20. Seeing things differently

Elaine climbed the stairs and looked in on Will's room.

He was sitting on the bed staring into space, whilst absently stroking Kirjava.

'You all right?' she said,

'Huh?' Will blinked and looked up, 'Oh, yeah I'm fine.'

'Just bored?'

Will considered.

'Yeah, just feels like I'm not going anywhere.'

'You miss Lyra?'

'And that.'

Elaine sat down at the other end of the bed and put a hand on Will's leg.

'Cheer up. Things get a lot more interesting at this point in you life. It's the time of change.'

'I seem to hear that a lot from the teachers at school,' said Will, smiling, 'I don't think anything will compare to travelling between worlds, fighting against huge political powers and armies.'

'Ah, well you do well to grieve then.

'You've been on quite an adventure Will, it's marked you for life, but you'll never see times like those again. But you'll have a great story to tell your kids when they're tucked up in bed.'

'Maybe. But I just don't want that to be the only event of my life.'

'You're young. You're young, strong, and brave. You have a lot to live for.'

'As long as those men don't get me first.' Replied Will gloomily.

Elaine said nothing to this. It was true, there was nothing they could do about these men in suites who seemed determined to catch Will for some reason or other. They couldn't go to the police, they couldn't hide. All they could do was keep running and not give them reason to hurt them.

'Will, what did happen in Oxford? I can't help but ask because you've been acting strange ever since.'

'Have I?'

'You're my boy!' A mother knows her child better than anyone.'

Will smiled again.

'While I was in Oxford we visited the botanic gardens again.

'Lyra was there too, but in her world… And I kind of, saw her. Then something happened, and we just fell forward, then when we looked up, we were in her world.'

'Really? You sure it was her world?'

Will nodded.

'But like, 30 seconds later we went all dizzy and found ourselves back in our world.'

'Do you think it could happen again then?'

Will nodded.

'Also,' he added suddenly, 'When I've been at school, or out and about or where ever, when I see tow other people who are together, I suddenly feel like I dislike them. Even though I don't know them…'

'That's called Jealousy Will. If you've loved then lost, you'll know it well soon enough.'

She smiled, and then left the room.

Mary, meanwhile, was up in oxford working on the Cave. It was 4 in the afternoon and she was almost set to start it up for the first time since she left her world.

In retrospect, she wished she hadn't made such a good job of demolishing it.

Oliver walked in to survey the work.

'Looking good.' He said, 'Is it ready?'

'I think so, just need to check the magnetic field- I don't trust that coil, it's out of position.'

She lent over the hardware and straitened the wire coils that surrounded the detector. 'Oliver, I know I've asked this before, but are you sure it's totally legal to use the funds that Latrom put into the lab? I don't want to get this thing going and then have it confiscated by the police.'

'It's legal on paper.' He said.

'What's that supposed to mean?' said Mary, looking at him sharply.

'Well I've produced a document that states the funds belong to the lab.

'In reality, they belong to Latrom, but if his solicitors try to take it back, I just wave this document and they have to back off.'

'Ok,' replied Mary slowly, 'let me rephrase the question- it that document legal?'

'No. But my solicitor is a very good friend and he's made sure that it can't be proved illegal, so essentially we're in the clear.'

Mary raised one eyebrow to express her disapproval, but Oliver spread his arms,

'It's that or we're back where we started with the funds crisis.' He said.

'H'mm.' Mary sat back in the chair and thought for a moment. Then she looked at the cave again while morality battled with curiosity. 'Well,' she said, 'I guess all scientists have to be a little crazy sometimes.'

She lent forward and pushed the power switch.

Walters entered the makeshift office and made himself comfortable on the upturned waste paper bin.

'Anything new?' said his partner.

'Not yet. But there will be'

'You master plan seems to be on hold. What are you waiting for?'

'The right moment, he's going up to oxford again.'

'So what? It'll be a nightmare trying to track him up there.'

'It'll be worth it, I think he's not going to tell us anything, so we'll have to follow him until he leads us to it. Our man in oxford said there was something seriously strange about that bench he goes too.'

'You're the boss. But the guv isn't going to be a happy chappy if you come back empty handed again.'

'I know.' Said Walters, rolling his eyes.

AWARD BIOS – 2003

CPU 1: AMD Athlon @ 3000mhz

CPU 2: AMD Athlon @ 3000mhz

Front Side Bus @ 240mhz

3000mb DDR Detected @ 480mhz

WARNING: EXPEREMENTAL CONFIGURATION NOT TESTED PRESS F1 TO CONTINUE

Mary pressed F1 and flexed her fingers as the Cave started up.

'That FSB is too high. Are you sure it can cope with this speed?' said Oliver doubtfully.

'This hardware out paces Microsoft by about 2 years. It can do it.'

The cave finished it's start-up routine and Mary switched on the detector and applied the pads to her head.

The screen flashed a few times, then a cursor appeared and began to print dots on the screen. Oliver looked at Mary.

'I have no idea what's going to happen,' she said, 'You wrote the software.'

The cursor finished it's dots and the screen flashed again and the cursor began to print a garbled message:

M25a5r8y 493m2a9o6l8n5e~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4sw4i7t5a4c5h5 5o55f54 5t4h5i5s1 65m5a5c5h5i5ne5 544n4o4w4

'Damn.' Said Mary, 'It must be that coil, it's letting in interference.

Oliver peered closely at the screen,

'Look- there is a message, it's just messed up with the numbers; "Mary-malone, switch-off-this-machine-now". Did you enter your name anywhere?'

'Nope… Do you think we should switch it off?'

'Not on your life! This thing is thinking!' He tapped the fault magnetic coil and the cursor danced again.

Mary MalOnE SwiTCh of thiS MACHiNe _noW_

Mary looked at Oliver again, then his brow furrowed,

'What's that smell?'

Mary lunged forward and cut the power, the screen went black and she carefully moved it to grant them access to the cover.

As she removed it an unpleasant burning smell made them wrinkle their noses.

'I told you that FSB be was too fast!'

Mary ignored him, and commenced a diagnostic.

'The left processor's gone- you can see the burns all round the cooler. The right one looks ok; the over-heat cutout must've kicked in. The motherboard looks a but worse for wear too…'

'I'll order a new one. We'll have to sort out better cooling too, if we slow the computer down it won't cope with the input, look at the data readings, there must be more data here than what a weather satellite receives in a month.'

'We'd better keep that secure, we don't want this stuff leaking out or we won't be the only team with a cave.'

'Ah, not getting competitive are we?'

Mary smiled, 'No, but it'd be such a shame to do all this then have someone finish it and get the credit.'

'Yea. And even though you burnt out the thing, it worked- it new your name and it new there was something wrong with the computer.'

'I think it's they. Did I tell you all that They said when I did this last time?'

'Nope. But if your going to, let's get a drink first, pint of the black stuff would do me well right now. Everyone else has gone home.'

'OK. I'll lock up and you make sure everyone else has gone and we'll go to the pub round the corner.'