The Time Rip (39 page)

Suddenly, what had seemed like a rational decision to get herself home, now looked childish and stupid. She didn’t want Jeremy to worry over her, or think she was so messed up that she ran at the first opportunity, even though it hadn’t precisely been like that.

She hadn’t exactly made a great impression on him. Perhaps he would get tired of her stupid behaviour and think she was more trouble than she was worth. She closed her eyes at the thought. How had everything escalated into this mess?

Freya wandered back to the sitting room, to the large bay windows and looked out at the rain-slicked street. Janet was hacking into the security system at Greg’s office and occasionally gave a cackle of joy and said something like: it’s child’s play. Freya felt a smile twist her mouth. Janet was enjoying herself anyway.

It sometimes made Freya laugh that Janet had chosen to work for a small jeweller in town. Although the long hours and overtime culture in Janet’s software job had been horrendous, Freya couldn’t see that retail was all that much better. It just paid a lot less. Especially as Janet still spent a large amount of her free time keeping up with the latest technology and languages anyway.

Janet looked up suddenly and grinned. “I’m in. You would not believe how basic their security is. It’s a joke, considering what they have to hide there.”

“It’s only a joke to you because you’re a genius, Jan. Everyone else would consider it Fort Knox.”

“What can I say? I’m talented. Now that I’m in we have to decide when we want the alarms disabled, and for how long.”

“I reckon we should do it at one in the morning, not too late for us to stay up, but far beyond time anyone would have stayed late working.”

“Good idea. We’ll give ourselves a good few hours to look around and have it all re-alarmed by, say, four? Make sure we’ve got plenty of time to do a thorough search and still be far away before the alarms come back on.” Janet transferred her attention back to the screen. “What the—?”

“What is it?” Freya hurried over.

Janet shook her head, a reluctant smile on her face. “Nothing, just a screen saver.”

Freya peered over her shoulder and saw an image that made her grin too. Two men were sitting back to back, on what looked like a boardroom table. Their hands appeared to be tied together behind them with pink restraints of some kind.

One of them had his tie around his head, school-kid Rambo style, while the other had 'Eat Me' painted on his forehead. Both were laughing and the image itself was slightly blurred, indicating camera shake on the part of the photographer.

Janet turned to look up at her friend, “Just the boys playing tricks on each other. Now for those alarms.” She flicked through other screens and was soon deep in some odd-looking text. Freya was bored and wandered to the window to look out at the sheeting rain.

Finally, Janet closed the laptop and stretched, giving a happy sigh. “We’ll take my car. It’s quieter than your van. I’ll lend you a black pullover to cover that white blouse of yours. The skirt should be fine though. We don’t want to look like burglars, after all.”

Freya gave a nervous giggle. “D’you think this will work, Jan. I mean, we won’t get caught will we.”

“Don’t worry, Freya, it’s an office in town not a Jewellers or Bank. The alarm will disable, no one will be any the wiser, we will have a look around and scurry off home before you know it.”

Freya took an excited turn about the room. “I can’t believe we’re really going to do this. I feel like I’m in a Bond movie.”

Janet snorted with laughter, “Bond, Janet Bond, and her trusty sidekick Freya Keele. Oh, wait a second.” She darted up, and Freya followed her to the bedroom. Janet knelt on the floor, upending a handbag and pawing though the contents. She muttered quietly and then gave a yip of triumph, turned and waved a credit card aloft.

“I forgot I had this, it’s a pass key for Greg’s office. I lifted it last time I went round there. I figured it’d come in handy at some point, just didn’t know it would be so soon.”

“A pass key, I thought you were going to disable the alarms?”

“I am. This is for the drawer where he keeps his laptop. As we’re going there anyway, I may as well install a little bitty piece of software on his machine for him. Just so I can keep an eye on things.”

“I can feel it in me to be sorry for Greg.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“I can’t believe you spouted all that rubbish about trust to me when you clearly don’t intend to trust Greg.”

“Hey, what can I say, I care about your welfare and will always advise you to do the most sensible thing. Besides, Greg doesn’t second-guess my every thought. He’s not quick enough to catch me in a lie. My ideal man, really.”

Freya folded her arms and had to admit that Janet had a point. Jeremy did second-guess everything she was thinking and he put ideas together at surprising speed. If she tried to lie to him and he guessed, then it would not take him long to work out the truth.

It occurred to her that if she managed to steal a device she would have to be extremely cautious in its use if she was to keep it from him. It really would be a last resort and she would have to find a good hiding place for the thing.

Freya had to admit she was nervous about going back to Jeremy. She wondered if he would be angry that she had run off.

Still, he did not know she was stealing a time device. He would think she simply did not want to show him the time doorway. She would have to keep up that pretence if she did not want him to guess what she had done.

As evening came round, the rain clouds lifted slightly and pale sunlight filtered through the little flat. Janet ordered a pizza and a bottle of cola. Freya tucked into her share of pizza gratefully, orange grease dripping down her chin.

“God, I love pizza,” She said between mouthfuls, “What am I going to do if I can’t have pizza anymore? Suppose he makes me stay there and I can’t have pizza again.”

“It would be a most cruel fate, but there must be stuff he misses too. From his time, I mean. You already said he still sees his family, and he must go back to get stuff. I’m sure he’ll be fine about it all. You just need to talk to him.”

Freya washed down her mouthful with some icy cola, revelling in the sparkling coldness, “I hope you’re right.”

“I’m always right. Now, we need to talk through our plans for tonight. Between the left side of the building and the underground car park, there’s a service door. I used it a lot when I went to see Greg. It’s better than the reception area because there are no cameras there. I think it was designed to be a fire escape. It’s just a narrow staircase with windows to one side, but it goes up to all the floors. Once the alarms are off, I’ll use a card to get the lock.”

“Is that possible?” Freya interrupted, “I thought that kind of thing only happened in the movies. What if the card snaps off?”

Janet just shrugged, “Then we’ll use another one. Relax, Freya, the cards are freebies that come with junk mail. It doesn’t matter if they get wrecked and anyway, I know it’ll work ‘cause when I was at IBM we had a break in and the police said that was how it was done. The lock on the service door is the same kind we had back then. It’s not a deadlock and there are no bolts on the inside so, in theory, it should work. Once we are inside, we’ll go straight to Greg’s office. I’ll sort the computer and you can search for your time machine.”

Freya sat back. “So simple,” she said with a roll of her eyes and reached for another slice of pizza.

“C’mon, Freya, it was your idea to nick a device from the office. I’ll get us in and help you search, but I’m not gonna pass up the opportunity to keep tabs on Greg. It might help us if you can’t find a time thingy and Jeremy really does decide to keep you in 1908.”

“Janet!” Freya choked on her cola, spluttering as the fizzy went up her nose. “I thought you said he wouldn’t do that!”

“Well I don’t think he will, but it doesn’t hurt to have a back up plan. Better to be prepared.”

“How will putting stuff on Greg’s laptop help?”

“It’s a kind of monitoring software, but with a few extras. It means I can dial in when he’s online and see what he’s up to. Besides, I’ll have access to the main frame and can hack in while he’s playing online.”

Freya sighed. “What if I can’t find a device? What am I going to do then? What if he does keep me there?”

“Well,” Janet paused and considered Freya. “Why don’t you tell me where the doorway is, then at least I have a starting point if he manages to close the thing.”

Freya nodded her agreement, still looking worried. “It’s just inside the wood about 300 metres from the back wall of the farmhouse. The wood sticks out on a corner and when I cut through that bit to get to the house, I found it. It’s weird, like a narrow sheet of glass, but quite tall and higher on one side. You can hardly see it from the side, and it’s tricky to find unless the sun’s on it, reflecting in a weird way.”

Janet frowned in concentration for a moment as she committed the instructions to memory. “Okay. Good. You know, the more I think about it, the more I think they won’t be able to get it closed. You said Greg and all believe it to be a rumour anyway. How will they go about getting it closed when they don’t even think it’s real?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think about that. I hope you’re right.”

Freya bit her lip. The pizza she had eaten was feeling heavy in her stomach. Why was it that when she was with Jeremy she felt certain he wouldn’t be angry with her, but as soon as she was away from him, she was plagued by doubts.

Would he keep her in 1908 just to teach her a lesson? She remembered the cold look he had worn briefly in the kitchen the evening before. Perhaps he would be angry with her if he found out she had broken into the office.

It would be her fault, too, if Janet were caught hacking into the alarms. Janet would never have done it without her influence. What if it stuffed things up between her and Greg?

Freya sighed. She certainly wouldn’t get another opportunity to use the time doorway. Jeremy would watch her even closer when she returned. She would almost certainly have to have that discussion with him.

She felt panicky at the thought of Jeremy voicing his feelings for her, but at the same time, she was mentally kicking herself for being afraid to talk things through with him.

She could tell him she wasn’t interested, but she had a feeling he would easily pull her lies to bits, and if he kissed her again she would be lost. She could simply show him the doorway, knowing she had her time device as a back up, but if she then ever used the thing, he would be bound to find out and she’d be back where she started. Of course, all this was dependent on her finding a device. If she didn’t…

It was too late. She would have to at least attempt to steal a device now that she had come this far.

At 12:55 a small black hatchback pulled up on a side street in W1. Freya was jumpy with anticipation, Janet calmer. She cut the engine, yawned and fluffed her brown curly hair, pulling it out from her shirt collar.

Janet insisted they not break in until ten past one, to allow plenty of time for her watch to be slightly out from the alarm’s inbuilt clock. Freya had an odd feeling the air was too thick in the car and fidgeted the whole time, grateful when Janet finally declared it was time to go.

Janet’s door closed with a thunk that seemed unnaturally loud, despite the traffic noise from the A4. Freya winced and shut her door gently as Janet reached onto the backseat for her laptop bag.

Janet seemed incredibly blasé about it all, and Freya wished she could claim the same confidence, but she was shaking in her shoes.

Watching nervously, Freya blocked the view from the street with her body as Janet slotted plastic between door and jamb, just above the lock.

It took five tense minutes before the lock suddenly gave; both girls breathed out and grinned at each other. Shutting the door carefully behind her, Freya followed Janet up the narrow stairs. A streetlamp shining through a high up casement threw yellow and black stripes over the walls and Freya struggled to see the steps in the dark.