They drove past the main gates of the university to check that the guards were still at their posts. Lenin had chosen to use the smaller back entrance, opposite the Royal Albert Hall, which had a pair of locked iron gates. Josh parked up in Kensington Gore at 2.15am, fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.
‘We’ve got to get to the Separation Science Lab in the Blackett Laboratory,’ Lenin instructed them as he scrolled through the map on his phone. ‘The ephedrine is stored in the basement, two floors down. Billy, you keep a lookout at the back door. Crash, Tek, you’re with me.’
‘Shouldn’t I stay with the car?’ complained Josh.
‘We’ve been over this,’ Lenin growled as he took out a university security card, one of Tek’s creations no doubt. ‘You’re coming. Now, Tek and me are going to sort the power to the gates — you back the car up and leave the engine running. Got it?’
Josh nodded.
Lenin and Tek got out and ran towards a wooden door with the words ‘Roderic Hill Substation’ spelt out on terracotta tiles above it. Josh waited for them to disappear inside and then allowed the car to creep forward until it was in line with the entrance. When he saw the magnetic locks on the gates disengage, he reversed quickly into the alleyway as Lenin pushed the gates aside.
‘Smooth,’ commented Billy from the back seat.
Tek was climbing down a pole as they pulled into the delivery yard. He had put some kind of device on the CCTV that was covering the back entrance. Billy pushed the front passenger seat forwards and jumped out. ‘So you coming or what?’ he whispered as he got out.
‘Don’t suppose I have a lot of choice,’ Josh replied, pulling the handbrake up and leaving the car idling in neutral.
Lenin was already at the back entrance of the building, which was clearly marked: ‘Faculty of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences’. Billy ran off into the shadows to find a suitable lookout point as Josh and the others went in.
The lights in the corridor flared into life, startling them until Tek pointed out that they were controlled by motion sensors. Josh realised too late that a mask would have probably been a smart move; there were CCTV cameras, following every step of his progress. The run to the stairs was ten metres of pantomime as he tried to hide his face.
As they descended, Josh noticed that each of the doors they passed had increasingly more serious warning signs; with the additional droning hum of machinery it was beginning to feel like something out of a Bond movie — like they were entering the underground headquarters of Dr Evil.
Tek was stripping wires out of the keypad on the door when Josh caught up. Lenin had pulled up his ski mask and had his gun in one hand. He had an insane smile across his face, the kind that told Josh he was seriously over-medicated.
Tek was a technical genius, hence the name. He could get you free calls on your mobile, or hack into your email, but his real talent was credit cards. His skill with cash machines was legendary. It was said that he had once organised an attack on HSBC that had resulted in £75,000 being withdrawn from cashpoints in London in one day. It had taken two days for the bank to get their systems back up and running after that.
The doors beeped meekly and slid open. Tek gave them the thumbs up, and Lenin pulled the mask down once more and raised the gun as he went in — like he was playing a video game.
The laboratory was empty, no self-respecting student was going to be working at this time, they would all be in the bar trying to get laid or drunk, or both.
Josh watched as Lenin crept slowly among the metal benches, each one stacked high with fragile experiments made up of plexiglass tubes, beakers and bunsen burners. He was heading towards the storeroom at the far end of the lab. It was a large metal door with more signs warning about hazardous materials, which Lenin ignored as he slid it aside and went in. Tek followed close behind with a trolley.
That was when Josh first noticed something odd.
He had the strangest feeling he was being watched, but when he looked around there were no active cameras, thanks to Tek, and nowhere for anyone to hide. He could hear the two of them shifting containers around in the store room, they were both too busy to keep an eye on Josh, but he still couldn’t shake the sensation, all the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.
Then Josh noticed the numbers on the lift panel next to the stairs. The number was descending — someone was on their way down.
He began to wish he hadn’t thrown the phone away, he couldn’t even text Billy to see if everything was OK upstairs.
As the number continued past 0, he heard the wheels on the trolley squeak and saw Lenin come charging out like a shopper on black friday. Tek was running too, carrying a couple of metal cylinders tucked under his arm.
‘What are you waiting for? Get the freaking lift!’ Lenin shouted as he waved his gun towards the doors.
There was no time to explain to them that someone was already on their way down, Josh just watched events unfurl in slow motion. As Lenin reached the lab doors, they opened automatically, at the same time the lift doors slid apart and a night guard stepped unwittingly into Lenin’s line of fire.
In slow motion Josh watched Lenin shoot the man in the chest. His body flew backwards into the back wall and slid down into a bloody pool. Lenin was shouting something at them, but Josh didn’t wait to listen, he pressed the rewind button on the tachyon.
[<<]
The lift number was still above ground on the indicator, Josh knew he had less than two minutes to try to stop the guard getting killed. He looked around for a weapon or something to distract Lenin when he came through the door. There was nothing but glass and chemicals in the lab, he had no idea what any of them were for. He guessed acid would do the trick, but everything was labelled with scientific symbols, and he had failed Chemistry in Year Nine.
They were seconds away from coming out of the store room when Josh noticed the fire alarm. He grabbed some paper towels and lit them from a Bunsen burner, then held the makeshift torch up to the sensor. The water cascaded from the sprinkler system and soaked everything in seconds. Alarms went off all over the building. The lift stopped on the floor above and did not come down any further. Josh breathed a sigh of relief and turned to find Lenin staring at him in disbelief.
Tek was furiously trying to disable the alarms behind him but was shaking his head as if it were a waste of time.
Josh couldn’t hear what Lenin screamed at him as he raised the gun towards him, his hand reached for the tachyon but it was too late, the butt of the gun struck him across the temple, and he went down.
40
The Professor
There was a blinding pain behind his eyes when Josh came around. His hands were bound, his clothes were soaking wet and the seat he was sitting on was hard and uncomfortable in the way that only school chairs could be.
His head was resting on a table. Someone had made a pillow out of his hoodie to try to make it more comfortable, which it was not.
He wasn’t sure what had happened after Lenin had hit him. The alarms had stopped, which helped with the headache, but everything else after that was a blank. His fingers blindly searched for the tachyon — it was missing. An icy feeling gripped his stomach at the thought of Lenin with a time device. He groaned inwardly at the idea of having to explain that to Methuselah or the colonel.
He could hear muffled voices talking on the other side of the door. The room was nothing more than a storage area with a few lockers and a table — he was being held prisoner by someone, but not Lenin — this wasn’t his style. He looked around and spotted a health-and-safety poster, which told him he was still in the university.
‘I’ll deal with this!’ a man’s voice commanded. ‘You go and wait for the police outside.’
Josh swore at the word ‘police’. This was the kind of situation that was always made dramatically worse with the involvement of the cops — especially when weapons were involved. Hopefully they didn’t know about the guns.
The door o
pened, and a tired-looking, middle-aged man walked in. The security guard hovered outside like an over-eager puppy, his nightstick ready in one hand. The academic waved him away and then closed the door and locked it.
Josh was not contemplating escape, not yet anyway. His head was still throbbing, and his usual quick wits had been dulled considerably by the blow from Lenin’s gun.
‘So,’ began the man as he sat down opposite Josh. ‘My name is Professor Fermi.’
He had a European accent, which Josh couldn’t place exactly. His glasses were heavy and thick-rimmed, and he wore a tweed jacket over a black turtleneck.
‘The guard believes you were one of a gang that tried to break into Blackett’s this morning.’
Josh made no comment — he knew better than to talk. It would be bad enough for him when the cops arrived. The last thing he should do was answer a bunch of incriminating questions.
‘I realise that you probably don’t want to talk to me and that we are somehow breaching your human rights by holding you in this way.’
He had a point, Josh thought. This probably was against the law too. The guy was either dumb or after something else.
‘So before the police turn up and make things complicated, I will try to simplify the outcome.’ He took something from his pocket. It was a clear plastic bag, the kind they used on CSI for evidence. Inside, much to Josh’s relief, was the tachyon.
‘I know you were after our ephedrine. Predictable if not a little dramatic.’ He made a gun shape out of his fingers.
Shit, thought Josh, he knew about the weapons.
‘I don’t care about that,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘The chemicals can be replaced.’ He took the tachyon out of the bag and held it up. ‘This, on the other hand, interests me very much.’
Josh watched the dials on the face of the device move round. He tested the bindings on his wrists, but they held tight.
‘Do you know what a Quantum Singularity is?’ Fermi asked.
Josh shrugged. This guy was a talker. He knew it was best to let him rattle on until he saw a chance to make a move.
‘No, I didn’t think you would. Which is what has been bothering me since my sensors picked up the signal from the other side of the quadrant — not something one expects to encounter outside a black hole. Your timepiece is giving off a very strange signature.’
Josh tried to look blank. He guessed the Order would be very unhappy about a scientist getting their hands on a tachyon.
‘I should explain,’ Fermi continued. ‘I have been researching quantum field theory for many years, mostly ways of measuring the slightest gravitational disturbances in our universe. This device just registered off the scale on every one of my monitoring systems. May I ask where you acquired it?’
Josh was sure the professor really wanted to say: ‘steal’, but was giving him the benefit of the doubt. The tachyon was his only means of escape, but this guy was looking at it like it was the Holy Grail.
‘I stole it.’ Josh had always thought that a half-truth made for the most authentic-sounding lie, ‘from some old guy.’
The professor looked disappointed, as if he were hoping that somehow Josh was a secret quantum physicist who just hung out with drug dealers for kicks.
‘This old man, would you remember him if you saw him again? Do you know where he lives?’
‘Yeah. I could show you, but,’ and this was the chance he was looking for, ‘not if I’m in a police cell.’
The professor nodded and stepped out of the room with his mobile phone pressed to his ear. Josh’s freedom was obviously a small price to pay for the secrets of the tachyon.
The watch sat on the table, gleaming in the neon light like a new Rolex. It was the first time he had a chance to study it properly — the craftsmanship and intricate detail were astounding. Josh was tempted to try to trigger it with his nose, but the ties bit into his hands when he moved the chair.
A minute later the professor returned.
‘So the police are dealt with. We can finish our discussion about the old man.’
‘My hands are hurting,’ Josh pleaded with a look of pain.
‘Ah yes, my over-zealous colleague.’ He got up and cut the zip ties with a lock knife he produced from his pocket.
‘Thank you,’ Josh said, as the blood rushed back into his fingers — he massaged his wrists to soothe the tingling sensation.
‘Now. The owner of this timepiece, where can I find him?’
Josh was tempted to just rush the professor and grab the watch, but the guy was still holding the knife in one hand, and Josh didn’t care to find out how good his reactions were.
‘Have you managed to get it open?’ Josh asked knowingly. The man had probably blunted every drill and screwdriver he owned trying to get into it. The Order built them to survive just about anything, the colonel had told him.
‘No. Have you?’
Josh nodded and saw a glimmer of excitement in the professor’s eye. This was what the man secretly wanted. He held out his hand. ‘Let me show you.’
The professor reluctantly gave up his prize, laying it gently in Josh’s palm. The watch warmed in his hand as he stroked the dial with his thumb. He felt the power of the device vibrating within it, the power of a black hole, apparently.
‘So, it’s simple. You just need to turn the dial like so . . .’ Josh spun the outer dial to the symbol ‘phi’ just for dramatic effect. It made no difference to what he was planning to do next. ‘Now watch very carefully. I just push this button and —’
‘Wait!’ shouted the professor, reaching out and grabbing the watchstrap.
As he pulled it away, Josh touched the homing button and disappeared.
41
Find the Colonel
Josh reappeared back in the middle of the colonel’s collection room. That had been way too close for comfort — without the tachyon he knew he would have been in serious trouble.
Realising he was no longer holding the watch, Josh looked around the floor, assuming that he had dropped it. Then he checked his pockets and under the surrounding furniture. Each new search getting a little more frantic, until he had to finally admit that he must have left it behind with the professor.
‘Shit. Shit. Shit,’ he shouted, kicking over a small stack of books. Today was turning out to be one hell of a bad day: he’d managed to get thrown out of the Order, lose the best chance of a girlfriend, get involved in a stupid robbery — get caught, and then leave an invaluable piece of time-travel technology with a guy who was totally obsessed with trying to understand how it worked. Definitely not one of his best days.
He was just considering helping himself to something from the colonel’s whisky collection when he heard a noise from downstairs. It sounded remarkably like the front door closing, and Josh felt a small spark of hope ignite in his chest — the colonel had returned; the one man who could fix all of this had finally come back. Josh ran out into the landing and down the first flight of stairs, expecting to see the crazy mad brush of hair and the big old greatcoat.
Instead he saw the face of Caitlin staring up at him.
‘Er. Hi. What are you doing here?’
She looked at him with dark, stormy eyes.
‘What am I doing here? What are YOU doing here?’ she said in a voice that was trying hard not to scream.
Josh wasn’t quite sure where to start. He thought about telling her the truth, but that would involve a lot of backstory and he wasn’t ready to explain about Lenin or the shit he’d got himself into. Nor did he think it was a good idea to mention stealing a tachyon and then losing it — which left very little of today that could be deemed to be appropriate.
‘Don’t tell me!’ she added as she took off her coat and shook out her wet hair. It must have been raining outside. ‘I probably wouldn’t want to know.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be in bed?’ Josh said, trying to change the subject.
‘They tried. But when I found out that
Dalton had you excluded, I told them where they could stick their recuperation.’
‘Dalton?’ Josh exclaimed.
‘Yes. Bloody Dalton. Interfering little bastard told his mother. Our little adventure was all he needed to have you kicked out, and he’s claiming that Dracula’s tooth should be disqualified!’
She walked into the kitchen and grabbed a towel to dry her hair.
Josh wanted to run his fingers through it, pull her close and kiss her, but Caitlin was cold and distant. The closeness they had shared in the cave was gone. Her emotional defences were locked down, as if she were ready for a fight.
‘So why did you come here?’ he asked.
‘I wasn’t looking for you, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘No, of course not.’
A tiny smile flashed across her mouth and vanished.
‘The Council has declared Uncle Rufius officially missing in action. Methuselah sent me here to see if there were any clues as to where he might have gone. I have a sneaking suspicion that Methuselah might have known you were here too — since he told me to bring a spare tachyon.’
She reached into her coat pocket and produced an older-looking model. ‘It’s only a Mark Two, but its functions are basically the same, just a bit heavier.’
Josh let her strap it to his wrist. Her fingers were delicate and precise as they threaded the leather band and closed it. He tried not to think about the new Mk IV that was probably being disassembled in the basement of the university at this very moment.
‘So Methuselah doesn’t agree with my exclusion?’
She shook her head. ‘No! Neither do I, not after what you did for me. It’s a formality imposed on him by the Protectorate. There is some kind of emergency meeting going on. All the elders have been ordered to attend — including Methuselah.’
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 22
