Omega

There was no other evidence that he’d been up to anything else. Perhaps it was me after all. Or perhaps Geoff had come back. I went through into the hallway and listened, looking up the stairs.

“Geoff?” I called somewhat tentatively. “Are you there?”

Silence. I waited, listening again for the merest hint of movement somewhere in the house. I could hear only the muted pneumatic thrumming of the central heating system. There was no one at home but me.

The phone gave a little peep. It was mounted in the hallway next to the living room door. I stared at it, finally realising that someone had probably just left a message. The phone must have switched to the answer service before I could get there.

I lifted the handset and tapped out 1571.

One message, I was informed, received a minute before. I let it play.

There was a pause before a querulous elderly male voice said: “Hello? Is anyone there?” A longer pause, and now the voice saying at reduced volume: “He’s not there. Shall I say who’s calling?” A further silence before the voice spoke directly into the receiver once more: “It’s me. Are you out? They didn’t tell me you were going anywhere.” Yet another long pause. Finally: “Goodbye.”

Throughout all this his tone had veered between the quizzical and the perplexed, his voice sounding fractured with age.

My father. It felt like decades since I had last heard him speak. Before I was fully aware of it I had pressed 3 to delete.

The helicopter was a diminutive de Havilland Sprite. Owain sat next to Giselle as she took off, banking away from the landing pad on the War Office roof.

Despite many helicopter rides, Owain had never flown up front before, let alone in a light craft whose bubble canopy gave him an intimate identification with the vast grey spaces beyond it. Giselle was already radioing ahead, confirming clearance for landing. No problem, she was told by another female voice. We’re expecting you. There was no other low-altitude traffic en route.

They followed the line of Western Avenue, flying below five hundred feet, overtaking a convoy of supply trucks. Giselle handled the craft with a minimum of fuss, maintaining a steady speed and altitude. Encased in her pilot’s helmet, she looked born to it.

I didn’t bother to try to reject the transition. I just sat there in the back of Owain’s mind, once again finding no sign that he was actually aware of me as a distinct presence. He evidently swamped my consciousness when he occupied me, whereas I had barely left a footprint in his world. But then I had so far been too curious about his world to be single-mindedly active. From his own visitations he must have known of my existence and my world, yet he continued to rationalise my sporadic interventions as a renegade aspect of his personality. This was to my advantage: it meant I still had room for manoeuvre. Sooner or later I would have to act decisively; but not before I had a better understanding of what was going on.

“I didn’t know you flew,” I heard him remarking to Giselle.

“I used to be an instructor,” she told him.

“Really?”

“In my younger days.”

“Helicopters?”

“Combat trainers. Demons and Chouettes.”

“Dassaults?”

“Of course.”

“You were in the air force?”

“Army. I like to—what do you say?—keep my hand in, when I have the chance.”

Owain changed conversational tack, asking her about his uncle again. She insisted she was not unduly concerned about his condition. She was attending the briefing in his stead, a bulging briefcase tucked in the luggage compartment. It was something to do with revised emergency procedures in the event of attack; he knew better than to ask about details.

Soon the aerodrome was in sight, its square control tower surrounded by slab-faced ziggurats, runways radiating from it, sprinkled with aircraft. Since the destruction of Heathrow it had been steadily expanded and was effectively an airport in its own right, though with few facilities for civilian craft.

Giselle was occupied with taking guidance for landing. As they closed on the aerodrome Owain could see the artillery platforms and missile silos in concentric rings around it. Beyond, the landscape was a mixture of derelict houses and scrubby white fields.

Giselle made an expert landing on a platform jutting from the rear of the control tower. She killed the engine and waited for the rotors to die to a whisper before saying: “So—what is it that is disturbing you, Owain?”

He saw that they were sitting directly under a cluster of radar dishes and antennae. They were all pointing to the sky. It was a perfect “shadow” where they would be free from electronic eavesdropping.

He decided to be as direct as possible. “Rhys talked about something called Omega.”

She was taking off her helmet, replacing it with her cap. All she said was: “And?”

“You’ve heard of it?”

“Everyone’s heard of it, Owain. It’s whispered like an incantation.” Already out of her seat, she pulled her briefcase from the luggage compartment.

“Does it exist?”