JUST ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER

by Jodi Taylor

  Our opponents meant business. Clearly now, in the early morning light I could see they wore desert camouflage, body armour, headsets and carried enough weaponry to effect a regime change. No words were spoken. They looked tough and professional. Just how tough and professional we were about to find out.

  One stepped forward and pulled off his helmet.

  Ronan.

  The man who had killed Sussman.

  We’d ambushed him and now he’d done it to us. I tried not to sag. This wasn’t good. I’d seen what he was capable of.

  Close up, he was surprisingly nondescript. No savage scars, no sinister sneer. His dark hair was thinning and his lined face made him look older than I suspect he actually was, but having said that, he looked in surprisingly good condition.

  You see, people think it’s easy, living in the past. You turn up with a big bag of gold and enough foreknowledge to ensure you back the right horse, or the right king, or the right dot com companies and retire to count your money.

  It’s not that simple.

  Try it in the last hundred years or so and you’ll find the lack of National Insurance number, ID card or credit rating means you’re officially a non-person and after America closed its borders last year, all sorts of security alarm bells start ringing.

  Or, you think you’ll go back a little further before all these tiresome records were invented, but that doesn’t work either. Society is rigid. Everyone knows everyone else in their world. Everyone has their place in the scheme of things. If you don’t belong to a family, a tribe, a village, a guild, whatever, you don’t exist then, either. And you can’t just pitch up somewhere without mutual acquaintances, recommendations or letters of introduction. Life on the fringes of society, any society in any time is tough. I should know. The four months I spent alone in Rushford had not gone well.

  If that was how these people lived then they should look like shit. And so should their pods. Pods need regular aligning or they start to drift. And yet these people looked in reasonably good nick. Better than us at the moment. They had a base somewhere. They had to have. Someone, somewhere, was giving them shelter.

  I dragged myself from that problem to the more pressing issues of the moment.

  Ronan scanned the rows of kneeling figures. As usual, he showed no more emotion than a corpse. If he felt anything at all, it was all kept within, locked down, stifled. I’m used to St Mary’s, where no one is at all backward in expressing whatever emotions they happen to be experiencing at the time and this quiet, deadly calm filled me with fear.

  He pointed, apparently at random. A single shot echoed off the walls and Jamie Cameron fell forward into the sand with part of his face blown away.

  The shock of it stopped my heart. Young Jamie Cameron. With his mop of dark hair and perpetually singed eye-brows. One minute alive and the next minute – not. I swallowed down real hysteria and dragged my eyes away. Who would be next? Because there would be a next. There would keep being a next until Ronan told us what he wanted and the Boss refused to give it to him.

  They dragged Markham to his feet.

  ‘Open the pods.’

  I held my breath. He’d just seen Jamie die. There was no saying what our uncoordinated little troglodyte would do.

  I underestimated him. That boy was gold. Grubby gold, but gold nonetheless.

  He drew himself up to his unimpressive height and said quietly, ‘I take my orders from Dr Bairstow.’

  Ronan smiled unpleasantly and raised his weapon.

  ‘Not any more you don’t. Open the pods.’

  It was Chief Farrell, of all people, who broke. He jumped to his feet. ‘No. Stop. Don’t do this.’ Two men seized him.

  I stared at him in shock. What was he doing?

  Ronan regarded him impassively for a moment, then turned back to Markham and fired. Another shot echoed off the rocks and Markham crumpled to the ground, blood seeping into the sand beneath him.

  The Boss’s face was bleak and, if he ever got out of this, I wouldn’t give much for Ronan’s chances. Or Farrell’s either.

  ‘What do you want, Clive?’

  ‘What do I want, Edward? I want it all. I want your pods, including the nice, big, shiny one over there. I want the contents. Those scrolls will fetch a fortune hundreds of times over. I want you to know that this disaster will end your command of this pathetic little unit. But most of all Edward, I want to leave you here, last man standing, with all your bright young people bleeding to death in the dirt around you. I want you to know I’ve won and everything you have struggled to achieve has just led to me getting exactly what I want.’

  Hatred crackled between them. I could feel it twisting the air. They had no thought for those around them. This was up close and personal. We were looking at the end of our St Mary’s. He shouldn’t have come. I’d been wrong to include him. If he’d stayed safely at home then whatever happened to us here would not be the end. He could have rebuilt, somehow. Was this what had thrown Mrs Partridge into such an untypical panic?

  ‘No.’

  Short and to the point. No arguing, no pleading, no messing. Just ‘no.’

  Ronan smiled again. ‘We’ve done this before, Edward and look how that turned out. How is the leg?’

  ‘How many is it now, Clive? What’s your tally? How many people have you killed since Annie?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Annie. St Mary’s killed Annie.’

  ‘If she was here now, what would you do?’

  ‘If she was here now and knowing how you felt about her, Edward, she would be the first to go. But I think we have a very acceptable alternative here, somewhere, don’t we? Ah yes. Good morning, Miss Maxwell.’

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I heard someone move behind me. Footfalls in the sand and the rustle of clothing. That unmistakeable click as the safety came off.

  I straightened my back, stuck my chin in the air and really, really, really wished I had an office job. This was it. I closed my eyes.

  The wait seemed endless. I felt the sweat pour down my face and back. I swayed, whether through heat or fear or both – I don’t know. Would I know anything about it? Was it better to be the first to go? To be spared the sight of my friends being gunned down around me? Would it hurt? I’d just convinced myself I was ready to die when -

  ‘No!’

  The sudden shout made me jump a mile. Braced as I was, I nearly wet myself.

  ‘I told you. Stop. I’ll open the pods.’

  The Boss’s voice cracked like a whip. ‘As you were, Farrell.’

  ‘No,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘You don’t lose her like you lost Annie. I’ll open the pods for you. Just don’t shoot her.’

  Relief and shame in equal proportions. ‘Don’t do it, Chief. I …’

  Someone pushed me face down into the ground. ‘Shut up.’

  I twisted my head and spat sand, desperate to see what was going on. Someone seized me by the scruff of the neck and pulled me back onto my knees so I had an excellent view of what happened next.

  Chief Farrell and Ronan crossed the gritty sand towards the pods.

  The Boss called, ‘Farrell, you will not do this. Stand down.’ His voice dripped with contempt. And a little desperation.

  My chest felt tight and I struggled to breathe. This could not be happening. He couldn’t be doing this. Of all people, he could not be doing this. Did he seriously think we’d be allowed to go free? He was handing them our only advantage. He’d come back from the future to prevent this very thing from happening. Why was he doing this? I knew the answer to that and felt ashamed. Because of me he would kill us all. Because of me …

  I bunched my muscles, ready to jump. Jump and die. Because if I was dead then he wouldn’t have to open the door …

  And a voice on the wind that wasn’t there breathed, ‘Wait.’

  Who said that? I looked wildly around and that confusion caused me to miss my opportunity. Farrell had reached TB2. He stood off to one side. Ronan and his henchmen ste
pped back and fanned out. Much bloody good it did them.

  Farrell said clearly, ‘Door.’

  The ramp came down.

  A huge red-golden rose of flame bloomed in their faces.

  Professor Rapson and Doctor Dowson stood in the entrance. The Professor held the industrial vacuum cleaner we’d brought to clean sand out of the pods. Bright flame spurted from one end as he played it right and left. Behind him, Dr Dowson pumped furiously on some kind of homemade stirrup pump attached to what looked like a milk churn. How had they managed to knock this together? They were covered in soot and such hair as they possessed between them stood on end. The Professor was yelling, ‘God for Harry, England and St George!’

  Ronan hurled himself to the ground. The two men with him, not so quick, were engulfed in flames and dropped to the ground, screaming.

  We had the element of surprise.

  The Boss shouted, ‘St Mary’s – get down,’ and we threw ourselves face down. A huge tongue of flame boiled over our heads. Ronan’s men fired wildly, torn between either shooting us or being incinerated on the spot. Guthrie hacked the legs from under one of them and grappled for his gun. Others were doing the same. The Boss, unable to get up on his own, laid about him with his stick and caught one across his knees. He went down with a cry of pain and I threw myself on top of him and tried to wrest his weapon away.

  Fresh gunfire sounded nearby and I could hear Guthrie yelling for Dieter.

  Ronan’s man tore free from my grasp and dashed across the sand with Murdoch and me after him. Everyone frantically scrambled for weapons.

  A rattle of machine gun fire echoed and clattered off the canyon walls. I couldn’t tell from which direction it originated. Murdoch pushed me ahead of him. It saved my life and lost him his. We both fell to the ground. I was underneath, his body covering mine from incoming fire. I twisted my head to look. From the knees down both his legs were shattered. I could see white bone fragments amongst the pulp. I felt sick. His face was inches from mine. He knew. I looked into his eyes. He shook violently, teeth clenched against the pain. Faintly, I heard him through the noise of battle.

  ‘Max …’

  I said urgently, ‘Dave …’

  I wanted to tell him to hold on, that I’d get him out of this, that he’d be OK, but there was no time. I saw the exact moment the light left his eyes and he died and a small part of me went with him.

  I wriggled out from beneath him and ran for cover.

  Behind me, Professor Rapson and Dr Dowson had left the pod and were still wielding their homemade flame-thrower, playing bursts of fire at everything they perceived as the enemy. God knows how they were still alive. The Doctor was shrieking, ‘Awake! Awake! Hereward the Wake!’

  And then, the shit, quite literally, hit the fan. Or the flamethrower.

  The Professor had acquired a considerable amount of mixed dung. Not knowing how much he’d need, he had gone for quantity. Obviously, they’d located it as far away as possible from the pods, at the north end of the canyon. But not nearly far enough. It was steaming when he’d obtained it. It had festered in the sun for a few days. It had got hotter. And more active. We had methane. And now we had a flamethrower. It was inevitable. St Mary’s could explode a sack of soggy tissues.

  A long way away, I heard Guthrie shout, ‘Look out, Professor.’

  I threw myself to the hot sand, assumed the traditional foetal position and tried to make myself as small as possible.

  An endless second passed. A huge inhalation sucked the air from my lungs. Everything went black, and then red, then a crack, then a roar, then more heat and I flew through the air. I hit the ground hard and half a mountain fell on me.

  Once, when I was a kid, I was playing on a see-saw and the kid on the other end got off while I was still in the air. I can still remember the shock as I hit the ground. The impact knocked all the air out of my lungs and I lay on the ground, desperate to breathe and knowing that the next breath would be agony. This was exactly the same, but scaled up.

  I left it as long as I could, but eventually you have to breathe in, so I did. And again. And again. Red hot barbed wire tightened inside my chest.

  I could see, but my eyes stung badly. I tried blinking to bring up some tears, but my eyelids felt like sandpaper. Not that there was much to see. Dark clouds of heavy dust hung around. A lot of other people were on the ground as well.

  I turned my head very gingerly. I lay on and under a pile of rubble. My left arm was gone. I couldn’t see it anywhere. I was pleased at the lack of pain. My right arm I could see and it was still attached, as were my legs, although nothing seemed to be working properly. I felt my eyes close …

  Something grabbed my ankle. The shock jerked me awake and that set the pain off. Every single inch of me hurt. Even my missing left arm. The grip on my ankle was released and something grabbed my leg instead.

  Lifting my head again, I could see a dusty figure dragging itself across the rubble and using handfuls of me to pull itself forward. I wished it would stop. I was in enough pain without this as well. An arm reached up and grabbed at my tee. As it did so, it lifted its head and I knew I was in serious trouble.

  Izzie Barclay.

  I didn’t waste time thinking about how she got there. The main issue seemed to be what she was going to do now she was here. As if she read my mind, she scrabbled one handed and came up with a rock.

  She looked bad. Her nose was a funny shape and she bled from deep gashes on her head and arms. Blood ran into her eyes and every now and then, she shook her head to clear them. Despite this she never took her eyes off me and her intentions were very, very clear. I’d never seen such blind, vicious hatred. I wasn’t going to get out of this.

  She said something. I saw her lips move.

  I said, ‘I can’t hear you,’ and watched her look puzzled. She was deaf too.

  She raised her arm and brought the rock down. At the last moment I turned my head and she missed. It wasn’t a powerful blow – she was all over the place, but sooner or later, she wouldn’t miss and she would beat my face to a pulp. Her lips were moving continually. I guessed she was telling me how much she’d always hated me. She pulled herself up until she sat astride my chest and held her rock with both hands above her head. This really wasn’t the way I wanted to die.

  And, as it turned out, it wasn’t.

  I became aware of a cooling breeze drying the sweat on my face. I sighed in relief. I was dead.

  Mrs Partridge sat on a rock and regarded me impassively. Her dark hair was bound up in loose ringlets secured by a silver clasp. She wore an exquisitely draped robe. Her feet were bare. She held a scroll.

  I said, ‘I’m dead, aren’t I?’ Which is not a phrase you get to use that often.

  She shook her head.

  All right, maybe hallucinating, then.

  I tried to lift my head, but nothing was moving. Everything had stopped. I felt no pain. The ringing in my ears translated into a small musical noise, as if someone was running a finger around a wine glass.

  Suddenly, I knew. It was all there. I knew exactly who Mrs Partridge was. I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long. The blow to my head must have shaken things into place. Not Cleo – Kleio! She was Kleio. Kleio, the Muse of History. Who was always around at vital moments? Who prevented me asking Barclay to join us at Rushford? Leon Farrell would certainly not have come to my room if she had been there. Who advised a change of scenery? Who kept telling me to do my laundry so I could discover the fir cone? Who guarded my horse and kept it safe until exactly the right moment? Who tried to keep the Boss out of harm’s way? And now I had an idea who Sibyl De Winter was as well. No wonder she had laughed at King Dave Superbus. I was lucky she hadn’t boxed my ears.

  ‘You told me to wait. It was you.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You saved my life.’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Why?’ She hadn’t saved Jamie, or Markham, or Murdoch. Why me?

  She
didn’t answer me.

  ‘Why are you at St Mary’s?’

  A faint voice whispered down the centuries.

  ‘History is important. Far more important than most people believe. And it is under attack. Something is happening.’

  Well, I knew that. It was happening now. Most of St Mary’s finest were either shot or buried under a mountain of burning manure.

  The familiar expression of exasperation crossed her face. She was referring to something else.

  ‘What is happening?’

  ‘It is under the fourth step.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The anomaly.’

  ‘What anomaly?’

  But she was gone and I was back.

  The sun came up over the mountains, bright and eager. A brilliant shaft of light caught Barclay squarely in the face, causing her to screw up her eyes.

  I made a huge effort to dislodge her, but to no avail. I really couldn’t move at all. And then, out of my view, something went ‘thunk’. Her eyes slid upwards and she fell forwards across my face. I fought to breathe.

  I thought I heard Mrs Partridge say, ‘I never liked you, Isabella.’

  She’d never liked me, either and now it seemed she’d killed two birds with one stone. Literally.

  I twisted my head to try to get free. I could hear Helen’s report now. Despite extensive burns, blast damage, crush injuries, head trauma, shock and loss of limb(s) Miss Maxwell managed to die of suffocation.

  Someone heaved Barclay away. I sucked in a huge breath and squinted up at Ronan. One side of his face was burned and so was his hair. He should have kept his helmet on. And still the frightening lack of expression, even though he must have been in agony.

  He said simply, ‘You,’ and levelled his blaster at me. I was staring at the afterlife again.

  Another rattle of gunfire and I heard someone call his name. His blaster was still whining – not charged up yet. I heard another shout. More urgent this time. He looked over his shoulder and then back at me again. People were staggering to their feet. Shouts rang out. He could wait those extra seconds for the charge to build and risk capture or he could do the sensible thing. He did the sensible thing. He turned and ran. I said faintly, ‘No,’ and tried to roll over and grab his ankle. I missed.