by L. V. Lloyd
TimeLabs Inc
And Other Stories
By
L.V. Lloyd
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.
All rights reserved by the author, L.V. Lloyd, any unauthorized distribution or selling of this ebook constitutes an infringement of copyright.
Copyright © 2017 L.V. Lloyd
Amazon Edition
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
Cover by EJ Kellan Premade Covers
http://ejkellan.weebly.com/premade-covers-by-ej-kellan.html#/
A big thank you to EJ for the truly wonderful cover.
Thank you also to Atlas-Skye, Janet Gershen-Siegel, and Jenny Summerfield for your help with editing.
Any mistakes are, of course, my own.
Dedicated to QueeRomance Ink
a new site supporting authors and readers of LGBTIQA romantic fiction
https://www.queeromanceink.com
CONTENTS
TimeLabs Inc
Tattoo
My Day at the Beach
Love Spider
E-Contact
Alien Love Story
Time Labs Inc
“Welcome, Mr Reese and Mr Connor... I trust your special day was all that it was cracked up to be? And what better way to compliment your union than with a honeymoon across time, eh? We here at TimeLabs are the premier time travel company and our guides are highly trained. Anything you want, anywhere you want to go... The possibilities are very nearly endless...”
Sam tuned out the mellifluous voice as he stared wide-eyed at the ever changing holograms around him. He had always wanted to take a Time Tour, but even the shortest one had always been beyond his reach. Until now. Until he married Zak. Not only was Zak the most gorgeous man he had ever met, but he was rich. How lucky could you get? He still found himself wondering occasionally what Zak saw in him.
“This week’s Special Offer is our Six Pack.” Sam’s attention was drawn back to the salesman’s pitch. Six pack? He smiled secretly—Zak had a pretty good six pack but he didn’t think that was what the salesman meant.
“You can create an individually tailored time journey, from six different periods. The options are fixed but we do have quite a wide variety for you to choose from. You can make up your own package. There’s a thirty percent discount, so you get six for the normal price of four.”
Sam’s face lit up with excitement. He turned to Zak. “What do you think? Six periods would be pretty amazing, wouldn’t they?”
Zak smiled at his enthusiasm. “Can we have a look at the options?” he asked the salesman.
“Of course, sir,” beamed the salesman. He waved a hand and the holograms changed to a prehistoric scene. “Here is the first period, sir. We have five options here, ranging from early human civilisation, where people began to wear clothes, to around the end of the last ice age, which saw the end of the mammoths and sabre-tooth tigers. A very exciting time I might say.”
Zak put his arm around Sam’s waist as the salesman continued to show them the time periods on offer. “What do you think?”
Sam’s eyes were still fixed on the display, “Wow, the first Olympics! How cool would that be?”
“I think that’s a ‘yes’,” smiled Zak. “We’ll take the Six Pack, please.”
An hour later, they had their package. Day One, they would travel to 170,000 BC‒the furthest back they could go. Day Two, would be spent at the very first Olympics. “You just want to perve at all the naked men,” teased Zak. Sam blushed. Then, on to almost modern times with 1174 and the defeat of William the First of Scotland at the battle of Alnwick. Zak hadn’t been so sure about that one but Sam could remember an old film called Braveheart and he thought it was the same thing. Day Four would find them in 1783, witnessing the eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland—or at least, the beginning of it, as the eruption lasted for over eight months.
Zak was looking forward to Day Five when he hoped to meet Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. And finally they would end up in 1962 where they both wanted to catch a glimpse of Marilyn Monroe. Zak wanted to arrive on the fifth of August so he could discover the truth about her death but Sam was eager to attend the party where she sang for the President. In the end, Sam got his way and then they were ready to go.
The salesman beamed. “If you’ll follow me, gentlemen, I’ll introduce you to Marcella, your guide, and she’ll take you from there. The package includes transport in one of our luxury time machines, complete with five star meals and beverages, plus the latest in light-bending suits for you to wear when you leave the machine.” Sam and Zak followed him down the passage until they came to a closed door. The salesman opened it with a flourish.
Although the room was lined with shelves piled high with colourful packs, the couple’s eyes were drawn immediately to the large blue box in the middle of the floor. A young woman stood nearby.
“Ah, here is Marcella, with your time machine,” said the salesman.
The fit looking young woman with a shaved head ran a professional eye over both her new charges. “Welcome to TimeLabs Guided Tours, gentlemen,” she said. “I’ll be your guide for the next week. Please call me Marcella.” She glanced at the time machine and smiled. “And by the way, it’s bigger on the inside.”
The salesman shook Sam and Zak by the hand. “I’ll leave you now in Marcella’s capable hands. I’ll see you again in a week, when you return. Enjoy!”
Day One
Grotte du Lazaret, France, 170,000 BC
The time machine came to rest about a kilometre away from the cave, in a hollow. “Once you put on the light-bending suits, you become invisible,” explained Marcella. “But the time machine is not. The placement of all TimeLab visits has been very carefully worked out to cause minimal disruption to the environment, and the inhabitants. Remember, you may observe as much as you want to, but under no circumstances can you interfere with what you see before you.”
Marcella spent a few minutes scanning their surroundings before she said it was safe to leave the time machine.
“Suits comfortable?” she asked, adjusting a taser rifle over her shoulder. “This is for emergencies only. It will stun anything smaller than a mammoth, giving us time to make our escape.”
“Here are your goggles,” she passed over two sets of narrow eye shields. “These are so we can see each other despite the suits. They will also record what you see, so that you’ll have a record of your trip when you get home.”
Sam and Zak nodded and put them on. Instantly they could see a silvery outline where the other was standing. Marcella handed them each a slim utility belt. “Emergency rations are in the blue pocket and water is in the red. We’ll only be gone a couple of hours this time, so that should keep you going until we return here for lunch.”
She smiled. “Are you ready gentlemen? Follow me.”
Marcella opened the door of the time machine. Almost quivering with excitement, Sam stepped out into a new world. 170,000 years in the past. The smells were the first thing he noticed. The salty scent of the sea, the pungent aroma of soil and growing plants. No fumes. No chemicals. They were surrounded by forest but he was a little disappointed to find the trees didn’t look much different from those in the present. Taller perhaps... and certainly more numerous.
Marcella set off along a narrow track, looking back once over her shoulder to check that the couple were following. “Remember, we are visitors here. We can’t take anything except images, or leave anything behind—except foot
prints.”
Eventually they arrived at an Observation Post. The hide was several metres above them, covered in light-bending material. Marcella led the way up a narrow ladder and gestured the two men to the front of the hide. “You should have a good view from here.”
Sam looked eagerly around. He had been quite disappointed when he had been told they couldn’t wander around at will, but he realised now that would have been far too dangerous. He spotted the cave almost immediately; there was a fire glowing just inside. He could see people clothed in animal skins, moving around in front of the cave mouth. Some were carrying what looked and smelt like armfuls of seaweed—bedding perhaps? Others were scraping the skin off a dead animal. He could hear the buzzing of flies from here. All the people had long shaggy hair and the only way he could tell male from female, from this distance, was by the bushy beards some of them wore. He activated the vision lens on his eye shield and brought up a closer image. The man he was looking at had heavier brows and a broader nose than most modern people but he thought they were human, not Neanderthal.
Sam pinched himself, just to check that this was real and not a dream.
They stayed another hour, just watching the tribe go about their tasks, before Marcella led them back to the Time Machine and to a delicious lunch.
“So, this afternoon, you have a choice of returning to the Lazaret hide, or we can go for a walk in the other direction. We have a second hide there at the edge of the forest, overlooking a wide plain. If we’re lucky, we might spot a bear or even a mammoth, although I can’t guarantee it.”
Sam turned to Zak, his eyes blazing with excitement. “A mammoth! Let’s give it a try. What do you think?”
“All right—but don’t get your hopes up!” Zak warned.
Although they didn’t see any mammoths, they did see a herd of very odd looking horses, and a pair of huge birds with a wingspan more than three metres, riding the thermals above them.
Tired but happy, they cuddled up to each other later that night, safely back in their room in the time machine. “Olympia tomorrow! This is going to be the best honeymoon ever,” whispered Sam.
Day Two
Olympia, Greece, 776 BC
The time machine settled in the middle of a large olive grove. The sun beat down on their heads as Sam and Zak followed Marcella through the trees and once again climbed a ladder up to another hide. This one overlooked a track of packed earth, with an embankment on one side. Men, dressed in long robes or leather kilts, milled around, watching a group of naked young men lining up on the track. To Marcella’s amusement, Sam and Zak both had their eye shields on maximum magnification before she could blink.
The race was over in a couple of minutes and the winner was crowned with an olive branch to the sound of much cheering.
“Apart from the naked boys, that was a bit disappointing,” said Zak. “I didn’t realise the first games only had one event.”
“Mind you, the naked boys were worth it!” Sam grinned. There were both looking at each other. Marcella cleared her throat. “Back to the time machine, then?”
“Yes, please,” both men answered as one.
“After—er—lunch, we can walk around the site of the future temple if you like. It won’t be built for another three hundred years or so but it was a pretty impressive building in its day.”
“I think we’ll give it a miss if it’s all the same to you,” said Zak, winking at Sam. “After all, this is our honeymoon. Perhaps we could have afternoon tea in the olive grove, instead?”
Later on that evening, Zak looked across at Sam and saw a dreamy expression on his face.
“Still thinking about those naked boys, eh?” he teased.
Sam blinked and smiled at him. “No, actually I was remembering the night we first met.”
“Oh. My engagement party do you mean?” asked Zak, feeling a little uncomfortable as he always did when he thought back. After all, it hadn’t been Sam he was engaged to then.
“Yes. I nearly didn’t go to the party, you know. If Sally hadn’t insisted she wouldn’t go unless she had a date—even a pretend one—I wouldn’t have gone and we wouldn’t have met.” He pulled Zak tight against his side. “What a frightening thought!”
Zak hugged him back. “As soon as I saw you standing there on the other side of the room, looking absolutely adorable, I knew I was doing the wrong thing. My engagement to Pamela was a mistake, our whole relationship was just a pale imitation of the real thing. I knew you were the one, right from the first moment—I just had to persuade you that I was the right man for you!” He smiled, remembering how cross Sam had been—believing Zak was mocking him. He’d refused to go out with him at all for a whole month after Zak called off the engagement.
Zak shuddered. If Sam hadn’t gone to the party, would he have gone ahead with his first engagement? Married Pamela of the beautiful red hair, and made them both miserable? He thought he would have come to his senses and broken things off in any case, but it didn’t bear thinking about.
Day Three
Alnwick, Northumberland, England 1174
Day Three began with an English breakfast of fried eggs and bacon to get everyone in the right mood as they waited for dawn to break. The time machine was parked on Alnwick Castle roof, behind a turret.
“The fog should be starting to lift now,” Marcella informed them. “Let’s go outside now and get a good spot.”
Sam and Zak followed, shivering a little in the cold air despite the suits.
“Ranulf de Glanvill and his four hundred mounted knights should arrive any minute,” continued Marcella. “Keep your eye on the large tent over there. William of Scotland is inside.”
Sam and Zak had soon found out that this William was not the William Wallace of Braveheart fame, but they were still looking forward to witnessing a real live medieval battle.
They heard them before they saw them. Hundreds of powerful war horses galloping across the fields. They heard cries of alarm from the tents below and William dashed out, still pulling on his armour and calling for his horse. Accompanied by only sixty men, he rode full pelt towards the English knights. The dawn light flashed on swords and shields, and sounds of horses snorting, men shouting, and pounding hooves filled the air. Sam sucked in his breath—William was brave enough but foolhardy; sixty against four hundred was only going to end one way.
Arrows flew through the air, some going wild as men were jostled and Sam and Zak found themselves ducking instinctively. Sam flinched as he heard more than one arrow clatter on the roof behind him. He stood up again just in time to see several arrows strike William’s horse, spurting blood. The animal collapsed under the Scottish king and in a matter of moments William was overrun and captured. The next few minutes were full of confusion as men continued to fight before they heard the call to surrender.
It wasn’t until Sam turned to say something to Marcella that he realised disaster had struck. Instead of standing behind him, she lay crumpled on the roof, an arrow sticking through her shoulder.
“Zak! Marcella’s been hit!” Sam bent down urgently to check her pulse.
“That’s impossible!” protested Zak. “This battle has been happening exactly the same way for years. How could this happen?”
“I don’t know,” murmured Sam, “but it has. At least she is still breathing. We must get her inside the time machine, there’s bound to be a medical kit there.”
Zak bent down to help and between them they carried Marcella silently into the time machine. Neither of them said aloud what was uppermost in their minds. If Marcella failed to regain consciousness—or died—how would they get back to 2155?
Day Four
Laki Volcano, Iceland, 1783
Marcella was resting as comfortably as possible, given the circumstances. Yesterday, Sam had pulled out the arrow and dusted antiseptic powder over the wound before bandaging it firmly and administering a painkiller. They were still on the roof of Alnwick Castle, about to witness their second daw
n.
Zak was studying the time machine controls, trying to make sense of them while they waited for Marcella to recover sufficiently to give them coherent instructions.
“What happened?” A groggy voice broke the silence.
“You were shot. By an arrow,” said Sam, coming over to stand at her side.
Marcella frowned. “That’s impossible.”
“That’s what I said,” agreed Zak.
“Maybe so, but it happened anyway,” remarked Sam in dry tones.
“But arrows have never come in this direction before,” Marcella was still in a state of disbelief. “That’s why we always park the time machine here. It’s supposed to be quite safe.”
“Not anymore,” said Sam. “I’ve been thinking. Perhaps there is some cumulative effect. How many parties have done these trips, visited the cave at Lazaret? Ten? Twenty? I bet, despite the care you take, at least some of these people have left a trace. A hair, skin cells, footprints. All things that weren’t there originally. What if, over time, these tiny changes compound enough to change history? Even if it’s just enough to change the direction of an arrow, 169,000 years later?”
“No! That’s impossible!” Marcella was horrified.
“Is it?” asked Sam.
“I must have landed the time machine in a different spot,” Marcella tried to reassure herself. “In fact, I’m almost certain I did. Now, if I give you instructions, Zak, do you think you can get us to the next location? Because of the poisonous fumes, we can’t actually go outside to see the volcanic eruption, but we can get a pretty good look from the sidelines.”
Zak followed her instructions carefully, rather thrilled to be operating the machine himself, and soon they emerged in Iceland, to the northwest of Mt Laki. Sam and Zak stared, open-mouthed as a huge fissure opened to the south of the mountain, spewing burning lava a kilometre high into the sky. The fiery-orange light reflected off the ice, as if the whole landscape was burning.