Temple's Tale

A Story of the Time Corps
Copyright © 1997, 1999 Chris Halliday
All Rights Reserved

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" queried Wulf for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"Wulf, please," I said, my patience beginning to stretch. "If you don't stop worrying and shut up, I'm going to be forced to shoot you with this..." I patted the bulge of the plaser under my overcoat. "And that would be a shame, because it makes a loud noise, and noise is poison to the mind. Besides, you owe me a drink."

Wulf grinned and shut up, but I could tell he was still worried.

After analysing the initial readings, we'd used the scanners to track the temporal disturbances to an old tea warehouse on the Thames, about a mile away from the house. I was concerned over the type of reading we were getting. Strong, but too obvious to be more timegliders. Part of the reason gliders are so big is that they're designed not to disturb local space-time. As we investigated the warehouse under the cover of darkness, I could only hope that we hadn't stumbled onto a Reaper base.

Reapers are android horrors from one of the Armageddon parallels. The children of an AI network gone rogue, they're not to be messed with. I'd heard stories about them from veterans that had coloured my dreams for weeks, and I had no wish to see how the reality matched up.

We had decided to split the team up to check out the readings. Alvarez and Cressida would stay behind and remain in commlink contact with us, their duty being to stay out of trouble, guard Borodin and rescue us if the shit hit the fan. Wulf and I would investigate the landing site and see what we could find out about our travellers.

There was another reason I'd asked Wulf to come with me. He and I had had a short but intense conversation while taking stock of our resources, around the time when we realised Borodin had let us leave the Citadel with less than the standard equipment onboard our gliders. We had no emergency timebelts, no chronopacs, one capture pod and our personal equipment. That was all. Wulf had wanted to terminate Borodin's life support for putting us all in danger, but I wanted him kept alive for the Corps to deal with when we got back. It wasn't that I distrusted Wulf, but I preferred not to put temptation in his way.

I didn't really miss the standard equipment much, but the chronopacs could have come in useful. They're small, there-and-back time machines built into a standard lifterpac, capable of flight as well as time travel. Borodin had both of them in his equipment locker when his glider fell apart, so they were lost to us now.

Pulling my scanner from my jacket once again, I checked the holoplate readout. It was showing three life forms inside, apparently human. That meant nothing; Reapers, Scarabs and other bad dreams all scanned as human, making them a pain to spot unless you were right on top of them. The life forms could have been armed, but the warehouse was partially blocking the scan and I couldn't be sure. I suppose I could have upped the bandwidth, but whoever was waiting inside might have detected the emissions. I didn't want to give our surprise time travellers any warning if I could help it. Maybe they were friendly, and maybe they weren't.

I motioned for Wulf to move in towards the warehouse's side entrance, and he slid through the dark like a ghost. I waited in the silence for a moment, taking time to reflect that in this nuclear Victorian age even the back alleys were clean. Wulf played with the lock for a moment, then gave me the high sign. The door swung open, and he vanished inside. Counting five beats, I unsheathed the plaser, hit the power stud, and followed him in.

Inside it was pitch black. I entered swiftly and slid to one side, making sure my silhouette didn't make me a target. Reaching into my jacket pocket, I grabbed my visor and was sliding it over my eyes when the lights came on. For a second I was blind, until I thumbed the visor's low-light amplification function off, but by then it was too late.

"Put the weapon on the floor, then place your hands above your head. Move slowly and carefully and nothing unpleasant will happen to you." The voice was clipped and precise. As I complied, I struggled to adapt my eyes to the harsh light.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, squinting at the three blurred figures before me. They were all tall men, armed with automatic projectile weapons and dressed in contemporary clothing. Lying at their feet was Wulf, the snout of a gun at his head and a murderous expression on his face. These guys had to be good to have caught Wulf out, but I'd just blundered in like a fool. I could have kicked myself, but I had an idea that these guys would oblige for me if I tried anything stupid.

"I'd like to ask the same of you," the voice said. It came from the guy in the middle, a young man in his early thirties, with sandy blond hair and an ex-military look about him. "I am required to inform you that you are under arrest."

"Who by?"

"By whom," the sandy haired one corrected with a wince. "By agents of His Majesty's Temporal Security Service."

For a moment, I was floored. Temporal Security? This parallel was technologically advanced, but they were nowhere near discovering the workable applications of temporal theory, and according to Alvarez, they never would. What was going on? It was only when they placed me in handcuffs that I got a good look at them, and the pieces fell into place.

They were dressed as we were in the clothing of the time, but under their suit jackets each of them wore a thick leather belt with a distinctive heavy buckle. It was unmistakable. These belts were based on Corps technology. Could it be possible?

It had to be. There was no other explanation. When Borodin's timeglider, with our chronopacs on board, had disintegrated, the contents of his equipment locker must have somehow dropped into normal space, at a point futurewards of our current position. The 'pacs and God only knew how much other stuff must have been found, studied and eventually duplicated.

I stifled a groan. Our first mission, and we'd already introduced an anachronism to a parallel, and caused a change in that parallel's timeline that was racing into the future even now. Even worse, the anachronism was time travel technology, the worst of all possible genies to try and get back into the bottle. When we got back to the Citadel - if we ever got back - I vowed to shoot myself in the head just to save someone else from having to do it.

While I was busy considering which of the more painful methods of suicide my superiors might allow me to choose, the temporal security agents were busy searching Wulf and myself in a thorough and practised fashion. They took our weapons, scanners and medkits. For a moment I thought they might leave us our commlinks, as it's easy to mistake them for badges or brooches, but they took them too. I didn't mind too much. Wulf and I had left a channel open to enable Alvarez and Cressida to follow our investigation, so they knew pretty much what had happened. It was standard operating procedure, and I was somewhat consoled by the fact that, though we had screwed up big time, at least we had done so professionally.

I was shaken out of my reverie by the voice of the lead agent. I gazed up at him blankly, too stunned by the bizarre turn of events to respond. He obviously took my silence to be defiance, and frowned before trying again.

"I said, who are you? You would be best advised to co-operate. The penalty for unauthorised time travel is death you know."

I shook my head ruefully. "You'd never believe me and I don't want to make a bad situation worse. And besides, I can't tell you."

Sandy Hair did his best unpleasant smile. "I think you can."

I gazed levelly back. "Try not to be an asshole, friend. My colleague and I are conditioned to cease all autonomic biological functions on command. Try anything rough and all you'll get is two corpses and no answers. Except under certain circumstances, I couldn't tell you anything even if I wanted to." It was a lie, but a plausible one.

Sandy Hair's eyes flickered for a moment, searching the air as he remembered all he knew about deep hypnotic conditioning. It only took a second, but when his gaze met mine again we both knew I was right. To his credit, he didn't let his frustration show. He moved across to the table where our equipment was laid out, and picked up my plaser. He glanced over to me.

"Just what is this?"

"It's a gun."

He didn't smile. "Obviously, but I've never seen anything like it. The technology is very advanced. What is your year of origin?"

I smiled weakly and shrugged. He knew I wouldn't tell, but he had to try. He nodded, acknowledging my silent reply. Turning, he pointed the plaser at a stack of pallets thirty feet away and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened, but that was no surprise. Most Corps equipment is isomorphic, functioning only for a member of the team, but Sandy Hair's reaction led me to believe he'd already figured that out. That gave me a chill. It meant he was smart, and I'd rather fight a dozen strong guys than one smart one. Returning the gun to the table, Sandy Hair looked at me for a moment, then gestured to his colleagues. They huddled, engaging in an animated conversation that remained frustratingly beyond the range of my hearing.

While they conferred, I stole a glance at Wulf. They'd cuffed him to a support pillar about ten feet away to stop him making trouble. He was still fuming, and looked like he could spit hot plasma. He wouldn't make eye contact with me, mainly due to his shame at being captured and his anger at me for making the same mistake. Figuring there was nothing I could do to soothe his ruffled pride, I concentrated on my own situation. As I hadn't made myself a total nuisance, they'd not restrained me in the same way as Wulf. I was cuffed, with my hands behind my back, but that was all.

While I was reviewing my options, Sandy Hair's conversation with his colleagues came to an end. They turned as one, and marched over to us. One of them kept us covered with his gun and the other pulled me to my feet, while Sandy Hair watched. Wulf spat and snarled when they did the same to him, but a meaningful click as the observer's gun was cocked put a stop to that. Sandy Hair walked over and strapped a small flat box to my right forearm, then did the same to Wulf.

I studied the device. The box was seamless, and featureless save for a small light panel that blinked red. Glancing over at our captors, I noticed similar panels winking in unison on their belts.

"Slave units?" asked Wulf.

I nodded, then turned towards the table bearing our equipment. Raising my voice, I said, "It looks like we might be taking a little trip." Wulf looked quizzically at me until he saw what I was looking at, then he smiled.

One of Sandy Hair's comrades, the one I'd mentally christened "Frankie" because of his flat head and deep-set eyes, poked me in the ribs with the snub nose of his auto-rifle.

"Shut up." His eyes were dancing with tension, and I realised that he was terrified, probably a rookie. That made him unpredictable, possibly a bigger threat than Sandy Hair. He needed watching. When the time came to act, he'd come unglued for sure.

Frankie boy pushed Wulf and me into the centre of the warehouse, and I remember praying that Wulf could keep his temper long enough for me to talk our way out of this. But by then it was too late. Sandy Hair, Frankie and Bruce (the only name I could think of for the other one), stood around us, with Frankie and Bruce behind, weapons trained.

Sandy Hair looked at me. "Brace yourselves," he said. Moving methodically, as if he'd done it a thousand times before, he ran his fingers in a complex pattern across the control studs of the belt. Then he paused, his index finger poised above the centre of the buckle. He drew a deep breath, and I did likewise. Then he stabbed the buckle, and the bottom dropped out of the world.

I remember screaming like a kid on a roller coaster, and feeling like I was being turned inside out. I remember watching the world suddenly explode into a nightmare lightshow of colours that couldn't exist. I remember falling in a direction that can't be described, spinning and tumbling around an axis that wasn't there. I remember thinking that I was going to die.

And then we stopped.

For a moment I was still falling, still spinning. My inner ear struggled for a second, and I stumbled forwards, toppling painfully into what felt like a heap of bricks. Then my vision cleared, and I realised that it was a heap of bricks. One of many in fact.

Shuffling to my knees, I surveyed the landscape. Though the jump had taken us from night to night, the fires everywhere produced more than enough light to see the devastated wasteland that stretched for miles around us. Shattered buildings and craters were everywhere. The air was full of the acrid smell of napalm, of burning and scorched flesh, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the unmistakable rattle of automatic weapons fire.

"Nice place you have here," Wulf said weakly.

I turned to look at him, but my gaze was diverted by the uniform looks of horror worn by our captors. Sandy Hair was hurriedly checking his belt, his face pale, while Frankie and Bruce stared around them, dumbstruck.

"We've misjumped," stammered Bruce finally.

"No," said Sandy, quietly.

"We must have. This isn't Central."

"Co-ordinates are confirmed. We're on target."

Wulf caught my eye and nodded towards Frankie. The temporal security agent was white and sweating. A sheen of moisture covered his face. I glanced back at Wulf and shrugged. Nothing I could do.

"We can't be on target. Look at it!"

"Check it yourself!" shouted Sandy Hair. "This is it! We're home."

"What did you do?" The voice was so calm and measured that I first I didn't hear it. "What did you do?" I looked up and saw Frankie, staring at me with a fixed expression. My heart sank.

"What makes you think we did anything?" I said soothingly. If he heard me, he made no sign.

"What did you do?" He walked towards me. Somewhere in the night nearby there was a dull explosion. Ash showered down on us, but Frankie didn't seen to notice. "What did you do?" It was like a mantra, hypnotic, almost entrancing. Suddenly the gun was in Frankie's hand, the cold steel pressed into my scalp.

"What did you do?" he screamed "WHAT DID YOU DO?!"