by Alex Scarrow
‘To be found?’ She looked at him. ‘Like, we’ve left ourselves a warning?’
‘A warning? Or perhaps a wake-up call would be a better term. Or perhaps simply it is an accident.’
‘The message in the Holy Grail doesn’t seem like an accident,’ said Maddy. ‘It was a very deliberate message intended for us.’
‘From who, though? Liam? An older one? That’s what Becks said.’
Rashim shrugged. ‘There is the question. From earlier versions of yourselves perhaps?’
Maddy laughed edgily. ‘OK, that is far too much weird for one conversation.’ She nodded at the distant ridge of rock face emerging from the jungle floor. ‘I’m hoping some of our answers are going to lie in that cave over there.’
‘Do not hope for too much,’ he replied. ‘You might be disappointed.’
‘Well, we’ll soon find out, won’t we?’ She checked her watch. ‘You set the return window for an hour?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which is in about five minutes.’ She addressed all of them. ‘I suggest we send Becks back with a message to computer-Bob to track our beacon signal to that cliff-face and open another window over there in twenty-four hours’ time. That’ll give us enough time to make our way to the cave and spend the night looking it over.’
‘Are we camping overnight in that cave?’ asked Sal.
‘If it’s big enough. If there are other things to find in there, I’d like to get some time inside. So why not? Adam? Is it big enough?’
‘Big enough?’ He nodded. He took a swig from the water flask then passed it on to Maddy. ‘Sure. If I recall correctly, it went deeper than I explored.’
She screwed the cap back on the flask. ‘Right, then we should probably grab what useful things we can find here in the camp and set off soon.’
Chapter 32
1889, London
Bertie was almost certain the archway beyond this door was empty. He’d hunkered down and peered through the keyhole, seen that a solitary electric light was on; seen, within the flickering pool of light below, the back of a leather armchair and not much else. He’d then put his ear up against the door, held his breath and listened intently for a good five minutes. The only thing he could hear was the faint, deep throbbing of the viaduct’s electrical generator that constantly vibrated through every brick wall of this dark labyrinth.
It appeared that no one was home. Dr Anwar and his odd collection of assistants apparently had decided to leave their archway for the day.
Just to be sure, he rapped his knuckles firmly on the door several times, called the doctor’s name. Called Saleena’s name.
No one’s home.
Warily he eased the key into the keyhole and gently teased it round. The loud clunk-snuk of the lock echoed into the room beyond and made him jump. He cursed his skittishness as the heavy door creaked inwards.
He ducked as he stepped through the low entrance. ‘Hello?’ he called very softly, half expecting to find one of them asleep in the armchair and stirring at the sound of his voice. But the place was quite clearly deserted. Cautiously he stepped into the room and gently closed the oak door behind himself.
To his left was the armchair he’d seen through the keyhole, and five others of varying design and condition; it was a veritable cornucopia of throw-away reading-room furniture arranged around a scoured and scuffed old wooden dining table. He noticed another electric lamp sitting on it. An odd design of smooth, grey, brushed metal, shaped and jointed not unlike a skeletal human elbow. The pool of illumination from both electrical lights spilled feebly on to the back wall. He could just about make out that it was lined with boxes of wood and card, shelves laden with loops of thick cable.
To the right of the back wall, he noted that a number of privacy screens had been improvised: several ropes strung across from wall to wall and floral linen sheets pegged from them. Beyond one he could see a naval-style hammock hung empty, half a plump pillow attempting to escape over the side of it.
So they do live here. He’d wondered about that, whether they had other rooms rented elsewhere.
He took a few more cautious baby steps into the room. He felt the stone slabs beneath his feet give way to the more forgiving soft brush of a rug. That, and the hammocks, confirmed that this was as much a home to these people as it was a laboratory. In the middle of the floor he noticed two square plinths: wooden frames a yard on each side and six inches high, both of them filled with dirt and sawdust. They reminded him of the flower beds arranged within the long greenhouses of Kew Gardens.
He wondered if Dr Anwar was some mysterious horticulturist, nurturing exotic species of plant for some dubious and nefarious purpose.
He turned all the way round to his right and finally noticed, in the corner, another long wooden table. This one was cluttered with many things. Beneath it, thin rectangular boxes stood side by side, like guardsmen standing to attention. Each one with a miniature spot of blue light on the front of it. Some of them flickering and winking. Upon the table there were far more curious-looking items: square windows of light. A dozen of them, competing for table space. A mosaic of rectangles of different colours on each. Some of the rectangles had what appeared to be rows of letters and numbers on them, that marched jerkily upwards to be replaced with new rows of letters and numbers appearing at the bottom.
One of these glowing windows was presenting a sequence of images. He saw human faces, strange-looking buildings, contraptions on wheels that reminded him vaguely of the newfangled horseless carriages that he’d seen illustrations of in the penny press. Flying vehicles that looked impossibly sleek and smooth, made of shining metal that looked far too heavy to stay aloft.
The images themselves were almost incomprehensible. But it was these glowing square windows, these mesmerizing little ‘screens’ on the desk that made Bertie catch his breath. Each one seemed to be displaying an endless stream of information: numbers, letters, words, images.
Incredible. Quite incredible.
Just then, the windows all changed to a uniform sky blue. Identical numbers in white began to appear on all of them. Bertie watched as the identical display on every window counted down in sequence.
30 … 29 … 28 …
He heard something beginning to hum loudly in the corner of the room. And then a high-pitched voice called out from somewhere among the collection of armchairs.
‘Hey! Ho! Hum! Skippa’s coming ho-o-o-me!’
Bertie desperately needed to leave. He wasn’t alone and something was about to happen here. But the small doorway was to his right, from where the shrill voice had come. If he scrambled for the door, he’d be running directly past whoever that was. Perhaps someone had been kipping on one of the chairs after all! He’d somehow not spotted them.
He looked desperately around for somewhere he could hide.
… 23 … 22 … 21 …
He realized those were seconds. Those were seconds counting down. He was running out of time! The metallic hum had begun to increase in intensity, becoming alarmingly loud, like an industrial machine on the verge of a breakdown, like a steam boiler getting ready to explode, a tractor preparing to throw a gear.
… 19 … 18 … 17 …
Bertie quickly hurried across the floor towards the privacy curtains. He stepped through the one that had been left open and pulled it closed behind him. One of the clothespegs popped off the suspended rope. Bertie cursed.
The hum was now almost deafening. He wondered if one of Dr Anwar’s experiments was on the verge of going wrong in his absence. A few seconds from now, would all that be left of the viaduct be a pile of smouldering bricks and a billowing cloud rolling up into the sky over Holborn?
‘God, help me!’ he whimpered as the hum became an intolerable mechanical shriek.
All of a sudden the privacy curtain ballooned inwards like a sail catching a sudden squall of wind.
And the deafening hum was gone.
Bertie dared himself to peek through a gap i
n the fabric. What he saw made his breath catch again and his heart thud in his chest like a feral cat trapped in a hat-box.
He could see a sphere as wide in diameter as an adult man stands tall. It appeared to be hovering, entirely without weight, at least eighteen inches above the floor. The sphere glowed brightly, pulsating with rich emerald greens and a shockingly intense sky blue, a swirling loose pattern of those colours that reminded him of some of the modern meaningless impressionistic paintings coming from Paris these days.
Then in the midst of the swirls of those two intense colours a dark coil of black became a part of the undulating pattern on the surface of the sphere, swirling into the mix like a brave new tone added to the mess of an artist’s palette. The swirl became thicker and more distinct, finally recognizable as the silhouette of a person.
A woman stepped down from the sphere on to the floor of the room. She was dressed as he’d expect a woman from London would normally be: long heavy skirt and a frilled blouse of linen. Bertie quickly recognized her as one of the female assistants of Dr Anwar; the stunningly beautiful, if somewhat aloof, one. He’d yet to actually hear her speak. Perhaps she was a mute.
A moment later the sphere collapsed to a pinprick and vanished completely.
Bertie’s breath shuddered in and out, he was vaguely aware that his trembling hand was making the entire curtain twitch. He let it go.
If this bizarre tableau beyond the curtain was not already enough for him to try to make sense of … from among the cluster of chairs a squat yellow box – not unlike a chest of drawers in size – emerged. It had a pair of huge goggle eyes and a bobbing nose like a gherkin. It shuffled out into the middle of the floor on spindly legs and greeted the woman. ‘Hey! Ho! Hum! Becks has come home!’ It waddled up to her feet, tilted backwards to look up at her. ‘Hey, Becks!’
The young woman calmly addressed the square box. ‘Hello, SpongeBubba.’
Chapter 33
1994, Nicaraguan jungle
Billy hacked away at several low-hanging thorny vines in front of them. ‘You have gone many times? In this … ball?’
Liam pushed the undergrowth aside. The guide seemed to be quite calmly taking all that he’d just witnessed in his stride. ‘Yup, Billy. Many times, many places.’
‘It is like a … a space ship?’
‘Not really. It’s sort of a window really. A window we can open whenever and wherever we want. Well, almost whenever we want.’
‘Very good, very useful.’ Billy nodded thoughtfully. He was silent for a few moments as he led the way up through the sloping jungle. Liam turned to check on the others; they were not far behind. Seven of them in total, making enough noise between them that the jungle seemed more alive with their hacking and talking and heavy footfalls than it did with the chirruping orchestra of birdsong above.
‘So, Billy, here’s a question for you. If you could go anywhere, anytime, where would you want to go?’
Billy hesitated for a moment, giving that some serious thought. ‘You say anywhere?’
Liam grinned. ‘Aye. All of history to choose from … so where would you go?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘I would like to go to Disneyland in United States.’
‘Disneyland? Seriously?’
The guide nodded. ‘I would meet the Mickey Mouse. And the large Goofy dog.’ He resumed hacking again at the undergrowth ahead of them. ‘The beautiful princess who is fairest of them all.’ He grinned back at Liam. ‘She a very pretty dish.’
‘It’s not much further now,’ said Adam. ‘It took me about three hours. I remember thinking it looked way closer from the camp. Like, a ten-minute stroll. But it turned out to be uphill all the way and quite slow-going pushing through all this undergrowth.’
Rashim dabbed at his sweaty forehead, wheezing from the exertion of walking up an incline for the last couple of hours. His Victorian clothes, the thick cotton shirt and felt trousers – all were entirely unsuitable for this oppressive tropical heat. ‘It is very hot work. I need to take a rest and drink some water.’
He called out ahead to Liam and Billy that he needed five minutes and then down the sloping trail to Maddy, Sal and Bob bringing up the rear.
Maddy nodded and waved at them that she’d heard. She could have done with a break herself but was glad it was Rashim who’d wimped out and called a halt. She plopped herself against the base of a tree trunk. She took a moment to catch her breath.
‘So, how are you doing there, Sal?’
Sal settled down on the hump of a fallen limb. ‘Fine. I could keep going quite easily.’
Unlike Rashim, she’d chosen to change her clothes, ditching her long heavy dress and corset for some large denim shorts – cinched tight with a belt – and a faded yellow T-shirt she’d found hanging from a laundry line in the camp. The man-size clothes hung loosely on her small frame.
Maddy looked at her – she was breezing through the uphill jungle trek better than anyone else. Maddy could feel her own shirt was stuck to her back with sweat, clammy all the way down to the sodden waistline of her jeans.
‘No, I don’t mean how are you with the hiking.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I mean, how are you?’
‘Uh?’
‘You know, Sal, I was really worried about you. A few weeks ago, when Liam was off playing pirates, when you went forward in time to New York? I thought that was it … I thought we were never going to see you again.’
Sal pushed a lock of dark hair from her face. ‘You asked me what I found. Do you remember?’
Maddy nodded. ‘And you never told me.’
‘There is a real me, Maddy. I found her.’
‘What?’ She was taken aback by that.
‘Saleena Vikram. She was … will be … a real girl.’
‘No.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘No, don’t you do this to yourself, Sal. It’s hard enough, I know, dealing with what we are, but don’t make it harder for yourself building up some crazy wish-fulfilment fantasy.’
‘I’m not crazy.’
‘Our lives, our memories were all patched together like a scrapbook. Hell, I don’t think the technicians that made us ever thought we’d come looking for our past lives. They must have figured we’d just accept who we thought we were and leave it at that.’
And wouldn’t we have? Maddy wondered. If she’d never found that note in the San Francisco drop box, they would still probably be based in Brooklyn, still determined to carry on the work Foster had entrusted to them. Still believing they were who they thought they were. Happy in their ignorance.
‘My memories came from a real person,’ said Sal. ‘She exists. I saw her … I saw her father.’
‘Come on, Sal. Maybe you just saw someone who just looked a bit like you and your dad –’
‘They were exactly where I knew they’d be! Maddy, I remembered a trip Father took to New York. I remember the day we walked around the scrap mountain in Central Park. I remember the hotel we stayed at. I found it. And I found them.’
‘Did you … did you, you know? … Talk to them?’
‘I wanted to.’
‘So you didn’t?’
Sal shook her head.
‘Then, come on, it might just have been two people who looked a lot like –’
‘I heard Father call out my name.’ Sal checked herself. ‘Her name.’
Maddy could have asked whether Sal might have simply misheard him. Maddy could have suggested it might have been a similar-sounding name. But she suspected picking holes in what Sal believed to be true would just antagonize her, encourage her to keep her thoughts to herself and clam up.
At least she was talking.
‘Why me? Why was my life a real life, Maddy? Why do that to me?’
Maddy didn’t have a ready answer for that. ‘Maybe that’s just how they chose to build our backstories. They had a complete one good to use for you. But for me and Liam they had to improvise with whatever bits they had to hand?’
‘It’s not fair.’ Sal
dipped her head, her face suddenly lost behind the curtain of her dark hair.
‘Hey, Sal, you, me and Liam … we’re all in this together. We’re all in the same boat. It doesn’t matter how they came up with our –’
‘But it’s NOT the same! Is it?’ She looked up at Maddy. ‘You and Liam had memory bits all stuck together. You’re patchwork people. But me, mine’s a complete life that will be lived. Don’t you see? You two can take or leave those memories. You two can make a start being who you want to be.’
Liam had said that to Maddy one evening. The pair of them had been watching the barges coming and going beneath Blackfriars Bridge. He’d told her that he figured his life had properly started the day he’d been roused from sleep by Foster. Maddy had kind of got what he was saying. The authored memories they had in their heads could be discarded if that’s what they wanted. Now that they had a year’s worth of real memories together. It was enough for them to consider themselves as real people. After all, memories, real ones, that’s what counted in the end.
‘You two can both move on and make a new start,’ said Sal. ‘You can become who you want to be. But me?’ She shook her head sadly. ‘There is already a Saleena.’
Maddy could see, behind the loose veil of her long hair, that there were tears in her eyes.
‘So, what does that make me?’ She wiped her eyes dry. ‘It makes me the fake.’
Chapter 34
1994, Nicaraguan jungle
Mid-afternoon they finally came to the base of the ridge. Adam began talking about his other passion, geology. He explained why the very artificial-looking wall of rock rising almost sheer and vertical out of the jungle like some man-made defensive bastion built to withstand an army of invading giants was in fact a perfectly natural formation.