The young woman crouched before him and removed her black balaclava.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Cut that a bit fine, didn’t I.’
Kaz nodded, and spat out some teeth. He looked into the face of his rescuer, some years older than when he’d last seen her, her features harder, the softness of youth burnt away by time and experience.
‘Yes, Dora,’ he said. ‘You did.’
The first thing Jana was aware of was the absence of pain. It wasn’t the painlessness that steals through you in the moments before death, this was different. The absence was a thing in itself, a tangible fact that told her she was anaesthetised.
She floated there for a while, half conscious; awake enough to realise that she had been rescued, but drugged enough that she wasn’t in any particular hurry to find out how or by whom. She just enjoyed the warm, soft feeling of painlessness until someone spoke to her.
‘Your breathing has changed. I can tell you’re awake,’ said a voice. There was something familiar about it but she couldn’t place the speaker.
‘I am not awake,’ said Jana, despite the numb heaviness of her tongue.
‘The only alternative is that I am a dream,’ said the voice.
‘Do you feel like a dream?’ asked Jana.
‘You are Godless,’ replied the voice. ‘You don’t dream. So I must be real. I feel solid, but I am floating.’
‘Me too.’
‘They have good drugs here. You were stabbed. I was shot.’
‘Sucks to be us.’
‘Sucks to be me.’
‘And me.’
‘That’s what I said.’
Jana considered this for a moment, then opened her eyes. The light was low so she could not make out much detail about the room surrounding the bed in which she lay. She turned her head towards the voice and saw another bed beside hers. Sitting propped up on pillows was a woman, her face etched in shadow.
‘Do I know you?’ asked Jana.
‘Kind of,’ replied the woman.
Jana slowly raised herself up on her elbows, expecting a sudden shock of pain at any moment, pleasantly surprised when none arrived. She really had been given the good drugs. She peered into the half-light, trying to make out the features of her new acquaintance.
The woman leaned forward, her cheekbones catching the light. Jana gasped in wonder.
‘Are you …’
‘You? Kind of,’ said the woman, who looked pretty much exactly how Jana thought she would look like in thirty years’ time.
‘What do you mean, kind of?’ said Jana. ‘Actually, forget it. You were right first time. You’re a dream. Hallucination. All you are is very good drugs.’ She closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow.
‘Keep telling yourself that, kid,’ replied the dream-who-was-not-a-dream.
Jana fell back into floating, anaesthetised sleep, but just before she passed the threshold of consciousness she heard the dream say, ‘Sleep now. But when you wake up, you and I have so much to talk about. So very, very much.’
And so Jana slept.
Dreamless.
Acknowledgements
The journey from a strange vision of an inverted cone made of shattered crystal that popped into my head just as I was on the threshold of sleep six years ago, to the book you’re holding, has been a long one.
My Editor, Anne Perry, who sought me out, asked if there was anything I had in the drawer that she could look at, and then nurtured this book from a brief pitch to maturity, is wise, funny and almost certainly far cleverer than me.
My Agent, Oli Munson, who made the deal that allowed me to phone my father and tell him that yes, in actual fact, the patently absurd career plan I had outlined to him ten years previously had actually bloody worked, is the best ally a writer could have.
My friends Simon Guerrier and Jonathan Morris, who dissected large portions of this book and told me exactly what I was doing wrong, are both ridiculously talented and extremely generous with those talents.
My wife, who had my back as I worked myself to the point of madness and never wavered in her support for and faith in me, is awesome (and clearly deluded).
My kids are the most delightful people I have ever met and were super-patient as I locked myself away from them to write.
All my parents are supportive above and beyond the call of duty; the sound of my dad uncontrollably laughing with joy (and relief!) when I told him I’d signed with Hodder & Stoughton is one of the best sounds I have ever heard.
I also have to thank Jonathan Oliver at Abaddon Books, who took a huge gamble on me and launched my career – this book wouldn’t have been written if he hadn’t taken that initial leap of faith and commissioned School’s Out off the slush pile.
Thank you all. Now brace yourselves – I’m going to do it all over again!
TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 Page 29
