by Tim O'Rourke
Trying to make out if it was the young man who had knocked into her and not the other way around, Carol laughed and said, “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”
She stood and watched the young man appraise her, as he looked her up and down, taking in her thick black hair that she had backcombed into jagged-looking spikes. He took in her pale complexion, the black eyeliner she wore about her eyes, and the dark lipstick that covered her lips. He studied the black lace top she was wearing, the short black skirt, and boots. The silver bangles that adorned her wrists jangled and glinted in the strobe lighting. He guessed she was about eighteen years old. As he looked at her, his scowl faded. Then, in answer to her statement about him having had too much to drink, he glanced down at the whisky glass in his fist, then back at her.
“I haven’t even started.” He grinned.
With a growing smile of her own, Carol looked him up and down, just like he had done her. She could see that he was wearing a long black leather coat, black shirt, black trousers, and boots. Eyeing his tall, pointed hat again, Carol leaned in close to him. She yelled over the sound of the thumping music, “Did you get the wrong night?” She felt the side of his face brush hers, and his skin felt cool, almost cold.
“The wrong night? I’m not sure I understand.” He frowned beneath the brim of his hat.
Carol took a step backwards, and once more, she glanced up at his hat. “I was wondering if you thought this was fancy dress night. Halloween was a couple of months back. It’s nearly Christmas and you’re dressed like some kind of wiz—”
Before she had a chance to finish, the young man had reached up and snatched the tatty hat from his head. And as he rolled it up, stuffing it into his coat pocket, Carol noticed that he had been hiding a mop of thick, scruffy black hair. It kind of matched her own, although she doubted he’d used as much hairspray as she had.
Fearing that she might have offended him in some way, Carol said, “I didn’t mean for you to take it off.” Leaning in close to him again, their cheeks touching, she added, “Actually, I thought you looked kind of gothic—cute.”
Ignoring her comment, the young man said, “What’s your name?”
“Carol,” she said. “And you are?”
“Jake,” the man said. “Jake Stranger.”
Carol fought the urge to smile and said, “And are you?”
“Am I what?” he shot back.
This time Carol did grin. “A stranger?”
“I’m not dangerous, if that’s what you mean.” He half smiled back at her, as if trying to ease any concerns she might have about him. He raised the whisky glass to his lips and took a sip. She raised the bottle of beer to her mouth and drained it.
“Would you like another one of those?” Jake asked her.
“Sure, Jake Stranger, why not?” Carol smiled, setting the empty bottle down on a nearby table. Sensing that she was safe with him, she offered him her arm. “The bar is this way.”
Feeling easy in the young woman’s company, he thought she looked kind of cute, too, like a backing singer for The Cure. Jake slid his arm through hers as they made their way around the edge of the dancefloor toward the bar. Electricity by OMD started to play. The whole bar seemed to be charged with energy and excitement. Both Jake and Carol felt it, too. Those who danced on the dancefloor writhed against each other, the strobe lighting making their movements look stilted and robotic-like.
As they neared the bar, Carol looked back over her shoulder, and her heart shot up into her throat. She watched as three men, whom she owed money to, squeeze their huge frames among those gathered on the dancefloor. They headed toward her.
Looking back at Jake, Carol tugged on his arm and said, “I’ve changed my mind.” She began to head away from the bar. “I’d like to get some air.”
“But I thought you wanted to get another…” Jake started, then stopped as he stared back in the direction that Carol had been looking. He saw the three apelike men pushing their way through the crowds toward Carol—toward him.
“Come on,” she said, pulling Jake’s arm again. She led him toward the exit.
As Carol neared it, she glanced back over her shoulder again. She saw the three guys, their faces mean and determined. Their heads were shaved, necks as thick as tree trunks, their arms and chests bulbous with muscle, stretched tight against the T-shirts they wore. Looking front again, Carol pushed against the exit door, then burst out into the alleyway beyond it. Sheets of rain glistened in the glow of a nearby street lamp. The rain ran down the alleyway walls and pooled in the cracks at her feet. The night was cold, and she wrapped her arms about herself and shivered. She looked back once more and could see the three men heading toward the exit. Jake Stranger followed her into the alleyway, and as he did so, Carol turned and began to run.
“Hey… Hang on!” Jake yelled after her.
Wondering why the young girl seemed so keen to get away and make her escape from the bar, Jake went after her. Within a few strides, he drew level with her. He took Carol by the arm, turning her to face him. “What’s wrong? Why are you running away all of a sudden?”
Carol peered around Jake and back in the direction of the bar. The three guys she was running from were now in the alleyway. Jake glanced back, too, then looked at Carol once more. “Are you scared of those guys? Are they after you?”
Carol’s eyes grew dark and wide. She nodded her head as if unable to speak.
“What do they want with you?” Jake asked.
The three men were now running along the alleyway toward them. The sounds of their heavy boots echoed all around them like thunder.
“I owe them money,” Carol whispered, her throat almost seizing shut with fear.
Jake frowned down at her. “You owe them money for what?”
Then, in the light of the nearby street lamp, he saw for the first time the track marks that scarred Carol’s arms at the crook of her elbows. They locked eyes as if they now both understood why she owed the men money.
“If I don’t pay them they will—” Carol started.
“I can imagine,” Jake cut in.
Then to her surprise, Jake pulled her close into his arms. Pressing the side of his face against hers, he whispered in her ear and said, “Wait for me at the end of the alley. You’re probably going to see some crazy shit, but don’t be scared, it’s just magic.”
Fearing that perhaps she had misheard him, Carol said, “Magic?”
“Just get out of here,” Jake said, pushing her away from him.
Jake Stranger then turned to face the three men who were nearly upon him.
Chapter Three
The year 2067
With her helmet tucked under one arm, Temporal Officer Selina Riley headed out of the office. At the door, she looked back over her shoulder at Karl Potter. Wearing something close to a scowl, she said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Sergeant Shaw said I was to show you around.”
Karl glanced at Shaw, then to Lisa Scott. Both stood by the terminal Lisa had been working at and looked at him. Locking eyes with Lisa, Karl knew that she sensed his hesitation and would have much preferred to have been escorted about the Temporal Station with her and not the poker-faced Selina Riley. Lisa offered him a weak smile, and Shaw just glared at him.
“What are you waiting for, Officer Potter?” Sergeant Shaw asked, sticking a cigarette into the corner of her mouth and lighting it.
“Nothing,” he muttered under his breath before heading across the office to where Selina was waiting for him.
Once both Karl and Selina had left the main office, Lisa looked at her sergeant. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
Sergeant Clio Shaw took a deep and heavy draw on the cigarette, and then squirted a thick stream of blue smoke from the comer of her mouth and nostrils. Lisa often thought that Clio looked like something close to a dragon whenever she did that. “I’m not sure what you mean?”
“I thought you wanted me to get close to Karl,” Lisa reminded her. �
�You said you wanted me to find out all about him and his parents. Particularly his mother, Kiera…”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” Clio cut in. She eyed the young officer through the smoke that drifted up from the tip of her cigarette toward the florescent strip lighting that hung overhead.
Lisa couldn’t help but be taken aback by her sergeant’s comment. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Get the fuck out of here, Scott,” Clio said, unsmiling. “Tell me that nothing happened between you and Potter in his room today at the Night Diner.”
“Nothing did happen,” Lisa said, her mouth dropping open as she fought to push thoughts of the kiss she had shared with Karl to the back of her mind.
“Not even a little smooch?” Clio asked, sounding confident and all-knowing.
Lisa struggled to answer, and in that momentary pause, as her brains scrambled for something to say, her sergeant pounced.
“I knew it,” Clio half smirked. But the smile wasn’t a happy one. It was scornful. “You’re meant to be keeping your distance…”
“But you said I was to get close to him… or how else will Karl trust me enough to open up to me?” Lisa cut in.
“Yeah, but I don’t want you dropping your underwear for him,” Clio shot back.
“That’s not fair,” Lisa hissed. “I’m not like that. We had a kiss—that was all.”
“That’s where it all starts!”
“How else am I meant to get him to trust me?” Lisa said, feeling a growing resentment for her sergeant. They had worked together for many years, and had not always seen eye to eye, but Clio’s comments were too much. “He already suspects that Lucy May’s death was no suicide. You know as well as I do that the quickest and easiest way to get a guy to do and tell you anything is to flutter your eyelashes and pretend he is irresistible.”
Clio crushed out the butt of the cigarette into an ashtray that rested on a nearby desk. She turned to look at Lisa, who now stood, back rod-straight, arms folded defiantly across the front of her ballistic vest. “Look, I didn’t mean to piss you off, it’s just that I can’t risk you getting too close to Potter. There is too much at stake. We need to know if he possesses his mother’s gift. We need to find out whether he is like us, and if he can become one of us. Fight for our cause.”
“And what if he’s more like his father?”
“Then we’re all fucked.” Clio smirked, and this time, her half smile was less frosty, as if she were trying to share a joke with Lisa.
Remembering the stories she had heard about Sean Potter, Karl’s father, Lisa said, “If the rumours are true, then Sean Potter was far more savage than Kiera Hudson. She was the brains and he was the muscle. Shouldn’t we be hoping that Karl is more like his father if we are to have him fight alongside us?”
“Karl’s father was a knucklehead,” Clio said. “We need someone who can not only see the things that we can’t, but also the brains to lead an army. Kiera Hudson had no problem in getting people to believe in her—to follow her. We need their son to be someone people like us can believe in—to die for.”
“And do you think Karl has it in him to inspire others—to lead an uprising?” Lisa asked her sergeant.
Clio stared across the office in the direction Selina had headed with Potter. She looked deep in thought. Then, turning to face Lisa again, she said, “I fear that he’s a man of action, but just like his father, his brains are in his shorts.”
“Why? Because he kissed me?” Lisa asked.
“No,” Clio said. “Hex, the barman at the Night Diner, told me Karl Potter couldn’t wait to start humping a Sex Bot that works at the bar.” Clio smiled at the way Lisa looked so suddenly shocked. “Does that surprise you?”
Lisa shook her head, the long blonde ponytail her hair was fixed in swishing down the length of her back. “No, not about the Bot, but is the barman an informant? He gave no indication when I was at the Night Diner earlier today.”
“That just goes to show what a good informant he is,” Clio said, reaching for her pack of smokes again.
“And what does he get in return?”
“He gets what the rest of the supernatural creatures like us want—his freedom.”
“And what if Karl Potter isn’t like either of his parents?” Lisa asked. “What if he does keep his brains in his pants like you suspect he does? What if he is just a fantasist, and this young woman he spoke of, Annora Snow, really doesn’t exist and he’s nothing but a liar?”
“And that’s what I—we—need to find out,” Clio said. “That’s why I’ve switched things up a bit and decided to let Selina get under his skin.”
“I still don’t understand?”
With the flame on her lighter illuminating her dark eyes, Clio looked at Lisa and said, “Because if push comes to shove, and Potter isn’t the man we need him to be, I know Selina will rip Karl’s’ throat out in a heartbeat.”
“And you don’t think I would?”
“Not if you’re sleeping with him, you won’t,” Clio said.
Chapter Four
The year 2067
Annora Snow raised the umbrella above her head once more as the continual rain thrummed against it. The sound reminded her of the camping trips she had taken with her parents as a child. She remembered lying in the dark, in some far-flung field, listening to the rain beating against the tent.
In the near darkness that covered the expansive and barren wasteland she now found herself in, on the outskirts of Outpost 71, Annora looked at the two winged strangers who stood before her.
“But I thought you were both dead,” Annora said. She looked at the young man and woman who had sprung out of the sky, their wings rippling behind them as they introduced themselves as Kiera Hudson and Sean Potter. “Noah told me that both of Karl's parents were dead—”
“I wouldn’t believe everything the old railway man tells you,” Potter said, pulling a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of the long leather coat he wore. He popped a smoke into the corner of his mouth and then licked the end of it with a flame that flickered from the match he held. It illuminated his face. His black eyes were in complete contrast to his rugged but pale face. Annora could see that his nose was slightly bent out of shape, as if he had been in one too many fights.
“Was he lying to me?” Annora asked. She now wasn’t sure whether to believe anything Noah had told her.
Kiera could see the confusion in Annora’s eyes. She took a step closer toward her. “Noah only lied to you because we asked him to.”
“Why would you do that?” Annora asked.
“Because there are only a very few, select people who know we’re alive,” Kiera said. Once more, she felt Annora’s confusion. Kiera felt a pang of sadness for her. She knew what lay ahead for Annora—the painful truth that she would discover about herself and her family. And although it seemed like many lifetimes ago that Kiera herself had found out the truth about her own family and where she had come from and who and what she truly was, the passing of time had done little to lessen the pain and hurt she felt.
Kiera found it a constant struggle through all the different wheres and whens she had travelled through, to come to terms with the lies she had been told about her true identity. So, therefore, Kiera knew Annora would feel the same pain she had, and in equal measure. But worse than that, Kiera knew that Annora would look to her for answers. Answers Kiera knew she did not have.
Kiera took another step forward. She reached out and placed one hand gently on Annora’s arm. With her bright hazel eyes shining, Kiera offered Annora a kind smile and said, “We have much to tell you, but let’s get out of this rain and into the dry and warm.”
“Are you taking me to meet with Karl?” Annora asked, feeling a little less apprehensive. Kiera’s approach, the kind tone to her voice, had evaporated some of the uneasiness Annora had felt. “Noah told me that Karl and I were a thing… you know… a couple…”
In his usual brutish manner, and inst
antly beginning to unpick some of the calm Kiera had created over the situation, Potter said, “You seem fucking keen.”
Annora looked past Kiera at Potter. “Keen about what?”
“To drop your knickers,” Potter said.
Kiera scowled at him. Potter shrugged, a wise-guy smile forming at the corners of his lips. Kiera looked at Annora once more and said, “Take no notice of Potter. He thinks he’s being amusing, but the sad thing is, he’s often the only person who thinks he’s funny.”
“Hey, easy, tiger…” Potter started to protest.
Ignoring him, like she had learnt to do when he was being a pain in the arse, Kiera continued to speak to Annora. “You will meet Karl again, but the time isn’t right just yet.”
“Noah told me that’s why he had brought me here, to the year 2067, so I could meet your son, Karl Potter,” Annora began to explain.
Potter blew a stream of cigarette smoke from the corner of his mouth before speaking. “Like I’ve already said, don’t always believe what Noah tells you.”
Annora felt a little frostiness in Potter’s tone, but then she remembered what Noah had said about him. Noah had described Karl’s father, to be an arrogant, foulmouthed chain-smoker. So far, Noah had been right on all three counts. But Annora also remembered that Noah had said that Potter was fiercely loyal to his friends. So perhaps if Annora and Potter were to form a friendship, some of the frostiness she felt coming from him toward her might melt. She could only hope.
Now that Noah had left and taken the Scorpion Steam with him, she knew she was trapped in the year 2067—for now, at least. The only people she had met so far were Karl’s parents. Potter seemed like an obstinate jerk, although Kiera was kindly and understanding enough. But whatever their attitude might be toward her, Annora knew they were little more than strangers. Strangers she would now have to put her trust in. She had put her trust in Noah, and she was now learning that much of what he had told her had been untruthful. How much of what Noah had said had been a lie? Annora couldn’t be sure. One thing she could be certain of was that Kiera Hudson and Sean Potter were not dead. They were very much alive.
