TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1

by Scott K. Andrews

  He sat back in his chair and took another sip of tea. No, it was too late to second-guess himself now, way too late. He’d made his decision, he had to abide by it.

  He watched on the monitor as the boy stepped across the threshold of the great house and was swallowed by the waiting darkness.

  2

  Dora cracked open the heavy oak kitchen door, poked her head out into the stone-flagged, wood-panelled corridor, and listened intently.

  The silence was absolute. Again she doubted her ears, but as she was about to withdraw she heard a soft rustle of fabric and a low moan. It was hard to be sure, but it sounded like a woman.

  She felt a thrill of fear.

  In the village they spoke of Lord Sweetclover in deferential tones of respect. No one had a bad word to say about him. He was good-natured, front and centre at all the big festivals of the year, everything a lord of the manor should be. True, there had been some concern when his father died a few years back, rumours that the young master was wayward and wanton, but he had assumed the role without complaint and had done nothing to bring disgrace to the district.

  But here in the house there were whisperings amongst the staff. No one knew Dora well enough yet to confide any details to her, but there’d been enough knowing winks and slow, meaningful nods of the head from the stable boy, gardener and kitchen maid. She was aware of an undercurrent of disapproval and caution. The master, she had surmised, was not as lily white as everyone believed; he had just decided to be more discreet once he had assumed the title and its responsibilities.

  She had seen him only twice, when she’d taken platters into the dining room. He was a tall man in his mid-thirties, dark haired with a hint of grey at the temples; heavy browed, with deep brown eyes and a fine, square jaw. Somehow all the fine features, which should have rendered him rakish and handsome, failed to fit together as they should. The impression he gave was of solidity rather than panache.

  Still, he was unmarried and Dora, unworldly though she was, was not entirely naïve. She had little doubt that he rarely took to his bedchamber alone unless he desired the solitude. Dora thought it likely that he took liberties with the kitchen maid, probably Mary, the coach master’s daughter, and possibly even Cook.

  However, he did not flaunt his conquests, and nobody seemed to find his behaviour outrageous enough to require their departure. He was lord of the manor, and rank had its privileges.

  Now here stood Dora, in a dark corridor lit only by the candle she held, hearing the moans of what sounded like a woman in pain emanating from the open door of the undercroft.

  Her every instinct was to close the door and go back to the baking. This was not her business and it could only lead to trouble. Imagine her parents’ disappointment and shame if she were sent back to the village in disgrace, dismissed for prying into the affairs of her betters.

  On the other hand, they would not want her to stay in a house serving a master who might place Dora’s virtue, or even her life, in danger. She held the lowest position within the household. If the master were to take a fancy to her and drag her down into his undercroft to share the fate of the poor woman whose moans now disturbed the silence of the house, she would be powerless to stop him.

  She had to find out. It was probably her imagination running away with her, but it had never so much as strolled before so she was quite surprised to find it running, especially at this ungodly hour.

  Maybe Cook had got up early, gone down there for some wine and slipped on the stairs.

  That was it. Only explanation that made any sense.

  Satisfied that she had hit upon the truth, Dora stepped confidently through the undercroft door and peered down the steps.

  And screamed.

  The security guard was suddenly aware that he was not alone. A tiny creak, the softest of rustling, a gentle shift in the lean of the Portakabin.

  ‘Hello,’ said a soft voice in his ear. ‘I wondered how you were going to do this.’

  The security guard swivelled in his chair. The figure before him was short and slender, clothed entirely in black, even the head and face. Only a small slit allowed him to see his visitor’s eyes. The handle of a sword poked up behind their shoulder. Ninja-chic.

  ‘I applied for a job,’ he said. ‘Seemed the best way. Keep a low profile. Hacked the system, got myself posted here. Sat and waited. It’s been fun, if I’m honest. I’ve actually lived in one time and place for three months. No one hunting me. I lived a normal life for a while. Followed a soap opera. Even dated a bit.’ He slapped his thigh, as if providing a full stop. ‘Over now, though. He’s here. It’s starting.’ He considered the black-clad figure curiously. ‘Surprised to see you. Checking up on me?’

  ‘Just passing through. Making sure things go as they should.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said the security guard with a small laugh. ‘You’re my back-up.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  The shadowy figure leaned forward to read the security guard’s name badge. ‘Steve. Hmm.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I never took you for a Steve.’

  The visitor turned to the screens. Kaz was visible on one of them, picking his way through the overgrown garden to the hall. ‘So. Everybody’s on their way.’

  ‘He tripped a pressure alarm about five minutes ago,’ said Steve. ‘A team’s already en route.’

  ‘I’ll get out of your hair, then. Good luck.’ The black-clad visitor stepped out of the Portakabin and was swallowed by the night.

  ‘You too,’ said Steve, more to himself than to his already departed guest.

  Then he put the kettle on, made another cup of tea, took a sip, thought again, tipped it out the door onto the soft earth, pulled a small flask out of his jacket pocket, poured a large measure of whiskey into the paper cup, drank it in one, then poured another and resumed his seat, ready to watch the fireworks.

  Jana was expecting a bone-shattering impact and a long silence. Instead, a second or two into her fall, she felt a tug upwards. Her first thought was that it was a freak gust of wind momentarily slowing her descent, but the tug increased. It felt as if the gravity that pulled her down was fighting an opposite force that wanted to pull her skywards.

  She opened her eyes and gasped. She was hovering in mid-air, surrounded by a halo of coruscating bright red sparks, like some kind of human firework.

  Instinctively Jana activated her ENL chip, intending to scan the quantum physics database for anything that could explain the impossible phenomenon that hovered above her. The chip at the base of her skull responded with a treatise on eating habits during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century.

  Jana was so surprised by this that it took her a moment to realise that the world around her was darkening, as if a huge cloud was blocking out the sun.

  She hadn’t made a sound as she’d fallen to certain death, but she screamed in terror as the darkness deepened and she felt her body being crushed by forces too strong to resist. She only stopped screaming when blackness entirely filled her sight, blotting out the sky, and then …

  She was lying on a hill, cool grass in the crisp morning air. Bright blue sky, birdsong, the buzz of insects. She heard a noise above her so she sat up and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Squinting, she could see a plane – no, a missile, a huge missile – arcing down from heaven, trailing fire and smoke, screaming towards the Earth and then …

  Hot, bright sun, sound of surf, dry air in her nose, sand underfoot, the eyes of a lizard regarding her with listless, heat-sated lethargy. It flicked out its tongue at her. Unsure what to do, she flicked her tongue out in response and then …

  In a crowd, jostled and shoved by hot sweaty bodies. Smell of stale beer and cigarettes. Loud noise, almost deafening, screech of electric guitar, flash of coloured lights, big screens above her displaying a man in a gold lamé suit smoking a cigar and wearing red plastic devil horns, and then …

  A clean white room, sterile and s
ilent but for the soft hum of air conditioning and electric lights. A door flung open and a tall, fat man in a white lab coat running towards her, shouting, ‘Take my hand, quickly, take my hand.’ Reaching out to the man and then …

  A street. Ruined buildings to her left and right, sound of gunfire and explosions. Impossible butterscotch sky. A tank, hovering above the rubble, floating towards her through the smoke. A hand on her shoulder, turning to face … herself, with a gash across her forehead and blood in her eyes. ‘You’ll be all right,’ she told herself. ‘I can’t tell you how or why, but you’ll be all right. I promise. Oh, and—’ Then …

  Freefall …

  Dora had witnessed plenty of awful things in her life.

  There was a man in her village with a gaping wound on his neck that had oozed pus since before she could remember. Her grandfather had a tumour on his face when he passed away, as big as his nose. Her younger brother had died after a tiny cut on his leg had become infected, and an infection had taken him from the world in the slowest, cruellest way possible.

  Dora had seen all these things and accepted them as normal. Deformity and sickness did not disturb her. She had a strong stomach.

  But the woman on the undercroft stairs wasn’t sick, she was ruined.

  She was covered in terrible burns. Her clothes had melted into her skin, and one of her legs hung down over the stone steps at an angle that told of numerous broken bones. She was barely breathing.

  But that wasn’t the worst.

  Her right arm reached out towards Dora as though grasping for aid, but the other was withered and bent, and it was blurry, faded, as if seen through water. One second it was there, the next it was transparent, then it was back again.

  The woman was not only entirely beyond repair, she also wasn’t entirely there.

  Dora had no idea what to do. She couldn’t imagine what could have happened to this poor woman, or how she had found her way to the undercroft. It was plain that no physician could save her.

  If she shouted for help, the master may come running. But what if he had done this terrible thing? And what, then, might he do to her?

  She stood in the doorway, looking down at the woman, frozen. Then she heard the noise of a door opening upstairs, and footsteps on the landing above her. Her scream had woken the house.

  ‘Dora,’ gasped the injured woman, as if squeezing out the syllables was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  Dora felt helpless. She peered more closely, trying to reconstruct the ravaged face. Was it someone she knew? The footsteps above reached the top of the main staircase.

  Dora scurried down the undercroft steps until she reached the prone figure.

  ‘Mistress, pardon me, but what can I do to help?’

  The woman reached her hand up and grasped at the air.

  ‘Hand …’ she wheezed.

  So Dora, eager to give comfort to the dying woman, fought back her revulsion and reached out to take the offered hand. But before she could make contact, a spark of crimson fire leapt from the woman’s fingers, arcing between her and Dora and then …

  Dora was suspended in mid-air on a bright sunny day, screaming in alarm as she fell onto a cushion of bright fabric, the likes of which she had never seen before. She bounced clumsily back up into the air, her skirts flapping and her arms waving. Then back down again and a series of lessening bounces until she sprawled in a heap and looked up into the eyes of ten startled children, all in their stockinged feet, wearing the strangest garments she had ever seen. ‘Big kids aren’t allowed on the bouncy castle,’ said one prim, outraged little girl. And then …

  Sprawling on the floor of a chamber hewn from rock – large, silent, ice cold – was she in a cavern? A grey half-light picked out floor-to-ceiling racks of cocoons, each containing the blurred outline of a person. There were thousands of them, stretching away into the darkness. She rose to her feet and saw movement in the distance – three tiny figures, so far away. They were waving. She raised her hand to wave back and then …

  Water, shockingly cold, up to her neck. She sank beneath the surface before she could even take a breath. Her clothes dragged her down into the dark, suffocating depths. She thrashed and struggled, and broke the surface with her face. She caught a glimpse of a large boat under sail, a warship or a privateer, perhaps. She sank back beneath the water before she could call to it. She fought her way up again, her face breaking the surface for a second time. She managed to raise one arm out of the sea and wave at the distant ship, but the cold and the weight of her dress were too much. She sank again, fast. She felt her ears pop, felt the pressure increase on her as she realised she was about to die. Animal panic pulled open her mouth to try and take a breath to ease the fire in her lungs. And then …

  Lying in a puddle, gasping like a landed fish on the floor of a clean white room, sterile and silent but for the soft hum of unseen engines. There was light without fire and warmth without sunlight. Breathing hard now, wild eyed with terror and confusion, Dora cried aloud when the door opened and a tall, fat man in a strange white jacket came into the room. He walked forward slowly, anxious not to startle her. He reached out. ‘Take my hand. Take my hand and everything will be all right.’ But even through her fear she wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She scrambled back against the wall, gabbling refusals and protestations. Her back hit the hard wall and then …

  Awful, deafening noise. A huge explosion next to her and she was sprawling in rubble, crying and screaming and begging for it to stop. Hands on her shoulders, pulling her backwards. She struggled but then there were hands on her feet, and she was lifted bodily into the air and carried away. Dumped on the ground behind a low brick wall. Bangs and crashes and strange, devilish humming. She coughed as the foul smoke and dust clogged her wet nostrils and frantic, gasping lungs. Hands on her face, forcing her to look up into the bright blue eyes of a young man with close-cropped black hair. Over his shoulder she could see a dark-skinned girl carrying some type of musket. She had a nasty wound across her forehead that leaked blood down across her face. ‘Calm down, Dora, breathe,’ said the boy. ‘It’s OK. You’re all right. It’s a lot to handle first time. I remember. But you need to concentrate, you’ll only be here for moment. I need you to listen, yes?’ Dora nodded, shaking. The boy’s accent was strange, foreign.

  ‘Don’t.’ Yelled the dark-skinned girl. ‘You mustn’t tell her …’ But she was interrupted by a series of small explosions that drew her attention away. She raised her odd musket and began shooting beams of light at unseen attackers.

  The boy bit his lip, worried, but continued speaking. ‘There is one thing you need to know.’ He leaned forward, as if to whisper in her ear, but then …

  Darkness, night-time, winter cold made worse by wet clothes. Firelight through trees and the soft chanting of human voices. She did not know what language they were using, but it was not English. She ran forward, hoping for aid, but found herself standing on the edge of a clearing facing a burning pyre. Tied to a post in the centre of the conflagration was a young woman who screamed and screamed as the flames licked up her legs and her dress caught fire. The crowd stood singing songs to the dying victim; Dora presumed they sang in hope of speeding her to salvation from her wickedness. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The witch’s face was the same face that Dora had seen looking back at her in the mirror a hundred times. The witch was her! Dora screamed in mortal terror as she watched herself begin to burn. The crowd turned, saw her, cried in horror at the impossibility of it, and then …

  Freefall …

  Sweetclover Hall sat shadowed and sullen amongst its copse of trees. Its windows were boarded up and flaps of plastic patched the holes in the roof, preventing the worst of the weather getting inside, but apart from that the house appeared unloved and forgotten.

  Had there been a nicely printed guidebook to tell Kaz the history of the building he was walking towards, he would have learned some very interesting things indeed. He might
even have thought twice about entering. But there was no one and nothing to warn him about the house’s bloody and mysterious past, so he pushed open a rust-hinged door and walked across the threshold without a second thought.

  The room that had once been the beating heart of the manor lay under a thick layer of dust and cobwebs abandoned by spiders that had moved on in search of richer pickings. The furniture had been removed long ago. Only the presence of a brick baking oven built into the chimney breast revealed the room’s original function.

  Kaz sniffed the air. The house smelt of mould and damp and crumbling plaster. Still, it beat sleeping on the cold, wet earth. He walked across the room, brushing away the cobwebs that snagged his face and hair, and pushed open a thick oak door into a wood-panelled corridor.

  The bright moonlight barely penetrated this far into the house. The thick darkness and utter silence would have been enough to give most people pause, but Kaz was practical and unsuperstitious. He didn’t believe in ghosts and wasn’t afraid of the unseen things that lurked in the gloom. He knew that the scariest thing this house was likely to contain would be a few rats, scurrying around beneath rotting floorboards.

  He moved deeper into the decaying building, not noticing a cellar door on the right, secured with a padlock. Neither did he register the tiny red light in the far corner of the ceiling, hidden behind layers of cobwebs, that denoted the presence of an active infrared camera transmitting his every move back to unseen eyes.

  At the end of the corridor stood two tall, wide doors. They were warped and stuck, half open. Kaz squeezed through the opening into a large room, lit by a beam of moonlight that cut across the blackness through a gap in the window boards. This would do.

  In one corner of the room a dim grey mound revealed itself, on closer inspection, to be a pile of discarded curtains. They were musty but Kaz arranged them into a makeshift mattress and lay down.