TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 (13 page)

‘We did. It was.’

‘And do you have him in custody? Are you going to wheel him in here and hold a gun to his head until I answer all your questions?’

The interrogator shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Ah, I see. You thought that I would lose my nerve when I saw these pictures. Thought I would be so desperate to protect him that I’d spill my guts. But you don’t know who he is, do you? You tested his DNA and it came up blank. He’s not on the system. Thought you’d give it a shot with me, anyway. But I don’t know who he is. You see, I haven’t met him yet.’

‘Explain.’

‘Your tests were probably right. That probably is me in the picture with whoever that man is. But not yet. You’re showing me my future. And if my future involves long romantic walks in Paris, well then. I win. This war. This struggle. I win.’

‘These photos were taken weeks ago.’

The woman shrugged, but kept smiling. ‘I believe you. But it hasn’t happened for me yet.’

The interrogator was genuinely flustered now. The woman could see this was not something he was accustomed to.

‘So, let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You’re saying … what? That at some point in the future you will travel back in time?’

‘Looks that way from where I’m sitting.’

‘That is your explanation? Time travel?’

‘Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’

‘But …’

He was interrupted by a frantic knocking. The interrogator leaped out of his seat and hurried to open the door.

The woman could not see who had knocked on the door, but she did see the point of a sword burst from the interrogator’s back, hear the sigh as his last breath left him, see the sword retract through his torso, see his lifeless body topple sideways to the floor.

For a long, stunned moment she stared into the eyes of the person with the sword who stood in the doorway. And the eyes were all she could see, for above the black clothing was a balaclava with a single slit for the eyes.

The woman rose to her feet. ‘Who are you, and how do we get out of here?’

The black-clad figure stepped into the room and then to one side. Five people, all dressed the same as the first, hurried in. Once they were all inside, one of them bolted the door. Another overturned the table to clear the centre space. Ignoring the woman, four of the newcomers ran to the four corners of the room. Each laid a small grey disc on the floor and then ran back to the centre of the room. All six of them formed a circle around the woman, joining hands to enclose her in a protective ring.

‘We’ve not left enough time,’ muttered one of them, female by her voice.

‘Of course we—’

The charges went off and the floor dropped away beneath them.

They fell a short distance and landed flat inside a dark echoing space. The woman’s ears rang, her eardrums stunned by the force of the explosion.

She heard a faint muffled cry of ‘Scatter’ from one of her rescuers, and she was dragged away from the wrecked floor. She looked up and saw a square of light above her; the room they had just blown their way out of.

Another of the team, a man, yelled something as he crouched in the middle of the recently fallen floor. The woman thought she made out the word ‘quantum’, but that was all. He had a piece of apparatus in his hands; a tangle of metal and wires that looked like nothing the woman had ever seen.

The persistent ringing of a distant alarm began to penetrate her blast-deafness. The woman supposed that was coming from the room above, as the people in the facility realised they had been infiltrated.

There was a brilliant flash of light from the centre of the dark space and an image of a massive room with doors leading off in many directions seared itself onto her retina before the flash faded to be replaced by a steady glow from the apparatus.

The hands that had dragged her clear of the rubble now spun her, and the woman found herself face to face with one of her rescuers; the one with the sword.

‘Who are you?’ she shouted.

Her rescuer pulled the balaclava off, held the woman’s head firmly between their hands, stared into her eyes and mumbled something she couldn’t quite make out above the sirens and the fading ring of the explosion in her ears.

Then everything went horribly wrong.

The woman had been in combat before. She had been blown across rooms by explosions, felt bullets and laser beams fly past her, had been in situations where it seemed every second could be her last. She was accustomed to the sensation of time slowing down, of seconds elongating endlessly as the moment of crisis approaches.

But this felt nothing like that.

This felt as if time was literally slowing down. And only for her.

The six rescuers stood frozen like statues as the woman surveyed the scene before her.

The wreckage of the interrogation room floor lying in a square of light cast from above.

The body of the interrogator, broken and bloodied, sprawled half on the floor of the room he had died in, half on the floor that lay beneath it.

The strange apparatus that glowed, and the bubble of coruscating light that was expanding from it so very slowly, swallowing up the rescuers one by one.

The face of the mysterious person in black.

The shadowed outline of the huge subterranean room they now stood in the centre of.

And then a slow, deep rumble from above. The woman looked up and saw, to her complete horror, the ceiling of the interrogation room begin to split apart in a slow billowing cloud of concrete dust. She thought she glimpsed, within the chaos of debris, a shiny metal point descending towards them. To the woman, in her crazy slowed-down state, it seemed as if a missile was gently pushing its way through the solid building.

It was directly above her. In less that a second it would smash into them, obliterating them entirely. She knew what it was and she screamed inwardly at the scale of the betrayal the missile represented.

The edge of the bubble of light had reached her. All the others were now ensconced within it.

She turned and moved towards them, entering the light, presuming that it offered some kind of protection, that this apparatus was part of a complex rescue plan and the light represented a shield to protect them from the fate that literally hung over them.

The woman was halfway into the bubble, the line that marked its limit bisecting her lengthways, when time resumed its normal speed.

The missile smashed into her.

But instead of oblivion, silence, death, there was instead a violent flash of red and then …

… she was staring into her own face, a shimmering curtain of light between herself and herself. She reached up a hand to touch her mirror image’s face and then …

… freefall.

She felt bones breaking as she crashed into a hard black surface. She looked up, eyes wide, breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps, at the massive wheeled vehicle that bore down on her. She raised her unbroken arm to her face and screamed and then …

… freefall.

Hitting wood this time, on the same side of her body that had borne the brunt of the previous fall, grinding already broken bones, splintering some that had escaped the last impact. She cried out, pushing against the wooden floor with her one good hand. She looked up again, feeling splinters in her fingers, the roll and swell of the deck beneath her feet, seeing the white of billowing sails above her head and the bright blue sky beyond. She heard a cry of alarm, but could not tell where it came from. Had someone called her name? She smelt smoke, pungent and acrid. She took another breath and her lungs filled with it, choking. She coughed violently, each cough causing her broken bones to scrape together, agonisingly. She rolled with the pitch of the deck. She tried to turn her head to see, but as she did so a terrible pain shot through her neck and she felt herself passing out, but before she did there was a tremendous explosion, flames engulfed her, she screamed but could make no sound, and then …

… freefall.

Total darkness. Complete silence. Hard rock beneath her, smooth and even, slimy and wet. Had she been unconscious? She could not say. Every part of her hurt. Her skin, her lungs, her head, her bones.

‘Hello?’ Her voice was a pitiful screech.

Echoes.

‘Hello?’

She jolted. Had she been asleep? Unconscious again? She did not know, she could not tell. With no light or sound to judge the passing of time, she was cut adrift from it. From herself. She did not know how long she lay there. Every now and then she would shake, but did those moments mark her waking or her sleeping? Did they signify that she was drifting in and out of consciousness?

Her thoughts were disjointed and fractured. Betrayal. Destruction. Failed rescue. Her own face, and that of another, framed in black. A name. A picture of a man she did not know, but who looked at her with a lover’s fondness. A weapon. Vengeance. The supercilious smile of a grey man in a grey suit. Thirst. Hunger. Jolt awake. Flash of red. And always pain. Total pain, engulfing and embalming her senses. She was the pain, the pain was her. Then …

… freefall.

A terrible impact as she fell on to hard stone steps, the edges of each one digging into her, forcing the edges of her broken bones farther apart. She tried to scream but she was no longer capable. All that came out was a soft moan. The kind of noise a broken soldier makes in the moments before they succumb to their wounds.

Oh no, wait, that was a scream. Was that her? She saw shapes emerging from the darkness. No, not her. A girl in an old-fashioned dress standing on the steps above her. The face was familiar, but she could not tell from where. Her memories were hopelessly jumbled.

‘Dora …’

Had she said that, or was it the girl? She couldn’t be sure. She reached out with the arm that hurt least.

‘Hand.’

Then a bright flash of red, and merciful senselessness.

The Pendarn Massacre

Richard Mountfort swallowed his last mouthful of cheese and glanced up at the darkening sky. He was out of provisions and out of time. If he wished to delay his mission any longer, he must turn thief or coward, and he knew he could never be either, no matter how scared he was.

The woodland here was beautiful, alive with squirrels and deer, birds and insects. Had he the time he would have taken out his commonplace book and spent a happy day sketching the local flora and fauna with charcoal, making notes and observations on their habitat and habits. The study of the natural world was his passion and his palliative, but there was little time to indulge such gentle study in time of war.

He took his bearings from the setting sun and rose to his feet, brushing leaf mulch off his cambric trousers and straightening his smock. To a casual observer he looked like a simple farmhand. It was a disguise that had served him well, allowing him to make his way across two counties unmolested by the enemy. But his final destination was within two hours’ walk, and no subterfuge, no matter how well rehearsed, would disguise his true intent if he were caught now. He would have to rely on stealth, cunning and the cover of darkness as he made his approach.

He took a deep breath, took one step forward, and froze in horror as a young man stepped into view from behind an oak tree, as casual and unconcerned as could be. The man wore the distinctive colours of Parliament’s army; his hand rested upon the hilt of his sword, which remained in its scabbard at his hip.

Richard’s mind raced as he tried to gather his wits, but the surprise had been so complete he knew his alarm had been plainly visible upon his face.

‘Oh, you gave me quite a start, good sir,’ he said.

The parliamentarian did not acknowledge Richard’s comment in any way. He remained still, face impassive, hand on sword. He was a young man, probably about twenty years or so.

‘I was on my way home, if you’ll excuse me,’ continued Richard, unnerved by the calm stillness of the soldier. He bowed his head and turned to walk away. He had gone three steps, long enough that he had almost begun to think he was getting away with it, when the soldier said quietly, ‘Your voice betrays you.’

Richard stopped, but did not turn to face the soldier. ‘Excuse me?’ But he knew the game was up – the soldier spoke with the thick accent local to this part of England.

‘Your voice,’ said the soldier. ‘You do not speak as a Cornishman speaks.’

Richard turned then. ‘I was not born in these parts. I am a London man, born and raised.’

The soldier raised a single eyebrow. ‘A city pauper come to work the land? If that truly be the case, then you are a most uncommon creature.’

‘I am as you see me, sir. A working man on my way home.’

‘From where?’

‘The fields where I labour.’

‘Whose fields?’

Richard cursed inwardly. This man really was a local. That would explain how he had tracked him and approached so silently – he knew these woods and the villages that bordered them. Richard realised that any lie he told would be instantly discovered. But to come so close only to be caught at the last minute would be intolerable. Richard stretched, faking a yawn. As he drew his arms down he reached behind him to take the knife from his belt. Before he could grasp its handle, the point of the soldier’s sword was brushing the soft flesh of his throat.

‘I do not think so,’ said the soldier. ‘I was born in Pendarn, two miles yonder. You were the unluckiest of spies to have me come across you this day. Many of my comrades would have believed your story. But not I. You are a Royalist spy, taking intelligence to the Sweetclover estate.’ It was not a question, and Richard did not give any indication of a response – he was too busy trying to think of a way out of the situation. The other man’s sword hopelessly outmatched his knife, even if he were able to reach it before the soldier opened his throat.

The only thing on his side was that the soldier appeared to be alone.

‘You calculate your chances of escape, or of overpowering me,’ said the soldier. ‘They are not good.’