The Things We Learn When We're Dead

by Charlie Laidlaw

  ‘He ...’ I was going to ask how high, but a light began flashing over the plinth marked Three. Orange figures appeared from nowhere it seemed, lugging umbilicals, cables, flatbeds and the tools of their trade. And quietly, with no fuss, no fanfare, Pod Three materialised on its plinth.

  Nothing happened.

  I looked up at the Chief. ‘Um ...’

  ‘We don’t go in. They come out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They need to decontaminate. You know, plague, smallpox, cholera, that sort of thing. We shouldn’t go in until they’ve done that.’

  ‘But what if they’re injured?’

  At that moment, the door opened and a voice shouted, ‘Medic!’

  Orange technicians parted like the Red Sea and two medics trotted down the hangar. They disappeared into the pod.

  ‘What’s happening? Who’s in there? Where have they been?’

  ‘That would be Lower and Baverstock, returning from early 20th-century China, the Boxer Rebellion. It looks as if they require medical attention, but not seriously.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘When you’ve seen as many returns as we have then you get a feel for it. They’ll be fine.’

  We both stood in silence watching the door until eventually two people, a man and a woman, dressed in oriental clothing, limped out. One had a dressing over one eye and the other’s arm was strapped up. They both looked up at the gantry and waved. The blue people waved and shouted insults. They and the medics headed off. Orange technicians swarmed around the pod.

  ‘Would you like to have a look?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Close up, the pod looked even more anonymous and unimposing than it had from the other end of the hangar.

  ‘Door,’ he said and a battered-looking, wooden-looking door swung soundlessly open. After the enormous hangar, the inside of the pod seemed small and cramped.

  ‘The toilet and shower room are in there,’ he said, pointing to a partitioned corner. ‘Here we have the controls.’ A console with an incomprehensible array of read-outs, flashing lights, dials, and switches sat beneath a large, wall-mounted screen. The external cameras now showed only a view of the hangar. Two scuffed and uncomfortable looking swivel seats were fixed to the floor in front of the controls.

  ‘The computer can be operated manually or voice activated if you want someone to talk to. There are lockers around the walls with all the equipment required for your assignment. Sleeping modules here pull out when needed. This pod can sleep up to three reasonably comfortably, four at a push.’

  Bunches of cables ran up the walls to disappear into a tiled ceiling.

  In amongst this welter of slightly scruffy but undoubtedly high-tech equipment, I was amazed to see a small kettle and two mugs nestling quietly on a shelf under a rather large first aid locker.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, resigned. ‘Show me a cup of tea and I’ll show you at least two historians attached to it.’

  The tiny space smelled of stale people, cabbage, chemicals, hot electrics, and damp carpet, with an underlying whiff from the toilet. I would discover all pods smelt the same and that historians joke that techies take the smell then build the pods around it.

  ‘How does it work?’

  He just looked at me. OK then, stupid question.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Is there anything else you would like to see?’

  ‘Yes, everything.’

  So I got the ‘other’ tour. We went to Security where green-clad people were checking weapons and equipment, peering at monitors, drinking tea, running around, and shouting at each other.

  ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m afraid we’re a noisy bunch. I hope you weren’t expecting hallowed halls of learning.’

  I met Major Guthrie, tall with dark blond hair, busy doing something. He broke off to stare at me.

  ‘Can you shoot? Have you ever fired a weapon? Can you ride? Can you swim? How fit are you?’

  ‘No. No. Yes. Yes. Not at all.’

  He paused and looked me up and down. ‘Could you kill a man?’

  I looked him up and down. ‘Eventually.’

  He smiled reluctantly and put out his hand. ‘Guthrie.’

  ‘Maxwell.’

  ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I shall be watching your progress with great interest.’

  That didn’t sound good.

  We finished with a tour of the grounds, which were very pleasant if you discounted the odd scorch mark on the grass and the blue swans. Even as I opened my mouth to ask, there was a small bang from the second floor and the windows rattled.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Chief Farrell. ‘I’m duty officer this week and I want to see if the fire alarms go off.’

  They didn’t.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ I said.

  He sighed. ‘No, it just means they’ve taken the batteries out again.’

  This really was my sort of place.

  The Chronicles of St Mary’s

  The Nothing Girl

  Known as The Nothing Girl because of her stutter, disregarded by her family, isolated and alone, Jenny Dove's life is magically transformed by the appearance of Thomas, a mystical golden horse only she can see. Under his loving guidance, Jenny acquires a husband – the charming and chaotic Russell Checkland – together with an omnivorous donkey and The Cat From Hell.

  Jenny's life will never be the same again, but a series of 'accidents' leads her to wonder for how long she will be allowed to enjoy it.

  Hailed as a fairy tale for adults, Jodi Taylor brings all her comic writing skills to a heart-warming and delightful story.

  The Sphinx Scrolls

  Mayan legends tell of a location where the secret to surviving the end of the world may be found. One part of that legend is recorded on a stone tablet in the dusty attic of Lord ‘Ratty’ Ballashiels’ crumbling manor. The other twin part disappeared from a Berlin museum when the Nazis took power. When Ratty seems about to sell his tablet to the adopted son of Josef Mengele, his friend, the archaeologist Ruby Towers, is appalled.

  Soon it is clear that more than archaeology is at stake. The quest to rescue historic Central American artefacts becomes a race to prevent an apocalyptic threat when Ruby discovers that the ancients have set in motion something that will threaten the world today.

  For more information about Charlie Laidlaw

  and other Accent Press titles

  please visit

  www.accentpress.co.uk

  ISBN 9781786155252

  Copyright © Charlie Laidlaw 2016

  The right of Charlie Laidlaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.