Omega

“We’ll be focusing on more recent conflicts—the Falklands, the Gulf, Bosnia, possibly Iraq.”

“You travel there? All those places? North Africa and stuff?”

“Some,” I said vaguely.

“I’m in the T.A. myself. Hitched a ride on a Challenger on Salisbury Plain one time.”

“Oh? Was it fun?”

“Nearly fucking choked from the exhaust fumes. Those things can really motor.”

I kept smiling, now a bit uncertain of the exact nature of his enthusiasm.

“Best thing I’ve seen on the box in years,” he announced.

“That’s great to hear.”

He was offering his hand. I took it and shook. His grip was firm and muscular, and he pumped my arm as if he was sending me off on a suicide mission.

“When’s it out on DVD?”

“In the spring. Lots of background info on how we did the simulations.”

“I’ll look out for it. You really opened my eyes.”

He returned to his table.

It was hard not to look in the mirror, to watch him enthuse to his friends. At the same time I’d learned to be wary of the enthusiasms of militaristic types. It wasn’t often that I was recognised and it still surprised me whenever it happened.

Battlegrounds had been broadcast in the autumn on Channel 5. The series had been given plenty of pre-publicity emphasising the use of state-of-the-art computer animation to give tactical and strategic overviews as well as more intimate portraits of the actual experiences of individual soldiers in major battles. Although it had been designed to appeal to a wide audience the scale of its success exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Battlezones. Now that was a title worth considering for the new series. It had a suitable ring of modernity to it.

I swallowed the last of my beer and departed with a mannered wave to the three men.

Five minutes later I slipped into Racing Green and emerged with a heathery V-neck. It was unlikely Rees would ever wear it, his style tending more to sweatshirts and ancient denims, but Lyneth had a mission to civilise him. Rees was a talented software designer specialising in graphical interfaces, and we’d employed him during the making of the series, so for once he wasn’t short of cash. But his personal life was a mess and he was presently living alone in a Peckham bedsit. Lyneth had invited him to spend Christmas Day with us. I doubted he would actually show up.

I spotted a gap in the traffic and sprinted across the road. Two things happened, one after the other. The mobile in my pocket started trilling and I instinctively paused to pull it free. An instant later there was an enormous bang that picked me up and hurled me backwards.

My head hit something—it may have been the body of a car—and I felt a blaze of enveloping pain. I saw the entire front of Hamley’s bulging outwards, dust blossoming and debris cascading down on the swarming street. Darkness swallowed me up.

What followed were snippets of disconnected impressions: the persistent squeaking of a trolley wheel as I was bundled down a corridor; Christmas greetings cards pinned around the frame of a notice board; distant voices blurring in and out of earshot; a taste of stale blood on my bloated tongue. The pain in my head was so intense that it dwarfed everything else, even my fleeting thoughts of Lyneth and the girls. I kept passing out and resurfacing before eventually settling into a more prolonged period of unconsciousness. When I finally woke again I was in another world entirely.

PART ONE ALTERED STATES

ONE

The room was painted a duck-egg green. I lay in a dim light, in a wrought iron bed that was not a modern fashionable type but one of authentic age. My head was raised on a series of pillows with starchy covers. There was the smell of something sooty.

I risked a slight movement of the head, and felt a wave of pain worse than any headache. But it ebbed and I was able to inch myself up from the pillow.

A crimson patchwork quilt lay across the bed. Beyond the foot of the bed was a mirrored dresser on which a tasselled table lamp gave off a dull orange glow. The room looked utilitarian, but the furniture gave it a cosy feel. A computer sat on a drop-leaf table beside the door. It was not switched on, and someone had hung a crocheted doily over its screen. Next to the dresser an area of wall had been hacked out to make a fireplace where coals were burning low in a cast iron grate. Its bricked-in surrounds were crudely finished.

Had I been taken out of hospital? If so, to where? The room was quite unfamiliar to me, though in my drowsy state this didn’t bother me unduly.

The door opened, casting a swathe of brighter light into the room. A squat middle aged woman in a floral dress and black cardigan entered. She came to the bed and, seeing that I was awake, said, “There is water here for your thirst.”

She spoke gruffly, her English heavily accented. I tried to speak, failed.