TimeSplash (40 page)
Authors: Graham Storrs
They both stared at the empty gun in Sniper’s hand, frozen in postures of horror and amazement. Then Sniper threw the useless weapon across the cage and got to his feet with a roar of frustration and defiance.
With a determination born of fear, Camilla pulled the trigger, emptying the Uzi’s clip into Sniper in long seconds of crashing thunder and exploding flesh. The weapon kicked and hammered in her grip. Sniper jerked back across the cage as he was ripped and smashed by the stream of bullets. Bright sparks dotted the bars of the cage. The screech of ricochets sliced across the roar of the gunfire. Long after her victim had fallen, Camilla kept firing into him.
When it was over, she had to force her finger to relax on the trigger. She stared at the carnage she had caused, panting as if she’d torn up all that flesh with her bare hands. Slowly, slowly, her heartbeat eased and her breathing steadied. She threw the Uzi aside, never taking her eyes off Sniper’s body.
“Now who’s the
Arschloch
?” she snarled. She turned and left the building without a backward glance.
The car turned in through the big old gates and followed the gravel drive up to the house. It crunched to a halt with a small whine from its electric engine. It was late afternoon and the drive down from London had been hot and uneventful.
The countryside around Bodmin Moor was lush and green. London was one big construction site at the moment as the damage from the backwash was slowly repaired. A big scar of destruction ran from the British Museum to Cannon Street then along the river, east to Deptford. It was amazing that hardly more than two thousand people had died. It could easily have been so much worse.
“Here we are then,” Jay said, breaking a long silence. He nodded at the old building beyond the windscreen. “Looks like it should have been condemned years ago.”
They peered out at the high red-brick walls of the Porringer Institute of Mental Well-Being. To Sandra, Jay knew, it didn’t seem at all unwelcoming. To her it held only the promise of peace and the end of a long journey through darkness and fear.
She smiled back at Jay. “I’m looking forward to it. This time will be very different.”
He took her hand. “I’ll come over whenever I can. It’s a shame you won’t be there for Bauchet’s wedding.” He had only received the invitation the day before. That the intense, hawk-like superintendent had courted and won the heart of Marie Vermeulen, his cool, elegant P.A., was impossible for Jay to believe.
“Isn’t it great that he gave you a job?” Sandra’s tone was encouraging. He felt a surge of gratitude to her for trying to break his melancholy mood.
“Especially after the way Five treated me. And you. Anyone would think we were the bad guys in all this!” He fell silent for a moment, pondered this injustice. “If only the job wasn’t in Brussels. I want to be here. With you.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ll be fine. This will take time. Dr. Mason says it might be years before I’m completely okay.”
“But not years in there, right? This place is just for a short while, yeah?”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. The plan is a few weeks here and then I get out and get a therapist, just like any ordinary nutjob.”
“Sandra?”
She shook her head. “I know what you’re going to say but you don’t have to worry.”
He could hardly stand the compassion in her eyes, knowing the fear and weakness in him that aroused it. “Well, I’m going to say it anyway. These past few weeks have been the happiest I’ve ever had. Even when I was laid up with my shoulder, it was heaven, just because you were there. Now I can’t help worrying that—you know—if you tackle all your childhood traumas, and your hang-ups and all that… What if after all that, you’re different?”
“I hope I will be.”
“No. I mean…”
“You mean, what if I don’t want you any more?”
He nodded. “Selfish, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps you’d like to pop in with me? Work on your self-esteem problems?”
He sagged in his seat, defeated by the inevitability of what Sandra must do and the terrible risk it carried for him. “I want you to be happy,” he told her. “I’ll try to be brave.”
She continued to look at him, her eyes full of sympathy. “If I don’t work out some of this stuff, I’d be no good for you anyway. Sooner or later my old problems would come back and I’d leave you for some cocky bastard who’d treat me like crap and make me miserable.”
He knew all this. It made him love her all the more that she was brave enough to face her demons. He grinned at her sheepishly.
“Strumpet,” he said.
“Beanpole.”
She pulled him to her and they kissed good-bye.
Graham Storrs is
a speculative fiction writer living in Queensland, Australia. A former research scientist, IT consultant and award-winning software designer, he now lives and writes in a quiet corner of the Australian bush with his wife, Christine, and an Airedale terrier called Bertie. His writing credits include three children's science books, and a great many magazine articles, academic papers and book chapters. Since turning his attention to writing fiction he has had short stories published in a wide range of magazines and anthologies.
TimeSplash
is Graham's début novel.
Follow Graham Storrs on his blog:
http://grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com
and on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/graywave
TimeSplash will be available soon in print from
eMergent Publishing
, London and Brisbane, and in audio book format from
Iambik Audiobooks
, Montreal, Canada.
If you want more background on the book, the characters and its appearances in various formats,
TimeSplash
has its own website and blog:
http://www.timesplash.co.uk
- Part I Summer 2047
- Part II Winter 2049-2050
- Part III Summer 2050
- Chapter 13: An Invitation
- Chapter 14: Another Invitation
- Chapter 15: Targets
- Chapter 16: Time Enough
- Chapter 17: Plots and Plans
- Chapter 18: Night Time
- Chapter 19: At the Marina
- Chapter 20: Ready to Go
- Chapter 21: False Start
- Chapter 22: TimeSplash
- Chapter 23: Another Chance
- Chapter 24: 1902
- Chapter 25: The British Museum
- Chapter 26: Yankback
- Chapter 27: Unravelling the Past
- Chapter 13: An Invitation
- About the Author
- About TimeSplash
