If the group of adults had any reservation about Jessa’s ability to formulate a reasonable strategy, they didn’t show it. They muttered among themselves but didn’t interrupt her as she paced around the room, mumbling thoughts and questions to herself. None of them knew what to say. All of their faith was in her.
Mrs Baxter soothed tensions the best way she knew how—by making pots of tea and presenting the group with a selection of biscuits and a few thrown-together cheese and pickle rolls.
Jessa rewound and replayed a clip on the television. It was the moment in which Silas had summoned her to the stage. She could see herself in the clip, but her eyes, just like the eyes of her televised counterpart, were on Silas, as he vanished from sight. Rewind, play, vanish. Rewind, play, vanish.
“Rachel,” Jessa spun round to the young woman whose mouth was full of cheese and bread. “You know about telelocation, right?”
“Psychokinetics, yes. I don’t really know much about telelocation.”
“Who does know?”
“There’s a small research group that studies it, but not like that,” she gestured toward the television. “Telelocation is the physical breaking down of matter and reassembling it in another location. To actually perform it on a person is crazy advanced. For someone to perform it themself? I’ve no idea who could know anything about that.”
“Someone has to know…” Jessa said, gazing back at the paused screen.
“Professor Cyrus Arnold,” said Flynn. Jessa flew around to look at him. He held up the netpad, showing her the search results. “Apparently, he developed a theory about this very thing. He called it auto-telelocation, but everyone said it was ridiculous and journals wouldn’t publish it. He lives in Covent Garden.”
“Write down the address. That’s where we’re going.”
“Jessa, I told you, you’re not going out there.”
“Yes I am, Dad.”
“Listen to me—”
“No, listen to me! Please! Listen to what’s happening on the TV right now! Listen to all the things we’ve been talking about! This is really happening, Dad! You and Mum are always telling me to grow up and be more responsible, so here I am, taking responsibility for something!”
“You know this isn’t the kind of thing we meant.”
“I know that, but I didn’t choose this. These abilities came to me, and now I’m just doing what I have to do. I have to go.”
Jessa pulled her jacket from the coat rack. Her mother sobbed heavily. “Please, Jessa love, I really wish you wouldn’t go out there! Audrey, I know you’re an adult so I can’t tell you what to do, but please stay and make Jessa stay too.”
“Mama, don’t cry,” Audrey hugged her mother close. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll stay with her, and we’ll keep her safe.”
“Come on, let’s go,” Jessa addressed the group. She gave each of her parents a kiss on the cheek.
“Jessa, please don’t do this!” Jean wailed.
“We have to go, Jean. I’m so sorry,” Hugo said as he followed Audrey, Flynn, Rachel, Dr Mortlock and Jessa from the house.
“Please don’t! Please!”
Jessa walked away from her mother’s lament.
The streets of suburban London hadn’t been so packed since the England football team had won the World Cup a decade ago. But this time, there were no celebrations in sight. Neighbours converged outside their homes, regaling the details to anyone who had not yet seen the news. Traffic moving in the direction of Central London crawled and honked, so it was somewhat fortunate that they were able to get to Covent Garden in the other direction. The journey felt even longer considering the distinct lack of conversation among the six passengers squeezed uncomfortably into the vehicle. A few times during the ride, Hugo reached over and squeezed Audrey’s hand.
“It’s this one, the red house,” Flynn said as he followed the map on Hugo’s phone. They piled out from the car, noting the equally busy streets in their new location.
“Professor Arnold! Please open the door! Professor, we need to speak to you, it’s urgent!”
“Who is it?” came a voice from inside.
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“My name’s Jessamine Baxter. I’m the girl from the television! From the news report about Silas Lynch!”
Her words were enough to capture the wary Professor’s curiosity, and the door opened up.
“Come in, quick, quick,” he said, locking the door again behind them.
“I’m sorry to barge in on you, but we need your help,” said Jessa.
“What could you possibly want from me?”
“You know about telelocation, don’t you?” Flynn stepped forward next to his best friend.
“I’m not exactly an expert.”
“We know you wrote papers about it. How does it work?”
“I don’t really know how it works; my research was all theoretical.”
Jessa frowned at the man’s lack of immediate support, and was grateful when Flynn initiated more information. “Let me explain,” he said, confidently. “We’re part of a top secret agency investigating the criminal activity of Silas Lynch.”
The Professor looked at them disbelievingly. Flynn continued. “You’ve seen on the TV that Silas can telelocate himself, and we believe that if we can track him down, we might just be able to stop him. That’s why we need your help. We’re trying to understand how he can do it, because then maybe we can work out where he is now.”
“Is this a joke?”
“No, sir.”
“But you’re just kids.”
“The short version of the story,” said Hugo, “is that Rachel, Felicia and I are part of the security force, and we felt that the circumstances warranted an exception to the rule this time. Yes, they’re young, but they did some excellent detective work independently, so we asked them for help. And now, for the same reason, we’re asking for yours. Can you help us?”
“This is most unexpected, though I suppose I can try. What do you want to know?” the Professor took a seat at his kitchen table. Jessa mirrored his actions and pulled up the chair next to him.
“How far do you think he can telelocate?”
“Oh, I’m sure not very far at all. I found in my research that the laws of telelocation adhere quite strongly to a mathematical equation. We can use this particular equation to find a radius of location by using an object’s mass and density, which we can then apply to physical principles of potential energy…” he noticed the scrunched faces of the two teenagers and paused. “I apologise. What I mean is, I wouldn’t be able to calculate his distance of travel exactly without knowing things like his mass and having some kind of reading of his parapsychological energy—another reason my research was widely discredited, by the way. Evidently, nobody was interested in a method of quantifying parapsych abilities.”
“But could you guess?” asked Jessa. “Do you think it would be, like, one mile? Two miles?”
“Oh, certainly not. A couple of hundred feet, and that would be the uppermost limit. Auto-telelocation in itself is advanced enough that this is now the only recorded incidence of it ever occurring, but to auto-telelocate more than about three hundred feet, well, that would be positively superhuman.”
“So there are limits to where he could travel…” said Hugo.
“Of course!” the Professor exclaimed. “I can’t reiterate enough that my research is all hypothetical, so I don’t have proof of any of this (though I do believe the mathematics speaks for itself), but I’m sure there would have to be clearly planned courses of movement in order to telelocate oneself. For instance, I believe one would have to study every detail of the place to which one wishes to travel. The act requires complete control over one’s physical and super-physical self. By which I mean, you would be breaking down your entire person and recreating it elsewhere, while keeping your consciousness intact. This kind of stuff, however, falls into the realm of quantum mechanics, and as far as most scientists are concerned, is impossible.”
“But we know it’s possible, because we all just saw it,” said Jessa. “Has anyone else tried contacting you about this?”
“I wouldn’t know, I don’t have a telephone. You’re the only people who bothered coming to my house. But honestly, I think my research has been forgotten about by now.”
“Professor, how might one have a ‘planned course’ of travel?” Dr Mortlock asked.
“Ah, yes, well, I believe that would depend on the individual and how their memory responds to various stimuli. But my best guess is that someone could use an object or a symbol as some kind of ‘anchor’ to that place.”
“Like in a video game when your character dies and then materialises at a checkpoint,” Jessa nodded.
“I’m not entirely familiar with that analogy, but yes that sounds close enough,” the older man said.
“So let me understand one thing,” Audrey began, “if someone needs a very clear image in their mind’s eye of the place they want to telelocate to, that means they can’t just do it anywhere whenever they feel like? So Silas must have clearly planned every one of his telelocation movements.”
“Exactly. So that moment he was seen disappearing in the hotel ballroom is unlikely to have been the first time. And he can’t have gone far. I believe it’s also worth pointing out that such an act would completely deplete someone of energy for some time, so wherever he is, he’s probably still recovering.”
“So maybe he just telelocated to a different room,” said Flynn. “How would he get out of the hotel without being noticed, though?”
“Probably would have been easy enough in all that panic,” Jessa shrugged. “Unless he knew some back way out.”
“He’s clearly done his research,” Rachel mused. “Plus, it’s a Graves hotel, and if the two of them were working together, Silas could easily learn every possible way in and out.”
Jessa closed her eyes and rumpled her face deep in thought. “What about places?” she said thoughtfully. “You said it would require these anchors to locations, but is there anything about particular places that would make it easier or more difficult to telelocate?”
“Hmmm,” the Professor scratched at some dry skin on the back of his hand. “That is a good question. I would guess that the type of place would vary depending on the parapsych’s level of ability, personal experiences and psychological connections. For example, you know how some objects manage to absorb and retain the energy from events?”
“Like in object reading,” she said.
“Yes, quite. Well, places can have the same quality. It would probably be easier to telelocate within an area to which one feels a strong emotional connection.”
“Professor, based on your knowledge of the science of parapsychism, do you think he could really be strong enough to, you know, do what he’s saying he’s going to do?” Audrey asked. “I mean… those children…”
“Admittedly, I don’t know anything about this man. I saw the BBC just going over the details of his activities from the 80s, but they’re still speculating many of the whys and hows of his return. So far, I have no reason to believe that he isn’t capable of doing these things.”