“We have to stop it.” I surged forward again, only to have Evans wrap his arms around my body and haul me back into the darkness of shadows.
“Easy,” he murmured softly in my ear, hot breath across suddenly sensitive skin. His gentle tone slowed my heart rate.
“We have to stop it,” I said more evenly.
“We will. But what it is we’re stopping is not yet obvious, don’t you think?”
“Neil Armstrong is the first man to walk on the moon…” I started.
“And not the only person here from NASA.”
If the time traveller who wanted to derail Orion was targeting this time period, then who they were targeting had to have done something that led NASA down the path to Mars. I struggled to think straight. Fear of what might transpire making it difficult to reason. Fear of what was happening to Carrie making it hard to think.
Who would be here that would tie into Orion?
I’d worry about why they wanted Orion derailed after we stopped whatever was going to happen from happening.
“There,” Evans said, his arms around my body loosening. I hadn’t realised how right they’d felt until they were gone. “Abe Silverstein.”
“Who?”
“Come on, Miss Wylde. He’s our man. We need to get to him before they do.”
His hand slipped into mine as if he’d done such a thing a thousand times before. His fingers laced with my fingers as he tugged me toward the back of the crowd, circumnavigating the melee, sticking to the shadows.
I spotted the gentleman in question, clearly a NASA official, but the name didn’t mean anything. He wore a suit, where suits were not needed. A red tie and glasses. His smile was engaging. I wondered what sort of mind hid behind those kind eyes.
Camera flashes made the whole scene surreal, shadows dancing in the hot air of a Florida beach. I couldn’t really believe we were actually here, but just over there, a few short steps away was Neil Armstrong. I’d wanted to walk in his footsteps. I’d never imagined I’d walk beside him.
I almost missed it; I was so busy staring at my idol. Taking in every nuance, every minute detail. Every word he was saying to the reporters.
He was looking forward to launch day.
Yes, they were ready.
He wasn’t sure what his first words would be, but he’d think of something.
No, they weren’t worried. Good men had gone before and laid the way.
I could have cried for what I was seeing. I could have shouted with joy for the fact that this was happening to me.
But then a gun was pulled; such a modern piece of equipment. Rather like the gun, the KSC security officers had drawn on me. And in one quick move, Evans was flying.
Through the air, towards the group of astronauts and reporters, over the bonnet of a Corvette Stingray.
Shouts sounded out as the sound of the gun firing was muffled by screams of outrage. Off to the side, someone stumbled. For a second I thought it might be Silverstein, but it wasn’t. Evans had managed to confuse the shooter enough that he’d misaimed.
I rushed after him, as uniformed police officers swarmed the scene, and hysterical people ricocheted off one another, eager to help Mr Silverstein to his feet. My hands fluttered as I checked to make sure he was unharmed, the sounds and sights of a calamity closing in around me. Orders were given, people started to scatter, and the astronauts were whisked away from the danger under the scrutiny of NASA officials.
“Are you all right?” I asked Abe Silverstein.
“Just a scratch, my dear,” he said, dusting himself off.
“I think you should go with the others,” I urged. I wasn’t sure who this man was to NASA, but Evans had indicated he would be the target. And it damn well looked like he’d been the one the shooter had been firing at, too. Still, he seemed so normal. Could this man have started the path that led to Orion? To Mars? And ultimately to time travel?
“Yes. Perhaps I should,” he said, not unkindly. He patted my arm and started after the NASA officials, then spun on his heel and looked back at me. “Will you be all right here? In amongst all of this?”
I looked around at the chaos, no longer promising or alight with anticipation. This chaos was full of fear and doubt. The shooter had disappeared. Police were everywhere. Reporters were shouting for answers. Camera bulbs flashed into the darkness.
Chaos as only true chaos can be.
I swallowed. “I’ll be fine,” I said softly, hunting for Evans in amongst the disorder.
“Maybe you should come with us,” the man suggested. But if there was one thing I’d learned in the past few hours, going where I was not supposed to be wasn’t a good strategy.
I smiled. “I have a friend here somewhere,” I offered.
“If you insist,” the kind NASA man replied and started to turn away.
“Mr Silverstein,” I called suddenly.
“Yes,” he said, not at all surprised that I knew his name.
“What is it you do at NASA?”
His face fell, a look of uncertainty crossed his kind features briefly.
“Why, I created Apollo.” He chuckled to himself then. “At least, I gave the project its name.”
I somehow thought his involvement was more than just christening the program that launched man to the moon. But whatever it was, it appeared instrumental in the creation of Orion, too. And we’d saved him.
I watched him walk away and then turned back to the crowd around the Stingrays. Suddenly aware that I was on my own in a different time with no discernible way to get back to the module.
“Crap,” I muttered, unable to spot Evans.
And then I saw him. Leaning against a police cruiser.
His hands securely fastened behind his back.
In effing handcuffs.
“Double crap,” I said, as the sensation of a gun pressing hard against my ribs registered.
And a voice with a slight accent said, “This time you’ve gone too far, rat.”
And all I could do was squeak.
Ah, Crap
Mimi
I felt a drop of sweat trickle down between my shoulder blades. Followed quickly by another. It was hot, but that was hardly the cause of my perspiring. The gun was real, and I was closer to that particular style of weaponry than I had ever been before.
Even the KSC security guards who’d waved a Glock at me on Launch Pad 39A hadn’t come this close with their weapons. But this man, the shooter I presumed, insisted on giving me an up close and personal experience with a firearm.
“You think your organisation can stop this from happening?” he asked harshly, but I was hoping he didn’t want an answer to that question because words suddenly failed me.
My eyes frantically searched out the only ally I had in this time. But Evans was still trussed up against a police cruiser being questioned by a very disgruntled looking cop.
And there was no way I wanted Mr Silverstein anywhere near this man.
“How many times must we do this before you meddlesome rats understand?” he snarled in my ear, digging the muzzle of the gun in deeper. And why he kept calling me that particular rodent, I didn’t know. Was he aware of my nickname maybe? “Lunik is far superior.”
I struggled to make sense of what he was saying, but what with a real gun pressed up against my side, and recent events conspiring to force me out of time, I really didn’t have a hope in hell of understanding.
“I will spare you, Surgeon,” the man growled low. “Only so you can deliver a message to Crawford for me.” Who the effing hell was Crawford? “I have one of your own, and I will dispose of her accordingly unless all Orion Vehicles are permanently dismantled.”
This day had gone from surreal to fantastical in such a short amount of time. I’d broken laws and been quasi-arrested. I’d faced off against hard-nosed federal agents and a rampaging Orion Crew Vehicle. I’d slipped through the fourth dimension to 1969. Been mere feet away from Neil Armstrong. Saved a man’s life from a gun wielding psychotic
.
Quite frankly, I’d had enough, thank you very much.
I elbowed the shooter in the ribs, stomping down hard on his foot in the process, then spun around and kneed him in the balls.
Or that’s, at least, what I tried to do.
I caught a brief glimpse of brown hair and an angular face, a pointed beard, and dark eyes. In another situation - say, one where I wasn’t about to be killed - he might have appeared handsome. But the snarl that rent his features, making his fists curl and the butt of the gun come hurtling towards me in lightning quick fashion, dashed that notion pretty spectacularly.
“Oomph,” was all I managed, before his fist hit my stomach and the gun crashed into the side of my head.
I’m dead, was my only thought as I crumpled to the hard concrete. I am so dead. But death failed to claim me.
Panting, feeling like vomiting again, and now sweating quite profusely, the world spun lazily as hazy images of people moving, and lights flashing and sound warping made the Holiday Inn twirl around me as I struggled to regain focus while on all fours, shaking.
I blinked several times, swallowed copious amounts of saliva, and then came face to foot with someone’s leather wing-tipped shoes. For a horrendous moment, I thought they might just belong to the shooter. But maybe my bad luck had finally run out today, because the owner of the shoes reached down and helped me to my feet, words falling off his tongue congenially as though he thought I might comprehend them.
I smiled up at my would-be rescuer, and then promptly face planted. On his broad chest.
“Whoa there, darlin’,” he said in a pleasantly American accent. “I’ve had many a girl fall for my charms, but usually I’m tryin’ a little harder than this. Being such a catch and all.”
I blinked. His face swam into focus. And blue eyes stared out at me from behind a well-developed beard. Not a pointy one. And he lacked the strange not-accent the shooter had. But the beard did make me think twice about accepting his offer of help. I preferred a small smattering of stubble on my men. Not the full hog.
Hog. I laughed, ridiculously. The bearded American laughed with me.
And then said, “Where’s Dr Evans?”
All levity vanished.
“Who are you?” I demanded, the words not quite as coherent as I’d have liked. “And are you with that other guy?” I added, ruining the whole authoritative angle I was going for when I stretched my mouth repeatedly attempting to speak more clearly.
I failed.
But no way was I letting him anywhere near Jack. Or Silverstein. Really, I was sure Jack Evans could look after himself. Abe Silverstein, on the other hand, was the one I wanted to protect.
Right then, however, I was having a little trouble remembering why.
“What other guy, darlin’?” the American asked, bringing me back to my more immediate problems.
“The guy with the gun,” I mumbled, glancing down at the American’s waist, but if he was wearing a weapon, he was concealing it. A distinct possibility.
“Can you describe the guy with the gun, darlin’?” he asked pleasantly, ignoring my perusal of his nether region.
I lifted my eyes to his face. “He had a gun,” was all I could manage.
“Modern or contemporary?”
What?
“Was it something you’d see in 1969 or more likely the future?”
Guns were guns, but even I knew the gun the shooter had held, the one used to fire at Silverstein, was not from this time.
But why would this guy even consider that if he wasn’t also from the shooter’s time?
“Who are you?” The words were crisp and clear and cutting. About effing time.
“Your safety net,” he said with a smile.
Strangely, part of me wanted to trust that smile, even as my mind rebelled at the idea of a smile being inherently trustworthy. I was questioning everything about my world order. About the parameters I’d set and the rules I’d lived by. Nothing made sense anymore.
“Look,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest, feeling more and more like myself. “I think you’d better just go on your way. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
He stared at me for a long moment and then scratched his beard, contemplating.
“You have no idea what you’ve stepped into, do you, darlin’?”
“Don’t call me darling.”
“Darlin’,” he stressed. “You’re outta time.”
Panic settled deep inside my veins, making my heart pump frantically to wash the sensation away. It didn’t work. I’d been in a constant state of confusion for too long. Adrenaline coursing through me at an alarming rate. The only break I’d had was when I’d fallen asleep on the Orion. And what the hell was with that? Hyped up on fight-or-flight juice, it should have been impossible for me to relax enough to sleep.
But then, the impossible had become mundane, hadn’t it?
I blinked. My eyes landing on Jack Evans over by the police cruiser. His form obscured by the reporters who still crowded around the scene demanding answers. He’d be hauled away soon. And even I knew, in my current devolving mental state, that I needed Jack Evans to get back to the Orion.
I needed him to find Carrie.
I have one of your own, and I will dispose of her accordingly unless all Orion Vehicles are permanently dismantled.
Could the shooter have meant Carrie?
“Listen,” the American suddenly said, “we need to find Evans, and Sally indicated he’d be with you.”
“Sally?”
“Groves. The Novitiate on your Orion.”
He was from Jack’s time, I realised, whenever that time happened to be. Closer to my time than 1969, I’d hazard a guess. If not linearly, then at least theoretically. Evans understood the 21st century. Those in 1969 wouldn’t have had a clue what my time meant to me.
But I needed to test him.
“Are you a Surgeon, too?”
“Yes. Just like Jack. I’m his coup de main when things start to go wrong.”
“And things have gone wrong enough to warrant a swift pre-emptive strike?”
He stared at me and then started to laugh. Whether at my military understanding or not, I couldn’t say. And then he said, “I’d say so, darlin’. Yeah. ‘Bout as wrong as a flight can be. The tear’s an Origin Event; it was never gonna go smoothly. But it’s continued to unravel. And Orion One has picked up a passenger, setting everything orange back in Dispatch. That’s you, by the way, sweetpea. You’d be the passenger in this little equation. And from all indications, the rip is still expanding. So, yeah, wrong is one way of putting it.
“FUBAR might be another. And I’m Operation Fix FUBAR. So,” he looked down at me, “you with me?”
His entire speech had been delivered in record speed. All the words melding together in one long run of sweetly thick Southern American accent. It suited Florida; I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d originated from around these parts. Which set off all types of chemical warning bells inside my head.
Jack Evans was British. So were Sally Groves and Rafe Hoffman. The man with the gun, who’d shot at Abe Silverstein and tried to deliver a villain-like ultimatum through me, had a slight accent. Not necessarily American, but not British either. In fact, I’d say it was Eastern European if I had to make a guess. Just slightly.
And now this man thought he could convince me he was part of Jack’s team. His back-up, so to speak. I wasn’t naïve, I knew asking for identification was a waste of time. What would it say? Time Travelling Surgeon, Extraordinaire? But his accent he couldn’t hide. Or didn’t think to.
And not being British was enough for me.
“He’s over there,” I said, indicating the reporters’ vehicles situated near the front of the Holiday Inn car park. And quite some distance from the police cruiser and where Jack actually was.
“Well then, come on, darlin’. Let’s go get Jack, get him back to his Vehicle so he can start stitchin’. And get you back to your t
ime.”
I almost said it. I almost fell for the act, completely.
What about my sister?
But this guy, whoever the effing hell he was, wouldn’t want to trade my sister for Jack. He’d want what the shooter wanted. Orion shut down so Lunik could fly unhindered.
Oh, I was getting good at sorting this shit out. My mind might have taken a battering, confusion making it difficult to extrapolate hypotheses easily. But I was a scientist. And scientists were damn good at sifting through data.
And all the data pointed to corporate competition. Orion was the British version of time travel. Lunik somebody else’s. And if memory served correctly, Lunik was the name given to the Soviet Union Lunar Programme by western media back in the sixties and seventies.
The shooter was Russian. And coup de main here…well, I didn’t quite know. Maybe a defected US astronaut? Yeah, that sounded about as plausible as time travel. But what else did I have to go on?
Brit accents OK.
Anything else suspect.
“All right,” I said brightly, starting in the direction of the reporters’ vans.
“You seem to be handling this all pretty darn well, darlin’,” the guy announced with a hint of amazement. “Hadn’t ever heard of a passenger being picked up on a flight before now, but there’s a first time for everythin’. And it ain’t such a bad deal. You get to see somethin’ you’d never have known existed. And we get to slingshot on your trajectory. Might be, we could crack this OE wide open. Stitch a few rips permanently.”
Not much of that made sense, but I had to admit it was nice listening to him talking. Not so bad watching him walking either. The guy was cute. Shame he wasn’t part of the good team.
“Just over there, you say, darlin’?” he asked, looking toward the reporters’ vans and the obvious lack of Jack Evans amongst them.
“You know,” I said, picking up a tripod from a discarded camera off to the side, “you really should stop calling me darling, sweetheart.”
And promptly whacked him on the back of the head with it.
He went down like a like a sack of potatoes. Toppling onto the concrete with a sickening thwack. I grimaced, almost feeling sorry for him. Then dropped the tripod and ran.
Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series Page 8