 
# THE DEAD WEB

David W Robinson

Copyright © 2020 David Robinson

All Rights Reserved

# Chapter 1

Even in this cell, The Light shone steadily in the background, but instead of the usual stream of spirits passing from life into death and making their way into The Light so they could go on to the next life, there was only him, and The Light called only to him. "Edward Flixton ... Edward Flixton ... Edward Flixton ..." its hypnotic incantation tempting him into its white purity.

For 1355 years, Flix, as he preferred to be known, had resisted the call of The Light. He had spent the last 470 of those years sealed in this energy cell.

Fool! He'd been a damned fool, allowing himself to be trapped by a pair of upstarts helped by the ghost of a long dead manservant.

In his calmer moments, he reflected on his environment, and grudgingly conceded that it was just about perfect. When Stasis Center Special Agents Mia Nellis and Nick Holt had locked him in the cell, they had brought in a part of the Spirit Plane he inhabited, and that, quite naturally, brought with it the omnipresent Light.

In the early years he had tested the strength of the stasis energy that imprisoned him and his worst fears were realised. The only way out of this prison was through The Light. But he did not want to go through The Light. He had resisted the call of The Light for almost 900 years before Nellis and Holt imprisoned him. To go through The Light would mean the end of Edward Flixton for eternity, and rebirth as someone else. Someone less ambitious; less knowledgeable? Flix did not want to be anyone other than Flix.

Time had little meaning on the Spirit Plane. A millennium could pass as a second. Despite the one and one third millennium that had passed since Edward Flixton died, it seemed to him as if it were only yesterday when the treacherous scum of Netherfield village cast the noose about his neck and kicked the stool from beneath his feet.

But for all the apparent speed with which time passed, existence on the Spirit Plane did not mean stagnation. Flix had learned much, particularly concerning stasis energy, and its potential. If he could escape, realise that potential, then his grandest plan may yet come to pass. Immortality! Not eternal life here on the Spirit Plane; any spirit could have that. But immortality down there, in the world men called real.

How close had he come that night at Coldmoor Castle? Nellis and Holt were beaten, the few live bodies left in the castle were Flix's for the taking. He could taste victory, and all he had to do was eliminate the disembodied spirit of Mia Nellis, kick her through The Light.

But that bloody butler, Sowerby, had interfered and Flix's double strike, hitting Sowerby first and then cannoning into Mia, had created a trajectory that would cast him into the stasis field where a single beam from Holt's weapon was sufficient to create the cell in which he now found himself.

Flix's first reaction was unbridled rage. His energy form bounced around the cell, colliding with the stasis walls and rebounding from them (always cautious to ensure that he did not venture close enough to The Light for its powerful vortex to suck him in) screaming impotently at the great injustice heaped upon him.

How dare they? How dare they incarcerate the finest mind in the history of mankind in this manner? What gave them the right to rob him of not only his freedom but his contact with the Spirit Plane and through it, the real world?

He did not know how long he hurled his fury at his stultifying prison, it could have been a matter of hours, days, years, even centuries. Eventually, he passed through other phases; self-pity, acceptance and then calmer investigation of his circumstances.

Even here, in this most stagnant of environments, with no view of anything beyond the boundaries of the cell, no interaction with the Spirit Plane or the world of men, there were lessons to be learned, and Flix had learned them. His fine, calculating mind, devoid of any other distraction, had been working long and hard at the equations. And now the solution presented itself.

Shooting off towards The Light, his aim angled so that he would not be dragged into it, but skirt the perimeter, he believed they had miscalculated. According to every theory they could construct, the stasis prison was impregnable. Nothing could get in, nothing could get out, and Flix's only way out was through The Light.

He believed differently. He believed there was another route to freedom; one that would leave the spirit of Edward Flixton intact, in contact with both the spirit world and the real world, and moreover, one that would leave him far more powerful than they could ever imagine.

He intersected the perimeter of The Light at the point where his speed and the powerful drag of the eternal vortex were in perfect balance.

And he began to circle it.

# Chapter 2

Nick tutted and Mia looked around the room.

The plexiglass windows were set to opaque, shutting out the world. The doors were locked and beyond them, a red light burned in the corridors warning everyone that Control was in conference and not to be disturbed by anything less than the threat of instant annihilation.

Where other offices were decorated with items that brought a sense of the personal to working life, Control's was not. Nick's desk, two floors down, sported holo-images of his favourite celebs, and, of course, Mia, while Mia's workspace was cluttered with soft toys and images from holidays in the Caribbean or Indian Ocean. Control's office bore none of this. Only bare walls and a single, old fashioned, two-dimensional image of her and some President from 50 years back, while her desk offered no more distractions than her pute and a coaster where her morning tea stood.

Mia could find nothing to take away the worries that Control's announcement had created. Flix free? Nick had assured her it was impossible.

The two agents had travelled back to the year 2540 to trap the spirit of Edward Flixton in stasis, but the mission had been difficult and dangerous, and they had congratulated themselves on a job well done. The news that he was free niggled. Worse than that, the news that he was free brought back too many unpleasant memories from that life when Flix had hanged them; a life that was almost 1400 years in the past.

"How did it happen?"

Nick's question brought Mia back to the here and now of Control's office on a hot, sunny, August morning.

Control switched her pute from screen to holo and a holographic image appeared in the air.

Most stasis cells were simply a non-dimensional bubble in which the felon was imprisoned for the length of his sentence: anything from three months to fifty years. The cells were jet black and the prisoner, existed only as an energy form, which, while constantly monitored, could not be detected other than by specialist computers or psychic minds like Mia's. Felons could not see, speak, hear, nor even feel anything. They were beamed into stasis and on their release it would be as if only an instant had passed.

An exception had been made in Flix's case. Because he was already dead, his cell had been constructed in such a way that a part of his immediate environment, the Spirit Plane, was taken into stasis with him, and a part of any spirit's environment was The Light. In the image, it shone with a steady, white light, always in the background no matter which direction you looked.

"This was generated just after he escaped," Control said, "and a microsecond before the stasis field collapsed. Notice the hole in the top left corner."

Following her directions, Mia and Nick could clearly see the tear in the fabric of the stasis field through which Flix had escaped.

Nick fumed. "It's only a month since we locked him in there."

"As we count the time," Control agreed, "but remember, you had to go back in time to 2540 to capture and imprison him. He's actually been in the cell for 470 years."

Calming down, Nick asked again, "How did he do it? The stasis conditions were set up to include The Light as his only way out."

Control leaned back in her seat and toyed with a scribe. "You two are better acquainted with The Light than I, but I'm told it has a powerful gravitational effect."

Mia emerged from her depressed thoughts. "A simplification, Ma'am," she said, maintaining due respect for Control's authority. "At the point of death, the spirit passes to the Spirit Plane. The Light calls to the spirit, which is usually so relieved to hear its earthly name being called, that it moves closer to investigate. Once it gets close enough, The Light, which is a form of high energy vortex, draws it in, and the spirit then moves on to the next life. There's nothing sinister about this. It's the natural order of things." She took Nick's hand. "All of us have been through the process many times, but our psychic abilities mean that Nick and I can recall all the lives we have enjoyed together."

"Yet Flix never went through The Light," Control observed.

It was as if Mia had not said a word and it irritated Nick. "He made a conscious decision while he was alive that he would ignore it. Many spirits do the same. It's where ghosts come from."

"As a consequence of which he's been on the Spirit Plane for over thirteen hundred years," Mia concluded.

"Locked in stasis for the last 470 of those years," Control observed. "Unlike most felons in stasis, he still had awareness, albeit of a spirit kind, and despite the lack of sensory input from our world, he's obviously been learning. This morning, he used The Light to escape."

Nick sighed. "You still haven't told us how he did it, Ma'am."

His note of exasperation did not escape Control's notice. "Curb your impatience, Holt." She paused a moment to let Nick calm down. "At four o'clock yesterday afternoon Flix began to circle The Light, quite close to its outer perimeter. That was when the monitoring team declared situation urgent... not that there was a great deal we could do about it. Because Flix is already dead, psychic contact was out of the question and for that same reason we have never had an EEG trace to manipulate."

Mia silently wished Control would get on with it. Telling her or Nick about the boundaries of working with spirits was like preaching the gospel to a pair of evangelists.

"The pull of the vortex must have been almost overpowering," Control went on, "yet Flix resisted it, and actually used it to increase his velocity. The monitoring team couldn't imagine what he was doing. At six this morning, it's estimated that he was travelling close to the speed of light and that's when he finally flew off at a tangent ... and broke through the stasis barrier."

Nick whistled and studied the image again. "If the stasis field had held, he could have been wiped from eternity."

"Or it could have bounced him back into The Light," Mia commented. "Which would have solved all our problems."

"Academic observations," Control chided them. "He is free. Worse than that, he took some of the stasis energy with him."

"He would do," Nick argued. Control raised her eyebrows and he went on. "The laws of thermodynamics and gravitation, Ma'am. They're centuries old, but have proven remarkably consistent. Broadly speaking, the second law of thermodynamics says that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, merely changed. In order to increase his velocity, Flix must have taken energy from The Light. Since it's stasis energy, once his ploy worked, he would retain it and the energy would grant him the whole of history to play with. Conservation of angular momentum also meant that as he gathered speed, he would have slowed down the orbital velocity of The Light. More energy to him, more power to him, all of it stasis energy. That's what shattered the field."

Mia's mouth fell open as the full implications of Nick's words hit her. "Oh my god. You mean..."

Control nodded and injected a note of gravity into her tones. "As Agent Holt's little lecture has just pointed out, Flix now has the whole of time at his behest. Not only can he travel the Spirit Plane from here to the edge of the universe, but the whole of eternity, too." Control leaned forward again. "It is not just our jobs that are on the line. It is our very existence. He does not need to make many changes to the past in order to ensure that we never exist."

"That may be true for you, Ma'am," Nick said, "but not for Mia and me. We're a part of what made Flix the man he is. If he tries to eliminate us from a time before 1610, he will very likely eliminate himself in the process."

"That point," Control replied, "has already been made clear to me, which is why you are the only ones who can go after him."

Mia nodded. "You want us to track him down?"

"The Chronology team have a fix on him," Control said. "He went back to Cumbria in 2005 but we never learned where or what he was doing there. He simply disappeared and there was no recorded effect on history. He then turned up in Cumbria again, in 2010 and that where he began his work. We can only assume that he paid a visit to 2005, learned that it was not the right time or place for his plans, and then moved five years forward in time." Control sat upright, resting her forearms on her desk. Here slate grey eyes impaled them both. "That is where you must go. The Great Fell TV transmitter station, October, 2010. The Timehopper is waiting for you in the stasis lab. Go back there and stop him developing an army of zombies."

Nick's eyebrows rose. "You want us to get him back into stasis?"

"No," Control replied, and Nick relaxed again. "If we put him back in stasis, he will simply pull the same trick again. He must be forced through The Light. Either that or destroyed."

"It would be impossible for us to destroy him, even with our weapons," Nick said. "And you misunderstood what I said about Mia and me being the exceptions."

"Explain," Control demanded.

"Mia and I came together in 1632 as Flix began his experiments. If Flix operates during our seventeenth century lifetime, tries to destroy us there, he runs the risk of destroying himself, too. The same is true of any other incarnation of ourselves. But if he interferes with our physical selves as we are now, in _any_ time frame to which we return, he runs no such risk because our journey back will be a natural part of our present timeline. In other words, although we can't destroy him, he can destroy us."

"You're afraid?" Control asked.

Nick bristled at the perceived insult. "No; merely concerned. Unlike most people, you included, Mia and I are aware of the cycle of death and rebirth. We've been aware of it since Flix had us executed in 1646. Death has no fears for me. However, I have no particular desire to be reborn into a universe rearranged by him. Aside from which, looking back from this time zone, if Mia and I fail, Flix may then be safe making those changes to history that will see all of this –" he gestured through the opaque, plexiglass windows "– cease to exist."

"In that case, Agent Holt, you must ensure that you are successful," Control retorted. "Beating Flix will require Agent Nellis's psychic powers and your technical skills. Go back to 2010, get him into The Light. I don't care how you do it, but stop him before he begins meddling with history." Control pushed a button on her pute and a section of her desk flipped over to reveal an ion rod. "The Mark 3," she said and passed it to Nick.

"The Mark 2 I used at Coldmoor Castle broke the moment Flix knocked it from my hand. I hope this is better."

"It's not perfect, Holt," Control agreed, "but the casing has been manufactured from a more resilient polymer. It will withstand knocks and bumps so much better than the Mark 2. Now, Agent Coleman is waiting for you in the Timehopper bay to brief you on your 21st century transport. Get down there, learn whatever you need to and then get yourselves back to Northern England, 2010. Agent Nellis, Chronology will brief you on as much as they've learned about the events, including a list of the deceased."

*

Coleman sat in the passenger seat of a 1972 Series III Land Rover and gazed sourly at Nick. "You're sure you've taken the wheeled vehicle driving course?"

Nick dropped into third gear with much grinding of the cogs. "It's a few years ago," he said watching flivvers whizz past him as he prepared to turn left into the Stasis Center underground bays. "I did it when I first signed on. Thought it might come in useful one day."

Coleman shook his tired old head. "We had a hell of a time finding this machine. It's a thousand years old, and then some. We had to bribe a private collector in Abu Dhabi to lend it to us. Do you know how much it's worth?"

Nick braked sharply and hooked wheel left into the underground bays. "A few thousand?" he asked.

Coleman snorted. "Thirty million. One of only two left in the world."

Nick bunched the gears again. "Turning the wheel and driving along is easy," he grunted. "It's getting used to this clutch thing. It's where the reverse thrust pedals are on my flivver, and every time I press it, I expect the truck to slow down."

Coleman sighed. "Then engage your brain and think, lad."

"I've mastered everything else," Nick grumbled. Fiddling with the switches, seeking the headlights, he turned on the heaters and promptly turned them off again. Coleman leaned over and pressed the headlamp switch.

"So why can't I take a flivver back instead of this thing?" Nick wanted to know.

Coleman tutted. "As usual, Control told me nothing about your mission other than you're going back to the 21st century. The flivver wasn't invented until a hundred years later, and it wasn't perfected for almost two hundred years after that. Take one back and people might notice."

Up ahead a team of technicians stood by the gleaming hull of the Timehopper. Nick hit the brakes, brought the Land Rover to a shuddering halt and switched off the engine.

Coleman wiped imaginary beads of sweat from his brow. "Letting you loose with a 21st century vehicle is like giving a toddler a rifle and telling him to go play in the street," he said as they climbed out. "Now listen to me, Holt. This vehicle runs on fossil fuel called diesel. You'll be hiding the Timehopper a few miles from where you're meant to be. You'll be issued with a 21st century credit card. It's fully validated. The fuel is freely available in that time. Just make sure this vehicle doesn't run out or you'll have a hell of a time getting it going again. We've installed a warning on the dashboard to let you know when you're getting low on fuel."

Nick mock-saluted. "Any particular reason you've chosen this vehicle?"

"Yes. It fits the time you're going back to."

"That's not what I meant," Nick insisted. "I meant why this particular model? I mean, there must be other, 21st century vehicles kicking around the world somewhere, so why this super expensive hunk of junk?"

Coleman shrugged. "The ignition system is electrical, not electronic."

Nick frowned. "What difference does that make?"

"I don't know," Coleman admitted. "I'm only following orders. But five'll get you ten you'll find out."

# Chapter 3

Who are you?

After typing in the query, Dennis Cockroft watched as the reply formed letter by letter on the laptop screen.

Flix.

Cockroft gaped at the screen. Flix? What did Flix mean? It sounded like Felix, but it couldn't be. "How can an alien have an earthly name, and an English one to boot?" Cockroft asked the empty control room.

All around him the machinery of Great Fell transmitter hummed with activity. The systems were all automated, and there was little work for him or his partner, Christine Pierce, but Great Fell was a part of the emergency broadcast system, and the MOD insisted that the place, like its sister stations up and down the country, was double manned 24/7/365.

Across to his right, the giant control panel thrummed, propagating the signals which were piped up the mast and beamed out across Cumbria delivering TV pictures and radio sounds. It even passed on satellite messages to Whitehall... and the MOD of course. At the free-standing computer console in the centre of the room, the systems linked to the company's mainframe blinked and bleeped, carrying out the work that, in days gone by, had to be done by the crew.

Duty engineers had different ways of passing the time. Christine read paperbacks, trashy magazines, or surfed 'women's' pages on the web. Cockroft preferred to spend his time researching and trying to establish that elusive first contact.

And Flix, he thought, was it.

His fingers danced across the keyboard. _Is that your name Flix?_

There was a delay before the reply came. _Yes._

Cockroft contained his excitement. In three days of exchanges, this was the first positive ID. None of the others (it could have been the same being for all he knew) had any idea what he was talking about when he asked them their names.

His fingers danced across the keyboard. _Hi Flix. I'm Dennis. Where are you?_

The reply once more appeared letter by letter. Hardly surprising to Cockroft. He guessed that they had probably been trying to establish contact all over the world, and they would have had to learn many languages.

He had visions of them queuing up at their end of the link, taking it in turns to rap with him until one of them (Flix?) finally recognised the language as English.

After an agonising delay, Cockroft finally read, _I'm here, in my lab._

He typed quickly. _That's not what I meant._ _Can you pinpoint your location within the galaxy?_ He was assuming that Flix, wherever he was, inhabited the Milky Way galaxy and not something more distant like Andromeda; tachyons moved faster than light and on the transdimensional frequencies he was running, the two million light years between Earth and the Andromeda Galaxy could be covered in a few seconds.

"Dennis, are you ready for lunch?"

With a frown, Cockroft looked up from the computer. Behind him, Christine stood hands on hips, that stern look in her eyes, the one she reserved for moments of greatest irritation.

Like him, she was a senior engineer, trusted enough to man the EB stations, and normally, the sight of her energised him. The pouting lips, the swell of her breasts, shapely thighs showing from beneath the short skirts ... But today he was busy with other, more important matters.

"I broke through, Christine," he said. "I finally got a contact."

"Great," she said, "but are you ready for lunch?"

"I'll be fifteen minutes, sugar. Okay?"

Christine pouted. "That's what you said twenty minutes ago."

"All right, all right," he agreed. "Let me just put Flix on hold, huh?"

She frowned. "Who's Flix?"

"I told you. A solid gold contact. The guy gave me his name."

She could not have been less interested if he said he had just discovered a new species of butterfly. "Oh. If you're not ready in fifteen minutes, I'll eat alone, and you can cook for yourself."

Christine spun on her heels and strode out of the control room. Cockroft shook his head after her departing back. They were only a partnership when they were on their 3-week rota. On their week off, he would see next to nothing of her and she didn't give a toss what he thought about that, so why should he care if she was getting her tights twisted because he was late for lunch?

And she knew how long it had taken him to get to this point. For the last two years, working three weeks on, one off, he had figured the computer connections, jacked up the Great Fell output milliwatt by milliwatt; not enough for the company to notice, but enough for him to hit the transmission cycles he needed. He'd jerked around with the microwave frequencies, seeking the precise line that would break the transdimensional barrier he was certain existed. She should have been more interested. She should have felt some of the excitement that burned within him.

And then he received the email. _Check out the dead web_. Flix, he guessed, had sent it across space. When he checked up, he couldn't even find deadweb.dim, but when he followed the instructions he finally made a connection. He had received a random message from Flix's home world.

Curbing his initial excitement was hard going. He spent a lot of time checking, back-checking, double-checking making sure he hadn't picked up some jerk off in downtown Sierra Leone, but the connections were there, they were valid. He had crossed a space/time dimensional threshold; he was holding conversations with a being on another world.

He turned back to the computer to find a message on screen. _R u still there Dennis_.

It was almost like reading texts, he decided as he typed in his reply. _Yes, I'm still here, Flix. Getting verbal from my girlfriend. Can you pinpoint your galactic position?_

There was a long pause. So long that Cockroft wondered if he'd lost the connection. He called up the network diagnostics, which told him he was still connected. At length the individual letters began to appear on his screen.

It is impossible without a common frame of reference. I will need to check your resources so that I can work from your position in space. But our power output is weak and getting weaker.

Cockroft typed, _what colour is your Sun?_

There was a long wait for a reply. The lack of response was like a cold silence between a man and his wife after one had been pushed to the realisation of the other's infidelity. Cockroft reasoned that Flix would probably be consulting a dictionary or thesaurus to explain the words 'colour' and 'sun'. Maybe he was conferring with a group of peers on the best way to respond.

Flix? Are you still there, Flix?

Once again the answer came slowly.

Our sun is red. It will die very soon.

Cockroft found his hand shaking as his fingers hovered over the keyboard. He began to type. _Red. A red dwarf? Giant? Mainstream?_

Waiting for a reply, Cockroft had to wonder whether Flix was having trouble digesting the words, or whether he was cobbling together another more lengthy reply.

Pangs of hunger bit at his stomach. How long was it since Christine came in whining about lunch? Five minutes, ten? He'd give it another few minutes.

It is what you know as a red dwarf.

Cockroft typed feverishly.

I don't know if we can help you, Flix. You may be too far away. Our technology is only on the verge of interplanetary travel, not interstellar, but if you can tell me where you are, you will become famous on our world.

I don't want to be famous.

The answer took Cockroft by surprise and not only because of the speed at which it came through. For most of his 36 years, he had dreamt of nothing but fame and fortune and he had assumed that everyone else wanted them too. Now here was a different species that didn't want to know. How odd was that?

"No odder than talking to an alien, Dennis," he muttered to himself and smiled as he typed again. _Come off it, Flix. Everyone wants to be famous._

I want to live.

Cockroft considered the position from Flix's point of view. If his sun was a red dwarf, it would be in the final cycle of its life (although it could go on for millions of years yet) and when it went it would do so in one of two ways; it would either suddenly explode in a supernova, wiping out every planet in its solar system, or it would continue to shrink until it became a black hole and began to suck in everything around it; including Flix's home planet.

Another message came through slowly, intermittently.

_The conn tion is fad g im los n yo ca you trn up the pwer lvls sme more_.

It was easy to translate, but Cockroft hesitated. Hunger gnawed at his belly again. He thrust it down, out of his mind, as an unimportant irritation threatening to distract him from the business at hand.

The station put out several hundred megawatts of power, but there was a lot of unused capacity. There had to be. As a part of the emergency broadcast system, in the event of war or a total breakdown in communications across the country, it would have to be boosted to reach much further than the hills and valleys it served right now. He had stolen a few extra milliwatts in order to establish communication across the dimensions, but if he jacked it up much more, B-Comm, the company that owned and operated the station, and coincidentally employed him, would be sure to notice. Questions would be asked, disciplinary procedures would be instigated, and he could be fired.

On the other hand, this discovery was of supreme importance to the entire world. How many times had the specialist exobiologists and astronomers been asked, "Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?" Well now, thanks to Dennis Cockroft, they had the answer. Yes, there was. Would it matter so much if B-Comm fired him? Anyway, chances were that once he went public on the discovery, B-Comm would want in on the act.

He chewed his lip. There was a long way to go before he could even consider making it public. He needed every bit of information Flix could give him about himself and his world. He had to find a three-dimensional frame of reference by which he could establish the location of Flix's dying sun, then let the orbital telescopes check it out, ensure there really was a red dwarf at that location. Above all, he needed to confirm that he really was talking to an alien and not that nerd in Sierra Leone.

"How are you gonna get all that information if you lose him, you zoon?" he asked himself. "Sod B-Comm, sod the job, sod the world."

He spun his chair away from the work table and crossed the room to where the generator control panels filled the whole of one wall. Cockroft checked the red, LED readouts. All held steady at slightly over their normal output levels; precisely where he had put them. If he jacked up the microwave channels for a few minutes, he would send TV and radio signals into orbit, but he could always claim it was a glitch. Incidents like that happened all the time, usually when sunspot energy was at a peak. His boss at B-Comm would ring within seconds, but Cockroft could ignore the phone. He'd simply claim he and Christine were trying to correct the problem and didn't have time to answer.

With an avaricious grin, his mind filled with images of fame, fortune, adulation, and chicks like Christine Pierce in abundance, he gripped the knob and yanked it over to the right. The output display rocketed.

The grin froze on his face. A shock of electricity rushed through his arm, enveloped his whole body.

"Impossible," he told himself. "The control panel can't be live."

It was his last, fleeting thought. His hair stood on end and burned away. His skin roasted, his right hand blackened, and lumps of raw, overcooked meat fell from the fleshy part of his wrist. His cheeks, the next softest area of exposed skin, soon followed.

His vision tunnelled in as his eyes began to melt and the optic nerve burned away. He felt the spirit torn from his body, but even as the life force left him, another replaced it, and he was kicked out by a huge ball of energy which settled into his body.

*

Christine chewed on a piece of beef. She took no pleasure from the food. It was a mechanical process, which fuelled her anger as much as her nutritional needs.

She glanced at the wall clock. Twenty minutes had passed since she told Dennis to come for lunch and still there was no sign of him. There were times when she did not know why she bothered with him. He was her partner, not her boss, and even then he was only a partner when they were working.

Christine freely admitted that for all her education, she was lazy. She did not enjoy working for a living, but she needed her income and in order to get it she had to spend three weeks out of every four with Dennis Cockroft. She was much happier on that fourth week.

And with good reason. When he got to playing with his computers, like right now, he was plain selfish. He paid her no mind, gave her scant attention, and habitually lost track of time.

"He can bloody well cook his own dinner," she muttered to the empty room.

Noises came from the corridor. At last. At bloody last.

Christine chewed irritably on another mouthful of roast beef and peas. "About bloody time. Well you can see to ..."

She trailed off. Gravy trickled from her mouth, down her chin. Her eyes were wide, she sat frozen into immobility.

It was dressed like Dennis; the jeans, the tatty T-shirt, the scuffed trainers, the Carlisle United monogram emblazoned across his chest. It was the same height, (over six feet) the same build, (broad, muscular) as Dennis. It even had the same colour hair ... what was left of it.

But where the skin remained, it was mottled, like someone with high blood pressure. In some places it was charred and in others, missing altogether, allowing bleached and bloodied bone to show through. The hair was frizzled, almost gone, and the eyes were missing. Christine thought she saw streaks on the roasted skin above the missing cheeks, where tears might have run, or where the eyeballs might have melted.

It walked unsteadily, loping, staggering, its non-eyes fixed on her, the bone-exposed fingers reaching for her. Christine gagged. She wanted to be sick, she wanted to scream. She fought down the impulses. She wanted the hell out of there.

She picked up her tray and hurled it at the creature. With a jerky movement of one arm, it batted the object aside. It landed with a clatter somewhere the other side of the room. Christine leapt to her feet and ran. Nowhere to go. Only one way out. Through the... the thing. She spun again, ran around the table, hurtling for the exit. The creature turned, stumbled after her, fell and reached out a bony hand.

It closed round Christine's ankle. She too fell, and let out a scream. Laid prone, she reached down to her foot, prised at the bloodied, bony fingers, her gut heaving at the mere thought of touching them. The grip was too strong. She could not free herself.

Without letting go of her ankle, the creature stood and began to tow her along the corridor. Christine kicked with her free leg, but if the creature noticed, it never reacted.

Her heart pounded. She was being dragged along the floor like the old image of a caveman dragging his intended by the hair, but where was this thing taking her? Terrifying images invaded her mind. Was it going to cook and eat her? Maybe it would hang her upside down and drain her blood. Hadn't she seen that happen in some 50s horror movie?

She scrabbled at the tiled floor seeking a handhold, but the insulated, composition tiles offered nothing. Dragged into the control room, she finally grabbed at the door jamb and stalled their progress. The creature tugged hard. Christine cried out as her shoulder was almost torn from its socket. The creature pulled again. Christine felt the sharp stab of ligaments tearing in her shoulders and neck. She cried again and yielded her grip upon the doorpost.

In her terror, her mind rampant with images of several fates awaiting her, all equally gruesome, she began to weep. She cried for her mother, and father, she cried for Dennis, she cried to a God she had never really believed in. She wept and begged the creature to release her, to let her go, promising that she would never breathe a word to anyone about what she had seen.

It dragged her across the control room floor. She looked around, seeking Dennis, but she knew Dennis was not here. Whatever had her by the ankle had once been Dennis. She gripped the computer chair he had used, but it was on wheels and moved with her. Spears of agony shot through her torn shoulder muscles and she let it go.

Dennis's laptop still sat on the workbench, its screensaver dancing around, a simple message saying, "Up yours," its metallic colours shifting and changing as it twisted and twirled across a black background. On the other side of the room, the giant control panels which governed the transmitter output were live with electric blue arcs, like mini-lightning dancing around the metal cabinets. Christine could not believe her eyes. The control panel cover and all its switches were made of a non-conductive polymer. They could not be live. Switching her view to the LED readouts, she could see that the output was twice, three times its normal, permitted level and somewhere in the background, the phone was ringing. Somewhere far beneath her panic, the tiny morsel of sanity left in her said that the phone would be B-Comm trying to learn why the transmitter had suddenly gone off the scale. If only she could get to that phone...

The creature stopped, released her ankle. Before she could stand and run, it gripped her by the arms and stood her up. Pain in her shoulder made her cry again. Taking one hand, it dragged her to the live console.

Christine screamed. She knew what would happen if she came into contact with it. She knew now what had happened to Dennis to turn him into this monster. She could imagine him being electrocuted, and if she touched it, the electricity would course through her, a terrible dance of death would enervate her body into an uncontrolled frenzy until the life left her. Her hair, like Dennis's would fry, her skin, like Dennis's would char and some would fall off. Her eyes would melt away and the pretty face that had won so many favours during her short life, would be disfigured into a hideous mask of mutilated death.

She pulled back, trying to drag herself free. The creature applied more strength. Her shoulder screaming for relief, she resisted. Her fingers came within millimetres of touching the metal cabinet. She clenched her fist and pulled back. With a huge lurch, the creature slammed her into the cabinet.

Electrocution pulled her face into a rictus grin. She tried to let go, but she could not. Intolerable pain, far worse than the mere tearing of muscle and sinew, shot through her. The skin from her cheeks and lips began to burn away, her hair disintegrated in electric fire, and as her eyes melted, blackness closed in.

Death settled upon her. The spirit that was Christine Pierce made to leave the dormant body. A giant force closed around her, forcing the spirit to stay where it was. And as the terrible ordeal of death ended, the body rose again, driven by the power of the brain still inhabited by the unwilling spirit but following the commands of this terrifying captor

*

Revelling in the body he now possessed, Flix gloated as he electrocuted Christine and trapped her spirit within the dead woman. She had been pretty. She was not so pretty now, but was under his control. She would do his bidding.

He had taken five years, as men counted the time, to bring about this moment. From the construction of the field generators high on a remote Cumbrian hill, to seeking out the obsessive Dennis Cockroft and his facile ideals, it had been sure and steady progress.

And now he, Flix, had control, and the shapely girl who had been Dennis' companion was the first recruit in an army that would conquer not only this world but spread itself across a galaxy, a universe designed to his whim.

And they would come. He knew they would. Maria Neville or Mia Nellis, Nicholas Holdsworth or Nick Holt, no matter what names they bore, they would come back through time in an effort to thwart him. But this time he was ready for them. This time, he was truly invincible and Neville/Nellis and Holdsworth/Holt would hold special places in his army... on their knees.

# Chapter 4

Nick took a deep breath of the fresh, October air and let it out with a long, satisfied hiss. "You know they say that this period was one of the most ecologically destructive in the history of the planet. Yet this air still tastes sweeter than the canned crap of 3010."

More concerned with their location, Mia looked around.

They were in the heart of a deep forest. Cruising over the area at 100 metres, she had spotted the clearing and pointed it out to Nick as a possible landing site. She had also seen a track wide enough, well-travelled enough to take their road vehicle, and Nick had hovered over it while he reconstituted the Land Rover from stasis, but now that they had set down in the clearing, she could not pinpoint either.

"Which way is the track from here?" she asked.

"There you go, Nick," he muttered to himself. "You try to get at one with nature, and she's all business, business, business."

"I heard you waffling about the fresh air, Nick, but we have work to do. Now which way is the track?"

He pointed west. "About two hundred metres. First we have to camouflage this baby." He patted the hull of the Timehopper.

The machine was shaped like a disc, about 5-metres in diameter. Squatting on three stubby legs, the dome-shaped cockpit protruded from the upper half, its access open, cutting a cake-shaped wedge out of the machine's perfect symmetry.

"How far are we from where we want to be?" Mia asked.

"About 20 kilometres, I figure," Nick replied. "Flix is in a moorland area. Nowhere to hide the Timehopper. And if he really is fooling around with a major transmission tower, we don't want the Timehopper with its tachyon generators anywhere near it, or he may tap into those, too. Don't worry, we'll be there in half an hour."

"That's not what I was thinking," Mia said, and pointed to the ion rod hanging from his belt holster. "Our truck doesn't have a charger. How are you going to recharge the ion rod when it runs out?"

"Holoputer," Nick replied.

He fished into his pack and came out with his visor. Slotting it over his eyes, he activated it with a retina scan, and eyeballed the various options until he came to TIMEHOPPER CONTROL. By fixing his eye on it, the submenu opened, and he scrolled down that, until he came to LOCK. Again he fastened it with his eye and the Timehopper closed up.

A few metres from him, Mia unrolled the camouflage net and between them they dragged it over the Timehopper until the machine was fully covered, then they scoured the clearing collecting bracken and broken twigs, so they could hide the net.

"I don't know why we can't just put the Timehopper into a stasis field and take it with us," Mia complained.

"Lord grant me the patience to deal with psychics," Nick grumbled. Aloud he asked, "How do we generate the stasis field?"

"Your visor," she said pointing at his covered eyes.

"That's the control," he told her. "The actual field is generated by the Timehopper, and the laws of stasis are as immutable as the laws of death and rebirth. You can't enclose a stasis generator inside its own field."

Mia looked down her nose. "Flix might argue about the immutability of death and rebirth."

"He'll go through The Light one day," Nick assured her and led the way from the clearing into the forest and towards the path.

"I just hope the machine's safe," Mia said, stepping round a fallen tree trunk that Nick had just hopped over.

"Who's going to come this deep into these woods?" he asked.

Mia considered the question. "Lovers?"

Nick laughed. "Ha. Idiots, you mean. The track is so far from the main road that the desire will have worn off by the time any lovers get here."

Mia was not amused. To change the subject, she asked, "How come you, the super tech, didn't guess the possibility of Flix using The Light to help him break free of stasis?"

"Because I'm a tech, not a psychic," Nick assured her as he skirted round an oak that was at least 200 years old. "And I'm not a physicist either. I did a year of transdimensional physics at university, but what I know about the physics of stasis you can write on the back of a shopping list." He grinned. "And I still know more than you and Control."

Several minutes later, they emerged onto the track; two scrub patches in the grass leading north and south, on which was parked their vintage Land Rover.

He lowered the visor again, and ran through the menus until he came to STASIS. He picked it and a visual image of the item locked in stasis appeared: holoputer.

He called it up and the holoputer appeared on the ground before him. He showed it to Mia. "Charge port," he said, pointing out the tiny slot on one side. "And I have the charger setup with me." He dropped the pute in his bag, and then marched to the Land Rover and put the bag in the rear. As he did so, he checked the vehicle's interior.

"They reckon it belonged to a plumber back in this era," he said to Mia as he dragged a toolbox to him and checked its contents. "Look," he invited. "Hammer, blowtorch, adjustable spanner." He held up each item for her inspection as he announced them.

Climbing into the front, Mia eyed a fire extinguisher behind the driver's seat. "I suppose that's there for when you set fire to things with the blowtorch."

"Maybe," Nick chuckled and closed the rear tailgate.

Sorting through the keys, he climbed into the driver's seat and fired the engine.

"You're sure you're happy driving this thing?" Mia asked.

Nick revved the engine and smiled at her. "The refresher with Coleman this morning was all I needed," he said and crunched the vehicle into first.

Mia tutted and stared solemnly through the windshield.

Nick switched off the engine. "What is it?" he asked.

She shook her head.

Nick reached over and took her hand. "After almost fourteen hundred years of continuous partnership spread over nineteen lifetimes, I know when something's not right, Mia. Now what is it? Flix?"

"I'm scared, Nick. Who was it who got him into the stasis field? Us. And he damn near killed us both again before we did it. Now he's become so powerful he can begin to meddle with time. What kind of life awaits us next time? A life of subservience and punishment at his whim? How many times will he execute us? How much torture will we endure? You said as much yourself, when we were in Control's office, this morning."

Nick fired the engine again, depressed the clutch and bunched the truck into first. Gunning the gas, he let the clutch in and they jerked away.

"Yes, I did, but I made the same mistake as you. I forgot the cosmic rule. The same rule that Flix has forgotten. The same rule Control could never understand if I spent the next millennium explaining it. The universe doesn't like imbalance. If he meddles too much and we fail, the cosmos will put it right." Gaining confidence, he shifted gradually through the gears and accelerated. "For now, we'll have to try our best to beat him." He checked his watch. "Thirty minutes, I figure."

Mia, too, checked her watch. "It's getting on for six. By the time we get up there, the sun will be all but set."

Settling into his unfamiliar role as a road driver, Nick sneered. "So who's afraid of the dark?"

*

"I wish we'd got here earlier," said assistant engineer, Ben Stevens as he turned off the track at the top of Great Fell and the transmitter came into view.

Dozing in the passenger seat, Kelvin Leyton stirred. "You have to ask yourself, do you give a toss if the local villagers don't get to watch X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. If the answer's no, then you don't rush. For me the answer's always no."

The hill fell away sharply on all sides. A rough track, hewn by vehicles making their way up here over the years, led to the blockhouse beneath the mast.

The antennae spiked over 350 metres into the evening sky. A latticework of support girders surrounding a nine-foot tube inside of which was a one-man elevator that could take engineers to the top when service work was required. Stout cables projected from the tower at regular intervals, anchoring it to the ground in concrete blocks, the metal shackles almost the same size as the wheels of their 4x4.

The tower dwarfed the blockhouse and its adjacent emergency generating plant, a huddle of tiny buildings constructed of redbrick, with reinforced wooden doors. Ben noticed that the doors were closed, and if Cockroft and Pierce were obeying the company line, they should be locked. Outside the control station stood another company 4x4; Cockroft 's. Its turquoise bodywork gleamed in the last of the day's sunlight.

"He might be a crap engineer," Ben said, "but he doesn't half give his wagon some polish."

"He's a git," Kel commented as Ben drew alongside Cockroft's car and stopped. "As an engineer, he's a total jerk off, and as a person, he's a complete waste of space. He's only interested in jumping Christine Pierce and farting around on the Web." Kel unclipped his seatbelt. "If sad was a currency, he'd be the richest man in the world." He leaned forward and looked up at the tower. "At least it hasn't melted," he said.

Ben, too, looked up.

At the age of 26, despite a BTEC certificate that outshone the qualifications of many of his peers, it would be a few years yet before he made the next rung of the ladder from assistant engineer to engineer. Kel was good at his job. He'd been working the transmitters for over 30 years, and that gave him a lot of experience, but he saw no reason why he should climb up into the colder layers of air that enveloped the transmitting dishes littering the top 10% of the mast. For now, if anyone had to shinny up that 1,000-foot tower, it would be Ben.

"If it's a simple job," Ben commented climbing out of the car, "we could be back in Liverpool for nine."

It had taken them over two hours to get to Great Fell and throughout the journey, Ben had kept up a stream of conversation on his desire to be back home tonight.

Kel laughed. "What is it, Ben? On a promise, are you?"

"I have a wife and daughter," Ben replied. "I prefer to be with them."

"If it was a simple job even a dipstick like Cockroft should have put it right," Kel pointed out. "We'll be here overnight, Ben. Get used to it. And even if we get the problem put right, it won't be much this side of midnight so we'll still be bunking down here."

Kel ambled across to the entrance, Ben followed a couple of metres behind, looking around, drinking in the magnificent view over to the west, where the sun, dipping towards the horizon, turned the stark undulations of the Cumbrian landscape into misty silhouettes.

"Locked," Kel said, trying the door. He hammered on it.

"They won't hear that," Ben pointed out. "Not over the noise of the generators."

Kel nodded and dug into his pockets. "We shoulda phoned them."

"The company have been trying since noon," Ben reminded him. "Neither Cockroft nor Pierce are answering."

Pulling out a bunch of keys, Kel sorted through them. "I did a Christmas shift here one year. Christ, it was bad. Boring. Know what I mean? Not even anyone working at head office so you could have a moan. Then it snowed the day before New Year's Eve and my relief only just made it. I struggled to get _down_ the hill. Never gladder to see the back of the sodding place." He found the correct key, inserted it into the lock and turned it, yanking the door outwards.

The hum of the transmitters hit them. All deceptively normal, Ben thought and followed Kel in.

The interior comprised a short corridor, lit by a few wall-mounted fluorescent tubes at regular intervals. Doors led off on both sides, most of them unmarked, but some bearing labels: _Generating Plant, Kitchen, Shower_. The noise of the transmitter, louder now that they were inside, surrounded and enveloped them.

Ben cast his eye over a large axe and a pair of stout, rubber boots encased in a glass cage. Emergency cut off in case of an overload. Early, on-the-job-training had taught him that the axe blade was razor sharp. "Has anyone ever actually survived cutting through a cable with these axes?" he asked.

Kel laughed and shrugged. "Search me. It's old hat. Goes back to a time before they used RCD circuit breakers. I'd have to be on the desperation line before I'd use it."

Kel thrust open the door of the control room and walked in, his practised eye scanning the consoles. Everything appeared normal, but for the arcs of electricity leaping around the main control panels. When he read the output displays, his eyebrows rose.

"What the hell is going on here?" he said. "That's about double the output. We're probably beaming signals to the Moon."

"It's live, too" said Ben, his eyes focussed on the tiny lightning flashes.

"Correct," Kel agreed. He gazed around the room the room again and lighted on Cockroft's laptop. "And it can't be."

He crossed to the computer station, checked the power lights on the laptop, realised it was switched on and hibernating, and ran a finger over the touchpad. The screen flickered into life, the Internet browser was open and active, a cursor flashing at the bottom of the input bar.

"He's online with someone," Kel continued to mutter. "Instant messaging by the look of it."

"Let's have a dekko, then," Ben said.

Kel waved him away and crossed the room to check the free-standing company computer. "The link to Watford is broken," he said and reached out a hand to the keyboard.

It came within a couple of centimetres and an electrical spark flew out, snapping at his fingers.

"Jee-sus." He withdrew his hand and sucked at the fingers. Careful not to touch anything, he checked all the information from the direct readouts.

"This is crazy," he said. "Everything says normal but for the power output, and yet everything is live."

"So the TV and radio signals are fine but we're kicking them out a lot further than we should be?"

"You're missing the point, Ben, and yet you pointed it out first," Kel scolded. "Everything is live. How can it be? The control panel, the PC link with Watford, they're all made of non-conductive polymers. It's impossible for them to be live."

Ben scratched his head. "Hanged if I know." He gave the matter a moment's thought. "Cockroft and Pierce might know what's going on. If you wanna check the bunkhouse for them, I'll go take a look at the stand-by generators; make sure everything is smooching."

"Roger, dodger," Kel agreed.

*

"Smooching," Kel muttered to himself as he ran his eye down Christine Pierce's checklist. "Young idiot. Where does he get words like smooching?"

He frowned. The checklist should have been completed at least twice since the company last heard from her and Cockroft, but the final two columns were empty. Cockroft was slapdash, but Christine Pierce, albeit lazy, was more conscientious, even if it was only because she wanted to keep her job. Perhaps they had been too busy trying to bring the surge under control to concentrate on trivia like logs.

Kel frowned again. If one of them had to go up the tower, the other should be on the ground. It was in the rules. Besides, they couldn't both fit in the elevator. So where were they?

Taking a pen from his pocket, he checked the dial readings and began to complete the checklist: power input, power output, balance, atmospheric pressure, temperature, optimal range, actual range, difference. Idly he wondered when 'optimal' replaced 'optimum'. Probably around the time Ben left school and started work.

The thought sent his mind on another track. A good lad, Ben. Bit of a numpty but that was because of his youth. He'd be a chief engineer one day. Kel was certain of it. A top notch chief engineer.

He heard a noise behind him. "That was quick," he said. Efficient, too, he thought as he penned in the readings from the frequency gauges. Ben Stevens, top notch, highly efficient chief engineer ... one day. "Everything okay?"

The pungent stench of overcooked meat invaded his nostrils. "What is that awful...?"

As he spoke, he turned and trailed off. Pen and clipboard fell from his shaking hands. His colour drained, his heart pounded and his stomach retched. The burned, ragged clothing, the swelling where the breasts protruded told him that this had once been Christine Pierce. Now it was a travesty, a hideous mockery shaped like a human being.

The eye sockets were empty and what lay behind them was burned black. The lips and cheeks had been scorched away, and now bared glistening, half cooked gristle, blackened gums and teeth. The creature reached up a hand for Kel, bleached and bloodied bone protruding from what had been the fingertips.

Kel reacted instinctively. Recoiling from the horror, he turned and ran around the central computer console, making for the exit. As he neared it, a second creature came in; this one was dressed in Dennis Cockroft's familiar denims and a frayed, seared Carlisle United T-Shirt.

Fear ate into Kel. He was trapped. Cockroft (or what was left of him) advancing, Pierce (ditto) guarding the rear, and between them stood the live main control panel.

Kel knew what had happened to them. They had been electrocuted. A huge surge of energy had fried them. Yet they had survived. No eyes to see with, no fingers to sense with, their auditory nerves probably shorted out, too, he did not know how they knew he was there, but they did and there was no mistaking their intent.

He looked frantically around for some means of escape. If he were younger, slimmer, fitter, he could probably leap over the computer console and be gone before they could react. But he was not younger, he was not fitter. He was 52 years old, his waistline already expanded, short on strength and breath thanks to years of smoking. He was done and he knew it.

"Please," he begged, his voice not much better than a hoarse whimper, "just let me go. I'll get out of here. Leave you to it. Just don't hurt me."

He had no idea whether they heard him in the accepted sense of the word. He had no idea if they were capable of understanding him. They continued to close on him, narrowing down his options, forcing him back towards the icy fires dancing across the main control panel. He had taken a kick from the computer; it was nothing to what he would get from that panel.

Cold dread gnawed at his stomach. He felt his bowels ready to move. He thought of his wife and kids and grandkids back in Liverpool and a sob caught in his throat.

Cockroft's arm lashed out, groping for his throat. Kel jumped back and stopped himself rigid, only a matter of centimetres from the control panel. Next time, he knew, he was done for.

He spotted movement behind Cockroft. Ben! "Get out of here, lad. NOW!"

*

Ben came out of the generator hut satisfied that everything was as it should be and that there was no sign of either Cockroft or Pierce. Locking the door behind him, he guessed that they were in the bunkhouse and that both of them must have come down with some serious type illness. He racked his brain for the kind of viruses that might immobilise two people so quickly, but he couldn't think of any. He was a transmission engineer, not a doctor.

Not that such an illness could account for the power output shooting up like that, but at least it would explain why they had taken no action. His private opinion was that the power regulators had blown and the mast had begun to suck more and more juice from the national grid.

Watford had tried to shut the mast down using their remote controls, but that, too, had failed. According to the report Kel received, Watford couldn't even isolate the electricity supply. It was all down to the two of them... four of them... if they could find Cockroft and Pierce.

Course, the couple could have just shipped out. There were plenty of stories in the press of men and women who made snap decisions and then just sloped off abandoning jobs, families, responsibilities. Ben could not imagine even thinking about it. His life revolved around his wife and daughter and no matter how bad things were, no matter what the temptation, there was no way he would ever walk out on them.

He looked up at the mast, lit by red aircraft warning lamps at 100-metre intervals. In the darkening sky he could just about see the top. His brow creased. Odd. It looked as if a tiny spark of light was travelling all the way up the mast, like an electric blue energy pulse every ... he monitored it with his wristwatch ... every five seconds or so. That wasn't right. That was something his B-Comm training hadn't mentioned. He'd better let Kel know about it.

He hurried in through the main entrance just in time to see a leg clothed in charred denims disappear into the control room. Cockroft?

He had met Dennis Cockroft only once, on a training course at the company's HQ in Watford. He was, as Kel had hinted, inefficient, lackadaisical, vague and unkempt. He refused to wear the company uniform of dark trousers and blue T-Shirt, preferring instead his jeans and T-shirt in the colours of his favourite football team. Scuttlebutt insisted he had been warned for it a time or two, but it made no difference. He had the air of one who didn't care whether or not he kept his job.

But Ben did not recall Cockroft wearing jeans that were ragged and half burned away.

He tiptoed to the control room door and listened. At first he could hear nothing but the hum of machinery, but then he heard Kel begging.

"Please, just let me go. I'll get out of here. Leave you to it. Just don't hurt me."

Conflicting emotions gripped Ben. Anger, fear, worry for the safety of his pal. He had a vision of Kel surrounded by terrorists. In the world of telecommunications, terrorism was not just a newspaper headline: it was a day to day concern, and many of the ad hoc courses they attended were on the dangers of terrorist attacks on masts like Great Fell; masts that were part of the Emergency Broadcast System.

The advice was always the same.

Keep your station doors locked at all times. If you come under a terrorist threat, barricade yourself in the control room and get straight onto the police via your mobile phones.

Obviously Cockroft and Pierce had not taken the advice (what else was new?) and now Kel's life was under threat.

What to do?

The first priority was to arm himself, if only for defence. Still on tiptoe, grateful for the company issue, soft-soled trainers, Ben made his way back towards the exit and stared at the axe and rubber boots in their case. He fished out his key, unlocked the case and took out the axe, then debated his next course of action.

Company guidelines, again, were definite about this kind of situation.

If your colleague is held by terrorists or otherwise incapacitated and you are able to do so, leave the station and make your way to the nearest safe place before calling the police.

It was all very well for the people down in Watford to say that. They weren't up here on Cumbrian hillside with their buddy's life in danger. No matter what the rules said, Ben could not leave Kel at the mercy of these scum.

He did not know how many terrorist there were. Couldn't be that many, he reasoned. He'd heard only Kel's voice. If there were a number of them, chances were that some would be muttering amongst themselves or throwing advice to the leader.

Also, he didn't know whether they were armed. Terrorists usually were. He would be crazy to go running in there against guns with nothing for protection but an axe.

But if he didn't, Kel was dead meat. He couldn't leave his mate, his mentor, to these lunatics.

Emboldened by anger, he marched back to the control room and this time stepped in.

For a second he stood transfixed by horror at the sight of the two creatures closing in on Kel.

"Get out of here, lad. NOW!"

It was the last thing Kel ever said. For the brief moment that his concentration was off them, the creatures closed in and Cockroft (Ben was sure it was Cockroft) gave him a hefty push into the live control panel.

The moment he touched it, Kel began to dance; a disjointed, random movement of every muscle in his body. While Ben watched in horrible fascination, Kel's eyes and jowls melted and burned away, falling from his face in great blobs. He screamed until his vocal cords were vaporised, when the noise died with a gurgle. His hair blazed briefly, then was gone, leaving behind only smouldering patches of coarse vegetation. The skin burned away from his fingertips, leaving behind ash-blackened bone, and he collapsed.

Gripped by fury, his stomach churning under the pungent odour of roasting flesh, Ben cried, "NO!"

Alerted by his cry, the two creatures turned to face him and again he almost vomited at the sight. He was luckier than Kel. The way out was behind him. He also had the axe. Backing off, he prodded it at Cockroft and when Pierce came round the computer console he swung it at her.

They had no eyes to see with, and he did not know how they knew the axe was there, but they did and it was enough to make them wary.

Ben began to backtrack his steps to the door. He was young and fit. He was certain he could outrun them. If he could get out of the station in one piece, he could be back at the car before ...

No!

Getting into the car, putting the keys in the lock, starting the engine, selecting the gears: it would all take time. Better to just run.

_Make your way to the nearest safe place before calling the police._ Company policy rang round his head. The village was less than a kilometre down the hill.

Movement behind Cockroft caught his eye. Kel. He wasn't dead. Relief flooded for a brief second. He didn't know how anyone could survive such a shock, but Kel had done.

The relief was short lived. When he looked at the body that had been his partner and mentor, it bore nothing but a distant resemblance to Kel. Like the other two, the eyes were gone; teeth and bone showed through the gristly remains of the jowls, and it moved with the same staccato animation as the other two.

With his attention sidelined, Ben did not realise how close Pierce had come. He glanced to his left. She was within arm's length of him. She reached out. Ben lashed the axe sideways across her. His intention was to knock her arm away but she retracted the arm. The razor sharp blade sliced through her neck. Her head dropped off, clunked to the tiled floor, and rolled towards the admin desk. Her body crumpled and sank.

Controlling the impulse to vomit, Ben sensed movement to his right. Cockroft and Kel were coming for him. He threw the axe down, turned and ran.

# Chapter 5

"The mast is live," Mia said.

The fells rose steeply either side of the valley road along which Nick steered the Land Rover. With less than five kilometres to Fellside village and the Great Fell transmitter, they could see the tower striking high into the twilight sky, speckled with brilliant red, aircraft warning lights, and by straining his eyes against the glow of the setting sun, Nick could just make out the energy pulse shooting up the shaft and a nebulous cloud of energy at the tip.

"Time it," he said and concentrated on his driving.

Mia reached into her bag, ferreted around and came out with a digital stopwatch. Zeroing it, she watched the pulses reach the top of the mast, and fixing her eye on a single pulse, when it disappeared into the tiny, diffused halo surrounding the head, she started the watch. When the next one reached the halo, she stopped the timer, reached up and switched on the Land Rover's interior light.

"Under five seconds," she declared, putting the watch back in her bag.

Nick reached behind his seat and dragged his bag to the front. "Use my visor and check the pulse out."

Nick's eyescreen was more advanced than the run-of-the-mill visors of the 31st century. As well as the usual remote commands that could operate everything from the kettle to a flivver, it had additional functions which Stasis Center had deemed necessary for the kind of work he and Mia carried out.

Mia freely admitted that she was not as skilled with the visor as he and it took her several minutes of shuffling round the various menus until she held her eye for the required 1.4 seconds to access ENERGY SAMPLING.

The original purpose in programming this function into the visor had been to allow Nick access to stasis energy sources, the kind he used when he set up the stasis cell in which Flix had been imprisoned. Now Mia found it just as useful for analysis as it was construction.

But what she saw chilled her to the bone. Removing the visor she reported, "Stasis energy."

"So it is Flix. He's the only one in this time who could access that kind of energy." Nick braked for a hairpin bend. "How far to the next nearest mast?"

"This area is littered with boosters to get the signals down into the valleys." Mia said. "There are at least half a dozen primary masts within a 60 kilometre radius, but I'm not sure how far it is to the nearest booster. Probably less than 15 kilometres." She chewed her lip. "What are you thinking?"

Nick did not answer. Instead he posed another question. "Can Flix use the boosters?"

"Of course he can." Mia paused while Nick settled the vehicle out of the bend and accelerated again. "You're the tech, not me. You know he can use them."

"I was thinking aloud," he replied. "Normal electrical power cannot be made to jump a 15 kilometre gap, but stasis power can. He's building up power at Great Fell and if my guess is right, he'll aim for boosters. He's going to link transmitters."

"Why?" Mia asked.

"Power," Nick said. "Cumulative power. Subsidiary masts draw their initial impetus from Great Fell, but eventually, as the energy levels build, they can push on to the next transmitter and they can do so quicker because they have their own power coupled to the surge from Great Fell to help them." He sighed and his brow furrowed. "But why?"

"Nick," Mia said, when he had the Land Rover under complete control again, "we know what Flix is about. These main stations are double-manned. That means he has two ready-made hosts at Great Fell and the company who operate the mast will send in other engineers. Remember Coldmoor Castle? He built an army there, didn't he? Or he tried to before we stopped him. He'll do the same here. We have to get to him before he can get to other live hosts."

"Can you pick him up?"

Mia closed her eyes and concentrated her mind for a few seconds. She opened her eyes again and gazed up at the hill on which the transmitter stood. "No. Too much disturbance from the mast."

Nick watched a stone farmhouse flash by on the right. "Flix was never a fool. He spent almost nine hundred years on the Spirit Plane before we threw him into the stasis cell. He knows how people will react, how people have _always_ reacted. He knows the authorities will send in the police and even the army."

"All ready to join Flix's army," Mia responded. "He'll be able to take them as they approach the transmitter. If he begins to take over other masts, as you suggest, it'll give him an even greater range."

"And ten to one he knows we're coming," Nick forecast.

Mia could see the lights of Fellside village ahead. "He'll have second-guessed that anyway," she ventured. "He knew we had come back in time when we caught him at Coldmoor Castle. He'll be expecting us." Mia allowed her tumbling thoughts to meander a moment. "Nick, we've had him in stasis for five hundred years. Could he follow our technological developments from there?"

Nick eased his speed as they came into Fellside village. "Theoretically not. We know that if we sentence a human being to stasis, they're aware of nothing. But Flix is not human. He is a spirit and we took a part of the Spirit Plane into stasis with him, and he was able to learn how to use it to his advantage. What else did he learn? For all we know, he may have been viewing the whole of time while he was in there, which in turn would allow him to target this place and time as the best for his plans. Or alternatively, he may have looked down on this place during the 900 years between his death and our capturing him, and then, when he got out, homed in on it. There's too much that we don't know."

"And I don't want to think about the possible complications."

"Then why did you ask?" Nick wanted to know.

Mia did not answer; she merely shuddered as they ran into the village. She glanced up Great Fell to their right, then back down at the village post office, where dim light shone from behind the window, and a police patrol car stood at the kerb outside. "Cops are here already," Mia said. "You want to stop and ask directions?"

"No need. Look." Nick nodded his head to indicate she should look along the road.

Fifty metres ahead, a large sign declared, _Private Property. B-Comm. No unauthorised persons beyond this point._

Nick braked sharply and turned the Land Rover through the open gates. As he turned, he noticed a large electricity substation at the roadside. "Wonder if anyone has thought of cutting the power to the mast?"

"Would it make any difference now?" Mia wanted to know.

He shook his head. "Probably not."

Nick dropped the vehicle into first, knocking the headlights onto high beam, and in contrast to the speed he had brought them here, steered slowly, carefully up and along the dirt track, avoiding the worst of the ruts and potholes. The track zigzagged its way up the hill, and on the lower stretch trees lined both sides, creating an even deeper gloom. Down here the sun had already set, but soon they would pull out onto Great Fell itself, and Mia had already noticed that the peak of the hill was still bathed in the last of the evening sunlight.

A gap in the trees, and a shallower section of embankment gave her the first close-up glimpse of the mast. Over 300 metres tall, bedecked with satellite dishes aimed at the four compass points, the white pots at the top gleaming, it could be seen from the M6, 30 kilometres to the West, and was a well-known landmark for hikers.

The trees thinned even further, giving way to the rough gorse grasses of the fell. Over to their right, still above them, glowing crimson in the setting sun, the latticework tower clawed the sky, beaming its signals down into the surrounding valleys, like a sentry, bringing an echo of civilisation to this wilderness.

The gradient was less steep here, enabling Nick to go up a gear. A bump in the topography, a hummock rising ten feet above the Land Rover, on the right, hid the transmitter for a brief moment. Just beyond it, the track doubled back on itself, to the right this time, for the final climb to the hilltop. Nick threw wheel into it, dropped back into first and gunned the gas. The Land Rover grumbled, kicked up drying mud and stones and lurched ahead, up the final, steep incline. The headlights picked out a trickle of rainwater running down the runnels, the back end slid from side to side as he pressed on, the steering wheel jerking this way and that in his hands.

Where the hillside peaked, the track veered right for a couple of metres, avoiding an especially deep pothole. Mia guessed that during the rains, it would fill with water, creating a small pond. Beyond it, the rough road swung back left through the gates. Now they were travelling up the last of the rise to the peak of Great Fell, their beams pointing directly at the transmitter rising above the tiny blockhouse.

They were close enough for her to clearly see the energy pulse running up the mast. While Nick drove the last few metres, she took out her stopwatch again and timed the pulses. "Down to three seconds," she said. "He must be frying the mast."

"It'll be a continuous stream in under an hour," Nick ruminated, one eye on the open door of the blockhouse. "Why is the door open?"

"Does it matter?" Mia asked releasing her seatbelt.

"Maybe, maybe not," Nick admitted. "Under anti-terrorist legislation in this time, engineers are supposed to keep the place locked up tighter than your chastity belt." He killed the engine, threw off his seatbelt, and reached for his bag.

Mia opened her door and prepared to get out. "Can we leave my chastity belt out of this? We stick together, Nick."

Taking out his visor, he twisted his face into grin. "Worried about me? Can you pick him up, yet?"

Mia concentrated a moment and shook her head. "And we can't be more than a few metres from him. I'm worried, Nick. So we stick together. Right?"

"Yes, Milady." Clipping the ion rod to his hip holster, he, too, got out of the Land Rover and reached for the keys.

"Leave them in the ignition," Mia ordered. "If something goes wrong, we may need to get away fast."

Nick nodded and withdrew his hand. He turned towards the building and led the way. "Here we go, opening Pandora's Box... again."

*

Constable Mark Overton scratched his head. "I have to be honest, Mr Stevens, this doesn't make a lot of sense."

Visibly shaken, still white-faced, Ben sat in Kitty Houghton's parlour, his shaking hands clasped around a cup of tea. He had hared down the hill, along the street and into the Post Office. Kitty had listened to his garbled explanation, then showed him to the back room where she called the police. Less than ten minutes later, Overton and his partner, PC Wynn Balby, had shown up and taken a statement.

He looked up into Balby's sympathetic eyes and then to Overton's doubting ones. "You think it makes sense to me? I'm only telling you what I saw."

Overton looked to his partner. "What do you think?"

Balby shrugged. "If we put aside the more bizarre aspects, Mark, Mr Stevens is saying that Cockroft, Pierce and Kelvin Leyton have been killed, and we know the mast has been on the blink all day. We should investigate."

Overton nodded. "All right. We'll go up to the transmitter. I want you to wait here, Mr Stevens, until we come back. Is that okay with you, Kitty?"

The postmistress, a fixture in Fellside village for over fifty years, nodded. "I'll be shutting the shop soon, but he'll be all right with me."

Overton and Balby stepped out into the cool, evening air. Overton looked up at the mast, the blue energy pulses climbing to its spire at an increasing rate. "It's a rum do, this," he said unlocking the patrol car door and letting Balby in.

"Let's just get up there, Mark," Balby said.

Overton climbed behind the wheel and, fiddling the keys into the ignition, started the engine. Revving it, he ruminated on the possibilities of her as a bedmate.

Blonde and busty, She had only come out of training a year back, and every man at the station was sniffing round her. Overton drew the winning ticket when she was assigned to his patrol car, covering a hundred square kilometres or more of East Cumbria, but despite his softly-softly approach, she had not yet yielded to his charms.

Their beat was an easy one. Most of the area was rural, much of it farmland, 80% of it inaccessible by road, and crime, serious crime, was minimal.

"Bitta sheep rustling in the winter," he had told her when she first joined him, "some car theft, but no big burglaries, and no louts causing havoc on the council estates. No council estates. Mostly, it's neighbour feuds and RTAs."

He didn't tell her that some of those road traffic accidents could be absolute horror stories, especially when some speeding trucker wiped his rig out on the A66.

Slipping the car into first, his hand brushed against her right knee. "Sorry."

Wynn gave a hoarse laugh. "Tosser."

Grinning to himself, Overton pulled away from the kerb, drove up the street and hung a hard right onto the steep track up to the transmitter. Almost immediately, the car grumbled. He stopped and slotted it into first before pulling away again.

"I'll bet Stevens had a four by four," he complained. "They all do. Easier to get up this bloody hill."

"Stop whining and drive the car."

Overton did, but his thoughts still rebelled, twirling around the notion that jumping Balby would be a better way of spending the evening than climbing the hill to Great Fell.

The car wound and groaned its way up the track, engine alternately racing, then protesting as it dipped and climbed over and along the ruts, crooning and moaning as the wheels turned round hairpins on angled gradients for which it was never designed. In the driver's seat, Overton complained with it, his hands dancing around the wheel to keep on as even a keel as he could, while next to him, Wynn fiddled with both the two-way radios.

"Transmitter's on the blink, innit," Overton said as they rounded the final bend and began the last of the climb to the station. "Been interfering with signals up here since it went hip-hop."

"We didn't have a problem back down there," said Wynn. She made no gesture to accompany _back down there_ but Overton knew she meant Fell Cross, eight or ten kilometres back down the road, where they had first received instructions to go to Fellside Post Office.

"Short wave radio," Overton insisted. "It was crackly though."

"Like nylon knickers in the dark," she teased and Overton laughed as he turned through the gates.

An evening mist had begun to settle on the hilltop. It would thicken through the night and not dissipate until the sun rose to burn it off tomorrow. His beams cut through clinging vapour, picking out the matching B-Comm 4x4's of Cockroft and Stevens. Further over stood Nick's Land Rover and ahead of it, the open blockhouse door. Above the shed, the mast lanced up into the night sky, its aircraft warning lights burning stark red, an electric blue pulse leaping up its 300+ metre shaft at regular intervals.

"Summat's gone off," Overton said, drawing up alongside the Peugeot. He applied the parking brake, left the engine running and they both looked around. "That door's supposed to be locked."

The wide-eyed look on Balby's face told him she felt the same apprehension as he. The low-lying mist combined with almost total silence was enough to put the jitters up anyone.

"We'd better take a look," said Wynn, and Overton nodded.

*

Both Mia and Nick kept their footfalls soft as they made their slow way along the barren corridor.

While Nick pointed out the emergency case opened and the gap where an axe should have been, Mia concentrated her mind.

"They're in there," she whispered, pointing to the control room.

"Flix?" Nick asked.

"I don't know. The impressions are still jumbled."

Nick pulled the ion rod and his visor from his bag. Slotting the visor into place, with a nod at Mia, he led the way into the control room.

Concentrating on the control panel, Cockroft and Kel did not hear them enter.

Nick nudged Mia and guided her eyes down to the remains of Christine Pierce. Mia shuddered.

Nick switched on his visor. The impulses hit him as a blaze of raw light and he staggered back. "Hell," he cursed. "Overload."

Mia reached up for the visor and the moment she touched it, the power hit her too, channelling through her psychic mind, blinding her, sapping her energy.

Nick's curse made the pair at the control panel aware of them. The two creatures turned and began to advance.

Cockroft neared Mia. She put out both hands. She did not have the power to repel the creatures.

"Not good," Nick gasped, and reached for the axe close to Christine's body.

The moment Cockroft took her hand, Mia could see everything and recognition of Flix gave her renewed vigour. She aimed her free hand at his forehead and summoned all her energy. A ball of pure white light leapt from her fingers and struck Flix above the bridge of his nose. He released her and recoiled, slamming into the control panel.

Alongside her, Kel reached for Nick who swung the axe. Kel's forearm fell to the tiled floor. Kel appeared not to notice.

Sucking in his breath, still half blinded by the impulses coming in, Nick supercharged his muscles, reached up to his forehead and wrenched the visor off. His strength returned. He leapt to his feet and landed a powerful kick to Kel's chest. Like Flix, Kel flew back and hit the control panel, only to bounce back with fresh energy.

"It gives them more power," Mia complained.

"Let's see what the ion rod can do, huh?" Nick brought the weapon to bear and hit the red trigger. Almost immediately it glowed, casting a red beam at Flix. It should have disintegrated the head, but to Nick's irritation Flix hardly felt it. He stepped to one side, the beam struck the control panel, turned blue and the rod in Nick's hands began to glow. "Damn. Overload." He knocked the rod off and grinned at Mia. "What do you think, sugar? Tactical withdrawal?"

"I'm right in front of you?" she chuckled and sidled towards the door.

Nick collected the axe from the floor and as Flix came at him, he swung it. Flix backed off. "Come close enough, Flix, baby, and I'll dice your new body for a casserole." He gave Mia a nod. "Go," he ordered.

Mia leapt for the door. As she did, PC Wynn Balby came in. The two women bumped. Balby reacted automatically, and pushed Mia back into the room. As Balby entered, Overton followed her. Both stared angrily on Nick and Mia, then turned their attention to the two horrors by the control panel.

"Oh my God ..." Balby began, only to be cut off when Flix snatched her arm and dragged her to the live panel.

Nick reacted quickly, throwing himself at Balby and grabbing her other arm. Kel came around the console making for Nick. Overton floundered by the door, Mia aimed her clasped hands at Kel and the creature was thrown back to the control panel again.

"It's no good, Nick," Mia shouted. "Every time they hit that panel, they pick up more power."

"Hit Flix," Nick ordered. "Get him to let go of her."

"While you're holding on?" Mia complained. "I'll floor you too, and he'll recover a damn sight faster."

Nick, his strength already diminished after his experience with the visor, began to lose ground. Between him and Flix, Balby whimpered. Recovering his senses, Overton came to Nick's aid, gripping Balby's arm and lending his strength to the tug of war. Balby kicked and fought against Flix's superhuman strength, yet still her feet slid slowly across the tiles towards the control panel.

"If he gets her to that panel and we're still holding her," Nick told Overton, "we all fry."

"She's my partner."

"Then you'll have to die alone with her." Nick looked past Overton at the freshly invigorated Kel and then to Mia. "Deal with that," he ordered.

Mia snatched up the axe and ran around the free-standing computer console. As Kel attempted to intervene on Flix's side, she swung it. The blade sliced through his neck but not completely. The grotesque head hung on by a thread of muscle and sinew.

"If you want a job done properly, never ask a woman," Nick complained between gasping breaths. He poured on more strength.

With the Kel creature disoriented, in the final throes of its post-mortem existence, Flix stretched out his free arm for the control panel.

"If he channels the power," Nick gasped, "we're cooked."

A field of static electricity played at Mia's hair as she pushed past the dying Kel and swung the axe at Flix's arm. At the last second, he moved the arm and she missed. A determined gleam in her eye, Mia raised the axe again, aiming at the control panel.

"Mia, no," Nick urged. "That axe maybe insulated, but it's not designed to withstand the levels coming through that panel. Hit Flix with your energy."

She ignored him and struck the panel. To her surprise she did not connect, but struck a wall of electromagnetic energy millimetres from the fascia. The power tore the axe from her hands and threw both it and her across the room.

Flix's fingers were millimetres from the electromagnetic field. Nick cast a concerned eye on Mia, then back at Flix. "Let go," he ordered Overton.

"Don't," begged the weeping Balby.

"She's my mate," Overton whined.

"She's dead," Nick told him, "and unless you let go, so are you."

He released his grip on Balby's arm, and crossed to Mia to help her up. Overton saw the sense of Nick's words. He looked into Balby's eyes and said, "I'm sorry, Wynn." Then he, too, let go.

Flix heaved the hapless policewoman forward.

With a final cry of, "noooooooo," the sound trailing off into a truncated wail of agony, Balby slammed into the panel.

While Nick helped Mia to her feet, Overton backed away to the door and watched, rigid with morbid fascination while his partner went through the dance of death. Her hair stood up, her uniform flapped here and there. Flashes of lightning enveloped her, arcing from shoulder to hip, knee to breast. Her whole body jerked spasmodically. Something splattered to the floor. Overton looked down and on a lump of flesh, followed by a splodge of rich, red blood.

Flix released his grip on her. She fell to the floor. Nick could see the blind rage surging through Overton. The police officer took a step forward, his muscles tensed to launch himself at Flix.

"No," Nick grabbed his arm. "Forget it. He'll kill you too. Just get out of here."

Overton stopped, his eyes riveted on what had been Wynn Balby. Slowly, she clambered to her feet.

Balby faced Flix and Overton's stomach heaved again. Her face was contorted into the rictus grin, the skin and gristle of her cheeks had gone, just like the other creature's, and her eyes had melted away. The hair, that silky soft blonde matting Overton had found so attractive, was a frazzled mass of singed straw, and the air stank of burned hair, skin, muscle and meat.

Some unspoken message must have passed between them. They turned to face Overton. Fear smothered him. His breathing accelerated, but the adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream did for him what it had done for Ben Stevens and kicked in the flight or fight response. His muscles ignited and he ran.

Nick snatched Cockroft's laptop from the workstation and he and Mia backed off to the door. He grinned at Flix. "It isn't over yet. We'll be back."

Ushering Mia through the door, he followed and as Flix and Balby started after them, they, too, ran.

Bursting out into the sunset, they found Overton in his patrol car, frantically turning the ignition key.

"It won't start," the constable protested.

"The power overload has shorted out the electronic ignition," Nick said as Mia leapt into the passenger seat. "Get into our truck."

"But if mine won't start ..."

Climbing behind the wheel, Nick recalled his conversation with Coleman and the logic slid home. "Diesel engine," he said. "Compression ignition, not electronic."

Flix appeared at the blockhouse door he fired the engine and Overton did not argue anymore.

# Chapter 6

Nick jammed the gears into reverse, hit the gas and roared back. Flix burst out of the blockhouse and with a loping run, came after them. Gnarled, skinless hands hammered the passenger side window. It shattered, showering Mia in glass. The hands came for her. She recoiled with a cry as they closed about her throat. Yanking the handbrake on, Nick leaned over, grasped the slimy fingers, gristle still covering the bones, and tried to prise them from her. They tightened around her neck. She began to gag.

Gripped by a combination of fury and frustration, Nick stared around seeking a weapon. There was no axe here to help him here, and even if there had been, he had no room to wield it.

In the back, Overton searched, too, and his eyes fell on the fire extinguisher. He ripped it from its Velcro straps and handed it to Nick. "Try that."

Leaning back, the butt end away from him, Nick smashed it into Flix's face. He saw the grip on Mia's throat loosen. Nick rammed the extinguisher home again. The creature released Mia, and reeled away from the vehicle.

"Newtonian mechanics," Nick muttered. "Action and reaction." To Overton he said, "Thanks, pal," Jamming the truck into first, he gunned the accelerator.

Whatever damage the extinguisher had done to Flix's senses, they soon cleared and he came for the Land Rover again. Overton braced himself, Nick raced the engine, yanking the wheel hard to his left. The Land Rover smashed into Flix, catching him mid chest, carrying him for several metres before crushing him into the wall of the building. Nick reversed off on full right lock. Balby appeared at the blockhouse door and pointed at the Land Rover.

"Head down," cried Mia.

Nick ducked as a bolt of pure blue energy shot from Balby's finger. Sitting up, Mia pointed, too, and concentrated her mind. Her white energy erupted across the fell, struck Balby in the chest with sufficient power to knock the undead policewoman from her feet. Even as they watched, the Balby staggered back to her feet.

"Go, Nick," Mia shouted.

He swung the wheel hard left and tore off for the exit track. In his rear view mirror he could see Flix picking himself up, stumbling blindly after them.

"She won't be so easy next time," Mia said. "She'll gain energy, strength and skill."

"The ion rod is no use, so what in the name of hell and Santa Claus do we have to do to put them down?" Nick hissed.

"Get them away from this power source," Mia cried.

"What are they?" Overton demanded. "I know one of them is Wynn, but isn't Wynn anymore. And I know the other used to be Dennis Cockroft, the station engineer, but what is it now?"

Nick turned them onto the downhill path and risked a glance back at the transmitter station where Flix came stumbling across the grassy peak.

"It's a zombie," he said, "possessed by an entity we know as Flix. And it's also trapped the spirit of your pal in what's left of her body and Flix controls it."

A sharp laugh burst from Overton's throat; when Mia looked up him, his hands were shaking and his lips moved inaudibly. She reached over the back of her seat and took his hand. "Hold it together," she soothed. "What we don't need now are hysterics. We'll need to call for back up to contain the situation, and your bosses are not going to listen to us." She smiled encouragingly. "What's your name?"

"Overton," he replied, his voice shaky and uncertain. "Mark Overton."

"Well, Mark, I'm Mia and this is Nick, and we're specialists in this kind of problem."

"So specialist, we're running for our lives," Nick grumbled.

He manoeuvred the wheel left and right, avoiding the worst potholes on the track. He flicked on the lights and kicked up the high beam. The night turned to black around the swathe of light.

"So what, er, what happened to Wynn and those others in there?" Overton asked.

"They were electrocuted," Nick replied, "Flix now controls them."

"How did they get electrocuted?" Overton demanded. "I don't know a lot about the transmitter but I remember Christine Pierce, one of the engineers, telling me that the control panel was made of non-conductive, steel-hard plastic."

"Polymer, not plastic," Nick corrected, "and it's charged with a different kind of energy. It would take me all night to explain it."

He glanced to his right. Flix had been making his unsteady way across the upper fell, but Nick could see nothing of him now. The first hairpin, to the left, was up ahead. Around that, and they would surely be safe. He began to relax.

"What do we do about it?" Overton asked.

"I just told you. You'll need to get onto your people, get bodies out here to contain Flix while we handle it," Mia said. "You should be able to call them from the village."

"Can you imagine my sergeant's reaction?" Overton said.

"Yes I can, but ... LOOK OUT!"

Mia's scream yanked their attention to the view ahead where Flix had appeared, staggering from behind a clump of bushes, stepping onto the track at the point of the hairpin. Nick braked, slammed the Land Rover into reverse and backed up ten metres, where he stopped and waited. In front of him, Flix waited, too.

"Come on; come to daddy."

"What are you waiting for?" Mia wanted to know. "Mow him down."

Nick pointed beyond Flix. "He's too close to the hairpin. If I run him down now, I'll be moving so fast that I won't have the room and time to turn. God for a flivver with differential throttles and braking thrusters.

"What?" asked Overton.

"It would take all night to explain... again," Nick said and pointed at Flix. "I need him to come to me. Just a few metres."

"And he knows it," said Mia.

The creature did not move. It stared sightlessly in their direction from twenty metres. Nick backed up a further ten. It did not follow.

Nick drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. "He has no eyes, he can't see us, yet he knows where we are, what we can and can't do, and he has enough brains for a standoff. Clever, Flix. Very clever."

Mia gave Nick a mock round of applause. "And this year's award for stating the bloody obvious goes to Nick Holt. What do we do?"

Nick glanced left and right. "Going back to the transmitter station is not an option," he said. "Mark's chum is probably getting her act together."

Mia shuddered. "Sitting here's not an option, either," said Mia. "I don't know how long he's prepared to wait, but we'll run out of fuel, or we'll need feeding eventually. And long before that, the policewoman will regain her strength and come looking for us."

"What the hell does he want?" Overton asked. "Us? Our bodies?"

Mia gave a tiny little laugh. "We did cut his chum's head off and someone else has hacked his first girlfriend to bits."

"That was Ben Stevens," Overton reported. "The assistant engineer from B-Comm. He told Wynn and me about it before we came up here."

"Hmm. You figure that's why he's pissed?" Nick grinned. "He was on a promise tonight and you kyboshed it?"

Overton laughed too. Mia looked at him. There was no humour in his face, yet he had laughed. She guessed the police officer was on the edge again, ready to trip into full-blown hysteria any second. She noticed his hands were trembling. She reached over the seat, took his hand again.

Nick drew in a shuddery breath. "Okay, let's give Flix some bait. Overton, do you drive?"

"All cops drive," the constable responded.

"Okay. When I get out, you get in the driver's seat."

Mia fretted. "Nick, what are you going to do? Ion rod?"

"After what happened in there I don't think so? It may jolt him, but if he hits back, he may take me out. On the other hand, if he tries the finger on me, it may produce a stand-off and you could use your power?"

Mia shook her head. "I could probably put him down, but for how long? Balby was up in a matter of seconds and Flix is stronger. And anyway, if you and he were connected by the ion rod and his power, what price I'll flatten you, too?"

Nick looked into her face, the brow etched with deep lines. She was not smiling now. Her teeth chattered, her facial muscles worked, twitching her lips and eyes. She looked seriously afraid. He took her other hand. "We know better, Mia. We've been through it before. Remember?"

"If he kills us, Nick, he'll hold us in the bodies, like those at Coldmoor Castle, like that policewoman."

While Overton puzzled over their exchange, Nick opened his door and prepared to get out. "Time to get old fashioned, then," he said.

Mia frowned. "For God's sake be careful. I can't beat him alone."

Nick nodded and got out. "Here's the plan," he said. "I'll see if I can goad him into coming for me. If I have to use the ion rod, I will. When he does, Mark, you go for it, run him down. Get the hell out of here."

"And what about you?" Overton asked. "I could hit you too."

He nodded past Mia, to the embankment on the vehicle's nearside. "The hill rolls down and meets the path round the bend. I'll take that route and catch you on the downside. Listen, Mark, whatever you do, don't stop. You plough through him and keep on going. I'll get down to the path, and you don't stop to pick me up. The back of the truck will be open. I'll get on as you pass. If I don't, don't worry about it. I can beat Flix down to the village. You got all that?"

Overton nodded vigorously, as if he were filled with enthusiasm, but Nick could see the fear in his eyes.

He moved to the rear of the truck and lowered the tailgate, then came alongside and marched on in front of it.

Snapping on her seatbelt while Overton dropped behind the wheel, Mia called forth on her reserves of calm. Overton jammed the truck into gear, kept the clutch in and revved the engine, his left hand gripping the parking brake, ready to release it when Nick moved.

Outside, Nick stood in the beam of the headlights, his long shadow reaching Flix's feet.

He rapped the ion rod into the palm of his left hand. "I always said you were a jerk off, Flix, and even after all these centuries, you're still one. If you fancy your chances, come and take it."

Flix made no sound. He appeared to be looking at Nick through empty eyes sockets.

"Your brain's tricking you, Nick," The Special Agent muttered to himself. Aloud he said, "Come on, Flix, what are you waiting for? You want me, come and take me."

He took another couple of paces forward. Flix moved one pace towards him. From behind Nick could hear Overton revving the engine.

He had to gauge the distance correctly. He needed to be close enough to tempt the creature, but not close enough to let those arms grab him. He took two more paces forward.

"Come and get me, moron."

The creature took one more pace forward, but left less than five metres of clear space before the hairpin bend. Not enough for the truck to get past and round the bend without slowing to a crawl.

Nick's foot crunched on something. Without taking his eyes off Flix, he bent at the knee and felt around. A large clod of dry earth, almost as solid as stone. His fingers closed round it. He picked it up and threw it. In the half-light, his aim was never better than approximate, but it struck Flix in what was left of the face.

Flix made no sound but took yet another pace forward.

Nick marched forward, too. Less than four metres separated him from the creature. Once again the gut-wrenching smell of burned flesh assaulted his nostrils.

He glanced to his left and the steep descent down the bank to the lower part of the track. An embankment of rough grass and gorse bushes, it would be an uncomfortable ride, but not half as uncomfortable as letting himself fall into Flix's clutches.

Another pace forward. He kept his eyes away from the face. He felt sick enough with the smell without having to stare into those soulless sockets or look on the jawbone under the burned off jowls.

"What is wrong with you, Flix? Lost whatever bottle you had?"

Movement registered in the corner of his right eye. Balby making her way across the fell towards them. A pincer... and he was caught in it. Only one way out.

Nick took a deep breath and head down, rushed Flix. As he moved so did Flix. Nick's head connected with the solid chest. The creature crashed to the ground, got quickly to its feet again and came at him. He turned and ran at the Land Rover.

"Go," he screamed at Overton.

The policeman let the clutch in with a roar and drove straight at Nick. For one terrifying moment Mia thought Overton would mow her partner down, and she could not understand why, when he said he would go down the embankment, Nick decided to run at the Land Rover instead. At the last possible second, he threw himself to the left of the charging vehicle and disappeared down the bank. Now she understood. If he had rolled down the bank sooner, Flix would have followed him. Now the creature was coming for the Land Rover.

The windscreen filled with the horrible sight of Flix. Her natural reaction was to raise her arms. Overton aimed for the brake pedal.

"Keep going," she cried.

The policeman hit the gas and the truck accelerated.

There came a hard thump as the collided. For a moment Flix straddled the bonnet, then he, too, disappeared, followed by a double bump when they ran over him. From the right Balby aimed her finger and a blue bolt trucked the side panels of the Land Rover and the entire bodywork lit with dancing blue fires.

"Rubber tyres," Overton muttered, his hair tingling with static. "We can't earth."

The hairpin bend came up fast; he braked, slung the wheel hard left and slewed round it. For a panicky moment, the offside wheels mounted the embankment. Overton juggled the wheel, brought it back to the level, rocking from side to side and accelerated again, down the track.

The headlights lit the track for the next hundred metres, but there was no sign of Nick.

*

Nick rolled down the embankment. His bare arm caught on a bush and he felt it scrape the skin off. Then his shirt snagged on another stray growth and he heard it tear.

Several feet below him, the track was suddenly illuminated by the Land Rover's headlights. It shot past, he rolled onto the track, picked himself up and ran after it.

"Slow down," he shouted.

*

Mia thought she heard something, but the engine noise drowned it out. Looking over the back of her seat, she saw Nick hurrying after the vehicle and tapped Overton's shoulder. He checked the rear view mirror and in the glows of the taillights, saw Nick and eased his speed.

*

Nick had examined the Land Rover before test driving it with Coleman, and he knew every square centimetre of it. Whatever it did and didn't have, it did not possess a fixed trailer with bony hands clinging to the tailgate. Overton was dragging Flix along.

*

As the vehicle braked for Nick, Flix began to pull himself up. Nick put on a spurt. He leapt onto the creature's back and threw himself into the Land Rover's rear compartment.

"Go," he shouted. "Flix is with us, but just go. I'll deal with him."

Overton gunned the engine again and Nick picked up the discarded fire extinguisher he had used earlier. Moving to the rear of the truck, he hammered it down onto the bony fingers. Useless. He might as well have been hitting them with a feather for all the effect it had.

He dropped the extinguisher and knelt at the open tailgate, trying to prise the fingers away from the serrated metal of the floor. Again he had no effect.

Up front Overton was slowing for the next hairpin.

"Newtonian mechanics," Nick muttered to himself.

He lay on his back, hands gripping the back of the passenger seat above his head.

"Ease up Mark," he shouted. "Let Flix get up."

"But..."

"Just do it," Nick interrupted. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing. When I tell you to go, then floor the pedal again."

The constable obeyed and the truck slowed as they approached the next hairpin. Flix lumbered up, those impossibly powerful arms pulling him into the back of the truck. Nick raised his legs and bent them up to his abdomen. Flix rose up above him, the eyeless sockets focussed on the prey, and the awful body leaned forward, one finger pointing at Nick's bared head.

The moment he felt the chest against the soles of his feet Nick heaved with all the strength he could muster in his thighs. His legs shot straight out and the creature fell back, out of the truck, onto the path.

"Now go," Nick cried. "Go, go, go ..."

*

Flix raged internally. Nellis and Holt. He had lost two of his recruits to them already and then he had them at his mercy, but her psychic power and the deviously tactical brain of her partner, coupled to their peak, physical condition had won the day.

On the Spirit Plane he would have vented his anger against any nearby entity, but here he had only the trapped spirit of Balby and he needed her.

Not that he could have reasonably blamed her for the slow speed with which she utilised her new powers. She was, after all, obeying his commands and her spirit, not entirely subdued, still struggled for release.

The encounter had not been without its pluses. He had learned much, and had several of his theories confirmed. The stasis wall he had constructed around the transmitter's control panel not only absorbed the energy of Holt's particle beam weapon but converted and cast it back at him. Similarly, connection with the force shield, while uncomfortable, increased his own energy, and finally, of course, he was able to channel that same power through himself (or any of his zombies) as a weapon.

Nellis and Holt had come back through time, as he had anticipated they would, but they had met with forces even they could not comprehend, forces they would not be able to track to source, and forces which, within the next 24 hours, would bring them to heel under his control.

# Chapter 7

Driving up the climb from Fellside village, Sergeant Alan Griggs felt nervous. Alongside him, Constable John Roughsedge fiddled with the radio, and from ten metres behind, the lights of PC Ibbotson and his patrol partner Harry Walsh's patrol car lit the interior. Even with all this company, Griggs nevertheless felt jittery.

Based in Harden, the sergeant had been up here many times in the past, usually to report on an attempted break-in and calm B-Comm's fears of a terrorist cell at work. Mostly it was local scallies looking for copper wire to weigh in as scrap, although Griggs recalled one occasion when he and his team had had to deal with a bunch of new age protesters whining about the damage to the ozone layer.

Twenty-three years he had been on the force and there wasn't much he hadn't seen or done. He'd nicked his share of toe rags, helped corner and arrest a fair number of thieves, including a mob of bank robbers from Manchester. He'd faced a murderer wielding a shotgun once. The man had used it on his estranged wife, and all the time Griggs stood with him there was that nagging fear that he might use it again.

He'd seen his share of mashed and mangled bodies, usually the victims of road traffic accidents. Some of the bloodied, pulped shapes had put him off his dinner for a day or two, but throughout all his time in the service, he had never heard a tale like young Mark Overton, Ben Stevens and those strange bods, Nellis and Holt, had related in the parlour of Fellside Post Office.

Overton was a fly bugger at the best of times, too full of fancying his chances with Wynn Balby, but Griggs also knew he was a reliable copper, and piecing together the evidence from him and the B-Comm engineer, it became apparent that something odd was going on up at the transmitter, and that Balby was dead.

"Not dead, Sarge," Overton had insisted. "She was fried, for sure, but she got up again. I saw her. So did these two." He gestured at Mia and Nick, and then Ben Stevens, saying, "His mate, Kel Leyton, was the same."

"This doesn't make sense, lad," Griggs had pointed out.

"They're zombies, sergeant," Mia had interjected. "Dead but not at peace. Now controlled by a single entity, their bodies are powered by the energy overload from the transmitter."

Dismissing the outrageous aspects of her story, Griggs had looked the young pair up and down. "And what's your story?" he demanded.

"We're, er, specialists in this kind of thing." Nick's reply was hesitant, deliberately vague.

"So who sent you?"

Nick shrugged weakly. "It's complicated."

"What we can tell you," Mia said, taking up the reins, "is that you should not go anywhere near that transmitter station until Flix, the, er, entity who has taken over Dennis Cockroft's body, has completed his work."

"Work?" Griggs demanded.

"He needs more bodies, sergeant," Mia explained. "If you starve him of live people, he will need to spread further afield and that will weaken his power. Right now, he's too close to the power generator, the mast. It gives him a strength and tenacity even we can't handle. Only when he moves out will his power come down to a level that we can deal with."

Griggs' features were haunted with suspicion. "How do you know?"

"We know him of old," Nick explained. "If he had the strength, the power, he would have followed us down into the village, but he didn't. When I kicked him off the Land Rover, he probably turned back for the transmitter because he knew that the further he strays from it, the weaker he becomes."

Griggs stood up. "Yes, well, young feller, as we speak, I have an officer presumed dead, and according to Constable Overton, other bodies up there. It's my job to investigate." He addressed Overton. "I want you to stay here, with Mr Stevens and these two young 'uns. No one leaves until I get back and I can start taking statements." He turned to big John Roughsedge. "You come with me, get Ibbotson and Walsh to tail us, and based on what Overton has said about his car not starting, tell them to leave their engine running when they get up there."

Now, on the last leg of the zigzag climb up the hill, Griggs ruminated on Balby's possible demise. He'd seen many changes to working practices, in his time. When he was young copper, it was not the done thing to send a woman, a pretty young thing like Balby, on a job like this where dead bodies may be involved. Back then, policing was a man's world, and the women were there to manage school crossing patrols or man the radio and make tea. Now it was all equal opportunities, political correctness, and giving the scroats a second chance.

"Lotta bull," he said as he drifted right to avoid the deep pothole just before the station entrance.

"Not all of it, Sarge," said Big John. "Women do deserve the opportunity to better themselves, and some of the scroats do deserve a second chance."

Privately, Griggs agreed. "But I still insist that women shouldn't be put in danger."

He swung into the B-Comm site and his headlights picked out the abandoned vehicles.

Leaving his engine running and climbing out of his vehicle, Griggs opened the door on Overton's patrol car and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Dead to the world. Distressed as he was, the lad had got that right.

His eye fell on Wynn Balby's bag in the passenger side footwell. Roughsedge appeared alongside him.

"Overton might be right," Griggs said. "If Balby were in one piece, she'd have come back out to the car by now, if only to pick up her bag."

Roughsedge looked across at the open door of the transmitter buildings. "Look at that. Wide open. Half the terrorist and eco-nuts in the country could be in there."

Griggs did not immediately respond. Instead he called to the others. "Ibbotson, Walsh, you wait out here. If you see us coming out in a hurry, get the hell out and back down to the village." To Roughsedge, he said, "Come on, John."

Griggs was glad of jovial John's presence. Like the sergeant, Roughsedge was a long serving officer, but one who had never aspired to anything but the rank of constable. A mountain of a man, absolutely fearless, he was the ideal partner in this kind of situation.

They walked to the door and peered into the corridor. Nothing out of the ordinary. Griggs grunted. "Let's take a shufti inside, and watch your back, John."

"You lead, I'll follow."

The corridor was just as Griggs remembered it; punctuated on both sides by doors leading to different rooms, residential and work areas. But he noticed instantly that the emergency axe had been removed from its housing. The boots were still there.

"Where's the axe?" asked Roughsedge.

Griggs did not answer. He dare not think of where it might be or what it might have been used for, but he did recall Cockroft or one of the engineers once telling him that it was honed to a razor's edge.

"That engineer said he used it on whatever was left of Christine Pierce," he told Roughsedge, but he wondered if that 'seriously sharp blade,' as Cockroft had described it, really would be serious and sharp enough to cut through sinew and bone.

The kitchen door on the right was wide open, while to the left the control room door was slightly ajar. Griggs gestured right and they crept that way. As they reached it, Roughsedge glanced back and into the control room, where Christine Pierce's decapitated corpse could be seen. He nudged the sergeant.

Griggs' colour drained. He strode across the corridor and blundered into the control room, staring down at the terrible sight, the head a metre away, the missing axe lying nearby. Further along next was the near-decapitated and mutilated body of Kel Leyton. Behind him, Roughsedge's attention was drawn to the right where the two creatures worked methodically but with puppet-like animation at the control panel.

"Jesus Christ on bleeding crutches," Roughsedge said, unable to contain himself.

Griggs whirled and took in the sight. Flix and Balby turned from the control panel. What was left of Balby staggered towards Roughsedge. Griggs reacted with an automatism which, on later reflection was the worst move he could have made. He bent, snatched up the heavy axe and hurled it at her. It twirled blade over shaft through the air and by a stroke of luck landed in Balby's chest, the lethal blade digging in hilt deep.

Griggs ran for the door. "Get out, John," he shouted.

Roughsedge's eyes were fixed on the wound to Balby's chest. No blood flowed.

"She's already dead," he muttered, his usually cheery voice filled with awe.

"OUT," shouted Griggs as Balby yanked the axe from her chest and threw it.

Griggs saw the heavy blade strike Roughsedge on the forehead. Blood spurted from a deep wound and big John fell to the floor.

Flix and Balby came after Griggs. He ran, bursting through the corridor and out into the night.

"Go, go," he cried to his small force. "Get the hell out of it."

Ibbotson and Walsh jumped into their car, and with a roar from the engine, they turned and began the precipitous journey back down the track.

Griggs dived into his car, jammed the gear lever into first, gunned the gas and snatched the handbrake off. He leapt forward as the terrible female, whom he almost recognised as Balby, pointed at him. A bolt of blue came from her finger and shattered Griggs' windscreen. Griggs steered into her, the car struck her midriff and flattened her. As he turned to escape, the gnarled and mangled hand of Flix snatched at the car and tore the offside wing mirror away.

Griggs steered back down the track, his frightened eyes looking into the rear view mirror where Balby, who should have been smashed and killed by the car, got to her feet and Flix staggered across the grassy slope to intercept them on the track.

He almost made it. Throwing himself off the embankment, Flix clawed the air but missed by precious inches as Griggs' car passed. The Sergeant hammered the accelerator to the floor, and took off after the taillights of his colleagues.

*

Superintendent Phil Turner had arrived at 9:30 and was in the process of assessing the situation when three army trucks and a Land Rover rolled into the village.

"Major Owen Vincent, 92 Squadron Special Services Rapid Intervention Force," the commander introduced himself after Turner had demanded to know what was going on. "We've been sent here to deal with the terrorist problem." He turned to one of his NCO's. "Sergeant Yaxley?"

The sergeant, a beefy six footer, hurried to the Major's side, snapped to attention and saluted. "Sir?"

"Get your people along the street, prepare the residents for immediate evac to Harden, and I want four men on that substation." Vincent pointed along the street to the electricity generator.

Yaxley saluted again. "Sir."

"Just a minute, Major," Turner cut in. "You can't just show up here throwing orders around. I'm the senior police officer, and at the moment, this is a civilian matter."

"You'd better tell that to the MOD, Superintendent," Vincent advised. "B-Comm rang at four thirty and insisted that they had lost control of Great Fell. They say the mast has been taken over by persons unknown, assumed to be terrorists. This mast is a part of the EBS network, and that makes it a military matter."

"Now look—"

"If you have anything more to say on the matter, take it up with the Chief Constable and he'll make the necessary representations to the Home Office. For now, we're going to cut off the electricity supply to the mast, and I need you to contact your station, tell them to arrange buses to get the civilian population out of here and down to Harden."

"Like hell," Turner snapped. "I have two officers down and it is a police matter."

They took the argument into the Post Office.

Kitty, the postmistress had been already been moved to her sister's house in Harden, allowing the conversion of her premises to a makeshift command post. Mia and Nick, their equipment confiscated and held by Sergeant Griggs, were camped in the rear parlour of the Post Office, along with Ben Stevens and Overton.

"We need to stop this, Nick," Mia urged in a whisper when Turner and Vincent entered, still arguing.

"How?" Nick asked, watching the verbal battle for supremacy between Turner and Vincent. "It doesn't matter what we say, they'll send more men up the hill and Flix will begin to assemble his army. Look at them." He indicated the heated exchange between police and military. "They're fighting like next year's bonus depends on it."

Mia chewed her lip. "We could try telling the truth."

"About us? You think they'd believe us? We had enough problems at Coldmoor Castle. This is the twenty first century, remember. There's so much mistrust and surveillance in this time that it's like an Orwellian nightmare. You try telling that Major we're from a super-secret government agency and he'd be onto his bosses and they'd know in minutes that we're lying. Yet, if we tell them who we really are, the chances are they'd lock us up and throw the key away." In an effort to reassure her, he went on, "they're evacuating the village, which is a step in the right direction. For now, let's just go with the flow."

"And leave these soldiers to die?" Mia argued. "We have Mark Overton to back us up. We have to persuade these idiots to keep their people back, let Flix finish his work and then let us deal with it."

Nick ignored her. Instead he watched the Sergeant Yaxley hurry in, snap to attention and salute Vincent.

"What is it Sergeant?" the Major asked.

"A new development, sir," Yaxley replied. "You'd better come and see for yourself."

Vincent and Turner suspended their argument and both men, accompanied by Griggs made their way out of the Post Office into the street. Intrigued, Nick and Mia followed.

"Hey, you two," Griggs argued, "you're supposed to stay here."

"Take it easy, Sergeant," Mia smiled. "We just want to see what all the excitement is."

A small crowd, comprising Vincent, Turner, Griggs and Sergeant Yaxley gathered on the pavement, looking up at Great Fell. When Mia checked along the street other police and soldiers were also staring up. Residents, disturbed by events and soldiers knocking on their doors, preparing them for evacuation, were also captivated by the sight.

From the Post Office door, Mia could make out the tip of the mast and the small cloud of eerie, blue energy particles surrounding it. But now, two spurs had broken off, one flashing southeast, the other northwest, straight beams of blue light. As she watched a third stream flashed out, striking to the northeast.

She turned to speak with Nick, but to her surprise he had gone back into the Post Office. He appeared a moment later with Ben Stevens and Mark Overton. Pointing up and talking to Ben, Nick asked, "Where are the nearest masts in the direction of those beams?"

Ben stroked his chin. "Can't think of one to the northeast," he admitted, "but the northwest could be Knock, and the southeast is probably Hawes. They're boosters, not transmitters."

"Told you," Nick whispered to Mia.

Superintendent Turner faced them. "Mr Stevens, can you tell us what is going on?"

Ben shrugged.

"Flix is setting up a web" Mia declared. "He's linking transmitters and boosters. He will carry on until he has as many as he needs to form a rough circle and then he'll join them laterally. When he's finished he'll have a spider's web of transmitters and boosters under his control. He will then begin to kill people at random, giving him control over their bodies. And there will be nothing you can do to stop it. Superintendent, I warned your sergeant earlier..."

Mia trailed off as screams penetrated the night. Fifty metres from them, where the track to the transmitter branched off from the road, a team of four soldiers were working on the electricity substation. A brilliant blue flash lit the night. Three of the team were thrown across the street where their bodies lay smoking. The fourth, his hand locked to the substation, unable to release it, fried; his hair frizzed and burned away, his eyes melted, his scream choked off, large chunks of meat fell from his face until he, too, fell.

Other squad members began to hurry along to their fallen comrades. They came to a sharp halt when the freshly slaughtered private stood and staggered towards them.

"Drop him," Nick urged. "Shoot him in the head."

No one took any notice.

The undead soldier pointed a finger. A blue bolt flashed out, striking a colleague in the chest and killing him. In seconds, he too stood and they turned on their comrades.

"DROP THEM," Nick shouted. "BOTH OF THEM."

No one moved.

Stood close by, Yaxley held his automatic rifle. Nick snatched it from him, hurried to the middle of the street and aimed. Yaxley tore after him and knocked him from his feet. Nick kicked back, the sergeant towered over Nick, trying to wrest the rifle from his grasp.

"You have to finish them now," Nick gasped and kicked the sergeant off.

He dragged himself to his knees, jammed the rifle butt to his shoulder and aimed. Sergeant Yaxley threw himself back at Nick and they rolled across the road. As they separated, Mia pointed and a ball of white energy surged from her, flooring the sergeant.

Others soldiers came at Nick and pinned him down. The rifle clattered from his hand. Delivering a crashing blow to one jaw, he snatched the weapon and from his supine position aimed and fired. The shot was not exactly on target, but it was close enough to the brain to fell the nearest of the two undead.

"Get the bloody gun off him," someone urged, and Nick found himself in a struggle to retain the weapon while the second undead soldier advanced on his colleagues, his arm rising, finger pointing.

"He'll kill you all, you idiots," Nick gasped and fought to keep the rifle.

Buried under the melee, the rifle torn from his grasp, Nick spotted an automatic pistol at Sergeant Yaxley's hip. He snatched at it, yanked it free of the holster. The zombie private advanced on his living colleagues, the finger rising still and pointing. Nick aimed and fired; once, twice, three times. The bullets ripped into the zombie skull and the creature circled once before falling.

A furious gaggle of military men hustled Nick to his feet, wrestled the pistol from him and pinned his arms at the back. Yaxley delivered a punch to Nick's kidneys. Nick whooped in his breath to contain the pain.

They roughhoused him back to the pavement and slammed him face up against the post office wall. Nick cursed again. Yaxley spun him round and drew back his fist. Mia stood between them and stared into the sergeant's eyes. For a moment he resisted, then his face began to register stark fear. As her psychic power pressed in on him, he trembled and clutched at his temples. He staggered back to the road, and fell to his knees moaning.

She glowered at the men holding Nick. "Let him go."

There was a brief impasse in which no one dare breathe. The three men pinning Nick to the wall released him and skulked back.

Breathing heavily, drawing oxygen into his system, Nick rounded on the crowd. "Those men were already dead," he said. "They had become undead. The only way they can be killed is by taking out the brain. A head shot." His glare took them all in; Turner, Vincent, the frightened Yaxley, everyone. "Get this, all of you. You don't have the power or the weapons to stop Flix. Only we can do that."

Turner eyed him with interest and nodded at the shop door. "Inside. I want a word with you two."

# Chapter 8

Back in the parlour, the policeman settled himself in an armchair by the fire. Vincent paced the carpet behind him. The superintendent's gaze fell on Mia and Nick.

"You two have been here since this palaver started," he began, "and yet, when you're asked who you are or what you're doing here, you're answers are vague or daft. Now I want to know who you are, where you're from, what you're doing here and what you know about events up on the hill. And no more flannel or I'll throw you both in the nick."

Like Vincent, Mia paced. As she passed back and forth, she looked at Nick, back to his old self, calm, collected, almost amused by the situation. Eventually she stopped pacing and stared into Turner's eyes.

"I am Mia Nellis, this is my partner, Nick Holt. We're government agents."

"Department?" While he waited for an answer, Turner eyed Griggs. "Get on the horn to Whitehall ready to have them checked them out."

"No point," Nick said. "They'll have no record of us... or at least, no record that you can access."

Turner was obviously puzzled, but tried to hide it. "You must have a driver's licence. If Whitehall don't know you, the DVLA at Swansea will. So let's have your full name and address."

"DVLA don't know us either," Nick said. "Our driver's licences are not registered with them."

Turner raised his eyebrows again. Behind him Vincent's pacing became more irritable.

Nick shrugged. "Tell him, Mia."

She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. "We are from the year 3010. Our purpose in coming back to this time is to stop Flix."

Vincent stopped pacing and along with everyone else stared.

For his part, Turner suppressed an obvious smirk. "Time travellers, eh? I like this. Doctor What and his bit on the side." He laughed. "So you've come back in time one thousand years. To stop him doing what?"

"Exactly what he is doing now. Building an army ... of zombies." Mia could see she was already losing her audience. "You doubt me, yet constable Overton saw what happened to his colleague, Ms Balby. She was electrocuted; she stood up and came back at us. She became one of them."

"I don't know what Overton thinks he saw—" Turner began, only to be interrupted by Nick.

"Your Sergeant Griggs saw Balby, too, and Flix, and you've just seen one of four electrocuted men get up and attack his former colleagues with blue bolts coming from his fingers. Not only that, but the man he killed got up, too. Why don't you let Mia finish, Superintendent? You can take the mick later and when you learn we're telling you the truth, you'll be able to apologise."

Mia went on. "The energy field that burns within all of us, the spirit, for want of a better description, cannot be destroyed. It is as old as the universe itself. We have all lived many lives. Flix is no different, but he took a wrong turn in the seventeenth century when he began to dabble in dark arts. When he eventually expired, instead of moving on, waiting until a fresh body was conceived for him, he stayed, earthbound, determined to be reborn as he was; the adult Edward Flixton."

Turner grinned again. "So why don't you time travellers just go back to a time before he died, and kill him off?"

"This is universal reality, Turner," Nick countered, "not some Hollywood fantasy. Time is a progression. It moves in one direction. Forwards. And the universe is finely balanced. If you go back and undo one tiny event, you risk undoing the whole of creation. On the other hand, Nature, the universe, the supreme being, call it God, if you wish, does not like imbalance. Where there is fire, there is water to extinguish the fire. Where there is electricity, there is the earth to absorb and neutralise it. Where there is acid, there is alkali, and vice versa. Where there is life there is death and where there is death there is life." Nick paused to give his next words greater impact. "We're none of us born evil or good. Many factors push us one way or the other, but as we lean in one direction, so someone, somewhere leans in the other. While Edward Flixton delved into the dark, we looked to the light."

Behind Turner, Vincent paced even more angrily, but it was the police superintendent who responded. "And this was all, when? 1632?"

"That is when he began his search and we began ours," Mia told him. She took Nick's hand. "In 1646, when the Civil War witch hunts were at their peak, Nick and I were tried, found guilty of witchcraft and hanged ... by Edward Flixton. And if you don't believe us, look it up in your history books. You'll find the records. Our bodies from that time, are buried the parish churchyard at Netherfield, near York under the names of Maria Neville and Nicholas Holdsworth."

"I'm sure I will find them," Turner said. "But if I can, it means you could, too. Let me make this clear, again. I am up to my neck in god knows what. I have two officers down. Now I want the bloody truth."

"You're getting it, Turner," Nick snapped. "It's not my fault you're an idiot. Mia and I died in 1646, just the same as we all die when our time is up. We then we move on; to begin the next life. We have lived many lives since our present incarnation, and each time, when we passed over, we met the spirit of Edward Flixton ignoring the call of The Light, learning and waiting for the moment when he could strike. He tried in the year 2540, but Mia and I trapped him in a specially designed prison. He escaped this morning as we count the time."

"Some of your numbers don't add up, here," Turner complained light-heartedly. "You nicked him in 2540, yet you come from 3010. You must be what, over five hundred years old."

"We have told you we travel through time," Mia said. "We are both thirty years old."

"Then surely," Turner objected, "by coming here, you're going to undo an event and you'll change time, which your pal just said is impossible."

Mia nodded. "That is true, but we're not interfering in any positive manner. Let me explain. If I decide to go back in time and eliminate Adolf Hitler, the Second World War would probably not happen, and millions of lives would be saved. But all those lives were meant to be lost. What changes would that reap on the world if they were not? Here, at Great Fell, we're not trying to stop Flix from taking any life. We're trying to stop him using the bodies of those whose lives he has taken, so that they can progress through The Light and onto their next incarnation. It's fiddly, even pedantic, perhaps, but it maintains the balance of the universe. It's Flix, himself, who is creating the imbalance."

Turner could contain himself no longer. He burst out laughing. "I've heard some codswallop in my time, but... Griggs, take 'em down to Harden and wall them up until they're prepared..."

"I've heard enough," Vincent interrupted from the back of the room. He pointed an angry finger at Mia and Nick. "I don't know who you are, or what you're doing here, but I'll have no more of this childish nonsense. I want the both of you out of here, now."

"Hang on, Vincent, I thought I made it clear that I'm in charge here," Turner warned.

"Well your authority has just been usurped, Superintendent. I have just lost five men and from now on, I am taking control and command of this situation, and if you're not happy with that, you can complain to the MOD." Vincent jerked his head to the right and the door to the shop. "Corporal Plevin."

While the corporal snapped to attention, Mia pleaded. "You can't beat Flix, General."

"I don't know who or what you're talking about, young lady. This is now a military matter and I want you away from this village. And it's Major, not general." He concentrated on the NCO. "Corporal, escort them to their vehicle and out of the area."

"You can't do that," Mia protested.

"And I want them for further questioning," Turner backed her up.

"I am in charge here, and I want them both out," Vincent insisted. "The civilian engineer has to remain with us, but I want you and your officers away from here, too, Turner."

Mia opened her mouth to protest again, but a nudge from Nick silenced her. "Give us our equipment back, Vincent," Nick insisted.

"Give them their toys, Plevin, and then get them out of here."

"Very good, sir."

Taking his pack from the corporal, Nick eyed Turner. "You know of any good hotels in Harden?"

"Try the Fisher's Arms," the superintendent suggested. "And keep yourselves available. I'll want to speak to you when I get back there."

Nick transferred his gaze to Vincent. "You'll send men up that hill, and Flix will toast them. Then they'll be his men. Then you will need us. You'll find us somewhere in Harden." Slinging his bag onto his shoulder, he followed Mia and Plevin out of the shop and across the road to the Land Rover.

"Take some advice, kids," Corporal Plevin said as Nick opened the doors. "Do yourselves a favour, and stay away. I've worked with the old man for five years and he's a stickler. If you show your faces round here again, he'll like as not throw you in the glasshouse."

"He'll need us by morning," Mia said and moved round the Land Rover to climb into the passenger seat.

*

"I'm surprised you got that thing out from under Vincent's nose," Nick commented, pointing at Dennis Cockroft's laptop.

They had been too late for dinner when they checked into the Fisher's Arms, and had contented themselves with pizza from a nearby takeaway. Mia only nibbled at hers, but Nick was grateful for the food. It was the first he'd had since they emerged from Lark Fell Woods.

The room was small, but comfortable; twin beds, a small dresser, internet access, and a table beneath the window where they could work and occasionally look through the window to witness Flix's efforts on Great Fell. The mast now had many spikes striking from it, in all directions, and far to the northeast, perhaps 100 kilometres away, they could make out the first lateral strand cutting across the clear, autumn sky.

Mia dragged her attention back to the room and Cockroft's laptop. "Vincent was so busy getting rid of us that he never checked any of our equipment and anyway he would have assumed that the laptop was ours." She indicated Nick's holoputer. "Learned much?"

He nodded. "There'll be many more deaths before Flix is stopped."

"Tell me something I don't know. As long as we're not amongst the list," Mia noted.

"The list is too long to go through each one, but our names are not on it." He smiled thinly. "They wouldn't be. We don't exist in this time." Nick looked up and through the window, but his glazed eyes told her his mind was elsewhere. Mia waited patiently for him to voice his thoughts. She knew he would. She had been his life partner in so many incarnations that she knew every nuance of the way his mind worked.

"I don't understand this time, its people or the way they compartmentalise responsibility," he said. "It seems to me that most of it was engineered with no other thought than lending politicians a ready-made excuse for when things went wrong." He sighed. "If we could move from life to life with a complete set of memories, perhaps it would give us a better insight."

Mia reached across the table and took his hand. "The universe doesn't work like that, Nick, and you know it. Can you imagine how awful it would be if we were reborn with a complete set of memories and had to go through school all over again, pretending not to know so that we could blend in? We're privileged, you and I. We know that life is not a one off, but a cycle of birth, death and rebirth." She gestured through the window. "In our time and this time, there are millions of people who believe that, but none of them _know_ it. We do. And that's what makes us special."

He smiled lovingly upon her and clasped her hand. "Special enough to defeat Flix? Or merely special enough to know you can carry your love from life to life?"

Mia withdrew her hand. "Later," she chided him. "For now, we have work to do. The visor? Could it tell you anything at this range?"

"Dunno." He reached down into his bag, pulled out the sensor and placed it over his eyes. Switching it on, he gazed through the window again. "Nothing," he told her. The spikes appear a little brighter, but that's all." Removing the visor, he asked, "What have you learned from Cockroft's computer?"

"He was holding what appears to be a conversation with Flix," she said, concentrating on the laptop. "Reading his background notes, Cockroft thought he'd made contact with an alien civilisation and that Flix lived on a planet where the sun was dying. The last entry on the conversation is Flix complaining that he's losing contact. He asks Cockroft to turn up the power levels. I think Cockroft obliged and that's how Flix got to him. I see, now, what you mean about these people. How could a supposedly intelligent man like Cockroft, be so easily duped?"

"Fame and fortune are important in this time," Nick reminded her. "The masses seek proof of alien contact, the intelligentsia, particularly in the sciences, are more conservative. They seek only to establish the existence of alien civilisations. Cockroft is – _was_ – an engineer. A scientist of sorts. If he could prove alien civilisations existed _and_ that he had contacted them, he would have been made for life."

Mia stared out at the glow in the sky above Great Fell. "And he lost out to Flix. Instead of fame and fortune, he lost his life and he's created a huge headache for these people and us."

"Well that's why we're here, isn't it? How did Cockroft first get onto Flix?"

"Email," Mia replied. "He received an email from Flix giving him the necessary power and protocols settings."

"And Cockroft didn't suspect anything?" Nick sounded incredulous.

"Yes he did," Mia said. "All along he took steps to ensure that it wasn't some, quote, tosser in downtown Sierra Leone yanking his chain, unquote." She studied the screen again. "The email came from someone named Felix Quarmby, a man claiming to be a physicist interested in contacting the deceased. I think we can read Flix for Felix Quarmby, don't you?"

As she spoke, Nick's fingers were already dancing across the keys of his holopute. He took in the display and laughed. "Chronology have a record of Felix Quarmby, but just the name. No address and his web details make no sense: deadweb.dim."

Mia frowned. "Deadweb dot dim? You're the tech, not me, but surely a dot dim suffix is impossible in this time?"

Nick nodded slowly. "You have to conclude that Felix Quarmby, assuming he existed, was under the control of Flix."

"And if he didn't exist?"

"Then Flix created him." Nick grinned. "You're the boss. What's our next move?"

"And you're not only the tech, but the tactician, too," Mia laughed. "I'm just the humble psychic, remember. You tell me what the next move is?"

Nick gazed out at the window, at the distant, lateral spur. As he looked on, another beam, closer to them this time, appeared. "Flix is concentrating all his power on setting up the web. We need to distract some of that power before he begins to set up his army. He knows we're here, he's confident that he forced us into retreat. How about letting him know that we're not gone and we're still a threat?"

Mia nodded. "I'll go with that. How?"

"Send him an email. I've just given you the address."

Mia searched the machine until she found the exchange. Then she opened the email package and spent a few moments typing it in. She hit the 'send' key, and showed the machine to Nick. "There you go. Dear Flix, just to let you know that we're still here. Love Mia and Nick." She laughed. "Now what?"

"We wait," Nick replied.

"And while we're waiting?"

He picked up the dew in her lusty eyes and reached for her hand. They stood, they kissed and with their lips locked together, they sidled to the beds.

# Chapter 9

Sergeant Yaxley and his team crested the hill and hid amongst the bushes at the top of the track, their eyes and night-vision lenses focussed on the blockhouse. Ben Stevens noticed that not a word had passed between them since they left the village twenty minutes earlier. He also noted that they were not out of breath, whereas he had found the final climb distressing and was glad of the rest while Yaxley reconnoitred the station.

The sergeant began to deploy his people using hand signals and while he did so, Ben looked up at the tower.

The energy pulse running up the shaft was a continuous line of electric blue, outshining the red aircraft warning lights, and awesome against the backdrop of a clear starry night. The agglomeration at the top was more uniform now; like a bulbous hub of energy, directing spikes off in many directions at once. A mental map of masts ran through his head: Knock, Hawes, Caldbeck, Sandale, Pontop Pike, Bilsdale. He didn't know what this was about, but pretty soon these creatures would have coverage right across northern England and southern Scotland. And most of the transmitters were operated by B-Comm.

Ben was still mentally grumbling at the way the company had demanded he accompany the RIF soldiers so that once they had control of the station, he could isolate the tower.

"Talk to your employers, Mr Stevens," Vincent had told him. "They insist that you must be there."

Yaxley tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the parked vehicles outside the blockhouse door. With surprising speed, the sergeant and four of his people moved, keeping low, scurrying across the open ground. Ben ran with them, half bent, his muscles aching, silently cursing the day he had ever come into contact with B-Comm in general and Great Fell in particular.

Yaxley and his team made the vehicles and crouched behind them. The sergeant scowled at Ben, who knew that Yaxley was still smarting from the way Nick Holt and Mia Nellis had got the better of him down in the village. "All right Mr tech man, where are the generators?"

Ben pointed to the right of the blockhouse.

The sergeant addressed his team. "Listen up, people. Gaines, Boldon, you go with the tech here. Anything moving in that generator shed, you take it apart." He patted his rifle butt.

"Whoa," Ben said. "Not so fast, hotshot." He pointed to the generator shed. "Under there are two tanks, each holding fifty thousand litres of agricultural diesel. That stuff's not easy to ignite, but you go in guns blazing like some extra from the Lethal Weapon movies and you'll put that frigging tower into orbit."

Yaxley chewed spit. "Why the hell didn't someone tell us?"

"How do you think the emergency generators run?" Ben asked.

The Sergeant lapsed into thought for a moment. "How long to isolate them?"

"Thirty seconds," Ben replied.

The sergeant addressed his team again. "All right, change of plan. Gaines, Boldon, like I said, you go with Stevens into the generator plant. Warren, McMahon, with me into the main building. No fire control. If it moves and it don't look like one of us, shoot it."

Ben tutted. "You're doing it again, Yaxley. You and your trigger happy tots are probably the best at your job, but you know less than nothing about the machinery in there." He pointed to the main blockhouse. "I do, because like you, I'm the best at my job. Shoot the wrong piece of machinery, and you'll end up with an inquiry that will outlive you ... if there's enough of you left to face an inquiry." He paused to let his words sink in. "I have to shut down this mast. Note: shut it down, not blow it down. There are ways and means of doing it. I need to get into the control room and to the computer console. What I don't need are you and your hotshots whizzing bullets around the place. You need to hold those things off so I can do what I came here to do. Once I cut the power, then you can blow them to kingdom come and collect your medals."

Again Yaxley fumed. "For Christ's sake .... All right, you heard the man. Suppressing fire only until you get the word." He cocked his weapon. "Now move."

They did so, with a speed that once again astonished Ben. Yaxley and his two sidekicks headed for the main block, the two men assigned to Ben rushed for the generator shed. Ben hurried after them. As he reached it Private Gaines aimed his rifle at the lock.

"Hey, no way," Ben said. He flipped up the electronic lock's keypad on the wall and punched in the five digit code. "I was right when I said you people were trigger happy," he said opening the door.

*

Inside the main building, Yaxley flattened himself to the wall by the open control room door, his finger pressed to his earpiece. McMahon rushed past him and took up a similar position the other side of the door. Warren hung just behind Yaxley.

"Generators are out, skipper," came Gaines' voice over the R/T. "You are go. Repeat, you are go."

Yaxley nodded to his companions. He counted down with his fingers. Three... two... one ...

The sergeant hurled himself into the room to the right. McMahon came from the left, crossing Yaxley's path. Warren rushed in after them. They centred fire on the creatures at the control panel.

Bullets tore into Flix and Balby to no avail; but alerted the two undead to the presence of Yaxley's team. They turned from their mysterious work on the panel and faced their new tormentors. All three soldiers backed off. Yaxley emptied a magazine into Flix. He saw the bullets rip into the body and come out again at different angles.

Flix snatched at the rifle, Yaxley refused to yield. With superhuman strength, Flix threw Yaxley at the control panel. The sergeant struck it. His body, doused in high energy pulses, danced and he fried, his hair burning away, eyes melting, loose skin around his jowls falling off.

McMahon rushed for the rear corner, turned and loosed off his automatic rifle. He tripped over the body of John Roughsedge and as he fell, his bullets riddled Warren. What had been WPC Balby dragged him to his feet. He barely had time to cry, "No," before he too connected with the live control panel and danced to his death.

*

Outside, Gaines and Boldon heard the shooting, and cocked their weapons.

"I told that dummy to hold his fire," Ben snapped.

Gaines shushed him and spoke into his headset. "Skipper. You there, skipper?" He faced Boldon and shrugged.

"Take my advice, pal," Ben said, "and get the hell out of here."

"Shut it," Gaines said.

"Your boss is toast," Ben argued, "just like everyone else. If he wasn't, he'd have answered you by now. All that shooting means they've pumped those things full of bullets and it's done diddley. Now get the hell out of it."

"You suit yourself," Gaines said shaking his head. "We never leave a man behind. Come on, Boldon, let's check it out."

Ben shook his head sadly as the two soldiers made for the main blockhouse, but he followed at a discreet distance.

As they stepped into the control room a dying Warren crawled towards them. "Get out," he croaked. "Go. Now."

Gaines bent to him and as he did so, a gnarled, burned hand, the bones showing through, gripped him by the sleeve. He lashed out at the remains of Balby and she recoiled. Boldon unleashed a volley of shots into her and she never flinched. She grabbed Gaines and hurled him at the control panel while a stunned Boldon could only look on. The remains of what had been Yaxley staggered upright. Boldon froze in absolute awe and horror at the sight, and that moment of indecision cost him his life.

For the second time that night, Ben ran, hurtling out of the blockhouse across the fell and down the bank. "Your buddies are gone," he cried at the rearguard. "Get off this hill."

*

Mia awoke suddenly and stared at the ceiling. Alongside her, Nick slept on. She smiled at his serene features, and delved into her memories.

Many times over the centuries she and Nick had made love. Sometimes it was love, at others, like tonight, it was lust, the satisfying of libidos energised by the thrill of danger. He took, she gave, she took, he gave, and when it was over, when they had satisfied each other so completely that there was nothing left, they lay, arms enfolded about each other, sleeping the deeper sleep of total gratification.

A wisp of smoke escaped the ashtray under the window. Mia smiled. Nick hadn't put his cigarette out properly. She rolled from the single bed, careful not to disturb him and stared through the windows at the pyrotechnic display from Great Fell.

It was a strange and beautiful sight, the eerie blue glow of the tower, the electric beams striking off in different directions: beautiful, yet disturbing. It said much about Nick that the implications of stasis energy had occurred to him right way. But that was the kind of man he was. Not blessed with her psychic powers (not in this life, anyway) his techno-scientific background enabled deeper insights to surface quickly, along with all their possibilities, good and bad.

She would never have guessed but once Nick told her, then it made perfect sense: it was the fastest way to spread Flix's deadly power.

The smoke by the window thickened. She wished Nick would ensure his cigarettes were out. She took a pace forward and stopped. Nick didn't smoke, and even if he did, a cigarette would not be burning so long after being left in the ashtray, so what...

The question never materialised. The smoke turned to a dark mist and as it grew, filling that part of the room, blocking out the view through the window, it began to take on human form. It grew pseudo-limbs, then a head took shape settled on massive shoulders, and at the end of long arms, hands began to form, but they were hands without fingers. A face appeared. Not a true face. There were none of the features that helped distinguish one face from another; merely holes where the eyes and mouth would be.

Her mind filled with a high-pitched scream, like the background roar of a carrier wave magnified a thousand times. It was a voice that she recognised from across the centuries.

"YOU DIE AGAIN."

The words pierced the screeching, and she saw again the terrible afternoon of 1646 when she and her lover hung side by side in the courtyard of Flixton Hall, felt again the noose tighten about her neck, throttling the life from her, experienced once more the darkness descending as her life closed down.

The shape drifted across the room. Mia tried to raise her hands so she could bring her psychic energy to bear, but some invisible force held her rooted to the spot. She concentrated the power of her mighty mind, but the force behind this fog crushing in on her, overwhelmed any token resistance she could muster. The mist surrounded and enveloped her, invaded her body and her mind. She opened her mouth to let out a scream of her own, quickly truncated and cut off as the ghastly fog filled her lungs, choking her with the fusty damp of the grave. Her airway began to close. She gagged, desperately trying to draw in breath. The room span, she twirled and crumpled, hitting the floor with a loud bump, her flailing arm knocking the laptop computer from the table as she went down. And slowly the life began to ebb from her.

*

Nick stirred and rolled over. Sleep washed over him again and he let it. After satisfying his lust for Mia, he needed to recharge the batteries.

For a brief moment, he thought about her. His partner through 19 separate lifetimes, there was nothing he did not know about her and vice versa, yet when it came to making love she was a vibrant and inventive now as she had always been. She knew just how to...

The faintest of sounds, a gagging noise, dragged him from the boundary of sleep to the reality of a hotel room in Harden. He sat up, stared around. His heart beat rapidly.

Mia was on the floor, gagging, her hands at her throat as if she were trying to pull off some invisible attacker. Leaping from the bed, he bent to her, tried to pull her hands way so he could help, but they were locked in place about her throat as tightly as if they had been welded there.

He looked frantically around. Cockroft's laptop lay near her head, its power lights still active, and on the screen was a picture, an undulating mass of smoke that looked vaguely human. Above the screen, in the address bar, he could read _deadweb.dim_.

He reached over and behind it and snatched out the power cord. No good. It was a laptop, and it could run on batteries for anything up to an hour. Mia didn't have an hour. She could barely breathe and she would be dead in less than a minute unless he did something. Shutting down the machine would take most of that minute.

He eyed the internet dongle. Cut the link. He reached for it. A bolt of electricity shot out and bit his hand. He recoiled.

"Bastard."

He picked the machine up, raised it above his head and smashed it to the floor. No change. Those things were built like tanks. Beside him, Mia's face turned blue and her breath came in great whoops.

He raised his foot and brought it down on the keyboard. More blue arcs flashed around his 31st century, insulated soles. He kicked the screen, trampled the dongle. The USB jack loosened. Taking a deep breath, he bent and reached for it. Tiny flashes of lightning crackled around his fingers. He tingled all over and felt his hair standing on end. He gritted his teeth and suffered the surge through them. He focussed, told himself he'd had shocks before, and this was noting at the side of the stasis chamber at Coldmoor Castle where the influx of energy had penetrated an environment suit and almost killed him. With a supreme effort, he gripped the dongle and yanked it free of the computer and cast it to one side.

Instantly, the screen died.

Nick wrung his hands to get the circulation moving again. His hair settled. Alongside him, Mia, too, began to return to normal. She drew in great gulps of air, filling her tortured lungs. On the carpet, the dongle writhed as if seeking a home. Ben picked up the shattered computer and carried it across the room, out of the connection's reach.

Checking his burned hand, he returned to the bedside and took the ion rod from his bag. Pressing the white trigger, he aimed it at the burn. It gave out a low hum and bathed his hand in a soft, amber glow. The burn healed.

He turned his attention back to Mia, helping her back to the bed. While she rested, regaining her strength, he dug into his backpack, brought out a pair of insulated gloves, and a hip flask of brandy. He passed the bottle to Mia while he put on the gloves, picked up the writhing dongle and took it to the bathroom where he doused it in the basin. With a sizzle, it lay still.

While they drank neat brandy, he listened to her.

"It was him. Flix. That email I sent him. It told him right where he could find us."

Nick grinned. "So we've put the frighteners on him."

Mia shook her head. "It's a two way street, Nick. I saw. While he was throttling me, I could see what he sees. He already has manpower. Soldiers sent up the hill to take him out. He killed them instead, and now that they're dead, they're working to his control. And there's something else. He's looking at hospitals and mortuaries."

*

When Nick cut the internet connection, Flix felt himself overcome with blind rage.

He owed them, and yearned to pierce their mortal armour, take the life from them the way he had in 1646, then bring them back into his universe, enter them into a purgatory that would last for eternity, and make them pay for their meddling in his affairs.

On the back of village gossip, he became the subject of an investigation into dark practices in 1655; an investigation that led him to the gibbet, and even though Nellis and Holt, Maria Neville and Nicholas Holdsworth as they were known then, had been dead for nine years, it was their allegations at their own trials, which had started the tongues wagging.

He strangled to death on the hangman's noose swearing that he would balance the account one day, and when the pair turned up at Coldmoor Castle in 2540, he believed that day had arrived.

Not so. Thanks to the meddling ghost of an old butler named Sowerby, they had defeated him then.

Now once more, when the email arrived from her, allowing Flix to trace them, he believed he had them... well, he believed he had the girl and one death would be sufficient. Holt without Nellis would be easy. Yet, once more, Holt had proven not only his courage but his intuitive powers of deduction. Like the incident on the hillside, when he had known how to fight back from the rear of the escaping truck, Holt somehow _knew_ that if he broke the internet connection, he would break the contact and rescue his woman.

It was frustrating; infuriating.

Flix forced calm upon himself. Nellis and Holt were not going anywhere while he maintained a presence in this time. They dare not. They would still be here in the morning and other opportunities would occur. For now, Flix had other matters to attend.

The web was growing at a geometric rate. As new masts came under his control he brought them quickly to full power, and cast beams from them seeking new targets, new transmitters, and as those beam struck out, they launched tiny spurs picking up strategically sited mobile telephone masts; those placed on hospital and mortuary roofs.

This area, largely moorland and agricultural, was poor in such establishments, but as the web grew, he knew he would find richer pickings in the large cities like Newcastle, Carlisle, Manchester and Leeds to the south. Within forty eight hours, he would have the whole of Great Britain covered with its vast network of hospitals, mortuaries and funeral parlours... and then he would be ready to take on Europe.

For now he cast his psychic mind as far as he could, reaching into many places at one instant.

Settling on the geriatric care unit at Harden General Hospital, he found one new recruit. She was frail and elderly, riddled with cancer, in the last throes of her life. Flix preferred younger, stronger bodies, but beggars could not pick and choose. Besides, there was a young, male nurse in attendance and the old woman would bring him with her.

Channelling through the web strand above Harden, he aimed his power into her fragile heart.

*

Geoff Daker yawned and checked the time. Another thirty minutes to his break.

He put down the book he had been reading. He seriously wanted to build his own online business, but right now, his mind was composed of cotton wool, and barely a word of the page had sunk in. He desperately needed to sleep.

He ran a quick and practised eye across the monitors in front of him. All quiet on the old folks' ward. His working partner was due back in 15 minutes, then there would be quick drug round (they were all quick at this time of night) before he could slope off for a cup of tea and a power nap.

He had hankered after regular night work for years, and now that he had it, he was, by and large, content. There was little of the hassle that day nurses got from patients, doctors and administrators. On geriatric care, there were little things that needed attention: catheter or colostomy bag burst, intravenous feed worked loose, and some of the old scroats needed doping before they'd shut up and sleep. Deaths tended to be more prevalent, too. They were a pain in the butt when they happened. Quick assessment, drag in the doc, rig up the crash trolley, then all the cleaning up and admin after the patient was pronounced dead. Geoff could practically guarantee at least one death per week, but what the hell. He couldn't have everything.

He would have it all his own way, one day, when he got that online business up and running. No more night shifts, no more bed pans, no more sluice room, taking bloods, dishing out pills or cleaning some old trout who had wet herself. Instead it would be easy money while he sunned himself in the Canary Islands.

A muted, continuous bleep sounded from the work station. Geoff flashed his eyes across the screens again. Jean Keir. Bed four. Flatlining! Jesus!

He threw himself from his seat and hurried along the ward, aiming for the far right corner where Jean's ECG showed a flat trace and the red indicator light flashed continuously, urgently at him.

He snatched up her wrist and felt for the pulse. Nothing. Automatically he reached for the alert button on the wall, which would sound an alarm somewhere along the corridor and bring the crash team scurrying in. Before he reached it, Jean sat up.

Geoff's eyes popped. She had been brought in three days earlier, completely comatose and hadn't moved. Renal cancer, in its final stages, the hospice where she had been housed had handed her over and no one expected her to live above a week. It was Harden General's task to simply revive her (if they could) and send her back to the hospice... either that or wait for her to die.

Now she sat bolt upright. She had not even used her scrawny arms to lift herself up, but just sprung the upper half of her body up. Young and fit as he was, Geoff did not think he could do that, and he shuddered at the thought of what it would do to his back muscles.

Jean raised her right arm, the index finger pointing. It appeared to Geoff like the finger of accusation and all he could do was stare. Ten years in nursing and he thought he had seen everything.

A bolt of pure blue shot from her finger and struck him in the chest.

Geoff danced the involuntary dance of electrocution. His systems began to close down. Vision went first, then hearing, then touch. He knew he had fallen, but he never felt the sickening thump as his head connected with the hard floor.

His spirit prepared to leave his body. He could see The Light. It called to him, "Geoffrey Daker... Geoffrey Daker... Geoffrey Daker..." He prepared to answer the call.

A shadow fell over him; a lumbering giant of a spirit, which enclosed him in his dead body. He did not want to be in this mordant corpse. He wanted to go to The Light.

The giant sent out orders. Geoff obeyed. He could do no other.

*

Together, the undead Geoff Daker and Jean Keir walked from the geriatric unit, making their way along the deserted corridors to the stairs which would lead them to the roof. A security man spotted and approached them. Geoff pointed and aimed his finger. The security man dodged the electric beam of death and snatching his radio from his belt, ran for it, crying into the handset that a male nurse had just tried to kill him.

Out on the roof, neither Geoff nor Jean felt the bitter cold of an autumn chill of night. They shuffled across the flat roof until they stood under the mobile telephone transmitter as their master had bid them. The mast was connected to the overhead web strand by a single line of stasis energy, from which emanated a cloud of intense blue light. And when it enveloped them, it warped them off the roof.

*

Throughout the night, under Flix's influence, people died, came back to life and made their way to masts to be spirited away. Where they met the living, they killed them and took them along.

Soon, the living, such as were about the town in the early hours, learned to run and hide from the zombies.

At the mortuary, Flix achieved his greatest success in an experiment whereby four bodies, dead for days, kept in deep freeze, devoid of spirits were invested with stasis energy and came back to life under his perfect control before killing the night attendants and bringing them along to the assembly point at a nearby transmission tower. It taught Flix that he no longer needed the spirits within the corpses. Indeed, he had better control without the constant struggle of the spirit to release itself.

As a chilly dawn broke in the clear skies over Cumbria, over 60 people, most of them deceased, had gone missing from Harden and the surrounding villages.

# Chapter 10

With the coming of a crisp October morning, Mia and Nick were not surprised when a police constable showed up and told them Superintendent Turner would like a word. "You're not under arrest or anything. He just wants to talk to you."

"Tell Turner we'll be there by eight fifteen," Nick assured him.

When the young constable left, Mia asked, "and what are we going to say to him?"

Nick shrugged. "Dunno. But the fact that we're not under arrest means they've begun to realise that they can't deal with what's happening at Great Fell, which in turn probably means that your vision of those dead soldiers was spot on."

"My visions are always spot on," she reminded him. "I'd better shower."

They left the Fisher's Arms at 8:10 for the short walk to the police station where Jennings ushered them into Turner's rear office. They were not surprised to find Major Vincent there too. Both men were unshaven, looking tired and drawn.

Turner waved them to seats opposite, picked up the phone, and ordered, "Tea for four, sharpish." He put the receiver down, yawned and leaned on his elbows. Forcing his bagging eyes to remain open, he told the Stasis Center pair, "It's seriously hit the fan in this town overnight. Dead bodies walking out of the mortuary, more bodies coming out of chapels of rest. We have CCTV footage of a hospital patient who died, came back to life and killed her male nurse by pointing a finger at him, the way those soldiers acted at Fellside yesterday evening. Security cameras on the hospital roof showed the patient and the nurse turning up. And then they were zapped out of existence. And they're not the only ones. Dead people have been blinking out of existence all night. Communications are going to pot. There are streaks of light coming down from the sky and taking over mobile phone masts. We can still get signals, but they're thin and getting worse. Landline connections are getting iffy too, and the mains electrical supply keeps dropping in places." Turner yawned again. "So before we start, let me tell you that I'm in no mood for bull about time travel and zombies."

Nick half stood. "Come on, Mia. We'd better go."

"You'll stay there or I'll have you arrested," Turner snapped.

Nick rounded on him. "Take your pick, Turner. We either tell it like it is or we go."

The Superintendent nodded to the chair. Nick sat down again and Vincent took up the tale.

"We did not leave Fellside until gone four this morning. I lost several men up at the transmitter. Stevens, the B-Comm engineer, came back down the hill with the rearguard and told us exactly what happened. These creatures are using some pretty sophisticated body armour."

"They're not using body armour," Mia said. "They're already dead. You can't kill them again."

"You have been warned once, Ms Nellis, about nonsense," Vincent snapped. "It's obvious that we're dealing with some alien race, but I will not entertain any silly notions about the dead coming back to life."

A constable came in with tea, then left again. The brief impasse gave Nick time to think. "Suppose," he suggested, "we agree that these creatures are making use of science that is beyond your comprehension? Would that satisfy you?"

Exchanging glances with Vincent, Turner sipped at his tea and nodded. "All right, we'll go from there. Major?"

"Now that the village has been evacuated," Vincent said, "we're bringing in a single strike fighter. The mast will be obliterated."

Nick shook his head. "It won't work. The pilot's avionics will go the moment he flies under the web."

Vincent glared. "His flight path is planned to avoid that. However, should he fail, there is a back-up. Either way, that mast will be destroyed by sunset."

Nick shook his head sadly. "It won't do any good."

"Why?" Turner demanded.

"Flix has already established control over other masts. He can shift the energy to them. If you were going to destroy Great Fell, it should have been done while he had only that transmitter under his control."

Vincent shook his head. "According to B-Comm all the power comes from Great Fell. The other masts in the, er, network, have been neutralised, that is taken out of the broadcast system, but they're deriving their power from Great Fell, which is pouring out the gigawatts like there's no tomorrow."

Now Nick shook his head. "They may be drawing power from Great Fell, but each of those masts now has its own power source, thanks to Flix. Take out Great Fell and you may set his plans back by an hour, but he'll still carry on."

Turner spread his hands apart. "Then what do we do?"

"Keep him occupied," Mia said. "He knows Nick and I are here, he recognises the danger we present to him. That won't stop him expanding the network of transmitters, but it will keep his mind on us rather than ordinary, innocent people. If he's picking bodies from the hospital and mortuaries, he's further advanced than we thought. The web has already begun to take shape and it will expand at a geometric rate. But now that it has begun to expand, Nick could possibly track down the server."

"Server?" Turner asked.

Nick drank his tea and grimaced. "What the hell did you make this tea with? Sawdust?" He put his cup down. "We learned last night that Flix is working through a specialised internet set up. The simplest way of stopping him is to locate the server and destroy it."

"Whitehall should be able to chase it up," Vincent said.

"Whitehall won't chase it up," Mia assured him, "because they can't. They don't have the technology."

"And you do?"

Nick shook his head. "We don't have the technology either, and even if we did, I wouldn't want to use it. Mia has certain, er, powers but Flix can tune into her mind and he'd be able to track my work on computer through her and the use of his own web server."

Vincent groaned and Turner snapped again. "Who the hell are you people?"

"You said you didn't want to know," Mia reminded him, "so on that basis, I suggest you stop asking and start listening. We know more about what is going on here than anyone else, and we know how to put an end to it... when you start listening."

The superintendent put his head in his hands again. "According to reports, I have over sixty people missing and now I'm dealing with mind-reading aliens who can bring back the dead."

"Nicely put," Nick agreed. "Not quite right, but close enough."

"What do you want, Holt?"

"I want to locate the server Flix is using. If I can destroy it, I'll neutralise his web. Mia and I can then face him on our terms."

"Do you know where this server is?"

Nick shook his head. "But I know how to track it down."

Both the superintendent and the major raised their eyebrows.

"Get me large scale maps of Northern England. And I mean large scale. The largest you can find." Nick smiled. "Mia and I will nip out and grab a bite of breakfast and I hope you'll have them ready when we get back. Oh, and I'll need a pencil, a straight edge and the location of every mast Flix has under his control."

*

Despite the events of the night and the efforts of the grapevine to exaggerate them, the town went about its business just as if it were any other Wednesday morning. People walked the High Street pausing to looking into shop windows, others, presumably late for the office, hurried or ran. Buses pulled into their stops, disgorging their passengers, shopkeepers put out their special offer signs, taxi drivers settled down for post-rush hour read of the newspapers: an ordinary town on an ordinary Wednesday morning.

Entering the café on the corner of The Fells shopping mall, they found only the three staff and a few customers surfing the web at the rear of the room. Mia and Nick ordered tea and toast, and took a table by the windows. While they ate, they talked; but their conversation contained none of their usual jollity and frivolity.

"We're in greater danger than Flix," Mia pointed out.

"How so?"

"He's already dead. He can't be killed. We can. And he daren't leave us out here, Nick. He knows how dangerous we are. He has to take us on." She glanced through the windows at a large supermarket opposite where early shoppers made their way in.

Nick disagreed. "If he were to eliminate us, what then? When we get to the other side, we can tackle him on the Spirit Plane. No, Mia, if he tries to take our lives, he will present himself with an even bigger danger on the Spirit Plane, and I'm certain the two of us together can take him."

"Even though he can travel through time?" Mia reminded him. "And even if we could get round that, do you imagine he doesn't know how dangerous we are? Nick, while he has this power at his disposal, he will use it. He'd more than likely turn us into zombies; trap our spirits in these bodies to do his whim, as he would have done at Coldmoor Castle." She drank a large gulp of tea and in an effort to beat off the depression threatening to swallow her whole, asked, "What prompted you to order those maps at the police station?"

Nick grinned and tapped the side of his nose. "My background in technology," he replied. "Remember Turner said the landlines and electrical supply were becoming erratic?"

Mia nodded.

"Why should they?" Nick demanded, and hastened to answer his rhetorical question. "In this era, landline phones and the electricity supply are separate entities, and neither of them relies on TV transmission frequencies. The only way they could be affected is through the web itself; stasis energy. We know from your work on Cockroft's laptop last night, and from our, er, visitor, that Flix is running the show from a server. What does he need for such a server?" Again he hurried on to answer his own question. "Absolute continuity of supply."

"Yes? And?"

"It means, my love, that the server cannot be under the web."

The light dawned in Mia's eyes, then faded again. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but even the dinosaurs in this era can station a web server anywhere in the world. It could be in Australia for all we know."

Nick shook his head. "True, but Flix didn't go to Australia. He set up here in Cumbria."

"How do you know?" Mia demanded.

"Control told us. Remember, she said he came back to this area in the year 2005 and we don't know what he was doing then, but he started work, now, in 2010. So what was he doing for those five years? Aside from getting to people like Cockroft, priming them for when he was ready to make his move, he was setting up his web server in such a place and in such a manner that the web, when it was completed, could not interfere with the power supply."

"Ah." Again Mia registered her understanding. "But you still don't know where—"

A cry from outside cut her off. She looked through the window to see several people running, all in the same direction, away from the supermarket. As she watched, a bus careened into view, swerved to the left and smashed into the supermarket's front entrance.

"What the hell is going on?"

They both stood. Staff and other customers at the rear of the café also took an interest. Nick and Mia peered through the window.

"Look out."

Nick's cry alerted her. He grabbed her arm and yanked her away from the glass as a minicab swung out past the crashed bus, veered out of control, and rammed its way into the café through the windows. The huge panes shattered into a million pieces, the nose of the car buckled on impact, the driver's head snapped forward onto the steering wheel, and snapped back, lolling at an awkward angle to his neck, and the taxi's alarm blared into the room.

Outside, people were running, but none was heading for the crashed bus or the taxi. They were running in a uniform direction; away to the right. A screech of brakes reached them and a second later a small van hammered into the back of the bus, its driver slumped over the wheel.

Mia got to her feet, brushed off tiny crystals of glass. Her finger was cut. She sucked at the blood.

Nick yanked open the taxi door, and gingerly pressed a finger against the driver's neck. He looked at Mia and shook his head. "I don't know what's happening, but we'd better get out of here."

Mia looked out onto the street and doubt crossed her face. She heard a distant scream and across the street a young woman's head exploded into a ball of flame before she fell to the ground. "What the hell?" As she said it a man turned and ran in the direction of whatever was causing the ruckus, yelling and screaming obscenities. They heard the crackle of electricity through the air and he, too, fell, flames leaping from his white shirt.

Moving to the door, Nick stepped out, looked to his left and ducked back in again as a livid blue arc of energy passed him. The colour drained from his face. "It's one of them," he said to Mia. "Looks like that Sergeant Yaxley, and he's kicking out energy like he's still fastened to Great Fell transmitter."

Mia cursed. Nick was more constructive. "Let's get outta here."

She shook her head. "He's looking for us. He has to be. Remember, I gave away our position last night. They're homing in on my mind. If we step out there, he'll kill us. He missed you, but he won't miss me."

Nick turned to the assistants. "Is there a back way out of here?"

The proprietor nodded. "Through the kitchen, but it only takes you out to the mall service tunnel."

"It'll do. If you want some advice, get yourself and everyone else out that same way."

The man nodded, rang open the cash register, and cleaned it out, stuffing the notes in one pocket of his white overall, the coins in another. He pushed his staff towards the rear entrance, and signalled to the other customers to follow. Nick and Mia brought up the rear. They passed behind the counter and into the kitchen. Mia looked back and cried out.

What had been Sergeant Yaxley was walking in ungainly fashion past the shattered windows. At her cry, he turned and his empty eye sockets homed in on her. He raised his fingers.

Nick pushed Mia into the kitchen and dived after her. A beam of energy drilled into the wall as he ducked out of the way.

In the kitchen, he slammed the door behind him.

"Get everyone out of here," he shouted at the proprietor.

He turned his attention to a large fridge freezer. Reaching behind it, he began to manoeuvre it out into the middle of the tiled floor.

"What the hell are you doing, man?" asked the proprietor, as he dragged open the back door to let his staff and customers out.

"Slowing him down," Nick shouted back. "Come and give me a hand."

The man rushed back and took one side while Nick took the one nearest the door. He could hear the creature staggering through the café casting aside tables, chairs, crockery. They wobbled the fridge out into the middle aisle of the floor.

"Push it back to the door," Nick called.

They began to inch it back, walking it first on the point of one lower corner, then the other. The door opened several inches, and then struck the back of the fridge. Nick kicked at the door, slamming it. They edged the fridge nearer. Yaxley shouldered the door again and poked his hand through. A beam of energy whizzed into a tiled wall and ricocheted to the back door where it slammed into another wall before dissipating. Nick kicked the door again, snapping it on the hand and Yaxley withdrew.

The fridge was still six inches from the door. Nick moved to the front, gripped the bottom and tilted it back, yanking the base out so that it tipped and then slipped down onto its back, tight up against the door.

"Now get out," he shouted to the proprietor.

They ran for the rear exit. Nick paused and looked back. Yaxley repeatedly shouldered the door, forcing it open and the prone fridge gradually moved forward with each push. It wouldn't hold for long and soon there would be room for Yaxley to squeeze through. Nick followed the proprietor out into the service tunnel.

"We have to get back to the police station," Mia said.

"With Yaxley on the loose?" Nick asked. "We need to take him out... if we can."

He looked around seeking a means of escape.

The service tunnel was literally that. A tunnel. To the right lay the main street and daylight. To the left were a couple of lorries parked on loading bays, drivers and warehousemen busy on the dock.

"Come on." He called to her and ran for the nearest lorry. Yanking open the driver's door, he saw the keys in the ignition. He helped Mia in and as she moved over to the passenger side, he climbed behind the wheel.

"Can you drive this?" she asked.

"It's no different to the Land Rover," he replied, turning the key. "Just bigger."

At the café's rear entrance, the door burst open and Yaxley came out, looking left and right. He looked their way and began to walk towards them.

"He's picking up my mind," said Mia.

"Then stop thinking."

"How?"

"I don't know. Sing."

"Do something, Nick. It's your fault we're here. We should have headed for the street and the police station."

"While he follows your mind?" He looked around at the cab. "I wonder if this truck will do it?"

"Do what?"

"Mow him down." Nick turned the key again and the lorry's engine roared into life. He depressed the clutch and rammed the truck into gear. "Where's the handbrake?" he yelled.

"There." Mia pointed it out on the dashboard to the left of the steering wheel.

Nick snatched it off and the door opened. He looked down on an angry driver.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Get out of here," Nick shouted, "before he blows you away."

Ten metres from them, Yaxley had stopped. His empty eye sockets were focussed on the lorry. He raised his hands.

"Mia hit him back," Nick shouted, "Now."

She flattened herself to the seat. Energy shot from Yaxley and struck the driver in the chest. He slumped over Nick's foot and then slid to the concrete floor. Almost immediately he got up again, raising his finger. Nick kicked the driver on the head and as he fell, so Nick leapt out and mashed his skull underfoot.

Yaxley pointed again, this time at the truck's passenger seat. From the loading dock came a cacophony of shouts and cries, some angry, some panicking, others merely bewildered.

"Mia, hit him now," Nick shouted leaping back behind the wheel.

Yaxley's finger spat energy. The windscreen disappeared in a shower of glass and the beams passed straight through the rear of the cab.

"Get of here, Nick." Mia screamed.

"I'm trying. Just hit him."

Yaxley lowered his hand a few degrees. Mia sat up, and drawing forth on every reserve of energy, aimed her hands. A beam of pure white flashed out and struck Yaxley in the centre of his forehead, hurling him back against the tunnel wall, where he collapsed. Nick jammed the truck into gear, gunned the engine and letting the clutch in rammed his foot on the accelerator. The heavy lorry leapt forward. Yaxley sat up, aimed at the truck again, and struck the radiator with another bolt. A second later, the lorry smashed into the undead soldier, knocked him flat and the wheels bounced over him.

"You okay?" Nick asked.

Mia sat up and nodded. "What are we gonna do?"

He glanced in the mirror. Behind him, the dock workers ran here and there in a flurry and one was waving his fist and screaming at the disappearing truck. Yaxley lay completely still on the ground. As Nick hung a sharp right out of the tunnel into blessed sunlight, the undead sergeant got up.

"Well running him down didn't work. We have to take out the head."

"Where's the ion rod?" Mia demanded.

Nick was not listening. He checked the mirror again and to his surprise, Yaxley winked out of existence.

"What the ..."

"LOOK OUT!"

On Mia's warning, Nick concentrated on his driving and the rear of the crashed bus hurtling at them. He swerved around it, and Mia looked on the bodies of the young woman, her head a splatter of blood and brains, and her boyfriend, his chest cavity burned away, his head crushed and bearing the tyre tracks of some vehicle.

"She looked a little like me," Mia said.

"So they can make mistakes," Nick said accelerating away.

"She's dead," Mia shouted, "and it's because of me."

"No," Nick said, taking another right on King Street. "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's all."

Tears streamed down Mia's cheek. "How much more? How many more?"

"Just calm down." Nick checked the dashboard dials. "Temperature's going up. Must have hit the radiator."

He ground the vehicle onto the car park of the Fisher's Arms and shut the engine off. He turned to tell her to get out, but she was rocking back and forth in her seat, arms clutched cross her midriff, mouth open, crying, no sound escaping.

Then she made noise. A loud and long wail, her body heaving with sobs.

Nick climbed out, moved to the nearside, opened the door and took her hand. Gently, he let her out of the cab until she was stood with him, locked in his arms, inconsolable.

"Get it together, Mia. Flix just upped the ante and we're the only hope these people have."

"Why me, Nick?" she wept. "Why is he concentrating on me?"

"Because you're the psychic. He can track you and he may believe you can track him. Besides, what use would I be without you? You're the only thing I have in life."

# Chapter 11

After calling at the Fishers where Nick collected their belongings (Mia berated him for leaving the visor, the ion rod and the holoputer in their room) they made their way back to the police station which had now become a fortress manned by Vincent's men. Nick had given the Major and the Superintendent the benefit of his wisdom.

"Mia and I have been up against this threat in the past," he said, "and I actually demonstrated it last night at Fellside. The only way to stop them is to shoot them in the head. It may not be as quick as actually cutting the head off, but it's the only method we know of that will work."

Vincent had given the order and when Yaxley's depleted body appeared as if from nowhere and came hobbling into view along the street, it was put to the test. Yaxley fell and did not move. But it was not without cost. Before Corporal Plevin could deliver the killing shot, two more of the RIF squad lay dead, killed by bolts of energy from Yaxley's fingertips. They, too, rose, but Plevin's team dealt swiftly with them.

While accepting that Mia and Nick were more knowledgeable than he had first realised, the major nevertheless insisted that everything would be over just after eleven o'clock. "When that fighter strikes, Great Fell transmitter will be no more and this whole fiasco will be ended." He caught Nick's scowl and went on, "I'm aware of your opinion on the matter, young man, and I have graciously conceded that you know a good deal more about the kind of technology these creatures are using than I first credited. However, my people tell me that Great Fell mast is the only power source. Its destruction will put an end to their games and the reinforcements I've ordered will clean up those who remain ... if any."

Nick shook his head. "Suit yourself. Did you get those maps I asked for?"

Turners features became grim. "We don't have them and I told you, communications are shot, so I sent a lad up to Carlisle. He didn't get five miles before a beam from the overhead webs took him out."

Nick swore. "Flix," he said to Mia, "following everything we do through your mind." Addressing Turner he asked, "What have you done?"

The Superintendent opened his mouth to speak, but Mia stopped him. "Just a moment, Superintendent. I don't want to hear this. Let me leave the room before you speak to Nick." Getting to her feet, she hurried out.

Turner delivered his sarcastic grin. "You really believe in these silly games, don't you?"

"As long as we keep getting it right, Turner, you can misinterpret it all you want. Now tell me where we're up to?"

"Major Vincent has sent two dispatch riders across the Pennines, and I've sent one car to Carlisle, another down to Lancaster, and this time, they were given _written_ orders." Turner smiled again, baring his teeth in a cynical grin. "See. We can play your silly games, too."

Nick dismissed the mockery with a grunt. "There's little else we can do until I have those maps."

"And when you get them what are you looking for?" Vincent demanded.

Now Nick grinned. "A black hole."

*

Flight Lieutenant Neil Underwood, heeled his Tornado jet hard left, the port wing dipping until it was almost vertical, his focus switching back and forth between the twisted reality of the tilted landscape to the readouts from his head up display on the cockpit canopy.

Whoever had taken control of Great Fell transmitter had captured and killed some of the army wallahs and it was not clear what kind of weapons they had at their disposal, only that they were dangerous. So the powers that be had decided a missile attack from 12 kilometres would be marginally safer than sending in comparatively slow moving helicopter gunships.

Safer? It seemed to Underwood that he would be a whole lot safer and the problem dealt with a whole lot faster by a GPS guided missile from a base in Scotland rather than sending in a Tornado carrying Brimstone missiles.

Underwood checked the headup again. Target forty kilometres, and just over seven minutes away.

Satellite pictures had revealed that the array of lights, spokes coming from the mast and targeting other transmitters were now linking around the perimeter, forming an uneven spider's web, with Great Fell at its offset centre. Those other masts had already begun to kick out their own spurs, reaching even further out. Underwood had no idea what was going on, only that the enemy were well organised, extremely dangerous, and they needed taking out now.

Cruising at 350 knots and 300 metres, he could see Great Fell from here, the electric blue of the traces clearly visible even against the daylight sky. It was, Underwood decided as he banked the aircraft to the right this time, to bring him on a more north-westerly approach, a spectacular, yet unnerving sight.

Naturally, they hadn't told him everything. It was billed as some kind of terrorist attack, several police officers dead, an RIF unit decimated, civilian casualties, and some novel weapons at the enemy's disposal. He was ordered to approach on a heading of 323o, which would cut him between two of the spokes, and his instructions were quite simple.

"Release your missile from 12 kilometres, and then pull right and away on a bearing of zero two zero. Do not get any closer to Great Fell transmitter than ten kilometres."

Underwood didn't understand it, but orders were orders. He was alone. He didn't even have a wing man to engage the enemy and draw fire, but when he thought about it, it made a kind of sense. If these blighters had some kind of particle beam weapon with a range of ten kilometres, they must be more advanced than your basic terrorist outfit, and sending in a lone fighter was more logical.

What price the missile would get through? The Brimstone was supersonic, a fire-and-forget anti-tank missile, homing on its target via inertial navigation. Incredibly accurate and powerful, but if the enemy picked it up and aimed correctly, their energy pulses could still take it out before it made ground zero.

A junction between trunk roads passed beneath him. The A66 and one of its tributaries, he decided. Twenty-five kilometres to go. He kicked the Tornado on the correct heading. Time to arm his weapon.

"Control from Teddy Bear, bearing three two three, target 25 kilometres."

As regional controllers responded, Underwood chopped his speed, easing back on the throttles, and engaged the missile, his thumb hovering over the fire button. He checked his speed again; 300 knots. Slow enough for the video cameras to track the missile, slow enough to produce excellent footage, but not so slow that he could be taken down by anything less than a medium range SAM.

The central mast approached rapidly. He checked the distance: 15 kilometres and closing. He prepared to slice the Tornado hard right, to 020o, his safe escape route away from any of the spokes.

He jabbed the fire button on his control column. Nothing happened. Then the head-up wobbled and blanked.

Bugger. This was no time for tech problems.

Leaving the autopilot to fly the aeroplane, he fiddled with switches.

"Control from Teddy Bear. Head-up has gone, trying to repair."

The reply was no better than interference.

"Control from Teddy Bear, are you reading me, over?"

More static.

Once more he played with switches and knobs trying to regain his head-up, trying to re-establish contact with Control, trying to fire the Brimstone.

The pale green display flickered into life and died again, then came up once more. But he could not see the T, that familiar display of altimeter, airspeed indicator, artificial horizon and compass. Instead it was a hazy, ill-defined shape, like a pear stood on its narrow end.

"What the blue bloody blazes is going on here," he grumbled, flicking the on/off switch time and again.

The display began to clear.

"That's better."

He checked the camera operation. Tickety-boo. He looked up again, checking his distance gauges. Under twelve kilometres. Time to shoot and get the hell out.

Preparing, once more, to fire the missile, he refocused his eyes on the head-up, seeking the compass. Instead all he saw was an apparition. There were no eyes, only sockets, there was a gap where the mouth would be, a gap filled with just a few teeth.

"YOU ARE COME TO JOIN US."

The voice filled his head and his helmet. Pain burst through his eardrums. He released the control column and clutched at his head. The cockpit came alive with dancing fires of electricity. He felt the shock surge through him and at the same time told himself it was impossible. He could not be electrocuted. He wasn't earthed.

Showers of sparks blew his avionics, the aircraft careened left then right, and the nose dipped. He was too close to the transmitter. Even if he could fire, he would never get away. His finger hovered on the fire button, but he could not operate it. He should be on his way out now; flying to safety. The grassy peak of Great Fell rushed up to meet him. He yanked at the ejector seat mechanism. The canopy blew away, but he remained in his seat, the howl of cold air rushing past him.

"YOU ARE COME TO JOIN US."

Once more the awful voice hammered at his brain. The pain forced an anguished, animal cry from him. The cry turned to one of terror, the ground hurtled towards him. Sparks danced, he felt his hair burning away. His eyes melted and he could no longer see.

But he knew that death would follow in the next few seconds. He braced for the impact. There was a tremendous thump, a cacophony of noise and everything turned black.

*

The burning wreckage of Teddy Bear's Tornado jet lay strewn across Great Fell, near the blockhouse. Parts of it had landed amidst the dormant vehicles outside the station and they were already ablaze.

Many metres away, still strapped to his seat, the body of Flight Lieutenant Underwood stirred. Ungainly movements of the hands unclipped the harness. The creature, a tangled mass of melted uniform and roasted skin, got to its feet and turned. Its movements were slow, lumbering, as if it were unused to the physical movement. It staggered towards the station, and with every step, it became more accustomed to the workings of its dead body.

*

"I understand, sir. Yes sir. Thank you."

Vincent put down the telephone and faced the people in the briefing room. "Bad line, but the message was clear enough. Fighter Control lost the aircraft a minute or so before impact. The last they heard from the pilot he was having trouble with his headup display. Satellite photography has confirmed wreckage on Great Fell."

Nick spat at the floor. "I told you, Vincent. I warned you it wouldn't work."

Vincent's cheeks coloured. "We don't know what happened other than an aircraft malfunction."

"It malfunctioned because Flix ordered it," Nick shouted.

The Major ignored his outburst. "This matter is now in the hands of the MOD, and they've taken the decision to attack with guided missile. A Cruise Tomahawk."

Turner groaned. "If this goes wrong ..."

Vincent checked his watch and cut the superintendent off. "The missile is being primed as we speak and will be launched under cover of darkness at about quarter to seven this evening. I can't tell you where it's coming from but its flight time will be less than fifteen minutes, and these things are accurate to within a matter of metres."

"Cruise?" Mia asked. "They were nuclear weren't they?"

Vincent frowned at her use of the past tense. "They can be fitted with a nuclear warhead, yes. This one will be carrying a conventional, 1000 pound Bullpup warhead. It's aimed precisely at the base of the tower, but when it goes up, it will take out the entire blockhouse."

Nick shook his head in frustration. "No it won't. If Flix is capable of interfering with an aircraft in flight, a robot missile will be child's play."

Vincent rounded on him. "I'm getting a little tired of your constant criticism, Holt."

"And I'm getting sick of your pig-headedness, Vincent. You can't beat Flix. You should be making plans for an assault on the server, not trying to take him out with your toys."

"The decision," Vincent said coldly, "has been taken."

*

"What are you up to?" Mia asked.

Lunch was late, but Nick did not feel hungry. He toyed with a bowl of vegetable soup. "It's better that you don't know."

She screwed up her face. "Explain."

It was an order. Mia never gave orders (she did not, in any event, outrank him anymore than he did her) except when she was annoyed, and then they were delivered as single word, clipped instructions in a school-mistressy tone that brooked no insubordination.

Nick put down his spoon and glanced around the police canteen. Uniformed men and women, both police and military occupied a number of tables. All of them had been issued with firearms, signalling the sad fact that the police station had become a fortress. Over by the windows Ben Stevens sat with Corporal Plevin and three other men, joking over something, but Nick could see through the smiles to the worry behind. It was there to be read in all the faces around the large, airy room. Fear of the unknown, fear of an enemy the likes of which they had never encountered no matter how many battles they had fought across the country or the world. It was a fear enhanced by the spectre of almost certain defeat. It was a fear Nick knew well. He had known it in 1646, he had come close in 2540 and he was getting near now.

The canteen hummed to the mutter of conversation. From the outside came sporadic gunfire as the soldiers and police detailed to guard the building opened up on more of the undead. The crack of gunshot unnerved some of those in the room. Nick had already edited it in as part of the background noise.

He was satisfied that no one was paying them more than scant attention, and that only to reinforce whispered opinions on what happened and what course of action the brasshats should take. Keeping his voice down to a whisper, he leaned over the table.

"Flix is following your thoughts. You said it yourself earlier when you left the briefing room before Turner and Vincent told me what was happening. If you know what I'm playing at, you can't help thinking about it, even if only registering it in your mind, and that will forewarn him. I want to surprise him."

"I feel superfluous," Mia sulked.

Nick reached across the table and took her hand. "Your time will come. When we engage Flix, you will be there and you're the stronger, Mia. I want you to concentrate your thoughts on that because I want Flix to get the message. These people," he gestured around the room, "are afraid, but you're not. You were the more powerful in 1646, you are more powerful now and you are more powerful than Flix can ever be, because you have the Cosmos on your side. He could only ever beat you by subterfuge. You will destroy him. With my guile, my planning, your superior psychic power and the support of the Universe, we will send Flix through The Light where he should have gone a millennium and a half ago."

Nick returned to the bland tasting soup while Mia played with his strong fingers. "What do I do in the meantime? You know. While you're employing your guile and planning, what do I do? Sit around here with my thumb up my bottom?"

Nick smiled the imagery her words conjured. "Try kicking your heels instead. It's no more productive, but it is more hygienic and more comfortable."

Mia giggled girlishly, and then became more thoughtful. "Tell you what we never followed up: Felix Quarmby."

"Oh, I don't think you'll find anything in that," Nick responded. "Even though Chronology had a record of him, I think you'll find that he as one of Flix's creations."

Mia sipped her coffee and nibbled at crumbs of bread and cheese, the remains of a sandwich. "I'm not so sure. Nick, you said to me earlier that Flix was busy in 2005, somewhere in this area, and you speculated that he was setting up his server. Why did he choose this area, and where exactly was he working?"

"Great Fell is pretty remote. Makes it difficult for the military to retaliate."

"I'm aware of that," Mia replied, "but it's a thin argument that might satisfy Major Failure. It doesn't work with me because I know – and you do – that the military cannot contain Flix and his power. No, if he arrived in this area and worked in the background for five years, there has to be a reason. I think that reason was Felix Quarmby. Suppose I chase it up while you're playing tactics with Vincent and Turner?"

Nick pushed his soup aside with a grimace. "Garbage. All right," he said to Mia, "but make sure you keep my pute on screen, not holo. That way, everyone will think it's a boring, 21st-century laptop."

*

Vincent pushed aside the remains of a baked haddock. "About on a par with army field rations, I think, Turner."

The Superintendent chuckled. "We're under siege, remember, Major. Normally, I wouldn't use the canteen. I either nip home or I eat out there," he pointed to the windows. He lit a cigarette in direct contravention of the anti-smoking laws. Drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, he let it out with a long hiss. "What happens if this missile of yours doesn't work?"

"It will," Vincent assured him. He took a gold cigar case from his tunic and lit up a Tom Thumb.

"That's what you said about the jet fighter, but it went tits up, didn't it. Suppose it doesn't work?"

"I really don't know." The Major crossed one languid knee over the other and leaned back. "All out assault, I suppose. When I sent the courier to Catterick for those maps, I gave him a full dispatch covering everything that has happened. I've requested reinforcements, and ultimately, it will be up to Whitehall, but I should imagine the next stage of the game will be blanket artillery bombardment of the site followed by a massed assault."

Turner nodded. "Good." He drew on his cigarette again. "Between me and you, what do you think is going on?"

Vincent's brow knitted. "Off the record?"

Turner nodded.

"I wouldn't want you to think I'm wandering off into the same science fiction as Nellis and Holt, but frankly, I think we're facing the opening gambit in some kind of alien invasion."

Turner delivered a long, low whistle. "For someone who's not entertaining science fiction, that's coming well out of left field."

"From a military point of view, the enemy are making all the right moves. They're slowly taking out our lines of communication. That's the first step in any campaign. The significance of the attack on Great Fell hasn't been lost on me. As EBS transmitters go, it's one of the most remote. Access is poor, and it's surrounded by wide open spaces, making a surprise attack difficult if not impossible. There are plenty of other transmitters the enemy could have targeted, but they're not so isolated. Great Fell was the perfect choice for this kind of assault, but there's too much that doesn't make sense," Vincent speculated. "Dead people getting up and walking away, dead people getting up with the power to shoot energy bolts from their fingers, dead people disappearing off the face of the earth."

Turner grunted his agreement and waited for the Major to go on.

Vincent took a deep drag on his mini-cigar. "I saw action in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen a lot of strange occurrences. I watched a man running at our position when his head was blown off. His decapitated body kept on running for several yards before it fell. I've seen native bandits suffer the most appalling injuries and get up to fight. But in all my years of service, I have never seen anything like this."

Turner took a final drag on his cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray. "I've seen my share of mashed and mangled bodies, too. I sent a young copper down the mortuary once, and while he was there, taking a statement from the attendants, the body he was reporting on suddenly groaned." The Superintendent laughed. "Body gases or something, but you've never seen a kid so scared as that constable when he came back." He chuckled again at the memory.

Silence fell, each man sinking into his own thoughts. Vincent recognised the nagging doubt at the back of his own mind, temporarily masked by the meal and conversation, and he was certain the Superintendent felt it too; a feeling over helplessness, of events overtaking them, and their absolute powerlessness in the face of this bizarre enemy.

"What do you make of those two kids?" Turner asked suddenly.

"Nellis and Holt?" Vincent asked. "I've mentioned them in my report. They know too much for my liking, Turner, and yet they explain too little."

"I'd noticed," Turner admitted.

Vincent pulled on his cigar again. "Fact is, I think that they, too, are aliens."

"I had an idea you might," the Superintendent conceded, "especially after your opinion of the enemy. Mark Overton told me that they used some kind of particle beam weapon up at Great Fell. It didn't work as they expected, but they definitely used it."

"Yes, I know. I read your report." Vincent drew on his smoke and uncrossed his legs to flick ash from the end into an ashtray. "The woman, Nellis, seems to have the power to project energy from her hands, too. Not as deadly as the enemy's, but it can incapacitate a man. That kind of ability, Superintendent, is not consistent with human beings."

"I've noticed that Holt puts on some kind of visor at times," Turner said. "Looks a little like a pair of shades, but when he wears it, you can see through it and he takes information from it."

"Again, I am aware of it," Vincent said. "Did you get anywhere running a trace on them?"

Turner shook his head. "Holt gave me an address at Netherfield outside York. I was in the process of checking it out when our comms began to go apeshit. Can't get a link to the DVLA, can't even get a line to Scotland Yard or the NCIS, and the Riverbank won't even talk to someone of my rank. Requests to MI6 have to come from the Chief Constable."

Vincent signalled his understanding with a nod. "I have the same problem."

"So. Your conclusion that they're aliens? Whose side are they on?"

Vincent stubbed out his cigar. "Ours, I think. At least for the moment. But like the enemy, they're using some pretty sophisticated technology, and the MOD would probably like to get its hands on it."

"And you think our friendly Martians would let that happen?"

Vincent smiled at the term 'friendly Martians'. "No I don't think they would. But it does mean I'll have to keep my eye open for the opportunity. And I'll tell you something else. It wouldn't worry me if one of them was killed on this operation. The forensic scientists would have a field day with an alien body."

*

"Any sign of my maps yet, Turner?" Nick asked on returning to the briefing room.

The Superintendent shook his head. "They'll be here when they get here, lad. Where's your girlfriend?"

Nick became evasive. "She's enclosed herself in a room further down the corridor with a laptop for company."

Turner grinned. "In case the enemy tune in on her mind?"

Nick noticed that Vincent, too, permitted himself a sly smirk. "Scoff all you like, the pair of you, but you'll laugh the other side of your faces if we don't get this thing together and track down Flix's server." Recalling his lunchtime conversation with Mia, he asked, "You're a local, Turner; what can you tell me about a man named Felix Quarmby?"

"I can tell you that I've never heard of him," the Superintendent replied. "Is he important?"

"I don't know," Nick admitted. "I don't even know that he exists, but his name cropped up during our own investigations."

Vincent became more alert. "You think he may have something to with these events?"

"To echo Superintendent Turner, I don't know, but if he did, we need to know more about him."

*

Three rooms away, Mia pored over the files the Chronology had added to Nick's pute.

Stasis Center's Chronology Department had detailed files of almost every major event in history and through the use of unmanned Timehoppers, they could add to those files whenever they wished. They then made the data available to any Special Agents required to travel back though time, but with a caveat; the files received by the Special Agents were not detailed. The argument was that with too much detail, the agents may restrict their own activities for fear of changing history.

Where Felix Quarmby was concerned, the files were vague in the extreme. Chronology had given them only the man's name, date of birth (1954) and date of death (2009) and his web address, (deadweb.dim). He was listed along with hundreds of thousands of others, purely as a person living in the Harden area between 2005 and 2010.

Shutting down the Chronology report, Mia accessed the Web, ran a search on him and to her pleasant surprise came up with an entry on Google.

It was a report from the local newspaper, _The Harden Courier._

_Funeral of Local UFO Enthusiast_ , ran the caption.

Local UFO enthusiast, Felix Quarmby, was cremated today at Saffley crematorium. Speaking from their shared bungalow in Saffley, his partner, Helen Jennings, praised Dr Quarmby's tireless work in the field of ufology.

" _Felix's contribution cannot be underestimated," she said. "It was largely due to his work that the Freedom of Information Act finally came into law, permitting access to those files the government have kept from researchers since the UFO phenomenon first came to our shores in the aftermath of World War Two."_

The son of a high-ranking civil servant, Quarmby was educated at Stowe School from where he moved on to Cambridge to read physics. He graduated with honours in 1976, and then spent two years at UMIST, reading for his Masters before joining the Research and Development arm of The Aviation Design Group in Harden, where he specialised in high energy fuel systems. But his real love was the spotting, tracking and subsequent tracing of UFOs and throughout his life he remained convinced that there was more to the phenomenon than hallucination or misinterpretation by observers.

Mia closed down the browser and then the machine. Dropping it into Nick's backpack, she threw the bag on her shoulder, left the room and made her way along the corridor to the briefing room, where she found everyone in mufti.

Turner and Vincent were talking quietly in a corner, one or two soldiers sat around with police officers, mostly drinking tea and chatting. Most of the furniture had been moved off to the side walls, and bare trestle tables set up in the centre of the room, where Nick stood in conference with Ben Stevens.

"Nick, I have to speak to you."

"Sure," Nick agreed. Addressing Ben, he asked, "So that's okay then? You'll be on hand to point them out to me or you know what to do if I'm not here?"

"If you think it'll help," Ben assured him. "But I don't understand how pinpointing the—"

"Don't say it," Nick cut him off. He grinned. "Mia isn't allowed to know."

Smiling at the urgent look of frustration and irritation on Mia's face, he followed her off to one side.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"Remember; ask no questions, get no lies. Never mind Ben and me, what did you want?"

"Felix Quarmby. I've found him... well, sort of."

Over the next few minutes, Mia gave him a rundown of what she had learned. Nick took the information in, occasionally asking questions to clarify this or that point, much to Mia's frustration when she had no answers.

"What I've found out," she concluded, "is thin, but it proves that Felix Quarmby existed and that he was local, and as at last year, his partner was still alive and living in Saffley, wherever that is. Nick, if we could get to her, maybe she could tell us something."

"Point taken," Nick admitted. He turned on his heels. "Turner, could you get me directions to a place called Saffley and the address of a resident there."

"Is it important?"

"Maybe, maybe not. The woman's name is Helen Jennings."

Turner nodded to Sergeant Griggs who left the room. "Saffley is not far. About three miles out of town. If she lives there and she's ever contacted us, we'll have a record of her here."

"And if not?"

"We can try the community constable for Saffley."

Lowering his voice again Nick asked Mia, "What do you think she can tell us?"

"It's not what she can tell us, it's whether she's housing the server."

Nick shook his head right away. "No way. I told you this morning, it has to be away from the influence of the web."

"Then maybe she knows where it is," Mia ventured. She look into Nick's concerned eyes. "What? What is it?"

"Chasing up this Felix Quarmby is a long shot and I don't like long shots. Not this long, anyway. It means you and I will have to go see this old girl and that means leaving this place. And before you start to contradict me, it will be down to you and me. We can't allow any of these people to go. They wouldn't make it out of the street, never mind the town."

"I'm trying to expedite matters," Mia argued. "I don't know what you're planning, but it'll take time. If I can find a shortcut, isn't that better?"

"If," Nick agreed.

Griggs returned and in a voice that could be heard cross the room, reported to Turner. "I managed to get through to the community constable, and he's given me an address. Seventeen Elder Avenue."

Turner turned to Nick.

"I heard," Nick said. "Can you give me directions?"

"Griggs will draw you a map."

"Right. Mia and I will get going. We should be back before the Major's firework display."

As he and his partner left the room, he heard Turner say, "Overton, follow them."

# Chapter 12

Saffley lay off the main westerly A66, a small, pretty village of about twenty streets and various architectures.

With late afternoon light fading, Nick drove along the dual carriageway at high speed, following the rough plan Griggs had drawn as they left the station. Half a mile behind him, he could see the headlights of a police Land Rover. He smiled. At least the cops and the army had learned their lesson and begun using diesel powered vehicles after the way the web had fried the electronic ignition of their patrol cars.

Nick was less worried about Overton's surveillance than a flashing amber warning on the dashboard.

"What is it?" Mia asked.

"I'm not sure. Looks like the fuel warning Coleman told me about, but it can't be. We've hardly done any mileage since we got here and the tank was three-quarters full when I pulled it out of stasis. It's still got a quarter of a tank according to the gauge." He glanced up at the web striating the sky. "Maybe it's the overflow of stasis energy playing havoc with the vehicle's electrical system."

"You're sure of that?" Mia demanded.

"No but ... hell, I don't have time to fool around looking for fuel."

He turned off the main road and onto the feeder lane for Saffley village. Soon they were plodding along the narrow street, seeking the left turn Griggs' map advised them to take.

"No damage here," Mia observed as they drove along Harden Lane. "The undead haven't come this far."

"But no life, either," Nick commented.

There was not a soul to be seen. A row of shops near the village centre sat in darkness, the lights of the Saffley Arms were out, and even at the parish church there was no sign of activity.

Nick came to Saffley minimarket, a store clearly identified on Griggs' map, and braked to make the left turn.

They found themselves on a narrow street of brick-built houses, a higgledy-piggledy assortment of terrace properties and more upmarket detached places. Lights burned in many a room, but even though there were almost two hours of daylight remaining, all curtains were closed. It seemed to Mia and Nick that the residents had decided such an act would keep the undead at bay.

"It needs a damn sight more than drapes to keep Flix and his bodies from the door," Nick grumbled.

Fifty metres along the street, Nick hung a sharp right into a cul-de-sac. The nameplate on the corner read 'Elder Avenue'.

Looking around the tiny street of semi-detached bungalows, Mia said, "I wonder if it means elder as in seniors citizens or elder as in the tree."

"Looking at the houses I'd guess the former," Nick replied, his eyes focussing on the house numbers as they crept along. "But in the grand scheme of things, who gives a toss?"

Number 17 stood in the left corner of the 'frying pan' at the far end of the street. Nick nudged the Land Rover up to the double gates, killed the engine and leaving the keys in the ignition, took his backpack from the rear and climbed out, shrugging his bag onto his shoulder.

Making their way to the door, Nick ushered Mia ahead. "You ring the bell. She'll likely be more trusting of a woman."

With a tut, Mia pressed the doorbell.

There was a long pause. Nick spotted the curtains part half an inch and then fall shut again. Soon, they could make out movement behind the frost glass of the double glazed door. Without warning, the twin barrels of a twelve gauge shotgun poked through the letterbox.

"Go way before I shoot," ordered a female voice.

Now Nick tutted. "Mrs Jennings—"

"I said go away."

"Mrs Jennings," Mia called out, "we're not here to harm you. We're not zombies. We need to talk to you about Dr Quarmby."

"I'll count to three and if you're not gone by then, I shoot. One..."

"Can you get through glass with your psychic powers?" Nick asked.

Mia nodded and began to send out waves of confidence.

She considered it wise to use her powers sparingly in this era, but back in the 31st century, she had learned that sometimes there was more to be gained by generating composure and confidence as opposed to dread, especially when she needed co-operation.

"Two..."

But it didn't always work.

"You're gonna have to do something, Mia," Nick suggested.

"Mrs Jennings," Mia called out. "I repeat, we are not here to harm you. We are government agents and we're here to deal with the emergency. It's vital that we speak to you."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Helen Jennings asked.

"The zombies cannot speak," Nick told her. "You must have read, seen or heard the reports of what's going on. The undead have no voice. We're speaking, therefore we cannot be undead."

"They're learning all the time," Helen shouted. "You could be more advanced."

"Oh for God's sake," Nick fumed. "Mrs Jennings—"

"It's Ms Jennings, not Mrs. Now go away or I fire."

"Can I help?"

Mia and Nick were not entirely surprised to find Constable Overton joining them. Motioning the Stasis Center Agents to stand aside, he rapped on the door. "Ms Jennings, I'm Constable Overton from the Harden police. Pull your shotgun back inside and let me drop my warrant card through the letterbox."

There was another pause, almost as if the middle aged spinster was thinking about it. Then the barrels retracted and Overton fished into his tunic for his warrant. Another paused followed after the card disappeared. Then they heard locks, bolts and chains sliding back before the door opened.

Helen Jennings stood back, the shotgun pressed to her shoulder, one eye closed, the other sighting along the gun. "One move that I don't like and you're dog meat."

"Don't think I'm being awkward, Ms Jennings," Nick said, "but you have only two shots and there are three of us. And anyway, if we were undead, your peashooter won't do a bit of good. Now will you please give constable Overton his warrant card back and let us in. We urgently need to speak with you."

*

Constable Overton helped Helen Jennings prepare tea and soon the four of them sat in her living room, the three sat on a large settee, Helen in an armchair by the gas fire.

Mia's research into the era drove her to consider the bungalow a thoroughly middle class residence in a middle class street of a middle class village in a rural England that had drifted away from its agricultural roots three decades previously when the 'townies' began to buy up property for weekend retreats. The floor covering was a rich Wilton in pale aquamarine decked with floral motifs. The matching settee and armchair were in off white, with more flowery designs spotted on the rear cushions. Even the tea service, rose china, spoke of moderate affluence. Fish swam in large, illuminated tank by the back wall, reminding Mia of Control's office. Under the window a large screen TV showed the local news, the picture grainy, frequently lost. Interference from the overhead web, Mia diagnosed; that and the problem of Great Fell transmitter.

On the shelf above an ornate, brightly burning gas fire, was an array of photographs. Helen was in some of them, sometimes alone, sometimes with a tall, slender man who Mia presumed to be Quarmby. They were posed in bright sunshine and behind them stood a cottage. That the place was apparently in the middle of wide open moorland spoke once more of 'townies' getting away from it all. There was something not quite right about the cottage, but no matter how long she stared at it, Mia could not place what it was.

She guessed Helen to be about 60. A good looking woman in her time, some of the innate beauty had been worn away by the ravages of time, and she was diminutive of stature, too, which did not help. She stood less than 1.5 metres and her waistline had begun to spread. Nothing too serious, Mia thought, as long as the woman kept tabs on it. The green eyes told a different story, however; they told Mia this woman lived in fear of the undead, like everyone in this corner of England.

"You want to know about Felix," Helen said reaching for the TV remote control. "I'll tell you anything I can if you believe it will help." She switched off the TV and put the remote down on the chair arm.

"You were his partner?" Mia asked.

Helen nodded and sipped tea with a shaking hand. "I met him when we were both at university. He was studying physics, I was training to be a teacher." She smiled in fond reminiscence. "He was such a good looking man, full of life, full of energy. He had so much enthusiasm for everything. Do you know what I mean?"

The question was directed at Mia, as if she would the only one who could appreciate it. Mia nodded.

"He was a visionary, too," Helen went on, "only I didn't realise it at the time. I don't know if he did. We were both busy, learning, working towards our degrees. We didn't have much time for thinking of the greater questions. That came much later."

"We graduated in 1976 and drifted our separate ways. Felix moved to Manchester and UMIST, I took up my first teaching post right here in Harden, and I saw nothing of him for almost three years. Then, one day, he turned up at the school. He was a changed man. He'd landed a job with the Aviation Design Group. Research into the possibilities of different fuels, I think. He never told me, really. He said his work was secret. And I never asked." Helen sighed. "I fell in love all over again."

She sipped more tea. Mia noticed the glassy stare, eyes tinged with tears.

"We set up home together, bought a little cottage out on the moors and settled down." Helen reached up to the gas fire and took down the photograph of her, Quarmby and the cottage. "We always planned to marry, but somehow, we just never got around to it." She laughed. "Too busy. And then we had to move to Harden when the cancer got to him, and... he died."

The final two words were delivered in a matter-of-fact, that's fate, just goes to show you, tone of voice. Helen fell silent.

"Where—" Nick began but Mia cut him off with a disapproving frown. He did not understand the woman's need to expiate her memories before getting down to business.

"You said he changed, Ms Jennings," Mia began. "In what way?"

"Not unpleasant." Helen smiled wistfully. "Please don't think that. Underneath he was the same old Felix, still fired with enthusiasm for his work and the world around him. No, he'd branched off at a tangent. UFOs."

Mia thought she detected a hint of disapproval in Helen, but it did not match the serene look on the older woman's face.

"He spent much of his time working on company projects, but he had some pet theories of his own, which he used to work on during his free time." She stared at them. "Other dimensions in space and time. You'll forgive me if I sound a little, er, unintelligent, but the theories are quite complex. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Solway Firth spaceman?"

Both Mia and Nick blanked her, but Overton did not. "I've heard the tale and seen the photographs. To me it looked like some kind of balloon behind the kid."

"It might help if we knew what you were talking about," Nick observed.

"It's a strange case, Mr Holt," Helen told him. "Essentially what happened was a fireman from Carlisle took his five year old daughter out onto Solway Firth in the spring of 1964. It's a popular place, you know, for birdwatchers and dog walkers, or even just a picnic, especially during the spring and summer months. While they were there, the man took three photographs of his daughter. When they were developed, he was astonished to find the figure of a spaceman in the background on one of the images. I've seen the photograph many times and as the constable says, it looks as if it's a balloon floating in the background. The gentleman insists that the spaceman was not there when he took the picture, and the Kodak organisation maintained that the photograph is genuine. It had not been altered or tampered with. To this day, there has never been a satisfactory explanation for it, but it's often been linked to the supposed appearance of two similar beings at a missile testing range in Woomera, Australia which resulted in a test firing being cancelled."

Nick began to get impatient. "I don't see where all this is leading," he objected.

Helen frowned and chided him. "Because I haven't got there, yet. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of theories put forward, many of them plain silly, many of them wallowing in ufology lore. In amongst them were serious ideas put forward by serious people, and Felix was one of those. What he suggest, Mr Holt, is that the image caught by the camera is real, and the reason the fireman never saw it was because it came from another dimension."

About to drink the insipid tea, Nick paused and put his cup down, and Mia knew what was wrong. No one in this time, let alone 45 years previously, should be doing anything other than speculate on the mathematical prospects of multi-dimensional universes.

"Where did Quarmby get that idea?" Nick demanded.

Helen became irritated with him once more. "That's what I'm trying to tell you, Mr Holt. That was the change that had come over him. Something he'd picked up in the course of his work, or maybe he read of the basic premise in a professional journal. He never did tell me. He did say that it would explain many mysterious phenomena such as UFOs and even ghosts. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with these things, every time he worked on a particular set of equations, they merely opened up fresh avenues for investigation, and he never completed his work before the cancer took him." Helen raised her hands and allowed them to fall back into her lap as a gesture of finality... or futility; Mia was not sure which.

"And you went along with him, Ms Jennings?" Mia asked.

"Of course I did. I loved him. And besides, even though I didn't understand his calculations or much of the science behind them, I'm not a fool. I know there are a great many mysteries in this world that science has not yet solved; mysteries that cannot be explained away by the flat-earth debunkers. For instance, do you know how many UFO sightings there have been in this country since World War Two?"

"Thousands?" Mia guessed.

"Thousands," Helen confirmed. "Granted, the vast majority of them may be visual misinterpretations, common or garden objects seen from an unusual angle, but I refuse to accept that they are all so easily explained. Felix had a theory that would account for them, but holding onto the idea and proving it mathematically, never mind physically, took up most of his life. Even then, he didn't prove it."

Nick pressed her. "But he did build a means of communication between dimensions, didn't he?"

Helen's colour drained. Her hands shook, rattling the cup and saucer. "How on earth did you know about that?"

"Lucky guess."

"Well it was very lucky, but not quite right. He did build the thing, yes, but it didn't work. It needed some kind of energy boost and he couldn't get it out there on the moors. I don't know why."

Nick decided that the time had come for less mental meandering and more direct answers. "Where exactly on the moors are we talking about, Ms Jennings?"

"A place called..." Helen stared into the corner and they followed her gaze. "Oh dear, what's going on now?"

The TV set had switched on again. Instead of the faded and unstable picture of before, it now showed a cloudy mass, shaped roughly like a human being.

"How strange," Helen said.

Nick ripped the ion rod from its holster.

"NO," Mia shouted. "It'll rebound."

"Mia—"

A loud crackle from the set cut Nick off. It was followed by a beam of pure blue energy, aimed precisely at Helen. She gave a small gasp, the cup and saucer fell from her hand, the photograph slid into her lap and she sank back into the cushions.

Mia aimed her finger at the set as another blue beam set to materialise. The battle drained her quickly. Nick aimed the ion rod and pressed the red trigger. The twin beams, the red of the ion rod and blue of the TV locked together millimetres from the screen. Mia could see Nick shaking and guessed that the power was oscillating back and forth along the beam the way it had done when he confronted Flix at Great Fell.

In the chair, Helen moved, her arm rising. "Kill her," Mia ordered.

Sat beside her, Overton vacillated and Helen's finger swung slowly towards him.

"KILL HER," Mia screamed. "Before she kills you."

Overton gawped. Mia looked down at his hip and snatched the 9mm automatic from its holster. The move brought Overton to his senses.

"Hey," he protested.

Mia ignored him, aimed and fired. A bullet hole appeared in Helen's. She dithered for a moment, her whole body shaking. Then she fell back and at still.

On the other side of her, Nick was locked in a struggle with Flix coming through via the TV set, and Flix appeared to be winning. The blue beam pressed in on the red energy of the ion rod, and Nick shook uncontrollably. Mia could only imagine the pain he was going through. She raised Overton's pistol and shot. The TV exploded in a shower of sparks and Nick released the ion rod before falling to his knees on the carpet.

Mia leant over Nick. "Are you all right."

"Dazed." He shook his head to clear it. "I'll be fine. Mia, we have to get out of here. Now. Before Flix takes the empty body and uses it." He waved vaguely in Helen's direction.

"He can't. I shot her in the brain. Her body is useless to him."

"We still need to get away." Nick stumbled to his feet and made for the door. "Mark, we'll lead. You just stick to our taillights all the way to Harden."

On an impulse, Mia snatched the photograph from Helen's dead hands. "Let's go."

Overton Helen out his hand. "My pistol?"

Mia handed it back and advised, "Next time I tell you to shoot, just shoot. You'll save us all a lot of trouble."

*

Hurrying outside, Nick glanced up at the darkening sky as they leapt into their respective vehicles. A single beam of the web passed overhead, anything up to a mile from the village, but a spur from angled down to Helen's bungalow where it meshed with the TV antenna.

"Flix is learning." Nick fired the engine. "Almost every house in the country has a TV set. How the hell do we stop him now?"

Mia chewed her lip. "There's something not right about this," she said while Nick turned the Land Rover round. "If Flix could use the TV sets, he would have done so earlier."

Nick put the truck in first and set off. He checked his mirror and satisfied that Overton was right behind, said, "Maybe the web is only just coming up to strength."

"Pah." Mia let out her breath in one derisive gasp. "It's been up to strength since this morning when he sent Sergeant Yaxley after us. You're the tech, so think like one. What was so different about Helen Jennings' TV set to all the others in the country?"

"I don't know." Nick turned right onto Harden Road and accelerated. "And how do we know he hasn't been using the TV aerials to capture others?"

"There have been no reports."

"And you were there when Turner complained that communications were failing." Again Nick checked his mirror to ensure that Overton was following. "For all we know, he may have used other sets and the reports simply haven't reached us yet." He stared gloomily down at the dashboard and the flashing amber warning. "And this bloody thing is on the blink again."

Mia watched the buildings flash by on both sides and decided she would like to see this pretty little village under normal circumstances.

Tumbling over the problem of the TV set, she settled on looking across at her partner. He was driving almost on automatic pilot and she could imagine the cogitations and permutations running through his mind. Nick did not like to lose.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"I asked, what is it? Come on, Nick, I've known you fourteen hundred years. I know when something is not right."

Nick signalled to turn right on the access road for the A66. "I think we're beaten." He made the turn and accelerated. "I think we need to cut out, go back to our own time and come back with fresh, different weapons and if necessary, reinforcements."

"I remember you saying the same thing at Coldmoor Castle," Mia smiled. "And that was about five minutes before we beat Flix."

"He wasn't as powerful then as he is now."

The engine coughed, surged and picked up again.

"We can't leave." Mia clucked. "If we tried, Flix would track us through my mind, to the Timehopper and more than anything we need to keep that machine hidden from him. And even if we did go back, we certainly couldn't bring others back with us. The more people from our time that arrive here, the greater the risk of inadvertently changing history. We have to tough this out, Nick. So far everything has fallen in Flix's favour. That will change. I'm sure of it. I'm sure of something else, too."

The engine stuttered again and picked up once more.

"Is this thing all right?"

"The web." Nick pointed up. "I told you before. Now what's the something else you're sure of?"

"Helen's TV set didn't turn on her when it did by accident."

"We know that."

"She was about to tell you where you could find the communication set up; the server that runs this entire show, and Flix stopped her there and then. Nick, he's scared. He doesn't want either of us getting anywhere near that server and he doesn't want us letting the military know where it is. It's the only ace up his sleeve." She smiled encouragingly. "Remember what you said." She raised her voice at the heavens and the deadly web above them. "I am more powerful than you, Flix."

The smile faded when the engine coughed again, surged briefly and then died altogether.

"Hell is freezing over." Nick cursed and kicked the truck into neutral.

"What's wrong?" Mia was unable to hide the worry in her voice.

"Cut out. I don't know why." He indicated left and pulled into the soft shoulder. Overton drove up and stopped a metre behind them. "Probably interference from the web again."

"You're sure it's not fuel?" Mia asked as Nick climbed out to meet Overton.

"The gauge is registering nearly a quarter full," he said, and then repeated the same to Overton a few seconds later.

"Can't trust fuel gauges, Nick. The circuits and balances wear over time, and this is, what?" Overton checked the registration plate. "Nineteen seventy-two. Says it all, don't it. Vehicle that old. Hang on. I've a jerry can of diesel in the back of my truck."

He hurried back to the police Land Rover.

Mia looked around at the dark embankments enclosing the dual carriageway. She knew that on the other side of them was nothing but open fields.

"Worried?" Nick asked.

"I don't like this," she confessed. "We're too exposed

Nick, too, looked around. "We're cool. If Overton's right, we'll be moving again in less than five minutes. I can fill it up when we get back to Harden."

Overton returned with a jerry can and a small toolbox.

Nick frowned. "What are you gonna do? Rebuild the engine?"

"Diesel engine," Overton explained as he removed the filler cap. "You have to manually prime the pump."

"What? How long?"

Carefully, Overton began to pour the fuel into the tank. "Two minutes." He chortled. "There's a nipple on the pump. Loosen it off, jerk the little jerker until all the air is bled from the system, start her up and with the engine running, tighten the nipple again." He tilted the five-gallon to the extreme so that the last of the fuel could run out." There you go." He dropped the can and replaced the fuel cap. "Lift the lid and let's get at the donkey."

Thoroughly bemused by his vernacular, Nick and Mia shrugged at each other while Overton moved to the front of the vehicle and lifted the bonnet.

"You might be clever with technical stuff, Nick, but you're not much cop on cars, are you?"

"Er, no. I'm not. Too, er, complicated for me."

He moved to the front and watched as Overton, working by the light of his breast torch, loosened the bleed nipple on the fuel pump and then proceeded to prime it. "See? We're getting air coming out with the diesel. When that stops. That's the time to start the engine." He worked away at the primer. "Can take a while sometimes though ... Ah, there are. If you wanna start the engine."

Ushering Mia back into the vehicle, Nick returned to the driver's seat and turned the key. The engine chugged and coughed and sputtered before eventually coming back to life.

"You're cool," Overton shouted. "I'll just close the nipple and..."

A bolt from the web struck him in the back and without another sound, he fell flat.

"Oh my God."

Mia and Nick leapt out of their truck and hurried to Overton, but as they arrived he stood, his features blank, arms reaching out to them.

Supporting himself on the wing, Nick launched a two-footed kick at the undead constable, who flew back and flat to the ground. Nick stripped the ion rod from its holster aimed and fire. Nothing happened.

"Why doesn't this bloody thing work?"

Overton was in the act of getting up again. Nick kicked viciously at the chin and flattened him. Mia bent, removed the pistol from Overton's holster and while the constable began to recover, she aimed at his temple.

"I'm sorry Mark, but it's time for you to move on."

She squeezed the trigger. The pistol cracked once and a bullet passed cleanly into the skull, emerging at the back in a splatter of blood and brains.

She turned on her partner. "What the hell is wrong with the ion rod?"

He shrugged. "Haven't a clue."

Recalling their time at Coldmoor Castle, she demanded, "Is it fully charged?"

Nick showed her. "Seventy percent," he said. "I don't know why it's not working, unless it's something to do with the web."

While Mia's gaze followed his pointing finger at the sky, Nick turned his attention to the open bonnet. Snatching Overton's breast torch, he peered in. Fuel still leaked from the open primer.

"I have to close this up," he said, taking up the small spanner Overton had been using. "It shouldn't take a minute. Keep an eye out for more action from above." He bent over the engine compartment and applied the spanner.

It was hard work. In the 31st century, all repair work was carried out by pute programs which would work their way through the structure of the machinery and correct any misalignments or breakages at molecular level. If that were not possible, if replacement parts were needed, then servo bots would carry out the work. Tightening nuts with something as simple as a small wrench was a skill that had passed into history. He found the spanner buried by his large hands and the space in which he was working too restrictive. In no time his fingers were covered in a slippery film of diesel fuel, which doused the wrench and made the task more difficult.

For her part, Mia kept an eye on the open country around them, and wondered why Flix did not send down deadly beams at them. Something to do with her psychic powers, she guessed. For all that Flix could follow her mind, the experience at the Fisher's Arms had taught her that she could access his, too, and it was only sheer luck (and Nick's intervention) that had kept her alive but also hidden the server location from her. That incident aside, neither she nor Nick had had any direct contact with the web or any of its strands, and she surmised that were she to do so and successfully repel the beams, it might give her an insight into the location of the server Flix was so desperate to keep from them.

She looked along the dual carriageway. Half a mile ahead was the junction with the M6, its tangerine lights beckoning to them, a safe haven, dispelling the encroaching darkness. All around them, the bushes and grassy banks lining the dual carriageway took on strange and alarming shapes, as if harbouring a Sergeant Yaxley or a WPC Balby ready to leap out and strike them down.

She thrust the phantasms of her mind to the background and clutched the pistol closer to her breast. A tanker lorry trundled by on the opposite carriageway, heading towards Saffley. Mia wondered if the driver would be prepared to stop and ring someone on their behalf, but he was already past them. She glanced back, seeking headlights of any vehicle coming towards her, travelling towards Harden, but there was nothing. Why? The question rang through her head and almost immediately, their unseen adversaries supplied the answer.

As the tanker reached the roundabout, there was a huge flash of light from the sky. The lorry careered across the road. Mia had a vision of the driver electrocuted, dead behind the wheel, his truck out of control. It lurched to the right, the tank rolled and the entire rig toppled onto its side with a terrible rending of metal. It was followed by a massive explosion as both the fuel tanks and the chemical in the trailer exploded. The blast lit the night sky with an expanding ball of flame and a cloud of black smoke mushrooming into the evening. Even at this distance, Mia could feel the heat, and the noise sang in her ears again.

Nick looked up briefly, then returned to his work on the Land Rover engine.

She looked along the road again. There was nothing she could do for the tanker driver than she could for Overton.

Far ahead, beyond the motorway, intermingled with the lights of Harden, she could make out blue, flashing lights, at least two sets of them. The police? Someone must have reported the odd goings on. She hoped so. The sight heartened her.

Another lorry came off the motorway and turned towards her. As it began to accelerate, so the night sky lit once more. Another bolt of lightning detached itself from the main spurs and struck the cab. It glowed briefly, a shimmering blue apparition against the black backdrop of night, then it, too, exploded.

Flix was hemming them in; blocking all roads to prevent their escape. But why had he made no effort to eliminate them, yet?

There was just one road left. The carriageway on which she ran was clear all the way to the motorway, and to block it any vehicle coming off the M6 would have to travel west along this eastbound track.

Mia felt heartened. Flix had miscalculated.

Even as she thought of it, another lorry travelled around the motorway island, and as it passed the exit lane along which she was headed, three bolts shot from the sky. The lorry's tyres burst, it tilted and a fourth bolt struck it, igniting the fuel tank, tipping it onto its side.

Their only route back to Harden was blocked by two overturned lorries, both ablaze, setting up a wall of fire to bar the way. Either side of the dual carriageway were steep embankments leading to agricultural land. Could Nick get them through the fire? There was a gap in the middle, but it was not wide, and the heat would be overpowering.

She glanced across the road at the Westbound carriageway. The embankment there was just as steep as it was here, and when she reached the far point, she would be confronted with the motorway. Any stray vehicle moving along the slip road would take her out without help from the overhead web.

She looked up to her immediate left. Same prospect.

At the island, the blue lights had arrived. Two motorcycles. They promptly turned away from the fire and rushed off back into Harden. It would take time for them to get to another route and that would only bring them to Saffley, not to their aid.

Two hundred yards ahead of her, larger blue flashes sparked into the night sky and figures appeared on the embankment above and to their left, silhouetted against the night by the glow from the fires ahead.

They strode down the embankment and turned towards her. Their movements were slow and measured. There was none of the staccato jerkiness she had witnessed in the early undead. Flix was used to controlling the bodies now.

She looked to the Saffley roundabout where the body of the dead tanker driver now staggered from the flames and walked towards them.

"Er, Nick. I think we're in trouble."

Still struggling to tighten the priming nipple, Nick risked a glance over his shoulder. "Oh for God's sake ... Hold 'em off, Mia. I'm nearly there."

Over the embankment to her right came two more. Mia prepared to bring the pistol into play.

"Nick, we have to move, like right now, or we're toast."

The approaching creatures did not vary their pace. They strode confidently towards her. Mia aimed the pistol at the nearest and loosed off a shot. The zombie turned circles and fell. She aimed at another and as she did so, the undead raised a finger. The blue bolt came straight for her. Mia aimed her finger and a ball of white light shot out to meet the incoming blue. The two met in a shower of dissipating energy.

"Nick, I can't hold them forever. Get a move on."

"Two seconds."

Another bolt came in and struck the body of the Land Rover. Mia whirled, aimed, fired and took out another zombie. The vehicle danced with icy fires for a brief moment.

"Any of them hit this diesel and we both fry," Nick muttered.

He pulled on the wrench for the last time and came out from the engine compartment. Slamming the hood shut, he ordered, "get in the truck."

"Nick, we have nowhere to go." She paused her shooting, and pointed to the blazing tankers blocking the road ahead, then whirled, aimed and shot the tanker driver in the head.

"Just get in the truck." He hurried to the driver's seat.

Mia followed his order and ducked as another lethal energy beam passed by her.

"Nick—"

"Trust me." he gunned the gas.

Ahead were four creatures making their slow way towards them. All four swung their power to bear on him. Nick accelerated and battered through them, hurling two to the left, one to the right, while the remains of the fourth rolled onto the bonnet, hit the windscreen and rolled off. The Land Rover bounced unevenly over him.

Up ahead four more creatures appeared, warped in to join the battle. Nick accelerated again as fingers pointed at them.

"Head down." Nick ducked. Blue bolts took out the right side of the vehicle's split windscreen. Mia leaned into Nick, took aim and pumped bullets at the central zombie.

"Now you're getting the hang of it." Nick chuckled and accelerated to mow down the creature.

Ahead was the firewall created by the two burning trucks.

"Deep breath," Nick ordered.

Mia sucked in fresh air and held her breath.

They tore through the wall of heat. Her skin prickled under its intensity. The truck bounded off the central, grass verge onto the tarmac of the motorway island. Nick threw the wheel hard left and slammed broadside into the safety barrier. Thirty felt below was the motorway. The truck bounced off the barrier, back into the road. He kicked the gas again, dipped the clutch, knocked off the red button and tore off into the town.

Mia sat up. "Nick, I don't understand. How did you get through when the police couldn't?"

He patted the red button on the gear lever. "Four wheel drive. The police couldn't take the grass on their bikes. Thank you for the driving lesson, Coleman."

*

"And that's it," Nick said when he and Mia reported to Turner's office. "I'm sorry about Overton, but we had no choice."

Turner stroked his chin. "Because of everything that's happened, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, Holt, but I'm warning you, when – IF – this is ever all over, I will want a full account of you, your partner, where you're from and I'll want names of your bosses who can confirm your story. Understood?"

Nick nodded eagerly and promised, "I'll tell you as much as I'm allowed. For now, have those maps arrived?"

The Superintendent nodded. "About an hour ago. Ben Stevens is working on them in the briefing room. He says you told him what to do."

"I'll cut along there and give him a hand," Nick addressed his partner. "You'd better keep away. I don't want Flix second guessing us from your mind."

She nodded and as Nick left, she sat with the superintendent. Handing over the photograph she had taken from Helen, she said, "You're a local man, Superintendent. Is there any chance you, or any of your officers, could recognise this place?"

Turner studied the picture. "Is it important?"

"I think it's where Helen Jennings and Felix Quarmby lived before they came back to Harden, and it could be vital."

Turner stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Rings a bell," he murmured, "but not a loud one. It's over twenty years since I had a beat in this area. Griggs?" He passed the photograph across the desk to the sergeant.

Griggs studied it and shook his head. "It's moorland, sir, and when I was on the beat, most of my time was here and west of here. Lakeland. Tell you what, I'll scan it and circulate it amongst the lads?"

"Do that," Turner agreed.

While Griggs left, the superintendent turned his attention back to Mia. "Why don't you two just come clean on who you are and why you're here?"

"We have done. You just don't believe us." Mia crossed one leg over the other, giving Turner a distracting glimpse of thigh. "You're a senior police officer, superintendent, and you must have restrictions placed on you dictating the things you can and cannot say. The Official Secrets Act."

"That's true, but I can always refer enquiries back to my boss. You could do the same."

Mia shook her head. "Not when that boss is likely to deny all knowledge of us. And anyway, if you were to believe the story I gave you at Fellside, how do you imagine I could put you in touch with my Chief? She won't be born for another 900 years."

Turner sneered. "Bloody time travel. You know where you can stick that." He paused and then said, "Do you know that Colonel Blimp thinks you're both aliens?"

"No I didn't, but I can see where he would arrive at such a conclusion. He assumes that the whole fiasco is the start of an alien invasion, doesn't he?" Mia waited for Turner to respond with a vague nod of the head. "To follow such a chain of logic to its conclusion, he would further assume that Nick and I are alien, er, cops, for want of a better word, seeking to nullify the threat."

Turner congratulated her. "Spot on."

"Ask yourself a question, Superintendent. Why would any alien race be concerned that this scummy little planet is about to be overrun?"

*

In the briefing room, Nick looked over the work Ben had done. Already the web had begun to take shape as Ben connected the masts with pencil lines across the vast area of maps.

Nick pointed to a blank area in the centre of the top chart. "It looks like there."

"That's what you're looking for?"

Nick nodded. "An area the web doesn't cover. And I think that's it." He turned to address Vincent. "Major, I think I know where we have to go."

Vincent checked his watch. "At the moment, Mr Holt, it's irrelevant. It's time we were making for the roof. The fireworks are about to begin."

"I'm telling you, Vincent, it won't work."

"The decision is out of my hands, Holt." The Major marched stiffly out of the room.

"Come on, Ben, let's go see him fail."

They followed Vincent to the police station's flat roof where they were joined by Mia, Turner and Griggs. From here they had a panoramic view across the town to the jagged peaks of the Lake District to the west, and the brooding moors of Great Fell to the east, all lost in the darkness, but all faintly highlighted by the strands of the web.

A streak of fire appeared in the far north. It was no more than a speck of orange in the night sky with a following contrail lit by the striations of the web, but it was homing precisely at Great Fell transmitter.

Mia noticed that Vincent looked on with satisfaction smeared across his smug face. His complacency turned to horror as the missile's smoke trail veered off and cut a new trajectory heading straight for them.

It was only seconds away. There was no time to run. Instead they stood, transfixed by the hypnotic fascination of imminent death.

Mia held onto Nick.

He reassured her. "It won't hit us. Flix wants us for himself and he can't guarantee leaving our bodies intact when that thing goes up."

As if proving him right, the missile passed over them, less than 10 metres above their heads, its roar filling their ears, the heat of its engine exhaust taking away their breath. A kilometre or less past the police station, it struck a building with a thunderous roar.

A huge ball of fire erupted into the darkness, a mushroom cloud of smoke rose, debris scattered upwards and then down, lethal chunks of masonry and metal falling on the crowds of onlookers in the town.

"Flix changed the missile profile." Mia was almost in tears, "He switched the target while it was in flight."

"What has it hit?" Nick wanted to know.

"The telephone exchange," Mia said with absolute certainty. "The telephone exchange with all its phone and internet connections."

# Chapter 13

"Fifty-one dead in and around the telephone exchange." Turner smacked a furious palm on the sheaf of reports. "Another fourteen killed in the streets after the building was blown apart. Hundreds injured by shrapnel and debris. A number of the dead got up, killed a few more, before the whole lot were zapped off the face of the earth. All communications are out, and the damage to neighbouring buildings, cars, houses, will cost millions."

Vincent coughed to hide his embarrassment. "Naturally, the MOD will make recompense for all, er, damages."

Turner was in no mood for platitudes. He raged at the senior man. "It won't bring the dead back, and it won't help me keep in touch with my men in a bloody town where the only remaining communication is through mobile telephones... and they're becoming more and more unreliable as that web grows. How long before we're using carrier pigeon?"

Vincent bristled. "May I remind you, Superintendent, who is in charge of this situation?"

Turner stood his ground. "And may I remind you, Major, that the routine maintenance of law and order is my responsibility, not yours. As things stand, the only people who have been proven right all along are those two." He pointed a finger at Mia and Nick. "They said you wouldn't do it, and you didn't. They said the guy commanding these creatures is unbeatable with our resources, and they were right. Yet you and the brasshats in Whitehall ignored them."

Vincent's ruddy features coloured further. "You cannot seriously expect that I should have listened to a pair of..."

"Say it, Major," Mia invited. "Cranks? Crackpots? Fantasists? But you can say it until the cows come home and it won't make any difference. We were right. I have psychic contact with these creatures and we're the only ones who can beat them."

"Young lady, we are dealing with alien technology—"

"No." She cut Vincent off. "These are not aliens. At least, not what we usually think of as aliens. They are us. They are the dead. Edward Flixton died over three hundred years ago. He is in possession of Dennis Cockroft's body and he's controlling the dead to form his own army. And they are the perfect foot soldiers. They don't need food. The nervous system that registers pain is cut off. They need only the energy from these masts to keep the brains working. Everything else is subsidiary. You've tried to shut down the power, you couldn't, so you have to shut down the link."

Like the senior policeman, Vincent had heard enough. "A link that we do not know exists and even if it does we don't know where it is."

"Yes we do."

All eyes turned on Nick.

He got to his feet and ordered, "The briefing room. Mia, you stay here. I don't want you to know about this."

Nick led the way out of Turner's office and along the corridor to the briefing room where Ben was drawing in the final lines of the web.

They crowded round the trestle table to look at the charts.

Nick and Ben had drawn lines from Great Fell to every other mast, then cross-linked all the transmitters and boosters to each other. As Mia had suggested, they formed a giant web, but the crossed lines made it more complex than a simple spider's web. Yet right at its heart was a gap, an area roughly five kilometres in diameter where the lines did not cross.

Nick gloated in triumph. "A black hole. A space where the web doesn't interfere with normal power supplies and communications."

The major frowned. "I don't understand."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" Nick said, ever eager to get under the major's skin. "I told you earlier; Flix is running the entire thing from a remote server. It had to be somewhere nearby to prevent interference from the web because, as Superintendent Turner has just pointed out, the web _is_ interfering with normal communications. After your Tomahawk diverted, the telephone and broadband lines are down anyway. To run his server he needs a guaranteed, interference-free power source, and to guarantee that, the power source cannot be under the web. It's there." He tapped the map over the 'black hole'.

"If there are no power systems," Turner asked, "how can he still communicate with the computers at Great Fell to generate the web?"

Nick had a ready answer. "He can draw power from the web itself. It doesn't interfere with the server but it's still accessible to him." He urged them with his eyes. "Get this into your heads. This is way ahead of your crude, 21st century technology. Mia and I need to be there." Again he pointed at the map, and then studied it. "A place called Calvinbrook."

Turned shook his head grimly. "You're in the middle of nowhere there, lad. I now the place, and no one's lived in that farm for twenty years to my knowledge. On the other hand ..." he stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Let me have a look at that photograph again." He held out his hand and Griggs passed it to him. After staring at it for a long moment, he tapped the picture. "I know this place, too. It's Dark Fell Cottage."

Nick raised his eyebrows. "How do I get there?"

"You follow the road to Calvinbrook and as you reach the old farm, you'll find a track up to Dark Fell, and right at the top, where the fell levels out, the cottage is right in front of you. Dark Fell Cottage. It was inhabited until about two years ago."

"Just about the time Quarmby and Jennings moved back to Harden." Nick fumed.

"If that's what she told you, yes," Turner agreed. "Bastard of a place to get to for postmen and milk deliveries, especially in winter, but to my knowledge the cottage still stands in the middle of nowhere." Turner looked over the photograph again. "I'd have recognised it before, but it's this weird looking extension that fooled me."

He showed it to Nick. On the right hand side of the cottage front, a large extension had been added, but it appeared to be both windowless and doorless.

The superintendent went on. "This bloke Quarmby must have built that in the last few years. Looks like he forgot to add a door, too."

"And I'll bet that's where Flix's server is located." Nick picked up his bag. "I'll grab Mia and we'll get moving."

"Just a minute." Vincent stopped him. "Even if you're right, and I don't say that you are, I can't let you go up there. This is a military matter. Reinforcements are on their way over the Pennines now."

"More bodies for Flix." Nick blatantly dismissed the idea. "You can't handle this, Major. Leave it to Mia and me."

"I can't do that. I'll get a dispatch rider out to meet the detachment on its way. He can redirect them to Calvinbrook." In the face of Nick's frustration, Vincent became almost apologetic. "This time, Holt, it's you who's not thinking. Do you imagine that the enemy will leave the place unguarded? There will be more of these, er, aliens up there. I'm certain of it."

"You're right, of course." Nick capitulated in the face of military logic. "All right, Vincent. It's turned eleven and Flix's power is growing exponentially. God knows what time your people will arrive. Why not let Mia and me go up there and recce the place for you. Flix has something special lined up for us, so I know we'll get there all right, and I'm confident that we can back off when we have to."

Vincent was not happy, but Nick insisted.

"Major, I'm going with or without your permission."

Vincent nodded. "I insist that you keep in touch."

"I'll meet you at the bottom of the hill."

*

Busy warping most of his new recruits from their various locations, Flix had taken his eye off Nellis and Holt. It was only when they broke through the cordon of zombies surrounding Harden that he began to wonder where they were going.

At first he believed they were making for Great Fell, but when they turned off the main trunk road and began making their way Northeast, he had cause to wonder and homed in on them to track their progress.

Keeping tabs on them was as easy now as it had been in the 17th century. Back then, Maria Neville had never learned to hide her psychic mind. Now she could not even if she wanted to. Flix would be able to pick her out in the furthest reaches of the Solar System or even the Galaxy. No mind that made use of ethereal power could be hidden from him.

He had always considered her the more dangerous of the pair and it was probably still true. Only the power of her mind could truly destroy him (if she did but know it). But that was not to minimise the danger Holt presented. His was an astute mind and one that was hidden from Flix by virtue of its lack of psychic power. He was courageous to the point of foolhardiness, tactically gifted and devious, physically strong and capable, and completely ruthless.

Flix bore some responsibility for Holt's mule-headedness. When he arrived at Flixton Hall in the spring of 1619, as a 10-year-old orphan, he was put to work in the stables, and during his formative, wilful years, he suffered many a whipping from the smiths and grooms and a good number from Flix himself. It bred an innate hardiness in the boy, bringing forth a teenager and later an adult who could withstand the most fearsome punishment.

When Holt (then known as Nicholas Holdsworth) was about 20, Flix had been of a mind to introduce him to the darker arts, but as he watched the Land Rover make its way along the north-easterly route out of Harden, he also recalled that Holdsworth had had eyes for nothing other than the sweet Maria. It would have been far too dangerous to let a besotted youth into the grim secrets while he played his games with her.

He reflected that the intervening centuries had done nothing to reduce that strength, tenacity and courage. Holt was simply dangerous.

Following their course, Flix decided that they must be trying to make their way to Great Fell from the east. It was a move that suited him. The only route to the mast was across a vast swathe of moorland with no serviceable roads, and by the time they arrived, he would be well-prepared to meet them.

It was partly Holdsworth's infatuation with Maria that had decided Flix on their dual fate. The girl was always going to the gibbet. She was far too dangerous to let her live even if she confessed and recanted her covenant with the Devil. Holdsworth could have been spared, but Flix, whose ability back then permitted him access, on the surface at least, to most minds, became aware that it was more than simple infatuation; the boy would have died to save his lover.

And die he did; but not before he had suffered the tortures of the damned. Even then, Flix recalled, he had not confessed but carried on accusing his master. Flix managed to persuade the judge at York assizes, that it demonstrated the grip the Devil had on Holdsworth, and that, as much as anything sealed the lad's fate. Uttering idle threats when he stood on the milking stool, he went to his maker with a broken jaw to supplement his other injuries.

Those threats were not quite as idle as Flix believed back then. They were a part of the driving urge within Holt; a desire for revenge on an unprecedented scale.

Flix allowed himself a moment of good humour as their truck turned south again, towards Calvinbrook. Fools. Bent on making their way across the moors to the rear of Great Fell, neither of them realised just how close they were to his secret power source.

In 1646, Maria Neville and Nicholas Holdsworth broke into the subterranean hide at Flixton Hall, believing they were about to discover his secrets, but in truth they were many days' ride away. Even today, despite their many lifetimes and the advanced use of her psychic powers, Mia Nellis did not know the whereabouts of those papers, nor the immense power that burned so close to them.

It would be a cold day in hell before Nellis and Holt could get the better of Flix...

To his horror, the truck turned off the road and began climbing the hill to Dark Fell.

A shock of alarm rang through Flix's being. How could they know?

The answer struck him right away. Holt. He had used some means, perhaps modern, perhaps ancient, probably using the photograph Nellis had stolen from Helen Jennings, to deduce the location of the server. But Nellis had hidden the knowledge from him. Was she, then, more advanced than he had imagined?

Flix invaded her mind and searched the tendrils of memory as she fought back. Relief flooded him as he stood back. She did not know. Holt had deduced it himself and kept the information from her.

No matter. They were close; too close, and the situation needed urgent attention. The body of Dennis Cockroft had served him well these last two days, but now he had to let it go, perhaps maintain it as a controlled cadaver, while he left Great Fell and attended the emergency at Dark Fell.

He shot from Cockroft's body and found himself on the Spirit Plane again. Anger burned in him, and he vented it by spitefully kicking a couple of spirits through The Light. Then he aimed himself at Dark Fell Cottage.

But not just at the cottage. His aim was more precise than that. He aimed for a small, yet specific location within the cottage, where he could lie in wait for Nellis and Holt. Their demise, he had long ago decided, would be his pleasure and his alone. None of his infantry would experience the bliss of taking away their lives and trapping them in their bodies.

*

It was a journey of less than 40 kilometres. But it took over an hour along secondary highways which then narrowed to unclassified roads not much wider than tracks, through a steep-sided valley, leading them to Calvinbrook Farm.

"I was supposed to put more fuel in this thing," Nick said as they trundled along the road. "I hope the five gallons Overton put in is enough to get us back to the Timehopper."

"Never mind that now," Mia said, "we have other problems... or I think we do."

"Such as?"

"Where do the bodies go, Nick? I've been thinking about it ever since we left Harden. Remember, you saw Yaxley disappear like that." She snapped her fingers. "He turned up again at the police station. Just appeared from nowhere, Corporal Plevin said. Then there are all the other bodies disappearing and turning up, including those when we were trapped coming out of Saffley. How the hell is Flix achieving that?"

Nick's forehead furrowed. "It's almost as if he has a transdimensional hopper at his disposal," he murmured. "But he doesn't. If he did, we'd have seen it."

"Precisely my point. Flix is warping them from A to B and back again at will. How? And when they're not around, where the hell are they?"

As they approached the ruins of Calvinbrook Farm, the answer dawned on Nick's tired mind. "Stasis cell."

His declaration startled her. "What?"

"Remember, when we first got here, you asked whether Flix could have learned anything of the outside world while he was in stasis? I said I didn't know, but thinking on it, he could have learned everything he needed to know about the construction of the stasis cell, and with stasis energy at his disposal," he gestured up at the web several kilometres distant, "it would be child's play to build one."

"One large enough to hold all those he's killed and controlled?" Mia's tone suggested she did not believe it.

Nick tutted. "Stick to reading minds, Mia. You're good at that. The dimensions of the stasis cell are set only by the amount of energy you invest. Flix has limitless power to play with. He could build a stasis universe if he wanted."

"I'm surprised he—"

"Don't even go there." Nick cut her off. "If he can read your thoughts, you don't wanna give him the idea." He fell silent and concentrated on his driving.

"The biggest worry is that Flix can apparently bring the zombies back anywhere he chooses."

Nick disagreed. "No he can'tHe can only bring them back somewhere under the web. We're not under the web here."

As Turner had promised Calvinbrook Farm was nothing but a few stone walls standing by a shallow stream, with the steep track up to Dark Fell opposite. Nick hooked the Land Rover hard left into the turn and dropped into bottom gear. The vehicle bounced and jigged its way up a gradient that varied between 7 and 16 percent according to Nick's estimate.

Unlike the track at Great Fell, which rose up the hill laterally in alternating directions, this path was almost straight, diverting only once slightly to the right, and then back again around a granite outcrop, before it continued straight up the hill.

They could see the striations of web across the sky in all directions, but none above them. As they crested the hill the pyrotechnic display seemed to glow brighter.

The track ended a hundred metres ahead, and beyond it they could see the cottage, lit by the blaze of Nick's headlamps.

Nick eased off and approached slowly, finally coming to a halt by a small gate in the low picket fence that bordered the front of the property.

It was a two-storey building, with a bit of scrub garden out front, surrounded by dry stone walls, under which sat a wooden bench. Attached to the house was a strange looking extension, sitting at right angles to the main building, constructed of corrugated steel panels. It looked like a garage, but it had a steeply pitched, tiled roof, and it had no doors or windows.

"Turner was right. It looks like a recent addition," Nick said.

"And that's what was so strange about the place," Mia murmured. "When I saw the photograph at Helen Jennings' place, I knew there was something odd, but I couldn't put my finger on it."

"Any impressions from the place?"

She shook her head. "Not from here."

"Well, if I'm not mistaken, we're expected." He pointed to the house where the door stood open.

"The door at Great Fell mast was open, too," Mia reminded him. "What do we do now, maestro?"

Nick shrugged. "It seems a shame to come all this way and then turn back. Besides, it could be hours before the army gets here." Clipping the ion rod into his hip holster, he climbed out of the vehicle and moved to the rear where he dug into the plumber's toolbox and came out with a hammer. "If the ion rod still doesn't work, I'll crack a skull or two with this." He grinned at Mia. "Just defending us, my love. Can you pick up Flix now that we're out of the truck?"

Mia tuned her mind for a moment and then shook her head. "No. I'm getting nothing and that in itself is unusual?"

Nick led the way to the cottage. "How so?"

"An old place like this ..." Mia trailed off briefly under Nick's cynical stare. "All right, I know the extension is newish, but the building itself is years, maybe centuries old. And yet there are no ghosts here? There's not a single spirit anywhere in the vicinity. That is strange."

Nick chuckled. "Flix probably chased them off."

They entered the cottage carefully, cautiously, and were not entirely surprised to find it lit by sparse, low-wattage bulbs.

"We're definitely expected," Nick whispered, and immediately chastised himself for keeping his voice down. There was no one in the place to overhear.

It was true. There was no sign of life, only rooms fill with old, decaying furnishings, covered in the dust of long disuse. Framed pictures decked the walls, one showing a group of people which included Helen Jennings and Felix Quarmby, another a black and white landscape with the house front and centre. Above the fireplace hung an ornate, unframed mirror. The sofa and armchairs were of brown leather, faded and cracked with age and beneath the windows was an old-fashioned, dining table, its solid, unpolished wood cracked with age.

From somewhere to the right came the hum of machinery. Mia made her way towards it.

"I WILL TAKE FROM YOU."

She fell to her knees, clutching her temples and closed her eyes against the psychic bombardment.

Nick knelt beside her. "You okay? What was it?"

She gasped. "Flix blazed through."

"What did he say?"

"He's going to take you from me. At least, I assume he means you." She shuddered again.

With Nick's help she got to her feet and they made their way through an alcove, turning sharp right where they stopped, confronted by a reinforced steel door. As Mia searched for a switch, it slid open, revealing a steep but short flight of stone steps into an underground chamber.

She turned but behind her Nick studied the door. "You go on," he said. "I just want to see if I can work out the mechanism."

Thinking rebellious thoughts about techno-freaks, trembling, her breath coming in short, shaky gasps, she made her way down the steps. The basement appeared bare, but she could see only the one corner. The rest remained hidden where the basement turned to the left. The rough walls were of breeze block and the low ceiling looked like solid concrete. Mia paused on the bottom step and spent a moment orienting herself. If she was right, the basement ran under the curious extension they had seen on the outside.

She put out psychic feelers, seeking Flix, but received nothing in return. She stepped down to the floor, turned left and found herself confronted with an array of electronic equipment, dials, switches, a large control panel, all shimmering with the same ghostly blue light she had seen in the Great Fell control room.

Looking around rather than where he was going, Nick bumped into her and she jumped.

He was obviously impressed. "Cool set up. And all live, like the control room at Great Fell. All except for that." He gestured towards the equipment and PC in the centre of the array.

Its screen was set to dark blue, with the flowing, undulating form of a human shape in the centre, much as they had seen on Cockroft's laptop at the Fisher's. There were no features to distinguish the image, merely the shape of a human head and shoulders.

"That's the same as was on Helen Jennings' TV."

"And Cockroft's laptop at the Fisher's," Nick reminded her.

"Nick. What were you doing up there? Just now? At the top of the stairs?"

He tapped the side of his nose. "I told you, I was checking the door mechanism. There doesn't appear to be any internal switch, so if it shuts, we're knee deep in trouble."

Mia studied the machinery again, but like the console on the Timehopper, it presented a techno-nightmare to her. "No one's lived here for a couple of years, so who's paying the electricity bill?"

Nick laughed. "How do you know the electricity is still switched on?"

She pointed out the obvious. "The PC is working, and so are the lights. Someone must be paying for it."

"Dear deluded child." Nick read from gauges and dials. "This is Flix's work. That's what he was doing for those five years. Getting Felix Quarmby to set up this system. He probably implanted the ideas while Quarmby slept. He was also, probably responsible for the cancer that killed Quarmby. The best way to keep a witness silent is to shut him up for eternity. We know that to our costs, don't we?"

"Don't remind me."

Mia shuddered while Nick waved his arm at the machinery. "Know what I think?"

"No. I can only manipulate minds, not read them."

He waved a vague hand at the machinery once more. "I think this is the transdimensional server we've been looking for. This supplies the link between our world and Flix's. And I think it's all driven from this." He pointed to the computer. "I also think that if we shut down the PC, we'll solve all the problems."

Mia stared. "No. It can't be that simple."

"KISS." He grinned. "It's an anagram. It stands for keep it simple, stupid."

"You mean an acronym."

Now he laughed. "Here we are about to save the world and the future, and you're correcting my English." He put out his index finger, aiming for the computer's power switch.

A couple of inches from it, a bolt of blue energy shot out from the PC's tower. The shock hurled Nick across the room. He slammed into the wall and slid down to the floor.

Mia hurried across and bent over him. "Nick. Talk to me, Nick. Are you all right?"

He shook his head to clear it. "Just a kick. Not the first time I've had shocks. Bigger one than I got off Cockroft's laptop, mind." He took her hand and hauled himself up. Studying the computer set up again, he said, "Obviously not KISS. Mia, we have to shut this machine down."

"And you think Flix will allow that?"

He looked around. The walls were barren. "No axe here, chickadee. Let's see if this works." He drew the ion rod from his pocket. As he did so Mia's eyes fixed on the corner to the left of the computer where a cloud of dust had begun to swirl and form.

"No. Forget it. Nick, get out. Quick."

The cloud began to take on human form, whipping dust from all corners of the room.

"What the ..."

"Get out," Mia shouted, "before that thing throttles us like it tried to do at the Fisher's."

They turned and ran for the steps. From up above came the telltale whine of machinery and the soft sough of the steel door closing.

Mia felt consumed by panic. "No." She began to weep. Behind them, the shape began to move in their direction.

She froze. Nick gripped her hand and dragged her along.

"Nick, we're trapped."

"Are we?" He yanked her along up the steps.

The door had slid along, but stopped twelve inches from its closed position. At floor level, Nick's hammer was laid flat, jammed between the wall and the door.

He pushed her through the narrow gap and followed. "The Land Rover," he shouted as they hurried through the parlour.

Mia made the front door and stopped dead. Lining the picket fence were at least fifty of the undead.

# Chapter 14

"Where did they come from?" Nick asked.

"How do we get past them?" Mia asked more to the point.

Nick scanned the line. They stood three or four deep beyond the wall, but on this side of the wall, almost hidden in the night stood a bench. "How good are you at steeplechasing?" he asked.

"Crap," she admitted.

"It's the only way. Follow me."

He ran for the wall, leapt onto the bench, then onto the wall and launched himself over the line of creatures. Hands reached up, groping for him, but Nick's strength and athleticism kept him clear.

She could not make him out as he landed the other side, rolled, and leapt into his Land Rover. It was only when she heard his voice that she felt relief. His headlights flooded the scene, casting the undead in an eerie backlight. "Come on Mia," he shouted. As if to reinforce his encouragement, the engine of his truck roared into life.

She ran.

The crowd, which had turned its collective attention to Nick, now stirred and faced her again. They began to shuffle closer to her anticipated intersection with the wall, as if they were all of one mind, eager to get their festering hands on her.

She leapt onto the bench and without checking her speed, dropped her other foot on the wall. Her knee bent at right angles and she launched herself into the air.

She felt as if she were flying in slow motion. Fetid hands reached for her, clawing at her heels as she skimmed above. She felt like the ball in a rugby line out, with all those hands reaching up to take possession.

Beyond the creatures, barely visible in the lights of Nick's truck, the ground rushed up to meet her. It was almost impossible to judge in the darkness. Her right foot made unexpected contact, her knee bent to absorb the impact, a lance of pain shot through her ankle and it buckled, throwing her to the ground. She rolled into the fall, coming back to her feet, hobbled the two paces to the open door of the truck and leapt in.

"Go," she cried.

She was half in, half out of the truck, her legs flailing. Nick jammed the vehicle into reverse and backed off at high speed, throwing the wheel hard left. Clinging to the far edge of her seat, the edge nearest Nick, Mia almost lost her grip. A pair of hands grabbed her ankle.

"Hold on," Nick said, and rammed the truck into first. Swinging the wheel full right, he floored the accelerator.

With her legs hanging out, one of the creatures holding onto her, Nick gripping her with one hand, Mia thought her foot would be torn off by the impetus of the sharp turn. The creature was dragged along and ploughed into the crowd. The door tried to close and trapped her leg. She screamed in pain.

She bit back the tears. "Don't stop."

Nick carried on, and suddenly her foot was free as the creature lost its grip.

Agonised and aching Mia hauled herself into the passenger seat and as the door swung to her, she dragged it shut.

"You okay?"

"Nothing that two new legs won't put right." She began to weep and rubbed a hand over her injured ankle.

Nick glanced in his rear view mirror. "Jeez, will you look at that."

"What?" Mia turned in her seat and gawped. There was still no apparent door in the building extension, but it was open, and as they watched, creature after creature emerged from it, and behind them an electric blue glow filling the building. "Oh my God. There must be some kind of transdimensional generator in there."

Realisation seeped through Nick. "It's a stasis warp gate, the same as we use when we commit prisoners to stasis, the same as we use in the transdimensional hoppers. The one in the Timehopper is the same, but more powerful."

"All right," Mia said, "Now we know how Flix has been shifting his army around. Nick, why didn't those things point the finger at us?"

Nick shrugged and accelerated down the hill. "I can only assume it's Flix's doing. He doesn't want us dead. Not yet, anyway. He wants us back in that cellar where he can do the job personally... or through his supercomputer." He grinned. "But we scuppered his plans. We got away."

Mia looked to the front again. Alarm spread across her face. "No. Not quite. Look. Up there."

They were approaching the granite outcrop half way down the hill. On top of it, barely visible in the night, was one of the creatures. Compelled to reduce his speed to negotiate the double bend, Nick's feet danced between brake and gas. Timing its leap, the creature jumped and landed across the bonnet.

Bony hands found a grip on the upper wheel arch and the creature pulled itself up. Nick braked hard, throwing the thing forward and off the truck. As it stood up, so Nick accelerated again, ploughing into and through it, the wheels bumping over the prone form and on down the hill.

He glanced in his mirror. "This time we definitely left it behind."

Mia massaged her injured ankle again. Nick passed her the ion rod and she aimed the white trigger at it. "Nick, where do we go now? We were sent to force Flix through The Light, and now we're in the middle of the biggest zombie attack ever. And how many bodies can Flix gather?"

"Search me, but I think it will be limited only by his power to control them." Nick dropped a gear to hold the truck back on the steep descent. "People die all the time. Illness, old age, accidents, even murder in this time. You and I know it better than anyone, don't we? Flix has a fair proportion of the north of England covered already and he could be hitting hospitals, morgues from any or all of the strands. And it won't stop here in Great Britain. He'll move onto Europe next, then Asia and Africa. He'll probably cover the world in less than three months."

"And that's what the web is all about. It was never about changing history to eliminate us."

"History will change of its own accord as the web covers the world." Nick reached the bottom of the hill and the ruined farmhouse, braked and killed the engine. "We have to shut that thing down."

Mia nodded. "But will we get anywhere near it?"

"Not on our own. We'll just have to wait for General Incompetence and his reinforcements."

*

The trundling of engines and a stream of headlights signalled a slow moving convoy of army lorries makings its way towards them.

"Ah." Nick grinned. "I hope they have a cup of tea on board."

Vincent, in the lead Jeep, greeted them with a stiff nod as his vehicle pulled alongside. The trucks behind tucked into the roadside and hundreds of soldiers began to pour from them.

"Good evening to you both," the Major greeted as Nick and Mia climbed out of the Land Rover to join him.

Nick yawned. "You mean good morning."

Ignoring him, Vincent climbed out of the jeep and glanced up the hill. "You've been up to the cottage?"

In deference to the antipathy between Nick and Vincent, it was Mia who replied. "Yes, and it is the target. I'm afraid the news is not good."

Vincent listened to their account of what had happened in the basement, and this time he did not argue.

"We sent a reconnaissance aircraft shortly after you left Harden. An unmanned drone. It didn't get within 15 kilometres. Beams from the web brought it down." The major pointed up where, several kilometres distant, the inner rim of the web could be seen circling the blank area. "We can't rely on missiles, we can't rely on bombers, so we're going in, in force. I have over 400 men here, and enough explosives to obliterate the enemy."

They walked to a truck where the catering crew had begun to dispense tea to the troops.

Mia waved at groups of soldiers unloading weapons and equipment. "How are you gonna get all this gear up there, Major? Your lorries won't make that climb."

"We take it up on foot, Ms Nellis. We're a rapid intervention force, remember; a commando outfit. I guarantee that my men are the fittest in the British army. Now, you've seen the inside of this place. Can you give us the layout?"

"No sweat." Nick took a mug of tea from the soldier issuing drinks, and led the way back to his Land Rover, from where he retrieved a notebook and pen and spent ten minutes drawing a rough plan of the house while Mia held a torch on the paper. "There you go, Major" he handed over the sketch. "Not complicated"

Vincent studied it absorbed the information. "How do we get that steel door open?"

"Nick jammed it with a hammer." Mia drank from her mug of tea.

"They'll probably twig that and take it away." Nick grinned at her. "Not to worry. Mia and I will be there, and once Flix realises she's there, he'll open up."

Vincent harrumphed. "I'm grateful for your assistance, but I cannot accept responsibility for your safety, and you have to know that if you go in there, your chances of coming out alive are very slim."

Mia frowned. "That's a change from your earlier attitude. You couldn't get us out of Great Fell fast enough."

"We all make mistakes, Ms Nellis. I don't pretend to understand what's going on here, but I cannot argue with its reality, or your awareness of it."

"Yes, well, with or without your understanding, there's something else you should know," Nick said, taking a deep breath. "Their numbers are increasing."

Vincent frowned. "Increasing? But that's not possible."

Using his rough plan, Nick patiently explained what he had seen in his mirror during their escape. "You may not accept our version of events, Major, but essentially what we have is some kind of warp field which Flix is using to bring his reinforcements to the fight. It's impossible for Flix to construct it using 21st century technology and we're not sure how he's doing it but our best guess is it has to do with the power of the web."

With a frown, Vincent asked, "Disregarding the science fiction mumbo-jumbo, if we take it out, will it prevent more of his, er, reinforcements arriving?"

Nick nodded.

"In that case, we have everything we may need," Vincent went on. "Our main explosive will be C4, but I also have a supply of AT-4 rocket launchers."

"Like LAWs rockets?" Nick asked.

Vincent nodded. "More powerful and effective. Accurate up to about 300 metres. We also have armour piercing, high velocity ammunition. If we fire into the extension, as Mr Holt describes it, we should take care of anyone or anything coming from there." Vincent looked across to his crew. "CORPORAL ." The final word was barked out and Corporal Plevin hurried across. "You both know Corporal Plevin." Vincent concentrated on the NCO. "Corporal, Ms Nellis and Mr Holt will go in with the engineers. Make sure they are protected all the way there, and as far as is possible, get them out of there while the engineers complete their work."

"Very good, sir." The Corporal saluted and scurried back to his men.

Looking beyond Vincent, Mia watched the soldiers unloading their vehicles, jamming magazines into their rifles, stowing grenades. "Don't forget, Major, they have to hit the head; destroy the brain."

"We're aware of it, Ms Nellis. Our experience in Harden has demonstrated that accuracy is more important than firepower. Now if you will excuse me, it's time I was briefing my people."

She and Nick moved off to one side, drinking tea by the chuck wagon, while all around them, the military prepared for the assault on the hill.

"That was so much bilge."

Nick raised his eyebrows. "Huh?"

Mia swallowed a mouthful of tea and cast a sour glance at Vincent's back. "Vincent and his plan to destroy the warp gate. The military will want it intact." She gazed into Nick's eyes. "And the web server."

"You're right. For destruction, read disable." Nick, too, cast an irritated glance at Vincent's back. The major had called together his squad commanders and begun to brief them. "We can't let that happen."

"I know. It's a pity Control didn't order a cold fusion bomb into stasis."

"Even if she had, it would be back in Lark Fell woods with the Timehopper. Well out of range of my visor." Nick smiled at her. "We shall just have to wing it."

*

"The main assault team are going ahead," Corporal Plevin told them. "You two will hang back with me and my boys. We'll have half a dozen snipers with us, and three engineers. They'll set the charges in the cellar if we need them."

"Tell me exactly what happens at the house?" Nick asked.

"When the infantry have disposed of the enemy, we go in, we suss the place out." Plevin raised his eyebrows. "According to the old man, you're the only ones who can get the basement door open."

Mia nodded. "We think so."

"If not, we'll blow it. And there's some kind of electrical set up down there?" Plevin asked.

"It's more complicated than that," Nick interjected. "It's a basic PC, but it has the ability to defend itself with electrical arcs. It'll, er, fire at you if you get anywhere near it. And the entire control panel is live. Touch it and you're cooked, just like your buddies at Great Fell."

Plevin nodded to the next lorry along where half a dozen men were unloading small, metal boxes. "We just need to get through the door, sir. We have engineers who will isolate it. If they can't we're ordered to demolish the house, and we're packing enough C4 to blow a hole in the ozone layer. We guess ten pounds should be enough."

Nick whistled.

"Is that a lot?" Mia asked.

"It'll flatten the place," Nick confirmed. "Corporal, we can't just bury this thing you know."

"I've had my orders, sir. We are to make every effort to leave the equipment intact, but not necessarily working."

Some metres from them, a warrant office called out an incomprehensible order, and half a dozen men, visible only thanks to the breast lights on their tunics began to rush up the hill. The remainder split into two groups to follow.

"They're not exactly in a hurry." Mia spoke to Plevin as she, Nick and Ben fell in with him.

"You don't run into these situations, miss," Plevin said, walking alongside her, his rifle cocked and slung across his waist. "Unless you're part of the advance recce patrol."

Looking around, judging by the light of lamps at chest height, Mia guessed that half the remaining men were ahead of them, the other half lagged behind as a reserve.

Plevin went on. "It's a steep climb and the major warned us to expect a lot of hand to hand fighting. We need to conserve energy. The only people rushing are the forward observation and assault teams. They'll be there in a few minutes. They'll keep themselves out of sight and report back by radio."

Plevin gestured a few metres to their right where a radio operator walked alongside Vincent.

They heard the radio crackle. "Inside forward to centre half, inside forward to centre half. We're in position, sir, and it's like Mr Holt said. There are hundreds of them and more coming out of the building extension. It's impossible. The place isn't large enough to hold that many, but they keep appearing."

Vincent took the radio mike from his operator. "Centre half to inside forward. Maintain your post. I'll send wingback in."

Mia frowned and looked to Plevin. "Centre half? Wingback? Inside forward?"

"Football terms, Ma'am... Soccer." The corporal grinned as he translated for her puzzled frown. "Overlapping fullbacks can act as wingers, but they can also defend. Our wingbacks are carrying high velocity, rapid fire rifles. They'll take the things out as fast as they can walk out of that shed."

As he spoke, Vincent was already talking into the microphone, and they caught the response.

"Wingback to centre half, we're in position, sir."

"Fire at will..

From their position just before the outcropping, they could not see what was happening, but seconds after Vincent gave the order, there came rapid bursts of gunfire.

"They've homed in on us, sir," reported wingback. "We've taken ..."

A loud crackle of static issued from the radio followed by silence.

"Inside forward to centre half. Wingback is gone, sir."

"What happened?".

"Two of the creatures just pointed, sir, and, I dunno, it was like lightning coming out of their fingers. It torched wingback and his team."

"Damn." Nick cursed. "We're not under the web now, so where are they getting the power..." he trailed off as the answer occurred to him. "The stasis warp." He made for Vincent as the major issued orders.

"All units hold, repeat all units hold. Inside forward what are the creatures doing?"

"Nothing, sir. They're just massed by the house, outside the walls."

"Maintain observation." Vincent turned to Nick. "You heard?"

"The creatures are drawing power from the machinery in the extension," Nick declared. "You have to take it out."

"My orders, Mr Holt, are to disable the machinery but leave it intact."

Frustration began to get the better of Nick. "Vincent, you still don't know what you're taking on here. How many times have you seen the undead do this? Point a finger and fire energy bolts from it? According to your inside forward, they've just killed your men. Your people will not beat them with bullets. They'll take out so many, but more and more will keep appearing as long as that machine is operational. You have to blow it to hell and cut off their power source."

"We shall see," Vincent said indicating that the discussion was over. He took up his radio mike again. "Inside forward, maintain your position. All assault units, all assault units. Step on the gas. Get up there and engage the enemy."

The teams on the hillside began to rush up the climb, and almost to a man they unslung rifles as they moved.

Nick fumed. "You're sending these men to their deaths."

"They are serving soldiers, Mr Holt. They follow orders." Vincent concentrated on his mike again. "Inside forward. The group of creatures at the house. You have them in plain sight?"

"Yes, sir. They haven't seen us."

"Deliver a single AT-8 into the midst of the group. Delayed detonation."

Nick whistled. "You're going to hit them with a bunker buster?"

Vincent nodded. "The AT-8 will literally blow many of them apart, and hopefully disorient others sufficiently to give my assault teams easy targets."

Nick shook his head. "You still don't get it, do you?"

"Get what, Mr Holt?" The major's irritation was close to boiling over.

"These zombies don't work like me and you. They have no senses to disorient. They don't see, they don't hear, they don't feel pain. Their actions are governed by a computer in the basement of that building and they draw power from the machine in the extension. You may take a good number of them out, and your snipers may hit plenty of them as they come out of the warp gate, but they'll keep on coming long after you run out of ammo. You have to destroy the warp first and then eliminate the computer."

Vincent fumed. "Kindly leave tactics to me, and concentrate on what you and Ms Nellis have to do when you get up there. Get that basement door open."

Blazing with anger and frustration, Nick rejoined Mia, Ben and Corporal Plevin's team. Fishing into his bag, he came out with his visor. "Mia, you and I need to go ahead."

The corporal promptly objected. "You can't do that, sir. The major insisted—"

"The major can sit on his thumb and swivel for all I care," Nick interrupted. From somewhere up on the ridge came an ear-splitting explosion. Nick looked up the hill as the numerous units hurried to more forward positions. "Mia, we have to go up there, now. If we don't, hundreds of these men will die."

"Right with you." With a nod at her partner, while Plevin floundered helplessly, she set off at a light jogging pace up the hill.

The sound of gunfire filled their ears long before the cottage came into sight. Soldiers knelt, or lay on the rough ground, taking aim, firing at the heads. Zombies fell, but others stood, aiming their deadly beams at the armed men, lighting up the night with electric blue bolts. Occasional screams erupted from left or right as soldiers died; and as fast as they died, so they rose again, converted to undead.

Three units concentrated fire on the warp gate, and as quickly as they marched out, many of the zombies were felled, but just as many more came through and began to aim their lethal energy pulses.

Two or three times, Nick had to dive and roll to avoid the beams. Mia returned her own pulses, striking the occasional creature in the chest, hurling it backwards.

"You're more powerful than them," Nick shouted over the noise of gunfire.

"But not as deadly," she shouted back, and threw herself to the ground as a beam of energy bore down on her.

She looked up into the blank, repulsive half skull of a zombie as the deadly fingers pointed at her.

A red beam struck the creature's head; the bone and gristle burst apart and disappeared. Several feet away, Nick held the ion rod at arm's length and watched with satisfaction as the headless corpse fell.

"Hey, whaddya know? It's working." Nick grinned and they moved on, making for the right hand side of the cottage from where they would be able to see into the extension. "Wonder why it didn't work at Great Fell? I'll bet it was interference from the web."

A beam of energy struck the ground, catching Nick a glancing blow. He let out a yelp of pain and string of curses. Mia blew the creature back and threw herself down next to Nick.

"You okay?"

He gasped. "You can kiss it better later."

"I am not kissing your ankle better."

"Who mentioned my ankle?" Nick grabbed her, and they rolled away together as another creature bore down on them. As he rolled onto his back again, Mia above him, he brought the ion rod to bear and the creature's head disappeared.

They continued rolling until Nick's head struck something solid. He found himself looking into the vacant eyes of a dead soldier, a bullet hole in his forehead, the long bulky tube of an AT-4 still slung on his shoulder.

"They must've got him and one of his buddies took him out before he could turn on them." He removed the weapon from the dead soldier's back. "Hold 'em off, Mia."

Mia fought off two zombies and as they rose again, recovering from her psychic pulses, she snatched the ion rod from Nick. Aiming and hitting the red trigger she dispatched two more while Nick examined the AT-4.

Coming to his knees, while men died around her and Mia and the live assault teams continued to eliminate creatures coming through the warp, Nick shouldered the AT-4 and aimed. Even with the gunsight, he could not see the warp gate for the mass of bodies coming through. All he could make out was the cloud of electromagnetic energy in the background. He decided it did not matter. The missile would do the trick no matter what.

He pressed the safety, then the red trigger. Nothing happened.

"Both together, mate," a sniper shouted. It was the soldier's last action. A bolt of blue energy took him out.

Seething with rage, Mia rounded on the zombie that had delivered the blow and blasted the head from its shoulders, then took out the soldier who had just died as he rose again.

Nick aimed again and with one finger pressing the safety, he hit the firing button with his middle finger.

He had steeled his muscles for the recoil, but there was none. The plug at the tube's rear disappeared, a blaze of flame erupted behind him and the missile shot off, cleaving its way through the mass of zombies at the warp gate.

Nick flattened himself to the ground, dragging Mia down. An almighty BOOM ripped into the night air. It was followed by a cacophony of noise as the extension crumbled and fell, stirring up a huge cloud of dust from the arid ground.

# Chapter 15

Bereft of their power source, which in turn robbed them of their only weapon, the remaining creatures, including those soldiers who had become undead, were soon, and easily dispatched. By the time Vincent, Plevin and the engineers arrived, assault teams had already checked and sanitised the cottage and set up powerful arc lights around the cottage.

The major reacted with predictable fury when he saw the extension, its structure blown apart, a mound of zombie corpses, some in many pieces, spread across its front, the bits of machinery that were visible, no more than a pile of mangled, unrecognisable wreckage.

"You were ordered to keep the building and its contents intact," he shouted at the lieutenant in charge of the advance assault team.

"Wasn't your boys, Vincent." Nick spoke before the lieutenant could plead innocence. "I did it."

Vincent rounded on him. "Then you will answer for it, Mr Holt. Corporal, place Mr Holt under arrest and confine him—"

Mia cut him off. "For God's sake, Vincent, when will it sink in? Your men were fighting a losing battle until Nick intervened." She pointed up into the sky and the distant strands of the Dead Web. "But it isn't over yet. Flix is still at work in the basement, and he will carry on until we deal with the server."

The colour rose in Vincent's cheeks again. "The engineers will enter the building and gain access to the basement. Mr Holt's actions will be noted in my report, and I'm certain the MOD will want more than a word with him."

"That's fine." Nick smiled. "You can have my address when we're through."

Vincent turned and marched stiffly off to brief his small team of engineers.

"You can't give him your address, Nick," Mia whispered. "It doesn't even exist in this time."

Nick grinned. "So they can occupy their tiny minds looking for me, can't they? Come on, let's get in there."

"Do you think they'll let us?" Mia asked as they passed through the gate towards the door.

"Who's gonna open the steel door if not you?"

"Nick—"

He interrupted. "Mia, we have to get down that cellar and destroy that computer before Vincent gets his hands on it. This period in history is no more ready for the stasis energy than it is the holoweb. They're still too fractious, violent, warlike. They can't conceive of enemies more dangerous than people of a different nation, different religion, even different skin colour. Aside from anything else, if we leave that server for them to investigate, we're changing history. To my certain knowledge, the stasis cell wasn't fully developed until the 29th century. Now come on. Let's do it." He turned and marched towards the door.

"Stop right there, Mr Holt," Vincent barked. Nick paused and turned to face him. "You have no authority to enter that house."

Nick held the major's angry stare. "To stop me, you'll have to shoot me." He turned and walked to the door again.

At a nod from Vincent a rifleman raised his weapon, aimed and fired. The bullet whizzed past Nick's head and struck the cottage wall.

Nick turned vengeful eyes on the major.

"The next one will hit you in the legs," Vincent warned.

"Then you'd better get on with it." Nick made for the door again. The rifleman raised his weapon, Mia looked from him to Nick and back again. As the rifleman's finger tightened on the trigger, she threw out her hand and sent a bolt of energy at him. Hurled backwards by several feet, the rifleman's gun cracked and the bullet sailed harmlessly into the air.

Nick paused at the door and looked back again. Vincent glared daggers.

"Stop it," Mia shouted. "The pair of you. Major, there is no need for this, and Nick, stop being so bloody minded. We all want the same thing and there's no sense falling out amongst ourselves. Major, will you please get people in there. I will try to open the basement door. If I can't, then they can blast it open."

Vincent raised his eyebrows to the sanitising team leader.

"All clear, sir," the sergeant reported.

Vince nodded to his team and, accompanied by Corporal Plevin, the three engineers went ahead.

Nick dragged Mia off to one side to let them pass. "We don't want the same thing," he complained in a whisper. "He wants the computer, we want to destroy it."

"I know that, but if I hadn't intervened, he would have shot you in the leg. There's no way you will destroy it while Flix is running it. Let his engineers uncouple it, if they can, then melt the insides with the ion rod. Vincent will go away with the machine and by the time he learns it's cooked, we'll be back in the 31st century."

Nick nodded and while Vincent hung back, they followed the engineers in.

The parlour, lit by the overhead bulbs, looked no different to the way they had left it earlier, save for the body of a zombie the assault team had eliminated. Around the corner, under the alcove, the steel door remained firmly shut, and Nick's hammer lay close by. Mia stared at the door and concentrated her mind on it.

"Nothing." She released her mental hold.

"We'd better get out, miss, while the engineers blow it open," Corporal Plevin suggested.

"It's quite thick," Mia said."

"At least fifteen centimetres," Nick agreed.

Plevin delivered a confident grin. "The stuff these boys use, it'll blast through steel twice that thick, and without any collateral damage."

Mia was about to turn to Nick for confirmation when the door slid open, revealing the basement lit by wall-mounted bulbs.

She kept her voice to a whisper and told her partner, "Flix is listening, tuning in on my mind."

"You'd better jam the door," Nick told the engineers. "It may close when you go in."

There was a delay of a further thirty minutes while steel I-beams were carried into the house, cut, jammed and finally welded into place top and bottom of the door. Only then did the engineers lead the way down, Plevin following, Mia and Nick behind them.

"Piece of cake." Nick grinned avariciously as the soldiers disappeared around the corner at the bottom of the steps. "Without your warp gate, Flix, you're beaten."

"Don't say that, Nick. You'll jinx—"

Mia's words were cut off by four brilliant flashes, accompanied by loud cries. The engineers remained invisible, but Corporal Plevin's body came flying back to strike the wall at the bottom of the steps.

Almost immediately, he moved. Nick aimed the ion rod and took his head off.

Mia harrumphed. "Told you. Now what do we do?"

Wary of possible intervention from the dead engineers, Nick waved her back up the stairs and backed up, waiting for the fresh undead to appear, but they did not.

"That's blown us right out of the water," she complained when he joined her. "Flix is still building the web and we can't get down there to stop him without being cooked ourselves."

"Quiet. I'm thinking."

Mia began to pace the parlour. "And while you're busy thinking, Flix's power is extending. So we've wiped out his warp gate. Great. He still has a web that is 150 kilometres in diameter and growing, and he can pick people off with it at will. He can kill them, take control of them as he pleases." She paused and looked in the mirror above the fireplace. "Dear God, I look a mess.

Nick's eyes were riveted on the mirror.

"How much of your mind can Flix pick up?"

She shrugged. "Hanged if I know. All of it, I suppose."

"Okay. When I speak, you'll have to slide your brain into gear but I don't want you to think about what we're gonna do."

Mia snorted. "Great. You expect me to know what to do, then do it without even thinking about it."

Nick's eyes burned at the mirror. "That's right. I just need you to _reflect_ on your power."

Mia followed his gaze. "My God, you're going to ..." She suppressed her thoughts before they could fully form. "You're going down there to plant explosives? Flix will kill you."

"Maybe, maybe not." Nick picked up a single block of C4 and jammed a detonator in it.

"You're not fast enough, Nick. He'll kill you the second you appear at the bottom of the steps."

Nick lifted the ornamental mirror from the wall. "I dunno. I'm pretty fast, you know. Mia, I have no choice. Flix has to be stopped, even if it means making the sacrifice." Motioning for Mia to stay where she was, he carried the mirror to the steps and made his cautious way down.

Plevin's headless corpse lay at the foot of the stairs, tight up against the right hand wall. Nick descended step by step, keeping to the right, the ion rod in his left hand, the mirror in his right. His gaze strayed constantly to the left and the corner. With each step he could see more and more of the basement ... and Flix's defensive energy beams would be able to see more and more of him.

He paused on the last but one step. He still could not see the computer or the dead engineers, which meant they could not see him. But now he had to lean forward and place the mirror behind Plevin. Only his hand and forearm would be apparent, but those energy beams could be deadly no matter where they struck.

He leaned forward. A beam flashed at his right hand. He withdrew it quickly and the beam burned a hole in the breeze block wall. This would be trickier than he thought.

Looking back up the stairs, he called out, "Mia, look the other way. Flix may be picking up your thoughts."

She did as he asked.

He sucked in his breath and leaned forward again, faster this time, lowering the mirror into place. As he rested it on Plevin's body, a beam flew out and struck his hand. Nick cried out once, released the mirror and fell back onto the steps.

Up above, Mia whirled, saw him prone, yet out of harm's way, and hurried down the steps. She pressed a hand to his neck. No pulse.

Panic consumed her. She fought it down, forced reason to show through. Nick's heart had stopped, but his brain hadn't yet ceased working. If she could hit him with the ion rod's purple trigger, she might yet defibrillate him.

She glanced down at the ion rod. It was on the basement floor by Plevin's body.

*

The Light burned steadily in the background, a blazing white orb in the blackness of the Spirit Plane.

Nick materialised and he was instantly aware of its hypnotic call. "Nicholas Holt ... Nicholas Holt ... Nicholas Holt ..."

The lure of that sweet voice tempted him. He swung towards it, his speed increasing as he approached.

"Nicholas Holt... Nicholas Holt... Nicholas Holt..."

Realisation burned through him. He had passed over. Mia was alone in that basement; alone with his body. He looked down on her. She was staring at the ion rod, but if she moved, Flix would have her too.

He looked around the Spirit Plane. There were hundreds, thousands of spirits there, all mulling in different colours; some an angry red, others a cool blue, with all the intermediate hues that signified one mood or another. He looked towards The Light and a steady stream of souls crossing over and drawn straight into its lure. Every time he and Mia had died, they had gone straight into The Light.

But not this time. He pinpointed Flix as an orange glow of satisfaction. There was nothing to tell Nick that it was Flix; no features to distinguish it from the myriad other spirits moping on this level of existence. Nick just knew it was him, and that knowledge fuelled his anger and power.

"So you never did inhabit the bodies," Nick said. "You just controlled them."

"I abandoned them," Flix replied. "I abandoned them to deal with you. And you are mine, Nicholas Holdsworth."

"The name is Holt. And you weren't fast enough to stop my spirit leaving the body, were you?"

"I can use your body without your interfering spirit," Flix declared.

"Not when you have to fight me off here."

With a roar, Nick hurtled towards Flix, a crimson blur across the void. Other spirits darted out of his way. Flix sensed him too late. Nick bowled into the orange ball of energy and the pair rolled off across the Spirit Plane.

"Nick? Can you hear me Nick?"

Mia's voice reached him. He sent out thought waves in response. "Take the ion rod. I have Flix."

"You have nothing," Flix roared and rammed into Nick.

They clung to one another, spinning across the dark, towards The Light. Nick knew that if he went through The Light, it was the end. He could not come back. Flix clung onto him and began to twirl him round and round. Nick kept his composure and his focus on The Light. Flix would let him go and allow the momentum to carry him into The Light.

The Spirit Plane span, The Light growing larger as they neared it. The whirls and eddies of the giant vortex, sucking in the spirits were visible, and the hypnotic voice rang through him.

"Nicholas Holt... Nicholas Holt... Nicholas Holt..."

And as they whirled round, Nick permitted himself a quick glance into the basement where Mia had picked up the ion rod. Satisfaction shivered through him. He was ready.

Flix released him, he hurtled towards The Light. He calculated perfectly. Another spirit crossed in front of him making its way straight into The Light, Nick reached out his energy form, took hold of the passing spirit and clung on. The effect was like a slingshot. The spirit stopped dead, Nick looped through his altered trajectory and released at the precise moment that would carry him to the perimeter of The Light. Now the very force that had threatened to suck him into the next life, became his ally as he looped up and around the rim, increasing his velocity until, when he broke free, he was travelling too fast for Flix to avoid.

He hammered into his enemy and bowled him across the Spirit Plane out of harm's way.

But not for long. When Flix overcame the inertia of Nick's blow, he turned and sped back. Nick prepared for the collision, steeling himself, readying very ounce of energy at his disposal, placing himself directly between the incoming orange ball of energy and the white of The Light. He would have to sidestep at just the right time and then ... Flix's own momentum would carry him into The Light where he should have gone 1300 years ago.

A surge of electricity coursed through him. His colour flickered from red to white and back again.

What...?

It came again. He looked down at the basement steps. Mia had the ion rod and trained it on his heart.

Mia, no. I have him. Just a few more seconds and he'll be gone forever.

Another jolt from the ion rod burned into him. The Spirit Plane wobbled, faded, began to disappear. Nick cursed and Flix laughed.

*

On the third press of the purple button, Mia was relieved to see Nick's chest began to pull in air. He stirred. She took his hand, dragged him up one step to keep him from harm's way. His eyes flickered open. He looked up at her, his eyes a mixture of pleasure and irritation.

"I had him," he gasped.

"And I don't want a life without you."

Shaking head to clear it, Nick croaked, "Mirror," and held up both his hands clasped together while his eyes settled on her hands.

Mia understood at once. Looking into the mirror, still propped against Corporal Plevin's body, she could see the computer stood close to the control panel. Dropping the ion rod, she summoned all her power and aimed her steepled fingers at the mirror. A beam of pure white energy leapt from her, struck the mirror and reflected into the lower basement where it hit the computer. Blue fire fought back from the machine.

"Keep it up," Nick urged. "I need five seconds, maybe less."

He snatched up the ion rod and rolled down the steps, keeping left across the body of Corporal Plevin, avoiding the line of Mia's beam.

As he appeared the three dead engineers rose to meet him.

Landing on the hard, stone floor, Nick rolled once and brought the ion rod to bear. He could see just enough of the PC. He hit the red button.

The computer tried to respond, casting out a weak blue beam, but the defensive work against Mia's energy coupled to the power of the ion rod proved too much. The computer shorted out, the screen went blank and the three undead engineers fell to the dusty concrete floor.

*

Flix roared with a vehemence the Spirit Plane had never seen nor heard.

Five years; five long years of work had gone into the planning of this mission, and now it was gone; wrecked in the twinkling of an eye by those time travelling meddlers. He swirled and whirled amongst the spirits, many of which scattered before him. Those who were not quick enough were kicked into The Light to begin their next lives. He came upon a group of determined, stronger spirits. They held no fear for Flix. In their efforts to challenge him he tore into them and decimated the group, hurling one after another at The Light.

Distant memory bells rang through his energy form, telling him to calm down... calm down... calm down.

Time was unimportant to him. He had the whole eternity to play with. What did five years matter? There were other places, other times, other opportunities.

He gazed down into the cellar where Mia bent over Nick, her face a mask of concern. Perhaps this was the time to teach those two upstarts that Flix was still the more powerful, that he still had a trick or two up his sleeve.

Summoning as much stasis energy as he could muster, he injected into the web generator and the machine began to whine.

*

A deep rumble sounded in the heart of the control panel.

Mia, drained of energy, sat down on the steps. Nick, still recovering, staggered to her. "Out," he gasped. "Get out. Flix is going to blow the thing."

His urgency registered in her tired, drained mind. Mia forced herself upright, and staggered up the steps. Nick crawled after her. The rumbling in the cellar became louder. Mia turned and reached out a hand to him.

"Go," he ordered.

"Not without you."

He took her hand. She half dragged him up the steps. In the parlour, they hurried, staggering to the door and out into the floodlights.

"Move. All of you," Mia shouted at the soldiers. "The place is about to blow."

Men turned, began to run away. Mia found Nick leaning against the door frame, struggling to get his breath.

"I'm done. You go."

"I need you to fly the Timehopper." She took his arm.

Crouching so that he was leaning on her, she staggered along the path and through the gate. The noise of the machinery, a high pitched whine, grew louder, more anxious. Soldiers were running for it, making their way back down the hill.

Mia cried out. "We won't make it."

He gasped, barely able to speak. "Wall."

She half dragged him along, past the picket fence to the wall they had vaulted in their earlier escape, and once there, they collapsed.

Nick rolled Mia beneath him and kissed her. "I love you," he said as the whine from the machinery reached a critical pitch.

The explosion tore into the still night air and obliterated the cottage. It blew the picket fence back a hundred metres, and tore upper layers of stone from the wall beneath which Mia and Nick lay. One brick toppled and landed on Mia's foot. She let out a yelp that Nick never heard over the cataclysmic explosion.

At the precise moment the machine overloaded and blew, the web disappeared and the skies over Northern Britain returned to their normal black, spangled with familiar stars.

# Chapter 16

"It's only about another half a click," Nick pleaded.

Mia frowned. "I really don't believe you. Coleman warned you not to let the vehicle run out of fuel, didn't he? And what did you do? You let it run out of fuel not once, but bloody twice. For a so called Special Agent, you can be a complete dunderhead at times."

"We have been pretty busy, you know," he reminded her, "It's no problem. We can pick it up and beam it into stasis when we get the Timehopper airborne."

There had been little left of Dark Fell Cottage when they eventually stood and dusted themselves off, and when everything settled, Vincent and his team of officers, supported by snipers came back up the hill.

Once more, the Major reacted furiously when he saw the damage.

Nick made an effort exculpate himself and his partner. "Wasn't us this time. We fried the computer, but Flix blew the control panel and that's what caused all the damage.

There followed a long debate during Vincent demanded every item of knowledge the Stasis Center pair possessed, while Mia and Nick steadfastly held back on the vital details.

"You work in secret, Major," Mia grumbled, "and so do we."

"In that case, you should at least be able to give me the title of the department for which you work," Vincent replied, with great formality.

Nick resorted to familiar territory for the major. "If you were captured by friend or foe, would you?"

"I would give them my name, rank and serial number only.".

"And you have my name. I have no rank and I can only give you my service number at best."

Mia took the argument further. "We are Special Agents and we're not permitted to divulge any information to any source until and unless we are absolutely certain that they have security clearance to know it."

The debate swung back and forth like a game of tennis until Mia, prompted by Nick, sent for the psychic waves of confidence and goodwill while Nick gave them an address.

The major was still unhappy. "It will take time to verify."

Nick agrred. "Fine. While you're doing that, Mia and I will go back to Harden. You'll find us at the Fisher's Arms tomorrow morning."

"I'll have one of my Jeeps accompany you," Vincent said and Nick acquiesced.

"Have you lost what little bit of sense you had?" Mia asked when they climbed into their Land Rover.

Nick started the engine. "I don't know what you mean."

"Allowing one of their jeeps to accompany us? That means we really will have to go Harden instead of the Timehopper.

"You think so?" Nick grinned. "You still got Overton's pistol?"

Mia blushed. "Well, I, er... It wasn't deliberate, Nick. In all the excitement, I just forgot to hand it back to Turner."

"Good thing, too. We can put it good use."

Mia appeared downhearted. "Don't you think there's been enough killing?"

Nick slotted the truck into gear, gunned the engine and let the clutch in. "I've no intentions of killing anyone." He shifted through the gears. "Have you seen the kind of damage a 9-millimetre shell can do to rubber tyres?"

He checked the mirror and behind them, the lights of an army Jeep hanging onto their tails.

"As long as you don't hurt those soldiers."

Nick dragged them on for many kilometres, north from Calvinbrook, then turning southeast as if he really were returning to Harden, but at Manningby, he turned off, following an unclassified road that would bring them to Fellside. A kilometre further on he pulled into the roadside, put on his visor, tucked the pistol into his waistband and climbed out of the Land Rover, walking to the rear and then the nearside.

The Jeep soon pulled in behind him. "Everything all right, Mr Holt?" shouted the lieutenant from the passenger seat. "Only we couldn't understand why you came this way."

"I wanted to check on Great Fell," Nick shouted back, "and I stopped because I need a leak."

"Oops. Sorry, sir."

Nick heard the lieutenant order his driver to douse the headlamps. The Stasis Center Agent grinned into the night, made as if he were relieving himself, then lowered his visor, turning it to night vision. Able to see clearly, he half turned, drew the pistol and fired at the Jeep's front tyre. It burst with a soft 'phut.'

"Sorry, Lieutenant," he shouted as he hurried back into the Land Rover, "but we can't afford to grow a tail."

He drove off leaving the army men waving fists after him.

"You're lucky they didn't shoot..

Nick chuckled at Mia's observation. "They wouldn't do that. British, you see. Thoroughly decent chaps and all that." He dissolved further into laughter.

Twenty five kilometres further on, when they came to the junction of the side road and A66, near Lark Fell woods, his laughter faded when the Land Rover ran out of fuel for the second time.

It left them a walk of about a kilometre to the Timehopper, and Mia kept up a stream of complaints as they made their way through the thick forest.

Even when they finally arrived and stripped off the camouflage net, she continued to complain. "We've left that vehicle where Vincent's nosy parkers can look it over."

"Let them," Nick said, lowering his visor and opening up the Timehopper. "All they'll find are some plumber's tools and a missing hammer."

"They're hardly likely to find a missing hammer, are they?"

"Oh do shut up, Mia, and let's get moving."

Five minutes later, they lifted off, the Timehopper floating silently over the treetops, until Nick found the junction and swooped on the parked Land Rover. Sure enough, having changed their burst tyre, the four man team which had followed them from Calvinbrook were looking the vehicle over.

Nick came in at a height of 30 metres and tracked the stasis beam onto the Land Rover. Switching on the loudspeaker, he ordered, "get your people back, Lieutenant, or you'll never see them again."

Everyone looked up, eyes staring, mouths gawping at the silver disc hanging in the air above them. They fanned out, drew weapons, and as they did so, Nick beamed the Land Rover into stasis.

Taken by surprise, the armed unit could only gawp again as the Timehopper rose vertically at incredible speed until it was a single dot shining in the blue sky.

*

"You did not achieve your objective," Control scolded. Before Mia or Nick could protest she held up a hand for silence. "I know, I know. You stopped Flix, and it's well that you did, but that was not your brief... or at least, it was not your entire brief. You were ordered to get him through The Light. You did not do that."

Nick sulked "He'll turn up again. And when he does, we can go after him."

"Of course," Control agreed. "But every time you travel through history you run the risk of changing that history."

"Did we change anything this time?" Mia demanded.

"No, agent Nellis, you did not. Chronology reports that everyone who perished during those few days did so according to our historical records."

"Which means that Flix and the Dead Web were a part of history all along," Mia pointed out.

"Correct. After you returned we ran another search and this time we dug up the files. It was only the twentieth and twenty first century obsession with secrecy and disinformation that kept the truth from us in the first place. The hard copy decayed to dust long ago, but we found the data files." Control tutted. "They were buried so deeply it's a wonder we ever found them at all. It was only thanks to your referencing Major Vincent that we turned them up."

"Interesting reading?" Nick asked.

"They tell us nothing. But then, we didn't expect them to. Your report is more detailed." Control leaned back in her chair. "They do, however, throw some interesting light on you two. Vincent was convinced that you were aliens, and that the, er, creatures, as they described the undead, were also an alien invasion force. They were naturally irritated at your destruction of the warp gate and the server, but they also recognised that your actions probably saved the day." She levelled her steely eye on Mia. "He came to his alien conclusion after he witnessed some of your antics against his men and, later, the undead." Now the penetrating gaze switched to Nick. "His opinion was reinforced after one of his lieutenants witnessed the Timehopper, quote, beam the Land Rover aboard and then fly off vertically at high speed, unquote."

"They followed us from Calvinbrook, Ma'am, so I had to do something." Nick laughed aloud. "Never seen guys so surprised."

Control did not find it remotely amusing. "The Lieutenant also took photographs of the Timehopper with his mobile telephone. It was assumed to be a UFO, which were a big mystery at that time, and the military suppressed all reports of them as deeply as they could. The Lieutenant was ordered to hand over the photographs and the telephone and never make mention of them again. Those pictures also persuaded them to cloud the entire issue in a veil of secrecy that would last, again I quote, a thousand years."

Nick laughed and Mia smiled.

"They got that part right," Mia said.

Both thought they saw a smile playing at the corner of Control's lips, but as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. "As far as I'm concerned, concealing the truth of your identity, by announcing it in such an outrageous fashion was your biggest success on this mission. In the end, it allowed them to go on thinking that you were an alien life form, albeit friendly." Control cleared her throat. "Let's turn now to the damage to the Land Rover, shall we? You were aware that it was worth an absolute fortune?"

"Thirty million according to Coleman," Nick said.

"It is now worth nothing," Control pointed out. "One window is shattered as is one half of the split windscreen. There is damage to several of the side panels, and according to the owner's representative, some tools were missing from the back. Or rather, _a tool_. A hammer."

"I don't know about the rest of the vehicle, but you can buy a hammer for a few credits," Nick protested.

"Not one manufactured of high-carbon, heat-treated steel with a beech wood shaft. It was worth approximately two hundred thousand credits." Control sighed. "Naturally, the department will make reparation to the owner of the vehicle, who coincidentally also owned the hammer, and it would hardly be fair to penalise you financially, or to discipline you, but I would ask that you take greater care in the future."

"Of course, Ma'am," Mia agreed.

Nick merely nodded and Control laid her steely eyes on him. "The same goes for ensuring that you keep an eye on fuel levels whenever you take any vehicle, Agent Holt. To run out twice in less than twenty-four hours is not so much inefficient as downright careless, especially when you had been given the means to purchase fuel." She switched the windows to translucent and gazed out on the glass towers of London. "You survived, you stopped Flix ... again, but this battle is far from over. For now, the Chronology Department is watching every moment of time. We're in a passive position and we can't do another thing until Flix makes his next move."

"When he does," Nick said, "we'll be ready for him."

# THE END

# The Author

David Robinson was born a Yorkshireman, but moved across the Pennines. He is a former adult education teacher and trained hypnotherapist, he lives with his wife on the edge the brooding moors northeast of Manchester.

As Robert Devine, he produces dark thrillers sometimes bordering on, or straying into sci-fi, but always with an element of the macabre, looking into the dark heart of human behaviour.

Working with darkstroke books, he also publishes light-hearted, cosy mysteries and more serious fiction works under his real name, David W Robinson.

For more information, visit:

<https://mysteriesaplenty.blogspot.com/>

 https://mysteriesaplenty.blogspot.com/p/thesanford-3rd-age-club-mysteries-do.html

 https://mysteriesaplenty.blogspot.com/p/the-midthorpe-murder-mysteries-aseries.html

And you can follow him on Facebook at:

<https://www.facebook.com/davidrobinsonwriter/>

THANK YOU FOR READING. I HOPE YOU HAVE ENJOYED THIS BOOK. IF SO IT WOULD BE WONDERFUL IF YOU COULD LEAVE A REVIEW.

