TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1
Read TimeBomb: The TimeBomb Trilogy: Book 1 Online
Authors: Scott K. Andrews
Table of Contents
Scott K. Andrews is the author of three novels in Abaddon’s Afterblight Chronicles series –
School’s Out
,
Operation Motherland
and
Children’s Crusade
– which follow the adventures of a group of schoolchildren trying to rebuild society after a viral apocalypse. You can find Scott at
www.scottandrews.com
. Follow him on Twitter
@ScottKAndrews
, or on Facebook
www.facebook.com/scottkandrews
.
Scott K. Andrews
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Scott K. Andrews 2014
The right of Scott K. Andrews to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 75207 6
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
338 Euston Road
London NW1 3BH
This book is for Kitty, who came up with the idea for the cover, and who is the bravest, cleverest, funniest, kindest daughter a father could wish for.
Four decisions and their immediate consequences
New York, America East, 2141
It was only when she reached the top of the staircase and burst through the door on to the deserted roof that Jana decided to die.
She’d died once before and it wasn’t so bad, but she’d hoped to avoid doing it again for a while.
She scanned left and right, searching for some sliver of hope; a skylight, a fire escape, some form of cover, a discarded crowbar to use as a weapon. There was nothing. All she could see were the flat, featureless slabs of reconstituted rubber that formed the skyscraper’s top seal. At the far edge of the roof was a small concrete lip beyond which rose the skyline of New York, shimmering in the heat.
The skyscraper was an old twentieth-century construction, forty storeys high. Once it had dominated the skyline, but now it was dwarfed by the looming organic skytowns that twined sinuously up into the cloud base.
Even so, it was quiet on the roof. The noises of the city didn’t reach up here. Jana knew the membrane windows of the skytowns masked hives of furious activity, but here it felt tranquil and deserted.
She was easily visible from a thousand offices. Should anyone glance down at the city for a second, they would be able to see Jana, hands on knees, gasping for breath, sweat-drenched, scared and alone in the middle of a flat, black roof. Would anyone spare her a second glance? She was standing at the heart of one of the most densely populated cities on Earth, but she felt entirely alone, just as she always did.
A shout broke her reverie.
‘Up here, the roof!’
Jana straightened and began to walk towards the edge. She felt a sudden calm at the certainty of what was about to happen. There was something liberating about having no choice.
She actually smiled as she approached the edge and looked down at the city streets so far below. Traffic was backed up along Broadway again, but the cabs and buses flew serenely in their dedicated lanes, speeding above the general traffic, untroubled by the congestion at ground level.
There in the middle distance she picked out the old stone buildings that ringed Central Park, the prosperous sector of town that she called home; a ghetto of lawyers, technocrats and bankers. Her mother would be there now, working on her speech for tonight’s big event.
Jana wondered whether her mother would hear about her death in time to cancel. She imagined her standing on the podium in front of the serried ranks of cameras and dignitaries, mid-speech, as an aide walked on to the stage nervously and whispered in her ear. Jana saw her mother’s face crumple and blur, her knees weaken as she slumped forward against the lectern in shock.
A nice thought, but it was more likely she’d show some of that famous stony-faced resolve.
After all, she’d make sure that her daughter would only be dead for a month or so.
‘There she is.’
Jana raised her head and glanced over her shoulder. Three young men had emerged on to the roof behind her. She turned to face them, the backs of her calves pressing against the cold concrete of the roof lip.
She’d not had a good opportunity to study them during the pursuit. She’d never seen them before, but twenty minutes earlier they had leapt at her out of an alleyway and tried to bundle her into a waiting car. She had struggled free and run. A number of times she’d thought herself safe, but each time they’d caught up to her again. Now, trapped at the edge of a roof, there was nowhere left for her to run.
The men all carried improvised weapons. The one on the left, with the scar on his cheek and the shock of bright red hair, brandished a thick metal bar. The one on the right, the short one, wielded a wide-blade knife. The middle one, the tall leader with the cold sneer on his thin lips, had a chain dangling from his left hand.
‘Who are you?’ Jana shouted. ‘What do you want?’
They fanned out and began to walk towards her, panting with exertion after the long pursuit.
‘Remember our orders,’ said the leader to his mates. ‘She wants the head intact.’
She’d been assuming they were a gang from the favelas, hunting for rich kids on a day trip to the big city, but this odd statement caused her to reconsider. Some mysterious woman wanted her head? She spent a second trying to make sense of this, but couldn’t, so dismissed it as a problem for later.
Much later.
When the three youths were within a few metres of her Jana grinned. The one with the scar paused, unsure how to respond, but the other two kept coming and he soon resumed his advance.
Smoothly, without taking her eyes off her would-be murderers, Jana stepped up and back on to the thin ledge. The leader stopped dead and put his arms out to indicate that his friends should stop too. They did so.
The leader cocked his head to one side, curious, sizing up Jana’s resolve. He looked uncertain. He had thought he was in control here, but now it seemed that his cornered prey had seized the initiative.
Finally, he spoke.
‘You haven’t got the guts,’ he said.
So Jana smiled, spread her arms wide, closed her eyes, and leaned back into space.
She felt her feet leave the concrete and the wind buffet her back, roaring in her ears. Her stomach felt hollow and her senses told her she was cutting through the updraughts of the city that was rushing to meet her.
But she didn’t hit the ground for a hundred and twenty-eight years.
Theodora Predennick failed to stifle a yawn. She wasn’t accustomed to rising so early. Being dressed and busy in the pre-dawn gloom felt unnatural. All her life, summer and winter, she had been woken by the first rays of the rising sun, and had retired to bed as the skies above her village turned black.
Her grandmother had warned her about the things that walked abroad after dark: goblins, werewolves, fair folk, and girls with wickedness in their hearts. Good girls were safely tucked up behind stout wooden doors come sunset. Dora had always been a good girl.
Her new dress pinched at her ribs. She adjusted the wretched thing to try and reduce the chafing as she worked the lump of dough on the table before her, kneading and pounding the mixture into submission.
The logs on the huge kitchen hearthstones crackled and spat as the damp bark was scorched away. The newly dried wood began to catch alight, billowing fresh smoke up the chimney and casting a warm glow that lightened the gloom.
When Dora was satisfied that the dough was ready she set it by the fireplace in a cloth-lined wicker basket so it could rise in the spreading warmth. It was time to light the fire beneath the baking oven.
She had just lifted the iron tongs, intending to prise a log from the main fire and use it to spark the smaller one, when she paused. Had she heard something?
No. Not at this hour. The master was still abed and cook wasn’t likely to rise for some time. She’d only been working at Sweetclover Hall for a week, but she already had a good sense of the daily rhythm. At this time she was invariably the only person awake. She must have imagined it.
She leaned forward, the heat licking at her skin. She prised the tongs open and grasped a burning log in the metal jaws.
Once more she froze. There it was again. She was sure she’d heard it this time. She bit her lip nervously. What to do?
The horizons of Dora’s life were not wide. She had travelled beyond the borders of her village only twice. Once, when she was five, to visit her paternal grandfather as he lay dying in a neighbouring village, three miles to the south. The only other time had been last week, when she’d left home to enter service here.
She hadn’t wanted to leave. She had begged her father to change his mind, but he stood firm. Dora was fourteen now, a grown woman, he said. It was time she made her way in the world. Did she want to stay stuck in Pendarn tending goats for the rest of her life?
Dora had wanted to do exactly that, but her parents wouldn’t hear of it. They’d secured her a position as scullery maid at the big house and she was to start immediately.
Who knew, with some dedication and luck she might be cook herself one day, her mother had told her. Imagine that, a Predennick cook at the big house! Her mother’s breast had swelled with anticipated pride as she waved her tearful daughter goodbye.
Everything that Dora had experienced since then – every sight, sound, smell, texture and taste – had been fresh and new. Some people would have responded with excitement at the novelty, but not Dora. She longed for the comfort of familiarity and the safe, reassuring sameness of the life she had left behind. She was not curious about much of anything.
And yet, perhaps all the newness had inspired her; perhaps she was becoming confident of her ability to cope with the unexpected; perhaps she was just foolish. But as she stood in front of the fire, straining to hear what she was sure was the moan of pain drifting through the dark, deserted corridors, she made an uncharacteristic decision.
She lit a candle, and decided to investigate.
Kazik Cecka was cold, wet, tired and hungry when he finally decided to stop running and find somewhere to rest.
The cloudless night was full-moon bright, the raindrops picked out in flashes of silver, and the air was fresh with the first chill of autumn. Kaz pulled his tattered jacket tight and considered his options.