief sentences in the other and returned them both to the pocket. He jabbed
a fat finger at a button on the dashboard in front of him. The tinted screen separating the front of the limo from the rear retracted a few inches.

‘About time!’ snarled an angry female voice from the back. ‘You can’t do this! This is kidnapping! I want to speak to a lawyer! Stop the car!’

‘Hush, dear lady,’ cooed McIntyre. ‘Save your breath. I think you’ll find that I can do whatever I wish and only seven people in the entire world could possibly prevent
me.’

‘What are you blathering on about, you fat fool?’

McIntyre chuckled. ‘Oh, Miss Goosefoot! You really are one of the most appallingly poisonous and foul individuals I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. You have the brain of a
cornered serpent and the manners of an enraged pig. You are self-centred, self-serving and self-seeking. You are a painful wart upon the thumb of humanity. You are, in short, dear lady, one
nasty
piece of work.’

Julia Goosefoot rolled her eyes. ‘I
know
.’

McIntyre smiled. ‘How would you like to work for me?’

The following morning Gabby awoke feeling refreshed. Pulling on her dressing gown, she stumped to the bathroom, a slow yawn creeping across her face. The water from the tap
felt icily cold and invigorating as she brushed her teeth. With her free hand she placed her glasses on the end of her pointy nose and studied her face in the mirror.

Was today a school day? She tried to remember. She had got up at the usual time when her alarm went off, just in case. In her head she went through the days of the week . . .

Suddenly she gasped and sprayed a shower of white foam over the mirror. She ran back to her bedroom, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, and picked up the notebook and biro resting on her bedside
cabinet while the dream was fresh in her mind. Hastily she scribbled, her brow furrowed intently.

She paused and took a deep breath before she added the final line.

Somewhere beneath London, an experiment was taking place.

In a brightly lit white-tiled laboratory, a balding man with a very large nose watched as two teams of scientists fussed around and prodded two enormous, identical machines. The machines were
great humming, whirring things made of gigantic metal coils and strange rubbery protuberances. They looked a little like hi-fi speakers and a lot like weird, futuristic engines. There was one at
either end of the laboratory and they were joined by a single, quite thin, cable.

Also, in the centre of the laboratory, in a large metal cage, there sat a dog – a beagle. It was a youngish creature with long floppy ears and big dark eyes that were wide and alert.
Despite its imprisonment in the cage the beagle was cheerful, its tail waving happily from side to side like a car windscreen wiper and its nose furiously atwitch.

One of the scientists nodded to the man with the very large nose. The man with the very large nose smiled and made a neat tick on his clipboard.

The door to the laboratory burst open and two people strode into the room. One was a young, tubbyish man in a pinstripe suit, the other a tall blonde woman.

In its cage, the beagle sniffed the air curiously.

‘What news, Edgar?’ asked the man in the pinstripe suit.

‘All systems functioning and ready to go, Sir Orville,’ said Edgar, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses on his frankly gargantuan nose. ‘I’ve been working night and day on
this. Good job I’m a single man as I don’t know who’d put up with the silly hours I work.’

‘Fabulous, fabulous!’ beamed McIntyre. He gestured to the blonde woman beside him. ‘This is Miss Goosefoot. She is my new –’ he paused ‘–actually I
cannot tell you what her job title is as it is classified beyond your security clearance. Suffice it to say she works for me and is new.’

‘Charmed,’ said Edgar and held out his hand to Julia. Julia stared at it as if it were a headless mouse that a cat had just vomited at her feet. Edgar withdrew his hand, unshaken,
and put it away in his pocket.

‘As I say,’ McIntyre went on, ‘Miss Goosefoot is new so I would be grateful if you could give her a quick summary of today’s proceedings.’

‘Certainly, Sir Orville.’ He jerked a thumb at the two strange machines. ‘Here, miss, we have two Harland capacitors capable of absorbing radiation. To put it in simple terms,
they work a little like a bath sponge—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Julia interrupted. ‘You don’t have to treat me like a complete idiot. I was in charge of a nuclear fusion reactor until last week, you know. I expect the
Harland capacitors work by absorbing neutrons. Am I right?’

‘Indeed you are!’ trilled Edgar. ‘Forgive my oversimplification! I had not realised you were so knowledgeable in this field. Yes, the Harland capacitors absorb the radiation
that is produced when a gateway is opened to a higher dimension. This makes the gateway more stable and gives us much greater control. Within each machine is one of a pair of special angel lockets
we have obtained. Angel lockets – you will no doubt know – are the objects in which these gateways are traditionally kept. The two we possess are unique as far as we can tell in that
they both open gateways to the identical point in the fourth dimension. This means they are effectively joined together. Put something in one locket and it pops out of the other, no matter where
the other is. We’ve not actually been able to do this in the past because of all the nasty Harland radiation getting in the way and attracting the attention of the hyperbeings who live in the
fourth dimension – a rather snooty, patronising lot if you ask me. But now – thanks to these shiny new machines – we believe we can successfully move something through the fourth
dimension and make it appear elsewhere. Hence the presence of our volunteer today, Toby.’ He nodded at the beagle in its cage.

Julia narrowed her eyes. ‘What use is a wormhole through four-dimensional space if you need these two massive machines at either end? Hardly convenient. If you’re transporting
something you’d probably be better off sticking it in the back of a van.’

‘If this test is the success we think it will be,’ replied Edgar, ‘we can quite easily reduce the size of the machines to something more manageable. Tiny even,
potentially.’

A small smile creased the corner of Julia’s lips. ‘That’s more like it. You want to be able to post a letter to the leader of a foreign nation and when he opens the envelope
for a whole army to come pouring out of it through one of your gateways.’

McIntyre gave an impressed whistle. ‘You have to hand it to her, Edgar. It’s like she has a PhD in Applied Viciousness from Thug University.’

‘I’ll have you know I’m entirely self-taught,’ said Julia coyly.

‘Shall we start the experiment?’ asked Edgar.

McIntyre smiled warmly. ‘By all means, old boy.’

Edgar knelt down and unlocked the cage holding Toby the beagle. ‘Come on,’ he said brightly. ‘There’s a good boy. Who wants to be a pioneer in dimensional transportation,
eh?’ He pointed at the two machines. ‘You’re going to go in that one, Toby, and magically appear a second later at the other one! Won’t that be fun!’

Julia wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not sure I like this, Orville.’

McIntyre nodded. ‘I agree entirely. Look, Edgar. Julia and I are both really quite keen on dogs and we’re not sure you have the right idea about this experiment.’

‘Oh?’ said Edgar. ‘What do you mean?’

McIntyre cocked his head to one side. ‘The thing is, old fellow, if the experiment is a rip-roaring success with young Toby here, we’re still going to have to test it with a human
being before we risk sending two thousand of Her Majesty’s most highly trained troops through it. Sensible thing to do seems to me to cut out the middleman – or middledog as it is in
this case – and jump straight to testing it with an actual person. Do you follow?’

Edgar nodded cautiously. ‘We could do that. But it might take some time to find a willing volunteer at this late hour. It’s still a potentially very dangerous experiment for someone
to submit to, to say nothing of the legal implications present in—’

‘Here’s another idea,’ interrupted McIntyre, cheerfully pulling a revolver from his pocket and training it directly at Edgar’s heart. ‘How about you test out the
system right now and I don’t fire bullets at you? What do you say?’

Edgar nodded grimly.

McIntyre waggled the revolver and Edgar took up position next to one of the machines. A scientist turned a dial and the humming noise intensified.

Toby barked happily and bounded over to Julia, who tickled and stroked his long floppy ears.

‘Can I keep him?’ asked Julia.

‘Why on Earth would you want Edgar?’ asked McIntyre, perplexed.

‘Not him, the dog,’ said Julia. ‘I like beagles.’

‘Oh, I see!’ McIntyre shrugged. ‘Yes, I don’t see why not. Man’s best friend and all that.’ He gave a thumbs-up sign to the nearest scientist ‘OK! Throw
the switch!’

The scientist threw the switch.