“If we had more Vehicles, I’d agree with you,” Clive said. “But we have only one. One Orion to combat Time’s rips. And Time, Dr Evans, is a vast and ever-changing thing.”

  I opened my mouth to argue my point further, but a knock sounded out on the door. I let out a frustrated breath of air and took a sip from Sebastian’s flask, and watched as Amanda, the dispatcher, walked in.

  “You wanted to know as soon as I found something relevant, Doctor,” she said to Clive.

  “What have you got, Miss Cockburn?” he asked, relief obvious in his craggy features.

  He didn't like the argument he’d been offering. He, more than any of us, felt the loss of each Surgeon, Intern or Novitiate keenly. Clive had risked Time itself to ensure RATS in my time existed. Any loss of life he took as a personal failure in carrying out his duty correctly.

  Right now, RATS was teetering on a precipice, and Clive not only had his staff to consider but the Prime Minister and Parliament’s objection to our increased funding.

  It takes a lot of money to travel through Time.

  Amanda crossed the space to access the terminal set in the table in front of Clive. Her fingers tapped away on the keyboard for a few seconds, until a large screen on the far wall lowered and lit up with a picture of a man. I didn't recognise him, and from the looks of those around the table staring up at the figure on the screen, no one else did either. He was dressed circa the 1960s. Starched shirt collar and thin tie, woollen cardigan buttoned up over the top, with a straw fedora hat on his head and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

  “Who is this?” Clive asked.

  “Gerald Anderson,” Amanda said. “AKA John Smith, Arnold Jones and Samuel O’Brien.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Clive said.

  “He was a spy, sir,” the dispatcher explained. “A CIA spy, in point of fact. Not much is known about his assignments, but we do know this; he was in Singapore in 1967, hiding in plain sight amongst the American soldiers on leave during the Vietnam War.”

  Clive looked at me. I arched my brow but said nothing.

  “What else do we know?” he asked Amanda.

  “Isn’t that enough?” she said, standing back up to full height. “He was in Singapore at the time our Orion was in Singapore.”

  “You think he stole it?” Sebastian asked, incredulously.

  Amanda almost managed not to roll her eyes.

  “A CIA agent in Singapore,” she said slowly, “at the time Sergei Ivanov is suspected of being in Singapore. In a location where an anomaly of Time has established itself. It can't be a coincidence.”

  “There were a lot of people in Singapore in 1967, Miss Cockburn,” Clive said.

  Amanda scowled down at him as if he wasn't the Chief Surgeon and could have her fired in a heartbeat, and then she leaned forward and tapped in a few more commands, her lips pressed in a thin line.

  Gerald Anderson’s academic credentials came up on the screen.

  He held a Master’s degree in Science from Harvard. And a postgraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering from Stanford. Perhaps the dispatcher should have led with this to prove her point.

  “Maybe it is rocket science,” Murray murmured from his side of the table.

  Clive blinked a few times at the screen and then said, “Does he have any connection to NASA?”

  “If he does,” Amanda said, “it’s been hidden. This was hard enough to find.”

  Ah, that’s why she left his academic record last to disclose. Miss Cockburn had a flair for the dramatic.

  “But not his connection to the CIA?” Sebastian pressed.

  “It seems that was the lesser of two evils,” Amanda offered.

  “Being a spy is better for his street cred than being a NASA scientist?” Murray asked, incredulously.

  “It would seem so, Doctor,” Amanda replied, not batting an eye.

  “But he was definitely in the CIA?” I asked, staring up at his academic endeavours.

  “Yes.”

  “And yet he has all the hallmarks of a NASA nerd,” Belinda offered.

  “Now, that does seem worth investigating, don’t you think?” I said.

  Clive held my gaze for a suspended moment and then sighed.

  It wasn't a rip, but it was the first lead, however tenuous, to the cold war and space race in 1967’s time.

  We just had to figure out what the bloody hell he was doing in Singapore and what it had to do with Sergei. Or with anomalies in time.

  But we’d do it in the last Orion.

  27

  Are You All Right?

  Mimi

  “This is ridiculous,” Sally growled, slamming a bottle of hand sanitiser down on the sink beside the sickbay bed I was lying in. “If you were concussed, they’d know by now.”

  “You know how it is,” I said carefully. It seemed treading carefully was the wisest course of action where Sally was concerned right now. “They like to keep you in for observation.”

  Sally huffed out an angry breath, folded her arms across her chest and scowled at the bright yellow sharps-bin attached to the wall below the window.

  “Take a load off,” I suggested. “Tell me what’s happening out there.”

  I’d been in the medbay for several hours now. Flights still seemed to be grounded, but considering we only had one Orion left, I wasn’t surprised. But hanging around in the infirmary for hours on end had me feeling cut off from reality.

  Rafe was missing. Two people were dead. And I was no closer to finding my parents or Carrie.

  Sally slammed her butt into a seat beside the bed and started picking at the faux leather armrests.

  “Dean’s been down in the hangar all day,” she muttered. “Working on the new Orion.”

  “There’s a new Orion?”

  She glared at me. I was so surprised by the venom in Sally’s gaze, I leaned back on the bed as if I could get away from her.

  This was not the Sally Groves I knew. And part of me realised that this Sally was a hurting Sally. Not my fun loving, gentle friend. I could cut her some slack, but I was worried. Grief had a way of effing you up beyond measure. I should know.

  “Of course there’s a new Orion,” Sally said. “We keep the schematics on file and the necessary components ready to go for times like this.”

  “Times like this?” I asked, astounded. They’d prepared for such a catastrophic event?

  She stared at me; head cocked slightly to the side.

  “Maybe you are concussed,” she said.

  I crossed my eyes at her. She smiled. Suddenly it was easier to breathe.

  “Not that we’ve ever needed to throw one together in such a quick fashion,” Sally said more evenly. “But, you know, the materials are all there should the occasion arise.”

  “And how long will it take them to get one functional?” I asked.

  “That’s the hard part. We can cobble one together, but what makes an Orion a RATS Orion takes a lot longer.”

  “What does make an Orion a RATS Orion?”

  “The ability to surf Time’s waves.”

  I arched my brow at her in a silent request to explain herself.

  She sighed, but it was no longer an angry sound, more like a resigned one. Leaning forward in her seat, she rested her elbows on her knees and stared at the tiled floor.

  “When the first Orion disappeared and then reappeared years later,” she said softly, “they didn’t know what had made it do that. It took some reverse engineering to figure it out, and even now no one’s outright explained the process publicly.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said. “A national secret.”

  “A well guarded one,” Sally agreed. “But we do know one thing; something in the original programming of the Orion that disappeared all those years ago enabled it to locate and manipulate the fourth dimension. Without that original programming, an Orion is simply a Crew Vehicle and nothing more.”

  “So what’s different about that programming?”

  Sally leaned back in her seat and shook her head.

  “I have no idea. I’m only a Novitiate. That’s Surgeon level or higher.”

  “Higher?”

  “Dr Crawford would know. Maybe Dr Evans. Possibly...”

  The words tapered off and Sally sucked in a shattered breath of air.

  “Oh, sod it,” she whispered, swiping at her eyes frantically. It didn’t help. Big, fat tears slipped down her cheeks and off the edge of her jaw.

  My heart ached for her. I wanted to reach over and wrap her up in a protective bubble inside my arms. But she turned away and then quickly stood from her seat, mumbled something about paranoid Surgeons and the secrets they keep, and then she was running from the room.

  I stared after her for a full ten seconds, and then thought to hell with this, and slipped off the bed, following her from the room.

  “Just where do you think you’re going?” a loud voice said before I’d even reached the hallway.

  He wore scrubs in a pale green colour. Not overalls like the rest of RATS. But then he was neither Flight, Hospitality, Security or Tech. I wasn’t quite sure where Dr Rider appeared on the totem pole of RATS staff.

  “I’m just...” I started.

  “No. No. Not at all. Back in bed.”

  I peered at the door to the corridor where I’d last seen Sally go and shook my head.

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I need to...”

  “My sickbay. My rules,” the doctor snapped.

  I glared at him, but he only stared impassively back. He was taller than me by several inches. His greying hair suggested an older age, but the light that danced in his eyes, daring me to countermand him, spoke of a youthfulness that would broker no argument.

  Sod this as Sally would say.

  I dodged left. He dodged right. I slammed into his chest and rebounded. But I’m not so easily dissuaded from a course once committed. I ducked. His hand, the one holding a clipboard, shot out to grab me. The clipboard whacked me in the head. The doctor swore. I squeaked, and then I was through the door.

  “Security!” I heard Rider yell.

  This was getting ridiculous.

  My feet slapped on the cold stone floor as a pounding started up inside my head. My vision began to dim at the edges as if a migraine was about to start. I grimly bit my lip and slid around the corner, taking the stairs two at a time in the direction I was certain Sally had gone.

  By the time I reached the library level of the old building, I was sweating, black spots had started to appear before my eyes, and my head was about ready to break in two. I came to a stop outside the double doors leading into the library and braced my hands on my knees trying to catch my breath.

  The thud of booted feet sounded out to the right and then to really bring home the idiocy of it all, the same came at me in stereo from the left. I lifted one hand, holding it up in warning, as the other braced on my knee and I tried to catch my breath, blinking away the black spots in my vision.

  “Just give me a sec,” I said, the world a little wonky.

  “Miss Wylde,” Dave Sanders said carefully.

  Effing hell, I was such a flight risk, I’d garnered the attention of the Head of Security.

  “One second,” I snapped, straightening up to full height.

  The hallway swirled around me. The blue overalls of God knows how many Security staff blurred in my periphery.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Sanders told me.

  I snorted. “Like go into the library?” I queried.

  “You need to return to the sickbay,” he said. “Doctor’s orders."

  I needed to check on Sally.

  I let a slow breath of air out, looking only at the door before me. Not that I wasn’t aware of where the Security guys were or how close they all stood. Everyone held their breaths. The air felt thick with anticipation. Several hands rested above holstered weapons on blue-clad hips.

  I shook my head.

  Sanders stepped forward.

  And I barrelled into the library.

  It’s a testament to my Hyde side that I made it as far as the farthest stacks. My eyes met Sally’s as she pulled back from lighting the fire. Her mouth hung open, and for a split second, I could see the question in her gaze.

  “Are you all right?” I managed to gasp, just as a Security guy came out of nowhere and rugby tackled me to the cold, hard library floor.

  If I didn’t have a concussion before, I sure as shit did now.

  28

  If Only I Could Scare Sergei Just As Easily

  Jack

  “What do you mean ‘there’s been an incident’?”

  Dave Sanders looked at me as if I was about to hit him. Considering what had been transpiring around RATS lately, I wasn’t sure if that was as outlandish as it at first seemed.

  “Well,” Dave said, uncharacteristically reticent. If there was one thing Dave was good at, it was cutting to the chase. “A small misunderstanding, really.”

  “Really? And what would this small misunderstanding have entailed?” I asked.

  “You have to bear in mind,” Dave said, looking over my right shoulder and purposefully avoiding meeting my eyes. “Security is on high alert right now.” His gaze flicked to mine momentarily and then was gone again as if being chased by a Lunik spy.

  “Dave,” I said, letting out a sigh. I was tired. I was out of sorts. I was still trying to get my head around the death of Bryan and the loss of Rafe. I was in no mood for complicated conversations. “Get to the point.”

  Dave met my eyes, and I had the distinct impression he was preparing himself for the firing squad. Shoulders back, chin lifted defiantly, resignation in his eyes.

  I almost took a step back, unsure if I was ready to hear what Dave said next.

  “Dr Rider called for our assistance,” Dave said carefully. “A code black.”

  Code black was a call for immediate protection for either the infirmary itself or one of its patients.

  The infirmary where Mimi was meant to be recovering in right now.

  I started walking toward the wing of the building where I could find the good doctor and his patients.

  “We assumed we’d been infiltrated,” Dave said over my shoulder. I could hear his booted feet on the cold concrete at my back. “With everything that’s going on, everyone’s a wee bit trigger happy.”

  “You did not just say trigger happy, Dave,” I growled. “About the infirmary.”

  “You have to understand,” he pleaded. “Lunik,” he said. And really what else was there to say?

  But it was also not like Dave Sanders to be trigger happy.

  I picked up the pace. Dave trotted behind me without saying another word. Perhaps for the best; he was already digging himself a big enough grave.

  Part of me already knew who would be at the centre of this mess. Part of me was prepared. But when I stormed into the infirmary and saw just how bad it was, I realised Dave had been right to be careful.

  I spun on my heel and reached out with my hand, securing the collar of his overalls in a grip that was punishing.

  “Tell me you didn’t do this,” I snarled.

  “Gentlemen,” Ian Rider said behind me. “This is a sickbay, not a gladiator’s ring.”

  “I’ll deal with you in a moment, Doctor,” I snapped. “Dave?”

  Dave made a gurgling sound, and I struggled to release my grip.

  Rider appeared at our sides, his hand on my arm in an instant. “Stop this,” he said. “She’s fine.”

  “She doesn’t look fine,” I growled, not releasing my hold on Dave.

  “Minor concussion. Some bruising. Nothing broken,” Rider said. “She’s conscious and watching this.”

  It was the only reason why I let Dave go.

  I stepped back and ran a hand through my hair, my breaths coming in rapid and uneven gulps. Everyone remained silent. Dave rubbed at his neck, his wary eyes on my face. Rider stood statue still, halfway between us; ready to intervene if needed.

  A clock ticked loudly from inside Rider’s office. The smell of antiseptic invaded my nostrils. For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend what I had just done. What had led me to lose my composure in such a shocking manner. My eyes met Dave’s. I was sure my gaze showed the regret I was feeling. He let out a sustained breath of air and relaxed marginally.

  Rider shifted and then walked back towards Mimi’s bed. The bed she was lying flat out in, dark marks blooming across pale skin. Blood still coated her flight suit. A lump the size of a golf ball protruded from her forehead.

  “What happened?” I asked. My eyes never left Dave’s. I couldn’t look fully at Mimi yet. I wasn’t sure if the danger had passed.

  “Miss Wylde decided to discharge herself against doctor’s orders,” Rider said behind me.

  I didn’t turn. I kept my gaze on Dave.

  “A new member of my team took her capture too far,” Dave admitted.

  A new member. Because we had lost so many already.

  “He has been reprimanded and is undergoing remedial training.”

  “Remedial training,” I said, my voice lacking any inflection.

  “It won’t happen again,” Dave assured me.

  Bloody fucking bollocks, we were a mess. I was a mess. Mimi was a mess.

  I turned and looked at her. Our eyes met. I catalogued the bruises and scrapes. The lumps and blood stains. Everything I had taken in when I’d first walked in the room. I catalogued it all now.

  “I’m fine,” she said.

  I nodded my head.

  “Really,” she added as if my agreement hadn’t been obvious.

  I stared at her. She held my gaze. No one said a thing.

  What was the matter with me? I forced myself to walk to her side. My fingers found hers, where they lay on top of the bedspread. She squeezed my hand. I cleared my throat. Rider pretended to be busy looking at his charts. I had no idea what Dave was doing but if he had any sense left at all, he’d be looking anywhere but at this bed.

  “Why did you discharge yourself early?” I asked, relieved to hear my voice sounded somewhat normal.