I was thankful we each had our own floors to ourselves - mine being the very top with the best view. Not to mention the various places we held parties to host our clients. Not everyone could say they shared ownership of a skyscraper they lived in.
It was a good time to be alive.
CHAPTER 2
Time: Present
Location: Prospect
I was right. As soon as the others looked up from their logs that held all the records they were howling with laughter.
The six were like the siblings you never really asked for but were occasionally grateful for in the moments where you needed to borrow their stuff.
We had Cedrix who stared at his log with a faint smile. He had the least lives with only 8 but he was built like a truck - a big blue truck. He spent most of his time training here (for what I don’t know). He was rarely asked by anybody to go back into the past. This might have something to do with the fact he looked like huge boulder covered in blue tattoos, and had face enhancements, which made him look like a bull. He might not be your first option. Plus he didn’t speak.
Then there was Aeron, the clown of the group with striking purple hair, although he was constantly changing it. He had a useful 50 lives, which was good for a select amount of clients... if you wanted something from 500 years ago. Even if he wasn’t used much in missions he was great company.
Then there was Landon. Not as great a fighter as us at the age of 54 so he played the role of a messenger for whatever one of his 55 lives needed interrupting. Landon tended to keep to himself but was strict on the rules - seeing as he created them with Vix. He was a tad grumpy but a father figure to Halo.
Now... Halo. Sweet Halo whom I would absolutely love to blow up. But that went against the rules… obviously. Halo had manufactured her body in any way possible to gain the most artificial body with the biggest boobs I’d ever seen. It was probably how she took out her enemies: by poking them in the eye. In fact, every time I’d seen her in the past she looked completely different. But still, there were obvious signs of her Mexican heritage with her rich brown curls and plump red lips. In fact, despite her manufactured body, her face was beautiful. However, it still didn’t excuse the fact she was a bitch, quite literally the everyday wealthy and corrupt citizen of Prospect.
That’s where we lived. The wonderful, lavish city Prospect: built on the graves of the forever changing past. But don’t look at me. I was just as guilty as everyone else: the fame, the money - it was addictive.
Then there was Ace with his 103 lives, the guy who would quite literally do anything for fame and sex. He was trouble, and irritating but good looking. He was one of those guys who didn’t need to change how he looked because with his beautifully sculptured body, boy band worthy style you didn’t need to. As you could imagine, women usually employed him. Compared to myself who got employed by old men who had tried and failed at making themselves look younger. Joy.
And lastly, there was Fynn, slightly older than the rest of us in his mid-30s but quite possibly one of my favourite of the six. He had 145 lives, which wasn’t nearly as many as I had, but he was the closest, and for that, we could relate the most. Still, those lives didn’t matter much when you were mixed race. The further back the better and I’m talking ancient for him. Clients don’t want anything from before the 18th century and unfortunately for Fynn, his only life after the 18th century was 1925 and then jumped to 2044. Yikes. But hey I’ve got to give him some credit since apparently before slavery was a thing he was bathing in wealth, and a couple thousand years back from that he was worshipped by ancient civilisations. I could understand why. Fynn was the most genuine person in this world of non-genuine people and an amazing fighter. He was my training buddy (much to Ace’s displeasure).
Anyway, back to them all laughing at me: “You pushed this dude off of a building in only his underwear?” Aeron was in fits of laughter, hitting the ground with his fists as tears streamed down his face.
“I just can’t get over how much detail you put in the record, couldn’t you have just said you killed him?” Fynn was also in hysterics but was at least trying to control his laughter.
I scowled in response. “You weren’t supposed to read it-”
“Oh but I’m glad we did,” Aeron laughed taking deep breaths and puffing out his cheeks as he tried to hold it in.
“And you call me the slut of the group.” Halo rolled her eyes and wrapped a towel around her neck.
“Nova’s not a slut, she has class. Something most girls don’t have nowadays,” Ace said, running his eyes appreciatively over me as I took off my jumper.
I rolled my eyes at him. “As if you look for class, you’d sleep with anything with a pulse.”
“Or without,” Aeron laughed.
Ace ignored Aeron’s comment and instead walked over to put his target away. “True Nova, but if I could choose, it would always be you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You can choose, you just choose to sleep around because I don’t like you.”
Ace swivelled to face me with an arrogant look in his eyes. “You just aren’t sure about your feelings yet.”
Fynn took a long sip from his bottle and wrapped a brown arm slick with sweat over my shoulders. “Can you just kill him?” I mumbled hugging him from the side.
“Why do you need me to kill him? I’m sure you could just strip him naked and push him off-” I jabbed him in the side and ducked under his arm making a run for the door that Landon held open for me, shaking his head as he watched us act like children.
The others piled into the now cramped pod and Ace wiggled his way through so he could be next to me. I rolled my eyes as he placed an arm by my head.
“You smell like sweat,” I grumbled and held my jumper to my face.
“Most girls find it sexy.”
“I’m not most girls.” I rolled my eyes.
“True. You’re a killer,” Halo grumbled from the front.
I resisted the urge to smack her over the head and defend myself but she wasn’t worth the effort and I’d just make myself sound more psycho.
“Nova’s the one keeping us all in business whilst you make yourself pretty.” Fynn took to my defence and I couldn’t help the smug smile that took over my face. “So don’t say such horrible things. She does what she has to, it’s not like she enjoys it.”
I didn’t feel much of anything towards killing but sure - I’d take Fynn’s attempt at making me seem more human.
The pod suddenly came to an abrupt stop and Cedrix clambered off giving us a faint grunt. The pod rolled into action going further up the building and pausing on Landon’s level, then Aeron’s, followed by Halo until it was just Fynn, Ace and I.
Fynn sent me a sympathetic look as it came to a stop at his apartment and I sighed in defeat. Being left alone with Ace and his flirting was my least favourite but also the most exciting part of the day. It was confusing.
“See you at the party.”
“What floor?” Ace asked, catching the door before it slid shut, Fynn turned around and I caught a glimpse of his apartment full of a pure bright white. “35.”
We nodded our heads until the door slid shut. Refrain from even looking at him Nova. As soon as you make eye contact you’re done for. I turned and faced the glass, where night had settled and white light filled up the pristine city. We climbed the building, rising taller than most surrounding skyscrapers.
When we got to his level I waited but he didn’t move, I let out a long sigh. “Ace, I’m tired. Can we not do this right now?”
“Nova, I really need to talk to you about something.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m so tired and I have to do some research-” There was a beeping sound in my earpiece and I sighed irritated. “And I’m not done for the night apparently.” I held a finger to my lips and Ace closed his eyes for a split second before reopening the doors and stepping out with his head hung low.
“Nova speaking.”
“I have a job I n
eed doing, was Fynn in Germany in 1943 to 45?”
I scowled. Of course, he had another job. “He died in 1941 in the war. But it’s your lucky day. I was an English spy. What dates do you need and location?”
“Excellent. 1944.” He began detailing the mission and I agreed reluctantly. The details were easy to understand but he wanted me to save a Jewish family from a concentration camp. The number of things I could change in WW2 and the butterfly effect I might cause secretly terrified me. It would be extremely difficult especially without causing trouble, and a whole family? Saving people who were meant to die was sometimes more dangerous than killing people. It could change too much, but then again I’d done risky missions like this in the past and it had worked out. Plus it was good money. I guessed my last mission had put some money into his pockets if he was asking for another job on the same day.
I made my way back down the levels and into the White Room and asked Vix to check if the money had been transferred, his mouth opened wide and he nodded his head quickly, adjusting his glasses. Now all I had to do was go back into my former body, save a family (probably my most moral mission) and intertwine it with my current timeline so I could take the money with me. I know. Confusing. But it meant I would still get paid and the money wouldn’t cease to exist.
CHAPTER 3
Time: 13th February 1944
Location: Some quiet town in Berlin, Germany
Soon enough I was back in my 24-year-old body, Lucy. It was four years after my daughter had died and I’d made the decision to take up the offer of becoming a British Spy working in Germany.
The date was 13th February and I woke up in bed with a German soldier and another woman draped over me. Oof. I remembered this life almost like the back of my hand. I moved around the two expertly, sliding out between them and finding my clothes thrown haphazardly around the room. I knew where to find the note instantly as it was such an important moment of my job working as a spy. He’d foolishly kept a note with written down orders taken from his commanding officer in his pant pocket that had fallen onto the floor.
The room was plain, white sheets and a light blue wall with stains and cracks across. I turned to face the two of them, scowling at the man and focusing on the female with a curious gaze. What had she been up to?
My job as a spy during the war did not include sleeping with soldiers for information - let me make that abundantly clear. Lucy was a strong-willed woman perfectly capable of doing her job without the sleeping around. I was too. It just so happened that during last nights much needed pleasure and relaxation with my female friend, she’d invited someone I hadn’t even known was a Nazi.
From what I remembered she’d been working on helping Jews escape so I hadn’t expected the man to be a Nazi. Maybe she was the one doing it for information - perhaps she was helping my past self - perhaps she knew what I had been. Still, looking at her sleeping - or rather lying still and pretending, I narrowed my eyes. I found it difficult to trust coincidences. But what did it matter now?
I left the room quietly, my heart a steady beat and my steps fluid. I had visited this moment a couple of times - never for a mission though. Just to gather entail about my life here.
I could remember this morning quite clearly. Lucy had checked herself, making sure she hadn’t said anything secretive last night, let alone left anything out in the open like the idiotic soldier and his folded note. I remembered the moment I’d read it and realised it had been a Nazi - I ran out of the house and threw up onto the side of the street.
I reached the payphone further down the road and as I brought the receiver to my ear I paused, looking at the wooden shelf of the booth where a wooden sculpture of a bird stared me down. It was strange to see a bird from this angle; its eyes pointed outwards and its beak staring right through my chest, peeling through layers of clothing and skin to see what truly lay beneath.
Throughout the coded message my eyes kept drifting towards the toy with a feeling of unease. It hadn’t been here before. Had I somehow managed to create a tiny butterfly effect somewhere in the past that led to it being here? I could just have forgotten…
Thinking about it was making my head hurt with unease so I promptly made my way into a small German town where I found who I was looking for. We wouldn’t stay together long but we had become good partners and I knew we would never get caught as spies.
When I got a glimpse of his blonde hair I grinned and made my way towards him, embracing him tightly and causing him to stumble backwards into his car.
“What’s that for?” Robert mumbled in English, a strong American accent that contrasted to my British one. I pulled away and looked at him closely. He was my dearest friend in this life - and just friends might I add - he was gay, which if you can remember being gay any time before the 21st century was rough going. I’d also fallen in love with women in some of my lives, as any Time Bender who had as many lives as I have would. Although it wasn’t a struggle for me as much as it was for Aeron. It was his recurring theme in all his lives that he struggled with being a homosexual - and I mean struggled. Try being gay in a strict Catholic family in 1500. At least the future now embraced it just as they embraced crazy lifestyles, fashion and… changing the past by wiping generations for money.
But anyway, this wasn’t about Aeron or the future that was much more tolerant. I was talking about Robert. I remembered attending his funeral in 1977 as a thirteen-year-old girl who’d been next-door neighbours to him when he was sixty-three before he died from lung cancer. He’d tell me stories of his friend Lucy who died thirteen years ago and how I had the same silver hair as she did. I think he knew in some kind of unexplainable way.
“You look well.” I smiled.
He opened the car door for me and instantly we were off, leaving the town and the payphone at the bar where I’d sent a coded message to my boss.
“Where to today Luce?”
“To save some lives,” I replied, closing my eyes and trying to remember the quick research I’d done before arriving in this body ten minutes ago. In a cool manner, I opened my eyes and began giving directions.
They would either be inside the concentration camp split up or on the journey there and that’s if he was even right about the specific date and time they were going to Sachsenhausen. I held my breath and prayed to God they were still being transported North of Berlin and hadn’t arrived.
When I saw smoke from a train rise above a frosty hill I grasped onto the edge of my seat and told Robert to speed up.
“What are you planning on doing?” Robert asked, suddenly panicked as we travelled far behind the moving train, coming off-road and making our way through a line of trees.
“I’ll figure it out,” I grinned. “It’s only the children I’m supposed to save.”
“Who are they?”
“Important.”
“And everyone else?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the train and speeding up. I blinked my eyes and watched myself in the mirror swallowing tightly. “If I have the opportunity I’ll take it.” It was a lie. I couldn’t. Could you imagine saving a train of German prisoners, Jews, completely innocent people whose fates were to die? It would change history too much. But I wish I could. I wish I could use my power for good. Actual good...
“Uh, Lucy - 3 o’clock.” My head twisted to the side where another car had emerged from the tree line. They weren’t German soldiers? Or were they? What was this?
A head poked out from the driver’s window and I caught a mess of dark hair hidden under a black hat. It became abundantly clear they weren’t with us when the man began shooting at our car. I let out an irritated growl. “Speed up.”
The engine roared and I produced a gun from the back of the car and held it to the window, ducking my head as a bullet shot through the windscreen. Someone wasn’t fast enough however and Robert let out a shout as the bullet skimmed his arm, he gritted his teeth in agony.
“Bastard,” I hissed under my breath, shooting at the car
and windows. The man seemed to be driving with no one else in the car? Soldiers didn’t accompany him, which was strange. Or maybe he was only shooting at us because he thought we were the bad guys. They too could have been attempting a rescue mission. Did that used to happen? I should really brush up on my history.
Robert hissed in pain and I ducked below the window watching as he steered with one arm.
“Plan?” he asked.
I faltered, searching my brain for an answer before sighing. “When do I ever have a plan?” I mumbled and Robert let out a strained chuckle through clenched teeth.
I watched ahead as the car began to trail behind the train and a head poked out to see where we were behind them. I pulled the trigger narrowly missing as the person deflected the bullet in extreme reflex. For a moment I was shocked I had missed a shot so perfect it could have been handed to me by the Gods with arrows pointed at the male’s dark mess of hair.
“Are they German?”
“I couldn't say,” I replied, reloading the gun and shuddering at the sound of glass shattering from another shot.
“Lucy, we’re going to be found if we continue with this.”
“No,” I replied, aiming and sending the shot, finally catching the male shooter's hand, he dropped the gun.
“Good shot. But we still aren’t going to make it.”
“Why are they chasing the train?” I asked and my eyebrows pulled together in confusion.
Over the roar of the engine and the shots I was still firing I heard a frustrated voice scream. “Stop shooting for fucks sake!”
Robert and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Are they with us?” We rolled over red snow.
“They shot at us first,” I replied, my narrowed eyes watching them diagonally ahead, now on the train tracks keeping to the same speed as the train.
NOVA: The Time Bender Series Book 1 Page 3