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"What?" I asked, unsure what I had just said to make Jack look like that.
"It's a distraction," he said, rubbing a hand over his face. "It's a bloody fucking distraction! He's about to do or is doing something else somewhere else, and my guess would be it's in this time but not at this location."
I blinked up at him, not quite getting it. I was worried we were about to re-board the Orion and hare off in another direction and I would miss my parents completely. But Jack wasn't racing back to the MPCV just yet. He was staring down at me with a concerned look on his face.
"Luna 1 launches today," he said. "It fails in its objective, but it's a massive milestone for the Lunik Programme. The failure aids in its progression. Much is learned and extrapolated from the data. They'll actually have four more failures before they successfully launch E-1A No. 2, or Luna 2. Without those failures, Luna 2 would not have succeeded. Today marks a new day in the race for space flight dominance between the US and the Soviet Union. Today is an Origin Event."
"Okay," I said, starting to see the picture more clearly. "So, he sent my parents here to tie up an Orion. He could be distracting the other Orion, too, before he acts."
"Which is why we have to fix this rip and get back to RATS."
"And leave my parents behind," I finished for him.
"If they're even here, Mouse," he said softly, reversing his earlier belief. "This location means something to you, so Sergei or, and I'm sorry about this, Carrie would know that. How better to tie you up specifically, and by tying you up, there is a good chance I would be tied up too."
"Although that's only by chance. It could have been Dr Bauer's team on-call tonight."
"Which means whatever they're doing to tie up our only other MPCV will be something that would interest you, and therefore me. Everyone would be up and about back at RATS by now, Mouse. Sergei knows our schedule, knows how we work." He took a deep breath and then said, "He knows me."
My hands fisted at my side as I stared out across Palace Square, the sun now peeking above the Winter Palace and making everything sparkle and shine.
"We fix the rip and get back to RATS," I said eventually.
Jack looked at me with such love and admiration that it nearly made me weep. The last thing I wanted to do was get back on board that Orion and fix Time, leaving my parents behind, even if they might not be here at all. I wanted desperately to search the streets. To find what exactly it was Sergei had done to this time which would therefore lead me directly to my parents. If they were here at all.
But Jack was right. The location meant something to me, but that didn't mean Ivanov used my parents to do his dirty work. He had a team of Lunik operatives, not just Mum, Dad and Carrie. He didn't need to actually risk them when St Petersburg was all he needed.
I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me. Part of me wanted to kill him, but I didn't look at that part of me too deeply. I was sure he was responsible for all of it. For my parents' death in St Petersburg. For Carrie's death on Launch Pad 39-A at Cape Canaveral. For me, being picked up by RATS in an Orion MPCV.
Jack had told me what Dr Crawford had thought Time did; how it jumped tracks when coordinates were used to shift planes, and sometimes it couldn't jump back. That's how Jack ended up in alternate RATS. That's how alternate Carrie ended up on Sergei's Lunik and my Carrie did not. That's how my parents were dead in this reality, and another reality's Mimi's parents were here instead.
It was a mixed-up, jumbled up, brain exploding mess. But whatever made Sergei's Lunik jump tracks was tied to my family being dead. All of them except me.
Something was wrong with Sergei's Lunik, I suddenly realised. Jack's MPCV hadn't jumped tracks back then. It had simply picked me up as it chased Sergei through the 21st Century. Our Orions surfed Time's waves properly, but Sergei's Luniks did not.
We had to stop him. We had to fix Time before it split apart. We had to dismantle those Luniks and shut Sergei down. Nothing else mattered.
But that didn't mean I wouldn't keep an eye out for my alternate family, stranded here in this reality just as much as I was stranded in the 23rd Century. It wouldn't be easy. The longer it took to shut Sergei down, the more damage he could do to Time itself. We were literally running out of time. But I promised myself, then and there, that I would find the time to save them. I would save these Wyldes even as I couldn't save my Wyldes. I would do everything in my power to do so.
As we finally turned back towards the Orion, I almost felt their presence behind us, out on Palace Square. Goose stepping across the paving stones. The sun glinting off my dad's silvery black hair. My mum giggling off to the side and telling him to behave himself. I could almost see it, hear it, imagine it.
I turned back to look at Palace Square before the street curved and took it out of sight. There were people out and about now, more than there had been when we first got here. None of them looked like my parents. I almost stopped, took a moment longer to make sure, but we didn't have that sort of time anymore.
Time was being lost.
Turning around, I reluctantly followed Jack back towards where we'd left the Orion, all the while telling myself I hadn't given up the only opportunity I would get to save them.
Jack did the honours, calling the Orion back to our plane. It clinked and clanked, and let off the occasional burst of liquid oxygen, but didn't look any worse for wear for surfing Time's waves. I'd seen a Lunik up close and personal, it looked similar but was cobbled together in a more haphazard way. More worn might be the correct way of describing it. Ridden hard and put away wet would do the trick too, I thought uncharitably.
Sergei didn't have a Technical Division. He might not even have a hangar filled to the brim with spare equipment and top-notch diagnostic machines. His was a splinter group, a rogue faction. A rebel army. The best he could hope for was guerilla warfare and the odd snatch and grab of whatever item his broken down Lunik required at any particular moment.
He didn't have a RATS. And that's why he was messing up Time. Jumping tracks. Killing people. Kidnapping more people. Causing a massive headache at the Academy.
I hated him.
I despised him.
I had Sergei Ivanov to thank for Jack.
