Youssef had his hand over his mouth. He nodded. ‘In The Quest’s research documents, were there any records regarding trials with living organisms? I’m assuming there were, as ten of their best operatives are not just going to jump into a collider and hope for the best,’ he asked.
‘We haven’t gotten that far into their experiments yet, sir. We were looking for pure theory to move this forward. I can get a team of research assistants onto that as soon as this meeting is over.’
‘If you could, that would be fantastic,’ Youssef replied standing up. ‘Right, everyone let’s get back to work. I need the new Hadron Collider installed and working as soon as possible. I also need another containment unit, one large enough to contain the amounts of Higgs Storm we saw today, maybe even larger. I’m not losing anymore personnel.’
The group stood and began making their way out of the room, chatting excitedly about their next challenge.
‘Jacqueline, can you stay behind? I want your input in this next meeting I have.’
‘Sure, I’ll just set my team their objectives and be right back.’
‘Appreciate it,’ he replied, tipping her a wink.
He sat in the room and sighed. There’s already been too many deaths, and now this plan might have to go into action, he thought as Kevin blustered into the room. He looked like he hadn’t slept for two days, or even bathed for that matter, but he looked happier than Youssef had seen him since The Event.
‘Wow, you stink!’ Youssef informed him, holding his nose. ‘Where’ve you been?’
Kevin smiled. ‘Manoeuvres,’ he replied, offering nothing more.
‘Well, we’ve answered a question, a big one, and I’ve formulated a plan. I’ll be counting on you for your help on this.’
Kevin cocked his head. ‘You know you can always count on me. What is it?’
‘I’m waiting on Jacqueline to get back, then I’ll outline it to you both. It’ll be a dangerous mission.’
‘You know the ops team. Danger is what we do,’ he replied with a smile.
With that, Jacqueline re-entered the room looking at both men. ‘Sorry, I was just giving the team a brief. So, what’s this all about then?’ she asked, offering a nod towards Kevin as she sat.
‘Would you say that our experiments into the time travel realm have been successful?’
‘Moderately, yes. If you remove today’s unfortunate incident, then I would have to say yes.’
Kevin was looking confused. ‘Sorry, I’ve been away for a few days, can you fill me in? What unfortunate incident?’
‘We successfully sent an apple back in time and brought it back again.’
‘You what?’ he asked ruffling his brow.
Youssef was smiling. ‘You heard correctly. We sent an apple back in time and brought it back again.’
Kevin shook his head. ‘So, what was the accident?’
Jacqueline looked at him for a moment, shaking her head. ‘Did you not notice the huge hole in the centre of OP One?’
He shrugged his shoulders and pouted. ‘I was teleported into T-Six, normally it would be T-One, I didn’t think anything of it. So, what happened?’
She relayed the incident. When she was finished, he looked at Youssef. ‘This is their plan then?’
‘I think so,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got mathematicians working now to estimate how far they would need to go back in order to create enough Higgs Storm on their return to carry out their threat.’
‘I have people working on trying to locate the transponder signal from their quantum slugs, it will help us locate them in time and space,’ Jacqueline added.
‘So, what’s the big plan then?’ Kevin sat back into his seat, as did Jacqueline, both wanting to know what was brewing in the boss’s head.
‘There is a natural paradoxical law, am I right?’
‘Theoretically, yes,’ Jacqueline replied.
‘So that means that no one from the time they are in now will be able to kill them, so we can guarantee, that barring accidents, they will be coming back. We now have an almost certainty that they’ll carry out their plans on their return. We have to stop them, and I think that we’ll have to do it in the past.’
Kevin’s smile was spreading across his lips. ‘Are you thinking of sending someone back in time to get them? You are, aren’t you?’
Youssef bowed his head and looked at the table. ‘Yes, I am.’
He sat back and pushed out a sharp sigh. Jacqueline sat silently; her eyes were wide open.
Youssef regarded them both, looking them in the eyes. ‘I need the best you can think of for this job. Someone who is a tracker, physically fit, and doesn’t have a problem with the…’ he paused again, ‘…grittier sides of a mission.’
‘Clarence,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Vincent Clarence is the man you’re looking for. He’s young, and brilliant. He reminds me of a younger me. He’s capable, and willing, to do whatever it takes to get the mission done.’
‘He’ll need to know the dangers and the pitfalls of an operation like this. And the obvious involvement in taking out ten marks,’ Youssef spoke slowly, his disdain of sending someone on a mission like this was obvious.
Kevin sat back and put his hands to the back of his head. ‘None of that will be a problem to this one. I’ll get him to report to you straight away.’
‘Just hold out on that for the time being. Jacqueline, this is where you come in. Do you know if there is any way of getting communications to and from the past?’
‘Sir, I’ve only just found out this morning that an apple can travel through time, I haven’t got a clue about comms.’
‘Can you get a team to work on it? If we go ahead with this mission, I don’t want whoever goes in to be in the dark. I want to be able to get updates and give orders.’
‘I’ll get onto it right away, sir,’ Jacqueline said easing out of her seat.
‘Err, Jacqueline, I haven’t quite finished with you yet.’
Looking confused, she sat back down.
‘I’m going to need you to work closely with this Clarence.’
‘Me?’ she asked alarmed. ‘I’m a scientist, not a field agent. I couldn’t possibly…’
‘If this mission is to be a success, I’m going to need someone I can trust supporting the front line. I want that person to be you. I need someone with a level head who is able to fix things on the fly if anything goes wrong. Someone who can think outside the box. We don’t know what we’ll encounter back there. I’d like to think I can trust you to do this job. You have one of the best analytical minds I’ve ever come across, and if I’m correct, you have completed extensive military training.’
‘Yes, sir, I have.’ Her brow furrowed as she asked the next question. ‘Will this mean time travel for myself?’
‘We’ll cross that bridge when, and if, we come to it. We’re going to have to hit the ground running, and I want to deploy as soon as we know it’s safe to do so.’
She swallowed hard before answering. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. I’m going to need you to get Vincent ready for time travel, meaning, we need to make sure it’s safe. We’re going to need to know that our technology will still work when he gets there.’
‘Agreed, but the first thing I need to work on, I think, is the communications. How are we going to communicate with him while he is in the past?’ Jacqueline asked, more to herself than to the other two men.
‘He could leave us as series of messages,’ laughed Youssef. ‘We could find them from four hundred years in the past. I think I saw that in an old film.’
‘A film?’ she laughed. ‘It’s a little impracticable, don’t you think?’
He smiled. ‘You’re right, though, we can’t send him into the field incommunicado. So, you work on that and get into Vincent’s head. We need him in tip top condition.’
33.
London. 1888
CARRIE MILLWOOD WAS worried. So worried that she had called all the girls together to
her lodgings for a meeting. Back and forth she traipsed, biting at her fingernails and mumbling to herself as she waited for them to file in. She felt as though she was wearing a tread into the bare floorboards of her room. Everyone was present, with one glaring exception. ‘Has anyone seen Martha at all in the last week?’ she asked, looking at Annie Chapman in particular.
Annie shook her head. ‘She hasn’t been back to the lodgings since the Bank Holiday. She went out with another woman from the house. One of the prostitutes, I think. She said she needed to get a payday and said that night would be her best chance to make enough money to pay for the lodgings for at least the next two months.’
Carrie pulled a disapproving face. ‘Please tell me she’s not turning tricks for money.’
Annie smiled and shook her head. There was no humour in the smile at all. ‘No, not Martha. She was leading them on. She’d take them into the back alleys, making them think they were on for a bit. Then she’d knock them out using a strangle hold. It is how she’s made her money ever since we got here.’
‘Do you think someone might have gotten onto this and, I don’t know, arrested her, or kidnapped her, or something?’ Mary Kelly asked nervously, she didn’t like the idea of one of them being missing.
‘There was a murder on the night of the Bank Holiday in the alleyway that leads to our lodge,’ Annie added. ‘It was a woman, apparently. But I can’t see Martha allowing any of her tricks to get the better of her.’
Mary turned on her with intensity in her wide eyes. ‘A murder by your lodgings on the night she disappeared? And you didn’t think to let anyone in on this?’ she snapped.
Annie dropped her head. ‘It was all over the news. I didn’t say anything because of the paradoxical law. No one can kill us in this timeline, remember.’
‘Unless it was one of us!’ came an ominous voice from the back of the room. Rose Mylett was one of the security details who had volunteered to come back with them. ‘If it was one of us, then murder wouldn’t be a problem. We can’t be killed by anyone from this time, but it wouldn’t be a problem if the murderer was from our time! Is it possible we have a traitor in our midst?’ she asked, stalking around the room with a suspicious gait.
‘Enough talk about traitors!’ Carrie shouted. ‘None of us are traitors to this cause. We’ve all proved our worth to The Event, and no one here would give up on our plans now.’ She addressed the whole group, but Rose in particular. ‘We’ll need to investigate if she’s been taken prisoner or something. Annie, I’ll need you to find out anything, and everything, you can about the murder. It’ll do us no harm to have information regarding it, especially with it being so close. Do we know how this poor woman was killed?’
‘The gossip around the lodge is that she was ripped apart. Nearly forty stab wounds. Nobody has come forward to say they saw anything, and the police haven’t released the victim’s name yet,’ Annie reported.
‘Well, let’s keep double vigilant for if, and when, she turns up, and let’s all be more careful about our comings and goings.’ Carrie dismissed the meeting. ‘But also remember, without sounding callous about the situation, Martha was a good source of funding. We’re going to need to find another one.’
Everyone left the room except for Carrie and Mary Kelly.
‘You look tired,’ Carrie spoke softly, fixing a lock of Mary’s auburn hair back behind her ear. ‘You don’t think anything could have happened to her, do you?’
‘Not unless the theories of nature’s paradoxical laws are wrong. If they are, then we could all be in peril, and we’d have to lookout for each other.’ She paused, but Carrie knew that she had something more to say.
‘Or?’ Carrie asked, not willing to wait on a cliff-hanger.
‘Abandon the mission.’
The tall woman recoiled as if slapped. ‘The paradoxical laws are true. If someone from this time tried to kill us, nature couldn’t allow it to happen. Something would step in to stop the death. It would affect nature’s timeline too much. Martha can’t be dead; someone must be holding her somewhere.’
‘Agreed,’ Mary replied nodding her head. ‘But who, and why?’
~~~~
Aaron Kosminski was watching everything from his usual spot outside the window of Carrie’s room in White’s Row. By now, he knew all the women. He knew their faces, he knew them intimately in his dreams, and he knew their secret. He also knew something else that they didn’t know. Their friend Martha was lying dead on a slab in the mortuary, the victim of a savage attack by an unknown assailant.
She should have been my victim, he thought.
As the women left, he focused his attentions to the next on his list. Polly, they called her, although he had a feeling that it wasn’t her real name. She was a tall woman, and she looked the oldest of the lot, but that did not mean she was old, quite the contrary. She was striking, with handsome features, and a voluptuous figure.
Of all the women he was following, she was the only one he found physically attractive. That’s just her sending out her witchy allure, covering herself in the bitch smell so I can’t help but lust after her, he thought. This had become his mantra, he told himself it again and again, attempting to wipe any of the irregular thoughts running through his head.
He had watched Polly for a while now. She, too, was using a trick to solicit money. Wherever there was a game of cards, or a game of chance, you would find Polly. He thought her name was rather apt, as she would sit at the shoulders of her marks, whispering into their ears what they should do next. This whisper meant the man invariably won, and then Polly would take a cut of the winnings.
He had watched her take a pretty penny over the last few nights.
Since the death of Martha, there had been no sightings of the mysterious stranger, he had been looking for his odd, false face in every crowd. Tonight, he was not going to be disturbed. Tonight, was his night. He was going to murder pretty Polly, and there would be no one to stop him this time.
He followed his potential victim as she journeyed from pub to pub all through the West End. He watched as she drank and gambled until late into the night. She left the Frying Pan public house and staggered out into the street, drunk as anything, carrying a large amount of money.
His blood was tingling in his veins, and his heart was pounding within his chest, like it was attempting to free itself from the prison of his ribcage. A quick scan of the street told him there was no stranger around to take this one from him. His dreams about this woman had been intense. Horrific, but intense. Each time they came he woke up with a strong, throbbing erection. The only way he could rid himself of it was to take matters into his own hands. As he had been brought up Catholic, he had been taught that this kind of thing was forbidden, a sin. But he had to admit that he enjoyed it.
He stood in the corner of the crowded room and curled his hand tight around the handle of the small, but dangerous, razorblade in his coat pocket. It was one of a fine set he had purchased from a barber in Fleet Street. He had used it once or twice on a gentleman’s chin, giving him the finest shave that he had ever had, so he knew this instrument would be ideal for the new job it had to undertake.
He gave the woman two minutes before following her out of the pub.
The moment he stepped onto the street; he saw him.
The mystery man who had killed Martha was back. He was walking slowly, careful to stay in the shadows, and was wearing the same cape and sporting the same cane as he had the other night. There was no mistaking that it was him.
In normal circumstances, a man walking these streets wearing the attire he was, would have caused him to stand out in the crowds of scruffy revellers, making himself a mark for the street gangs and muggers, but this man didn’t. It was as if the shadows suited him, like they shielded him from the depravity all around him, allowing him to stalk his prey unmolested.
Kosminski cursed under his breath as he kept his distance. He didn’t want to be in the company, or indeed the sights, of this st
range man with his even stranger devices. If he’s stalking her too, then I must be onto something about them being witches, he thought.
As if reading his mind, the man turned towards him as he stalked the stalker. In a flash, Kosminski dipped into the shadows of the wall, flattening himself in the gloom, trying his best to disappear.
Unperturbed, the stranger continued into the night, following the hapless witch.
When he was sure it was safe, he followed them both as they made their way towards Polly’s lodgings on Thrawl Street. He didn’t know who he was trailing now, the mysterious man, or the witch. Either way, it no longer mattered to him. One of them was going to get what was coming to them tonight; and get it good, of that much he was certain. He reached into his pocket again and caressed the handle of the sharp blade. It reassured him; calmed him. The chance to use it last time on what would have been his first victim had been denied to him, but he was damned sure he wouldn’t let this stranger block what he saw as his destiny again.
With his heart pounding and his stomach churning, filling with butterflies, he watched as Polly turned into a dark yard. With escalating anger, he saw the mysterious man enter behind her.
He ran, as quick as he could without making any noise, to the entrance, he needed to see what was happening inside.
What he saw surprised him.
Polly was bending over, like she had dropped something on the ground and was trying to retrieve it. In the meantime, the stranger was behind her, holding the glowing sphere again. He was pointing it towards her, but the eerie beam had missed. He retracted the device and looked at it intently, pressing buttons, or something of that nature, frantically. With his attention distracted from the woman, Polly noticed her assailant and ran from the yard, towards where Kosminski was hiding.
With a frustrated growl, the man dropped his device as he noticed his prey escaping. He darted after her and tackled her, wrapping his legs around her waist. They were both on the floor instantly, the stranger having the advantage.
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