by RR Haywood
They didn’t even ask her name. She felt a bit strange at that. Like she wanted them to ask. She almost told them, but held back.
All of those thoughts came and went in the five minutes it took to get into bed and fall asleep. Now she snores in a sleep deeper than she has had for a long time.
Safa sleeps. Harry sleeps. Ben was reading for a few minutes, but now sleeps with the book dropped on his chest. Doctor Watson snores loudly. Like a walrus having a fight with a whale.
Miri does not sleep. There is work to do, and she doesn’t sleep so good these days. These days? She snorts to herself in the shadows of the alley in Berlin. She hasn’t slept soundly for years. Many years.
She thinks about the Blue and how the British government tracked it. The fact the staging area was attacked means someone found it. How?
It was while debriefing Roland that she found out about the mass brawl in the bunker that resulted in several hired men being killed and several more being seriously injured. It took all day, but eventually she was able to witness Malcolm and Konrad loading the injured men into a van.
Reading the newspapers taught her the world descended into more private wars, and private wars need mercenaries. Mercs get injured the same as soldiers, so a smaller industry flourished, with private hospitals that give treatment for cash. Berlin has two private hospitals, and she now stands in the shadows of an alley across the road from the one closest to the staging area.
This kind of work used to be time-consuming and gritty. Weeks or months would sometimes be given to backtracking to find trails of evidence. Having a time machine certainly makes it easier. The concept of time. The ability to see what is ahead and plan accordingly, and for someone like Miri that is a powerful thing.
The sound of engines brings her attention fully back to the clinic over the road. Two private ambulances stop outside the brightly lit private hospital. Five men dressed in the green jumpsuits of paramedics disembark and chat noisily as they stretch, as though from a long journey. One of them takes a tablet and starts checking the vehicles over, looking in the back, overtly doing a standard equipment check.
She lifts the single-lens, military-grade sight-magnification device to watch as the man holding the tablet saunters into the clinic towards the pretty woman behind the reception desk. They talk for a while. They start flirting. Subtle and carefully done.
The other four paramedics go into the clinic. The one with the tablet stays with the woman at the desk. A short while later a different exit door opens and six men in hospital gowns are helped to the two ambulances. They are hurt, and move as if they are drugged or medicated.
Miri switches the view to the man at the desk and the way he is leaning towards the woman, who in turn is making eyes back at him. Miri waits. Holding the view. One of the other paramedics goes in and says something. The man at the desk turns, and after a few seconds walks out with some lingering smiles at the receptionist.
The two ambulances drive off. Miri watches the receptionist use a smartphone. Sending a message? Something in her manner suggests she is trying to hide what she is doing. The way she glances up and round, but keeps the phone low before swiping it off and going about her duties.
Miri lowers the lens and thinks. The man Harry lifted up on the middle floor of the house was the man at the desk. She recognised a couple of the others too.
Several factors come to mind. The first brings a surge of irritation that Roland led the British government to them. He might as well have opened the door and invited them in. How the British government got wind of the device in the first place is now a moot point. They know it exists, and if they know, then you can be damn sure the US, Russia and China also know. The Brits had no right to try and deal with it on their own. They should have sought help. The incident in Berlin would have focussed attention. The attack on Roland’s house would have done it too, and the two incidents were only a couple of hours apart in real time.
If the world’s superpowers even suspect the Brits have a time travel device, it could trigger a nuclear war. Heck, this very thing could be what causes the world to be destroyed by 2111.
Her mind processes the new information and applies it to everything else she already knows to gain the path ahead. There is always a path ahead. There is always a way through it. That’s her job. To find it then fix the problem.
She pauses before returning to the Blue. Enjoying the buzz inside. She’s back in the game and at the very front. This is her pitted against the whole world. Her mind against everyone else’s. There are no rules now either. No politicians saying what can and can’t be done. No budget restrictions. No policy demands. No protocols. This is the game, but with every rule stripped away, and it feels glorious. She even has a team. She thought they were inept, but how they handled the attack in Cavendish Manor was sublime. With training, her team could be exceptional pawns to deploy and use. They have a high moral code, and that can be manipulated.
One thing is damn sure. She has to remain in total control, and that means Roland can never be let near the Blue or the team ever again.
Sixteen
Night follows day follows night. It always has. It always will. The hours of darkness finally recede to a new dawn of a new day, and Safa Patel comes wide awake with the blink of an eye and the realisation she hasn’t exercised for six days now.
‘Get up, beardy, we’ll train before breakfast.’ She bangs on Harry’s door, pausing to listen to the gruff affirmations coming from inside.
‘Mr Ryder? This is your fuck-early wake-up call . . .’
‘Piss off.’
‘Get up. We’ll train before food.’
‘Said piss off.’
She cracks the door open to see him pulling the covers over his head and snuggling further down the bed.
‘Safa.’ His muffled voice comes through the blanket. ‘Safa? I know you’re stood there . . . Piss off . . . Seriously . . . Fuck’s sake,’ he mumbles, pushing the cover from his head to see her grinning. Weak daylight behind her from the window in the middle room. Dressed in knickers and a vest top. Her hair tousled. Her teeth white. He blinks, squints then groans to hide the bad thought that popped into his head. ‘Okay, I’ll get up in a minute.’
‘Do you like Miri?’
‘What!?’
‘Miri. Do you like her?’
‘Safa, I literally just opened my eyes . . . Yes. Yes, she seems fine.’
‘I like her. Do you trust her?’
‘Oh, my god, Safa . . . Yes. Yes, I trust her.’
‘What about Tango Two?’
‘Huh?’
‘She seems alright, doesn’t she?’
‘What were you expecting?’ Ben asks with only one eye half-open.
‘Should I ask her if she wants to train?’
‘What the actual fuck?’ Ben blinks as the bad thought pops into his head again, and wishes she wouldn’t lift her top to scratch her back like that. ‘If I say yes, will you go away?’ He drops his forehead on to the pillow, making a point of not looking. ‘She is a prisoner though, Safa,’ he adds.
‘Yeah, but the bad guys tried to kill her . . . Okay, forget it, just an idea.’
‘Ask Miri.’
‘Miri? You awake? It’s Safa . . . Miri? Miri?’ Safa stops knocking and calling out to lean closer to the door and listen.
‘Help you?’ Miri says, standing in the doorway to her office, fully dressed and already holding a notepad and pen.
Safa spins round, stunned that someone wakes up earlier than her. ‘Can the prisoner train with us?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because . . . What?’
‘Yes.’
‘She can?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, just like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did they try and kill her?’
‘Working on it.’
‘Er.’ Safa pauses, expecting to have to argue. ‘She seems alright, doesn’t she?’ she adds in a rare show of deep tho
ught.
‘She is a prisoner,’ Miri says bluntly.
‘Yeah, but, you know, seems okay for a prisoner,’ Safa says. ‘You training with us?’
‘No.’
‘Why not? We’ll go light. We’re all still a bit sore from . . .’
‘No. Anything else, Safa?’
‘Er . . . nope, don’t think so. We’re running out of food.’
‘I will re-supply today. Anything else, Safa?’
‘Malc and Kon . . . When are we . . .’
‘Goodbye, Safa,’ Miri says, walking back into her office. ‘The pistols are now secured in the last set of rooms by the exit door. I have fitted a clasp with a combination padlock. The number is 01899.’
‘That’s my collar number,’ Safa says. ‘In the police . . .’
‘I know. Enjoy your training.’
‘But . . .’
‘Train, Miss Patel. Train hard. I need your team fit and ready for deployment.’
‘Roger,’ Safa says, sensing she is being told to piss off.
Tango Two comes awake suddenly, the same rapid surge from deep slumber to wide awake in a few seconds. She sits bolt upright in bed as the knocking comes again.
‘Coming in,’ Safa says, pushing the door open to look at Tango Two. ‘Fancy training?’
‘What?’ Tango Two whispers, then coughs to clear her throat. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘Training. We’re doing phys. You fancy it? Nothing heavy. We’re still sore.’
‘Right,’ Tango Two says, staring with the look of someone who has come awake too quickly. ‘I don’t have a bra.’
Safa nods. ‘Bouncy boobs, yeah, that’s not funny. We threw yours away. Had blood on it. Er, I’ve got a spare one, it might stretch a bit . . . Any good?’
‘Er . . . yes. Yes, thank you.’
‘Sports bra, so it’ll be stretchy anyway.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll go get it.’
‘Okay,’ Tango Two says as Safa marches off, pulling the outer door closed behind her. This is very good. The bond is already starting to show. She suspects counter-cultivation is underway, but that’s fine. Spending time with them is exactly what she needs to do. Another thought pops into her head as she rushes into the bathroom. Safa was a police officer, Ben investigated insurance and Harry was in the Second World War. How can they be trained to a high level of counter-cultivations and manipulation?
It doesn’t matter. It means she gets time with Ben and Harry, and she needs to maximise that opportunity. Should she shower? Does she smell? She sniffs at her armpits, and has a shower.
‘OUT HERE,’ Safa calls through the door. ‘ON THE CHAIR.’
‘Thank you,’ Tango Two calls back. She washes, dries off, then winces as she puts the still wet knickers on. She washed them in the sink last night and they’re still damp. As she puts the grey tracksuit bottoms on, she realises the wet knickers will make the material of the trousers wet, and damp shows on grey cotton too easily. She frets for a second. Not wishing to be seen with wet knickers under her bottoms. Should she take the knickers off? But then she would be naked under the bottoms. She could ask for another pair and suspects being given only one set of underwear is part of the strategy. To ask for something leaves her open for leverage. She will have to suffer and try to look as good as she can with what she has.
She scowls at the bitterness that thought leaves in her mind. Mother tried to kill her. These people are being decent and nice. Is she worried about her appearance solely for the prospect of honey-trapping Ben or Harry?
Shit. No shoes. The bra is bloody tight too. She squeezes into it, giving what thanks she can for it being Lycra and stretchy. Oh, actually, it makes her boobs look huge. That’s a good thing, plus she can honestly say it’s not her fault as the bra is too small.
With a hundred thoughts in her head, and for the first time since joining the British Secret Service, Tango Two feels like a twat. Her boobs are squashed, her arse and groin are wet and she doesn’t have any shoes. She frets and berates herself as she waits for Safa to come back, then realises, with her mouth dropping open, that the main door isn’t closed.
She peers out into the corridor. Bending forward from the waist to look down. ‘Hello?’
‘COME DOWN,’ Safa shouts.
Tango Two blinks. Ponders for a few seconds, then waddles down the corridor with one hand plucking at her wet knickers through the jogging bottoms and the other tugging at the bra under the vest top. She has to look as good as she can with what she has. Switch on and work now. ‘Er . . . hi?’ she says meekly.
‘Morning,’ Ben says, standing in the middle room with one foot on a chair as he bends over tying his laces. He looks half-asleep with his voice still deep from slumber.
‘Morning,’ Harry says, walking from his room and glancing at her wet jogging bottoms and chest bulging through the vest top in a polite avert-the-eyes-quickly way that makes Tango Two actually blush and want the ground to open up.
‘I am so sorry, but I don’t have any . . .’ Tango Two says as Safa strides out from her room holding a pair of trainers.
‘Will they fit? Miri’s going for supplies today, so we’ll get you some gear.’
‘Ben,’ Safa snaps.
‘What?’ Ben asks, looking up at her.
‘Stretch properly, you’ll pull a muscle.’
‘I am.’
‘You’re not.’
Ben stretches properly, grimacing at the pain in his hamstrings.
‘Better,’ Safa says, almost bent double as she forces her chest into her knees.
Tango Two stretches. Bent over the same as the others to ease the muscles in the backs of their legs. It’s so beautiful out here. The sun just rising to bathe the world in glorious orange hues. Noises screech from somewhere above the hillside. A thunderous racket of wood snapping, then it goes silent.
‘That happens,’ Safa says, seeing her looking round while bent double.
The gun containers are gone. They must have been locked away somewhere.
‘Shoes fit okay?’ Ben grunts the question out, red-faced from bending over.
‘Bit tight, but fine, thank you,’ Tango Two says. The tips of her toes are pushing against the end of the shoes, and if she runs any distance she’ll create blisters on her heels from not wearing socks. A wet arse. Squashed boobs and feet, and she’s looking across at Ben Ryder and Harry Madden while Safa Patel is telling them to stand up slowly.
They stretch each muscle group. Going slowly and carefully, easing into each stretch. Tango Two knows she isn’t the only one still a bit sore from the fight they had. The big fight. The one where she was fighting against these three. That one.
‘. . . off if you want,’ Safa says.
‘Pardon?’ Tango Two asks, realising Safa was talking to her, and instantly chastising herself for the lack of focus.
‘Shoes, take them off if they’re too tight. You’ll get blisters and fuck your toes up.’
‘Er . . .’
‘We’re only staying out here,’ Safa says, nodding at the side of the bunker.
‘I, er . . . I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.’
‘You are very polite,’ Harry says to her, pulling his right arm across his body with his left hand digging into the back of his right elbow.
‘I, er . . . Thank you.’
‘She is polite,’ Ben says by way of conversation. ‘Safa’s not polite,’ he adds by way of observation.
‘No,’ Harry says.
‘Fuck you,’ Safa says mildly.
Tango Two grins. She didn’t want to grin, but she does. She coughs to hide the giggle that suddenly threatened to come out.
‘You okay?’ Ben asks at the strange sound she just made.
‘Fine,’ she smiles at Ben, then remembers Harry is the one she should be flirting with and switches to smile at him instead.
‘You okay, miss?’ he asks at seeing the strange smile.
‘Fine.’ She stops smilin
g.
‘We’ll run for a bit, then stretch again,’ Safa says.
Tango Two follows the others to the imaginary start line, which is marked by the corner of the bunker.
‘Just gently,’ Safa says, jogging on at a very gentle pace.
She stays with them. Jogging lightly up and down. Her toes hurt. She wants to take the shoes off. She views the ground for debris that could harm her feet, but sees nothing. What about insects? Does the Cretaceous period have insects? What about poisonous plants? She reaches the start line, about-turns with the others and runs back up. Nope. The shoes really have to come off.
‘Limping,’ Safa says, jogging next to her. ‘Take ’em off.’
They all stop as she bends, pulls out the laces and places the trainers neatly to the side.
‘Ready?’ Safa asks.
‘Yes, thank you.’
She stays with them. Jogging lightly up and down and feeling the spongy foliage under her bare feet with the instant relief from not having her toes cramped.
The pace builds up steadily. Nothing frantic. Nothing too fast. Just easy. Safa dictates the pace, and from that, Tango Two begins to understand Safa is actually very good at this. She knows they all got hurt, so adapts to allow for it.
It feels nice to be moving, and that air is so pure. She glances down the valley side then at the sky and runs up and down. She starts breathing more heavily, and hears Ben and Harry do the same. As the pace increases, so Tango Two starts to sweat lightly, and again notices the same with the two men. Safa isn’t even breathing hard, she looks as fresh as when they walked out. Tango Two has a high level of fitness, but Safa must be in another league.
‘I’m going to push a bit more, but stop if you want,’ Safa calls across. She reaches the start line, about-turns and applies some power to her legs. The others follow suit. Keeping pace. At the next turn, she goes a bit faster. Not sprinting, but fast enough to get their arms pumping. To the last, they each feel the pleasure of the motion. Lungs expanding. Legs thrumming. Heads clearing.
‘I’m done,’ Harry says as he slows at the start line. His head still tender from the battering Alpha gave him.
