TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 (6 page)

Dora considered this. ‘A magic bridge that I could not see?’

Sweetclover smiled and shrugged. ‘If you wish. But a bridge nonetheless.’

‘Good. For a bridge may be crossed in both directions, may it not? I can go home again.’

‘Ah, I’m sorry to say that no, you cannot. The bridge has a toll gate on this bank and neither you nor I have sufficient coin to pay for passage back across.’

‘Magic coins?’

Sweetclover noticed a hint of a smile on Dora’s face and realised she was, ever so gently, teasing him. ‘Something like that.’

Dora took another bite of sandwich. Sweetclover waited patiently for her to process his answer and formulate her next question.

‘Who was the woman in the undercroft?’ she said eventually.

‘You will meet her presently, for she is quite recovered. In fact, this is really her building, not mine. When you encountered her she had also just crossed the bridge but for her it was a much longer crossing, from many years to come, and she had been wounded by the journey. In your kindness you tried to offer assistance but when you touched her it propelled you across the bridge in turn. I must confess that I do not understand how or why.’

‘A woman from centuries forward travels across a bridge in time and then, by her touch, sends me across the bridge to this strange place. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

Dora laughed. ‘You are jesting with me, my lord. For surely this woman is a witch. You speak of spells and magics. Well, I will be strong in the face of them. I will pray for deliverance from this evil.’

As she delivered this rejoinder, Dora had been peeling the paper from the slab of brown stuff and, without even thinking about it, she took an absent-minded bite. Upon which all thoughts left her head and her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

‘By the lord, this is wonderful. What do you call this?’

‘Chocolate.’

Dora took another huge bite. Finally something new which did not fill her with dread. If this strange and alien world had such a thing as chocolate in it, then perhaps it was not the hell she feared.

Sweetclover laughed. ‘I told you it would change your life.’

Dora murmured her assent through a mouthful of melting cocoa, all her questions temporarily forgotten.

So the explosion took her completely by surprise.

… and the wind is blowing really hard so I am worried the plane is going to crash as we land but we don’t and so I am back home in Poland for the first time in ten years and as soon as the doors open I feel the cold and I look back at my dad as he struggles with the bags and then … and then … and then … what the …?

Kaz felt the table shake as he stopped speaking. He heard a deep, resonant rumble vibrating through the structure of the building. Even in his confusion, as his mind tried to process what had just happened and reeled in response to the onslaught of unexpectedly detailed memories that had poured from his lips, dry and bleeding after his monologue, his sense memory identified the shock wave of a bomb.

It was not an unfamiliar sensation to him.

His immediate instinct was to rise to his feet and hurry towards the site of the explosion, to see if he could offer assistance to anyone who might have been hurt by the blast, but his vision was blurred, his hands and feet were numb and he found it difficult to think straight. He still had no clue what was happening to him, why he’d been taken prisoner, where he was, what kind of machine had forced him to spew his life story, and why the people holding him were so interested in the first place. But answers could wait. If someone was bombing this building, it meant there would be distraction and confusion, which meant he had a chance to escape.

The guard who had remained in the room had already opened the door and was peering out into the corridor beyond. A deafening klaxon began to sound, which was a relief to Kaz as it masked the noise of his chair scraping on the floor as he pushed it back and tried to stand. His limbs felt lumpen and unresponsive, but he forced himself to concentrate and move slowly while the guard’s attention was elsewhere. He knew he might not have much time; he reckoned the blast must have shut down the machine that had been forcing him to speak, but he didn’t know how long it would stay off. Maybe it was rebooting or something and any moment he would start talking again.

‘Oi, Jim, what’s going on?’ shouted the guard at the door, trying to get answers from a fellow guard who was running past.

Kaz heard the shouted reply. ‘Dunno, some sort of explosion. Stay with the prisoner.’

Jim’s footsteps echoed away as the guard turned to look back at Kaz, who had managed to lift the chair above his head but hadn’t managed to cover the ground between him and the door. The guard smiled and raised his gun.

‘I don’t think so. Sit down, sunshine.’

Kaz felt foolish, standing there in an empty room with a chair over his head. He had no choice but to place the chair back on the floor and sit down again. He grinned and shrugged. ‘Can’t blame me for trying.’

The guard advanced towards Kaz, his face making it clear that he could and would do exactly that. But before he could administer the slap that was so obviously imminent, the door swung open to reveal the man who had been in charge at the house, the one the young girl had called ‘lord’.

‘Leave us,’ said the man.

The guard turned on his heels, snapped to attention, and smartly stepped outside. He was pulling the door closed behind him when the klaxon stopped blaring and a voice echoed across the PA.

‘All guards remain at your posts,’ announced the voice. ‘There has been an explosion but it is outside the compound, I repeat the explosion is not within the compound. It is either a coincidence or a diversion, so remain vigilant.’

The guard paused, the door still half open. ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘That was …’ He turned to look at the newcomer, slowly raising his gun as he began to realise that something here was not quite right.

‘Yes, that was my voice,’ said the man. ‘Confusing, isn’t it?’ Then there was a flash of light and the guard crumpled to the floor. The man then grabbed the guard’s feet and pulled him inside the room. As the man leaned out of the doorway, scanning the corridor outside to make sure he was unobserved, Kaz reached down and snatched the guard’s gun.

When the man closed the door and turned back into the room, Kaz was aiming the gun square at his chest.

‘This is the central laboratory, the most secure place in the building. You will be safe in here,’ said Lord Sweetclover, already turning to leave.

Dora did not want him to go, but she would never have thought to question his decision, or beg him to stay.

Sweetclover barked as he passed the young guard who stood inside the door. ‘You, what’s your name?’

‘Simon, sir.’

‘You guard this door with your life, Simon, understand?’

The guard – little more than a boy really, thought Dora, as she noticed his wispy moustache – straightened his posture and barked, ‘Yes, sir.’

Sweetclover left the room through the two swing doors without looking back at Dora. She heard the doors lock shut.

Left alone with a strange boy in a strange room, Dora paced restlessly, scrutinising instruments and computer terminals, never touching anything but wishing that she could. One wall was lined with strange glass cabinets, their frosted interiors containing shelves laden with glass tubes; another featured a huge mirror which hung alongside a large metal door with a kind of wheel set into the middle of it; the bulk of the room was taken up by long tables. In one corner stood a chair, adorned with leather straps and metal appendages. This was the only thing in the room which caused Dora to shudder. It did not seem to her that anything good would befall a person who found themselves strapped into such a contraption.

‘Who are you and what is going on?’ asked Kaz.

The man shook his head and smiled, unintimidated by the gun. ‘Same old Kaz,’ he said, almost fondly. He slowly put the backpack over his shoulder.

‘How do you know my name?’

‘There’s no time for small talk. The bomb won’t keep them occupied for long. We have to move quickly and quietly. I’ll explain later. All you need to know is that I’m here to help and you have to trust me.’

Kaz shook his head. ‘I don’t have to do anything.’

‘Look, I understand,’ said the man. ‘You’re confused and angry, you don’t know what’s happening and you want to run. I get it. If I were in your shoes, I’d feel exactly the same way. But the truth is that without my help you have absolutely no chance of escape. They’ll pick you up, put you back in front of the mind probe, let you finish your story and then, when they’ve got everything they need, they’ll kill you.’

Kaz stepped forward and rested the cold metal gun barrel against the man’s forehead. ‘I don’t believe you. This is some kind of trick. You’re the man who brought me here, why would you let me go?’

The man’s face blurred and shimmered. Kaz recoiled in horror as he found himself standing face to face with … himself.

‘Chameleon shroud,’ said his doppelgänger as his face shimmered again, this time turning into that of Dora. ‘It’s a disguise, see? I’m not Sweetclover, the man who brought you here, but if I look like him, these guards will follow my orders. I can simply march you straight out the front door, get it?’

Kaz was beginning to waver. ‘So who are you, then?’ he asked as the man shimmered back into Lord Sweetclover.

‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he said. ‘For now, can we go, please?’

After a second’s consideration Kaz nodded. ‘Don’t suppose I have any choice.’ He lowered the gun.

‘Don’t suppose you do.’ The man stooped down and began rifling through the guard’s pockets.

‘Is he dead?’ asked Kaz warily.

The man stood, holding a chipped key-card. ‘OK, we have three things we need to do before we can leave. First, we need to get the recording from the mind probe. We can’t let them keep your life story, it’ll cause too much disruption. Second, we need to find the chip they’ve taken from Jana. Then we need to round up the girls.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ said Kaz. ‘Can you at least tell me your name?’

The man smiled. ‘You can call me Steve.’

The real Sweetclover was feeling a lot less cheerful as he surveyed the wreckage of what looked like a very expensive motorbike, strewn across the road outside the complex’s main gate. Around him stood five short men in heavy black riot gear – Kevlar helmets and chest plates, black uniforms and heavy boots. They carried very big guns and their faces were obscured by mirrored visors on their helmets, but their uniformity went beyond their clothing and equipment.

Unlike the rest of the guards, these five stood motionless as if reserving their formidable power for when it was most needed. All roughly the same height and build, they stood with exactly the same posture. Even a person accustomed to facing riot police would have found these men unusually unsettling, their lack of individuality a physical manifestation of something sinister and repressive.

Sweetclover turned to the gatekeeper, who was eyeing the five riot guards nervously. ‘And nobody’s approached the gate since it blew?’ he asked.

‘No, sir,’ replied the twitchy gatekeeper.

‘And there’s nothing on any of the perimeter cameras, all the other guard posts have checked in?’

‘That’s correct, sir.’

Sweetclover shook his head, puzzled. ‘Then why blow it up, if it’s not a diversion? Motorbikes don’t just spontaneously combust.’

The gatekeeper cleared his throat and nervously offered an opinion. ‘Perhaps it’s a warning, sir?’

Sweetclover shook his head, annoyed. ‘Of what? No, while we’re standing here gawping at this wreckage somebody is doing something they don’t want us to know about. Check the perimeter again. And you’ – he gestured to the riot guards – ‘come with me.’

Sweetclover turned on his heels and began walking back to the main building followed by the five hulking soldiers, who, although not marching, still walked in step. After a few paces, Sweetclover stopped dead.

‘Unless …’ He turned back to address the gatekeeper. ‘Has anybody come through the gate in the last half an hour?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Not a delivery van, or a courier of any kind?’

‘No, sir, you were the last person through the gate.’

Sweetclover nodded and turned back to the building, took one stride, paused and turned back again.

‘You mean when I returned with the prisoners two hours ago in the vans?’

Now it was the gatekeeper’s turn to look puzzled. He shook his head. ‘No, sir, when you came through twenty minutes ago. On foot.’

Sweetclover was running back towards the complex before the gatekeeper had finished talking.

The sound of five pairs of heavy boots running in perfect unison echoed off the cold, white walls behind him.

Steve swiped the card through the reader, tapping his foot impatiently as it processed the card’s ID. Before the door had slid even halfway open, he had turned sideways and slipped through into the room beyond. Kaz followed quickly, keeping his eyes on the corridor as he backed inside, making sure they weren’t discovered.

The door closed behind him and Kaz turned to see a darkened room with a huge array of electrical equipment ranged across one wall. Lights and monitors flickered, needles vibrated in semicircular dials.

‘What’s that?’ he asked Steve, who had rushed to the bank of machinery and was typing a series of commands into a keyboard.

‘Mind probe,’ he replied as he typed. ‘Built from scratch using local equipment. Local in time, I mean. A normal mind probe, one from the period in which it was invented, is about the size of a small briefcase … ah, got it.’

The machinery whirred and clicked and a small solid-state hard drive popped out. Steve grabbed it, threw it on the floor and shot it with the stubby light gun he had used to disable the guard earlier. The drive smoked and buckled as its destroyer looked up at Kaz and smiled.

‘One down. Now they have no record of your memories. Your family is safe. For the time being.’

Kaz didn’t think he had any shock left in him, but these words sent a fresh chill through his bones. ‘My family? What you talking about?’