The Timepiece and the Girl Who Went Astray: A thrilling new time travel adventure

by O. R. Simmonds

  ‘And what were you guys doing, exactly? A big organisation like this, it’s got to be about money, right? Always is.’

  ‘No, not initially. When the organisation was first founded, it needed a revenue stream, of course, but only to fund some of its more ambitious goals. The solution the founders landed on was to form the world’s most unique travel company.’

  Will raised a single eyebrow theatrically and said, ‘A travel company?’

  ‘The world’s most unique travel company. Rather than asking their customers where they would like to visit, instead they asked when they would like to visit. There was no shortage of extraordinary historical events for their clients to witness. If you wanted to witness the American Civil War or the signing of the Declaration of Independence, you could. Perhaps you wanted to see how Harold II of England really fell at the Battle of Hastings. Or discover the location of Cleopatra’s tomb or the fate of the Ark of the Covenant. They offered these experiences to the highest bidder. The operation was incredibly lucrative. Unofficially, we were known as the Time Travel Agency.’

  ‘The Time Travel Agency? Are you kidding?’

  Frenz shrugged. ‘No, I assure you it’s true, but it was a different time then. That name is rarely used anymore. The Office of Time Dissemination was such a successful front and rarely audited by other government agencies.’

  ‘Well, this is just great,’ Will said as he stood and spread his arms wide. ‘The love of my life is missing, and we’ve got a gang of, what? Villainous, homicidal travel agents after us?’

  ‘By the time I joined the agency, its members were referred to as “Timekeepers.” And I’m afraid this is no laughing matter. These are serious people.’

  Frenz stood from the bench and approached Will. He placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye.

  Dawn was quickly approaching; even in the chill air Will could feel the warmth of the sun as it began to break over the roofs and through the trees around them. That, combined with the intensity of Frenz’s stare, caused the hairs on the back of Will’s neck to stand on end and a shiver to shoot down his spine.

  Frenz paused for a moment and then said, ‘William, I cannot begin to imagine how crazy all of this must sound, but these people won’t stop until they get the Timepiece back. This isn’t just about taking away their means of generating revenue. It’s the one thing that gives them control over the most powerful force in the universe. Forget gravity, forget light, or dark matter. It’s time that conquers all and they’ll stop at nothing to get their hands on that power.’

  ‘Look, Frenz, I appreciate the history lesson, but how does any of this help us find Abigayle? Right now, that’s the only thing that matters to me.’

  ‘If we’re going to find her and bring her back, I need you to understand what we’re up against. The stakes are too high. Those men will be back, and the next time we might not be so lucky. If they capture or kill me, you’ll stand a better chance of success if you know who you’re up against.’

  ‘But what about Abigayle?’ Will said, turning to face Frenz. ‘Wherever she is, or whenever she is, she’s alone and probably scared. I can’t leave her there any longer than I have to. Let’s go get her back. Right now!’

  ‘William, let me be clear. Abigayle is safe where she is. Much safer than we are right now.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’

  ‘I know that the only thing that will put her in danger is us going to retrieve her when it’s not safe to do so. If we use the Timepiece now, the Timekeepers will know, and they’ll find us and kill us. If we take our time, we can make sure that doesn’t happen. And don’t forget, we have time on our side. When we go to find Abigayle, we can choose to arrive just minutes after you left her, so you see, she’ll be alone for no time at all.’

  Will nodded thoughtfully and his breathing gradually slowed. ‘Okay, okay. What do I need to know? Aside from tourism, what else were these people involved with?’

  ‘When I first joined the agency, it was an amazing place to work. The tourism branch was virtually non-existent. The agency had almost limitless resources and some friends in very high places. We still did the odd leisure trip for those considered important enough, but it was a rare occurrence. Instead, the agency dealt in a more valuable currency than money. It dealt almost exclusively in information. Facts. Real facts, no opinions or theories. Cold, hard, invaluable fact.’ Frenz paused, nudging his thick-rimmed glasses farther up his nose as he contemplated his next words.

  ‘The main goal was the pursuit of historical enlightenment. History, you must understand, is a series of patterns and structures that helps modern society to navigate the world in which we now live. And we had some of the best minds in the world all under one roof – from scientists, historians, scholars – and with the Timepiece we were able to unlock some of the most important discoveries in our history. Both Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein were members at one time. These great minds would examine the past for answers to questions of the present. We would look at past mistakes and successes so that we may learn from them in the future. We would use this information to further scientific discovery, to help direct and shape government policy and to make the world a better place. Or try to, at least. We have even helped to solve some of the biggest crimes ever committed. You could say we were a kind of historical detective agency.’

  ‘So, I guess you can tell me who really shot JFK?’

  ‘Yes, we helped to catch him, in fact! It really was the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald.’

  ‘What? You’re kidding, that whole thing was orchestrated by the CIA!’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s just a conspiracy theory.’

  ‘Oh, come on! Dozens of people testified to the Warren Commission that they saw a puff of smoke coming from the grassy knoll. What about that?’

  Frenz cleared his throat and scratched the corner of his mouth distractedly. ‘Well, that was us. We were there. One of our agents transitioned to the past right on that spot. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but when one transits through time the air at their location ripples. It most closely resembles a heat haze.’

  ‘So, you’re saying that that’s what all those people saw? One of your guys using the Timepiece?’ Will said indignantly.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Why were you there at the time of the shooting?’

  ‘To get to the truth of the incident, of course, and to bring those responsible to justice. How do you think the authorities caught Oswald so quickly? Moments after the shooting, Timekeeper agents were sent back to the scene, twenty minutes before the event. The whole area was searched, and one agent actually witnessed Lee Harvey Oswald taking the shot. He was pictured leaving the book depository; and upon returning to the present, our agents handed his image and personnel file to the police and Secret Service.’

  ‘Well why not just stop the shooting?’

  ‘I’m afraid that history is rather obdurate. It cannot be changed as far as we know. Those who have tried have ended up inadvertently causing the very thing they’ve attempted to prevent.’

  Will eyed Frenz with suspicious, narrow eyes. ‘Okay, what about Jack the Ripper? No one ever caught him. How do you explain that?’

  Frenz shifted his weight on the bench, growing uncomfortable. ‘You are talking about a rather dark period of the agency’s history.’

  ‘I love history. I studied it in college. It’s the whole reason I came to London in the first place.’

  ‘This one is not so easy to explain, but it was a focus of mine personally for many years. We were attempting to catch the Ripper in the act for each of his murders. There was an agent by the name of Crispin Umber. He was a Timekeeper agent, like the ones who are pursuing us right now. He was part of the Operations section of the agency, they went on assignments to the past, they were the ones who actually used the Timepiece. I always sat in an office somewhere with my head in my books, but the Timekeepers were the ones in the field.

 
‘This one agent was eager to volunteer for every assignment, claiming that he had the most extensive knowledge of the period, which I have to say was true. He really knew his late-nineteenth-century London unlike anyone I had ever met. So, he went on the first assignment and he located the site of the Ripper’s first kill. And the second, third and the fourth. But every time, he claimed to have just missed catching Whitechapel Jack in the act. After the fourth killing, which I was certain to have pinpointed to within a five-minute time period myself, I became suspicious. It turned out that Crispin Umber wasn’t just extremely knowledgeable about nineteenth-century London, he was a Jack the Ripper fanatic. When we travelled back to view the fifth and final murder, I requested that a second team keep Crispin under surveillance…’

  ‘And? What happened?’ Will said eagerly.

  ‘An agent from the surveillance team claimed to have followed Crispin Umber, who was seen walking into a building with a woman matching the description of Mary Jane Kelly, the Ripper’s final victim. The agent in question, fearing that they would be seen, remained outside the building until Crispin re-emerged. When he did some time later, he was followed down an alleyway, where he was apparently confronted and found covered in blood, attempting to dispose of a number of blood-stained surgical instruments.’

  ‘Wait, are you saying that this Crispin Umber, one of your own agents, was Jack the Ripper?’

  Frenz nodded slowly and said, ‘I’m afraid so. It had us all stumped that the killer seemed to vanish so easily from the scene of each crime and that the killings stopped so suddenly. But all along, it had been one of our own going back there and living out his own twisted fantasies. When he was brought back to the present and his crimes were fully realised, he vanished. I don’t know what became of him.’

  ‘Jesus! Well, isn’t that kind of thing dangerous? If you guys were going back to the past, couldn’t you change something and undo your own existence or something?’

  ‘That was our first instinct, yes, but like I said: the past isn’t as easy to change as we first thought. Any notable actions we take in the past have already happened, we just haven’t experienced them yet. After the Crispin debacle, we went to greater lengths to ensure we left minimal traces behind. Before any date in the past was cleared for exploration, extensive research would be conducted to ensure we had an acceptable level of certainty for our agent’s safety. We would do this for months or even years for certain time periods before use of the Timepiece was given the green light.’

  ‘That’s what you did, isn’t it? Your ID said you’re an Extra-dimensional Geohistorian.’

  ‘Yes, it was my job to research specific days or weeks in the past. Often a specific time if there was sufficient data available. I specialised in geological and environmental changes that might have occurred between the requested destination time and our own time. This was to ensure that we didn’t send agents back to the past in an area where the environment posed danger. Appearing in a location where a tree once stood would not be particularly pleasant. We also had teams of people who would exhaustively research everything from period clothing, currency, language and customs to architecture and topography. We did everything we could to mitigate the chances of interference.’

  Will rubbed his eyes and ran his hands down his face before dropping them to his sides. ‘Frenz, this is all really interesting,’ he said, ‘but shouldn’t we get moving soon?’

  ‘Not just yet. For now, we’re out of sight. This is the safest place we can be right now. The sun will be up in an hour or so. When rush hour hits, we can use the crowds to cover our movements. Until then, I should finish your crash-course induction into The Office of Time Dissemination.’

  ‘Okay,’ Will said. ‘So, causing one of the world’s most notorious murder sprees aside, the agency used to be all sweetness and light. Pursuit of knowledge and understanding and all that. What changed?’

  ‘Over the years, the agency became divided. A faction inside the agency felt that the past offered insufficient information to improve the future. They felt that the best way to prepare for the future was to look into the future itself.’

  ‘Well sure, makes sense. If you could see what mistakes are made in the future, you’d know to avoid them, right?’

  ‘It might sound beneficial at first, but it’s more complicated than that. Using the Timepiece to travel to the future is dangerous and unpredictable. There’s no reliable data. No way of knowing where we could be sending our agents. No one can be sure what the future even looks like. It could be completely alien and like nothing anyone had ever seen before.’

  Will’s features darkened, something Frenz picked up on immediately.

  ‘William, what is it?’

  ‘I think I know what the future looks like. In our flat, at least.’

  ‘No…’

  Will nodded. ‘When Abigayle used the Timepiece, what I saw was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s only just occurred to me, but when she disappeared, I couldn’t shake the thought that everything looked like it was from another world. I think that’s where Abigayle is. She’s somewhere in the future.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  May 15th, 1984, 04:38

  DI Moss’s service vehicle screeched into the yard to the rear of the police station. The yard was more crowded than usual at this time of the morning, with dozens of additional officers and security staff called in to deal with the commotion that led to a suspect escaping custody. He weaved and swerved the car to avoid people and equipment, both of which scattered in one way or another as he approached. He stopped abruptly in front of the entrance and parked at a steep angle. The door burst open and Moss exploded from the car through a cloud of tyre smoke and proceeded to scale the steps leading up to the station doors in two large bounds. He pushed in through the doors, knocking an unsuspecting clerk to the floor as he stormed past.

  He found his prey in the incident room talking with two oddly dressed men. Mapson’s eyes widened dramatically when he saw Moss enter. He appeared to say something to the two men, who quickly made themselves scarce, leaving through a side door. Moss watched the two men depart and then turned his attention to Mapson, who straightened up and prepared for the coming onslaught.

  ‘Mapson! Do you want to tell me what the fuck is going on?’

  Mapson squirmed uncomfortably and said, ‘I’m afraid it appears that our suspect, William Wells, has managed to escape his holding cell.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that! What I want to know is how he escaped?’

  ‘Well, sir, he was securely locked in his holding cell at 01:08. There he remained while we dealt with apparent gunshots heard from the yard. When officers returned to finish processing him, his cell was empty. And still locked, I might add.’

  ‘Is that it? That’s your explanation? That the dumb Yank we arrested fleeing the scene of a murder is also some kind of Doug fucking Henning?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I think Doug Henning was Canadian.’

  Moss’s mouth curled up into a wicked smile. ‘Finally, something you do know. It’s just a shame it has sod all to do with actual police work!’ Moss’s anger at his subordinate was palpable. ‘Can you tell me anything that’s actually useful? For instance, what was all this shooting about? We’re sure it’s not connected to Wells?’

  ‘It doesn’t appear that way, sir.’

  ‘How does it appear then?’

  ‘It appears that it was nothing more than a car backfiring as it drove past the south wall.’

  Moss gritted his teeth as he seemed to physically recoil with rage. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he looked at Mapson with more disappointment than disdain.

  Mapson unclenched and relaxed slightly before sheepishly asking, ‘Anything of interest at the Wells crime scene, sir? Anything that might help us figure out where he’s heading?’

  Moss fished around in his jacket pocket and pulled out a small, clear plastic bag. A glimmering brass object slid
from one side of the bag to the other as he moved it. Moss held up the bag and said, ‘It might not help us find him, but it’ll help us nail the bastard when we do. He left a shell casing behind. I’d be interested to read the ballistics report on it. I’ve not seen this calibre of bullet for a long, long time.’

  ‘Great news, sir.’

  ‘It is so long as we find Wells.’

  ‘I’ve already issued a city-wide alert.’

  ‘Make it national. I want his picture at every international port. He’s a Yank so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s heading home right now. I want it all locked down. Air, rail and sea.’

  ‘As soon as we have his picture, I’ll get right on it.’

  ‘Use his mug shot. Jesus, Mapson, this shouldn’t be as difficult as you’re making it!’

  Mapson seemed to physically shrink before he spoke again. ‘I know, sir. The problem is that we didn’t actually finish processing Mr. Wells before he was put in his cell.’

  ‘Say that again, Mapson, just so I can be sure I heard you right.’

  ‘We were short-staffed. And there was an incident with a rowdy member of the public. So, we put Mr, Wells in a holding cell while we dealt with it. We didn’t think he was going anywhere –’

  ‘Stop talking,’ Moss said, closing his eyes once again and rubbing his temples before he turned and began to walk out of the room. With his back to Mapson, he said, ‘Get a warrant. Search his apartment and get me a picture. Page me if you hear anything. Anything.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Moss ambled out of the room, shaking his head in frustration. He trudged out of the building and down the steps expecting to find his car parked where he left it. Instead he found an eager young officer bouncing towards him. He smiled enthusiastically and said, ‘Detective Inspector Moss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sir, I had to move your car. This is an exclusion zone right here.’