TimeRipper

by D E McCluskey

  ‘That’s important work,’ he interrupted. ‘So, if a one-hundred-and fifty-pound woman went back, say one-hundred years? Then…’

  ‘We did the calculation, sir.’ It was her turn to interrupt. ‘Ten of them would have had to go back nearly eight-hundred years to create enough Storm to devastate the remainder of the Earth’s surface.’

  He nodded, making the mental calculations himself.

  ‘This is all theoretical anyway. We have no idea about containment fields, storage facilities, or how they can stop the decay in the Storm. There’s still a million questions unanswered,’ she replied.

  Youssef was not enamoured with this. ‘Life would be considerably intolerable for someone of our time to go back that far. Even the hardiest of person,’ he mused.

  ‘Any earlier and they would only have enough Storm to destroy maybe twenty percent. That’s a long way off from their threat of the full sixty,’ another of the scientists in the room offered.

  ‘Maybe it’s a bluff! Maybe they think that the threat of the full sixty percent is enough,’ another scientist at the table put forward.

  Youssef pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. I got the impression from Kelly that they were not messing about. If they had the potential to do that amount of damage right now, then why would they go back in time for a year?’

  The room went silent.

  The same scientist who put forward the question about the bluff asked another. ‘Did you report that they threatened to turn their Higgs Storm turrets towards these Orbital Platforms on their return?’

  ‘Yes,’ Youssef answered, almost snapping at the scientist. ‘We have to stay focused here team, we can’t be going over old ground.’

  ‘Well then, the only question that is left to be answered is: how are they planning on returning?’

  He regarded the man asking the question. His face was blank, devoid of any emotion. Then slowly it changed into a mask of wonder. ‘The quantum residue,’ he whispered. ‘Why else would they need a quantum signal? They would need to track their movements if they were going to attempt to bring them back?’

  ‘That’s so simple. If the event of pulling something, or someone back to the future, so to speak, caused the same amount of Higgs Storm then they’d have doubled their stores.’ Jacqueline was speaking aloud, but it was obvious to everyone in the room that she was really speaking to herself. ‘And if they went back for a prolonged amount of time, for example, one year, then that would add to their tally also.’

  ‘That has to be what they’re doing,’ Youssef said, standing up. ‘We need to get some research into bringing objects back from time. We’ll need magnetic tagging, and quantum tagging too. Let’s get onto this, people! Time, as they say, is of the essence.’

  As the other scientists hurried out of the meeting room, buzzing with excitement and mumbling to each other, Youssef pressed a button on the desk. ‘Amanda, I’m going to need to talk to Farley and Hausen, immediately.’

  24.

  London: 1888

  Jesus, this place is nothing to write home about, Martha Tabram thought as she ambled along the dark, dirty streets of Whitechapel. She’d been out all day looking for gainful employment, but opportunities for a single woman were scarce. She’d approached most of the barrow men in Spitalfields market and been systematically knocked back by every one of them.

  ‘Sorry, darlin’, but if I wanted a bit of skirt, I’d go to The Ten Bells,’ was just one of the rebuffs she had gotten. How things have changed, she thought as she trudged back to the shared lodgings.

  Lost in her own misery, she was surprised when she was accosted by a man. He looked like he had not seen land for a few months, and it also looked like he had not seen a bath for most of that time too. His sailor’s uniform was filthy, he stunk of cheap ale, and there was a stupid grin plastered across his face.

  ‘Ello luv,’ he slurred. ‘Do you wanna earn yourself a crust? Do ya, eh?’

  Martha pushed past him and continued towards her lodgings.

  ‘Your loss, sweetheart, would have been the easiest groat you’d ever made, slag.’

  A groat, Martha thought. That’s the price of a room for a night? She turned back towards the sailor, who was staggering down the street propositioning other women. If I could get the likes of him to pay up front, I could make a fortune in one night without actually having to do anything. This thought brought the smile back to her face.

  ‘OK then, you’re on,’ she shouted back down the street after the dirty sailor. ‘But I wanna see the colour of your brass first.’

  The sailor turned back to her, and his stupid, drunken smile widened. He reached into his pocket and produced a small bag of coins. There was enough in there to earn ten times what he’d offered.

  ‘Come on then, you smelly bastard. Up this alleyway.’ She pointed towards a small entry between two houses and disappeared in a flash. ‘Come on, sailor,’ she taunted. ‘If you’re not too scared of a real woman, that is. But I want your money first. I’ve been had by the likes of you before.’

  Grinning, the sailor entered the alleyway. ‘I bet you’ve been ‘ad thousands of times,’ he laughed as he held out his bag of money in one hand while undoing his trousers with the other. Before the drunkard knew what was happening, she grabbed him around the neck. She pressed, applying just the right amount of pressure, in the right places, to render him unconscious. It wasn’t difficult, and the drink helped. As the grubby sailor went limp in her embrace, she let go of him, swiped his bag of money, and waltzed back out of the alley, taking the long way back to her lodgings.

  ~~~~

  In an alleyway across the road, lurking in the shadows, unbeknown to Martha, was Aaron Kosminski. He had been following her obsessively since he laid his dark eyes on the women sharing the lodgings. He watched as she propositioned the sailor, and as he showed her his money. His interest grew as the drunken man followed her down the alley, only for her to emerge alone, with his bag of money in tow, barely two minutes later.

  He waited until she was away, down the street, he knew where she was going and knew where he could find her if, and when, he needed to. He crossed the road and entered the alleyway, looking both ways for any witnesses. It pleased him that there were none. It took a few moments before he noticed the sailor lying on the floor. The man was obviously dead.

  Every instinct screamed for him to run, to flee the scene, but he knew the image of a grown man running through the streets of Whitechapel would cause suspicions. He gathered all his mental strength and walked, calmly, out of the alley. He scanned the roads, searching the faces of pedestrians, looking for the witch. Eventually, he found her heading towards Shoreditch. That evil bitch has turned her last trick, he thought as blood pumped through his ears, causing them to thud! Today is going to be the day that she gets her just desserts.

  He knew where she lived, and he knew that for her to get to her room, she would have to cross the yard at the back of the lodging. That was where he would spring his trap, in the gloom of the alleyway. My razorblade will make easy work of her throat, he thought, grinding his teeth together. A quick, easy slice, and the world will be a better place, without that cunt in it.

  He hurried through the streets, circling around to get ahead of her before making his way down an adjacent alleyway that would allow him access into her yard. He could feel his heart pounding in his neck.

  Once inside the yard, he crouched into a shaded corner and waited.

  He heard the gate spring close behind her. He gripped his hand tighter around the hilt of his razor, noting, with a smile, for the first time in a while his knuckles no longer screamed at him. He tightened his grip, poised to jump.

  That was when a voice shouted down from above him. ‘Martha, where’ve you been? You’ve had the girls worried sick. You know Carrie doesn’t want anyone out late after dark.’

  ‘I know,’ she laughed, it was a harsh sound. ‘But I turned a trick tonight and made us a small fortune.’ She wiggled the ba
g before her, showing it off to whoever was in the window looking down at her. ‘I think there’s enough to pay for new lodgings for at least a week, maybe two.’

  She passed by him, so close, he could smell her.

  Another voice joined the conversation. ‘Martha, please tell me you never sold yourself to get that money?’

  ‘Oh, behave, Rose. Do you think I’m going to do anything like that?’

  The other woman laughed. ‘Well, you always were a dirty old witch.’

  Aaron’s eyes widened in the dark. That confirmed it; they were witches, and therefore they all needed to die. His dreams were indeed showing him glimpses of his destiny.

  After she entered the lodgings, he made his way back to the alleyway where the attack had happened. He thought about reporting the murder to the police. This would give him a local hero alibi when the time came for him to do his dirty deeds.

  He had expected a crowd to be gathered around the dead body, maybe a few policemen controlling the nosey onlookers, but to his surprise, the scene was empty. There was no crowd, and most peculiar of all, there was no dead body. Witchcraft indeed, he thought, crossing himself, religiously. He made his way back to the street and into the Princess Alice pub, where he drank, brooding on his missed opportunity, all night.

  25.

  Orbital Platform One. 2288

  ‘KEVIN, I THINK we’re onto something here. If they’ve gone back in time and are due to return in a year, then they must know something about time travel that we’ve missed. It’s my guess that whatever it is, it’s linked to the production of Higgs Storm,’

  ‘I hear what you are saying, Youssef, but what does it have to do with the ops team?’

  ‘I think we’re going to need a mission,’ Youssef began. ‘We need to know where they intend to come back to; we need to be ready and waiting for them. It pains me to say it, because of all the violence and death that’s already occurred, but I think we need to take these women out of the picture.’

  ‘You want them eradicated?’

  ‘As much as it goes against my religion, and my personal ethics, yes. We’re going to need them gone.’

  Kevin raised his eyebrows and breathed out a long sigh. ‘Well, OK. I’ll get a team together. We’ll start at the most obvious location, the castle in Inverness.’

  Youssef nodded as Kevin stood from the table and left the room.

  ‘This is a big undertaking, Youssef,’ Dr Hausen warned in his thick Germanic accent. ‘Will you be able to live with yourself after making this decision?’

  Youssef put his head in his hands. ‘I don’t know, Sven. I’ve been making too many decisions lately. Isn’t this just another one?’

  Dr Hausen sat his considerable frame down into the seat next to his friend and leaned forward on the table, joining his hands. ‘There comes a point when there are things you just have to do, whether you want to or not. I think, personally, that this is a good decision. But I do worry about the effects it will have on you when you see the bodies that you have ordered. I’m not trying to make you second guess yourself, but just warning you about the crash that will inevitably happen. Make sure that Helen and Melissa, when she is old enough, know and understand the anguish this decision put you through.’

  ‘I will and thank you for your kind words my friend.’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for, Youssef. Remember that you still have friends, and they are ready, willing, and able to help you whenever you need them.’

  He reached out and took the big man’s hand in his, as he did, they both smiled.

  26.

  THE SCIENTISTS IN the labs were working around the clock. They were so busy that they had to draft in other scientist from other fields, as this was now the highest priority for global security.

  The experiments had not been going well. The information they had on Quantum signals, and tagging, were old and sketchy at best. There had been some success with the magnetic tagging and the relocation of objects in time. It meant that they could now pre-programme wherever they wanted to send an object to, but they had very little evidence to support that they had gotten it right.

  One of the scientists had the idea of attempting to hack into The Quest’s databases to extract their information regarding quantum tagging. The initial problem with this plan was that it was proving difficult to locate any known key-personnel since the group leader’s disappearance. Searching for any information relating to a network or a database containing quantum information was proving tricky.

  That was until last week.

  Andrew Byrne was the EA’s leading networks expert. He had been placed in charge of the search for anything even remotely relating to The Quest on the Rapidnet. His quest had been fruitless for over a week, that was until he discovered a single, almost obscure reference to Mary Kelly and her work in the theory of quantum signals in time.

  He expanded his search, utilising everything he could find on the name and the locations. Very soon, he hit the jackpot. Mary had posted an innocuous report regarding the effects on live organic matter and time travel. To his amazement, he discovered that she had posted it from her own private portal. He could now trace her back across the Rapidnet and isolate the original report, the original portal, and hence any network she had ever hooked into. All the information on quantum signals and tagging, that they needed to begin testing on bringing time and spatially displaced objects back from the past, was now at their fingertips.

  He passed the information to Youssef’s team, and they poured themselves over it. Within the week, they were ready to begin experimenting. They had built a test quantum transponder and inserted it into an apple. They then magnetically tagged the apple and sent it back in time, one week, to a location other than where they were working. It had created the expected amount of Higgs Storm as it disappeared, and the containment field did its work.

  Then came the tense waiting. The transponder decoder was on and open for a signal.

  There was nothing.

  They waited an anxious ten minutes but still there was nothing. Disappointment tore through the lab. No one had expected it to work on the first-time round, but still, failure hurt.

  Just as Jacqueline gave the order to pack up and to build a new quantum transcoder for another test, there was a faint bleep. It would have gone unnoticed if it hadn’t been followed by another, and then another.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at the screen. ‘I don’t believe it.’ Jacqueline shouted though the lab. ‘Monitor that signal, make sure it’s the correct one.’

  ‘It is! It’s the signal. The one with the correct transponder code. We’re communicating with the past!’ one of the scientists shouted, and a cheer ripped through the lab.

  ‘Can someone let Youssef know that we’ve been successful in the first part? I want to stay here and do a number of other tests.’ One of the junior scientists nodded and left the room. ‘Right,’ she addressed the room, her voice a couple of pitches higher than normal, ‘let’s try this on something bigger!’

  ~~~~

  The young scientist burst into Youssef’s office without knocking. ‘Mr Haseem, it works. We’ve got the quantum transponder working!’ She paused then, to catch her breath. ‘We can track the apple back in time.’

  Youssef stood up and looked at the scientist. ‘Working? Already?’ He ran out of the room, leaving his portal in mid-report.

  As they raced to the lab, he was full of questions. ‘Was the signal strong? Did it do anything to the Higgs Storm? How big was the apple? How far back did they send it?’

  ‘Sir, Doctor Escobia will be able to answer your questions when we get there. She has a better understanding of the whole procedure than I do.’

  As he entered the lab, he had to take a moment to understand what was happening. There were people running every which way, shouting, waving papers, pointing at screens. ‘OK, can someone please let me know what’s going on?’ he shouted. The bustle didn’t stop; however, a few people
did look over to see who was shouting.

  ‘Dr Escobia, Youssef is here,’ came a shout from behind the Hadron Collider.

  ‘Good, it’s about time,’ came her reply.

  Youssef turned to see her standing behind him with a smile plastered across her face. ‘We’ve tagged the apple with a message; the message says send me to another Orbital Platform. The apple has now moved from Orbital Platform Four to Six. We can now track the things we send back, using an amalgamation of quantum and magnetic tagging.’

  His face beamed. ‘Jacqueline, I could kiss you right now.’ Immediately, he realised what he had just said and his face bloomed maroon. He cleared his throat and turned towards the Collider. ‘Show me how it works.’

  She was laughing as she took another apple and ran a handheld scanner over it. ‘This is the bog-standard magnetic tagging. It allows us to tag objects with dates and locations, and other stuff.’

  ‘Stuff?’ Youssef laughed; his embarrassment passed.

  She smiled back. ‘Yeah, stuff,’ she laughed, picking up a long device from the worktable next to her. It had a shaft with a diamond head on the end. The head began to glow yellow when she pressed a button with her thumb. ‘This is our quantum signal generator. We hold this device to the skin of the fruit. At present, we can only quantum tag organic objects. Plastics and metals don’t work. So, we place this against the skin and depress the trigger. The diamond flashes yellow as it painlessly cuts the skin and deposits a small, what we have christened ‘slug’, into the dermal layer. This slug then finds its way into the core and begins to emit a quantum pulse. If used on a human or animal, the slug would find its way into the blood stream and work from there. The pulse it emits can’t be read within the same timeframe as the quantum receiver, that allows us to filter out any other transmissions that might be coming from our time. When it receives the quantum code, the transponder collates the information into an accurate time frame.’