Second Lives Read online

  'That's about it,' agreed Jana. 'That's all we know.'

  'So what do we do about it?' asked Dora.

  Kaz looked at her and shrugged.

  The air was dry and the sun was high as Kaz pushed Jana's wheelchair out of the clinic's front doors. She winced slightly and raised a hand to shield her eyes as she reached for her sunglasses.

  'You've been stuck inside for too long,' said Kaz, pushing her down the ramp and on to the path that led into the city park.

  'I dislike the outdoors,' said Jana waspishly. 'Especially when it's so green.'

  Kaz knew that was a lie - he remembered her amazed delight at the clean air and quiet of the woodlands around Pendarn - but he let the comment stand. Jana sometimes seemed to enjoy her own grumpiness but he knew her well enough by now to know it was a mood that would soon pass, and he was content to indulge her.

  Kaz enjoyed the climate in Kinshasa because it reminded him of a number of places he'd lived as a boy, in the years when he and his mother had trailed around behind his father,

  living in whatever conflict zone the UN posted him to. He pushed Jana down the path, which looped around the perimeter of the park and then joined a straight path back through the middle. It should take about half an hour and he was glad to have Jana to himself for a while. He pushed her on in companionable silence.

  'Where's Dora?' grumped Jana a few minutes later.

  'She jumped back home to visit her family,' said Kaz. 'I think they have a lot of healing to do.'

  'It's amazing the amount of control she has,' said Jana. 'She told me she can pick a time and place and jump straight there now.'

  'Yeah, she says that the precision and scope of her powers has continued to grow,' said Kaz. 'By the time we're four years in, we should be able to do the same. She jumps back here once a day to check in, but in between that she's at home for weeks at a time, I think.'

  'Her parents back together then?' asked Jana.

  'I think so, yes,' said Kaz. 'She doesn't talk about it much, though. I don't know whether that's because she still feels guilty or just that she's got used to keeping secrets.'

  'Oh she's full of them,' said Jana. 'I mean, what's with keeping Steve's identity secret? Why does she get to know but we don't?'

  'My guess?' said Kaz. 'I think she's Steve.'

  Jana scoffed.

  'No, think about it,' said Kaz. 'She rescued everyone once. It's just like her to come back from the future and rescue us again.'

  'I suppose you have a point,' muttered Jana. 'Doesn't explain why she wouldn't just tell us though, does it?'

  Kaz shrugged. 'I dunno.'

  'I reckon it's you,' said Jana, turning round and flashing Kaz a cheeky smile.

  'Me?'

  'Yeah,' said Jana, teasingly. 'You came back and rescued me and Dora from Quil in 1645. Very heroic, that was. Just like you to do it again, this time in disguise.'

  Kaz laughed. 'Maybe, who knows.'

  'Seriously, though, do you trust her?' asked Jana.

  Kaz was surprised by the question. 'Of course,' he replied. 'Don't you?'

  'She freaks me out, Kaz,' said Jana. 'The girl we knew was so sweet. Sure, she was really, really screwed up and capable of mass murder - which of us isn't? - but ninja superhero? Really?'

  'You said she was badass,' said Kaz.

  'Oh, she's badass all right.'

  'And she did save our lives.'

  'Yes, I know that, but . . . oh, I dunno,' Jana sighed. 'She's just too different. It's not right. I think she's way more damaged than she lets on. And God knows what stuff Garcia filled her head with. I still can't believe she not only tracked him down, but persuaded him to train her.'

  'He was a big deal, huh?' asked Kaz.

  'The biggest,' said Jana emphatically. 'He was legendary. Anything unexplained, the press would say it was him. Never identified, never caught. If Dora knows all his secrets, just think of the book she could write. Maybe I can persuade her to tell me it all.'

  'Good luck with that,' laughed Kaz. 'She's so talkative.'

  'Hmmm,' said Jana.

  'So what are we going to do, Jana?' asked Kaz after a few moments' silence.

  'Do?'

  'Next,' said Kaz. 'What are we going to do next? I say we get out of here, set up home in whatever time period we like, forget about Quil, Mars, her war, all of it. It's not our problem.'

  Jana shook her head. 'We can't just run away, Kaz,' she said, audibly disappointed at his suggestion.

  'Why not?' he asked. 'If Dora's telling the truth and this is all about human rights for mining clones in the distant future, then it's not our fight. We're not clones, and we're not the people oppressing the clones. We w7ere just in the wrong place at the wrong time and we attracted the attention of a homicidal psychopath, that's all. None of us have a personal stake in this.'

  Kaz noticed Jana's face register a brief expression of distress, as if he'd said something painful, but before he could question it the moment had passed.

  'But don't you want answers?' asked Jana, exasperated. 'Don't you want to know how it is we can travel in time? Or why? Don't you want to find out what we're supposed to have done to Quil on Mars, and how she ended up in 1640 with us at the top of her hit list?'

  Kaz shrugged. 'Not really,' he admitted. 'I mean, look what happened when we went looking for Quil. You were stabbed, Dora's brother was stabbed, I lost half my teeth and Dora's so messed up she's turned herself into the Terminator. It's a miracle none of us are dead. Why would we go looking for a rematch?'

  'So you just want to run away and hide?' said Jana, her voice scathing.

  'Yes, I do,' said Kaz. 'Why not? Quil is like the nutter at a party, you just have to ignore them and eventually they go away and stop bothering you.'

  Jana tutted. 'That's pathetic, Kaz,' she said. 'I thought you were the hero type. I thought you were all about the action and adventure.'

  Kaz looked down at Jana in the wheelchair, her weakened frame and sunken cheeks, and he thought 'Action and adventure nearly got you killed'. He could have told her that all he really wanted to do was keep her safe, but she wouldn't thank him for the sentiment.

  'There's a difference between going on an adventure and trying to get yourself killed,' he said firmly. 'I prefer sharp metal objects to stay outside my body, thanks.'

  'I never thought you were a coward, Kaz,' said Jana spitefully.

  That hurt, so Kaz bit his tongue, knowing there was nothing he could say that wouldn't escalate the argument.

  Ten minutes later, as he pushed the wheelchair towards the hospital again, Jana broke the silence.

  'Sorry,' she said quietly. 'I didn't mean that. I know you're not a coward. I just want answers. I want to understand what's going on. And hey, if Quil turns out to be too much of a problem, Dora can just jump back in time and put a bullet in her head.' She turned and looked up at Kaz, smiling sheepishly.

  He laughed, relaxing again.

  'I wish it were that simple,' he said ruefully.

  'As soon as I'm fit enough, I'm going with Dora,' said Jana. 'She and I have agreed we're going to do what Steve suggested. I'd really like it if you came with us, Kaz. I know I can count on you.'

  'Of course,5 said Kaz, smiling.

  What he'd come to realise was that all she'd had to do was ask; he'd follow her to the end of time, if she wanted. But he wasn't going to tell her that. Not yet, anyway.

  Kaz, Dora and Jana burned into being holding hands in a circle with their backs to each other, facing outwards. The configuration had been Dora's suggestion - she argued that it would allow them to assess their environment more quickly and could save their lives if they materialised on a battlefield, a motorwray or somewhere similarly dangerous.

  In fact they materialised in darkness, lit moments later when a single fluorescent strip light flickered to life.

  'Boring,' said Jana, and Kaz had to agree.

  Following Steve's advice, they had joined hands and he and Dora had steere
d them from Kinshasa as far into the future as they could. Not knowing what to expect, he was disappointed to see that they had arrived in a small window- less room with filing cabinets around the wall and nothing else to recommend it.

  'This is a filing cupboard,' said Kaz, incredulously. 'Who uses paper files in the future?'

  'Someone with dirty secrets who doesn't want to risk being hacked,' said Dora, drawing her sword.

  'And this is where Steve thinks we're supposed to be, is it?' said Jana. 'In this exciting cupboard.'

  'Did you feel it, Kaz?' asked Dora.

  'If you mean something pulling us here, yes,' he said.

  'It was like we were diverted in transit,' agreed Dora. 'Some kind of force, like it was a magnet and we were . . .'

  'A fridge?' offered Jana, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

  'It was weird, though,' said Kaz. 'Didn't you feel it, Jana?'

  'I wasn't steering, was I?' she shot back petulantly, obviously annoyed that her powers were still the most undeveloped.

  Jana turned and began trying to open the nearest filing cabinet. 'Locked,' she said after punching and kicking the metal cabinet a few times.

  'We could just open the door,' said Dora, reaching for the handle.

  But it was locked too.

  'Terrific,' said Jana, achieving maximum snark.

  'Um, yeah,' said Kaz. 'So do we kick it down or take off again?'

  'And go where?' asked Jana. 'This is the only direction we have, so we might as well see it through. Kick the door down, Kaz.'

  'Why do I get door-kicking duty?' he protested.

  'Because you've got the strongest legs, of course,' she snapped back.

  Dora glared at Jana and unleashed a powerful kick at the door, which budged not a millimetre.

  'See,' said Jana, folding her arms triumphantly and cocking her head at Kaz.

  'You know, there comes a point, Jana, when even my patience with your attitude starts to run out,' he said through gritted teeth.

  Before she could fire back a rejoinder, there was the sound of a key in the door and it swung inwards to reveal a tall, chubby Asian man in a brown wool cardigan, jeans and slippers.

  He stared at them for a moment in surprise.

  'Oh,' he said. 'You've arrived. Finally. What did you land in here for?'

  'Urn . . .' said Kaz.

  'Where are we?' asked Dora, sword raised.

  'Shouldn't you be asking when are we?' said the man, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

  'You were expecting us?' asked Jana.

  'Of course,' said the man. 'A little sooner, really. I wras beginning to worry you'd got lost. I put the kettle on when the temporal arrival alarm went off. Come along.'

  With that, he turned and walked away down the nondescript windowless corridor.

  Kaz, Dora and Jana exchanged puzzled glances, shrugged as one and filed out after him.

  'I think you can probably sheathe the sword, Dora,' said Kaz as they followed the man.

  She did not.

  Kaz patted his ribs, reassured by the gun nestling in his shoulder holster; Dora had insisted they all be armed before they left Kinshasa.

  'Are we underground?' asked Jana as they walked.

  'No windows, slight smell of damp. Think so,' said Kaz.

  The corridor ended in a pair of swing doors through which their unassuming receptionist had passed. Dora led the way, pushing through, sword at the ready. Kaz followed and found himself at the bottom of a stairwell. Their host's footsteps echoed down from above, rattling on the metal staircase as he ascended. The trio followed him up and out through the doors at the top of the stairs, emerging into a familiar chamber - stone-flagged floor, brick walls and barrel-vaulted ceiling.

  'Oh crap,' said Kaz, feeling his stomach sink as he recognised the undercroft of Sweetclover Hall.

  'Didn't we just leave here?' said Jana. 'And wasn't it about to explode?'

  Kaz surveyed the undercroft in astonishment. It had once been an open space but it was now subdivided by glass walls that broke it up into rooms. He saw one with a conference table and chairs, another with ranks of desks, each boasting a plush ergonomic office chair but no computers or screens that he could make out; yet another held a tower of technical equipment that looked like some kind of server farm. But all of this high-tech stuff paled into insignificance when held against the thing that floated at the centre of the chamber.

  A coruscating curtain of light stretched across the ceiling. It reminded him of the aurora borealis. Suspended within this sheet of energy, pushing downwards into the chamber from above, stretching it inwards like a bowling ball on a trampoline, was a huge rock. Surrounding the rock was an explosion, solid and unchanging, like a sculpture of flame. Debris blossomed out from it in all directions, and Kaz could see past it into the wreckage of the room above.

  There was a missile in the act of exploding hanging directly above their heads, frozen at the moment of impact, caught in the curtain of energy like a fly in a web.

  'What the hell is that?' he asked.

  'I call it the timebomb,' said their host, peering out through the conference-room door and beckoning them to join him. When they stayed rooted to the spot he walked out and stood directly beneath the explosion.

  'That doesn't tell us much,' said Jana curtly.

  'It is a very unusual asteroid,' he explained. 'Converted into a weapon and fired at this building. When it impacts - and it will impact when I eventually switch off the quantum generator - it will shatter time and begin the chain of events that brought you here.'

  Kaz wanted to reach out and stop Jana as she walked away from him and stood beside the man, looking up at the explosion in wonder, but he knew better than to try.

  'How are we not dead?' she asked.

  'We are encased within a quantum bubble,' said their host with a theatrical flourish and huge, proud grin.

  Kaz waited for him to elaborate. He didn't.

  'Which is . . .' Dora prompted.

  'A very clever thing that you would not understand,' said the man.

  'Try us,' said Jana, caustically.

  'Well,' he said. 'Essentially I have generated a field of indeterminability around us, holding us in an artificial superposition and freezing time. Within the bubble, time moves forward for us, while it seems to us that the world outside is frozen. In actual fact it is more accurate to say that we are outside the flow of time entirely, in our own little pocket. Safe from the explosion. The plan was to switch on the bubble before the bomb was launched. As you can see, our timetable slipped somewhat.'

  'What happens if your quantum bubble, er, bursts?' asked Kaz.

  'We will be atomised,' said the man, matter of fact. 'But we are getting ahead of ourselves, literally. Please, join me and I shall explain as much as I am able.'

  He returned to the room with the conference table and seated himself at the head of it9 waiting for them. Dora, Kaz and Jana exchanged glances and, seeing little choice, filed in and took seats at the table.

  'Good,' said their host, pushing mugs across the table towards them. 'Cappuccino for me. Green tea for you, Dora. Black coffee for you, Jana. Turkish coffee for you, Kaz. That is right, yes?'

  'Yes, thank you,' said Jana, eyeing her mug suspiciously.

  'You have us at a disadvantage, sir,' said Dora, who had lain her sword on the table beside her, well within reach.

  'Apologies, my name is Yasunori Kairos,' he said. 'I am a professor of quantum physics at MIT in the mid-twenty-second century. I am here to help.'

  'But how—' began Kaz.

  'If you will forgive me,' interrupted Kairos, 'I will be unable to answer many of your questions at this time. It would be better, I think, if you just let me tell you everything I can.'

  Jana nudged Kaz. 'OK, so he's definitely Steve,' she said. Kaz knew what she meant - their mysterious, disguised rescuer had played exactly the same game, withholding information, apologising that he couldn't tell them anything useful.
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  It was really, really annoying.

  Kairos took a breath and braced himself, as if he was about to deliver an important speech, or a notification of death.

  'My reasons will become clear, so I beg patience,' he said. 'I know who you are, what you can do and why you have come here and, as I said, I have been waiting for you. I cannot yet tell you how I know the things I do, or why I was waiting here for you, but it will all become apparent in time.'

  'We've been here before, in the 1640s,' said Dora. 'This is Sweetclover Hall, right?'

  Kairos nodded. 'I understand that was its original name, yes,' he said. 'In this time period it is nameless. It does not officially exist. The only reference you will find to it in any documentation is as Site 2A. It is a top-secret government facility for the processing of political prisoners.'

  'This house used to belong to a woman named Quil,' said Kaz, studying Kairos's face and seeing a definite reaction to the name. 'I see you know her.'

  'I know of her,' said Kairos. 'Outside of this bubble it is 8.22 a.m. on the seventh of April 2158, and hers is a name that everybody knows. I am not working with or for her, if that is what is concerning you. Although she is the reason I am here.'

  Kaz noted that Kairos looked at Dora as he said this, and wondered if the professor was one of the secrets she was keeping from him and Jana.

  'I need to explain to you about time,' said Kairos. 'It's important that you understand how it works.'

  'I want to know how it can work for us,' said Jana pointedly.

  'Then listen closely,' replied Kairos.

  Most people punctuate their words with pauses - ums and ahs and y'knows denoting the moments when their brains stick for a second while searching for a thought or phrase. Professor Yasunori Kairos was not most people. As he launched into lecture mode, words poured from him in an uncontrollable torrent, tumbling and crashing over Kaz and his friends as if Kairos's mouth were racing to keep up with his brain, but the effort left him permanently breathless and harassed. His only concession to delay was his habit of beginning every burst of explanation with 'Well . . as if to give his brain time to take a run-up.