by C. R. Berry
Oh God – Sarah.
Toasty had grabbed her dressing gown and was already walking out of the bedroom as Jennifer shouted, “No – don’t!”
Toasty ignored her and carried on downstairs.
Jennifer waited for the sound of the door. Her heart thumped so hard she could feel every beat in her fingers and toes.
The clink of the latch was followed by a deep, blaring crack. A familiar sound. She’d just made the same sound herself ten minutes ago. It was the sound of the door swinging open fast and hitting the inside wall.
Silence.
She listened, heard nothing.
She waited. Dread snaked up her throat.
Shit! Footfalls up the stairs. She grabbed the transcriber off the bed and shoved it into her hoody pocket with the bottle of chronozine and her phone.
Hide. Hide. Hide.
She sprang into the en-suite, quietly closed the door and locked it. She picked up the cylindrical steel laundry bin and positioned herself behind the door.
She heard creaks. Whoever had just come up the stairs was in the bedroom.
Shit. A creak just outside the door.
She swallowed hard.
Oh God.
Someone was turning the doorknob – the lock held.
“Vicky?” Sarah’s voice through the door.
Jennifer’s instinct was to pretend nothing was wrong.
“Sarah? Is that you?” she replied brightly.
“Vicky, please can you come out.”
“I’m just about to get in the shower! How come you’re back? Where’s Toasty?”
“Vicky, we need to talk now.”
She didn’t know what to say next. Sarah was here for the transcriber – she knew that. And Sarah probably knew she knew that. And she was probably going to kill her once she got it.
“I’ll be out shortly,” Jennifer murmured.
“Come out now.” Suddenly Sarah’s tone was laced with fury. “I know about the book. Give it to me, and I’ll let you go.”
What a crock of shit.
No point playing dumb anymore.
Jennifer said nothing.
“I won’t ask again,” said Sarah.
Jennifer stayed silent.
A long hiss. The doorknob rattled. Metal scraped and whined. Somehow Sarah was slicing through the lock.
Jennifer lifted the laundry bin.
The noise stopped.
The doorknob turned.
The door opened.
Jennifer saw Sarah’s hand, clasping a gun, appear around the rim of the door. Jennifer didn’t waste any time and lunged.
The steel laundry bin thunked into Sarah’s shoulder, slamming her into the sink. The gun escaped her grip and skimmed across the vinyl tiles. Jennifer plunged and grabbed it, then two hard hands clamped onto her shoulders and yanked her back. Jennifer fell through the en-suite doorway onto the bedroom carpet, the gun flung behind her.
Jennifer spun on the floor, saw the gun at the foot of the bed and sprang for it. Sarah dived for it too. Jennifer got to it first and, turning on the floor, swung hard as Sarah swooped over her. The gun met Sarah’s jaw with a solid thwack and she hurtled backwards, thumping onto the floor.
Jennifer got to her feet and pointed the gun at Sarah, who’d risen onto her elbows, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. “Don’t fucking move!”
“What’s going on up there?” shouted a male voice from downstairs. It sounded like the man Sarah was talking to at her house – Finn.
“Stay down there!” Sarah called to him.
Jennifer had never touched a gun before, but she’d seen plenty on TV. This one was silver, small, lightweight, had a sleek barrel with a sequence of recessed buttons, and looked a bit like the destructive ray gun used by that nurse to try and kill her two years ago. She had her finger over a pretty normal-looking trigger, and the gravity of Sarah’s expression told her that it worked like any other.
“What the fuck, Sarah?” she said. “What the actual fuck?”
“Vicky, I’m your friend. You’re not going to shoot me.”
“You’re kidding, right? Friend? Where’s Toasty?”
“Downstairs with my colleague.”
Jennifer called to her, “Toasty!”
No answer.
“Toasty!”
“She won’t hear you,” said Sarah.
Jennifer’s stomach turned. “What have you done?”
“My job.”
Jennifer felt a pang in her chest. “Stand up. Stand the fuck up.”
Sarah got to her feet. Jennifer gripped the gun so tight it was like she was welded to it.
“Keep your hands where I can see them. Move.” Jennifer gestured with the gun and steered Sarah onto the landing.
Sarah backed against the wall. Holding her aim, Jennifer gripped the top of the balustrade that skirted the staircase and looked down. A man – probably Finn – was standing in the hallway, slowly lowering a mobile phone from his ear as Jennifer and Sarah appeared on the landing.
At Finn’s feet was Toasty, motionless on her back on the floor, mouth open, eyes open and staring blankly, shimmering blood spilling from her neck.
Jennifer clapped her hand over her mouth. No, no, no, no….
Her legs felt boneless. If she wasn’t still gripping the balustrade, she would’ve fallen. Her right arm, outstretched and pointing the gun, wavered.
“W-what have you done…” she murmured.
“I told you,” said Sarah. “My job.”
Jennifer’s breathing became convulsive – anguish, panic, fury overwhelming her. Her hand tightened over her mouth, her fingers bruising her cheeks. Hot tears swelled in her eyes.
At once, Sarah lunged, taking full advantage of Jennifer’s distress.
She grabbed at Jennifer’s arms, trying to wrestle the gun from her grip. Jennifer pushed back. They thumped onto the landing floor, knocking over a small lamp table as they grappled.
It all happened so fast. A blur of violence. Jennifer grabbed the chunky ceramic tealight holder that had rolled onto the floor when the table fell, and smashed it into the side of Sarah’s head.
Sarah’s thrashing arms flopped.
Jennifer swung again. Thunk. And again. Thunk. And again. Crack.
In the corner of her eye, Finn charging up the stairs was the distraction she needed to stop herself.
She spun towards him, gun raised, and pressed the trigger.
A shaft of green light burst from the tip of the gun and slammed into Finn’s waist, tossing him backwards down the stairs.
Jennifer collapsed on her rear, shaking. Both hands released their weapons. There was blood everywhere – all over the carpet, all over her.
What the fuck had just happened…
Toasty!
A bolt of emotions launched her down the stairs. She leapt over Finn’s body and dropped to her knees at Toasty’s side. She tried to shake her awake. “Toasty! Babe, wake up! Fucking wake up – please!”
Toasty’s vacant, empty stare persisted. Her limbs didn’t twitch, her chest didn’t rise. Her only movement was the steady stream of blood weeping into the carpet from the deep laceration across her throat. Jennifer checked her pulse. She couldn’t feel anything.
No. Come back. You have to come back.
Tears blurring her vision, Jennifer pulled open Toasty’s dressing gown and, straining to remember back to the first aid course she did at uni, interlocked her hands over Toasty’s breastbone and began pumping her chest.
Jennifer knew she was dead even before she started compressions. She just wasn’t processing it. Tears rained over Jennifer’s hands and Toasty’s bare chest. Before long, her arms went weak and she crumbled, sinking into Toasty’s waist, which was still warm, and murmuring between sobs, “Don’t leave me.”
“Myers! Finn!” a muted voice crackled.
Jennifer lifted her head from Toasty, looking with bleary eyes towards Finn’s body, a heap at the foot of the stairs. The voice
was coming from his direction.
“Myers! Finn! What’s happening over there?”
Jennifer crawled towards the body, spotted the source of the voice – a mobile phone about a metre from where he lay.
Finn had been on the phone when she and Sarah came onto the landing. Looked like he never got a chance to hang up.
Sniffing and rubbing her eyes, Jennifer reached for the phone and breathed, “W-who is this?”
“Ah,” a woman replied, disappointment in her voice. “You must be Victoria Moore. I take it Miss Myers and Mr Finn are dead then.”
Jennifer tried to steady her breathing. She could hardly see for tears. Each time she rubbed her eyes, more came. “Y-yes.”
“That’s a shame.”
Jennifer swallowed. “Who… are you?”
“Why don’t you take a moment. Go have a cup of tea. Some of my people will be there shortly to explain everything.”
Wait. I know that voice.
“Who are you?” Jennifer said again.
“I’m not sure that really matters.”
Then, a snap of memory.
Erica Morgan. CEO of Million Eyes.
Jennifer gasped for breath. “You’re Erica Morgan. You’re the one who’s responsible for all this.” She looked at Toasty’s bloody corpse. “You’re the one who’s just killed my… my…” Her voice broke. More tears fell.
“Now listen. I can tell you’re upset and I’m sorry – I truly am – for your loss. But trust me when I say that the work we’re doing is more important than you or your loved ones, or me or mine.”
Jennifer felt a deep, hot fury rising from the pit of her stomach like a stirring volcano. “You mean… the ‘Mission’?”
“Hmm. You’ve been eavesdropping on things that don’t concern you.” Her voice was sticky with condescension.
Jennifer’s fingers tightened around the phone. “I know you’re planning to assassinate the Queen.”
“Yes, well, that’ll be our little secret, won’t it?”
“Not for long. I have evidence of what you’re doing. I’m going to expose you to the whole fucking world.”
“Oh, petal. Are you? I presume you’re talking about the transcriber you stole. Fear not! My people will soon be there to take care of that. And you.”
“Fuck you. You’ll never find me.”
Miss Morgan laughed coldly. “Of course we will. Why do you think we called ourselves Million Eyes?”
Miss Morgan hung up and Jennifer lobbed the phone at the wall, shaking all over, an ever-mounting pile-up of emotions crashing through her head. She tried to catch her breath, calm herself.
“You have to go.”
A whispered voice. Again it was coming from the direction of Finn’s body.
Jennifer looked over at him. Shit – he wasn’t dead. His eyes were open, his left arm edging across the floor.
Jennifer looked up at the blood-splattered landing and Sarah’s motionless legs. Her gun was up there. Jennifer had dropped it after she’d shot Finn.
Why the fuck didn’t I keep a hold of it?
Jennifer got to her feet.
“You have to.” Finn’s voice was wheezy, strained. “You have to run.”
What?
“Keep that transcriber safe,” Finn continued.
Jennifer shook her head. “Why are you – ?”
“Who do you think left the door open for you?”
“That was you?”
His speech was becoming more laboured. “I needed you there… I needed you… to hear it.”
“Was it you who sent those texts as well?”
“Y-yes.”
“Why? Why me?”
“Because… because it’s how it has to… be…”
“I don’t understand. What am I supposed to do?”
“Run.”
Finn’s head flopped to the side.
Jennifer checked that the transcriber and the bottle of chronozine were still in her hoody pocket. They were. So was her phone.
She crouched over Toasty, stroked two fingers against her cheek and kissed her lips, whispering, “I love you.”
Then she bolted up the stairs, grabbed Sarah’s gun, flew back down, swiped the keys to Toasty’s Mazda Dimension from the hall table, and hurtled through the front door.
She sprinted up Trafalgar Rise, along St James’s Street, ran for a couple of minutes before reaching Elizabeth Terrace, one of the few roads in Kemptown where there were parking spaces. She spotted Toasty’s Dimension and unlocked it. She dived into the driver’s seat, tossed Sarah’s gun onto the passenger seat, and started the engine.
The tyres wailed as she floored it out of Elizabeth Terrace. She had no idea where she was going. Out of Brighton. That was as far as she’d got.
As she reached the junction with the busy Old Steine thoroughfare, Brighton’s Royal Pavilion sneaked into view through the gaps in the trees flanking the road, its onion domes and minarets lit up and glowing gold against the night sky.
As she turned right onto the Old Steine, a black Mercedes promptly overtook her, then swerved hard in front of her and stopped.
No, no, no.
She hit the brakes, lurched forwards. Sarah’s gun flew off the passenger seat into the footwell.
She shoved the car into reverse and whirled round in her seat. Before she could move, a second black Mercedes pulled up fast behind her, skidding to a halt – tyres screaming, bright headlights skewering her eyes.
Fuck!
She was trapped.
Miss Morgan was right. They’d found her. They’d caught her.
The front doors of the Mercedes ahead of her swung open. A woman stepped out of the driver’s side, a man out of the passenger side. Both were wearing smart, dark suits and brandished silver guns just like Sarah’s. They approached Jennifer’s car.
“Ma’am, please get out of the car,” called the woman.
Jennifer glanced at Sarah’s gun in the passenger footwell. Her heart sank. She’d never be able to reach it in time. As soon as she went for it they’d shoot her.
But…
Slowly, stealthily, Jennifer slipped her hand into her hoody pocket. The transcriber and her phone were still in there – as was the bottle of chronozine.
It was insane. She knew it was insane. But Million Eyes weren’t going to let her live.
“Miss Moore, get out of the car now.”
She had two choices.
Death or time travel.
She fondled the cap off the bottle, poked a finger inside, dug out a pill. The two Million Eyes agents were nearly by the car. Her hand flashed to her mouth and the pill was on her tongue.
She swallowed.
A loud, continuous hum pinched her ears. She felt sleepy, dizzy. She blinked. Suddenly there were people and vehicles everywhere, surrounding her car, and everyone and everything was transparent – like ghosts – and blurred together like countless photographs superimposed over one another. The two Million Eyes agents were lost in a throng of see-through people walking through see-through cars driving through see-through walls and buildings.
And it wasn’t just cars. Horses, too. Horses pulling chariots carrying… wait a minute. Romans? Yes, Romans. The huge, red, horsehair crests arching over their bronze helmets were unmistakable.
Jennifer homed in on some of the other people, then appreciating what was an inconceivable collision of fashions. There were men in top hats and frock coats, women in coifs and pinafores, walking among men in shorts, t-shirts, flip-flops, women in jeans and crop-tops, and both men and women in sleek, skin-tight onesies with gills, bizarre jackets with triangular protrusions, and dresses that looked like a mesh of alien tentacles.
She looked up. What? The sky was filled with vehicles the size of cars whooshing through the clouds at high speed. And among them, large birds crossing at a far more leisurely pace. Not seagulls – the birds you usually expect to see in abundance in Brighton – but pterodactyls.
It dawned on Jenni
fer what this blur of ghosts meant. Time. All of it. The past, the present, the future. All of it happening at once. All of it merged in front of her eyes.
She looked down. She was still in her car, but that was see-through too. She could see the road through the footwell, and she could see grass through the tarmac. She moved – she couldn’t feel her seat. She felt weightless, floating.
Now what?
She looked up again and her attention lingered on two figures in the crowd of ghosts. Two men on horseback, cantering towards her, wearing chainmail and dome-shaped helmets, bearing swords and shields, and staring right at her. Medieval knights.
Could they see her?
As she watched their approach, they changed. Their hazy, transparent bodies sharpened, solidified. The humming eased and the ghosts around them slipped away.
Then she blacked out.
29
July 9th 1100
Thump.
Jennifer landed on her back against a hard surface. She opened her eyes, saw only brightness, white and hot in her eyes. She felt weak and tingly and her chest and throat were on fire. She squeezed her fingers, digging into cool soil. She sucked in a breath, wheezing. The painful heat in her throat and chest provoked a violent cough. After that, it started easing.
The intense whiteness dimmed, softening into a blue-green hue. Thicker patches of blue and green started to form, finally sharpening into sunlight pouring down from a cerulean sky through the leafy knots and weaves of a tree.
Jennifer sat up, felt like she was wearing a rucksack full of rocks. She took slow, deep breaths, rolled her shoulders, bent, stretched and rotated her arms and legs, trying to re-energise her stiff, weary body. The tingling eased, life returned to her limbs, and she was able to climb to her feet.
She looked around. She was standing in a lightly wooded area skirting a field of cattle and a smattering of barns and medieval-looking dwellings with thatched roofs and wattle and daub walls, the steeple of a small stone church peeking over the top of them. The village was framed to the north by green, forest-patched hills, to the south by a familiar-looking sea. A growing wind blew whorls of salt across the land that she could taste.
The ghosts were gone. So were the Old Steine Road, its houses and apartment buildings, the Pavilion, the Pavilion Gardens. All gone.