by RR Haywood
‘Someone else there,’ Emily calls out. ‘SHOW YOURSELF . . .’
‘Kate?’ Charlie shouts.
‘I killed her . . . I killed her . . .’ Kate stays out of view, her eyes fixed on her mother, who blinks slowly at her daughter.
‘SHOW YOURSELF NOW,’ Safa roars.
‘It’s Kate . . .’ Charlie says.
‘The historian,’ Delta adds. ‘She’s safe . . .’
‘Please . . . I think I . . . Oh my god, I shot her . . . She was going to kill you . . .’ Kate wails, crying hard with tears running down her cheeks, moving slowly into view holding a gun upside down by the trigger guard.
‘GUN DOWN NOW . . . PUT IT DOWN . . .’ Safa orders.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Kate whimpers, lowering on shaky legs to place the gun on the floor. ‘She said she was going to kill you . . . I think I shot her . . .’
‘Get everyone in the canteen,’ Safa orders Charlie and Delta. ‘Ben, hold here for a minute.’
‘We don’t have a minute,’ Ben snaps. ‘I don’t think she’s breathing.’
‘It’s fine now,’ Charlie says urgently.
‘Negative,’ Safa says. ‘We hold here. Emily, go with them. I want everyone in the canteen . . . NOW!’
‘Ben?’ A voice behind. Ben spins to see Doctor Watson rushing towards him with Harry, Konrad and Malcolm. ‘My god . . . What’s happened? Is that Miri?’
‘Shot in the stomach,’ Ben says.
‘Put her down, gently now . . . Easy . . .’ The doctor drops with Miri, lowering to press his fingertips into her neck, checking for signs. ‘She’s stopped breathing . . .’
‘They’ve got an infirmary,’ Ben says as the corridor fills with panicked scientists running into the canteen while Safa keeps her aim on Mother still blinking with life as she sits bleeding against the wall.
‘MOVE!’ Charlie’s voice coming closer, leading a woman in blue surgical scrubs who falters on seeing Mother then looks over to see Ben Ryder tending to Maggie Sanderson with an older man and not a second thought is given as Doctor Holmes rushes past Mother to give aid to Maggie Sanderson.
‘She’s stopped breathing,’ Doctor Watson says.
‘Into the infirmary now,’ Doctor Holmes orders.
‘Let me.’ Harry bends between them, hefting Miri with ease into his arms. ‘Lead the way.’
They set off, rushing up the corridor as Ben pauses to drop at Mother’s side while the others go on and the last few scientists run past into the canteen. Then it falls strangely quiet and Ben stares down into the cold grey eyes of Mother as she coughs to bring blood from her mouth that dribbles down her chin.
‘How far did we get?’ Mother asks, closing her eyes from the pain searing through her body.
‘No idea,’ Ben says. ‘You dropped the bomb, but the world seemed fine and if it’s not then we’ll fix it.’
She looks at him, seeing the cuts and marks all over his face. He’s more handsome in real life. Rugged and pensive. ‘This is a memory,’ she whispers.
‘It is,’ Ben says quietly, unaware of the canteen doors behind him standing wide open with everyone in there listening intently. ‘We needed your infirmary,’ he adds simply. ‘But guess what? Changes to a timeline don’t affect you when you’re not in it, or if you leave your timeline and go back to it and I’m guessing you’ve been in here since this began, right? This is your timeline . . . We’re in your past and I’m betting you’re in this place right now feeling like you’ve won . . . So when we kill you now, you will cease to exist because we are in your direct past . . .’
Mother closes her eyes at the stunningly simple logic and grunts from a fresh wave of pain and when she opens her eyes to look up Ben is gone.
‘Hi,’ Emily says, holding her pistol with one hand while slowly giving her middle finger with the other. ‘Remember me, bitch?’
A single gunshot echoes through the complex making the workers in the canteen flinch and clamp their eyes closed at the brutal execution.
All apart from Kate, who watches her mother slump dead as Emily Rose stands back to holster her weapon and share a look with Safa Patel.
‘Round two to us,’ Emily says.
‘Looks that way,’ Safa replies.
Thirty-Eight
The Complex
She looks at the screens in the dark office, flicking through the live feeds to stare with cold grey eyes, then picks up a tablet, activating the public address system.
‘All personnel will report for briefing immediately.’
She switches it off and watches the workers scurry from offices and rooms to fill the corridors of the complex as they rush for the briefing room to fill the tiered seats with hushed and excited conversations sounding out, and only when the corridors fall empty does she decide to leave the office because it serves her purpose to walk alone through the complex and enter the room last.
The power to control others is often a fragile, intangible thing and mostly born from perception. A man with a gun can gain power, but he will do so only through fear, and to have control given willingly requires an altogether different set of skills.
At times, she has been hostile, angry, withering in contempt and harsh in voice, but now she is simply restrained as she enters the briefing room that falls instantly silent, and her footsteps echo as she walks to the small raised stage and looks out with cold grey eyes, and the way she waits only serves to heighten the perception of her power.
She looks out across the briefing room, taking in every face staring at her. She knows their names. She knows everything about them from their records. She lifts her chin to speak as a blue shining doorway comes to life, snapping every head over to look at Ben Ryder coming through.
‘Are we late?’ Ben asks, moving away as the rest disgorge into the briefing room. ‘Emily’s fault – she was chasing Harry with a pair of scissors.’
‘His beard needs cutting,’ Emily says.
‘Here,’ Kate whisper-shouts from the front row, patting the empty chairs at her side while waving. ‘Saved you some seats.’
Chatter and noise fill the room as Miri tuts and rolls her eyes from the small stage.
‘It’s so hot on the island today,’ Emily tells Kate, wafting her own face with a hand.
‘Can’t wait to see it,’ Kate says. ‘Could so do with some sunshine right now.’
‘Hi, Delta!’ Hanna calls out, seeing the handsome agent come through the portal with Charlie.
‘Oh hey,’ he says, offering a weak smile before rushing for his seat. ‘She’s going to cut my dick off,’ he whispers to Charlie.
‘Stop having sex with everyone then,’ Charlie whispers back.
‘Ah, Doctor Holmes, all well?’
‘Fine, thank you, Doctor Watson.’
Miri listens and watches, taking it all in, seeing all, reading body language. Her cold grey eyes now a shade more blue. The medications are working slowly. She still feels weak, but she’s alive.
She draws breath, clears her throat and coughs quietly with an action that brings a hush to the room, and Maggie Sanderson lifts her chin to address them all.
‘I’ve been called many things. Maureen. Monica. Maggie. Monique. M. Ma’am. Boss. SB, which stands for Stubborn Bitch. MB, which stands for Mad Bitch, and TB, which stands for That Bitch . . .’ She pauses to hold the audience in the palm of her hand from a lifetime of experience, with skills used to have control given willingly. ‘Now I am Miri,’ she adds simply. ‘I am OIC and we have work to do . . . We do not know what changes have been wrought as a result of Mr Ryder’s actions . . .’ She stops to look at him, arching an eyebrow in show of her displeasure. She’s already discussed it with him and voiced her thoughts on his plan to use the portal in the arch. He just smiled then and he smiles now.
‘You’re welcome,’ he says from the front row.
‘As I was saying . . .’
‘For saving your life.’ He coughs into his hands, making her pause and glare as nearly the entire
front row snort chuckles and laugh quietly.
‘We have work to do,’ Miri says again. ‘We have a lot of work to do . . . And we will start with going back to the future . . .’
Author’s Note
‘Which one am I?’ my grandfather asked.
We were in my grandparent’s kitchen in Birmingham, England. I can remember it so vividly. We had spent the morning playing in the garden, then later my grandfather and I sat in the kitchen and he told me his war stories.
He’d lied about his age and joined the Royal Navy at the outbreak of war in 1939 and trained as a signalman and said that one day he was transferred by winch from one ship to another and as his new vessel sailed off so the old one was hit by a torpedo fired from a German U-boat, killing many.
He told me about the time they were escorting supply ships through the Bay of Biscay and U-boats surfaced between the lines of vessels and how the allied ships couldn’t fire back for fear of hitting their own.
He showed me pictures of German sailors in the sea waiting to be rescued after their vessel had been sunk, and he told me, quietly, how the captain had taken a rifle and started shooting at them because his own brother had been killed by the Germans in the last week.
Then my grandfather told me the story of the Bismarck, the mighty German battleship, and how he had signalled it to surrender. Years later I would come to realise how momentous a moment that was and that my grandfather was there, he saw it.
I heard many stories from him, all of them incredible, but more than anything, I remember the dignity of the man and how he didn’t tell me the Germans were evil or bad, but that it was war and bad things happened. He’d lost mates, but then everyone had and as the light faded and we drank tea, he brought out a black-and-white picture of a group of men and women in service uniform gathered at a wartime dance and laid it down on the small wooden table between us.
‘Which one am I?’ he asked.
I looked from him to the picture and studied every single man. I pointed to a few but he chuckled that rich, deep laugh and finally laid a finger on a man with a big dark bushy beard.
‘That was me.’
For Ivan Henry Haywood
About the Author
RR Haywood is a long-standing and highly successful Amazon author. He is the creator of the bestselling series The Undead, a self-published British zombie horror series that has become a cult hit with a readership that defies generations and gender.
Living in an underground cave, away from the spy satellites and invisible drones sent to watch over us by the BBC, he works a full-time job, has four dogs and lots of tattoos. He is also a certified, badged and registered hypochondriac, for which he blames the invisible BBC drones.
Should you not have a drone to hand, you can find him at www.rrhaywood.com.