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

by Nicola Claire

  “The better for who?” he shouted.

  “For everyone!” I yelled back. “Have you any concept of what, who, could be extinguished if people flipped that switch? It’s a clean murder, Rafe. One where, if done correctly, no one even remembers the person existed at all.”

  “But we remember them,” Sally said, voice trembling.

  “Which is why we’re still searching. If Ivanov attempted to wipe them, he failed. Something went wrong. We cling to that hope. But letting you all know this is what we suspect would lead to retribution. Wouldn’t it be simple if we just wiped Sergei Ivanov from existence?”

  “Sounds like a bloody good plan,” Rafe muttered.

  “He created Orion,” I said flatly. “If not created, he was the first to realise its potential. We wipe him; we wipe RATS. We wipe everything we know about our time completely.”

  “But that’s not the only possibility, is it?” Mimi said, drawing all of our attention. “You wipe him; you return Time to what it would have been before he stole Orion. Is that not a possible future you could see yourselves living in?”

  “Would you give us up so easily?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “I would do anything to save my sister.”

  Bloody fucking bollocks! I was in love with a woman who wouldn’t feel a thing if she walked away.

  I would damn it! And I’m not sure how that came to be. But I would feel everything if Mimi Wylde walked away.

  “You wouldn’t even remember me,” she whispered as if she’d heard my thoughts directly.

  “You’re in my dreams,” I growled and punched the button to release the door lock.

  I was up and out of the Vehicle before another word was spoken. I was halfway across the launch pad before I was able to breathe. The potential for widespread psychosis was astounding. Couldn’t they see that? How many other dreams wouldn’t be realised because Sergei Ivanov was wiped and RATS was never founded? How many people would they condemn to insanity?

  I bunched my fists and stared up at the FSS, the red paint glinting low in the afternoon sunlight. The sound of a shoe scuffing behind me met my ears. I closed my eyes, but didn’t turn to face her. Mimi’s scent had already surrounded me.

  “How certain are you…?” she began.

  “Very. We’ve tested it. Lost a good man proving that dreams once realised are inherent to our being.”

  “We haven’t realised…”

  “Mimi,” I said, turning to face her. “Others have. We are not unique.” I started to laugh, shaking my head with frustration. “And we have started to realise the dreams.”

  “How?”

  “I’m in love with you,” I blurted. “I already love you. In the dreams, you’re my world. Do you honestly believe you aren’t already in reality?”

  She looked stunned. Terrified. Lost. Awed. And then devastated in quick succession.

  Not exactly the response I was looking for when I admitted my feelings.

  “Then what do we do?” she whispered.

  “We let the rip happen,” I said. “We let him take her. And then we take her back.”

  “How, Jack? How?”

  I stared across the landscape towards the Vehicle Assembly Building in the distance and said, “We make a scene. We make enough noise to draw the attention of every MPCV in the vicinity. We replicate an Origin Event episode that Sergei participated in and then hang around afterwards to see if he returns to protect it from the fallout.”

  Mimi looked towards the VAB where a hole had appeared out of nowhere in its side. It was happening. One dimensional shift away, her sister was being picked up in a nebulous cloud on this very launch pad.

  “I think we can make that bigger,” she said softly, a determined glint in her eye.

  I huffed out a breath of laughter and slowly shook my head.

  “Whatever you want that I can give, Mouse, you’ll have it.”

  She turned to look up at me; so much emotion washing over her face I couldn’t track it. Then she was in my arms as her body was pressed against mine, her heat engulfing me as her hands grasped, lips trembling. Her tears on the tip of my tongue as I kissed her. Deeply.

  God help me, I was in love with this woman. A woman living out of time. The potential for disaster was enormous.

  The possibility of heartache a given fact.

  Please Don’t Kill The Special Agents, Miss Wylde

  Mimi

  I stared at everything and anything in the Orion except Jack. Exposed wires, bunched together in a twisted snake across the ceiling. Silver wrapped piping running like platinum tears down the side of the Vehicle. An array of red and blue and white lights flickering and glinting spasmodically across the console. An orange sine wave haunting us all up on the screen.

  Was it bigger than before? Were we changing Time even now by replicating it?

  He’d said he loved me. Was already in love with me. I was out of time, and the longer I was, the harder it would be to get back.

  But did I want to get back here, to my time? Did I want to give up Jack and RATS and this surreal world I’d discovered?

  For Carrie, I’d do anything. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself. I wasn’t so sure the words were reaching me anymore.

  Because he loved me. Was in love with me. The dreams were being realised even if we hadn’t made love yet.

  I bit my lip and sucked in a ragged breath of air as Jack pressed in coordinates on the console, and Rafe checked them, and Sally did whatever a real Novitiate did at times like these. Part of me wanted to watch everything; my last chance to take it all in before it was gone from my world, from my life.

  Part of me was breaking apart every time I looked at Jack Evans.

  I wasn’t sure I could do this. I wasn’t sure what was right anymore.

  Carrie. I so wanted my sister back. It’s all I could think about. It’s all that truly mattered. If I got Carrie back, things would sort themselves out. Right?

  “Ready?” Jack asked into the strained silence of the MPCV.

  “Ready, sir,” Groves supplied, offering me a worried look.

  “On your mark, Jack,” Rafe muttered.

  “This could be a rough ride,” Jack announced, looking back over his shoulder towards me. I looked away, feigning interest in a cabinet door. “We’re matching the original flight path of Lunik as precisely as we can, but sometime after its initial crash course through Complex 39. In order to miss the original you, Miss Wylde.”

  I nodded, but couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye, instead I stared at the zip at the top of his jumpsuit. At the hollow in his neck where a small smattering of dark hair could be seen. At the rapid beat of his pulse just beneath his smooth skin.

  Jack sighed, and turned back to the console, then lifted his hand to hover over the ignition.

  “We’re playing with Time,” he said quietly. “We’re one step away from what Sergei Ivanov is doing. I don’t believe we’ve crossed that line, but we’re standing pretty bloody close to it. Weapons stay inside the Orion. We tamper with this temporal dimension as little as possible. As soon as we land, I want you, Miss Groves, to monitor the rip we’ve caused, catching it before it goes supernova. Dr Hoffman, Miss Wylde and I will exit the Vehicle. Prepare for anything. It won’t take him long to return and make sure we’re not obliterating the good he’s done here. This time, Mimi’s and Carolyn’s time, means something to Lunik’s commander. Let’s find out what exactly it is.”

  He hit the button before anyone could reply. Which was just as well, because that was one hell of a speech. Jack was playing hard and fast with the rules, all because of me.

  It made my heart hurt. It my head dizzy. It made it hard to breathe.

  The Orion launched in a hail of falling stars, shooting through a purple and red nebula. I felt weightless for a few seconds, and then much too heavy. Space came and wrapped itself around us, chilling our bones and crushing our breaths. Time stalled. Everything was quiet. Almost pe
aceful.

  Then the silence broke, replaced by the roar of rocket-like engines, as the Orion shuddered and creaked and thudded its way through its landing. The harness dug into my shoulders and cut across my stomach. Cabinets flung open and their contents spilt out. The bathroom exploded, blue liquid leaking out from under the doorway. Lights flickered, alarms beeped, and smoke began to rise from behind the console. Then it all rolled to a stop.

  I let out a little squeak, much like Sally’s.

  “All right?” Jack asked, but his eyes were on me and no one else.

  “Fine,” Sally managed to murmur.

  “All present and accounted for,” Rafe offered, patting himself down.

  I nodded my head. Jack held my gaze for a few more seconds and then turned to the console, reaching under it to grab a fire extinguisher and proceeding to spray the entire surface in foam.

  “That’ll do it,” Rafe said on a hacking cough.

  “Check time and location on the tablet,” Jack ordered.

  “On it. Time matches, location…Launch Pad 39A via the VAB. Nice. Never seen anyone perfect a crash landing like that, Jack. Well done.”

  Jack huffed out a breath of air and then wiped the main screen clean with the sleeve of his flight suit. The sine wave was still orange, and the view outside showed an empty launch pad and service structures. This time having reached it by following Lunik’s flight plan closely.

  “Right. Miss Groves, you’re on that rip. Keep an eye on it, but don’t do anything until it’s close to exploding.”

  “How will I know that, sir?” she all but squeaked.

  “Sergei Ivanov will be here, and he’ll be fuming.” She nodded her head uncertainly and took the offered tablet screen Rafe handed her.

  “You know what to do, Sally,” Rafe said quietly. “You’ve trained for this.”

  “Not quite this, sir,” she muttered.

  “Come on!” he said teasingly. “They get you to simulate disasters all the time in that training module. This one’s no different.”

  “This one’s real and we made it,” she replied, eyebrows arched.

  “Then we’re the ones in control,” Rafe offered.

  “I’m scared not stupid,” she growled.

  “Enough,” Jack snapped. “You can do this, Miss Groves. I have the utmost confidence in your abilities. If it turns to custard, hit the return button, it’s isolated. That will at least get you home.”

  Sally straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Not without you, sir.”

  “Thatta girl,” Rafe murmured, slapping her on the shoulder.

  Jack offered what I assumed was meant to be a smile, but was more a grimace, and then turned to the door.

  “Miss Wylde?” he said, without looking over his shoulder. He’d entered Surgeon mode. Commander mode. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or worried.

  “Right behind you,” I said and unbuckled. Rafe offered me a wink, and then we were climbing out of the module.

  I expected to see Ivanov straight away, but we were the only ones present. I glanced around the now too familiar launch pad and followed the trajectory of our scorch marks back toward the VAB. I could hear sirens sound out in the distance. Smoke was wafting up from the side of the over-height building. A large groove in the grass leading up to the safety wire surrounding Launch Pad 39A had me turning back to the Orion to inspect it for damage. Jack was already walking its circumference, Rafe muttering to himself as he ran a hand over the burn marks on the underside of the MPCV.

  There was a large dent in its side. The floatation ring had deployed. One of the parachutes was hanging forlornly down the side of the Vehicle. A landing booster had exploded completely, leaving a gaping hole into the innards of the vessel.

  “Holy crap,” I muttered.

  “Yes,” Jack said softly as he rounded the Orion. “We seem to have done a number on our Vehicle.”

  “Will it fly again?”

  “Not likely.” He looked up and saw the shock and fear on my face. “But we can fix it, Miss Wylde.”

  I swallowed, my eyes unable to look away from the new hole where the landing booster ought to be.

  “Change of plans,” Jack announced. His eyes were darting all over the launch pad. “Dr Hoffman, start repairs.”

  “Yes, sir. And you two?”

  “We’ll remain on guard, keeping a watch for Lunik. I shouldn’t think he’ll take long to appear, we’ve already been noticed.”

  I turned and looked toward where Jack had been staring and noticed a KSC truck and several black cars heading our way.

  “We don’t have much time,” I said urgently.

  “No. But neither does Sergei.”

  “How did he fly on after landing here like this?” I demanded, looking back at the state of our Vehicle again.

  “Maybe he didn’t,” Jack murmured, glancing around the launch pad.

  “But we saw him later at the Holiday Inn. He already had Carrie by then; he threatened her life.”

  “Hers specifically, Miss Wylde?”

  I thought back and tried to remember Ivanov’s exact words, but I couldn’t be sure if he had mentioned Carrie by name. I shook my head.

  “He held someone he thought was ours,” Jack said carefully, his soft eyes pools of milk chocolate. “But it could have just as easily been a lost Intern.”

  I nodded, feeling more confused than ever.

  “He did, however, have your sister on the pier.” Yes, he did. “Which leads me to believe that he repaired his Lunik at some stage and made his way there to intercept us. That doesn’t tell us how long it took him to fix the machine, just that he did, and is probably no longer here now, in this time.”

  “How long has it been since Carrie was picked up?” I asked, checking my watch and realising the futility of that gesture.

  “Several hours. Your previous self should be in containment at the LCC by now.”

  “Which means…” I said squinting at the cars thundering along the roadway towards us, “we can expect Special Agents Dawson and Carter to be here.”

  “Oh, jolly good. I do believe we owe them a little something.” I wasn’t sure, but I think that might have been glee I saw in Jack’s eyes. Mixed with a hell of a lot of fury.

  “This is gonna screw with their heads,” I muttered.

  “Indeed.”

  “Isn’t it also going to screw with this time?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  OK, then. Jack was winging this sting.

  We watched on as the cars grew nearer, glancing around the launch pad every other second. Rafe was banging and crashing and cursing behind us, the Orion was emitting liquid oxygen gas and the occasional clank which sounded ominous, and the sun was creeping lower and lower by the minute. Making shadows elongate and our vision become poor.

  I swiped at a bead of sweat on my forehead and shifted my weight from foot to foot. The orange jumpsuit suddenly felt too tight. I ran a finger under the collar, and then out of desperation for more air, dragged the zip part way down my chest, leaving the whole thing gaping.

  Jack flashed me a smile, his eyes darting to my cleavage and then away again.

  “Interesting tactic, Miss Wylde,” he murmured.

  “Better than yours,” I snapped back. “‘Weapons stay inside the Orion,’” I mimicked. “We’re effing sitting ducks here.”

  Jack chuckled, and then reached down and picked up a chunk of concrete the Orion had broken off the pad. “Please don’t kill the Special Agents, Miss Wylde,” he said, handing me the makeshift weapon. “Save it for Sergei.”

  “Gladly,” I muttered, hefting the rock-like chunk in my hand and grinning maniacally.

  “You really are amazing; you know that?” Jack whispered, fingering his own chunk of concrete.

  “Don’t,” I whispered back.

  “I can’t help how I feel, Mimi.”

  “Not now, Jack.”

  “Always,” he murmured in return, as the federal agents
came barrelling through a gap in the chainlink.

  It was strange to see them again. To know for me days had passed, but for them mere minutes, maybe an hour. They blinked when they saw the Orion, something clicking inside their heads, making their eyes narrow and their lips thin. They yelled out warnings to “Freeze” and “Raise your hands” when they spotted our orange flight suits, double fisting their very real guns.

  They stilled completely when they recognised me.

  “What the hell?” Carter exclaimed. “How the fuck did she get back here?”

  “It’s the sister,” Dawson growled. “Down on your knees, Carolyn! Now!”

  “Just a moment, Special Agent Dawson,” Jack said conversationally. “You’re being a little hasty here.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Dawson yelled, a vein almost popping on the side of his neck. “On the motherfucking ground now!”

  “This is not Carolyn Wylde,” Jack explained as if he wasn’t about to receive a bullet to the skull. “This lovely woman here is, in fact, Mimi Wylde. I believe you know her.”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Dawson growled, tightening his hold on his gun.

  “Easy,” Carter murmured softly at his side. “Everyone, let’s just calm down. What is that thing?” he asked, nodding towards the MPCV.

  “Oh, this?” Jack said enthusiastically. “This is an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle. I believe you would have seen one inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, am I right?”

  “How did it get here?” he demanded.

  “It travelled through a hole in the VAB,” Jack supplied.

  “It’s ours?”

  “Do you mean NASA’s?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, dipshit, he means NASA’s,” Dawson growled.

  “What do you think?” Jack asked.

  “How did it get here?” Carter repeated.

  “A malfunction?” Jack offered with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Dawson yelled.

  Jack smiled. “Jack Evans. Surgeon.” The smile widened.

  “Jack,” I warned.

  “Any moment now,” he murmured. He was stalling. Messing with agents because he wanted to. Because he wanted to fuck with their minds. But there was more to all of this. He was stalling, waiting for Sergei Ivanov to arrive.