A Symphony of Echoes

by Jodi Taylor

  I nodded.

  ‘But I think this will re-adjust the odds a little more favourably. However, I have to say I am deeply unhappy with this – idea of yours.’ He held up his hand to forestall any objections I might be thinking of making. ‘I know. It is a good plan. It’s logical. To some extent, it’s playing into their hands, but it’s what they will be expecting and you are exploiting that weakness. My concerns, Max, are for you.’

  My concerns were for me too, but I didn’t make the mistake of seeming dismissive. ‘I understand, sir. It’s not my most favourite idea, and trust me, I am fully aware of the risks. But it won’t work with anyone else. They’ll be expecting me. And that’s their weakness.’

  He sighed. I said nothing. There was no point in over-egging the pudding. He had weighed up the risks and the benefits. No one had come up with anything better. Guthrie’s suggestion for a full-frontal attack had been vetoed. Anything that left St Mary’s unprotected was off the table. This was all we had.

  ‘Max …’

  ‘I know, sir. Believe me, I’m not thrilled, either. But I can’t see an alternative.’

  ‘Nor I. But you’ll be completely exposed.’

  I nodded. ‘That’s the whole point, sir.’

  ‘You’re not fit yet.’

  ‘I know, but I promise to keep my head down.’

  ‘They can hurt you badly.’

  I nodded. They could. ‘Not if your idea works, sir.’

  ‘They might just kill you on the spot.’

  I nodded again. I was trying hard not to think of that.

  He still looked unhappy.

  ‘Sir, this is St Mary’s. We don’t leave our people behind. They won’t be surprised to see me. Disobeying orders and mounting a rescue all on my own is exactly what I’m famous for.’

  He nodded. ‘Very well. Start putting things together. Liaise with Major Guthrie and Dr Peterson. Speak to Dr Foster about your face. There’s no rush for this. We have the time and space co-ordinates. Take a day or so to make sure every contingency is taken into account. Keep me updated. I’ll make sure everything is covered at this end.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll want a secure St Mary’s to come back to.’

  I said, ‘Yes, sir,’ and slipped out of the room.

  I had a bit of a job with Peterson. He really was not happy and, like many usually easy-going people, he was a bit of a bugger when he wasn’t happy. In fact, it was the first time I had ever seen him really angry. Ten minutes later, he had barely drawn breath.

  I interrupted him. ‘Tim, this will work. We can’t stage a full-frontal because it leaves us too exposed here, but this might work.’

  Help came from an unexpected quarter. Guthrie said, ‘She’s right. I can see this working.’ He looked at me. ‘Whether you’ll still be alive and kicking at the end of it …’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, careful not to sound boastful. Or defiant. Or scared. ‘I’m aware of the risks. None better. I promise you both I won’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘The whole idea’s stupid,’ said Peterson. ‘What am I going to say to Kal? Don’t tell me she won’t get it out of me in seconds. And what about Helen? It’ll be all right for you – you’ll already be dead. I’m the one who’s really going to suffer.’

  Guthrie patted his shoulder. ‘Look on the bright side, Dr Peterson. You might not live that long, either.’

  We don’t jump forwards. It’s not a good idea. Going back is easy because you know where and when you’re going, but jumping forwards is a very different kettle of fish. You set your co-ordinates for say, London, one hundred years in the future; but in the meantime, if the earth is destroyed by a solar flare or a meteor strike, where do you land? Limbo? The place where London would have been? Empty space? A radiation hot spot? Or would the safety protocols engage, and the pod wouldn’t jump at all? Despite the Cooper/Hofstadter papers on the subject, no one seems quite sure what would happen, and we certainly didn’t want to find out the hard way. Therefore, we don’t jump into an unknowable future.

  Besides, we’re historians. The past is much more interesting.

  So this was a bit of a first for us. I still wasn’t completely convinced the pod wouldn’t implode on landing.

  I drew two small, silenced handguns. I had no idea what I was walking into, but I was not the important one here. The Boss still wasn’t happy with the plan. Peterson and Guthrie were definitely not happy with the plan. I didn’t blame them. I wasn’t happy with the plan either, but there really wasn’t a lot of wiggle room.

  I said encouragingly, ‘It’ll be fine. You just wait and see.’

  Nobody replied.

  When the Chief’s pod landed, my initial reaction was one of huge relief. Our first jump into the future and the pod was a smear of jelly on the timeline. With that anxiety out of the way, I could now focus on worrying about the next part of the plan. I checked all the visuals and proximity alerts very carefully, said, ‘Well, it’s now or never,’ and activated the door.

  I’m not sure to whom I was talking, and since I didn’t get a reply, I suppose it didn’t really matter.

  The hangar was on emergency lighting and I could make out only two other pods. One sat on the plinth nearest me. I’d never seen that plinth occupied – ever. My heart began to thump. This must be the long lost Number Four. This was one of our two stolen pods. Clive Ronan had stolen Four and Seven years before I arrived at St Mary’s and killed the crews. Five historians lost. If Four were here, then I was in the right place. There was no sign of Seven. The other pod was right down at the far end. Number Nine. Not one of ours.

  My pod was camouflaged, but in this gloomy corner of a gloomy hangar, it would have been almost invisible anyway.

  The hangar was deserted, everything shut down, and only the exit lights glowed faintly over the doors. I stood for a long, long time, watching and listening, but I really was alone. The overhead gantry was empty as were the offices at the other end.

  I walked quietly along the wall. The floor felt gritty underfoot. Now that I was used to being here, I could smell stale air. This place hadn’t been used for a while. I reached the doors and peered through the glass window. The blast doors were open. It was dark in the hangar and it was dark on the other side of the doors, as well. I wondered what time of day it was. In my St Mary’s, even in the small hours there were lights on and people around. I’d half expected to exit the pod to a ring of armed guards, but there was no one. I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad.

  The security system was disabled and the door opened easily. The place seemed deserted. God, I hoped not. If Leon wasn’t here, then I had no place else to look. I eased open the door and slipped through the narrowest possible gap. I felt the door close silently behind me. Now I had to make a choice. Did I go forward along the long corridor to the main building? Or turn right to the storerooms and the paint store? Or up the stairs to Sick Bay?

  I decided to be methodical, rather than zigzagging around the building at random. Sick Bay first, then the storerooms, then the main building. I started up the stairs. Again, apart from the emergency lighting, everything was completely dark and deserted.

  They’d fitted fire doors at the top of the stairs since my time. Trusting they weren’t alarmed, I squeezed through. If they were then it was a silent alarm. I heard nothing, but someone was here. I could see a light shining dimly through the viewing window in a door on the left-hand side. They’d moved the nurse’s station and had added more treatment rooms at the expense of the seating area, but otherwise the layout was very similar to my own Sick Bay.

  I glided down the corridor. The nurse’s station was deserted. Just opposite, was the door with the light. That didn’t mean it was the only occupied room, however, and I listened carefully at every door. Nothing. No machinery on, no vents humming, no medical noises, not even the burnt paper smell of the medical waste disposal unit.

  Returning to the lighted room, I lifted myself up and peered very cautiously through the window. It was
the men’s ward, dimly lit by a nightlight. A young nurse dozed in an armchair, wrapped in a blanket. Asleep on one bed, unshaven, bruised, and shadowed, lay Chief Farrell.

  Well, that was easy.

  I gently pushed down the handle and passed silently into the room. The nurse didn’t even stir. I crossed to the Chief and touched his face. Cool, but he was alive.

  Putting my gun to the nurse’s head, I said softly, ‘Wake up.’

  She opened her eyes, gasped in shock, swallowed, got herself together and whispered, ‘Go away. It’s a trap.’

  I stepped back, considering.

  ‘So, Chief Farrell is in Sick Bay with just one nurse to guard him. What’s to stop me waking him and taking him away now?’

  ‘He’s not asleep. He’s in a coma. If you move him, you could kill him. Get away while you can.’

  I shook my head. I had to get as much information as possible.

  ‘What’s going on? Where is everyone?’

  She wasn’t listening. ‘Are you Maxwell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you must go. You’re the one they’re waiting for.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Where are the others? You didn’t come alone, did you? Where’s the rest of your team?’

  I took a deep breath. I had no idea how much time I had. I wasn’t at all happy with what I’d heard so far, and I guessed I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear either.

  ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Just calm down and help me with some info. Where is everyone?’

  ‘Locked up downstairs in the basement. I’m allowed out to monitor him.’ She nodded to the bed. ‘He kept causing trouble, so they did this to him to keep him quiet. But they won’t let me nurse him properly, and I don’t really know what to do, and I’m afraid he’s going to die, and it will be my fault.’

  She was very young. In another time, she would be pretty, with dark eyes and curls, but her eyes were tired, and she was terrified, not least of me. I lowered the gun. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Katie. Katie Carr.’

  Oh, Katie. She really was new to this. You never tell people your surname. You don’t want to meet your descendants. And you definitely don’t want your descendants to meet you.

  ‘You’ve got to help us.’ She started to shake and her voice rose. ‘They’re shooting people. They want our pods. You must help us.’

  She’d changed her tune now. She’d forgotten she wanted me to leave. Throwing aside the blanket, she moved to the bed, checking her patient. I found it easier to think of him as ‘the patient’. The sight of him, lying on the bed, unconscious, dirty, and vulnerable was not easy. I moved to the door to watch the corridor.

  ‘OK, Katie, start at the beginning. Who are ‘they’? When did they arrive? What do they want?’

  ‘They attacked about two weeks ago, in the night. Chief –’ I made a warning gesture. ‘Our Chief Tec and her crew got the pods away. Somehow. I don’t know where they went. Only a few people know the location of the remote site. Every day they drag someone out and beat them up. Or worse. To make us tell them. But no one knows, so we can’t. They shot our Chief Officers. Except for our Chief Tec and they’re only keeping her alive because they think she’ll tell them and she won’t. No one knows what happened to our Director. You have to help us’

  ‘Why do they want me?’

  ‘I don’t think they did, at the beginning. But no one would tell them. Then she said to get Chief Farrell because he’d know the remote site, and if they got him then you’d turn up sooner or later, and they could use you to get to him.’

  Bloody hell! I was right! Me coming alone was part of their plan.

  ‘Katie, how many are there? Do you know?’

  ‘There seemed a lot at first, but actually, I don’t think there’s that many. Not more than ten or twelve, I think.’

  ‘So, to sum up. A hostile force occupies St Mary’s; its personnel are imprisoned in the basement; its pods sent away. Chief Farrell is in a coma in Sick Bay and they’re all waiting for me to turn up so they can use me to pressure him to get the pods back.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well, I’d better not keep them waiting then.’ I gestured to the bed. ‘Can you wake him?’

  ‘No, I don’t know how to do it.’

  ‘Where’s the doctor?’

  ‘In the basement, treating the others. They won’t let him bring them up here for treatment until we tell them.’

  And that would be their undoing. If they’d shown a little common decency and compassion and brought the wounded up here, then they’d have caught me as soon as I walked through the door. If I did the next bit right, we really might have a chance.

  I was silent so this could be thought over.

  ‘OK, Katie, I’m going to leave you and have a look around.’

  ‘No, you can’t go. Not now.’

  Poor Katie. She didn’t want to be alone again.

  ‘Yes, I must go, Katie, but I’ll be back, I promise. Look after yourself and your patient for me, will you? I will come back.’

  I opened the door, checked the corridor, waited a few minutes for my night vision to come back and set off again.

  They were waiting for me at the end of the long corridor. I felt a bit silly – they’d watched me inch my way along in the dark, taking nearly five minutes to get from one end to the other, and then, just when I thought I’d made it, they switched the lights on.

  Nobody shouted, ‘Surprise!’

  I blinked a bit, and then had a good look round. ‘Only five of you? I’m disappointed. I thought I’d warrant a lot more.’

  No response. They took my guns, vest, and helmet.

  ‘You do know who I am, don’t you?’ I said, carrying on like some petulant celebrity. I got a rifle butt in the kidneys for my pains. The next hour or so wasn’t going to be pleasant, but all things pass.

  I straightened up and they pushed me along to the hall. I tried to move as slowly as possible, exaggerating my injury and using the time to have a good look around. There had certainly been a battle here. Scorch marks up the walls and bullet holes everywhere.

  Waiting on the stairs was a familiar figure. Clive Ronan. Ex St Mary’s historian. And murderer. He looked older than when I last saw him. Possibly the arse-kickings he’d had from us had aged him considerably. His dark hair was nearly gone, his thin face even more creased and lined. A nasty-looking burn puckered one side of his face, and it looked as if his ear had melted. So we hadn’t been wasting our time when we took him down in Alexandria, then.

  He stood in my face. No greeting. No gloating. He never did. I’d get no helpful information here. I knew he hated me and I knew he hated St Mary’s. St Mary’s because he held them responsible for the death of his partner and lifelong love, Annie Bessant; and me simply because whenever things went wrong for him, I was never far away.

  ‘Where’s your pod?’

  I looked around me as if expecting to see it in the corner. ‘Um …’ and his backhander knocked me to the floor.

  Now that was personal. Maybe there was a chance after all.

  Get up, Maxwell. If you don’t want a good kicking, get up. I staggered to my feet. He was already turning away.

  ‘Start waking him up. I want him conscious and aware as soon as possible. Take her downstairs. Give her some special attention. I want them both to know what’s going to happen to her if he doesn’t cooperate.’

  No, no, no. This was too quick. Bloody hell, Maxwell, think. Think, think, think.

  Then, suddenly, I didn’t have to.

  I knew she wasn’t dead. I’d told Leon she wasn’t dead. I always knew she would be back one day. And just for once, I was pleased to see her.

  Isabella Bitchface Barclay.

  Another former member of St Mary’s. Strolling down the stairs as if she owned the place. Which, actually, at the moment, she did. Deliberately parodying the way I did it on the day I broke her nose. The day I exposed her for the treacherous bitch s
he was.

  All right, I disliked and feared Clive Ronan. He was a bastard. But Barclay I loathed. Loathed and detested. And she loathed me. And it was personal. When I thought of what she had cost me … One day, it would be her or me. She’d already told me so. And if it was today – then all well and good.

  I could see what was going to happen next – everyone could. I tried to tell myself this was good. It was drawing attention. She got close and drew back her fist. They were holding my arms, but I still had feet. I kicked her hard. It would have been more effective if she’d been a man, but it still hurts if you’re female.

  I tore myself free from the suddenly loosened grip of my guards and waded in.

  When you really hate someone, judgement and good sense just fly straight out of the window. And I really hated Bitchface Barclay. I seized a handful of hair and swung her round. She came back, clawing and biting. I kicked and punched. She nutted me. I fell to the floor, dragging her down with me. We rolled about and then I was on top, banging her head against the floor. She tried to scratch my eyes out. Both of us were screaming and spitting. Someone yanked me off and pulled me away. I tossed my hair out of my eyes and snarled at her, chest heaving for breath. Two men were holding her as well.

  ‘Enough,’ said Ronan.

  She was enraged. ‘You promised me!’

  He seemed genuinely disinterested. ‘She’ll beat you to a pulp, Isabella. Is that really what you want?’

  She wiped the blood off her chin. ‘Not necessarily.’ She gestured with her head towards the library. ‘You two, bring her in here.’

  They looked at him first, which told me what I wanted to know about their dynamics. If I lived long enough to take advantage of the knowledge. He shrugged and walked off. He’d learned not to make it personal. Sadly, she had not. I was due some of their ‘special attention’. But at least it wasn’t in the basement.

  They’d really trashed the library. Piles of books lay everywhere. Some were charred. On top of everything else, these bastards were book-burners! Shelving units had been pulled off the wall. To what end was not clear. Just mindless vandalism. The furniture was tumbled around the room. Dr Dowson would have had a broken heart.