The man stood at the massive carved doors, with its monumental forged handles and hinges. At the top, embossed with gold leaf, was the inscription, FIND HEREIN THE THINGS THAT WERE. Newly dead, too early dead in fact, he didn’t know what to expect, but this seemed à propos.
It wouldn’t affect what he had come to do.
He lifted the bulbous brass knocker that protruded from the door and let it drop. A resounding knock threatened to rattle the mighty doors. He wasn’t sure if he should repeat the knock when the doors opened with a solemn grandeur. He peered in. Darkness met his eyes until they accustomed themselves to shafts of light that streamed down a vast entry hall from stained clerestory windows – scarlet, sapphire, emerald, lapis lazuli – enlivening particles of dust.
‘Come in, come in, lad’ called a voice from the recesses of the hall.
He stepped through the magnificent portal and strode across the tessellated floor. He discerned what he thought was an old man, with a long beard behind a desk of carved wood. But, drawing close, he observed the old man radiated a youthfulness and vigour that he had not seen for a long time.
The young/old man stood and extended his hand. ‘Dmitri , welcome.’
Dmitri accepted his grasp and felt an immediate reassurance, a warmth of humour and kindliness; he shivered slightly at its effect. He ran his hand through his blond hair and steeled his resolve. He would not be taken in, not distracted from his purpose.
‘I’m Res,’ said the man. ‘Thank you for coming.’ His gaze was stark and lively, and tempted Dmitri with a happy conspiracy. He thought, this might even be fun.
‘And I do mean thank you,’ continued Res. ‘Not many join The Things That Were. Most who pass want to be Floaters, just swanning around the Afterlife enjoying the light, or Adventurers, who want to buzz about and explore everything, but Factota are scarce. Plus you come with impeccable credentials. Doctorate in Data Storage, Chair of the Global Data Storage Design Council, International Peer Recognition Prize for Data Security – Technical Capability, Chair of the Transpacific Anti-hacking Commission, the list goes on. You are truly most welcome.’
He motioned for Dmitri to sit. The chair he sat in seemed to mould into his shape and he felt relaxed but alert, lifted and energised. It was alluring, this comfort; he thought it almost a shame to resist it.
‘Beyond all the accolades, I see you were, if you’ll forgive me, a bookish type, always curious about what happened when, anxious to get the facts straight.’
It was true. Dmitri had always wanted to know the facts. Earnest in his youth, he could never tolerate uninformed debate; it led to all sorts of conflict and division that was so popular on social media. Politics in his last years had become divisive and confrontational, absolutist even, and had no regard for the direction of history or the actuality of things. Had no time for the way things should be.
‘Come, let me give you the tour.’
Dmitri was surprised to feel himself lifted out of his chair as Res turned to a staircase behind him. He followed his host up the stairs and found himself gazing into a deep room where a large group of workers were hammering away on keyboards and computer screens. Champagne bottles and beer cans littered the room amidst empty dinner plates, music played and the workers chatted merrily to each other as they worked.
‘This is the Receiving Room,’ said Res. ‘As each fact in the universe occurs, the Receivers here allocate it to a place in Records next door, to preserve the truth of the past.’
Dmitri watched the Receivers as their fingers flitted across the keyboards. Well, he presumed they had fingers that flitted across the keyboards; he couldn’t actually see them they were moving so fast.
One of them looked up and shouted, ‘Hi, Res, got a newbie?’
‘That’s Recu,’ said Res to Dmitri, and then called to the team below him. ‘This is Dmitri .’
The entire team shouted, ‘Hi, Dmitri ,’ and gave a hearty wave. He saw fingers appear and revanish as they returned to work. Above the clatter of keystrokes, Recu shouted, ‘Hope you can join us, give those shelf stackers in Records something to do!’
‘Recu is the self-appointed head of the Receivers,’ said Res as they continued the tour. ‘Vocal, witty and extremely fast. Receivers have to be. The rate of factual occurrence, or RFO as we call it, is still increasing as the population grows and the universe expands. Most Factota are Receivers.’
Res continued as the two men moved along the corridor. ‘You can join the Receivers if you wish, they’re a pretty riotous crowd, and it gets pretty frantic. Sometimes they end up tossing facts into the wrong boxes, and the record of history can get a little muddled. The facts don’t change, it’s just that they are a little harder to find. Which leads us to this, the real event.’
A pair of doors flung themselves open and Res spread his arms. ‘Welcome to Records.’
An unfathomably vast and unending vista of rows and rows of what looked like data storage towers lay before Dmitri ’s sight. It was a command force of stolid black sentries which extended out of sight into the void, and high above, beyond where he could see. Lights blinked, and a gentle hum of machinery reverberated in the background.
He turned to Res in amazement, just as he felt a short breeze pass him by.
‘The folks here are very fast,’ said Res, and he whistled loudly into the space. “Guys, can we stop for a quick mo, to welcome a newcomer into the team?’
About fifteen forms materialised in the foreground, others appeared from behind the black stacks in the distance. They were clad in all manner of apparel, from crinoline dresses to togas, to animal furs and silk Hanfu garb.
‘It’s Era Day, come as your favourite era,’ said Res to Dmitri , and then turned to the group. ‘This is Dmitri . He’s come to join the Factota.’
‘Hey Dmitri !’ some of the group said. One added, ‘Come and be with us. Correct the Receivers’ mistakes.’ They left their laughter as they disappeared.
Res began strolling among the block towers of information. ‘These beauties,’ he said, casually tapping the wall of the one next to him, ‘hold the records of all things that were. Every event, every thing that was, or occurred, is recorded in these memory banks. Every star, every planet, every particle of dust and atom, every wave of an ocean, be it water, methane of other substance, every breath of every living creature, from agrobacteria to zebras. Caesar’s stabbing, the moon landing, your first step as a toddler. Everything.’
He spun about with open arms and his coat fluttered open. ‘We categorise things as best we can. Sector A is the origins of the universe, the Big Bang, cosmic inflation, the formation of stars, our galaxy etc. If you look into String Theory, you’ll find the facts that theorists posited the idea, but there is no fact relating to the existence of Strings. Sector B and its subsectors look at the billions of stars and their solar systems. Somewhere amongst it you’ll find Earth, its formation, and so on. Sector C is Life. You’ll find a range of planets, which at different times held life, with little critters travelling through space clinging to asteroids and populating new homes. Earthly life is there of course. Not a unique event, but current, with its the teeming oceans, and land fauna. What you know as the Yucatan asteroid is interesting to watch.’
Dmitri felt another breeze pass him with a waft of perfume. ‘That’s Josie in her venetian courtesan outfit,’ said Res. They turned into a narrow corridor, the banks looming above them. ‘Way down the end of this corridor is humanity,’ said Res. He began to run, and Dmitri picked up his pace to keep up. Banks flashed by in a grey cloud, and the breeze swept about them as they moved. He could see Res, but little else, although he felt he knew where was; if at any time he stopped he would be able to identify the point in time and the facts stored there. He felt a surge of triumph.
They stopped beside a black tower. Res said, ‘Here we are, human history. Everything that happened since humans first appeared, the first fire makers, the tool makers, the early hominids, and homo sapiens itself. Then written history and the growth of civilisations – Sumer, the Indus, Egypt etc, through the Greeks and Romans to the Middles Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the World Wars, the nuclear age. Congratulations on your first near light speed run by the way.’
Dmitri looked around and realised they had travelled very far from where they had met the Recorders team, possibly a few kilometres, although the appearance of the information banks had not changed.
‘We’re sixty-two million kilometres from the entry door,’ said Res, ‘give or take. I like to keep this stuff close by, as most people like to access it. There’s a bit way up there on the history of aeroplanes, which we like to store in the cloud.’ He flashed a wry grin, and said, ‘Dad joke. Let’s get back to the café and have a chat.’
Res left before Dmitri had a chance to see where he was headed. Dmitri decided to retrace his steps and soon sensed the breakneck passing of instruments and light. Res was waiting back at the entry. “You have the knack already, m’ boy. You’ll fit in well.’
They sat in a café area, sipping the most elegant tea that Dmitri had ever experienced. It seemed the more he drank the less it emptied. This was a topsy turvy world, but he would conquer it.
‘You’ve got the gist of what we do,’ said Res. ‘But you’re wondering why. I get that. Let me put it this way. I’m a romantic at heart. When a couple says, ‘Our love will live on when we die’, we’re making it come true. The couple dies, that’s one of the stored facts – people don’t have a soul that lives on after death – but we store the facts of their love. The kisses, making the bed together each morning, her bearing their children, his extravagant gifts on their anniversary, her shaving his chin in his dotage, all that stuff. They make up the love they had, and each item exists, here in The Hall of Things that Were. It is their immortality, and, by the way, the closest you will ever be to time travel.’
Res stroked his beard and said, ‘Unfortunately, the romance section is the smallest in Human History. Violence is the dominant mode of human being.’
‘And what am I?’ asked Dmitri . ‘Do I exist?’
‘You are an assemblage of facts,’ said Res, ‘just as I am, and the team. You are an artifice, or, as I like to quip, an artefact.’ He smiled, and said, ‘I presume you want to be a Recorder. You heard Recu, the Receivers regard the Recorders as lowly shelf stackers, who put goods back on the right shelf after customers misplace them. But as you appreciate, it is much more interesting than that.’
Dmitri nodded.
‘Good, then it is settled.’ Dmitri shook the hand that Res extended, and Res said, ‘It’s Era Day. What is your favourite fashion?
Dmitri said, ‘I’m feeling a little triumphant at the moment, a suit from Hugo Boss in the 1940’s would be great.’
‘Excellent,’ said Res. ‘I’ll get courtesan Josie to run your induction.’ He called up Josie on a pager on his sleeve, and she was suddenly there. Raven tresses lunged about her rouged cheeks, a bejewelled corset just covered her bosom and exploded into a billowing rose silk dress below. Her eyes flashed with sharp intelligence.
‘Hello, Blue Eyes,’ she said. ‘I’m Josie, cortigiane oneste. High class.’
‘Hello,’ said Dmitri . She smiled, and said, ‘Let’s go.’ She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the Hall of Records. ‘It’s not hard, but requires a bit of focus. The Receivers work so fast, they get things wrong, and facts get distorted and misplaced. The technique is to sniff them out. New facts are lit with rainbow colours for checking. Most are close by in current times, but a Receiver typo might put, say, a wristwatch in the Roman Senate, or a pair of jeans on an Inca priest, so we have to go back there and retrieve the error. I once found George Washington’s dentures in the formation of the Andromeda Galaxy.’
She took him around the information towers and showed him how to access new facts, confirm their location and tag them with entry points to related information. ‘It won’t be hard for someone with your expertise,’ she said. ‘It’s not like we store facts as photos or videos, it’s all in code, a bit boring to the outsider, but heaven for data geeks. The big thing is, they are all related. Eg, the Australopithecus Lucy’s death is tagged to her 1974 discovery, and to the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. That’s the main part of our job, to get the access tags right. You lodge one fact, you’re affecting millions. You’ll see a yellow light if something goes wrong.’
‘How often do yellow lights go on?’ said Dmitri.
‘Never,’ she replied, then, tapping the end of her nose with her finger, said, ‘Cos Recorders don’t make mistakes.’
They slooped around the various Sectors and she explained how they were broken down for ease of access. In response to his inquiry, she showed him World War 2, and the inter years after the Great War. After a while, she said, ‘I’ll leave you to have snoop for a bit. There’s cake in half an hour for a meet the whole gang, so hop around and get the feel of it all. And see how fast you can go without stubbing your toes on the corners.’ And she was gone.
Dmitri seized his opportunity.
He raced to 26 May 1940 and the beaches of Dunkirk, where thousands of British troops were coded on the brink of annihilation. His heart pounding, he hacked into the algorithm, released the German army on to the exposed beaches and sent flocks of Luftwaffe shooting from above. Yellow lights began flashing in the tower and elsewhere. He skipped to 2 October 1941 and the walls of Moscow, changed the code to fine weather and breached the city walls. Hordes of dead Russians in the city activated more yellow lights in the banks about him. He did not stop to look but tore with a broad grin to his next date.
At 23 August 1942 he hacked the codes for the city of Volgograd and sent in heavy reinforcements that crushed the Soviet defence in a blaze of electric yellow. At 5 July 1943 he changed the code on the Battle of Kursk, saving numerous German lives. An alarm sounded, and the tower was fully illuminated. He was opening 16 December 1944 to recode the Battle of the Ardennes when Recu in the Receivers called out that the Reichs Präsident von Amerika, Erhard Freiesherz, had crushed a democratic rebellion in the nuclear zone of Neu Berlin and had sent the perpetrators to labour camps.
He paused, and thought, I have succeeded. A bitter grin soiled his face.
The towers were abuzz with Recorders who crawled over the system like worker bees, frantically trying to reconcile missing facts with the new input from Receipt, trying to find how the new world matrix had so suddenly appeared. More alarms sounded, and more facts entered the system. Data towers were bathed in sickly yellow light, like a polluted sunrise. It was chaos. Team members shouted. Old facts contradicted the new, and towers buzzed with the dissonance of record and input.
Recu shouted, ‘The Reichs Kommandant Japanisch opened their nuclear facility on Spratley Island, and four carriers from the Pazifikmarine docked at Aukland before a crowd of 35,792.’
Tower alarms screamed as the Recorders scrambled over them. As a newcomer, Dmitri went unnoticed, and Panzer Divisions raced across the Yorkshire Dales southwards, long range missiles headed to New York and Washington, and the swastika emerged triumphant across the globe.
Res shouted across the intercom, ‘Emergency Hall meeting, now!’
Dmitri hadn’t realised how many Factota there were, as the voluminous meeting hall was crammed with personnel, chatting anxiously about the crisis they were suddenly facing. He kept towards the back of the room, near the door, about a kilometre from where Res called them to order.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Josie said, her platformed chopines elevating her above the crowded room. ‘New facts emerging now simply contradict old facts, and you can’t change what has been. The problem seems to stem from the 1940’s and after. People who should be dead have lived, places that were destroyed haven’t been. New York was obliterated by a nuclear V2 Rocket. It’s looking like the world has gone fascist.’
‘Have the facts changed?’ said Recu.
‘Are you accusing us of fiddling with the facts?’ said Josie. ‘Perhaps you entered them wrongly.’
Res raised his arm. ‘Chill, folks. You know as well as I, you can’t change the past. You can’t hack a fact.’
‘But these are the facts coming in,’ said Recu.
Res looked around. ‘Where’s our new starter, Dmitri ?’
Dmitri raised his hand and the crowd separated to reveal him. His chest was tight.
‘You’re the master anti-hacker, young fella, do you have any thoughts?’
‘Sorry,’ Dmitri said. ‘It’s my first hour trying to understand how the system works so I have no clue. Is it an interpretation issue?’
Someone chuckled. A Recorder next to him whispered, ‘Revisionism is one thing, but you can’t change a fact.’ Dmitri shrugged, feigning embarrassment. He noticed Res staring at him, before looking away. He snorted under his breath.
Res ordered the teams into crisis mode, to catalogue the differences, check if recorded facts had changed, check energy supply, to investigate all possibilities. Receivers were to maintain receipt but place them in temporary storage until the issue was resolved. ‘Dmitri , you join the fact checkers. I know it’s your first day, but your experience could be useful.’
The Factota teams headed into the cacophony of the beleaguered system. Sickly yellow light swamped the black towers and the alarms echoed terrifyingly along the corridors.
Dmitri followed his allotted teammates into the towers. He was unknown, so they ignored him, and didn’t see him veer off to a more recent date. Time to effect the next part of his plan, his resurrection and return to glory.
When he arrived, Res was waiting for him.
‘How did you do it?’ he asked.
‘Do what?’ said Dmitri .
“I gave you an opportunity to speak up, but you chose to play dumb. No one can change a fact, except maybe you, with your advanced skills. So tell me, how’d you hack the facts?’
Dmitri grinned at Res and lunged for the tower, but Res was too quick. He turned and flung the younger man along the corridor floor. Dmitri groaned with the impact.
‘My favourite era is the Shaolin Monks,’ said Res looming over the younger man. ‘I know what you are up to. You want to hack your death fact, and return to life and the world you’ve just created.’
Dmitri sprang to his feet and fled down a corridor. Res was hot on his heels. ‘Why, Dmitri ?’ he shouted as they ran, the halls liquid in their speed. Dmitri went as fast as he could, but the older man stayed on him. He stopped suddenly, and saw the old man whizz down the corridor. He turned in the direction of his death date and ran. It’d been too early, he’d had plans, and now he was about to fulfil them. Now he’d come back and take a lead in the World That Should Have Been.
He swung around the corner and lunged again for his moment, but a wall of perfume hit him in the face. He stumbled to the floor, rubbing his eye where the wooden chopine had struck him.
‘I’m faster without them,’ said Josie, ‘and they make good clubs.’
Shortly after, Res appeared on Dmitri ’s other side. Dmitri smiled and said, ‘Bit slow aren’t you, old boy?’, and then he leapt up at Josie. But Res was too quick again, and he found himself under the old man’s cloak, his arm at breaking point, his breath almost squeezed from him. Res’ piercing eyes drilled into him.
‘You could have simply hacked some wealth, or love,’ said the old man, ‘but why this, whey the resurgence of the Reich?’
Dmitri looked from Res to Josie. A few others had assembled as well. Res relaxed his grip a little.
‘Check your facts,’ said Dmitri . ‘One of my forebears was Obersturmbannführer Heinrich Hoffman in World War 2. When we lost the war, he fled to South America under an adopted name. He – the family – lost both land and hopes in the War, but the Hoffmans kept the flame alive. So I figured out a way of returning the world to where it should be, to where, you will see, it is now.’
Res glared at him.
Dmitri said, ‘I know what you’re thinking: It’s always the fucking Nazis. Such a cliché, I know, but this time, old man, we have won.’
Res said, ‘I don’t think so.’
Dmitri drew a deep breath and chuckled. ‘Oh yes, old man. There’s a Reichs Präsident in every major country – America, Japan, China, Russia, the whole globe. We’ve won, at last.’
Res released his grip on the younger man and stood up.
Dmitri straightened his suit and ran his hand through his blond locks. He said, ‘There’s only one little thing to do now, and my mission will be complete.’
‘Erase your death fact, so you’ll be alive again and can join your filthy mob,’ said Res.
Dmitri nodded. ‘I died too young, but you have to admit, I worked it to my advantage. And the thing is, you filthy old man in charge of your filthy mob of Factotums, you don’t have a choice in the matter. You can let me hack my death and I go back to the glorious Reich, or, not hack my death, and I stay here. But either way, the Reich is a fact now, and it will retain its global reach, whether I’m there as a hero or here as a martyr.’
He straightened his tie and said, ‘Your move, monk.’
‘I’ll do you a deal,’ said Res. ‘Come to the café.’
The two men sat again in the chairs that had seemed so exquisitely comfortable earlier that day. Dmitri regarded them with disdain and sat upright and stiff.
‘Your preference is to return,’ said Res, ‘despite the comfortable chairs.’
Dmitri sneered. ‘So what are you offering, extra comfy furniture?’
‘You show us how you hacked the facts and we let you hack your death.’
‘What, and you then hack the stuff I changed and restore the simpering democracies and feeble atrocities of the left?’
‘You have open slather to our system,’ said Res. ‘If you can hack it, then you can secure it. Secure all the changes you made, but give us at least the skills to make sure the rest is failsafe, and then you can go back and enjoy your putrid paradise.’
Dmitri spun his chair around and watched the room spin as he considered his options. Comfy chairs or living glory, tasty tea or triumph. The Afterlife is alluring, but not so much as power. He stopped and said, ‘Deal.’
The air was thick with anger as Res, Josie and a select few watched Dmitri demonstrate his hacking of the system. When he was done he said, ‘I know you’re too upset to admit you are impressed, but it is very impressive, no?’
Res turned his head away and said, ‘Get on and secure your changes.’
Dmitri shot round to the 1940’s where he had wrought the damage. Sure that no one was watching he secured the new past and then went to erase the code of his death. He added his security patch and then shouted into the Hall, ‘Auf Wiedersehen Freunde!’
Then he flicked a switch and was gone.
Josie was first back at the spot where Dmitri had vanished. ‘This is hopeless,’ she said.
Res placed his palms together and smiled.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Before, when Dmitri stopped and I fled past him, I wasn’t slow getting back. I took the opportunity to visit the Andromeda Galaxy. I suggest you go there, and in the bitemarks left by George Washington’s teeth, you’ll find there the facts of his birth. Why don’t you try out the new techniques he taught us, and change his birth, and make sure he is still born. I know, it’s a bit like killing baby Adolf, but in this case I think it’s justified.’
Josie looked at him, mouth agape.
‘Oh, and I don’t think we need to record these facts,’ said Res as he turned to leave.
* * * * * * * *
Photo by Taylor Vick via Unsplash.
