Saving Time

by Jenn Lees

  The Compound was silent, devoid of activity as Rory finished his speech. Her husband finished his speech. That was why his people loved him.

  It was why she loved him.

  “Rory, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, we can give you information on how to protect yourselves from any possible nuclear fallout. And yes, we all want the same thing. And when you are ready, Rory Campbell, please be part of the dialogue with the Government? Be part of the changes to Government which will build Scotland once more?”

  Rory blinked, then swallowed. “I’ll think about it.”

  He pulled her close and pressed his lips to hers. They stayed there for what seemed an age. He pulled away but kept his face close.

  “Dinnae take too long to sort your things ‘oot, aye? A wife should be with her husband, even if she has an important job with the Government.”

  “Yes. We’ll be in contact by CB and I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “How?” Rory rested his forehead on hers.

  “By drone. Only, please don’t shoot this one down.”

  “That was you?”

  Chapter 31

  The Scottish Government Bunker

  MacIntosh raced them home. The Scottish Highlands passed by in a blur. Perthshire’s high, purple heather-covered hills, sitting behind green valleys chocked full of trees, were almost as blurry. Almost. It was more populated here, and the roads were in a poor state so the convoy couldn’t travel at such speeds. The crowds gathered as they moved further south along what used to be the A9. Communities had CB radioed ahead, she assumed.

  Perhaps Rory, or his people, had relayed the information of the Government’s intentions to ensure their safe passage. Or maybe she compared it to their forward journey, with McPherson and his crew on their tail. Either way, their journey home was untroubled and well observed.

  The convoy reached the Kincardine Bridge just before seven p.m. Three hours to home. If they travelled unmolested, they’d be home for a late supper. Siobhan recalled the three great bridges which used to span the Firth of Forth, and the shock that rippled through the residents of the Scottish Government Bunker when terrorists blew up the three bridges simultaneously with lorries packed with explosives. That was early on, right after the Stock Market Crash. Siobhan had been young, but the memory remained. As a child she hadn’t appreciated the beauty in the structures. The tall upright beams of the new bridge, the Queensferry Crossing, and the elegant flow of the wire cables sat snapped, and the road was chunks of concrete and support metal. She had viewed it on drone footage. Those bridges would have cut their total journey time home by more than an hour if they’d still spanned the Firth of Forth.

  Siobhan’s conflicting emotions warred within her as she approached the large metal doors set in the concrete wall behind Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park. They drove through the enclosed up-ground compound abutting the hill, which formed the only outside section of the Government’s base. The doors opened to her home and driving in only increased her discomfort. This had been home for what seemed like her whole life. A place where she had been secure and brought up with the love of her father and the approval of her teachers and mentors.

  Now she returned a different person. Siobhan had lived up top and, as dangerous as it had been—and could still be—she longed to be back. Back in the Highlands with her untamed man, Rory—her husband. A small ache began. Siobhan missed him already and now longed to be back with him and feel those loving arms around her once more. His gentle lovemaking of two nights ago held the promise of a satisfying marriage in the sex department.

  Shivers of memory began on her neck. She could sense his soft lips making their way along to...

  No. Don’t go there.

  It would only make it more difficult to be without his love. Who knows how long it would be before she could return to him?

  Siobhan had a job to finish. She would officially install her assistant, Louise, into her new position as head of Nuclear Surveillance. And she had to convince the PM that her own presence up top in the Community situation was ideal for the dialogue and involvement of non-government groups who would have a role in restoring the Scottish Government’s rule.

  The presence of her sister-in-law, Angela, who seemed an ambitious handful, would help greatly.

  Siobhan caught Murray in her side view as they descended the long, dimly lit, sloping tunnel to the heart of the Bunker. She’d had little to do with him so far and she vaguely remembered him from her childhood. Murray was exactly the same then, as she saw him now, thin and nerdy looking. He was excellent at mathematics. Siobhan had promised to keep him safe but what from, she wasn’t entirely sure.

  Looking out the left rear vision mirror she could see the armoured vehicle which contained the components of The Time Machine, as Rory simply called it. More like a ticking time bomb, if Rory was right. And he was. Rory, she had discovered, was a very good judge of people’s character. Siobhan would have to form an ethics committee, being part of it herself, who would devise and adhere to protocols safeguarding time and history. They were to ensure no one tampered with either.

  Like that would be easy.

  They reached the parking bays of the garage areas and got out of the vehicles. Siobhan smiled at Murray as he scanned the garage level of the Bunker with wide-open eyes. He briefly noticed her smile and flicked one back.

  “Okay, Murray.” MacIntosh slapped Murray on the back, causing the young man to flinch. “We’re going straight to the labs where you will set this machine up for us. Okay?”

  “Ah, okay.” Murray chewed his bottom lip and went to the vehicle containing The Time Machine.

  “I’ll come down in a while, Murray. I have to report to the PM first,” Siobhan spoke to his retreating back.

  Murray glanced over his shoulder and nodded, frowning; a sheen of sweat glistened on his brow.

  She’d better get to him in the lab as soon as she could.

  But she must see Aunty Rajna first.

  SIOBHAN’S CONVERSATION with Bethany Watts took an age. Had so much happened in only six days? And she had returned a married woman. Married to a leader in an outside Community, no less. And Antony was a changed man. Or maybe, they had finally exposed the real Antony. They would prosecute him as soon as was practical.

  “I must get to my new younger brother-in-law, Murray. I promised Rory I’d look out for him.” Siobhan excused herself from the PM’s office.

  THERE WAS A TENSION in the air of the lab, where most of the activity appeared to be taking place.

  “I’ll try it again.” Murray’s voice came from behind a green metal console.

  Thick electrical wires ran along the floor to a strange-looking cubicle. Made of fibreglass, it had three sides. In it was a cat struggling to get out of a transparent brown bag, which was made of a plastic or resin-like substance. A pod, Murray called it.

  “Re-do the calculations.” MacIntosh’s voice held irritation verging on impatience.

  “I’ve recalculated three times now. The final check with my slide-rule gives the same numbers.” Murray used a tone as if speaking to a child.

  It wasn’t lost on MacIntosh who glanced up, his mouth was a thin line.

  “Hi. How’s it going then?” Siobhan stepped over the thick cables along the floor. She made her voice sound cheery. It might dispel the tension in the lab.

  “For some reason, the machine isn’t working,” MacIntosh said through gritted teeth.

  “Well, actually, you should only be assembling it, not using it yet. We need to devise a Code of Ethics before we do any time travelling.” Siobhan stood with one eyebrow cocked. “So, no further attempts at time travel should occur until then. And you’d better free that cat before it suffocates.”

  The animal ceased its scratching and now its low growls were getting softer.

  “It doesn’t work, anyway. We’ve been duped.” MacIntosh glared at Murray and stormed out of the lab, leaving Murray and Siobhan alone.

  “I
can’t understand it, Ms Kensington-W...I mean Siobhan. You know it works. And my calcs aren’t incorrect. I’ll stake my life on it. It’s a mystery.” Murray shook his head as he spoke to her and then turned his gaze to the machine in question, chewing his lower lip under a frown. His shoulders hunched, and he blinked often, his usual amicable expression fading. He was just like the cat in the pod.

  “Somebody put gloves on and free that animal!” Siobhan yelled to the only other member of staff present.

  Chapter 32

  Invercharing Community

  Rory stood at the gate of the Invercharing Community Compound as the tail-lights of the last Government vehicle disappeared over the hill. The sky clouded and the blue, which had greeted him and Siobhan early that morning, now turned to white and deepening grey as rain clouds blew in from the far coast. The grey, windswept Munros and mountains which surrounded the Invercharing Community kept their silent, ever-present watch over the Compound and the green-brown countryside.

  His country.

  Rory had often thought of it as his heart and soul.

  Oh, how it had changed in almost an instant. Now his heart and soul made her way back to the Government Bunker in Edinburgh.

  Had he made a mistake in letting Siobhan go? Would he ever see her again?

  Rory was certain, as sure as the sun would rise over the Highlands tomorrow, she would do everything possible to ensure her return to him. But what if something prevented her?

  What if Siobhan’s boss, the Prime Minister of Scotland, would not give her permission to relieve Siobhan of her duties in the Bunker. Bethany Watts—he couldn’t think of a more pompous name—might believe Siobhan’s idea of Communities being part of the New Scottish Government’s restoration was rubbish.

  It may go well with Siobhan being granted permission to leave and then bandits could attack her on the way here. He’d go get her personally if he must. As long as he could be sure he got out of that Bunker himself. And with her.

  The rain came. Water ran down his hair and dripped on his collar, cold-wet began to trickle down his neck. It stung where it ran over the graze on his scalp.

  “Brother. Come inside.” Callum placed his warm, large, and identical hand on his shoulder and shook.

  Rory breathed in sharply and turned. “Aye, no use dying of influenza. Then I’d never see her again, would I?”

  “She’ll be back, brother. She loves you.”

  Rory spent the next hour tending to Boy. His stallion’s coat needed a good curry and Rory brushed with vigour until the horse’s black coat shone. The sound of footsteps came behind him. Rory continued untangling Boy’s mane.

  “When you’re ready, Rory son, we have some debriefing to do,” George said. “I need to know your story and you need to know ours. About the attacks, aye?”

  “Aye.” Rory continued combing Boy’s mane, the coarse hair teased out and became smooth in his hands.

  “And I know you would rather spend your wedding night with your bride, but well, the men wish to cheer you up with a Buck’s party of sorts. Ye’d be in that, aye?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Rory’s mouth. He turned to his friend and mentor.

  “Aye, sounds grand. I have some chores to do first though.”

  “We ken you, Rory. Work before pleasure. Much later, then?”

  Rory spent the rest of the day cleaning equipment, saddles, firearms, and sharpening blades—anything to keep busy.

  Anything to stop missing her.

  Rory strolled over to the main building and stopped at the medical centre. Aunty Bec was there with Christine attending to those in the Community who had received various injuries from the previous attacks on the Community itself and on those who had ridden out with him.

  “Come here, young man,” Aunty Bec ordered. “I hear you have some wounds which need tending. A head wound, no less.” She spoke in her official doctor-tones.

  Rory sat on the trolley in front of her and she began to examine his graze then moved to the injury Angus gave him.

  “Hmm, that’s quite a bump you have there,” she commented.

  “Aye, Angus was determined.”

  “So, he dived the sub and ensured we were safe. And you especially.” Aunty Bec began to re-dress the graze as a silence descended on the medical centre.

  “I still cannae fathom why he was so insistent, to the point o’ knocking me out and abandoning me in the middle of the ocean.”

  Aunty Bec spoke not a word as she secured the fresh dressing.

  “He was the same the time...” Rory dropped his voice so only Aunty Bec could hear. “When Murray sent Kelly back. He said Angus covered for them. Said our parents saved his life.”

  Aunty Bec nodded, a knowing in her eyes.

  “I need to know,” Rory said.

  Aunty Bec pursed her lips, then gave a sharp nod. “Aye, you probably do.” She walked away to the office of the medical centre then returned ten minutes later, holding a piece of yellowing paper.

  “When the Community first started, it was our policy to keep a record of every person who arrived. As you are aware, we still ask for a proof of identity from each person who joins us, but not everyone has important documents such as birth certificates or passports. People brought whatever they had. When your father brought Angus to the Community as a young man in his early twenties, this was the only document provided. If you can call it one.” She handed him the fragile paper. It was a scrap out of an old exercise book.

  Rory unfolded it; the creases were worn to holes where they criss-crossed. The document was a bill of sale from a Mr Derrick Lloyd. It was a receipt for a male youth. The name Scott Campbell was in the place for purchaser. Under goods was the name, Angus McAvoy.

  Rory stared hard at the paper in his hand—a secret from a friend’s past.

  “Angus was ashamed he’d been a slave. You know he was a handsome lad? He never let anyone know, yet he loved your father and felt indebted to him.”

  Rory shook his head. “It explains so much.” His voice broke, then he bowed his head as the well of emotion in his chest overflowed and came out as tears. Aunt Bec’s arms wrapped around him and stayed there for a while.

  “He was the one who set the Time Machine for your father’s journey.” Aunt Bec’s voice was so low Rory barely heard it. But he had. He nodded his acknowledgement of that secret.

  RORY LEFT THE MEDICAL centre as the late evening sky brightened after the rain ceased and the clouds cleared. He went to the far barn and made his way to the old section, which had housed The Time Machine.

  Rory wandered into the empty space that once held the cubicle and the console, now only bare earth. The diminishing daylight filtered in through the slit windows of the west wall; a dimming spotlight as the sun began to set on this day of the summer solstice. The focus of this stage now the place that once held The Time Machine.

  “What’re you doing, Rory?” Brendan’s cheerful voice echoed in the barn.

  Rory turned. This kid always made him smile—when he wasn’t getting into trouble. He shook his head as a memory of an old man with light-brown hair turning to grey, a face so wrinkled it could be a road map, and body odour which smelled like a cat’s dinner, came to mind. A man who’d risked his life, and certainly fated his own death, to make sure a nuclear warhead would detonate well out to sea.

  “Trying to not be angry, Brendan,” Rory answered.

  “I’ve done nothing! Oh, ya mean the fact the machine’s gone.”

  Rory tilted his head.

  “It was right here, aye?” Brendan stood near a beaten patch of earth that had scrapes leading away from it.

  “Have you memorised those numbers yet?” Rory asked him.

  “Aye. Ya ken what they are?”

  “No.” Rory pretended to hold a morsel in his hand then placed it in his mouth.

  “You’re joking, right?” Brendan’s contagious laugh rang up to the rafters.

  “No, you have tae eat it. I’m serious.�
� Rory’s laugh slipped out. He couldn’t stop it.

  “They’re co-ordinates. In the middle of the ocean, past Lewis,” Brendan said through his chuckles as he stood centre-stage, nature’s spot-light casting flecks of gold highlights through his light-brown hair.

  Rory stopped laughing, suddenly sobered. “Oh, aye. They would be.” Rory put his hand to his mouth again and chewed on imaginary food as he grinned at his brother, remembering other co-ordinates. He didn’t know much about Ley lines, but Webster’s woman had said the Community Compound’s co-ordinates sat along one.

  Brendan laughed once more.

  Then he disappeared.

  THE END

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  Thanks

  Please keep up with Jenn’s new releases and join her Community by visiting:

  www.jennleeswriter.com

  Acknowledgements

  STORIES COME TO ME in different ways and a comment made by our son-in-law, Jerry, sparked off the thoughts for Saving Time. One evening, his observation of the half-life of a Plutonium nuclear rod snuck into my subconscious and that night I dreamed. When I awoke, I wrote it down for as long as the vision stayed within reach.

  The story needed a hero, and Scott and Caitlin’s son, Rory, was the natural choice. Thus, Community Chronicles Book 3 began.

  I am grateful to my editor, author Annie Seaton, for her expertise, straight-forward manner and patient direction. Also, your belief in me, your encouragement, and the way you push me to do my best.

  I am continually learning from you.

  A teacher never stops teaching.

  Thank you also, Annie, for the wonderful covers for this series which capture the vibe.