Traitor: The Survival Project Duology, #2

By Juliet Boyd

Revenge can take many forms.

Leo has returned home, but he’s far from free. Luckily, when it comes to taking revenge on the man who runs The Survival Project for the wrong done to him, he’s prepared to play the long game. He has the knowledge, he has the means. All he needs is the access.

Mara has no way of knowing whether Leo’s plan to exact revenge has succeeded, but she is not able to dwell on the subject for long. She thought she had come to this world to find solutions for her own, but her new world has taken the same disastrous path. Those who work for The Department are keen to know everything she can tell them about travelling through rifts.

Can she steel herself to do this over again?

Traitor is the second novel in The Survival Project series. It is a story of struggle, discovery and timelines that aren’t always clear.

Buy Traitor today and discover how, or if, the story ends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Juliet Boyd
• Release date: Nov 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519948793

Juliet Boyd

Juliet lives in Somerset in the south-west of England. She used to work in administration, but now writes full-time. Her main writing interests are fantasy, science fiction, weird fiction, horror and flash fiction. Details of her work are available on her website.

Book preview

One

The room in which Leo sat was bare apart from a table, four chairs and a camera at each of the four corners of the ceiling. There was no carpet on the floor, so every word, every movement, echoed against the stark, concrete walls that were painted a dazzling white. The unshaded spotlights made it almost impossible to look anywhere but down at your lap, or straight at the person opposite. On one end of the table was recording equipment — a simple microphone attached to a computer — presumably because it was easier to analyse his voice without watching the visuals. The whole set-up was like you might find in an interview room at a police station, not that he’d ever seen one, except for on film. And then there was Gordon, sitting there in front of him, with his arms crossed, a notepad resting between his knees and the edge of the table, no doubt containing a list of pre-determined questions that would set the tone for the meeting, as it had every other day since he’d arrived.

The room served its purpose. Anyone would feel threatened in such an environment.

At least, that’s what Leo had felt the first time he’d sat there.

It was true, that saying, familiarity breeds contempt. The environment no longer daunted him, but it did frustrate him.

He wouldn’t have minded so much if there had been some progress. In his favour, of course.

Three days of an identical set of questions and an identical set of answers.

Leo had got used to the tinny sound of his voice bouncing off the plain walls as he pleaded his case. His body had become accustomed to the aches in his back and legs from sitting on a hard chair for hours on end. The assault of the lights on his eyes no longer caused him to smart if he turned his head away from the less harsh colours of Gordon’s clothes. The restrictions and deprivations of bare sustenance meals and cell-like accommodation hadn’t weakened him. The interrogation hadn’t broken him. His resolve had hardened, if anything, to the point where he knew they couldn’t break him without resorting to a type of torture of which he didn’t think them capable.

He hoped he was right. He was counting on it.

But there was one thing that was beginning to grate so much upon his nerves that he had to grit his teeth in order not to scream out. The droning monotone of Gordon’s voice. Never wavering. Never raised. If only he would show some emotion. He had to be angry. He might even be upset. It was like his emotions had been programmed to remain inside. He wished he knew the secret. He wasn’t nearly so good at that. He tried to emulate the man’s calm persona, but it didn’t always work. He wasn’t made the same way.

Come on now, Leo. Tell us the truth, he said as if he were cajoling a child who’d drawn on the wall, or spilled their drink on the sofa.

Leo had been over the facts so many times, he could recite them without thinking. He stared at Gordon.

Mara came through the rift and landed at exactly the same point as I had. I’d been monitoring the space every day, just in case, although I’d never truly believed it would happen. I almost couldn’t accept that she was there. It was like the most amazing thing ever when I saw her. She—

Leo, you’re lying.

Gordon leaned back in his chair, and tapped his pen on his thigh. Gordon, the father figure of the whole establishment wasn’t being so fatherly now.

Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to tell you something that shows your whole story about meeting up with Mara, getting on like a house on fire, the authorities killing her, and you taking her brac to go through the rift at the last minute, to be the pack of lies that it is.

Leo was slightly taken aback by that statement. It was a new approach. Something unexpected. Gordon would have noticed the flicker in Leo’s eyes, but he quickly quashed any reaction. This didn’t follow the procedure to which he’d become accustomed. It was designed to throw him. He kept his gaze constant, but his mind was racing. He thought back to those few minutes after he’d come through the rift. That niggling feeling that he couldn’t quite place. It was partly the way that Gordon had immediately put him under guard without anything but a couple of questions to go on. But there was more. Gordon knew something. He had to have had a reason for taking that course of action that Leo hadn’t yet discovered. Maybe, this was it. Maybe, this was the moment he would find out why Gordon was so certain that he had lied. Maybe, this was why Gordon had immediately gone to his computer screen after dismissing him to go off with the guards.

He mirrored Gordon’s posture, leaning back in his own chair and folding his arms. At least, this was a development. He waited expectantly.

To Leo’s surprise, Gordon stood up, lifted up his shirt.

This, he said, is a body monitor.

Gordon had a thin grey band strapped around his middle, the same as the one he’d seen around Mara’s body when she and her double had stripped and changed their clothes — the one she’d said she couldn’t take off because it was locked. A body monitor, that’s what it was. It was nothing. Smoke and mirrors. A bluff. But he was intrigued. The device looked to be of similar construction to a brac, except without the external readouts, and it was thinner, the colour a little lighter.

Okay, said Leo, You’re wearing a body monitor.

He’d seen the type of thing before in his studies. It was like the ones athletes used to use as a training tool. It sent data to a wristwatch or a computer, so that they could monitor their performance. The brac, he’d always assumed, had been partly modelled on this kind of equipment. It wasn’t anything shocking or new. He didn’t understand why Gordon was showing it to him. But there had to be a point.

Mara was wearing one of these.

Yes, I saw it.

Gordon raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

Leo tipped his head to the side as he considered what possible advantage there would be to Mara having the body monitor as well as the brac. All they did was monitor the data afterwards. All it could be was a double check.

You use it to boost the data? he said.

Yes, said Gordon, That was the idea. He unclipped the monitor — easily, Leo noticed — straightened his shirt again and sat down. The legs of his chair scraped against the floor as he pulled it back in to the table, setting Leo’s teeth on edge.

So, why does this prove to you that I’m lying?

Gordon smiled.

Because we get two separate readouts, he said, One from the brac and one from the body monitor.

Yes, so? He knew that they retrieved the information when a rifter returned, not while they were beyond the rift. The anchor pretty much interfered with everything. All they got was a signal that someone was travelling, not a readout.

A lot can happen in six months, Leo.

It was so obvious that this was a bluff, to see if he took the bait, that Leo almost laughed. He’d never known Gordon to tell an outright lie. He didn’t lie to them that he’d keep the rift open a second longer than the seventy-two hour limit, he knew that for a fact and it was something that he could easily have been fuzzy about. Five minutes extra here. Ten minutes there. But Gordon wasn’t like that. Gordon was precise. Gordon liked everything cut and dried. It was a bluff. Two separate readouts, yes, okay, that was sensible, but six months wasn’t long enough to do what he was suggesting. To implement new equipment that could reliably transmit live data through the rift.

Look at it, he said, sliding the band across the table.

Reluctantly, Leo picked it up and turned it over. As far as he could tell, the material was possibly a little lighter in weight than the brac and way more flexible. It could almost be bent back on itself, which would never work with a brac. They were pretty rigid, because of all the technology inside. If you bent it back it would break a connection somewhere and make the thing useless. It made him wonder if there was anything at all in the body monitor, but there had to be, or Mara wouldn’t have had one.

Nice, he said and put the band back down on the table.

Gordon picked it up. This material, it’s less dense than the compound we use to manufacture the brac.

Leo shrugged. Okay.

It means that signals can get through more easily.

Leo almost snorted.

The pause, which he knew was only for dramatic effect, rankled.

Only when you’re right next to the disruption, he added. It gives us a few seconds more of warning to expect an arrival.

It took all Leo’s training, so carefully imparted by the man who was now interrogating him, to keep his face impassive. He knew that he and Mara had struggled at the disruption for possibly as long as a minute. He hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, other than having been desperate to get her to let go. He began to feel a prickle on the back of his neck. What if this were true? What if she’d known that her monitor could send the data?

Separate readouts, he said, That’s interesting.

As it happens, it is.

Leo leaned forward again, resting his arms on the surface of the table and focusing his eyes directly on Gordon’s.

I assume you’re going to tell me the purpose of this revelation?

Eventually. Right now, I’m going to let you think about it.

Gordon stood, stared at Leo for a moment, then left the room.

The monitor was still on the table.

He desperately wanted to pick it up again, but he didn’t. That would show them that he was concerned. They couldn’t be allowed to know that.

Leo waited to hear the sound of the key turning to lock him in before he moved. He walked across to one of the corners of the room so that his face wasn’t visible to any camera. He needed to think and he knew that sometimes when he thought, he let his feelings show. He’d did this in his cell as well, so they were less likely to think it was solely because of what had just happened.

Why would it matter that she had on a separate body monitor? Why did it matter that there were two readouts? But he knew why. He’d told them she was dead. It had been the only plausible reason for him coming through the rift, wearing her brac, that left room for manoeuvre. If they could receive the signal, which he still doubted, they would know that she wasn’t dead when he’d travelled. No. It wasn’t possible. It was a trick. Gordon was lying about the band to get him to confess that Mara was still alive and that he’d left her behind.

Leo clasped his hands together to stop them from shaking. He still couldn’t get the image of Mara clinging on to him out of his mind. In the end, she’d let go, when she still could have hung on for longer. He imagined her counting in her head. How long would it take for a signal to get through?

He so desperately wanted to pace up and down the room to help order his thoughts, but that would give them more data. They would realise that their attempt at putting him under stress was working, and he couldn’t have that.

He cast his mind back to those last few moments before he left the other world and sifted through the seconds in every last detail. He had unclipped Mara from him, but she had grabbed onto his waistband for dear life, even though there was no way she could’ve stopped him, not with her arms and legs restrained and a t-shirt over her head. He’d thought the move was designed to give the guards and police time to get to him. But that wasn’t it. Of course, it wasn’t it. He was almost through the disruption and onto his journey and she had held him there for those few seconds because she knew about the signal. She was trying to give them a warning.

She was warning Gordon.

She was telling him that she was still alive.

Damn her. He’d left her behind and she was still trying to ruin his plans.

Mitigate, he mouthed to himself. Mitigate.

He had to think of a reasonable explanation for her monitor to still be working. He had to come up with something logical, but that still fitted with the story he’d already given them. The one that said that she’d died at the disruption and he’d grabbed the brac at the last minute, knowing that she was dead.

He had to make an assumption that they couldn’t know for sure what had happened. They were chancing it to see if he broke.

Mitigate.

Her heart rate would’ve been elevated from the struggle, but they had no way of knowing what struggle. It could’ve been with someone else, not him. That was logical. He’d already told them about a struggle. He wished he knew how a gunshot wound would play out in terms of immediate effect on body function. Obviously, one to the heart and it would stop straightaway, but what about a fatal wound that didn’t kill you instantly? What happened then? Did the heart race, or did it slow? Did you sweat? Did you shake? Did you slowly fade away?

Damn her.

He thought she was dying. She was so badly injured that he knew she was dying. She couldn’t come back because she wouldn’t have survived the journey. She—

The key sounded in the lock again. A tutor on guard duty entered. The man held out the handcuffs. Leo was used to the routine. He walked toward the tutor, without any complaint, and held out his hands.

He was going to have a whole night to think this through. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but a plan was forming in his mind.

Two

Mara sat down. Slumped would be a better description. She was bored. She was frustrated. She was pretty much anything but happy. She’d survived the extensive medical tests, the restriction of her liberty. Now, they were at the questioning stage.

It was another sunny day and the rays coming through the window made her squint for a moment until Debra flipped the slats of the blinds to an angle. It was about the only kindness she’d shown thus far. True, Mara wasn’t being kept in any kind of cell, but a hotel room that you couldn’t leave without being escorted by guards, you couldn’t call anyone from, and that had no entertainment options laid on because that gave you access to the Internet, was just as bad. Being able to eat and drink what you wanted, whenever you wanted, soon wore thin in terms of privilege. The only thing that kept her sane was that Kerry was there with her, similarly incarcerated, in the next room along, and their contact with each other hadn’t been restricted. They’d even got into the habit of sleeping together. Nothing intimate. Just the comfort of another person being there when the demons came to call in her dreams, which they did like clockwork, every time she closed her eyes. Or rather, one specific demon, who went by the name of Leo.

She still hadn’t managed to sort out her emotions properly since being left on the wrong side of the rift with no chance of ever going home, or so slim a chance that it wasn’t worth calculating the possibility. It felt like a part of her identity had been ripped away from her. It was more than just her heart being crushed by Leo’s betrayal. It was something else. It was like she’d lost all of her reason in life. Yes, that was it. When she’d been on her home world there was always the thought that she was going to do something momentous with her life. That she would be the saviour they’d all been waiting for. Now, what was she? She was a failure. She was pathetic. And there was little she could do to remedy the situation.

She’d tried telling herself that it wasn’t her fault, and so had Kerry, bless him. He’d spent hours trying to convince her of what she’d done right. The fact that she’d tried to send Gordon a signal to warn him that Leo wasn’t telling the truth. That no matter what she had done, Leo would’ve found a way to get her brac and return in her place. It didn’t help, because she knew it wasn’t true. If she hadn’t made contact with him in the first place, then he would’ve had a far more difficult time tracking her down. And that was the truth of it. She’d caused her own downfall because of a man she had loved, and thought loved her, but clearly didn’t.

Leo was nothing but a liar, a cheat and a traitor.

But, deep down, she knew that even if Leo had been bound and gagged, Debra would have stopped her going back.

She imagined there’d be some who might call her ungrateful, because what she’d been left with was living on a world where there was sunshine. A world where the trees were healthy and the crops grew. Where the oceans hadn’t yet risen to their highest possible level through the melting of all the polar ice. Where people were still happy, inasmuch as people ever were.

A world where they yet had time to avoid the impending disaster.

If only that were enough.

Debra sat down opposite her and took up her customary opening stance. Elbows resting on the desk. Hands steepled. A sincere, but firm look in her eyes.

Mara realised there was no point in being obstructive about what she knew, because Leo had told them so much there was little point. Besides, if she had to spend the rest of her life on this world, then she owed it to herself. What she told them about her world and what they were doing, and had done, to try to save it, might help this world in some way. It might help them to avoid the same fate. She hoped for that, at least. It was a pointless exercise if it didn’t.

What are we talking about today? she asked, hoping to catch Debra a little off-guard. The woman didn’t even blink, but picked up a list from her desk of all the topics they had yet to discuss. The woman was organised to the point