CAPACITY

James Sheldon? He had been Eva Rye’s husband-killed by the bomb that Je

So when her husband had died, she had naturally assumed the death was intentional. The Watcher killed my husband. No. Not my husband. I’m Judy, not Eva. I never married. I’m a virgin. Why is that?

Frances, she called. Her friend didn’t come. Why not? Because she was dreaming again. She had called out in the dream world, not the atomic world.

Judy was standing in an entertainment room. Everything looked so old-fashioned, centuries out of date. There was a viewing screen in front of her, but it was a physical device fixed to the wall, incapable of being resized or moved. The carpet beneath her bare feet seemed thicker, somehow more substantial.

She was pregnant. Her belly swelled so much that she had placed her hand in the small of her back for support. I’m not Eva, thought Judy. I’m dreaming this. What am I trying to do…justify Justinian’s murder?

There was a man on the screen before her. He was speaking to her.

“I told you that, Eva: the computer built into the bomb was tracking Je

Judy looked at the man on the screen.

“Who are you?”

“Who am I?” the man scoffed. “Stop playing games, Eva.”

It was the Watcher. Judy knew it. What was going on here? Before she knew what she was doing, Judy began to speak. But the voice and words weren’t hers, they were Eva’s. “There were over three hundred killed in the lobby of the DIANA building. One of them was James.”

The Watcher was exasperated.

“I’m sorry. What could I do? I didn’t know how it would end. I thought I was making the right decision at the time. With hindsight-”

“With hindsight I should never have had anything to do with you.”

The words came unbidden to Eva’s lips. Judy felt a strong wave of approval at what she was saying.

The Watcher was indignant. “You don’t mean that. Everything that I’ve done is only because of what you told me to do. I thought you’d be happy-”

“Happy!” Eva shouted. “Happy! How dare you tell me how to be happy?” She was screaming now.

The Watcher braced himself against the glass of the screen, his face flushed. “You think that you have got the right to be angry?” he shouted. “How dare you!”

“How dare I?” Eva asked, choking with indignation. “How dare I?”

The Watcher banged the inside of the screen with one hand and shook his head. He wore the appearance of a good-looking young man. But the Watcher would always choose how he presented himself.

“How dare I? How dare I?” mimicked the young man behind the screen. “It always comes back to you, doesn’t it, Eva Rye? Or Eva Storey-or whatever you’ve decided to call yourself this week. Seven billion people on this planet experience setbacks and losses every day of their lives, and they just grit their teeth and start again. And then there’s you, sobbing your little heart out here in luxury. At least James left you well cared for. That’s better than most people in this world can expect. What makes you think you’ve got the right to a perfect life? That’s why you’re always so bloody miserable. Listen, doll. Shit happens. Get used to it.”

Judy/Eva was momentarily taken aback. Then her anger cut in.

“Shit happens, does it? Shit happens? That would be a lot more convincing coming from someone who didn’t claim that he was here to sort things out for us, that he was going to make the world a better place.”

“These things take time,” the Watcher sneered.

“How much time? You sound like a politician. You claim you’re going to make things better, and then when they don’t you just stand there saying shit happens. You’re pathetic, hiding behind your screen. You step out into the real world and see what it’s like out here, and then you tell me that shit happens.”

The Watcher’s anger vanished, replaced by a nasty smile. He was standing in a blue-lit empty room, cuboidal except for two dents in the floor at the back. The picture on the screen gave the impression that he was leaning against a sheet of glass, as if he was trying to press through into Eva’s world.

“Me step out there? You couldn’t handle it if I did, love.”

Eva laughed. “Don’t make empty threats, love,” she countered. Judy silently applauded through her fear.

The Watcher laughed coldly in return.

“Empty threats?” he said. “Ah…”

He reached out a hand to the glass and touched it with one finger. Judy/Eva could see his fingertip flatten; see the whorls of fingerprint clearly through the glass; see the whiteness of the skin around it where the blood had been displaced. And then the whiteness returned to pink, and the finger seemed to resume its shape. Judy/Eva gave a gasp as it appeared on her side of the screen. A finger sliding from the world of bits into the world of atoms.

“Look what I can do,” the Watcher crooned.

Now his hand was through the glass, and then his arm, clad in a dark grey sleeve. The Watcher stepped into the real world.

“No, you can’t,” Eva said, and she waved her arm right through his suit jacket. She saw her hand, pink and fluttering, within the grey ghost of his body. “You’re not really here, are you? This is just an illusion, like everything else about you.”

“It’s an illusion at the moment, Eva. Give me five more years and I’ll walk this Earth in a human body. Will you recognize me then?”

Judy/Eva felt a cold little fist of fear tighten in her stomach. The baby kicked hard.

“Yes, I will,” she said. In her dream Judy echoed the words.

“We both know that you’re bluffing.”

The baby kicked again; Eva put one hand to her stomach.

“Stop it,” she said. “You’re upsetting my baby.”

The Watcher folded his arms. Silently, Eva did the same.

“You know that you’re upsetting me,” she said. “And you’re doing it deliberately. I can’t stop myself getting angry; you’re just too good at it.”

The Watcher chuckled delightedly.

“Oh it’s true, Eva. It’s true.”

“I don’t know what you want with me this time.” She squared up to the Watcher. “What do you want?”

“I just want to help you, Judy.”

Judy? Did the Watcher just say Judy? It was Eva who answered.

“You’ve got a fu

The Watcher leaned forward and tried to take Eva’s hand in his transparent grasp. She pointedly kept it still, so that his hand passed straight through hers. He gave a little shrug at her recalcitrance.

“I do this so I can see the real Eva. She’s so wrapped up in herself that it’s only when she’s angry her true character shines through.”

In her dream Judy froze. She had the feeling that the last words weren’t actually directed at Eva. They were spoken to her. Eva, too, seemed to sense that something was amiss.

“Stop it,” Eva said hesitantly. “Don’t speak about me as if I wasn’t here.”

The Watcher continued, ignoring her: “She doesn’t want to be comforted. She wants to feel sorry for herself. It’s the template of her life.”

“What is the matter with you? Why are you being so childish?” Eva asked.

The Watcher spun around and threw up his hands.

“You started it! James’s death was just unfortunate. Next time I’ll know to blow the train instead. Next time I’ll put the good of the many before the few. That’s right, isn’t it, Eva?”

“Yes!”

— That’s right, isn’t it, Judy?

“But that’s next time!” The Watcher continued. “James was unfortunate-that’s all there is to it. You know it, but you just haven’t faced up to it yet!”