Keene shook his head and rose from the scratchy bed. He brought a finger to his lips, indicating that Reynolds was to remain silent, lest the man wanted to take a prolonged dirt nap. Reynolds’ body slumped again, and his bound hands dropped to the floor.
“How’s our imperialist hostage taking things,” Strike said. The three of them clustered in the corner, occasionally throwing glances over at their prisoner to make sure no shenanigans were taking place. “Not well, I presume.”
“Forget about him,” Keene said.
“It’s kind of hard, dude, when he’s like ten feet away,” Linus said.
“You’re not helping, Linus.”
“Just sayin’.”
Keene dragged the damp duffel bag into the center of the room and began unpacking the contents, this time taking greater care than when he was making a hasty escape. He brushed water droplets off the casing and arranged the various components on the hardwood.
“Good thing that stuff was sealed,” Linus said. His countenance darkened, his fingers rubbing the plastic container filled with the nano-bot infused dust. “Bad news if it wasn’t, man.”
“Hopefully this wasn’t a one way trip.” Keene began slotting the fusion cores in the device.
“I believe the Pendulum is out of fuel,” Captain Reynolds said. “So it’s a one way—”
The Englishman cut himself off in mid-sentence when he realized that everyone was staring at him. He shifted uncomfortably on the hard floor and gave a sheepish laugh.
“No, please, continue,” Strike said. She took her 9mm out of her waistband and slammed it on the table sideways with a distinctive thud. “What you were saying was fascinating.”
Reynolds’ eyes darted between his three captors. For the first time, he looked truly scared instead of either arrogant or somewhat clueless. To Keene, this was slightly insulting, until he considered that out of himself, a twenty year old nerd, and a slender, tattooed blonde woman, Strike was the scariest by far.
He’d have to work on that.
He measured out some of the gray dust into the vial and put it into the Pendulum. It was an appropriate name, cutting through time and space. He examined the Silver Songbird statue, mounting it in the proper position.
Keene waited to be transported, for the Timekeeper to appear, for anything to happen.
“No fuel, no trip,” Reynolds said with a curt laugh. “Tapped out.”
“Your accent disappeared there, buddy.” Keene removed the statuette from the pedestal, and the light shut off. “You’re not from around here either, are you?”
“What gave me away?” Reynolds said with a cocky shrug. “The hair?”
“You pretty much told us, dude,” Linus said.
Keene ran through the series of events. The man had made no attempt to escape. In fact, Reynolds had done his best to confront the trio. It was almost as if he had been at the right place at the right time. It occurred to Keene that Lorelei had also taken a one way trip here. And getting back to wherever she wanted to go required the very objects he had conveniently brought along.
“It’s a trap,” Keene said. “We gotta get out of here.” Heading towards the window, he found a stream of torches galloping towards the roadside inn.
“Plan B,” Reynolds said with unbridled glee, “I was supposed to scout, wait for your arrival. But you pushed the envelope.”
“There’s a dozen men out there,” Keene said.
His attention diverted from time-traveling and inquisitions, he gulped as he watched the horde of angry torch wielding men dismount outside. People were coming to the inn.
For him.
“Who the hell is coming for us?” Strike said. She grabbed the pistol, leaping across the room to place it up against Reynolds’ skull. “Lorelei Keene?”
“Perhaps.” Reynolds uttered the word with defiance, but his pupils dilated and his legs shook.
“That so?” Strike clicked the safety off. “You know what that sound means?”
“I do.”
“Start talking. How’d they find us?”
Reynolds nodded towards his boots—the one place the group hadn’t searched. “A tracker.”
“No satellites here.”
“Must I explain science? RF radios, Bluetooth—a transmitter and a receiver.”
“How we doing out there?” Strike glanced over her shoulder.
“Closing in,” Keene said. He ran to the opposite window. “This one’s clear. What’s my sister want?”
“You don’t know?” Reynolds said. “You really don’t know?”
“Would he be asking otherwise,” Strike said. She ground the barrel of the gun into the Brit’s temple.
“The rope, Strike,” Keene said. “We gotta go.”
“We can’t just leave the bastard.”
“Knock him out and grab the rope.”
Strike gave a plaintive sigh, then cold-cocked Reynolds before unbinding his hands. She tossed the rope to Keene, who tied off a tight knot and attached it to the window grating.
“You first, kid.”
“I got to be the crash test dummy?”
“Just go,” Keene said, and shoved Linus towards the window. “We’ll cover your ass.”
Fists slammed against the inn’s wooden door. Angry Cantonese from the innkeeper for being woken at such a late hour in rude fashion. Pushing and shoving, followed by clomping footsteps.
Keene heard Linus tumble into the grass below. The rope held.
“You’re next.”
“You can’t shoot worth shit,” Strike said.
Keene gave her a look, and Strike shrugged, handing the pistol over before shimmying out the window. The boots were getting louder. He glanced at the Pendulum.
Was there enough time?
He hurried to clean up the contents, shoving them into the bag. A limp grip came around his neck, tugging him to the ground.
Reynolds groaned and flailed at Keene with weak fists. Keene, startled by the sudden interruption, lost his grip on one of the nano-fusion cores, the sphere rolling away and disappearing beneath the bed. He gave Reynolds an elbow in the gut, which sent the Redcoat—or, rather, the fraudulent imposter—into a spate of writhing pain.
Keene spun around and swung the butt of the pistol at Reynolds’ head, sending the man crashing into the bed.
Keene leapt up and glanced between the doorway and window. The flicker of torches hung in the hall, shadows dancing on the hardwood. Creaky floorboards groaned as his would-be ambushers walked with deliberate steps down the hallway.
The tip of a sabre glinted, coming into view.
“You coming, or what?” Strike called from the grass below.
Keene jumped onto the window’s ledge. He dropped the pistol outside.
Behind him, the men, hearing footsteps—and now assured they were not walking into a gauntlet of gunfire by the man at the head of the procession, who told them “Safe!” in a guttural roar—charged into the room, swords drawn.
Keene slid down the tough rope, the friction ripping at his palms. About five feet from the ground, he felt it give way suddenly, sending him hurtling downwards. An ugly bearded man—a mercenary from his dialect and manner of dress—shouted epithets from the window above, brandishing his sword and a piece of chopped rope.
Keene felt hands on his shoulders.
“We have to get moving,” Strike said.
“Can’t…breathe. The Pendulum…”
“We’re outnumbered,” Strike said, poking his ribs. Keene tried to gasp to tell her to stop, but the words refused to come. Instead, he gave an airless moan. “Help me, Linus.”
“Keeney, you gotta move, man,” Linus said. The kid and Strike each took one side of Keene’s body, holding him between them like a drunk comrade after a bar crawl. They started to drag him away from the window as quick
ly as possible.
“The gun,” Keene managed when they were on the road, and he could limp walk on his own.
“First thing I picked up,” Strike said, lifting up her shirt to reveal the pistol tucked inside the waistband of her jeans. “Wouldn’t leave home without it.”
Footsteps and angry torches swung across the dark road. “We need to pick up the pace.”
“Keep on travelling,” Keene said through gritted teeth. “No time to regroup.”
14 | The Art of War
Lorelei Keene was closing in on freedom, its taste almost within reach of her tongue, like an elusive snowflake on a blustery, frigid winter day.
The wind streamed through her shoulder length black hair as she spurred her horse onward. As soon as she’d gotten the emergency ping from Reynolds’ tracker, she’d known it was game on. The horse snorted and panted, fighting against fatigue. She followed the procession of mercenaries on the path before her, their torches bouncing up and down as their horses galloped.
Her horse strained. But she didn’t let up.
She’d been planning this moment for some time.
Her hired soldiers carried rifles along with their flaming torches. The light was useful. The archaic firearms, however, were not.
Truth was, these men were mostly for show. Pompadour and tradition, in a nineteenth century world that would frown upon a lone woman traveler—a foreigner, at that, with a strange looking haircut and a number of futuristic looking guns strapped to her hips.
While others saw only an athletic, somewhat stocky woman with a soldier’s body—dangerous only to the untrained, slight man or her own sex—the truth, like most things, was hidden beneath this veneer. The firmware upgrades she had installed from the traitorous Fox’s thumb drives had been quite helpful in rounding out her fighting abilities.
Lorelei’s eyes glowed with an intensity almost as bright as the burning tar.
Up ahead, a tent glowed off the side of the road. The remnants of a fire smoldered outside.
The woman finally eased off the horse’s flanks, the animal sighing in relief as it slowed to a brisk trot. She hopped off and guided the animal to a nearby tree, tying its reins to a sturdy branch.
She drew one of her formidable pistols and began the short walk to the tent.
Lorelei reached into her jacket pocket, feeling the now familiar cluster of thumb drives clattering about as she walked. Not that she still needed the upgrades—she’d installed them weeks ago—but they were a reminder of something. A life lost.
She held her hand up, signaling that the men milling about the campfire were to wait outside. They halted outside the tent flaps as if she were their puppeteer, standing stock still as she lifted the canvas and ducked inside.
Inside, a man dressed only in his undergarments—an itchy wool undershirt and similarly rough looking pants—was receiving medical attention for a number of cuts and bruises on his face. The nurse bowed in reverence to Lorelei and exited the tent, leaving her and the man alone.
“I’m telling you, lady, you’d better pay.” The man snarled in a Cockney brogue as he felt the contours of the wounds. “Plus a nice bonus.”
“What happened to the madam business?” She stared at his reflection in the mirror. The man whirled to face her, his eyes wild.
“This broad and her friend pistol whip me like a dog, and you ask me that shit?”
“John,” Lorelei said, taking a deep breath, “Captain Reynolds.”
“I ain’t some captain, and you’re nothing but a crazy bird who—”
Lorelei’s arm shot through the air, grabbing Captain Reynolds’ hair. His face slammed repeatedly against the mirror like it was caught on a string. She repeated the act three times, threatening a fourth before he blubbered to stop. She released her grip, and he sank to his knees, wiping tears and glass from his face.
“Don’t ever call me that,” Lorelei said.
“I’m—I’m sorry.”
“In character, now.”
“I am—I—I—”
“What use are you, acting like common street trash?”
“I apologize, madam,” Captain Reynolds said after taking a few deep breaths to compose himself. “You are quite right.”
“As always,” Lorelei said. She strode over to the corner and examined the treasure. “You recovered the complete Pendulum.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“It’s impressive work,” Lorelei said. She knelt down and felt the smooth veneer, rubbed the familiar nano-fusion cores. With this, once she gained control of the fabled Silver Songbird ship, the possibilities were endless.
“So, you think that’s gonna be able to get you home,” Reynolds said. “I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t seeing all these Chinamen—”
“Your character.”
“Sorry, Madam.”
“You will complete the last piece tomorrow. And then, your payment.”
“You been saying that ever since I came to this rock and got in good with the officials. When am I gonna see some real scratch here, lady?”
“I thought you were a better grifter. Silver Tongue John, they told me, he’s the best. Perhaps your associates were worse liars than even you.”
“I was doing all right before you showed up.”
“Before I showed up you were sleeping at a brothel,” Lorelei said. She rose from the corner, gun drawn. “Make up your mind about your path, John.”
“I shall meet the pirate queen Ching Shih and the officials tomorrow,” Captain Reynolds said, his formal aristocratic air returning with stunning speed. “And I will make sure I acquire this ship you seek. From the pirate queen’s coffers to yours.”
“You’re very good when you care to be,” Lorelei said. She walked towards the end of the tent, carrying the black box portion of the Pendulum. She poked her head out from the flap, and told her guards to pick up the component pieces. When they were finished loading the horses, she stepped back inside.
“You said a woman and her friend. Did you know them?”
“Never seen them before in my life. A kid, too.”
“They didn’t happen to give you names.”
“Kip Keene,” Reynolds said. “Called himself Kip Keene. Stupid name, huh?”
“I see,” Lorelei said. So it had been Kip who had waded through the waters of time to come after her. Not that she expected anything less. After all, Franz had all the components.
If only she hadn’t been so hasty, she could have stolen the Pendulum with the drives. But she had no idea of its importance, only learned of it after reading the full documents and files embedded on Fox’s thumb drives. By that point, she had already traveled here, her impatience to restore the proper flow of fate getting the better of her.
Now Kip would surely try to stop her. Foolish. She could have left him with no ticket here. No matter. He was without resources or time. By midnight tomorrow she would possess the Silver Songbird ship and fix all that had been ruined.
“You know them or something?” Reynolds said.
“Just worry about tomorrow.” Lorelei went to a corner of the tent and took something out of a small metal chest. “And John?”
“Yes, madam?”
“I require you to safeguard this. A symbol of my trust.” She handed him a large key gilded with 24 karat leaf. “Crucial to our operation.”
He took a step back, like he’d been knocked in the gut by her trust. “Me?”
“Is there a problem?”
Reynolds regained his composure and said, “It’d be an honor.”
“Good. Keep it on your person at all times. Even as you sleep.”
“Yes, madam.”
“That is all.”
“Hey,” Reynolds said at the edge of the tent, “what’re you going to do in the meantime?”
&n
bsp; “Prepare,” Lorelei said, ducking into the cool night. “Prepare for war.”
15 | Awaken
Keene awoke in the woods with a stiff neck and a crick in his back. No amount of stretching seemed to help. While sleeping in nature had a certain theoretical appeal, beds were superior to the forest floor—fresh air be damned.
Keene looked at the dense thicket of chinaberry trees. When he moved, berries squished beneath his feet. A number of the yellowish fruits stuck to the back of his shirt. He itched from sleeping amongst the grass and wood chips.
“Anyone have a clue where the road is?”
“It was pretty dark, Keeney,” Linus said, brushing sticks and grass out of his hair before putting on his baseball cap. He shrugged and scanned the area. “Everything looks the same.”
“Where’s Strike?”
“I just woke up,” Linus said. “She was already gone.”
“Damnit.”
Keene didn’t have much of a plan. He wasn’t an outdoorsman, and being stranded in a strange time without resources or much direction—beyond find a ship that might or might not exist—certainly wasn’t doing him any favors. He was becoming unmoored, a piece of driftwood floating across the sea of time, battered by the waves of fate.
He took a few steps to the left, then stopped.
This was how it would all end. In an idyllic, verdant forest, with warm, gentle light flickering through the canopies, casting elegant shadows at his feet. Maybe they’d wander around a little bit, stumble upon some unfriendly locals. Or starving was always an option. He considered eating the berries, but for all he knew, they would cause instant paralysis and painful death.
Either way, Keene wasn’t hopeful about his situation. Particularly now that Lorelei was in possession of the Pendulum. Part of him hoped that his sister—the suppressed part of her spirit with a sense of honor and purpose, actual morality—would suddenly become enlightened and end this business herself.
But he knew better. Her vision was blurred by pain and tragedy and promises of things that went against nature’s will. Death came for everyone, one way or another. Nothing could stop its march, and you didn’t choose when it knocked on the door.
The Kip Keene Box Set: Books 1, 2 & 3 Page 38
