by Alex Scarrow
Maddy laughed. ‘The billionaires of tomorrow always seem to start out in garages, don’t they?’
Foster shook his head, eager to continue. ‘The story goes that he tested his own machine, went back to somewhere in the past. However, he returned a completely changed man.’
‘Why?’
‘He claimed he saw something on his trip that scared him.’
‘What?’
‘Waldstein never told anyone what he saw. But whatever it was it convinced him that his work on developing a working time machine was dangerous. He became obsessed with preventing any further work on time travel. Over the years, Roald Waldstein became rich from other inventions, became an influential voice and campaigned very publicly to ensure this technology died.’
Maddy slurped her Dr Pepper. ‘And obviously it wasn’t halted.’
‘Obviously.’
‘So what happened?’ asked Liam.
CHAPTER 11
2066, New York
Karl parked the coach outside the rear of the museum where the loading bay and trade entrances were. The men clambered off silently, efficiently, weapons slung over their shoulders, crates and kit bags carried between them.
Kramer helped one of his men with a canvas sack full of ammo clips. It was heavy enough to ensure his arms were aching by the time they carefully placed it on the ramp leading up to the museum’s shuttered loading bay.
He looked around quickly.
The cover of night and sparse lighting from a sputtering arc light almost certainly meant no one had spotted them yet.
Yet.
Soon enough, though, there’d be armed police descending upon them.
Karl, a lean and muscular ex-marine in his thirties, approached him. Once upon a time he’d been Technical Sergeant Karl Haas – that was before the army spat him out, surplus to requirements. Karl was Kramer’s second-in-command. While Dr Paul Kramer might be the brains – the visionary – it was Karl to whom the men would turn once the fighting started.
‘Dr Kramer, sir?’
‘Yes, Karl.’
‘You’re absolutely certain it’s here?’
He couldn’t blame the man for asking. Once they broke into the museum, and sealed themselves inside, there wasn’t going to be any turning back.
Kramer patted his shoulder. ‘It’s here, my friend. Trust me.’
They worked the loading-bay door open with a sledgehammer, smashing the locking bar and pushing the heavy aluminium doors in. Almost immediately a bell began to ring somewhere inside the dark cavernous building.
‘It’s OK,’ said Kramer, ‘there are only a few security guards inside.’ He looked over his shoulder at the night sky and the distant glow of a police hoverjet sluggishly patrolling the dead skyline of Manhattan. ‘The police, on the other hand, will be with us soon, I’m sure. We should get everything inside as quickly as possible.’
Karl nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, and turned smartly away.
He helped drag in the crates and bags of equipment. Once everything was inside, they pushed the loading-bay doors closed. The area, stacked with wooden packing crates, flickered to life in the dazzling, strobing light of a welding torch sealing the service door shut.
‘Make sure that’s properly secured,’ ordered Kramer. He turned to Haas. ‘Karl, take a dozen men and round up the security staff. Bring them to me.’
The man nodded and headed towards the doors to the museum’s galleries, quickly picking some men to go with him.
Kramer felt the item in his pocket: his small notebook. He silently prayed that he wasn’t making a horrendous mistake.
You know it’s hidden here, Paul.
So many reasons why he could be wrong. Maybe it wasn’t down in the basement of the museum, but instead in some other building… Maybe the code was copied down incorrectly… Maybe he really did destroy it…
Have faith in your instincts, Paul.
If he’d got it wrong, though, they were going to be nothing more than a couple of dozen angry idealists trapped in a dusty old building full of priceless museum exhibits boxed away in the hope of better times.
He guessed the armed police might be wary of using heavy-calibre or incendiary weapons for fear of damaging the nation’s irreplaceable heirlooms. But they’d be coming in, one way or another, and there’d be gunfire.
They’ll shoot first and worry about the chipped pottery later.
CHAPTER 12
2001, New York
‘Waldstein destroyed his machine. He smashed it up, as well as burning all his notes and files. Fifteen years of hard work… destroyed because he suspected time travel would ultimately harm this world.’
‘Wow,’ gasped Maddy. ‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it? It’s like deleting all the code for a game just to kill one bug.’
Sal looked up from her food, so far barely touched. ‘So, why did he want to make a time machine in the first place?’
‘His wife and son died in 2028. He made no secret of what was driving him to go back in time.’
‘To save them?’
‘No, to see them one last time, to say goodbye to them. Waldstein knew he couldn’t save them – he couldn’t alter history – but he could at least tell them he loved them both moments before their lives were to end.’
Liam shook his head slowly. ‘That’s a tough one, so it is. To have the chance to save those you love, yet not do it because that’s the right thing to do.’
Foster nodded. ‘Yes. Waldstein was a very principled man.’
‘Did he manage to see them when he went back?’ asked Sal.
‘No one knows if he was successful. He never spoke about it. He returned, as I mentioned, a very changed man, immediately afterwards destroying all his work. He began a campaign for all research in time technology to be halted. His desperate warnings that the world could be destroyed by time travel began to find an audience and in early 2051 an international law was passed strictly forbidding the development of the technology. Waldstein became a recluse after that, rarely seen in public, but content that his campaign had put an end to time travel.’
Foster sighed. ‘But, of course, it didn’t.’
He finished his beer. ‘It was obvious that every major corporation, every country, every tin-pot dictator, anybody with the money, the resources and manpower, was secretly working on their own time machine. Waldstein had shown it was possible and that was enough.
‘So, in direct violation of the international law, this agency was set up. Quietly, secretly, working on their very own machines.’
‘Let me guess,’ interrupted Maddy, ‘to go back in time to kill Waldstein?’
Foster shook his head. ‘No. Just as Waldstein couldn’t save his family, so the agency can’t go back in time to prevent him from making his machine. History cannot be violated, it cannot be changed – that’s the tidal wave I mentioned a while back, remember?’
They nodded.
‘You see, time can cope with very small changes. History can sort of heal itself of very, very minor alterations, because there’s a momentum to events, a momentum to history. It’s as if history wants to go a certain route. But,’ said Foster with a cautionary glance up at them, ‘but, a more significant change, for example going back in time and talking Waldstein out of building his machine, or even killing him… well, something like that would be enough of a change to cause a tidal wave.’
He looked out of the window at the busy street aglow with neon light spilling down from a billboard advertising Nike sportswear.
‘The agency was set up to be ready for what they knew was coming: future time travellers, those who’d want to change the past and rewrite the present – terrorists, religious fanatics, megalomaniacs, the criminally insane. Anyway –’ he pushed his stool back and stood up – ‘that’s enough of the history lesson for now. I think it’s time I took you three outside and showed you a little of the world out there, the time and place in which you’re going to be based. Particularly yo
u, Liam.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll need to play a little catch-up if you want to familiarize yourself with the world of 2001.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘It doesn’t look so different. Just as busy, noisy, smelly as 2010.’
‘Oh, but this is a very different New York,’ said Foster.
Maddy looked out of the window. ‘Not really… I see the same ol’, same ol’ out there: adverts for Burger King and McDonald’s, Nike and Adidas, yellow cabs and guys trying to sell cheap AA batteries that don’t work.’
‘I think I’d better show you something, Maddy. I think it’ll mean a lot more to you than Sal and Liam.’
CHAPTER 13
2066, New York
Kramer studied the museum’s six security guards, rounded up by Haas and his men without so much as a shot fired. They stared fearfully back at him, eyes darting anxiously down at the weapon slung over his shoulder. A couple of them were tousled-haired and bleary-eyed as if they’d been roused from sleep.
Kramer shook his head pityingly.
Great security guards.
‘My name is Dr Paul Kramer. It’s very simple, gentlemen. We want the major media networks assembled outside and I want to do an interview with them, which will be broadcast across the nation’s networks, live. We also want a hoverjet landed on the roof of the museum, in which we intend to leave, untouched, when our work here is done. If we don’t get what we want, we will destroy the museum and all of its incredibly valuable and irreplaceable contents.’
Kramer smiled. ‘There. I said it was pretty simple.’
The security guards stared at him, dumbstruck.
‘Now,’ he continued, ‘we will be letting one of you go to take our demands out to the police, who I’m sure are already on their way by now. The rest, I’m afraid, will be required to stay here with us as our hostages.’
One of the guards cleared his throat. ‘The government won’t negotiate with terrorists – you must know that.’
‘We shall see. There are too many valuable national heirlooms in this building. Even in these godforsaken times – people starving, people living in shanty towns across this country – there’s still a pride in our heritage, our grand past. The people will lynch the authorities if this place ends up burning to the ground.’ Kramer shrugged almost apologetically. ‘I’m pretty sure they’ll negotiate.’
The guard’s face stiffened. ‘You’d really destroy this place?’
‘Oh yes.’ Kramer smiled sadly. ‘I’m afraid I most definitely would.’ He took a step towards the security guard. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Malone, Bradley Malone.’
Kramer appraised the portly guard silently. In the distance they could hear the whup-whup-whup of police hoverjets already approaching and the wailing sirens of ground response units converging.
‘Well, Bradley, I like that you spoke up. I really do. You seem to have more balls than the others. So why don’t we let you be the one to go out and give the police our demands? You make sure you tell them that we’re prepared to wait two hours for things to be arranged. Not a minute more. If they’re late… this whole place will go up like a Roman candle.’
Bradley Malone nodded.
‘And if they try something dumb, like – ooh, I don’t know – a surprise assault, they’ll be very sorry. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, my men and I are armed to the teeth and, while I’m more of a desk man myself, Karl here, and his boys, have quite an impressive amount of combat experience between them.’
Malone nodded once more. ‘I’ll be sure to tell them.’
‘Good. Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, Bradley.’ Kramer nodded to one of his men. ‘Send him out the front entrance.’
He watched them go, then turned to Haas.
‘Karl, have the other guards taken into the basement; we’ll hold them down there. And let’s get our kit down there too. No time to waste – the clock’s ticking now.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The men moved quickly and efficiently, hustling the hostages through double doors labelled with a fading sign: TO STORAGE BASEMENT: STAFF ACCESS ONLY. The rest of them began to lift their crates and canvas sacks of equipment after them, banging clumsily through the swing doors and grunting with effort as they hefted them down concrete steps to the basement.
The sound of the hoverjets and sirens had grown louder, and through the metal grilles that covered the building’s grand front windows he could see the blue flash of police lights. Apart from a couple of his men, stationed by the windows, keeping an eye on the police assembling outside, weapons unslung and ready to fire, Kramer stood alone in the dim interior of the Museum of Natural History’s main hall.
‘That should keep everyone busy enough, for now,’ he muttered quietly.
CHAPTER 14
2001, New York
Foster pointed up at the New York skyline. ‘Do you see something there that shouldn’t be there?’
Maddy gasped. ‘Oh my God… the Twin Towers!’
‘That’s right,’ said Foster, ‘the World Trade Center.’
She looked at him. ‘Does this mean history’s changed already? That they won’t be destroyed by terrorists?’
The old man shook his head sadly. ‘Sorry, no. History remains unaltered… remains in this case – regrettably – as it should be.’
‘Oh man.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful they looked, all lit up at night like that.’
‘The agency picked this time and this place for a very good reason,’ Foster continued. ‘Today’s date is the tenth of September. Tomorrow is the eleventh.’
Sal looked up at him. Her eyes widened, suddenly registering something. ‘Nine-eleven!’ she said. ‘I remember, we studied that in school. That’s going to happen tomorrow?’
Foster nodded.
Liam looked from one face to another, bemused. ‘Nine-eleven? What’s that? What’s going to happen?’
‘Nine-eleven is how people refer to the terrible thing that will happen tomorrow morning, Liam.’
Foster gestured up at the glowing skyscrapers towering above Manhattan’s cityscape like sentinels. ‘Tomorrow, at eight forty-five a.m. precisely, a plane full of people will be deliberately crashed by terrorists into the side of the north tower, and about eighteen minutes later another will be crashed into the side of the south tower. By ten thirty a.m., both towers will have collapsed in on themselves and about three thousand people will have lost their lives.’
Liam looked at Maddy and noticed the glistening trail of tears running down her cheeks.
Foster took a deep breath. ‘Many people in New York lost someone they loved, someone they knew. The nation was traumatized. Tomorrow, Liam, this will feel like a very different city.’ He placed a comforting hand on Maddy’s arm. ‘I’m sorry. I know from our computer records that you lost family in there.’
She nodded. ‘A cousin. Julian. He was cool.’ She could have told the others how she’d had a childhood crush on him. How he’d made her laugh till she cried whenever he came to visit. He’d run the computer network for one of the banks. Julian died along with three thousand others. Died, and left them nothing to bury.
‘I know this is painful for you,’ continued Foster, ‘but for practical purposes this is an ideal location for an agency field office.’
‘Why?’ she asked, wiping her cheeks dry. ‘Why does it have to be here?… Why now?’
Foster paused for a moment, thinking how best to explain.
‘The archway you awoke in, the field office, exists in a time bubble of forty-eight hours. Two days. Monday tenth and Tuesday the eleventh of September 2001. Come midnight on Tuesday it automatically resets back to the beginning of Monday. You, as a team, will live within that time bubble. You will live those two days over and over again, whilst for the rest of the world those two days will come… and go.’
‘But why does it have to be these two days?’ asked Maddy. ‘I remember that day. I was nine. My mom and dad both cried the whole da
y, that Tuesday. Why then?’
‘Because everyone’s attention will be on what happened. No one will ever notice the comings and goings from that little archway beneath the bridge. No one will ever remember –’ Foster glanced at Liam – ‘this young man dressed in a steward’s uniform, wandering around the night before. Your existence here will never affect time, never contaminate time… you’ll never be remembered by anyone. All anyone will ever recall of today and tomorrow will be the horrendous images of the planes striking the towers, the towers coming down, the dust-clogged streets, the grief-stricken survivors emerging from the smoke.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s how we stay unnoticed, Madelaine, it’s how we keep the agency a secret. It’s how we keep from contaminating time ourselves.’
She nodded silently, new tears beginning to fill her eyes.
He rested a hand on her arm. ‘I’m truly sorry. Do you remember the day before?’
She shook her head.
He smiled. ‘The day before, the Monday, really was beautiful. A warm and sunny day, Central Park filled with tourists and New Yorkers enjoying the warmth without a care in the world. Take comfort in that, Madelaine, at the end of every grim Tuesday, because for you the world resets and that Monday waits to happen once more.’
Maddy wondered if that meant she might one day catch sight of Julian striding to work in his smart office clothes, be able to talk to him again. Warn him not to turn up for work?
No… No, I guess I can’t. She shook the tempting notion from her head, knowing that it would come back again to taunt her.
Foster glanced at his watch. ‘It’s been a few hours now. The seeker should have faded away.’
Liam swallowed anxiously. ‘You’re sure of that, Mr Foster?’
‘Yes. It was already dying when we left. I left everything powered off, even that light switch. It’ll have faded away by now. We should head back. There’s much for the three of you to learn, and learn quickly.’