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Out of Era
Out of Era
Out of Era
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Out of Era

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Those who own the past will write the future

As far as history is concerned, Paul was never born, never attended school, never held down a job or even had an address. It makes him a hard man to find, an excellent temporal agent and history’s best defender. Time itself is under threat from those who seek to alter the past, to realize their vision of the future. In the battle to defend the timeline, the man who never was will have only one ally – the woman who should not be.

From the author of the Nameless War Trilogy, Out of Era is a fast paced time travel adventure that roars up and down the twentieth century, as time itself becomes prize, battleground and weapon.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 7, 2017
ISBN9781370340378
Out of Era
Author

Edmond Barrett

Edmond Barrett is a techno-phobic science fiction writer who is quietly proud to be British, while happy to acknowledge his entire ancestry is Irish. He copes with the contradictions in his life by not thinking about them too much. The Nameless War is his first published work, he is currently work on the third book of the Trilogy The Last Charge which is due for release in October 2014. A resident of Dublin, Ireland, he is life long fan of science fiction and fantasy as well as being a amateur student of military history.

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    Out of Era - Edmond Barrett

    Acknowledgment

    No man is an island and no book is written in isolation.

    I would like to thank in particular Kate for her patience, forbearance and willingness to put up with me talking about time-travel, paradoxes and circular time for the two plus years it has taken me to write this book. To Phil for allowing me to so sound out ideas. To Jan for his hard work and finally my parents, for their love and support in all things.

    Chapter One

    Location (Contemporary Nation State Designation): United States of America

    Urban Centre: Cleveland

    Date (Second Era Dating System): 13th October 1993 AD

    Time (Pre-Poltava Rebellion Time Measurement Protocol): 11:23pm

    Assuming I get any kind of choice in the matter, I don’t just interface into a time period and wing it. At the very least, I make sure there is nothing upon my person that shouldn’t be there or then. That means first checking my pockets for coins with a minting date that is in the future relative to when I am going to be there. Obviously bankcards, credit cards or really any form of personal ID are right out. To make my life easier I own several dozen wallets – all hand stitched natural leather from the 1930s so there are no plastics – each one for storing the bank notes of one country and time period, as well as the same photograph I always keep. I also have to be careful about clothing; it isn’t about being fashionable – I’d need a wardrobe the size of a warehouse for that – it’s more about making sure I’m not wearing something with elements that haven’t been invented or haven’t gone into general usage in the time period I’m entering, like zips before about 1913 or Velcro before the ‘60s. So on the job I tend to wear a lot of natural fabrics, and have an overall look that could best be described as old-fashioned. As for the operations themselves – well they mostly revolve around being in position to intercept rogue time travellers as they arrive in era and make sure that no evidence of the event is left behind for someone of that time to discover.

    The alarm system of the warehouse I need to enter is blaring when I arrive. That’s not so good, because it strongly suggests the plan has gone sideways and from here on in, I’ll be making it up as I go along. If you are wondering why I don’t simply time travel back a few more minutes, well the short answer basically boils down to this: messing with your own personal continuity is a really bad idea. The long answer is that while loop backs are possible, you should try to avoid them. If I did and then for some reason the alarm didn’t actually go off, then my presence in that time period would be based on data that the earlier version of me couldn’t have received. The consequence would be a paradox, the results of which are hard to predict but generally aren’t pleasant. So while loop backs can and sometimes must be performed, they are best attempted on a very pre-planned basis. Don’t ask me for more than that because – A: I’d be all day trying to explain the maths and B: most of it is well beyond the comprehension of my early 21st century brain anyway. I don’t need to be able to understand the technology of time travel, any more than you need to understand the mechanics of the modern telecommunications industry to use your mobile phone.

    I can’t say I am entirely surprised at this turn of events. Control thought it had enough of a fix to get me into a time/place position before this one arrived. However, this one wasn’t your garden-variety rogue time traveller but something we call a Dive Bomber. Down this far, rogue time travellers are a rare breed; most of those that do attempt it are aiming to make a small tweak, take something from the past or even settle down here. Dive Bombers are more destructive – one-way time travellers not aiming to get back and looking to make major changes. I’ve only come across a handful but those that do come down as far as the 20th century are a dangerously dedicated breed. This particular Dive Bomber had already managed to dodge all attempts at interception, so successfully in fact that we aren’t sure if it’s a he or a she that’s coming down the time stream. Assuming the target has arrived, the alarm might be a problem; in this time and place the police could be minutes away or never turn up. For my purposes, better the latter.

    Do you have a coordinate fix? I ask Control as I pick the mechanical lock on the warehouse door. From my outward appearance, none of my equipment is in anyway futuristic. But then in the 20th century, there is no scientific or medical test that would detect the computer in my head or that my jacket is far more than it seems. As for rogue time travellers, particularly Dive Bombers, there’s no way of knowing what they’ve picked up on the way down.

    Confirmed, Control replies, bearing zero, two, three on current level. Range: ninety-eight feet. About 30 metres I think to myself. I do wish they’d remember down here we don’t all work in that archaic measuring system.

    I unholster my gun – a Webley .455 revolver I acquired on the Western Front in 1917 – and move slowly forward. It’s a heavy weapon and of course limited to six shots but I can get away with it being seen further back, well back into the 19th century in fact, and it does fire a nice big bullet.

    The alarm is still going as I make my way down the aisles. I set my computer to filter out most of the noise so I can hear everything else. Control’s read on the location is spot on. The indications that this point in space has been the site of a time jump are subtle but I know what to look for. On the floor, I see a very thin pale circle in the concrete. Crouching down, I run my fingers across the thin line. Dust sticks to my fingertips. The line is only a couple of mill thick, yet this very small volume has been aged by decades. When the Dive Bomber transited down, there would have been a sphere around them, on the edge of which, spacetime was subject to two conflicting versions of ‘now.’ I can see thin curved lines of damage to the paint on the shelves. A legal time shift would have had a wider dispersal that wouldn’t cause such damage, but would be easier for Control to pinpoint.

    Control, I’ve found the interface site.

    There’s no reply. Instead, from behind me, I hear a faint whine. My computer has a number of databases that I can’t access directly because foreknowledge is dangerous and strictly regulated. It flashes up an alert in the corner of my vision that the noise is coming from an M263 linear accelerator – a weapon that won’t be developed for another 73 years. The warning is nice but moot because a split second later. The first hypervelocity bullet hits me square between the shoulder blades. Thank God he didn’t aim for my head!

    Maybe the Dive Bomber did but when Control doesn’t instantly reply, I dived forward and the auto targeter probably defaulted to centre of mass. Even under a microscope my jacket looks like an ordinary trench coat, but it’s made from a material that won’t be developed for another nine centuries and can stop a 50 cal round at the muzzle. As I dive out of the line of fire, I feel the back of the coat pulse between rigid and relaxed as it absorbs the force of repeated blows while I scramble away. Boxes blow apart and a shelf folds as bullets saw through its support. I flick my vision to thermal imaging and crack off two rounds roughly in the direction of the warm signal behind me. I see the Dive Bomber duck; so advantage firepower to him, advantage protection to me. That thought just crosses my mind when my computer urgently flashes a warning word across my vision: LOCK! I hear the whistle of a rocket accelerating towards me. I don’t need the computer this time. I tuck into a ball to get every bit of me behind the protection of the jacket, just as the shard rocket turns the corner and detonates.

    I feel the entire back of my jacket stiffen as multiple pieces of shrapnel strike. The shelves and storage boxes around me disintegrate as I get bowled down the aisle. That’s another out-of-era weapon, by about 60 years and I’ve had it fired at me before. Odds are that whoever designs the shard hasn’t been born yet, but if I ever find out who he is, I will be severely tempted to kick the snot out of the sadistic little bastard. From what I follow, by the time the shard enters service, power assisted armour – proof against it – will be in widespread service. Which will mean it is only of use against civilian targets.

    I end up lying upside-down in the wreckage of what appears to be a large consignment of toasters. After a quick status check I establish that on the negative side I have a minor flesh wound on my left ankle, my ears are ringing and there is a slight smell of burning hair around me. On the positive side, both my ankle and ears are still attached to the rest of me. First contact was the best opportunity to take me out and the Dive Bomber’s blown it. I switch my jacket to camouflage mode just as he comes round the corner.

    I don’t know what people from the top of the timeline look like when they are when they should be. Most of those that are down here legally use false flesh disguises. Rogues usually don’t bother and tend to look like classical statues – weirdly perfect. Not this one though. He’s obviously had body modifications on the way down. Not from anywhere near the top of the time stream though. Out-of-era tech is a lot easier to detect in transit than out-of-era flesh and blood. The body mods looked like pretty crude affairs, early stuff implanted with even cruder surgery. The result is a huge, lumpen, misshapen form that would make the Elephant Man’s eyes water. Whatever else, this guy isn’t going to blend in. His eyes and gun go back and forth, searching for but missing me. Thankfully, his mods clearly haven’t extended to sensory upgrades. But what I do have to contend with is a Dive Bomber who can jam my connection to Control, has enough body mods to rip off my head in a stand-up fight and sufficient firepower to kill a small town. To top it all off he isn’t doing the right thing. He should be cheesing it – my best chance of interception is when he’s transiting through time. He can’t go much further down but even if this is an acclimatisation stop, he should be legging it, trying to lose me. But he isn’t. He’s actually looking for me. This guy isn’t trying to fend me off – he’s trying to finish me off.

    He continues forward searching, while in the distance I hear a police siren approaching. Rolling onto my feet I start to follow him. The alarm combined with his lack of sensor mods means he’s basically deaf. I switch my vision to scan. He might not have armour but the mods under his skin could potentially deflect a bullet. As I pad after him, the computer identifies a chink. At the right moment, I step forward and shove the barrel under his chin.

    Drop it! I say, right in his ear.

    Christ, up close this guy is even bigger than he seemed! I’m no midget but he has a good fifteen centimetres on me. I feel his muscles tighten and the machinery augmenting them shift. I press the Webley in tighter.

    Last warning.

    He freezes. Taking people alive is preferred, but not a requirement. Then his lip rolls back revealing sharp metal teeth and slowly he stretches out his arm and drops the gun.

    You are under arrest for the crimes of unauthorised time travel, the transport and use of out-of-era weapons and attempted murder of a Temporal Investigation and Enforcement officer.

    Then I nearly jump out of my skin as someone screams from behind me: FREEZE!

    Looking over my shoulder, I see two of the Cleveland Police Department’s finest pointing pistols at me.

    Drop the weapon! Drop it NOW! one of them shouts.

    Oh Lordy. They must have heard the shard going off; that should have been enough to make them stop and shout for backup. But they both look young … and keen.

    Out of the corner of my eye I can still see the Dive Bomber’s teeth, now in a grin of anticipation. If I drop the gun he’ll kill all three of us. The timeline could manage without me but the premature removal from the land of the living of the two cops could have all kinds of implications. Taking the rogue in alive is now officially off the table and he knows it. What he hasn’t worked out is that I know it too.

    Complicated problem for you, he says in a thick accent.

    No actually, it makes things much easier, I reply.

    I don’t know whether he understands me, but he certainly doesn’t get a chance to think about it before I squeeze the trigger. With the muzzle pressed up into his flesh there’s nowhere for the pressure to vent except upwards. The bullet blows out through the top of his head and the overpressure propels a lumpy squirt of semi-liquefied brain matter after it. Horrible, but I don’t have time to think about that. Before the lumps start landing I swing round the now ex-Dive Bomber, jam the Webley’s muzzle into his eye and put the last three rounds in to make damn sure he isn’t going to get any funny ideas about not being dead. I obviously catch the two cops by surprise. Lack of age and inexperience means they clearly didn’t expect to have someone murdered in extremely cold blood right in front of them. I’m already off and running before they react.

    Drop him! one shouts. The other is already firing but frankly, if my jacket could stop shots from a late 21st century military grade rifle, then those little nine mill rounds aren’t going to achieve much; if I’m hit I don’t even feel it.

    Officer, can you hear me? Officer, can you hear me?

    Ah, the welcome sound of Control. Whatever implanted jammer was blocking my connection must have been and shut down along with the Dive Bomber.

    Control, I have category five temporal pollution.

    I forget myself and shout it instead of just thinking my reply.

    "I need to shift 72 hours down-range for loop back and containment!

    I need submission of loop back planni…"

    A bullet buzzes past my ear as I lunge down another aisle.

    Damn it Control! I’m under fire from in-era law enforcement!

    Locking on… awaiting go.

    There’s another crackle of gunfire from behind me. I need to get out of sight. I can’t just disappear right in front of them. At the last moment I spot where a portion of one shelf is empty and so is the matching portion on the next shelf behind. I’m up, through and out of their sight.

    Now Control! Now!

    222000.jpg

    Like I said, looping back is not the preferred method but sometimes it’s unavoidable. When I’m on assignment my computer has a complete record of my activities, to the point of logging every direction I so much as glance in. So from my perspective, three days later I’m back outside the warehouse, standing in a location that I never so much as glanced at the first time round, ready to watch myself arrive in era.

    It’s creepy watching myself break in and I’m glad when I disappear from sight. I do learn something new. A security guard arrives just in time to see the door close behind me and immediately starts talking to someone on his radio. With something more interesting to investigate than a mere false alarm, the two cops arrive with a screech of their brakes, which incidentally covers the sound of the shard going off. Definitely keen, the dynamic duo charge in with guns drawn while the rattled security guard retreats, leaving me free to follow. I hang back until I hear the heavy discharges of my Webley followed by a crackle of semi automatic fire and the sound of me running with the police in hot pursuit.

    Now I have the window of opportunity I went three days into the past to obtain. The corpse and scene are unattended. The clean-up doesn’t take long; after all, I’ve had three days to prepare. The corpse is bagged, as is his gun and launcher. The blood and brain matter could be a problem – there are way too many things that would show up as weird if any police lab got a chance to look at it. A small fire will solve that, especially as a check of my visual logs reveals the overhead sprinkler pipe is damaged. With water already trickling out further down, the nearest nozzle won’t get enough pressure while the rest of the system will contain the blaze long enough for the fire brigade to turn up. The linear accelerator and the shard aren’t from far enough up-range to contain any really exotic materials, so there shouldn’t be any problems there, even if fragments are found. The main problem will be the paper trail – police reports and whatnot. With no body, no suspect, no evidence and just the word of two inexperienced officers, the investigation will likely be parked within a fortnight. I found out in my relative yesterday that their system is still paper-based. In ten years time the reports will be moved to long-term stores. Once I’m done here, I’ll deal with them. Without documentary evidence, 60 years from now, once the two cops shuffle off their mortal coil, the whole incident will disappear from history. I’ll just have to make sure that this doesn’t turn up on some unsolved mysteries website in twenty years time.

    The mystery that will remain is the one for me. I’ve had rogue time travellers try to kill me before and likely will again in my relative future, but it’s always been as a means to an end. This guy though, maybe he had other objectives as well, but killing me was definitely one of them and that’s just wrong. I don’t mean in any moral, ethical or legal way. I mean that from a logical standpoint, I’m not that important. If I’m really lucky, it was personal, about something I did in my past or perhaps will do in my future – maybe kill or arrest someone he was close to and this is the end of it. If I’m not so lucky… it won’t be the past that will haunt me, it will be the future.

    Chapter Two

    A steady thumping noise dragged Liz unwillingly towards consciousness. Head still buried in her pillow, she slapped blindly at the alarm clock but unaccountably, the thumping continued. Then abruptly, her hand was licked.

    Agh! she exclaimed, raising her sleepy head from the pillow. Sammy, the family Labrador was sitting beside her bed, grinning at her as his great feather duster of a tail beat against the dresser. With bleary eyes she looked at the clock, which read eight forty-five am, then to the bedroom door, which was open.

    Sammy, who let you in? she croaked.

    The sound of his name was all the invitation Sammy needed and before she could stop him, he’d hopped up onto the bed and stuck a cold, wet nose into her ear.

    Agh! Liz said for a second time in one morning.

    221995.jpg

    Her father was sitting at the breakfast bar with his nose in the paper when she came down to the kitchen, with Sammy hard on her heels. Her brother was still in his bedclothes and eating breakfast. As he heard them come in, he reached down and Sammy pushed past Liz to see if a treat was being offered.

    Thanks so much for letting the hound in, I really needed that, Liz said to her brother, ruffling his hair as she headed for the kettle.

    Nothing to do with me, Peter replied as he rubbed Sammy’s head, in response to which the dog let out a contented sigh. You know if I ever do get a guide dog, I’m going to need you not to nick it.

    Not my fault I’m the hound’s favourite.

    With all the treats you give him, Peter replied. I think you’ll find it is.

    That was me, her father said, you’d sleep the day away otherwise.

    Teenagers need more sleep… scientific fact, Liz said as she threw a tea bag into a mug, then a second one after it.

    You’re nearly twenty, dear, he replied smiling.

    Age is a state of mind, old man. Where’s Mum?

    Gone into town to do the shopping, I heard you coming in last night. Did you have a good time?

    Yeah, a good time was had and no, we didn’t drink or talk to strange men, Liz replied, before smiling innocently as her father raised a dubious eyebrow at her. Anything in the news?

    Well that grinning moron Blair has won the election. God, you’d despair of this country, her father grumped.

    You despair of a lot of countries. What was it you said last year when Bill Clinton won his second term?

    Probably something colourful that I stand by.

    You said he’s a smarmy git who wouldn’t be able to keep his pants on. I think we’d have heard something by now if he was fooling around with some office assistant.

    I stand by it, her father replied, peering over the paper.

    Where did the Liberals come in? Liz asked as she pored herself a bowl of cereal.

    Not well, he replied sourly.

    Her father had been a solid Labour man up to the miners’ strike in the ‘80s. Then he’d had some kind of falling out with the local party organisation and switched his allegiance to the Liberal-Democrats. As far as Liz was concerned he might as well be voting for the Monster Raving Looney party as they both had about the same chance of getting into government.

    What are you doing today?

    Well I was planning to have a lie-in but that didn’t work out, so now I’m thinking of heading back to Preston after lunch.

    Need a lift to the station?

    Yes please.

    The thing about home being in Leeds and going to University in Preston was that it was just close enough to bounce back over a weekend and far enough away to be awkward. Her dad had insisted she come home for the election to vote. Liz had pointed out that she had a voting card in Preston, but no, he said, Leeds was her home. The city wasn’t a bad place, not by any means, but Liz had already decided that when she finished uni, she wasn’t coming back. There was a big wide world out there, so why limit yourself to one bit of it?

    221989.jpg

    The trains were never all that reliable on Sunday. Actually, since privatisation, railways were never that reliable at all, but on Sunday you could really count on that unreliability. So it was no surprise when, on reaching Manchester Piccadilly, Liz found her connecting train was delayed. Rather than sit around in the station, she decided to kill the time shopping, or window-shopping to be more precise, since there wasn’t enough in her purse to fund anything serious.

    Slowly, she meandered through several shops and tried on a couple of outfits before finally heading for Marks and Spencer’s to get a pair of socks, which she definitely needed and were about the only thing she could really afford.

    As she poked about, Liz glanced around. The shop wasn’t all that busy for a Sunday. There was only one other woman in the same section and she seemed intent on doing some serious shopping. In fact, there was something about her that made Liz take a second look. Her face was attractive but weirdly ageless. Liz would have put her anywhere between her twenties and her ‘60s. Since she was moving easily that suggested the former but her clothing looked like she’d taken fashion tips from the Queen Mother. She was at that moment searching through a rack of crop tops.

    Yeah, you do need a fashion update, Liz muttered to herself before something else caught her eye. It was a man standing up against the wall. Unlike the ageless woman, in his case Liz could make a reasonable estimate of his age – somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, although like the woman his choice of clothing was odd. His loose trousers were held up by braces, combined with a white shirt and a tan-coloured trench coat, giving the impression he’d either escaped from a period drama or merely lacked the hat with which to go raid the lost ark. He had his arms crossed in front of him and was watching the woman. Liz grinned to herself. Did the queen mum have herself a toy-boy? He didn’t look bored as such; in fact his face was expressionless as he watched the woman. There was something familiar about him and Liz flicked through her mental filing cabinet to check if he was someone she should know. Nothing came up; the way he was standing though made her think of a bodyguard. Was the woman someone famous? Liz looked at her again. The strange lady was still looking through racks of clothes, checking some of them with a tape measure and making notes in a pad. Well if she was famous she wasn’t that famous. Liz looked back at the man and his eyes met hers. They widened and a whole range of emotions crossed his face too fast for Liz to read but the one that came up front and centre was alarm.

    Before Liz could react he stepped forward and grabbed

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