by Alex Scarrow
‘And what about him?’
‘Forby? Not sure. If his body is outside the eld I suppose he gets to live again, doing whatever job he was suppose he gets to live again, doing whatever job he was doing before Cartwright and his agency suddenly winked into existence. The point is … whatever that means for him and the old man, we won’t have a backstreet ful of spooks with guns. We’l be back to normal.’ She grinned up at him. ‘Which would real y be quite nice.’
‘True … but do we not stil have to get Edward Chan back home?’
‘One thing at a time,’ she sighed. ‘Come on, let’s send Becks on her way.’
Liam fol owed her under the shut er and then cranked it down after him.
He rejoined Maddy and the others gathered around the computer desk. He saw Becks standing in the middle of them, the assault ri e cradled in her arms, one of them swathed in bandages up to her elbow.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked over the hubbub of other voices: questions from Cartwright and the kids that Maddy was busy trying to eld as she con gured the return time-stamp.
‘I am ne, Liam.’
‘What about that spear wound? That looked pret y bad, so it did. Are you sure you’re t enough to go?’
‘My organic diagnostic systems indicate my kidney was ruptured and is no longer functioning. The organ can be repaired later,’ she added. ‘It wil not a ect my performance.’
‘Your arm?’
‘My arm is operable.’
‘My arm is operable.’
‘OK,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ve set it to one minute after the other window. There’l stil be background tachyon particles around from the previous window, but I’ve moved the location thirty feet away so there shouldn’t be any disruptive e ect on your arrival portal. OK?’
‘A rmative.’
‘You understand the mission parameters?’
‘Kil al the reptile hominids. Destroy al evidence of our camp. Return window set for two hours after arrival.’
Maddy nodded. ‘You got it. And, of course, remember to bring the gun back with you.’
One of Becks’s dark eyebrows arched slowly. ‘Wel …
duh,’ she said atly.
Sal giggled. ‘That’s cool!’
Maddy grinned at Liam. ‘Looks like she’s been doing some learning of her own.’
He nodded.
‘Al right, we haven’t got time to l the tube. She’s going back dry. Stand clear of that circle on the ground.’
She pointed to the circle of chalk, and within it, a patch of concrete oor darker than the rest. She sighed. ‘We’re gonna need to l in the oor once again after al this is nished.’
The others pul ed warily back and Becks wandered over and planted her feet inside the circle, her knees bent, ready to react at a moment’s notice, the gun loaded, cocked and raised, the assault ri e’s but pressed rmly against her shoulder and ready to re.
shoulder and ready to re.
‘Be careful, Becks,’ said Liam. ‘We want you back safely.
’ She nodded hesitantly. ‘A rmative, Liam O’Connor. I wil be careful.’
‘Are we al set?’ asked Maddy.
‘A rmative.’
‘Al right, Bob.’ Maddy turned back to the desk mic. ‘On my countdown. Ten … nine … eight …’
The archway l ed with the sound of power surging into the displacement machine, the green LEDs winking o one after another as they indicated the drain of stored energy. A three-yard-diameter sphere of shimmering air suddenly enveloped Becks. The ceiling uorescent light dimmed and ickered.
‘Seven … six … ve …’
Her cool grey eyes turned to rest on Liam and she smiled uncertainly.
‘Four … three … two …’
‘Good luck,’ he mouthed, unsure whether she could read that in the ickering zzing light.
‘… one …’
And then she was gone. Air whistled past them al to l the sudden vacuum created.
‘Wow,’ whispered Edward.
‘Now we wait,’ said Maddy. She shot a glance at Liam.
‘And we make sure we’re ready.’
CHAPTER 74
65 mil ion years BC, jungle
Becks emerged from the surrounding sphere of undulating air, and dropped the last few inches with a soft thud of boots on hard mud.
Crouched, ready for action, her eyes panned across the re-lit clearing: a dancing, ickering impression of hel . The creatures had converged in the centre of the area, picking through the shelters, the palisade, watching the camp re hungrily consuming the last of the branches that had been stacked on it.
A knot of them were gathered around the space where, only a minute ago, the return window had opened. They were examining the ground, a cluster of low ferns nearby, their heads cocked with confusion and bewilderment like curious crows studying road kil .
None of them had yet noticed her standing there. She had a thirty-round ammo clip, and in the blink of an eye had organized the order in which she was going to drop the targets: larger male creatures rst. The rst rapidly red half-dozen shots echoed across the clearing like so many dried and brit le branches snapping, and ve out of six of her targets dropped like leather sacks of bone and meat. The one she’d missed had bobbed of bone and meat. The one she’d missed had bobbed unpredictably, the shot skimming across the top of his head.
The other creatures froze where they were, uncertain as to what the rapid cracks of gun re actual y meant. Becks took advantage of the moment of stil ness and confusion and selected another six targets, al the larger males again. But this time the muzzle ash of her gun had at racted their at ention and they began to bound towards her. She kil ed four and wounded another, before their short-lived charge faltered. They drew up a dozen yards away and fanned out, snapping and snarling.
Beyond them she could see the others, females and cubs being herded away from harm by a large male. She recognized it as the pack’s leader, a claw from one of its four digits missing on its left arm. It was holding one of their spears, waving it around and using it to prod and cajole the pack away into the darkness.
[Assessment: primary target]
The pack leader, the alpha male … logic and
observation dictated that that particular creature was the one who’d been learning from them; the shrewd one, the clever one whose genes and unique acquired knowledge were going to pass onwards to its o spring. In only a few nanoseconds of silicon-based analysis, she realized that the one creature she had to be absolutely certain of kil ing was the one with the missing claw. She was striding forward like an automaton as she red another rapid succession of single shots, kil ing half of the creatures bobbing and single shots, kil ing half of the creatures bobbing and snarling in front of her; those stil standing turned and ed. The noise and the muzzle ash were as startling to them as the sudden inexplicable death it seemed to deal out. The entire pack was in motion now, scat ering like birds startled by a handclap. But her eyes remained on the back of the alpha male. She swung the assault ri e towards it, aimed and red.
The shot spun the creature o its feet.
CHAPTER 75
2001, New York
Maddy looked over at Cartwright. He was with the two children and Sal, standing beside the half-raised shut er entrance, staring out at the jungle and eagerly waiting to see the spectacular sight of a new reality arriving from a distant past. Sal was doing a great job keeping them al over there, tel ing them al about time ripples and waves and her job as an observer.
‘You understand what you’ve got to do?’ she asked Liam quietly.
He nodded. ‘But are you sure it’s the right date?’
‘Wel , I hope so. He said your fossilized message was discovered on that day. I presume he’s not lying. I’ve got the Glen Rose National Park entered in as the location. I’m sure he mentioned a river cal ed the Paluxy River … so that’s what I’ve put in. And you’re looking for the two boys that found it.’
‘Boys? How old?�
��
‘I don’t know … You know, boys.’ She shrugged. ‘Boy age, I guess.’
Liam glanced furtively over her shoulder at the others.
‘Wel , then, what do they look like?’
She ran her hand tiredly through her frizzy hair. ‘Jeez …
She ran her hand tiredly through her frizzy hair. ‘Jeez …
How the hel am I supposed to know!’ she mut ered irritably, then immediately felt guilty and angry with herself. She looked at Liam … his bloodshot eye, the streak of white hair … and felt like a snappy cow. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sighed. ‘I guess they’l look al excited and very pleased with themselves. OK?’
She turned towards the desk. ‘Bob, are we ready for a portal?’
> A rmative. There is su cient charge for this displacement.
‘OK.’ She nodded. ‘Al right.’ She looked at Liam’s face again, pale like the other two, but not as bad. No nosebleeds, no apparent nausea or any other apparent haemorrhaging. ‘You sure you’re OK to go, Liam?’
He nodded. ‘I’m ne, so I am. Tired, I could sleep for a year, but I’m al right.’
Why not go in his place, Maddy? Look at him … look at the damage that last portal did to him. And now you’re sending him through again! She stil ed that guilty voice in her head quickly; she needed to be right here, coordinating Becks’s and Liam’s bring-backs. It was al going to be rather tricky.
She wanted to tel him what she knew, what Foster had told her. She wanted to tel him so that at least he could decide for himself if it was worth it, kil ing himself slowly, one corruption at a time.
‘Shal we?’ he said.
She pressed a digital watch into his hand. ‘Six hours,’
She pressed a digital watch into his hand. ‘Six hours,’
she said softly, then glanced at the chalk circle and the concrete already gouged out of the oor in the middle. Liam understood. He had six hours back in 1941 and then she’d open the return window. He casual y ambled across the oor towards the circle as Maddy silently initiated the countdown sequence. The machinery began to hum – there was no way to avoid that – and the ceiling light ickered and dimmed.
She was hoping Cartwright would be too engrossed in listening to Sal and watching for the time wave to immediately notice something was going on, but the wily old man spun round and looked back into the arch.
‘What’s going on?’
Liam stepped smartly into the chalk circle just as a sphere of air began to twitch and dget around him.
‘What’s happ–Hang on, what’s …?’ His eyes widened.
‘Where the HELL IS HE GOING?’
Maddy ignored him. Cartwright reached into his jacket pocket.
‘No! Don’t shoot!’ shouted Maddy, realizing what he was going to do. ‘Please!’
Cartwright pul ed out his pistol, straightened his arm and aimed. ‘STOP IT, NOW!’
‘I can’t! Please … I can’t stop it. Don’t sh–’
He red a single shot at Liam just as the sphere wobbled and col apsed in on itself with a pu . 1941, Somervel County, Texas
At the very same moment that Liam landed on a riverbank of pebbles something whistled past his ear and o into the sky.‘Jay-zusss!’ He ducked and then looked around, wondering what the hel that was. He saw nothing, just a narrow river, rol ing sedately along a shal ow creek of sandy-coloured rock, smal and mean-looking yew trees and arid tufts of sun-bleached grass that hissed softly alongside the soothing gurgle of water.
Perhaps a bird? A bee? A y?
It could have been. A fast one, though.
His mind turned to more pressing mat ers – which way to go? He had no idea, no idea at al , other than to look out for a pair of boys. He looked at the digital watch, Maddy’s. She’d set a countdown on it: ve hours and ftynine minutes.
‘Right,’ he mut ered to himself, ‘where do I start?’
A midday sun beat down on his head as he stood there, unsure which way to turn. He decided, before walking anywhere, that he was going to mark the window location with a smal cairn of rocks: a dozen st-sized worn and rounded rocks stacked in a smal pyramid. Big enough so that he wasn’t going to walk right on past and miss it. Then, caught on a lazy midday breeze that had the nearby yew trees stirring and hissing, he heard the faint cal of a voice and what sounded like a splash of water. cal of a voice and what sounded like a splash of water. That way … downstream. He set o , walking along the riverbank, shingle and pebbles clat ering underfoot. For a moment he recal ed an image of that huge sweeping bay and the calm prehistoric green sea spreading out to an in nite horizon on his right.
It was here. Right here, an incredible tropical sea. Quite a breathtaking notion, that … in the vast dimensions of geological time, even seas and oceans, just like any other living creature, had lifespans that came and went.
He heard voices again, echoing up the creek. The sound of children playing, larking about.
CHAPTER 76
65 mil ion years BC, jungle
Becks fol owed the spat ers of dark blood into the jungle. By moonlight the streaks of blood were black and glistened wetly. The trail didn’t lead too far into the jungle, fortunately. If it had, she suspected she’d have been unable to fol ow it; the moonlight was beginning to fail her, blocked by the drooping leaves from the canopy trees above.
She heard them before she saw them: the rat ling breath of one snorting like a winded bu alo and a chorus of mewling voices that sounded like a pitiful choir of simpering children. Her eyes picked them out. The creature she’d managed to hit was curled up on the jungle oor. Around it an array of the smal er creatures, females and cubs, al pawed and stroked the wounded one, as if somehow that would magical y heal their pack leader. She stepped forward until she was looking directly down at the creature with the broken claw. The pack, perhaps twenty of them here, became quiet; a forest of yel ow eyes that glowed with soft uorescence and narrowed with fear looked up at her.
‘… Help … me …’ The facsimile of a human voice came from one of the females. Becks recognized it as an came from one of the females. Becks recognized it as an at empt to duplicate the cries of the human cal ed Keisha. A part of her computer mind calmly informed her that a mission parameter remained outstanding, and could not be successful y agged as completed until, at the very least, the wounded creature was con rmed dead.
But another part of her mind, a very much smal er part, a part that contributed thoughts as foggy sensations rather than runtime commands, spoke to her.
Just like me.
She remembered being born, released from growth amid a cascading soup of warm liquid, lying like this creature, curled like a foetus on a hard oor; feeling bewildered, frightened, confused. An animal mind of sensations, feelings … but no words.
She squat ed down to get a closer look at the creature. The wound was in the middle of the creature’s narrow chest, and from the pulsing of ink-black blood down its olive skin, was almost certainly going to prove to be fatal.
‘You wil die,’ she announced coldly. And then realized talking to them was il ogical and pointless – these wild things were no more intel igent than monkeys. But, on the other hand, it felt like another way of processing, ltering her own thoughts … giving words to that part of her mind that wasn’t high-density silicon wafer.
‘I am here to kil you,’ she said. ‘This is a mission requirement.’
The yel ow eyes studied her silently. Perhaps those eyes were trying to communicate something, pleading for were trying to communicate something, pleading for mercy.
She stood up again and changed the clip in the assault ri e for a fresh one. The mission voice had no time for such an irrational sentiment and gently cajoled her to proceed with the task.
Complete Mission
1. Terminate alpha male of species
2. Terminate remaining hominids (optional)
3. Retrieve al evidence of human habitation
‘I am … sorry,’ she said. She cocked her
head, curious. There’d been a strange e ect on her voice. It had ut ered ever so slightly. It had actual y made her sound more convincingly human; she’d sounded almost
indistinguishable from the school students she and Liam had spent the last fourteen days in the jungle with. Those three words real y had sounded so very human. For a moment she was almost tempted to say them once again. Instead, she raised the ri e swiftly to her shoulder, her bandaged nger slipped on to the trigger and beneath the dressing the recently vat-grown muscle tissue tightened and pul ed. A shot rang out. Her nger muscles released and pul ed again … and again … and again.
By the time the last of the creatures opped lifelessly across the body of Broken Claw, the clip was empty and the barrel warm.
the barrel warm.
The jungle was stil , every nocturnal species stunned into silence by the rapid crack of gun re. For a few moments she listened to the shifting breeze, the muted rumble of the nearby river.
‘I am … sorry,’ she said again, and realized this time her voice sounded at and emotionless, as it always did. She turned on her heels and headed back towards the remains of their abandoned camp.
2001, New York
‘Where did you send him?’ barked Cartwright, swinging the aim of his gun on to Maddy.
‘I … I j-just sent him back … to help Becks kil the –’
‘You’re lying!’ he snapped.
‘Honestly I –’
He red a shot past her head. Behind her one of the computer monitors exploded amid a shower of sparks and granules of glass.
‘Real y,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t advise lying, young lady. I can put a bul et through your stomach right now … and believe me when I say that’s one of the most painful ways to go. Slow and very, very painful.’ He took a dozen steps towards her. ‘Now, I’l try again … where did you send him?’
Maddy swal owed nervously, her eyes on the gun. ‘I …
just … I …’
just … I …’
‘Maddy!’ yelped Sal. ‘Something’s coming!’
Cartwright stopped where he was. ‘What’s that?’ he shouted back over his shoulder, keeping his eyes rmly on the older girl.