The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 1
The TimeBubble
Books 6-10Box Set
By JasonAyres
Text Copyright © 2020 Jason Ayres
All Rights Reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’simagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons,living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover art by
http://dani-owergoor.deviantart.com/
This boxset contains the following volumes:
VanishingPoint
MidlifeCrisis
RockBottom
MyTomorrow, Your Yesterday
Happy NewYear
Contents
Vanishing Point
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Midlife Crisis
No Future
Modern Life is Rubbish
What Difference Does It Make?
Second-Hand News
Cops and Robbers
Fools Gold
Nothing in my Way
Avenging Angels
Friday I’m In Love
Perfect Day
The Next Life
Rock Bottom
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday
Epilogue: Death
Cancer
Fire
Sex
Lauren
Horses
Indulgence
Work
Sarah
Stacey
London
Ibiza
Josh
Youth
Prologue: Birth
Happy New Year
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Reviews
Also by Jason Ayres
The Time Bubble
Global Cooling
Man Out Of Time
Splinters in Time
Class of ‘92
About the author
Vanishing Point
Prologue
June 2025
Kaylee was crippled with fear in a way she never had beenbefore. It was the kind of fear that people only felt at the very real prospectof imminent death, and it was consuming her whole body like a slug of poisoncoursing through her veins.
She was a lithe, fit woman in her mid-twenties but right nowshe felt as weak and helpless as a frail, old woman. Frantically she tried tosuppress her body’s overwhelming reflex to be physically sick and to summon upthe energy she needed to keep running from her assailant.
As she descended the stairs on the fire escape that led downto the ground below, the desire to throw up was too strong and she pausedbriefly, leaning over the metal bannister to projectile vomit over the side.
The staircase, behind the superstore, ran all the way fromthe top floor of the car park above to the entrance to the shop below. As thesplatter of her semi-digested breakfast hit the floor some thirty feet below,she heard a woman’s voice further down the stairwell exclaiming, “Disgusting!”
That was all very well for her to say, thought Kaylee, butshe hadn’t just seen her husband murdered in cold blood right in front of her.
Barely a minute ago, up on the roof, she had seen herbeloved Charlie hit by a futuristic laser weapon that had made him briefly glowan incredibly bright blue before completely vanishing.
The unidentified, black-clad and masked assassin had thenturned the weapon on Kaylee but the young woman had been nimble enough to justabout scramble out of the way, leaving her abandoned Sainsbury’s trolley to bezapped into oblivion instead.
Despite being utterly traumatised at seeing the love of herlife vaporised right in front of her, her survival instincts had kicked in andshe had ducked behind a large, white Transit van that was pulling out of aparking space close to the sliding glass doors that led to the entrance.
From there she had managed to dive through the doors,despite a third thunderous laser blast shot taking out the van and presumablythe unfortunate occupant within it. Desperate to escape, she headed towards thelift doors, but she soon realised there was no escape that way.
A crude, handwritten note attached to the lift doorsinformed her it was out of order again, leaving her with a choice of thetravelator or the stairs, a decision which needed to be made in a split second.She opted for the latter, figuring they were less open, making her a moredifficult target for the assassin who she assumed would be coming after her.She could also see that there were people blocking the travelator with theirtrolleys – she would be a sitting duck.
As she burst through the doors and began to descend thestairwell, there was only one word in her mind and that was “why?”
Was this some random terror attack with some new type ofweapon she had never seen or heard of before? Or was it a premeditated hit and,if so, why was whoever it was targeting her and Charlie? They were just anormal young couple doing their Saturday morning shopping. They didn’t have anyenemies.
It had been the most ordinary of days until they had emergedonto the top floor of the car park. Charlie had been pushing the trolley andthey had been chatting amiably about their plans for the weekend. Their friendsJosh, Lauren and Hannah were coming around for dinner and they had just boughteverything they needed, not just the food but also copious amounts of alcohol.
That dinner was never going to happen now, she thought, asshe willed herself on, leaping down the stairs, three steps at a time. She wasdesperate for what she hoped would be the relative safety of the store: atleast there were security guards there. Admittedly they were probably more usedto dealing with shoplifters slipping bottles of vodka into their coat pocketsthan assassins with laser guns, but it was better than nothing.
These and countless other thoughts whirled through her headin the relatively short time it took to descend the stairs. This couldn’t justbe some random terror attack. There had been other people around at the top ofthe car park, but the assassin had ignored them, focusing solely on her andCharlie.
There was no doubt it was the two of them the assassin hadbeen after, and Kaylee knew that escaping through the doors had only given hera temporary respite. She felt a growing feeling of despair welling up insideher at the realisation that her chances of getting out of this alive were slim.
Part of her almost didn’t want to escape. Charlie was herwhole life. Without him was it even worth surviving? Should she just give inand accept her fate, like a condemned prisoner at the gallows? But then shewould never know the reason behind all of this, and she doubted that theassassin was going to give her the courtesy of an explanation before blowingher away into oblivion.
There was a tiny flicker of hope inside her that perhapsCharlie wasn’t dead. Perhaps the laser beam hadn’t been