Time Lost

by C. B. Lewis

  Jacob ran the footage again, watching intently. The time-stamps suggested she was only in there for a moment, but something in the footage was wrong. It took three more runs before he realized what it was, and when he did, he smiled grimly.

  “Gotcha, you lying bastard.” He rose and went to the door. “Anton!”

  Anton turned from the incident board, where he was rearranging recent data. “Boss?”

  “Any of the techs still around?”

  “You got something?”

  Jacob nodded. “I think I do.”

  Chapter 38

  KIT’S DAY had gone from bad to worse.

  Mariam issued an order for all available members of staff to attend a meeting in the canteen. She stood up on a table and laid out the situation that was ahead of them.

  Kit kept to the side of the room, out of the way, and listened to the voices rising in disbelief and shock. People looked his way, as he knew they would, and he heard the flurry of mutters and whispers. Sooner or later, the finger-pointing would start, and the thought of it made him sick to his stomach.

  “I know none of you signed up to be in the public eye,” Mariam was saying, “but we have no choice anymore. DI Ofori has made it clear that if we don’t step forward ourselves, we will be dragged by the full weight of the law.” She was silent for a moment, as if trying to come to a decision, then said, “If any of you want to leave us before this happens, you are free to do so. You will not be penalized. I will put in place support for you and references will be provided, if you choose to go.”

  “So we have to go public or quit?” The voice rose from the crowd. “How is that fair?”

  “You don’t have to quit,” Mariam replied. “That’s your decision. Unfortunately, we don’t have any say in the rest of it now. A press conference is scheduled for tomorrow, and after ten o’clock in the morning, we will be public. There are no two ways about it. Take some time. Think about it. If you want to leave, let me know.”

  She disappeared into the crowd as she stepped down from the table. Kit took the opportunity to slip out of the room to head back down to the deserted engineering bay. His latest experiment was laid out on his workbench, and he sat down, staring at it.

  He could take Mariam’s offer and run. It wasn’t like he couldn’t find a job in any other engineering company in the world, but that was the problem: the TRI needed people who knew what they were doing.

  They had lost their best technician with Sanders’s death, and Kit knew that if he left, Hamid and his team would be left with the weight of the tech. They were bloody good at what they did, but they didn’t have the eye like Sanders had had, or Kit’s intuition. They could keep it running, but if they failed and the TRI went under, everyone else would lose their jobs.

  Anyway, what kind of engineer was he if he abandoned one of the greatest technological innovations of his lifetime and let it fall apart, just because a few people—okay, probably a lot of people—thought he was the idiot who forced the TRI to go public?

  Footsteps approached him.

  He looked up, laying down the gears.

  Hamid was standing a few steps away. “You knew about this?”

  Kit nodded unhappily. “Thrown in at the deep end,” he confessed. “He figured it out, DI Ofori. If Sanders hadn’t… if this hadn’t….” He shook his head, feeling like a child in front of the principal. “I didn’t mean for the TRI to get found out.”

  “I know, but we can’t cry over spilt milk now.” Hamid sighed, then reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “It was good working with you, Kit.”

  Kit blinked. “You… you’re not leaving?”

  Hamid nodded. “I think it would be better. I have a family. They’re going to come after anyone who was involved. They’ll want gossip. Stories. Secrets from the TRI. Anything about what we do. Especially from us techs. They’ll want us to go private, build gates, all the things Tom tried to prevent. I can’t let my family be harassed by them.” His smile was brief and sad. “I spoke to my wife. We’re heading to stay with her parents for a while, until it starts to blow over.”

  “You could stay!” Kit protested.

  “For all the reasons I just told you, I don’t think I can,” Hamid replied.

  Kit stared at him, then threw himself forward and hugged the man hard. Hamid staggered, surprised, then hugged him back.

  “I’m sorry,” Kit whispered.

  Hamid patted his back comfortingly. “You didn’t do this, Kit. The ones who attacked Sanders did this. That policeman and his team did this. All you did was get caught in the middle of it.” He stepped back. “I need to gather my things.”

  “You’ll need to tell Mariam….”

  “Already done.” Hamid looked around the room. “I’m going to miss this place.”

  Kit could only watch as the man who had been his manager since his first day went into his office and started to pack up his few possessions. It felt like he was sitting a thousand miles away, watching something he couldn’t stop.

  Others followed.

  He saw three of the other engineers pack up their belongings, and he wanted to apologize to every one of them, but not one of them would meet his eyes. He turned back to his desk and, with shaking hands, tried to work on the gears. The other choice was to go out to see how many others were departing. There was a tight knot in the pit of his stomach as he wondered how many staff they would have left.

  Even if he wanted to leave, he couldn’t. Not when so many were jumping ship.

  It was late by the time he finally dared to leave the engineering bay. Mariam was in the lobby, gray-faced and drawn. She saw him approaching and nodded in greeting.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” It sounded like more of a plea than a question.

  He nodded at once. “Someone has to fix the lock on the gate.” His mouth was so dry that his voice sounded like a stranger’s.

  The relief that lit her face was like a blow. “Good. That’s good.” She offered a hand, and he clasped it. It wasn’t a handshake. It was a lifeline, and they were both holding on. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  He tried to smile.

  Outside, the wind was picking up, and he hailed a taxi-pod, clambering into it as quickly as he could. A check of his messages showed that Jacob still hadn’t responded, and sending yet another message felt futile.

  It was typical, though.

  The one time he really wanted and needed company, when his whole world was slipping sideways, he couldn’t ask for it, because it might just make things worse.

  He made his way home, keeping his quill gripped tightly in his hand, just in case anyone—Jacob—tried to contact him. No one did. Not even when he got home and was sitting on the couch, holding it in front of him.

  That only really left one other person he could call.

  He set the quill down, projecting the screen above it, as it connected.

  His mother’s face appeared when she answered. There were a few more lines around her eyes and her mouth, but her hair was still the same warm red he always remembered. “Christopher?” Her eyes lit up. “Hello, love!”

  He raised a hand, trying to smile. “All right, Mum?”

  “Can’t complain,” she said warmly. “How are things up in the north? Not too cold?”

  The way she talked, people would think he’d moved to Norway. “It’s not bad just now.” He leaned forward, shifting the quill for a clearer angle. “You busy?”

  “I’m out to Dora’s this evening, but I’ve got some time, if you don’t mind me putting on my face while you talk.”

  His mouth curled up. “Like old times,” he said.

  She carried her receiver through to her room and sat down at her dresser, where she started sorting through her makeup. “So what’s wrong, love? You don’t usually call unless it’s the end of the world.” Kit’s words stuck in his throat, and he could feel the moment his mother’s silence went from waiting for an answer to concern. “Christopher?”
/>   “Things at work,” he said haltingly. “Mum, stuff’s happening, and it’s all gone tits up.”

  She looked into the screen, frowning. “Are they letting you go?”

  He shook his head. “No. No, nothing like that.” He looked down at his hands. “Y’know how I couldn’t tell you about it? Confidentiality clause and all that stuff?”

  “Yes. All very hush-hush you said.”

  He clenched his hands into fists, staring blankly at them. “There’s going to be a press conference on the news tomorrow. I think you should watch it. It’s… people might come and ask you stuff about it all, Mum. I don’t… I never wanted you to get caught up in it.”

  His mother’s face paled. “You’re not involved in something illegal, are you?”

  “No!” Kit said quickly. “Honest, Mum. It’s just… bad things have happened to Sanders. My boss.” His voice was shaking. “Mum, he died. Someone killed him.”

  “Oh my God. Kitten, why didn’t you call me sooner? I would have come up!”

  Why indeed?

  If he had, what could he have told her? The TRI would have gagged him, and she was his mum. He couldn’t keep secrets from her, not without moving halfway up the bloody country and only calling every couple of weeks.

  “Watch the press conference,” he whispered. “It’ll all make sense.”

  “Do you want me to come up?” She was watching him, worried. “I could get a shuttle up tomorrow. Or there might be an overnighter. I could be there, if you want me.”

  He did. God, he did. If he didn’t have Jacob there to hold him through his nightmares, his mum would have been his first choice. But the TRI was going public, and the world was going to swarm them. Hamid was right about that. The last thing he wanted was to have the media crashing in on his mum.

  “I’ll be all right,” he lied. “I just wanted you to know what’s happening.”

  She nodded, lifting her hand and touching the projection. He mimicked her, his fingertips touching her transparent ones. “You know your room’s here if you need it,” she said. “We’ll just need to chase the cats out of it.”

  He nodded in return, his lips trembling. “Thanks, Mum.” His cheeks felt cold and wet, and he hastily wiped them with the back of his hand. “You go and get your face on.”

  “You’re going to be all right, love.”

  He couldn’t say anything more. He pressed his fingertips to his lips and blew a kiss, which she pretended to catch, and then he disconnected the call. It would be so easy to get on a train and go back to Brighton, away from all of the fallout that was inevitably coming.

  He lay back on the couch, hands over his face.

  Trouble was that he was never one to back away from a challenge, and this one was going to be the biggest one of his life. All he needed to do was hold himself together until the worst of it was over, and it would be all right.

  Jacob was probably bogged down in the case and preparing for the press conference, so he was just going to have to do it on his own. He just needed to think about something else, and there was only one way he could do that.

  Kit pushed himself off the couch and all but ran to the room of engineering supplies. He still hadn’t finished the hard copy of the gate’s mechanism. The last thing Sanders had asked him to do was make sure the gate could be secured, and he was damned well going to do it.

  It was cold and heavy, and he gazed at it.

  It was going to be a coffee and bass night, he could tell.

  Chapter 39

  JACOB BARELY slept and was in the office earlier than he’d intended.

  He’d tried to contact Harper the previous night, but to no avail. Anton dug up his address, but there was no answer at the house or office. He couldn’t help thinking it was deliberate. Harper had lied to them. There had to be a reason.

  He disconnected the call and massaged his eyelids with his fingertips.

  Temple rapped on the edge of his office door, then walked in and held out a paper bag that was greasy at the bottom and steaming gently.

  “What’s this in aid of?” he asked, accepting it.

  “Anton said you looked crap last night.” She shrugged. “I figure a hot roll to start the day won’t hurt.”

  He smiled gratefully. As usual, when things were going royally tits up, breakfast was the last thing on his mind. “You know me too well.” He opened the bag up, peering in. “Egg and bacon? Do I look that bad?”

  Temple swayed her hand from side to side. “Safe to say you need all the help you can get,” she replied. “You want a coffee?”

  “Better make it a tea.” He’d already had a coffee at home, and one on the way in, and he remembered the last time he’d done a meeting with a caffeine-induced headache. It hadn’t gone well.

  She winced. “So it’s that important?”

  “Mm?” He was chewing on the roll.

  “The meeting. Anton mentioned it.”

  He didn’t need to ask how she knew. All of them had their tells when they were worried or stressed or upset. He didn’t know what his were, but Temple could spot them every time.

  “It’ll explain everything,” he said, opening up the roll to poke the errant bacon back into it. He glanced up at her. “Don’t ask me for more now, Abby. It’s not something I’m going to explain twice. Not this.”

  She nodded. “Understood.”

  By the time the rest of the team rolled in, he’d abandoned half the roll and the tea was cold as he prepared everything in the conference room. There were ten officers below him and two DCIs attending, each of them looking as bemused as the next.

  Jacob waited until they all filed into the room and sat down. The door closed behind them.

  “Well?” DCI Crawford was seated at the head of the table. She looked irritable, but given how early it was, that was no surprise. “You believe you have broken the case, DI Ofori?”

  Jacob nodded. “The TRI have provided information which explains the trouble we’ve been having.” He tapped the console in the table, illuminating one of the walls with the video-link to the press conference. “Mrs. Ashraf is going to make a statement for the press regarding the TRI, and since it connects directly to the case, I want everyone to hear it.”

  “Surely, it would have been more appropriate to have her make a statement here?” DCI Lender said.

  Jacob looked up at the video. Ashraf was seated at a table, her hands folded in front of her. “Not for something this big.” He turned up the volume and sat down in his chair, his eyes on the desk. He didn’t need to see her face as she broke the cardinal rule of her operation.

  His colleagues shifted impatiently, waiting for the conference to start. When it did, he raised his eyes and watched their faces.

  Ashraf spoke clearly and succinctly. He couldn’t help admiring how cool she sounded. Her whole life and her business suddenly thrust under the spotlight, all while dealing with an orphaned child and the loss of one of her closest friends, and she sounded completely calm.

  He didn’t need to listen to what she was saying. He knew it all already. Around the table, there were looks exchanged, disbelief, shock, confusion. Temple glanced across at him for verification. Jacob could only nod.

  He looked back down at the table, cupping one hand over his forehead. Even without the caffeine, a headache was building. Everything was going to change now. The only saving grace was that the burden of knowing about it wouldn’t be his alone anymore.

  When Ashraf stopped talking and the feed cut out, Jacob shut down the projection.

  “She’s… joking, right?” Anton sounded dazed. “I mean, she can’t be serious. Can she?”

  “She is.” Jacob looked up to the head of the table to Crawford and Lender. “You can see why I felt this would be better to reveal to the group as a unit, rather than finding out from the incident board. The TRI are willing to cooperate in any way they can. Until Sanders was confirmed dead, they were bound by his orders not to divulge anything about the true nature of thei
r business.”

  Crawford nodded slowly. “The DNA sample,” she said. “It was a confirmed match between the infant and the man we have in the morgue?”

  Jacob hesitated, then nodded. “We are having it checked again, to be certain, but yes. John Smith appears to be the Robertson baby.”

  Crawford looked shaken. “My God.”

  Temple cleared her throat. “So do we tell his family?” she asked. “I mean, that he’s dead. It….” She shook her head, frowning. “How do we do this, sir? We have their dead son, but they have him and he’s still alive. Do we tell them how he’s going to die?”

  Jacob wanted to laugh aloud, or just lay his head down on the table and cover his ears. It was the same thought that had been running through his head since he’d found out the truth. “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  There were so many variables. If they told the family, they were giving a newborn child a death sentence before he even left the hospital. And who was to say they wouldn’t try to change things and stop their son from going on the journey that resulted in his death? It could change everything, if he never came back, if Sanders was never killed.

  But if they didn’t tell them, sometime in the future their son would leave and never return.

  Lender rubbed his jaw. “We’re going to have to call in the Ashraf woman and pass it up the line. This is beyond anything we’ve ever dealt with before. We’ll need to proceed with care. Upstairs will have to deal with this one.”

  Jacob nodded. “I have her direct line. She may appreciate the chance to avoid the media.”

  “Do we have any more leads on the missing woman?” Crawford asked.

  “I suspect Mr. Harper knows more than he let on,” Jacob replied. “He should be coming down to the station as soon as he’s available. I have a few questions I need to ask. Anton will keep eyes on the CCTV, and tabs on any reported sightings.”

  Crawford tapped her fingertips on the desk. “Do we have any indication what this… why this man came from the future?”