Fire and Water

by Simon Guerrier

  A platoon of about twenty soldiers had their backs to her as they marched away into the complex. To her horror she saw that they had prisoners: Danny, Lester and Samuels were being led off under heavy guard. And only Sarah and her one little rifle had any chance of rescuing them.

  They were thrown off their feet as an army truck exploded, struck dead-on by a mortar. Deafened and dazed, Connor helped Abby up, and they ran with the soldiers, all covered in mud and blood, retreating up the slope away from the onslaught. The floating ball of the anomaly glimmered tantalisingly in front of them, still firmly locked. Connor’s locking — and unlocking — mechanism lay in pieces amongst the burning vehicles.

  A missile smacked into the anomaly and burst into pink flame. They paused to watch as the phenomenon absorbed most of the blast. Connor made a mental note to investigate that when they got back home.

  He turned to Abby, and reaching over, wiped some of the dirt from her face with the back of his sleeve. Then they continued running up the plain, following the few vehicles that were still in one piece. They wanted to keep as near to the locked anomaly as possible, but that just made them easy targets.

  The ground sloped upwards ahead of them for about a mile. Further up the slope in front of them cantered the herd of Sauroposeidons, lowing with distress at the ongoing barrage.

  “You okay?” Connor asked Abby, not sure if he was shouting.

  She nodded.

  “It’s weird,” she said, panting slightly, “we’ve been trapped and knocked out, and dragged off by dinosaurs. But being shot at by British soldiers is a new experience.”

  “Yeah, gotta love this job,” he said wearily. “Every day it’s different.”

  “Get back!” a soldier yelled as he ran towards them.

  Connor looked up to see that something had just thunk ed into the earth behind him. They both turned quickly, ran a few steps and were blown through the air by the explosion.

  Connor lay in the soft earth, and his whole body felt like one great bruise. Someone grabbed his arms and tried to drag him to his feet. Soon he found himself behind an upturned truck — cover from the barrage of explosions. He just let them take charge, too stunned to think for himself.

  “Connor.” It was Becker’s voice. His lip was bleeding slightly and he looked wild-eyed, his usually perfect hair dishevelled and his face spattered with blood and dirt. “We need to fight back.”

  “Yeah,” Connor said, trying to blink the dizziness away, “Good plan. Why aren’t you firing?”

  “We can’t — our rifles don’t have the range.”

  “And that’s not much good anyway,” Abby said, appearing behind Becker, “rifles against what these guys have got.” As if to make the point, a mortar smashed down not far from where they stood, the impact reverberating up their legs. Mud drizzled down on them.

  Funny, Connor thought, how you almost get used to it after a while.

  “But you were firing,” he said to Becker. “I saw you.”

  “Yeah, we had this idea we could hit their oil barrels. Knock them over, set them on fire. Anything just to kick back.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “We’ve not got a lot of equipment with us, just whatever was in the back of the trucks. Some planks and bits of pipe, a few good lengths of rope.”

  “We could build a fence,” Abby suggested.

  “I was thinking of a trebuchet,” Becker said.

  Abby and Connor stopped to stare at him. For just an instant the noise of the battleground faded out.

  “A what?” Connor said.

  “A trebuchet,” Becker repeated. “You know, a big catapult. Like they used for storming castles.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m a genius, remember. I know a thing or two about castles.”

  “And Star Wars and coding and really weird films,” Abby put in.

  Connor stuck his tongue out at her. “Just the good ones.”

  “So,” Becker said, interrupting their exchange, “what do you reckon? If we stand still too long, they’re going to hit us. So we’d have to do it quickly.”

  Connor scratched his chin, then ducked round the truck they were hiding behind to look back down the ravaged, muddy plain to the huge factory far below. The anti-tank rockets flashed and thudded. Oh yeah, he thought. They could take all that out with a few bits of wood and some string. He turned to the others to say so. And found them watching him eagerly, waiting on him to save them.

  “Yeah, I think we could do something...” he said. “Abby, we’ll need something for the trebuchet to throw. Rocks or explosives or —”

  A terrible sound came from further up the hill. The Sauroposeidons were keening loudly. One of them had been battered in the blast of an explosion, shrapnel in the form of wood and twisted metal protruded from its side. It persevered for a moment, taking a few faltering steps forward, its bulky, tree-trunk legs struggling in the churned up earth. And then it simply stopped and fell over on its side.

  The Sauroposeidons cried out again, their long slender necks reaching high into the smoky sky. The vast, placid creatures filled their throats with bassline, a growl of sound Connor could feel deep in his guts.

  “You wouldn’t like them when they’re angry,” he murmured.

  “No,” Becker agreed, spitting blood. “Damn it,” he said. “They’re attacking defenceless creatures.”

  Connor had never known him swear before. He turned to Abby, and she had that serious, bright look in her eyes which meant she’d had an idea.

  “Oh no, what?” he asked her.

  “Have some faith,” she told him. “You’re gonna love this one.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Let me guess,” Lester said, squinting in the bright sunshine as the soldiers stripped him of the lab coat he had purloined, “you’re working with Christine Johnson.”

  Samuels looked puzzled.

  “Christine? Haven’t thought of her in years. Is she even still alive?” Behind him, a soldier hurried over from the anti-tank artillery.

  “Oh, yes,” Lester said, grimly. “Very much so.”

  The soldier spoke to Samuels in a low voice and received an order in response. He saluted and ran back to his post. Samuels then addressed the armed men who surrounded them. “Let’s take them inside.”

  The soldiers crowded close to Danny and Lester, cocooning them as they made their way around the side of the building. Behind them, more soldiers readied the huge anti-tank guns. Danny glanced up the plain rising high into the distance, and could just make out a series of small vehicles. They didn’t look like much of an adversary, more like target practice.

  What’s going on?

  The tethered Postosuchus sat chewing on what remained of Ted. When Danny looked around again, he found Samuels watching him.

  “You could have stopped your guard dog before it killed him,” Danny growled.

  “Yes,” Samuels admitted, “but it proved a useful point. You noticed how James hid behind you and the unfortunate zoo keeper?”

  “We were the ones with guns.”

  “How convenient. No, James did what he always does, protected himself at the expense of everyone else. You should remember that.”

  “Of course, that’s what this is all about,” Lester said, managing to smirk despite their unfortunate position. He turned in Danny’s direction. “Once upon a time, Tom worked with me in planning civil contingencies. You know the sort of thing — what the government would do in the case of an attack from outer space. And I made the awful faux pas of having him fired. It’s aged you, Tom.”

  “See, Danny, that’s the kind of man you’re working for. He will try to ruin your career, just as he tried to destroy mine.” Samuels said coolly.

  “No, you tried to ruin me,” Lester insisted, equally cool. “You went over my head to the Minister. He had the good sense to ask for my response and I merely suggested some of the weak spots in your plan. If you’d had any grasp of military history...”

 
; “It was a set up, as well you know.”

  “As I said, if you’d had any grasp of military history, you wouldn’t have blundered in. But they didn’t throw you out because of what I said. It’s what you did yourself. They just didn’t like how you behaved. And they still won’t.”

  “You will pay for what you did to me,” Samuels threatened darkly.

  “So it seems. I suppose I should be flattered that you’ve had to go to all this effort.”

  They reached a set of double doors that led into the complex, and a soldier stepped forward to swipe his pass card. Danny and Lester looked back as they waited, and saw the anti-tank gun being readied. Seconds later, it boomed, and they saw a missile streak out across the sky, heading right for the lone vehicle far off up the plain.

  Samuels followed their gaze.

  “There’s a better view inside,” he said, “and I think you’ll want to take advantage of it.”

  The door sighed open, and Danny and Lester were escorted down tiled corridors, the air tangy with the stink of oil. Danny’s eyes darted left and right, picking over the details. Perhaps he would spot an opportunity for escape, should their troop of armed guards suddenly all look the other way. But then, as much as he wanted to escape, he was also curious to hear what Samuels had to say for himself. So he contented himself with memorising the route back to the exit.

  They felt the reverberation as the massive guns outside fired and fired again.

  “So,” he said to Samuels, “you going to tell us what’s going on?”

  Lester sighed. “I’d have thought it was obvious, Quinn.”

  “You lured us out here to kill us,” Danny said, “so, what, you could take Lester’s job?”

  “And there’s this place, as well,” Lester added.

  Tom Samuels turned to regard him.

  “Oh, you think you’ve got it all figured out, do you?”

  “You’ve built a mine in the past to pump oil out to the twenty-first century,” Lester said, rolling his eyes as if the whole thing rather bored him. “It’s more than a little reckless, don’t you think? You endanger the very fabric of our existence just to fuel the world’s SUVs and make the oil barons rich. Leave the past to the experts.”

  “Experts?” Samuels crowed. “Nick Cutter was a madman — you say so in your own reports. You refer to him as ‘unhinged’ and ‘obstinate’.”

  They turned off the main corridor and marched along a passageway that Danny felt he almost recognised. He looked around at Lester, who raised an eyebrow and nodded towards the swing doors ahead of them. Yes, thought Danny, there was something tantalisingly familiar about all this.

  “You’ve got a very simplistic understanding of the work we’ve done,” Lester said, “the kinds of issue that are involved. Perhaps you should leave it alone until you’ve caught up on the reading.”

  Samuels scoffed at him.

  “You don’t know the first thing about what we’re doing here, or the evidence that backs it up. But let me show you.”

  With that he pushed through the swing doors at the end of the corridor, and led them into the main operations room of the ARC.

  Sarah stayed hidden behind the door until it had closed and the soldiers escorting Danny, Lester and Samuels had turned a corner. She remained motionless, willing them not to see her.

  All sorts of questions buzzed through her mind as she ventured cautiously after them. How had Danny and Lester got here when they were meant to be in South Africa? Who was being shoot at outside — did Danny and Lester have allies? Had they been spirited through an anomaly, just as Samuels had?

  She reached the corner they’d turned down, and stopped to listen for their footsteps. Hearing nothing, she poked her head around the corner. The corridor was empty. Rooms branched off on either side, and there was another pair of swing doors at the end. Light glimmered behind the blue-glass windows set high into the doors, suggesting activity beyond.

  Still clutching her rifle, she headed towards the swing doors, which looked a lot like the ones that led into the ARC’s operations room. These people, whoever they were, also wore the same uniforms as the guards back home. They had lots of equipment and staff, and seemed able to control the anomalies.

  Perhaps this was the ARC, but a few years ahead of her own time? Previous anomalies had always linked to the distant past or the far future, but there was no evidence to suggest that they couldn’t link to a more recent time.

  She made her way carefully to the doors, standing on tiptoes to look through the panels of blue glass.

  Danny, Lester and Samuels were surrounded by armed soldiers in what looked like the operations room of the ARC. Sarah’s heart beat hard in her chest as she gripped her rifle and lowered herself back down, looking back the way she had come. The rooms leading off the corridor might well have once been the labs and canteen back on the other side of the anomaly. It was as if someone had extended their building and tiled its interior.

  It appeared she’d turned up in the future.

  But what should she do next?

  Danny stared, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Gradually he realised this wasn’t the operations room he knew, just somewhere very like it. The lighting was slightly different, more pinkish than pale blue and grey. A squat, heavy computer bank ran alongside another ADD, coloured lights winking. But what really made it different was the empty space at the centre of the room.

  Without Connor and Sarah’s high tables piled with complex bits of machinery that they hadn’t quite got working, it felt empty and bereft, like a house after all the people had moved out.

  The soldiers kept tightly around Lester and Danny as they passed through the room. They made their way to the ADD, a perfect copy but for the sixth large screen. Danny thought for a moment it showed news footage, but it soon dawned on him that he was watching the battle that was taking place just outside. Missiles smacked down into the brown earth beside a glinting anomaly. The scene played out in silence, a strangely distancing effect. Even when he recognised the tiny figures running through the mud between the scant bits of cover, it took a moment to sink in.

  “That’s Abby and Connor,” he said quietly. He turned on Samuels, shouting now: “You’re firing on Abby and Connor!”

  Samuels ignored him to focus on Lester.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll make it quick.”

  “You can’t!” Danny said, taking a step forward. The soldiers jabbed their guns into his chest and neck. He backed up, arms raised in surrender. “For God’s sake, they don’t stand a chance.”

  He watched in mounting horror as projectiles rained down on his friends. The ARC team seemed to be far enough away to make accurate bombing difficult, and they were constantly moving, making them even more challenging targets. He saw Becker, blood and muck all over him, help Connor to his feet. He watched them talking quickly, with lots of hand movements. Even against impossible odds, he could see them struggling to find an answer.

  If only he could help them. A distraction, a moment’s grace — anything.

  One of the other screens showed the coordinates of an anomaly, the word ‘Locked’ flashing beside it. It must mean the floating ball of the locked anomaly he could see in the other screen; otherwise surely his friends could escape back home. He tried to move closer to check, but a soldier prodded him back into place. Danny shook with frustration at being unable to save his friends.

  Samuels casually leant an elbow on the large computer bank.

  “This is just the start. Think of me as a new broom, sweeping out the old regime.”

  Lester didn’t respond. When Danny looked over at him, he thought he saw something over his shoulder. Through the narrow window in the double doors — it was the ghost of a silhouette, the top of someone’s head. Then it disappeared.

  That looked like...

  No, he thought, it couldn’t be. Based on the height of the windows, he made a guess at how tall the person would have been, reckoning about five foot fiv
e.

  Yeah, that’s about right.

  He turned to Samuels. Now, how to stall for time...

  “Like what you’ve done with the place,” he said genially. “Much tidier all round.”

  He punched the soldier next to him with a mean right hook, sending him toppling into the ADD.

  A second soldier came forward to take a swing at him and Danny dodged under his fist. Catching it, he tugged the man off balance and kneed him in the chest.

  Lester lashed out at a soldier who was raising his gun, and Danny kicked out at a fourth. Someone clubbed him in the back with a rifle. He ignored the sudden pain in order to twist round and kick out. Another soldier kicked him in the back of the knee, sending pain flaring right through his leg. He stumbled and they kicked at him again.

  Danny smacked hard into the floor, his whole body aflame.

  He tried to rise and they kicked him back down. He twisted his head to see Lester pinioned between two soldiers.

  “Well,” Samuels said grimly, straightening his tie, “I think you’ve outstayed your welcome, Mr Quinn.” He turned to one of the soldiers and gestured. “Take him outside and —”

  But the order died in his throat.

  Lying on the cold, hard floor, Danny struggled to look around and see why. Samuels was staring at the swing doors where Sarah stood, wielding a rifle. There was a terrible, haunted look in her eyes. A look that dared suggest she might use the gun in her hands.

  “Let them go,” she told the soldiers as she walked slowly forward.

  THIRTY

  Danny lay on the floor, soldiers training their rifles on him. Lester stood, but was held tight by two more soldiers. And Samuels was trapped up against the computer bank running next to the ADD. Soldiers surrounded him, and were aiming their rifles at Sarah.

  “Sarah,” Samuels said warmly, “how good of you to join us.”

  “Get out of here!” Danny yelled at her. “Save —” A soldier kicked him in the ribs, cutting him off.

  “Sarah understands what has to be done,” Samuels said confidently. To her surprise and confusion, he nudged around the soldiers and walked slowly out towards her. “Sarah understands about the future. She’s convinced me that we need to open up the ARC, go public with what we’ve discovered about the anomalies and creatures. There’s several million years of untapped potential just waiting for us to exploit it.”