For one of the most powerful supernatural artifacts in the world, it looks terribly like something my gran would have owned.
However, while it doesn’t appeal to my aesthetic senses in the slightest, apparently Leo Malkin has a mad-on for it.
He stands with his back to me, arms raised, a massive industrial-sized wrench poised above his head.
He brings it down. A great sweeping, powerful arc. And I stare. Too late. Too late by mere seconds.
The wrench bounces off the bell jar with a dull bonk. Malkin grunts with effort. Apparently the Chronometer is protected by more than just an electric anti-magic field.
But there are spider-line cracks in the glass. This is not some impenetrable barrier. Given time, Malkin will get through.
Funny—in the house of time itself, it’s the one thing Malkin doesn’t have.
Behind Malkin hovers something like a heat haze. It’s a barely perceptible shimmer. I’d probably have never noticed it if it wasn’t turning pipes into a fine rust-colored powder.
It’s spreading, rolling gently towards Malkin. He’s got about two minutes before it sets his personal clock back. And I’m guessing that then there’ll be about one more minute before it eats through the glass and sets to work erasing all of reality.
I look down at my left hand. The wires are knotted around my fingers. And I don’t need minutes to spray him across the room.
I point them at him.
“Hey!” I yell. There is a smile stretched across my skull. I’m going to enjoy this. I’m actually going to enjoy the death of another human being. Something is broken in me, and I don’t care. And I want him to know. I want him to know he is reaping what he’s sowing.
Malkin turns round, stares at me. His eyes go wide. And he knows.
“Enjoy hell, you motherfu—”
A flash of light.
Oh crap. Why did I have to open my big mouth?
EIGHTY-SIX
My finger has to travel an inch. Leo Malkin has to travel thirty yards.
He still beats me.
The wrench buries itself in my gut, lifts me off the floor, sends me flying backwards, crashing, splayed painfully over machinery.
No. I have to… I can’t let it go down like this.
He comes at me again, in a flash of light. I roll, not knowing where he’s going to manifest, not knowing if he’s going to reappear with his foot stuck through my gut.
It turns out it’s behind me, and I am not rolling half as fast as I need too.
My upper right arm takes the blow. I feel the crack of the bone. The pain is like a lance from elbow to skull. Like someone lit a fire in my marrow. I howl.
Through tears, I see Malkin raise the wrench again.
Another shout from the doorway. Shots. Leo Malkin blinks out of existence. The air above my head shrieks as the bullets whip by.
I stagger up, clutching at my arm. It hangs useless next to me. I cannot believe this hurts so much.
Malkin better not believe that’s enough to take me down. This is a Python-esque flesh wound. I’ll bite his bloody legs off if I have to.
That said I’m totally going to use my flaming sword before we get to that point. I grab the hilt—
Something barrels into me from behind. Something angry, and large, and shouting in Russian.
I land on my bad arm. The world goes red with pain. I roll, senseless.
More shots.
I’m still going to kill you, you bastard.
I pick my head up. I can see the Chronometer, a silhouette between me and Big Ben’s clock face. Beyond that: a flash of light. Malkin. He looks around.
I raise my left hand. It’s shaking.
I can’t get my right up to press the button.
I fucking refuse to be defeated by my own limbs.
Malkin crouches low, scans the room, searching for me.
I bring my left hand to my mouth, grip the small, almost vestigial play button between my teeth. I twist my hand, straining against the tension in the wires, point the speaker.
Malkin moves a step left. Scans. Freezes. He’s looking right at me.
I bite down on the play button. Silence. I wait a heartbeat. Another. And then the speaker crackles to life. Words emerge.
Malkin stands.
The explosion hurls him backwards.
EIGHTY-SEVEN
My sight of Malkin is occluded by roiling flames. Then, through the haze: the white glass of Big Ben’s face breaks. A national monument scarred. Malkin flies out into space. He flails, searching for power. Searching for a way to teleport back.
Nothing here for you, Leo. Ta-ta. Nice knowing you.
I shudder a sigh. I won. I saved the world.
I saved the world.
Shouts from the soldiers, yells, footsteps approaching. And then:
A spark of light. A thin trailing streak of electricity.
Oh no. No, no, no.
A soldier throws up his hands, clutches his night vision goggles. The two bright green LEDs have gone out.
A flash of light next to me.
Oh no. Oh shit. Oh piss and balls.
I dive forward. Malkin’s wrench glances off my ribs, sends me spinning and crashing, doubling up in pain even while in mid-air.
I land on my left shoulder. Which means I don’t black out from pain. On the other hand, now my good arm feels like two tons of spare lead.
Soldiers are pouring into the room now, Kayla unable to contain their attention. More night vision goggles. More little LEDs. More power for Malkin.
A crackle of lightning, and he’s on me.
I kick out with my legs. Grab for my sword. It’s futile. He’s behind me. I roll. The wrench slams into the ground where my head was. It raises sparks. I keep rolling. I hit my right arm. I howl, lying on my back, paralyzed.
Malkin kicks me. Hard. In the gut. I double up about his boot.
No. No. No. No.
More shouts from soldiers. More electricity. Malkin blinks away.
I manage to make it to all fours. Well to three out of four. My right arm cradled against my chest. God, I wish I was left-handed.
Another blink of light. Malkin’s wrench emphasizes the point his boot made on my stomach.
Considering how long it’s been since I last ate, quite a lot of food comes up.
I lie on the floor in a bubble of pain. And I’ve been here before. This is Trafalgar Square all over again. Except there’s nobody to call Malkin off. This time he’s going to finish the job.
Why won’t he just die? Why won’t he just rot?
More gunfire. Something ricochets near my head. And the solders that represent my only hope are equally keen on killing me. And they keep coming. A virtual horde of batteries for Malkin to tap.
Still they scare Malkin off long enough for me to finally get my blade free. The blade flickers to life.
Lightning flares. Come get some, Malkin. I thrust out with the sword. It’s an awkward jab. My left hand is normally busy being a paperweight. And Clyde skimped on off-hand fighting. All of which gives Malkin all the time he needs to line up a sweet shot between my shoulder blades.
He swings like Tiger Woods, like an all-star, like a really pissed-off dude with a giant fucking wrench. The pain is literally blinding. I don’t know where I land. How I land. If I land. Maybe I am suspended, floating in my bubble of crushing agony.More pain, from some directionless nowhere. Some invisible torment slamming down on me. I am distantly aware of my leg catching fire. Maybe I have been shot. Maybe it was Malkin. Maybe it was me. I don’t know. I don’t care. I just want it to stop. Just want him to die. And it doesn’t. And he doesn’t.
Somehow, through the haze, I see light. Not the light. Not something distant and glowing at the end of a tunnel. Something flickering and red.
The sword. Lying next to me. I scrabble to hold it. My hand jerks loosely in all the wrong directions. I’m using my right hand, I realize. My right arm. It’s probably why this hurts so much.
Howling, barely sensible, I swing the sword in a wide arc above my head.
The white flashes stop. The new pain stops. Just all the old ones to keep me company.
Still screaming, whether in rage or pain I don’t know, I stagger to my feet. I sway there, swishing the sword back and forth.
A flash from behind. A kick in the small of my back sends me staggering forward. But I don’t fall. I spin round, slice through empty air.
Bullets ping off machinery around me. Ricochets and half-blind shots burying themselves in the floor. Another flash. Another kick. I stagger. I spin. I hit nothing.
A flash. A punch this time. A dizzying blow to the back of the head. He’s fucking playing with me. I spin. The howl is definitely more anger now. More rage. He’s not there. He’s never fucking there. I can’t get him. He’s too fast.
I have to get him. I have to.
A flash. A blow. A flash. A blow. I can hear the bastard laughing. I spin. A flash. A blow. My feet can’t keep up. My adrenaline is wearing thin. I drop to my knees.
Breathing hard, I wave the sword in front of me. A flash. Another blow to the head. I can barely fucking see. I struggle round. It’s ridiculous. A three-year-old would be gone by the time I make it round.
Another flash.
And I’m sick of this. And I think that maybe I’m not faster, or stronger, or more powerful than Leo Malkin. There’s a slim chance I’m not even as pissed off as he is. But I think I might be smarter.
A flash of light. And I take the hit. But this time I don’t turn.
Behind me, every time, Malkin? That’s a pretty fucking predictable pattern.
I stab straight backward. Under my own right arm. Everything I’ve got left. Every ounce of hate and rage and pain. Ignoring the scream of my body, of my arm. Ignoring the building sense of futility. Thinking only about Felicity, only about her lying there, thinking only about the pain writ large in her corpse. I thrust the blade back, feel the heat and wind flicker past my body.
And then, resistance. A grunt. A scream. The grind of steel on bone.
And I scream too. My fingers fly wide, involuntary, undeniable.
But there is no flash of light. No other blow. Just a slow whimpering gasp.
Finally, achingly, I turn round.
Leo Malkin is on his knees. We stare at each other. Eye to eye at last. He opens his mouth, closes it, gasps. His tongue works. And tears. He’s crying. Pain or loss, I don’t know.
My sword, still flaming, protrudes from the center of his chest, neatly slotted through the ribs. Thick, arterial blood sprays from his back, hissing and spitting in the sword’s flames. “You…” he reaches out a hand to me. I can see the toll the action takes writ large upon his face. But the hand never makes it. It sags back down. He looks at it, at the sword slotted through his chest.
“No more time,” he says. And he sags to the floor.
EIGHTY-EIGHT
I kneel there, before Leo Malkin’s corpse. I feel hollow, and used, and full of pain. All the Russians are dead. Everybody is avenged. But my friends are all still dead too. Jasmine. Clyde. Felicity.
This is the world I fought for.
I’m barely a yard from the Chronometer. From the source of all this fuss. Its protective case has been broken. Maybe in the explosion I caused, maybe a stray shot, a stray sword stroke. I don’t know. I don’t really care. For something meant to be essential, for something so fundamental to the regulation of the world, it seems a lot like a tacky piece of shit to me.
There are sounds of violence to my left. Kayla still fighting the guards. Unaware that we’ve won. Unaware that it’s all over except for the copious bleeding.
I try to build the will to shout to her, to tell her to stop. But I can’t.
Soldiers are breaking from the main group, are running toward me. Guns out and trained. They bellow at me.
I don’t pay them much heed. I keep watching Kayla. Still fighting. Always fighting. I remember Devon in Chernobyl asking if it ever got any better. I remember lying to her.
Kayla’s blade knocks a man’s helmet flying. She skips around a muzzle flare, slices a gun in two.
It’s never a case of winning. Never. Just a case of how well we lose.
“Stop!” I finally find the strength to yell at her. “Just stop.” Be defeated, I want to tell her. There’s no point struggling any more.
Felicity is dead.
Kayla looks over at me. I swear she even smiles.
The soldier’s gun goes off in her face.
Even Kayla can’t dodge that. I see her body arc one last time. I see the spray of bone and blood and brain sailing out the back of her head.
Jesus. Oh Jesus.
We put the world back… we put it back… Jesus.
Kayla’s dead. She can’t be dead. She can’t die. But she’s dead.
Did I just kill Kayla? Was that me?
Oh Jesus.
Soldiers swarm about me. Everything is dark. Shadowed figures. Dull shouts barely breaking through into consciousness. Everything sludgy and distant.
This is what we saved? And who’s left? Tabitha and me. That’s MI37 now. Aiko and Malcolm. Devon. How long before they’re dead too?
Jasmine’s dead.
Clyde’s dead.
Kayla’s dead.
Felicity’s dead.
I stare at the Chronometer. I want to smash it. I’d be shot as soon as I moved. I wish I’d let Malkin win.
Its second hand moves mercilessly on. Tick. Tick. Tick. Time—unrelenting in its march. Leaving all the might-have-beens in its dust.
Jesus.
And then it hits me.
No… No… It’s too big. The thought. The audacity—it’s not mine.
But this doesn’t have to be the world I fought for. Not this time. Not here. Not now. Malkin was wrong. There’s still time. Time itself staring me in the face, and asking for a do over.
I look at the Chronometer. At its ticking hands. So close to my own.
There’s probably a better chance I’ll be killed and all this will be for naught.
But… God, what the hell am I fighting for anyway? Not this. Never this.
Kayla lies on the floor, twenty yards away, what’s left of her mind pooling on the floor.
Felicity lies on the ground far below, blackened and burned.
Soldiers scream at me to put my hands behind my head. To put my head on the floor.
Sorry guys, but fuck you.
I lunge at the Chronometer.
EIGHTY-NINE
The pain is incredible.
I feel each bullet strike my body. Each one an individual hammer blow. A spear thrust through my gut, my arm, my lungs, my heart. I feel each muscle tear, each bone break, each organ rupture. I feel the hot spray of blood through my perforated chest cavity. I feel the burn of the bile and stomach acid as they splash against the inside of my guts. The black poison of my liver seeping down my back.
The Chronometer looms even as my vision narrows. It becomes the whole world to me. My hand reaching out, occluding its face. And I don’t have the strength to reach it. I am too broken by Malkin’s beatings.
But the bullets drive me forward. Even as they rob me of my strength and will. They drive me into the Chronometer.
I can’t see. The pain is too much. It’s too eclipsing. My world has been reduced to entry and exit wounds.
I’m dying. Hell, I’m almost dead. I don’t think my heart is beating. I know I’m not breathing. Something is wrong with my throat. The building, burning pressure threatening to detonate in my skull is proof of that. I can feel blood spluttering down my chin, each cough weaker than the last.
I’m lying slumped on something, my face down in
my own blood. The plinth, I realize with my remaining neurons. My finger is on something too. My left finger. I try to concentrate on that one point. Try to push everything away. What is my left fingertip resting on?
Could it be the hand of a clock?
I don’t know.
It’s not like I’m going to get a chance to figure it out anyway.
With everything I have left, I push down.
NINETY
Oh God. This feels remarkably like a mistake.
NINETY-ONE
Malcolm cocks his pistol. He points it at Leo Malkin’s head. “I don’t remember agreeing to take orders from you.”
Felicity snaps her gaze to him. It’s the eye equivalent of Kayla’s sword pose. “If you shoot an unarmed man, I will arrest you.”
Wait. This… This seems familiar.
“He killed Jasmine,” Aiko says again.
Again? Again and again? How many times again? I think I have the worst case of déjà vu.
“And he will pay for his crimes.” Felicity switches her gaze to Aiko. Aiko’s eyes slip to my face. Felicity’s eyes flick towards me and back.
HOLY CRAP! Oh my God, I just died. I just died. Up there. Up in Big Ben. I was shot. Everyone was dead. Kayla was dead. Clyde was dead. Shit, holy shit, Felicity was dead. And me too. I lunged at the Chronometer, and soldiers shot me dead.
I lunged at the Chronometer and everything is happening again.
Oh my God. I just turned back time.
“We don’t kill him,” I hear myself say. I am shaking my head at Aiko. “We’re not like him. We’re the good guys.” I put my sword back in its sheath.
Why did I say that? Why did I put my sword away? I need to kill this man.
A thin smile is on Felicity’s face. And then it falters, just slightly. A distant look in her eyes, as if something is wrong.
Does she know? Does she feel it too? It’s like we’re on rails. Like we’re caught acting out a rerun.
We draw in tighter on Leo Malkin. He has that desperate caged look.
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