Time Series: Complete Bundle

by Claire Davon

  ENDING TIME

  By

  Claire Davon

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2015 Claire Davon

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission from the publisher.

  ASIN: B0145J1MKI

  Chapter 1

  We have a world to save.

  Fiona held up the tablet, superimposing it over reality. The Golden Gate Bridge, a magnificent structure of burnt orange and cables stood, stately and grand, seeming as if nothing could ever destroy it.

  The image made a lie of that assumption. On the tablet the Golden Gate lay in piles of rubble, its spires destroyed and jagged, all around it nothing but desolation. What once might have been buildings were under sand and dirt. Nothing living could be seen. It was plausible to think nothing moved anywhere on the planet.

  “No,” Sonder said, coming up behind her. “That’s not right. The angle is different.”

  She frowned at the picture. In this direction the bridge towers were facing the wrong way from the one in the picture. He was right. It didn’t line up.

  The photo was the only tangible item they had from the time after the Event. It was part of the lore of both time traveling groups, circulated to all new recruits of the Guardians or the Liberators. It showed the desolation and destruction after the world ended.

  It was what Fiona had used to jump to the Event and seen the frightening reality for herself. Nothing could survive in that forsaken, howling landscape. The Earth lay in broken pieces, annihilated by something unknown.

  Something she was trying to prevent.

  “You’re right,” she agreed, glancing behind her to see Sonder’s face. “It’s got to be around here somewhere.”

  The tourists bustling around Golden Gate Park paid the couple no attention as they raised and lowered the image. To a casual observer they would look like people with a tablet, taking pictures. It was one of the advantages of the time she had been born in. Things that would have made you look crazy when she was a child were now part of technology.

  She had to be careful to remember that in other times and places. It didn’t take long for machinery to vanish when you went backwards in time. Not too long ago talking on an earpiece was a figment of science fiction writer’s imagination. You would have looked crazy walking down the street speaking to yourself.

  Sonder was good at knowing where to draw the line. Sonder always remembered.

  “It’s got to be around here somewhere.”

  “The only way this picture is possible is if there were some safe place for it to be taken.” Sonder was speaking in low tones, reminding her of what she already knew. It seemed amazing two time travel groups hadn’t linked what now seemed obvious. She had jumped to the Event – post the Event – with Rogald and there was no way for a human to last more than a few minutes. Even with a suit survival would be short term. Therefore there had to be someplace safe, someplace to go. Someplace that had survived the Event.

  “I know, Sonder,” she said, giving him a sidelong look.

  “The tunnels are sealed off,” he said. “If we jump backwards ten years I believe they are less guarded.”

  When Sonder had been following the Commander, he saw the man jumped to San Francisco more than once. There had to be a connection to the Commander and the Event. They were putting the pieces together, but not quickly enough for Fiona’s liking.

  They had done some digging after Sonder trailed the Commander and discovered underneath San Francisco were a series of deserted, fortified military tunnels and garrisons. They were off limits to civilians, but up until a recent TV show, not hard to get into. They were perfect if a mad time traveler were looking to survive an apocalypse. Or cause one.

  “We’ll find it,” she said. She tucked the tablet into a pouch and looked at Sonder. He seemed drawn, as if he’d lost weight. He refused to talk about his crazy idea that he was going to die before the Event, but she knew it ate at him. She had no clue what she would do without him.

  She held out her hand to Sonder, who grasped it. “Have Rogald and Illiria been able to find out anything more about the Commander?”

  He shook his head. “Not that they’ve said.” He pointed to his belt, low on his hips but partially covered by a long tunic he was wearing. He looked like a cross between a hippie and a refugee from a Star Trek convention. In this time and city, even the oddest dressed people got no more than one or two strange glances.

  She couldn’t get used to the idea that the time traveling groups were now helping them. Rogald and Illiria, two people from each group, had been assigned to them. Then again, no matter what the differences between the groups, everyone had a stake in stopping the apocalypse. Anyone sane, that was. She still had trouble seeing the lights of Sonder’s belt blinking, feeling as if at any moment the Guardians were going to come and snatch them.

  She preferred when they had been lolling around in Santorini, gaming lotteries and sipping good wine. Then the Commander had tried to kill them and the younger Rogald, and life changed again. She was continuing to practice her ability to change things. It was a paradigm shift for her to use those powers – Sonder had drummed the idea of not changing things into her well – but after she was able to avert the Tunguska disaster she knew this was what she had to do. She could alter the time stream, and she had to be careful to do it correctly. She had seen the effects when something had altered the meteor strike that flattened the Tunguska landscape to instead burst over New York. The New York of 1908 had a thriving, bustling culture and the out of place meteor had destroyed tens of thousands of lives and shattered the infrastructure. She had learned what can create can also destroy, and hoped that she would always know she was doing the right thing.

  “We’ll figure it out,” she repeated, gripping his hand. “We’ve got time.”

  Time froze, the people around them stopping in their tracks. An ice cream vendor was shouting his wares, his silver cart glinting in the sun. Someone was playing Frisbee and a dog was leaping to snatch the orb out of midair. A light was in the process of changing from yellow to red. There was a car halfway into the intersection, trying to beat the light. People were mugging for the phone and tablet cameras. The days of her childhood of people taking pictures with bulky cameras were gone. Fiona didn’t feel any nostalgia. She could go and visit those eras anytime she wanted to.

  There was a shimmer, and two bodies began forming. Fiona tensed and Sonder went still next to her. Mentally she prepared one of her new safe points, a serene spot in Bali in the 1970s. Palm trees waved and a volcano was visible in the background. She had marked it and practiced it until she could do it by rote. Once she had used London and Brazil as safe jumps but they had long ago been compromised. If Illiria knew about those places it was a sure thing the Commander did as well, even though he was a fugitive from the Guardians now. So she said nothing to anyone, practicing a new one when Sonder slept, keeping this one to herself in case they needed it.

  They both relaxed when Rogald and Illiria formed. She felt Sonder drop his guard. Time continued to stand still and she saw a mugging in process over to her left. Fiona wondered what would happen if she went over there and moved the mugger a few feet. Little things like that didn’t cause any harm, most of the time, but she had to be cautious about what she did. So she let the mugger be, silently apologizing to the woman getting mugged.

  Illiria dropped into today with a pop. Rogald followed. For a moment everything was jewel toned and bright, and time resumed. Fiona wondered if anyone noticed the couple taking pictures was now a quartet. Looking around, she decided nobody was paying them any attention.

  Illiria and Rogald were both dress
ed like locals, as she and Sonder were. It was always a bit of a shock to see them out of uniform, the utilitarian one piece outfits they wore. She envisioned them wearing the functional clothing no matter what they had on.

  “Any news?” Sonder said. Illiria and Rogald’s belts were quiet and slowly blinking. Rogald had made no attempt to hide his, while Illiria had a wide sash tied around her hips.

  Illiria shook her head. “There is no sign of the Commander.” She looked at Fiona. “Have you been able to trace any more anomalies?”

  Fiona shook her head as well. “We’re trying to figure out where this picture was taken. I haven’t found anything new.”

  Illiria looked disappointed, but Fiona shrugged it off. They didn’t care for each other, but they worked together.

  “Why don’t we do it from inside the fortifications?” Rogald asked and they all turned to look at him. He waggled his eyebrows at Illiria and looked smug.

  “We were thinking of figuring out the picture first, but that’s a good idea. Do you know how to get us down there? I’m not sure it will do us any good, but it might be better than this.” Fiona gestured at the tablet, with its shattered picture locked on screen. They were poking at the bear, with no real plan in mind.

  He grinned, rocking on his heels. “I did. We can give it a shot. I found a copy of that TV show, the one that made the government lock down the tunnels. It will give us the coordinates we need.”

  The show had an earnest host who spoke in reverent tones about the underground bunkers below San Francisco. He was given access. Although he did not reveal a location, it didn’t matter to the time traveling group. Fiona didn’t need a location, just an image. They provided ample ones of huge concrete facilities, big enough to house tanks, fortified to withstand nuclear war. They had been long sealed off, but graffiti showed that sealed did not equal no trespassers. After the show had been shown the entrances had been sealed again, and were much harder to access in today’s world.

  Harder for normal humans, but not for Fiona or the time travelers.

  Rogald froze the frame, showing a huge open space with graffiti on the walls, although she didn’t know the writing. Evidence of past transient or teenage occupation was clear in the detritus littering the floor.

  “When was this shot?” Illiria asked, peering at the flat screen on the wall.

  The house was expensive, in a tony part of the city. It seemed as if it would have been safer to have it in a less upscale location, with fewer people. The groups had safe houses on the outskirts of cities, where they could transfer in and out easily. Fiona had been to ones in Hawaii and Florida. Distance was little concern to a time traveler, but there were many other factors that could go wrong. If a person beamed in and was badly coordinated, they ran the risk of running into something else, either human or solid. Those consequences were…not good. Fiona shuddered at the pictures she had insisted she be shown. Sonder hadn’t wanted to, but when she went mulish, he did so. People fused together or entombed in concrete, their look of surprise still evident, graced her nightmares. She knew they had to be careful, and was grateful she hadn’t caused any damage in her early flailings around time and space. Now she was much more practiced, if sometimes no less impulsive. She wanted to do something, to act, and had to force that part of her down.

  “When I was in the 1950s I missed the Internet,” Rogald said. “I wanted to discover it for them, but the tech wasn’t there yet. I looked up the show. This was 2009, and the military shut down the tunnels after that. I asked a bunch of kids with skateboards about the tunnels and got nothing but studied blank stares. I bet they still have a way in, but they’re less likely to use it with more eyes on it. We might be able to get something out of the bums around here, but it’s easier to beam in, don’t you think? We’ve got all we need right here.” He pointed to the frozen screen. The room, so large and empty, echoed in her mind. It would be an easy transfer, so easy any of them could do it.

  “Rogald!” Illiria said with an admonishing look at her lover. They seemed such an odd couple, but in the time they’d been working together she saw how well the two interacted. They may be strange bedfellows, but it worked. “Invent the Internet? You must be kidding. You can’t change the time stream to convenience yourself.”

  “Why not?” he asked with a twinkle. It had the earmarks of an old discussion, one worn down to disparate positions, with no real heat behind the argument. “I’m a Liberator, not a Guardian.” Then he grinned, his eyes twinkling. “But I know that would have been too much of a change, even if I’d had any way of pulling it off. Which I didn’t. I was a kid, more interesting in boards than science. If I had tried you guys would have stopped it.”

  “You’re right about that,” she said, her expression dour but with a tilt of her lips.

  Fiona looked around the small living room. The house had the air of being recently furnished. Fiona decided someone went back in time and secured the house when property was cheaper, and held onto it for this eventuality. She wondered if that had any effect on the time stream. There were so many ways it could go wrong. Like the way Sonder thought he was going to die. Fiona shuddered. She couldn’t lose him.

  “What do we hope to achieve by going in there?” Sonder said, squinting at the screen. “What will it tell us that we can’t see on this show? It’s an installation underground, it’s big and cavernous, and it fits all the markers of something that could survive the Event. It’s got to be where the picture was taken but I don’t know why the Commander would do that. It doesn’t make sense. He or his descendants trigger the Event, and even if he survived why would take a picture? He’s insane, or he wouldn’t be trying to get rid of us to allow the Event to happen.”

  Rogald shrugged. “It happened, or will happen, so he did it for some reason. We need to scope this place out, and see if there’s any evidence he’s been there. It’s perfect.”

  She agreed with Rogald. Fiona looked at Sonder, not knowing why he was arguing the point.

  “Sonder, what aren’t you saying?” she asked. He had blurted out his supposition he didn’t survive their quest to save the planet. Now she had no qualms about airing their discussion in front of the other two.

  He looked at her, his eyes sad. “Nothing Fiona. I agree that this catacomb is a place to start. I don’t like it, though. It feels like a trap. Or maybe a diversion.”

  Fiona thought about The Empire Strikes Back and Leia’s words “Luke, no, it’s a trap. It’s a trap.” God, she was such a geek sometimes.

  She thought when she had altered the already different time stream, saving New York of 1908 from the Tunguska meteor that she was done with self-doubt. Nobody but her and the three people in the room would ever know that had happened, but the four of them did know, and that was enough. Illiria had told her it had become a simulation test in the Guardian systems.

  That was the problem with altering the time stream. She had been worried about the Butterfly Effect, but time was also stubborn. It didn’t like to be changed. It was possible, and it happened – witness Rogald sitting there, a modern man who had wound up spending his young adulthood in the 1950s, but it didn’t like it. The Voice had shown her anomalies, time ruptures that caused havoc and destruction. She had seen so many in her flight back across 3500 years of time and had spent time with Sonder studying them and trying to change them. Now it was time for the real thing.

  “Any chance we can go back and stop the Commander before he escapes from the Guardians?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

  Illiria and Rogald both shook their heads. “He was clever. He did it when we were there so none of us can follow him. We’ll bounce back. He manipulated it from where you froze time in your hometown, Fiona, the second time on the subway tracks. Remember that?”

  Fiona nodded.

  “He’s good. He taught us much of what we know. He used that as a reference point. He must have already known he was going rogue. We have no way of knowing where he went.” She pointed
to the screen. “This is our best lead. We know he is fascinated with San Francisco, and the only thing that makes sense is this.” She looked at the TV image, focusing on the walls. “We can use the graffiti as a marker. We’ll need light.”

  “I followed him there,” Sonder said. “I have to be careful not to overlap.”

  “Let’s begin,” Rogald said.

  “Hold on one moment,” Sonder said, and pulled Fiona to him. He flashed a grin at the others. “We’ll be right back.” Sonder pushed some buttons. Fiona felt the surge and pull of the black descend. Before she could even form the words they were in the dark. She had no idea where they were going, and could not feel the touch of Sonder’s hand. Then they were out, going from full dark to the bright sunlight of the afternoon streaming in behind curtains. Fiona blinked in surprise.

  Chapter 2

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  She recognized the place. It was Sonder’s house, in Sonder’s original time.

  “What are you doing?”

  He grinned. “We’ll be back before they know it.”

  She looked around. His house was non-descript and sparsely decorated, suited to a bachelor in his early twenties. They had only spent a short time there, timing it so they arrived when the pre-Guardian Sonder had gone on a long vacation to Alaska. Part of her longed to stay and explore. The other part had been freaked out at the thought of being in the future. She was much more comfortable in the past. Intellectually she realized to Sonder her present was his distant past, and her distant past was old history to him, but sometimes it was hard to wrap her mind around.

  The dining room blazed with candles. He had set long tapers on the small, cheap modular table and covered it with a tablecloth. More candles flickered in the room, adorning every surface. The table had been set for two, with dinnerware that didn’t match and silverware that had been polished but still looked inexpensive. Flowers also stood on the table, in a vase she thought might have been given to him. She tucked away the knowledge that people still gave flowers in his time.