“Enough and not telling.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s on a need to know basis and you don’t need…”

  “Yeah, yeah, cupcake, I get it. But you’re gonna need more than what you’ve got if Sergei Ivanov is behind the attack.”

  He purposely looked back toward where I thought RATS might be. I didn’t know this area well, but we’d heard Rafe’s rifle go off in a north-east direction, and Bryan was indicating south-west.

  “So, it was Ivanov?” I said.

  “Who else messes with Time and doesn’t give a flyin’ fuck?”

  No point arguing that.

  “Time won’t mind if I leave here,” he said softly.

  “What?”

  “If Time’s tryin’ to fix Sergei’s mess, then Time’ll have somethin’ to say about you being here.”

  I shifted slightly, feeling uncomfortable about that.

  “I haven’t found Jack or Rafe, but I presume they’re dead in this universe,” Fawkes said. “But I know I’m dead in yours.”

  Oh, no.

  “You can’t come back with me,” I said, urgently.

  “You said so yourself; I’m dead in your universe. So, Time’s not gonna have a fit over me bein’ there. But you bein’ here? Now, that’s not a given. I don’t know who you are, darlin’, but with an accent like that, you’re not from around here.”

  He’d never met me. Which meant in this reality, this universe, I was back home in New Zealand. With Carrie. Were my parents there?

  “I know that look,” Bryan said softly. “And I’m tellin’ you now. Don’t think it. Don’t wish it. Don’t want it. You are out of time here, darlin’. You’re in a whole other universe, in fact. And if you try to stay here and a ‘you’ still exists somewhere, Time will not like it.”

  What if I didn’t exist, but Carrie did? What if my parents did too? I wanted to find out. I wanted to find them.

  But what would that mean for Carrie and my parents in my time? In my universe?

  “I know,” Bryan said, pain evident in his tone of voice. “It ain’t fair. But life is never fair, princess. You gotta know that.” He looked around at the ash and destruction, and really there wasn’t much else he could say that I didn’t already know in my heart.

  But it hurt.

  I sucked in a breath of air that felt leaden and wiped at the tears that had somehow appeared on my cheeks.

  Then said, “I still don’t think you should come to my universe.”

  This would break Sally. This could damn near turn her to ash like she actually was in this universe.

  “Ain’t gonna argue with you,” Fawkes said, standing up. “But I am gonna go to your universe.”

  “Bryan…”

  “Look around you. What do you see? This isn’t just localised here. Whatever Ivanov did was global. I’ve been everywhere. The only respite I get is back in time, and that’s fuckin’ with my head.”

  Back in time, his Sally was alive. But he couldn’t show himself to her.

  Messing up Time like that would annihilate what was left of this world. Bryan Fawkes wasn’t that selfish a man.

  But Sergei Ivanov was, and he was attacking my RATS in my universe.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  “Thought you’d understand,” he said, moving to haul Rafe into the Orion.

  I looked down at Jack and willed him to wake up. I was sure he’d have something to say about all of this. He’d know what to do to make Bryan stay or to make it OK that he didn’t. I bit my lip and watched Jack breathe deeply and evenly, and then Bryan was there.

  “Come on, darlin’. Time to fly away from here.”

  “Stop calling me darling,” I snapped.

  He just laughed. Bryan’s laugh. A laugh I had been so sure I’d never hear ever again.

  I followed behind him and Jack into the Orion.

  God, I hoped Sally would forgive me for this.

  45

  What?

  Jack

  Rocket engines were roaring, and the g-forces were pushing me down onto the floor.

  No. Cot. I was lying on a cot onboard an Orion and the Orion was flying somewhere.

  “Mimi,” I said, but my voice sounded hoarse as though I’d been yelling or was dehydrated.

  The Orion touched down, bounced, skidded through something that made a horrendous scraping sound, and then did a 360, making my head hurt.

  “Who the hell is flying this thing?” I muttered, licking my lips and blinking my eyes.

  Slowly, my vision cleared and the inside of Orion 6b came into focus. Rafe was strapped to a cot beside me. He looked a little worse for wear but was breathing steadily. And Mimi was sitting in the Intern’s seat.

  She unbuckled while I was watching; her fingers finding the belt locking mechanism and fumbling through the sequence required to release herself from its confines.

  I smiled, despite the aches and pains I was feeling. And then I realised I wasn’t feeling nearly as bad as I should have been.

  “Bloody fucking bollocks,” I said as Mimi approached me with a water bottle. “You gave me pain meds, didn’t you?”

  “Ah, yeah,” she said. “You’re welcome, by the way. Those wolves did a real number on you and Rafe.”

  “Dogs,” I corrected automatically, taking a sip of the water.

  Mimi pulled the bottle away as if to punish me.

  “Wolves,” she snapped. “I saw them. I know what wolves look like and they look like those mutant freaks.”

  So feisty. I grinned up at her. She blinked down at me and then sighed, returning the water bottle to my lips.

  “I still hurt here,” I said, touching my cheek. “You could kiss it better,” I offered.

  She rolled her eyes at me. “Bryan told me the pain meds would make you goofy.”

  I continued to grin at her as though I couldn’t stop myself. But being goofy was the least of my problems. The next time I slept, the dreams would be wild.

  Probably Mimi Wylde. I sniggered.

  Then frowned.

  “When did Bryan tell you that?” I demanded.

  She shifted slightly; looking uncomfortable. Then she glanced over her shoulder to the command chair.

  I followed her gaze. It seemed to take a long time to do so as if the moment was drawn out in some poignant way. I stared at the figure of a man sitting in the command chair and thought I was dreaming. That the pain meds had already kicked the prophetic dreams into top gear and instead of dreaming about the future I was dreaming about the past.

  But then, I couldn’t ever remember Mimi looking so dishevelled and exhausted as she did right now. And I couldn’t ever remember lying out on Orion 6b’s floor next to Rafe on makeshift beds.

  The figure turned around and looked down at me, and I shook my head.

  “Mimi,” I said, my voice sounding strange to my ears. “What have you done?”

  “He saved us,” she replied, a hint of defiance in her words.

  I pushed myself up, only able to make the move because the pain meds dulled the pain. I shook my head again and held the alternate reality’s Bryan Fawkes’ gaze. He looked at me as if he knew me.

  I looked at him as if he were my dead friend.

  “This isn’t right,” I said.

  “No, Jack,” alternate Bryan murmured. “It ain’t right. But it is what it is. And it is happenin’.”

  I let out a long breath of air and said nothing.

  “He saved us,” Mimi repeated. “On Orion 2. His Orion 2. It’s tethered. We need all the Orions we can get back at our RATS, what with Sergei having stolen so many.”

  “You told him that?” I nodded towards Bryan.

  Mimi bit her lip.

  “Doesn’t matter what she told me, Jack,” alternate Bryan said. “Time won’t correct this.”

  “You don’t know that!” I snapped. “You’re out of time. In the wrong reality!”

  I checked the screens to make sure that statement was correct. We’d landed in 1967 Singapore. They’d used a Return, at a guess. And it had brought us back to our reality. I was right. This Bryan was in the wrong reality.

  “Did Time send you two back?” Bryan asked; looking first at me and then at Rafe on the bed.

  It hadn’t. When we’d crash landed at the alternate 23rd Century RATS, Time had shut down the Orion and left us stranded there. Because our doppelgängers in that reality were already dead. There was no conflict to upset Time.

  “You know,” I said, shooting Mimi an accusing glance. He already knew our Bryan was dead.

  He nodded his head.

  “This is wrong,” I muttered.

  “Everythin’ is wrong,” Bryan said with unfamiliar emotion. “I lost my crew. They’re dead. My RATS has been destroyed. The world I come from is a post-apocalyptic nightmare. There is nothin’ for me there. But I could help fix this. Not change it back, I know that, but help make it so Ivanov can’t do worse. You’ve gotta see the truth in that, Jack. You need all the help you can get, ‘cause he did it to our universe, and he could do it to yours. You know that.”

  I did know that. It had been a constant fear of Clive’s and mine from the start. If the alternate reality’s RATS could be destroyed, what was stopping the same thing from happening in our reality or universe?

  “We don’t even know why this is happening, let alone how to stop it,” I said.

  “Multiverse Interpolation,” Bryan said.

  It was a science fiction trope, but everything we did seemed to be straight from the realms of science fiction lately.

  “So, it has a name,” I agreed. “But that still doesn’t help us to stop it from happening again.”

  “We know what it is,” Bryan argued. “We know Ivanov is doin’ it. Your gal here told me she and her sister were picked up on a flyby through Cape Canaveral, so we can assume that anomaly is tied up in it, too. Ivanov’s playin’ hard and fast with the rules, Jack. He’s searchin’ for somethin’, and that somethin’ has brought him to my universe.”

  “Maybe he’s your Ivanov,” I said, just to be ornery.

  But suddenly that was a legitimate concern.

  “Well shit,” Bryan said.

  I closed my eyes and breathed through the pain of hearing my old friend’s voice.

  This wasn’t my Bryan. But it would be so easy to fall into the habit of thinking he was.

  “This is so wrong,” I muttered.

  Mimi slid to the floor beside me and slipped her hand into mine. I held onto her tightly.

  “There will be consequences,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” Bryan said quietly. He’d thought of them. His crew back in our universe was alive. They were mourning him.

  Bloody hell, what was Miss Groves going to do when she saw this Bryan? A facsimile of her Bryan.

  Had they shared a kiss in his universe too?

  I opened my eyes and stared at him.

  “You’re going to hurt a lot of people,” I said.

  “I’m going to help save them too,” he replied.

  Bloody fucking bollocks, but I couldn’t argue that.

  “All right,” I said after a few drawn out seconds. “We’ll do this. But I want an agreement from you that if Time or any of my colleagues find umbrage with you being in our universe, you’ll use your Orion 2 to go back.”

  He stared at me a for a long moment and said, “I can’t promise you that.”

  I opened my mouth to argue with him, and he held up a hand.

  “But I will promise that I’ll disappear from RATS if need be. There’s nothin’ in my universe to go back to, Jack. Please understand that.”

  I did. So help me God, I did.

  And what would I do to get a glimpse at an alternate Mimi if I’d lost her like he had lost Sally?

  I let out a long breath of air and then forced my aching body to stand.

  “You’re in my chair,” I said.

  Bryan vacated it and folded up my cot, replacing it with the Novitiate’s chair. He took his seat and buckled up with expert hands. Mimi took far longer to secure herself in the Intern’s chair. I stared at the screen while I tried to get my thoughts into order. The sine wave was blue, which was a relief. I wasn’t sure I was up to fixing any rips right then.

  I had more to be concerned with.

  “Is Rafe all right?” I asked, not turning back to look at Bryan.

  “I placed a sedative in with his pain meds,” Bryan said. “He didn’t like the look of me.”

  Which meant Rafe had woken at some stage at least.

  “You realise you won’t be able to sedate the rest of RATS,” I offered.

  “I know, Jacko,” he said and my heart bloody near shattered.

  I checked the coordinates for the Return. RATS hopefully in our universe.

  “There’s something else you should know,” Mimi said before I could hit the button.

  “What else could possibly top any of this, Miss Wylde?” I asked.

  “Well, Dr Evans,” she replied with not just a little pique. “RATS is under attack back in our universe.”

  “What?” I all but shouted at her.

  “Hey! Go easy,” Bryan snapped. “She’s been dealin’ with a hell of a lot of shit while you’ve been sleepin’ like a newborn babe.”

  “Stay out of this, Bryan,” I said and then all the anger simply vanished.

  Bryan. He was Bryan even if he wasn’t my Bryan. But when I said his name, I meant it. I meant my Bryan. Not his.

  Time travel could mess with your head as it was. But time travel involving Multiverse Interpolation was asking for madness. I sighed; checked that all my passengers were secure and then hit the Return button.

  Stars burst outside on the viewscreen. A nebula formed as rocket engines roared. G-forces pushed us back into our seats as the Vehicle took flight. And then silence.

  And in that silence, I prayed to God and Time that somehow this wouldn’t destroy RATS in a different way than Sergei had in the alternate universe.

  That somehow we’d all survive Bryan.

  46

  Hello, Jack

  Mimi

  The Vehicle touched down in the hangar at our RATS. It was easy to tell that it was our RATS because it was intact. And Sally and Dean were peeking out from behind a mobile toolbox. I checked the time on the screen as the Orion hooked back into RATS’ systems; confirming I’d been gone only twenty minutes.

  Time had decided we needed a break, it seemed.

  I couldn’t help thinking like that. That Time was a sentient being. That it knew it was messed up, and it was trying to fix itself, and it saw us as being the best means to achieve that.

  Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

  “We’re back,” I said. “Time and location match.”

  “Yes,” Jack said, sounding relieved.

  It had been longer than twenty minutes since he’d last seen this RATS. I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling.

  Rafe stirred behind us and blinked open blurry eyes and then swore like a sailor on shore leave.

  “It wasn’t a bloody dream,” he finally muttered, glaring at Bryan.

  “Sorry,” Bryan offered, not sounding sorry in the slightest.

  “You’re allowing this to happen?” Rafe accused Jack.

  “I didn’t have much of a say in it, Dr Hoffman,” Jack replied. “And I’ve been told, he did save us.”

  “This is going to stir up a hornet's nest, Jack,” Rafe offered.

  “I know,” Jack said simply.

  Bryan started on the hatch as if he couldn’t wait to get out there and considering where he’d been living for God knows how long, I couldn’t blame him. But Sally was on the other side of that hatch, and she needed to be warned before a ghost presented itself.

  “I’ll do that,” I said, pushing against him.

  “I got it,” he replied, not budging an inch.

  “I said, I’ll do it,” I snapped, à la Hyde.

  Bryan stepped back with his hands raised, eyeing me warily.

  “Is she always this quick to rile?” he asked the guys.

  “Only with people who deserve it,” Jack said, making me smile.

  “And you absolutely deserve it,” Rafe muttered.

  The hatch unlocked, and before I swung it open, I looked Bryan in the eye.

  “Don’t come out until we say so,” I said.

  “This is ridiculous,” Bryan huffed in reply.

  “Our universe,” Jack said, backing me up. “Our rules.”

  “Whatever,” Bryan replied, but I could see it was costing him something to wait.

  I understood his desire to stand on solid ground that wasn’t covered in ash, but he had to know his appearance here in our reality would be shocking.

  And then I stepped out and saw Sally, and I knew exactly why he was so keen to exit the Vehicle. And it had nothing to do with a destroyed RATS. And everything to do with a lost woman.

  “Thank God,” Sally said rushing forward. “That was the longest twenty minutes of my life.”

  Bryan made a choking sound inside the Orion.

  This was going to hurt.

  “Hey, Sal,” I said. “Dean,” I added, nodding a greeting to my friend.

  “Bad flight, huh?” Dean guessed. “But you found ‘em.”

  He shook hands with Jack and Rafe; the latter still a little wobbly on his feet.

  “You lot look like shite,” Dean observed.

  “But they’re back,” Sally declared. “That’s all that matters. And a…”

  Her voice trailed off as she caught sight of something over my shoulder.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, swinging around to glare at Fawkes. Couldn’t he wait five minutes for us to prepare the girl? What a selfish prick he was.

  But then the Bryan Fawkes in our universe had been a little like that too. Palming Sally off onto Jack to protect himself.

  “What..?” Sally managed; her shaking hand covered her mouth as she stared up at him with wide eyes filled with so much heartache there was no way we couldn’t feel it.

  My chest ached. My throat was tight. When I reached out to touch Sally, I noticed my hands were shaking too.