City of Shadows

by Alex Scarrow

  She tried to think of their family life directly after 9/11. But she couldn’t remember anything specific that was due to happen at home over the next few days. They’d lost Julian in the north tower, their nephew, her cousin. It would be a household fogged with grief right now. No wonder she couldn’t recall anything specific. She was nine, then – now. Her younger version would be a confused and frightened little girl, believing Fox News that a Big War was coming. That more planes could suddenly start dropping out of the sky. No wonder Maddy couldn’t pull any useful memory out of her head from the immediate aftermath. It was just one big fog of news stations repeating the same things, of fear and paranoia and rumours.

  She decided she’d pick something from before 9/11 to tell her parents, something only their very own daughter would know. And yes, there’d be herself – her younger self – right there to confirm that she was telling the truth, that she was their daughter from the future. She could pick something like her favourite toy’s name, her favourite TV show, her favourite clothes, her favourite …

  Maddy realized she couldn’t recall any of those things.

  Not a single thing.

  ‘Liam’s right,’ said Sal. ‘Maybe visiting them isn’t a good idea.’

  Maybe. Maddy watched channels flash by on the screen. Maybe the other two were right. But they couldn’t stay here in these two motel rooms forever.

  Liam yawned. She felt tired too. She needed some time alone to get her head right.

  ‘Let’s get some rest,’ she said finally. ‘We’ve all had a bad few days and we’re none of us thinking straight here.’

  ‘That is sensible,’ said Bob. ‘Becks and I can stand watch while you sleep.’

  ‘You boys can have the other room,’ said Maddy. Rashim nodded and got up. Liam tossed the TV remote to Sal, and Bob opened the door for them.

  ‘Let’s meet for dinner. We’ll work out what we do next then.’

  The boys left, the motel door snicked shut behind them. Becks took her place beside the window, the net curtain tugged slightly aside, patiently watching the slip road outside that led past a TGI Friday’s and a liquor store to their motel. Sal flopped on to the free bed and within a couple of minutes was snoring with a soft rattle that sounded like the purr of a cat.

  And Maddy gazed listlessly at the muted TV set at the end of her bed.

  Chapter 29

  12 September 2001, New Haven County, Connecticut

  Agents Cooper and Mallard looked at the knuckle-shaped bulge in the cell door.

  ‘She did that?’ said Cooper.

  The duty officer at the county police station nodded. ‘We had to taser her and heavily sedate her, cuff her … and put her in a restraining jacket, or I reckon she’d have smashed her way out eventually.’

  ‘She’s conscious now, though?’

  The officer nodded. ‘You actually wanna go in there with her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Jeez … don’t rile her up or anything.’ He fussed with a jangle of keys on his belt. ‘Don’t know why we’re holding her here. She should’ve been taken to the state –’

  ‘On my orders,’ replied Cooper. ‘The less pairs of eyeballs on this, the better. And you and your boys did a splendid job taking her down at the mall.’ He smiled kindly. ‘I trust her in your care, officer. For the moment.’

  He found the key and inserted it into the cell door. ‘This is some kind of Top Secret, isn’t it?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘Anything to do with the World Trade Center?’

  Cooper shook his head. Keep it simple. Keep it terrorist-free. ‘No. Nothing.’

  He turned the key in the door. ‘Back at the mall she hospitalized three of my men even after we’d tasered the heck out of her.’ He looked at Cooper pointedly. ‘Could you at least give me some idea what the hell she is?’

  Cooper glanced at Mallard, then back at the cop. ‘She’s … the future.’ He pulled the cell door open; it clanged against the doorframe as it opened, slightly misshapen from the pounding it had received from the inside.

  He stepped in, beckoned Mallard to join him, but held his hand up to the cop. ‘Just my colleague and me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Right,’ sighed the officer.

  He glanced at the bald-headed female strapped to the cell’s cot. She was wide awake and emotionless grey eyes swivelled murderously towards him. She was panting like a wild animal, flexing against the restraints.

  ‘She’s all yours,’ he said finally and closed the door on them.

  Mallard looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘You sure we’re safe in here with her, sir?’

  Cooper ignored him. He squatted down beside the cot; those grey eyes were now on him. Her panting and flexing stopped. No longer a wild animal. In a heartbeat she was calm and impassive. He could feel those grey eyes coolly evaluating him.

  ‘Release me,’ she said evenly after a while.

  ‘Ah! So … you can talk?’

  ‘Affirmative. I am able to talk.’

  Cooper tapped his chin with his fountain pen for a moment. ‘I have no idea what exactly you are. I do know, however, that you’re not a normal human being.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘We had a preliminary report back on a sample of your colleague’s blood …’ Cooper worked to keep his voice as cold and clinically professional as this young woman’s. ‘It’s not a match with any blood type.’

  ‘Correct,’ she replied. Her dark eyebrows knotted momentarily. ‘Abel is terminated?’

  ‘Terminated? You mean dead?’ No point lying to her. ‘Yes, he’s quite dead.’

  He thought he detected the slightest flicker of a reaction on her face.

  Terminated. God, yes … that’s what this was beginning to feel like – that awfully cheesy eighties science-fiction movie about killer robots.

  ‘The post-mortem also produced another very interesting discovery,’ continued Cooper.

  This one’s a doozy. The pathologist who’d rung this little detail through to him was almost in tears. She was gabbling, confused, asking him questions none of which he could answer. Mallard had yet to hear this titbit of information.

  ‘Your friend, Abel, has no human brain.’

  ‘Whuh?’ Mallard’s jaw hung open. Cooper scowled at him and his mouth snapped shut.

  ‘The cranial cavity interior’s much, much smaller than a regular human skull. The space is taken up with additional layers of bone. A thoroughly reinforced skull. Inside all of that we found a brain the size of a fingernail and what appears to be some sort of embedded circuitry.’

  ‘The circuit has self-destructed,’ she said, cocking an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

  He wasn’t sure if that was a statement or a question. He waited for more, but she just eyed him coolly. ‘Yes …’ He sighed. ‘It was pretty much fried.’

  ‘That is good.’

  Was that the ghost of a smile there?

  ‘Abel was able to self-destruct.’

  He thought he’d give the direct approach a go. At the moment she seemed willing to talk candidly. ‘Would you care to tell me who … or what … you are?’

  ‘Genetically engineered organic-silicon hybrid – Reconnaissance and Covert Operations variant,’ she replied. ‘With W.G. Systems AI version 2.3.11 installed.’

  ‘What does organic-silicon hybrid mean? You’re what? … Some sort of half human-half robot?’ asked Mallard.

  ‘Negative. I am a genetically engineered human frame with a dense silicon-wafer processor.’ Her eyes flickered on to Mallard. ‘A computer for a brain,’ she clarified for his benefit.

  ‘But … but –’ He looked at Cooper – ‘we can’t do that kind of genetic engineering yet! Can we?’

  ‘No,’ Faith replied. ‘Not for another fifty years.’

  ‘My God!’ gasped Mallard. ‘Jesus! You’re from the … from the future? Is that what you’re saying?!’

  Cooper was tempted to tell Mallard to shut up. Yes, at some point he
was going to need to bring his new man up to speed. Mallard had already been exposed to knowledge way beyond being allowed to return to the FBI rank and file. Cooper decided he might as well get him right up there on the same page as him. The sooner, the better. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me what precise year you’re from?’ Cooper said.

  ‘My batch birth date is 25 June 2069. Waldstein sent us back to kill TimeRiders.’

  ‘Oh my God! Did she just say –?’

  ‘That’s right, Mallard. You’re going to need to get your head round this. And fast. I can’t have you flapping your jaw like that every time something’s said. She’s from the future – get used to it.’

  The younger man paled. He rocked on his heels uncertainly as his jaw hung open, catching flies once more.

  Cooper decided he’d better go easy on him. After all, personally he’d had quite a few years to get used to the idea that anonymous time travellers had passed this way in recent years and just might have rather carelessly left one or two of their footsteps in history.

  ‘The future?’ he whispered.

  ‘Mallard, I need you to process that quietly, all right? I know it’s a helluva thing to take on board. So, just think about it for now, and later I will talk you through it, all the evidence we have. The whole deal. But for now? Right now? … I need you to shut up.’ He patted the man’s shoulder. ‘All right?’

  Mallard nodded. Cooper turned back to the young woman strapped to the cell’s cot. ‘Why have you come back here to our time? Who were you after in that shopping mall?’

  She started blinking rapidly.

  ‘You all right? What’re you doing?’ No response, just the rapid flickering of her eyelids.

  ‘Good God!’ Mallard was horrified. ‘I think she’s having a seizure. She’s –’

  Her eyes snapped open. ‘Negative. I am reprioritizing mission parameters. Just a moment … just a moment …’

  A minute passed in silence. Long enough for Cooper to begin wondering whether he needed to prod her again.

  ‘Information,’ she said finally. ‘While you may be able to assist me, revealing mission objectives to you is a protocol breach. A contamination.’

  ‘Contamination?’

  ‘A time contamination: providing information to you that may cause you to behave in a way or perform actions that alter the timeline. This is a basic protocol breach and must be avoided. However …’ Her eyelids stopped fluttering and her gaze settled back on Cooper. ‘There is a greater contamination occurring at the moment which must be prevented.’

  ‘The people you were after?’

  ‘Correct. They are not of this time. They must be located immediately and dealt with.’

  ‘By that, I’m guessing you mean killed?’

  ‘Affirmative. They have with them the necessary components to facilitate further time displacements and cause even greater contamination. They must be located before they effect a displacement.’

  ‘Displacement? You mean time travel?’ Cooper felt hairs rising on the back of his neck. ‘My God, you … you’re actually talking about a functioning –’ he felt ridiculous even voicing the words, but there was no other way of saying it – ‘time machine? Is that what you’re talking about? Is that what they’ve got with them?’

  ‘The components required to rebuild one, yes.’

  Cooper felt a little unsteady. Like Mallard had a moment ago, he rocked back on his heels, settling gently against the cold wall of the cell, grateful for its support.

  She played a cold, emotionless facsimile of a smile across her lips. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Cooper,’ he answered. ‘Agent Niles Cooper.’

  ‘Cooper, I am Faith. I believe that we are able to assist each other.’

  A deal. She’s proposing a deal.

  ‘You want us to let you out of here?’

  ‘Affirmative. I can lead you directly to them. I have data on their likely movements.’

  ‘And, if you find them, then what?’

  ‘I will kill them.’

  ‘What about their –’ he decided to use her term – ‘displacement machine?’

  ‘It must be destroyed.’

  ‘No, we’d want that intact. I can’t agree to those –’

  ‘Negative. Allowing you to possess a fully functioning displacement device is unacceptable. That would be an even greater contamination threat. You will not be permitted that.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid there’s no deal, Faith.’

  Her eyes closed and her eyelids began to flutter. She started to pant and flex again, an unsettling sight like a child sucking in air and preparing to throw an almighty tantrum. But then she stopped. ‘I am able to offer you an alternative, Cooper.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My silicon mind, completely intact.’

  He narrowed his eyes. ‘The computer in your head? Just like the other one … in your dead friend?’

  ‘Correct. I will, of course, delete all files associated with time displacement, but you would be left with the computer architecture entirely intact.’

  ‘Jesus,’ whispered Mallard. ‘That’s a fifty-year jump in computer technology!’

  Cooper nodded slowly. ‘Yes … yes, it is.’

  ‘Do we have an agreement?’ asked Faith.

  He tapped his chin again. He could feel those hairs on the back of his neck once more, his scalp prickling.

  ‘All right. I think we have the basis of an agreement.’

  Chapter 30

  13 September 2001, Interstate 90, Newton, Massachusetts

  It was mid-afternoon the next day when the debate in her head finally came to an end and she got up off her bed. Sal was still snoring.

  Becks heard her stir, looked up from where she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. ‘Where are you going, Maddy?’

  ‘Out,’ she replied softly.

  ‘Are you going to visit your family?’

  No point lying to her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘The others are worried about you doing this.’

  ‘I need to go.’

  She and Becks had had this conversation before. Back when the archway was a pile of rubble in the bottom of a bomb crater, barely holding itself together. She’d nearly walked out on Becks and the others then. She’d planned to somehow make her way back to Boston in the vain hope of finding an alternate version of her parents, perhaps even a version of herself. It had been a moment of weakness. A moment when she’d been prepared to leave her friends to deal with things on their own.

  Maddy doubted Becks had a memory of that particular conversation, of walking out, abandoning her in the archway. At the moment she wasn’t sure what memories Becks had back in that skull of hers. Bob had been filling her mind up with as much as he could over the last couple of days, a slow process over their nearfield wireless link. Whatever memories she had on-board now would be Bob’s, not her’s anyway. Becks’s full mind remained on an external hard drive.

  ‘Don’t wake Sal. If she does wake and asks where I am … tell her I’ve gone to get some supplies in or something.’

  ‘Yes, Maddy. Be careful, Maddy,’ she added almost as an afterthought.

  Half an hour later she was on a Greyhound bus heading towards Arlington. Maddy realized she’d forgotten how the lines were organized, which ones went where. And yet once upon a time she must have taken them everywhere: to school, back home, into the city to meet friends from high school.

  I’m nineteen and I’m already going freakin’ senile. How come I can’t remember which buses I used to take? She wondered whether a new bus service had taken over here, and perhaps that was why none of the numbers or routes made sense to her.

  The bus passed a high school and she looked out on a football field; several dozen young men lined up in their tracksuits, donning shoulder pads and helmets, preparing to practise a few set pieces. Some younger boys kicking a soccer ball around on another field. Maddy realized she couldn’t even remember the name of her high school. Not
even the name. Nor the names of any of her teachers. Or their faces. God … nor could she even recall any of her friends.

  I had some friends, right? At least one friend … surely?

  But none came to mind. Not a single one. She felt the first stirring of panic set in.

  I really am losing my mind!

  She could guess what this was – this was that damned archway field, the time bubble. Those freakin’ particles killing her mind, one brain cell at a time. She’d just now joked about going senile, but maybe that was just it. Sitting in that brick dungeon all these months was gradually, memory by memory, wiping her mind clean.

  She was suddenly grateful to be out of there – OK, they were on the run, but at least they were free from the ever-present corrosive effect of that technology. And grateful, so grateful that she still had enough of her mind and memories left intact to at least find her way home.

  The Greyhound dropped her off outside a small 7-Eleven store. She smiled. Her mind remembered that all right. The first familiar sight so far, it was the only convenience store around for miles. The rest of this suburb was endless loops of road flanked on either side by well-tended lawns and picket fences, long paved and brown asphalt driveways leading up to grand-looking white-collar homes.

  She passed the store, and second on her right Silverdale Crescent. Lined with mature maple trees, their leaves beginning to turn golden for the autumn, not quite ready to fall. She stepped aside for a couple of boys riding their bikes along the pavement, talking to each other about an upcoming game console called the Xbox, that was due to be released this Thanksgiving.

  Maddy felt an overpowering urge to run the last hundred yards home. This was her street, the place where all of her childhood years had been spent. This was where her life had once made sense, when it was simple and stress free. Decisions no more demanding than which cartoon channel to watch, which flavour ice cream to eat.