Gladiatrix (7 page)

Under ‘Newsletter Items' was a list of stories. I scanned down from the top.

‘StopWatch scientists present brand new evidence that travelling to the past DOES alter the present.'

‘New political lobby initiative announced at StopWatch conference in Portland.'

‘San Francisco mayor calls once again for removal of the NTA portal from Union Square.'

The last one was ‘Death rate in NTA marshals rising'.

Hmm, before I wasted any more time, I wanted to know who these people were. If they were arguing against time travel on the grounds that aliens were telling them it was bad for us, then I'd look somewhere else.

I clicked on ‘Who we are'.

‘Concerned citizens and members of the scientific community who believe that time travel technology has not been proven to be without major risks. Our Institute for Time Travel Risk Assessment conducts its own scientific research into time travel and monitors the portal's use by the National Time Administration.'

Below was a list of the Board of Directors. I felt a little queasy. I'd been hoping they were complete
fruitcakes, but the first name on the list was Sandrine Kaaloa, the Hawaiian physicist who'd won the Nobel prize for her contribution to the development of Unified Field Theory. Hmm? She definitely wasn't someone to dismiss. I didn't know the second one, a US Republican senator called Evan Harding. But the third name was Dawkins Ellis, the billionaire designer of the first portable nuclear reactor. I didn't like the guy. Or his invention, but if even he thought there was a risk involved in time travel, then that was not a good sign. All in all it meant StopWatch had some credibility.

I clicked back to the first page, and then onto the article on death rates. There was a photo of the author on a sidebar, Dr Jeremy Snelling, a statistician at the Institute for Time Travel Risk Assessment. Goggle-thick glasses, but a youngish face.

The first words of the article made me sit up. ‘Over the past ten years one out of every three marshals sent through the time portal has died in the field.'

One out of three? Bloody hell! Those kinds of figures never reached the papers.

A thousand questions crowded my brain. Why couldn't they rescue them using time travel? Go back to before the marshal was killed and save them. Why wouldn't that work? Damn, why hadn't I taken more physics at school!

Then I remembered the
Linken Fox
spot. Mornington, or possibly the Governor, had said this mission was considered very complicated and dangerous. Or something like that.

I could feel the stress knit my shoulders into a knot around my neck.

I scanned down further and saw Victoria's name. Marshal Dupree. Snelling was writing about Victoria's last mission, the one before this. She'd been
sent to investigate the operation of an espionage ring during the Cold War. There was a possibility that a sleeper from that time was still operating inside the US government. Her cover had been blown and she'd been shot. She'd just made it back through the portal.

One in three didn't make it home at all!

Was Victoria back yet? Was she still in violent, treacherous ancient Rome? I had to find out! My chances of getting answers from the NTA weren't good, but maybe from StopWatch? I checked their contact list. Jeremy Snelling was listed. He was in the Statistical Analysis Unit. The Institute was in San Jose, California. It had a phone number.

I clicked back to the inquiry page and asked for a world clock. In San Jose it was just before eight-thirty at night. I looked at Snelling's number. Hell, I might as well try it! If they were anything like the scientists I knew from uni, then Snelling could still be there.

I grabbed the phone from the lounge room, and sat back in front of the StopWatch page. I punched in Snelling's number and waited.

It rang.

And rang.

And rang.

I rang for fifteen minutes straight. No answer. There wasn't even a cleaner there?

I banged the phone down and stared at it.

It rang. I jumped. ‘Hello?'

It was Des. Big exhalation.

‘Hi, Des.' My mouth was speaking, but my mind was elsewhere. I was scanning the contacts page. There were other numbers at the Institute; surely someone was still there?

‘Kannon …' He was deadly serious.

‘What? Australia can't have lost the cricket already?'

‘No. Well, actually they could have, but I don't care. I just talked to Scott Turay.'

The name sounded very vaguely familiar. ‘Turay? I can't …'

‘I met him on that training course. It was back in …' He stopped. ‘Okay. You're not going to remember, of course. It was before I moved down here.' He took a breath. ‘Back then it was the CIB. They ran a training course in Sydney. For all the regional detectives.'

‘Yeah, yeah. The CIB. The Central Investigation Bureau. I'm not too young to remember that …' I'd met some of the detectives from CIB Homicide when I was eleven and they were following up a lead. One that led straight to me. ‘So Turay's ex-CIB? Was he one of the …?'

‘No, he wasn't,' Des bit out. ‘Just let me finish. He came over for the CIB training course. He was sent as a goodwill gesture from Sacramento. In California. There was some kind of exchange deal going between …' He caught himself. ‘Anyway, that doesn't matter. Scott came out and stayed with me and Cecilia, in Lithgow. I took him bushwalking. He's kept in touch.'

I could see where this was headed. ‘So you've just asked him if he can help? What did he say?'

‘No. Actually I rang him yesterday when I couldn't get hold of you.'

My mouth hung open. He'd kept that secret well. ‘And? What?'

‘He still has friends in Sacramento. Who have friends in the San Francisco PD.'

Wooah! ‘And?'

‘It's not too good, Kannon.'

‘What do you mean? In what way not good?'

‘The San Francisco police told him that, as far as they're concerned, Celeste was killed straight after she
was kidnapped. So whatever the media may say, the case is pretty much closed.'

‘They have proof she died!' So this was all just another dead end. I looked at the photo on the pin board. But it didn't feel like one.

‘No.' In his best detective sergeant voice, he said, ‘They actually have no proof of that. At all.' His training spurred him to add, ‘As far as Scott could find out.'

‘So … what are you saying?'

‘That the detectives on the case twenty years ago concluded she was dead. But, on questioning, it came out that they didn't actually find a body. So it means nothing.'

‘No.' I knew when Des was trying to handle me. ‘It means that they had some reason to reach that conclusion. What was it?'

He said measuredly, ‘You know enough about the way law enforcement works to guess that whoever Scott talked to was not interested in digging into a case this old. And especially not when it's just a request for more information concerning a possible connection to an Australian case.'

‘Answer my question, Des. Why did they close the case?'

He said, bitterly, ‘Scott didn't know. They wouldn't go into any detail. He said the press had been onto them again and, as a courtesy to Marshal Dupree, they were keeping their mouths shut.'

I just sat there. ‘That was the news?'

‘Kannon, like I said, they didn't have a body so this could just be them trying to keep Marshal Dupree out of the spotlight. So don't …'

‘Yeah, yeah, Des.' I stared at the photo on the pin board. ‘No-one's making any decisions for me. If
there's still a possibility of a connection, then I'm following it until I'm satisfied one way or another.'

Silence.

‘Good.' He was surprised.

‘Was that it?' I wanted to try the other StopWatch numbers.

‘No, after that Scott tried one of his old political contacts. Sacramento's the state capital, and he had contacts in the Governor's office back then. One of them now works for a senator in Washington. Once the San Francisco PD stuff didn't pan out his Washington friend tried to find a way to contact Victoria Dupree directly. He rang the NTA headquarters in Washington and they directed him on to the San Francisco branch where she works. Where the portal is.' He paused. ‘He spoke to someone there who said it was impossible to contact Victoria at the moment. That she's still in ancient Rome on that Isis investigation.'

‘She's still there?' That wasn't good. ‘For how much longer? Do they know when she's coming back?'

‘Yeah. Turay said she's due back the day after tomorrow, but only for a quick meeting with the Governor. Then she's expected to leave again for the last stage of the mission.'

I mindlessly repeated, ‘The day after tomorrow,' now staring at the StopWatch screen. Snelling's article. One in three don't return. This was all moving almost too fast for me to process. I'd only found out about her yesterday, and today Victoria's every move was starting to catch my breath.

‘Kannon, are you okay?'

I'd never been good at waiting. And I still had my passport from the time I'd tried to fly to Crete.

‘Great, Des. Never felt better. I'm getting on my first plane tomorrow.'

Silence.

‘That tone of voice scares me, Kannon.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You use it whenever you're about to be young and stupid.'

‘I have to go, Des. I have to talk to her. You realise that, don't you?' This was not a good time for his overactive protective instinct to kick in. I didn't want to leave him both sick and anxious.

‘Yes,' he said, begrudgingly. ‘You're right. But just remember …'

‘I know, Des.' We'd had this conversation before. ‘I'm not invincible.'

We hit California somewhere above LA and turned north. I felt like cheering, but it would've scared the insides out of the man next to me. He'd been friendly enough until he'd sneaked a look at the files I'd left on my seat while I was in the toilet. Then he'd tried to change seats. My guess was he'd seen the photo of the noose and the scars. I didn't feel like explaining anything to someone who went through my stuff, so we didn't talk.

It didn't worry me. This was my first-ever flight and I'd managed to get on the plane and stay there, white knuckles and all.

It'd been gruelling waiting in the airport. I wouldn't let Des come, he'd had too much stress already without watching me descend into breathless sweating terror. The jitters had started as I was telling Antoinette about Ledbetter and what to do if the college called. By boarding time a full-blown panic attack was screaming insane warnings in my ear. ‘Don't go in there! Get away now! Run!'

But I'd been absolutely determined to make this flight. Nothing was stopping me from talking to Victoria Dupree. Myself included. So I'd climbed into the plane and hid my fear as best I could. Instead I'd concentrated on what I'd do on the other side of the Pacific and I read my files, every word of them.

Halfway through the thirteen-hour flight the panic had exhausted itself and been replaced by a rising exhilaration. I'd made it. In one long day I'd kicked open the door to my future. And it was the size of the beautiful planet below us.

I was free. Free.

Until another thought tumbled in, one the weight of panic had held aside. One I should've processed well before now.

Was this really my first flight?

If there was a connection with the Dupree case, then maybe that explained my fear of planes. If I'd been brought over that way, my guess was that the trip had not been a cosy one.

A two-year-old doped up and afraid. Trapped …

My throat clenched involuntarily. I coughed then wheezed a little trying to suck in a full breath. Panic flooded me with disorienting messages. The cabin was too small … too crowded … I had to get out of here …

My neighbour shot me a glance full of revulsion. I was acting funny again. He shifted as far away as possible.

I ripped the photo up out of my shoulder bag and stared at it. The image of the little girl and the black dog had got me this far. I could do this.

I refocused on the view. Yes, I could do this. It was almost over.

It was beautiful outside. Just past noon, local time, and a blue-sky day. The sunlit coast looked a little like the northern Illawarra but on a grander scale. A coastline full of steep cliffs plunging down to crescent-shaped beaches, sparkling water.

I took in a full breath.

San Francisco swooped into view, ocean on the west side and a huge bay on the other. It was a hilly peninsula covered by a densely settled grid of streets. The Golden Gate Bridge, rust-red against the steel-blue water, linked the city to the barren hills on the northern mouth of the bay. We veered sharply to the right, flew due south over another bridge and descended ready for landing.

According to Turay, Victoria was due to arrive at ten o'clock tonight for a meeting with the Governor. So the plan was to go straight to the NTA. Once I was in, I had a number of ways of making sure I stayed there until she arrived.

The plane landed and we all emptied into the airport. After Customs and Immigration I looked for a taxi rank. No standing around the luggage carousel, as I had all I needed in my black-and-white shoulder bag. Yesterday I'd tried to book a hotel room close to the NTA building, but everything in inner San Francisco had already been taken by three massive communication technology conventions. I couldn't turn up to the NTA with luggage, hence the small bag. If I needed anything after I saw Victoria I'd just damn well buy it.

Des had spent some time in the States as a young man and he warned me that women making, what he called ‘a formal visit' here, were expected to look ‘polished'. He said that meant ‘nice' clothes, perfect make-up and ‘doing' my hair. When I speculated that things might have changed since the last Ice Age, he
said it was considered a part of polite grooming, and didn't I at least have rouge, and maybe some hairspray? I was still shuddering at the last comment.

I knew I needed to look respectable enough to get inside the NTA so I was wearing an expensive pair of charcoal pants and a white fitted shirt that I normally kept for work functions. If it was cold outside I had a tailored black leather jacket folded over my arms. I hate shoes and go barefoot as much as possible at home, but obviously you can't get by like that, even in the Illawarra. So I'd dug out a pair of low-heeled, black boots from the back of my cupboard. An hour before landing I'd retamed my shoulder-length hair. It's bleached to white in places from surfing, with a jagged fringe. I finished with some honey lip-gloss.

I looked calm and responsible, as though I was on my way to a job interview. I felt desperate.

There was a long line at the taxi rank and no taxis, so I searched the rest of the road. A shuttle bus into the city was just pulling away from the kerb, so I raced over and knocked on the closed doors. The driver stopped and opened the doors. He had a scheduled stop in Union Square, so I paid and took the last seat just behind him. An older man and his computer bag, marked with the company logo from one of the major conventions, already filled the seat. He moved the bag. I smiled my thanks, slipped my coat on and sat down. The airport had been overheated but it was winter-cold outside.

The driver, a heavy-set man wearing a khaki uniform and black cap, started up again and headed out to the freeway on what felt like the wrong side of the road. Once we hit the city proper I got my map out and rechecked the location of the NTA. It was on one
of the corners of Union Square, which didn't actually look square, more like a rectangle. It was a small park bounded by four streets. Geary ran along the bottom, Post the top, Powell left and Stockton right. The NTA sat across from the park, on the corner formed by Post and Stockton.

The driver turned on his speaker and began a well-rehearsed monologue. ‘Welcome to Martine's Airport-City Shuttle Service. For our international visitors, February is late winter. Be careful because our weather can be very changeable. It can be fine in the morning, then gusty and freezing by the afternoon.'

He continued on, talking about shopping, restaurants and how to deal with all the homeless in the city, but I zoned out. Two nights ago I'd been trying to work out what to do with my life, and now I was preparing to crash a US government installation, and demand answers to the mystery of my past. I checked my watch — Victoria would be here in eight hours. I had a lot to make happen before then.

The shuttle made two stops then headed east on Post Street. My stop was next, so as we moved into Union Square I tucked the map back into the zippered pocket on the outside of my bag. I shut my eyes for a brief moment, and told myself to relax.

The driver's voice filtered back in instead. ‘And for those of you interested in getting to know San Francisco in more detail … We run a variety of special tours, so please take a brochure as you exit. Let me recommend the Union Square Mystery Writers' walking tour. It'll take you through the settings for novels such as the famous
Maltese Falcon
. And if you all look to the right now …'

Of course I opened my eyes again to look. I'm only human.

‘… You'll see the historic St Francis Hotel that Dashiell Hammett used as …'

The driver stopped mid-sentence to slam on the brakes and the bus jolted to a sudden halt. We were all jerked forward then back. I grabbed the back of the driver's seat and braced myself. Bags came slithering down off overhead racks and something heavy hit the aisle at the rear of the bus.

‘Wooah.' The man next to me grabbed his computer bag as it pitched off his knees.

The traffic ahead of us had come to a complete halt and the cars pulling up behind completed the impasse. It was gridlock right around the park.

The driver turned in his seat to check if everyone was okay. ‘Sorry about that, folks. The car in front got on their brakes a little early. We seem to have hit some kind of delay. But,' he said cheerfully, ‘things should move along soon.' He turned back to check the road ahead.

Around me people were picking up their bags and straightening their clothes.

‘That was stupid driving on your part,' a man sitting behind me snapped at the driver. ‘You were too busy yakking about your stupid tour.'

The driver swivelled to say, ‘My apologies again, sir. But I'm sure we'll be moving again soon.'

The angry man muttered, ‘We'd better be.'

I slipped my bag over my shoulder and checked the skyline up ahead. If the gridlock continued I'd just get out here. The NTA building was just over the road from us, on the opposite corner. It was taller than the surrounding buildings at six floors high. It didn't stand out as much as I thought it would. No blazing signs saying ‘here is the world's only time portal', just ‘National Time Administration' above the entryway and a huge silver infinity sign. It was built in that
1960's minimalist, let's-not-pretend-this-is-anything-other-than-a-building style, and covered in boring beige tiles.

The only remotely intriguing feature was the deep-set, opaque windows. No seeing inside there.

Hmm. Not what I expected at all.

‘What's that?' yelped the woman sitting across the aisle from me. She sounded like a country and western singer, chewing her vowels until they screamed. She was pointing to my side of the bus, across my chest.

I followed her silver-tipped finger and, like nearly everyone else on the bus, sat in stunned silence. Right next to us, taking up most of the corner opposite the NTA, was a huge, shiny pyramid sitting in the middle of a grey, ash-covered volcanic crater.

What the hell was that? In the middle of San Francisco, in the same square as Macys and a slather of tourist hotels and up-market clothing shops. The really strange thing was that the passing pedestrians ignored it. Just kept their eyes ahead and carried on to their next appointment.

The crater was low, forming a complete wall around the pyramid except for a narrow opening for a red stone entryway on to Post Street where the bus stood. The crater looked real, a jutting circle of ash-covered rock. Which made the pyramid appear as though it had thrust itself up from deep within the Earth. Like some kind of brilliant volcanic flower.

The pyramid was bright gold. It had to be gold leaf. It was at least four storeys high with entry via a small square building, also gold, set into the middle of the side facing the bus. Two red Sphinxes sat one on either side of the entryway with a red stone pathway running through the ash to the street. The contrast between
the grey, red and gold was spectacular. A colourful stab to the eye next to the neighbouring drab shops and buildings.

I caught the driver watching us gawk, and wondered why he hadn't mentioned this little eyeful in his spiel. Had that been the next topic?

He saw my questioning look and said, ‘That's the main Iseum, the centre of Isis worship in San Francisco. There are around a hundred spread throughout the Bay area, but they don't all look like this one.' He smiled. ‘It's new. Called the Cradle of Life.'

The man next to me said, with a German accent, ‘It's disgusting. I don't know why they're allowed to put those things in a public place!' Then he said, with glee, ‘Though that may all change soon enough.'

The driver didn't reply, just gave the passenger an unfriendly glare. Then I noticed a small, white statuette attached to the front window frame above his head. It was a woman wearing a crown and standing on a crescent moon. Around the base was written the name Isis. I studied the driver; he seemed an ordinary sort of man. Isis worship must have really become mainstream here.

The woman across the aisle shivered. She said with her broad cowgirl accent, ‘That thung looks like it was sent up from heell.'

I winced. It was one thing hearing about the religious tension here on the news and another sitting in the middle of it.

The driver replied tersely, ‘No, ma'am. That wasn't the image intended. At all. Just because the Moral Legion is obsessed with evil doesn't mean the rest of us have to be.'

‘Well then what is the message here?' someone further back demanded in a hostile voice.

‘The crater is modelled on the Ubehebe Crater, in Death Valley.' The driver said defensively. ‘Apart from any other meaning it's a tribute by the Isiac community to the natural beauty of our state. The Valley is a unique environment. Harsh, but beautiful. Like life.'

I said, ‘It sounds like you've had this conversation before?' I smiled to indicate I wasn't criticising.

He shrugged, and said in a quieter voice, ‘Every time I drive this route, some tourist starts bellowing rubbish about Satan. But you have to believe in the Devil to try to raise him, don't you? Satan's a Christian belief, not ours! That damn Moral Legion crowd has really turned people against us.'

He pointed at the crater. ‘The Buddhists have their Zen gardens for spiritual contemplation. And here in San Francisco, Grace Cathedral has its own sacred labyrinth. Why we can't have our own version?'

‘And what about the pyramid? Is that a tribute to Isis?' I asked.

‘It's the Egyptian symbol of eternal life.'

The pyramid within the Ubehebe Crater. I said, ‘So this Iseum embodies the meaning of life within death.' Resurrection? Or was that too Christian a concept? ‘Is that why they call the Iseum the Cradle of Life?'

‘Yes.' The driver studied the pyramid. ‘But that's not the only reason. If you go inside, you'll be able to …'

My Teutonic neighbour cut in. ‘Is that real gold?'

‘It's gold leaf.' The driver wasn't pleased to get onto that subject.