Chapter One

Although it seemed that Lara finally found the answer to what happened to her mother after many years of searching, Lara could find neither piece nor rest. Now when she could finally leave the baggage of her family's history behind her, she realized that there were some things which were really regrettable during her long career. She did not bear the loss of Mr. Trent easily and lightly, and the loss of Alister almost broke her down. She could never forget that she initiated the events that resulted in his death, and the memory of Alister will forever be smeared by her guilt.

After that terrible experience and visit she paid to her mother in hell, and after Alister was killed by her doppelganger, Lara somehow lost her affinity to adventures and artifacts. Nothing was interesting enough anymore. All she could think of was the price she had to pay for being what she was and the responsibility for forcing Alister to pay her price with his life.

Many months had passed in Lara's attempt to find inner peace, but nothing could seem to help her. Yoga, intensive combat training, travels to most exotic destinations, nothing could unfocus her thoughts from her last adventure in Helheim. Lara also read a lot those days, trying to find anything which could keep her occupied, but even most mysterious books and legends could not keep her attention for more than an hour or two.

Until one day a very strange person paid a visit to her fully renovated and even more splendid mansion in England.

"Strange," Lara thought as she took a long, curious look at this man. All she can conclude about him was that he was male. Even his skin colour was impossible to define. His skin was somewhat grey, and his hair and beard dark, his age was around fifty, although he could be much older.

"Lady Croft, I decided to let Mr. Bing in, because he has excellent recommendations, among which one quite favorable from Lady Chesterton." Winston said, carefully avoiding revealing his real thoughts. He was very worried for Lara ever since she returned from the underworld, as it seems that she was too depressed, which was not at all like her.

"Good day, Lady Croft," the visitor said, bowing down to the tiles in front of her. His eyes seemed amazed to see her.

"What brings you here, Mr. Bing?" Lara asked, not even trying to hide her feeling of boredom. Bing, she thought. The name also meant nothing. It could be Asian, European, even American and African!

"I found something of great importance, your ladyship," the man said and opened his coat to show her a book. "This is a diary of my late grandfather, Jeremiah Carter, he died not six months ago."

She took the notebook he passed to her. "The Jeremiah Carter?"

"Yes, your ladyship."

"For heaven's sake, please call me Lara... Or at least Miss Croft," Lara was already annoyed, which was not bad a sign at all. At least something was happening, Winston thought.

"Miss Croft, you can have the diary and read it later if you want. Let me now give a short explanation of my visit."

After Lara nodded, the visitor continued. "When my grandfather died, I inherited three crates of various papers, diaries, reports, letters... I was very curious and hoped to find treasure maps or such, but all I found were his personal diaries and letters. All logs from his expeditions were missing from his records, I don't know where they ended up. However, this one diary, this one is different. This one was kept during one expedition and there he wrote some things which he did not dare report to the public... A very strange site, or the Gate of Times, as he names it in that diary. You'll see for yourself, he was fascinated and he literally says that one can travel through time if he can command the Gate, and my grandfather thought that he should better cover it up. If it comes into wrong hands, the entire world as we know it could end..."

"What is my part in that story, Mr. Bing?" she asked, still not quite interested, but definitely intrigued. Jeremiah Carter was a great explorer and one of Lara's ideals when she was a teenager.

"Would you like to find that gate and secure it before someone else finds it, someone who is not as benevolent as you, miss Croft?" the man cast a self-confident look at her, not at all upset for her looking like a bored dragon who could fry him at will.

"Do you intend to try a time jump, Mr. Bing?" Lara retorted with her legendary smile.

"Well... My grandfather says that no-one has ever learnt to use the Gate, so, I guess we will also fail to figure out how to operate it... But still, it could be learned, somehow... We don't want to risk a smart criminal who could play with our past... Our goal is to secure it from unauthorized access, not to figure out how to use it."

"Mister Bing," her voice was cold and sharp. "I have met many kinds of people, but rarely a philanthropist."

"I am not a philanthropist, lady Croft," he retorted quickly. "I just want to save this world as it is. I have a family and life here. This is my home. I don't want a lunatic to change our past and present and future, it is in my own interest, too. By accident or by chance, I have a written record of a potential doomsday machine, and I don't want to have it or to have known of it. That's why I brought it to you, to keep it safe. I also brought with me three crates full of other records, in case you want to check for hints or something. They're in my trailer outside..."

"So, you want me to secure the record, and the gate as well, if I understand it correctly?" Lara asked, suddenly very curious.

"Yes. My grandfather never indicated a clear location of the gate, but I am an amateur, after all. Maybe you can figure something out. If you do, maybe you'll want to seal the gate yourself as well... That's all I ask. Keep these records safe and try to figure out what they mean, if they mean anything at all."

Lara accepted. And it helped. When the strange visitor left, she rushed out of her depression and dived into three large crates full of dusty, old papers, notebooks and maps.