‘Wraith? You mean like a ghost?’
‘More like a vampire — one that likes to feed on your memories.’
‘How?’ was all that Josh could manage. He was weak from the lack of food.
‘They are from beyond the continuum, outside of time — a place we call the Maelstrom. There are many dark and terrible things out there, and they all like to feed on the energies of our timeline.’
Josh wondered why the colonel hadn’t mentioned this. It was the kind of health and safety video he would have expected on day one.
‘How did it find us?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Wild ones need a breach, a hole in time, but I’m guessing that this one was a captive, although we won’t know now after your brilliant escape plan.’
‘So what exactly would you have done?’
‘I’m quite capable of dealing with a monad. They’re not the worst thing I’ve had to take on.’ She flipped the dagger handle over and threw it at him.
Josh caught it with one hand. ‘If this monad was captive, then it was a trap?’
‘No shit, Sherlock. It’s not the first time Dalton has played dirty.’
‘He doesn’t like losing, does he?’ He came and sat next to her.
‘No, he doesn’t. It’s a shame. I thought Dracula’s first tooth was a definite winner — it had a certain irony,’ she said to herself.
‘Yeah. It did,’ he laughed. ‘I would love to have seen Dalton’s face when you dropped that one on the table.’
She smiled, and then they both laughed for no other reason than it was better than crying.
‘How long did this ice age last?’ he asked as he poked the fire. It was getting low, and the sun was setting outside; the temperature would drop drastically soon, and they would have to work hard not to freeze to death.
‘The last one? About 300 million years,’ she said without taking her eyes off the fire.
‘And the chances of anyone finding us in the next couple of days?’
‘Not great.’ She shrugged. ‘This far back, there are hardly any man-made artefacts. It’s mostly tribes of nomadic hunters and cave art.’
‘So what’s further back than this?’
Caitlin shivered and moved closer to him, pulling the furs around them both. ‘It’s not been mapped. The Draconians are the only ones allowed to travel into the ice ages, and they have forbidden anyone from going back. It’s too dangerous.’
He could hear her stomach groaning through the furs. She was being brave, and he knew that he would have to do something soon. They couldn’t survive on water and grass.
‘So tell me about these Draconians. They sound like a crazy bunch of mothers.’
She chuckled. ‘Funny you should say that. My mother was one, and my father.’
He had wanted to ask what the deal was with Methuselah, Alixia and the Colonel — it was obvious they had been looking after Caitlin for a while.
‘They were both Draconian Nautonniers, specialist navigators who travel into the forgotten parts of history, literally the spaces on the map. You ever heard the saying “Hic sunt dracones”?’
‘Nope.’
‘It means “Here be dragons”. It was what the old cartographers used to put on the blank parts of their maps — when they didn’t know what to draw.’
‘I like their style.’
‘So, anyway, when I was ten they were sent on a mission, some kind of anomaly in the Egyptian second dynasty. I can still see them getting ready — they always went on missions together,’ she paused as if cherishing the memory. ‘But they never came back, none of them did. I’ve been staying at the Chapter House ever since. They’re like my second family.’
‘I never knew my dad,’ Josh volunteered without thinking. He’d never said that to another soul. It felt kind of good.
‘I don’t remember much about mine. Only what Uncle Rufius would tell me when he used to take me on our adventures, as he would call them, usually around the fifteenth century.’
‘Looking for lost Italian art?’ Josh joked.
‘No, our fifteenth century, about 9000 BC. We used to explore, hunt and fish, the usually outdoorsy kind of things. We’d camp out for weeks and he’d tell me stories about what my mum and dad had done.’
Josh thought back to the childish fantasies he used to have about having a father: going to football matches, camping, learning to drive — they’d all died a long time ago.
‘So you actually know how to survive back here?’ Josh looked mildly annoyed.
‘I guess so, but it doesn’t matter — the Draconians will come soon.’
‘So why haven’t they found us yet!’ Josh snapped as he got up and went searching around the cave.
‘I don’t know,’ Caitlin replied, moving his discarded furs over her legs. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Something sharp. Didn’t you say there were hunting tools here?’
‘Yes, over in the corner by the tusks. What are you going to do?’ She sounded concerned.
‘I think I know why they haven’t come. We die here in this bloody cave, and no one ever found us.’ He kicked over a pile of bones and pulled out the broken end of a spear. ‘I have never sat around and waited for someone else to rescue me — that only happens in the movies. We have to survive, Caitlin. We have to go out there —’ he waved the spear towards the blizzard that was battering the world outside — ‘and we have to make a difference — start a village or a religion or something. We have to make our mark on history. Think of it like a signal flare. They will find it and come for us.’
‘I don’t know if I can. I’m tired and it’s too cold,’ she muttered, moving deeper inside her furs.
‘Not now, but tomorrow when the sun comes up, we need to make a go of it. If I’m right, they will come. If not, well, it’s still better than dying in this cave.’
She was drowsy, and he had to shake her awake.
‘Caitlin. The colonel didn’t teach you all that stuff so you could die in the middle of the Mesolithic, did he? You make the best of what you got. That’s what my Nan used to say.’
She roused at the mention of her uncle, her beautiful green eyes looking deeply into his, and he saw the flash of anger once more.
‘And now he’s disappeared too, just like they did! They’ve been doing it for years and still couldn’t save themselves. What chance have we got?’ She stood up and shouted at him, the cave amplifying her voice. Her eyes were blazing now, all traces of sleep gone. He knew he had to push her further.
‘Well, maybe he wasn’t as good as you thought he was. Maybe he just ran off with another woman?’
She punched him in the face with such force that he fell back into a pile of old bones.
‘You never, ever talk about my parents again! You hear me?’ The heat had risen in her cheeks and her eyes were brimming with tears.
‘Fine. No problem,’ Josh replied rubbing his chin.
‘Fine. If we’re going to survive we need food and soon.’ She walked over to the old tools, ‘And we should move south, it’s warmer there. Now help me make some kind of weapon out of this shit.’
Later that night there was a noise from the mouth of the cave. Josh woke first, his arms wrapped tightly round Caitlin. In the dim glow of the dying fire he could just make out a figure at the cave entrance. It was covered almost entirely in snow, a few moments later another arrived. Josh urged his frozen fingers to reach for one of the spears they had made that afternoon and hid Caitlin under the furs.
The first figure signalled to the second, and both marched into the cave. They wore large bulky furs with hoods that covered their heads. It wasn’t until they came nearer that Josh saw the insignia on their bags.
‘Well, you took your time,’ he said as he bent down to wake Caitlin. ‘Wake up, Cat. The cavalry has arrived!’
36
Consequences
Josh couldn’t believe Dalton’s mother was a high-ranking official in the Protectorate. Ravan
a Eckhart sat behind the captain’s table; her face gave no hint of emotion as she studied the report. On either side of her stood two menacing-looking men in full face masks, dressed in black leather armour with tubes running into the backs of their heads. This was the first time Josh had seen officers of the Order’s police force — the black glass of their eye lenses reflected nothing.
Before the chief inquisitor sat the various prizes from the game, including the tooth that Caitlin had taken from Dracula and the crudely carved bone handle of the knife that had taken them back into the Mesolithic.
Methuselah stood beside Josh. Caitlin had been confined to her bed for two days by Alixia, and no amount of pleading would change her mind.
He was still trying to come to terms with the fact that his plan had worked; somewhere in another branch of time they had survived long enough for the Draconian team to find them. There was a life back in the Mesolithic that he and Caitlin had made together, enough time to make themselves stand out.
‘Methuselah, you were warned that he was impulsive,’ Ravana said. ‘You should have known better than to allow such childish games to go unsupervised!’
Methuselah knew better than respond.
She picked up the bone handle. ‘Jones. What an earth made you choose this?’
There had been numerous conversations in headmasters’ offices where an object, either broken or stolen, would be placed in front of him, and an explanation demanded.
‘Instinct?’ he replied, not quite knowing what to say.
Dalton’s mother grimaced and put the handle back with the other trophies.
‘You do realise that you went back more than fourteen thousand years? The Draconians inform me there was less than a one per cent chance of ever finding you had you stayed in the cave. Ms Makepiece tells me that it was you who persuaded her to move out into the wilderness.’
Josh nodded. There was a chance he might get away with this.
‘She has pleaded for leniency on the grounds that you weren’t aware of our rules.’ She glanced at one of the officers. ‘Rules that have stood for a thousand years, ones that have never been broken in the history of the Order.’
Ravana stood and placed her hands on the table. Her knuckles went white as she leaned forward and her eyes narrowed. ‘I blame Westinghouse for all of this. Do either of you have any idea of his current location?’
Josh shrugged. Methusaleh shook his head.
‘You leave me no choice. You cannot go crashing around in history as you wish. The consequences of your actions could affect hundreds of millions of lives. You must learn to consider the implications of your actions, Joshua Jones. Until then you are hereby barred from the Order.’
The two guards came and stood either side of Josh. He could see strange dials wired into their gauntlets.
‘Escort him from the premises, confiscate his almanac and tachyon, and inform Arcadin that, until further notice, he is no longer welcome.’
37
Exile
Beyond the doors of the Chapter House, the world was grey and dull. Storm clouds gathered in the sky above him as if conjured up by his mood. The colonel would never have let it come to this, Josh told himself — where was the old man anyway?
As he trudged along the street towards the tube station, he thought back to the night before and the way Caitlin’s body had felt beneath the furs. He longed to be back there again, relive that moment of quiet intimacy, just the two of them alone in the middle of nowhere. He’d never really got that close to another human being, let alone a girl. A smile crossed his face at the thought of what they must have got up to after that night. The Draconian patrol that had found them refused to give him any details, but it must have been something quite epic to have attracted their attention.
Then the reality of his situation kicked in: there was never likely to be another night like that, no more adventures in history, no more Caitlin, no more money — he had screwed it up like he always did, trying to impress her with some ridiculous stunt, putting her life in danger.
Suddenly the mobile Lenin had given him started vibrating in his jacket. Josh took it out and saw a list of unopened messages; the forgotten phone must have been off the network the whole time he was in the Chapter House.
Three were naked selfies of Elena, which he deleted with a swipe. The others were from Lenin, the later ones all threats, escalated over time by his lack of response.
There were also missed calls from various numbers. He scrolled up and down through them and picked one at random and dialled it.
‘Yo,’ a voice answered after a couple of rings — it was Billy.
‘Sup?’ replied Josh.
‘It’s Friday, dude. Where the hell have you been? It’s like you dropped off the planet.’
‘Yeah.’ Josh had no idea what day it was, let alone which century.
‘The man wants to know if you have everything, you know, like, sorted?’
‘Totally. What time we up?’
‘One thirty tomorrow morning.’
Josh dropped the call, deleted all the messages, pulled the sim card out and dumped the phone in the nearest bin. He had little choice but to go through with Lenin’s plan now — it was the only way out.
All he had to do was this one last job and he was home free. He had a few hours before he had to meet them, time enough to go to see his mum and sort out a plan B.
They’d moved his mother to a different ward after she’d had some kind of relapse. The doctor said they’d tried to contact him, but there was no answer at the last known address. They all tried to play it down, telling him everything would be all right, but Josh was not in the mood for being treated like a kid. He knew how bad it could get, and no one knew her condition better than he did.
She was in a side ward in her own room. The TV was on with the sound turned down. Her eyes stared blankly over the oxygen mask that hid most of her face. He took her hand and sat on the bed.
‘Hi, Mum,’ he whispered.
Her eyes blinked but didn’t move from the screen. They must have given her some serious sedatives, he thought. Her hands felt tight, the tendons in her forearms still corded and rigid from the spasms.
‘Listen. I’ve got a plan — it’s going to sort us out for good this time. I promise,’ he whispered as he stroked her hair. ‘You have to believe me, Mum. You were always the one that believed me.’ There were tears running down his cheeks. ‘I can fix this once and for all. For good.’
He sat there holding her hand until a nurse came in with a trolley and he knew it was time to go. He kissed his mother on the forehead and left.
38
At the Colonel’s House
The colonel’s house was dark and unusually quiet as Josh climbed up to one of the back windows. He had persuaded the old man to change the locks on both front and back doors, which was fine if you had a key, but that had been confiscated along with his tachyon and almanac at the Chapter House.
Glass crunched under his trainers as he stepped over the window ledge and into the study. He could just make out the bloodstain of the other colonel on the sofa, and heard the words:
‘Seventeen to the fourth, Tiberian. Twenty-five. Nine. Fourth branch . . .’
He wondered where the old man was right now and whether he knew or even cared about Josh being kicked out. The cat wandered in, licking its lips. It wound itself round his leg, and he could feel the purring through his trousers.
‘Yeah, I miss him too,’ he admitted as he gave it a scratch behind the ear.
He imagined the old man would have quite a lot to say about his expulsion. Josh wanted for nothing more than to have the colonel give him a bollocking, but that wasn’t going to happen — he still had another reason to be here, and it wasn’t to check on the cat, who seemed to be looking after itself perfectly well.
Even though he could tell the house was empty, Josh still crept as quietly as he could up the stairs and into the collection room. He used a torch to find the
cabinet where the photo of Mary Somerville was displayed. It had been propped up against one of the stuffed animals the colonel had taken from the Victorian safe-house.
A few minutes later Josh was standing in the dining room in 1833, staring at the painting of Dalton as he strapped a brand-new Tachyon IV to his wrist.
There was something quite comforting about having one back on his arm again. He wondered how long it would be before the Order would notice it was missing and send someone after him. Then he realised that they would have been waiting for him if they had — the whole time-paradox thing was hard to get your head around, but he was slowly getting the hang of it.
39
The Heist
Lenin got into the front seat of the Renault dressed entirely in black army surplus gear, including a balaclava which made him look like some kind of chubby Ninja. Two of his boys jumped in the back in similar outfits. As Josh got back in, he wondered whether he should have changed into something more appropriate.
All of them were carrying guns.
‘You sure this car can take it?’ Lenin asked as he rolled up the balaclava and put his shades back on.
Josh nodded. ‘I took everything out of the boot. I guessed we wouldn’t be needing the spare tyre.’
Lenin took his gun out and snapped back the barrel to load it.
‘What’s with the guns? You expecting trouble?’
‘Drive,’ was all he got in the way of a reply.
He started the car and pulled out onto the main street. It was 1.32am and the roads were empty except for the occasional taxi driven by pale-faced ghosts.
Josh had gone over the journey to and from the University until he had memorised all the best routes, ones that didn’t involve too many traffic lights, CCTV cameras and dead ends. He had stolen the licence plates from another car and swapped over at the last minute so they wouldn’t flag up on the automatic recognition systems for a while — everything was a go, as NASA would say.
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 21
