The Time Shifter Read Online Free Page B

we’ve been here. So –’

    She turned to see the Krskn-woman. Yes, there she was. Amelia saw her trace selves lighting up the sphere and dropping it, and the sphere disappearing through the grass and into the earth. ‘Look, Charlie – there she is, starting it all.’
    ‘So let’s go end it all,’ he said, dropping the sphere back into its hole.
    ‘How can we? She knows we’re onto her, and as long as she has that bracelet, she’s always a step ahead of us.’
    ‘All right, then, so what do we do?’
    ‘Tom,’ Amelia said simply, and they both ran.
    It was only a short crash through the grove of magnolia trees to reach Tom’s cottage, and it felt great to Amelia to finally be doing something different – like they were changing the game, making their own decisions rather than merely reacting to the alien’s.
    Across the clearing, Amelia thumped on Tom’s door, but Charlie just threw it open, and Amelia followed him in.
    ‘What do you want?’ Tom growled, not even looking up from his charts. It wasn’t the friendliest greeting, but actually better than his usual.
    ‘We need your help,’ said Amelia.
    ‘You’ll have to wait, then. There’s a dangerous connection about to align.’
    ‘How’s it dangerous?’ said Charlie. ‘Like, an earthquake-y wormhole, or an unstable one with blowbacks?’
    Tom finally sat up straight, pushed the charts away, and swivelled his chair to glare at them. ‘Neither. The wormhole is solid – one of the most reliable ones we have. The problem is, it connects with MN-5.’
    Amelia blinked.
    Tom looked grimmer still. ‘MN-5,’ he said bitterly, ‘was a major Guild stronghold, back during the –’ he caught himself, ‘– trouble.’
    Trouble? What trouble? Amelia had no idea what Tom was talking about, but by now she knew better than to interrupt him with questions. The trick was to listen and remember now, and try to figure it all out with Charlie later. If they could remember it later …
    ‘By the time Gateway Control got organised, the Guild was a thing of the past. Or so we thought. Now we hear that MN-5 is active again. No-one’s saying it’s Guild, of course. No-one’s stupid enough to say anything like that out loud, but mark my words: anything that comes out of MN-5 is no friend to us.’
    Amelia gulped. ‘I think someone like that is already here.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Someone’s messing with time,’ said Charlie. ‘This is the first time we’ve come to you, but we’ve done everything else like five times.’
    ‘You’re saying events are repeating?’ said Tom, a glimmer of recognition in his single remaining eye.
    ‘Yes,’ said Charlie.
    ‘And you remember ?’ said Tom.
    ‘ Yes ,’ said Amelia.
    ‘Then you must have found the recursor.’
    ‘The what?’ said Charlie.
    ‘The time-control device.’
    ‘Mm … what’s it look like?’ Charlie asked, shiftily.
    ‘I have no idea,’ Tom said dourly, brow furrowing over his eye-patch. ‘They’re insanely rare, expensive and dangerous. But seeing as you know what’s going on, you must have not only seen the recursor, you must have touched it.’
    ‘We have,’ Amelia admitted.
    Tom snorted and shook his head. ‘Hopeless. Don’t you two listen to anything I say? Touching alien technology before you know what it is? You’d be better off running round the bush trying to catch snakes with your bare hands.’
    ‘On the other hand,’ Charlie said in a sarcastic voice. ‘ Thanks, kids, for discovering we’re all stuck in a time-loop with Krskn’s twin .’
    Tom turned white. ‘What did you say?’
    ‘Last time, Grawk bit the holo-emitter off the bracelet woman and she turned into the same sort of alien as Krskn,’ said Amelia.
    Tom held up both hands. ‘Whoa whoa whoa! Start again: what woman?’
    Jittery with impatience, not knowing how long they had before the woman reset time on them again, and not seeing the point in explaining it to Tom if he was only going to