The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  “Short trip?” He asked hopefully, having long given up the desire to get answers from any of them after having failed miserably throughout the sea voyage.

  “Just up the road,” his driver grinned back, nodding toward the track ahead. “Be there in two shakes...”

  “Lovely,” he muttered under his breath, tension building into fear and unease now that he’d reached the end of the journey and the answers – whatever they might be – now lay almost before him.

  Nervous, much…?

  “What d’you think?” He asked softly, no malice in the sarcasm.

  I’m just about brown trousers, meself… the voice added, not altogether helpfully.

  “Yeah… thanks for that…” Thorne grunted, shaking his head with eyes wide over the lack of reassurance in the remark. “Big help…”

  The Land Rover moved off with a faint grind of gears, trailing dust as it trundled along the track at a modest pace. Considering the steep run-off down to the dark waters of the cover were rarely more than a few feet from the left edge of the road, Thorne wasn’t surprised the driver was taking his time. From his vantage point on that side of the vehicle, the entire journey seemed a little precarious and quite disconcerting.

  They’d only travelled perhaps half a mile before the road opened up into a small, comparatively flat area on the inland side. It was mostly wooded, save for a walking track leading off into the trees and, as he looked further back up the shallow gradient toward the mountains beyond, he could also now see the corrugated iron roof of a small shack, somewhere off into the scrub perhaps forty or fifty yards away, shadowed in the lee of those towering slopes.

  “Out y’ go…” the driver announced cheerily. “This is as far as I take you. Straight on up the track and you’ll get to th’ shed. He’ll be waiting inside for ya.”

  “Okay…” Thorne announced, trying to remain positive and not act like a scared little girl as he retrieved his pack from the rear of the vehicle and waited for it to drive slowly off before making his way across the track and on up into the scrub.

  The shack itself appeared to have been constructed out of mud bricks interspersed with large rocks, using wooden beams as thick as railway sleepers as a frame. It looked unlikely to have more than one room, with a worn, wooded door at one end and a stone chimney rising above the roof at the other, smoke curling lazily from the shrouded opening at the top. A small window of thick, irregular and somewhat dirty glass was fitted into the wall by the door, and that appeared to be the only other opening that he could see.

  Thorne paused before that plain, weathered door and gathered his thoughts, thinking not for the first time during the voyage that perhaps leaving his gun behind hadn’t been a great idea.

  “You can come right in… it’s not locked…” a voice that was unmistakeably Brandis’ called from somewhere within. “It’s dark in here in the evenings, though, so mind where you step…”

  Taking a deep breath, Thorne repositioned his shouldered pack, pushed the old door open and stepped inside.

  The first thing that struck him was the general sense of mustiness. Not a bad smell, exactly, but more like a place not lived in for some time. The prediction of it being quite dark inside proved to be correct, and he was barely able to make out his surroundings at all as his eyes tried to adjust. From the inside it was possible to see that the few windows the structure did have had all been painted over.

  “The seat nearest you is free,” Brandis suggested, little more than a black, featureless silhouette seated in a large armchair off to one side of the crackling fireplace. It was difficult to make out any detail in the gloom, and rather than shed light on the situation, the burning logs instead seemed to make it worse, their brightness blacking out the detail of their immediate surroundings, Brandis included. Judging by how the man had positioned his chair, Thorne was certain that the effect was intentional.

  Glancing off to his left he found the empty chair easily enough and slumped into it, leaving his pack on the floor to his right. To his left, between the wall and the chair itself, a small side table already carried a waiting can of beer.

  “This for me, is it?” He asked as casually as he was able, fighting the building tension in his mind. “Still cold,” he added, a little impressed this time as he picked it up and cracked open the ring-pull.

  “Had them chilling already when I heard the boat pull in,” Brandis explained softly, and for a moment Thorne thought perhaps he caught the faint flash of white teeth formed into a grin. “It’s been a long voyage, and I know the boys don’t keep booze on board. Thought you might need a drink, considering.”

  “Don’t see a fridge here…” Thorne observed slowly, ignoring the fact that he couldn’t see much at all in the darkness. “No bed, either. You like sleeping rough, or is this all for effect?”

  “This place is an iceberg…” Brandis grinned, seeing no point in hiding the information. “There’s a hatch behind that bookcase that leads down into the mountain behind us… only about ten metres or so,” he added, quickly, “…nothing too super-villainous…”

  “I didn’t realise the ‘come see the rabbit hole’ thing was meant to be literal.”

  “It serves a purpose,” he shrugged. “The façade of a scruffy old shack tends to put off the blow-ins…”

  “I feel like I should just demand we get straight to it,” Thorne admitted, taking a sip at the Fosters all the same. “Not exactly here for the small talk.”

  “True,” Brandis conceded, “but you at least try to indulge me a little: I’ve had precious few people to talk to at all this last year – save for our little chat at the airfield – and it’s nice to have a little company again. The local boys are okay, but they don’t hang around much… I think they’re a tad nervous around me, to be honest…”

  “This whole ‘abandoned shack, Unabomber’ thing not working for ‘em?”

  “No…” Brandis sighed, smiling faintly at Thorne’s attempted humour. “It more a matter of a ‘my great-grandad, and my granddad and my dad worked for this guy, and he still doesn’t look a day older’ kinda thing. That tends to creep them out a little… but as you say,” he continued, returning to topic, “small talk isn’t what we’re here for… is it?”

  “Can we at least turn a light on, maybe?” Thorne suggested, straining his eyes to get a better look at Brandis as he took another drink.

  “In good time. You want to know who I really am – I understand that – but once that happens, that’s all you’re gonna want to talk about for a while, and I’d like to get a few basic details out of the way first: details that really are a lot more important.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Such as… the fact that I’ve been here in this alternate reality for a very long time, and that only part of the reason I’ve been hanging about this long is directly tied in with you and Hindsight.”

  “Well, I did say up at Katherine that it was fairly obvious you’d been around for a while: there was no way anyone could have collected that amount of Gold in one bloody lifetime.”

  “You’d be surprised what people will believe, if they want to,” Brandis countered with a wry smile, “but in this case, yeah, I’ve ‘been around’ a while…”

  “Why…?” Thorne asked bluntly. “Not intending to sound too full of myself, but if not only for Hindsight, what else is there that’s needed you around all this time?”

  “A private, philanthropic organisation, as I mentioned at Katherine… governments don’t tend to be all that trustworthy, to be honest. Do you s’pose the New Eagles have been the only unpleasant types to get hold of Temporal Displacement technology?” That thought made Thorne’s eyes widen with surprise. “Sure, New Eagles were the first,” Brandis went on to explain, “but there have been others since. I was at a loose end – to put it extremely lightly – and was asked to come on as a sort of ‘caretaker’… as someone who might be able to stay the course over a period of a ‘few’ hundred years to make sure, by and
large, that history doesn’t get too fucked up by any two-bit, billionaire wannabe who didn’t like the way his hedge fund crashed during the GFC.”

  “But… then…” Thorne mused out loud, working his way through the logic “…that presupposes that Hindsight is successful…”

  “Not necessarily,” Brandis shrugged, “but they will be, in any case. That’s not the immediate issue, however. The immediate issue is what we’re going to do, moving forward.”

  “To quote an old joke, ‘Whaddya mean we, Paleface?’…?” Thorne shot back drily, not prepared to accept that everything was done and dusted just yet. “I have a global corporation to run,” he added, sipping again at the beer, “and regardless of whether I now meet your ‘stamp of approval’ or whatever the hell it is, there are still a significant number of those in power, both in the US and in Australia, who won’t have a bar of me right now. And that’s assuming you and I are going to work together on anything, which hasn’t been decided yet.”

  “Oh, it will be,” Brandis shrugged again, his blasé attitude starting to annoy Thorne. “I slipped that note into your uniform at Raffles on the same afternoon you and Langdale had words, and I knew damn well that you wouldn’t find it until the Laha Commemoration. Certain of it. Bloody certain o’ this, too. There’s a new danger coming down the pipeline that no one is talking about right now, and we need to do everything we can to prepare for it.”

  “What… Hitler attacking Russian again, or some crap like that?” Thorne scoffed, unimpressed. “You think the Yanks will give a shit about the Soviets? Christ, they’ll probably offer to help the bloody Krauts with that one: the Ruskies are already pissin’ everyone off with what they’ve been up to in Manchuria.”

  “Ugh… Operation Barbarossa is old news,” Brandis sighed, dismissing the idea entirely. “The Nazis are already planning to attack them – in one… two years’ time, give or take – and what comes out of that doesn’t amount to a Goddamned thing save for a couple of years of wasting shitloads of men and materiel on both sides. Does go on to fuck up the German economy a bit, though,” he pointed out with a vague grin, looking for a silver lining, “so there is that…”

  “So not the Russians? What, then?” Thorne growled, becoming quickly tired of the constant evasiveness.

  “Well, two things may happen in the next five to ten years – twenty at the outside – and one of them definitely will,” Brandis explained. “I’m afraid to say that the one that’s not guaranteed – something that’s only a possibility at the moment, based on past experiences – will almost certainly be partially your fault. I’ll come to that one later…” he went on, cutting off Thorne’s words of protest. “The main issue – one we know will come to pass – will be the direct result of work carried out by Sam Lowenstein.”

  “Doesn’t that sound bloody familiar,” Thorne grumped, considering their current situation with regard to altered timelines. “I knew those OSS bastards were bullshitting us. He knows, doesn’t he! He bloody knows the date that New Eagles arrived!”

  “Yes… yes, he knows the date,” Brandis sighed again, having grown tired of that particular MacGuffin years ago. “He knows the date, and right now, the date won’t do you any… bloody… good…” He stated carefully, firm enough in his tone to give Thorne pause.

  “How… how can that be possible? Knowing that date allow us to end our entire mission here!”

  “Really?” Brandis shot back quickly. “Didn’t Defence Intelligence confiscate both your remaining TDUs? I know for a fact that at least one of ‘em is now in the US, being further developed for another project by Lowenstein himself. Even if you did have the date, what exactly would you do with that information right now…?”

  “I…” Thorne began, intending to provide some confident, well-thought out reply and coming up empty handed.

  “Exactly…” Brandis declared, tapping a finger on the arm of his chair. “Right now, you don’t have the means to make use of the information, and even if you did, take it from me: there’s far too much yet to be done for there to be any thought of finishing Hindsight’s mission just yet. With a little luck and a lot of foresight, we’re going to accomplish quite a bit over the next few years, you and I… a damn sight more than either of us could alone.”

  “Why not come out with this three bloody years ago?” Thorne asked tartly, the level of presumption starting to really grate on his nerves. “Why not be standing right there at Lyness, waiting for us, when we all first arrived, arms wide open and a shitload of gold lined up, ready to go? Why all this subterfuge and pissing about…?”

  “I would’ve loved to have done exactly that,” Brandis admitted, almost sad for a moment, “but that’s been tried before, and it has never worked out well.”

  “‘Before…?’ What’re you talking about?”

  “It’s been a long trip… do you really want to fry your brain with information overload within the first five minutes?” Brandis asked casually, sensing the building tension and attempting to lighten the mood a little. “I can throw on some pasta…”

  “Fuck the bloody pasta!” Thorne snapped angrily, frustration getting the better of him now. “I’ve just spent six days on a friggin’ boat and three bloody years before that wondering who the hell you are… what the hell you know about all of us! I don’t…”

  “…give a rat’s ass about food right now!” Both of them finished in unison, Thorne momentarily shocked by the fact that Brandis knew exactly what he was going to say.

  “We’ve had this conversation before… many times…” Brandis explained, not sounding quite so casual now.

  “What…?”

  “You wanted to know,” he pointed out. “Well here you are! We’ve done all this before… over and over again… and sometimes it ends well, and most of the bloody time, I doesn’t. I was hoping this might be a ‘nice’ one, but it seems we’re taking the other road again, this time around.”

  “You’re saying…?”

  “Yes… that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Brandis sighed, knowing exactly what Thorne was thinking and showing some of his own frustration now. “Over and over, and almost every time, we have to go through this ‘back-and-forth’ argument bullshit, because you can’t handle the truth, and I have to go all ‘Colonel Jessup’ on your ass! And in the end, it all still comes down to the same thing, because the bloody date that you keep crapping on about just isn’t relevant right now, something that I will explain to you, if you’ll give me a bloody chance! Trust me,” he continued, ready to reveal everything in that moment, “when the time comes, I will give you the date…”

  The revelation hung there between them, suspended in thought and waiting to be fully assimilated. It was Brandis’ last test, and he knew that there were two possible reactions he was likely to get, although law of averages told him a positive one was unlikely. As the unspoken confession behind that statement finally seeped into Thorne’s consciousness, a mixed expression of shock and more than a little anger began to spread across his face.

  “You… you know the date?” He stammered, shaking suddenly with rising anger. “You already know…?”

  “And right now it’s of no use, as I’ve already said…”

  “You knew all this time and you did nothing...?”

  “Just sit down and relax…” Brandis added tiredly, accepting how things were going to go now as Thorne rose from his chair, tense and seething with rage. “It was of no use, as I’ve already said, and if you’d let me bloody explain…”

  “The shit we’ve had to go through these last two years… the people we’ve lost because of this…” Thorne snarled, his temper having risen well beyond the point of no return now. “And you say it was of ‘no use’…? Fuck you and all this secret agent shit…! Because of you, people are dead. You and your bloody plans can go to hell!”

  “I’m already in hell…!” Brandis roared, also rising to his feet. “Sit down…! I said sit down…!”

  In that moment, the stra
nge sensation of being taken over swept through Thorne, just as it had at the airfield, so many months before, and without any heed to what his mind actually wanted, his body immediately slumped back down into the chair. Unlike the first time, however, the feeling appeared to pass almost instantly with regard to his upper body, leaving only his legs incapable of movement.

  “I really didn’t want to do that again,” Brandis snarled, taking an aggressive step forward. He was only partially aware now of the fact that his own suppressed anger was feeding off Thorne’s rage, and he was having a difficult time controlling it in conjunction with his efforts to keep the man seated. “…Really fucking didn’t!”

  As had also happened that other time, the strain of holding Thorne in place was weakening Brandis so quickly that his amalgamated accent, usually second nature to maintain, once again began to fail, revealing a slightly different voice that was disturbingly familiar.

  “Your… your voice again…” Thorne croaked, sufficiently distracted now to allow his rising fury subside. “I know you… I know you…”

  “I am over two thousand years old!” Brandis raged now, unable to hold back any longer the repressed anger and guilt he’d accumulated during that time. “You have no idea of the things I’ve seen! You couldn’t possibly conceive of the suffering I’ve experienced or caused … the people I’ve watched die because of what I was forced to do… or what I couldn’t…! And you talk to me about loss? You selfish, small-minded little prick! You think you’re the only person in this entire world that understands what’s really happening? You know nothing! ‘Who are you? Who are you?’…” he parodied mockingly, scaring Thorne now as he stood over him, no more than a towering silhouette in the darkness. “I’ve had hundreds of names, these last two millennia… lived countless lives… and all you can think about is ‘who I am’, as if that one fucking name I was given at birth could possibly define an existence that’s outlived civilisations…! You really want to know who I am…?” He hissed, beating a fist against his chest in emphasis.