He’d been aware of what they’d been doing and let them do it anyway.

  This flight suddenly became dangerous for more than the usual reasons.

  I stepped inside, Malcolm and Harding already in their seats, and turned to face Jordan at the hatch.

  “Take care, sir,” he said.

  I held his gaze and nodded my head.

  We all needed to take care now. But from what? Sergei and his team? Or something never before seen?

  The hatch clanged shut. My heart thudded an extra beat.

  Time would tell. I just hoped we’d lived to see it.

  31

  Why?

  Mimi

  Dr Rider stared at me from the end of the bed; the space between us did not make his astute gaze any less demanding.

  “What dream?” I said. Yeah, that’d do it. Evasion was not one of my strong suits.

  Rider sighed. “You may not be aware, Miss Wylde, but the practice of medicine here at RATS includes the documenting of any prophetic dreams that occur.”

  “People tell you their dreams?” I asked, appalled. One of the first prophetic dreams I’d had was of Jack and me getting down and dirty in bed. Discussing that with the good doctor did not feature high up on my to-do list.

  “This is a scientific establishment,” he said. “We’re not in this just for a joy ride.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “Therefore all aspects of flying through Time need to be documented.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Jack certainly hadn’t admitted any of this to me.

  “So, I say again, what did Dr Evans dream about?”

  “I’m not sure,” I hedged. I don’t know why I was lying to him. He was a doctor. The doctor at RATS. And it made sense that they would want to be kept abreast of prophetic dreams, as the dreams undoubtedly affected those Surgeons who dreamed them. And therefore affected RATS.

  But something held my tongue.

  “I will, of course, ask him about this,” the doctor said. “But should something happen, relating to his prophetic insight, before I get a chance, we need to be prepared. We are at war, Miss Wylde. We need every bit of ammunition we have.”

  I couldn’t decide if Jack being stranded in the alternate 23rd Century would help in the battle against Sergei Ivanov. I guessed it could compromise him, and therefore compromise RATS. But apart from Jack being in danger of injury or starvation at the devastated RATS in that alternate reality, as long as we had an Orion, we could still fly. Still fix rips.

  “Well?” the doctor pressed.

  I opened my mouth to tell him…and the alarm went off. Not the we’re-under-attack-all-hands-to-battle-stations alarm, but the alarm that said a rip had emerged.

  “He will be flying,” Rider said.

  And panic suddenly replaced concern.

  “He can’t fly,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not safe,” I said before I could stop myself.

  To cover, I slipped out of bed.

  “Where are you going?” the doctor demanded.

  “Dispatch. My assigned position. I’m needed there.”

  “You’re confined to the infirmary.”

  I stared at the doctor. “We’re at war,” I repeated. “You said it yourself. Am I fit for duty or not?”

  He studied me for an extended period of time and then slowly nodded his head.

  “Report to Dispatch, then. But I will be following up with you in due course.”

  It was with a sense of stunned relief that I made my escape from the sickbay. I swung by my room and quickly changed into Flight overalls, and then headed toward Dispatch. I could hardly turn up there in infirmary pyjamas. But every second of delay made me feel more agitated. I knew I couldn’t stop Jack from flying. I knew Dean and Sally would have done their best. But a rip was a rip. One Orion and one flight crew; despite the dangers, Crawford would use them.

  So, it was with a sense of the inevitable that I entered Dispatch. Sally was sitting forlornly in one corner. Bauer was watching the sine wave on the screen next to the dispatcher. And through the window into the hanger, Orion 6b had started up. Stars and a nebula surrounded it. The blues and greens and reds of space-time travel. The roar of rocket engines followed. Then silence. And in an instant, Orion 6b winked out of sight.

  Taking my breath along with it.

  My eyes met Sally’s. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed.

  Jack was gone, and all that was left was to wait.

  “Where was the rip?” I asked.

  Dr Bauer looked over at me and scowled. Amanda, the dispatcher, offered me a small smile.

  “1967 Singapore,” she said.

  It wasn’t a surprise, but it still made my heart lurch.

  Dr Bauer let out a disgruntled sound. “It could be Dr Hoffman,” she said. “But we must not jump to conclusions. Time is not acting as one would expect.”

  “Bit of a coincidence, though,” Amanda offered.

  “You would be wise not to speculate, Miss Cockburn,” Bauer remonstrated. “There is always Ivanov to worry about.”

  Bauer looked at me.

  “You have been released from sickbay?” I nodded my head. She studied me for a moment longer and then said, “Assist Miss Groves in locating anything of import in Singapore at the time of these events.”

  I moved across the room to where Sally was sitting and took up a seat at her side.

  “Mouse,” she whispered in greeting.

  “You OK, Sal?” I asked.

  She swallowed thickly, blinking back tears. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she said.

  “Then take a break,” I offered. “I can do this by myself.”

  She shook her head. “No. You don’t get it. I don’t want to do any of this anymore.”

  Oh, Sally, I thought. I reached out and gripped her hand, squeezing it tightly. There was nothing I could say; nothing I could do. Nothing that would make this better.

  When my parents had been thought dead, I’d grieved them for months. But even that experience did not compare to Sally’s. Bryan died before our eyes. There was a body. My parents were still alive. Working for the enemy, under what I could only assume was duress, but still; they were alive. Fawkes was definitely dead.

  I didn’t know what to say to help my friend.

  “Whatever you need, Sally, we’ll make it happen.”

  “I need to get out of here,” she whispered.

  I looked at the orange sine wave on the main screen; it hadn’t changed. Wherever and whenever Jack was now, I couldn’t help him. But leaving Dispatch while he was on a flight, a flight that could result in him being abandoned in an alternate reality, was impossible.

  I stared at Sally, my friend who needed me, needed someone to get her through this right now, and knew I had to make a choice. Jack or Sally.

  It was a choice I couldn’t make without feeling panicked.

  “It’s all right,” Sally whispered. “You’ve already done so much. Got yourself thrown back into sickbay for me. Risked being placed back under house arrest. You challenged Dave Sanders.” She tried to smile and failed miserably. “And I’m not very good company anyway, Mouse. I just...I just need to be by myself.”

  I shook my head, tears pooling in my eyes now.

  “Don’t you start,” Sally murmured. She sounded dreadful. “I’ll be OK, Mouse. I just can’t...I can’t be here anymore. You understand right? I can’t...”

  She pushed up from her seat and ran from the room. Bauer opened her mouth to call after her and then realised what was happening. The Surgeon looked over at me, and for once she didn’t seem so uptight.

  “Do you need to go after her?” she asked.

  I looked back up at the sine wave which hadn’t changed colour.

  Rafe was missing. Jack was in danger of being abandoned at alternate RATS. Sergei Ivanov was looking for something in 1967 Singapore.

  And Bryan Fawkes was dead.

  I shook my head. Bauer nodded hers, a momentary look of respect flashing over her features.

  We had Time to fix, and we had RATS to protect.

  I could do nothing for the dead, but maybe, just maybe, I could be of use to the living.

  32

  You Get Used To It

  Jack

  “Time and location match,” Malcolm said from his Novitiate seat.

  I grunted a reply, having no desire to communicate how uneasy I felt about this journey. Orion 6b ticked and creaked around us as liquid oxygen puffed up outside on the main screen.

  “Singapore again,” Harding murmured. “I can’t say it’s my favourite destination.”

  I glanced at the sine wave, taking in the height and colour; international orange and fucking big. Sergei was here. It should have suited me that the rip had brought us to the exact time and location I wanted to be in to determine what Gerald Anderson was up to and what it had to do with Lunik.

  But all I felt was an increasing amount of disquiet.

  Time was either playing us, or Sergei was, and I knew which one I’d place my money on if I wanted to win that bet.

  “All right,” I said, “Stitch that rip, Dr Harding.”

  “Stitching, sir,” she replied and started tapping away on her keyboard.

  I stared out at the Chevrolet Impalas, and the Morris Minis, and the Ford Anglias parked on the side of Orchard Road. Then scanned the buildings and tired looking shop signs, taking note of the Chinese temple-style signage covering the alley we were in. At least it was dark in here, so when we did finally shift dimensions, it would be hard for the pedestrians outside to see us.

  Because we would be shifting dimensions, fixed rip or not. Sergei was here.

  “Need a hand?” Malcolm asked Harding.

  “No, I don’t need a hand, Novitiate,” she snapped back in typical Jessica Harding form.

  I glanced over at the sine wave, noting it hadn’t been reduced in size at all in the past few minutes of the Intern working furiously on her keyboard.

  “What’s taking so long, Doctor?” I asked.

  “I’ve almost got it,” she replied distractedly; a flush had started up the side of her neck.

  I checked her work. I checked the sine wave again. And sighed.

  “It’s no use, Harding,” I said. “It needs to be made not stitched.”

  “But, sir…”

  “Stop and take a breath.”

  Jessica threw herself back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest, eyes narrowed at the recalcitrant sine wave as if it had purposely decided to ruin her day.

  Malcolm shifted uneasily in his chair.

  I stood up and crossed the Orion to the head, pulling out clothes circa 1960. I handed Malcolm a set and said, “Get dressed.”

  He stared down at the clothes for a suspended moment and then jumped up to do as I asked. His enthusiasm would have amused me at any other given location and time, but something about 1967 Singapore was making it difficult to be anything but alarmed.

  “Excuse me?” Dr Harding said. “He’s a Novitiate. He doesn’t get to traipse around out there.”

  I blinked at the woman, my fingers pausing over a button I’d been in the process of loosening.

  “Would you rather I left a Novitiate in charge of the only Orion we have left?” I demanded. Why did everyone seem to question this? Rafe had, too, if I recall.

  And then I was just plain mad that Harding had forced me to think of Dr Hoffman. Not that I hadn’t already been hoping to see a sign of him here.

  But I’d already checked for Orion 6a as soon as we’d arrived, and I knew any trace of Rafe was long gone.

  Facing up to that reality had not been a priority, so I’d pushed the observation to the back of my mind. But now Harding had brought it forward again, along with all the associated emotions I did not want to be feeling.

  Damn the bloody woman.

  She stood up and grabbed Malcolm’s clothes, yanking them out of his hands before he had a chance to defend himself. She threw them back in the bathroom and proceeded to pull out her own clothes from a cupboard. Something short and skimpy and definitely not modest in the slightest.

  “I have not spent the past few years studying hard and taking test after test to prove myself,” she said, beginning to strip in front of us. Malcolm and I both turned and gave her our backs. Not that I think she noticed, Jessica was on a rampage right then. “To be left behind in the bloody Orion while the biggest Time fuck-up we’ve ever seen gets handled by a newbie interloper and her pathetic sidekicks or any other Novitiate who hasn’t done their time the same as me.”

  I looked back at her and caught a brief glimpse of entirely too much skin. I turned away again and said, “You believe, Doctor, that you have done your time?”

  “Of course I’ve bloody well done my time; I’m an Intern.”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head.

  “Jessica,” I said, turning around and to hell with her incomplete dress. “Enough. Malcolm is coming with me, and you are watching the Orion.”

  “No.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “It’s not fair.”

  I arched a brow at her. “And you think the fact that Michael Jessop is dead and that Bryan Fawkes has followed behind him and that Rafe Hoffman may well be counted in that number now is fair? Grow up! This is not about you. This is not about Sergei Ivanov or Mimi’s family or even RATS. This is about Time being out of sorts and us, this Vehicle, this crew, being the only ones available to fix it. It’s about not taking unnecessary risks and getting the job done. It’s about avoiding any more deaths.”

  She blinked at me, an uncertain look crossing her face, which swiftly got swallowed up by a look of defiance.

  “He’s a Novitiate with limited Real Time experience and babysitting an Orion does not require skills.”

  I stared down at the dimpled metal floor of the Vehicle and shook my head. Even if there was a small amount of truth to her words, I would not back down now. I prided myself on being adaptable, approachable. Of being able to see reason when it was presented to me in a way that made sense. But I would be damned if I ever gave in to a tantrum. And Jessica Harding was throwing a dummy-spitting tantrum in spectacular style.

  “No,” I said. “You have your orders, Doctor. Obey them. Or there will be consequences once we return to RATS.”

  Jessica’s face flushed bright red and then she stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her, which was quite a feat, considering the door was pressurised with rubber inserts.

  I looked at Malcolm, who was studiously looking at the floor.

  “Your clothes are in the bathroom with her, aren’t they?” I said.

  “Yep,” he offered, sounding resigned.

  “Does she do this a lot?”

  “Sometimes. You get used to it.”

  “Did Bryan?”

  Malcolm looked up at me and shook his head. “Dr Fawkes used to wind her up. Make a joke out of it. He’d say…” He swallowed thickly and rubbed a hand over his face. “He’d stay, give her enough rope, and maybe she’d hang herself with it one day.”

  I sat down in the command chair and tried to breathe through the heartache.

  “I think she respected him,” Malcolm said. “She’d push. He’d laugh. And then she’d behave.”

  I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Jessica Fucking Harding grieving for my friend. It didn’t excuse her behaviour, but it did shine a light on a possible reason as to why she’d acted out today and therefore made it impossible to reprimand her officially back at RATS.

  “Get your clothes,” I said softly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I didn’t listen to whatever exchange they had, I stared out of the Orion on the viewscreen and tried to decide if Time was done with us yet.

  Rafe was still missing, and until I saw a body, I refused to believe he was dead.

  The problem was, though, there may never be a body. And how long was too long to hold out hope when Time was misbehaving like this?

  33

  Even I Knew That Was Wishful Thinking

  Jack

  Singapore was a big city. But rips tended to occur near where Time was being meddled with. So our Orions took us to within a few miles of the origin of a tear, making what could have been a needle in a haystack more of a crochet hook in a haystack kind of thing.

  But we did have something other than rips to guide us.

  “Notice anything significant, Malcolm?” I asked as we stood off to the side of the far less salubrious end of Orchard Road watching the multitude of cars and pedestrians pass by.

  “It’s hot, sir,” Malcolm said, sweating profusely.

  I shook my head. “Concentrate, Novitiate.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Um…There’s a lot of people. Asian and European. That’s not unusual for Singapore. Some look local, some are clearly not, dressed in military uniform. USA military uniform, by the looks of it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “A spillover from their efforts in Vietnam.”

  “Is that significant, sir?”

  “Only in so much as the space program is American as are the soldiers.”

  Malcolm scowled at the scene before us.

  “What else?” I asked.

  He studied the street and the buildings and then turned his attention to the signs.

  It took him a second or two, but he finally located what had garnered my undivided interest until now.

  “Isn’t that an image of a rocket, sir?” he finally asked.

  “Yes,” I said, straightening my hat. “Rather a coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “What does the sign say?”

  “It’s Mandarin for ‘Reach For The Stars.’ It appears that despite the American military using Singapore as a rest and relaxation destination for their soldiers out of the Vietnam War, the Chinese were also using this location for a convention of sorts into spaceflight capabilities.”

  “Bloody hell, sir. That is a coincidence.”