A Lady Out of Time Read online

Chapter 2

  Helen was shown into a large office where a nervous secretary held some papers and seemed to vibrate with agitation. General Fox, one of the big head-honchos and someone Helen had only seen from afar, was in front of her. She knew some of the missions he’d been on: taking out the Dachau Engineering Lab and the Nazi Headquarters in France. He was a big fish, and Helen wasn’t even sure she was a fish.

  “Specialist Foster. You must be wondering why you’re here?” He spoke like a bulldog. And Helen had the suspicion that it wasn’t so much a question as it was the prelude to a speech. At least he was going to get right to it.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Close the door first.”

  Helen closed the door and went back to standing at attention before the General.

  “Do you remember the tests we did last week?” he asked.

  Helen felt her insides turn to water and wondered if there was a bathroom nearby. What was the protocol when one was worried about crapping themselves in front of a senior officer?

  “That was a very important test. A test that you, and you alone, passed. Out of the 400 candidates who have been tested, your genetic code reacted the best. I’m sure this will sound odd to you, Specialist, but those tests were designed to see who might be able to survive time travel.”

  “Time travel?” Helen said, trying not to give any indication that, yes, it did make him sound like a whack-job.

  “Obviously, this is top secret. It’s our newest weapon in the fight against the Nazis. In fact, it may change everything forever.”

  Sooo, no pressure then.

  General Fox smiled insincerely, the bright overhead light shining off his bald head. “How different would our world be if the war had ended in the 1940s?”

  Helen tried very hard to keep her expression blank. That was almost 100 years ago.

  “All the people who would still exist, and the lives that might have been lived.” He shook his head. “For a while, it looked as if we were going to win the war. Hitler was bogged down in Russia; he didn’t have the manpower nor the money to keep the war going. Really, his defeat looked inevitable. And then, just when we were making headway, the Nazis came out with a new weapon.”

  The Warmaker. Everyone knew about the weapon that allowed Hitler to conquer Russia.

  “The Warmaker.” He said it as if it were the name of a man who was fucking his wife. “The plans for this weapon were created in 1853 by Roland Black. Black couldn’t get the gun made in the United States, so he went to London. Black sold the plans at auction, and then they disappeared for almost a hundred years until Hitler somehow got hold of them and built the Warmaker. We believe that if Black’s gun design never got sold, but was destroyed, Hitler would have been defeated, perhaps as early as 1945.”

  “So…” Helen stood there for a minute with her mouth open. There were words in her head, and they almost made a sentence, but reconciling what General Fox was telling her with what she knew of the world was apparently quite a brainteaser. She cleared her throat. “Permission to speak candidly, sir?”

  He nodded.

  “You’re telling me that Black invented the Warmaker and sold it to someone...in London at auction, and…you want me to go back in time, get the plans and destroy them?” She emphasized the words, wanting to make sure she was getting the key point right.

  The back-in-time part.

  “Yes.”

  Helen scowled. She was pretty convinced that his response should have been longer than one word.

  He motioned the secretary over, and she set some papers down next to General Fox before backing away quietly. “These are your release forms. They say you understand the mission we are assigning you, and that you are aware that it’s a one-way trip.”

  “Sir?” she croaked.

  His expression was stern. “Your mission is to go back in time and find the Warmaker plans. Destroy them.”

  “Why me, sir?” Because there must be someone more qualified to be here listening to this speech and signing papers than me.

  He looked down, hiding his expression. “Time travel has been theory for centuries. And while we now have the technology, it’s still experimental. Initially, we’d envisioned sending back a few agents with combat training. But something about the male DNA means they can’t travel. We tried and that…that was a loss.”

  Helen wanted to ask how many times they had tried it. Wanted to know just how many men had been killed. How many more body bags had been carried out when she wasn’t standing there because Mary was smoking a cigarette?

  He leaned back in his chair, and it squeaked like he’d just rolled over a mouse. “Women have always been able to withstand genetic modification better than men. Their cells and chromosomes are more adaptable and easier to tinker with because of their reproductive capabilities. It’s the same for this. Combine that with the genetic modifications you already have, specifically the way you conduct heat, means that if anyone is going to pull this off, it’s going to be you.”

  You mean if anyone is going to survive, it might be me, she thought dazedly.

  “You won’t have any resources. Nor will you have any money. We can’t send anything through except the person. Not even clothes. You will pretend to be a rich American socialite who has come to England looking for a husband.”

  Her mind tripped up on the idea that she was going back in time…and naked! Wait. Was this a joke? A vision of herself materializing in a crowded market á la Lady Godiva made her clench her fists. The military didn’t joke. No whoopee cushions or hidden cameras. But…

  She didn’t know shit about Victorian England! She had so many questions she wasn’t sure where to start. “Sir, how will I survive? How can I pretend to be rich if I don’t have any money?”

  He grimaced. “The answer to that, while distasteful, is acceptable due to the gravity of the situation.”

  She wondered if he were about to tell her to be a prostitute.

  “Blackmail. This will all be in the file that you may read after the briefing, but the short version is that Edward, Duke of Somervale, was illegitimate. If you threaten to expose him, he’ll give you the money to complete your mission.”

  Helen really wanted to sit down. “Sir?”

  “In 1925, renovations were done at the Somervale’s family estate. A diary was found detailing that the Somervale heir had been stillborn. Edward, the sixth duke, was a bastard; swapped at birth because it looked as if his father were going to die. If there had been no heir, the family would have been penniless. You know his family’s dirty laundry, and he’ll give you the money to keep quiet.”

  “Am I supposed to get the diary?”

  “No, it has to stay where it is so it can be found in 1925. But you can tell him you have it. Get the money and give him nothing. The record of events is included in the file.” General Fox went on to explain the weight of her task, the volume of information threatening her sturdy expression and steady legs. He finally stopped speaking, and she knew she was dismissed.

  But she had one last question. One that seemed pretty important to her, but that he had managed to gloss over. “Sir, you said it was a one-way trip?”

  He put down his pencil and gave her a small, maybe even sympathetic, smile. That scared the shit out of her. It meant she was as good as dead, and he was trying to break the news gently. “We don’t know how to get you back. You go, and you stay. Ensure you get enough money from the Duke to live comfortably for the rest of your life. And remember, what you’re doing will make you a hero.” He stood up, came around the desk and stuck out his hand. “Your government thanks you for your service.”

  She shook his hand, unsurprised when he squeezed hard. That was one of her pet peeves, men trying to break her hand when they shook it, so they could prove what a big dick they had. She squeezed back, and his eyes widened.

  “Dismissed,” he said.

  Helen left, her ears ringing. That faint, high-pitched ring that meant she was one
shallow breath away from passing out on the floor. So this is how I’m going out. Not in combat with her friends, as she’d always believed, but on her own. In a corset. She was going back in time. To a period when a butcher was a doctor, where the dentist was a man with a set of pliers, and where women had no rights; in order to stop the Nazis from conquering Europe. Hopefully.

  Again, no pressure.

  She tried to look at the bright side…where was that again? Past the pot of gold, and beyond the unicorns somewhere. Changing the course of history was a big deal. History books would know her name. She opened her new schedule and noticed she was assigned to have her photo taken before she left.

  A photo for the history books. Which was slightly surreal. This was an honor, a great opportunity to serve her country. There, wasn’t that a bright side? To possibly save millions of lives, maybe even prevent the Aryan Cleanse of 1955? Perhaps even the Holocaust. She slumped to the ground, her back sliding down the wall until her ass bumped the concrete. If I can prevent that much death, and all I have to do is spend my life in a time before TV and suffrage, isn’t it worth it?

  Fucking-a it is.