The Extremes

'I'll see what 1 can do.' A quick smile of relief flickered across Paula's eyes.

Teresa moved away to one of the seats in the waiting area, and rapidly filled out the relevant details about herself The form was the same one she had completed when she became a member the first time, but it looked subtly different: the print was larger, laid out a little differently, an earlier version of the form she had already handed in.

When Paula saw Teresa signing the form, she picked up the internal telephone and pressed a couple of buttons. As Teresa walked back to her desk, she was saying, 'Hi, this is Paula, on the front desk. I'm trying to trace one of the users. Mr Grove.'

'Gerry Grove,' Teresa said.

'Yes, that's right. OK, would Sharon know? It's a Mr Gerry Grove, apparently. Gerry with a G?' She looked up at Teresa, who nodded. Paula confirmed this, then made an expression towards Teresa with her eyes. 'They're trying to find out. Yes, I'm still here. OK. Thanks.'

She put down the phone and scribbled a long number on a scrap of paper.

'They say they know who you mean.'

'Good! I need to see him.'

'Now hold on, because they say I have to determine his status. They've given me his ID,'

Paula said. She typed at the keyboard, glancing to and from the long number she had written down. 'All right, Mr Grove did check in here earlier.' She looked at the clock on the wall to one side. 'About an hour ago, 1 think.'

'That's about right. Is he still using the simulator?'

'No, it doesn't look as if he is. He didn't log much

machine time. He paid cash upfront, but'

'May 1 see?'

'Well. . .'

But Teresa had moved round so that she was alongside Paula and able to read her screen. lt displayed fairly straightforward text information, showing Grove's name and a scenario reference number that Teresa instantly recognized: it was of course the porno videoshoot, with Shandy and Willem.

'You can see here,' Paula said, tapping the end of her ballpoint against the screen. 'It., looks as if the scenario terminated after a few seconds. You'd have to ask one of the technical people exactly what that means. 1 don't have anything to do with the scenarios. But they can be stopped, can't they? The customer can decide to leave? 1 think that must be what happened here.'

'But after a few seconds?'

'It says eleven seconds.'

Teresa thought for a moment. She remembered arriving in the scenario, the awareness of heat and bright lights, the halfcup bra that was too tight, blinking against the lights, people standing beyond the circle of lights, a woman patting her forehead and nose with powder, then saying, 'Hold still a while longer, Shan,' and moving behind the lights again. She had thought, I can't take this any more, and then she had aborted the scenario. Was that eleven seconds?

'You say he isn't using the simulator now. But is he still in the building?'

'I can phone through for you, and find out.'

'Yes. Please do.'

Again, Paula used the internal phone. She asked if Mr Grove was in the recovery area, and listened to the reply.

She said to Teresa, 'No, they think he must have checked straight out. He's nowhere in the facility.'

Teresa felt a bleak desperation growing in her.

'Did you see him leave?' she said.

'People pass through here all the time.'

'You must know what he looked like. He was wearing Teresa paused, remembering.

'Darkgreen pants with buttoned pockets everywhere, like army fatigues. A green muscleshirt, with oily smears on the front. He came in here and had forty pounds in cash. He tossed it on the desk in front of you. You asked if he was a member, and he said he usually used the Maidstone facility. He gave you an ID card, and after that you let him through.'

'Gingery hair, dirty hands?'

'That's him! Did you see him leave?'

'No.'

'Are you certain? You haven't taken any breaks?'

'Now 1 know who you mean, 1'd know if he'd gone.'

'Then he must still be here in the building.'

All through this Teresa had been holding her new membership application form, and now she gave it to Paula. For good measure she threw down her GM MasterCard beside it.

'That makes me a member, right?'

'Yes, 1 suppose '

'You'll find the credit card has already been recorded. I'll. pick it up in a moment.

She pushed through the door before Paula could answer, and went into the main part of the building. lt took her only a minute or two to establish that Grove was indeed no longer there.

Few members of the staff had been aware of his presence while he was using the equipment; no one had seen him leave.

Teresa hurried outside into the bright sunshine, and went across to where his stolen car was parked.

She stood next to it for a while, staring at the view, the blueandsilver sea, the distant roofs, the quiet streets, the weather in France. Her identity had crossed over into Grove's; she had entered the building with him, and he had left when she did. Where was he now?

A few moments later, she heard the sound of police sirens, in the distance among the houses, down in the quiet streets of Bulverton's Old Town.

She picked up her MasterCard from the reception desk, together with her ExEx membership startup pack, an introductory pamphlet, her airmile certificate, discount vouchers for the first ten hours of ExEx runtime use, a free pen and a complimentary canvas tote bag emblazoned with the GunHo corporate logo. She gave a smile of acknowledgement to Paula and walked into the main part of the building to find a terminal she could use.

The computers looked slightly different from the ones she was used to, but they displayed the familiar GunHo logo. Of the three machines currently not in use she chose the one furthest from the corridor that ran through the openplan office. She sat down and entered the new membership number she found in the promotional material Paula had given to her. No use entering her old number, the one she had learned by heart, so often had she typed it in, After a perceptible pause, the program went into its startUP routine.

Teresa watched the display screens flick from one to the next, and she realized that between this day and the time some eight months in the future when she had been regularly using this system, there must have been a round of upgrades. The software looked much the same as the program she was used to, but it was obviously running at about half the speed. The keyboard and monitor also looked slightly different from the ones she remembered. She had always felt intimidated by the ferocious speed with which the software responded, and this earlier version actually suited her rather better.

The program paused, displaying the principal menu of options. Teresa glanced over it, and felt, without being able to be certain, that there were not as many options as she was used to.

No matter.

Now then. She had to think.

She was faced with two explanations of her present dilemma, both based on impossibility.

All the evidence was that she was now living eight months in the past. Even as she stared blankly at the monitor, yet another piece of evidence for this swam into her awareness: the program always displayed the day's date in a tiny box at the bottom right of the display, and according to this the date now was June 3. The day of Grove's massacre.

To accept this would mean accepting that she had moved back through time. There were the dates on her credit card, the change in weather, the many small differences at the ExEx building. In the February of her real life, Paula Willson had told her that membership of the Bulverton ExEx facility was almost at capacity, and that they were planning to close the place to new members. A few minutes ago, the same Paula had pressed on her all the paraphernalia of a sales or membership drive.