Timekeepers

by Dave Weaver

  He was lying back on a fine leather sofa wearing a VR mask and earphones that Portia had showed him how to use. She seemed distant in comparison to her lighter mood of breakfast. Telling her about the nightmarish visions he’d experienced would have to keep for later. Right now he was trapped inside a prolonged history lesson, as a female voice gave various facts and figures in a tour-guide drone.

  As well as the Empire’s history, Jack had begun to understand some of its geography.

  There was no Europe any more, or Russia. Now, that vast area was made up of what Lucas had called client states: Gaul, Germania, Hispania, Illyricum, Boiohaemum, and many others including of course, Romano Briton. To the south were the independent states of Graecia, Persia, Africa, Aegyptus and India, and to the east, China, Mongolia and Nihon, although these were all allied to the Empire as well. Australasia was now New Southlands. Across the Ocean Maximus the vast continent of Atlantica, with its capital New Rome (the world’s largest city) flourished.

  The cities of his own country had changed as well, or rather their names had never been changed to the Anglo-Saxon ones that he was so familiar with. Now there was Ratae, Camulodunum, Durnomia, Isca, Noviomagnus, Corinium, Deva, Verulamium and of course Calleva, the huge sprawling landscape of his dream and apparently the country’s second city next to the great port of Londinium to the east. The two metropolises dominated the south of Romano Briton as they gradually collapsed into each other in a vast industrial hinterland of estates, warehouses, stockyards and factories. His humble new hometown of Fulchestorium, about fifty miles away from here, was now the seventh largest city in the country! His place of birth that he missed so much, Nottingham, now only existed as a massive military complex although the Fosse Hover-way sped past its walls.

  It was all so different, so alien to him. Yet, underneath these strange Romanic names he could still see the skeleton of his former world; the shape of the English coastline, the major rivers and some of the cities on the map. As the centuries moved past and the history of Britain was written anew Jack still sensed an echo of the dim and distant past. His past.

  He’d reached the early seventeenth century and the invention of an unlikely contraption named a ‘steam engine’ by a Jonathan Quantus when the lesson was abruptly derailed.

  As the images froze and the narrator’s uninterested voice stopped, he thought for a moment that the programme had simply crashed. Then as the frozen image faded and twisted into blurred colours, his ears filled with a cacophony of sound; an interruption from outside the programme. It was just like in his dream, but now he was beginning to realise that what he’d suspected in his first waking moments was actually true. That far from being some kind of thought process juggling in his sleep, that strange and terrifying experience in the Ministry of Security had been a direct communication from a source so powerful it could engage with him, awake or not, even (as he remembered the strange dream he’d had the night after his first aborted jump in Fulchester) across time itself.

  It was another message from Chrono – clearing even now, as the jumble of noise and bright light swung sharply into focus to reveal…

  …The giant pyramid of the Centre, three tiny specks in the sky above growing by the second until they became large rectangular slabs of metal hovering over the building like bees around a nest, then sweeping to make perfect landings on the manicured lawns…

  …The back of each craft flipping open to disgorge armoured Troopers, faces concealed by black visors, gold helmets flashing in the sun as they poured across the grass and up the wide steps and escalators towards the entrance…

  …The snaking lines of men crushing up around their giant of a leader as he smashes on the giant door with his fist, then fixes a metal object to it and shouts for them all to get back…

  …An ear-splitting bang as a tail of orange flame leaps across the door and tears a gash in the metal as the Troopers scramble through the smoking hole into the entrance hall with shouts of, “State Officers on premises, halt!” Five of them hold the security guards at gunpoint whilst the rest pile into the depths of the building…

  ‘This is really happening,’ Jack thought, ‘right this moment.’

  …And now someone else is climbing through the blasted doors; a sallow-faced little man in a colourful dark green uniform, and the Troopers’ leader is removing his helmet and saluting the little man with, “Hall secure, SIR!”, listening to the radio in the helmet and barking out an order with another chest pounding salute, “Building secure, SIR!”

  …And the little man is flipping open a holster hanging off his scrawny waist, dragging out a gun that is far too big for his twisted hand to hold properly, and shouting, “Follow me then, Commander Taros!” as he marches down the Trooper-filled corridors of the Centre.

  ‘I’ve got to let Portia know about this’ Jack told himself, trying to get to his feet, but his eyes were still blind, as the terrifying images continued to crash into his mind.

  …And now the two men are entering the refectory, already filled with Troopers and Timekeeper staff including Dario, Atticus and Lucas…

  …And the little man stands before them all and asks, “Where’s the boy, Professors?” and Lucas is shouting, “What the hell are you talking about? What right do you have to break into this establishment, who the hell…?” And the little man cuts him short with “…do I think I am? I’m the last chance this country, this world, has to cleanse the chemical corruption of our glorious Empire. I need to know WHERE IS THE BOY!”

  …And now Dario is saying, “There’s no-one here, you creep!” and the little man swings to face him replying, “Professor Constantine! We have a nice little file on the state officer you nearly killed in that tavern two years ago after your son died, don’t think we won’t use it.”

  …And Dario swearing at him and, as the other two try restrain him, the target of his contempt is shouting over their heads to the gathered crowd “If you ever want to get your EG Family Licences, tell me where they’ve hidden the boy, or you can forget playing happy families forever…”

  …And he suddenly stares at Lucas, and smiles, but the smile is cruel as he whispers, “Of course! Families, eh Professor? And seventeen is a difficult age for a young girl without a mother; are you sure she’s safe with that primitive?” Then with a smirk he shouts, “Guards! Keep everybody in this room and take their phones away, we’ve got him!”

  …And he turns to the shaven-headed giant, Commander Taros, and says, “Take a full carrier over to Stewart’s house.” And Lucas is shouting, “Touch her and I’ll kill you, Borg!” but the two men have already departed the room which is finally fading away to be replaced by…

  …Portia’s worried face staring at him. From its startled expression he must have the look of someone awakening from a deep trance. The ‘dream’ last night had been a warning about the same little man with eyes as cold as an arctic winter. This was no dream anymore. This was a command.

  It said: “This has already happened and they’re now on their way to you… get out of there!”

  Jack was on his feet bounding across the room to Portia as she recoiled. He grabbed her hands. “The Centre’s been raided by State Troopers, they’re coming here for me, we’ve got to go, now!”

  She stepped away from his grip, eyes wide in shock.

  “What are you talking about Jack? How do you know…?”

  “It’s in my head Portia! I had a dream last night but it wasn’t a dream; it was a message from Chrono. The mainframe’s still linked to my mind. It showed me the State Governor, some arsehole called Silas Borg, together with that nurse from the medical room at the Centre. He’s got her brother imprisoned at the Ministry of Security in Calleva; he’s forcing her to tell them about me. She’s got him a copy of my memory file and some of my blood. They’ve raided the Centre and guessed I’m here!”

  Portia’s look of shock fell away. “Shit!”

  “What? Did you know this might happen? And what the hell did they
put in my neck? It’s not just a translator chip, is it?”

  “What do you mean?” She sounded defensive.

  “I told you, I’m still linked up to Chrono. What am I to you, some kind of human guinea pig?”

  “It’s not like that!” But she looked worried now as the truth began to sink in. He could see rising panic in her eyes and knew the vision was true. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I haven’t time to explain. You’re right about one thing though; we’ve got to leave.”

  “You don’t stay here all day doing school lessons, do you?” He was shouting at her. Had they all just been using him? How could he trust them if they didn’t tell him the truth?

  “Jack I’m sorry. I do stay here sometimes, this is where my dad and I live, and my mum until she died. What I told you was true, but I work with Lucas and the others at the Institute. I’m a trainee, another Timekeeper if you like. You’re connected to the mainframe because Chrono is still downloading the details it needs for your jump back to your own time. We didn’t know it could communicate with your mind as well! You should have told me about the dream when you woke up this morning.” Her voice was desperate now.

  “I dreamt about Chrono in Fulchester as well, the night after the first jump went wrong.”

  “That’s not in your memory file. The mainframe must have wiped it; that means it’s editing it.”

  “You mean the memory file you let that nurse steal from under your noses?”

  “Come on! You can blame us all later…” She froze, head tilting up to the ceiling as a low magnetic hum filled the room. Small objects began to dance across the table and shelves, antique books clattered to the ground as a large bookcase shook, then tipped forwards scattering the rest across the stone floor. She stared at Jack then grabbed his wrist, “Follow me!”

  Chapter 14

  Portia was dragging him through the house, pausing for a second to drag a leather jacket over her shoulders and push a larger one into Jack’s chest. “Put it on!” He followed on her heels as she charged towards a small room at the end of a long corridor. As they both rushed inside, almost colliding, she flashed her wrist over a light panel and a door slid shut. He felt a lurch as the floor dropped away and the room did a crash dive. Portia’s face was in profile, framed only by the diffuse ceiling light. Her silhouette turned towards him as she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.

  Figures flickered as they continued their descent. He could see into various rooms as they flashed by; three, four levels down? The place was a warren. What did Lucas need all this for when he had the Centre? He’d certainly made good use of the budget given Central Science Bureau, or was there more to it than that?

  At level five the lift halted. They stepped out into a low-ceilinged cavernous carport much bigger than that of the previous evening. There was a row of cars similar to Lucas’ parked along one side. Portia hurried him past them all, pushing his arm as he paused in front of a particularly flash model.

  “These are no good. They’d spot us miles away and track us immediately, plus the route we’ll be taking requires something a little more flexible. What we need is over there.”

  In the corner behind the last car was what Jack could only describe as a superbike. Like the other vehicles it was a wheel-less zephyr but two thirds smaller. The perfectly contoured body had two small seats positioned midway along its gleaming fuselage.

  Portia jumped onto the first one, swinging her leg over the machine’s shiny side and grabbing the handles of the V shaped steering column. He climbed on behind her, warily. All he had to hold onto was a bar. She looked back and pointed to her feet, which seemed to vanish into recesses on either side. Jack pushed his into similar ones and felt them held there in a sucking grip of air.

  He glanced nervously over Portia’s shoulder.

  “Hang on!” She shouted as her fingers flew across a VR screen poised above the steering column. As they lifted off, there was a rumbling noise then the entire far wall slid open. Before them now lay a stone tunnel lit by a winding ribbon of lights.

  The instantaneous G-force punched into his stomach so that he almost lost hold of the bar and his breakfast. As they twisted down the snaking corridor, at times almost flipping over, Portia easily zigzagged a route that was obviously a routine one to her. A blast of dazzling sunlight replaced the gloom and they were skimming down a grassy hillside. He looked back to see a moss encrusted door slide across the tunnel’s exit. They continued to hurtle across a meadow then along a rutted track into a dense forest.

  “Portia!” he shouted through on-rushing air. “I thought magnopacs needed magnetic surfaces to drive on, how does this thing work on grass?”

  “It’s got an Antigrav pack as well, for off-road riding!” she replied, without taking her eyes off the track. “Better not to overdo it though, takes a while to recharge.”

  As he lent into the track’s next bend she twisted in the opposite direction so that he almost lost his grip as they dodged between the trees.

  “Sorry!” Portia yelled back.

  “Where the hell are we going?”

  “Calleva,” Portia replied.

  “Are you crazy? It’s the first place they’ll look!”

  “Not where we’re going!” She swung the bike into a tall thicket, which whipped against their legs. “Don’t worry, things should get smoother from here.”

  They burst through bushes then up a bank of gravel onto a densely packed hover way of speeding cars. Jack recognised it as the route Lucas had taken from the Centre.

  They were on it for less than a minute when the bike began to judder.

  “Damn!” Portia’s exclamation was buried beneath a throbbing hum from above. The surrounding vehicles rapidly fell back as if trying to avoid something then the hover-way surface itself dropped away. Jack craned his head back to see a Security troopship’s huge metallic underbelly. Two doors began to open. Portia stabbed desperately at the VR screen as she tried to regain control. He felt the pull of the bike’s magnopac re-establish some grip but it only slowed the upward movement. They were still heading gradually upwards towards the ship.

  He tapped her shoulder and pointed. Up ahead where the highway cut though a gash in the hillside a system of pipes ran parallel for a short distance then disappeared into a small tunnel of their own. There was a bike-sized gap to their left, probably to allow service access.

  “In there!”

  She nodded and steered towards it but the tiny area now looked like it might be too low.

  “We’re not going to make it!” he shouted as they both hunched down.

  “We will!” Portia swung the bike off the hover-way as its fuselage clattered against the pipes. There was a slight upward lift as they left its magnetic pull behind, and then the hole swallowed them. Suddenly freed from the troopship’s pull, the bike dipped dramatically to skim along the rough track before rising again as they continued into the darkness.

  They’d been travelling on foot for more than an hour since the bike had suddenly dropped to skitter along the gravel. Neither had been hurt apart from some minor bruising. Portia guessed the troopship’s grab beam had finally drained the Antigrav pack.

  “Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise,” she told him, unconvincingly, “they would’ve been trying to track us with a heat imager by now anyway. They’d be able to pick up the Antigrav pack even down here but there’s too much surrounding rock to trace just our body heat.”

  “Won’t they know where these pipes come out on the surface?” He felt security guards would either be popping up in front of them at any moment or preparing to snare them at the tunnel’s exit.

  “With a bit or luck whoever’s in charge of the hunting party will be too thick to know how to access the blueprints of Calleva’s energy systems quickly. That’ll give us some breathing space. They’ll still have to calculate how far we’ve travelled and where the next exit is. These are probably water and sewage; they’ll split up on the outskirts. When we get to a junction w
e’ll have follow one of them and hope they’ve missed it out.”

  “Why aren’t they following us from the entrance?”

  “They probably are, but they’d have had to order up bikes from Calleva. That would take a while to organise.”

  “So I guess our plan is keep moving and get lucky?”

  “I’ve got a friend where you’ll be safe.” Her voice was tense as if sensing his doubt. “Have you any better ideas then?”

  He shook his head although he knew she couldn’t see him doing so. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Don’t worry.” She’d stopped and turned. Reaching for his hands she gave them a squeeze of encouragement the same way she had in the lift. He felt awkward and was grateful for the tunnel’s darkness, split only by a stab of light from the torch Portia had taken from the bike. “It’s going to take more than a bunch of armed and vicious State Troopers to stop us, right?”

  He could just pick out her tired smile. “Damn right! Let’s go!”

  She gave him a playful slap.

  The painful progress continued. After a while she stopped again and turned back as he stumbled blindly behind her. The torch lit up his face, her own an almost invisible silhouette.

  “What are you singing?”

  He’d been mumbling the words to some old rock song under his breath to help his concentration on the path’s uneven surface.