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Prologue
One of the best things about our job is that if you live long enough, you get to choose your last jump.
One of the worst things about our job is that, so far, no one has lived long enough to get to choose their last jump.
The last jump is supposed to be a quiet reward – the chance to enjoy a favourite moment in history – to visit Agincourt perhaps, or see Antony and Cleopatra floating down the Nile, or to hear Elizabeth I addressing the troops at Tilbury. To witness some epoch-making event of your choice. To fulfil a lifelong ambition.
In short, it’s supposed to be enjoyable.
It is not supposed to be a whirling nightmare of blood and pain and terror.
It is not supposed to be about savage butchery, mutilation, beheading, and having half your face ripped off.
It is not supposed to be about dying in a blood-drenched pod, trapped with a monster and no way out.
It is not supposed to be about the paralysing horror of seeing your best friend ripped open to the bone and having to put her out of her pain.
It is not supposed to be about being abandoned and never seeing the sun again.
It’s not supposed to be about any of that.
