by RR Haywood
It’s over seven weeks since they arrived and two weeks since they dropped the bomb in London, but if Maggie’s team have now seen 126 AD then they’ll be moving on to investigating the next change. Time is running out. They’ll show soon and if they don’t then Mother will do something else.
He knocks on her door to report for the day, pausing for her awful biting voice telling him to enter and goes in, nodding a respectful greeting at the cold bitch already parked behind her desk; either that or she’s been there all night.
‘Good night?’ she asks in a light tone that doesn’t match the seething violence behind her eyes. ‘Have a nice fuck?’
‘Any changes?’ he asks politely.
‘Oh my,’ Mother says with ice dripping from her tongue. ‘Did I just offend the great Alpha? Are you grumpy today? What happened? Did she spit instead of swallow?’
A switch in his head with a smooth transition and he smiles with humour, chuckling at her words. ‘She was asleep when I went in,’ he says ruefully. This is a part now. This is a role. This is Siberia or one of the countless other legends he has held. Be the legend. Live it. Believe it and give nothing away.
‘So? You’re Alpha. Wake her up. Who is she going to complain to? Me?’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he says with a glint in his eye. ‘I’ll go over the footage for Cavendish Manor with my team today. We need to push this I think. It’s taking too long.’
‘It was taking too long six fucking weeks ago,’ she says, spitting the words out as her face contorts with barely suppressed rage that she struggles to control. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ she says, giving him a sudden ice-cold smile.
‘Plan?’ he asks.
‘Something bigger,’ she whispers. ‘Now fuck off,’ she snaps, instantly losing interest.
He goes out as he entered, professionally and showing no response to her increasingly hostile tone.
He doesn’t wait for a reply at the next door he knocks on. He is Alpha. Only Mother is above him in this place. He walks in, nodding once to the team of the IT department, who fall silent as he enters. ‘Do you have it ready?’
‘Sir.’ A technician rushes forward holding a tablet. ‘All on there, sir.’
‘Alpha, not sir.’
‘Sorry, Alpha . . . sir . . .’
He walks out as he entered. Professionally and like the leader of men that he is. With the tablet in hand he heads through to the next door and again knocks and walks in.
‘Well hello, sailor.’ Kate beams, spinning round in her chair to look at him.
‘Morning,’ he says, glancing round. ‘Rodney?’
‘Gone to the gym. He wants to get all buffed up like you . . . Erm . . . have you seen Mother yet?’
‘Just saw her. Why?’ he asks, narrowing his eyes as a signal for her to be careful what she says.
‘She asked for hourly checks,’ she says plainly.
‘Hourly?’ Alpha asks.
‘Hourly,’ she says. ‘Mother has requested we undertake hourly checks on the timeline comparison software to ensure we have early identification of any changes.’ She reels off the order from memory.
‘Right, that’s a good idea,’ Alpha says.
‘Absolutely,’ she replies, holding his eye contact. ‘Meet for lunch?’
‘Lunch will be great,’ he says, still holding that eye contact.
He leans in to kiss her cheek with an action that makes her balk in response. He never shows affection outside of his room. ‘Talk later,’ he whispers.
He walks out as he entered. Professionally and like the leader of men that he is with Kate staring after him.
‘Aha, our leader doth enter. Good morning,’ Bravo says in his rich voice as Alpha walks through into their work room.
‘Anything going on?’
‘Alas nothing, unless you count my impending chess game with Gunjeep as intelligence worthy of note.’
‘I don’t,’ Alpha says bluntly. ‘Mother has ordered hourly timeline comparison checks.’
‘A grand idea,’ Bravo booms as the other three look on in silence.
Alpha goes into his small office to sit down at the desk and thumbs the screen on the tablet. The first time he saw the footage from Cavendish Manor, it invoked a reaction and made him want to exact personal revenge, but something is changing within him that gives him the ability to peer in from the outside and gain a new perspective.
He finds a start point, presses an icon and places the tablet down to let the holo bloom out in the air, and there she is. Emily Rose, or Tango Two as she was then. In the chopper on the way to the deployment. He spots Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo from the camera mounted on his own tac-vest. Except the Alpha in this footage is not the Alpha who watches now.
‘That bored, eh?’ Bravo asks, strolling in through the door to see the footage, with that laconic relaxed air he always has and therein is the exact reason Alpha must hide his thoughts because if Mother knew he lied Bravo would execute him instantly, especially if he thought it would further his own career.
‘Beats paperwork,’ Alpha replies without looking up.
‘Oh my, we look so young and carefree,’ Bravo quips.
Alpha wants to watch it privately. He has purpose and a new viewpoint from which to see it, but he must be the legend. He must live it and believe it. ‘Lads, if you’re bored come and watch this. Might be something we’ve missed we can use,’ he calls out. He is Alpha. He is the leader of men who is dedicated to his mission and his role.
Echo walks in. The quietest of the five but quietness is often linked with intelligence, and Alpha senses there might be a connection he can exploit with him. Charlie and Delta behind him, hovering by the door and sharing glances with a hint of humour in their eyes. They’re becoming good mates, those two.
‘What?’ Alpha asks them both.
‘We were thinking of going to the gym,’ Delta says, eyeing the footage with an expression that suggests the last thing he wants to do is sit down and watch it all. ‘If you don’t need us, that is,’ he adds quickly.
The instinct makes him want to agree and say sure, go train. He is Alpha though. He has to be the leader of men. ‘We’ll go through this first. Train after.’
‘Sure,’ Delta says, quickly masking any hint of disappointment.
Alpha waits for them to find perches and seats, then swipes to re-start the footage, going back to the camera activation in the chopper and Tango Two staring back at him.
‘Everything okay?’ Kate asks over the table in the canteen at lunch.
‘Fine. You?’
‘Fine.’ She chews thoughtfully for a second. ‘Got some gossip if you want it? Or should I say intelligence,’ she adds with a wink.
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Doesn’t look like it,’ she says quietly, staring down at her food. ‘Is it me?’
‘No,’ he says quickly, forcing himself to sit up straight and be Alpha. He looks round, spotting the quiet conversations going on, the whispered talks, the heads lowered and huddled together and the urge to leave comes back. The need to be away from here. This place is making his skin crawl. He clears his mind, focussing on the now. He has to maintain cover until he figures a way out. ‘You go to twenty ninety-five every hour?’ he asks in an attempt to make conversation.
‘Oh, don’t,’ she says with a groan. ‘Might as well stay there. I don’t mind and Rodney’s okay with it but what a ball-ache going every hour.’
‘Where do you go?’
‘University in London. Come and see,’ she says quietly.
‘See what?’
‘How we do it. You should really, you’re Alpha. You should, like, know everything . . . and, er . . . we go at night too. I mean it’s night there when we go . . .’
‘Yeah, I get it,’ he says with a smile.
‘So,’ she says, letting the word hang. ‘Dark offices . . . desks . . . nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, Mr
Alpha, sir . . . not having sex on a desk at all. Oh no . . .’ Something in her eyes catches his attention more than the offer of sex, a seriousness hidden behind the playful manner.
‘You’re right,’ he says officiously. ‘I am Alpha. I should know these things.’
‘Totally,’ she says, nodding eagerly at him. ‘Finished?’ she asks, looking at his still full plate of food.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Me too,’ she says, putting her cutlery down next to her own still full plate. ‘Oh wow, lunch goes fast . . . We should totally go and do the hourly check that is required for the safety of the world.’
‘Agreed,’ he says. ‘Portal room, two minutes?’
‘Make it one,’ she says, grabbing his plate to take back as he walks off.
‘Set the portal for the hourly check,’ he orders, walking into the portal room.
‘Umpghgh,’ the duty technician says, trying to hide the sandwich behind her back.
‘Don’t eat in here,’ Alpha says, giving her a look. ‘Go outside and finish it, I can set up.’
‘Shorry, Alpha,’ she says, covering her mouth. ‘Wash sshho hungry.’
‘Out,’ he orders, ‘before Gunjeep catches you.’
‘Yesh, Alpha . . . Shorry, Alpha . . .’ She rushes out as Kate comes in, staring at the technician covering her mouth.
‘Did you punch her in the gob?’
‘What? No! She was trying to hide the food in her mouth.’
‘Oh . . . oh, I thought . . . Haha! I’m such a twat.’
‘Done,’ he says.
The green light shimmers into existence as he draws a pistol from his holster, checking the magazine and making the sidearm ready.
‘So hot when you do that.’
‘I am the lead agent for the British Secret Service. Your familiarity is not appropriate.’
‘You should, like, spank me for it . . .’
‘I’ll go first,’ he says, walking towards the portal.
‘I’m coming right behind you . . . Get it? Cumming?’
‘Jesus,’ he mutters, and steps through into the dark interior of a large office filled with wooden desks and lined with bookshelves. A place of study and learning. A place of advanced education and his mouth finds hers the second she comes through with a raw hunger that makes her flinch for the most fleeting of seconds before she pushes into him. It can’t happen fast enough. He lifts her up onto one of the desks, then tugs down her trousers and knickers, while she works his zipper.
‘Your gun’s in my hip,’ she gasps.
‘That’s not my gun . . .’
‘You dirty man.’ She snorts a laugh as he slides the pistol out to lay on the desk and keeps on thrusting. ‘Kiss me . . .’
It’s raw, hard and with an explosion of emotional need. A desire that overcomes and makes him take a risk he would never have contemplated before and it only makes his feelings for her grow deeper. He comes hard, thrusting into her as she gasps and bites his ear lobe.
‘I love you,’ she whispers. ‘Oh my god. I love you . . . Say it back . . . Say it back . . .’
‘I love you . . .’
‘You’d better mean it . . . Keep going, I’m coming . . . oh god . . . oh god . . . Say it again . . .’
He does say it again. He says it again while she orgasms and clings on to his hard body. Then it’s done. Over. And the emotions morph and transmute from lust to care and gentle love, to kissing and holding and breathing in each other.
‘What’s going on?’ she whispers, her mouth pressed to his ear.
‘You tell me,’ he whispers back. ‘What are people whispering about?’
‘Don’t ask me that.’
‘Tell me.’
‘No.’
‘Kate, tell me.’
‘Tell me your name. Tell me who you are.’
‘Joe Edwards. My name is Joe Edwards. I’m forty-one years old.’
‘Are you?’ she asks, pulling back to look at him. ‘You really don’t look forty-one.’
‘Tell me,’ he says, staring into her eyes.
‘Why? So you can kill them? I’m not doing that, Alpha . . . Joe . . . Alpha . . . Joe sounds wrong.’
He smiles, chuckling at the way she speaks and the expressions that flitter across her face. ‘I’m called Alfie during missions sometimes.’
‘Alfie? I like Alfie. I can do Alfie.’
‘Tell me.’
She bites her bottom lip, fear in her eyes as she searches his. ‘They’re bloody heroes,’ she blurts quietly. ‘None of us can understand it. Ben Ryder? Harry Madden? Are you joking? Safa Patel? They’re not terrorists. Emily Rose gave the entire world the finger and chose to go over to their side. We don’t understand it . . .’ She trails off quickly, suddenly fearful and worried as she pushes him away and drops from the desk to start pulling her clothes back on. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Kate, it’s . . .’
‘We’re all committed to the cause. Some just . . . just have a few questions, but it’s fine. Everyone is working and . . .’
He lifts her head to look at him, holding the eye contact. ‘It’s okay. I won’t do anything.’
‘You’re Alpha,’ she says. ‘I’m just a source for you, yeah? Get the gossip and a fuck on the side? It’s fine. I love you. Do what you want to me.’
‘Kate, I said I won’t do anything. Is that what people are talking about?’
She hesitates again, glancing at the shimmering green light. ‘None of it makes sense. Why would Maggie Sanderson kill us? We didn’t do anything to her and the security footage in the complex being wiped doesn’t make sense either. None of it does and none of us believe Mother will reset it all either. She’s mad, like . . . like demented and screaming at everyone all the time . . . like paranoid and . . .’ She goes suddenly quiet.
‘I saw them,’ he says, not knowing he was going to say it until the words came out.
‘Who?’ she asks.
‘Them. Ben, Safa . . . I went back to one twenty-six AD last night.’
‘Did you see Maggie?’ she asks urgently.
‘No, just Ben, Harry, Safa and Emily . . .’
‘Oh my god. You saw them? They know about what we did? There’s no changes though. I mean . . . the software system hasn’t detected any . . . You’ve got to tell Moth— You’ve not told her, have you?’
He picks up the pistol from the desk, sliding it back into the holster while cursing himself for opening his mouth.
‘Alpha? Alfie,’ she says, trying to smile. ‘What’s going on? What did they do?’
‘Nothing. They watched us killing those soldiers, then came down to look and I heard them talking. They looked sickened at what we’d done. One of the soldiers was still alive . . . They comforted him while he died. Harry Madden held him in his arms while Emily Rose stroked his face . . .’
‘Oh my—’ she holds a hand to her mouth, staring in horror.
‘I don’t think they attacked the complex and killed you all,’ he says honestly, feeling wretched at voicing the thing he’s held inside. He bites it down, forcing himself to be Alpha. ‘I watched the footage of Cavendish Manor. The first time I saw it I only looked for what they did to us. I saw Bravo die, Charlie, Delta, Echo . . . I died. It’s on camera. I saw Emily Rose shoot me through the head after Harry beat the shit out of me and Bravo.’
‘Oh no, don’t say that, don’t you say that.’ She cups his face, tears pushing out from her eyes.
‘That’s all I saw. Them winning and that wasn’t right. We had to win. We’re the British Secret Service. We’re the good guys.’
‘So they are bad then, they’re terrorists . . .’
‘No. No, they’re not. They were doing all of that to get an autistic man and his family out of the house. They were losing but they used the time machine to come back and help themselves. They did all of that to get Bertram out, and his sister and family too. That’s it. We had gunships and the army . . . I watched it again today, the footage I m
ean. You can see them doing everything possible to give Bertram a chance to get out. Sacrificing themselves . . . Putting themselves into harm’s way again and again. Maggie Sanderson used her body to cover him. I’ve done my job a long time, I’ve killed many and the only people that do things like that are the ones that have a cause and a belief, and people like that don’t storm into government facilities and kill innocent, unarmed scientists.’
‘They’re terrorists,’ she asserts, trying to make the words sound forceful.
He shakes his head. ‘One man’s terrorist . . .’
‘Is another’s freedom fighter.’ She finishes the words and closes her eyes.
‘This is a vendetta for Mother to win against Maggie Sanderson. That’s all it is,’ he says, staring into the gloom of the room. ‘She won’t stop . . . Mother won’t stop . . .’ He sighs deeply, blowing air from his nose. ‘You’d better run the check.’
‘Yeah, of course.’ She picks the tablet up from the side with shaky hands.
‘What does that do?’ he asks.
‘Accesses the interface here and downloads the entire history data to compare against our own . . . Any changes are flagged immediately.’
He watches her work, eyeing the tremble in her fingers. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he says gently.
‘I just orgasmed,’ she quips, smiling at him. ‘My legs are like rubber. It’s downloading . . . So what now? I mean . . .’
‘Nothing. Do nothing. I need to think.’
‘About what? Er . . .’ She looks at the portal again, then bites her lip while wincing. ‘We can just go? You and me . . .’
‘We’ll have the other four best agents in the world coming after us.’
‘Maybe they won’t.’
‘Bravo will. We do nothing for now.’
‘Alpha, Maggie and her team will react soon. This software will pick it up. They already know about the Affa situation. Did you know the full extent of the Affa thing? I don’t think I’ve told you all of it.’
‘You said it became famous.’
‘You did,’ she says softly. ‘Affa in this time is like Ben Ryder was in our time but multiplied by a thousand or a million.’