Hindsight

By Peter J. Sell

The book starts in the near future with the heroine being arrested for a fraud on a massive global scale. During the interrogation, her story unfolds and the story is her revealing her life story and ability. She had always had an interest in gambling but at school she started to get headaches and found that after the headaches she knew what was going to happen. She used this ability to become the richest person in the world. She then started to do good for others. Among other things for good she sets up a trust to fund up and coming inventors who couldn’t get funding from other sources. One of these inventors had an idea for a sort of time machine, but it would cost a fortune to build. They built it and the time machine worked but it was eventually unfortunately gave the heroine terminal cancer due to her being the pilot and genie-pig using it. The heroine died before she could be brought to trial and so escaped justice. However as always there was a twist at the end, especially when you mess with time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326785673

Book preview

Hindsight

Hindsight

A Sci-Fi / Detective novel

By

Peter J Sell

ISBN 978-1-326-78567-3

Index

Dedications

Pre-face

Chapter 1Forty or so years from now

Chapter 2Meeting at the Ritz

Chapter 3Things are about to change

Chapter 4The Arrest

Chapter 5Cuff her

Chapter 6The Interrogation Begins

Chapter 7The First Heist

Chapter 8 The School days

Chapter 9Clean Money

Chapter 10Go legit

Chapter 11Relapse

Chapter 12International is the only way

Chapter 13Consolidating

Chapter 14Gotcha

Chapter 15The second major heist is hatched

Chapter 16The internet beckons

Chapter 17Cashing in

Chapter 18A cyber crime is detected

Chapter 19What to do with all the Money?

Chapter 20Inventors Dream

Chapter 21A Really Nutty Idea

Chapter 22A meeting with the Benefactor

Chapter 23She’s Bloody Right

Chapter 24Let’s get down to Work

Chapter 25To Secure the Site

Chapter 26I’m really feeling Tired

Chapter 27Tit for tat

Chapter 28Report Back in Yorkshire

Chapter 29The Fatwa nearly succeeds

Chapter 30Lets make the best of a bad job

Chapter 31Flying outside of design parameters

Chapter 32Start building

Chapter 33The defence deed is demonstrated

Chapter 34Progress was slow at first

Chapter 35Inspection

Chapter 36The tests are complete

Chapter 37Final adjustments required

Chapter 38First Pilot

Chapter 39Out of Public Life

Chapter 40Second trip

Chapter 41I’ve Forgotten Something

Chapter 42The interrogation continues

Chapter 43The Third trip in the Time Machine?

Chapter 44Progress meeting for the staff

Chapter 45Remise

Chapter 46Life and death in the desert

Chapter 47The last trip in the machine

Chapter 48A Fundamental Disagreement

Chapter 49An M.R.I. is needed

Chapter 50The Explosion

Chapter 51A Futile Rescue attempt

Chapter 52Bad news all round

Chapter 53The Complex is investigated

Chapter 54A meeting with the government

Chapter 55Her end is nigh

Chapter 56Revelations

Chapter 57The Legacy

Appendix AOther Books by the same Author

Dedications

I have almost run out of people to dedicate my books to as I’ve been through my wife, my 4 children and my current 8 grandchildren so I had to widen my field of search.

My youngest son’s long time girl friend gave me permission to use her name as the main character in this book. Not obviously her family name but her given name only, however they broke up at about the time that I was completing this book. I asked my son, what to do about the book and he said that he didn’t care and it was up to me. So rather than have possible problems later on I decided to use his current girl friends name as the main character (with her permission of course). Therefore the book is dedicated to Ciara.

To CIARA.

Please note her name is pronounced the same as the famous actress Keira Knightley (The Duchess, Bend it like Beckham, Pirates of the Caribbean to name but a very few) but spelt differently. It is also derived from Ireland as was her relatives. I feel that it’s a bit like having a tattoo of your girlfriend as this decision to use my sons girlfriend could well come back to haunt me.

Pre Face

We all live very happily with three dimensions and just love how high we can fly or how wide our garden is or even how far we can run but there is another dimension that we don’t really think of and that is TIME. We don’t normally think of it as a dimension because it only moves in one direction, that of from the past through the present towards the future. Logically there is no tomorrow because we will never get there. When we wake up tomorrow its now today and tomorrow is always just out of reach. Time can be a cruel friend though because it accompanies us in life without us being able to control or influence it and it sometimes gives us what we really want, however it sometimes gives us the exact opposite. It will always eventually though give us peace at the end of our lives. Death is nothing to be afraid of, after all we were dead for billions of years before we were conceived and then born. We are therefore only returning to how we have been throughout most of time (that is if there is no reincarnation). Most of the time we have been dead and that is therefore apparently the norm. There may be something after life or indeed something before life. If there is then once life ceases we will along with those that have wasted their lives and died for a stupid reason know what it is, or if there is nothing then we will be in ignorant bliss for eternity. We have no choice on the subject of death so why worry about it, however what if we could influence time? What if we could move backwards and forwards in time? This story is of what could happen in those circumstances

I know that Sci-Fi is an acquired taste but this and my last book started at a date of now and this one eventually only goes less than a hundred years into the future. Therefore there are no outrageously impossible devices that are currently not possible with the technology of today. Obviously things develop and cars for instance are almost exclusively electric and there is abundant power available through the perfection of fusion power stations. The burning of fossil fuels has therefore virtually ceased and global warming is starting to correct itself. Yes mankind is producing more and more energy but that is still just a fraction of what the sun radiates onto the earth every second. It was not the amount of energy that we used that was the problem but the changing of the atmosphere with pollution that threatened mankind. One of the sayings that annoys me intensely is that of We must save the Planet let’s get this straight the Planet will be fine, whatever we do to it. The planet survived an asteroid hitting it 65 million years ago but the dinosaurs didn’t do so well. The planet will survive whatever we do to it but mankind may not so the saying should be "We must save Mankind or Nature* because the planet will, I can assure you, be absolutely fine. It will continue spinning on its axis and orbiting the sun with or without the human race.

Getting back to this book, it’s the story that matters and this story involves a sort of time machine. The words sort of will be explained throughout the story and by the end you will know why I call it a sort of time machine. Please therefore enjoy this story called "Hindsight". I leave you to look up the definition of the word in a dictionary. There are many dilemmas in life and one of the classic dilemmas is which came first the chicken or the egg. If someone has even a modicum of scientific knowledge then the answer is obvious and not really a dilemma. The egg came first because the egg could have come from another species. All birds lay eggs so do reptiles and turtles. I could go on and name dozens of groups of creatures that lay eggs so the egg came first and could have come from another species. The chicken however has to come from the egg and there is no other way that it can come into existence (as far as we know).

This story has a true dilemma and is the story of the richest woman in the world who with the help of a sort of a time machine gains the advantage in gambling and on the stock market to become that richest person in the world. She uses that gigantic wealth to build this sort of time machine so that she can obtain an advantage over her competitors in the past. Now the dilemma is this, was it her fabulous wealth that allowed her to create the time machine for her to use or was it the time machine that just allowed her to make all her wealth in the first place. So which came first the time machine or the wealth? The time machine requires the wealth to be able to build it because it’s so expensive to build, but the wealth to build it can only come from the knowledge given to the lead character in the story by the time machine.

The story starts when all the problems for the lead character are coming home to roost and she (that is the richest person in the world) is going to be arrested for among other things fraud on a massive scale. She does a deal and it continues with her relating the story of how she became the richest person of all time during the interview of her by the authorities. She explains how she made her fortune. She sailed very close to the wind with regards to legality and one of her friends who she went to school with was throughout the story almost obsessed with her down fall as he now works for the police. She did however have an advantage and that was that she had a sort of time machine.

I keep saying a sort of time machine because as you will see its not the conventional type of time machine that you can move physically through time but its!!!!!

Well I don’t want to spoil the story and I’ve probably said more than I should so please enjoy it, and yes as in most of my books there is a twist at the end. The use of the time machine does however have terrible consequences for her and some of those associated with it.

Oh to explain I have written this book in English as its main character and indeed its settings are in England. I say this because for our American cousins some of the terminology is Brit speak and not American. We are two nations separated by the same language and I have got into trouble in America many times by just speaking English. Let me explain in the story the name of panties are the English word of knickers. Sorry to be a little crude but American Fannies are an inch or so in a different place to British Fannies (You work that one out), I will say no more. In the UK if you ask for a torch because you are looking for something that you have lost in say a car then you will be given a flash light as it’s called in the States. But if you ask the same in the States they will think that you want to set fire to the car. So the same word can have a completely different meaning in the two countries and it can be easy to get your face slapped. Even gestures can mean different things, the other day in Florida I asked someone how much something was and he put up two fingers to indicate that it was a couple of thousand dollars. I said you know you have just insulted me as a Brit because what you have just gestured is the same as you giving me the finger and I don’t think you meant that? He had no idea and we had a good laugh over it.

Chapter 1

Forty or so years from now

The mid 21st century wasn’t that different from the early 21st century in as much as someone coming from the 1960 / 70’s wouldn’t feel that out of place in the early 21st century. The cars would be obviously different; they were more powerful and sleeker. They were more economical to run and certainly were more sophisticated but a car was a car and someone from the 1960/70’s would have recognised them as such. The same thing could be said of the mid 21st century. The shape of the cars had changed very little as they had evolved into what they were by feeding essentially the same information into computers and pretty much the same answer came out with only some slight variations that would distinguish the brand or makers of the car. Under the bodywork however there were great changes and most cars were now purely electric. The greatest advance was in battery technology and fuel cells. The internal combustion engine had virtually been assigned to the museums. The exceptions was in very remote locations because the storage of a compact amount of energy in a relatively small volume of liquid could not be surpassed so a gallon of gasoline or petrol that would give maybe 50 miles range for about 10 pounds or 4.5 kilos in weight was still unbeatable, though socially unacceptable anywhere else. The diehards of car racing still hankered after the sound and smells of Grand Prix car racing and motorcycle racing. There was still historic racing allowed on special licence at Le-Mans and Monaco and among the old Formula 1 circuits throughout the world. NASCAR in America still had a following and still insisted in the what was old technology in the beginning of the millennium of push rod V8’s powering the racing cars..

Someone coming from the 60’s to the 2000 / 10’s would have been amassed by the revolution in information and how small electronics had become. The same could be said for someone jumping forward to the mid 21st century. In general the cities looked the same. There were a few more high-rise buildings but the familiar landmarks were still there. People no longer walked around with a mobile / cell phone in their hands but the communication electronics were being worn. Everyday items such as spectacles, rings on fingers and buttons on clothes were connected to each other through the great information highway called the internet. The internet was so fast that to all intents and purposes it was instantaneous. It was also totally free to everyone and was wholly paid for from advertising.

There had been a revolution in energy production and Fusion power had finally been perfected. There was therefore abundant energy so burning fossil fuels were no longer required and in most populated areas it was completely banned. Although the abundant energy did increase locally the temperatures of cities, the amount of energy used worldwide was only a fraction of what the sun supplied to the earth anyway. The burning of fossil fuels was what did most of the damage by introducing green house gases into the atmosphere. Global warming almost immediately started to reverse as the world ecological systems compensated and the polar caps started to freeze once again. Weather patterns were violent at first but soon settled down to be predictable again. In general winters became colder until the weather settled down and summers were unpredictable at first. Even the more temperate zones had a rainy season as if they were sub-tropical for several decades until they settled down to their more predictable pattern.

The biggest threat to the world in the mid 21st century was from global terrorism and the over population by humans. Terrorism had been largely contained by the policy of western and indeed the eastern government leaving the failed states to sort their own problems out. They virtually built an impenetrable wall around the areas that had returned to the dark ages and only when the violence over spilt into the so called civilised territories did the world government intervene in any way. The policy was simple, if a state or country wanted to join the rest of the world then they had to enshrine in their constitution that all people were equal whether male or female, all colours of skin were equal. All people had the right to worship whoever they wanted so long as it didn’t affect others of a different religion or indeed to not worship a deity of any sort and in that case to not ridicule those that do worship something. Finally all sexual orientations were viewed as acceptable again so long as it didn’t interfere with others who didn’t want to take part in it anyway. Once the state or country accepted these principals and enshrined them in their charter or constitution they were welcomed into the modern world society but until then they were left to fight it out to the death if necessary but behind their own internationally established borders.

On the point of over population nature will always find a way and had already started to correct the over population of the world by making the fertility rate of humans very low and it was calculated that if the trend was not reversed within 50 to a 100 years then the human race could start to be on the endangered species list. This was obviously not going to happen and frozen embryos were stored worldwide to be used if necessary once the human population got to a certain critical level. An artificial womb had been perfected in the mid 21st century but the only child born from it up to that point unfortunately died from complications after birth. It was anticipated though that in a decade or two the artificial womb would be common place and women would forever be relieved of the task of conceiving, carrying and giving birth to their offspring unless they so desired to carry it out naturally.

Almost everybody had a chip implanted in their neck near to the base of the brain. This chip was similar in size to the ones that all dogs and cats owned in the populated world had. They were however very different in their function. They were powered by oxygenated blood and monitored the person’s vital signs such as blood pressure, pulse etc. The chip could via the internet if necessary call for paramedics and an ambulance in an emergency without any human intervention whatsoever.  The code given out or transmitted by the chip was the DNA of the person who had the chip in them so it was found that it could be used also to buy such things as travel tickets and all anyone needed to do was board a plane or railway carriage for the ticket to automatically be purchased. The chips had GPS technology so the location of the person was known at all times. There was obviously opposition from the personal liberties lobby but with certain built in safeguards the advantages far outweighed the disadvantages. The code transmitted was generated from the persons DNA and couldn’t be duplicated by any other device at the same time as performing all the other functions of the device. There were experimental chips that had been linked to both the person’s brain and the internet meaning that a person had access directly with all the knowledge on the internet but at this point in time they were very experimental. The young nerdy scientist types developing this particular chip were often found in a sort of trance. It transpired that they were playing online in their minds and it became almost a drug of choice for the young scientists.

Business was as cut throat as ever and competition for technological advances were intense. Big corporations were almost at war with each other and security at company property was intense. Combined with the need for security due to the possible terrorist threat it was very difficult to get into company properties anymore. Companies had the right in law to defend themselves and their property, both intellectual and physical. All businesses used drones constantly flying over their property both day and night for surveillance of potential infiltrators. Androids were being developed to replace human guards as they wouldn’t go sick or fall asleep but they were still rather basic. They still did not have artificial intelligence but were starting to give the appearance of having it. That was pretty well how the world looked in the mid 21st century.

Ciara O’Brian stood up from her desk on the top floor of The Ace Tower in London’s docklands. She was between her schedule of endless meetings and having her umpteenth coffee of the day relaxing a little before the next boring meeting. She took a headache pill because her usual headache was worse than ever and never really went away, even during her time asleep. The large office block or Tower that housed her office used to be called Canary Wharf but now that she owned it along with the rest of that group of buildings, it was renamed after her worldwide corporation The Ace of Spades Corporation and therefore called The Ace Tower. She turned around to face the window and look out towards Central London. She could see the river Thames meandering towards London and its relatively still water glinted in the late afternoon sunshine. It was like a silver snake slithering across England’s green and pleasant land, the river was bordered by almost endless buildings. In the distance she could just see Tower bridge on a bit of the river that appeared to be not connected to the rest. It was of course, but the river Thames was hidden from her view by the many luxury apartments that littered the banks of the river from the hay day of the property boom. Beyond that was the Millennium wheel that was covered in scaffolding at this time as it was undergoing extensive maintenance works because it was now over sixty years old and a listed building. Further on she could just make out the Houses of Parliament and over to the right of that the top of Buckingham Palace and the Mall. She looked and took in the view and placed her hands behind her with her feet wide apart and breathed deeply. She thought to herself I will miss this but I’ve had a good life and an interesting one. She closed her eyes to reminisce a little.

Once she had had her fill of the view to her west, she walked to the other large set of windows that like the first windows on the west stretched from the ceiling to the floor of her office and she looked out of there now to her south. Below her immediate eye line was the structure that originally was called the Millennium Dome but that had had many names in its sixty years or so of life so far. It was looking a little sorry for itself from the outside and especially the view from above and had several patches on its smooth colour faded surface. These patches stood out like a sore thumb from above because they had discoloured differently to the rest of the building. The Dome was after all just a glorified tent but never the less it too was now a listed building. The Dome now had the name of her corporation too and was called The Ace Dome. It was now the Las Vegas of Europe along with the many other buildings on that strip of the river and made millions a day for her corporation and it was estimated that it made billions per year, perhaps even trillions when combined with the complete package of hotels and adjacent theme parks. Some said that it made trillions from the gambling alone but that was a slight exaggeration. She looked further south to the top of Greenwich hill and the old Greenwich Observatory on top of it. She could also see the old maritime college where in the eighteenth and nineteenth century all British naval officers were trained. Now the school was both a museum and luxury hotel. The ceilings had some of the most magnificent murals in the whole world. Despite the college being a listed building and costing a fortune to maintain this building also made her millions a day as she owned that hotel as well and she put the high rollers in luxury suits to make them feel good while her staff rapidly milked them of their wealth.

As she looked further to her left into the more rural parts of south east London she could just make out the spires of Disney Land London. It didn’t take much convincing of the board of Disney to build a park in London as it was the natural home of a European theme park for Disney. Disney after all was really an English speaking cartoon corporation and as Ciara argued who wants to see Donald Canard as a character? when his name was really Donald Duck. Oh and the fact that the Ace Corporation had just purchased the Disney empire and all its world wide interests didn’t hinder the decision. She had fallen foul of the UK and European Monopoly Laws and the American Anti Trust Laws but her reach and pockets were deep. She simply bribed the officials that she couldn’t convince and if they were then sacked she simply bribed the incoming officials as well. As she said everybody has a price and everybody has a skeleton in their closet, it’s just a matter of finding it. She was absolutely ruthless in her business affairs but she made sure that when someone was bought out she paid them a fair price and they didn’t really loose out. She didn’t however take no for an answer throughout her business ventures.

She looked at her empire and much of it was unknown to her and consisted of almost all of the so called fast food outlets worldwide. She was tolerated by the British Government because she was the largest single contributor to the UK economy both through taxes and by bringing tourists to the shore line which contributed probably trillions extra to the economy. She however had many enemies and anyone of them wanted her head on a plate or on their wall as a trophy. She had survived countless serious fraud investigations mainly from her nemesis Chief Superintendent Frank (the Rottweiler) Quigley who actually went to school with her but went into the police force and eventually became head of the serious fraud squad at London’s Metropolitan Police. He was called the Rottweiler because once he had his teeth into something or someone he wouldn’t let it go until he got his man or in this case his woman. It was mainly politicians that kept her safe and although they didn’t like what she had done in the past. If she was convicted and then went to jail, the Ace Corporation would cease and then it would ruin the UK economy and indeed those of most major countries around the world. Like her or loath her she was thought of as too big to fall and the fallout was something that most politicians didn’t want to contemplate.

She was deep in thought when there was a knock on her door. Come in said Ciara. In came Dylan her main personal assistant. Ciara had countless PA’s that had offices on the same floor as her office. The important PA’s had their own secure offices so that they could conduct whatever task that Ciara had assigned to them in absolute privacy and without any one eavesdropping on their conversations or communications. The lesser PA’s were in a communal office that had row upon row of desks that reminded some of an old-fashioned typing pool. These were the PA’s that would do the delegated mundane tasks such as booking meetings and getting tickets to whatever game or show that Ciara’s people had requested as corporate events for the visiting dignitaries or business people.

This was never the less important work and well paid work at that because The Ace Corporation was a very good payer but it expected results and incompetence was not tolerated. Dylan spoke before Ciara turned around Ciara I’m getting some disturbing reports from your bankers in Hong Kong and apparently a delegation of them have just landed at Heathrow and have requested an urgent meeting with you. What should I tell them? What meeting have I got scheduled for the rest of the day? You have one in about five minute’s time, then one after the other until eight o’clock tonight Ciara. Which one should I cancel to accommodate the Hong Kong delegation? Cancel all of them and don’t book the Hong Kong delegation until tomorrow. She paused almost for effect and then said Book a table for 2 at the Ritz; I’m taking you out to dinner. You need to know what’s going on and how to really spend money. Send in my stylist to choose an outfit for me to wear to there and get yourself something nice as well from her. Use the same stylist as she is really quite good As you wish but I’m going to get a lot of hassle from those that I’m about to cancel as well as the bankers from Hong Kong, and what do you mean by teaching me to spend money, haven’t you seen my expenses lately? Just deal with it and have the transport outside in say an hour at the most. I’m suddenly very hungry, life’s too short not to enjoy what we have left. I know you can spend on behalf of the company with both entertaining our guests and first class travel for yourself but you were not brought up with money and it’s very difficult to spend just for the sake of it. Spend as if it’s your last day on earth. You make it sound like you have a death sentence hanging over you? We all have a death sentence; it’s just that some are closer to the end than others. As some famous American once said the only thing certain in life is death and taxes, now all will be revealed over a nice meal. I assume that you have been to the Ritz before? Yes of coarse a couple of times with you as the host but never alone with you, it was always with others such as your business associates being entertained on their various visits to London So this will be a first for you, yes? Before Dylan could answer Ciara continued Now do as I say quickly and please arrange everything to your usual high standard. Delegate the cancellations to others to save time but put the bankers from Hong Kong down gently yourself Yes of course Ciara. Replied Dylan as she turned to go out of Ciara’s office.

Chapter 2

Meeting at the Ritz

The stretched electric limousine pulled up outside of the Ace Towers and in got Ciara and Dylan, both looking very