by Alex Scarrow
Both support units calmly nodded. ‘Termination in this instance will not be necessary,’ said Bob. ‘Cabot is required to ensure the safekeeping of the document.’
‘Agreed,’ said Becks. ‘So long as you do not speak of all the things you have seen,’ she said, looking at Cabot pointedly. Liam realized she was right. The old man had gone through with her to the twenty-first century. God knows what he must have seen. But then Liam imagined little of what he saw must have made sense, little of what he saw and heard could be of any use to him.
Cabot scratched his beard. ‘And who would believe what I have seen? They will call me a fool.’
‘She’s right,’ said Liam. ‘We still need you to mind the Voynich Manuscript. It has to stay with you alone. You can’t tell anyone about any of this.’
‘Fear not, Liam,’ he laughed gently, ‘I have no desire to be burned as a heretic. I will not talk of round worlds, or days yet to be, or a place called “New” York. Ye can trust in that. ’
Liam smiled and offered his hand. ‘It’s a deal, then, Mr Cabot.’
He grasped it. ‘A deal, Liam of Connor.’
Becks and Bob both stood up at the same time. Liam guessed they must have been quietly exchanging data. ‘You two all right?’
‘We should proceed with creating the Voynich Manuscript,’ said Becks. ‘It is two hundred and thirty-four pages of manuscript and will require approximately seven hours to duplicate.’ She turned to Cabot. ‘I will require parchment and ink. Do you have these things?’
Cabot nodded. ‘We have. The priory’s librarian will not be a happy man … but I shall see to it.’
‘Thanks,’ said Liam. The three of them watched the old man go. ‘We can trust him,’ he said.
‘We know where to locate him if a contamination originates from this point,’ said Bob.
‘He is an acceptable risk,’ said Becks. ‘And terminating him would be simple.’
Liam shook his head at them. ‘You really do make a charming couple, so you do.’
They both looked at each other, then back at him. ‘Please explain.’
Liam waved that away. ‘Never mind.’
CHAPTER 85
2001, New York
‘Yeah, the film poster’s gone,’ said Sal, standing outside the Golden Screen cinema and studying the billboards. ‘What’s that?’ she said into her cell phone. Several yellow taxis lined up on the far side of 7th Avenue were honking at a delivery truck backing into a side road.
‘Yeah, I’m positive! No sign of it. Nothing on the “coming soon” list. It’s gone.’
She nodded several times at Maddy’s instructions, then hung up. She looked around. This was Tuesday morning as she knew it; she was out and about a little earlier than normal, but it all looked as she expected it to look.
Times Square hummed with life, the sky a deep welcoming blue and no sign of this movie The Manuscript. It was gone. The tiny ripple they’d felt just half an hour ago had been Adam Lewis’s claim to fame being subtly erased from history.
No film starring Leonardo DiCaprio on the run from sinister agents and clutching an ancient-looking scroll in one fist.
She suddenly felt a rumble in her stomach and realized she hadn’t eaten a thing since yesterday lunchtime. She checked her watch. It was 7.23 a.m. An hour and twenty-two minutes to go until Tuesday turned into its regularly scheduled horror show. Time enough to go for a bottle of soda and a cream — cheese bagel.
Maddy tapped her phone and put it down on the desk. ‘It’s gone, Adam,’ she said. ‘The movie about you and the Voynich, well … it never happened.’
He ran a hand through his hair. ‘What does that mean, though? Have I been deleted from the world or something?’ His eyes widened with a horrible thought. ‘Oh God, is there another different me out there somewhere?’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No … it’s OK. Just the one you. But your life’s a different one now, that’s all. If the wave had come while you’d been standing outside, you wouldn’t know any different. You’d be off living that life, wherever it is. But because you were inside our field, it means you’ve got to go out and track your new life down, find out what it is … where it is.’
‘I — that’s — you telling me I might not be living in New York any more?’
Maddy shrugged. ‘I dunno. You could be. You might be living back in England. Who knows?’
He pulled his apartment key out of his jacket pocket. ‘You’re saying if I go back to my apartment, it might not be mine?’
‘I’ve no idea. Probably not.’
He looked like he was struggling with the idea of that.
‘Your life is probably going to be very different, Adam. You should go and find out what it is. Maybe call your mom and dad — you’ve got parents, right?’
He shrugged. ‘I did. God knows if I do now.’
‘Call them. Talk to them, find out who you are.’ She laughed softly, not unkindly. ‘They’ll probably think you’ve gone mad, though.’
‘You can say that again.’
Adam stood up uncertainly, grabbed his expensive suit jacket, draped over the back of an armchair. ‘It’s been a weird twenty-four hours, hasn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘Very weird.’
‘I feel … I feel like I’ve known you, and Sal and the others, for ages. But I knocked on that shutter just a day ago.’
She smiled sadly. ‘That’s time travel. Messes your head up.’
He looked at her. ‘Could I not stay?’
The question caught her unawares. A part of her longed to say yes. To have someone she could share the leadership role with. To have someone she could offload on to … to confide in. To …
He can’t stay, Maddy. You know that.
‘Adam … I, uh … I don’t think so. I’m not sure I have the authority, the right, to be recruiting people.’
‘But,’ he said coyly, ‘surely I know too much now? I’ve got to be some kind of a security risk? Better for me to join you chaps, right? Than be out there — you know, blabbing about all the stuff I’ve seen?’
‘I don’t think you’ll blab, Adam … I trust you. Anyway, if you come back here on Wednesday with a film crew in tow, you’ll simply find us gone.’
He hesitated, staring at her as a long and uncomfortable drawn-out silence filled the space between them. ‘All right.’ He nodded finally, awkward, a little embarrassed. ‘OK, well … I thought I’d ask. You know? If you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?’
She felt she owed him something of an explanation. ‘I’m sorry. The three of us are still new here. We’re still just trying to figure out whether we’re doing our jobs right. And I … just don’t think I’m meant — I’m allowed — to be signing anyone else up for the cause.’
‘No, that’s fine. Sorry I, uh … I asked.’ He stepped across to the computer table to collect his hard drive. ‘OK for me to take it back?’
She considered that for a moment. His work on decoding the Voynich was on there; his photographs of stones in the Kirklees Priory graveyard were on there. But then, none of it would mean much to anyone now.
She nodded. ‘Sure.’
He picked it up and tucked into the pocket of his jacket. ‘I suppose this is goodbye, then?’
She pressed her lips together, holding back an urge to change her mind, to tell him he could stay. ‘Yes. It’s goodbye, Adam,’ she said eventually.
His feet clacked across the concrete towards the door, and he pressed the green button. The shutter rattled up, letting daylight creep in across the archway.
He turned round. ‘Maybe one day I can write a book about it?’
‘As long as you call it fiction,’ she smiled. ‘Become an author? Why not? Sounds like a great idea.’
He ducked down to go under and looked outside. ‘Lovely day out there.’
He was about to step out, when she called out. ‘Adam!’
‘Yes?’
‘Your new life … I’m pretty sure it
won’t involve you working in the World Trade Center.’ She looked briefly down at her watch. ‘Just … listen, you don’t need to go looking there this morning, OK? Go call your folks first thing. Forget about going to work.’
‘Will do.’
‘Promise me.’
He looked back at her, made a face, confused. ‘All right … I promise.’
‘Go on,’ said Maddy. She found her voice catching. She didn’t need him to hear that. To see that there was a struggle going on inside her head. ‘Go on and find what your new life is.’
‘Say goodbye to Sal for me,’ he said. Then he ducked outside and she watched the grey flannel of his office trousers walk up the cobbled backstreet and out of sight.
‘Take care, Adam,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER 86
1194, Kirklees Priory, Yorkshire
They stood amid the waist-high field listening to the hiss of a thousand ears of barley swaying in the gentle breeze. Becks handed Cabot an armful of sheets of parchment. ‘This is the complete duplication, with several minor alterations. You must look after it, keep it safe.’
Sebastien Cabot nodded dutifully. ‘I will. We have a crypt below the priory. I will see to it that it is stored there.’
‘That is good.’
Liam stepped forward. ‘Mr Cabot, we — we owe you our thanks.’
The old man grinned. ‘Aye, ’tis been a … a truly fascinating few months.’
‘That much is for sure.’
He held a hand out to Liam. ‘I have learned so very much. Perhaps too much. My … my faith has been troubled.’
‘Well — ’ Liam grasped his hand — ‘if it’s any help … despite all the things I know and all the things I’ve seen, I still pray to the fella upstairs — when I’m in a tight spot, that is.’
Cabot nodded. ‘There is comfort in that, Liam. Thank ye.’
‘Information: tachyon particles detected,’ said Becks. The soft tones of a court maiden she’d used just for John dispensed with for now. She turned to regard the circle of low stalks in the field, clipped down close to the ground from the last time the portal had opened here. ‘Stand back,’ she cautioned.
A moment later their loose robes fluttered in the gentle gust of displaced air and they were staring at the undulating sphere of the portal.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Cabot. I would invite you to come along with us but …’
Cabot shook his head. ‘’Tis a world, I think, that would send me mad. Anyway — ’ he held the parchment out — ‘I have a duty here, do I not?’
Liam nodded. ‘Aye, that’s true.’
‘We must go now,’ said Bob. He stepped towards the portal, then stopped, turned and offered his one good hand to Cabot. ‘A pleasure working with you, Mr Cabot.’
Cabot grasped his large hand. ‘And ye. Truly … I have never seen a man as indestructible as ye. I would not be surprised if the superstitious folk in these parts tell fireside stories about ye, Bob, long after ye’ve gone.’
Bob worked on a smile and let his hand go.
Becks was the last to bid him farewell. ‘If you ever see John again, tell him …’ She hesitated, unsure how to complete the sentence.
‘Shall I tell him that ye think fondly of him? That ye have returned to France?’
She nodded. ‘Affirmative. That would be an appropriate message to convey.’
The portal still shimmered, impatiently inviting them through.
‘We should go,’ said Bob. ‘It is unwise to open non-dimensional space longer than necessary.’
Becks released the old man’s hand and joined Bob and Liam at the edge of the sphere.
‘Take good care of it!’ said Liam.
Cabot nodded and watched as the three of them stepped into the churning perimeter, their solid outlines becoming wavering phantoms lost in a swirling dim world. Then, with a soft puff, the portal closed, leaving him alone once more in the swaying field of barley.
He looked up at some crows circling above the trees, now beginning to turn from their rich summer green to the golden hues that beckoned harvest time. The stifling warmth of summer was soon going to give way to fresher winds.
He sniffed the summer scent with his florid nose and found himself considering an idea.
So, the world is round now, is it?
The thought placed the hint of a smile on his craggy face. A vaguely reassuring notion, that. He looked up at the sun in the sky.
And ye stay put, do ye? It’s us that wanders round ye?
Again, a strangely comforting idea, that God’s works might be far larger, far greater than this one little world full of greedy and insane barons, princes, kings and popes.
CHAPTER 87
2001, New York
Sal watched the twisting, coiling outline of several figures, embracing one another. She thought she could make out a swaying field of yellow wheat or maize and a blue sky.
Then the figures, three of them, stepped closer and emerged a moment later into the archway.
She almost didn’t recognize two of them.
Bob’s fast-growing coconut hair was a shaggy, coarse, dark, wild bush. The other thing she immediately noticed was that his left arm was missing at the elbow … and one ear was gone.
‘Shadd-yah! Bob!’
But Liam … it was Liam; she almost could have passed him by in a street and not have recognized him. His dark hair had grown. Uncut for six months, it hung down on to his shoulders; parted scruffily in the middle, it draped either side of his face like dark theatre curtains. It was his wispy beard, however, that shocked her: a jaw lined with bristles, across his top lip a downy moustache, his mouth framed by a goatee.
‘Liam!’
Maddy balled a fist in her mouth. ‘Oh my God, Liam. You look …’ She didn’t know what to say.
‘Scruffy?’ He arched his thick eyebrows. ‘That the word you’re lookin’ for?’
He grinned and stepped over towards them, wrapping one arm round each of them, pulling them all together in a clumsy bear-hug. ‘Ahh, ’tis good to see ye, so it is!’
Maddy laughed. ‘You sound all funny.’
He let them both go and stood back. ‘Aye … ’tis the Old Anglish, so. I’ll be back to meself soon enough.’
‘Love your gear!’ said Sal, admiring his studded leather jerkin, cotton hose and boots.
‘Aye, they are well made.’
Maddy looked Bob over. ‘Bob, the arm … Can you be fixed up like Becks was?’
‘Affirmative. I will need the growth tube.’
She turned to the monitors. ‘Bob, can you set that up?’
› Affirmative, Maddy.
The cursor blinked for a moment, then skittered along.
› Welcome back, Bob and Becks.
Both support units silently acknowledged that with a wifi handshake.
‘Where’s that English fella … Adam?’ asked Liam.
‘He’s gone,’ said Maddy. ‘Gone back to his life.’
‘Was Adam Lewis realigned?’ asked Becks.
Maddy knew what she was asking: had he been outside when the last minor time wave came through? Was his memory wiped clean — was he Adam Lewis living a very different life? She decided to keep matters simple for now. After all … she trusted him, sort of. And even if he did decide to rush to the nearest newspaper with his fantastic story, who was going to believe him anyway? If he led a curious journalist back to the archway this time tomorrow … there’d be nothing to see, just a vacant archway beneath the Williamsburg Bridge.
‘Yeah … don’t worry, he’s aligned.’
Becks nodded, satisfied with the answer.
Liam clasped his hands together. ‘So … it’s been a long while since I had a nice hot shower.’
Maddy wrinkled her nose. ‘Uh-huh, we noticed. Why don’t you and Becks get changed into something less fancy-dress and head over to the drop-in centre shower block.’
Liam nodded. ‘Aye, sounds like a plan.’
‘And when y
ou’re done, we’ll go out and get something to eat.’ She looked at Bob. ‘You too, we can growth-tube you afterwards if you’d like.’
Bob’s thick lips slowly stretched with what looked like something approaching a mischievous grin. ‘Aye, sounds like a plan.’
Maddy rolled her eyes and looked at Liam. ‘I see he’s growing a funny-bone too?’
Liam shrugged. ‘Right pair of jesters, so they are.’
Adam stood at the intersection of Bowery and Delancey Street, busy with this morning’s rush-hour traffic.
A new life … and he hadn’t the first clue what it was yet. His mobile phone was in his jacket pocket. Maybe Maddy was right. Maybe he should dial up Mum. Whatever new course his professional life had taken, she and dad were still likely living in their old bungalow in Chelmsford.
And what do I say, exactly? Hey, Mum, I’ve just come from another timeline … where am I living right now? Am I married? What job do I do? He chuckled at the thought of that.
But then he realized the cell probably wouldn’t work. Its contract would never have existed, the SIM card’s code number would be invalid.
A new life. And yet New York looked exactly the same as it did this time yesterday. He couldn’t quite believe his apartment would no longer be his, that Jerry, the security guard, wouldn’t have a clue who he was.
He looked to his left. The tall skyscrapers along Wall Street, the Twin Towers standing proud, thrusting into the cloudless sky. He pulled his Trade Center security pass out of his breast pocket and gazed at his passport photo: a daft grinning face above a crisp shirt and tie. If Maddy was right, this pass wasn’t even going to get him past Reception on his floor, let alone allow him to enter the IT room and his personal office.
And his apartment keys? He pulled them out and jangled them in one hand.
Somebody else’s home now.
He shook his head. It was too damned strange. Too weird. Standing here in a wholly unchanged world, unchanged except that Adam Lewis was living a very different life in it.