FlashBack: Flashpoint, #1

FLASHBACK

T.R. Davis

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This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

Any weird grammar is intentional.

FLASHBACK

Copyright © 2018 by T.R. Davis

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

ISBN: 978-1-7753825-9-1

THANK YOU

There is no way I could claim sole credit for this book. Thank you first to my wonderful friend Tammy, who believed I could write, and write well, long before I did. You convinced me.

For Pat Smith and Stevie Mikayne for getting my (very) rough words polished and ready for my readers, thank you.

For my wife Jana who suffered through my furious typing sprees and long pauses where I questioned my ability to write words good, and for believing I could do this.

I especially want to thank Shae Mills, author of the RIBUS 7 series, for encouraging and mentoring me, and for providing invaluable advice on writing, publishing, and marketing, and for being a damn good friend, thank you. We have many more books to work on together. I cannot wait!

CONTENTS

HISTORICAL NOTE

Beginnings and Endings

That's Not a Rock, Joey

A Case Study

Moving Chess Pieces

Geoff's Thesis

The Company

The Proposal

The Offer

New Beginnings

The Chase

A Rare Find

The Fight

In the Principal's Office

A New Start

The School

Early Days

Dream Journals

A Start of Things to Come

Test Results

Training Day

Deep Thoughts and Reassurance

Finding an Old Friend

Fitting In

The Caul

Better than a Sharp Stick in Your Eye

Brains, we want braaaains

Eureka!

Hamish at the Plate

Goodbyes

A Quiet Insurrection

Discoveries

The Revelation

In the Lab

Losing It

Gina Versus the Gene

A Moment in Time

The Holiday Season

Over the Pond

The Road Trip

A Flurry of Emails

Toby gets Schooled

A Confluence of Events

Unexpected Guests

First Christmas

Lab Rats

Sarah's Road Trip

All Tied Up with No Place to Go

Minions, Minions Everywhere

Meaghan

Endings

Next Days

Geoff

In Other News

Epilogue

HISTORICAL NOTE

Boudicca (or Boadicea) was the Celtic Queen of a tribe called the Iceni in Britain who lived and died shortly after the birth of Christ. When she was deposed by the Romans, she led an uprising that ultimately failed. But during its rise it was the most effective resistance to the Romans since Spartacus' revolt a few hundred years earlier.

Roman history showed her as a fierce warrior and leader. To curb her growing power, she was captured along with her two daughters, both of whom were subsequently raped repeatedly by Roman soldiers while Boudicca was flogged and possibly sexually assaulted as well. When the Romans released her and her family, she immediately started a long-lasting rebellion that was eventually crushed mercilessly by the Roman army in a long and protracted battle.

Reports differ on the manner of her life and death, but the records are clear that she was perhaps the most feared and revered Briton of that period.

Beginnings and Endings

AD-61 SUMMER

The woman slipped between two trees and painfully made her way along the moss-covered riverbank, jumping from hillock to hillock in the marshy wetland close to the river's edge. She was dressed in tanned leathers that clung to her with both sweat and dew from the tall reeds and cattails she had run through to get this far. The many feathers braided into her hair dangled limply over her brow and she absently batted at them to keep her vision unobstructed. An hour earlier she had lost the leather thong she had used to tie back her hair and simply had not had the time nor the energy to remedy the situation.

It sat extremely low on her list of current priorities.

Unfortunately, she had left an easy path through the fens for her pursuers to follow. The men were too close behind for her to make more of an effort at hiding her trail and she was tired after being so relentlessly pursued. In normal times, she would have turned and confronted her trackers regardless of their superior numbers, but the stub of the arrow in her left side precluded such a face-to-face challenge.

Innogen was not sure if the wound would sicken and kill her. She had seen innumerable men wounded in the stomach die slow, agonizing deaths and it frightened her terribly. But she was still mobile even though she could feel a fever burning, and she knew she badly needed to rest.

That did not mean she was helpless by any measure, since the two men behind her had been seven when the chase had begun four days previously. Innogen smiled grimly, thinking about her ambushes that had taken five men out of the hunt. She only needed to kill the last two and then she could stop.

At thirty summers, Innogen had already lived a full life. She was tall for a woman of her tribe, towering above the other women and even most of the men, and taller still than the Romans who had come to her land. She was well-muscled with ropy scars on her arms and legs that disappeared up under her tunic. Her face too had scars. Some had been ritually added and some had been placed there by her enemies.

Her hair fell just past her ears but no lower. For the first time in decades it did not hang to her waist. She had cut off most of it as she fled from her pursuers because it was hot and heavy, and she could tell its weight was slowing her down, which was something that had never happened to her before.

Innogen was not sure what hurt worse, the arrow wound or the loss of her hair. It had been her talisman and her glory all her life. Watching the copper cloud swing back and forth as she wielded her sword fiercely inspired her warriors and gave them courage. It was as effective as a battle flag from a distance and ignited fear in the weak hearts of her enemies. Yet, she had felt compelled to hack it off earlier that day to make herself less recognizable and to preserve her failing strength.

A murdered husband and king, helplessly watching her two daughters being defiled by Roman soldiers, and a life spent leading her people through the twisting turns of politics, invasion, torture, rebellion, and religion, had all aged her.

But all of it was now distilled to her bare feet pounding along the bank of a slow-running river with armed men in pursuit.

Innogen had no illusions about what would happen if they caught her, but she knew she was almost spent, and her strength was flagging badly. The arrow wound would not stop bleeding and her focus was fading in and out.

The morning was starting to get warm, but a slight breeze dried some of the sweat on her brow. The stench of the peat bog did not help with her nausea, but she bit it back and carried on. She slowed, walking and jogging by turns as the pain in her abdomen flared and receded with every awkward step.

Her mind flashed back to the final battle: her people facing off against the Roman invaders. She had tried her best to teach them that fighting the impenetrable Roman formations was doomed to failure. Her warriors fought as individuals, not as a cohesive force like their adversaries. Singular prowess was how they measured their skills. She had tried, but even as the most renowned warrior in her nation, she could not change generations of tradition even after more than a decade of insurgency, capture, torture, escape and tragedy.

She thought back to the battlefield.

The slingers were the most effective, of course. Standing off and killing any Roman not crouched under their shields, the slingers and their small stones wreaked havoc among the auxiliary forces who had less discipline and smaller shields. Men fell whenever an opening was spotted by the sharp-eyed children who were not yet old enough to carry a spear.

But the Roman regulars hid under their testudo, or tortoise, of overlapping shields and prevented her secondary forces from cracking open the rigorously disciplined legions. The Romans just huddled under their shields and advanced, lockstep, closer and closer to her jeering army and the tribes behind them who had come to watch their warriors smash the Romans once and for all.

It had burned inside her to see children being slain by the javelins of the Romans and the arrows of the traitorous tribes that fought with them against her nation. She vowed to watch those tribes suffer for their complicity.

But once the Roman formations were close enough, her warriors lost their discipline and charged. After so many years of brutal occupation, their outnumbered foe was finally in sight and finally unable to escape the wrath of their army. Her warriors had charged without consideration of what tactics they would employ. But they simply could not hack their way through the heavy Roman shields, and they were then cut down in droves. The press of the warriors behind ensured that those at the front of the charge could not back away from the short swords of the Romans.

She had screamed herself hoarse trying to reorganize her warriors as she watched them being hacked to pieces by the merciless Roman forces. But it was to no avail.

Eighty thousand people, including all the elders, women, and children who had come to watch a sure victory, were slaughtered like sheep in a pen. The wagons that encircled the back of her army, containing all the citizens who came to watch the completely outnumbered Roman army get defeated, were turned into the walls of a prison, hemming in everyone not fortunate enough to already be on the far side of them. The lucky ones were killed quickly.

Her nation, her people, her reason to exist, were all murdered before her eyes. The hillside quite literally ran with blood and turned the entire area into a muddy bog full of bodies hacked, stabbed, and stomped to pieces.

She was lucky to get away, luckier still that she had a plan should the battle not fall her way. Her daughters would never suffer again at the hands of the Romans. They might even have already passed to the next world if her instructions had been followed properly. Her only problem was an auxiliary soldier's lucky arrow that had found her right at the end of the fight.

Her husband was already long dead, his kingdom looted and pillaged by the Romans long ago. Her uncle Aodan would fight until his last breath because he knew nothing else, no other way to exist. When he heard of her defeat, he would go mad. She hoped he would take a heavy toll on the enemy before he was brought down. But her next step was to get away, heal and to live, then come back again, and again, and again until the outsiders were finally gone. She was positive it would happen. All she needed was a little time and space to recover.

IT WAS A MEASURE OF her fever and exhaustion that she had no warning when a large dark shape dropped from the tree she was walking under. She had a momentary sense of mass and darkness, dappled against the sun through the trees. Her normally sharp reflexes were dulled enough by her injury that she missed the body with a wild swing of her dagger as she fell to the ground, pinned by the weight on top of her.

The broken arrow stub was pushed even further inside her, and Innogen stifled a scream of agony as she felt something rupture deep inside her, freezing her for those precious seconds that she might have used to her advantage. Her face frozen in a rictus of pain, she could do nothing as she felt the blade being plucked from her numb fingers.

FINALLY! TITUS SNARLED, pitching the dagger away from the inert form pinned beneath him. The bitch almost gutted me, but she's done for now. He rested back on his hands while straddling her. His knees sank into the stinking mud, the bog already seeking to slowly claim them both. He barely noticed the cool wetness beneath them.

Is she dead? Divi asked, sidling out from his hiding place in the tall grass. His cowl was twisted around one side of his neck in a very casual manner.

For a Druid, even one who had betrayed his gods, his peers, and his ancestors to become a Roman lapdog, he was exceptionally filthy and unkempt. Rimes of dirt filled the creases in his neck, completely obscuring the ritual tattoos on his skin, and his fingernails were cracked, broken, and black with grime.

At only five feet in height, he was shorter than his Roman compatriot and he had a weak chin and sallow features. A patchy beard adorned his face, highlighting his sickly appearance. His robe had been black at one time but was now so torn and mud-splattered, it appeared grey.

She will be soon, I think. Titus gleefully slapped her face hard. Her head flopped to one side, but she did not wake. He gripped the stub of the arrow between two scarred but strong fingers and yanked on it. It would not come out of her, and she moaned without opening her eyes. He slapped her again and her eyes fluttered.

Yes, still alive enough. I think we should teach her a lesson for killing the rest of the squad and leading us on such a long chase. Titus gleefully pulled off her torc, the collar that denoted her nobility within her clan, and then he started pulling at the leather belt around her waist. The wet knot would not loosen easily. Grimacing, Titus pulled out his eating knife and quickly sawed his way through it.

With a yank, it came free of her body. He ran his hands over her, luxuriating in the soft swell of her breasts as he kneaded and pinched them through her leather tunic.

If you were not already almost dead, bitch, I would make you suffer so much more. But I will take part of what's owed from you before I cut your throat and deliver your head to my Primus.

He snarled, wrenching at her tunic. He parted her legs and, looking across her body at Divi, he snarled, She's not going to live long enough for your turn, so you may watch, or you can take her mouth. I don't think she can bite now. Unless you want her when she's dead and cold.

He gave up pulling on the sodden tunic and drove his eating knife into the hem. Sawing and tearing, he was able to get enough of an opening started to get his fingers in and rip the tunic all the way up to the woman's waist, baring her completely to his lustful gaze.

Titus laughed at the discomfiture on Divi's face. Divi's weak features twisted and he pulled at his robe, baring himself as he knelt next to her head. Titus hoped that the bitch was awake enough to feel what would happen next. It had been a long chase and he finally had her under him, just like he imagined the first time he saw her days ago, defiantly killing his mates as she led her tribe against them.

It was a slaughter of course. No one could stand against Romans, anywhere, anytime, thought Titus. But she had effortlessly felled every man who stood against her and then escaped the battle at the end. She had managed to run faster and farther than the squad detailed to pursue her. Looking down at her now, Titus was gratified that one of the many arrows directed at her at the end of the battle had found its mark.

Titus's squad had pursued her north and east, along with Divi, a former Druid-in-training who was caught early in the campaign while spying on the Romans.

After being tortured and questioned and tortured some more, Divi was eventually allowed into the ranks as an auxiliary guide to Titus's troop. Titus took advantage of Divi's innate cowardice to dominate and bully him.

He also discovered that Divi's insecurities and weaknesses were easily molded into a vicious sadism he could carefully direct back at Divi's tribe. It was easy enough to convince Divi the tribe had never respected him or acknowledged his true worth.  The man might be a worthless lump, but he knew this land, and its people and the culture, and he was willing to use his new Roman friends to exact a measure of revenge against the tribe he felt had betrayed him.

Titus's mind snapped back to the present. This chase had gone on longer than he had expected. They were much farther north than he had ever been, and he had lost all his squad except for the Druid. Although at the time he thought he was cursed, it turned out that he was lucky that he had been recently demoted.

The squad leader was now dead, and when he made his way back with her severed head, he would receive all the rewards for a job well done and none of the blame for the loss of the men.

It had shaken him at first, seeing squad mates that he had fought, drunk and fornicated with for years suddenly sprout arrows from their necks and drop dead. Two other men died slower deaths, disemboweled by a sharpened stake cunningly hidden and then triggered when one man tripped over what he thought was a pile of dead branches. He had inadvertently released a sapling bent like a bow which then shot an enormous sharpened stake through his abdomen and into the bowels of the man behind him.

The first man was killed instantly, but the second man took days to die. At least, Titus assumed he had, since they simply left him lying on the ground writhing in pain next to his dead compatriot. The last man to die was crushed by a stone dropped from a cliff as they made their way earlier that morning. Now it was only Titus and Divi, and if there was one thing Titus knew, it was survival.

Letting Divi watch him rape this woman was an easy way to further cement his loyalty to Titus. Rape was an act beyond the pale for a Druid, and it was one more necessary step toward making Divi completely Titus's creature. Looking at the Druid, Titus was gratified to feel his own excitement burgeoning up inside him. With a last rip, he finally got the woman's tunic out of the way. Watching Divi's horrified but excited face, Titus started to laugh and laugh.

INNOGEN'S MIND SPUN in agonizing circles and her vision was blurry and dark. She felt all her tensions and fears, plus of all the hopes she ever had start to drift away from her. I'm dying, she thought. Dimly, she felt hands on her clothing jerking and pulling at her. She heard rough voices but not their words. Her hair was yanked painfully to one side and back, stretching her neck while strong fingers wrenched at her.  

She felt the distant warmth of the sun heating her face and the breeze fresh on the bare skin of her legs and hips and then, suddenly, sickeningly, she was grossly violated. Her body stiffened, and her hands feebly clenched at her sides, helpless, finally impotent after a lifetime of being the most renowned warrior in all the land. One of her hands brushed against something metallic and she felt blood well up between her fingers as she reflexively gripped hard on the small blade Titus had dropped in his hurry.

The bog resounded with a roar of defiance and hate.

I AM BOADICEA!!!

That's Not a Rock, Joey

JUNE 14, 1986

Joey walked along the gravel path holding hands with Bethany. The eastern side of Moseley Bog had been sectioned off in 1980 for scientific study since the western side had been ruined by the old landfill for the city of Birmingham, UK. The path they were walking along was laid to allow easier access for the ecologists to measure trees or count squirrels or whatever it was that ecologists did.

For Joey, the path let him take Bethany under the trees near the river, where they could be alone. At 14, he was eager to see if he could kiss her. His mates all told him they had kissed girls and more, and he felt the peer pressure weighing heavily on his narrow shoulders. Plus, she's very pretty, he thought, excited at the prospect of kissing her and, maybe, touching her breast if she let him. Boobs were wonderful things and he tried not to stare too much at hers. Like all teenage boys (and most men), he failed miserably.

Did you know there are Hobbits here? Joey asked, hating how his voice cracked and wavered on the verge of adulthood. The writer, J.J. Tolstoy or something, wrote about the Hobbits here. He used to walk down along this path and find them under trees.

I love Hobbits! Bethany gushed, careful not to correct Joey. She knew that the author was J.R.R. Tolkien (Towl Keen in her head) and not J.J. Tolstoy, and that Hobbits were not actually real.

"Boys, she thought sagely. You must be careful and let them think they're right or they get all difficult." She felt she was more adult now that she was thirteen and holding hands with Joey gave her a delicious thrill. She knew her mother would give her a firm tongue-lashing if she found out, and her friends would call her a slut or whore, words that were now in vogue with her peer group.

But holding hands must be okay, she thought to herself and it felt nice to do.

According to the book, they live under riverbanks in burrows. If we jump down here, we might be able to find one. Joey pointed to a small dry spot about two feet below the embankment. The turgid water spun aimlessly along as it had for ages, brown and smelling of peat and decomposing plants. Joey stepped closer to the bank, towing Bethany along with him.

Bethany rolled her eyes, realizing that Joey was mistaking Hobbits for otters and had likely never read The Hobbit or any other book that didn't have pictures in it. He was cute though, and she liked how he smiled at her.

I am NOT jumping down there. It smells bad. Bethany barely got the words out when the riverbank crumbled underneath her, spilling them both down to the water's edge. The solid ground there was not quite so solid after all, and they were both liberally coated with vile-smelling mud.  It was only a few feet, but it seemed much farther to her.

Eeeewwww, she squealed, looking at her now filthy jeans. My mother is going to kill me! She pushed Joey away from her with one palm on his chest, suddenly noticing how close their faces were. She went still, not feeling the dank water seeping through the seat of her pants. She stared into his eyes and moved toward him, wondering if her first kiss was going to happen while sitting in a pool of smelly, muddy water.

Joey moved too, the shock of his fall already forgotten. He was suddenly aware of every part of his body touching her. I'm going to kiss her, he dared himself. The guys will never believe me. He looked around to document the scene for regurgitation to his chums later. He reached down to move a large muddy grass covered rock butting into him as he leaned in toward her, his eyes wide open, not quite believing this was happening. His finger sunk into a hole in the rock and got stuck, so he shook his hand absently to one side. The movement, however, drew Bethany's eye.

Joey watched her glance away right before their lips were about to touch. Her eyes widened alarmingly, and she pulled away from him, repulsed and horrified. What? he boggled, still caught in the moment. What's the matter?

Bethany shrieked, scrambling backwards into the stream. Incoherently, she flapped her hand at him in a violent gesture of negation. Get away! Go! Help! She kept shrieking.

Joey finally looked down to wrench his finger out of what he realized with dawning horror was not a rock at all, but was, in fact, the eyehole of a grinning skull. Grownup or not, he gave Bethany a run for her money as his shrieks rang out over the burble of the lethargic stream.

A Case Study

JUNE 16, 1986

"As you can see, it is a wonderfully intact specimen of a man who died and was then encased in the peat bog. This is a very good find! Dr. Clarke was excited about the discovery and was eager to unearth the rest of the body. The head obviously came loose and was not well preserved at all, but you can see here that this foot is perfect!"

It was only a few years earlier, in 1984, that the Lindow Woman and Lindow Man peat mummies had been discovered in Cheshire, sparking treasure hunters across England and Wales to go looking for ancient remains to sell.

Along with other discoveries in bogs across Northern Europe, these incredibly well-preserved bodies held a wealth of information for archaeologists around the world. The peat insulated and slowed the rate of decomposition of the bodies, mummifying them for millennia in some cases. Dr. Clarke was absolutely delighted to now be part of a very exclusive club, and the publicity for the University would help cement his bid for tenure when the time came. It was a defining moment for him.

He poked at the heel sticking out of the mud bank with his finger, noting how little decomposition had taken place. He could see what looked like strap marks on the back of the foot, suggesting sandals were once worn by the person now buried under a few meters of peat. That was interesting and could possibly help date the body. He carefully pulled at the peat surrounding the leg, trying not to disturb the rest of the hidden body but helpless to stop in the face of his own curiosity.

Dr. Clarke, Geoffrey asked carefully, should you be digging like that? Shouldn't we wait for the team to arrive so that we can document the excavation? At twenty-two, Geoff Stallings was officious, but he also did not want to get on the wrong side of the professor. Dr. Clarke was younger than most professors, but he was incredibly smart, and Geoff wanted to stay on his good side.

Clarke sat back on his heels as he pulled at one more clump of peat. I know, I know. I let my curiosity get the better of me. He gave one last tug and fell backward, a huge section of the sod having pulled away. It splashed him with bog water and mud, and a large chunk of peat landed in his lap so that he was instantly soaked on both sides. The ridiculousness of this caused him to giggle as Geoffrey clambered over and tried to help him up out of the stream.

Plucking at his wet pants, Clarke stood up and looked around. The head was still right where he had left it on the tarp, but the embankment had collapsed enough that he could make out even more of the body that was previously hidden. Hearing Geoff's whispered oath of excitement, he readjusted his glasses and started counting the number of feet now protruding from the riverbank.

My god! There are two bodies!

DOCTOR CLARKE! COME here please!

Geoff's strident voice made Clarke look up from the document he was reading and wandered over to where Geoff stood surrounded by the dig team. It was hard to not jump down and help, but his students knew what to do, and he was feeling his bruises after his fall. He was at least ten years older than his students and felt as if he didn't rebound as