City of Shadows

by Alex Scarrow

  Liam looked again at the rat poo. ‘Are you sure?’

  Rashim grimaced at the fleeting sight of tiny grey furry bodies, flickering bald pink tails and the glint of dozens of beady black eyes. ‘Not really.’ He sighed. ‘But I … it’ll be easier if I can see for myself to do the job.’

  Liam nodded. Patted his shoulder. ‘Aye, there is that. I’ll probably get it wrong and end up blowing this place to kingdom come, or something.’

  Rashim stripped to the waist, folding his clothes carefully. He grabbed his tool bag and then, with a cheap keyfob pen torch between his teeth, climbed into the hole in the wall. He hesitated outside the crawl space.

  ‘I really hate rats.’

  ‘Ah now, go on. They’re probably more frightened of you than you are of them.’

  Rashim ducked down into the space and began to crawl along the passage.

  ‘Ughhh!’ His voice echoed back after a minute of grunting and shuffling. Liam heard him swearing in Farsi.

  ‘You OK in there?’

  ‘I have just put my hand in something disgusting.’ Liam heard Rashim’s breathing and muttering echoing back towards him. By the light of his own torch Liam could only faintly see the soles of Rashim’s boots.

  ‘Rashim, are you OK in there?’

  ‘Dead rat.’

  SpongeBubba was hovering curiously beside Liam’s elbow. His plastic lips curled half convincingly. ‘Ewww!’

  Another couple of minutes of shuffling, the grunts and scrapes slowly receding, and Liam had lost sight of him. He snapped his torch off. Now their main room was lit only by an oil lamp flickering away on top of a wooden crate for a table.

  The room was filling up with things from 2001 as well. They’d spent the last two days beaming back supplies and components and spares of things they thought they might need. Sal and Maddy had raided Walmart. The tools from their DIY section. The kettle, toaster and George Foreman griddle from their Home Essentials aisle, all sitting in a yellow plastic stack-box, would have been an unforgivable contamination of modernity under their old stricter contamination-averse regime, their old mission statement. But down here in this dungeon-like environment, under lock and key – and only they had the key, of course – no one was going to stumble upon these things.

  There were boxes of Coco Pops, pot noodles, several dozen packs of Dr Pepper – enough to keep Maddy going for a few weeks.

  Halfway up the brick wall on the far side of the room another plastic stack-box protruded as if it had always been a deliberate part of the viaduct’s foundation construction. A mis-translation. A box full of batteries, electrical flex, diodes, spare circuit boards that at some point they really ought to chip out of the bricks and remove from the wall.

  Rashim and Maddy’s response to that mistake had been to offer him a nervous ‘oops’ grin. Liam had complained that this instance of mis-translation could easily have happened to one of them. As it happened, it turned out to be the result of a bug in the new code they’d written for the reconfigured displacement machine. Since then, everything else beamed back from 2001 had landed in the middle of the chalk squares marked out on the floor of their new home.

  He was about to call out again to Rashim, to check if he was all right, when he heard a loud knock on their small door. He was planning on ignoring it until he heard the voice of their landlord, Delbert Hook.

  ‘Hoy! You gents all right in there?’

  He turned to SpongeBubba. ‘Go hide and don’t make a sound.’

  ‘Righto, Liam.’

  Liam tucked his torch away, picked up the oil lamp and made his way to the door. He ducked into the low archway. Hesitant to slide the bolt and open it, he cupped his mouth instead and answered through the door’s keyhole. ‘Uh … I’m perfectly fine, Mr Hook, so I am!’

  ‘Come on now, Mr O’Connor,’ the man’s muffled voice returned. ‘That’s no way to welcome your good neighbour, is it?’

  Liam cursed. He looked back over his shoulder. SpongeBubba was out of sight and most of their bits and pieces from 2001 were covered by a tarp. By the faint glow of lamplight Delbert Hook wasn’t going to see anything much, and most importantly, not the far wall, vandalized as it was with holes all along the length of it.

  He quickly slid the bolt to one side and pulled the door open – catching Delbert still hunkered down, caught in the act of attempting to sneak a peek through the keyhole. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Hook?’

  Delbert awkwardly straightened up, flexed his neck and smoothed down his waistcoat. ‘I … well, I heard some knockin’ going on in here. Thought perhaps one of you might have got stuck. Locked in by mistake, so to speak.’

  ‘No.’ Liam offered him a reassuring face. ‘No, we’re just fine.’

  Delbert was craning his neck curiously, trying to see past Liam. ‘Is that some of your scientific paraphernalia I see behind you?’

  Liam looked over his shoulder at the dim hump of the tarp in the middle of the floor. ‘Aye. Just assorted bits and pieces.’

  ‘A lot of bits and pieces by the look of it.’ Delbert frowned suspiciously. ‘I didn’t hear you bring all of that lot in.’

  ‘We used the Farringdon Street door, so we did.’

  ‘Very quietly it seems.’

  ‘Ah well, we didn’t want to disturb you up the front.’ Liam offered him a polite smile. ‘Don’t want to be a nuisance or anything.’

  There was an awkward silence between them as Delbert’s head ducked and weaved to get another look past Liam, and Liam shuffled subtly from side to side to obscure his view.

  ‘So, is your Dr Anwar going to be starting his experiments soon, is he?’

  ‘When he’s good and ready.’

  Delbert gave up on the peeking. The doorway was too narrow. ‘Well, if you gents need anything … any supplies? You know I’m the man to call on. I can get you anything you want.’ He winked. ‘Anything.’

  Liam nodded. ‘Well, if we do need your help, Mr Hook, we’ll be sure to ask.’

  The little man stood on tiptoes and craned his neck to one side, one last time. Liam mirrored him. ‘Anything else, is there, Mr Hook?’

  He sighed. Back down on flat feet. ‘No … no. Just remember, your rent’s due on the Sunday.’

  ‘Aye, every Sunday. I won’t forget.’

  ‘Right then.’ A frustrated smile flickered across Delbert’s lips. ‘I’ll bid you good day.’

  Liam watched him turn and go, whistling tunelessly as his feet scuffed the floor and he finally disappeared from view. He closed and bolted their door.

  ‘OK, SpongeBubba, you can come out now.’ The lab unit shuffled out of a dark corner.

  Liam heard Rashim’s voice echoing down the passage and out of the hole in the back wall. He couldn’t make out what he’d said, but it sounded encouraging. A moment later he spotted the soles of Rashim’s feet followed by his rear appearing in the crawl space as he slowly, awkwardly, reversed back out.

  He stood up; his chest and back, hands and face were caked with dirt and grime. But he was grinning like a child. He held up a loop of modern plastic-sheathed flex, taped off to insulate the end. ‘I managed to patch into their copper wiring.’

  It took him another few minutes to wire in a heavy-duty transformer and then finally pull out a desk lamp from beneath the tarp. He plugged it into a four-way connector.

  ‘So, here it is.’ Rashim licked his lips anxiously and flicked the switch. ‘Hopefully.’ The desk lamp’s bulb flickered on with a dull snick.

  ‘And voilà! Now we have power!’

  Chapter 52

  9 October 2001, Green Acres Elementary School, Harcourt, Ohio

  ‘OK. So we’re jumping to 14 December 1888. That’s a clear day and night after Liam and Rashim’s return, so we shouldn’t get any tachyon backwash.’ The boys had had a total of nine days back there fixing their new ‘home’ up, ready for their complete relocation.

  ‘This is how we’re going to go about it,’ said Maddy. She pointed at the PCs. �
��We can operate this displacement window on just one of those. It’s a relatively close time-stamp, just over a century away.’

  ‘One hundred and twelve years, nine months and –’

  ‘Thanks, Becks. Like I said, just over a century – so we’re nowhere near pushing the calculative side of things. One PC will be enough. The rest we’re gonna box up and send through.’

  She looked around the derelict classroom, their home for nearly three weeks. It was almost empty now. All that remained was what they’d found in there: abandoned tables and chairs. She pointed at the two squares marked in tape on the floor.

  ‘We’re going in pairs. Obviously. But the way I see it, we’ve got a bit of a problem with the last displacement.’

  She hesitated to see whether Liam or Sal were thinking along the same lines as her. Keeping up to speed. She sighed; of course they weren’t. Liam shrugged at her to get on with it and Sal stared vacantly.

  ‘Right,’ she said with another sigh, ‘good to see you two are on the ball.’

  Liam nodded assuredly. ‘Aye.’

  She rolled her eyes, noting that Liam wouldn’t recognize a gentle prod of snark-asm if it slapped him in the face.

  ‘The last displacement, guys, has to transport the displacement machine itself. We can’t leave it behind. Which means a certain amount of untested risk.’ She looked at Rashim to elaborate.

  ‘Yes … uh … yes, you see, when we activate the last time window, we will effectively be severing the power supply to the displacement machine. In theory the heavy lifting has already been done by opening the window, so this should not, theoretically, be an issue. But –’ he spread his hands – ‘it is untested. The interruption could cause a glitch.’

  ‘And if it does that?’ said Liam.

  ‘We could lose our machine and be stuck in 1888,’ replied Maddy.

  ‘The window could collapse in on itself,’ continued Rashim. ‘Or the time-stamp might deviate in location or time.’

  ‘Which is why someone has to go at the same time as it,’ said Maddy. ‘Go with it.’

  Liam’s eyes widened. ‘You mean one of us has to run the risk of being turned inside out? Or get blended with a brick wall?’

  ‘Or get lost in chaos space?’ added Sal.

  Maddy shook her head. ‘You won’t end up merged with it. Remember, these are separate displacement envelopes. But, if a glitch does happen and the displacement machine remains here in 2001, or – I dunno – ends up blapped ten years into the future or something, we need someone right there alongside it to destroy it. To make sure it doesn’t end up in someone else’s hands.’

  ‘Stuff that,’ said Liam. ‘If that happens then it happens.’

  Sal shook her head. ‘I … I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to end up … lost.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Maddy replied solemnly, ‘I’m not actually asking for volunteers to go alongside the machine.’

  ‘Jay-zus, Maddy! Don’t be a daft idiot! We can’t do this without you.’

  Incredulity on her face. She half-laughed at that. ‘I’m not frikkin’ volunteering, Liam! Do I look like a stupid moron?’

  ‘Then who?’ asked Sal. She looked at Rashim. ‘Not …’

  He grinned. ‘I’m not a stupid moron either.’

  ‘Becks,’ said Maddy, settling the issue. ‘It’s Becks who’s doing it.’ She looked at the support unit sitting cross-legged beside Bob, dismayingly small and slight in contrast to him – an orange compared to a pumpkin.

  Becks nodded. ‘Maddy and I have already discussed this. I am logically the most expendable team member.’

  ‘Expendable?’ Liam shook his head. ‘She’s not expendable … she’s …’ He studied his flapping hands for something to back that up. Then he had it. ‘She’s got that big secret in her head, so she does.’

  ‘We’ve also got that same secret on a hard drive, Liam. And now we know her AI is pretty stable.’ Maddy pursed her lips. ‘Despite that crush she seems to have on you … it means we can either run her mind on the network, or upload her AI into Bob if worst comes to worst and we lose her.’

  ‘It’s a relatively low probability,’ added Rashim assuredly. ‘I have run some calculations on this. Severing the power to the machine should have no effect.’

  ‘Aye, says the genius fella who beamed three hundred people seventeen years too far into Roman times.’

  ‘Now that was not my fault! I had to make too many guesses without any preparation! I had to –’

  Maddy waved them both silent. ‘Forget it, guys. The point is one of us has to babysit the displacement machine through the last window. And Becks is going to be the one to do it. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘Like Rashim said, it’s a low probability anyway. But … if it does happen then we need her alongside to trash the machine then self-terminate so there’s nothing left for anyone, anywhere, to make use of.’

  Maddy had toyed with nominating Bob, but she was pretty sure that it was unlikely that they were going to be able to grow any new support units where they were setting up base. If they did end up marooned in Victorian London forevermore then she’d rather have that big ape by their side to protect them than this small-framed female. A child. And yes, stronger than a fully grown man, but still nowhere near as lethal a weapon as Bob.

  ‘I want us to get this done this morning. I think we’ve pushed our luck hanging around here for weeks on end … and God knows if those support units are still out there looking for us. They’re not stupid. They’ve managed to track us down twice already.’

  ‘No one’ll find us here,’ said Liam. ‘Surely?’

  ‘There’s no knowing what sort of a breadcrumb trail we’ve left behind us. I think we’ve got very lucky so far. We don’t want to push it, right?’

  Liam and Sal nodded.

  ‘We’ve got power-tap established and a nice new place we can call home. So, let’s pack up the last of our gear and get this thing done.’

  Chapter 53

  9 October 2001, Harcourt, Ohio

  ‘That’s the girl,’ said Sheriff Marge McDormand. ‘The waitress. Her name’s Kaydee-Lee Williams.’

  Cooper caught a glimpse of her through the diner’s broad glass window, dotted with fading yellow cardboard stars with handwritten assurances on them: ‘All Day Breakfast – we’ll fill you up like a truck!’, ‘Freshly Brewed Coffee – unlimited refills!’

  They crossed Harcourt’s main street, quiet at this hour. Cooper put a hand on the door.

  ‘Go easy on her,’ said Marge. She glanced at the other agent – ‘Agent Mallard … like the duck,’ he’d joked as he’d presented his ID – and the young woman with Agent Cooper. She’d not offered to show any kind of ID. Not even given a name. She had an icy face, the calm, lifeless look of a serial killer if truth be told.

  ‘Just go easy on Kaydee-Lee,’ said Marge. ‘She’s no troublemaker. She’s certainly no terrorist.’

  Cooper nodded and smiled politely. ‘Thank you for your assistance, Sheriff, we’ll take it from here. Mallard?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘See the sheriff back to her car.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Cooper pushed the door of the diner open and Faith followed him inside.

  The doorbell dinged as the door swung shut. It was quiet inside. Empty except for the waitress watching a small TV set sitting on the end of the counter. Cooper walked up the aisle between check-cloth tables. He watched Mallard leading the sheriff back to her squad car and getting in the front with her. He noted the sheriff watching things intently from there.

  Let her watch. He smiled. Cooper had authority enough to shut her up, to lock the whole town down behind an impenetrable ring of road blocks if need be.

  The waitress finally responded to the sound of their approach and turned from the television to offer Cooper a warm, friendly smile. ‘Help you guys?’ She noticed Faith behind him. ‘Table for two?’

  Cooper pulled out
his badge and flipped the wallet open with one smooth flick of his wrist. He loved doing that; he felt like Captain Kirk flipping open a communicator. One of the many little perks of the job. ‘FBI. I’d like to have a talk with you, Kaydee-Lee.’

  She looked at his ID. Her eyes widened. ‘Did you just say FBI? Like on the TV?’

  ‘I’m Agent Cooper,’ he replied and stepped to one side. ‘And this is Agent Faith. We just want to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Am I … am I in trouble? Have I –’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘No … not at all. The sheriff says you’re a good girl.’ He grabbed a stool and perched on it. ‘And, you know, I’m inclined to believe her. I just wondered if you could help us out with something?’

  Kaydee-Lee’s face relaxed a little. ‘Uh … OK, I’ll try.’

  Cooper pulled a sheet of printer paper out of his pocket. The image on the face-down glossy side had been a nightmare to obtain. He’d had the devil of a time extracting it from that futuristic touch-screen mobile phone they’d recovered in that bridge archway in New York. He’d ended up having to draft some tech-heads from the Bureau’s research division to open the phone up and extract the solid-state data-storage chip. Of course they’d first tried one of the data cables supplied with the single pre-release ‘iPod’ that Apple had begrudgingly released to them. It appeared to have the same connector, and, given this device from the future was manufactured by the very same company, Cooper had been hoping they were going to be able to access its data storage.

  But that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it? The futuristic mobile phone was using a different data-communication protocol.

  The next step – something of a last resort – was pulling the damned thing to pieces and getting their hands on the data-storage chips inside. At which point, before they completely destroyed the thing, one of the Bureau nerds suggested simply getting the image up on the device’s screen … and just photographing the screen.

  Obvious really.

  Cooper turned the photograph over on the counter. ‘You’ve been talking to this guy recently.’