Time Lost

by C. B. Lewis

  The projection cut out.

  Jacob blinked away the afterimage. “What happened?”

  “I-I-I was trying to get the sound,” Kit stammered, flushing. “He must have said something to someone, so there had to be audio and I—it was complicated code.” His hands were shaking over the sensor keys. “I thought I could make it more useful. I’m sorry.”

  “Do we have a backup of what we saw?”

  Tisha nodded. “I set it to copy. Even if we’ve lost everything else, we’ll at least have that.”

  “Oh good,” Kit said, though he sounded more shaken than relieved. He rose on unsteady legs. “I need the loo.”

  Jacob nodded. “I’ll take you down,” he said. They walked in silence down the corridor, and he patted the younger man on the shoulder. “You did a good job there. Don’t worry about what happened. You got us valuable information.”

  “Was it useful?”

  Jacob squeezed his shoulder. “It could be.”

  “Good.” Kit sounded distracted. He rubbed at his eyes, blinking hard. “You mind if I head back after I’m done here? Or is there anything else you need me for?”

  Jacob frowned. “Are you okay? You don’t sound too good.”

  Kit tried to smile, but his lips barely moved. “That level of coding,” he said. “It’s tiring. Gives me a headache.”

  Jacob nodded at once. “You did more than we could have hoped for. We’ve got the footage. We just need to try and piece together some details from it.”

  Another of those frail smiles crossed Kit’s lips. “Let me know if you spot anything.”

  “Of course.” Jacob motioned to the door. “You go, do your business. I’ll get a taxi called for you.”

  Kit nodded, heading into the toilets. He really didn’t look good.

  Jacob rubbed the back of his neck.

  It was all getting far too complicated. Kit was involved with the case now, and in a much more complex way than Jacob had anticipated. A wise man would let him be on his way and wouldn’t see him again in any way but a professional capacity.

  But he looked like shit, and Jacob knew he couldn’t just leave him like that.

  When Kit finally emerged, still pale, Jacob insisted on walking him down to the taxi-pod. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked as they emerged into the daylight.

  “I’ve coded before. I will again.”

  Jacob sighed. “That’s not answering the question.”

  Kit looked at him. “It’s a headache. I’ve had worse.”

  Jacob nodded, watching him. “Call me later.” The words came out before he could stop them. “Just to let me know you’re all right, eh?”

  Kit was silent for a moment, then reached out and smoothed down Jacob’s tie. It seemed to help him make up his mind. “All right.” He stepped back. “Thank you for an interesting morning. Not how I expected it to go for my first visit to a police station.”

  Jacob cleared his throat. “We should keep that between us.”

  Kit looked away. “Yeah.”

  “But you’ll call?”

  Blue eyes flicked up. Kit nodded. “Fine.”

  Jacob remained on the steps as Kit headed down to the taxi-pod. He didn’t look up at Jacob until the door was closed and the taxi was moving away. He looked like death warmed up, and when Jacob raised a hand in halfhearted farewell, he didn’t respond.

  No wonder. Getting dragged into an investigation into your employer and ending up with a horny copper sucking on your knob was going to scramble things up a bit.

  Well, Jacob thought as he walked back into the station, it had been a long while since he’d done something completely stupid. This whole affair was a stellar way of making up for lost time.

  Chapter 16

  THE ELEVATOR slid silently upward.

  Kit leaned back against the wall, gripping the rail with both hands, and closed his eyes tightly. He needed to get back to Mariam and let her know just how bad things were as soon possible. His stomach was in knots, and he was breathing hard by the time the doors opened.

  Mariam was waiting for him on the other side.

  “Paulina said you were back,” she said. “My office.”

  “Now,” Kit agreed. He ran a hand over his mouth. “Can you get someone to bring me something to eat? I think I’m having a sugar crash.”

  “Of course.” She ushered him along to the office and let him collapse down into the seat, while she filled a mug with tea and added a couple of sugars. He wrapped his hands around it and listened as she called down to the canteen. That done, she sat down. “What happened?”

  “It’s a jumper.” He sipped the tea. Maybe it was shock making him shiver. Maybe it was terror, but he couldn’t stop his hands from trembling.

  “What do you mean a jumper?”

  “I mean a time jumper,” he snapped. “Not an agent. Not one of ours. Someone from the future.”

  Mariam’s face drained of color. “You’re sure.”

  He nodded, tightening his grip on the mug. “Oh, yes. They have the video footage to confirm it.”

  “Video….” She sagged back in her seat, pressing her knuckles to her mouth. She looked as shaken as Kit felt. “How?”

  He took another mouthful of tea, scalding his lips and tongue. “Fun fact they didn’t tell you: the man they found in Sanders’s house had a false eye. Had a real one replaced with something more hi-tech. Direct video feed into the optic nerve, but here’s the best part: it has a memory chip.”

  Mariam’s dark eyes fixed on him. “But why would they tell you?”

  The hysterical laugh bubbled up in his throat. “Because I’m a twat and didn’t realize what I was looking at until I’d told them what it was.”

  Mariam stared at him. “You did what?”

  “What was I supposed to do?” he demanded, his voice breaking. “They had all this gate crap lined up and wanted me to confirm which bits Sanders had built. That was the only thing I didn’t think he’d built! How was I meant to know they’d taken it out of some poor bugger’s head?”

  “And now they have the memory chip and the footage?”

  Kit had to set the mug down before he dropped it. “Not much.” He clasped his hands together. “I… might have scrambled the coding and destroyed the evidence before they could work out what was happening.” And there was the great big cherry of blatant terror set on the cake of panic. “I—they—” He forced himself to breathe, to speak. “They got a ten-, maybe twenty-second fragment of video. No audio.” The laughter was back, and he wondered how mental he sounded. “I just destroyed evidence of a crime in a police station in front of two police officers.”

  Mariam rose from behind the desk. “Do they know you did it?”

  Kit shook his head. Every inch of him felt numb. “D’you think I’d be sitting here if they did?” He shivered. “I decoded the video for them. Got the clip to see if it was important. When I saw what it was, got rid of it. They thought I was very helpful.”

  “Could the code be unscrambled?”

  Kit hesitated. “If they think I did something, they could find someone to do it. It’d take them a while, but it could be done.”

  “What are the chances of them thinking that?”

  “I don’t know!”

  A chime from the door made them both turn sharply.

  “Food,” Mariam said, skirting the desk to go and open it. One of the catering staff held out a tray, which she took at once, then closed the door behind him. She brought the tray to the desk, setting it down in front of him. “Eat. Calm down. Think.”

  Kit nodded, snatching the bowl from the tray. It was difficult to eat when it felt like his stomach was twisted into a knot, but it would be a hell of a lot worse if he didn’t get any food inside him. It was some kind of chicken-and-rice thing. He didn’t really care, gulping it down.

  It was amazing how comforting it was.

  By the time he finished the bowl, his heart wasn’t pounding so hard, and he wasn’t shaking
half as much.

  Mariam was sitting on the edge of the desk, watching him carefully. “Better?”

  He nodded, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yes. Thanks.”

  “So….” She was trying to find the right question that wouldn’t have him shaking and laughing again.

  “I think they trust me,” he said before she could ask anything. “I mean, they saw me working on the coding, and their technician told them before I started that there was a risk it might not even work.”

  Mariam nodded. She pulled up the other seat and sat down, facing him. “Tell me about this eye and the footage you saw.”

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  “Tell me anyway. As much detail as you can.”

  He described what he could, explaining the tech in the eye, and his suspicions of where it might have been developed. When he described the details in the video, Mariam frowned, nodding, a thoughtful look on her face.

  “It definitely wouldn’t be the TRI, if they sent someone back with a body modification that outdates the time period,” she said, “unless someone went rogue and managed to put together their own gate.”

  “The one they were using did look kind of like Sanders’s older designs.” Kit picked at his nails, remembering the pieces of the gate he was building in his own home. “I mean, it was basic, but I could see the similarities in the construction.”

  “Do you have any idea how far they came back?”

  He frowned, thinking. “The technology was at least ten, if not more years ahead of us, but the coding was much more than that. If technology keeps accelerating at its current pace, I’d say somewhere between twenty and thirty years from now. It wasn’t as complex as they believed. Just evolved so much that their technician couldn’t recognize it.”

  “But why would someone from the future go after Sanders?” She got up, pacing the floor. “They already have time travel. What could they want with him?”

  Kit followed her with his eyes. “All the stuff he didn’t tell you.”

  Mariam glanced at him. “The future-jumping tech?”

  “Maybe something else,” Kit replied with a shrug. “You didn’t know about that. What else has he been working on that no one knows about?”

  From the look on Mariam’s face, it wasn’t a possibility she wanted to consider. “We need to get into his house. DI Ofori said that once they identified the pieces that weren’t Tom’s, they should be able to release the scene.”

  Kit nodded. “And he’s got them all identified now.”

  Mariam went back to her seat, sinking down. “You’ll need to come to the house with me,” she said. “You might spot something we’d miss.”

  “Not today.” He didn’t know when he’d found the nerve to be so abrupt with her. Probably somewhere between screwing a police officer and destroying evidence. That did tend to put fear of repercussions into perspective. “I’m going home. I’ve had enough crap to deal with today.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t argue.

  “One thing, before you go,” she said as he got up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think you could get a copy of the video footage?”

  Kit stared at her in disbelief. “No,” he said flatly. “I’ve already broken the law more than once today, and now you want me to nick stuff from the police?”

  “You said they trust you.”

  “And I’m sure they will continue to do that as long as I don’t try to bloody nick stuff.” Kit shook his head. “Unless they hand it over to me and tell me to take it, I’m not putting my neck on the line for it.”

  Mariam looked disappointed but nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Fair enough…,” Kit echoed, shaking his head. “I’m the one risking everything here.” He picked up his satchel from the floor. “If anyone asks, I’m on do not disturb. I… this is… I need a break.”

  She got up. “Will you be in tomorrow?”

  “Probably.” He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. I just… I didn’t sign up to be lying to the police and hiding evidence.”

  “I know, Kit.” Mariam’s voice was quiet. “We’re grateful.”

  He snorted and stumped out of the room.

  The nearest stairs were at the far end of the hall, and he started down them. It was always easier going down than up, and he was so lost in thought that he didn’t even realize he’d reached the bottom until the door was in front of him.

  Paulina didn’t look surprised to see him. “You want a taxi?”

  Kit shook his head. “I’ll make my own way, thanks.”

  He was almost at the door when she called after him. “Are you okay?”

  He paused. “Do I look it?”

  “Not really.”

  He glanced back. “Well, there you go, then.” He walked back out into the street, breathing in the chilly air. He could have taken a taxi, but his head was still thumping from solid coding, and he just wanted a break where no one would ask anything of him for ten minutes.

  An hour later, he trudged in through the front doors of his building.

  As luck would have it, Jenny was about to get in the elevator and held the door open for him. She knew what he was like, and as soon as he stepped in, she cleared a corner for him and then prattled all the way up to their floor.

  “You want me to bring you some dinner over?” she asked as they stepped out into their hallway. “You look like you need that and your bed.”

  Kit had to smile. “I don’t need fed, Jen.”

  She reached up and fondly swatted his head. “Course you do.” She studied him with concern. “I’ll be making up something nice. If you fancy some, you just come and knock. I’m in for the night now.”

  It wasn’t until he went into his own apartment and looked at his face in the mirror that he could see why they’d all tried to check on him: he looked gray, with shadows under his eyes. Normally, after a good bit of sex, he’d look a lot brighter, but Jacob’s reaction didn’t exactly encourage that. Toss in some intensive coding and law breaking….

  He left his bag on the floor and stumbled through to his bedroom, falling facedown on the bed. It still reeked of sex and Jacob, which didn’t help. He pulled his pillow up under his head, buried his face in it, and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 17

  JACOB STOOD in front of the incident board, gazing at the latest additions.

  It had been a long day with a hell of a lot to take in.

  Tisha had taken captures from the video footage. The ones that were clear enough had been transferred to the board. The ones that needed cleaning up, she’d sent down for the imaging unit to work on.

  Facial recognition software was already searching for the man who had shaken John Smith’s hand, but the imaging technicians warned them that a match was unlikely since they only had a distorted, blurred glimpse of him. He was old, skinny, with a shrunken face like an angry tortoise.

  It wasn’t much to go on, but it was more than they’d had only hours earlier.

  His focus kept returning to the doorway shown in the fragment. It wasn’t exactly the same, but sections of it looked like the pieces of technology they had taken from Sanders’s study. It was a solid, tangible confirmation that the man had some link with Sanders beyond being killed in his house.

  Jacob frowned and touched the board to set the video playing again. He’d lost track of how many times he had watched it, and every time, he hoped he would understand what he was seeing when the man stepped toward the light. Every time, he was left just as baffled.

  In the footage, the doorway was in the middle of a vast room. Stepping through it should not have ended up anywhere except the other side of the room. It definitely should not have deposited him in a field.

  They had theories. The foremost one was that it was a teleporter, which would make a lot of sense, since John Smith apparently showed up near Sanders’s house without any other means of transportation. From the grass and plant residue on his shoes,
the man had walked across some of the nearby fields, but they hadn’t been able to locate an origin point.

  The only problem was that teleportation had never been stabilized. In the first human tests, even fillings in teeth had proved fatal. There was an urban legend about a man with dental implants who used a teleporter. His body had gone through okay, but while his implants had ended up in his skull, it had been in the wrong part. According to the rumors, the pathologist found them nestled between the front lobes of his brain.

  Still, that was only one of the rumored problems. From what he could remember of reports on the later tests, the biggest problem with teleporting was the transition stage, where one person’s body would be in two places at the same time. There was some scientific mumbo-jumbo that he didn’t understand, but all the eggheads seemed to nod and agree that one-living-body-two-places was a major problem.

  Perhaps that was what was being hidden by the TRI. Maybe Sanders had found a way to stabilize teleportation. If he had, then they would have access to any historical records they needed to find. Private vaults, locked archives, concealed collections: nothing would be off-limits if they could just hop in and out.

  Jacob rubbed the back of his neck and frowned at the board.

  That didn’t explain why someone would teleport through to jump him. If he’d stabilized the teleportation, then the person using it would have to be one of his colleagues, and none of them were missing or dead.

  It also didn’t explain John Smith at all.

  They were no closer to identifying him, and nothing about him made any sense. His clothes looked like they were based on something from the catwalks of Milan. His eye was so hi-tech that the technicians were practically setting up a shrine to it. He had no name, identification, DNA records, dental records.

  Jacob had hopes that the imaging team would be able to put together some kind of composite of the man who had sent Smith on his way, so they could work backward from there.

  He sat down on the edge of one of the desks.

  Most disappearances he had dealt with were fairly straightforward. Some were bloody, and others were violent, but none of them came anywhere close to the level of weirdness wrapped around Sanders.