Time Lost

by C. B. Lewis

  “I-I don’t know.”

  Janos raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  Kit took the tissue away from his thumb and stared at it, willing it to bleed again to give him something else to focus on. Did he know? Did he want to be involved with Jacob? Shagging was one thing, but spending time with him?

  Two hours of chatting in a pub and some great sex wasn’t anything to base a relationship on, but a man who had similar tastes, who knew he freaked out in lifts and tried to help, and who checked on him when he thought he was ill? That was another story.

  “Shit.” His voice sounded tiny.

  Janos murmured something to Dieter, who rose and circled around the couch, heading for the door that led to another room. When he was gone, Janos moved a little closer and patted Kit comfortingly on the shoulder. “You should not feel bad.”

  Kit looked up at him. “Why not? I’ve made a mess of everything for everyone. For you. For Dieter. For the TRI. For him.”

  Janos laughed, a warm sound. “You are very silly man,” he said, and the smile on his face was comforting. “You did not come from the future. You did not attack Sanders in his home. You did not bring the police into this.” He squeezed Kit’s shoulder. “Even if you did not tell this detective all the things you have, he is a smart man. He would see things that do not make sense. He would come back to the TRI to find the answer.”

  Kit blinked. “I forgot you met him.”

  Janos’s eyes twinkled. “Yes. I met him. He is not bad to look at.” He settled back on the couch. “He is also good man. He listens well and does not jump to conclusion. I think this is why he asked you for truth, instead of arresting you. He knows you are good man, and so you must have good reasons.”

  “You can tell all that from one meeting with him?” Kit snorted.

  Janos nodded. “I can tell, because he did not arrest me when I told him I came here under false name. He listened to my reasons and did not act like I was a criminal. He could have arrested me, but he did not. He is willing to give people a chance to prove themselves.”

  Kit sank back on the couch. “I screwed it all up, didn’t I?”

  Janos held out a hand, swayed it from side to side. “There is some screwing up,” he agreed, “but it is not all your doing. He screwed up also. The man who attacked Sanders also screwed up. There is lots of screwing up. You are only small part of it.”

  There was a rattle from the doorway as Dieter came back in. He looked calmer. He was carrying a tray laden with mugs and a teapot. A leaning tower of biscuits tilted ominously over the middle of the tray on a plate. “Is he being philosophical at you?” he asked as he set the tray down on the coffee table. “If he is, kick him.”

  “A little,” Kit admitted.

  Dieter poured each of them a mug of tea, then settled beside Janos, laying his hand lightly on his lover’s thigh. Janos just looked at him and smiled quietly, then covered Dieter’s hand with his own.

  Kit wrapped his hands around the mug. “What’s going to happen?” he finally asked. “I mean, with everything?”

  “Fuck knows,” Dieter sighed, leaning against Janos’s side.

  “But we deal with it when it comes,” Janos said. “Like we deal with crazy Hungarian soldier who comes through gate.”

  Dieter pressed his cheek to Janos’s shoulder. “Maybe not exactly like that.”

  Janos just looked at him and smiled. “Maybe.”

  Chapter 23

  TEMPLE WAS bringing Ashraf to the crime scene.

  Jacob went ahead of them to do a last look over the site before they arrived. CSU were long gone already, leaving it empty. He was in the hidden laboratory when Temple radioed to notify him of their arrival.

  It must have been a pristine environment to work in, brightly lit and polished. The shelves were neatly stacked with tools. The remains of the computers were installed along one wall. Small neon markers were placed at random points around the room, where the scanners had registered and imaged fingerprints.

  Another opening led into the room that contained Sanders’s mysterious doorway.

  It looked harmless, almost ridiculous: an empty doorway standing in the middle of a room, rooted into a metal bed, and connected up with so many wires and cables it almost looked like it had a nervous system.

  Jacob approached it.

  This was the reason for everything that happened to Sanders. It was important. He could feel it in his gut. Potentially, Sanders had created a successful teleportation gateway like the one in the video. Or it was something else entirely. He wasn’t a scientist or an engineer, but he knew without question he was looking at something significant.

  He was still standing there when Temple escorted Mrs. Ashraf down. She looked pale, drawn, and he could imagine why. It couldn’t be easy coming to the place where a friend had been attacked.

  Jacob went over to her. “If you want to leave or need some air, just let us know, okay?”

  She nodded, taking a deep breath. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “You tell me,” Jacob replied, gesturing around. “CSU have finished, so if you need to move anything or touch anything to check what’s missing, do what you need to.”

  She nodded and went straight through to the computer consoles. Some of the casing was intact, and one of them even booted up when she switched it on, but it whirred, then shut down almost at once.

  She crouched down on the floor, checking over each machine. “All the hard drives,” she said, rocking back on her heels. “They’ve all been ripped out.”

  “Surely he’d have backups of his work?” Temple said, frowning.

  Mariam nodded. “You’d think so, but this was his private project. I don’t know how much information he stored on those, and how much he stored elsewhere. If he had backups, he put them somewhere he considered safe.”

  “Do you know where?” Jacob asked.

  The frustration on her face suggested she was telling the truth when she shook her head. She got up, brushing dust off her hands. “I won’t say that Tom was paranoid, but he didn’t like people working with his new developments until he could be sure they worked, in case anything went wrong.”

  Jacob rubbed at the hollow of his cheek with his thumb. “You said he brought you in to do coding? Doesn’t that count?”

  “Not when he didn’t let me see the details of what he was working on.” She hesitated. “The board upstairs, that was his latest project. I had no idea he was working on it, but he included some of the coding I’d offered for his older designs.”

  Jacob lowered his hand, watching her thoughtfully. “The whiteboard? The coded white board that you said no one in your office could decode?” He inclined his head. “And just how long have you known what it said?”

  She grimaced. “We set someone working on it, with what we had left of Sanders’s codes and keys. It’s not a full translation, but it does support the idea that he was trying to do some kind of teleporting system.”

  Jacob glanced at Temple and nodded toward the stairs. She took his meaning and disappeared up them.

  Jacob sat down on one of the stools, gazing at Ashraf. “Mrs. Ashraf,” he said, “until now, I have been patient with you, but my patience is rapidly wearing thin. I’m more than aware that you are keeping things from me, but if there is anything I need to know, now is the time to tell me.”

  Mrs. Ashraf rubbed her palms together. “I’ve told you what you need to know now.”

  He smiled without parting his lips. “And we both know that’s definitely not enough.” He braced one hand on his thigh and leaned forward. “I’m giving you a last chance to come clean here. Tell me everything. Give me all the information I need, not just these scraps you’ve been tossing me until now. Otherwise, I’m not going to hold back anymore, and if I have to take your institution apart brick by brick, I will do it.”

  A muscle in Ashraf’s cheek twitched. “I don’t know what you’re expecting me to tell you.”

  “Did Sanders su
ccessfully manage to teleport someone? Is that gate functional? Is there any way to check whether he used it?” He spread his hands. “I could go on all day. Just give me the answers I need to help me find a motive for someone attacking your friend, and hopefully we’ll be able to find him.”

  She stared at him, then rushed through the doorway to the other room, looking at the empty gate. She was circling it when he followed her, looking it up and down, as if she could see… what? He didn’t know.

  “Well?”

  “I think there are ways to check if it has been powered up.”

  “And if it worked?”

  She glanced at him. “As far as I knew, this was only in development. I didn’t realize it was at this stage. If he managed to power it up successfully, then it’s more than he ever told me.”

  Jacob watched her. “And how do you tell if it has been powered up?”

  “I’d need to get one of the engineers down here,” she replied, and Jacob—his heart sinking—knew at once who she was going to ask for. “Kit Rafferty has worked on a lot of Sanders’s technology. He would be able to confirm it.”

  He couldn’t protest either, not without raising questions.

  After all, she was the one who had sent Kit to him before. If she thought he was the one they needed to look at the gate, then he was who they would have to get.

  Still, there were questions he could ask that would seem innocuous enough, without incriminating Kit and his household experiments. “Would Rafferty have any experience of teleportation devices, in his role in your agency?”

  Ashraf’s weary expression gave way to something like amusement. “That boy has no doubt tried a bit of everything in his time. If he saw a button for the apocalypse, he would take it apart to see how it worked.” She touched the quill button on her bracelet. “I can get him out here right away.”

  Well, it was going to be awkward, but if it had to be done, it had to be done.

  “As soon as possible,” he agreed.

  In the hour and a half it took for Kit to be shuttled out from the city, Ashraf went through the basement, picking through the items that had been knocked off the shelves and left scattered on the floor. She paled when she saw the handprints on the floor, but she swallowed hard and continued to sift through the debris.

  As far as she could tell, only the hard drives were missing.

  As far as he could tell, she wasn’t lying this time.

  They both looked up as footfalls clattered down the staircase.

  Kit stopped short on the third step from the bottom. “Mariam?”

  Jacob stepped aside and let Ashraf take charge, explaining in brief, clipped tones what they needed him to do. Kit didn’t even glance Jacob’s way, but from the flush riding up the back of his neck, he was definitely aware of his presence.

  Ashraf took him through to the mysterious doorway, and Jacob heard Kit swear under his breath, apparently as surprised as the rest of them had been.

  “Do you know how it works?” Jacob asked, remaining at the entrance of the room.

  “I’ve seen the concept in development.” Kit’s voice was flatter than usual as he walked straight to the doorway. He hesitated. “Is it okay to touch?”

  Jacob bit back the urge to ask if that was the first time he’d ever asked that question. It wasn’t the right place, and it sure as hell wasn’t the right time. They weren’t friends. They weren’t lovers. They weren’t anything to each other, and if Kit was going to blank him, he could be equally blank and professional in return. “Be my guest.”

  He stayed where he was to ensure there was no foul play. Not that he could be sure of recognizing it. He hadn’t seen it the last time when it happened right in front of him. But it felt better to keep both eyes on the pair and make sure they didn’t take anything away with them that he hadn’t seen first.

  It was made more difficult by the way Kit’s hands moved on the framework. He had bony hands, but his fingers were long and elegant, and he moved them like a pianist touching a keyboard, tracing power lines and rivets, opening panels, and plucking lightly across the wires within. Jacob could remember all too well what those hands were capable of.

  The man was murmuring under his breath too, just as he had when he was working on the video, as if reciting what he was finding, cataloguing it, and putting it aside for later assessment. He checked the inside of the frame and the exterior. He opened cavities Jacob hadn’t even spotted, occasionally brushing his hair back from his brow.

  It was fascinating to watch him work.

  Ashraf fetched one of the stools from the main room before Kit even turned to ask for it, his focus entirely on the gate. When he reached out for the stool and found it there, he didn’t even seem surprised. He didn’t even break his pace, climbing up on it and working along the top of the gate.

  “Does he even know we’re here now?” Jacob asked quietly.

  Mrs. Ashraf shook her head. “You give him a challenge and it’s like he flips a switch somewhere under that mop.”

  They remained there, watching him working for what felt like hours. Mrs. Ashraf was sitting on a spare stool, and Jacob continued to lean against the wall, hoping and praying that his scrutiny of Kit looked like nothing more than casual interest.

  Kit dropped down from the stool suddenly and turned. He looked like hell, all the color gone from his face. He was holding something in his hand and came over to Ashraf, opening his fingers. In the middle of his palm, there was a blackened lump.

  “What’s that?” Jacob demanded.

  “It was the stabilizer,” Kit said, his voice unsteady. “It should have controlled the flow of power. It means the gate has been powered up.” He was looking at Mrs. Ashraf. “When they smashed the consoles, the power surge would have short-circuited the whole thing, but it would have to be using power when they did it.”

  Ashraf’s eyes widened. “He tried to use it?”

  Kit nodded stiffly. “Looks like.”

  Jacob looked between them. “You’re saying he created a functioning teleporter?”

  Kit looked at him for the first time since he’d arrived. “No,” he said. “I’m saying he switched on this thing, which might not have worked, and they shorted it out when he tried to escape through it.”

  Jacob felt out of his depth, groping in the dark. “What could that mean?”

  Mrs. Ashraf’s face was gray. “It means, Detective Inspector, that what you thought was an abduction may have just become a murder investigation.”

  Chapter 24

  IT FELT wrong to be sitting in Sanders’s living room without Sanders there. It felt wrong to be drinking the man’s scotch. It felt wrong to be surrounded by photographs of Sanders and his wife and child.

  It all just felt wrong.

  Kit’s hands were still shaking around the glass he was holding.

  He’d always assumed it would turn out fine in the end. It would all be nice and neat. Sanders would show up as if nothing had happened. The people who had tried to abduct him would be apprehended. Everything would go back to normal.

  Christ, what a naïve tit he had been to assume that.

  He’d never imagined he would be the one to find proof that Sanders could be… was… might be….

  He took a shaking breath and lifted the glass to his lips. The liquid burned all the way down his throat and he shuddered.

  Jacob had got them out of the basement as soon as they told him. He’d hustled Mariam off outside as well, and through the window, Kit had watched blankly as Mariam covered her face. Crying, he realized. He stayed long enough to see Jacob put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Inside the house, Kit turned in circles, trying to find something to do, something to make things fit and be right again, but there was nothing he could do.

  He’d wandered numbly back into the room with the whiteboards. There was a plastic sheet on the floor, covering a dark stain. For a moment, he didn’t understand why it was there, and then he did. He backed out of th
e room, and the policewoman found him standing in the hall, still staring at it. She took him through to the living room and suggested he just sit for a moment, that it might help.

  It didn’t.

  He lasted less than a minute after she left him there, then he was up and walking around the room. That was when he’d found the drinks cabinet. That was when he’d opened a bottle and poured himself half a glass, his hand trembling so much that he sloshed it across the tabletop.

  Now, there was only a trickle left in the glass and he couldn’t find the energy to rise and refill it. He felt sick to his stomach, and he couldn’t stop himself from rocking back and forward. Stupid response. Pointless. Useless. It didn’t have any benefit, but he couldn’t stop himself. His throat felt tight and raw too, and it was all wrong.

  He looked up when someone stepped into the room.

  Jacob.

  Oh Christ, just what he needed.

  The man who had shown concern about him before, being there when he needed someone to hug him.

  “Mariam?” His voice broke, and he looked back down at the glass.

  “She wanted a few minutes to herself.” Jacob’s shoes tapped across the floor. Toward him. Christ, no. Stay at arm’s length. It would be easier. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t be sure of what had happened down there.”

  Kit felt like he was watching in slow motion as the glass slipped between his fingers and fell. It clattered onto the wooden floor, bouncing and spinning. A fine spray of scotch patterned the wood. The glass was cracked, with a chip out the rim. He started to reach down for it, but Jacob got there first. He crouched down in front of the couch, in front of Kit, and he looked up at him.

  “It’s okay,” he said, and his voice was low and gentle, and that made things so much worse.

  “Don’t,” Kit whispered, “don’t be kind.”