Second Lives

Book 0: TimeBomb Trilogy

by Scott K. Andrews

Genres: Action & Adventure; Science Fiction

Synopsis

It began when three people from three different moments in history discovered that they could travel through time when they clasped hands. But the mysteries surrounding them have only deepened. There are risks to tampering with established events... timelines become snarled, histories become tangled... and one false move could destroy time itself! Jana, Kaz and Dora have escaped from their mysterious enemy, Quil, wounded and scared. Taking refuge in a place outside of time, they devise a plan to change the past, altering Quil's life so that she never meets them. From the streets of Beirut in 2010 to the domed cities of Mars in 2155 and beyond, the three teenagers fight for their future, and that of all humanity, by trying to rewrite the history of the person who has sworn to destroy them. What could be more complicated - and important - than trying to save the world? As their feelings for each other grow stronger, though, Jana, Kaz and Dora find themselves at the centre of a different kind of battle. And when it comes to matters of the heart, there can be no real victors. *~*Readers love the TimeBomb series!*~* 'A fast-paced, time-hopping thriller' SciFiNow 'Tremendous fun... a riveting series opener... I finished the book in one sitting. If you enjoy fast-paced, action-driven time travel stories, this book is for you' A Fantastical Librarian 'A rip roaring roller coaster ride of a read that keeps you on your toes and is a WHOLE lot of fun' Liz Loves Books 'I was sucked into this book from the beginning and found it extremely hard to put down' Escapades of a Bookworm 'Impeccably unique and mesmerising, Andrews takes an astoundingly interesting take on time travel' Once Upon a Moonlight Review 'Executed perfectly, with likeable, intelligent and witty characters thrust into the mix of things' The Book Bag 'Well-written, funny, sad and exciting... a rocket of a timeslip adventure, designed to appeal to adults young and old and it most certainly succeeds' For Winter's Nights

Release date: May 19, 2016

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 336

Sample

The woman who called herself Quil stood on a ridge with oak trees behind her, looking down into a shallow dell. The morning air was cool and crisp, the sky was blue and the pollenrich air was alive with insects and birdsong. Below her, within an ornate garden hidden behind tall hedges and ancient brick walls, a familiar building stood, swathed in ivy.

Sweetclover Hall.

Quil knew there were guards within and without, pressure pads, laser grids, cameras and traps surrounding the place, but they were skilfully hidden. From her vantage point she could have been looking at any old English pile, home to some blue-blood descendants of a once-powerful family. But she knew the truth – this discreet, sheltered building was one of the most secure holding facilities in existence at this point in time. Behind its walls interrogations were being conducted, pressure brought to bear on political dissidents, terrorists, activists – whichever undesirable sector of society was currently designated enemy combatants. Fully authorised, fully deniable, officially non-existent, Sweetclover Hall was the place people went to when they disappeared.

The men and women who ran the facility sat smugly in the house, safe in their control centres and meeting rooms, watching the inmates on CCTV, feeling powerful and in control, the unassailable enforcers of the powers that be, ruling absolutely the forgotten and misplaced human flotsam that washed up in their cells.

Somewhere in the house, Quil knew that her younger self was sitting in a nondescript little room talking to a nondescript little man, beginning a battle of wits she knew she would lose.

Quil looked up into the sky, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the rising sun. She squinted, searching the heavens for a sign.

There, high in the stratosphere, a flash of light heralded the arrival of a new star in the sky. It hung there silently, growing larger at a leisurely pace until suddenly it seemed to elongate into a ribbon of flame, arcing down from space trailing fire and smoke, screaming towards the ground. The sonic boom hit her just as the star fell to Earth, knocking her off her feet and making her head ring.

The missile detonated in the heart of the ancient building, the very structure of time itself shattered in a billion places, and the dark secrets hidden beneath Sweetclover Hall came spilling out into the light of a frightened world.

Quil sat up, smiling.

All was as it should be.

Professor Yasunori Kairos did not like giving lectures.

Today he was attempting to explain imaginary time, and the blank looks of all the students in the front row of the lecture hall were making his temples throb. They had understood the linear directionality of real time within specific light cones, but once he had stepped beyond that and tried to explain the mathematical possibilities of imaginary time, he had seen their eyes glaze over. When the bell rang to signal the end of the lecture he breathed a sigh of relief, sat down and rested his head against the surface of his desk, closing his eyes and picturing equations to calm himself as the students filed out gossiping.

When silence had finally fallen, Kairos opened his eyes and sat up, only to find himself staring across at three students, two young women and a young man, sitting in the front row.

‘Oh, hello,’ said Kairos, somewhat discomfited. ‘Can I help you?’

One of the young women, the white one dressed entirely in black, smiled softly. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘My name is Dora Predennick, and I want to show you something, if I may.’

The young woman rose from her chair, walked up to Kairos’s desk and held out her hand. Kairos regarded it suspiciously, but she leaned forward and grabbed his hand in hers before he could react. He was immediately overcome with the strangest feeling. His hand tingled, as if with pins and needles, and red sparks flew from it. Alarmed, he tried to pull his hand back but the woman’s grip was too strong for him. The feeling that had begun in his hand flashed quickly up his arm and then across his chest. He briefly wondered if he was having a heart attack, and became certain of it when his vision began to blur and darken. The tingling soon engulfed his whole body, his head felt tight and painful and he felt his feet leave the ground as if he were floating weightless – a sensation he had experienced once before, on the outward journey to Mars, and which he had not enjoyed at all.

He cried out, but could not hear himself do so. He felt the deepest, most profound sense of panic. Had she drugged him, perhaps? Some kind of chemical patch on her hand? Was he being murdered or kidnapped?

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the sensation began to abate, he felt solid ground beneath his feet and his vision began to clear. But this didn’t make sense at all. He was outside. He squinted in the bright sunlight that warmed his skin. He could smell grass and flowers.

He felt Dora unclasp his hand and his legs gave way beneath him. He crumpled to the ground and cried out in alarm.

‘Don’t worry, Professor,’ he heard Dora say, from somewhere above him. ‘You’ll be fine. It kind of messes with your head the first time.’

His eyes adjusted to the light and he looked around him. Trees, shrubs, a wide plain ahead of him. Blue sky, hot sun. The air smelled and tasted like nothing he’d ever known, and the sounds of the birds were alien but soothing.

‘Where,’ he stammered, ‘where am I? What … what happened?’

‘Calm down, Prof, you’re hyperventilating,’ said Dora.

He nodded and took control of his breathing. There was a soft trumpeting sound close by, animal rather than instrumental. Kairos sat stock-still, feeling a primitive fear deep in his belly.

‘What was that?’ he whispered.

Dora leaned over him smiling, and whispered, ‘Look behind you and see.’

Gulping, Kairos turned his head and looked up into the eyes of a woolly mammoth, which was staring down at him curiously, its trunk swaying like the pendulum of a long-case clock. He held its gaze for a moment, then turned back to Dora.

‘Welcome to history, Prof,’ she said, smiling broadly. ‘Now, can we talk about quantum effects in interaction with large amounts of temporally unstable materials?’

Kazic Cecka sat on the black rubber seal of an old skyscraper roof, the concrete lip at the edge digging into his back. It was hot and silent up here, high above the bustle of the city streets yet beneath the opaque gaze of the buildings that towered over him. They were totally unlike the skyscrapers of his day, the solid, blocky type like the one he was sitting atop. These taller buildings curved and twined around on themselves like huge silver tree trunks corkscrewing out of the ground, reaching high up where the air was thin.

Kaz knew that he was in New York in the year 2141. He knew this because Jana, the young woman who lay unconscious beside him in a pool of her own blood, had brought them here by accident as they fled 1645. Focusing on the point of her departure, she had jumped into time and materialised herself and Kaz at the very time and place she had originally left on her first trip, when she had flung herself off the roof to escape a group of men intent on killing her.

These men now lay before Kaz in various pieces, their blood mingling with Jana’s. There really was a lot of blood.

Standing in the middle of the spreading puddle was Dora, the young woman who’d spilled most of it.

‘Take my hand,’ said Dora, sheathing her dripping sword with one hand while reaching out to Kaz with the other.

Kaz looked up at her in amazement. The Dora he knew was a fourteen-year-old girl from a seventeenth-century English village – curious and capable but young, unworldly and, the last time he’d seen her, deeply traumatised by her experiences. She had pulled away from Jana and him as they’d joined hands to jump into time. He had no idea where and when she had been whisked off to, but the Dora who stood before him, who had appeared in the nick of time and saved Jana and Kaz by cutting down their attackers with ruthless efficiency, bore little resemblance to the girl he’d known.

‘We need to get her to a hospital,’ said Kaz, leaning over towards Jana, who lay face down taking short, shallow breaths.

‘I’ve taken care of it,’ said Dora briskly. ‘Let’s get out of here; this is one place we really shouldn’t linger.’

Kaz reached out and took Dora’s right hand, while she grabbed Jana with her left. He felt the world around them shift, his stomach felt hollow and his vision swam, and then they were in a lavish reception area – large glass doors, fancy desk, sofas.

The instant they had solidified, the internal doors slid open and a man and two women in clean white medical coats ran out, wheeling a stretcher and a trolley laden with instruments of all sorts.

‘Come on,’ said Dora as the doctors lifted Jana on to a stretcher on the count of three. ‘We should get out of their way and let them work.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kaz, knowing she was right but unwilling to leave Jana without a friendly face while she was in such bad shape. ‘Where and when are we?’

‘Kinshasa, 2120. Trust me, this is the best clinic there is,’ said Dora, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘She’s going to be fine.’

Reluctantly, Kaz allowed himself to be led away. One of the attackers in New York had kicked Kaz square in the mouth, and now he tongued his teeth to find two missing and one split in two. ‘I think I’m going to need some painkillers and a dentist myself,’ he said as Dora led him out of the room into a pastel-coloured corridor lined with expensive-looking prints of African tribal designs.

‘No problem,’ said Dora, leading him three rooms down and pushing the door open to reveal a fully equipped dentist’s surgery and a tall blonde woman standing by the big chair waiting for him.

‘I hate dentists,’ moaned Kaz through his bruise-swollen lips, hovering on the threshold.

‘I shan’t take it personally, sir,’ said the dentist with a wolfish smile. ‘If you’ll please take a seat.’

Kaz turned to Dora. ‘Fill me in while I’m being tortured by the scary lady with the nasty drill?’

Dora nodded, followed Kaz inside and perched on a table by the door.

The dentist’s chair was deeply upholstered leather, and Kaz relaxed into it gratefully; he was bruised all over and dog-tired.

The dentist handed him a glass of pink mouthwash and he swooshed, gargled and spat the foul medicinal stuff, expecting pain but surprised to find it made his mouth feel pleasantly numb.

‘Wass tha?’ he said, his tongue feeling like a lump of useless meat.

‘Dentistry has improved a bit since your time,’ said Dora.

‘Wa yeer agai’?’ asked Kaz, frustrated by his now useless mouth. ‘Oh fa fu sa.’

Kaz was a bit annoyed that Dora didn’t even crack a smile at his discomfort, which he was playing up for laughs. But then, he mused, he didn’t really know this older version of Dora at all, although there was perhaps a line to be drawn between the girl who had snatched Jana’s gun and dispatched a group of Roundhead soldiers in 1645, and the black-clad warrior who sat opposite him now.

‘We’re in Kinshasa. The year is 2120,’ replied Dora patiently. ‘This hospital is very private, very discreet and very expensive. The staff have all signed non-disclosure agreements and we have this entire wing, and all its staff and resources, at our disposal for as long as we need them.’

Kaz tried to incline his head by way of mute question, but the dentist firmly pushed it back, pulled open his mouth and shoved some kind of buzzing implement inside it. He grunted in annoyance.

‘Lottery win,’ explained Dora, finally cracking a smile. ‘Lotteries are a time traveller’s best friend.’

Kaz grunted his appreciation – anything to distract him from the sounds emerging from his mouth. Oh God, did something just go scrunch?

‘I knew I’d need a place where everybody could be looked after,’ said Dora, ‘and this clinic is ideal.’

‘Everboy?’ asked Kaz as the dentist swapped tools and grabbed a pair of pliers. He felt a tugging in his jaw and something in his mouth went pop and then crunch and then a kind of slurping scrapey noise that made him want to vomit.

‘It’s been a long time, for me, since that day in Pendarn,’ said Dora, hesitantly. Kaz could tell she didn’t want to explain in much detail and was picking and choosing what to reveal.

Kaz remembered seeing Dora’s mother, father and brother lying in a heap on the floor of the house’s undercroft. Her mother had been unconscious, her brother looked like he’d been run through with a sword and her father, Thomas, had been cradling them both as the computer screen in front of him had counted down to the moment when a bomb would detonate and demolish the building around them. Dora had screamed as he and Jana had dragged her away into time, forcing her to abandon her family to their fate.

‘One by one, I’ve scooped everyone up and brought them here,’ said Dora. ‘My family, Mountfort, you and Jana, that kid Simon from 2014. Oh, and Steve too.’

Despite the importance of what she was telling him, Kaz was distracted by Dora’s speech patterns. The girl he had known spoke seventeenth-century English with a rich Cornish burr. This older Dora spoke with a different accent – hints of Australian and maybe Spanish, he thought – and her vocabulary and phrasing were what he, a product of the twenty-first century, would have considered modern.

Her speech patterns weren’t the only thing that had changed – now she dressed like a ninja and moved with a lethal mix of martial arts readiness and cat burglar stealth. She was as graceful as she had been gawky, as controlled as she had been skittish. She was a different person altogether. He wondered what could possibly have happened to her since they’d last met. It had been only minutes for him but for her it had been, he guessed, at least four years. She had been fourteen when they first met, three years younger than him. Now he reckoned she was one year older. She was slightly taller than she had been, although she would still have been short by twenty-first-century standards. She was stronger and leaner; her figure had filled out and lost its puppy fat.

His attention shifted when he caught a glimpse of something big and red emerging from his mouth between the pliers’ jaws. He tried to sit up, but the dentist pushed him back down again, brandishing a scalpel.

‘I’m going to leave you to get your mouth fixed up,’ said Dora. ‘We’ll talk later.’

Now the dentist was holding a clean white tooth between pliers and looked to be about to bang it into his gums with a little silver hammer. He was pretty sure that wasn’t how these things were supposed to be done even in his own time, let alone in the future, but he couldn’t voice his protest, not least because his head rang with every hammer blow.

Dora’s face hovered into view over the dentist’s shoulder. She grimaced as she looked into his mouth, which was hardly reassuring.

She surprised him again, this time by leaning forward and planting a kiss on his cheek, which earned her a glare from the dentist.

‘See you in a bit,’ said Dora.

‘Right, now for the hard part,’ muttered the dentist, reaching for what looked like a tiny chainsaw.

Kaz sat beside the hospital bed waiting for Jana to wake, trying to think what he would say when she did. Speaking was a bit difficult for him at the moment – he had developed a slight lisp as a result of his new teeth.

He dismissed ‘Morning’ or ‘Hi’ as too flippant, briefly considered ‘Well, hello sleepyhead’ before reminding himself he wasn’t a middle-aged character in a bad sitcom, plus he should probably avoid sibilants, and was mulling ‘Welcome to the future!’ when she opened her eyes, blinked and said ‘Hi’ in a sleepy voice.

‘Hi,’ he said softly, smiling.

It had been a week since Dora had brought them to the clinic, and the doctor had kept them updated on Jana’s progress throughout. The knife Quil had plunged into Jana’s chest had just missed her heart, but it had collapsed a lung and done serious internal damage, all of which had now been repaired. She had regained consciousness on the fourth day, although she’d been groggy and confused, and now, after a few days of mostly sleeping, she had sent a message via a nurse that she wanted to see Kaz and Dora for ‘a proper talk’.

The beige room was small but private, boasting a single bed ringed by all sorts of monitors and instruments, a small desk and a couple of chairs.

‘Help me up,’ said Jana, bending feebly at the waist; her dressings and deep bruising made it hard for her to sit up under her own steam. Kaz held her hand and pulled her into a sitting position, ignoring the red halo that flashed around their fingers as the temporal energy they both possessed interacted. He then bent forward and plumped the pillows behind her so she could lean back comfortably.

‘Thanks,’ said Jana. Her face was pale, her cheeks sunken, but there was a spark in her eyes that pledged the swift return of her old self.

‘Sleep well?’ asked Kaz.

Jana nodded, turning to look out of the window. The clouds were low and threatening above the green of the city park that began at the clinic’s front door.

‘Yeah, but I’m happy to wake up,’ said Jana, turning back to Kaz. ‘I mean, lucky to wake up. Very lucky.’

She glanced down at her hand and it took Kaz a moment to realise he was still holding it tightly; and it was still surrounded by an aurora of red. He blushed slightly and withdrew it.

‘Where’s Dora?’ asked Jana.

‘Right here,’ said Dora, as she entered the room. In the week they had been in Kinshasa, Kaz had only once seen Dora wearing what he would have considered normal clothing – on one particularly hot day she’d worn a white cotton dress – but now she was back in black.

Dora was carrying a tray bearing a jug of iced tea, three glasses and a plate of biscuits. She placed it on the desk, poured everyone a drink, then placed the plate on Jana’s lap and pulled a chair up to the opposite side of the bed to Kaz.

‘Has Mountfort gone?’ he asked, referring to the Royalist spy they had met in 1645.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He will never quite be the same man, of course. There is only so much even modern medicine can do for a body as broken as his was, but he is alive and back in his own time with a healthy coffer full of gold for his troubles. He told me he intends to spend the rest of his days in quiet contemplation of nature.’

Jana shook her head in amazement. ‘I can’t believe he made it,’ she said. ‘I mean, he was hanged, stabbed and shot.’

‘He was touch and go,’ agreed Dora. ‘As were you, for a time.’

There was a brief, contemplative silence that went on just long enough to verge on awkwardness before Jana spoke again.

‘So here we are,’ she said. ‘Safe and secure. The doctor says I’ve got a couple of weeks of recuperation left, at least, so I’m not going anywhere fast. Dora, was Mountfort the last? Those were the only people recovering here?’

It seemed to Kaz that this question was loaded somehow, as if Jana was trying to make it seem less casual than it was, but Dora didn’t appear to pick up on it.

‘Yes,’ said Dora. ‘Everyone I rescued and brought here has been returned to their rightful time and place.’

‘So you’ve got no more errands to run?’

Dora shook her head.

‘OK, good. Clean sheet,’ said Jana firmly. ‘You two can both jump through time solo now, can’t you?’

Kaz nodded and so did Dora. ‘After I touched Quil in the undercroft in 1645, I was thrown sideways in time,’ explained Kaz. ‘It took me about six months before I was able to jump through time again. I could feel the power growing in me all the time, I just had to wait for it to reach the right strength.’

‘It was the same for me,’ said Dora. ‘About six months after we were separated I also gained the ability to travel through time on my own. It took me many months of practice after that before I was able to steer myself accurately. I am impressed, Kaz, that you were able to return to Pendarn and aid in our escape from Quil so quickly after your power matured.’

Kaz shrugged. ‘What can I say, I was highly motivated.’

This earned him a smile from Dora and a good-natured eye-roll from Jana.

‘Unlike you two, it’s still only a week or so since I first jumped through time,’ said Jana. ‘So for now I’m only going to be able to jump if I’m holding hands with one of you.’

Kaz could see how little Jana relished the idea of being reliant on somebody else but he thought it would do her good not to be completely in control for a change. He kept this slightly uncharitable thought to himself.

‘Anyway, can we fill in the blanks, please,’ said Jana. ‘Let’s start with you, Kaz.’ She turned to him and he held out his hands as if to say ‘Ask anything’.

‘In Sweetclover Hall you touched Quil and off you went,’ said Jana. ‘I thought I was never going to see you again, so you can imagine my relief when you turned up with the cavalry. You say you were gone for six months, so where and when did you end up?’

Kaz barely knew where to start in recounting his adventures in history. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said, ‘but the short version is that I spent the time serving on a privateer on the Spanish Main in 1693.’

‘You were a pirate?’ said Jana, amazed and delighted.

‘I was that,’ agreed Kaz. ‘And let me tell you, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the films. It was mostly deck swabbing, sail stitching, bad food, worse drink, unbelievable BO in the sleeping quarters and the singing. All the awful, awful singing. I don’t care if I never hear another sea shanty in my life.’

‘But you plundered ships,’ said Jana. ‘You wore a cutlass and carried pistols?’

‘Once or twice,’ said Kaz, smiling at Jana’s uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

‘And did you ever swing between ships on a big rope while they fired the cannons beneath you?’

Kaz found himself lying before he could stop – chances to impress her did not come along often and he wasn’t going to let one pass.

‘Only once,’ he said. ‘But it was awesome.’

‘That is literally the best thing I have ever heard,’ said Jana. ‘Did you have a pirate name? Red-handed Kaz? Sealegs Cecka?’

Kaz laughed. ‘No, Jana, I did not have a pirate name,’ he said. ‘I just kept my head down, tried to be the best crew member I could, and waited for my powers to develop enough for me to get the hell out of there.’

‘I want to know every detail,’ said Jana, folding her hands in her lap decisively and eagerly staring at him. Across the bed Kaz could see Dora looking less than thrilled at the direction the conversation was taking.

‘Later, I promise,’ said Kaz.

‘Spoilsport.’ Jana pouted.

‘Dora, what about you?’ asked Kaz. ‘Where and when did you end up after 1645?’

‘Auckland, 2063,’ answered Dora.

Jana pursed her lips and breathed in sharply. ‘Ouch,’ she said.

‘What?’ asked Kaz.

‘I learned about that period in history,’ said Jana regarding Dora with concern. ‘Not a good time to be in the Antipodes.’

‘No,’ agreed Dora. ‘But I was fortunate, I found sanctuary in a shelter for orphaned refugees. They looked after me well.’

Dora did not elaborate, and after a pregnant pause Kaz asked, ‘Is that it? If I had to guess, I’d say you’re four years older than when we first met?’

Dora nodded. ‘Approximately,’ she agreed.

‘But you said your ability to time travel solo kicked in after six months,’ said Jana. ‘So what happened to the other three and a half years? Did you stay in Auckland the whole time or did you travel?’

Dora fixed Jana with a steady, appraising gaze and Kaz could tell she was considering how much to reveal. ‘I travelled,’ she said eventually. ‘With purpose.’

‘You trained, didn’t you?’ said Kaz. ‘You found someone to help turn you into a superhero.’

Dora rewarded his wisecrack with a tiny smile. ‘Yes, that’s exactly correct, Kaz. I found a sensei and learned the skills I felt would be necessary for me to rescue everybody. It took some years. You can thank me later.’

‘Oh believe me, I’ve given thanks for you every moment since you skewered that thug on the rooftop,’ said Kaz emphatically.

‘So who did you find to train you to be a ninja?’ asked Jana.

‘I could tell you,’ said Dora, deadpan. ‘But I’d have to kill you.’

Jana did not smile and Kaz shifted awkwardly in his seat as the two young women engaged in a staring contest. Eventually Dora smiled again and said, ‘Garcia.’

The name meant nothing to Kaz but it obviously did to Jana, whose eyes widened as her mouth dropped open.

‘No way,’ she said, seemingly awestruck.

‘Way,’ said Dora.

Kaz waited for one of them to enlighten him and sighed dramatically when neither of them did. ‘You know, I’m from 2014,’ he said, ‘and the only other time period I know well is the seventeenth century. I’m not like you two, I’m not from the future and I haven’t been there much so …’

‘Sorry Kaz,’ said Dora.

‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Jana, turning to him. ‘New Zealand in the 2060s was overrun with refugees from the Pacific Islands. As their homes sank beneath the water, they took to boats and tried to find somewhere willing to take them in. North America was in the middle of the second civil war, Chile had slipped into anarchy and Australia had started literally shooting migrant ships to pieces. New Zealand was the destination of choice for waterlogged refugees. But tensions were high and there was a lot of violence. I don’t know why I’m the one explaining this,. . .