The Birth Mark - NaNoWriMo 2013

Eleven

© 2013 Laura Crean

Chaser sat in his study with a music hologram programme playing relaxing and calming music.  As the beautiful music was emitted from the walls of the room dreamy holographic scenes were projected into the space.  As sounds of waves and dolphins mingled with the soothing sounds of the music, dolphins leaped and played, jumping over the waves, appearing to travel around the walls of the study and into the centre where he could watch the scenes from his desk.  Waves crashed against rocks and sea birds flew over his head and seemed to disappear into the walls or out of the window.  The playlist moved on and a new piece of music began playing.  Sounds of a forest scene were now accompanied by the images of a rainforest that Chaser appeared to be sitting in, his desk in the middle of a clearing.  Birds were tweeting and flying from tree to tree, insects were buzzing and monkeys whooping.  The sound and ‘sense’ of a warm breeze flowed through the branches of the trees and made him close his eyes for a moment as his attention moved to a waterfall crashing into a river that was running behind him. 

With the calming holographic programme playing all around him, he finally felt relaxed enough to get out the contents of the safety deposit box he had found when his parents had passed away; ten years was a long time to sit on this, he thought sadly as he tipped the contents onto his desk.

The letter from his birth mother looked very crumpled and out of place on the ancient paper.   Paper hadn’t been made for hundreds of years so it was an odd sight and one he hadn’t really taken much notice of as a teenager - why would he when his parents had been able to afford to own a whole library of antique leather bound books?  Of course if he had been thinking logically and not as a spoilt rich kid at the time, he would have realised that poor prostitutes, usually lost in their addictions to Simmy drugs were highly unlikely to have been able to afford  to even own paper, let alone scribble a note on a piece.  He shook his head at this huge clue to his birth mother being a time-traveller.  How could he possibly have missed it?  He thought to himself in disgust.

He picked up the letter from his adopted Mother, the usual media of the day for writing a personal diary or a letter of a delicate and private nature that a person didn’t want to store on a vid message (that everyone knew could be accessed at any time by the government).  It was a small cylinder the size of a pen, with a pressure pad on one end which Chaser touched to open the ‘letter’.  A thin sheet of E-paper unzipped from the tube (looking like an ancient scroll) and the memory chip activated the message which was hand written electronically rather than the more modern versions of the device, which usually held a holographic message recorded by the ‘author’.

Dear Charles,

    I have wanted to write this letter to you for so long but I could never think of what to say, how to put into words how sorry I am for being such a terrible mother to you.  I know I wasn’t as loving and ‘motherly’ as I should have been but please understand – it wasn’t your fault, it was nothing to do with you, you dear, sweet boy – it was mine!

    You see I had never really wanted a child and when I found out I couldn’t conceive naturally, well I was actually quite happy.  Unfortunately I married into a wealthy family and passing on your father’s name and ‘blood line’ was not optional.  I was badgered and harassed from day one of the marriage from both your father and his parents to have a baby and when they found out I couldn’t have one and hadn’t told your father they were so angry with me.  They never really wanted anything to do with me after that.  We tried all the usual fertility treatments and procedures but a baby just wouldn’t come to term for me, even the clone of your father that they tried to make me carry.  Eventually your father admitted that an adopted child would have to do as a short term solution and he was going to try and convince you or trick you into having a clone of him implanted into your wife’s egg (once he had chosen you a suitable mate).  My only hope is that you get away from him and his power hungry family and their cronies in the government before that happens. 

    I always knew there was a reason why he insisted on choosing which baby we were to adopt (I had no say in the matter).  If I had been given the choice I would have liked to have adopted a sister for you, but your father would never allow a second adoption as he insisted one child would be enough to eventually have the blood line carried on.  I am so sorry Charles that you were taken away from your birth mother who would have loved you so very, very much and desperately wanted you and wanted me to tell you that she loved you and wanted you but that it wasn’t to be!  Yes I did meet her and she was lovely but for some reason she was in trouble and being chased by Agents – I never learnt why but I think your father knew the reason because he was insistent you be re-aligned from a young age with the desire to work in the Agency, even though you always wanted to do science from a very young age.  I think your real father may have been a scientist but I’m not sure. 

    Chaser Switch – you are a very, very special individual.  You are unique!  I know - I have seen how ‘naturally’ gifted you are but for some reason only known to those that ‘control’ you, you are not being allowed to use this gift – it has been supressed by the Agency.  You must apply to become a Time Agent my son (MY SON) and I know that someday you will be able to use the gift that God has given you. 

    I know I haven’t been very good at expressing it my son, but I do love you so very much.

Your Loving Mother Amanda.

    Chaser closed the letter from his mother and wiped the tears from his eyes.  When he had read the letter for the first time as a teenager he had been angry.  He had reacted to the sudden realization that he was adopted with bitterness and teenage passion.  He had been angry with everyone; his adopted father for being so un-feeling and adopting him for his own selfish reasons, his adopted mother for being so weak and going along with it and not showing him the love he had so desperately needed as a young child, and even his birth mother for being a criminal who was being chased by Agents.  He hadn’t stopped to wonder about the story behind the chase or anything about her situation and he was angry with himself for his own assumptions that she must have been involved in prostitution and drugs.  The fact that he had a real father out there somewhere hadn’t even entered his head.  He hadn’t wondered about his part in his life at all.  If he had read the letter properly he might have wondered why his father, a scientist and therefore upstanding member of the community wouldn’t have tried to claim him, why he would have let his child be put up for adoption or let the mother of his child time-travel at all in her condition. 

All his life Chaser had been led blindly along a path, told what to do and what to think by everyone around him, instructed every step of the way where to go and he had not once stepped from the path.  He realised he had become a tool to be used by the system, just another cog in the machine and he realised he wasn’t alone.  He realised all of a sudden that society was being controlled, manipulated, enslaved – nobody was free.  He had been so inserted into the machine, in fact, that he had just gone along with the workings of it, clicking round like a little cog in a great big clock.  He was just a component playing his little part to keep the system running like, well like clockwork; not questioning, not stepping out of line, just pushing the right buttons, and doing everything according to the program.  He was part of the program, just another zero in a line of code, never questioning the system’s purpose or trying to change the design in any way.

He picked up the watch and turned it over in his hand, examining it carefully.  He knew this was how people used to time-travel in the past and he knew that it had been made illegal but he had never wondered how it worked or who had invented the technology.  He suddenly thought that it was odd that children weren’t taught about the beginnings or workings of time-travel and the technology of these ancient watches or the great inventive mind of his father, the genius behind time-travel; and for that matter why this technology wasn’t being used for the good of the people.  There had to be some ways to use this technology other than chasing criminals and correcting mistakes they had made in their travels.  He now knew what he had to do.  He had to find out exactly what plans the President had for him – why him?  What could he possibly think Chaser could offer him to help him in his game of power?

He put the watch on.  How did it work?  He could only time-travel as an agent when his personal vid had been sent the code for a job; this seemed to switch on the mechanism in the vid that activated when the agent pushed the travel button.  At the same time their genetic marker was switched on in case they got lost in time, that way reinforcements could be sent to rescue them.  Could he use the watch?  Should he?  Where would he go?  He didn’t know where to start.