The Price of Time

By C.L. Spillard

Some people have a Guardian Angel. Others aren’t so lucky and have a Guardian Devil.

On the first night of autumn, Yorkshirewoman and lifelong green campaigner Verity Player comes face-to-face with Lancastrian evil genius Stan ‘Satanic’ Mills, who has been stalking her throughout her adult life.

She recognises him from an incident in her youth. He’s the mastermind behind the spread of an idea so simple — and so fundamental to everyday living — that few people would think to question it.

But Verity has long ago grasped its infernal logic. She knows it as the mechanism that lurks behind humanity’s apparent death wish. And now, facing its creator, she’s the only mortal who can fight to make him halt it before its final, devastating phase.

Her struggle pitches her into a surreal game. Desperate, she bargains for a sporting chance.

But this comes at a price: the forfeit of her precious conscience if she fails to strike the first blow by New Year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.L. Spillard
• Release date: Oct 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370568031

C.L. Spillard

C.L. Spillard is a complex interplay of matter and energy in a pattern of waves whose probability cloud is densest in York, United Kingdom.Following the profound influence, in a mysterious process not yet fully understood by science, of the NASA moon landings on the young pattern’s quantum-based self-awareness mechanisms, C.L. Spillard developed an interest in Physics and the plight of life on our small, blue spheroid.A career in scientific research beckoned, including complex calculations of what happens to radio-waves being sent through the atmosphere by people who wish to talk to each other.This included studying the weather – which brings us right back to the plight of life. C.L. Spillard has among other things dropped dead in Downing Street for Greenpeace, sat in a flooded tent on Solsbury Hill in an attempt to fight off a motorway, and planted more trees – sometimes under cover of darkness – than you can shake a stick at.C.L. Spillard’s wave-pattern enjoys proximity to a second pattern originating in St Petersburg (Russia), and these two have since generated two younger ones who are now diffusing over the planet stuffing themselves with knowledge as if it were going out of fashion.

Book preview

Prologue

The veil shimmered in the single, white spotlight.

The slight figure who stood before it — until that moment smiling, striding, at ease with her words — seized and paled with fear, frozen in time.

The tall, cowled form facing her moved now, crossed the stage, the veil still hanging from raised, thin hands, to the full-length mirror.

He draped the veil over it.

As he returned a low, cold light suffused the stage, the red brick walls, the wide concrete arches over the nearest plate-glass windows of the Main Hall.

Seeming almost amused by his victim’s attempts to move — to speak — he placed an arm about her shoulder and conducted her, silent, to the desk.

She sat.

The audience of students watched, transfixed. Would she sign?

She mustn’t. She couldn’t. Not now.

It would destroy everything she’d worked for: earned, fair and square.

This wasn’t how these things were meant to go. Not even now, in the enterprising eighties: Thatcher’s Britain.

And anyway, this was supposed to be funny — a political satire, it said on the Revue programme.

It didn’t look funny.

It didn’t even look like acting, now.

The seated figure flattened her right hand on the desk, next to the globe — the prize, hostage to fortune in this drama. Its gentle glow lit her whitened face.

He couldn’t force her to sign, surely?

He picked up her clenched left hand, stroked the fingers; loosened the grip. Why did she let him? Had he hypnotised her?

The people in the front row could see. He folded her fingers around the pen.

But now she couldn’t move.

Was she stoned?

His left hand steered, holding hers.

The pen traced the words along the line:

Yours Truly

He whisked the papers away as she slumped, sobbing, across the desk. One early white hair gleamed among the dishevelled mess of bark-brown.

He threw the veil. It fluttered down over her as he swept away, out of sight.

In a callous final twist, he’d let her live.

1. The latest Apple

Verity Player gazed up into the deluge of bright, hot water and told herself — once again — that the events of last night couldn’t have happened, for the simple reason that they defied the laws of Physics.

She took a deep breath.

The delicate scent of burning leaves and the first hints of copper in the sunlight indicated the season’s change this morning: the autumn equinox.

At times like these she pictured the year as a wave: the rise and fall in daily hours of light.

Though the days may now be darkening at their fastest rate the pull — the force hidden in that wave — had just begun to steer them back to light. Strange to reflect: looked at in this way autumn held the promise of light, whereas spring brought darkness.

She shouldn’t dwell on it: the darkness from last night...

Yet as she turned to get on with her shower she could almost see it encroaching: a shadow dimly visible through the frosted glass, in the corner by the door.

It had a life to it.

It was a nightmare, lass.

But her clear recall of his voice gave it away: real. Round vowels: not flattened like hers. The impulse of each consonant played once again in crisp detail: fine-textured patterns that touched her ears in open air, as a voice does in real life. Not like the submerged voices in a dream. They flow from inside, their indistinct sounds ready-made into thoughts.

That’s enough.

She gripped the tap, cut off the water and put her mind to the day ahead: perfect weather for delivering Party leaflets and later, once the sun had sent away the morning dew, picking the first apples.

She pulled her towel down from the rail, wrapped herself in it, opened the shower door and stepped out into streamers of sunshine and mist. The generous room made an impressionistic blur before her: the mirror, the basin, the row of lush plants along the windowsill, all appeared as coloured clouds. All, except her clothes-pile on the wicker chair by the door.

It had become tall, black and triangular.

I came to offer my congratulations.

And it had that Lancashire accent.

Meant to last night, but what with all our other blether I forgot.

She stared: blinked, but knew this would bring no details to her eyes. She tightened her towel across her chest.

The river bank campaign. You put up a cracking fight. A thousand signatures in less than a week, your own hand-made banner on the front page of the Press, and the Council’s refusing Planning Permission for the Marina. Saved part of your city's public land, didn’t you?

Oh... thank you. It was all of us. Loads of us.

She didn’t want to blush.

And we had to. You know, that land needs to stay as it is, to help prevent floods.

She straightened and fastened her towel with a knot on the left side.

She would dry and dress quickly, by necessity.

A wet body loses heat twenty times faster than a dry one. You can get hypothermia in weather as warm as fifteen degrees. People did, in the last floods. Everyone forgets that. If you’re wet and hungry and your health’s not brilliant...

He must know, after all that time. Know that she would fade so much faster than nearly anybody else.

But she couldn’t dry and stay decent. Couldn’t shift the beggar off her clothes-pile either.

Drips from her hair began to fall on her cheeks. A loose strand caught in her lashes as she blinked. It looked like a long prism of ice.

You’re shivering with cold, rather than fear.

And he’d blocked her way out.

You disappoint me.

Shared flats. You got all sorts. She managed a smile; swept back her hair, even in bathrooms.

Behind him on the basin she could just make out two faint, crescent-shaped blurs: her glasses. She’d have to reach past him to get at them. If he were human she’d think nothing of it.

She swore under her breath. Bet he’d sat like that on purpose.

Congratulations, aye,

She didn’t like his slow, falling tone.

And a warning.

About... what? She glanced about the room. Did he have an accomplice?

About what happens, lass, after that sort of folk get their Planning Permission denied.

What happens?

But she knew. They went to Appeal. They took it to Central Government. And although there’d been a lot of talk about disbanding the Infrastructure Commission — whose remit it would be to hear the Appeal — the damn thing wasn’t dead yet, recent change of government notwithstanding. And the Infrastructure Commission had been set up to boost Growth: not to prevent floods.

Aye. Planning their next move even as you’re standing here. Putting together an appeal.

She gritted her teeth on silent curses.

And your City Council, they’ve got to fight it now, haven’t they? Now you lot have alerted everyone as to how important it is with that flood prevention.

She smiled. At least they’d got the Council on their side.

Lawyers and wot-not: experts. Not going to be cheap, is it? Up against that sort of folk: the sort who’s rich, but always wanting more.

That... sort of people, she rounded on him, are a bloody menace! It’s as if... there’s something wrong with them!

He said nothing.

She could hear birds chirping in the garden.

Our little wager lass: recall?

She shuddered.

What... about it?

My part of it. his voice softened. I’ve to tell you how that’s done.

You mean... it really is you? Who does it? Just like I... guessed?

The question hung in the air.

I cultivate folk. To do my work.

Verity’s eyes widened. Would he tell her? Because he knew she’d tried to work out — decades ago — what it was that made some people so greedy?

Now: if they’re to do this work, sustainably, I believe that’s the fashionable term nowadays, I have to make them want to carry on.

She should stop him. She’d signed nothing.

So: to do that, I take out from their minds any idea of having enough: enough of anything.

But how can you do that?

And anyway, she’d agreed verbally.

My word is my Bond.

Once that’s done, then until someone undoes it they go through life without the sensation of any sort of satisfaction. Money, lovers; security: they can’t but want more. The damage a Mortal can do once this gets going is, hmm...

She could hear the smile without having to see it.

I can instil irrational fear into mortal minds directly. I’ve an infinitely renewable supply of my own, as you rightly guessed as a young lass at varsity when you wrote a character like me into your little play. But irrational dissatisfaction, that’s another matter: I’ve only so much of it. If I were to go about handing that away to folk, I’d soon run out.

She looked round the room again. Most of the mist had cleared away but her arms still seemed wreathed in it. The cold had raised the little hairs.

He reached into a pocket of his robes.

So I’ve invented a device that mimics it.

She noticed a small, faintly-glowing ball of warm orange light in the palm of his hand. He held it up for her to see.

This is it. It’s on standby at the moment: when it’s fired up it glows ice-blue. That’s the switch, just there.

She bent near. She seized her chance: reached round behind him.

The room sprang to in sharp detail. So did the face of her bizarre visitor. Each golden strand of hair: each ice-cold radial stria in his eyes.

Oh, right.

"To direct it at someone, I have them hold it while I say the words ‘You can never have enough’ to them. It’s an easy enough phrase, is it not, to slip into the conversation? You, for instance, use it all the time. Although with you it’s always in jest. Last night when you were dining with your family, between the four of you, you used it with reference to fridge magnets, firewood, A-levels, gigabytes of RAM, and shoes. I stopped counting after that.

Getting my victim to hold the device is easy: all I’ve to do is tell them it’s the latest Apple.

Verity didn’t know whether to be most shocked by the device itself, the eavesdropping of her family’s dinner conversation, or the idea of somebody going through life always wanting more lovers.

And how would it feel to be dissatisfied with everything: to be constantly haunted by thoughts that one's riches, no matter how vast, were inadequate and unsafe..?

D’you want to give it a go? Just for a minute, to see what it’s like?

She stared at the little device. Into its depths... How could something so tiny have depths like that? She took it, for a better look.

The orange glow turned ice-blue in her hands.

I... don’t know if I should... Sorry. How d’you—

That switch, just there. Then — after five seconds — it shuts down.

Er...

Tell you what,

He sounded reassuring,

I’ll count down before saying the words to fire it up. And don’t fret: as soon as you tire of all the new feelings, you’re free to flick the switch and shut it down.

She struggled to think this through but something got in the way. She could sense a knot in the logic, but it slipped from her each time she tried to grasp it.

She noticed her hands had become almost the same colour as the Apple.

Ready?

She nodded.

She didn’t feel cold any more.

Countdown to zero: Five...

She gazed around the room relishing, as she always did, the Mediterranean blue, the profusion of plants; the hot water that warmed her through: she could feel it, right now...

Four...

What on earth would it be like to be dissatisfied with all that?

Three...

Or to want more lovers? Would she fall for everyone she saw? What about him: Stan Mills, the embodiment of Fear? Some people liked that kind of thing. Was that what he was counting on—?

Two...

She caught her breath: she’d found the fatal knot—

STOP!!

He ignored her.

Panic sparked through her hands and heart. Last night’s encounter flashed before her.

2. Bargain

You...

He’d been sitting there, perched on the edge of the four-poster.

"What the heck are you doing here, in real life?"

Her heart had nearly stopped at the sight of him. His angular shape like a black rip in the cheerful fabric of the room, defying the rustic wallpaper, the roses of the bedspread and the soft drapes tied back to the four-poster’s uprights.

You usually wait till the screen’s completely black before you turn to get up. Don’t you, hmm?

She’d noticed the display flash nearly midnight before it blinked out. She’d been working all evening, fact-finding for a radio interview about nuclear power in three days’ time: writing in the notebook to her left while working the computer with the mouse to her right.

Yes. I... do.

She couldn’t help but stare at him. Straight out of the revue sketch she had written a generation ago as an eighteen-year-old student: the malign auditor who filled her with fear. Here, in real life. In the twenty-first century, as if it was still the nineteen eighties.

Does that mean... you’re always here?

Every evening, aye: every evening since those days. I watch you.

I don’t believe it!

She rounded on him.

You destroyed everything we — in the sketch — had worked for! You’re evil! Clear off!

She got up and made for the door. As she did so, her arm brushed the bed’s silk drapes.

She froze.

Remind you of anything? He made the most of the question: slow, malicious.

The Veil.

The sketch’s final scene replayed in her mind. The veil held up before her. Time coming to a standstill as she stood in terror, bolted to the spot.

She’d never understood how that had happened — how a simple square metre of artificial silk had done that to her mind: poured in fear like liquid Nitrogen, freezing over every thought it touched.

She’d forgotten her lines, forgotten to breathe; forgotten how to move — even the little dance of her signature. He’d had to walk her to the chair; fold her fingers round the pen...

I wasn’t strong enough. I... Her gaze fell to her left hand. The words trailed off.

That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Watching me put up a fight against you and your work. Your... plan. For your entertainment!

Oh, there’s more to it than that, lass. Much more.

Even his accent matched the character in her sketch.

I’m not just watching you for the fun of it.

Then what—

Each day after my work is done I come here and sit where I know you’ll not see me. I can tell how completely absorbed you are in what you’re doing.

He paused.

It shows.

She didn’t know what to say.

It’s almost as if I can feel it.

She surveyed her desk, covered in letters and newspaper articles.

I know what it is that keeps you going. Keeps you cheerful even in defeat: coming up with all those terrible puns. Verity: Bank of Yours Truly. Run by an honest Yorkshirewoman.

She sat back down at her desk.

He lowered his voice. It’s in there, hmm? In that head of yours.

He looked right at her. Her hands went cold.

And,

He lowered his gaze. There, too.

She felt her heart struggle, as if defending itself against an indecent imposition.

Admit it: you’re not doing all this just for your own amusement. Are you, hmm?

She studied her hands again.

No. I do it because... it needs done. Somebody has to. I have no job. I have time. So, I—

Aye lass: time. And a motive: a motive I can watch while it plays out in what you do. Almost as if I had it for my own. Fair’s fair, hmm?

She fell silent for a short while.

Would it disappoint you if you came one evening and found I wasn’t here?

I would find you. He leaned towards her. I always have.

That’s not what I meant, she explained. I meant if for some reason I didn’t exist anymore. What if it all got so terrible that I—

He straightened. You will not do that.

You haven’t answered my question, she protested, before adding with a smile, "I do have some experience in politics, you know."

The room backed her up. Above the desk postcards and badges with bright familiar logos cheered on everything from ‘Don’t Panic, it’s Organic!’ through ‘Drop the Debt’ to ‘Ynni Niwcliar: Dim Diolch!’ A Party rosette smiled down from its perch on the bookshelves. A stack of leaflets, ready for delivery the following day, sat by the door.

He looked away. There are others.

Obviously! There are far braver, more active and... better people out there. Why pick on me?

He held her gaze.

Because of how you, lass — of all Mortals — understand my Plan. You truly appreciate it don’t you? Its simplicity. Its geometry. Its, He smiled. Inevitability. You grasped it. And not just on a rational level, no. More deeply: instinctively. You can see the device I’ve set up for you: see it, he glanced down, and feel it.

He took her left wrist.

Tightening its grip. With every heartbeat. You know how it makes you pay for your time, lass: how every Mortal pays for their time.

She couldn’t move.

But you puzzle over what sort of a mind would want to create such a thing. Don’t you, hmm?

He whispered, It’s been getting at you, hasn’t it, for over a third of a century. It’s the reason you wrote about me in the first place. Tried to reckon what I’m like.

She couldn’t deny it.

Wanted to meet me.

So... were you there? In the Student Union theatre?

No answer came.

She studied his face. Could she see a slight difference in his appearance from the character she had envisaged when writing her sketch? Did he look less mean — less fiendish — or was she relying too much on an ability she knew she lacked: the memory for faces? He looked like... she couldn’t place it at first, but then she recalled posters advertising the festival the city held each February: the Viking festival.

And we’ve a resonance, don’t we lass? Summat in common.

York — Jorvik — Viking city.

She tried to gauge some clue from his face.

Was he going to say they were related..?

He turned her hand.

"My wedding-ring?"

No, putty-brains, your writing hand: same as for me. Handy set-up you’ve got there, with the notebook and controls on opposite sides. That way you can do twice the work.

She swore under her breath.

She turned away to hide a smile.

Perhaps, without knowing, she’d hit a nerve just now. Perhaps he had been telling her the truth: that he liked it that she put up a fight. Perhaps if she were to look like giving up...

Her palms crackled and sweated with what she was about to do.

It