Tempus Fugitive

by Nicola Rhodes

  ‘Why do we care so much?’ wondered Denny.

  ‘Let’s go and find a newspaper stand,’ said Tamar, ignoring this, since she had no answer for it.

  ‘Where’s the fun in that?’ asked Denny, thereby answering his own question if he had but realised it. ‘If we do that, we might as well ask somebody. I thought we were trying to work it out. It’s a pretty poor show, if we can’t figure it out between us, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, who cares?’ said Tamar suddenly tired of the whole thing. ‘That bastard isn’t here anyway, let’s just go.’

  At that moment, the clock across the street struck the half-hour, causing them to automatically look at it.

  ‘Well, at least we know what time it is,’ observed Denny. ‘And it’s 1985,’ he added.

  Tamar thought this was a gambit to draw her back into the guessing game, and she was not to be drawn. She shrugged. ‘If you say so,’ she said, ‘let’s go.’

  ‘No, it really is. I saw …’ the rest of his words were drowned out by a clamorous ringing which echoed over the street.

  ‘School’s out,’ said Denny dryly. ‘Who would have thought the bell would sound so loud out here? We’d better go,’ he added, ‘or else we’ll be drowned in a sea of hormones. And I wouldn’t like to answer for the effect you might have on a hormonal sixteen year old boy –specially looking like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like what.’ snorted Denny. ‘You know very well, like what.’

  ‘I just look like I always do,’ she protested.

  ‘That’s what I mean. Look out they’re coming.’

  There was indeed a steady stream of scrofulous sweaty humanity headed their way making a noise like a flock of seagulls, and some of them had hairstyles to match.

  There was no time to get away. Tamar, referring to age old instincts of blending in with her surroundings, instantly and without stopping to think, manufactured uniforms to match the ones the kids were wearing, just as they were caught up with the tide.

  Denny was surprised to suddenly find himself chewing something, and, before he knew what he was doing, he blew a large pink bubble which popped all over his face.

  He gave Tamar a baleful look, especially as she was, quite naturally, choking on a laugh that had bubbled to the surface.

  ‘Whoops,’ she giggled.

  Denny was so intent on giving Tamar a dirty look that he ran into a group of large boys, almost knocking one of them over. He apologised, but he knew it was a waste of time, these were rough boys, and Denny looked even less impressive than usual at the moment, what with the bubblegum and the school uniform. Tamar had not even bothered to make it scruffy like it should be.

  The boys rounded on him; Denny sighed internally. He had no desire to hurt children, which, despite their size, was what they were. He would have to let the boy beat him up – a little anyway. At least he knew it would not really hurt. Not like it used to.

  A smaller boy with what looked suspiciously like make-up on, suddenly called out ‘Phillpot!’ mysteriously enough to Tamar, although Denny got the point immediately. Evidently some fearsome, ogrerish member of the faculty was on the warpath. Denny understood it to be a reprieve, and was proved right when all the boys ran including himself. Tamar shrugged and followed. It should be pointed out here, that the inevitability of an ensuing fight had been completely lost on her, so that, when the boy in question Mark –somebody caught up with them in the park that Denny had headed for – for privacy in order to close the file, she was surprised by his vehement attitude and also his bad language.

  ‘All right puke breath,’ was this savant’s opening line. ‘Now you’re going to get it.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Denny resignedly. ‘Come on then, I haven’t got all day.’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ snarled Mark – somebody.

  ‘Not really.’

  Tamar interrupted. ‘What the hell is going on here?’ She was nonplussed. Apart from anything, if they were going to fight, it ought to be about her, that was the usual way of it in her experience. But it seemed that, on the contrary, Mark – somebody was not even aware of her presence. An unheard of thing. And why fight at all, Denny had apologised hadn’t he? Then what was the problem?

  Denny cleared it up for her in one succinct word. ‘Bullying.’

  Tamer knew about this from Denny’s stories of his adolescence, but had never had occasion to witness it before. People who own a Djinn tend not to suffer from bullying much.

  Her own inexperience betrayed her now as she remarked. ‘How ridiculous.’

  However unlikely, this comment had an effect on Mark – somebody, who now turned to look properly at Tamar for the first time, and was embarrassed.

  He looked at the ground and was heard to mutter. ‘This your girlfriend?’

  Denny wisely answered in the negative, and threw Tamar a warning glance not to contradict him. He could see where this was going.

  ‘Sister?’

  Denny hesitated; this was tricky. Brothers, in his experience, were despised creatures, and, therefore, quite acceptable beating up fodder. A friend on the other hand …

  He, therefore, shook his head. ‘Just a friend,’ he decided.

  Mark – something’s attitude changed slightly. He became friendlier, although still somewhat truculent. ‘Oh, right,’ he said.

  They were about to part on reasonably good terms when it happened.

  Three large men who had pulled up in a black unmarked van, unnoticed by the three of them, had been ambling around apparently aimlessly until as if with one mind they made a grab for what they thought were three school-kids. Mark – somebody panicked and struggled until his captor hit him on the head with a large cudgel of some kind and he went as limp as a boneless fish. Denny and Tamar were taken by surprise, but did not bother to offer any resistance as their heads were covered over with black hoods and they were bundled into the van along with Mark – somebody. They were too used to this sort of thing by now to be overly concerned about their own welfare. Habit had made them far more concerned about an untimely display of their powers; thus they submitted docilely. In time, they would just vanish from whatever prison they ended up in, and their captors would never know what had happened to them. Mark – somebody might be more of a problem, after all, they could not leave him behind. But they could cross that bridge when they came to it.

  * * *

  The two men guarding them in the van – the third one was driving – were engaged in an argument about their prisoners. It appeared that they only wanted to keep Tamar, as she had the most market value. From this, they understood that these men were white slave traders. Tamar rolled her eyes, although in her black hood, no one saw her. ‘Honestly,’ she thought, ‘we can’t go anywhere.’

  One man argued that they had had to take the boys, since they couldn’t leave them behind to talk. And besides, they would get something for them. The other man was all for throwing them out of the van further down the road. ‘By the time they get home, we’ll be long gone,’ he asserted. He also maintained that they would cost more to feed and transport than they were worth. Denny was not at all insulted by this attitude; he was used to it. But he hoped that this plan would be abandoned, since it would mean that he would have to take some drastic action after all, which was to be avoided if possible. Mark – somebody was still unconscious, so he did not have an opinion at this point.

  * * *

  ‘Get me that report,’ shouted the thin man across the room.

  ‘Yes sir,’ a young lackey came scurrying across with a small disc in his hand.

  ‘What have they been doing all this time?’ he muttered.

  ‘They certainly have been in that file a long time,’ agreed the lackey. ‘Getting absolutely nowhere,’ was his private thought.

  The thin man inserted his report into his personal disc reader and frowned for a few moments.

  ‘I hate these jobs,’ he said suddenly. Then his face
cleared. ‘However, we seem to be on schedule, more or less,’ he added mysteriously enough. ‘Not that it matters much in the end. It’s not as if we’ll be getting any credit for this one even if it turns out all right.’ He sighed.

  The lackey was puzzled. But then again, this whole assignment was confusing and apparently pointless. They had been monitoring the progress of the pursuit which made some sort of sense as far as it went, but, on the other hand, he knew full well that they were not logging any information officially.

  And they were interfering in the pursuit too, and that was definitely “unofficial”. But only, apparently, to the extent of small clues and tiny pieces of knowledge that were being given to the pursuers, however, it was enough to give the lackey the opinion that his superior knew enough to end this at any time. So why didn’t he? Why keep giving out little dribs and drabs of information in such small amounts as to be almost completely useless?

  And then again, the behaviour of the pursuers themselves was odd. Why, for instance, when they knew that their quarry was not in the file they had entered, did they consistently stay there for far longer than was necessary? They appeared to be wasting an awful lot of time on side issues in the lackey’s opinion.

  So what did the boss mean, “On schedule?”

  * * *

  The man who had wanted to hold on to all the captives had won the argument, and they had, all three of them (Mark – somebody, having regained consciousness) been bundled out of the van, hoods over their faces, and taken into some sort of large warehouse, where their hoods had been removed, and ropes around their wrists and ankles had been added.

  Here they waited for about an hour, Mark – somebody, white faced and trembling, and Denny and Tamar remarkably at ease; guarded at all times by a hulking, chain smoking kidnapper. The three men all looked decidedly similar. Dark, brooding types with monobrows and stubborn chins, they might have been brothers, particularly when one considered the way they continually argued.

  Denny and Tamar exchanged thoughts ‘Can’t we stage something?’ asked Denny. ‘Something believable? There’s only one of them. I don’t think Mark – whatever his name is, can take much more of this,’

  ‘We’re bound and gagged, what do you suggest? We’re supposed to be school-kids, what could we do, realistically?’ It is not easy to use italics in telepathy, but somehow Tamar managed it.

  Denny shook his head.

  ‘Well?’ thought Tamar after a pause.

  ‘Oh, sorry, I don’t know what to do, but I think we’re at a private airfield. If we don’t do something soon they’re going to whisk us off to God only knows where. And Mark – thingy too,’ he added, in case she had forgotten.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she replied testily. ‘But …’ and here she was interrupted by the arrival of the other two men who hauled them roughly to their feet and propelled them outside to the waiting plane.

  * * *

  ‘AAAAGH!’ bellowed Stiles in aggravation. Remind me never to have kids!’ he added. He had been tried beyond the limits of his patience by the sudden advent of Lucy and Samuel aged 13 or thereabouts. Lucy had immediately burst into noisy sobs, which showed no signs of abating, and Samuel, after hitting Lucy on the head a few times (apparently to calm her down), was now amusing himself by kicking a football at the wood panelling (having given up Lucy as a bad job).

  They had been here a total of about three minutes, and Stiles was already seriously contemplating committing his first double homicide.

  Bump – BANG, bump – BANG, bump, bump, BANG…. the noise stopped abruptly and Stiles managed half a sigh of relief before Samuel apparently turned into an aeroplane ‘Nnnneeeeeaaaaaaaww!’

  The good news was that this sudden divergence caused Lucy to look up in surprise and stop crying in order to start laughing. This was marginally better Stiles supposed. But there was still the problem of Samuel, now jumping from one piece of furniture to another.

  The problem for Stiles was that he had not had the gentle lead up to this – the years of babyhood and toddlerhood and early schooldays. He had been dropped in at the deep end as it were.

  ‘STOP IT!’ he bellowed. This had no discernible effect on Samuel at all, and Lucy started crying again. He looked at Hecaté in desperation.

  ‘Food,’ she told him. ‘Give them biscuits and crisps,’

  ‘We haven’t got any,’ objected Stiles.

  ‘Oh ye of little faith,’ said Hecaté with a faint smile. ‘I am a goddess you know?’

  * * *

  They had succeeded in calming Mark – something down a little, mostly by example. And all of them were aware, by now, that the fate that awaited Tamar at the end of this journey was by far the worst of them. She was to be sold into a Harem in the Far East the men had told them. She had been picked out especially for a customer, being just what he had ordered. Much like car thieves steal cars to order for favoured customers. Mark – something was so horrified by this idea, that it did much to take his mind off his own fate. Tamar was not too pleased by the idea either, since she could see no way, at the moment, to get out of it. ‘I bet he’s fat,’ she complained, ‘and old – and smelly.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ said Denny grimly. The man guarding them laughed derisively. ‘Worry about yourself,’ he advised Denny before stomping off to the cockpit.

  There was no way to tell how time was going in the stuffy windowless interior of the small plane, but after what seemed an interminable journey, the plane seemed to be coming in to land. ‘Probably only to refuel,’ suggested Denny. ‘There’s no way a plane this size could make the trip to the Far East in one go.’

  ‘Maybe this is our chance to escape,’ said Tamar. There were no guards at this time, probably, as Denny suggested, because they had only stopped to refuel.

  ‘But we don’t know where we are,’ said Mark – somebody (who I think, from now on, should be referred to only by his given name, to save time)

  ‘Does it matter?’ asked Denny impatiently. ‘Think of Tam, we have to get away if we can. And we don’t know what they might do to us either,’ he added as an afterthought.

  Mark, whose attitude to Denny had changed to a sort of grovelling respect, immediately capitulated. ‘Okay, so what shall we do?’ He transferred his gaze to Tamar with a mute apology in his eyes as well as a kind of yearning that Tamar knew only too well.

  She shook her head briskly as if to dismiss all silly sentiment. ‘Not now,’ she told him. ‘We haven’t got time for all that.’ And she crawled on her hands and knees to the cockpit. ‘It’s empty,’ she informed them, ‘Come on, we’ll get out this way.’

  ‘Where are the men?’ asked Mark, as if she would know. She shook her head and shrugged. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Denny, ‘let’s go. He led the way.

  They climbed out of the cockpit and ran silently behind the plane, going cautiously for they did not know where the men might be. They seemed to be in a large hangar which could have been anywhere. They never got to find out where they were. As they reached the rear of the plane Denny was met by a gun which was almost pushed up his nose, he skidded to a halt and sighed.

  ‘I thought you might try something like this,’ said the man roughly amused. ‘Especially you,’ he shoved Denny backwards by the shoulders. ‘I must say, you don’t look like much, but you’ve got balls, I’ll say that for you. Okay back inside.’ He herded them back onto the plane and locked it up. They could see him through the cockpit standing outside, watching.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Mark.

  The second part of the journey did not go as smoothly as the first.

  It never does as you may have noticed. A journey, once begun again after a break for lunch or whatever, never continues as before. The traffic is worse, for example. The driver/pilot is in a bad mood and the passengers feel sick and tired and fed up. In this case, they were hit by turbulence. The little plane rocked and rolled alarmingly as it was buffeted about the sky.

/>   An argument ensued between two of the men about Tamar. One of them wanted to have a little fun with her, a test run as he rather gracelessly put it. The other man was against this, and Denny was relieved to notice that the man who was against it, was the same man who had earlier won the argument in the van. She wasn’t a toy he claimed, but merchandise. So it was hands off, nitsky, comprendré? She was to be sold “as new” not second hand.

  All this was rather distasteful, to say the least, although to Tamar it held an element of amusement. ‘If only they knew,’ she thought. She was not, of course, in the least bit concerned for herself. If the “customer” tried to lay even one fat greasy finger on her, she would have no compunction in scattering him into his component atoms. But she did feel a tearing pity for the other girls who had found themselves in this position. The same pity that Mark was currently feeling for her.

  Denny was merely furious. So furious, in fact, that the man in question never knew how close he came to being thrown bodily through the carcass of the plane and out into the void. It was his good luck (although he did not know enough of his peril to feel it) that the other man won the argument, and he sloped off rather sulkily to the cockpit.

  They flew on in silence.

  It occurred to Tamar that quite soon they would be separated, having had, she deemed, no chance of escape. Once they landed, all three of them would face a drastically different situation. She had the best of it, she knew. At least she knew what she was headed for. Although she had no fear for Denny, or Mark either with Denny to look after him, she was still uneasy. Mark was the real problem here. She could think, and she was sure that Denny too could think, of a million ways to get themselves out of this mess if it was just them, but nothing that would work without giving themselves away to Mark.

  She cast the man into a charmed sleep and Mark too, so that they could talk. Telepathy was wearing after a while.

  ‘We have to make a plan about what to do after we escape,’ she said.

  Denny nodded. He was certain, as she was, that they would escape at some point once they were on the ground, but they would have to meet up somewhere if they had been separated.