Day of the Predator tr-2, Page 3

  She shook her head. ‘Hardly dashing.’

  They walked on another few minutes in silence, Maddy enjoying playing the lady in her own period-piece Hollywood movie and Liam feeling like this was something of a trip home for him. Back to his time, back to a place where he could talk easily with anyone and not be made to feel like a complete moron for not knowing what a digicam was, or that Seven-Up wasn’t some kind of a ball game, or that a Snickers Bar wasn’t some sort of sleazy nightclub.

  ‘This is it,’ Maddy finally said, pointing to a narrow side street. ‘There… Minna Street.’

  They crossed the wide thoroughfare, dodging a tram clanging its way through the bustle of pedestrian traffic and sidestepping several more steaming hillocks of horse manure. They stood in the mouth of the narrow road, only two carts wide and relatively quiet.

  ‘And that’s the building we want,’ she said, pointing to a formal-looking frontage of brick and granite. ‘Union Commercial Savings Company,’ she added. ‘According to Foster’s “how to” manual, this is the bank’s only premises. After the earthquake, the fire destroys this building and everything inside it. The company was no more. As if it never existed.’ She looked at him. ‘You see? Perfect.’

  ‘And all our Baby Bobs are in some sort of safe down in its basement?’

  ‘That’s what Foster says.’

  Liam frowned. ‘So, I’m being dumb again… but if there’s a whole load of those little foetus things down there in a safe somewhere, what’s keeping them alive? Would they not die and sort of go off? Is there a refrigerating device down there?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  CHAPTER 6

  1906, San Francisco

  Maddy strode down Minna Street towards the bank. ‘Come on.’

  Liam was struggling to keep up with her. ‘So, who put them in this bank? And when did they do it?’

  She reached the front step of the Union Commercial Savings Company and stopped. ‘OK, Liam, just a second…’ She pulled her glasses and a scrap of paper covered with scribbled notes in her handwriting out of her handbag.

  ‘Oh Jay-zus… you brought notes back with you? Isn’t that not allowed? You know? Contamination of time an’ all?’

  Maddy looked around the quiet street guiltily. ‘I know, I know… but there was way too much to remember. I was worried I’d forget something.’

  ‘Foster would throw a fit if he knew you’d brought notes back here,’ said Liam.

  ‘Well, he won’t, will he?’ she muttered impatiently. ‘Because he bailed out and left us to cope on our own.’

  Liam shrugged at that.

  She put her glasses on. ‘OK, so, my name is Miss Emily Lassiter. You’re my brother.’

  ‘Do I get a name too?’

  She sighed. ‘Yes… uhh… here it is, Leonard Lassiter. All right?’

  He nodded.

  She scanned the notes further, digesting the information for a few moments before tucking them back in her bag and removing her glasses. ‘All right, I think I’ve got it all.’ She looked at him. ‘You don’t have to say anything, OK? Just go along with whatever I say.’

  ‘Will do.’

  She took a deep breath, then pushed the double door to the bank inwards. They stepped on to a tiled floor that echoed their footsteps around a hall, dark with oak panels. Ahead of them were half a dozen ornate mahogany desks, each with softly glowing green ceramic desk lamps. Behind each one sat a bank teller, all but one busy dealing in hushed, respectful tones with customers.

  Maddy led the way towards the unoccupied teller, a young man with hair slicked down in a rigid centre parting and a carefully clipped and waxed moustache.

  ‘Uhh… ’scuse me?’ she said.

  The young man looked up at her and smiled charmingly. ‘Good morning, ma’am. How can I help you?

  ‘I’d like to speak with a Mr… uh… Mr Leighton. He works here, I think.’

  ‘Oh, I’m certain he works here, ma’am,’ said the young man. He tapped a wooden name-holder on the desk. ‘I’m Harold Leighton, you see? Please, will you take a seat?’

  Maddy smiled and slumped down in the seat a little too casually then did her best to quickly recover her lady-like demeanour. ‘Much… uh… much obliged,’ she said as demurely as she could manage.

  ‘Now, ma’am, how could I assist you?’

  She took a breath, hoping she was going to get this right and not sound half as nervous as she felt. ‘My family has a safe deposit box with your bank and I wish to make a withdrawal.’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am. The account is in the name of?’

  ‘Joshua Waldstein Lassiter.’

  Harold Leighton’s eyebrows raised.

  Her heart skipped. ‘Oh… is there a problem?’

  ‘Not a problem as such, ma’am. It’s just… I still have the paperwork here on my desk.’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘Paperwork?’

  ‘The paperwork setting up the safe deposit account. Joshua Waldstein Lassiter, I presume he is your…?’

  ‘Uh?… My uh… yes, that’s right, my father.’

  ‘Well, your father was here not more than an hour ago. Actually, I dealt with him myself. He brought a very nice jewellery box with him and we carried it down to the safe room and put it in a deposit box together… as I say, not more than an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all she managed to say after a few moments. ‘Yes, well, that’s quite right.’

  ‘And you wish to withdraw something from the safe deposit box already?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘Well… that is highly irregular.’

  ‘We’re a funny old family, us Lassiters,’ said Maddy, looking back over the chair. ‘Aren’t we, Liam?’

  Liam stepped forward. ‘Oh yes, that we are, dear sister.’ He grinned at the teller. ‘She sometimes calls me Liam, although my name is in fact Leonard,’ he said, nudging the small of her back.

  Maddy mentally kicked herself for being such a dumb-nuts.

  ‘You are brother and sister?’ Harold Leighton looked up at Liam. ‘And it seems you, sir, are Irish?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But,’ he said, looking at Maddy, ‘it seems, ma’am, you’re not?’

  ‘I… uh…’ Maddy’s mouth flapped uselessly. ‘Oh…’

  ‘I was brought up in Cork,’ cut in Liam. ‘My dear sister in California. Father likes to keep a home either side of the Atlantic, so he does.’

  The young teller cocked an eyebrow. ‘So it seems.’ He sighed and spread the bank account details out in front of him. ‘Well, it appears your father did specify his children as fellow signatories on the account, so… you, ma’am, I presume are Emily Lassiter?’

  ‘That’s correct,’ she replied.

  ‘For security reasons I have to ask you for the code word your father has put down here on this form to assure us you are in fact who you say you are.’

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘It’s… it’s…’ She realized all of a sudden her mind had gone blank and cursed.

  The teller’s jaw dropped open at her unladylike language. ‘Madam!’

  Liam grinned sheepishly. ‘She’s spent time at sea. Picked up all sorts of dreadful language from the sailors, so she did. Father so hates her talking that way.’

  ‘Just a sec,’ said Maddy, fumbling in her handbag for her note. She quickly scanned her scribbled writing. ‘Ahh! Here it is!’

  She leaned forward over the desk. ‘The code word, Mr Leighton, is Hemlock.’

  Leighton stared at her long and hard, suspicion clouding his young teller’s eyes. Finally a cautious smile spread across his lips. ‘Yes, it is, Miss Lassiter. If you’ll just sign here, I can take you down to the safe room.’?

  The teller spun a large brass wheel and slowly pulled open the cast-iron door leading on to a small room lined with numbered deposit boxes on three walls. ‘Your safe deposit box is number three-nine-seven,’ he said, leading them to a locker with the number on its door. He in
serted the key and twisted it once.

  ‘It is company policy, madam, sir, that I remain in the safe room while you inspect the contents of your deposit box. However, I shall remain over there by the door and I shall turn my back to allow you a little privacy.’

  Maddy nodded and smiled politely. ‘OK.’

  She waited until Mr Leighton had crossed the room and was standing by the cast-iron door, casually jangling the keys in one hand and examining his fingernails on the other.

  ‘Liam,’ she uttered softly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think it’s best if you go talk to him, distract him. I don’t want him seeing anything he shouldn’t.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye, you’re right.’ He wandered over and easily struck up a conversation with the young man while Maddy attended to their business.

  She pulled the deposit box’s door open. The faint glow from the safe room’s overhead light showed her little of what was inside. Maddy pushed her hand into the darkness and almost immediately felt the side of a wooden box. She found a small handle and pulled it out. It was quite heavy, and as she hefted it out of the locker towards an inspection bench in the middle of the room, the young man called out.

  ‘Let me give you a hand with that, madam.’

  ‘I’m fine… I’m fine,’ she grunted.

  ‘Strong as an ox, so she is,’ Liam assured him. ‘She’ll be all right.’ He resumed chatting to Leighton, something about steam ships, from what she could hear.

  She studied the box. It certainly looked like a jewellery box, about the size of a small travel trunk, made of dark wood with silver buckles and ornate swirls along each side. She turned the box so that the upright lid would hide what was inside from any prying eyes, and then slowly, carefully opened it.

  ‘Another box,’ she whispered. But this one was smooth, featureless, metal and cold to the touch.

  Refrigerated. There had to be some kind of small power unit or battery inside.

  Her gloved fingers found a catch on the side and gently slid it back. Something inside the box clicked and the lid slowly raised with a barely audible hiss. A shallow fog of nitrogen wafted out of the box revealing a row of eight glass tubes, each six inches long and a couple of inches wide. She eased one of the glass tubes out of its holder and, still shielded by the lid of the jewellery box, inspected it closely. Through the glass she could see the murky pink growth solution and the faint pale outline of a curled-up human foetus.

  ‘Hello there, little baby Bobs!’ she cooed softly, waggling her fingers down at the frozen embryo. ‘Auntie Maddy’s here.’

  The conversation in the corner was getting quite animated. Clearly Leighton had a passion for new-fangled things like steam ships and automobiles. And Liam was playing along nicely.

  Well done, Liam.

  She placed the glass tube back and closed the lid of the refrigerated case, lifting it out of the jewellery box and into her bag. She was about to close the lid of the jewellery box when she spotted a scrap of paper at the bottom. What she saw on it made her heart lurch.

  Her name.

  A note for me?

  She reached in and picked it up. Just a folded scrap of paper, a few words scrawled hurriedly on it.

  Maddy, look out for ‘Pandora’, we’re running out of time. Be safe and tell no one.

  ‘How’re you doin’, my dear sister?’ called out Liam.

  ‘I’m good,’ she replied, grabbing the scrap of paper, balling it up and tucking it into one of her gloves. She closed the box and lifted it back into the locker, much lighter now. She closed the door. ‘I’m all done here, Mr Leighton!’

  ‘Ah, splendid!’ He came over with his jangling keys and locked the deposit box for her.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  She glanced at Liam making a silly face at her over Leighton’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes… yes, just fine, thank you.’

  A minute later they were exiting the bank on to Minna Street once more, Liam holding the bag for her.

  ‘Nice enough chap,’ he said.

  She turned to look at him. ‘A dozen hours from now he’ll be dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, dead. That’s why the instructions said to ask for him specifically.’ She’d figured that out on the way back up the stairs. Because if anything happened, if the young man had caught a glimpse of anything inside the box, or heard either of them say anything suspicious… well, he’d hardly have time to do anything with that knowledge, would he? The agency once again cleverly covering its tracks.

  ‘Jaayyzz. That seems not right to me,’ uttered Liam. ‘Not to warn him somehow.’

  Maddy didn’t like it either. ‘It’s how it is, Liam. It’s how it is.’

  As they walked up Minna Street towards the main thoroughfare, Liam attempted to lift the mood. ‘You got our little babies?’

  She nodded. ‘All in there. Baby Popsicles.’

  ‘Baby what?’

  CHAPTER 7

  2015, Texas

  Edward Chan and the rest of the touring party sat in the visitors’ reception room, munching on doughnuts and breakfast bagels and slurping orange juice from cartons as their tour guide, Mr Kelly, gave them an introductory presentation.

  ‘The Texas Advanced Energy Research Institute… or TERI, as we call it for short, was established three years ago in 2012 when President Obama was re-elected. As you youngsters have been taught in school, the world is entering a new, tough and very challenging time. The world’s population is nearly eight billion, carbon emissions have gone off the chart, the world’s traditional energy sources — oil and gas — are rapidly running out. We need to change the way we live or… well, I’m sure you’ve seen enough doom and gloom forecasts on the news.’

  He paused. The reception room was silent except for the shuffling of one or two feet and the slurping of orange juice through straws.

  ‘So, as you no doubt know, the institute was set up as part of the president’s advanced energy research programme. And over the last three years we’ve used the billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money set aside by this initiative to develop the wonderful facility you’re visiting today.

  ‘We have some of the finest quantum physicists and mathematicians working here, and most of our research work has been to do with a thing called zero-point energy. I’m sure some of you must have heard that term in the news.’

  Edward looked around at the other kids. A few heads were nodding uncertainly. One of them — a boy a couple of years older than him, short and chubby with curly ginger hair parted at the side and brutally combed so that his hair kinked in waves to one side, reminding Edward of a Mr Whippy ice cream — raised a hand.

  ‘Yes, er…?’ said Mr Kelly, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Franklyn.’

  ‘Go ahead, Franklyn.’

  ‘My dad says zero-point energy is just a bunch of wishful thinking. It’s like getting something for nothing. And that’s impossible in physics, nothing’s free.’

  Kelly laughed. ‘Well, Franklyn, that’s a good point, but you see that’s exactly what it is. It is a free lunch. And the idea that there’s such a thing as a free lunch isn’t a new one either. Remember Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity. Well, he argued that even in a complete vacuum there’s a great deal left there. It isn’t just empty space, there’s energy too, endless energy waiting to be tapped. Even the ancient Greeks suspected that we walk through an endless soup of energy. They called it “ether”. But the trick, kids… the trick has always been being able to isolate it, to measure it. Since it exists everywhere, it’s homogenous, isotropic… That’s to say it’s uniformly the same everywhere and in every direction.’

  The students stared at him in confused silence.

  ‘Trying to measure zero-point energy is a bit like trying to weigh a glass of water under the ocean. You know? It’s the same inside the cup as it is outside… and therefore since there’s no measurable difference between what’s in and outside
the cup, the logical statement to make would be the “cup has nothing in it”. Which would of course be wrong. So, we have a similar issue with measuring zero-point energy. Only by creating a proper vacuum — and I don’t mean just sucking the air out of a space, I mean a proper space-time vacuum, a tiny one — can we observe what it is that remains.’ He smiled his polished public relations smile. ‘The energy itself.

  ‘And that’s what we have here at the TERI labs, a device that can create a proper space-time gap. A genuinely empty space.’

  Another hand went up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Keisha Jackson.’

  ‘Go ahead, Keisha.’

  ‘How big a hole have you got?’ asked the girl. ‘Is it big enough to step inside?’

  ‘Good Lord, no! No. It’s tiny. Very small. It doesn’t need to be big. It’s a pinprick.’

  One of the boys at the back giggled.

  ‘Shortly, we’ll be going through into the main laboratory, where you’ll see the containment shielding that surrounds the area of experimentation. I believe the team is due to be opening a pinhole vacuum in the next half-hour.’ He splayed his hands. ‘Wanna go take a look-see?’

  Every head in the room wagged enthusiastically.

  CHAPTER 8

  1906, San Francisco

  They returned to their alleyway with half an hour to spare, having spent an hour on the dockside watching the steam ships being loaded and unloaded, Maddy relishing every little detail of the past and giggling with unbridled delight as dockside workers knuckled their foreheads and doffed their caps at her politely as they walked past.

  ‘Oh my God! I feel like some sort of duchess!’ she whispered out of the side of her mouth to Liam as they turned into the alley. ‘Everyone’s so… I dunno, so polite and proper back in this time.’

  He nodded. ‘Especially to a lady… like yourself.’ He nodded at her dress, her flamboyant hat with its ostrich feathers. ‘Them clothes mark you out as a lady of means. You know? A really posh lady, so you are. Now, if you’d found some dowdy dress that made you look common, them workers would’ve walked on past without a by-your-leave.’