by Alex Scarrow
‘That’s fine. That’s all we need. How far forward can we go?’
‘I need to work it out.’
‘2070? Can you get us a look at that year?’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll work it out. Just give me a moment.’ Rashim took a chair at the desk and pulled up a program on the screen.
They waited silently, listening to him tap on the keyboard and mutter calculations under his breath.
‘It’s always the same,’ said Sal after a while. ‘One way or another, mankind ends up wiping itself out with some big weapon, doesn’t it? Why are people so completely stupid?’
‘It’s what we do best, isn’t it?’ said Liam. ‘Invent things that we can use to kill everyone. It’s what we’re good at, I suppose.’
‘That is correct,’ rumbled Bob. His eyelids were fluttering, revealing the rolled whites of his eyes. He was Bluetoothing data. One of his sporadic back-ups. ‘Mankind is essentially sociopathic,’ he continued. ‘That is probably why Homo sapiens became dominant and wiped out the Neanderthals and the other sapient species; your killer instinct was more clearly defined.’
‘Aye, we were tougher nuts than those apemen,’ said Liam.
‘Negative. Not tougher,’ said Bob, ‘just more ruthless.’
‘Thanks for that, Dr Phil,’ said Maddy. ‘Since when did you become an expert on the human psyche?’
‘I have files on — ’
Maddy raised a hand. ‘It’s OK, I was just being snarky.’
‘OK, I’ve got some rough figures,’ said Rashim. ‘We can’t project a pinhole field all the way to 2070, I’m afraid. It’s just not possible on the power we’re drawing in right now.’
‘Jesus!’ Maddy gritted her teeth. ‘We need to do something about that. This Holborn generator’s a pile of junk!’
‘I have some thoughts on this. We could do some reconfiguring, perhaps insert some kind of capacitor to build up a store of surplus energy — ’
‘Later. We’ll discuss that later. Just tell me how far we can go right now.’
Rashim looked at the scribbled notes on the desk in front of him. He sucked air through his teeth. ‘I think we can reach as far forward as the early forties — 2042, perhaps 2043. But not much more.’
Liam cocked his head. ‘Wasn’t that round about when Waldstein showed off his first-ever time machine?’
‘Yeah, round about then, I think.’
‘I wonder if this future has a version of him in it,’ said Liam. ‘Eh? That would be weird.’
Maddy shrugged. An intriguing idea — that another version of him lay ahead of them now, perhaps a version of him that was living a very different life. A happier life perhaps with his wife and his son? A life lived in blissful ignorance of time travel. An Einstein who remained a humble patent clerk; a Bill Gates who ended up a computer repairman.
Wouldn’t that be a thing, though? A timeline that survives this looming nuclear crisis and perhaps finds a peaceful future. But also a timeline without Waldstein’s displacement machine in it. Perhaps even a timeline without a Pandora. Wouldn’t all of that be a wonderful thing? She could only hope. ‘Rashim?’
He turned to look at her. ‘Yes?’
‘Do it. Set that up, please. Let’s go get a look at our future.’
Chapter 66
2043, the ruins of Piccadilly Circus, London
The dog, a small, virtually hairless thing that might, once upon a time, have been mistaken for a Jack Russell, chased the rodent through a dark maze of creaking wooden tables and desks — furniture that for many a year had held true until a decade ago a portion of the building’s roof had finally caved in. Ten years of wet summers and freezing winters had done its work and damp was rotting the wood.
The dog scurried between chair legs and desk legs in a desperate, ravenous pursuit. The rat was a good-sized one and yet fast. Its small feet skittered across a long-forgotten floor covered in grit and plaster; moistened by the damp, it was almost soil and in several places clumps of weed and moss thrived.
Out of the maze of the long-dead office, the rat scampered up a slanted fallen roof timber, on to a chair and over a stick-dry bundle of bones in rags slumped across the grit-covered surface of a service counter. Its body and beady dark eyes reflected all but briefly in a mildew-spotted oval of magnified glass. Along the counter now, it found a dark corner behind a rusting box spewing corroded wires.
A moment later the dog scampered past the counter in hot pursuit, out into a large hall of round wooden benches and long tables. As with the counter, there were other bundles of white bones and tufts of hair wrapped up in decaying fibres of clothing to be seen: lying along the benches, slumped on the reading tables, spread out on the floor. Shards of sunlight speared down into this place through the collapsed domed roof of the building, and a cheerful, welcoming blue sky was visible beyond, framed by the broken fingers of iron spars and crumbling masonry.
The balding dog sensed it had lost its prey and wandered over to an opening that led out into the warmth of a pleasant summer’s afternoon. It emerged into the sunlight, blinking back the brightness of the sun, sat on its haunches and panted. It decided to rest and recover for a while before returning inside to sniff out another rodent. The pickings were too rich in this building to give up yet.
Its pink tongue darted out and slapped its muzzle. Skinny flanks heaved with the rapid in-out in-out in-out of hot breath being expelled and oxygen pulled in.
And dark beady eyes looked out impassively on a crowded vista that meant nothing to it. A place once upon a time known as Piccadilly Circus.
Tall grass and nettles grew waist-high here, a sea of gently swaying ochre-green giving way here and there to hummocky islands of rust-red vehicle roofs. Lost to sight, but certainly down there where the wild grass and the tall weeds spread their roots, was a rich compost of decaying clothing fibres and bleached bones still able to leak some goodness into the forming soil.
In the middle of this shifting grassland was a circular plinth topped by a still-recognizable human form with wings. Eros. Its bronze base was now a peppermint green, the statue itself — aluminium — was a marble-like pattern of rust spots and algal growth.
Everywhere a pleasing prairie sound. The gentle murmur of breeze haunting the skeletons of dead buildings. The grass whispering a soothing white noise. Crickets chirruping in chorus. Far away another dog barks to find its pack. And slowly the late-afternoon sun eased across a cloudless sky towards a craggy horizon of falling buildings. Eventually that same horizon would be shallow humps beneath a blanket of vegetation. Eventually that horizon would be flat grassland or a wood or something in between.
Peaceful.
But life goes on. Big bugs eat small bugs. Rats eat bugs. Dogs eat rats. A dozen crows circle overhead prepared to eat anything. Life continues despite a gradually decreasing background level of radiation that might still give concern to a radiologist.
Just over four decades ago, it wasn’t peaceful here. Just over four decades ago, there was a period of horror and panic. The sound of wailing sirens filled the air.
Screams.
Prayers.
This same blue sky was criss-crossed with several hair-thin lines of vapour: the approaching and departing vectors of missiles. A day in which the skies all over Earth looked largely the same. Vapour trails and mushroom clouds.
But that’s all long ago. Forgotten now. Silly, vain, stupid, violent humans are history and in a couple of hundred years the last visible remnants of their buildings will be too.
Peaceful, except for a tiny disturbance now. Minute — the size of a mere pinhead. If one knew precisely where to look, you would see nothing more than a spot of darkness floating six feet above the ground. Like an errant pixel on a computer display, grain on an old photograph, the tiniest freckle on porcelain-fair skin.
There for a second, gone the next.
15 December 1888, Holborn Viaduct, london
They stared at the low-resolution image on t
he computer screen for a long, silent minute before Liam finally spoke.
‘That’s Piccadilly Circus, is it?’
No answer. In his own Liam way he was being rhetorical. ‘Well now, that’s not looking very good, is it?’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Maddy. ‘Not good. Not good at all. I think it’s safe to say we don’t want this future.’
‘That means we have to make it right,’ said Sal. ‘Jack the Ripper has to kill this Kelly lady?’
‘And get away… never to be identified.’ Maddy nodded. ‘Kinda sucks, but yeah. That’s how it has to be.’
Chapter 67
8 p.m., 8 November 1888, Whitechapel, London
Mary Kelly wiped muffin crumbs from her lips and smiled across the table at Faith. ‘I ain’t felt so ’appy in a long time.’
Faith had been gazing out at the street. The late-night market was closing up for business. By the amber glow of lamplight, costermongers, butchers, grocers packed their wares away as weary-looking stevedores returned home from the docks and warehouses along the Thames. A narrow street heaving with activity; a seething mass of grubby humanity seen through the sooty window of this small tea shop. Faith had logged, analysed and dismissed seventy-six faces in the last minute alone.
She levelled her impassive gaze on Mary. ‘Why are you happy, Mary?’
‘I have you.’
Faith had compiled a short list of non-specific, noncommittal yet reassuring responses that she could trot out in response to Mary’s endless chatter. She picked one at random.
‘Then I am happy too.’
‘I feel like there’s a hope. A way out of Whitechapel. A way out of this stinkin’ awful unfair city.’
‘Yes.’ Faith played a smile. ‘We have your plan.’
Mary checked the coins in her purse. The last few nights their petty crimes had paid off well. Mary had decided they could try their luck along the Strand. There were a number of members’ clubs along that busy road that disgorged drunken gentlemen into the streets in the early hours. Faith had played her part well, catching the eye and attention of a number of them with some suggestive and teasing come-ons while Mary had made quick work of dipping her hand into their coat pockets.
‘We’ve already got almost a whole pound! A few weeks like this, Faith love, and we might have enough for tickets to take us anywhere we want!’
‘The place that you called “Wales” sounds like a very nice place.’ Faith was vaguely aware that her AI was adopting some very sophisticated human behavioural traits. She was ‘playing along’. Acting a part. Lying. Faith had no intention of travelling off to a place called ‘Wales’, but maintaining the illusion that she was sold on that idea suited her well. Mary was a useful accomplice with useful local knowledge. More than that, between them they seemed to have developed an efficient way to accumulate money; something that was needed, of course, to purchase food.
Faith finished her lamb broth. Generously full of chunks of mutton and other useful proteins.
‘I think you an’ me’s earned a night off. What do you say?’
Faith was looking out of the soot-smudged window. ‘As you wish.’
‘We could go down me local, the Queen’s Head. How’s that sound?’
Faith turned to look at her reproachfully. ‘You intend to consume alcohol again?’
Mary shrugged. ‘It’s just a little celebration. We done so well, you an’ me. Just one drink ain’t gonna hurt, is it?’
‘Information: intoxication impairs performance and compromises judgement.’
Mary laughed. ‘Bleedin’ ’eck, Faith. Come on, just one little drink. Ain’t gonna kill me now, is it?’
12.27 A.m., 9 November 1888, whitechapel, London
The pub — The Queen’s Head — turned out to be another useful location for Faith to log faces. Her database of stored images was rapidly increasing in size. She’d spotted, logged, analysed and filed 17,217 faces in London so far. None of them, of course, were the people she was after. But it meant over seventeen thousand humans ruled out.
As she calmly surveyed the florid faces around her, through clouds of acrid pipe smoke, Mary was enjoying herself. One drink had turned into several drinks and she was now in the middle of a noisy muddle of men and women, leading them in singing along to an accordion player, all of them equally inebriated. The innkeeper winced at the racket as he collected the empty tankards. Keen to begin kicking out his patrons for the night.
Faith approved of Mary Kelly. There was an iron strength in the woman: not physically, of course, but in the way she could command the obedience and respect of others. The kind of person who, in another life, in other more favourable circumstances, might have achieved great things. Instead, all she would ever be was a ‘street woman’, a pauper, quite likely destined for an early grave. If she could feel any emotion for Mary, it would be fondness. Instead, the best she could manage was dispassionate approval.
She watched Mary sing tunelessly for a while, a foghorn voice that carried over the other tuneless voices, then turned back to the task at hand: observing the faces around her.
And it was then, as she glanced around once more to check for any new faces, that she caught sight of a dark-haired young man. Just a glimpse of a face on the far side of the public house. Her breath caught in her throat.
Liam O’Connor.
[Information: 85 % identity match]
She started to push her way through the fog of pipe smoke and heaving, sweaty bodies. Florid, bearded faces loomed closely at hers. Men with gap-toothed smiles leered at her as she squeezed her way frantically through.
For a moment she lost sight of the young man. Then re-established visual contact again a few seconds later. Closer now. She could see his face was slim, his nose prominent beneath two thick arched eyebrows.
[Information: 87 % identity match]
She began to feel adrenaline coursing through her body. Her mind determining the best strategy. To kill him right here in this pub? Or better to watch him discreetly and perhaps follow him when he left at the end of the evening in the hope he was going to lead her back to the others.
Closer now. She could see the young man was the same height and build.
[Information: 88 % identity match]
She needed to be closer; to not have clouds of pipe smoke obscuring her view; or red-faced, drunken fools staggering into her, breathing rancid fumes in her face. She could snap any one of these fools’ necks with the slightest flick of her wrist, and perhaps no one would notice in the press and surge of bodies. A man might collapse to the sawdust-covered floor of this pub and they would all assume he’d passed out from too much drink.
But it wasn’t worth the risk of alerting the attention of Liam O’Connor, now just a few yards away from her, laughing at something being said to him by someone else.
Faith reached to pull her bonnet down a little, hoping to disguise her face. Too late. She noticed his brown eyes flicker on to her. Resting on her… and then a smile for her benefit. No alarm. No flicker of recognition and panic.
No. Just a fuzzy-headed, drunken smile.
‘Hoy! All right?’ the young man called across to her. ‘Buy you a drink, love?’
[Information: not Liam O’Connor]
She ground her teeth. Turned on her heels and started to push and squirm her way through the crowd back to where she’d been standing moments ago. Only to discover Mary was no longer there with her newly made drunken friends.
Chapter 68
12.30 a.m., 9 November 1888, Whitechapel, London
Mary guessed Faith had had enough and taken herself back to the room they were sharing off Miller’s Court. It wasn’t so far; just a couple of streets away from the pub.
She staggered down Dorset Street, cursing and muttering as her feet slipped on rain-slicked cobblestones. She’d only intended to have the one drink. After all, it was well-earned. But one had led to two and more, and she’d spent more of that money than she’d really wanted
to. Not that she was too worried about that. They could make that money again tomorrow. Easily.
Faith had an alluring way about her. An innocence and beauty that drew men like bees to honey, like moths to candlelight. So distracted were they with trying to chat her up, it was like stealing pennies from a blind man’s cap.
What a splendid pair we are.
Although Faith was a little peculiar. There was an almost doll-like manner to her expressionless face. As if her features were as rigid as porcelain. And an almost mannequin stiffness to her, as if she was always on guard. Like one of them redcoat-’n’-bearskins standing to attention outside Buckingham Palace.
Mary wondered about her. She was such a puzzle.
She turned left off Dorset Street into the dark alleyway that led into Miller’s Court, a cul-de-sac of dosshouses around a small cobblestoned courtyard that always seemed to reek of human faeces.
She staggered in the dark, steadying herself against one greasy brick wall.
‘Blimey,’ she muttered. ‘Bit too much of the blimmin’ laughing juice.’
Faith was probably already back in their room. Tucked up in the one bed they shared, toe to head. Mary did actually wonder if Faith ever slept. She always seemed to be wide awake, staring up at the cracked plaster of the low ceiling. She wondered what thoughts passed through that mind of hers. What wishes and dreams, wants and needs. She seemed to give so little away.
What a pretty puzzle she is.
Mary was in fact so puzzled by her friend that she failed to notice the shadow of a man entering the alleyway behind her, casting a long veil from the faint amber glow of a gas lamp on Dorset Street, all the way down the dark little alleyway into Miller’s Court. Like some impossibly stretched, impossibly tall being. The shadow fell across her back, marking her with darkness… like the ghostly touch of the Grim Reaper, marking her soul for imminent collection as she entered the last few minutes of her life.