TimeRiders, Page 3

  ‘A shift is the result of time being disturbed.’

  Foster pursed his lips in thought for a moment. ‘OK, think of it like this: time is like a still pool, or a bath. Have you ever tried stepping into a bath without creating a ripple? It’s impossible, isn’t it?’

  The three of them nodded as the bulb above them flickered and fizzed ever so slightly.

  ‘In the same way, it’s impossible to step through into the past without creating a ripple. But the problem is the ripple spreads and grows from the point at which someone steps in. From that we get a tidal wave that increases in size and destroys everything in its way to replace it with a new world… a universe that might have been.’

  Liam shook his head. ‘Not sure I understand.’

  ‘I get it,’ said Sal. ‘If you change the past a little, you’ll change the present a lot.’

  Foster nodded. ‘That’s exactly right, Sal.’

  The light dimmed for a moment, then winked on and off. Foster looked up at it, irritated. ‘The bulb’s worked loose again.’

  He stood and, carefully covering his hands with the sleeve of his jumper, twisted the bulb. The flickering stopped.

  ‘We need to rewire this place… but there never seems to be enough time.’

  Maddy looked around. ‘Where are we? It looks like some skanky old railway arch.’

  Foster smiled. ‘That’s pretty much what it is. It’s actually a –’

  The light dimmed and flickered once more and his eyes suddenly widened.

  ‘Oh no.’

  The others looked up at his face, all of a sudden a shade paler.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘It’s here…’ he whispered.

  ‘A shift?’ asked Liam.

  ‘No –’ he shook his head – ‘worse.’

  CHAPTER 7

  2001, New York

  Foster’s eyes remained on the fizzing and flickering light bulb. ‘It’s draining the energy. I thought it was the damned light bulb on the fritz. Stupid of me,’ he hissed.

  ‘What’s draining the energy?’ asked Maddy.

  The strained tone in Foster’s lowered voice unsettled the others.

  ‘I thought the thing had gone.’

  ‘What thing?’ asked Liam.

  Foster turned to him, raising a finger to his lips to hush them.

  ‘A seeker. It should’ve faded by now… It must have been leeching power somehow, just enough to keep it alive.’

  The old man reached up with one hand and found a switch on the brick wall. He snapped it off and instantly the bulb winked out, leaving them in complete darkness.

  Sal’s small voice cut the silence softly. ‘Er… it’s dark.’

  ‘Shhh, it’s all right,’ Foster whispered. ‘We’re going to sit tight for a little while. As long as we’re still, we’ll be just fine.’

  A long silence stretched out, disturbed only by the sound of their ragged breathing. Then Liam saw something faint moving in the darkness, the slightest glow, barely an outline… of… something.

  ‘A seeker,’ Foster uttered quietly. ‘It’s very weak now – on its last legs.’

  Maddy stirred. ‘It looks like a ghost.’

  ‘We don’t know what they are exactly,’ replied Foster, ‘but every now and then when you open a time portal… it’s possible to attract one, accidentally trap one of them and bring it back with you.’

  The undulating outline pulsed and flickered like a loose cluster of fireflies, embers dancing above a campfire.

  ‘That’s what happened here. The last team…’ Foster’s whisper quietened to nothing.

  ‘The last team what?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘I must have brought one back with me… the last mission I took into the past,’ he replied. ‘I went out for some food, came back a few hours later…’ He paused for a moment, considering how to continue. ‘What was left of them wasn’t very nice to look at.’

  Liam heard Maddy’s breath hitch.

  ‘They’re pure energy. But they can take physical form if they’re charged up enough. It’s not good when that happens.’

  The pale blue cloud drifted across the darkness in front of them, a spectral form like a lost spirit in a graveyard, a wisp of morning mist in a deep, dark wood.

  ‘But this one’s grown weak. I thought it had gone, faded away to nothing.’ He shook his head with disbelief. ‘I was cleaning up the mess, looking up your files on the computer, preparing to send myself into the past to find you and bring you back. And all that time the thing was lurking here in this place… quietly watching me.’

  The shape stopped moving. It hovered just a few yards away, a dull pulsating glow that in fleeting moments seemed to find a shape that reminded Liam of mythical creatures – a centaur, a unicorn, a dragon – before becoming a pale cloud once more.

  ‘I’d say it’s too weak to take a physical form. It’s dying. But we’re best just keeping back for now.’

  ‘Does that thing know we’re here?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Liam licked his dry lips anxiously. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘Another dimension,’ Foster replied, ‘another dimension overlaying ours, perhaps, attracted to the energy of a time portal like a moth is to light. These things are another reason we should never have messed with time to begin with.’

  The entity moved again, this time drifting ponderously towards them.

  ‘Er… it’s getting closer,’ whispered Sal.

  ‘Yes, I do believe it is.’

  ‘But we’re safe, right, Mr Foster?’ asked Liam. ‘You said it’s too weak to hurt us?’

  Foster’s silence in the pitch black was less than comforting.

  ‘We should leave,’ he finally replied. ‘We’ve got over thirty hours before we need to return, before the arch’s time bubble resets. I can’t see this thing surviving that much longer.’

  ‘Time bubble?’

  ‘I’ll explain outside. Everyone grab a hand. There’s a mess of things in here to get tangled in. I need to lead us out.’

  Liam, Maddy and Sal reached out and fumbled in the dark, each finding desperate probing hands and grasping them tightly.

  ‘Whose hand have I got?’ asked Foster, squeezing as he asked.

  ‘Uh… mine,’ replied Liam.

  ‘You holding someone else’s?’

  ‘Mine, I think,’ whispered Maddy. ‘And I’ve got Sal’s.’

  ‘Good… let’s move, slowly and quietly.’

  Foster clambered to his feet and Liam felt a gentle pull. He followed, his eyes remaining on the pale cloud a few yards away. It was hesitant now, still finding curious fleeting outlines and just as quickly abandoning them.

  Liam felt his feet catch on something snaking across the floor and stepped gingerly over it, fearful of tripping and making a noise. Behind him he heard Maddy and Sal treading lightly.

  Through the pitch black, Foster led the way stealthily until finally Liam sensed they had arrived at a wall.

  ‘The door’s here somewhere,’ hissed Foster.

  He heard the old man patting the crumbling brick wall with his palms and then the rattle of knuckles on something metal.

  ‘Found it.’

  Liam turned to look over his shoulder. The seeker was little more than a faint blotch in the darkness.

  Foster cursed under his breath. ‘With the power off I’ll need to crank the shutter-door open by hand.’

  ‘Will it take long?’ asked Sal quietly.

  ‘Not too long.’

  ‘Good, because I think it’s moving our way.’ She looked at the others. ‘Oh my God, can you hear it? It’s whispering!’

  Liam cocked his head as he studied the faint bluish blur. He couldn’t hear anything but Foster working the crank handle. ‘No… but you’re right about it coming this way.’

  The manual winch was squealing like it needed oil badly while the metal shutter rattled noisily in its frame as it inched slowly upwards. />
  He felt a draught of cool outside air on his legs and saw a crack of pale light at the bottom of the shutter.

  ‘She’s right, it’s definitely coming closer, Foster,’ said Maddy urgently. ‘Can you do that any faster?’

  The shutter clunked and rattled up noisily, the sliver of light coming from outside widening much too slowly.

  ‘There… that’s enough to duck through,’ he uttered, winded from the exertion.

  ‘Ladies first,’ offered Liam. He turned to look back over his shoulder, almost instantly regretting his chivalry. The seeker was making fast progress gliding towards them… almost upon them now, no more than a dozen feet away. The amorphous cloud of scintillating particles seemed to rear up as it drew across the floor, forming the momentary outline of some kind of face. An angelic, childlike face, a little girl… Then the face decayed into some kind of nightmarish creature with empty eye sockets and an elongated jaw.

  Liam wondered whether this thing was as spent as Foster had claimed, or whether it was still capable of doing harm.

  ‘Under you go, Liam,’ said Foster, tapping his shoulder, ‘quickly now.’

  Liam dropped down and squeezed under the shutter door, joining the girls outside. Foster emerged a moment later, and with far less difficulty using the handle outside, worked the shutter down again. It rattled against the ground just as a faint tendril of blue light had begun to feel its way out through the gap.

  ‘It’s weakened enough that it won’t get through,’ he said with a smile.

  He took a deep breath, and grinned apologetically. ‘Sorry about that. Now then,’ he continued, turning to gesture at the world around them with both hands. ‘Welcome to your new home.’

  Liam turned from the corrugated metal shutter, daubed with messy paint – that he would later find out was called graffiti – to witness a giant suspended iron bridge right above him, crossing the glistening waters of a wide river towards a glowing metropolis set against the blood red of an evening sky. He was stunned by a million lights glowing and buzzing, flickering and changing colour, beautifully reflected in the calm water in front of them.

  ‘Oh Jay-zus-’n’-Mary… that’s… that’s… ’ His voice faltered at the sight of the futuristic scene.

  ‘Oh jahulla! I know that,’ uttered Sal. ‘It’s New York… At least, how it used to be.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Foster. ‘Let’s go get something to eat. I know a great burger place just over the bridge.’

  CHAPTER 8

  2001, New York

  Half an hour later the four of them were sitting in a window booth, perched on tall stools around a table and tucking into double cheeseburgers and fries.

  Liam’s initial reaction to the plate of food had been one of bemusement. The fries looked like no potatoes he’d ever encountered before and the burger bun – waxy and brown – reminded him, oddly, of varnished wood. The savoury smell wafting up, however, soon overcame him and, warily watching the others hungrily tucking in, he followed suit.

  As he clumsily manhandled the well-stacked cheeseburger into his mouth, his eyes were on the intersection outside: the pulsing lights of a billboard, the busy throng of pedestrians, cars that looked as sleek as dew drops, the neon glow from lamp posts and a sky, barely visible above the tower blocks, filled with the winking red and green lights of planes criss-crossing the night sky.

  ‘It looks so different now,’ said Sal. ‘Just like Mumbai. My dad brought me here on a business trip once – it was depressing. The roads empty, and so many buildings, like, dark and empty.’

  Foster nodded. ‘The year you come from, Sal – 2026 – New York was already a dying city. People moved out, whole neighbourhoods were left deserted and began falling into decay.’

  Maddy finished a mouthful of burger. ‘It doesn’t look that different to me, though.’

  ‘That’s because right now we’re in 2001, only a few years before your time, 2010,’ Foster replied. ‘The global economic crash had only really just started.’

  Liam turned from the window to look wide-eyed at Foster. ‘I can’t believe this is almost a hundred years in my future!’

  ‘For you, Liam, yes. For Maddy it’s just nine years ago, for Sal… it’s eleven years before she was even born.’ He sipped a mouthful of cold, frothy beer from a tall glass. ‘This is where you, as a team, will be stationed. The archway under the bridge is your base of operations: your field office.’

  Maddy looked at him. ‘Are there other field offices?’

  He wiped his mouth and nodded. ‘But you’ll never meet them or communicate with them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He picked at the fries on his plate. ‘It’s just the way it is.’

  Sal chugged a mouthful of Dr Pepper. ‘I still don’t get why we’re here. What exactly you want us for.’

  ‘You are police… sort of,’ Foster replied. ‘Here to police time. To stop trespassers from the future changing things in the past. The agency is top secret. It really isn’t supposed to exist, so we don’t have a proper job title. But inside the agency, we call ourselves TimeRiders.’

  ‘TimeRiders?’

  Foster hunched forward and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘Look… think of time as a river. A river that always flows downhill. Well, we can ride up it or down it. Ride time. Timeride. Just like being in a river boat with a paddle, we can go against the flow. And your job will be looking for other people on the river going against the flow when they have no business to. You’ll look for them, find them, terminate them and tidy up whatever damage they’ve done.’

  ‘How’re we going to do that?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Well, I’ll be training you, of course.’ Foster smiled tiredly. ‘As quickly as I can. We need this field office to be operational again as soon as is possible.’

  Sal looked up from her food. ‘The team before us… what were they like?’

  Foster’s smile faded. ‘A little like you once, I suppose.’ The old man looked away guiltily to gaze out of the window. He chewed on his lips for a moment. ‘Young, inexperienced and frightened at first… and, ultimately, very unlucky.’

  ‘That thing really killed them?’

  He nodded. ‘Seekers are rare. And normally we do a density scan before pulling someone back from a mission. That last time we didn’t and…’ Foster’s words faded into an uncomfortable silence.

  ‘So,’ Liam cut in, ‘when do we start this training you mentioned?’

  Foster turned to them.

  ‘Now.’

  He sipped his beer again, took a deep breath. ‘I think we should start with a little bit of a history lesson – the history of time travel.’

  CHAPTER 9

  2066, New York

  Dr Paul Kramer looked out at the dark streets of the city, the boarded-up buildings, the discarded vehicles left rusting down the backstreets. Every so often their coach passed a pedestrian, a small scruffy corner shop, a light glowing through a grimy window.

  New York was a rundown relic of the thriving city it had once been. There were whole blocks that were now little more than deserted shells, populated by feral packs of dogs and pigeons.

  The coach was heading down Central Park West, off Broadway. Kramer had seen films made sixty years ago that showed these streets full of life and colour and hope. Now it was a dismal and grey place, a city dying piece by piece, block by block.

  The coach slowed down as it passed a police precinct building, the windows protected by metal grilles.

  ‘No need to drive too cautiously, Karl,’ said Kramer. ‘You’ll make the police suspicious.’

  Karl Haas, driving, picked up the speed a little.

  Kramer twisted in his seat and looked back down the coach. His men, two dozen of them, sat quietly in their seats, lost in thought, pensive. All of them fighting fit, wearing combat fatigues, ready for their mission. The aisle between both rows of seats was clogged with their kit: crates and canvas carry-bags full of weapons.
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  He smiled proudly.

  Good men, aren’t they, Paul?

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said to Karl.

  Karl nodded and then barked out to the men behind them: ‘Make ready!’

  They stirred immediately and he could hear the rattle of firearms being racked and readied to use. They were all experienced, many of them ex-military… all of them firmly committed to Kramer’s plan. None of them married or leaving children behind.

  A one-way trip away from this dying world clogged with nine billion people – most of them starving. What Kramer was offering these young men was hope, a chance to change things for the better.

  In the thigh pocket of Kramer’s combat pants was the one little thing that was going to make that possible for them: a black notebook.

  Karl turned a corner on to 79th Street. The intersection was busier than normal with a few pedestrians hunched over and miserable, shuffling their way home. Ahead of them was the grand building itself – the American Museum of Natural History. Like so many others, it was boarded up, covered in pigeon droppings and mostly dark, waiting in vain for better days.

  Kramer felt his heart sink at the sight of its once-proud entrance now darkened with urban grime and defaced with graffiti. This once-great nation deserved better; this city deserved better. The museum was a pitiful reminder of a grand time when Manhattan really was the centre of the world.

  He could cry, honestly… he really could.

  CHAPTER 10

  2001, New York

  ‘It began with theory: a paper written in 2029 by a talented Chinese mathematics graduate called Edward Chan,’ said Foster. ‘According to him, on paper at least, it was possible to bend space and time in such a way as to create a hole. But it took another fifteen years, and someone else, to construct a prototype that sort of worked. The man’s name was Roald Waldstein, a quite brilliant amateur physicist.

  ‘There were all manner of huge corporations and military research teams working day and night to be the ones to make the first time machine. But it was Waldstein, working in little more than a garage, who managed to overcome the practical difficulties of turning the theory into a functioning device. It was Waldstein, one man on his own, who beat corporations and governments to the prize.’