City of Shadows tr-6

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Aye.’ Liam nodded. ‘Let it all go to hell as far as I’m concerned. If that’s the way history wants to take itself then stuff it. Let it.’

  ‘Dammit, Liam!’ snapped Maddy. ‘This is serious!’

  ‘And I AM being serious!’ He sat up on his bed. ‘I… I’m not sure I care any more.’ He got up, took a challenging step towards Maddy. ‘This isn’t our world! Do you not see that? We don’t have families to worry about… friends… loved ones. None of us have ever had any of that. Just memories of someone else’s families! So, honest-to-God,’ he said, shrugging, ‘what do I care if a time wave rubs out this whole world? Ireland? Cork… and everyone I was supposed to “know” living there?’

  Sal nodded. ‘He’s right, Maddy. We are nothing. We have nothing. No, like, descendants. No ancestors. No family tree. Nothing!’ A faint and weary smile stole across her lips as if something had finally made sense to her. ‘I suppose that’s why we’ve always been sort of unaffected by the waves we’ve been through.’

  ‘Because none of you are of this timeline? None of you belong in this timeline.’ Rashim stroked the tip of his nose, thinking aloud. ‘All three of you are an artificial intrusion not susceptible to any cause-effect cycle.’ He nodded, satisfied with his train of thought. ‘That would explain how you were never changed by time waves.’

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose that’s what I mean,’ Sal added. ‘We don’t belong, so we don’t get changed.’

  Liam wasn’t so interested in that. ‘Maddy, why should I care? Huh?’ He shrugged. ‘Time waves? As far as I’m concerned, they’re now someone else’s problem, so they are.’ He laughed humourlessly. ‘Jay-zus… I don’t even know why I speak this way. This accent. I’ve never even been to Ireland!’

  Maddy had had enough. She reached out and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. ‘Liam, you bubble-head! You don’t need to have been to Ireland… to be you. Don’t you see that?’ She turned to Sal. ‘Both of you! Me too! We’re who we are because of these memories. That’s the same for everyone. Memories… define every person on this planet.’ She had a silent audience, but no one seemed to know where she was taking this.

  ‘We’re defined by our memories. We’re the product of our memories. That’s it.’

  She glanced at both support units — living proof of that. Both of them so much more than the emotionless automatons that had slid out of their grow-tubes on to the floor.

  ‘So who freakin’ well cares if the bag of memories in our heads are ours or someone else’s? We’re here in this place right now, together, and we’re making our own decisions and goddammit that makes us real!’

  ‘Not all of your memories are false,’ added Becks to the long silence.

  Maddy looked at the small frame of the support unit beside her. ‘You’re right.’ She turned back to the others, particularly Liam and Sal. She let go of his shirt. ‘We’ve been real people since we woke up together all those months ago. Real people!’ She patted down his puffed-up shirt gently, apologetically. ‘ Real people…’ She smiled at them both. ‘ Real friends.’ She grasped his arm affectionately. ‘Real family.’

  Sal nodded silently. Maddy thought she caught a glint of the green of the neon sign outside reflected in her eyes, the glint of a tear perhaps.

  ‘We need to continue doing the job, guys. Come on… we’ve seen some of the horrific results time travel can produce. I don’t suppose we’ve even seen the worst it can do. Not yet.’

  Liam gazed thoughtfully out of the window.

  Sal too. ‘I hated how those poor eugenic creatures were treated.’

  Maddy nodded. ‘And we made that nightmare world not happen.’

  The TV still burbled quietly in the corner of the motel room.

  ‘I don’t see we’ve got much of a choice,’ said Maddy. ‘We have to carry on. No one else is doing it and someone has to grab the wheel, right? Someone needs to be holding the goddamn steering wheel or this world crashes and burns!’

  She winced a little at her metaphor. It sounded like typical Hollywood shtick. But whatever. The point was valid. ‘We need to continue doing this job… but this time, let’s do it for ourselves. Not for — ’ she made air quotes with her fingers — ‘the agency. Not for Waldstein. But for ourselves. We decide if and when history needs fixing.’

  ‘You mean…’ Liam frowned. ‘You mean, if a better timeline comes along…?’

  Maddy knew what he was suggesting. ‘Yeah! If it looks like a happier, shinier, funkier world,’ she said with a shrug, ‘why not? We’ll decide ourselves if intervention is required.’

  She noticed Bob stirring. ‘Bob?’

  ‘That contradicts a primary protocol.’

  ‘Remember what Foster said?’ added Sal. ‘For good or bad, history has to go a certain way?’

  ‘Aye, he did that.’

  ‘Has to go a certain way, huh?’ Maddy turned to Rashim. ‘And just remind us how history goes, Dr Anwar?’

  He grinned edgily as all eyes rested on him. ‘I… I, uh, don’t really think I should be involved with this argument.’

  ‘Tell them!’

  ‘Well, you know already. The world’s not too good actually. A systemic collapse of — ’

  ‘Right. We heat the world until the ice caps melt and about a third of the land is flooded. Then we poison what’s left of the world with chemicals until there’s no ecosystem left that’s worth a damn. Then, not happy with all of that, we decide to wipe ourselves out with some kind of Von Neumann virus that leaves nothing left alive. That about right, Rashim?’

  ‘They were calling the virus Kosong-ni. That’s where it started. Ground zero.’ Rashim nodded. ‘That’s a somewhat simplified version of events, but essentially, yes, that’s it.’

  ‘And that’s what Foster — ’ she splayed her hands — ‘that’s what Waldstein… wants us to do our very best to preserve? Anyone here think that might be just a little freakin’ stupid?’

  ‘To be fair,’ said Liam, ‘Foster was just following some orders.’

  ‘You’re right, Liam.’ She smiled at him. ‘He was just like you…’

  ‘He was me.’

  ‘Right. And he was just doing what he thought was the right thing to do. Like you, Liam — heart always in the right place.’ She rested a hand on him again. Genuine affection. ‘Always in the right place, Liam, doing what duty calls for. But maybe we’ve been wrong all along to follow Waldstein’s directive.’ She took her glasses off the bridge of her nose.

  ‘I’ve been doing some thinking. I think that codeword, Pandora… I think that was a warning to us. A warning that we’re doing the wrong thing.’ Maddy was reluctant to take her thoughts a step further. But the logic was right there and needed to be said out loud.

  ‘Maybe we’ve been doing the dirty work of someone not quite right in the head. Someone who quite simply is insane.’

  ‘Waldstein?’

  She shrugged. ‘He set this agency up. And Bob? Didn’t you say those support units trying to kill us came from the same place as you?’

  ‘Affirmative. W.G. Systems software.’

  She looked at the others. ‘Maybe Waldstein sent them to kill us?’ A further thought occurred to her. ‘Maybe when I sent that message asking about Pandora, when I sent that ad to the newspaper… that’s what triggered all of this?’

  The air in the room all of a sudden felt very charged.

  ‘We were never meant to know how bad the world gets,’ said Liam. ‘Were we?’

  ‘And now Waldstein knows we know…?’ She pursed her lips, focusing on the lenses she was unnecessarily scrubbing clean. Still thinking things through. ‘We can’t be relied on any more. We’re a loose cog.’ She put her glasses back on. ‘Not fit for purpose.’

  ‘Jahulla!’ whispered Sal. ‘He wants to wipe us out and start again!’

  Maddy turned to Bob. ‘If we changed our mission goals… where does that leave us, Bob? Does your core programming mean you’d have to attempt to stop us?’ She turned to Be
cks. ‘Kill us?’

  Both support units looked at each other.

  Bob finally spoke. Maddy wondered whether he was speaking on behalf of the pair of them. Probably. Becks would defer to him right now. Her mind, after all, was a pale reflection of his. ‘On previous occasions, I have been able to override hard-coded mission parameters.’

  ‘And? So, this time?’

  His thick brow lowered and became a monobrow of intense thought. A long pause of deliberation. Finally he spoke. ‘I am able to comply with a new mission directive.’ He stared at her intently. ‘And what is your new directive?’

  ‘To, uh… to stop Pandora?’ There was a tremulous, questioning tone in Maddy’s voice, worried that somewhere deep in his coconut head a logic gate might flip its state at what she’d just suggested and Bob might suddenly leap across the room and rip her head off.

  ‘Your stated intention is to prevent the future event codenamed Pandora from occurring?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘That’s kind of it. Yeah. You know… save the world?’ She winced as Bob’s forehead creased with thought and his eyes seemed to disappear into the shadow cast by his thick Neanderthal brow.

  ‘What do you think? Bob? That OK with you?’

  ‘The original mission goal of preserving the destruction of the world and humankind appears to be an illogical mission goal,’ he announced finally. Maddy let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding for the best part of a minute. ‘Becks?’

  She nodded; her mind had processed the same information and arrived at the same answer. ‘With the information that Dr Rashim Anwar has provided us of the future, the previous directive appears to make no sense.’

  ‘If that’s your plan, Maddy, if you wish to work against the goal of your agency then you need to be somewhere else entirely,’ said Rashim. ‘You need to get as far away from here as possible. Another place, maybe even another time. You know that, don’t you?’ Maddy knew.

  ‘If you really are what you think you are… engineered units,’ he said that carefully, desperate not to cause offence, ‘then if Waldstein’s after you, he will, I’m sure, have all your pre-inception date memories on file. He’ll know everything there is to know about you.’

  Liam stirred. ‘Pre-inception?’

  ‘Before our recruitment,’ clarified Maddy. ‘Our so-called life stories.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rashim. ‘He’ll certainly guess you’ve come up here to find your family, Maddy. He… or more of his support units… could be close by, closing in on us as we speak.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘A new base for us to set up?’ Liam’s clouded face seemed to brighten a little.

  ‘Yup, new home. New mission.’

  ‘I’m not sure I get what our mission is, though,’ said Sal.

  Maddy wasn’t a hundred per cent sure herself. To make Pandora NOT happen. Yes, that… but also to continue, in some moderated way, the mission they used to have: to make sure no reckless time traveller set this world hurtling towards another nightmare timeline.

  ‘We’re going to make the call, Sal. We’re going to take control of history. We’re going to steer it so the world gets a future where we don’t kill ourselves off. Where we don’t completely trash this planet.’

  Liam nodded. ‘Now that makes a bit more sense to me, so.’

  Even Sal perked up a little bit. ‘But if we’re moving on to somewhere else… aren’t we going to need some more money, or something?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Liam. ‘We’ve nearly run out.’

  ‘True.’ Maddy shrugged. ‘I guess we better think about where we’re going to get some more, then.’

  Chapter 39

  16 September 2001, Interstate 90, Westfield, Massachusetts

  Bob held the gun up at the man behind the counter. The sock pulled over his large head was far too small and stretched so taut that his thick horse-lips were mashed against his teeth and squished back into a hideous leer, halfway between a snarl and a grin.

  ‘I ’eed you to ’ive ’e all your ’oney!’

  The old Korean man behind the counter shrugged. ‘What you say?’

  ‘I ’AID… I ’EED YOU TO ’IVE ’E ALL YOUR ’ONEY!’ Bob’s voice boomed across the racks of convenience goods in the petrol station. A trucker taking his pick from some microwavable snacks in a fridge unit looked their way.

  Liam lifted his own sock up to reveal his nose and mouth. ‘Excuse the big fella, he’s not so good with a sock on his head.’

  ‘This is robbery?’

  ‘Aye, yes… yes, I’m afraid it is.’ Liam shrugged guiltily. ‘Really sorry about that. We’re going to need some of that money in your till there.’

  The old man nodded, understanding. ‘Ah…’ and then ducked down out of sight.

  ‘Uh?’ Liam hadn’t been expecting the old man to be quite so co-operative. He looked at Bob. ‘Well, that wasn’t so hard.’

  A moment later the old man reappeared holding a rusty old Korean model AK47 held together by duct tape. ‘YOU LEAVE NOW!’ he yelled, his finger resting on the trigger and looking dangerously like he was halfway pulling on it.

  ‘Maybe we should — ’

  The gun went off, five rapid-fire rounds before the old weapon clicked. Jammed. Several polystyrene ceiling tiles exploded in showers of plastic snow, most of the bullets whistling past them. But one caused a puff of crimson to erupt from the side of Bob’s head; an ear, almost completely intact, flew across the racks and landed among the refrigerated snacks not too far from the trucker.

  Bob shouldered their shotgun.

  ‘Hoy! No!’ Liam pushed the barrel up as the weapon boomed. The rack of cigarettes behind the old man’s head exploded with a shower of tobacco shreds and paper.

  ‘Just get that till!’ barked Liam.

  Bob passed the gun to Liam, leaned over and grabbed the till embedded firmly in a counter housing. Plywood cracked and splintered, chocolate bars and scratch cards spilled on to the floor as Bob shook the till vigorously. The whole counter unit was lifted clean off the floor. With a loud crack, the till pulled free and the counter crashed back down again.

  ‘Sorry ’bout the mess there!’ Liam grimaced, before he pulled the sock back down over his mouth.

  Maddy had only just finished filling the motorhome when she heard the rattle of gunfire inside the petrol station’s convenience store. Another shot, deeper, the boom of a shotgun. Then a second later what sounded like a bull charging around inside.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ she whispered. ‘I said be discreet!’ They were meant to be holding the store up for some quick cash, not levelling the place to the ground.

  A moment later she saw Liam emerging, followed by Bob carrying something that looked almost as big as a bank safe in his arms.

  ‘Becks!’ she called out. ‘We’re leaving! Now!’

  The Winnebago’s engine started up with a roar of an accelerator pedal pushed down too hard — Becks’s first go behind the wheel.

  Liam tumbled up the steps inside, Sal helping him up. He collapsed on to the seat at the back, hyperventilating. Bob followed him inside and tossed the till on to the floor. The vehicle rocked on its loose suspension under the heavy impact. SpongeBubba wobbled and lost his footing.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’ he chirped merrily on his back, stubby paddle feet whirring ineffectually in the air.

  Maddy slammed the door shut on them, cursing under her breath as she ran along the outside of the motorhome, pulled open the passenger side door and clambered up on to the seat beside Becks. ‘Go! Go! GO!!’

  Becks eased the gearstick into Drive and the SuperChief bucked forward like an eager racehorse let out of a trap. The front of the RV clipped the rear of the rig parked up beside the petrol pump next door, sending showers of sparks and a twisted aluminium bumper across the forecourt.

  Becks spun the big wheel round, finally regaining control of the Winnebago as they barrelled out of the petrol station’s exit ramp and up the slip road on to the inte
rstate. At least at this time of night they weren’t roaring up only to join a road clogged with bumper-to-bumper commuter traffic. They had three lanes almost to themselves. Becks gunned the accelerator.

  ‘Slower!’ barked Maddy. ‘Slow down! Keep it under fifty! We don’t want to get pulled up for speeding!’

  ‘Affirmative.’ She eased back on the pedal and the complaining whine of the vehicle’s engine settled back to an almost soothing, muted grumble.

  Maddy eased herself back in her seat. She let go of the dashboard in front of her. Her nails had left crescent-shaped dents in the plastic.

  She turned round in her seat to see Rashim and Sal hefting SpongeBubba back on to his flat paddle feet and Bob and Liam pounding at the till like a pair of dim-witted cavemen trying to chip flint shards from an unbreakable boulder.

  Jesus. Not the first time she found herself wondering, What kind of a Mickey Mouse team is this?

  ‘My God!’ she hurled at them, exasperated. ‘What the hell was that?’

  They stopped what they were doing, all of them staring expectantly at her. A bizarre menagerie seemingly sharing the same wide-eyed question on their faces — not good?

  She shook her head. ‘I’m pretty sure I said we should try and be discreet about this!’

  Chapter 40

  20 September 2001, Harcourt, Ohio

  It was an abandoned elementary school they ended up looking at. Many of its windows were boarded up and covered with fading graffiti, and those that weren’t, were either broken or smeared with foggy green blooms of moss. The playground beside the main entrance foyer sprouted tufts of grass and weed between fissures in the tarmac. Along one side, a row of gently rusting bicycle racks emerged from a bed of several years’ worth of windswept autumn leaves.

  The fact that the school was a couple of miles outside the nearest town and — apart from a gang of kids goofing around at night with cans of spray paint, some time long ago — it looked like no one had been here recently, coupled with the fact that it still had a tappable link to the power grid, made it pretty much a perfect temporary place for them to set up shop.