TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 Read Free Page A

I’ve actually lived in one time and place for three months. No one hunting me. I lived a normal life for a while. Followed a soap opera. Even dated a bit.’ He slapped his thigh, as if providing a full stop. ‘Over now, though. He’s here. It’s starting.’ He considered the black-clad figure curiously. ‘Surprised to see you. Checking up on me?’
    ‘Just passing through. Making sure things go as they should.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ said the security guard with a small laugh. ‘You’re my back-up.’
    ‘Something like that.’
    The shadowy figure leaned forward to read the security guard’s name badge. ‘Steve. Hmm.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I never took you for a Steve.’
    The visitor turned to the screens. Kaz was visible on one of them, picking his way through the overgrown garden to the hall. ‘So. Everybody’s on their way.’
    ‘He tripped a pressure alarm about five minutes ago,’ said Steve. ‘A team’s already en route.’
    ‘I’ll get out of your hair, then. Good luck.’ The black-clad visitor stepped out of the Portakabin and was swallowed by the night.
    ‘You too,’ said Steve, more to himself than to his already departed guest.
    Then he put the kettle on, made another cup of tea, took a sip, thought again, tipped it out the door onto the soft earth, pulled a small flask out of his jacket pocket, poured a large measure of whiskey into the paper cup, drank it in one, then poured another and resumed his seat, ready to watch the fireworks.
    Jana was expecting a bone-shattering impact and a long silence. Instead, a second or two into her fall, she felt a tug upwards. Her first thought was that it was a freak gust of wind momentarily slowing her descent, but the tug increased. It felt as if the gravity that pulled her down was fighting an opposite force that wanted to pull her skywards.
    She opened her eyes and gasped. She was hovering in mid-air, surrounded by a halo of coruscating bright red sparks, like some kind of human firework.
    Instinctively Jana activated her ENL chip, intending to scan the quantum physics database for anything that could explain the impossible phenomenon that hovered above her. The chip at the base of her skull responded with a treatise on eating habits during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century.
    Jana was so surprised by this that it took her a moment to realise that the world around her was darkening, as if a huge cloud was blocking out the sun.
    She hadn’t made a sound as she’d fallen to certain death, but she screamed in terror as the darkness deepened and she felt her body being crushed by forces too strong to resist. She only stopped screaming when blackness entirely filled her sight, blotting out the sky, and then …
    She was lying on a hill, cool grass in the crisp morning air. Bright blue sky, birdsong, the buzz of insects. She heard a noise above her so she sat up and raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Squinting, she could see a plane – no, a missile, a huge missile – arcing down from heaven, trailing fire and smoke, screaming towards the Earth and then …
    Hot, bright sun, sound of surf, dry air in her nose, sand underfoot, the eyes of a lizard regarding her with listless, heat-sated lethargy. It flicked out its tongue at her. Unsure what to do, she flicked her tongue out in response and then …
    In a crowd, jostled and shoved by hot sweaty bodies. Smell of stale beer and cigarettes. Loud noise, almost deafening, screech of electric guitar, flash of coloured lights, big screens above her displaying a man in a gold lamé suit smoking a cigar and wearing red plastic devil horns, and then …
    A clean white room, sterile and silent but for the soft hum of air conditioning and electric lights. A door flung open and a tall, fat man in a white lab coat running towards her, shouting, ‘Take my hand, quickly, take my hand.’ Reaching out to the man and then …
    A street. Ruined buildings to her left and right, sound of gunfire