Timekeepers

by Dave Weaver

  “It’s one of my dad’s old-school rock songs,” he told her sheepishly. “He used to sing it around the house when he was in a good mood.”

  He sensed her studying him curiously.

  “What’s a ‘rock’ song? Do you mean a slave song, for breaking rocks?”

  “No, rock n’ roll. You know…” He listened to his voice speak the Latin translation. After his previous day’s realisation of his multilingual talents via Lucas’ translation implant he’d had to get used to the odd phrases that popped out of his mouth when he spoke Romano British. Portia seemed completely mystified by this one though. “You must know about rock n’ roll; electric guitars, drums, the blues…”

  “We have melodic harmonies, electrolutes that paint musical vibrations of coloured lights in the air, not just blue. We leave drums for the parades on Empire Day.” She told him.

  “But what about kids, I mean people our age? Don’t you have your own kind of music?”

  She looked at him strangely again. “We have popular songs that have been handed down through generations, if that’s what you mean, and the classics from Germania and Graecia.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean at all.”

  “Sing me some of the words then.”

  “Erm…okay…” He sang a few strangled lines before Portia stuck her fingers in her ears.

  “That was terrible! Are you sure you didn’t make that up yourself?”

  “No, it’s a classic! So you’ve never heard of the blues then?” He asked, amazed.

  “Was that ‘blues’?”

  “Sort of, a derivative at least. Blues music came from America, Atlantica to you. You’re right in a way; it was originally sung by slaves in the cotton fields in the south…” He broke off, aware that her shadowy face was horrified.

  “You had slaves in your world too? How long ago was that from the time you lived in?”

  The details flew into his memory before he could even think. “Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in America in 1863; the Emancipation Proclamation.”

  “So how long?” She pushed him.

  He did a quick calculation. “I guess a hundred and fifty-five years. Not very long really.”

  “That’s just over a couple of lifetimes before yours. That’s awful! We stopped keeping slaves nearly a thousand years ago.”

  “So what about the EGs then?” He didn’t like her air of smug disapproval. This world wasn’t so blameless, from what he’d been told. “Aren’t they kind of slaves as well?”

  A look of fury shot across Portia’s face. She seemed to struggle to contain herself. “No, they are not! And you don’t have to remind me of their situation.” She took a deep breath and shrugged. “You just don’t understand.”

  “No, I suppose I don’t. Sorry.” He didn’t want their budding friendship to fall apart just as it was getting started. Right now they needed each other; he certainly needed her, anyway.

  She shrugged again. “S’all right, forget it. It’s not your fault.” But the atmosphere between them had been damaged.

  They lapsed back into silent trudging along the gravel path beside the pipes.

  How could he explain the intricacies of his own world to her? That something as wonderfully liberating as blues and rock music could come from such an evil thing as one man making a slave of another? He couldn’t even explain that to himself.

  “Jack…” Portia sounded troubled.

  “Yes?” At least she was still speaking to him.

  “How much did Dad tell you about the portal you found?”

  “Nothing really.”

  She continued to walk in front of him, head bowed as she picked out their way with the torch, but her voice had changed. “It wasn’t just the portal we lost. It was Antonio as well.”

  “Antonio?”

  “My cousin: Dario’s son.” He remained silent, guessing she would continue. “It was only our tenth jump. It wasn’t really his job to go, he’d not had as much training as the crew of EG jumpers we normally use, but he was so keen that Uncle Dario arranged it for a twenty-first birthday present. There was a fluctuation in the signal; I don’t know what exactly but it had never happened before. They thought they could control it then suddenly he was gone. His vital signs just vanished. We tried to retrieve the portal but it had shut itself down. We couldn’t find it. That’s when Dario started drinking. He used to be a lot different than he is now; always blamed himself you see.”

  “Why did Antonio want to jump to that particular time and place?” Jack asked her, but a sinking feeling in his stomach already told him the answer.

  “Antonio was a history student,” she told him. “He was researching the origins of the Festival of Mercury in Fulchestorium.”

  They continued in silence.

  The two travellers had come to a large chamber, its far wall containing three smaller tunnels, each with an array of pipes going into them from junction boxes. Jack and Portia paused, hands on hips, and looked at each other. Which one was the safer, if any?

  “Eny-meny-miny-mow…Jack chanted under his breath.

  “What?”

  “It’s an English expression, very scientific.”

  “I think we’ve got the same thing.” Portia replied.

  She stared at the tunnels for a few moments then pointed to the smallest. “That one.”

  “Are you sure?” He asked doubtfully.

  “Yep. If Calleva’s still in front of us that’s the side of the city we’re aiming for, and if I’m wrong it’s still the smallest, so they’re less likely to pay attention to it than the others.

  “Brilliant, Einstein!”

  “Einstein?” She gave him a puzzled look.

  “I mean, Perugia. C’mon…”

  He was less than convinced by her whistling in the dark plan but something told him the only way to stave off panic was to treat the whole exercise like a walk in the park.

  The tiny tunnel was danker than the one they’d left behind. As they threaded their way along the tight space Portia began to tell Jack some more details about Silas Borg.

  Where he was originally from no one seemed sure, or indeed if Borg was his real name. One thing was for certain though; he was rich and powerful. He had been a businessman with companies in Germania and Gaul, mostly in the electronics industry where it was rumoured (but never proved) that he’d stolen the prototype of the Antigrav pack from his main rival, a brilliant company of young technicians whose entire board had been killed when their airbus was blown apart on the way to a crucial takeover meeting. With Borg Industries.

  Nothing was proven. The senior officer heading the inquiry closed the book on the investigation with surprising haste before retiring to his newly acquired villa on the Gaul Riviera. He died in a mysterious car crash a few months later. With the Antigrav technology grabbed and duly patented Borg rose to become a leader of industry as his empire spread rapidly from cars and planes to the most humdrum of household items: a breakfast tray for instance.

  Rome feted him and bowed to his entrepreneurial genius as they ordered en masse for their military. In return the Empire virtually gave him the state of Calleva to govern. They rigged its elections massively in his favour for a promise to contain the EG Right’s groups’ guerrilla campaign as an example to the rest of the Empire’s EG population. But Borg went much further than mere ‘containment’. The World Senate purposefully looked the other way from the catalogue of outrages that he conducted against the young EGs of Calleva State: the torturing, beatings and blackmail. He was boss of his own world, more powerful than many of the other puppet leaders of the Empire. The Empire began to see Borg’s brutal regime as a destabilising factor, between themselves and the EG population, but they still needed the Antigrav technology, not to mention Borg’s brilliant scientists and technicians who were now enslaved by either money or threats, so in the short term they did nothing.

  The long term was a different matter, and Silas Borg knew it. The stolen Antigrav technology
was being taken apart in every lab in the Empire. Very soon its secrets would spill out into the world and that would be the day he was finished: the day the Empire’s assassins would find their mark. He had to act before then; somehow rebel against the most powerful conglomerate of industrial and military might in history. Did he actually have a plan or was he crazy like they said?

  History, this history anyway, showed that you should never underestimate Silas Borg.

  Jack had been listening in silence as they stumbled along the dusty track, the flow of words interrupted by oaths as Portia scraped her legs against the sharp flint of the tunnel’s sides.

  All this was very interesting, but how did it affect him? Why did Borg hate the EGs so much? What was he planning for them and why did he need a sample of Jack’s blood to carry it out?

  “Portia, why…?” He got no further.

  “We’re here!” She told him.

  Chapter 15

  A pinprick of light swallowed up the pipes before them. The mouth of the tunnel at last! A couple of minutes later they were inching their way towards it, backs flat to the wall to avoid detection by any waiting state troupers. Jack watched Portia cautiously approach the exit and take a quick look out. She waved her arm for him to join her, putting a finger to her lips. There were two huge Troopers propped up against a shiny black patrol car. One of them was staring at the ground puffing a large cigar while his partner chatted to him between occasional glances at the tunnel’s entrance.

  “We’re stuck!” Portia whispered.

  “If we draw their attention away we can slip down there,” Jack indicated at a ditch directly below, “and crawl along it until we’re safe.”

  “What are you going to do?” She sounded worried.

  “Don’t worry; I’ve seen them to this in the movies.”

  “Movies?”

  Jack picked up a small rock and flung it. As he did so his foot slipped on the slimy moss of the tunnel’s mouth. He caught a glimpse of the two guards as their heads whipped around to stare at Portia then he was sliding down the sides of the ditch, the pipes clanging loudly as he bounced off them. A gruff voice shouted a warning then a burst of thin red light shot across the top of the trench followed by two more.

  For a few moments nothing happened then Portia’s face appeared above the ditch, framed in the twilight. “You alright, Clumsy?”

  “Yeah…” With her help he clambered up the ditch’s sloping side and staggered onto the surface, the bruise on his forehead nothing compared with the one to his pride. He rubbed it and looked around. The two Troopers were lying prostrate, one across the front of the patrol car and the other face down in the bushes.

  “Are you okay?” He asked.

  She didn’t answer the question. “Quick, give me a hand!” She crossed the deserted road and began to pull the Trooper’s body off the vehicle. The man made a gurgling noise as he slid to the ground.

  “He’s just stunned,” she told Jack. “It’s a pulse gun with an infra-red target sight; shoots an electro-magnetic wave that paralyses the nerves. I only had it on shock, full on would have killed him.” She slid a thin silver tube back into a small pouch on her belt. “Help me get him into the driver’s seat.” They manoeuvred the heavy body around the side of the car. “Now push him over to me.” She waved the man’s wrist at the console and the magnopac hummed into life.

  “Stick him in the bushes with his mate and we’re out of here.”

  Jack did as he was told, trying not to look at the staring eyes. He jumped back into the passenger seat.

  “That was a neat trick you pulled.” Portia told. “Just like in the movables, eh?”

  “Movies. Won’t they be missing these goons pretty soon?”

  “Not soon enough. Anyway, how keen are you to do some more walking?”

  He suddenly realised how tired his legs were. They must have trudged for hours; it was now early evening.

  “Good point.” He agreed, as they rose and shot off into the suburbs of Calleva.

  Portia was knocking a coded rap on the door of a grotty apartment while Jack leant tiredly against the wall. It had been a very long day. How had he ended up outside a total stranger’s place in this unknown city? How had he ended up in this world at all? He’d met Portia and her father only a couple of days previously and knew nothing about either of them apart from what he’d been told, yet already he was trusting them with his life. They could be dangerous extremists for all he knew, even double agents for Borg, considering Lucas’ secret base beneath his ridiculous house. Despite the scenes of torture and blackmail, he’d never actually met Borg himself. Perhaps some of the EGs were really terrorists after all; perhaps Borg did stand for law and order? How was Jack to know what was really going on?

  His tired reverie was interrupted by the click of the door as it finally opened throwing a wedge of cold light across Portia’s face. He heard a concerned voice from somewhere inside the room.

  “Portia? Is that you? What are you doing here at this hour? Are you okay?”

  “Let me in, Michael, I’ve brought someone with me. We’re in trouble.”

  The door opened wider and she slipped inside, waving Jack to follow.

  He found himself in a small shabby room, barren of furniture save for a table and chair. There was a basic kitchen unit in one corner. In front of it stood a darkly handsome young man dressed in a black shirt and grey trousers. As he took a step forward into the harsh light of the single bulb Jack saw that his eyes were of the palest EG grey.

  Michael was taller than him and well built, the close-cropped hair giving him the appearance of a military recruit.

  He gave Jack a doubtful look. “Who’s this guy?”

  “It’s okay, Babe, he’s just a friend.” Portia slipped her arms around his waist and kissed Michael passionately on the mouth. “I’ve really missed you.”

  “Me too.” The man returned her kiss but kept his eyes firmly on Jack.

  Jack hadn’t been expecting this, although he wasn’t sure why. It seemed that Portia’s weekend trips to Calleva weren’t visits to any old friends; this looked like it had been going on for some time.

  Overriding his squirming embarrassment though, was the realisation that Portia’s boyfriend was an EG. Wasn’t that illegal in Borg’s Calleva State, or at least unwise? He looked at Portia as if seeing her properly for the first time. The girl had some guts.

  She broke off the embrace. “This is my friend Jack Johnson. Jack, this is Michael, my boyfriend.”

  “Michael 49072C at your service,” the EG told him, rather sarcastically.

  This was his second introduction to an EG. Their names probably referenced their creation date an event they no doubt felt extremely sensitive about given its literally dehumanising nature.

  Michael looked Jack up and down. “Is this the one you told us about?”

  She nodded.

  The EG put out a hand. Jack hesitated then shook it. “Hello Jack. We’ve heard a great deal about you. She says you’re from the past, scraped up and delivered to the Institute with a spear in your guts. That’s some entry.”

  Jack was momentarily taken aback by his directness then annoyed with Portia. Why had she blabbed to her EG friends when Lucas had obviously been trying to keep him a secret?

  “I hadn’t realised I was famous,” he replied, giving the Portia a cold look, “but I suppose that sums it up.”

  Michael smiled for the first time. “I knew Lucas would out-do himself one day. What year are you from exactly?”

  Jack stole a glance at Portia. She gave a slight shake of her head.

  “Quite a while ago.” He answered.

  “Life must be rather confusing for you at the moment then.”

  “Jack’s doing okay,” she replied for him, which again irritated. “He’s adapted quickly to his new situation. The point is, he needs your help. I didn’t know where else to go.” Her voice rose a little in desperation.

  Michael looked from her face
, tired and frustrated, to Jack’s, tense and guarded. He seemed to hesitate, as if trying to decipher what exactly was going on.

  “Calm down and tell me what happened.” His voice was soothing now, an immediate switch to concern, which he reinforced with a smile and wink to Jack over her shoulder. “Don’t worry mate, we’ll get it all sorted out. Now,” he took her hands and gave them a squeeze the same way Portia had done in the tunnel, “details please…”

  She told him about the afternoon raid on the Centre, their escape onto the motorway and through the tunnel, the stunning of the two patrol Troopers (mercifully leaving out Jack’s calamitous contribution) and sending the empty patrol car off on a wild goose chase once they’d used it.

  Michael laughed at this. “That’s great, Babe! Don’t mess with our Portia, eh Jack?”

  He gave him another wink. “Hey, I’m sorry about the stuff earlier, can’t be too careful. Portia’s still a little naïve about how careful the Group have to be with non-EG outsiders. No hard feelings I hope?”

  Jack was beginning to feel out of his league again. He nodded swiftly. “Yeah, no problem.”

  “Well it sounds like you’ve got quite a few problems,” Michael continued. His hand rested patronisingly on Jack’s shoulder. “Problem number one: how do we keep you safe from Borg? You could stay here for a short while but… I don’t know what this young lady’s told you about us, Jack. The truth is we’re a sort of guerrilla group in the battle for EG rights. Nothing violent you understand, just a bunch of troublemakers causing enough mischief to the security forces to keep EG freedom in Romano Briton on the international political agenda. There are others all over the country, even the rest of the Empire, doing the same thing. In Calleva State it’s a little different though. If we get caught we’ll pay with our lives.”

  “You’re in a safe house at the moment.” He continued staring round the dingy room with exaggerated disgust. “Pretty basic just like the rest of the EG housing in this wonderful city. The point is, they haven’t found this place yet but with you on the loose, obviously extremely important to them, they’ll search everywhere along that patrol car’s route and eventually find you, and me. Then we’ll all be in deep shit. What we’ve got to do is somehow get you not just out of Calleva but Romano Briton as well.”