Observations - Part 3

Final part of the intro. I know...who takes nearly 7,500 words on just the intro?

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Stephanie leapt to her feet. ‘Oh, Professor, I’m sorry.’ Jon and Rachel looked around to see a tall man emerging from a small cluster of offices that stood across the north side of the wide deck. He wore a grey tweed suit, unbuttoned to reveal a lime green waistcoat. Though the clothes were clearly ancient, the man himself looked very well cared of, with smooth cheeks, bright eyes, and dark, neat hair.

‘No matter, not at all,’ he said, striding quickly over, arms outstretched in welcome. Looming over Jon and Rachel, he shook their hands genially. ‘Nicholas Farnisay. Charmed. Call me Nick,’ and he winked at Rachel.

‘Uh, nice to meet you,’ Jon murmured, taken off guard by this arrival. The Professor settled himself in the recliner between siblings and Stephanie and Amy.

‘Now, I expect Miss Bisham and Miss Rayford have brought you two young people nicely up to speed?’

‘Well, we’d just –’ Amy began, but Rachel overrode her.

‘You expect? This is all bullshit! What the hell are we doing here? We just want to go home!’

‘You are Rachel Louisa Sinclair, yes?’ Nick asked, leaning forward, hands raised out in front, finger tips pressed together. ‘Daughter of Iain and Rosalind Sinclair? Sixteen years of age, born on the 15th of July, one thousand nine-hundred and eighty-eight? Born in and resident of –’

‘Alright, we get the idea,’ Jon snapped, voice rising at last.

‘I mean no disrespect, Jonathan,’ the Professor countered gently, and he grimaced at the sound of his full name. ‘I do not recite these facts to intimidate, but we do know rather a lot about you both. We knew exactly where you would be on the 4th August, 2004. In the right place to give you aid and ask for your help.’

‘Ask?!’ Rachel exploded. ‘You’ve fucking well kidnapped us!’

‘Would you consider these to be the sort of surroundings we would hold someone we wished to abduct?’ Nicholas asked serenely, but he soon went on at the sight of her fury. ‘No, of course, I take your point. This must be disorientating.’

‘And you will be going home,’ Amy put in. All faces turned to her. ‘I meant it when I said we need your help.’

‘Help?’ Rachel exclaimed derisively. ‘Help with what? With that?!’ and she pointed to the inactive tablet. The faces that stared back at her were nodding earnestly. She turned to her brother, but his face was difficult to read.

‘Did you make sure we got lost on the island?’ Jon demanded suddenly. Amy and Stephanie both went to answer at the same time, but Nicholas beat them to it.

‘No, we did not. It just happened and we saw you would both be there on the date we needed. And we do need your help. Just as you need our help. We need each other. Preventing that war… that end. That is what we need your help for.’

Jon would have interrupted again, but the lift door chimed and five men stepped out onto the deck.

‘We’re taking you home tonight,’ Stephanie assure them, and there was such an intensity to her face that they found it difficult to look away. ‘All we ask is a few weeks of your time when we get there. And when its done…’ and she glanced back at the city to the south, ‘we will have no more to ask of you.’

Nicholas Farnisay got to his feet and strode over to greet the newcomers. ‘Square Leader Harvey,’ and he shook the first man’s hand. ‘Your team is prepared?’

‘As ever, Professor,’ Squad Leader Harvey replied, his voice as colourless as his clothes, and his face remained expressionless as he noted Jon and Rachel’s presence.

‘Excellent. Shall I make the introductions?’ and he indicated each of the men to the siblings in turn; in addition to the Squad Leader, there was his deputy, a man called Goddard, whom Rachel thought looked much more friendly than his boss. His hair was short, black, and wiry, and he seemed at ease, whereas the Squad Leader looked rigid. Beside him, and towering over the Deputy, was Squad Front Line Marlett, taller even than Jon and built like a lock, though without the cauliflower ear. Muscles bulged beneath his black skin and his hair was very closely cropped. Next was a twitchy, blonde haired man with a barrel chest and sparkling blue eyes, introduced as Squad Specialist Kelly. The last seemed barely out of his teens, all dark hair and eyes – and short with it – and he radiated a palpable sense of uncertainty and shyness. He hardly made eye contact with anyone, and tugged at the zips of his fleece pockets. It was too hot for a fleece. He was announced as Squad Ranger Brooks.


Nicholas made his farewells; other engagements demanded his time, and the nine of them were left together on the Observation Deck.

‘Right, Alex,’ Amy said brightly, though Jon thought there was something forced in her voice. ‘You and your team get the pleasure of my company for the briefing.’ They departed with Jon and Rachel looking on. The twitchy man with the thatched head gave Amy a glowing smile and the Deputy, whose name they had already forgotten, gazed back at the siblings. The door to the small office closed and silence fell.

‘What are those guys here for?’ Jon asked eventually. Rachel’s brows contracted as she looked back. She had been craning her neck to peer through the windows.

‘They’re a bit of everything, really,’ Stephanie explained breezily. ‘Security, investigation, heavy lifting. But there’s something the two of you can help me with, if you don’t mind?’

‘Uh, I guess…’ Rachel agreed. The assurance that they would be going home soon had calmed her, for now. ‘What with?’

‘Need to get you both equipped down at the Inventory.’ They followed Stephanie back down the lift, descending three floors, emerging into a corridor busy with the bustle of work. People dashed by, occasionally sparing Stephanie a ‘Hello, Steph,’ or else looking with interest at Jon and Rachel, making the pair feel like they were under a very bright spotlight.

After swiping her pass card in a lock, Stephanie led them into a long room lined with shelves and racks, hung thing with rucksacks, cases, clothes of all kinds, boots, shoes, climbing equipment, packs of tents and every variety of camping paraphernalia and, behind a locked gate at the far end, a section devoted to portable weaponry of every conceivable kind.

‘Bloody hell,’ Jon gasped.

‘It took some putting together!’ Stephanie agreed. ‘Will you help me look for some bits and pieces?’ Jon and Rachel walked the aisles, whilst Stephanie directed them shelf references, instructing them to insert the authorisation tags that released the locking mechanisms. They stared with fascination at strange objects stored next to the items they were retrieving, but everything on their lists bore brand names they recognised.

‘How did you get all of this?’ Jon asked. Stephanie smiled, holding up a wad of coloured notes, some of which they recognised as British. ‘Hey, now we’re talking.’

‘Strictly for operational purposes,’ Stephanie laughed. ‘Don’t worry. Everything here is paid for in some time or another. We, almost all of it,’ and she nodded at the locked cage. Rachel gazed wide eyed at the myriad guns, the belts of jacketed ammunition, and wire baskets filled with grenades.

An hour and a half later, they were surrounded by piles of assorted equipment and several empty rucksacks. As she packed, Stephanie told them all about the time machine called the Kairosille Observatory; about Nicholas, about the various squads, about field missions and, as the siblings listened, they felt more at ease. Stephanie took one last sweep, selecting a few items of clothing, which she folded into her own pack, then glanced up at the clock.

‘It’s about time we got up to the Temporal Chamber,’ she said, hoisting the bag. ‘They’ll be finished with the initialisation soon.’

‘Is that the place with the blue light?’ Rachel asked tentatively.

‘It is. The rest will meet us there.’

‘Are we going to go back to exactly the same point?’ Jon wondered.

‘About a month earlier, actually,’ Stephanie said matter-of-factly, leading the way out. From the glass elevator they could see the sunset throwing fingers of orange across the pastures.

‘Why a month?’ he asked.

‘Well, 5th August is when it happens,’ Stephanie said, leaning against the polished wooden hand rail. ‘We need to leave enough time for the mission. Couldn’t prevent something like that in just a few hours.’

Rachel wanted to know more. ‘And why do you need us?’

‘Well, we’re pretty good at blending in, but it’s so much easier when there are what we call complicit natives around.’ Jon raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean we’ve all done our research – and Amy’s an expert on Dawn Three – but we might say things in passing that mark us as outsiders. The wrong people can take interest in things like that.’

The lift came to a halt and the glass doors parted. The room had barely changed, except that a number of the chairs were occupied.

‘Have a seat,’ Stephanie offered, and they did – the very pair they had sat in previously. Stephanie left to talk to one of the technicians, leaving the siblings with their thoughts. He was normally slow to trust, but Jon was at a loss to explain why he felt this must all be true. And they were going back a month early? Surely that would prove it to Rachel. But the task – stopping a war he had not yet lived through – seemed insurmountable.

Stephanie returned with a small box. ‘I believe these are yours,’ and she held out the box to them. It contained their wallets, phones, and a few other bits of detritus; hotel room key, boat ticket stub, coffee shop receipt. Flipping open his phone, he saw there was no signal. Rachel raised her wallet to her nose before pocketing it, and Jon smiled to himself.

‘Is it going to be as bad as last time?’ Jon asked, and Stephanie shook her head.

‘Oh, no,’ she assured them. ‘Sequence sixteen includes a tranquilising agent to make it easier on first timers.’

‘Didn’t seem very easy,’ Rachel muttered.

The doors slid open again and the five men entered, along with Amy.

The head tech walked over. ‘It’s all keyed in, Steph.’ His colleagues made for the lift. ‘Give us five minutes to get the Observatory locked down, and then she’s all yours.’

‘Thanks, Steve. See you in a few weeks.’

‘No, it’ll be sooner than that,’ Steve grinned, and she shared the joke with a warm laugh.

‘Ready to fire her up, Aims?’ Stephanie offered, and Amy nodded, taking a seat next to Jon. He noted she had exchanged the jumper with the band logo for something more circumspect, but if blending in was their objective, Amy did a spectacular job of standing out.

She pressed a finger to the logo; Kairosille Observatory, Touch to Begin.

‘Initiate sequence zero-one. Authorisation Rayford two-two-alpha-echo-romeo.’

‘Processing,’ her own voice replied from the hidden speakers.

‘It’s always so weird,’ she muttered. The blonde squad member grinned broadly.

‘Why is your voice?’ Rachel asked.

‘Joke of Nicks',’ Stephanie laughed. ‘Plays it on all the junior ops agents. I hated what he did with mine.’

‘Made her sound like a tart,’ Amy confided in an undertone and she winked at her stony-faced colleague. Amy gave the computer more instructions when prompted, inputting something called the time index.

‘Where is your Professor?’ Jon asked.

‘The procedure creates a high radiation field,’ the Squad Leader said. ‘All non-essential staff evacuate prior to transmission.’

‘There’s no-one in the building except us?’ Jon checked, and the man nodded. ‘Wait, radiation?’

‘Okay,’ Amy said. ‘We’re all set.’

‘Ready,’ the Squad Leader agreed, and Jon’s last question went unanswered.

‘Enable,’ Amy commanded. Jon and Rachel tensed.

Several things happened in the split second that followed; the cone shaped frames in the middle of the room began to work again; screens erupted in a barrage of calculations and diagrams; and the chamber throbbed with noise.

But in an instant, there was a loud crack, the deep hum in the floor stuttered, and all the lights went out.

Stephanie swore. A short, uncomfortable silence followed.

‘Power failure?’ one of the Squad asked.

‘If it is,’ remarked another, ‘it’s a lousy time.’ By the twilight coming through the glass doors, Rachel saw the one with wiry black hair trying to pry them apart.

‘The doors are out, too,’ he added, then grunted. ‘Can’t even force them.’

Then, the power returned, and all the monitors blinked on.

Stephanie sighed with relief. ‘Oh, good. Just a glitch. Computer: resume.’

‘The instruction was not recognised.’

‘Bloody thing,’ Amy cursed. ‘Computer, resume sequence zero-one, authorisation Rayford two-two-alpha-echo-romeo.’

‘The instruction was not recognised.’

‘What’s up with it?’ Stephanie exclaimed exasperatedly.

The man by the lift moved over to them. ‘Do we need to reset? Shall I get down to the reactor?’

Amy objected, shaking her head. ‘It’ll take four hours to rebuild the calculations, at least. I don’t want to resort to that just yet. Computer! Resume sequence zero-one!’

‘The instruction was not recognised.’

Jon and Rachel exchanged a worried glance.

‘Computer, what is the current operational status of the Observatory?’ Stephanie asked impatiently.

‘The instruction was not recognised.’

But before anyone could do anything else, the blue light Jon and Rachel recognised from their first visit to the Temporal Chamber, filled the room completely. The pressure peaked and they staggered, rocking back on their heels.

When they unshielded their eyes, they found a number of armed, dishevelled strangers standing between the group and the door. The weaponry looked like it came from the locked cage downstairs.

‘Who are you?’ the Squad Leader demanded, starting forward, but one of the newcomers fired; a thin orange beam thumped into his chest, and the Squad Leader fell sprawled on the floor.

‘Don’t bother getting up?’ said the man who had fired. His voice was hungry and ragged. ‘There’s higher settings if you want it. I don’t mind showing you.’ A leer twisted what might have once been a handsome face.

Suddenly, a voice burst out from the middle of the strangers. A female voice. A young voice.

‘Lemme go! Lemme go!’

The group of men and women parted and a heavy set man with lank black hair came through, carrying a girl in her early teens. One thick arm around her waist, she was dangling clear off the floor, kicking furiously. At the sight of the room around her, face full of fear, she sank her teeth into her captor’s arm. He gave no sign of pain, nor did he release her, but their eyes met and the teenager’s bottom lip began to tremble.

‘Sedate her,’ said a voice from the back. Jon saw both Amy and Stephanie look up sharply at the sound, but then he was distracted by the sight of the captor jabbing a small cylinder into the girl’s neck, and she fell limp in his arm. Now Jon looked properly, the blue light had not faded completely. Pieces of the air seemed to be tainted, turned visible, drifting lazily in the still air of the chamber.

The voice from the back spoke again, and a tall man stepped forward. ‘Well, now. Nice to be back here again.’ Amy gasped as stepped into the light. ‘Kind of you to keep my life’s work in such good order,’ he continued. His hair was tugged back in a loose pony tail. His old great coat nearly reached the floor, its hem ragged and caked with mud. The old stubble on his chin and cheeks gave his skin a dead pallor, and his grey eyes shone out from his sunken face.

‘What are you doing here, Fraser?’ Amy demanded, pushing her way forward. The blonde man and Stephanie both laid restraining hands on her as she reached the front.

The man called Fraser spread his arms wide, taking in the chamber with a wistful expression. ‘I’m here to travel,’ he declared. ‘Why else? And you being here is such a stroke of luck, Miss Rayford.’ He was stood right in front of her. She recoiled from his breath,

‘Computer, resume sequence zero-one, authorisation Rayford two-two-alpha-echo-romeo.’

But Fraser was laughing. ‘Voice commands disabled. Remote scan and retrieval disabled. All Observatory functions at my command.’ He held a small pad device aloft and Amy’s face fell. Fraser turned on his heel. ‘Time to go, comrades. Time to make a stand,’ and the dishevelled imposters opened fire.


As Jon collapsed, he felt a curious sensation in his chest, spreading through him and paralysing his muscles. There was the sound of orders, but he couldn’t make sense of them. People walked back and forth. Then he fell into a light sleep, only vaguely aware of the activity around him.


Amy Rayford felt the familiar tug at the top of her spine and knew what was coming. Her head was turned to one side, her eyes locked open. The clumps of blue-white air were trembling, alive to the energy. She watched the bright pulse shoot down Rachel’s back, saw the incandescent glow of the nerves beneath her skin; then, the rapid compression to particles and the chaotic motion as they disassociated from each other, flying their own paths into the glowing trunk of blue neon.

As the last vestiges of Rachel’s outline faded away, the network fell in upon itself, then burst upwards in a shower of short lived fireflies.

Amy braced herself for it. She was no stranger to the transmission, but it wasn’t comfortable; totally aware and totally disorientated.

Her body came apart. It was enough to make anyone sick, except she had no idea where her stomach atoms were. Her senses ceased and her pieces took flight.

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