The MPCV clanked and softly emitted gas, the sine wave on the screen now alternating between pale blue and soft orange.

  “They mended the tear,” Rafe said, inputting various commands into the console. “But something’s off.”

  “I can’t find them,” Groves added, also hitting buttons on her keyboard.

  I stared at the screens and then stared down at my hands, noting they were no longer shaking.

  “They’re here,” I said. Or at least Mimi was, going by my lack of tremors. “Can you trace them?”

  “Nothing, sir,” Groves said. “If Orion 3 is here, it’s masked its signature.”

  “Winchester wouldn’t bother to do that,” Rafe offered.

  “But Sergei would,” I said, making both their faces pale considerably.

  “You think Ivanov is behind this?” Rafe finally queried.

  “Someone sent Orion 6 back to RATS, practically at the same time as Orion 3 failed to complete a Return. All signs point to our nefarious competition.”

  They had nothing to say about that.

  I stared at the screen, willing Mimi to appear but knowing she couldn’t unless we shifted dimensions. The street view seemed innocuous. A wide zebra crossing marked out the intersection of what would typically be a busy street. Tall buildings flanked it on all sides. 1980s model Toyotas stood testament to the era at the side of the road. The occasional one winked out of sight as its occupant moved off into traffic we couldn’t see.

  We’d landed slap bang in the middle of the intersection, at the exact coordinates that Orion 3 would have. Shifting dimensions now would be counterproductive. I stared at the buildings that surrounded us, searching out an alleyway to move the module to. But all that presented itself was a shadowed corner between two kanji covered awnings.

  Rafe saw where I was looking. “Want me to shift us?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “It’s not exactly the best place to hide,” he pointed out, inputting the coordinates anyway.

  “What choice do we have? She’s here even if we can’t locate Orion 3.”

  “How do you figure that? They might be back at RATS already,” Rafe argued.

  I held up my rock steady hand. It was too coincidental.

  Groves looked away as if she didn't need reminding that her Surgeon had been acting well below par. Rafe just nodded his head and hit the launch button.

  As we weren’t shifting times, merely location on the same plane we were already situated on, the launch was seamless and over in a matter of a split second. The Vehicle nestled into its new spot between two tall buildings, hidden by what little shadowed cover there was.

  “We don't have eighties era clothing,” Groves said into the silence that followed.

  I looked down at my flight suit and sighed. I hadn’t thought to bring era-appropriate clothing with me. I hadn’t really been thinking of much else other than Mimi.

  I scowled and scratched at my scar.

  “Too late now,” I said and stood from my seat, looking toward the hatch door. “It would be best if we kept contamination of this time to a minimum,” I added. “I’ll go alone.”

  “Is that wise?” Rafe asked.

  I looked at the alternating pale blue and soft orange sine wave on the screen. Nothing about this seemed wise, but logic would not stop me.

  “If Sergei shows, shift dimensions,” I said, starting on the hatch.

  “To where?” Rafe demanded.

  “Anywhere but here,” I said, and cracked the door slightly.

  Something hard tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see Rafe holding out a pistol for me.

  “If you’re going to break the rules, sir,” he said, “you might as well go all out.”

  Every single fibre in my body told me not to take a 23rd Century weapon into the 20th Century. But I merely accepted the gun and stepped out of the door.

  Within a second of closing the hatch, the Orion winked out of sight. I rolled my head on my shoulders and turned back to the road. People walked everywhere. Trying to spot an out of time Novitiate in amongst this was going to be a nightmare. I knew in my heart and body that Mimi was still here. But was Sergei? Had Sebastian also been separated from his Vehicle?

  I shifted my grip on the pistol and then slotted it into the pocket on the side of my thigh. It wasn’t technically meant to go in there, but the suit had been designed to accommodate heavier objects. Time travel was not always benign.

  I rolled my head on my shoulders and sucked in a breath of smog-filled air and then stepped out of the shelter of the alcove between buildings. A few people noticed my strange attire, but there were also a few bizarre eighties era styles being worn that made my outfit somewhat acceptable. At least I had outlandish Japanese fashion to cover my faux pas.

  A woman dressed in a full, below the knee skirt and flouncy white blouse, reminiscent of a Bavarian barmaid’s outfit, strolled past. Followed by a man in ripped shorts and a nylon sweatshirt with large splashes of neon colours across it. Both of them wore unusual hairstyles. My international orange flight suit may not have been contemporary fashion in Ginza in the eighties, but at least I didn't look like a walking, talking doll.

  I scanned the street, getting jostled from the inexorably moving throng around me, my head beginning to hurt from all the colour. Tokyo was so bloody fucking colourful. It was an assault on the senses. But I couldn’t spot anyone else dressed as I was.

  Without a direction in mind, I let the masses take me forward, crossing the street when the man in the strange hat turned green at the lights. I knew the moment I’d passed where our Orions had landed; there was a scorch mark on the white paint of the zebra crossing. Indicative of a hasty departure.

  A Return could have caused that. Or perhaps a flyby, which didn't make much sense at all. Why would Sebastian do a flyby in Ginza when a tear needed fixing? And had indeed been fixed. So, someone had left Tokyo 1982 in a hurry.

  I stared down at the scorch mark, wanting to take longer to study it; not that any new information could have been gleaned from closer inspection. But the crowd was determined to cross the street in the time allowed.

  I made it to the other side of the road and stepped out of the way of pedestrians, again trying to see a hint of rescue orange. Eighties penchant for neon colours did not help in the slightest.

  Bloody fucking bollocks!

  My eyes scanned the mass of humanity around me, flicking from one figure to the next in quick succession. The longer we were here, the more dangerous it would be; especially if Sergei Ivanov was involved in this disaster.

  It took a second, maybe two, before I realised I was seeing something out of the ordinary. Or considering this was Japan, the birthplace of the compact camera, perhaps it wasn’t. But an inordinate number of people had their Nikkons out.

  An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. My eyes returned to the centre of the intersection, but cars were now flowing over the place the scorch mark had been. That didn't mean it wasn't still there. And it didn't mean it hadn't been created in a manner of which would make it visible to the contemporaries of this time.

  I closed my eyes and let out a frustrated breath of air. We’d be mending rips here for days if this meant what I thought it meant.

  Sucking the breath of air back in, I approached the closest camera-wielding local. I didn't speak Japanese, but a lot can be gained with hand signals.

  And considering he recognised my flight suit immediately, a lot can also be gained by simple observation and the process of deduction.

  The Orion 3 crew had exited their Vehicle in the centre of the intersection and had been caught on contemporary camera.

  But where were they now? And why was their Vehicle not present?

  7

  Nothing To See Here

  Mimi

  The police station was packed. But it had coffee. It was a little stale and somewhat bitter, but it was still coffee. I sat beside the desk belonging to a detective who spoke only a smidgeon of English and sipped on my beverage as he spoke rapidly in Japanese into the telephone.

  I’d been here an hour already. And they didn't seem prepared to let me go. We’d established I was a New Zealander, but having failed to give them a hotel address, they’d been reluctant to release me.

  And, of course, there was that whole appearing out of nowhere thing.

  I was so screwed.

  Someone rushed into the room with a stack of papers in their hand and hurtled across the packed floor towards us. I sat up a little straighter. The detective said something abrupt into the telephone and slammed the handpiece down in its cradle.

  We both looked up at the runner with interest. Mine, perhaps bordering on anxiety. The cop’s merely laced with weariness and a desperate desire to get this over with.

  The runner placed the papers down on the desk, offering a bow, and my heart sank.

  There was Orion 3 in all its Kodachrome glory. And there was me banging against the hatch as it shifted dimensions; the Vehicle transparent in places as it disappeared from contemporary sight.

  The last photo showed me falling flat on my face. Time travel could not be called elegant.

  I looked up at the cop and shrugged my shoulders.

  “This?” he said in his broken English. “What?” he added in case I didn't understand the question.

  “Oh, that?” I said. “That’s nothing.”

  He cocked his head to the side and then looked down at the pictures again.

  “You,” he started, “stand here.” He pointed to the centre of the intersection in one of the photos. “Not here before,” he added.

  I smiled. Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave. It worked for penguins. Why not?

  “Poof!” he said, complete with hand motions. “Where now?”

  “That, my dear detective, is the question, isn’t it?” I said with wide, and hopefully innocent, eyes.

  “Where you stay?” he asked for the hundredth time.

  I shook my head and frowned. “I forget,” I said, regressing to broken English myself now. “Jet lag,” I added and faked a yawn.

  “You have no papers,” he said. Papers, we’d established, meant passport or ID.

  I shook my head and patted my flight suit pockets, indicating my papers were lost.

  “Back in hotel?” he pressed.

  I shrugged my shoulders. Let him make of that what he would.

  He sighed, stared down at the photos again, and then scratched the back of his head.

  “New Zealand Embassy comes,” he finally said.

  “Here?” I squeaked.

  He frowned at me. “Yes, here. You no want Embassy?”

  “Of course, I want Embassy,” I rushed to say. “But really, there’s no reason for them to come all the way here. I’m just a tourist. A nobody. I just want to see a bit of the city.” And hopefully, get picked up by Dr Prick when he realised the colossal mistake he’d just made by leaving me behind. “No need to bother the diplomats,” I added with a smile and wave.

  “They come. We find your papers. We let you go.”

  Oh, not good. Not good at all.

  I nodded my head and pretended to be meek. At this point, it wasn’t a difficulty.

  The coffee tasted rancid when I took another sip. My stomach churned from either burned coffee beans or increased anxiety; it was hard to tell. If the New Zealand Embassy came and looked up my name and details back in NZ, they’d find I wasn’t even born yet.

  Which, considering, could be a good thing. No details. No dice.

  Argh, who was I kidding? No details. No freedom. I was definitely screwed. And that wasn’t even taking into consideration what Time had to say about all of this.

  The detective got up from his seat and told me to “Stay!” Like the good little dog I was. I watched him walk away towards a glassed-in office that had to have been the chief detective’s and studied my escape route. Several pairs of curious policemen eyes met mine.

  I smiled. I didn't bother with the wave.

  After a minute or so, their attention moved on to more pressing matters, but between me and the exit stood no less than six occupied desks. Merely walking nonchalantly past them was out.

  I studied the detective’s desk. He’d taken the photos, unfortunately. But his telephone sat innocuously within reach. I looked around the station and then returned my attention to the telephone.

  Phoning home was out of the question. Home, even if my parents had lived in the same house since they married, was not the home I came from.

  I hadn't even been born yet!

  And RATS, as far as I could tell, hadn’t been established in 1982. Orion hadn’t even been established then. So how could the Royal Academy of Time Surgeons, who'd been set up to monitor the consequences of Orion’s creation and subsequent time travel capabilities, have existed already?

  I studied the phone. Not for the first time, I wondered why RATS didn’t have a fallback plan. You know, like in the movies, when a time traveller goes back in time, and something goes wrong, they phone a number, which somehow transverses Time itself and gets you in touch with your handler.

  And considering the short amount of time I’d known them, and the number of things that had gone wrong in that short amount of time, having a backup plan for when things go wrong was a given.

  But this wasn’t a movie; it wasn’t even fiction. It was real life. A real life that felt more surreal with every passing minute.

  I sat back in my seat and looked around the station. The phone was out. But no one was paying undue attention to me. I flicked a glance towards the chief detective’s office. No movement behind the blinds to be seen, either.

  I couldn't do a thing for the photos. I didn’t have a lifeline to call. And I couldn't wait for the New Zealand Embassy official to arrive, either, as that would only complicate matters. I needed to get back to that intersection and hope against hope that Winchester had come to his senses.

  He had to. My life, my existence, may well have depended on it. At any moment, Time could swoop on in and wipe me out. It wasn’t an easy thought to contend with.

  So, I pushed it aside and stood up from my seat, then started to walk toward the door. Head high, shoulders back, steps purposeful.

  Nothing to see here. Nothing to do.

  And then an Orion module barrelled through the station and took out the chief detective’s glass wall.

  8

  Something’s Not Right

  Mimi

  Screams and shouts sounded out, a fluorescent light exploded. Shards of glass sprayed in every direction. Dust blew up in clouds of superfine debris, a screech and crash rang out as the Orion plummeted through a now gaping hole in the external wall.

  Bodies lay everywhere. Some moaning, some crying, some not moving much at all. I scrambled out from under the detective’s desk and made my way shakily towards the chief detective’s office. What was left of it, in any case.

  I found the detective who had been taking care of me; unconscious but alive. And the chief detective; also thankfully alive. And throughout the debris, I spotted the photos. I’m not sure why I did it, but I picked up each and every one of them. As if destroying the photographic evidence of my being here would somehow make this all right.

  But as I stood at the very edge of the building and looked down on the Orion as it lay on the sidewalk below, I realised nothing was going to make this right.

  I took one last look back at the detectives and the destruction that was their bullpen, and then climbed out the window and walked towards the Crew Vehicle.

  It popped and hissed and emitted liquid oxygen gas, but otherwise, it appeared to be functioning.

  I banged on the hatch. “Open the eff up, Winchester!” I yelled. But no one answered, and nothing climbed out of the module.

  Scorch marks scuffed the bronzed underside of the Vehicle. Scratches covered the upper white domed top. The parachute was half hanging out, half inside its pocket. The stabilisers looked like meteorites might have hit them at some point as they were so mangled.

  How this thing flew was anyone’s guess.

  I shoved the photos into a pocket and then tried to open the hatch. It was frozen to the touch. I winced and pulled back my burned hand, staring at the reddened skin. Sirens had started up, inside the police station, and nearby as more police cars converged on the scene. I didn't have time to be a pansy about it, so I pulled the sleeves of my flight suit down over my hands and worked to turn the wheel.

  The Vehicle groaned and creaked and hissed at me, but with a final crack of ice, the wheel came free, and the hatch sprang open.

  I stared inside a barely lit module at an empty interior, the international orange sine wave up on the screen making the entire thing seem like a giant peach.

  A screech of tyres sounded out from the other side of the Crew Vehicle. A shout from behind me inside the chief detective’s office followed. A gun was fired. The bullet ricocheted off the side of the Orion right beside me.

  I screamed. That shout became a roar. More sirens added to the mix. And then the Orion started shuddering as if its engines were firing up.

  Eff this, I thought and dove inside.

  I just managed to secure the door before stars formed and engines roared and space-like silence wrapped around me, making me lose consciousness and fall to the dimpled floor.

  I woke up to a stiff neck, a bruised shoulder, and a headache from hell.

  And complete silence. Not space-like silence. But no ticks or clicks or hisses at all.

  The sine wave on the main screen was pale blue. The location read RATS in the 23rd Century.

  I rolled onto my back and stared at the exposed wires and tinfoil wrapped pipes above me and just breathed. I didn't have it in me to look at the camera views. I knew what was out there. I knew what RATS was like now in the 23rd Century. I knew enough to make my throat ache and my eyes sting and my breathing to become ragged.