Tears In The Fabric Of Time

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Book excerpt

First discovery

'When Spinster first fell ill we never thought a tracking device gone haywire was the cause, not until Dad opened her up with a scalpel and we saw the real problem. A tiny, pulsating sliver of black, a trail of white-crusted acid bleeding from its edge, seeping into her body. Dad removed it, cleaned her up.

Since then, we've been hunted.

We live mostly in the sewers, using them to move unnoticed beneath the city. Down here it's difficult for them to find us. Sometimes they come into the murky depths, but only when there is a real need, or a purge. A knee-jerk response to a problem to be sorted out quickly. With violence. An old man called Jason Lombardy, who shared the tunnels with us, said during the five years he'd spent surviving amongst the filth and the stench he hadn't experienced a single search unit. He lived almost exclusively down here. Well, everything changed when yesterday a whole load of militia appeared and we had to run deeper into the tunnels. Jason laughed at the way we grabbed our stuff and screamed at each other. He told us not to be silly; it was a routine sweep; no need to panic, as nothing was going to happen. When the first projectile hit him, blowing open his chest, he wasn't laughing anymore. He won't be laughing again.

We got away. We hid, and Dad says we have to stay hidden because if we're found, every scrap of information will be extracted from our brains before they kill us. He said their scientists are working on all sorts of new stuff designed to keep them one step ahead. Weird stuff, dealing with electronics. I'm not sure what electronics is, but Dad explained they had invented something so revolutionary it would end the steam age. He had no idea how anything worked, but things like the homing device were now possible. He couldn't explain much, and that's true for most of us. So, the problem is, if I'm caught, they'll realise I don't know anything. Then what will they do? All I know is Spinster is dead, and Jason Lombardy too. So why would they want me? It's a nightmare. At night, Dad cries, and I hold him and wish it were all over.

This is our life now. I can't see it getting any better. I wonder if I'll ever see the daylight again, feel the Sun on my face, take a walk in the park.

I hope I do.

Somehow, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.'

One

Detective Inspector 'Tiny' Tears leaned back in his seat, chewing his bottom lip as he re-read the torn, dirty letter for the umpteenth time.

On the other side of the desk his sergeant, Marilyn Jarvis, waited. “Any conclusions?”

“You're the intelligent one,” said Tears without looking up. “You tell me.”

“I've gone through it half a dozen times and I still don't know what it means.”

“What, you haven't put it under some sort of infra-red machine, scrutinised every dot and crossing of tees?” He smiled. She didn't.

“I may be a workaholic, but I'm not obsessive.”

“You're bloody ultra-efficient, that's what you are.” He waved the letter between forefinger and thumb. “I haven't got a clue what this is, not a one. It's either some sort of fantasy thing, the ramblings of an over-imaginative schoolboy, or…” He let the unfinished sentence hang in the air.

“The body certainly wasn't over-imaginative.”

“No, far from it.” Tears scanned the scrawl on the piece of paper again, but the words blurred before his eyes as he recalled where the letter had been found, screwed up in the fist of a dead soldier, or a foreign policeman, dressed in a strange uniform, body jammed half-in, half-out of a sewer entrance in the harbour part of town. The truck had hit him as he'd emerged into the daylight, almost cutting him in half. The truck driver, still in shock, could tell them little more than the babble he came out with when first questioned: 'He just appeared from the ground. I didn't see him. I didn't know!' Tears shook his head, recalling the image of the mangled mess of the soldier, the black hole of a mouth, the wide, unblinking eyes. A hideous mangled caricature of a human being. He shivered, a sudden chill running through him. “Do we know anything more about him, this soldier?”

“I'm waiting for the call from Samuels.” Police pathologist Samuel Samuels. Expert in his field, methodical and slow. Marilyn shrugged. “I might take some photographs of his uniform to the Army Museum. They'll be able to tell us what his unit is at least.”

“No identity cards, passport, anything at all?”

“Not a thing.”

Tears held his breath for a moment before releasing the air slowly. “There's nothing right about any of this, Marilyn. What would a soldier be doing down a sewer, clutching this?” He waved the letter.

“I'll get onto the museum.” She stood up, smoothing her skirt. “It might be some sort of role-playing game. You know, paintball or something.”

“Paintball?”

“Yeah, or the other thing…air-soft. Kids, adults too, get into groups, run around in protective clothing, shooting each other with little plastic balls. It's all the rage.”

Tears screwed up his face, not sure whether he believed her. “Never heard of it.”

“That's because you sit at home and do nothing but read books. Old books.”

“History, Marilyn. And you know the reason.”

“Open University degree, isn't it?”

He shook his head, a ghost of a smile flickering around his mouth, “MA, Marilyn. I got my degree three years ago.”

“Perhaps you should be the one who goes to the museum?”

“No. I'll leave that to you. It'll be good for you – expand your mind.”

“My mind doesn't need expanding, thanks very much.” She picked up her bag and rifled inside. “I had something for you, and I can't remember…Ah!” She grinned and brought out a brightly coloured leaflet. She passed it to him.

Tears read, 'Doctor Keith Melling, in conversation at Birkenhead Central Library. Come along and chat all about Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England.'

He frowned at her. “You picked this up for me?”

“Thought you'd be interested.”

“I am.” He carefully folded the leaflet and slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. “Thanks, I'm touched.”

She flashed another smile before turning and walking away. Tears studied her, feeling only mildly guilty when he allowed his eyes to linger a little too long on her legs as she stood in the doorway. He looked up, caught the bemused expression on her face, and felt the heat rush to his cheeks. For something to do, he scribbled a few words in his notepad. When he glanced her way again she was gone.

Tears sighed, propped his chin on his hands and thought for a moment. He pulled out the flyer Marilyn had given him, unfolded it and stared at the wording. Keith Melling. Doctor Keith Melling. They'd gone to school together, a thousand years ago. Melling, top of every single class there was, Tears at the bottom. Except for history. In history he was second. Melling, as always, was first. Now here he was – a doctor, giving talks in the local library. Tears wondered if Melling would recognise him. There was every chance he would remember him, of course, seeing as Tears had saved his life.

Two

The tunnel stank, worse than ever. Jude sat in the water, if you could call it that. Closer to urine in its consistency and stink. Pure, perfect stench. Rat infested, faeces ridden, filth, nothing else. He studied the rivulets of slime dribbling down the brittle brickwork without reacting, well used to the grime, the disgusting aroma. The heat, however, was something else. Perspiration dripped from his eyebrows, plopped into the putrid yellow liquid around his feet. He lowered his eyes, fascinated by the way the droplets of sweat seemed to disperse the filth, like mini explosions. Must be the salt, he thought.

He turned as his father emerged from the gloom, sloshing through the sewage. He'd been gone only a few moments, scouting ahead to search for an exit. Now he came through the filth, driving himself on towards his son, his voice a mere croak. “Jude.”

Up close, his father's face appeared tense, streaked with black slug trails that ran from his forehead, down his cheeks and ended at his jawline. Congealed grease plastered hair to his head, forming a sort of obscene setting-gel, and Jude choked down a cry of despair. Father was no longer the man Jude remembered. He'd grown old with worry, but hard, resolute. A man on a mission to get home.

“I discovered a light,” his father said. “It's a long way off but definitely a light of some kind. A way out. If we can make it to open air, we can find our way home. They won't follow us there. We can disappear, try and get back to normal.”

Jude didn't want to allow himself to be drawn into false hopes. For too long life had been an endless struggle, scavenging for food and water, dodging from one unlit back-street to the next. He gave a slight snigger. “Normal? Since when has anything been normal?”

Father bent down, not reacting as his knees sank into the liquid filth. He gripped Jude's hand. “You mustn't give up hope. We will get out of this, I promise, but we've got to keep moving, son. It's our only chance because if they catch up with us, they'll smooth our brains, make us mindless automatons and have us working down the mines. Our memories, all our dreams and loves, all forgotten.”

“That might be better; better than all of this.” Jude pulled his hand free and kicked out, pushing his foot through the water. A great cloud of yellow sludge welled up from underneath, and with it came the overpowering smell of putrefaction. Father gagged, stood up and pressed a hand against the slime-covered wall for support. Jude turned his head away, voice small. “We shouldn't have come down here. It's a system we don't know, and that makes it dangerous. We should have tried to find another exit and get to the surface as soon as we could.”

“There was no time, not with the Militia after us,” said Father.

“From the moment we arrived in this hell-hole the whole world seems to have gone mad.” Jude put his face in his hands. “I don't want to do this anymore.”

“Anymore? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jude jerked, dropped his hands. Father's eyes blazed red. Even in the eerie half-light, Jude noticed the fury burning in his father's face, sensed the mounting threat of violence.

“You think you've had it hard because we got into one or two scrapes with the Militia? You have no idea what hard is! I've been living on the edge all my life. Your mother slaves away, greasing power generators whilst your brothers assemble and maintain machine parts, risking their limbs every second of every day. You know full well my epilepsy makes me unstable to work, but I do whatever I can.”

“And I do. You don't need to preach to me, Father. I know how everyone fights, living the lies, going through the motions, and I understand the consequences if any of us get caught. But all of us, in any way we can, struggle to overcome the oppression we're forced to live under.”

“Your brothers do more, Jude. More than the rest of us. They sabotage whatever they can, whenever they can.” He leaned forward, close enough for Jude to see the blackened stumps of his teeth, smell the sweat of his body, see the veins throbbing in his red, straining neck. “This morning, when you saw the girl running from the militiaman chasing her, you thought that was because of us, didn't you? You thought we'd tried to do something and it had all gone wrong, didn't you?” His hand struck out and grabbed Jude by the shoulder, shaking him. “Answer me, damn you!”

“Yes I did.” Jude tore himself free and stood, facing his father square on. “They are everywhere, getting closer and closer. They know who we are and I'm scared. Scared we'll get caught, every one of us will go to prison and I'll end up in some correction facility. I'm sick of hiding in dank cellars and stinking sewers, jumping at my own shadow. I want to do a decent job, a normal one. Get an apprenticeship, welding or something. I don't want to be running away for the rest of my life.”

His father looked at him for a long time, searching with unblinking, black eyes until he sighed, turned away and rubbed his grizzled chin. “I'm sorry, Jude, maybe we can discuss this another time, another place. Not here, not now, Jude, because we have to get back. The girl got away and the militiaman must have lost her, I hope, so we've got a chance to make it home unseen.”

“I dropped my diary.”

His father snapped his head around, disbelieving. “You did what?”

“I dropped it, in the entrance. I didn't realise until…until it was too late.”

His father's eyes clamped shut for a moment, and then he blew out a breath. “I told you not to keep that damn thing, Jude. Why the hell do you waste your time with it?”

“It's my way of remaining…sane. Like I said, it's a world gone mad, so I think and write to keep some sort of hold on what life used to be like.”

“You wrote everything in it, I know you did. Details, about us.”

“I never used real names. Well, not always.”

Leaning against the wall, his father stared towards the ceiling. “Dear God. If there are details in it about meeting places, times…Dear God, Jude.”

“I didn't write about anything like that. Thoughts and feelings, nothing more.”

“All right. So you dropped it, you said? In the water?” He shrugged. “Well, you can always start another one, I guess. You dropped it at the entrance, you say? What entrance?”

“Wait,” said Jude, feeling the pressure, licking his lips. He pressed his finger and thumb into his eyes, squeezed. “I can't…Wait, yes. When we dipped into that service room it must have fallen out of my pocket because I remember seeing the militiaman run past, stop and pick it up. It was sodden, some of the papers falling apart, but he took what was left. I'm sorry, Father.”

Jude's father's face appeared ashen, drained of blood. “You promise there's nothing important in it?”

Jude frowned.

“You know, like secrets?”

“Secrets? No, of course not, I told you, just my—”

“What's done is done, Jude. It can't be helped, so forget about it. You have to stay focused. Today, you don't give up, you understand? Today, we get back up to the surface, we blend in and then we make some plans. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Father held out a hand and Jude took it, feeling the strength. His father smiled. “It'll get better, you'll see.”

For lots of reasons Jude found that statement hard to believe.