Million Eyes
Page 31
She explained to Young Erica that she had just orchestrated the death of Princess Diana and tasked her with making sure it never got traced back to Million Eyes.
After hanging up, she closed her eyes, clenched her jaw and took a deep, long breath as she went to click the Wikipedia page for Million Eyes.
Please, please, please.
She opened her eyes.
Million Eyes is a British multinational technology company headquartered in London, England, that designs, develops and sells computer hardware and software, consumer electronics and internet-related services. It is the world’s largest technology company by revenue and total assets and its current chief executive officer is Erica Morgan.
A sigh of relief blew past her lips. “We’re back,” she whispered, a proud smile easing across her face.
She googled Million Eyes to make sure. She found that the top stories, ahead of the company’s many websites and social media pages, were all about Million Eyes winning nine awards at the Vantage Point Innovation Awards.
She got up and went to the window. As expected, Starbucks and Arthur Pell’s ugly statue were back. And although she was getting tired of looking at clocks, she was very pleased to see that the world’s most famous one – Big Ben – was standing again at the north end of the Houses of Parliament, proudly overlooking the city.
Normally the Time Travel Department would be able to confirm that everything was back to normal with a sensor sweep, but since the network had been overloaded, the internet and the view from the windows would have to do.
From what Miss Morgan could see, everything looked good.
She poured a shot of bourbon and sat down at her desk. First she used her MEc to video-call Rupert Whistler in Time Travel and tell him to begin deactivating the Shield. With thirty-seven minutes of power left, it could now be recharged. Then she used her phone to call Rawling and tell him to return to the present. Finally, after stubbing out her latest cigarette, she left her office and announced to the C-Suite that the timeline had been restored.
As everyone started checking in with loved ones, Miss Morgan walked over to Lara Driscoll’s desk. “Miss Driscoll, please send security up here immediately.”
A couple of minutes later, two security guards with disruptors stepped out of the lift, drawing worried gazes as they crossed the C-Suite to Miss Morgan. “Please escort everyone here, apart from Miss Driscoll, to the Room,” she said, loud enough for them all to hear.
Not surprisingly, they erupted.
“What?” screamed Melanie Cox. “No – you can’t. We’re sorry!”
“Really sorry!” shouted Anthony Graves. “We were doing what we thought was best – for all of us. But we were wrong.”
“Erica, don’t do this,” pleaded Juanita Salazar. “You need us.”
I don’t need people I can’t trust.
“No! Please, no!” Cox started running towards the C-Suite lift.
Her chances were spent. One of the guards looked round at Miss Morgan. She gave him the go-ahead with a nod.
He raised his disruptor and, before Cox had reached the lift, fired. A bolt of green light slammed into her back, sent her hurtling into a couple of empty desks with a crash.
Silence fell over the C-Suite and Salazar, Graves, Tambara and Higgins froze, their eyes locked on Cox’s lifeless body, flopped over one of the upturned desks. It was enough to get them to submit. Without protest, they accompanied the two security guards to the lift.
Miss Morgan walked over to the windows and looked pensively across the restored cityscape. It was over. In an hour or so the sun would rise, and nobody would be any the wiser about the catastrophe Million Eyes had spent the night averting.
Lara Driscoll came and stood next to her.
“I think I need a holiday,” said Miss Morgan softly.
“You deserve one.”
Miss Morgan looked at her and nodded, “Thank you, Miss Driscoll. Your loyalty means a lot.”
“Don’t mention it, ma’am. So what now?”
Miss Morgan smiled. Some words from her childhood sprang to mind. She had systematically wiped from her memory most of the Bible passages her mother had subjected her to, but there was one, just one, that she’d always rather liked, and, right now, was apt. Her mother had read it to her when she came home from school one day, bruised and bloodied.
“Our bricks have fallen down. So we will rebuild with hewn stone. Our sycamore trees have been felled. So we will plant cedars in their place.”
Driscoll frowned. “What’s that, ma’am?”
“Just something I heard as a child. It means that what happened here tonight will make us stronger. And it means that if anyone tries to –”
Hang on a minute.
“Tries to?” said Driscoll.
Miss Morgan didn’t answer.
At the top of Puttenham Lane was a hotel, Puttenham Plaza, that looked… different. Bigger. Maybe two floors taller.
She was probably remembering it wrong, but she had to be sure. She darted over to the nearest computer and googled Puttenham Plaza.
“Huh?”
Puttenham Plaza was owned by business magnate Roger Kimble, and Google had just brought up a photo of Kimble shaking hands with Donald Trump in 2016.
But Donald Trump had been languishing in jail since 2012, after being convicted of fraud and money laundering and getting a twenty-year prison sentence.
Miss Morgan read the caption with the image: Donald Trump with Roger Kimble, one of Trump’s biggest backers for the presidency.
What? The… presidency?
She googled Trump: Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is the 45th and current President of the United States.
“Fuck!” she cried. “I missed something!”
Hillary Clinton was president, not Donald Trump. Miss Morgan jumped on the nearest MEc to call Time Travel. “What’s the status of the Shield?”
Whistler replied, “Deactivation in four – three –”
“No, abort deactivation!”
“W-what?”
“The Shield – do not deactivate it! The timeline’s still corrupted!”
“Ma’am, it’s too la –”
34
October 26th 2026
Adam Bryant sat down with his girlfriend, Izzy, to watch the final episode of Eastenders, which had been refusing to die with dignity despite years of terrible ratings. Finally the BBC had thrown in the towel and apparently the final episode was going to feature a terrorist attack that would destroy Albert Square and kill off the entire cast, which was the only reason Adam had agreed to watch it.
He popped the cap off Izzy’s beer and handed it to her. “Cheers babe,” she said as he opened his. “So, how was it?”
“Really good,” he replied. “Everyone seems really sound.” He’d just been promoted to the software development team at Million Eyes headquarters. Today was his first day in the role.
“Did you get to meet Erica Morgan?”
“Nah. I doubt I will. Too low down the chain.”
“Depends how far you want to go up it.”
“True.” There were times when Adam wondered if Izzy – an astrophysicist for the British Republic Space Agency, or BRSA – wished he was as ambitious as she was. Honestly, ‘ambitious’ was never a word he’d used to describe himself. He just loved computer science.
Eastenders started and the rest of this conversation would have to wait till it was over. Things never ended well when Adam talked over Izzy’s shows.
Two minutes in, his phone rang.
Izzy blew an irked sigh and said, “Pause,” to the TV. Eastenders froze just as the terrorists were about to murder Ian Beale. “Who the hell could that be when the last ever episode of Eastenders is on?”
Stretching to grab his phone off the coffee table, Adam smirked, “Someone with better taste.”
In jest, she flipped him the finger.
He looked at his phone. Private number calling. He answered, “Hello?�
�
A woman’s voice said, “Is this Adam Bryant?”
“Who’s asking?”
“We need to talk, Mr Bryant. I have information you need to hear.”
A strange way to start a sales call, if that’s what it was. An effective way, perhaps, since it triggered a further question from Adam, “What information is that?”
“It concerns Queen Elizabeth II. I have evidence pertaining to her death. Evidence that confirms she was murdered.”
Well he wasn’t expecting that! “I – what?”
“It’s true. The evidence consists of letters recently excavated from the grounds of Cawston Manor in the New Forest.”
Weirdly enough, Adam was just thinking about the Queen the other day. Probably because it was the fifth anniversary of her death, and royalists held a vigil outside Windsor Castle to mark it – he saw it on the news. Hundreds of people laying flowers, wreaths, cards, pictures and Union Jacks at the gates of the castle, with many kneeling in prayer.
It reminded him of the day her death was announced and the wave of public hysteria that followed. For a few days the country just ground to a halt. And there were people who refused to believe it. She was very old, yes, but she’d been photographed in public just a couple of days before and looked fit and well. To Adam, it was perfectly believable that a woman that old could just die peacefully in her sleep from natural causes. But there were thousands of conspiracy theorists – Liz Truthers, the media called them – who suspected foul play.
For many people, the most tragic thing about the Queen’s death was that she wasn’t just the country’s longest-serving monarch. She was its last. The government dissolved the British monarchy after her death. Adam avoided politics wherever possible, so he didn’t know the ins and outs, only that despite nationwide protests, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – the UK – was no more. In its place, the British Republic – the BR.
Adam figured that was why there were so many conspiracy theories – even more, perhaps, than after Princess Diana died. People didn’t want to let the monarchy, the Royal Family and many centuries of history go.
Still, why would a Liz Truther have called him?
“I think you’ve got the wrong number,” he said.
“I know for a fact I haven’t.”
Well, that was sinister. “I’m hanging up now.”
“No, don’t. This is important, and I don’t have long. This line is secure, but only temporarily. In a few minutes, they’ll be able to trace it.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Dr Samantha Lester, but that won’t mean anything to you. The person who wrote the letters – her name will.”
Adam swallowed. “Who?”
“Jennifer Larson.”
All the breath vanished from his lungs.
“Who is it?” said Izzy. “Are you okay?”
“Are you – are you still there?” said Dr Lester.
Adam had not heard his former best friend’s name in a long time. A million questions fired through his head. None turned into words.
“Mr Bryant,” Dr Lester continued, satisfied he was still there, “I had Jennifer’s letters dated. They’re over nine hundred years old. Nine hundred years old and written in Modern English. They’re real.”
“Adam, tell me what’s going on,” said Izzy, but her voice sounded miles away.
Dr Lester explained, “Jennifer wrote in them that she was a time traveller from the future, stranded in the past, and I believe her.”
Finally, Adam found his voice. “H-how did you find me?”
“She talked about you. You were her best friend.”
Adam felt a tear form on the brim of his right eyelid and squirm free, wriggling to the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry, Mr Bryant, but I must hurry this along. There are serious matters to discuss. We need to meet.”
Adam sniffed. “What matters?”
“Million Eyes, Mr Bryant. We need to talk about Million Eyes.”
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I must thank the person this book is dedicated to: Vicky Ward. Vicks, this book only exists because of your faith in it. I was ready to chuck it out and move on till I sat down with you, ran through the plot and you told me – shit, you have something here. I stuck with it because of how excited you were by it. As a result, you became my muse, with an ear always willing to be bent. So thank you. I hope I’ve done you proud.
Thank you everyone at Rushmoor Writers for listening patiently to the entire book over two years and helping me refine it. Your (sometimes brutal!) feedback has nurtured me into a better writer. I must also thank Anthony Self, Ross Jeffery and Tomek Dzido at Storgy Magazine, whose constructive feedback at a late stage in Million Eyes’ development helped me make real improvements and produce a much stronger book.
Mum, Dad and Katie, your unwavering pride in me and my writing means the world to me and has always kept me going. Matt Pamplin, you clever bastard, those Million Eyes trailers you produced are bloody awesome. And to the truly wonderful circle of friends and family I’m so lucky to have in my life, thank you. Never underestimate the power of your encouragement.
Last but certainly not least, I have to thank the fabulous and super-dedicated team at Elsewhen Press for believing in Million Eyes and being so enthusiastic about it throughout the publication process. (It was particularly fun creating the Million Eyes website with you, Pete!) I was wondering if I might never make it in the traditional publishing industry when Elsewhen’s acceptance letter landed in my inbox. And for us struggling authors, there’s nothing more motivating or satisfying than getting your first endorsement from a publisher.
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Million Eyes: Extra Time
C.R. Berry
Twelve time-twisting tales.
Million Eyes: Extra Time is a compilation of short stories set in the universe of C.R. Berry’s time travel conspiracy thriller trilogy, Million Eyes.
The stories act as an introduction to the Million Eyes world, exploring themes that are central to the trilogy and offering a unique insight into its time-travelling villains. They focus on side characters who (mostly) do not appear in the trilogy while revealing clues to key storylines in all three books.
Many of these stories are inspired by conspiracy theories and urban legends you may recognise.
Think of these tales as a bit like the mini-episodes you get with TV series – Star Trek: Short Treks, Lost: Missing Pieces, and Doctor Who’s many prequels, mini-adventures and ‘Tardisodes’.
While the stories in Million Eyes: Extra Time can stand alone, you’ll notice that a number of them are strongly linked and follow a loose chronology. The author’s advice is that you read them in the order that they are presented.
Available for free download in pdf, epub and kindle formats
Visit bit.ly/Million-Eyes-Extra-Time
SmartYellowTM
J.A. Christy
SmartYellowTM is the story of a young girl, Katrina Williams, who finds herself on the wrong side of social services. After becoming pregnant with only a slight notion of the father’s identity, she is disowned by her parents and goes to live on a social housing estate. Before long she is being bullied by a gang involved in criminal activity and anti-social behaviour. Seeking help from the authorities she is persuaded to return to the estate to work as part of Operation Schrödinger, alongside a surveillance specialist. But she soon realises that Operation Schrödinger is not what it seems.
SmartYellowTM offers a worryingly plausible and chilling glimpse into an alternate Britain. For the sa
ke of order and for the benefit of more fortunate members of society, those seen as socially undesirable are marked with SmartYellowTM, making it easier for them to be controlled and maintained in a state of fruitless inactivity. Writer, J.A. Christy, turns an understanding and honest eye not only onto the weak, who have failed to cope with life, but also onto those who ruthlessly exploit them for their own ends. At times tense and threatening, at times tender and insightful, SmartYellowTM is a rewarding and thought-provoking read. J.A. Christy also writes novels under the name Jacqueline Ward.
ebook, paperback (320pp)
visit bit.ly/SmartYellow
Overstrike
Fixpoint: Volume 1
C.M. Angus
When Matt Howard’s grandfather told him he must alter history to protect his newborn son, Matt thought the old man was crazy…
…Then he realised it was true.
Overstrike spans 4 generations of a family haunted by the prospect of an approaching alternate reality where their child has been erased from history.
It touches on themes of retro-causality, ethics and free will, explores ideas of cause, effect and retribution and follows the path of Matt Howard, whose child, Ethan, is at risk, as he, his father and grandfather attempt to use their own abilities to manipulate reality in order to discover and prevent whoever is threatening Ethan.
ebook, paperback
Visit bit.ly/Overstrike
TimeStorm
Steve Harrison
In 1795 a convict ship leaves England for New South Wales in Australia. Nearing its destination, it encounters a savage storm but, miraculously, their battered ship stays afloat and limps into Sydney Harbour. Here, the convicts rebel, overpower the crew and make their escape, destroying the ship in the process. Fleeing the sinking vessel with only the clothes on their backs, the survivors struggle ashore.