He adjusted his glasses, “Miss Trencher, you scare me somewhat.”
“I have that effect on people, comes with the job.”
Herbert looked up at the cavernous ceiling above them and let out a long sigh. “Supper? You must be hungry?”
“Yes, and yes.”
“Right. You can lodge at my house tonight, I need to digest what you have told me, then we can reconsider tomorrow.”
“I appreciate the help; I really do Herbert.”
“Let’s see where that gets us, shall we?”
“You know, you’re a lot softer than I’d ever imagined.”
“I will choose to ignore that for the time being young lady”, he took a step in the direction of the exit and removed his hat, “Come, we need to hail a cabbie.”
brig vs the chief
London, 2088
There was nothing but a faint hum in the Control Room, Brig floated alone in the centre. The air around her awash with screens and data feeds. Projections carrying images of Victorian London, Registers and records of Births, Deaths, Marriages. Historical sites were being scraped for any data she could use. She was unlocking deep store museum archives. In moments Brig would be the most qualified intelligence on the subject of Victorian Britain.
The huge display screen clocked over another minute, reading. “EVENT: SM, 08:02” There was a loud thump against the security door, she wheeled in its direction and floated across the space.
Outside the Vault stood Chief Mikkelson, a veteran officer his white hair and beard showing his distinguished years. Although he still had an iron rod back of a man half his age. Around him stood a hastily assembled Security Team. He stroked his beard and motion toward the door. “Hit it again.” Two of the guards nodded simultaneously and took a swing with the door ram they held.
The second they made contact the ethereal form of Brig floated through the door. The clang of the ram echoed through the corridor. “You have my attention Chief”, said Brig.
“Open the door Brig.”
Brig narrowed her simulated eyes, “I cannot comply at this time, Chief.”
“On whose authority?”
“We had a situation arise with the last delivery. The Timeagents are addressing it. I am maintaining the security doors as a safety precaution. Sir”
“Brig, you called a station emergency, you called a Breach.” He stepped closer to the hologram, “I need to see for myself.”
“The Vault is under Lockdown until the Timeagents confirm the situation is clear.”
“Then I need to talk to them”
“They are unavailable.”
“Get me Mack.”
“He is not here.”
“Then get me Trencher.”
“She is not here, furthermore you are preventing me from providing her with key intel.” Brig began to slide backwards, fading through the door. “Chief, there are less than ten minutes on the clock, this will all be over by then. If you let them do their jobs.”
“Open the door Brig. That’s an order.” Brig offered a wavering smile as she fully vanished. “That fucking A.I.” He turned back to the two men, “Leave the ram, get a torch. We need to be inside that room in five minutes.”
“Sir”, they both answered and ran. Mikkelson took a step backwards, checked his watch again, folded his arms and waited.
building bridges
London, 1888
Herbert’s Drawing Room was a sumptuous sanctuary away from the harshness of the London streets. At the centre of one wall a roaring fireplace cast dancing shadows onto two leather wingback chairs. Herbert and Trencher sat comfortably in each, cradling brandy tumblers. Trencher sloshed her drink and took a sip, letting the warm drink take air on her tongue. Herbert broke the silence. “It’s actually quite funny.”
“What’s that?” Herbert spoke toward the fire, the flames a flickering reflection in his glasses.
“Here I sit. Contemplating the preposterous theory that you have travelled back in time to seek out a notorious criminal. And I am starting to believe you.”
Trencher squinted at him through her glass, “Well, that’s good.”
He glanced back at her, this stranger in his domain, “Perhaps because I have had the chance to study you, study your attire. Victorian women don’t particularly wear men’s trousers or heavy boots. They certainly do not sit before a fire and share my brandy.”
Trencher bit her lip and sighed, “They’re not men’s trousers, they’re mine”, she offered deadpan and serious.
Herbert snorted, “My dear. You really will need some help fitting in!”
“I know what I am doing, thanks all the same.” A short silence settled while they both drank; Herbert broke it first.
“What’s the farthest you’ve travelled Trencher? What does the future hold?”
“Oh, Herbert. I really am not at liberty to say, not for you or the world in general.”
“Yet you insinuate I am some famous scribe, full of fanciful tales. What’s your world like? How do you live?”
“My world is a dark and polluted place; this is an Industrial Age. Things got better for a while, then we ruined it again. We live amongst poisonous people; we police them hard and cannot keep up. Me, personally, I work to live and live to work.”
“Does your future get better? Have your glimpsed it?”
“The future is unknown Herbert, it is un-mappable, we can’t go forward into a place we have never seen. Only backwards.”
“Intriguing, I have thoughts about that”, she nodded knowingly, “If you were to stay still, surely the world would change around you?”
“I know where you’re going, but our technology knows best.”
“Is this your first time here, to my time?”
Trencher smiled, “Yes, yes it is. I’ve been farther back, much farther and many times, but here and now is new to me”, she sipped deeply and stared again at the fire, “Why the fire Herbert, you said it was August.”
“The nights still draw in chilly, even though it is Summer, and the light is comforting.”
“I’m not complaining.”
Herbert leant forward, his expression earnest. “Tell me Trencher. This Jackal character, he must be truly evil to bring you all this way. Why not leave him to rot here?”
Her eyes rolled back round to him, her mind weighing up her options, her face impassive. She started, then stopped, then started again. “There’s a place where we put criminals. Our prisons were bursting at the seams and we needed a solution. That solution was way back in time.”
She put her drink down on the floor and clasped her hands. “You guys know about the Dinosaurs, yes?”
Herbert nodded, “Fossils and talk of giant lizards.”
“Okay. Well then, they became extinct because…”
“The Ice Age came and swept them from existence.”
“Correct. The precursor to that Ice Age was an enormous meteor that smashed into the Earth in a valley in South Mexico.” She paused, she could see he was still keeping up, “It was a global killer, seas boiled, and ash filled the sky. The planetwide fallout laying waste to the population.”
“A sound theory.”
“Quite.” Trencher recovered her glass and drank again, “Well, that’s the place we take our prisoners to. That valley in, where they wait for this giant fireball to come crashing down. Talk about being taken far from society.”
“Dear God”, he whispered. “They get a trial of sorts, fair as can be. There’s thousands of them standing there, medicated, not knowing what is coming.” Trencher drained the last of her brandy.
Herbert sat back, sensing she would continue. “Jackal was one of them. We locked him up there a long while ago.”
“But he got out?”
“Yeah, he got out”, she held her breath for a moment, “He must have woken up, he got out and left my partner trapped in that valley.”
“You cannot simply get him back?”
“It’s complicated. If we
had his badge, we could trace him, get the location locked in and find the right wormhole.”
“Oh.”
“And his badge is currently here in London 1888, along with that bastard.” Herbert stood and drained his glass; Trencher was staring at the fire as she spoke again. “Then, there’s the ticking clock.”
“What does that actually mean?”
“Once we make ground-fall the wormhole will slip, moving forward in time past the event.” She looked back at him, “Back in my own time I have a closing window to access him before the valley is destroyed. In the valley I have less than ten real minutes.”
“It’s a limited window on the timeline?”
“In a way, plus the slippage is stronger the closer the destination. When I travel back from here and return a few minutes later, days, even weeks will have passed for you.”
Herbert stifled a yawn. “I’m sorry Miss Trencher, that was most uncouth, and I would love to discuss this through the night, but I really must retire.” He placed his glass on the drinks table, “Please accept my apologies.”
“What time is it?”
Herbert pulled out his pocket watch, squinting through his glasses, “Long after midnight, I trust you will be comfortable here. There’s a blanket and the fire is still warm.”
He waved in the direction of the blanket hanging on a chair. Trencher nodded and smiled warmly. “Goodnight Herbert, thank you for your generosity.”
“Yes. Indeed”, he said a touch awkwardly, “I do look forward to continuing our discussion tomorrow, over breakfast perhaps.”
He left on slightly unsteady legs, Trencher watched him go before finishing her drink and gently placing the glass on the floor.
Across London in Whitechapel, that very night. On a dark and wretched stairwell landing Martha was slowly making her way down the stairs. She was startled when a figure stepped out of the darkness. She choked back her surprise when she saw the familiar face, jagged scar and all.
“You again, gave me a fright Mister”, she heaved breathlessly.
His tone was smooth and reassuring, “Martha, forgive me.” He cast a glance about them, “I had to come back, for more.” Martha looked over the stairwell and listened, the silence was what she wanted.
“Alright.” She hitched up her skirts and leant back against the wall, “You’ll have to be quick.”
He moved in closer, close enough to smell the alcohol on her breath, “Oh. I’ll be quick.” From the folds of his coat a knife flashed, at the same time he forced her back and clamped a hard hand over her mouth.
She was snorting for breath and struggling to scream. Jackal’s eyes were wide, taking in every detail of her face as he thudded the knife home over and over until her panic had faded to nothing. Bloody and slick he slipped away into the darkness, leaving Martha to slump into a sticky pool.
Herbert’s Drawing Room was bathed in morning light, cracks of gold slicing through the heavy curtains and dancing on pot plants. The final embers in the fireplace left a gentle smokey air, but none of the warmth from the night before. The door swung open, and Herbert entered, his eyes travelled quickly around the room. No sign of Trencher.
The chair was empty, the blanket still sat ready to be used and her glass placed neatly next to the chair. He stepped closer, half expecting her to jump out. “Hello?”, he called tentatively. For a moment there was nothing, his face settled into a frown of disappointment, then the silence was broken by the slam of his front door.
Herbert was startled, until he recognised the footfall. Mrs. Watchet bustled into the doorway; Herbert composed himself.
“Good Morning, Mr. Wells”, her regular morning salutation, perhaps a touch more frosty than usual. Herbert was tongue tied; he was fighting the urge to pinch himself. “Cat got your Tongue Sir?”
“No, no. Not at all”, he cast about again, “I was looking for someone, a guest last night. She stayed down here, or so I thought.”
“I won’t be needing the sordid details if that’s alright with you.”
Herbert coloured, he could feel pinpricks his cheeks flushed. “There was no impropriety I can assure you”, he scooped up the empty glass looking at it, “Did you see anybody leave as you approached? A young woman, with red hair, wearing a long grey coat?”
Mrs. Watchet studied him for a moment, then shrugged, “No. Nobody. Would you care for a cup of tea?” She handed him a newspaper and pointed at his chair. “You sit yourself down, I’ll be along shortly.”
He took the newspaper gratefully, settling back and flicking the broadsheet open. From the corridor she called out. “Do I need to check the silver?”
Herbert smiled at the comment thinking of the red headed Trencher, then his eyes caught the print on the newspaper. The headline in bold black letter shouting as loud as it could. ‘MURDER IN WHITECHAPEL’, Herbert’s mouth dropped open and he began reading in earnest.
“No Mrs. Watchet, I don’t believe you do.”
the clock is ticking
London, 2088
In 2088 the clock ticked over another minute. Trencher poured over a table screen of data that Brig had offered up. She flipped virtual news articles away as she read them. She glanced over her shoulder at the main door, non-plussed as it started to show signs of attack from oxyacetylene torches. “Is this all of it Brig?”
Brig glided closer, “For the time period, yes. Having run various scenarios all of which point to the unsolved case of Jack the Ripper.” Trencher grunted.
“Great, just what I wanted to do when I signed up”, she traced a list of dates with her finger, “Fits his standard M.O. I guess, murder, mutilation, possible cannibalism.” Trencher looked up at Brig, “We can’t be wrong, you know.”
Brig nodded. “The key murders in the legend are the Canonical Five, running from late August through to November. That is the timeline we must preserve”, said Brig when Trencher interrupted.
“We put him away to die in Hell and now we’ve delivered him into a cesspool of victims.”
Brig continued, “There were two other questionable murders around the time that may or may not be contributed. Martha Tabram was the closest to your entry point, that might be a place to start”, she had Trencher’s attention, so she continued, “If my assumptions are correct, we do at least have the upper hand. He may not even know the history; he will likely play it out as we have not seen any alterations yet.”
“I can’t stand by and watch him kill them.”
“They’re already dead to history, you know how this works Trencher, they have to die. History tells us he stops after the Five. You must stop him then, you always did.”
“Jackal is not my only concern here Brig.” She glanced up at the clock.
“We are bending time, there is sufficient slippage to watch this happen, hunt him down and retrieve Mack.”
The doors had begun the smoke. Trencher nodded at them, “Depending on how long we have before they get through.”
“Doing my best, they won’t shut us down while you are both missing.”
Trencher palmed the Timekey, “How’s the Project?”
“The backup is at eighty-three percent; ancillary systems are booted. We’ll have a second station in an hour.”
“Are you okay Brig?” Brig smiled, “The moment I power down here I’ll be over there. I have no concerns” Brig raised her hands and started punching a holographic display.
“I need to get back there, what’s my ETA?”
“Near the end of August.” Trencher exploded the Timekey, amber light and snowflakes scattered across the room. “Be good”, said Brig to an otherwise empty room.
trencher came back
London, 1888
It was a brisk late August morning, a brief chill washed over Herbert as he descended the stairs, his lush dressing gown failing to stop the cold. He shivered for a moment. Heading for the kitchen he passed the open door to his Drawing Room and abruptly stopped for a double take.
A light covering o
f snow covered the carpet. Then Trencher stepped into view and Herbert’s legs almost gave way. He stifled a panicky whelp. Trencher came at him with a big grin, “Miss me?”
Herbert took a moment to adjust, “You. You’ve been gone for three weeks!”
“What’s the date?”
“Today?”
“Today.”
“September, the first. Like I said, you’ve been gone…”, she cut him off.
“Three weeks, yeah you said”, she framed herself in the doorway with a steadying grip, “Three weeks for you, a few minutes for me.” She nodded back at the room, “Sorry about the snow.”
“Nothing Mrs. Watchet can’t fix”, said Herbert as he ferreted in a pile of newspapers that sat under his coat rack. “Aha”, he stood upright and handed her a folded newspaper, “For you, the day you left.”
Trencher took the paper and scanned it, Herbert leant in close and pointed at headline as she unfolded it. “Report of a gruesome murder in Whitechapel, coincidentally the day you appeared. The woman’s name was Martha.”
Trencher read quickly. “Martha Tabram. Found in a stairwell in George Yard, Whitechapel.”
“What do you think?”
“I know of her, Martha doesn’t fit the same pattern exactly and historians have argued over her being part of the story”, she looked at Herbert’s earnest face, “Not his normal M.O., but quite possible. A frenzied attack, either finding his stride or hiding his identity.”
“M.O?”, Herbert looked quizzical.
“His method, his style, a personal stamp if you like. Modus Operandi.”
“Latin? A fellow scholar”, her face was stony and saying otherwise, “Would he know you came after him?”
“He might suspect, but he’s also crazy enough to believe he’s free.”
“What are you going to do Trencher?”
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