by Alex Scarrow
Becks’s jaw dropped open, a facial expression Liam had not seen her pull before. Nor an expression he could recall Bob ever pulling either, for that matter. Becks’s eyes gazed at the fire for a long, long time, the lids fluttering slightly every now and then.
She’s really giving that some serious thought.
‘I will…’ she began after a while. ‘I will never be a complete human being.’
Laura’s face softened ever so slightly. A second ago she’d looked like she wanted to square up to Becks, now she almost looked sorry for her. ‘You sound sad about that.’
‘Sad?’ Becks considered that word. ‘Sad,’ she said again quietly. ‘My developmental AI routines allow me to learn and replicate human behaviour patterns. But I am unable to directly experience emotions. This would affect my performance as a support unit.’
‘So, let me get this straight,’ said Laura, shuffling round the fire, closer to them so she wasn’t being drowned out by Franklyn’s droning voice. ‘You’re flesh and blood, just like a human being, but your head is, like, all robot?’
‘My body is a genetically enhanced female human body. I have multiple-threaded muscle tissue capable of a five hundred and seventy-six per cent performance response.’
Laura looked at Liam. ‘That means she’s… what? Like, six times stronger than she should be?’
Liam nodded. ‘Aye, that sounds about right.’
‘I also have a high-density calcium-based support chassis — ’
‘Strong bones,’ said Liam.
Laura nodded. It looked like she’d figured that out for herself.
‘I also have a rapid-reaction, high white-cell-count fluid repair system.’ Becks turned to Laura. ‘My blood clots quickly.’
‘Right.’
‘All of this gene technology will be developed by W. G. Systems in the year 2043 for military applications: genetically engineered combat units.’
‘Wow,’ uttered Laura. ‘You mean like super soldiers.’
‘Correct. I was designed for war. Specifically subterfuge and covert operations.’
Liam smiled. ‘But don’t let that put you off her — she’s a sweetie really.’
Becks looked at him curiously. ‘Sweetie?’
Liam put an arm round her shoulders and hugged her clumsily. ‘We go back a bit, Becks and me. Would you believe it, she used to be a man, so she did? Big chap, just like some muscle-man called Schwarzenhoffer or something. Apparently he becomes a president of yours sometime.’
‘Oh my God.’ Laura made a face. ‘You don’t mean Arnold Schwarzenegger?’
‘That’s the fella. Anyway, Becks was called Bob back then. But… well, you had a bit of a scrap, didn’t you? And — ’
‘Caution,’ said Becks. ‘It is inadvisable to reveal details of previous missions.’
Liam hushed. Perhaps they’d revealed more than they ought. ‘Yes, you’re right. Sorry, Laura.’ Liam decided to change the subject. ‘Becks, we should consider what message we want to leave in the ground, you know?’
Becks nodded. ‘Affirmative. This is important.’
Kelly overheard that. ‘You guys discussing the help message?’
And that shut up everyone around the fire, even Franklyn.
‘Yes,’ replied Liam. ‘I’ve been giving it some thought, Becks… We would have to actually reveal the exact date and location of our field office.’
She frowned. ‘Negative. The location and time-stamp must remain known only to agency operatives.’
‘But we have to, do you not see? Because Sal and Maddy aren’t exactly likely to go fossil-hunting in Texas any time soon. It will be someone else who finds it. And the only way it will find its way to them is if we reveal that.’
‘You know,’ said Kelly, ‘that kind of information would be mighty powerful stuff. The fact that time-travel technology exists. The fact that humans have actually been back to dinosaur times… that’s world-changing information, Liam. You understand that, don’t you? You mentioned time contamination and time waves and stuff like that… Won’t it — ?’
‘Oh, for sure,’ said Liam. ‘That’s the kind of nightmare we were recruited to prevent — contamination of the timeline.’
‘And yet you’ll be causing it.’
‘I know… I know. But it’s the only way.’ He looked at Chan, sitting quietly between Leonard and Juan. ‘The timeline is already badly broken. Who knows what state the future is in now? And, yes, by deliberately stamping a big ol’ message into the ground, we’re about to make it a lot worse. But — and it’s taken me some time to see this for myself — time is like, I dunno, like liquid. It’s fluid. What can be changed can be changed right back, so long as you know where to go and what to do. And, of course, as long as you’ve got a time machine.’
Liam nodded at Chan. ‘We need to get Edward back to 2015. That fixes part of the problem. Then, once we’ve done that, Becks and I will come right back here and undo all that contamination.’
‘How?’
‘Very simple,’ said Liam.
CHAPTER 38
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam looked down at the shale by his feet. He dragged a finger through it. The others watched curiously as his finger inscribed four letters in the gravel. He spelled the word Help. Then with his hand he messed it up. ‘We’ll erase the message we just left,’ he said. ‘And everything that happened as a result of it being discovered, well… it’ll all un-happen. It’ll all be erased too.’
‘If your message includes the location of your base,’ said Kelly, ‘I assure you, it won’t be some curious fossil-hunter that turns up, it’ll be some secret government agency. NSA, CIA, maybe some spooks we don’t even know about… They’ll storm the place. Kick the door in. Delta Force guys with guns. What you’ve got is too valuable.’
‘Oh.’ Liam hadn’t considered that.
‘You could be endangering your colleagues,’ said Laura.
‘They wouldn’t hurt them, would they? They’d just want to be asking questions, would they not?’
Kelly shrugged. ‘With something like time-travel technology at stake? Who knows? Our secret services have a long history of shooting places up first and asking questions later.’
Whitmore cut in. ‘Oh, come on! They’re professionals, the best in the world!’
Several of the others joined in. Some agreeing with that, some of them disagreeing.
Liam looked at Becks. ‘Maybe this is not such a great idea.’
‘You wish me to proceed with the alternate plan?’ she said softly.
Liam looked at her, pleased that she’d had the sense to ask that in little more than a whisper. Not so encouraged, though, seeing one of her hands flinching and reaching for a hatchet.
‘No, not yet,’ he said, reaching out and grasping her hand in his. ‘Not yet, OK?’
She nodded.
‘Unless,’ said Edward quietly, his voice almost lost beneath the to and fro of all the others. ‘Unless, there’s a really important reason not to hurt anyone.’
The others stopped and looked at him. It was the first thing he’d said all evening. All day, in fact.
Edward’s eyes widened as they all stared at him. ‘I… I was just saying…’
‘Go on,’ said Liam.
‘Well… if part of your message was a… was in, like, a code. Then there’s a reason to… you know, not to want to shoot everyone up, because they know they’d need someone to decode it.’
Liam pursed his lips in thought. ‘That’s true.’ A code, a secret, hinting at still further secrets and revelations. What person wouldn’t want to know more?
‘If a message is going to lead some government spooks right up to the front door of your secret organization,’ said Kelly, ‘then you can bet the bit of the message they can’t make sense of will be driving them nuts. Edward’s right. They’ll want your colleagues alive.’
‘All right,’ said Liam. ‘So then the first bit of the message needs to be t
he time and place of our field office.’ He turned to Becks. ‘That’s how the message will find its way to Maddy and Sal. The rest… the time-stamp they need to aim for, that bit should be the super-secret coded bit. Can you come up with a code, Becks?’
She nodded. ‘I can produce a mathematical algorithm and use that as an alpha-numeric offset code. My duplicate should be able to recognize the pattern of the algorithm and produce a decode key.’
‘No,’ said Edward, shaking his head. ‘It’s too easy to break a math-based code. If they… you know, if they put a big enough computer on it, they could crack it. Simple.’
Kelly nodded. ‘And you can bet the NSA or the CIA or whichever bunch of spooks ends up calling will have no shortage of computing power at their disposal to crunch your code.’
‘There is no other way to generate a code that can be unlocked at the field office,’ said Becks. ‘My duplicate needs to have the same library of algorithms — ’
‘ Every math-based code can be broken,’ said Edward, his quiet voice finding a little more confidence, ‘you know? Eventually. It’s just a case of how much computer power you put on it.’
‘Edward’s right,’ said Howard. ‘Think about it, what if the message is discovered, say…’ He turned to Whitmore and Franklyn. ‘When did they first discover fossils in this place we’re headed to?’
Franklyn shrugged. ‘Early 1900s.’
‘Right. So if the American secret services of that time secured that fossil back then they’ll have had a whole century of time to crack the algorithm and decode it before they come knocking.’
‘But computers powerful enough to work on it were only developed in the ’80s,’ said Juan. ‘Don’ forget that.’
‘That’s more than enough time,’ said Howard. ‘They’ll come knocking knowing the entire contents of the message. Their only concern will be securing your agency’s HQ and confiscating all your technology. Your colleagues will be a secondary consideration.’
‘Your code has to be like a personal thing,’ said Edward. ‘Like a secret. Something only you and they know.’
Howard shook his head. ‘I’m thinking this is a seriously bad idea. We could end up really messing with history. And I thought you guys are meant to stop that kind of thing happening.’
‘And staying here, young man?’ said Whitmore. ‘What do you think that’s going to do to history? Homo-sapiens existing right now? Sixty-five million years before they’re due?’
Howard shrugged. ‘We won’t exist for long, though, will we?’ His words silenced the teacher. ‘You actually think the sixteen of us are going to survive and thrive? You think we’re going to breed and produce lots of offspring and establish a Cretaceous-era human civilization that’s going to change the world?’
Whitmore shrugged and half-nodded. ‘It’s possible.’
Howard laughed. ‘No, it’s not. We’ll eventually die out here.’ He looked around at them. ‘There are six females in the group.’ He looked at Becks. ‘Not counting you. I’m not really sure what you are.’
‘I am incapable of sexual reproduction,’ she replied flatly.
‘Six fertile females,’ continued Howard. ‘We might be able to make a few babies, but there are too few of us to sustain ourselves. If disease doesn’t get us, or some hungry carnivore, then in-breeding would eventually.’ He managed a wistful smile. ‘We’ll die out soon enough… months, years, decades maybe… but it’ll happen and history won’t be changed by us having been here. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. Maybe we should accept we’re stuck here and — ’
‘You can forget that!’ said Laura. ‘I want to go home!’
Kelly nodded. ‘I think we all want that, right?’
Heads nodded around the fire.
Liam sat forward, held his hands out towards the fire and rubbed them. ‘We’re doing the message, Leonard. We have to. Now I’ve just got to figure out something that only we… and they know.’
‘How big is your agency?’ asked Laura.
Liam smiled and replied hesitantly. ‘Oh, you know, it’s big. Lots of us, so there are.’
‘You know them well?’
‘Sure, we’re all pretty close.’
‘Friends?’
‘Yes, I’d like to think we’re — ’
‘Then maybe there’s something like a song, or a film or something? You know? Something like that you could use as a common reference point for — ’
Liam suddenly felt his hand being crushed by a vice-like grip. He looked down and saw Becks was holding it, and squeezing it.
‘Ow! Becks, you’re hurting me,’ he hissed. ‘What’s the matter?’
She let go and looked at him, her eyes widened with a mixture of surprise, and perhaps even elation. ‘I have had an idea, Liam O’Connor.’
CHAPTER 39
65 million years BC, jungle
From the darkness they watched them. Beyond the illumination of the dancing yellow flower in the middle. Broken Claw had seen this fascinating dancing creature only once before, after a storm. When a stab of light from the sky had come down and touched the long dead trunk of a tree. The yellow flower had engulfed it, consumed it, producing such unbearable heat as it did so. He’d been young then. And ever since then the yellow flower had been an occasional monster in his dreams, chasing him, reaching out for him, wanting so much to consume him.
And now here it was, tamed like some sort of a pet by these new creatures. They were gathered around it, unafraid of it, every now and then casually throwing a branch on to it and not even flinching as the creature reared up angrily, sending tendrils of light up into the dark sky.
He looked around at his pack, cowering further back down the slope, clearly unhappy at being out of the jungle and here in the open. This was not their terrain, this was not where they were strong. Open ground made them visible, it made them vulnerable. Larger predators existed in the open; large, lumbering and stupid predators like the tall upright one with tiny front claws, enormous jaws, powerful rear legs and a strong sweeping tail. His pack called it Many-Teeth.
Out in the open Many-Teeth could quite easily kill them all. After all, Broken Claw’s kind were small, fragile things compared to this powerful mountain of muscle and energy. But between them his family pack had killed quite a few in his living memory. And always in the same way: luring them into the jungle with the tempting cry of one of their young. A pitiful cry that perfectly replicated that of a young helpless plant-eater, a cry that signalled fear and proved an irresistible taunt to one of those large stupid beasts. Once among the densely packed trees, unable to sweep its tail easily, unable to turn quickly, the pack was always able to leap upon the various Many-Teeth they’d lured in that way and begin to tear through their thick hides and rubbery bands of tough muscle tissue to the vulnerable soft tissues inside as they thrashed and roared.
Broken Claw had led many such attacks in past seasons, always the first to gnaw his way through the hide and into the bellies of such creatures, slashing and pulling through the vulnerable insides as the creature still stomped and roared, pulling himself towards the throbbing red organ in its chest. It was slashing at this that usually felled a Many-Teeth. Broken Claw and the others knew that this organ — which seemed to have a life of its own, which every species of creature seemed to possess — was the source of its very life.
In the seasons of his youth, the jungles had once been full of the larger stupid species. So many of them in fact that they often killed many more than they could eat, often only bothering to consume their favourite organs and leaving the rest of the carcass to rot.
But there were fewer now, far fewer of the bigger creatures. They only existed on the plain these days.
Broken Claw understood a simple principle. They had hunted too many of them. They had been too successful for their own good in the jungle, and his family pack had been forced to migrate from one jungle valley to the next several times during his lifespan. Now too, in recent seasons, this jungle had becom
e sparsely populated — another hunting ground that they’d almost completely exhausted.
There certainly was not enough food available in the jungle valley for these new creatures as well.
Slowly, lightly, he glided forward across the loose shale, mindful that his agile feet not dislodge anything that might make the slightest noise. Behind him he heard the soft barking cough of one of his mates warning him not to get too close to these things. He ignored her. He needed to listen to the noises these things made. Perhaps their sounds could be learned, even mimicked. Perhaps they could employ the same technique they used on the Many-Teeth, identifying a sound that could be practised and used by their young to lure one of the new creatures away from the others.
If just one of them could be isolated. They could study it, understand how dangerous it could be, understand its weakness. Perhaps in the last moments of its life, even share some of its intelligence. Then he could find out if this creature also had the same fluttering red orb in its ribcage, the organ that provided life.
CHAPTER 40
65 million years BC, jungle
Liam gazed up at the behemoth slowly ambling their way. ‘You’re sure it’s a plant-eater?’
Franklyn laughed. ‘Yes, relax, of course it is. It’s an alamosaurus.’
Liam watched the enormous long-necked creature walk with ponderous deliberation across the open plain towards the patch of jungle behind them. He could feel each heavy step through the trembling ground.
Jay-zus-’n’-Mother-Mary, that thing’s the size of a small ship!
He guessed he could park a double-decker tram in the space between its fore and its hind legs and still have room to stand on top. The creature’s tiny head, little more than a rounded nub on the end of its long muscular neck, swept down close to the ground as it closed the distance between them. Finally coming to a halt to inspect the small bipedal creatures standing in front of it.
‘Are you absolutely certain?’ cried Liam, watching the thing’s head hover at shoulder height just a few yards in front of him.