Timesnatched: Pole Star by B.D. Boyle
Three teens are flung twenty years into the future where time coins and bohrium bracelets can mean the difference between life and death. Thrown together in a dystopian New York City, an American farm boy, English school girl and teen scientist will have to quickly unite and join the Coalition of Liberty. The girl’s quiet life along Wigan’s Pier is behind her and she is now faced with trusting the daring young American and the geek kid who can almost invent something from nothing. The boys will either save them all from this strange turn of events or they’ll plunge them even deeper into a frightening world of oppressive dictators, rebel forces and teenagers who are kidnapped for their future talents.
Excerpt:
Why is Grandpa doing this? Why is he meddling with things he knows nothing about? Questions bombarded Nicolas Wycliffe as he stared at the gold coin in the palm of his hand.
Nicolas lifted his eyes to the golden red glare of the London night sky. In the minutes he had been standing there, the shrill scream of bombs hurling toward the earth had overpowered the drone of the Nazi bombers. The ground under his feet shuddered and he quickly slipped the coin into the safety of his coat pocket. He saw a sign on the street corner and sprinted for the stairway of the London Underground. His long legs took him to the subterranean tube that wound under London proper. Vast numbers of people crouched in the semi-darkness, seeking shelter from the Blitz that was showering London with fire and exploding bombs. The firestorm above was sucking the city of its precious oxygen; but down there, in the depths of the Underground, Nicolas Wycliffe found relative safety—at least for now.
After raking his fingers through his unruly cowlick, Nicolas attempted to wipe from his thick glasses the black soot of the war zone above. He glanced around at the poor souls who cowered nearby and then sank to the floor, his back to the stone wall. This was the night he had read about in history books, the night his grandfather had told him about so often that Nicolas could have recited the tales by heart. “It was a scene from the bowels of hell, to be sure.” His grandfather described the fateful night of December 29, 1940. “I was with my cousin and childhood friend, Molly McGruder. We were running through the streets of London, half expecting a bomb to land on us at any moment.” The old man often paused and reflected at that point in the story. His eyes looked up as if watching the scene on a giant screen. “Molly stumbled and fell; I reached out to help her when the brick wall of a building fell on her, throwing me ten yards away into a pile of rubble. I ran to her, but I knew it was too late. My dear friend and cousin was gone from my life.”
Nicolas sighed. Here he was in London on that horrific night in 1940, trying to find his grandfather who had taken one of two prototypes of the time coin he had invented just two months before. Nicolas himself had not even had a chance to test the little machine properly before he discovered the missing coin. From journal entries he knew exactly where his grandfather was headed. And, thanks to the history books, he knew when. A quick Internet search revealed the GPS coordinates of the warehouse that had fallen and he drove to the location for the time jump.
There was a momentary hush in the Underground. All eyes turned to the ceiling. Nothing. Nicolas jumped up to take advantage of the lull. When he emerged on the surface once again, he glanced at the map he had saved on his cellphone and took off running. In minutes, he was on Shoe Lane. Firemen were training a fire hose on a burning book factory amidst the penetrating heat. People were shouting and the ever-present pungent odor of smoke billowed high into the sky. Nicolas searched the alleyways and down every sidewalk. Coughing, he ran until his lungs were bursting. He leaned over, hands on his knees, to take a rest and then he saw them—two young teenagers walking rapidly hand-in-hand. One was unmistakably the teen version of Nicolas’ grandfather, for he had seen his boyhood pictures many times. The other was a girl in school uniform with curly, red hair. Her pretty freckled face was etched with fear. She must be Molly McGruder, Grandpa’s cousin, thought Nicolas. He stood in the smoky shadows observing the pair when from around the corner a tall, lanky older gentleman rapidly approached the couple.
“Grandpa, no!” shouted Nicolas.
The grandfather ignored the warning and in an instant embraced the two teens. They struggled to get out of the old man’s grasp when suddenly a large portion of the tall, brick building broke free from the roof structure. Nicolas watched in horror as the massive wall descended toward the helpless trio below. At that instant, a firebomb lit up the street like a giant flare and there was no mistaking what happened next—the three victims disappeared into thin air just as the bricks landed in a massive pile on the street. Nicolas pursed his lips, reached into his pocket for the gold coin, and whispered, “Oh, Grandpa, what in the world have you done?”
Timesnatched: Pole Star is available at Amazon
Searching for fast-paced adventure stories with uplifting plots and wholesome characters left B.D. Boyle frustrated and ready to try her hand at it. That’s how “Timesnatched” came to be.” Writing clean, teen fiction has become a passion for Barbara Dillree Boyle who traveled all over the world for twenty years with her husband in the U.S. Air Force. “Raising eight children in four different countries was a fast-paced adventure in and of itself,” says Boyle. She and her husband reside in a high mountain valley in the Idaho Rockies.
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