With a cough and a splutter the vehicle lurched forward and a thousand different objects around them began to squeak and rattle and clank. It might not be the most comfortable ride for them, but at least it was taking them in the right direction – north, towards New York.
So far there’d been nothing from Maddy. No portal, no message. Not a good sign.
Liam was thinking of something interesting to say when, with a flutter of dislodged feathers, a rooster emerged from behind a wobbling cupboard and settled on top of Bob’s head.
‘Oh sorry,’ said Liam, ‘I actually thought he was … uh … you know, joking about having chickens in the back.’
Bob swiped a big hand at it and the bird scrambled and flapped around the enclosed space for a full minute before finally, tentatively, returning to roost on his head again.
‘No place like home,’ offered Liam.
Bob stared indignantly back at him.
‘You, sir, look about as happy as a clam at high tide.’
Bob switched to stare indignantly at Lincoln.
‘Suits you,’ said Sal, affectionately patting his arm.
CHAPTER 31
2001, somewhere in Virginia
As dawn started to make its mark on the horizon, the Chinese man deposited them at a junction of roads: one of them heading west, the other continuing north. He warned Liam once again that heading north to New York was ‘no good’.
‘Why? What’s going on in New York?’
The question caused the man to cock his head curiously. ‘You serious?’ He didn’t wait for Liam to answer. ‘You been ’sleep all your life? The city … it all gone now. New York, it just big ruin.’
‘A ruin? What’s up with it?’ He turned round to the others, standing beside him on the shoulders of the road. Sal’s eyes were wide, her face ashen.
‘How you not know this?’ the man asked, incredulous.
‘Well … we’ve … been away, a long time.’ Liam’s answer sounded lame and the Chinese man shrugged a whatever, as if to acknowledge that the answer maybe wasn’t his business.
‘The war … it stay there. It never move on. Been there forever.’
‘War?’ Lincoln took a step closer. ‘Great Scott! Did you say war, sir?’
The Chinese man leaned back in his cabin, wary of the tall man’s belligerent face. ‘Yeah … you not know of war?’
‘No, sir! A war between who, man? Tell me!’
Liam rested a hand on Lincoln’s shoulder. ‘Easy there, fella.’
The Chinese man’s wife uttered something into his ear and he nodded, firing up the engine on his carriage. It coughed and clattered noisily before settling down to a noisy chug. He was clearly getting a little nervous of these crazies he’d picked up and deposited here on this crossroads in the middle of nowhere.
‘Please!’ said Liam. ‘Don’t go yet. We need to know more!’
‘I tell you this … it not safe. North, fighting there never stop. You shou’ go west.’ He pointed east across the rolling fields of barley. ‘East no good too … Dead City, maybe twenty-five mile that way. Poison. Not good for you health.’
He shrugged an apology as his wife tugged insistently on his arm. ‘We go now.’ The carriage’s large wheels rolled forward on to the road as a fan of acrid smoke erupted through the spokes.
Liam coughed and wafted it out of his face and, as it gradually cleared, he watched the carriage clatter, rattle and chug its way along the road heading towards New Pittsburgh, or at least that’s what the hand-painted sign at the junction indicated.
They watched until the carriage was just a faint twinkle of swinging lanterns in the distance.
‘I suppose we should find somewhere to hide before it gets too light,’ said Liam. He looked around. On either side of the roads heading north, south and west, as far as his eyes could see in the grey light of dawn, it was nothing but shoulder-high ears of barley swaying gently and whispering.
They followed the single-lane road heading north. Only a dozen vehicles passed them by; most of them ramshackle-looking carriages, carrying families and their worldly possessions stacked high.
One vehicle in particular sounded different enough as it approached from the distance for Bob to suggest they hide. And they did, crouching in the field amid the stalks of barley as it drew nearer, came into view and eventually rolled slowly past them.
Sal exchanged a glance with Liam.
The vehicle was military, a ‘tank’ being perhaps the most appropriate word to describe it. It looked almost comically top heavy – the approximate proportions of a small terraced house. The top ‘floor’ was a large gun turret that looked like it probably rotated, from which protruded three short-barrelled cannons. At the very top a hatch was open and a tired-looking army officer in a crimson tunic and white sash was smoking a pipe and gazing out across the rolling fields.
The bottom ‘floor’ of the tank was a mass of iron plating and rivets flanked on either side by caterpillar tracks that ground noisily along the tarmac road. The tracks wound round a large solid iron rear wheel and at the front a much smaller spoked wheel. Between the wheels on each side, a miniature side-cannon protruded.
As it slowly passed them by, Sal got a glance at the rear of the tank’s bulky chassis. Iron-plated shutters were open, revealing three panes of glass, like the bay window of a suburban house. Through them she could see, by the muted amber light of a gas lamp, half a dozen soldiers gathered around a table, having breakfast by the look of it, and bunk beds in three-high stacks.
They watched the enormous vehicle trundling its way northwards. The rumble of its engine and the squeak and groan of the caterpillar tracks continued to hang in the air long after they’d lost sight of it in the pallid grey light of dawn.
Liam looked at the others. ‘That looked like a gentleman’s club on wheels.’
An hour later, just after the sun had breached the horizon, they finally came across a smaller potholed lane that branched off the road and led into what appeared to be a small deserted hamlet.
They soon found themselves on a village green overgrown with weeds. The buildings surrounding it were boarded up and derelict. Over every ground-floor window wooden slats had been nailed in place – years ago, by the sun-bleached look of them.
‘A ghost town,’ said Sal.
‘Aye.’
Bob strode towards the door of the nearest building, a chapel. Its timber slat walls were flecked with white paint here and there, but most of it was the dull pale grey of weathered wood.
‘Information,’ his baritone voice rumbled as he reached out a hand to hold down the frayed and curled corner of a notice tacked to the chapel’s door. The others joined him as he read out the faint printed words on the tattered page.
‘Notice of clearance: this settlement has been evacuated in accordance with the War Appropriations Act. It is an illegal act to enter, occupy and/or make use of these properties, which are scheduled to be cleared and used as additional farmland in due course.’
‘It’s an old notice,’ said Sal, pointing at a date in the corner. ‘See? Fifth of June, 1985.’
‘Been deserted for … what? …’ Liam frowned as he struggled to do the maths.
‘Sixteen years,’ said Bob.
‘Right.’
‘I’m thirsty, Liam,’ said Sal.
He realized he too was thirsty. The cool of dawn was soon going to become the cloying warmth of a September morning. They needed to find some drinking water. ‘I suggest we look around, see if this ghost town has a well or a rainwater tank or a spring or something.’
The sun was warming the sides of the old buildings, casting long cool shadows in their wake across weed-strewn front gardens. He could see the remnants of lives lived here: a children’s swing dangling from a rusting A-frame, a mailbox on the top of a post nailed to a picket fence – inside it the dried twigs of some birds’ abandoned nest, a washing line with the tattered threads of laundry still pegged to it, flapping gently.
>
Liam suspected that sixteen years ago the people living here must have been evicted with little or no warning.
Feeling a pang of guilt – he didn’t know why – he swung a kick at the chapel’s wooden door. It creaked but failed to give.
‘Let me,’ said Bob, casually thrusting one shoulder against it. The door didn’t even bother to try arguing with him; it cracked, surrendered and rattled inwards.
‘Right,’ said Liam, rubbing the sore toe of his foot, ‘let’s see what we can find.’
CHAPTER 32
2001, New York
Maddy realized she must have been lost in some sort of a daze. The night had passed without her really even being aware of it. She vaguely remembered settling down in the corner of some bomb-damaged warehouse, gathering her knees to her chest for a little warmth and crying. She must have fallen asleep at some point and now it wasn’t daylight that had woken her up – it was someone’s boot, roughly kicking her side.
‘Hey, wakey, wakey.’
She looked up to see two men staring down at her. Soldiers, by the look of them. They both wore something that approximated a uniform: dark blue, almost black tunics; belts; buckles; pouches; and cloth slouch caps. She blinked back at the brightness, reached for her glasses and wiped dust from them.
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ one of them said. His face seemed to be mostly beard beneath the peak of his cap. ‘Gonna have to take you in, girl. Colonel’s gonna want to talk to you.’ He offered her a hand.
‘I’m sorry … am I … am I in the wrong place or something?’
‘Wrong place?’ Beardy-face laughed. ‘Hell, girl, the whole darned sector’s the wrong place.’
She let him pull her up. ‘I’m sorry … I don’t …’ She looked at him. Beneath his peak, his skin was dark, his cheeks speckled with grey stubble. ‘Am I in some sort of trouble?’
‘You’re a civilian in a front-line Union defence zone.’ He shrugged. ‘If the colonel reckons on yer bein’ a Southern spy, you gonna be in a whole world o’ trouble, girl.’
‘S’right,’ said the other soldier, pale as cigarette ash and surely only a couple of years older than Sal. ‘Had us a spy through this way coupla months back, didn’t we, Sarge?’
‘Uh-huh,’ replied the black soldier. ‘Weren’t no girl, though.’ He studied her suspiciously. ‘Either them Southern boys’re gettin’ clever, or they gettin’ desperate.’
‘I’m not a spy,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m just …’ She realized she had no answer that wasn’t going to sound utterly unconvincing. ‘I’m just … lost,’ she said finally.
‘Well –’ he pursed his lips – ‘reckon we’ll be lettin’ Colonel Devereau be the judge a’ that, huh? Come on now, miss.’
The two soldiers led her through the bombed-out ruins on to a street temporarily cleared of rubble. She looked up at a warm morning sky dashed with pink clouds and for a moment savoured the warmth of the sun on her face.
‘You ain’t gonna run on me, are you, miss?’ asked the young one. ‘Only, we gotta shoot at yous if ya do, see?’
‘Hey now, Ray … she look to you like she gonna run?’
Maddy shook her head wearily. She wouldn’t know where to run even if she had the will to do so. ‘I’ll be a good girl,’ she said quietly. ‘I promise. What’s your name, by the way?’
The black man looked surprised at the question. ‘You lookin’ for introductions?’
She nodded. ‘I’m Maddy.’
He laughed. ‘Well, since you insist on bein’ all so formal an’ all. Name’s Sergeant Freeman, an’ this young drainpipe is Private Ray Calder.’
‘Fellas just call me Ray,’ grinned the young man.
Colonel Devereau sat down to enjoy his mug of coffee. A rare treat. Real coffee beans shipped in from some far-off exotic country. He was just beginning to conjure up the swaying palm trees and golden beaches and turquoise lagoons of some distant tropical French colony in his mind’s eye, stirred by the aroma of the strong black brew in his chipped enamel mug, when his adjutant rapped knuckles on the bunker’s metal door. The door rang like a tuning fork.
‘Yes?’ he sighed. The door creaked heavily open.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sir. Patrol in sector five picked up a non-combatant. A girl, sir.’
‘A girl?’ He made a face. ‘She out there in the corridor?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He sighed. Right …
He waved a tired hand. ‘Best bring her in, then.’
He picked up his mug again and held it beneath his nose, enjoying the smoky aroma once more, while outside he heard orders being barked down the concrete passage. A moment later the girl in question stepped over the lip of the doorway.
She looked a sorry sight: a bespectacled child, thin, pale and grubby. She was wearing what he would consider to be a workman’s trousers – faded blue canvas. And her top was a smudged white shirt with no buttons, or loops, or any sign of feminine embellishments of lace or ribbon, just a printed word.
Intel.
‘Take a seat,’ he said.
She stepped forward and slumped in the wooden chair in front of his desk. Very unladylike in her posture.
‘So, are you going to give me your real name? Or am I going to get your spy name?’
‘Maddy,’ she uttered. ‘Madelaine Carter. It’s my real name.’
He shrugged. ‘OK. There’s a start, then … Maddy.’ He took his first tentative sip, testing the hot water with a top lip covered in drooping bristles.
Maddy looked up at him, her eyes narrowing as she studied him silently. ‘You and your men are dressed up … like civil-war soldiers. Like from the 1860s or something. Except –’ she shook her head – ‘I don’t see any muskets. Your soldiers have weird-looking assault rifles.’
Devereau laughed. ‘Good God … civil war! That’s a very old-fashioned term you’re using, young lady. Civil war? This war hasn’t been called that in well over a century.’
She frowned, puzzled. ‘You’re telling me that this … this is the same war?’
Devereau’s turn to look perplexed. ‘You’re asking me that, young lady?’ he said, pulling on the handle of his moustache. ‘As if … you actually don’t know?’
‘Yes.’
He sipped his coffee, swilling the rich bitter taste around his mouth. ‘So, I presume this is how you were instructed to behave, then … if you got caught? Hmm? To act the fool? To appear quite mad?’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Maybe I am.’
‘Well –’ he put down his mug, spread his hands – ‘why don’t you tell me the half of it, as you say?’
‘You’ll only think I’m completely mad, or lying.’ She shrugged. ‘Because I’m not from this world, see? I’m from another world. Another time really.’ She shook her head. ‘What’s the point? You’re not going to believe anything that comes out of my mouth, right?’
He stroked his beard in silent contemplation for a full minute. ‘Here’s the thing … if I were sending you to spy on the South, I’d dress you anonymously. I’d pick someone who looked and behaved quite normally. You on the other hand, young lady, are neither.’ He pointed a finger at her shirt. ‘And it seems quite foolish to me to be putting that badge on the front of you. It would be a bit like a thief wearing an I AM A BURGLAR sign round his neck.’
She looked down at her sweatshirt. ‘Intel?’ she smiled. ‘Oh, you’re thinking it’s short for intelligence, right?’
He returned her smile. ‘Indeed. Military intelligence. You might just as well have put the word SPY on your shirt.’
‘Intel, they’re a manufacturer of silicon chips,’ she said. ‘In my world.’
He frowned.
‘Silicon chips? You know, like in computers?’
‘Computers? What is one of those?’
‘You serious?’
They sat in silence for a while. Outside the colonel’s bunker, a muted clunking of metal on metal could be heard starting
up, machinery somewhere in the subterranean nest of rooms and passageways.
‘Well now,’ said Devereau, sipping his cooling coffee. ‘I’m halfway to believing, Miss Carter, that you’re not a spy, or, at the very least, if you are one … not a very good one. And that might just spare you from going in front of a firing squad.’
Her jaw dropped a little. ‘Firing squad?’
‘Ahhh, I see that seems to have focused your mind a little. Yes, I have ordered men to be executed, an unpleasant and occasionally necessary part of being a front-line commander.’
‘I … uhh … look, I’m not a spy! God no! That’s … that’s not me … I –’
‘Actually, you needn’t be alarmed. I suspect as much. You really are far too odd, young lady. However … I think it’d be a good idea if you start telling me –’
‘Time traveller!’ she blurted out. ‘I’m a time traveller! I travel through time!’ Then winced at how ridiculous that must sound to him.
Devereau could have laughed at her ingeniously novel reply. But he rather fancied seeing how well thought out her outburst was. ‘Indeed? Now … is this the same notion as is used in that famous work … The Time Machine?’
‘The Time Machine?’ Maddy’s mind raced. Yes, that old book had been written in 1895 – the correct 1895, that is. Perhaps even in this corrupted timeline the same author, H. G. Wells, could have been inspired to write the very same, or a very similar book?
‘Yes!’ she replied. ‘Yes … the technology exists to move backwards and forwards through time. Well –’ she shrugged – ‘it will do. In the year 2044 they’ll work out a way to do it.’
Devereau nodded patiently. ‘And, let me see, you’re expecting me to believe you are from the year 2044, I take it?’
‘From the future, yes. But, actually, I kinda work in 2001. But not this 2001, if you see what I mean. A very different one.’
She was confusing him.
‘See, this is wrong. It’s all wrong! This … this … room, that ruined New York outside, this war! It’s all wrong. It shouldn’t be like this!’