Time Split - Briggs Read online

  TIME SPLIT – BRIGGS

  By: Patricia Smith

  Also by Patricia Smith

  Time Split

  Distant Suns

  Distant Suns – The Journey Home

  Distant Suns – The Silexous

  Islands – The Epidemic

  Nebathan

  Table of Contents

  Prologue: Havelberg, Germany, 15th March 1930

  Chapter One: Nuclear Bunker, Kenton Bankfoot, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Chapter Two: Nuclear Bunker, Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle

  Chapter Three: Morpeth Town Hall

  Chapter Four: Nuclear Bunker, Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle

  Chapter Five: Nuclear Bunker, Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle

  Chapter Six: Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle

  Chapter Seven: Nuclear Bunker, Kenton Bank Foot, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Chapter Eight: Morpeth

  Chapter Nine: Telford Bridge, Morpeth

  Chapter Ten: En-route to Alnwick

  Chapter Eleven: En-route to Ponteland

  Chapter Twelve: On the Outskirts of Alnwick, Northumberland

  Chapter Thirteen: En-route to Ponteland

  Chapter Fourteen: On the Outskirts of Alnwick, Northumberland

  Chapter Fifteen: Outskirts of Ponteland, Northumberland

  Chapter Sixteen: On the Outskirts of Alnwick, Northumberland

  Chapter Seventeen: Ponteland, Northumberland

  Chapter Eighteen: Alnwick, Northumberland

  Chapter Nineteen: Ponteland, Northumberland

  Chapter Twenty: Central Library, Alnwick, Northumberland

  Chapter Twenty-One: En-route to Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Twenty-Two: En-route to Ponteland

  Chapter Twenty-Three: En-route to Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Twenty-Four: En-route to Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Territorial Army Base, Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Territorial Army Base, Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Territorial Army Base, Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Havelberg, Germany, March 1930

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Kenton Bank Foot

  Chapter Thirty: Ponteland

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Links to Patricia’s Novels

  Prologue

  Havelberg, Germany, 15th March 1930

  Sarah suddenly found herself standing near a town square, the cry still deep in her throat. Her initial shock gave way instantly to surprise when she realised everything Jason had said was true. She had wanted to believe him but, despite this, a small part of her mind had denied it could ever be possible – yet here she was in Jason’s Germany.

  A demonstration was taking place and in the commotion, nobody had even noticed her unusual arrival.

  Quickly she looked around. There was no time to lose. She had to find Jason; she had to find him now. Three minutes, her mind kept screaming, only three minutes, he had said.

  She scanned the streets, her senses on high alert, but could not see him anywhere. She started towards the square, then suddenly she was bumped from behind. She glanced at the perpetrator, as they passed, and was shocked to see it was Jason.

  She tried to grab him, but missed.

  “Jason!” she yelled. “Stop! You must listen!”

  He continued through the crowd, the noise of the demonstration drowning out her cries, oblivious to her presence.

  Sarah could see the door to a building across the street open; some men in uniform were making their way down the stairs.

  As Jason crossed the road towards them, she found herself caught up in the crowd. Pushing against the mass, she forced her way through the demonstrators and was just about to break free when her right arm was abruptly grabbed from behind.

  She looked back, shocked, then stopped and stared, her mouth open in astonishment. For vital seconds it seemed as if time was no longer moving, but instead was frozen like ice. The crowd around her blurred as though part of a dream and the only reality was the man who stood before her. “Briggs,” she said. “How the hell did you get here?”

  A flash of light snapped Sarah from her daze and she looked down in time to see the glint of a blade discreetly clutched near the soldier’s left hip. Shocked, she tried to pull back, but he held her in place so firmly she barely expanded the distance between them and was still comfortably within the man’s reach.

  It immediately became apparent he was just toying with her when suddenly she found she was no longer moving away, but instead was being dragged closer.

  “If you don’t struggle, I’ll make this quick,” he hissed, his face an emotionless mask.

  Sarah screamed, aware she was in a square full of people. She did not expect Briggs to be phased, but still, the attention it would draw would be undesirable, especially if he was about to commit cold-blooded murder.

  She knew the man was cool under pressure, but she hoped that this would be enough to force him to back down.

  She felt him pause, just for a moment, and immediately took advantage of the hesitation. She pulled back again as hard as she could, writhing her body from side to side, to loosen his grip.

  Briggs raised the knife when silencing the woman took priority over discretion. A successful blow just behind the ear would sever her spinal cord with minimum blood loss, terminating her life instantly. To the casual onlooker it would appear as though she had just fainted.

  Sarah raised her free hand in a vain attempt to protect herself, then suddenly she was flung to the floor. She landed on her side. Briefly confused by the change of events, she was convinced at first she had been stabbed, but a quick check revealed no blood and she also realised there was no pain. She looked up from the ground and saw two men trying to wrestle the knife off Briggs.

  For a moment, it seemed as though the young, powerful individuals may get the better of the soldier, who had been caught off guard by the assault, but his training and ruthlessness was not to be overpowered by mere youth.

  A quick twist of the wrist loosened the grip of the man who had a hold of his knife hand and in a move so fast it was impossible to see it coming, Briggs punched him on the side of the jaw, using the weapon to add weight to his blow. As the young man crumpled to the floor, knocked out cold, Briggs turned his attention to his colleague, who had been trying to wrestle the soldier from behind.

  Reversing the movement, he swung the knife in a clockwise direction and plunged the blade deep into the man’s neck.

  Behind Briggs a look of shock briefly washed over the German’s face before he loosened his grip, dropped to his knees and fell forward to lie diagonal to his colleague.

  Sarah scrambled backwards, distancing herself from the scene, before climbing to her feet, desperate to escape Briggs, but more importantly, to stop Jason. She pushed through the crowd and broke clear just in time to see the scientist, gun in hand, stepping backwards away from the guards.

  “Jason! Stop!” she screamed, then jumped when the sound of gunfire echoed off the buildings surrounding the square.

  She turned her back on the drama as first the guard and then the official, who had been standing behind him for protection, fell to the ground.

  Briggs cleared the crowd, he stopped – and for a heartbeat, stood staring smugly at Sarah. He had not killed her, but had still achieved the desired outcome. The altered timeline was saved; Hitler was as good as dead. He blinked and then she was gone.

  Chapter One

  Nuclear Bunker, Kenton Bankfoot, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

  Sarah winced, then covered her eyes when the world around her suddenly became startlingly, painfully bright.

  She was thrust over six weeks ago into a pos
t-nuclear world where all sources of mains electricity had been fried in the massive electromagnetic pulse emitted by the nuclear bomb at the point of detonation. Since then the only source of light by night had been fire and by day the sun, softened by a haze of dust, which appeared at first to be the precursor of a nuclear winter.

  A month of snow, darkened with the ash of thousands of bodies combined with the residue blasted from the buildings and ground from the nearby city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, vaporised in the glare of the small sun, helped scrub the sky clean.

  As a result of living in the gloom of the day and near blackness of night, Sarah had become unaccustomed to the harsh unforgiving brightness of strip lighting.

  She cracked a gap in her fingers to risk a peek and found she was standing in an identical teleporter to the one she had entered in the basement in Ponteland just five minutes ago. She lowered her hands, blinking rapidly at first until her eyes gradually adjusted to the glare, and looked around.

  She was in a windowless room about four metres square. Six rows of empty shelves lined the wall ahead. On her left there was a door and on her right was a table and chair, the only other furniture in the room apart from the machine.

  She opened the door to the teleporter and stepped out. The room was very clinical-looking with white washed concrete walls and a plain cream tiled floor.

  She crossed to the table, a very basic, plywood design, stained with cup rings and cigarette burns, which was devised to be functional rather than visually pleasing, as was the chair, which was made from untreated, bare pine.

  The only other object in the room, an A4-sized bound report, sat in the centre of the desk.

  The cover of the document was a plain heavy-duty off-white card and it was bound with a thick red weave. ‘Top Secret’ was written in large letters across the front.

  At one time that would have been enough to deter Sarah from opening the report, but that was before she had to fight for her life to survive a nuclear apocalypse. Now, she knew any advantage had to be utilised and some advantages were disguised as simple books, a fact she discovered when she found ‘The Essential Guide to Surviving in the Wild’ in a small shop at the top of Morpeth High Street.

  She lifted the corner of the cover and gently pulled the document open. It fell away as if it had been well-read and stayed wide in the 10 o’clock position. The first page gave more information about the document.

  ‘Report on the Time Displacement Unit and Its Consequences by Jason Hudson.’

  Sarah inhaled sharply. She flicked past the contents page and for the next five minutes scanned the report, which outlined the transition from a teleporter to a time travel device once the introduction of live matter occurred. It also contained schematics and instructions on the machine’s implementation and described the horrific consequences of its use. The final pages of the document detailed Jason’s experiences in the altered timeline, his encounter with Sarah and Briggs, along with a recommendation to dismantle the machine and to destroy the notes.

  Slowly, she closed the booklet. It was now obvious that the device and report had somehow come into Briggs’ possession, but how?

  She turned to face the door. She knew if she had returned to this machine, then at some point, potentially soon, Briggs would also come back to the same location. Still, despite the danger she had to know what lay beyond this room; not just the room, but more precisely what was happening outside.

  She stepped up to the door. She was shocked to find, on closer inspection, it was made of metal. It appeared to have been designed for fortification, which she found surprising on an internal structure, and was surrounded by a snug metal frame which overlapped the barrier to provide additional protection.

  She flicked the light switch off, plunging the room into darkness, before carefully groping for the handle and slowly lowering it down.

  The door was heavier than she anticipated and she had to lean forward to gain enough leverage to get it initially moving. As it began to open, light bled into the room when a gap appeared between the structures. She paused, listening for any sounds of movement or any other signs of activity. When she was happy all seemed quiet, she risked opening it further until it was wide enough for her to peer outside.

  A dimly lit corridor lined with pipes and cabling travelled for some distance ahead. At the far end Sarah could see another door shrouded in near darkness. The gentle hum of a motor, at a distant location, was the only sound to be heard droning beyond the room.

  She opened the door fully and stepped cautiously out into the corridor, then controlling the swing, held the barrier until it settled back into its housing.

  She turned and made her way down the passage. As she prowled the length, as quietly as she could, her muscles ached on multiple levels. She was still sore from the beating she took in the basement from Andrews, Briggs’ second-in-command, less than twenty-four hours ago. Poor food and radiation poisoning had also taken their toll on her general health and to top it all, the tightness of her body, poised ready to spring back to the room at a moment’s notice, put a further strain on her already fragile frame.

  As she moved further into the passage, Sarah noticed a door on the left, previously unseen from the far end. As she drew closer, she saw it was another heavy-duty, reinforced barrier like the one she had just left behind.

  She stopped and again paused to listen for sounds before slowly turning the handle and peering into the room. Complete blackness, with such depth it was obvious even the faintest source of light was unavailable, greeted her. She reached around and groped at the wall briefly before finding a switch and turning it on.

  Energy-efficient, low power lights glowed dimly at first, but quickly brightened enough for her to soon take in her surroundings.

  The room opened out into a substantial area which appeared to be living quarters. Several couches encircling three separate large square low coffee tables gave the impression the complex was designed to comfortably house more than just a few people. The same could be said for a long wall on the left adorned with a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, fitted with a ladder attached to runners for easy access, which was completely crammed with a wide variety of books.

  Directly ahead a door stood open, but again the room was in darkness. Still, enough light from the lounge area leaked into the opening for Sarah to see that it looked like a kitchen. Easy clean steel benches topped metal cupboards near the door, but the room beyond slipped into the shadows and the remaining contents merged into blackness.

  Sarah flicked the switch, returning the lounge to darkness, and stepped back into the passage, closing the door behind her. Nervously, she looked at the room containing the machine before continuing along the corridor.

  There were several other doors dotted along the passage, none of which she decided to investigate. The final one on the right she guessed was the generator housing, as the hum she heard upon leaving the first room grew louder upon its approach.

  When she reached the far end there was a sharp left which concealed a heavily fortified barrier, unseen from the opposite side.

  A large circular handle, similar to those used in submarines, secured the door with what appeared to be an airtight seal. She grasped the struts running from the centre and began to turn it in an anti-clockwise direction. At first the lock held and the handle refused to move until she stepped closer and focused her strength in one area. She heard a squeak, then a groan and slowly it began to turn. For half a rotation it continued to resist until suddenly the lock loosened and the seal reluctantly released its hold on the frame.

  She pushed on the door, which again had an overhanging lip to provide additional protection. It was heavy despite swinging on assisted hinges and she only opened it just enough, in her weakened state, to allow her to be able to step through.

  Motion-sensitive lighting, out of place in the antiquated, elemental complex, activated to reveal a ladder travelling up a tall chute.

  She entered the chamber and began
to climb, but as she drew close to the halfway point, neither the light at the bottom or the light at the top reached the central section, and she had to slow down to ensure she had a firm footing in the constricting gloom before she continued on to a higher rung.

  Her breathing, now sharply bouncing around in the chute, caused an echoing effect which gave the impression she was not the only one on the climb and she had to resist the urge to keep checking she was not being followed.

  For several minutes she continued upwards, passing back into a lighted section before her head finally cleared the top and she was able to climb out onto a small platform, at the end of which was a door.

  Sarah stepped up to the barrier.

  The lever handle was deceptively simple, she realised when she pressed it down. Internal security rods withdrew into their housing in the heavy-duty metal casing surrounding the frame and the door swung outward on assisted hinges to reveal a long wide tunnel with daylight streaming in at the far end.

  She stepped outside and looked around for something to hold the door open. A small rock, easily within reach, was just big enough to use as a jam. She shoved it into place, then trotted the length of the tunnel to the far end.

  As she drew near to the mouth, Sarah slowed. She needed to know what was happening outside, whether she had escaped the horrific world she was prepared to die to destroy, but was terrified of what she might find. If she was still trapped, she feared she would go insane.

  When Jason confessed he was a time traveller, she had thought, at first, he must be mad, then later sadly deluded, but when she materialised in the town square in Germany all her hopes of a future exploded forth with such force that it would be impossible for her to suppress them again.

  She stopped, took a deep calming breath, then slowly stepped outside.

  The sun was high overhead. Despite this the day lacked the brightness usually associated with midday and instead possessed a gloom more suited to dawn or dusk. The sun’s rays struggled to penetrate the cloud, hanging low in the sky, still peppered with dust kicked up by the bomb.