Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  “Everything set?” I asked Rafe.

  He snorted but thankfully didn’t comment on my Neanderthal behaviour.

  “If you’re sure you don’t want me to accompany you, sir.”

  “I’d rather Groves isn’t left alone, and as we’re using her outfit for this excursion, she cannot accompany us into contemporary time as is.”

  “Agreed. But…”

  “Out with it, Dr Hoffman.”

  Rafe looked pointedly at Mimi.

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  I followed his line of sight as if drawn there magically. That dream had done a number on me, it seemed. I refused to believe it was the woman herself. God alone knows she wasn’t my type. But that dream.

  Damn it! That dream had been too real.

  “If she is tied up in this Event, then she needs to be present to mend it,” I pointed out.

  “I concur,” Rafe allowed. “But shouldn’t we carry out a reconnaissance first, before we drop an unknown into a potentially dangerous and unstable situation?”

  “Time is ticking, Dr Hoffman. Do you seriously believe we have enough of it spare?”

  “You intend to mend the rip on this excursion?” He sounded more than a little alarmed.

  “If the opportunity presents itself, then yes.”

  “Jack…” he warned.

  My eyes found Miss Wylde again. Could she be trusted? She was tied up in this somehow. Slap bang in the middle. And let’s not forget the possibility of her sister. We had no reason not to believe what she’d told us, and Rafe had confirmed a sister existed in Mimi’s time, but that didn’t mean we weren’t being played.

  Attraction aside, I needed to stay focused.

  “I’ll be careful, Rafe,” I murmured, as Groves finished up last minute dress adjustments to Mimi’s outfit.

  “Of course, sir,” Rafe muttered, not sounding one bit convinced.

  I admitted to myself that I wasn’t either.

  Mimi walked over to where I was standing, which in a Crew Vehicle only took three steps or so to achieve. She smiled shyly at me, almost as though this was some sort of date. I felt my cheeks redden, almost as though I agreed.

  Then I cleared my throat and said, “You do as I say when I say, no questions asked.”

  The smile fell from her face like autumn leaves tumbling. Replaced with a hard stare.

  “I am not your subordinate.”

  “In this, Miss Wylde, you are very much in my care,” I pointed out. “Should things become…challenging out there, I am responsible for your welfare. Entering another plane affected by a rip is not a walk in the park, I might add. You’d be wise to remember that you are out of time.”

  “There you go with those words again,” she growled. “It’s not my fault you lot picked me up on your haphazard flight through Time.” She snorted, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking a hip. I worked hard on not smiling. She could be so bloody feisty sometimes. “Who was piloting this thing, anyway? You?” She glared at me, and all thought of smiling was immediately forgotten.

  “I am the commander,” I said pleasantly.

  “Let me guess; this is where you remind me you’re a surgeon, too. What does that even mean?”

  I took a step towards her, entering her personal space and ignoring the clean scent of soap she’d used in the bathroom, the hint of toothpaste. Ignoring everything else as well.

  “Not everyone can become a Time Surgeon, Miss Wylde. It takes a certain character, hard work, and many hours. I doubt you’d have the stamina or conditioning required.”

  She brought out a finger and jabbed it into my chest, punctuating each word with a hard thrust.

  “I am the epitome of character, hard work, and many hours, Doctor. I’ll have you know I hold a Masters in Science, and am part way through my doctorate, as well.”

  “Intelligence is not the only prerequisite to time travel, Miss Wylde.” I refused to acknowledge the surprise I felt at her admission. Or the excitement. “And I’d argue your character lacks an essential requirement.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and scowled.

  “What requirement?” she demanded as if she’d get right on that and acquire whatever was needed to meet the standards required.

  I laughed. It wasn’t in any way humorous. “Control of one’s temper,” I snarled.

  The MPCV sounded unusually quiet all of a sudden.

  And then she smiled. Bloody hell, could she smile when she tried.

  “And that’s Jenga!” she said triumphantly.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  “It’s from a movie: Paul.”

  “Released in 2011 by Universal Studios,” Rafe said quietly.

  We both spun to look at the Intern, realising belatedly that we hadn’t been alone throughout that entire embarrassing dialogue. I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. And then turned back to the object of my ire.

  And fascination.

  “Mending Time is a precise undertaking,” I said softly. “One slip and Time can be lost forever. Our jobs are vital in maintaining history.”

  My eyes met hers; she was listening. Not fighting. I liked her fight; I’m not sure she was aware how alive she became when riled.

  “That is what we do, Miss Wylde. We mend Time. Catch it. Stitch it. Make it. We are Surgeons of Time. And you’re about to go where no layperson has ever gone before. So trust me, when I say I am responsible for you. And believe me, when I say your presence alone could fracture or restore Time.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment and then she let out a slow breath of air.

  “I feel a little like Alice in Wonderland,” she murmured. “Too far down the rabbit hole to get out.”

  My lips tipped up in a small smile.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, regretting the words even before I’d uttered them. “We’ll get you back to your time.”

  “And Carrie?”

  “Your sister, too.” I did smile then. “We can’t have two unexpected passengers running around in a century that is not their own, now can we? Fixing this mess is the only way to fix Time.”

  “So, we’ll find Carrie,” she confirmed, “then you’ll take us both back to the 21st century”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you wipe our minds with a neuralyzer?”

  “A what?” I asked.

  “You know, flash something in our eyes like the agents in Men in Black to make us forget what we’ve seen.”

  “Let me guess, another film?”

  “Released in 1997,” Rafe muttered. “By Columbia Pictures, this time.”

  I stared at the woman before me, seeing more than I’d seen before now. More complex than I’d realised. More layered than she’d at first appeared. Intelligent, conservative, and yes, just a little wild. A dichotomy I fervently wanted to explore, but rules were rules.

  She was out of time.

  “Come on, Miss Wylde,” I announced, reaching for the door. “Let’s find your sister and return you to your time.”

  I looked down at her; the world might have stuttered.

  And then I recovered and offered her a wink. “Without the neuralyzer.”

  And All I Could Do Was Squeak

  Mimi

  We weren’t in the VAB. That was the first thing that shocked me. The second was far more profound. Palm trees and a light layering of sand drifting over concrete roadways on a soft, warm breeze, piling up against the storefront of a Piggly Wiggly. The restaurant next to it was called The Moon Hut. Across the road was the Sea Missile Motel. My eyes darted from structure to structure; all lit up in a plethora of bright neon colours. The sand tapped away at my bare ankles, drawing my eye to the drifting grains. I watched as they pooled around a newspaper dispensing machine just to the side of a drug store.

  The newspaper behind the glass had a picture of Nixon on it.

  The date in the top right-hand corner said July 10th, 1969.

  “Did you plan this?” I asked in a
numbed voice. “To have us appear, right here, in front of all of this?”

  Evans cleared his throat, seemingly as surprised as me.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said softly, using that gentle voice to hide the lie beneath.

  “Where did you think we’d appear?” I asked, calling his bluff, the buzz of neon lighting making the hairs on my arms stand up. “Inside the VAB?”

  “It is not always possible to be accurate. Time has a way of corrupting things. Especially if the tear is significant.”

  “But why here?” I pressed. “Why Cocoa Beach?”

  “You recognise it?” He sounded surprised.

  “How could I not?” I argued, spinning around in a slow circle and taking in the falling sun as it glinted off pristine waves, the salty sea brine laced with a lushness that should not have been, and the references to a moon launch on every available surface that in my time had happened decades ago, but here was an anticipatory thing.

  “This location means something,” Evans advised, looking about the street we were on with interest. “The MPCV is programmed to follow the rip, and as it is unfolding in real time, our destination is not always static.”

  “What does that mean?” Nothing about any of this made sense. Try as I might, time travel was still an anomaly.

  “The rip started at the VAB, but has progressed to here,” Evans explained.

  “So, the MPCV followed it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And where is our ride home now?” I couldn’t even spot the blasted command module. I would have liked to have seen what it looked like from the outside. Whether it matched the one on display at the Kennedy Space Center. Whether the size it appeared to be on the inside corresponded to the size of the Vehicle when viewed from without.

  I was guessing there would be no real correlation. Time travel made little sense.

  “It will have withdrawn to another plane. When we need it, it will reappear.”

  “Now you’re just making this shit up,” I muttered.

  Evans smiled. It was temptation wrapped up in a puzzle. I’d always liked puzzles.

  I blinked away, watching a group of young people out on the town, dressed much like myself and the good doctor, walking down the opposite side of the street. One of the women wore a scarf similar to mine. The hem of her skirt was even shorter. The belts were large. The patterns were bold. The colours almost clashing. It was a different world. A different time. Or an exceptionally well put together pageant.

  “Time is the fourth dimension,” Evans was saying. “But what makes up the first three can include any combination.”

  “Combination?” I asked as the group pushed through the door to a brightly lit Soda Fountain Diner.

  “Length, width, height, breadth, and depth,” he said in rapid-fire speech. “Whichever three the tear appears in will be where the MPCV travels. But in order to remain undetected, it simply replaces one dimension of the first three, thereby removing itself from the known plane. Or universe.”

  I turned to look at him, noticing he was watching me closely. I shook my head. I’d learned about the concept of three-dimensional space plus time equalling the known universe and all the matter that exists in it.

  I’d hated mathematics.

  But what Evans was suggesting here was not quantifiable. Even Stephen Hawking questioned the possibility of time travel. Warped dimensions or not.

  “So, what now, Doctor?” I asked, feeling like the world was suddenly so much bigger than it had been.

  Before, I’d only had to deal with the present and the thought of a future. Something that could transpire on a linear line before me. Something I could effect with a simple change in the path I was taking.

  Now there was so much more to contend with. The past. Where the past occurs and on what plane. And a fourth dimension that screws with it all.

  “Now we find out where the rip actually is, and catch it before it tears this time apart completely.”

  I was caught in a bad b-grade movie.

  “And my sister?”

  “I’d hazard a guess she’ll be near the tear, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she or you hitched a ride on it. And as you’re with me, and I was chasing the rip after the fact, I assume she caught a lift on the Origin rip itself.”

  I looked around Cocoa Beach. If Carrie was here, I couldn’t see her. Would she be dressed in 1960s fashion? Or would she stand out in jeans and mid-drift baring singlet tee?

  “Who is she with, Jack?” I asked suddenly. He knew too much. He was definitely holding something back. The question was why? When I’d be returning to my time and would no longer have the ability to mess with his precious fourth dimension.

  Of course, I wasn’t sure how I had been caught up in all of this to begin with, so the potential for repetition did exist.

  “I couldn’t say, Miss Wylde. Any number of factors may have occurred.”

  “Take a guess. Your best shot. Who’s most likely picked up my sister?”

  His eyes darkened with the onset of evening. No longing glinting amber in the golden glow of sunset. He narrowed them slightly, assessing me. Then looked abruptly away and sighed.

  “Rips are caused by outside influences, Miss Wylde. In some instances, a natural phenomenon can cause a tear large enough to affect Time.”

  “And in other instances?”

  “Someone rips Time apart for a reason.”

  I blinked up at him. Not liking where this was going.

  “Look at where we are,” he urged.

  I glanced around Cocoa Beach. I couldn’t see it in the waning light of day, but I knew it was there. Right across the water. A mere few miles away. Cape Canaveral stood somewhere out there in the darkness. Launch Pad 39A visible when rockets took off into space. The VAB a mere half hour away.

  “Remember what you used to get here,” Evans added, the air thick with meaning.

  “An Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle,” I whispered.

  “Yes. Cape Canaveral is an Origin Event location. And July 1969 an important step along the path to reach Orion.”

  “The Apollo 11 launch.”

  “Indeed, Miss Wylde. This rip is not accidental. This rip has been caused by someone who wishes to control Orion.”

  “And my sister’s with them?”

  “Possibly.”

  What other explanation was there? It all fit, in a bizarre, my world is out of whack, kind of way.

  “We have to find her.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Stop them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are they?”

  I’d hoped the rapid fire conversation would have loosened his tongue. But Evans just turned away.

  “Cocoa Beach became extremely popular during the Apollo Program,” he advised, starting to walk down the street. “Its economic growth, however, suffered significantly by the time of the Shuttle. Right now, it was the place to see and be seen, if you were a famous astronaut about to walk on the moon. Especially,” he added, “if you drove a Corvette.”

  He’d stopped outside the Holiday Inn, where three white Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays stood front and centre, a group of excited people milling around, flashbulbs flashing, cameras clicking, a happy, chaotic mess of reporters and groupies and three wide smiling astronauts.

  My breath left me in a rush of unexpected excitement as I recognised just who exactly the astronauts were.

  “It’s less than a week ’til the launch,” I breathed, taking a step forward as if drawn to the scene, to the people, to the inexplicable.

  Evans’ hand came down on my shoulder, halting forward motion. “They had a photo shoot today. Sponsored by General Motors. The picture becomes iconic in the pre-launch build-up. It’s already happened,” he said. “This is just the remnants of a world on the brink of change. Anticipation and excitement the hallmarks of the Space Program. This is where it will happen.”

  “What will happen?”r />
  “The rip.”

  “But it’s already happened,” I argued, getting frustrated.

  “Temporal paradox, Miss Wylde. We’re in one.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He looked down at me, pulling his eyes away from the surreal scene before us.

  “Come now,” he urged. “You’re a scientist. Think.”

  I couldn’t think. I couldn’t reason any of this out. I was in 1969. Watching Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins celebrate their Corvette Stingrays and the upcoming launch to the moon. I was right here in Cocoa Beach where so many of those who worked for NASA chose to live. Where the Space Program was epitomised. Where hope and exploration combined to create the future of NASA. America’s golden years of space travel.

  I was right here.

  And so was Carrie. Somewhere. I started looking around the group of people, ignoring those taking photos, and those calling out questions. Forcing myself to ignore the astronauts and their shiny new vehicles. If Carrie were here, she’d be under duress or trying to find a way out. She wouldn’t be part of this if she could help it. NASA was not her thing.

  Getting home would be. I scanned the environment, looking farther afield. The motel itself was long and thin, with a low-lying roof, and tall palm trees. The area was floodlit with artificial light, but shadows existed under the angular eaves. A movement here. A flash of clothing there. The glint of something as it shifted.

  “Come on,” Evans muttered under his breath, searching like me, but for what, I couldn’t say.

  I saw nothing. Just happy people and hopeful faces and beautiful chaos dancing with anticipation. The excitement was contagious, had it been another time. But it wasn’t.

  It was 1969, but I wasn’t meant to be here.

  I was out of time.

  And so was Carrie.

  Evans had said this was an intentional rip, caused by someone who planned to derail Orion. I’d never connected the Apollo Program with NASA’s latest missions to Mars. But it had to have started somewhere. And maybe the moon was as good a starting point as any other.

  “They’re going to kill Armstrong,” I blurted.

  “Not necessarily,” Evans said steadily.