by Alex Scarrow
That girl needed someone in her lonely life. And the young man seemed to be a nice enough find.
Good for you, girl.
Marge sipped her tea and returned to her routine of grazing through news websites and the state police intranet pages. The world really seemed to have gone quite mad in the wake of that terror attack in New York. The President was busy banging a drum for the whole world to go to war with Iraq for some reason. Even though there was evidence surfacing that the terrorists had mostly come from Saudi Arabia.
Go figure.
And what about those guys in Afghanistan? What were they called? Tally-something? Jerry kept calling them the Telly-Tallies. Like those children’s characters on TV. Weren’t they more likely involved in attacking the Twin Towers than this Saddam Hussein fellow over in Iraq?
Marge shook her head. Americans were quite rightly angry. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were grieving for loved ones right now, but now was surely not the best of times to be making big decisions like who to go to war with.
The boys want a war. She sighed again. And they’ll get their war sure enough.
She clicked to close the MSNBC news page and then pulled up the state police bulletin page. It featured the usual day-to-day bumph, plus the now obligatory daily notices on the current terror threat level. Today it was, as it was yesterday and the day before: RED – SEVERE. Beside the colour-coded alert was a reminder for all law-enforcement personnel to be vigilant for ‘suspicious activities and persons’.
Marge was always alert for suspicious activities and persons. It was – well duh, excu-u-use me – her job anyway! She found the notice vaguely patronizing. It would be like telling young Kaydee-Lee to make a special effort not to pour scalding coffee over the head of the next customer she served.
Grating her teeth, she dutifully scanned the rest of the page then hit the link to the FBI’s ViCAP site. The Bureau were featuring front and centre a rogues’ gallery of Most Wanteds. Two dozen mugshots, a fair number of them dark-skinned and sporting dark Santa Claus beards large enough to lose a small dog in.
‘Nope,’ she muttered, ‘not seen any of you types skulking around here in Harcourt … nor you … nor you, Mr Osama bin Laden, nor you, Mr Manuel Caraccus.’ She clicked on the link for the second page of the gallery.
‘Nor …’ And stopped mid-mutter. She was looking at a face she’d seen just ten minutes ago.
Jerry heard her suck in her breath. He looked up from the paperwork on his desk. ‘Given yourself another paper cut, Marge?’ He noticed her wide eyes, her glasses reflecting the pale glow of the computer screen, the styrofoam cup held midway between the desk and her mouth, which now hung open, not making a sound – a rare event in itself.
‘You OK over there, Marge?’
Chapter 47
7 October 2001, Green Acres Elementary School, Harcourt, Ohio
‘Looks like you’re going to have to dig through some walls by the look of this.’ Maddy clicked on the screen and zoomed in on a portion of the blueprint.
Rashim nodded. ‘It appears as if they left space between these walls for cabling to run from the generator room up to the lights on the top. And over here.’ He pointed on the screen. ‘Cabling that leads out to an external distribution node.’
‘Uh-huh. I guess they planned to have the generator as a part of the viaduct from the very beginning. Fascinating.’
Rashim reached for the mouse. Fingers touched. And recoiled. An awkward half a second.
‘All yours,’ Maddy said a little too quickly.
He dragged the pixellated image of the blueprint across the screen. ‘Hmm, it would be a lot easier knocking through to the generator room itself. Only two walls between our archway and that big steam engine in there.’
‘But would you really want to do that? Bust right in there? There’s probably “steam engine” engineers or whatever you call them in there. Coal-shovellers and stuff. We’ve got to be ultra-discreet about this.’
‘Indeed. Yes … so maybe then, we’ll have to tap the cabling somewhere along this conduit. It’s a lot more work.’ He leaned forward. ‘And I imagine a bit of a squeeze, shuffling along inside that space between the walls.’ He squinted and muttered a curse in Farsi. ‘I wish this image was at a higher resolution.’
‘Best I could get.’ She shrugged. ‘In fact, it was the only blueprint image I could find.’ She’d spent a good part of yesterday back at the Internet cafe in the retail park. She’d found an architectural website with an archive of Victorian-era building projects. The Holborn Viaduct was hardly the grandest of London projects, but historically notable because of its incorporation of the city’s first electric generator.
‘It looks fiddly … but it is discreet, Rashim, and that’s the important thing. If we’re going to start leeching on their power, we’ve got to make it so that, if they work out the generator’s not delivering the power it’s designed to deliver, it’s got to be almost impossible for them to figure out where the power is leaking away to. The only way they’ll figure out what’s going on is if they decide to track the course of the cables. Thing is, if we tap the output cautiously – little and often – it’ll never be enough of a drain for them to consider stopping the engine and overhauling everything to figure it out.’
‘Hopefully.’
She made a face. ‘Hopefully.’
‘Hey! You all right there, Sal?’
She looked up. Liam was crossing the cracked and weed-speckled playground. He casually kicked his way through a pile of dead leaves, this year’s fall from the maple trees lined up beside what was once the school bus drop-off point. The leaves rustled and skittered across the tarmac, caught by a fresh breeze.
Early October, it was getting cold now. The clouds above were promising snow, not rain. Sal shivered inside her parka, puffing a cloud of vapour out in front of her. Liam joined her on the swing. Sat on the plastic strap-seat next to her. The rusting frame creaked as they both swung gently, idly.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Jay-zus!’ He rubbed his hands together vigorously. ‘It’s cold out here! You should come in.’
‘I’m in all the time. I came out to get some fresh air.’
‘Aye …’tis a bit smelly inside, so it is.’
Both Bob and Becks were eating the same convenience meals as them. However, their body chemistry preferred high-protein, low-fat foods. And preferably blended to a baby mush. But tins of refried beans in New Orleans sauce, Uncle YangYang Kettle Noodles and pop tarts had to suffice as their source of nutrition. It just meant they farted constantly. Particularly Bob. He was like some flea-bitten, wiry old mongrel dog letting them off one after the other without any sense of embarrassment. Seemingly without a care in the world.
‘Why do you do that?’ she asked presently.
‘Do what?’
‘Talk like you do. The whole Irish thing. You’re not even Irish.’
‘Hey! Jayz- … I just …’ His mouth flapped for a moment then shut with a coconut clop. He looked hurt. Sal winced. That had come out sounding all wrong and she felt guilty.
‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude, Liam. I just think it all sounds … I dunno, fake now.’
He swung in silence. The frame creaked.
‘I’ve stopped using those Indian words. I don’t think I even knew what they meant. I’m not even sure if they were real Hindi words.’ She still had the sing-song Indian accent, though. She’d even started consciously trying to lose that. If it wasn’t real, if it was some technician’s idea of how an Indian girl from 2026 ought to sound … then she was damned if she was going to follow his programming.
‘I talk this way, Sal … because it’s the only way I know how to talk.’
‘It’s just code, Liam. It’s code. Worse than that … the Irish thing? It’s a cheesy cliché.’
‘It’s who I am.’ He shrugged. ‘Even if that does make me a – whatcha-call-it? – a cliché.’
She looked at him. ‘How c
an you do that, though? Go on just like before, like nothing’s happened?’
He managed a wry smile. ‘Why not? Nothing about me has changed at all, so. I’m exactly the same person I was.’
‘But how can you be the same person now you know what you are? Everything – everything – planted in our minds before we woke up … none of it ever happened! It’s nothing! God … I mean, maybe we’ve got chips in our heads just like Bob and Becks. Have you considered that?’
‘Aye. But it doesn’t worry me any.’
‘How can it not?’
He shrugged. ‘Anyway, Maddy reckons we’re not the same as them. Our minds aren’t computers but proper human minds. That’s why we had to believe we were human. So we’d act like humans. Think like humans.’
‘But wouldn’t you want to have someone X-ray your head? Take a look inside to see if there’s a chip or something inside?’
‘Not really. Whatever’s in me head, machine or meat, it works just fine.’
She sniffed. ‘Except it’s fake.’
‘Ah well now … who’s to say anybody’s memories are for real? Hmm?’ He chuckled. A plume of breath erupted from his mouth. ‘You know, perhaps the whole world, the whole universe, is just a big pretend – someone’s idea of a funny joke. Huh?’
‘Difference is … we know our lives are a funny joke, Liam.’
‘You can never know anything for sure, Sal. In the end, it’s all a question of what you choose to believe.’ He watched a cloud of his breath drift away – turning, twisting, dissipating in the cold afternoon air.
‘Thing is … I choose to be Liam. I like him.’ He smiled at her. ‘I like being him. And maybe he was once a real lad who lived in Cork and I’m just borrowing his memories, or maybe he’s just a made-up person put together from bits and pieces. Who cares?’
‘But that’s no better than …’ She struggled to think of an example. ‘That’s no better than a child pretending to be Superman. No better than all those people who believe in God. Or Jehovah. Or Allah, or Vishnu, or –’
‘Maybe.’ He shrugged. ‘But it works for me.’
She sighed. ‘I can’t do it, Liam,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think I can pretend I’m who I thought I was. All I’ve got that’s real is the time in the archway. You. Maddy.’
He pointed at what was clasped in her hands. ‘Is that why you’ve got that with you all the time?’
Sal looked down at the notebook – her diary – and nodded. ‘That’s me, Liam.’ A solitary tear dripped on to the scuffed black cover. She wiped it off irritably. ‘That’s all there is left of me. Ink and paper.’
A crow cawed from the bare branches beyond the chain-link fence surrounding the playground. The solitary, ominous noise of approaching winter.
‘Sal?’ He reached out and squeezed her gloved hand. ‘Don’t do this, Sal. Eh? Don’t drift off and away from me an’ Maddy. We need you, so we do. The three of us need to hold fast together. To stay a proper team.’
‘Need me? What do I do? Nothing.’
‘You will do. When we’re set up again in London, we’ll need you watching for them little changes. Up in the centre of the city, Piccadilly Circus maybe, watching for the time waves.’
She gave that a moment’s thought. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps there was a purpose for her still. She wiped her nose and sniffed noisily. Then sniggered.
Liam smiled. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, go on. What’s so funny?’
‘Something you said.’
‘I said something funny?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing.’ Her face brightened for him. ‘You’re right. We’ve still got a job to do, haven’t we?’
‘Aye. So come in, then, Sal. Before you freeze.’
‘I will. You go. I’ll be along in a minute.’
‘All right. I’m makin’ some hot chocolate. Care for some?’ He cocked a brow. ‘There’ll be a fair chance of some of them nice chocolate biscuits with the cream in the middle.’
‘Oreos.’
‘Aye, those are the fellas.’
‘Sure. Count me in.’
She watched him go, kicking those leaves again on the way back to the double doors of the school gymnasium, blue paint flaking off both and a rusting push-bar on one of them. The door clattered shut behind him.
Something you said, Liam … something funny. Really funny.
‘Perhaps the whole universe is just a big pretend?’ she muttered softly.
No, actually, not that funny after all.
Chapter 48
7 October 2001, Washington DC
Faith appraised Agent Cooper. Unlike most humans he appeared to be very task-focused, very driven. One could say binary, almost Boolean, in his mindset. He could almost have passed as one of her short-lived batch of clone brothers and sisters. Except, of course, he wasn’t six foot six inches tall and carrying around eighteen stone of muscle and dense-lattice bone. He was just as frail and vulnerable as any other human being: one of her hands round his neck and a quick twist and he’d be burger meat in a suit. That unfortunate frailty notwithstanding … she’d so far been quite impressed with his performance.
She resumed eating the bowl of Cow & Gate baby food.
Cooper in turn was silently appraising her. Perched on the edge of his desk, he grimaced as he watched her spoon the baby food into her mouth. ‘I can’t believe you can chow down that stuff.’
‘It is an optimal formula,’ she replied with her mouth full. ‘Maximum nutrition with a minimum of energy consumed in the process of breaking it down and digesting it.’
She noticed he was looking at her intently. ‘What is it, Agent Cooper?’
‘You’ve, uh … you’ve got a blob of that stuff right there on the end of your nose.’
She remained staring at him – a face that seemed to be wondering why that mattered in any meaningful way.
‘It’s not a good look, Faith.’ He leaned forward, reached out with a finger and deftly flicked it away.
‘Not a good look,’ she mimicked him. An almost exact copy of his southern Virginian accent. ‘Why?’
‘Why … why? Because you don’t want to look like some sort of day-release outpatient from a nuthouse.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘You’re odd enough without dried baby food plastered all over your face. If you’re going to be working alongside me, we need you to not attract any attention. I’m pretty much exceeding my authority letting you down here as it is.’
Faith finished her food, put down the bowl and carefully wiped round her mouth. ‘I understand.’
Cooper really had stuck his neck out. He’d brought her to The Department a couple of weeks ago. Ushered her past several ID checks, pulling rank on the security personnel. And now here she was down on the mezzanine floor in his domain – the ‘catacombs’ – being kept here like some sort of a pet.
Truth was he didn’t know what to do with her. She couldn’t be left to her own devices roaming around Boston conducting her very own hunt-and-seek mission, murdering who she pleased because she might just consider them ‘a contaminant’ – whatever the heck that was really supposed to mean. And he didn’t want to kill her. She was all he had. She was his only connection to whoever these mysterious time travellers were.
What he had was not very much: an autopsy report on Faith’s dead colleague, and a tiny chunk of fried circuitry pulled from his head that wasn’t anything more now than an interesting fingernail-sized nugget of silicon and graphene.
This creature, this flesh-and-blood robot-woman, was the best piece of evidence he had that he wasn’t going mad; that time travel had been quietly going on right in front of everyone’s nose for God knows how long. For God knows how many decades. Cooper couldn’t even begin to contemplate how valuable the treasure trove of knowledge residing in that digital mind of hers was.
But right now the only investigative process he had on the go was Agent Mallard out there doing the donkey work to track do
wn and confiscate all the CCTV footage that he could lay his hands on. There was the footage from the mall, but also a petrol station, a diner and a motel they’d used the day before. Mallard had already brought back several boxes of tapes, and from those there were some not bad, albeit grainy images of their faces that they’d managed to isolate and enhance.
But that was it. Other than Mallard’s legwork, and hoping for a lead to turn up, he had this unlikely ‘woman’ in front of him.
‘I know I keep saying this,’ he said, breaking the long silence, ‘but if you just shared with me the data you have on them, I could put it to good use. I can get priority access to the Bureau’s IT department. We can tap all sorts of databases … medical insurance, local and state law-enforcement incident reports, bank records, traffic –’
‘No,’ she said softly. ‘Your assistance in this matter is –’ she paused, her eyelids flickering as she considered a choice of phrase – ‘appreciated. However, I am unable to share with you data about the target.’
Perhaps he could try a different angle. ‘Well, what about you, then? Hmmm? Or how about telling me something about where you’ve come from?’
Her cool grey eyes locked on his. ‘You wish to know about the future?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, why not?’
She silently considered that for a moment. ‘I am unable to tell you specific details. But I can discuss the early symptoms that are occurring in the world at present.’
‘Symptoms?’ He laughed at that. ‘You make the world sound like it’s a hospital patient.’
She cocked her head slightly. ‘That analogy is suitable. This world is “sick”. It is unsustainable. It is dying.’
‘Dying? What do you mean?’
‘Population tangents increasing versus rapidly diminishing world resources. Even in this time evidence of this, of these future problems, is known to your world leaders. But they choose to do nothing. Oil will run out. Global warming will increase. The polar caps will melt and a third of the world’s land mass will be submerged by rising sea levels. It will become accepted in 2035 – far too late to deploy corrective measures – that global warming was more significantly affected by the explosion in world population than it was by hydrocarbon usage.’