mean no harm, girl,” she told Rachel.
“Yes,” Rachel said. She’d wound her arm around Dad like a boa constrictor gripping a goat.
It was amazing. I’d never felt any sympathy for Rachel before, but Barney can be a bit overwhelming. Intimidating, if I’m honest.
He and Grandma live on the edge of a golf course just north of Marbella. And I do mean on the edge. The wall at the end of their garden is the boundary of the fifth hole’s fairway. Grandpa has a garage for his golf buggy; the swing-up door opens directly onto the course, and he plays every day. The whole perimeter is lined with villas just like it. They’re all owned by British expats.
But it does have a small pool. Swimming is the one thing I do like; not that I want to race or anything.
“You’re so skinny,” Gran exclaimed after I’d jumped in. “Rachel, don’t you feed him properly?”
“He eats loads,” Rachel protested.
“I do, Gran,” I assured her.
“I’ll cook you some proper meals while you’re here, Jules, don’t you worry.”
That evening, Barney came into my room. “Got you a little present,” he told me, holding up a slim white box. “Sorry we couldn’t make it to the funeral, lad; I’ve got all sorts of tax rubbish going on back home, have to watch how many days I spent in the UK. But this’ll help take your mind off things. You deserve something nice right now.”
“You didn’t have to do that, Grandpa,” I told him, but he wasn’t listening.
“Grandpa! Gawd help us. I keep telling you, lad, call me Barney. Go on then, open it.”
It was the latest-model MacBook Pro, with a fifteen-inch screen that had amazing resolution. “Seriously? For me?”
“Aww. That’s the smile I remember belongs on your face. ’Course it’s for you, lad. Only fair. Is it what you wanted?”
“Yes! It’s brilliant. Thank you, Barney.” My tablet was old and slow and had practically no memory left.
He gave me a hug. “You’re a good lad, you. Go on then, you get on with your fancy computing stuff. I expect you to make a million for me by the time you’re sixteen. Bloke what invented Facebook did, and you’re smarter than him.”
I spent half an hour setting the laptop up with my email and preferences. Still no reply to Big Russell’s Facebook messages—I’d sent six now. I opened a new file, gave it a password lock, and called it: Michael Finsen.
Chapter 10
I Know This
I started with the facts. Stuff like his age, and the flat number, and that he’d moved in there with Jyoti Tanark—it was a joint mortgage. She was half Egyptian, I remembered that. I think I’d gotten even more of his subconscious memory this time.
He worked at GTB Venture, which had an office in Docklands close to Canada Square, where the biggest skyscrapers were. They were angel investors. I looked that up, and it meant they put money into tech start-up companies. Michael worked in their assessment division, working out if the technology was going to be worth developing and if it could make a profit.
Here’s a thought: Future-me was doing all these brain-to-brain time-traveling memories to demonstrate to Michael that my exotic matter technology worked, so it was worth GBT Venture investing in it. That was completely logical, and not a paradox at all. And that would explain why future-me chose him.
It took time to enter everything I knew, but Barney has decent broadband; he uses it to stream the sports he can’t get on his premium satellite package. The morning after I got the laptop, I sat on a sun lounger by the pool calling up all kinds of sites (the battery life is really good). The more data I could tabulate like a real scientist would, the more chance I would have of understanding what was happening.
As soon as we finished breakfast that morning, Dad and Barney took the buggy out for a round of golf. Gran told them they had to be back for lunch. “And not pissed, either,” she shouted after them as they vanished into the buggy
“Yes,” Rachel said. She’d wound her arm around Dad like a boa constrictor gripping a goat.
It was amazing. I’d never felt any sympathy for Rachel before, but Barney can be a bit overwhelming. Intimidating, if I’m honest.
He and Grandma live on the edge of a golf course just north of Marbella. And I do mean on the edge. The wall at the end of their garden is the boundary of the fifth hole’s fairway. Grandpa has a garage for his golf buggy; the swing-up door opens directly onto the course, and he plays every day. The whole perimeter is lined with villas just like it. They’re all owned by British expats.
But it does have a small pool. Swimming is the one thing I do like; not that I want to race or anything.
“You’re so skinny,” Gran exclaimed after I’d jumped in. “Rachel, don’t you feed him properly?”
“He eats loads,” Rachel protested.
“I do, Gran,” I assured her.
“I’ll cook you some proper meals while you’re here, Jules, don’t you worry.”
That evening, Barney came into my room. “Got you a little present,” he told me, holding up a slim white box. “Sorry we couldn’t make it to the funeral, lad; I’ve got all sorts of tax rubbish going on back home, have to watch how many days I spent in the UK. But this’ll help take your mind off things. You deserve something nice right now.”
“You didn’t have to do that, Grandpa,” I told him, but he wasn’t listening.
“Grandpa! Gawd help us. I keep telling you, lad, call me Barney. Go on then, open it.”
It was the latest-model MacBook Pro, with a fifteen-inch screen that had amazing resolution. “Seriously? For me?”
“Aww. That’s the smile I remember belongs on your face. ’Course it’s for you, lad. Only fair. Is it what you wanted?”
“Yes! It’s brilliant. Thank you, Barney.” My tablet was old and slow and had practically no memory left.
He gave me a hug. “You’re a good lad, you. Go on then, you get on with your fancy computing stuff. I expect you to make a million for me by the time you’re sixteen. Bloke what invented Facebook did, and you’re smarter than him.”
I spent half an hour setting the laptop up with my email and preferences. Still no reply to Big Russell’s Facebook messages—I’d sent six now. I opened a new file, gave it a password lock, and called it: Michael Finsen.
Chapter 10
I Know This
I started with the facts. Stuff like his age, and the flat number, and that he’d moved in there with Jyoti Tanark—it was a joint mortgage. She was half Egyptian, I remembered that. I think I’d gotten even more of his subconscious memory this time.
He worked at GTB Venture, which had an office in Docklands close to Canada Square, where the biggest skyscrapers were. They were angel investors. I looked that up, and it meant they put money into tech start-up companies. Michael worked in their assessment division, working out if the technology was going to be worth developing and if it could make a profit.
Here’s a thought: Future-me was doing all these brain-to-brain time-traveling memories to demonstrate to Michael that my exotic matter technology worked, so it was worth GBT Venture investing in it. That was completely logical, and not a paradox at all. And that would explain why future-me chose him.
It took time to enter everything I knew, but Barney has decent broadband; he uses it to stream the sports he can’t get on his premium satellite package. The morning after I got the laptop, I sat on a sun lounger by the pool calling up all kinds of sites (the battery life is really good). The more data I could tabulate like a real scientist would, the more chance I would have of understanding what was happening.
As soon as we finished breakfast that morning, Dad and Barney took the buggy out for a round of golf. Gran told them they had to be back for lunch. “And not pissed, either,” she shouted after them as they vanished into the buggy
Similar Books
