Title: BURIED
Category and Genre: Adult Science Fiction
Word Count: 120,000
Query
Mike and Sam must save the
world from a time loop, but they only want to save each other--and that's
what's causing the loop.
After his boyfriend Sam is killed in a car crash, soldier-turned-copper Mike Scott buries himself in investigating a modern body that's been dug up at an undisturbed sixteenth-century site. But his investigation leads him back to Sam's death, and the existence of a time machine Sam 'forgot' to tell him about. The attraction the machine held for TV historian Sam is obvious. But Mike's more used to burying the past than revisiting it.
Once Mike finds the machine, however, it offers more adventure than he's had since quitting the army: A trip to Tudor England. A way to save Sam. Mike will gladly give his life for Sam's, but, after a few trips round the loop, he realises they've been there, done that. By using the machine to change the past, he and Sam have trapped everyone in a time loop that endlessly repeats.
The time machine can't be resisted and it can't be destroyed. Unless Mike can find a solution in his own past, the only way out is for one of them to die. And stay dead.
First 250 words
The day my mother sat us boys down and told us Dad had gone to live with a new
family, I thought it was one of those things adults say when they don't want to
deal with the truth. Not 'Your dad's dead' but 'Your dad's gone to live with a
new family where he can have lots of room to run about'.
It was exactly like that when Sam died.
I was sitting at my desk in CID moving some bits of paper about. Nobody in the office to overhear. I pulled out my phone and hit the speed dial.
It was exactly like that when Sam died.
#
I was sitting at my desk in CID moving some bits of paper about. Nobody in the office to overhear. I pulled out my phone and hit the speed dial.
Not that I wasn't a little annoyed Sam hadn't rung me. Not this morning. Not the night before. Not since he'd slammed out of the house and gone to stay with his mother.
His visit to his mother being what we'd argued about.
Someone other than Sam answered the phone. I knew that the moment they drew in their breath to speak.
"Who's this?" I said. "I want Sam Ferrier."
"This is Police Constable Sheila Warren. Who am I speaking to, please?"
"My name's Mike Scott. I want to speak to Sam."
Stacking papers on my desk so I didn't have to think about why a PC was answering his phone.
"Are you a relative of Mr Ferrier's?"
Jesus, I'd never expected to be on the receiving end of a death message. "Look, has something happened? What's happened to him?"
"I'm sorry, but I can't release any details until the family have been informed."
*****
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