City of Shadows tr-6, Page 4

  Foster smiled. ‘You decide,’ he said softly. ‘It’s your team now. Not mine.’

  She picked at the burrito on her plate, fumbling with both hands to keep the mince and assorted gunk from spilling out either end. ‘I suppose we could use Rashim. He’s got a better understanding of the displacement technology than I have.’

  ‘Than any of us,’ added Foster. ‘To be fair.’

  ‘True.’ She nodded and glanced up from her food at the man. He seemed fascinated by the rack of ribs on his plate, inspecting it like a forensic pathologist picking over a cadaver. She smiled at that. Of course. He’d probably never experienced real meat in his time.

  ‘And he knows forty-four years more of the future than I do,’ said Sal.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Rashim looked up from his ribs. ‘You’re all talking about me like I’m not right here sitting next to you.’

  ‘Sorry, Rashim,’ said Maddy. ‘You’re right, that is kinda rude.’

  Rashim nodded. Apology accepted. He turned to Sal. ‘When do you come from?’

  ‘2026. From Mumbai.’

  ‘Really?’ His eyebrows arched. ‘That’s not long before the…’ He stopped himself.

  ‘Before?’ She looked at him. ‘Before what?’

  He shrugged. ‘The first Asian War.’ Rashim winced apologetically. ‘I’m sorry… I shouldn’t — ’

  ‘No, tell me. Please.’

  He deferred to Maddy. ‘Tell her about it later if you like, Rashim. Right now we need to focus on our next move. We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.’

  ‘What is it you wish to do, Maddy?’ asked Foster.

  He’s pushing me to lead. Not for the first time, Maddy wondered if she tended to open things up for discussion too much.

  She put down the leaking burrito, licked her fingers. Buying time… because she simply didn’t know just yet. A part of her had almost made the decision that the game was up, that their duty as TimeRiders was done and perhaps they should all just put some clear miles between themselves and New York, and then all go their separate ways to live whatever was left of their lives how each of them wanted.

  But then an insistent, nagging voice inside her reminded her of the horrendous timelines they’d narrowly prevented from happening. And of course that voice had an even greater urgency to it now she knew it was just their one little team keeping an eye on history. Not some vast agency of multiple teams, with multiple redundancies, safeguards, fail-safes.

  Just them.

  So the decision, in truth, was already made in her mind. But she wanted to hear what the others had to say, particularly Liam and Sal.

  ‘We run,’ she said. ‘Then?’ She looked at Liam with a shrug.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Liam.

  ‘I’m putting it to you. I’m asking what you think, Liam. We run… then what?’

  Liam frowned for a moment. Then put down his burger — no, dropped his burger. Suddenly indignant, he exclaimed, ‘Jay-zus, Maddy! Are you asking me whether we give up?’

  She said nothing. That was her answer.

  ‘No way!’ He turned to Sal. ‘Right? No bleedin’ way!’ He looked almost angry. As close to anger as she’d ever seen him. ‘Now listen here, Madelaine Carter! I’ve nearly died a dozen times, so I have. To keep that…’ He flung a hand towards the window and the glistening lights of Times Square. ‘To keep New York just like it is! I’m not giving up on that now!’

  Maddy noted a proud smile steal across Foster’s lips.

  ‘Sal? I’m right, am I not?’ said Liam. ‘We want to go on, right?’

  She chewed on the straw in her glass of Dr Pepper and blew bubbles for a moment before she finally spoke. ‘There’s things I want to know. I want to know what Pandora is. I want to know what Becks knows; what’s locked up inside her head. I want to know what that man was trying to tell us.’

  That man. Maddy and Liam knew who she meant: the poor soul who’d arrived back in New Orleans, 1831, only to be fused into the bodies of two horses. He’d held on to life for perhaps five, ten minutes, a gruesome jigsaw puzzle, an inside-out parody of a centaur.

  A horror-show freak for the few minutes he, it, lived.

  ‘I want to know what’s really going on, Maddy.’

  ‘I want to know more about this Waldstein fella. Aye, and more about this agency,’ said Liam. ‘And the only way I see it is… we have to keep on doing what we’re doing. Even if we have to move somewhere else and continue doing it there.’

  Maddy tapped the table gently with her knuckles. Her attempt at calling their meeting to order. It took a few moments. She would’ve been quicker just telling the pair of them to shut up. But also a touch rude.

  ‘OK, it’s agreed, then. We relocate and we’ll set things up again.’ She looked at them all. ‘And we will continue keeping this timeline on track while we’re still able to. Because — look — whatever’s really going on, if we’re being played for fools, if we’re being manipulated by Waldstein somehow… or someone else inside his agency or someone outside, the truth is… I know what we’re doing is the right thing. And that’s the only, literally the only, certainty we can grab hold of.’

  The other two nodded. They’d seen enough alternate timelines to know there could be far worse ways history could play out than the way it was now.

  ‘For better or worse, right, Foster?’

  The old man nodded. ‘For better or worse, history needs to stay on track.’

  ‘OK… OK, this is what I’m thinking we do.’ Maddy pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘We head north to Boston.’

  ‘Why? What’s so special about Boston?’ asked Foster.

  ‘It’s my home.’

  Liam looked up from his burger. ‘You want to go to your home?’

  ‘It’s my home turf,’ she said. ‘I grew up there. I know the area. And look, maybe we can get some help. My folks — ’

  ‘You can’t go to your home, Maddy,’ said Foster.

  ‘Why not?’

  Sal’s eyes widened. ‘Jahulla! You’ll be there already, won’t you? Another you?’

  Liam stopped chewing. Dawning realization on his face too. ‘You’d be a little girl! There’d be a little Maddy there!’

  ‘Nine.’ Maddy nodded. ‘Yes, I’d be nine.’

  ‘Madelaine,’ said Foster. ‘You cannot visit your family, you cannot visit yourself. Do you understand me? That’s a very dangerous contamination!’

  She stared at him silently for a long while before finally, reluctantly nodding. ‘All right. I get it. OK, I won’t visit home. It was just an idea. But listen! I know the area. There are places I know where we could set up. If we’re going to ground, it’s better we head somewhere that someone knows. Right?’

  ‘Somewhere we can easily tap power?’ said Rashim. ‘We’d need that if you want a viable new place to operate from.’

  ‘Sure. There’s loads of places we could settle in. There’s industrial parks. We could rent a unit, pretend to be some small business or something.’

  Liam nodded, encouraged that she seemed to have already given the move some thought. ‘Seems like a plan, so.’

  Sal smiled. ‘A new home. I’d like that.’

  Foster seemed less than happy. ‘It’s a danger, Maddy. And a temptation. To be so close to your childhood home.’

  ‘I won’t go home! OK? I promise! I mean… what’s the alternative? We stick a random pin in a map of America and just hope for the best?’ Her burrito drooled gunk on to her plate with an unappealing splat. ‘Seriously, guys. If anyone else has got a better suggestion… I’m all ears.’

  No one, of course, did.

  ‘Then that’s all I’ve got. Boston. It’s a start. What do you guys say?’

  Liam and Sal nodded.

  ‘Uhh… so does that answer your earlier question?’ asked Rashim.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Whether I’m coming along?’ Rashim looked sheepish. ‘Am I in your… what do you c
all it? Your team?’

  ‘Yuh… I guess,’ Maddy smiled. ‘Sure, if you want?’

  He smiled. ‘You’re joking, right? A choice between staying in 2001 or going back to 2070?’ His face cracked with a wide grin. ‘It’s a head-slap. I’d very much like to stay.’

  ‘Then that’s the deal.’ She offered her hand across the table. ‘We need some kind of oath or something, but I guess a handshake’s good for now.’

  They reached across and shook awkwardly. The sort of uneasy gesture of two geeks unsure whether to high-five, chest-bump or knuckle-kiss and in the end pulling off a fumbled combination and Maddy nearly knocking her drink over. Sal rolled her eyes.

  ‘So, we’ll set off tomorrow morning. Have a last night in the arch.’

  Liam nodded. ‘A last night to say goodbye to the ol’ place.’

  Maddy sighed. ‘It’s a freakin’ brick archway. That’s all.’

  ‘No, that’s not fair. I’d say it was a bit more than that.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ said Sal. ‘It was sort of home.’

  Maybe they were both right. It had begun to feel a bit like that. ‘Let’s just look ahead, guys. OK? We’ve still got a job to do. And maybe now… we’re doing the job on our terms? We’re calling the shots.’

  That felt like a leader-ish sort of thing to say. Like the right thing to say. Maddy looked sideways at Foster and he gave her a subtle wink.

  Chapter 6

  11 September 2001, New York

  Liam lifted the last of the bags into the back of the SuperChief. Maddy took them from him. ‘That the last of the stuff piled in the middle?’

  He looked back into the dark interior of the archway. ‘Aye.’

  ‘Good. Because there’s no room left anyway.’ She ducked back inside, looking down the middle of the vehicle, an assault course of plastic bags and cardboard boxes. And that was just their essentials. ‘I guess I’ll find somewhere to tuck these. What’s in these bags anyway?’

  ‘Some of me books.’

  ‘We can replace books, Liam.’

  He shrugged. ‘And a few comics.’

  Maddy sighed, leaned over and pulled open one of the bags. ‘Oh, come on… and the Nintendo too?’

  ‘Well…’ He looked sheepish. ‘I thought…’

  ‘Jesus, we can pick another one of those up at any computer game store.’ She shook her head. ‘Just the difficult things. Just things we can’t easily replace, I’m afraid.’

  He sighed and swung the bag ruefully into the open rubbish bin beside the vehicle.

  Maddy poked her nose into his other bag. ‘OK, I guess these books can come aboard.’ She took the bag off him and disappeared inside the RV.

  Liam looked back under the shutter. It was dark and gloomy: a vacant space once more, strewn with the cables and rubbish, boxes of tools, cartons of nuts and bolts, spools of electrical wire. A desk with the gutted remains of a dozen Dell computers left beneath it.

  A large wardrobe that had contained, until this morning at least, a bizarre collection of garments. A twelfth-century leather jerkin, two Wehrmacht army tunics. Several Roman togas. An Edwardian-era suit and lady’s gown, a steward’s tunic and more. The clothes were all squirrelled away aboard the RV now.

  It looked like the abandoned premises of some black-market, cash-in-hand PC repair shop. A sweatshop, a squat, a student dosshouse; the Aladdin’s cave of some foraging vagrant.

  He offered it a lukewarm farewell wave. Thanks for the shelter. And smiled with amusement at his own mawkish sentimentality. How daft it was that a pile of damp bricks and crumbling mortar could make him feel guilty for abandoning it like this.

  The RV’s motor rattled to life.

  ‘Come on, Liam.’ Maddy’s head was poking out of the passenger-side window at the front. ‘The sooner we’re off, the better!’

  ‘Aye.’ He raised his hand in acknowledgement and turned back to the dark interior. ‘Well there, Mr Archway, you’ve still got a job to do,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘After all… there’s this bridge above you that needs holding up for a while yet.’

  ‘Liam!’

  ‘I’m coming!’

  Sal sat in the back of the RV on an oat-coloured seat worn through at the corners and showing yellow foam. Her seat belt didn’t work. She decided Bob could have stolen something that looked a little less old-fashioned, beaten-up and threadbare. She’d spotted glistening, spotless tour vans rolling through the streets of New York. Ones that looked almost futuristic, like spaceships on wheels. Instead they had this.

  She looked out through the rear plastic window, scuffed and foggy, someone’s name and a love heart scratched into it. She watched Brooklyn receding like a movie back-projection: busy with cars, bumper to bumper at each intersection, waiting to get on the two lanes across the Williamsburg Bridge on to the lower east side of Manhattan; the morning ebb and flow of commuters, regular as bowel movements.

  There was some relief mixed in with the sadness of a goodbye. At least she wasn’t going to see this particular morning ever again. Tuesday 11 September was at last playing through for them the way it did for everyone else. Once. One terrifying morning albeit seemingly running in slow motion.

  Relief she wasn’t going to have to see that again. The swooping airliner. A sky filled with billowing smoke and the confetti cloud of millions of pieces of fluttering paper.

  But, yes, sadness too. Brooklyn — this place, this side of the East River, had become so familiar to her. Almost as familiar as the suburbs of Mumbai that she’d grown up in. The Chinese laundromat with that old lady so proud of her office-worker son. The coffee shop from which she’d collected countless cardboard trays of coffee and paper bags of assorted doughnuts. The YWCA whose skanky showers with hair-clogged drains she and Maddy had had to use more times than she cared to remember. Their alleyway always cluttered with rubbish, the cobbles underfoot slightly tacky, the walls with fading sprayed gang tags.

  And their archway.

  Their home.

  The RV juddered to a halt at a traffic light and just then — Sal knew it was due any second now — she spotted a subtle flash on the distant skyline: the pale sliver of a fuselage catching the morning light, moving fast and descending towards the twin pillars of Manhattan shimmering in the sun-warmed morning.

  She lost sight of it among the skyscrapers, but then a moment later the distant sky was punctuated by a roiling cloud of orange and grey that drifted lazily up into the empty sky. No sound. Not yet. Just a silent eruption like an undubbed movie special effect.

  Then, half a dozen seconds later, even through the closed window, over the chugging of the RV’s engine, she heard it. A soft, innocuous-sounding whump. Like the door of an expensive saloon car being slammed shut. The heads of pedestrians on the pavements either side of them turned to look towards the sky above Manhattan… and never turned back.

  Green light. The Winnebago motorhome crossed the intersection and turned left on rolling and slack suspension that made the vehicle sway like a boat on a choppy sea.

  Behind a row of apartment blocks, Sal finally lost sight of Manhattan, the Twin Towers and the billowing mushroom cloud of smoke and the frozen pedestrians as they headed up Roebling Street — a place where people and cars and taxis and trucks continued to move from one traffic light to the next in blissful, clockwork ignorance, at least for the moment.

  Chapter 7

  11 September 2001, New York

  It was four hours later that footsteps scraped and tapped down the cobblestone alleyway. Nearly one o’clock. Framed and silhouetted by muted light from outside, two figures stepped into the open entrance of the archway. Two tall, athletic figures, one male, one female.

  They stared into the gloom. Perfectly still. Attempting to comprehend the situation. Finally the male figure took several steps forward into the dim interior and then squatted down to inspect a tangled nest of data-ribbon cables and the green plastic shard of a circuit board, dropped or just discarded to be crushed car
elessly beneath someone’s foot.

  ‘Faith,’ said the male unit.

  The female figure joined him. Her cool grey eyes surveyed the rest of the archway.

  ‘It would appear we have been misled, Abel,’ she said.

  ‘Correct.’

  She stepped towards the table topped with computer monitors, and keyboards, drinks cans and sweet wrappers. She reached out for something.

  ‘What have you found?’ said Abel.

  She inspected the small webcam in her hand, as if the glinting, lifeless plastic lens contained a soul that could be peered into and cross-examined for answers. The AI installed on this network of computers had sent her and Abel to a random address across the city. It had assured them that that was the precise location where the human team members would emerge from chaos space — their return data stamp.

  Her thoughts travelled wirelessly to Abel.

  › This AI provided us with incorrect information.

  › Affirmative.

  Her hand closed tightly round the webcam. Plastic cracked inside her taut fist.

  She turned to look at Abel. ‘The AI broke protocol. It lied.’

  Abel nodded. ‘The AI may have been corrupted by prolonged interaction with the organic modules. It has developed feelings of loyalty to its team.’

  Faith examined the gutted computers, the mess in the archway. Objects strewn across the floor. ‘They arrived here while we were gone.’

  ‘And left,’ added Abel. ‘We must determine where they are now headed.’

  Faith nodded, closed her eyes and queried her mission log:

  [Restate Mission Parameters]

  [Mission Parameters]

  1. Locate and eliminate team members

  2. Locate and destroy critical technical components (see sublist 3426/76)

  3. Self-terminate

  She examined the detritus on top of the desk and beneath it. ‘It appears they have taken the critical technical components. The displacement technology. The support unit propagation hardware.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Abel. ‘That indicates they intend to redeploy elsewhere.’

  Abel joined her, then his eyes began to sweep along the clutter on the desk. ‘They may have discussed strategies within audible range of the system AI. We may be able to override the AI system and access its recently cached audio files.’