Becoming Honey

“I’m not trying to put a dampener on proceedings or anything like that,” said Amber, as she lit a cigarette. “But there’s no fucking way that we’re ever gonna’ be able to take out even half of that Rah’k fleet. There’s simply too many of them.”

“You ain’t wrong,” Dan replied with a nod as he took a seat in the chair central to Orca’s bridge. “I mean, it’s almost as if we’d have to be in a thousand different places at once, right?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly right,” she replied.

“Well it’s a good fuckin’ job that none of those big fuckers are motherships.”

“How can you tell?” Lara asked.

“Trust me, if any of those were Rah’k motherships you’d know about it. Apart from anything else they’re about five times the size.”

“And you attempted to take one of those on your own?” Amber asked, shaking her head. “You, Sir, are absolutely fucking bat shit crazy.”

“It’s often been said, to be perfectly honest with you.”

“So why is it a good thing they’re not motherships, apart from the obvious size issues?”

“Well y’see if they were motherships, then what I’m gonna’ try and do wouldn’t have a chance in Hell of working.”

“What’re you going to attempt?” asked Amber. “Because I have to be straight with you, I’m getting more than a little nervous about how close that fleet is getting to Earth.”

“Oh relax, gorgeous. I’m gonna’ open a fuck loada’ temporal folds at the same time, and reopen them in such a way that it’ll be too late for the Rah’k on board to do anything about those impact alarms that’ll no doubt ring out on their vessels, as they collide into those ships that don’t get sent through temporal folds.”

“What?” both Amber and Lara asked in unison.

“I’m not even sure that made any sense and if it did, it certainly wasn’t the kind of sense that I understand!”

“I’m with the hot redhead,” said Amber with a nod towards Lara. “But seriously, whatever it is you’re gonna’ do you should definitely do it soon.”

“Already did,” he replied with a chuckle. Cupping his hand around a match as he spoke, he put the flame to the tip of a cigarette. “Before I came back with the weapons earlier, I popped out a wee while. It took a lot out of me, to be fair. Had to go and spend a fortnight on a gorgeous little beach I know in the company of a couple of hotties to recuperate.”

Amber and Lara looked at him, their faces screwed into questioning expressions and their hands held wide apart.

“Time and Space, remember?” he replied, sucking hungrily upon the tab. “Y’know... Time and Space, Space and Time... It ain’t a solid entity. You know now to manipulate it then it’s a piece of piss, and ladies, believe me when I say I’ve had several lifetimes to work out exactly how to fuck it up.”

“So if you knew you were going to do that and you knew you were plenty capable of doing it on your own, what’re we doing up here with you?”

“Dunno’,” he replied with the slightest of shrugs. “Guess I figured you might like to experience what it’s like on a real ship, rather than that big fucking pile of rusting scrap metal you were on before.”

He smiled and shrugged once again, lighting yet another cigarette with the still-burning tip of the other. “Now shush, the show’s about to start. A little music please, Orca.”

“Of course, Sir,” the vessel replied, and as her crew of three stared out at the approaching Rah’k fleet and the first of the temporal folds opened, eighties hair metal blasted at an astronomically loud volume through Orca’s speakers.

Nodding her head to the beat, Amber watched as temporal fold after temporal fold opened, flashes of bright white light that swallowed the Rah’k ships whole and put her in mind of a rather random fireworks display until finally, only a little over half of the fleet remained.

“What happens next?” Lara asked, raising her voice so she could be heard over Bruce Dickinson’s vocals.

“Just watch,” Dan yelled, and Lara turned back to the window, linking her arm in Amber’s and arm in arm, they waited.

It was not a particularly long wait, however, as with an enormously bright and brilliant flash of white light that signified the opening of not one temporal fold but seemingly hundreds of them, each one spewed a Rah’k vessel directly into another. They appeared from all sides and the consequent explosions as the Core on each and every Rah’k ship in the fleet was destroyed, resulted in an impressive – albeit brief – light show, leaving nothing more than a rapidly expanding field of debris.

“Gotta’ say that was pretty fucking awesome,” said Amber, turning to face Dan with a wide grin upon her face.

“Aye it was, wasn’t it?” he replied with a laugh. “Right, it’s my train of thought we ought to celebrate, eh? Beer, anyone?”

“You might want to consider putting those celebrations on hold for the time being,” said Lara. She was still staring out of the window at the debris field. “There’s something else out there.”

“Sounds a bit fucking ominous to me,” Dan replied. He had spent far too much time around intelligent women though, and knew all too well that if he ignored their instincts he did so at his peril. “I don’t see anything on screen. Orca, do you detect anything?”

“No Sir,” the vessel replied. “I do not.”

“There’s definitely something there.” Lara was insistent, and Amber put her arm around the redhead’s waist as together, they stared out towards where moments ago an enormous fleet had existed.

“Run your scans again, Orca,” Dan ordered. “Even on the frequencies you wouldn’t normally bother with.”

“There is nothing there at all, Sir,” the vessel replied a matter of seconds later. “Between here and Mars there is nothing but the clear, unwavering black of space.”

“The black of space, Orca?”

“Yes Sir, that is... Oh, oh dear.”

“I’d say ′oh dear,′ is about fucking right, you dappy fucking ship.”

“Are we missing something?” Amber asked as she and Lara turned away from the window. “Because neither of you are making much sense, again.”

“The Black,” Dan replied with a heavy sigh. “It’s a non-corporeal entity, primeval and powerful as fuck. We defeated it years ago in our own reality, light-years away from here. That obviously never happened in this reality. It’s a destroyer of worlds, plain and simple, and impossible to fight without Magick.”

“Magic? I’m not sure that a magician is quite what we’re looking for.”

“Not magic, Magick. The real deal; a raw primal power to fight a raw, primal power, and you’re gonna’ tell me that such a thing doesn’t exist in this reality, aren’t you?”

“A week ago I’d have told you that aliens were nothing more than the brainchild of Hollywood,” Amber replied with a shrug. “Lara?”

“No idea,” she replied. “But if this ′Black,′ is as badass as Dan says, then we had better hope that it does.”

“Take us to a low Earth orbit, Orca,” said Dan, slumping heavily back into his chair. “Prepare to run a scan of the entire damn planet for anyone, anywhere, who looks like they might possess the kinda’ power we need.”

“Yes Sir,” Orca replied, as she flashed temporarily out of existence, only to reappear a moment later in the requested low Earth orbit. “Running the scan now.”

“Can we contact the Agency?” Amber asked. “Dunnottar Castle; I can speak to Ryan, see if he knows anything about Magick, if it even exists.”

“Sure, just hit the call button,” Dan replied with a chuckle. “I figure they’re watching the skies anyway so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch to figure they’ll pick up.”

“Easy as pie,” said Amber, hitting the button to which she was directed. “Ryan it’s Amber, are you there?”

“Nice to see things are done professionally in this reality,” said Dan quietly.

“Amber?” Ryan’s voice came over the radio loud and clear. “Where on Earth are you?”

“Funny you should ask,” she replied. “We’re in orbit.”

“Well, thank God you’re alright.”

“For now, aye,” she said. “Listen. The Rah’k fleet is gone, completely destroyed.”

“How the Hell?”

“There’s no time for that. There’s something else.”

“Yeah, and I’m fairly certain it’s my fault, too,” said Dan, jumping in on the call from his own console. “I figure it has something to do with the way the entire fleet got blown to shit all at once. Reckon it tore a hole in reality.”

“The long and short of it is, we need Magick.”

“Magick? What for?”

“Listen, dude... There’s a fuckin’ seriously big bad making it’s way to Earth. I’ve beaten it before but only with the help of witches. Do they exist in this reality, or not?”

“Of course,” Ryan replied. “But witches who possess the power it sounds to me like you’re talking about, haven’t existed for centuries.”

“How far back are we talkin’?”

“A thousand years at least, perhaps even more,” said Ryan. “Give me a second, I’m just running through the archives.”

“Archives! That reminds me. You ever heard of The Firm? I’ve encountered them everywhere and you can never tell whose side they’re on, but they’re an all-powerful company who kinda’ like things to keep ticking according to their plan.”

“I would assume that a destroyed Earth is not a part of their plan?”

“I’d say that at least sixty percent of the time, that’s correct.”

“Right... OK... Anyway, according to our archives the last witch who possessed power to do anything other than keep her plants alive during a heavy Winter died in 669 AD.”

“Your archives are lying, I’d wager, but at least we know Magick exists here. What about The Firm?”

“The only reference I can find to The Firm was in London, 1868.”

“Thanks, man,” he said, and before terminating the call, added, “We’ll be back before you’ve got time to piss.”

“Victorian London first then?” Amber asked, her eyebrow cocked.

“Aye, exactly right. We’ll go to the time we know has got what we need, and to be honest, I reckon we’ll find a fair few witches there, too.”

“I hope you’re right,” said Lara.

“Hey look at it this way, if we can’t locate a witch anywhere then we can always go back in time, well... forwards in time, and prevent the me from the past destroying the Rah’k fleet in the way that I did.”

“Well what’s worse? An Earth overrun with Rah’k or an Earth destroyed by The Black?”

“Depends, to be fair, on whether you’d rather be worked to death in a Rah’k mine and occasionally suffer rape by tentacle or die a slow and painful death – and by slow and painful I’m talkin’ thousands of years – as The Black feasts upon your soul?”

Amber shuddered and gripped Lara’s hand tightly. “Let’s go. Orca, take us back to 1868.”

“Yes Ma’am,” the vessel replied, and once again she flashed temporarily out of existence.

***

With the practised ease and skill of one who had done so many times, Dan put Orca down gently upon the grass. The City of London was mostly in darkness; only the light of the moon in a sky filled with rolling clouds making said darkness anything but absolute.

“Engaging cloak,” he said as he hoisted himself from the chair.

“We should probably do something about these clothes, should we not?” Amber asked, looking down at her body, encased as it was in the leather catsuit that by now felt completely natural to her.

“It’s up to you, to be fair,” Dan replied with a shrug. “Gotta’ be honest I’ve done my fair share of time travelling. Locals tend to see what they wanna’ see but if you wanna’ raid a boutique en route then I ain’t gonna’ argue about helping you pick out some new underwear.”

“I dunno,” Amber replied with a wink, turning to Lara with a wicked grin upon her face. “What do you think, Lara? Should we let him see what he’s missing out on, or go with the first option and assume that the 1868 Londoners won’t notice that I’m wearing a skin tight leather catsuit and your military garb is like nothing they’ve ever seen?”

“Well I do like dressing up all fancy,” Lara replied, the grin upon her face matching that of Amber’s. “But it’s probably fair to say that we don’t really have time for a shopping trip.”

“Ah, spoilsports,” Dan said with a chuckle. “’Tis nought but what I expected though.”

“In which case you can’t really be too disappointed,” said Amber, laughing. “Where are we headed, anyway? Where exactly do we find The Firm?”

“Couldn’t tell you, this ain’t a London with which I’m familiar.”

“The Firm has its offices on the south bank of the Thames, three hundred yards downstream from Tower Bridge.”

“Perfect time as always, Orca,” he said with a wry smile. “Reckon you can keep yourself entertained whilst me and the ladies go find out whether or not The Firm’s evil here?”

“I can find plenty to pass the time, I’m sure,” the vessel replied. “I still have many repairs to complete, and that will probably take quite some time so there really is no need to rush.”

“Right you are, gorgeous,” he said, turning to his female companions. “Ladies, shall we?”

They followed Dan from the bridge, down a couple of corridors as he led them from the vessel. Amber had not noticed upon boarding, something that she put down to the fact that taking on a Rah’k single-handed had got her so hyped up and wired that she probably would not have noticed if her arse had been on fire, that despite Orca’s organic exterior, the majority of her interior appeared to be inorganic.

“That might be how it looks,” said Dan, gesturing that the ladies should alight from the vessel first. “But trust me, there’s very few cables an’ shit running through these walls. She’s a living organism, all veins an’ arteries an’ shit. She’s even got a beating heart powering her engines.”

“Fair enough, just a little curious is all,” Amber replied as her feet landed upon the grass of Hyde Park.

“It’s all good by me,” said Dan, pausing at the foot of the steps that he might light a cigarette. “So you ladies fancy a walk or do you wanna’ experience what it’s like to traverse a temporal fold?”

***

Seconds later, Amber tumbled out of the temporal fold and was not quick enough to get out of the way before Lara landed on top of her, although she was definitely not going to complain about the slightly compromising position that she and the redhead found themselves in as they lay, momentarily breathless, on the south bank of the Thames.

“Takes a couple of trips before you get the landing right,” said Dan with a smile. He had exited the temporal fold last, and landed with a roll that brought him straight up to his feet as the fold in Time and Space snapped closed behind him. “Now if I know anything about The Firm – an’ I don’t mind tellin’ you ladies that I do know a fair bit about The Firm – they’ll have picked up on that anomaly so it won’t be long before there’s someone out here to investigate, pokin’ their nose ‘round an’ shit. It’d be much better for us if we’re not here when that happens. Reckon I’d rather walk in through the front door than have to explain to some retard of a booking officer that we wanna’ talk to the head honcho.”

“I imagine that’s the kinda’ thing that turns out just as well as when your bioship materialises too close to an Agency facility occupying a high Earth orbit,” said Amber with a laugh. “I think it’s fair to say that the redhead and I are right there with you, so lead the way.”

“Right you are,” he replied with a smile, turning to head downstream with Tower Bridge rising up out of the mist that rolled off the river serving as a rather eerie, if beautiful, backdrop.

A few moments’ walk took them to a portion of the river where, unlike the rest of the waterway, there did not appear to be any mist whatsoever. Amber glanced up and away from the river and saw what appeared to be a building just like any other building that lined the Thames; a low factory or workshop of some kind, with a steeped roof from which rose several chimney’s, all of which were spewing inordinate amount of thick smoke into the air.

“Did you..?”

“Aye,” she replied, revelling in the closeness proffered by Lara’s arm as it snaked around her waist. “Aye, I saw that...”

“Safe enough to say we’ve found The Firm, is my train of thought,” said Dan with a chuckle. “Looks to me like they’ve got some piece of tech projecting what people expect to see ’cos if you look properly...”

“...you actually see a building that could quite easily be one hundred storeys high,” Amber interrupted, finishing Dan’s sentence for him. “A bloody skyscraper in Victorian London... Who’d have thought it?”

“Aye, ‘tis a head fuck to be sure,” Dan replied with a shrug. “Anyways... best foot forward, an’ all that.”

“Wait, you’re serious about simply walking in through the front door?”

“In my experience, Honey, that’s the best way to do things. I’ve lived a long and pretty fuckin’ bitchin’ life by actin’ like it’s my right to be wherever the fuck I wanna’ be an’ right now, I wanna’ be leaning against a desk tryin’ to get a look down the blouse of what experience tells me will be a pretty fuckin’ sexy receptionist.”

“Well if you put it like that...”

***

“You were right, you know,” said Lara with a chuckle as she, Amber and Dan made their way across the quite vast expanse that was the foyer of The Firm’s building. The floor beneath their feet was of tediously polished marble, and on either side of the reception desk directly before them, and very deliberately placed, were two oases, water fountains in the midst of identical masses of greenery. “He is rather attractive.”

“Aye.” Even Dan had to admit that the rather dapper gentleman currently occupying the reception area was more than a little easy on the eyes, with a finely tailored suit over which was most definitely a well cared for and finely crafted physique. “Not quite enough in the cleavage department for me though, so I reckon I’ll leave this to you two an’ your feminine wiles.”

With a simultaneous shrug, Amber and Lara stepped forwards with the intention of unabashedly flirting with the jaunty gent sitting behind the reception desk. It did not come to that though for as they approached, the man glanced up with an incredibly bright smile upon his face.

“Ms Honey!” he said, much to Amber’s surprise. “It really is a delight to see you again, and Lara? Wonderful! Dr Parish will be so very pleased to see you, of that I am certain! And... Oh, my word! Is that..? It is, isn’t it? It’s him! Sir Daniel James Colt!”

“Erm...” Amber really was unsure as to what she was supposed to say. She was certain – almost, certain – that she had never met the man, nor had she ever set foot in the building. Hell, she had never even heard of The Firm. “How is it that you know who I am?”

“Whatever do you mean?” he asked. “Of course I know who you are, everyone does! Hardcore Honey is the stuff of legend, unless...”

“Unless..?”

His face contorted into a rather odd expression before a look of realisation spread across his features.

“Unless, this is actually your first visit to our humble establishment? That’s the main issue with being a temporal company. It really is so hard to tell when our guests are from, especially when those guests are as regular visitors as you, Ms Honey and you too, Lara.”

More than a little confused, Amber and Lara looked around and for the first time since entering the building they did so properly, really seeing what was there, rather than what they had expected to be there.

“Sorry about that,” said Dan as he made his way quickly over to her. “I figured that was the kinda’ thing you’d be better off noticing yourselves. See, The Firm exists everywhere, everywhen. Ain’t just talkin’ ’bout a single reality, either.”

He turned to the reception desk and held out his hand. The receptionist stood and took it in his own.

“How many realities is The Firm currently active in, Eddie?”

“All of them, Sir,” Eddie replied, momentarily shocked that the great Sir Daniel James Colt knew his name before he remembered that even though he had never met the man personally, other Eddies most definitely had.

“Every reality,” said Dan, releasing his grip on Eddie’s hand and turning back to the women as he spoke. “Every single plane of existence you can imagine and, I’d wager, even more that you can’t conceive of. The Firm just is.”

“If that’s the case, then why 1868?”

“Probably a fixed point in time in this particular reality, or it could be that they go by a different moniker in the future.”

“That’s right,” Eddie spoke up. “Post 1875, The Firm is known as the Agency in this reality.”

“See, you two are already on The Firm’s books without even realising it.”

“I imagine the three of you will be wanting to see Ms Dixon?”

“Ashleigh’s in charge here?” Dan asked, his eyebrow cocked in surprise. “Bitch gets around more than I do!”

“Should I let her know you’re here, Sir?”

“Is there really any need for that? Pretty sure she already knows.”

Eddie shrugged lightly with a nod indicating that what Dan said was more than likely true.

“We’ll show ourselves up. Top floor?”

Without waiting for Eddie to answer, Dan turned and made his way quickly over to the bank of elevators situated to the right of the reception area. Amber and Lara followed quickly in his wake, marvelling at the architecture that was quite clearly from several different points in time. It was not just the building that was as such, either. There were several people heading in various directions; some for the elevators as they were, some for the exits and just as many towards countless doors, as well as those who appeared quite happy to simply remain in the vast expanse of the foyer. The only thing those people had in common was the fact that they were all there. Amber lost count of how many different cultures and eras they were from, going from clothing alone.

The two women reached the elevators shortly after Dan to find that he was holding the door for them, and despite the fact that there were an awful lot of people who were quite clearly waiting to make the journey higher up – or lower down into the belly of the building, perhaps? - no one so much as attempted to board the elevator with the open door. Perhaps it had something to do with the menacing look upon Dan’s face that appeared to be daring anyone who had the mind to do so, to attempt to join him, or perhaps – and Amber thought this to be the more likely option – perhaps they simply did not see that there was a near-empty elevator, waiting to carry passengers to whatever floor of the building they wanted to visit.

“Going up, ladies?” he asked with a chuckle, all traces of his menacing expression having vanished the very second Amber and Lara set foot upon the elevator.

“Oh if you’d be so kind, Sir,” Amber replied, her own chuckle matching Dan’s, though a third of an octave higher.

“Right you are,” he said as the doors slid shut, meeting in the middle with a slight bump. “I’ll give you fair warning, this trip is probably gonna’ take just as much outta’ you as the temporal fold did!”