The Timepiece and the Girl Who Went Astray: A thrilling new time travel adventure

by O. R. Simmonds

  What is he waiting for?

  Will now had a choice to make. On the one hand, he was more than willing to just bide his time and wait for Cillian to make a move. On the other, there was little chance that the ringing of the bell moments earlier hadn’t attracted the attention of the authorities. If they turned up, he would surely be arrested again and if Cillian really did have people loyal to him inside the police force, he would be done for.

  There was a brief break in the weather and the wind died down ever so slightly. The rustling of the tarpaulins surrounding the tower quietened. At that precise moment, Will heard the faint sound of footsteps across the wooden boards behind him. He turned his head to see Cillian Gander slowly walking towards him with his gun raised.

  ‘You might not want to believe it, Mr. Wells, but Abigayle really does work for me,’ Cillian said. ‘She lied to you and isn’t worth you giving your life to save.’

  Startled, Will pushed himself away from the tower wall and steadied himself before he said, ‘Yeah? And so what if she does? That doesn’t make her a bad person. She could’ve been working against you, for all you know.’

  ‘Who knows, perhaps she was. Perhaps she was the woman you think her to be. Perhaps that’s why she allowed herself to go astray. Perhaps she did that for you, Mr. Wells.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You know, it seems to me that you’re the cause of all this mess. Although I suppose I owe you some thanks for returning the Timepiece to its rightful owner.’

  ‘Good luck with that. I’ll throw it from this tower before I give it to you.’

  ‘You do realise that this isn’t the first time we’ve met, don’t you, Mr. Wells? I’ve seen the future. I’ve seen how this plays out.’

  Cillian had continued to take careful steps towards Will as he spoke. The gun was still levelled at Will’s chest. He was calm and self-assured as he walked, as if the movements of the boards below his feet, the billowing wind and the towering height were just trivial details.

  ‘You’re crazy! The first time I saw you, you were putting a bullet in the head of a defenceless man.’

  ‘The first time you saw me, yes; but I saw you many years ago. I was much younger, I confess, but it was at the top of this very tower.’

  ‘I’ve never even been here before! And no matter how young you were, I’d never forget your face.’

  ‘Don’t you see? This is the power of the Futures Project. Did Frenz teach you nothing?’

  Will cautiously edged backwards a step and said, ‘Frenz taught me plenty. I think it’s you who needs to learn some lessons from Frenz. This isn’t playing out the way you saw it.’

  When Cillian was almost within touching distance, he made a rare miscalculation with his footing and staggered to the side. He used the arm with which he held the gun to steady himself against the tower wall. Will took this moment to dart around the corner, heading back towards the access window. He sprinted towards the window five or six metres away. As he raised a hand towards the window to pull himself inside, the window was turned into a cloud of smoke and dust. Cillian had found his feet quicker than Will had expected and fired more warning shots, blocking Will’s way.

  ‘What a shame,’ Cillian said. ‘That was your moment, Mr. Wells. Unfortunately, you failed to make the most of it.’

  ‘I swear, if you take another step forward, I’ll throw the Timepiece over the edge.’

  ‘Nice try, but I know how this ends. I have seen the future. The details may have changed, but I’ve seen how this scenario plays out. I’ve seen how your mind works and the decisions a man like you makes in situations like this. I know how to read the future unlike any man alive. That’s what the others could never understand or accept. That’s the power of my Futures Project. Even if the details change, human nature doesn’t. Once I have what is rightfully mine, it will reach its full potential and the world will be a better place for it.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘For many years I thought I could be, I confess. The first time I visited the future was purely accidental, but that’s where we first confronted each other. Right here at the top of this tower. Although the situation was reversed. You wanted the Timepiece from me. But you were looking at me the same way you’re looking at me now. You were hysterical, desperate for it. Frightened like a child. Back then I didn’t know who you were or why you were there, and although decades had passed, I would never forget your face. Then about a week ago I saw my dear Abigayle having lunch with the boyfriend she talked about so much.’ Cillian continued to walk slowly forwards, closing the distance between them. ‘And to my surprise it was you. All these years later.’

  Will allowed Cillian to talk. His ego seemed to be one of his only weaknesses.

  While he spoke, Will moved his hands behind his back apparently without Cillian noticing.

  ‘I confronted Abigayle about you. She didn’t believe me, of course, but I had kept something from the first time we met: a picture of you. A picture of your lifeless corpse as it lay on the pavement just down there.’ Cillian pointed down to the road below with his free hand. ‘I showed it to her and the look of shock on her face told me she knew it was true.’

  ‘You’re crazier than Frenz made out, you know that?’

  ‘That card you stole from my machine, I’m willing to bet that the date on that card is the same date as I travelled to all those years ago. And the same date I told Abigayle about.’

  ‘So, you’re a magician now, are you?’

  Cillian chuckled, growing ever more confident and entirely pleased with himself. ‘Why yes, I suppose I am in a way! The card that you’re holding so protectively behind your back has the date 18th December 2016 written on it, does it not?’

  Will smiled and shook his head before saying, ‘Wow, that’s pretty good.’

  Cillian beamed. If it were possible, his head might have increased in size. He said, ‘Impressed, I see? Now, please, this is your last chance to give me the Timepiece before I shoot you. I really would rather avoid creating too much of a mess.’

  ‘Give me one reason why I would do something like that?’

  ‘Because of the deal I’m offering you,’ Cillian said coolly. ‘Once I have the Timepiece, we’ll go inside this tower and I’ll send you into the future to find your beloved Abigayle. Then you’ll see for yourself what I have seen and so many others doubted in me. My past and your future. You have my word.’

  ‘She’s all I care about. Let me be with her again, and this is yours,’ Will said.

  Will now moved his hands from behind his back, holding them in front of him. He then used his left hand to pull up his sleeve, revealing the Timepiece. Cillian’s body seemed to visibly loosen as The Timepiece came into view, dropping both arms to his sides. Cillian’s eyes lit up and a crazed look spread across his haunting features.

  ‘I’m glad you see it that way, I really am. Now that you know Abigayle did what she did to save you, you have no need of that thing.’ Cillian held out his free hand towards Will, his eyes glazed over and staring wildly at the Timepiece.

  ‘Before I do, you should know that there was one thing you were wrong about. The card I took from your machine – well, I dropped it climbing through the hatch so I never knew what date was written on it. Too late now, I guess.’ Will took the Timepiece in his hand, feigning an attempt to remove it from his wrist. ‘Now that you just told me.’

  ‘What…’ Cillian blinked frenetically, breaking himself from his momentary trance.

  ‘Frenz was right about the future being uncertain,’ Will said. ‘And Avy was right about that Mimic Watch you always wear.’

  Cillian whipped his head down to the Mimic Watch on his wrist, with its blinking amber light, and then snapped his head back up to Will. Too late, panic suddenly gripped him at the realisation of his grave miscalculation.

  In one quick movement, Will bent his knees and propelled himself sideways towards the access window. With his hand on the Tim
epiece and 07:55 a.m. on the 18th December 2016 safely entered, he activated it the moment his feet left the unstable wooden boards of the scaffold tower.

  Energy rippled through his body, more pronounced than before, and he savoured the distinctive bitter metallic taste in his mouth that he had experienced a week earlier with Abigayle. This was something that he now knew must be a characteristic only of future time travel. He didn’t notice it as he sailed through the air, but an energised sphere emanated outward from The Timepiece. As it did, the old tower remained structurally the same but became gradually cleaner and brighter. The metal shell and tarpaulin covering it peeled away, like a gigantic gift being unwrapped, until it had disappeared completely.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  December 18th, 2016, 07:55

  Will rolled through the air and came tumbling to the ground, crashing into the metal barriers – thankfully on the inside of the belfry.

  Outside the belfry, Cillian Gander was too late in his attempts to remove Nestor Ordell’s malfunctioning Mimic Watch from his wrist. As the floor vanished beneath his feet, he fully appreciated – with terrifying clarity – the first law of the Timekeepers.

  There had been no sound as Cillian fell from the belfry at the top of Elizabeth Tower. He had been surprised by the unexpected turn of events that had led to him falling to his death.

  The reality was that his fortunes were drastically reversed from the future he’d seen and been so certain would come to pass.

  As Will lay winded on the cold stone at the top of Elizabeth Tower, he heard a distant soft thump from many floors below.

  Then there was silence.

  He hauled himself to his feet, dusted himself off and looked out through the access window. Some sixty metres below, in the fledgling light, he could just about make out the twisted body of Cillian Gander splayed motionless on the roof tiles of the neighbouring Palace of Westminster. This was the second person whom he’d subjected to serious injury – or, in this case at least, death – in the past twenty-four hours.

  The thought was disorientating and Frenz’s warning never to use the Timepiece while at great height was ringing in his ears.

  He stepped back from the window and lowered his head in a kind of involuntary gesture of respect for the dead man. He was troubled and conflicted by the growing feeling of relief he now felt as a result of Cillian’s death.

  Maybe Cillian was right. Maybe I am a monster after all.

  Staring at his feet, only now noticing how stained and scuffed beyond repair his previously immaculate royal-blue Converse high-tops had gotten, another one of Frenz’s warnings suddenly struck him. He had broken the most golden of golden rules: he had just travelled to the future. For the second time.

  He looked up from his sorry-looking shoes and gazed out across the once familiar London skyline.

  Looking south, the rooftops of Westminster Abbey were relatively unchanged, but when he hurried to his left and looked out towards the east, Will was left wide-eyed and open-mouthed. It was not yet daylight but even silhouetted against the faintest slither of the rising sun the difference was stark. Across the River Thames and Westminster Bridge, Will’s attention was immediately caught by the sight of a giant white wheel that had been constructed on the riverbank. Even though there was no one there to hear it, he couldn’t help but ask out loud, ‘Is that a giant Ferris wheel?’ Looking directly at it, he was at a loss for what else it could possibly be.

  So, they turn London into a fairground in the future?

  Looking farther to his left and to the northeast, the skyline was entirely dominated by towering glass structures. Most prominent of which was a colossal arrow-like building that seemed to be the tallest building in the city. To the east was a cluster of high-rise buildings, with one that looked as if it might be egg-shaped.

  Aside from the new additions to the skyline, the other thing that had Will transfixed was how bright everything was, even with so little sunlight. He was used to amber streetlights, which in truth offered no visibility at all compared to the brilliant white lights he could now see illuminating the snaking roads below. In addition to the lights from the buildings and streetlamps, the giant wheel had a ring of blinking blue lights running around it. Each lamp along the riverbank was connected by an incredibly luminous string of light running between them. Below him in the trees in the gardens of Westminster Abbey – and almost every other tree he could see for that matter – were also spectacularly aglow. He was suddenly reminded that it was Christmas time in London and his heart was warmed to see that his favourite holiday was still celebrated in the future.

  As enamoured as he was with the cacophony of new sights to see in twenty-first-century London, Will knew that this wasn’t the reason he was here. He also kept recalling Frenz’s warnings about how fragile and uncertain the future really was. Everything he was seeing now could be undone the moment he and Abigayle returned to the past.

  Will stepped away from the window to begin his search for Abigayle when an aggressive and obnoxious voice rang out from behind him. A lump instantaneously forced its way into his throat, and he could feel his skin prickling and turning red.

  They must have found Cillian’s body.

  ‘Oi, mate. What the hell do you think you’re doin’?’

  Will slowly turned to face the direction of the voice. To his immense relief, instead of a police officer or a man in a tweed jacket, he saw a man in beige overalls and a long-sleeved grey fleece jumper standing at the corner of the belfry. He was a short but muscular man with thick arms and a neck as wide as his head. His hair was trimmed short on the sides and became gradually longer on the top, where it was brushed to one side and slick with some kind of oily hair product.

  Is this guy a time traveller too? What’s with the ’50s hairstyle?

  Will did his best to play the innocent, lost American tourist. ‘Oh, hey. Sorry. Um, am I too early for the tour?’

  ‘The tour? Mate, what are you on about? There are no tours. The tower closed two weeks ago for renovations. If you want a tour, go on YouTube.’

  ‘What’s a U-tube? Isn’t that a thing you find on a toilet?’

  The man frowned, becoming impatient. ‘Fuck me, mate, people stopped making jokes like that ten years ago and they weren’t funny then.’ The man paused and tilted his head to one side. ‘Are you feeling all right, mate?’

  ‘Yeah, great. I’m totally fine, why?’

  The angry man moved his hands to his hips and prodded his wide chin forwards like a pigeon. ‘Your head is bleeding.’

  Will had momentarily forgotten about the bullet graze on his skull and he let out a snorted chuckle at the idea that he could’ve forgotten about something as serious as that. His thoughts had been so focused on escaping Cillian and getting to Abigayle that his mind had somehow dulled or at least diverted his attention from the pain. The wound was still tender, and he was reacquainted with the stinging pain, which shot through his head when he touched it. He felt the dried blood on the back of his neck gingerly with his fingertips and began to wipe it away with his sleeve.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Will said. ‘I guess I must’ve banged my head on one of these metal girders or something.’

  ‘How did you even get up here?’

  ‘I, um, I don’t know. I got lost, I guess.’

  ‘I seriously doubt that mate. I’ve a right mind to call the police.’

  ‘No, no. No need for that. Can you just show me the exit and I’ll be on my way? No harm done. Right, mate?’

  The angry man rolled his eyes at Will’s attempt at a British accent. ‘This way, come on.’

  Will was led back down the tower and out onto the street. No more words were shared as they descended, but Will could hear the man mumbling profanities under his breath the entire way. Apparently, Americans were no more well liked in 2016 than they were in 1984.

  He was ushered out of Elizabeth Tower, attracting more disapproving glances from the angry man’s colleagues, and pushed out
onto the street. Now out of the relative safety of the tower, he glanced around nervously, expecting to see distant blue lights flashing or policemen throwing up barricades across Westminster Bridge to contain the scene of a murder.

  Was it really murder? Will pondered.

  It wasn’t like he pushed him off the scaffolding. And it was Cillian who had the gun. And it was Will who had been shot.

  Self-defence at worst, he told himself, to help soothe the growing disquiet he felt.

  Strolling slowly down the bustling and busy footpath, he scanned the faces around him, expecting his ejection from the tower to have attracted attention, or for the sight of a man falling from the belfry to have registered in some way. To his surprise, no one could appear less interested. People were walking to and fro across the bridge on their way to work, presumably so absorbed in their own lives that anything else was insignificant by comparison.

  How could no one have noticed a man fall to his death at one of the world’s most famous landmarks?

  The answer soon became apparent as he watched the people walking past. Almost every person he saw appeared to be completely mesmerised by a bright white light that shone up from their hands, illuminating their faces. Like moths to a flame. Some had the device affixed to their hands and were silently obedient to it. Some were talking to the device as heartily as they would to another human being. He even saw one person who had a similar device attached to a large pole and they were grinning at it inanely. The common theme in all of this was that these people were completely oblivious to what was going on around them. For a brief moment, Will was sure all of these people were under some kind of technological mind control.