Josh stood up and stumbled as if still drunk. He reached out with his hand to steady himself and inadvertently knocked over the lamp, which fell and smashed over the papers setting them alight — seconds later, the fire was raging fiercely. Josh stepped out of the way as he watched everything the flames touch immediately ignite.
Guards jumped up and took off their jackets to beat back the flames. Others ran to the doors and windows to make their escape, but the additional draughts of air just fed the fire. Josh could see that the colonel was using the diversion to make a hasty exit with the queen, now wrapped in an old cloak, and he quickly followed them through the outer door into the gardens beyond.
‘Majesty,’ the colonel whispered hoarsely in between fits of coughing. ‘We need the key. It is the only way to save your children.’
The queen nodded and produced a small iron key from inside her mouth. Josh watched in total confusion. He had no idea what the hell was going on.
A minute later the guards realised their most precious prisoner was missing and came running out onto the lawns in search of her. When they saw the colonel had the queen, they praised him like a homecoming hero, shaking his hand and patting him on the back as if he had single-handedly saved the revolution. Josh could see the colonel was struggling to play the part of the captor.
The queen was forcibly marched to a waiting carriage. As she stepped into the coach, she looked back and Josh thought for a second he saw her smile before they slammed the door.
When they re-entered the palace, the fire was being doused by a chain of bucket-wielding, smoke-stained soldiers. The court had been adjourned. With the spectacle abandoned, the crowds had dissolved and gone in search of other terrors. From the tired looks on the faces of the firemen, it was clear this was not their first call and probably not their last. Fires were an inevitable consequence of the revolution, Josh guessed. Nobody ever thinks about who has to clear up the mess.
The colonel took him back up to the king’s apartments.
‘So,’ he said, closing the door gently, ‘you seem to be able to think on your feet at least.’
‘It was the only way to get into the room,’ Josh said quietly.
‘One of the ways. It was an interesting point in time that you chose. No one has ever been brave or stupid enough to choose the moment Marie Antoinette was in the room. Generally they take a more stealthy approach, like when everyone was asleep.’
‘So the queen was not part of the test?’
The colonel shrugged. ‘One never knows. It changes every time we play it. It all depends on where the student decides to drop into the timeline.’
‘What did you say to her? What is the key for?’
The colonel took it out of his pocket and handed it to Josh.
‘See for yourself.’
Josh held the small iron key in the palm of his hand and felt the familiar sensation as its path unwound from it. He saw images of a secret room full of plans and letters, then he moved back along its history until he saw a wooden chest full of gold.
‘That, literally, is the key to the lost treasure of the Bourbons,’ the colonel said, tapping on the wooden panel that hid the room.
Josh smiled. Finally, he thought, this was the kind of history he could relate to.
‘The room is the Armoire de Fer, the secret antechamber of the king. A locksmith by the name of François Gamain discovered the room in 11.792. The diamond necklace and other financial correspondence would eventually discredit the royal family and end the right of kings forever in France.’
‘And the treasure? The diamond necklace?’
‘That had always been a mystery, until now. We’ve never been able to trace it: in every scenario we tried, we could never convince Marie to let us have the key.’
Josh held the image of the gold-filled box in his mind, trying to memorise the symbols that had swum around it. They were obviously some kind of location marker, and it wouldn’t take him long to work out how to find it once he had learned what the symbols meant.
‘Shall we go?’ asked the colonel, taking the key back. ‘I think that’s quite enough excitement for one session.’
‘And the missing Michelangelo?’
‘A simple test, to see whether you follow orders or think for yourself . . . the Antiquarians will be interested to know of its whereabouts. It will be catalogued and stored for future rediscovery in some old monastery.’
‘So. Did I pass?’ Josh asked as the colonel studied something in his notebook. He looked distracted and Josh wasn’t sure he’d even heard the question.
‘What? Yes, of course,’ he murmured, looking at his watch.
Then he was gone.
Josh took one more look at the hidden panel and visualised the symbols — he would be coming back very soon.
26
Lenin's Plan
‘Where did you get this from, bro?’ asked Lenin, waving the banknotes in front of his face like a Victorian lady.
They were sitting in Lenin’s kitchen, one of the only parts of Lenin’s flat that wasn’t full of cartons of PlayStations and flat-screen TVs. The rest of his crew had unboxed one of each and set it up in what was left of the front room. They were playing Grand Theft Auto V.
‘I won it — on the dogs. Had a good tip from Eddie.’
‘No shit! Bastard never gives me anything.’
‘You have to catch him in a good mood,’ said Josh, relaxing a little. He knew Lenin wouldn’t believe any story about him actually working for it, and he didn’t want Lenin to know about the colonel, or what he was really up to.
The old man had paid Josh £2,000 this time. He’d given half to Lenin and kept the rest back for himself as a deposit on a flat.
The colonel had told Josh that he had done well and hinted that there was more work to come. Josh knew he mustn’t screw this chance up. Nothing in the Job Centre was going to come within a million miles of this opportunity. He smiled as he thought of how the job description would look on the board: ‘Time-traveller’s apprentice required — must be able to . . .’
‘So why you all happy now?’ enquired Lenin, catching Josh’s smirk. ‘We ain’t square. You ain’t out the woods yet, dude.’
There was a shout from the crew on the PlayStation. They were shooting up another gang in the game — joking about how they were going to do it for real. Josh noticed there were Uzis lying on the table in front of them.
‘So, if I get you the rest of the cash tomorrow we’re even?’
Lenin shook his head. ‘We ain’t never going to be even, are we, Crash? But this job I got for you might come close.’
Lenin had always been there, like an older brother. He’d protected Josh long before he’d pulled him out of the car that day. He basically owned him and he never let Josh forget it.
‘What’s the job?’
Lenin’s eyes gleamed as he leaned in to whisper, ‘Come and see my war room.’
The so-called war room was basically a bedroom. A half-naked girl was asleep in the bed, her upper body was covered in tattoos.The walls were covered in maps of South Kensington and pictures of Imperial College. Lenin had drawn all over them with a black marker.
‘This is Elena. She’s Ukrainian or Lithuanian or some shit, but she can cook. You know what I mean?’
Josh did. Lenin was talking about making meth, which he’d thought was way out of Lenin’s league.
‘Yeah, Crystal,’ said Josh.
‘Exactly! Iceeee,’ sang Lenin grinning.
He walked over to the map and pointed at an area on the university campus.
‘See this? It’s the chemistry department. Do you know what they got? Ephedrine. Which she tells me is all we need to make our own crystal.’
‘So we’re going to walk in there and just take it?’
‘Damn straight. I need at least thirty litres to get started.’ He picked up the discarded crack pipe. ‘This shit is worth at least 20K.’
‘What about the Feds?’
> Lenin shrugged. ‘Who gives a shit. It’s about time we looked after our own.’
Lenin used to be smarter than this, Josh thought. The drugs were definitely making him a little crazy. The Turkish ‘Fedaykin’ or ‘Feds,’ had been running the Class A’s for as long as he could remember and they were going to be pretty pissed off about Lenin moving in on their action. He was going to start a turf war with guys who would sell their own mother for a couple of grams of cocaine.
‘So how big is thirty kilos?’ asked Josh, thinking about the Renault Clio he had stolen.
‘Like an oil drum,’ Elena answered in a husky, East European accent as she pushed herself up into a sitting position and lit a cigarette.
Josh was not accustomed to seeing naked women. He tried very hard to stare at her face.
‘I will send you a picture of the label so you know what to look for.’ Her accent was strong and kind of sexy. ‘Lenin, get phone!’
Josh had never heard anyone give Lenin an order, or see him take it without question. He guessed they were probably shagging because Lenin did exactly as he was instructed.
Elena swiped through her photos until she found what she was looking for and then looked up at Josh with big, dark-rimmed eyes.
‘Number?’
Josh was a little stunned. ‘Don’t have one. Sorry.’
Elena swore in her own language and turned to Lenin. ‘Where did you find this guy?’
Lenin shook his head and shrugged. ‘Tell me about it. He’s a nightmare. They just seemed to die on him.’ He picked out an iPhone 5s from a drawer and threw it to Josh. ‘It’s a burner. You can chuck it after the job.’
Josh looked at the cracked screen and read out the number to Elena whose fingers blurred as she tapped it into her phone.
A second later a notification popped up on his screen. There were two new messages: the first was a picture of a chemical label, the kind you saw on the side of lorries. The second was a nude picture of Elena with the words ‘YOU WISH!’ burnt into the image, obscuring her nipples.
Josh swallowed hard and looked back at her, she raised one eyebrow at him as if daring him to show Lenin.
Lenin took out a marker and began to hi-light different points on the floor plans as he explained the location of the security systems in the chemistry building.
‘I thought I was just driving?’ said Josh.
‘Everybody’s going in. Don’t want any second thoughts, and that thirty-kilo drum is going to need at least four of us to get it out, or a forklift if we’re lucky.’
They went through the details of the job. Lenin was meticulous, going over each of the various different entrances to the university using Google Streetview images. Josh studied the maps closely, pointing out routes that would be potential hazards, and shortcuts that would help them lose the police. It was a simple job but he found his mind kept wandering: he went from wondering how easily he could do this if he still had the Tachyon Mark IV, to the naked image of Elena, to what the colonel had said as he took the watch back that morning.
‘Don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Don’t draw attention to yourself.’
He wasn’t sure this qualified as normal to the colonel — what was ordinary to a time traveller anyway? This was the only life Josh had ever known, one where you took what you needed rather than waited for it to be given. He had little choice but to see this through. Lenin would be seriously pissed if Josh tried to duck out of it, and then there would be consequences that you didn’t need the colonel’s notebook to predict.
‘Enough with the talking,’ Elena snapped.
‘Let’s give the lady some privacy,’ Lenin said as he guided Josh out of the room. Elena threw off the sheets as they left and Josh had to use every ounce of willpower not to look back.
Lenin’s crew had finished their game and were busy bagging up dope into plastic wraps. The sound system was banging out something ridiculously loud, and Lenin had to shout over the noise.
‘Saturday morning. Two a.m. You finally get to go to uni!’ He held up two fingers in a gangster salute and waved Josh out.
Elena walked out of the bedroom towards the bathroom wearing a thong and a cropped black T-shirt. The guys started whooping and banging on the table as she walked down the hall towards the toilet.
As Josh went through the front door, he heard Lenin shouting.
‘Elena. For God’s sake. Put some damn clothes on, you prick-teasing bitch!’
27
Another Colonel
Collecting his things from Mrs B had taken longer than Josh had anticipated. Her ability to fuss over the smallest things drove him to distraction, but he patiently waited for her to finish the usual speech about trying to ‘stay out of trouble for your mother’s sake’ and then took the two carrier bags and left.
There was a letter from the council taped to the metal grille where his old front door used to be. As he passed, he read the words ‘EVICTION NOTICE’ in bold red type on the envelope. Josh was less bothered by it than he’d thought he would be; it had never really felt like home — more like a prison where he’d just served five years.
He felt an unusual sense of relief as he walked off the estate with everything he owned. The carrier bags were mostly full of clothes: boxers, socks, T-shirts and another pair of jeans, enough for a week — not much to show for his life. He’d put his photos and diary inside his coat, but the pockets were ripped, and the thing had fallen inside the lining, which was probably the safest place for it anyway.
He was a mess, but for the first time in his life, he felt like something was actually going to change for the better.
The colonel showed him to the guest room. It was a large bedroom with the slope of the roof encroaching on one side. There was a round window high at the end, which let in just the right amount of light. A large double bed took up most of the floor space and an old wooden wardrobe sat against the opposite wall — it was enormous, the kind that could take you into Narnia.
‘You can put your clothes in there,’ said the colonel, nodding at the cabinet, ‘but I should warn you that it’s pretty full already — space is a premium here, I’m afraid.’
Josh opened the door to find it full of uniforms and outfits from at least two centuries.
‘I took the trouble of requisitioning you some gear — standard-issue stuff, really — should see you right back to the sixteenth.’
Josh threw his bags into the bottom with the boots and shoes then sat down on the bed and felt the mattress. It was like sitting on air.
‘Right, get settled in. Dinner’s at eight. Then we have a few things to discuss,’ the colonel said, closing the door.
Josh lay back, shut his eyes and let the bed carry him away.
They ate in the kitchen on a table that folded out. The colonel made some excuse about the dining room being out of order, but Josh didn’t care — the old man had a real talent with food: it was some kind of red meat, not exactly steak. Josh devoured it all. He was starving, and it tasted even better than Mrs B’s.
‘So, Joshua,’ the colonel said, pushing his plate to one side, ‘you have a few questions I would hazard.’
Josh nodded. ‘More than a few.’
‘I may not be allowed, or able to answer all of them, but fire away.’ The colonel poured a large glass of red wine from a dusty old bottle dated 1723.
‘What is it about that book?’ Josh asked, pointing to the battered old leather journal on the table. The colonel consulted it more than most people used their mobile phones.
He picked it up and handed it to Josh.
‘Take a look for yourself. It’s quite a thing to behold the first time.’
Josh opened the book at one of the many dog-eared pages and stared in wonder as the writing on it changed before his eyes. He flicked through the whole book, and every page was the same: covered in notes, diagrams and cyphers that seemed to be in constant flux as though someone was continuously re-writing it.
‘What the �
��’ exclaimed Josh.
‘I know, it’s quite hypnotic, isn’t it? I can still remember the first time I saw it,’ said the colonel, taking the book out of Josh’s hand before he dropped it in the remains of the béarnaise sauce. ‘This, my dear chap, is an almanac, a sympathetic book dating back to the sixteenth century where it is currently being revised and rewritten by the Guild of Copernicus: a group of mathematicians and statisticians who calculate the possibilities and consequences of our actions. You are quite literally watching history being written.’
Josh remembered the symbols from the secret room in Paris; they were obviously co-ordinates.
‘So that’s like a map?’ he said, pointing at the page of moving lines.
‘A map of the possible. Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘So what do all these symbols mean? Are they like algebra?’ Josh had always hated maths — especially abstract stuff like formulae.
‘Those are temporal glyphs: probability coefficients, abstractions and equations that have been developed to help us calculate future outcomes.’
‘But you said we can’t go into the future.’
‘No, but we can make a bloody good guess as to what is going to happen. Well, at least some of the time. It’s complicated.’
‘So these Copernicus dudes spend all their time trying to work out what’s going to happen next?’
‘They pride themselves on their predictions — nothing lower than a seventy per cent certainty is ever accepted.’
‘Will I have to learn how this works?’ Josh asked, staring at a page that had stopped moving for a moment.
‘Eventually — we all have to. For now, you will have a mentor, such as myself. You never go back on your own, especially not without this.’
He took the tachyon out and gave it back to Josh.
‘So is there some kind of college? Do I have to go school?’
The Infinity Engines Books 1-3 Page 15