My fists clenched.

  “We’ll take it from here,” I said to Geoffrey Palmer. He nodded his head, a look of relief crossing his features, and walked back out the door, closing it behind him.

  “Take a seat, Miss Wylde,” Clive said.

  Mimi shuffled over to the armchair farthest away from where I was standing. My face flushed with increasing anger.

  What the bloody fucking hell had Winchester done to her?

  “You’ve had an eventful morning,” Clive commented, offering Mimi a small smile.

  She nodded her head but said nothing.

  “I was sorry to hear about Dr Jessop,” Clive said.

  Mimi kept her eyes downcast. Clive flicked a concerned look at me. Then nodded at Mimi.

  I forced myself to cross the small space between the bookshelf at my back and the spare armchair in front of Clive’s desk. I sat down, and Mimi flinched slightly.

  “Mouse,” I said. And she finally looked at me. “It’s OK,” I whispered. A tear slowly slid down her cheek. My heart damn near cracked in half. “You just need to tell us your side of the story.”

  And that was the wrong thing to say, apparently. Because she shut down. I saw it, right there in front of me. My Mimi shut down, and a ghost took her place.

  “Dr Fawkes informs us,” Clive said, clearly seeing the strain I was under, the battle I was waging, “that Dr Winchester left you in 1982 Japan.”

  “Yes,” Mimi whispered.

  “Do you know why?” he asked carefully.

  “He was angry at me. And…”

  “And?” Clive pressed.

  “And distraught.”

  I looked at Clive and frowned. One thing Sebastian Winchester never did was get distraught.

  “I see,” Clive said noncommittally. “Do you have any idea where he is now?”

  Mimi shook her head. Then something passed behind her shadowed eyes. Some sort of realisation.

  “Mouse,” I urged. “What is it?”

  “You won't believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  She bit her lip and blinked her eyes.

  “We did return to RATS,” she said finally.

  “In Orion 3?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “And?” I pressed. Sometimes getting secrets out of Mimi was like getting blood out of a stone. But I had the disquieting sensation that this wasn’t just a repeat of one of those times.

  “It was gone,” she said.

  I looked at Clive who was already looking at me. His alarm, no doubt, matching mine.

  “What do you mean, Miss Wylde?” Clive asked.

  “It was gone. Ash. Ash everywhere. Nothing was left.”

  “Of RATS?” Clive asked.

  “Yes.”

  Well, if we’d hoped to get any useful information out of Mimi, we were sorely mistaken. She was clearly in shock. Crash landing with Winchester could explain it, but I was more inclined to think Jessop’s death, and then her subsequent abandonment in 1982 Tokyo was more to blame.

  I looked across at the woman who chose to be called Mouse and realised this was Mimi’s go-to persona when things got too hard. But this was not the woman I had come to know. In or out of my dreams, Mimi Wylde was a courageous, competent, compelling individual. Highly intelligent and more capable than she realised.

  I decided to test a theory.

  “Mouse,” I said because now I’d started calling her by her nickname, I couldn’t seem to stop. Mouse she may not be in character - at least to me - but Mouse in nickname…

  I smiled. She blinked up at me, a curious look in her eyes.

  “If you had to extrapolate,” I said, “a reason as to why RATS appeared destroyed when you returned, what would it be?”

  She stared at me and then tilted her head to the side, thinking.

  That’s it, gorgeous. Come back to me.

  “We didn’t exit the Orion,” she said, still thinking. When Mimi Wylde thought on something, she focused completely. The room would have disappeared around her right now, and she would have been seeing the viewscreens as she’d seen them on that Return in Orion 3.

  She was a wonder to behold when thinking.

  “So, there could have been an error on the screen,” she concluded.

  “Do you believe that?” I asked calmly.

  “No.” She shook her head adamantly; more decisively than she’d been acting up to now. “You’ve got two Orion 6s out there,” she said.

  “Yes,” Clive agreed. “An anomaly of Time we have not encountered previously.”

  “So, why can’t our flight back to RATS, a different RATS, also exist?” she asked pointedly.

  “I’m not sure I follow,” Clive said.

  “Two Orions,” I repeated, making Mimi turn to look at me, “and we had two rips in Tokyo.” I looked at Clive. “Neither of those things makes any sense at all, and yet they happened.”

  “So, you believe, Dr Evans, that Orion 3 did return to a duplicate RATS?”

  “Not duplicate,” Mimi said. “Alternate.”

  “Alternate?” Clive asked, looking aghast. “As in an alternate reality?”

  “Are the Orion 6s identical?” Mimi enquired.

  I smiled. She could be onto something there. What it meant, though, was anyone’s guess at this point in time. But it could easily be checked.

  I pulled my cellphone out and dialled Simon Cathcart, Head Flight Engineer, placing the call on speaker.

  “Evans,” he said by way of greeting. “What can I do for you?”

  “Are you near the two Orion 6s?” I asked.

  “I can be. Give me a sec.” We listened to a door opening and then closing, and the acoustics down the line changing to indicate Simon was now in the vast space of the hangar. His footsteps sounded out on the metal stairway from his office up on the bridge, and then the thud of his boots on concrete followed. “What do you need to know?” he asked, once he’d stopped walking.

  “Are they identical?”

  “What sort of question is that?”

  “Just humour me, Simon. Are they identical or not?”

  Cathcart sighed. “They look bloody identical.”

  “But are they?”

  “It would require a closer inspection. Downloading their databases and running dual diagnostics.”

  “And you haven’t done that already?”

  “This is not your average tech issue, Dr Evans,” Simon said pointedly. “This is Time playing tricks on us. We need to proceed with care.”

  “If they’re a trick, then they’re very convincing,” I countered. “A Novitiate flew back in one of those 6s from 1982 Japan.”

  Cathcart sighed again. “Hold on,” he said. Then we heard him call out to someone else. “Jordan! Get over here!” To me, he said, “If anyone’s disobeyed orders it’d be Dean Jordan.”

  “You ordered him not to touch the 6s?”

  Cathcart just grunted down the line, not wanting to get his best techie in trouble at a guess.

  “Have you had a chance to compare these two?” we heard Simon say to Jordan.

  “Ah, maybe?” Dean replied.

  Cathcart sighed again. He did that a lot. “Out with it, son. As it so happens, the powers that be want to compare them. Are they identical?”

  “Well,” Dean Jordan said, “it’s funny you should ask that.”

  14

  Why Did He Do This To Me?

  Mimi

  RATS was in turmoil. There was no other word for it. As I walked down the hallway toward the cafeteria, I received strange glances from various members of the staff. Hospitality, I realised, were the gossipers. Their eyes were the most obvious in their constant wary appraisal as I passed. The Techies, dressed in white overalls, were too busy to offer up a second glance. But various Flight and Security staff furtively checked me out, as well.

  And that wasn’t counting my “guard.” Geoffrey Palmer trailed behind me, his hand on his hip holster, ready to draw the pistol that resided there at a moment’s notice. What they all thought I would do, I didn’t know.

  I ignored them; held my head up high and walked with purpose. That conversation with Crawford and Jack had given me a ravenous appetite. Playing mouse seemed to do that.

  Not that it had been an act, at all. I still couldn't stop picturing RATS in that alternate 23rd Century, nor could I banish a dead Michael Jessop from my mind. But a little of Hyde was seeping back in, and that was all to do with constantly having to defend myself.

  Even to Jack.

  I couldn’t believe he’d asked me to tell “my side of the story.” As if my side of the story was different from the truth. I fisted my hands and stepped into the cafeteria, making a quick perusal of all those present. Determining exactly where Jessica Harding and Mikaela Pratt were sitting, lording over their sycophant followers, I opted to bypass that side of the buffet.

  Which left me with salad. Which also didn’t improve my mood.

  I slammed my plate down on the table Sally and Rafe were sitting at and hauled my chair out, making a scraping sound that made several people in the vicinity cringe. Thumping down into the seat, I proceeded to cut into my lettuce and beetroot as though it had offended me.

  Well, it had. Drs Harding and Pratt had cornered off the pizza station, and salad just didn’t even cut it.

  Rafe silently pushed his leftover pizza toward me. Sally had stopped eating hers and watched me with wary eyes.

  “Have a nice flight?” I asked, accepting Rafe’s peace offering without comment.

  “It was eventful,” Rafe offered.

  “Two rips,” Sally explained. Jack had said something similar in Crawford’s office.

  I bit into my pizza and said around a mouthful of pepperoni, “Did you see Winchester or Orion 3?”

  “No,” they both said. “But we heard Orion 6’s crash landing,” Sally added.

  The pizza suddenly felt like dust in my mouth.

  “It could have killed someone,” I said.

  “But it didn’t,” Rafe offered steadily.

  I sat back in my seat, the pizza forgotten, the salad barely touched.

  “You gonna tell us what’s going on?” Rafe asked.

  “They haven’t told you?”

  “Not a word. Simply put us all on standby and made the Techies chase their arses.”

  I smiled. Rafe always had a way of making me smile.

  Then I waved them closer, ready to impart the gossip.

  Rafe and Sally leaned in excitedly, casting furtive glances around to make sure no one was close enough to eavesdrop. Any opportunity to have one up on the others, they’d grab.

  “The Orion 6’s don’t match,” I said. They just stared at me. “They’re not identical,” I added. Still blank stares. “They’re from different realities.”

  Two sets of eyes widened alarmingly.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Rafe muttered. “And they haven’t told us that?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and picked up the rest of my pizza slice.

  “Maybe they thought it would cause alarm?” I offered.

  “No shit,” Sally said, very uncharacteristically.

  “But what does it mean?” Rafe asked.

  “How should I know,” I said around a mouthful, just as a shadow fell over our huddled group of three.

  “I sincerely hope you’re not spreading rumours, Miss Wylde,” Jack said from above us.

  I swallowed thickly, placed what was left of my pizza down on my plate carefully, and took my time cleaning each finger on a napkin. Sally and Rafe watched on with amused grins on their faces; I had no idea what emotion was on Jack’s face because I hadn’t bothered to look at him yet.

  Once my fingers were clean, I took a sip of my Coke, while Rafe tried not to choke on suppressed laughter.

  “Dr Evans,” I finally said in greeting. “What rumours would those be?”

  “You do realise,” he said, “that every discussion you have in the Chief Surgeon’s office is deemed confidential until he says otherwise?”

  What was his effing problem?

  “No, I hadn’t realised that,” I said pleasantly. “Perhaps if Dr Crawford had a sign on his door that listed the rules to counter rumourmongering, things would go more smoothly.”

  “It’s in the procedures manual,” Jack said.

  “I haven’t had a chance to read that yet,” I admitted.

  “Perhaps you should remedy that now instead of spreading more rumours.”

  “How are they rumours if I experienced them for myself?”

  “They are rumours if RATS hasn't verified them.”

  And that was it. That was well and truly it. The man had a death wish.

  I pushed to my feet, making the chair scrape loudly across the floor again, and consequently garnering the attention of any member of staff who hadn’t been watching the confrontation already.

  Including Drs Harding and Pratt, who both watched on with equal looks of amusement on their perfectly made-up faces.

  I, on the other hand, wore no makeup, my hair up in a simple ponytail, and had unattractive heat rushing to my cheeks as my anger surged.

  “It happened,” I said in a growl.

  “I never said I doubted you,” he replied.

  “The evidence is right there, in the hangar.”

  “Well, part of it is, at least.”

  “I was there!”

  “Yes.”

  “You have no idea what it was like.”

  “No,” he said softly. “I don’t.”

  “Stop agreeing with me!”

  Rafe spluttered while Sally snorted and Jack just smiled.

  “Mouse,” he said.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” I snapped, shaking my head at him and making my ponytail fly.

  I picked up my plate and made my way over to the dish disposal area, scraping off the uneaten salad and what was left of my pizza. I was still hungry, and that just fuelled Hyde.

  Without a backward glance, I strode out of the cafeteria, knowing the second I left, whispers would break out. Then the rumours would really start flying.

  I snorted to myself and climbed the stairs to my room two at a time. Inserting the key Palmer had handed to me earlier into the lock on my door, I swung it open, and stormed inside, intending to throw a few things around until I got my temper under control again.

  Why did he do this to me? Why did he elicit such volatile emotions? Why…?

  Before I had a chance to finish that sentence, Jack slipped in through the still closing door and pushed it shut at his back.

  He stared at me, and I stared at him.

  And then I was in his arms, and his mouth was pressed against mine.

  15

  Tell Me About Your Dream

  Jack

  Mimi was shaking. Either from anger or something else. I worked on it being something else.

  Her lips were soft and made for mine. Her skin smelled like soap and chamomile. Her pulse thundered in her neck as I licked it, then thudded against my touch as I gently sucked her skin into my mouth.

  “I dreamed about this,” she said. I groaned, my hands smoothing over her back fervently, one finding its way into her hair, wrapping around that convenient ponytail.

  I tipped her head back and kissed up her throat, smiling when she swallowed excitedly under my touch.

  “What else did you dream, Mouse?” I asked, as my lips made their way back to her mouth.

  Our tongues tangled, she shifted against me, I moved to accommodate her, flicking a glance over to the bed, which seemed too far away right now.

  And then her knee came up and damn near crippled me for life.

  I just managed to twist out of the way, but not before Mimi ducked my hold and pushed hard against my chest, making me stumble backwards and hit the door, banging my elbow.

  “That was for doubting me in Crawford’s office!” she yelled.

  A pillow met my head. Then a blanket. And lastly, a heavy textbook flew through the air, but I just managed to duck in time. It thudded against the door and fell to the ground with a resounding splat. Both of us just stared at it for a moment.

  “And that was for being a pompous jerk in the cafeteria,” she said quietly.

  I glanced up at her. She seemed to realise what damage she could have caused. But when she noticed I was watching her expressions, she schooled them, crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.

  “The textbook wasn’t in the dream,” she said as if that explained why she’d lost the wind out of her sails.

  “Was the pillow?” I asked.

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  I tried not to smile.

  “I never doubted you, Mouse,” I said softly.

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “It certainly wasn’t my intention to have you feel that way.”

  She snorted softly.

  “I dreamt about you as well last night.”

  She studied me.

  “Would you like to know what was in it?” I asked.

  Her eyes flicked to the bed and then back to me. She bit her bottom lip. I took a tentative step closer; there were still three more textbooks on her bedside table, a man needed to be cautious with Mimi.

  “You were in Orion 6,” I said quietly. She blinked. She hadn't expected that. Neither had I, but I hadn’t realised it was 6 when I’d had the dream. “You were covered in ash,” I said softly.

  Her breaths stuttered out as she opened her mouth in shock.

  I reached her side. “You had a smudge here,” I whispered, brushing my thumb across her cheek and jaw. “And a bruise here,” I said, swiping gently across her temple. “You clung to me as though you thought I’d been lost. As though you couldn't believe you’d found me.”

  “Jack,” she said.

  “I was covered in ash,” I murmured, wrapping her up in my arms. “Dehydrated. Weak. But the moment your arms surrounded me, I felt no pain; I felt ten feet tall, in fact.”

  “Jack,” she repeated softly.

  “I told you I loved you,” I said, kissing the corner of her lips. “You said it back to me,” I whispered, kissing the other side. “We held onto each other as if nothing else existed. At that moment, for me, it didn’t.”