Dinner with Ted

Before Time Shift became a novel series, it began as a single image.
A girl standing against a machine.
A moment of defiance.
And from this image, an entire world emerged.

This image © Copyright Vicki Leversedge

When I made the image, I wondered how this little girl could face it off with a big robot and then I decided that she had the ability to step one second ahead in time, this would essentially allow her to vanish.

Three or four years later I created the cover for Time shift using the same idea only the little girl was now 18, rides a motorbike and totes guns and swords and grenades.

Then I decided to write the story of her between the age of ten and 18 living in a dystopian world taken over by an AI. I changed the moving forwards in time to stepping sideways out of time.

I would like to thank Vicki for the inspiration all those years ago, Kate started with your amazing work.

The Time Shift Chronicles was originally born out of an image that I created when I was learning the art of 3D imagery. In early 2023 I saw an image created by Vicki Leversedge, the one above, of a little girl confronting a big robot. She had a teddy bear in her hand.

I asked Vicki if I could do my own version of the image and she kindly said yes. So I made my own version, which, as you can see below is clearly not nearly as good as hers. I didn't know it at the time but that, was the day that Kate Daniels was born. She didn't have a name at the time, that would come 3 years later. You can find Vicki's work here or click on the image on the image above.

May 19th, 2062

I brought the motor bike to a stop. The Sentinel stood in the middle of the road about two hundred yards ahead, waiting for me, with its gun across its shoulder.

I kicked the stand down and got off, watching it’s every move. Okay, so it wasn’t moving yet but when they do, it’s instantaneous.

You don’t normally see them this far out from the city, so they must be running low on people to convert or some other plot to destroy our lives.

Right now, it would be relaying information about my location so that they could send out a collection team to pick me up. It would probably take them at least half an hour to get here unless of course, one was already in the area, which I doubted, so I wasn’t too worried.

They Construct has very high mortality rates so always needs new people to convert into one of their own, either that or they would put me into some research program. Its function was to find me, detain me, and wait for the collection team, but unfortunately for the Sentinel, I had a different outcome in mind.

KATE DANIELS

Reno

"I picked up my six shot Reaper and Ted. "Come on old friend, let's go and deal with this creep." I didn't take my eyes off the Sentinel for a second, they’re unpredictable and I had been here before so I knew the drill."

I shifted.

Everything stopped and the world lost some of it’s colour, I pushed the stopwatch on my Casio and started counting as I walked towards it. “What do you think, Ted? Between the eyes or back of the head?” When we’re dealing with a Sentinel, Ted prefers the back of the head, it's less risky and less messy. “Okay. Back of the head it is.”

And yes, at the age of sixteen, I still talk to my teddy bear, it’s my thing, probably a sign of my traumatised upbringing.

As far as the Sentinel was concerned, when I shifted back into real time, in about sixty seconds, I was simply going to vanish from down the road. I had moved out of its timeline and was now what I still like to think of as standing outside of time, it’s what I call “The Shift.”

The Road to Reno

Taking Blackhawk Mountain

Seattle

Meadow Lake

Running from home

Post combat fatigue

The fight for Reno