Day of the Assassins by Johnny O'Brien Read Free Book Online

Jaffa cake, and then rocked backwards and forwards as if weighing something up in his mind. “Indeed. I think you will find what I have to say quite surprising… shocking even.” And with these words, their teacher launched into his story, which was quite unlike anything either of them had ever heard from him in a history lesson.
    *
    “VIGIL is the governing body of an elite network of physicists, engineers and computer scientists. However, VIGIL is not an institution that you will find listed in a library or on the Internet. It is secret.” Pendelshape picked up another Jaffa cake and waved it around in the air as he spoke. “We are beneath the radar,” he coughed, took a sip of his Earl Grey and swallowed. “Indeed. This is because VIGIL manages the most powerful technology ever invented.”
    Jack and Angus looked at each other – surely this was a joke?
    “I am talking about the technology of time travel.” He said it in a rather pedestrian way, as if it was something that he was quite familiar with and dealt with on a day-to-day basis – like switching on an electric light.
    “The ideas have been around for many decades. I am sure you have heard of physicists such as Planck, Heisenberg and Schrödinger… and the concepts of quantum mechanics, parallel universes, wormholes and such…” He looked at the boys expectantly, but all he got back were blank stares.

    He waved dismissively. “Never mind. All you need to know is that the world of subatomic physics is an extremely mysterious one, not one where our normal experience of everyday life applies at all. It has baffled some of the greatest minds… including Einstein…” Pendelshape frowned, “You have heard of Einstein, haven’t you?” They nodded stupidly.
    “That’s a relief. More tea?” he asked matter-of-factly. But Jack and Angus had not touched the tea or the biscuits. “Come on, eat up, you’ll need to line your stomachs for what you’re about to hear, I can tell you.”
    Jack steadied himself. “Time travel – that’s just theory, isn’t it? Mumbo jumbo. It can’t actually be done,” his voice trembled, “can it?”
    “Yes Jack – it can. Let me show you something.”
    He pressed the device he was holding and the room lightened. On the opposite wall, the shelves of books slowly moved apart revealing a solid wall of thick green glass that extended from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. The glass had the same hue and texture as the casing around the small platform back at Cairnfield, where they had discovered the lance head. Behind this glass screen was a flat metal platform surrounded by an array of scientific equipment – pipes, cables and steel. The platform itself was bounded by a semi-closed arrangement of hefty black girders. Jack counted eight of them. They rose from the ground and bulged out to surround the platform and then rejoined at the top of the structure. All together, it looked like a giant gyroscope. It was on a much larger scale, and looked more complex than the device back at Cairnfield, but the basic structure was similar – with one exception. Between two of the large metal girders, a gantry rose from the floor and up to the level of the platform. Whatever the thing was – it looked like you could go inside it. Through the thick glass, they could make out some lettering above a terminal. It spelled out one word:
    ‘Taurus’.
    Pendelshape gestured proudly towards the structure, “Gentlemen, here is where theory becomes reality. It’s a far cry from H.G. Wells, I know, but Mr Taurus there will take you back in time.”
    All Angus could say was, “Will it bring you back again?”
    Pendelshape smiled, “Yes it will.” He paused. “Well, in general, it will.” He shrugged. “Details, details.”
    Jack expected to wake up at any moment or, probably worse, find the host of some reality TV show jump out in front of some hidden cameras to reveal that the whole thing was a set-up and that they’d