‘I suppose you want us to lay down our weapons and come quietly?’ asked Steve.
Sweetclover shrugged theatrically. ‘Do or don’t, makes no odds to me. Either we kill you here and now, or you surrender and let us put you on ice until we’re ready to do it properly. Your call.’
‘But why?’ screamed Jana, finally allowing her own frustration to boil over. ‘Who are you? What is the point of all this? What do you want?’
‘Oh, Jana. Dear sweet Jana. What would be the fun if I told you that? Let’s say we had history, you and I. But we won’t have had soon.’
Jana shook her head as he mangled his tenses. ‘What does that even mean?’ she yelled, more in confusion than anger. The shadows behind the lab window drew her gaze. Someone was holding up a hand, pressing it to the glass with their fingers spread wide.
‘Five,’ muttered Steve.
The thumb bent inwards under the palm.
‘Four.’
The hand was withdrawn and a shadow seemed to hurry away from the doors.
Jana unfurled her own tight fists and got ready to grab the hands of Steve and Kaz.
‘Three,’ whispered Kaz, taking up the countdown.
‘Guards.’ At Sweetclover’s bark, all the guards raised their weapons.
‘Two,’ muttered Jana and Kaz in unison, raising their hands.
‘Hands above your heads, I think,’ shouted Sweetclover. ‘We don’t want anybody—’
Before he could finish his sentence, the lab doors blew off their hinges in a ball of flame and spun down the corridor, cutting down the row of guards. The blast wave toppled many more, and Sweetclover himself was engulfed in smoke.
Shots rang out ahead in the confusion.
‘Now,’ yelled Steve as the smoke reached them, shielding them from the view of guards both ahead and behind. Jana reached out and grabbed Kaz’s hand, lighting up the smoke with red fire from within. Her hand tingled where it touched his, like static electricity or the feeling of pins and needles you get when the blood returns to a numbed limb. Then both she and the boy leaned forward to take Steve’s outstretched hands as they did their best to empty their minds of all thought. Steve grasped their fingers tightly and the world exploded in a riot of firework red. Jana felt a familiar lurch in her stomach, the same as she had felt when she had vanished in mid-air above New York. She realised immediately what was happening.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax, surrendering to the pull of whatever force it was that had snatched her away from certain death once already.
And the world reshaped itself around her.
7
Kaz had seen the two girls appear in mid-air, but in many ways that had been the least unexpected thing to happen to him since he had fled the farm in search of a bed for the night. Since that first flash of red fire he’d been granted no time for reflection, no opportunity to consider the events of his day, the things he had witnessed or the things that had been done to him. He had spent the last twenty-four hours reacting to events he did not understand, hoping that at some point everything would become clear to him and he could begin to take an active role.
But as his hand found Jana’s, and he felt the tingle in his fingers, he realised that things were only going to get stranger. When Steve grabbed his other hand and completed the circle Kaz felt such power flowing through him that his vision, already fogged by smoke, blurred even more and began to speckle with tiny firework flashes of red and white. He was unsure how much of this was real and how much a result of trauma from the shock wave. He was part of a circuit, power flowing in through his right hand and out through his left.
Smoke. Confusion. Fire. The low whine in the ears that follows a concussive blast. Dust in the eyes and the taste of blood and iron on the tongue.
These things were not new to Kaz. So as he stood in the corridor, grasping for the hands of his companions as the shock wave of the explosion rolled over him, he could not empty his mind as he had been instructed. Instead he was overwhelmed with memories. The sensory onslaught pulled his thoughts back to an earlier time and place, and that time and place came rushing forward to greet them.
His stomach lurched, his head swam and everything changed.
Unfortunately, it changed into something familiar.
Shouts and screams, a cacophony of various sirens. The smoke that engulfed them was different; dirtier, mingled with earth and metal and something else, something organic. The sterile smell of a clean bomb in a clean corridor was replaced by cheap nitrate explosive and scorched blood.
Kaz didn’t trust his senses. He knew where he was but he was equally sure that he couldn’t be here. He had been in a corridor in some kind of secret research establishment, penned in by weird gunmen and holding hands in a doomed gesture of defiant solidarity with two people he didn’t know. There was no way he could have instantly been transported from there to here.
Even in his confused state his mind checked and corrected itself – from there and then to here and now. Another flash of thought: have I gone mad? Am I reliving my past as some kind of retreat from reality? Is this all only trauma?
‘Crap. Where are we?’ That was Steve, who loomed out of the smoke, still holding tight to Kaz’s hand and shouting through the tumult.
‘I … I don’t know.’ That was Jana shouting back, still grasping his other hand.
Kaz did not reply even though he knew full well where and when they were. Partly he stayed silent because he did not trust himself to say anything coherent, partly because he refused to accept the evidence of his own senses.
He knew that he was going into shock, but he also knew that this realisation didn’t help him.
‘Over here, let’s get under cover.’ Steve’s shouts sounded like whispers through fog as he pulled Kaz. He in turn held tight to Jana and dragged her along behind him, out of the smoke.
The light was diluted and milky, even outside the dusty smoke, but gradually shapes and forms appeared as if out of a thick mist. A grocer’s stall, boxes overturned, fruit split open and strewn everywhere across a slab pavement and a roughly tarmacked road. An arc of pulped tomatoes and oranges was splashed across whitewash. A third stain, deeper and darker, mingled with the juices that oozed slowly down the wall.
Someone ran past them, knocking Jana off her feet. Kaz let go of Steve and bent down to help the girl up, his peripheral vision registering a man running with a young woman held in his arms, motionless and limp, her long brown hair swaying in rhythm with her lifeless limbs as the man pressed on in search of aid.
Kaz saw Jana’s lips move and understood that she was thanking him for helping her up, but all his ears delivered were sirens and whine.
For the next minute, as Steve ushered the two teenagers away from the smoke and confusion of the recent explosion, all Kaz’s mind registered were tiny details, as if the totality of what was happening to him had become too large for him to comprehend.
The way the red and white of the ambulance lights refracted within the haze of smoke.
The look on the face of a man in army uniform running towards the scene of the blast.
A wrought-iron balcony, ripped from an outside wall, twisted and broken in the street, surrounded by shattered plant pots and dying roses.
A discarded shoe he recognised.
He hurried on, pulled away from his memories, blindly stumbling through the wreckage of his past.
The world returned to Kaz a piece at a time.
First the cold, sharp fizz of Coke sucked mechanically through a straw that had been placed between his lips.
Then the gradual fading in of sound as the whine subsided. Sirens in the distance, the hubbub of conversation, the tinny echo of a TV. The ambience of a local café.
Then the pungent, spicy aroma of falafel and kebab, so familiar and comforting.
Then the hard feel of wooden slats on his back and buttocks. He was sitting at a table.
Finally the worried faces of Steve and Jana, tw
o people he neither knew nor trusted but who offered the only continuity available to him. He locked on to Jana’s eyes and used them as an anchor to pull himself back up into consciousness.
She was the one holding the bottle of Coke up to his lips. He reached up and took hold of it for himself.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
He took another gulp and allowed his swimming senses to settle down, told himself to focus on facts, to think his way through the shock. He knew exactly where he was, and when. He just didn’t know how or why.
‘Welcome back,’ said Steve, not unkindly.
‘How long?’ muttered Kaz.
‘You’ve been zoned out for about half an hour,’ said Jana, more brusquely.
‘Sorry.’
Steve shook his head. ‘First time’s disorientating for everybody, but making your first jump under fire and ending up in the middle of a war zone, especially one that’s so personally traumatic … it’s enough to make anybody check out for a while.’
‘Steve’s told me where we are and why. I’m sorry.’ Jana’s offer of condolence was forced and awkward, as if she knew she had to say something but really wanted to get it over with so she could move on to more important things.
‘I know where we are,’ said Kaz, his tone of voice indicating that he didn’t quite believe it. ‘This is Beirut, 2010. The day my mother died.’
Steve nodded. ‘The last time and place I imagine you would want to revisit.’
‘But how?’
‘That is a much longer story, and one we don’t have time for yet.’
‘The highlights, then.’
Steve shrugged. ‘I was attempting to jump us a hundred metres north and ten minutes into the past. Into the laboratory. That way we could grab Dora, and I could plant the bomb to cover our escape. Unfortunately, when the explosion occurred it triggered your memories of this day, so instead of my mind leading us to the lab, yours brought us here. Your memories were so strong I couldn’t steer us.’
‘So we, what … travelled in time and space using the power of thought?’ replied Kaz after a moment’s consideration. ‘That’s stupid.’
‘He’s telling the truth,’ said Jana. ‘This was my second trip. You saw me arrive after my first. Back at that old house, remember?’
‘Dora too,’ said Steve. ‘Both Dora and Jana came adrift in time for a moment and ended up at Sweetclover Hall in 2013. You were already there, Kaz. And so were Sweetclover and I, both waiting for your arrival. He so that he could capture and interrogate you, me so that I could rescue you.’
Kaz shook his head, refusing to accept this explanation. He tried to put everything in order, to examine the evidence and make it fit with his experiences to provide an explanation, but nothing seemed to gel.
‘OK, if I believe that time-space travel is possible, then where and when are you from?’ He looked at Jana.
‘Yojana Patel. Born eighth August 2123 in New York, Eastern Protectorate. You?’
‘I am Kazik Cecka, born twelfth December 1995 in Kielce, Poland. You’re really from the future?’
‘No; you’re really from the past,’ she replied.
Kaz turned his gaze to Steve. ‘And you?’
‘I plead the fifth,’ said Steve with an apologetic shrug. ‘It will all become clear eventually, but for now I have to remain enigmatic. Sorry. Look, there’ll be time for a full explanation later but basically, you two can travel in time. Dora too. There’s a reason for that, but it’s complicated and not terribly important right now. What is important right now is that there are people who want to capture you because of things you haven’t done yet. They want to stop you doing them, to change their history, and your futures. I’m trying to stop them.’
‘Not good enough, we need more,’ said Jana. ‘Who is after us?’
Before Steve could answer, a fat, sweaty man wearing a greasy apron slapped three plates of food down in front of them with a grunt. Kaz reached for a wallet, but of course he had none. The man saw what he was doing and waved him to stop.
‘You have just been blown up, son,’ said the man, businesslike. ‘Food’s on the house.’
Kaz thanked the man, who waved away his thanks as he had waved away his attempts to pay, as if vaguely insulted by them. He returned to the counter and joined his friends, who were watching the news coverage through a flurry of shouts and gesticulations.
‘What is this?’ asked Jana.
‘Kebab,’ said Kaz, realising that he was starving. Jana’s face told him that she had no idea what he meant. ‘Lamb, salad, dressing, hummus, flatbread. It’s good,’ he said, through a mouth already half full. ‘Spicy.’
Jana eyed the plate with deep suspicion.
‘Don’t they have kebabs in the future?’ said Kaz with a first hint of good humour.
‘Not like this we don’t,’ was all Jana would say. She reached down, lifted the pitta bread pocket gingerly and sniffed it once before taking an exploratory nibble. She pulled a face but chewed, swallowed and took another.
For five minutes they sat in silence, eating their food, trying to order their own thoughts as the sirens wailed in the distance and the men in the corner argued loudly about who was trying to blow them up.
The sounds and smells of the café were as alien to Jana as the lab canteen had been to Dora.
The sirens had died down now, and the commotion at the scene of the explosion was muted and distant enough to be drowned out by the ongoing discussion at the café counter and the drone of the TV.
The light also seemed strange to Jana; diffuse and creamy, laced with steam, smoke and spice. All Jana’s innate prejudice about the Long Island favelas were rearing up in her head. She was sure that at any moment she would be robbed by a feral gang of wild-eyed junkies dressed in rags. The café owner’s brusque generosity confused her far more than it relieved her. Had she wandered into such a place back home she wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before her wealth, education and social superiority would have gotten her into more trouble than she could have easily talked her way out of. She may have been reckless, but there were some risks even she wouldn’t take lightly.
Jana tried not to think about the journey the food had taken to her plate. She seriously doubted the meat was properly vat-grown, and the mess of grease and food stains on the waiter’s apron told her way more than she wanted to know about the conditions in the kitchen.
But the boy Kaz seemed relaxed. He had spoken to the café owner in the local dialect and was wiping his lips already, having practically inhaled his kebab. This was not his home but he felt comfortable in this place, knew its ways.
As he dropped his paper napkin on to his plate Jana decided to trust him, at least for now. He was as confused by all that was happening as she was, so he made a natural ally.
The older man, who was eating more slowly, his eyes constantly watching the street for signs of discovery or attack, did not inspire her trust, no matter what he said he had done. His motives were unclear, his true objectives mysterious. She did not think he was a threat right now but it was clear that he was working to a strategy, and that could mean that she and Kaz were allies of convenience only, pawns that he would use until he needed them no longer. She simply did not have enough data to make a judgement and refused to rely on instinct, which she did not trust. It was safest to withhold trust, so that is what she did.
When they had all finished, the greasy man returned with coffee and honeyed pastries, which Kaz told her were called baklava. The drink was hot and strong, although a thick layer of grounds floated on the surface, which took her by surprise and made her spit and sputter.
‘Like this,’ said Kaz, leaning over and stirring it vigorously until the vortex sucked the grounds to the bottom. ‘Now let it settle for a minute and it’ll be OK to drink.’
Jana thanked him, aware as she did so that her thanks were curt and unfriendly. She did not like looking stupid and could not help her resentment showing.
It was Steve w
ho broke the silence.
‘We need to try again, to get back to the lab …’
Jana shook her head firmly. ‘Oh no. You owe us some answers.’
Steve considered for a second. ‘You will travel in time a lot. It will get easier for you to do so, and to navigate your journeys. Your enemy is a woman named Quil. And you have friends in … no, no that would be too risky.’
Jana waited for him to continue, but when it became clear he was done she snorted derisively. ‘That’s it?’
‘I could tell you more,’ said Steve, sounding apologetic. ‘I could tell you it all. I could tell you exactly what action to take at every step of the adventure you’re embarking upon – but if you fail to remember my instructions and freeze up at the wrong moment, or worse, misremember them and take the wrong action, I risk unravelling the chain of events that led me here.’
‘So this is all the help we get?’ asked Jana. ‘You rescue us from the bad guys and then send us on our way?’
‘Afraid so,’ said Steve. ‘If I tell you the future, I basically take away your free will. It’s your choices, taken freely in the heat of the moment, that have enabled me to come back and rescue you at this point in your timeline.’
‘And I am grateful about that,’ said Kaz, looking pointedly at Jana, who took the hint and gave up her interrogation with a frustrated shrug.
‘I need to rescue Dora and get you to the cavern,’ said Steve. ‘That’s when you can take stock. Until all three of you are together and safe, you can’t begin to take control of the situation, start to become the people you need to be.’
‘More riddles,’ sighed Jana. ‘Why is this girl so important, anyway?’
Steve leant forward and folded his hands together on the table, clearly trying hard to contain his impatience. ‘For the moment your ability to control your travels is limited,’ he explained. ‘You will get better, stronger, but right now the only way for you to travel is if you are all together, in physical contact. You need Dora, and she needs you. The only reason we were able to jump here is because I made up the third member of the party.’
TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 Page 7
