by Alex Scarrow
‘Ooooooohhhhh Jaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy-zzzzzzussssssss!’
CHAPTER 20
2001, New York
Maddy and Sal stared at the shimmering window in the middle of the archway. Through a curtain of undulating, rippling air they could see the dim outlines of the storeroom they’d sent Liam and the support unit to.
‘Something’s de nitely wrong,’ whispered Sal. Maddy nodded. ‘That’s the third back-up window they’ve missed.’
Five minutes ago they’d been cheerful y prepping the scheduled return window, assuming that the simple scouting mission had been a success and Liam and the support unit would be ready and waiting to come back and tel them what exactly had happened to Chan. Now, for the third time, both girls were staring at a dark storeroom with no sign of either of them.
‘Oh boy,’ ut ered Maddy. ‘I don’t know what we do now. That’s it – we’ve tried al the back-up windows.’
> Maddy?
She stepped towards the desk and leaned over the deck mic. ‘Yes?’
> You should try the six-month window.
‘Yes … yes, you’re right.’
Bob was right, it was worth a try. She clicked the PURGE
Bob was right, it was worth a try. She clicked the PURGE
but on on the screen and the shimmering window in the middle of the archway vanished with a soft pop and a gentle pu of displaced air. She entered a new set of time coordinates: exactly ve months, thirty days, twenty-three hours and fty-ve minutes after the time they’d been sent into the future; exactly ve minutes before the support unit’s mission time span was up and it was scheduled to self-destruct. It made sense. It would be the last possible chance to rendezvous with a return window. With the support unit dead, Liam would not be able to receive a tachyon signal to instruct him on a new rendezvous timestamp. If they weren’t there, in that storeroom six months after arriving and impatient to get back home, then Maddy had no idea what she could do next.
She clicked on the screen to con rm the new time coordinates and then activated the displacement machinery. Once again a twelve-foot-wide sphere of air began to shift and undulate, revealing the storeroom again. Both girls squinted for a while at the dark space beyond. Same store cupboard … a few things had been shifted around; clearly someone had had a spring-clean in there. But no sign of either Liam or the support unit.
‘Oh,’ said Sal. ‘We’ve real y lost them.’
Maddy pinched her chin. ‘No … let me think.’ There was a way to communicate with the support unit. A tachyon signal beam. That’s what they’d done last time: aimed a broad beam of particles in the direction in which they’d guessed Liam and Bob were and transmit ed an they’d guessed Liam and Bob were and transmit ed an encoded signal back through history. It had worked. Bob had picked it up.
‘Bob,’ she spoke into the mic, ‘can we send a tachyon signal beam forward?’
> A rmative. We have enough power.
‘Right … what if we send it to, say … ve minutes before whatever happened to Chan, happened.’
‘What message?’ asked Sal.
‘I dunno. Something like – abort the mission, something is going to go wrong.’
Sal nodded. ‘Yes, we should do that.’
Maddy sat down in one of the o ce chairs and purged the open window. It pu ed out of existence. She then opened the message interface and quickly tapped in a message.
Return to the store cupboard immediately. We’l pick you up there. Something is about to go wrong with your mission. Something is about to happen to you. A return window wil be waiting for you.
Bob’s dialogue box popped up.
> You wish to send this message?
‘Yes, immediately.’
> Recommendation: a narrow beam transmission. A narrow beam meant she needed to know quite precisely where to aim it. But she had no idea where the two of them might be. They might have been somewhere else in the facility. Something may have caused a detour, a re alarm perhaps? Or some malfunction in the lab may re alarm perhaps? Or some malfunction in the lab may have resulted in everyone being evacuated.
‘Bob, let’s make the beam broad enough to sweep the whole area. Make sure the support unit gets the message.’
> Caution: there wil be technology in the vicinity that may be unpredictably a ected by tachyon particles.
‘I real y don’t care if we mess up somebody’s experiments, or damage their precious gizmos … I want Liam to get that damned message!’ she snapped angrily.
‘Al right?’
> A rmative. Wide beam sweep to cover vicinity. Sal looked at her. ‘Are you sure about this?’ She nodded towards the computers. ‘Bob just sort of cautioned us, didn’t he?’
Maddy spun the chair to face her. ‘You got any other suggestions?’
Sal shook her head.
‘Right, then,’ she replied, her voice brit le. ‘We have to make contact.’
Stay calm, Maddy. You’re the leader, so stay calm. Her face softened as she reached for her inhaler on the desk. ‘Sorry, Sal … I’m just a bit stressed and –’
‘No, it’s OK.’
‘I don’t know what else to do.’
> Con rm transmission?
‘Bob, you cautioned me … because what? Is there some sort of danger to Liam if we throw a whole load of tachyon beams forward?’
> Information: tachyon particles might interfere with
> Information: tachyon particles might interfere with zero-point energy experiments that are being conducted at the institute at this time.
‘But does that endanger Liam in some way?’
> Unknown. Records show zero-point energy research was abandoned as being potential y hazardous. There is very lit le public domain data on the Texas Advanced Energy Research Institute’s work in this eld.
‘So? What do I do?’
> Recommendation: do nothing.
‘Nothing?’
> Correct. Wait for possible contact from them. Sending a tachyon signal forward may endanger Liam and the support unit and might also present a security risk for the agency.
Maddy stared at the screen in silence. ‘You want me to do absolutely nothing? When they might be in trouble and need our help? You’re asking me to do nothing but sit on my hands?’
> A rmative. A tachyon signal might be detected by sensitive instrumentation at the institute and the message intercepted. This would clearly alert them to the existence of time travel and the agency.
‘They could know time travel is possible fourteen years before Edward Chan does his maths paper,’ added Sal.
‘Our message to Liam might alter history just as much as someone kil ing Chan.’
> Sal is correct.
‘So you’re saying we wait for them to get themselves out
‘So you’re saying we wait for them to get themselves out of whatever’s happened?’
> That is my recommendation. They are very capable. Maddy chewed her lip in thought for a moment. ‘And this is my cal ?’
> You are team leader. I can only o er data and tactical advice.
‘Right, wel then I say forget potential contamination, forget any of their zero-point experiments we might be messing up and stu any security risks for the agency. They’ve pret y much left us al alone to fend for ourselves so far … I’m damned if I’m going to sacri ce Liam just to keep them happy. We warn Liam and the support unit to abort the scouting trip. We get them back home and then
… then … we can deal with any time changes we may have caused! Al right?’
Sal nodded. ‘I suppose it’s a plan.’
Maddy turned to the computer screen. ‘Al right?’
The ‘>’ cursor blinked thoughtful y on and o in the dialogue box and they heard the computer’s hard drives whirring softly. Final y, after a few moments the cursor ickered forward.
> A rmative.
‘Cool,’ said Maddy. ‘So, Bob, send that message to ve minutes before Chan’s recorded time of death.’
> A rmative.
As Bob proceeded with beaming the message, Maddy prepared to open a window yet again in the storeroom for the same moment in time and resolved to keep it open for the same moment in time and resolved to keep it open for at least ten minutes. That would give them enough time, she hoped, to receive the message, wherever they were in the institute, and make their way back to the storeroom. She was about to activate the time window when Bob’s dialogue box appeared centre screen.
> Information: there is an intense energy feedback loop interfering with the tachyon signal beam.
‘Meaning?’
> 87% probability that this is an explosion. Her breath caught in her throat. ‘An explosion?’
> Correct.
‘Oh my God.’ Maddy felt the blood drain from her face.
‘How big?’
> Unable to specify. It is a large signature reading. She looked at Sal. ‘Oh my God, you don’t think …?’
Sal swal owed nervously and didn’t say anything – her wide eyes said it al .
‘Bob, tel me it wasn’t us that just caused that to happen
– our tachyon signal?’
Bob’s cursor blinked silently for a few seconds.
> The tachyon signal is the most likely cause of the explosion. The precursor particles may have caused a reaction.
‘Oh God, what have I done?’
CHAPTER 21
Bril iant white, oating in a void of perfect, featureless white. To Liam it felt like hours, staring out at it, hanging motionless in the void as if he was oating in a glass of milk.
It felt like hours, but it could have been minutes, seconds even.
He’d begun to wonder if he was actual y dead and hanging around in some pre-afterlife limbo. Then he saw the faintest icker of movement in the thick milk world around him.
An angel coming for him? It looked like a cloud of slightly dimmer white and it danced around like a phantom, gliding in decreasing circles that brought it ever closer to him. It looked familiar.
I’ve seen that before.
Then he remembered. The day that Foster had pul ed him from the sinking Titanic. In the archway, as he’d woken the three of them from their slumber …
The seeker.
There were more out there, faint and far o , drawn to him as if they could smel his presence, like sharks smel ing blood. Perhaps the rst seeker had silently cal ed out to them that there was something here for them al to share.
share.
Oh Mary-Mother-of-God … they’re going to rip me to pieces!
The nearest seeker swooped stil closer to him and the faint cloud of grey began to take form. He thought he could make out the head and shoulders of the indeterminate shape, almost human-like. And a face that took eeting form.
Beautiful. Feminine.
He almost began to think he was right rst time, and that this was Heaven and those swooping forms were angels coming to escort him to the afterlife. Then that vaguely familiar feminine face stretched, elongated, revealing a row of razor fangs and the eyes turned to dark sockets that promised him nothing but death. It lunged towards him …
And then he was staring up at another face, framed with hair dangling down towards him, tickling his nose, with piercing grey eyes staring intently at him. ‘Liam O’Connor, are you al right?’
‘Becks?’
‘A rmative. Are you al right?’ she asked atly. ‘You appear undamaged by the explosion.’ He felt her strong hands running up and down his arms and legs, around his torso. ‘No apparent fractures.’
‘I’m OK, I think. Just a lit le … dizzy, so I am.’ He began to sit up and she helped him.
‘You are disorientated,’ she said.
‘You are disorientated,’ she said.
He looked up at a clear blue sky and a dazzling sun. He blinked back the sunlight – a curious vaguely violet hue to it – and shaded his eyes with a hand. ‘Jay-zus, where are we? Is this another world?’
‘Negative.’ She looked at him, then corrected herself.
‘No. We are where we were,’ she replied.
But when? The spherical chamber and laboratory buildings were gone. Instead of the institute’s watersprinkled lawns and owerbeds, there was nothing but jungle. If this was the same place, then it had to be some signi cant time in the future or the past. It certainly wasn’t 2015.
‘The tachyon interference caused an explosive reaction,’
said Becks. ‘We were pul ed through the zero-point window into what is known as chaos space.’
‘Chaos space?’
‘I am unable to de ne chaos space. I have no detailed data on it.’
‘And then what? We were dumped out into reality again?’
‘Correct.’
He saw another head suddenly appear above a large lush green fern leaf. Somebody else, dizzily sit ing up and wondering where on earth they were. It was one of the students: a black girl, her hair neatly thatched into cornrows. A gold hooped earring glinted in the sunlight.
‘What the –?’ she mut ered as her eyes slowly panned round the tal green trees and drooping vines. Final y her round the tal green trees and drooping vines. Final y her eyes rested on Liam and Becks.
‘Hel o there,’ said Liam, waving a hand and smiling goo ly.
She stared at him silently with eyes that stil seemed to be trying to work out what she was seeing.
He noticed another head appearing out of the foliage several dozen yards away. He recognized the receding scru y hair and sparsely bearded jowls of the teacher who’d been with the group of students during the tour of the institute.
Other heads appeared, al looking confused and frightened, spread out across a clearing in the jungle, a hundred yards in diameter. Liam recognized the institute’s smartly dressed tour guide, one of the technicians who’d been in the chamber and the rest of the students.
‘Wh-what happened?’ cal ed out the teacher.
The guide’s careful y groomed silver hair was dishevel ed, his smart suit rumpled and dirtied with mud.
‘I … I … don’t know … I just …’
Liam looked at Becks. ‘We’re going to have to take charge of things, aren’t we?’
She looked at him blankly. ‘The mission parameters have changed.’
Liam sighed. ‘No kidding.’
He was about to ask her if she had any idea at al of when in time they were when he heard a shril scream echo across the clearing.
‘What was that?’
‘What was that?’
It came again. Sharp, shril and terri ed. He got to his feet, as did several others, and pushed through clusters of knee-high ferns towards where the sound was coming from. Becks was instantly by his side, striding slightly ahead of him without any trepidation. Liam realized he felt reassured to have her there despite her diminutive frame. Despite lacking the intimidating bulk of Bob, he had a feeling she was a great deal more dangerous than she looked.
Final y, a yard ahead of him she stopped. Liam stepped round her and looked down.
The blonde girl he’d spoken to earlier – he remembered her name, it was Laura, wasn’t it? – was screaming, her eyes locked on to the thing that was lying in the tal grass beside her.
It took Liam a moment for him to make sense of what he was seeing on the ground, then … then he got it; understood what it was. His stomach opped and lurched and it took every ounce of wil power he had not to double over and vomit.
The teacher emerged from the tal grass to stand next to Liam. He fol owed Laura’s wide-eyed gaze and then sucked in a mouthful of air. ‘Oh my God! … That’s not … that’s not what I think it is,’ he whispered, and turned to look at Liam. ‘Is it?’
Among the tal fronds of vegetation nestled a smal twisted mass of muscle and bone. At one end Liam could see a long braid of blonde hair, mat ed with drying blood, see a long braid of blonde hair, mat ed with drying blood, and halfway along the contorted form, he spot ed a solitary pink Adidas trainer, hanging hal
f on and half o a pale and perfectly normal-looking foot. It had to be one of the three blonde girls they’d tagged behind on the way into the chamber. He could quite understand the girl, Laura, screaming. They’d been chat ing, giggling and exchanging phone numbers only ten minutes ago.
Liam recal ed Foster saying sometimes it happened; sometimes, very rarely, the energy of a portal could turn a person inside out. Oh Jay-zus, what a mess.
Half an hour later those of the group that had survived the blast and arrived in one piece had made a rough assessment of their predicament. Dot ed around the jungle clearing, they’d made the gruesome discovery of more bodies just like the girl’s, turned inside out and almost unrecognizable as human. Sixteen of them. Of the thirtyve people who’d been in the chamber when the explosion – or, more accurately, implosion – had occurred, only sixteen of them appeared to have made it through alive.
Now, gathered together in the middle of the clearing, wel away from the forbidding edge of thick jungle, it was Whitmore who rst seemed to be stirring from a state of stunned shock. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve and narrowed his eyes as he studied Becks.
‘You!’ he said. ‘Yes, you! I remember now … you said it
‘You!’ he said. ‘Yes, you! I remember now … you said it was going to explode. Just … just before it actual y did.’
Becks’s face remained impassive. ‘That is correct.’
‘Hang on!’ he said again, his eyes suddenly narrowing with dawning realization. ‘You … you’re not one of m-my kids. You’re not –’
Liam could see where this was going. It was pointless continuing to pretend to be high-school students a moment longer.
‘What just happened, whatever’s just happened,’
blustered Whitmore, ‘you damn wel knew it was going to happen.’ His voice rose in pitch. ‘Who are you? Is this some sort of terrorist thing?’