Second Lives

by Scott K. Andrews

  The noise from the blast site in the street below was frenzied and disorientating - shouts and screams and sirens.

  He could not understand why Dora had walked away from him. She had every justification for killing him, and even if she'd not felt it was right, it was certainly the safest course of action for her to take. Her mercy - no, it was worse than that - her indifference disturbed him.

  He needed to get back home, so he closed his eyes and

  willed himself there. But before he felt the tug of transition he opened his eyes again, alarmed at what he felt.

  Fear.

  But not fear of death, or time travel or anything as mundane as a sword. He realised, to his dismay, that bubbling up in him unbidden was fear of his wife and her reaction to his failure.

  He turned his head and retched, vomiting until his stomach was empty and he was dry-heaving a thin trickle of bile. Reflexively, he wiped his lips on his sleeve, nauseating himself even more as he realised he'd just wiped vomit on the fresh white bandage protecting his severed wrist.

  Grimacing, he closed his eyes again, told himself not to be weak and slipped away in a flurry of fire.

  When he opened his eyes again he was sitting in the driveway of Io Scientific in the dead of night. He cursed his lack of precision - right place, wrong time. But was he off by only a few hours, or more?

  Using his left hand, he clumsily pulled his mobile out of his pocket and waited for it to register a signal. When the 4G icon lit up he dialled his wife. He just had the strength to tell her where he was before he passed out.

  Henry woke some hours later, in bed, in the converted church he and his wife called home.

  (How she'd laughed when she'd realised she could buy and live in a church.

  'Deconsecrated ground? So appropriate for a Godless,' she'd chuckled.)

  He was connected to a drip, which made sense - Quil would have wanted to avoid the attention a hospital admission would have brought. When he turned his head he saw her, asleep in a chair beside his bed. Dressed in a fitted black suit, she looked every inch the powerful tech executive, except for her slumped head and the book open on her lap; they made her look vulnerable.

  He smiled to see her, remembering the long years he had spent sitting beside her bed in the undercroft of his house, reading to her as her burns healed. Now she was repaying the favour, keeping vigil for him.

  He found himself ashamed that he had allowed fear of her to enter his heart for even a second.

  'Darling,' he said softly.

  She jerked awake, momentarily disorientated, but her face filled with concern when her eyes met those of her injured husband. She sat beside him on the bed and took his remaining hand in hers, kissed his fingers, then his lips, and rested her forehead against his.

  'I should have sent more backup,' she said. It took a moment for Henry to realise that she was apologising. She didn't normally do apologies.

  T don't think it would have made any difference, my dear,' he replied. 'Dora is formidable indeed. She dispatched the local mercenaries and sliced off my hand before we even knew she was there. I do not believe a larger force would have taxed her much.'

  'That's as may be,' said Quil. 'But if you had been properly supported . . .'

  Henry shrugged, an awkward, clumsy gesture for a man lying down with his wife holding his only hand.

  'I've underestimated them at every turn,' she said ruefully. 'Her especially, your scullery maid. Was she there - the other me?'

  Henry nodded. 'I had her,' he said, 'until Dora intervened. She made good her escape.'

  Quil sat upright and released Henry's hand.

  'That's it, then,' she said, as if coming to a decision. 'It?'

  'No more messing about,' said Quil. 'We tried to change things, but it didn't work. I tried to get answers, but it didn't work. Enough. It's a sideshow, and it's distracted us long enough. Henceforth we have one priority and one only - we prepare our assault on the future. Our work in this time period is almost complete. I don't think we need another staging post. We can wrap things here and jump straight to 2158. I've waited long enough.'

  She squeezed his hand excitedly.

  'But first,' she said with a disarming, girlish smile. 'You and I need to take a holiday!'

  Henry laughed. 'A holiday? Are you serious?'

  Quil nodded. 'Absolutely, darling,' she said, smiling. 'We can get you a new hand and take in the biggest and best show in the history of the planet.'

  Henry blinked in surprise. 'A new hand?'

  'Of course,' said Quil. 'Child's play to replace an appendage in my time. I sliced Dora's feet off once, but you don't see her hobbling around on crutches, do you!'

  Henry felt a rush of relief. It had not occurred to him that his injury was reversible. Quil noticed his joy and gave a feline smile.

  'I need a husband with two hands,' she said, her eyes hooded and twinkling.

  After a lingering kiss, Henry asked, 'I thought you couldn't go back to your era, at least before the attack, for fear of being recognised.'

  Quil waved away his objection airily. 'I shall wear a chameleon shroud. We can explore the Paris Expo undetected.'

  'The Paris Expo?'

  'The greatest exhibition in the history of the world, if you believe the hype,' said Quil, in a tone of voice that implied she really, really didn't. 'A gaudy show to distract Earth's population from the clone fleet bearing down on their fragile little planet. But I expect it will amuse us for a few days. Shall we go?'

  Henry nodded.

  'Good, sleep now,' said Quil as she kissed his forehead. Then she returned to her seat, opened her book and began to read to him as he closed his eyes and was lulled to sleep by her voice.

  Part Three

  Plan B

  Peyvand saw her husband and son walking away from her and felt her feet turn to lead. What was she doing? How could she run and leave everyone here to die? But how could she betray her son and his friends, either? Pier brain froze, she couldn't move, couldn't decide, couldn't think. Some deeply rational part of her insisted that the last twenty-four hours had been nothing but a dream. Time travel? That was insane.

  Maybe that was it - maybe she was going mad.

  She saw the black car moving through the market with its windows blacked out but it didn't register as a threat. She just stared at it numbly.

  She heard her name. No, not her name; someone was calling her Mum. Was that Kaz? How could he be behind her when she was watching him walk away in the opposite direction? She opened her mouth to reply and turned towards the sound and then—

  A touch on her shoulder, a blinding flare of red fire, deafening noise, a wave of hot air and then a strange feeling of weightlessness, as if she was falling fast through solid ground.

  A part of her recognised the sensation as time travel and she was shocked back into herself, her shock-fuelled fugue state shattering as she fell.

  She had no sense of anyone else travelling with her, not like last time, and she had time to wonder where Kaz was before the darkness began to lift and an object slowly faded into existence in front of her.

  As Peyvand re-entered consecutive time, she found herself standing in the undercroft of Sweetclover Hall, staring down the barrel of a gun.

  'We need a Plan B,' said Dora, firmly.

  Kaz didn't know whether he was impressed or dismayed by her declaration.

  The hospital room was flooded with morning sunlight, streaming in through the picture window. Dora lay in bed, her stump-end legs hidden beneath the sheets. Her replacement feet were nearly finished growing in a tank somewhere, and the surgery to attach them would take place either tomorrow or the day after. A week's rehab would be all that was required and then she'd be good as new, but inactivity did not sit well with Dora. She coped less well than Jana had after the operation to sew up her knife wound; at least she had been willing to read some books to pass the time. Dora mostly lay there brooding.

  Kaz was glad of the respite.
He had been wanting to find some time to get his head clear again, and overseeing Dora's recuperation was the perfect excuse. Dora wanted him to go back to the bubble and update Kairos and Jana, but Kaz

  didn't see the point of splitting up and had resisted, couching it as a selfless act - which it was, kind of.

  Kaz spent his days walking in the city park that surrounded the clinic. He didn't venture into town; he didn't want to be around people. Balmy weather, quiet, time to think - it was perfect. He kept replaying his final moments on Mars, seeing the sky turn red with fire. He had no idea what could have caused it - a bomb, perhaps? Maybe one of the Godless ships in orbit had targeted the nuclear reactors? Whatever it had been, he thought he now knew what the tragedy Kairos had hoped to avoid was - Barrettown had been destroyed, he was sure of it.

  When Dora first regained consciousness she explained how things had gone wrong - the accidental brush of a finger was all it had taken. For days she sat and stared at the wall, refusing to speak further. Kaz became worried about her mental health. He knew the signs of depression and in his judgement Dora would have stayed in bed even if she could walk. She seemed paralysed, physically and mentally, by her failure. It was as if she had never even considered the possibility of screwing up. He spent a day being resentful of the fact that she seemed to have taken this failure so hard when she'd basically shrugged off his mother's death, but he couldn't sustain his anger in the face of her melancholy.

  He'd sat and asked about her family, her training with Garcia, her plans for the future, but he'd only received one- word answers. Eventually he gave up and just sat with her in companionable silence, being there in case she needed him, letting her know by his presence that she was not alone, but not imposing himself in any way. Whatever peace she needed to make, she would have to negotiate it with herself.

  All the while, in a laboratory, her flesh, muscle and tendons grew around a framework of force-grown bone as her new feet took shape.

  Kaz had timed their arrival in Kinshasa perfectly. They'd slipped into being only moments after their younger selves had departed for the quantum bubble. If this surprised or alarmed the staff, they gave no sign of it. Kaz wondered what else went on at this clinic, in the other wings.

  Kaz sat and thought about his mother, about how knowing she was dead had been easier than not knowing whether she was alive.

  He thought about his father, about how he had endured the post-Beirut years of Kaz's anger and pain, had tried his best to be a role model, a carer and a confidant to his sullen son, even though he knew he was going to fail. Returning to Poland and making things right with him seemed ever more urgent.

  He thought about Jana. Weird, manipulative, clever, funny, stroppy Jana, the girl he'd started to fall for but who he now realised was not a future partner at all, but a present friend, a friend who didn't do friendship and seemed to have been as surprised by her feelings for him as he was by their lack of romantic intent. He felt a surge of affection for her when he remembered how crestfallen she'd looked when she'd told him she was gay, and a flush of embarrassment when he recalled his clumsy, knee-jerk reaction. He had to make things right with her, too. Even as he took advantage of this hiatus in excitement he could hear her lightly mocking voice upbraiding him for running away yet again.

  Why did he feel such loyalty to Dora and Jana anyway? They were just some random girls who'd literally dropped into his life. He didn't owe them anything. He was his own man, he could go when and wherever he wanted. What was stopping him jumping away right now? Dora's hospital bills were paid and she'd be able to go her own way as soon as she was fit. But even as he thought this, he dismissed it as unworthy of himself. He couldn't pinpoint when it had happened, but Dora and Jana were as much his family as his parents, that was all there was to it.

  On the tenth day of Dora's bed rest, Kaz's reverie was interrupted when she spoke her first words in days: 'We need a Plan B.'

  It took Kaz a few moments to focus on what she'd said and formulate a response to such an unexpected outburst.

  'Seriously?' he eventually replied, deliberately responding as if a paused conversation had just started again, not making a big deal of her days of silence. 'What would be the point? Mars was a disaster. Literally, a disaster. Aren't we done? Why do we need to seek Quil out again? Why can't we just get on with our lives? What makes her our problem? I know you and Jana agreed that if we failed on Mars we'd go back to 2014 and kill her. And I know I signed up to that. But . . .' he shrugged and shook his head, unable to articulate the pointlessness of such an action.

  'Only a week or so ago you told me you still wanted to keep trying,' Dora said, agitated and annoyed. 'You said, and you were right, that if we could stop Quil being blown back into the past somehow, maybe we could still prevent your mother dying. That's what you said.'

  Kaz lowered his head, ashamed.

  'Yes. Yes I did,' he admitted. 'And the next day I wised up. I want to get you well, hook up with Jana in the bubble, if that's where she went, then leave all of this behind. I owe my dad a visit and an apology. Then I think we should turn our backs on Quil and everything to do with her.'

  Dora tutted and turned her face away. 'You mean hide,' she said. 'Find some backwater in time and be anonymous.'

  'Yes,' agreed Kaz. 'That's exactly what I mean. Let's get on with the business of living actual lives. Find a home, settle there, build something normal. We're not soldiers, we're just normal people.'

  'Speak for yourself,' said Dora darkly.

  Kaz bit his lip and thought carefully before speaking again. She'd come out of her fugue in combative mood and he didn't want to make it worse, but at the same time, now she was engaging again, he wanted to try to understand what was going on with her beneath the alternate silence and aggression.

  'Dora,' he said gently. 'You're not a soldier. You never were. You're a girl whose world fell apart in the most horrible way. Some people would have cried for a year, some would have eaten all the cake in England, some would have been able to let it all just roll off their backs. But you decided to turn yourself into a ninja. Someone invisible and silent.'

  'And lethal,' said Dora, not making eye contact.

  'That too,' agreed Kaz. 'But faceless, anonymous. I liked the Dora I met when she was fourteen. She was a good kid. Out of her depth, but brave. She had no secrets. I could look at her face and know instantly what she was thinking. She was a person, Dora. Courageous and scared and funny and angry and full of love for her family. You are none of these things. You pretend them sometimes, when we're all together, in between crises. But your smile is not real, your laugh is not real, your anger is not real.'

  'I made myself what I needed to be,' said Dora quietly.

  'You don't need to be anything, Dora,' said Kaz. 'You need to be a person. You lost yourself. I hoped all the time you were spending back in 1645, with your family, would help you come to terms with things. But—5

  T didn't go back,' Dora whispered, staring fixedly at the bedspread.

  'What?' asked Kaz.

  'To Pendarn,' said Dora. 'I haven't been back there, not since I dropped them off. I left and I haven't been back.'

  'In God's name, why?' asked Kaz, astonished. 'Where were you going all those times you left this clinic when Jana was recuperating?'

  'Nowhere special,' said Dora, finally looking up at Kaz. 'A few days here, a few days there. I went to the theatre a lot. Did a lot of training. Found this great nightclub, Studio 54. Did a lot of dancing.'

  Kaz felt overwhelming sympathy for Dora. She had been just as lost as he had, maintaining a facade for the people around her, ignoring the emptiness beneath.

  'I thought, by becoming this soldier, this warrior, I would become a new person,' said Dora. 'That's what I wanted, more than anything else. To not be me anymore. Maybe I was too successful.'

  She lapsed back into silence, and Kaz resumed his patient vigil.

  It was a bittersweet experience for Henry, coming home to Sweetclo
ver Hall. He still owned it, or rather, Io Scientific did, but it was no longer his home. He pushed through the old front doors, kicking up dust and brushing away cobwebs. He knew his wife and some employees had already come this way and were at work deep beneath his feet, but apart from a few footprints in the dust, the house could have been empty for a hundred years.

  He paused in the entrance hall, looking towards the drawing room where Quil had proposed to him, down on one knee with her arms spread wide, laughing and twinkle- eyed at all the seventeenth-century taboos she was breaking.

  The main staircase stood before him. A few steps had rotted away and fallen through, so he was not able to climb to his old bedroom, or revisit the room where his father had died.

  He walked to the cellar door and stood looking down at the old stone steps where he had first seen his wife, lying

  broken and fading, so long ago. Even now, the undercroft gave him a chill of remembered childhood fear as he descended the steps and made his way along the brick corridor that led to the main chamber.

  He passed the door that led to the icehouse passage, built on a whim of his father's but abandoned to spiders and rust almost immediately, and then entered the main chamber. All trace of the technology that Quil had plundered from the future and brought back to the 1640s was gone. It was now just a big empty space. He stood there for a long while, remembering happier, simpler times before, with a reluctant sigh, heading for the lift that would take him down even further.

  Henry did not like visiting the cavern beneath his house. It was cold and dark and wet. Sounds echoed eerily whenever anyone moved or spoke. And it was lined with thousands of cocoons, each holding a perfect monster.

  Quil had explained the cavern's origin to him when she first brought him down here. In 2158 the warhead of the timebomb blew a huge crater in the ground where his house was (would be) and then it had travelled back in time, blown back thousands of years until it arrived, exactly where it had landed; which was, of course, at that point in time deep underground. The final discharge of energy from the asteroid had burned a perfectly spherical void in the rock. The warhead had lain there ever since, travelling forward in time in its cavern home. Eventually it would meet its younger self and be obliterated.