‘I’m not falling out with you, Mads … but –’ he made a face – ‘this has got to be the stupidest idea you’ve had yet. You’re suggesting we walk right up to Mr Waldstein’s front door with our hands in the air and hope he’ll say, “Come on in, chaps. I’ll put the kettle on and tell you e-e-e-verything!”’
He looked at Rashim. ‘Rashim? Come on, fella … back me up here!’
‘I believe we have two options, Liam. We walk away from everything we do not know and live out our lives in – some might say – blissful ignorance. Or we go in search of the answers.’ He looked at the message sitting on the screen. ‘I believe our best hope of getting those answers – a risk though that might be – lies in meeting with Waldstein.’
‘This is crazy! Maddy? You’re gambling, so you are! Gambling that what he –’
‘God, Liam … everything we’ve done so far has been a gamble!’ She laughed. ‘Jesus, we’ve been rolling the dice blindly ever since … ever since I found that Pandora note!’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t agree with you, Maddy. Not this time. We had to run for our lives because Waldstein decided we were a problem. You remember that? You remember those things coming after us, again and again? You remember them gunning down Foster?’
She did. She’d seen it with her own eyes. Those killing machines calmly raising their guns and brutally slaying him in that shopping mall.
‘Do you honestly think he’s gone from I want them dead to Come on over and have some tea; we’re all friends now? Huh?’
‘Maybe something’s happened. Maybe something’s changed?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’
Liam shrugged. ‘That’s why it’s a crazy decision. You don’t know.’
‘I’ll go on my own, then.’
‘Are you that keen to die, Maddy?’
She pulled in a long, slow breath. ‘I’m tired of second-guessing. I’m tired of not being able to settle my mind. I’m frikkin’ exhausted with stressing over whether at any second another squad of killer meatbots are gonna appear right here and kill us in our sleep.’ She nodded at the message on the monitor. ‘There’s the invitation. Right there. We get a chance, hopefully, to meet with him face to face. We can tell him about those tachyon transmitters. We can ask why the hell we’re having to steer mankind towards doom. I mean … there’s got to be a reason why we have to do that.’
‘Maybe he is crazy. Maybe he’s just like that insane guy who helped Hitler win the war … that Kramer fella.’
‘And maybe not. What if there’s something worse than Pandora … that virus? Huh? What if avoiding the end takes us someplace far worse? What if we should be doing our jobs instead of sitting round here drinking … coffee!’
‘And what if you end up walking into an ambush?’
She sucked in a breath. ‘Then it’s my mistake … and it’s just me paying for it.’
Liam sighed. ‘Well, if you’ll not listen to me … Rashim? Please … talk some sense into her.’
‘I want answers from him too,’ Rashim replied. He looked at Maddy. ‘I will go along with you,’ he said. ‘I believe this is our best chance. Perhaps our only chance to get all of the answers.’
‘And a chance for him to wipe us all out in one go.’ Liam shook his head. ‘This is insane.’
‘It’s what I need, Liam. I can’t go on bumbling along … I need answers,’ said Maddy.
‘You’re goin’ to go and find him whatever I say, aren’t you? This isn’t a vote, is it?’
She nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Liam … I have to know. But obviously … I’m not asking you to come too.’
‘There’s no way I’m going to convince you not to go, is there?’
‘No.’
He sat down in a chair and narrowed his eyes.
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking we have two courses of action. Two plans … you and Rashim go into the future so you can get yourselves ambushed by Waldstein …’
She smiled at that. ‘And the other one, smart-ass?’
‘I go into the past to take a look at that other transmitter.’
‘Two missions?’
‘Aye. We do both. I’ll take one of the support units, you take the other. We both find out what we can and hopefully … we all make it back here and get to compare notes.’
Maddy looked at Rashim. He shrugged. ‘It does make some sense. Exploring two avenues. More to the point … if Waldstein’s intention is to wipe us out, it would be better that one of us is still at large. There may be some leverage gained by that.’
‘I guess.’ She sighed. ‘I just hate the idea of us being separated.’
‘It’s not like we haven’t been separated into teams before, Mads.’
‘I know, but … I’ll be worried about you.’
‘I’ll have a support unit along with me.’ He smiled. ‘Been there, done that.’
‘But what if I’m wrong? What if it is a trap and Waldstein wipes us out?’
‘Then you’ll feel like a right idiot.’
She laughed sadly. ‘No … I mean, what about you? You’ll be left alone.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll find something to do with my time.’
CHAPTER 4
1890, London
‘So? Where do we go to find him?’ Maddy was looking at Rashim expectantly. ‘You’re the one who was living in Waldstein’s time. I was hoping you’d have some thoughts on that.’
They were sitting in Bentham’s Pie Shop. Liam’s choice. Eighteen months of dodgy mutton curries and oven-baked flat breads had taken its toll on him and now all he wanted was stodgy, steaming British comfort food: viscous beef-and-gravy fillings topped with thick flaking pastry lids.
‘Yes, I’m from his time,’ replied Rashim, ‘but that does not mean I was intimately acquainted with the man.’
‘You know about him.’
‘Of course I do. Any scientist or theoretical physicist from the forties onwards knows all about Waldstein. Just as any scientist in the twentieth century would know about Einstein.’
‘Stein!’ Liam blurted out. The others turned to look at him. ‘Just thinking,’ he said. ‘Why is it every brainbox science fella has a name ending with “stein”? Einstein, Waldstein, Frankenstein.’
Rashim rolled his eyes. ‘Newton, Tesla, Hawking, Higgs, Koothrappali, Chan, Lee … shall I go on? Yes? Maynard, Watt, Kaspersky, Vasquez –’
‘OK,’ cut in Maddy, ‘I think he gets the point.’ She dipped a hunk of bread into the beef stew in front of her. ‘Rashim, we need to know when and where we’ll have our best chance at getting to him.’
‘The obvious and best-documented moment where Waldstein could be met would be the Chicago demonstration in 2044,’ said Rashim. ‘I mean, that is very well covered. There is footage of the event that we can look at. But –’
‘But we’d be talking to a younger Waldstein who’d have no idea who the hell we are because he wouldn’t have set up the TimeRiders agency by then.’
‘Precisely. Not for at least another fifteen years or so.’
‘Right, so that’s clearly no good. He said in the message that “your work is done”. Which I presume refers to the virus. Either it’s happened or is about to happen. So I guess it’s safe to presume Bob’s calculation was correct; that message came from the first two or three months of 2070?’
‘Hmm. After his spot at the last international TED Talks in Montreal in 2050, Waldstein became a complete recluse. His business had a number of locations. I think he had –’
‘Information: Roald Waldstein’s commercial empire, W.G. Systems, has the following publicly listed premises,’ said Becks. ‘A New York-based patent and legal office, a Californian software-development campus, a carbon-fibre fabrication plant in Tokyo, an Oregon-based genetic research division, a Denver-based energy-research campus and a Wyoming-based research and development facility.’
Rashim nodded. ‘He also had a number of pri
vate retreats. I do recall reading that he owned one of the artificial islands-on-stilts off the coast of Dubai.’
‘So he could be hanging around at any one of those places at any time?’ Maddy puffed her cheeks. ‘Great.’
‘I remember while I was working on phase one of Project Exodus, in 2068, there was a digi-docu on one of the news-streams about Roald Waldstein. That was the summer before the Japanese/North Korean cold war turned into a hot war. And then –’ Rashim rolled his hands, one over the other – ‘you, of course, know how it all goes from there.’
Maddy and Liam nodded.
‘Anyway, the two most likely locations that the message was transmitted from in early 2070,’ said Rashim, ‘would be the W.G. Systems’ HQ in New York or their research campus near Denver, Colorado. Waldstein’s base of operations for his agency would require privacy, energy, security. The corporation’s head office and research campus were both known to be hard places to gain access to.’
‘We may need to try both those locations. How far apart are they?’
‘Quite far.’
‘So, I guess we’ll portal to one, then the other.’
‘That might be unwise, Maddy.’
‘Why?’
‘Think about it … this is 2070. There are many monitoring agencies in this time scanning for tachyon particles. When we open a portal, we run the risk of being picked up on someone’s particle-scanning array. We may be attracting attention.’
‘Seriously?’
Rashim nodded. ‘Trust me, in 2070 every world power is busy scanning for tachyon emissions.’ He shrugged. ‘Just as every world power is busy, secretly, racing to build their own time machines. Portalling in once, we will attract someone’s attention. If we’re portalling around all over the place, we will get zeroed in on.’
‘Well, OK … if we open one, say, in New York, and Waldstein’s not there, I guess we can catch a plane or something to Denver?’
Rashim shook his head. ‘It is not quite that simple. America is not like it was in your time.’
Maddy raised an eyebrow, querying him. ‘There are planes, right?’
‘My time is in chaos. Things were beginning to break down. Law and order, government control. There were … will be, I should say … food shortages, power-outs. It is a very difficult time. A dangerous time. America is fragmented badly.’
‘Fragmented?’ Liam looked up from his pie. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In 2070, it is called the Federated States. It is a much smaller nation that extends from the west coast to the Midwest. All of the eastern states have been abandoned.’
‘Abandoned?’
‘It is a wilderness. Ungovernable. Largely unpoliced, chaotic. A no-man’s-land of refugee camps.’
‘Why?’ asked Maddy.
‘There is the rising Atlantic, the rising Gulf of Mexico; the eastern coast and many of the southern states are partially flooded. The Capitol was relocated from Washington to Denver in 2063.’
‘Why didn’t he just send a location data stamp with the message?’ asked Liam. ‘If he really wanted to meet, surely he’d do that?’
‘Well, obviously he didn’t want to broadcast who the message was from,’ replied Maddy. ‘That was a broad-bandwidth message computer-Bob picked up. He’s just being super-cautious. Rashim, come on … where do you suggest we go first?’
‘New York, perhaps? There was the W.G.S. Tower, overlooking Times Square. Even when the levees eventually failed and Manhattan became waterlogged, a section of the business district remained open, operating several floors above street level. I know Waldstein spent some of his time living at the top of the W.G.S. Tower.’
‘Why there? Why not one of any of the other more secure places where W.G. Systems had facilities?’
‘I don’t know. I do remember, in that digi-docu programme, one of the last interviews he gave was from there. From the rooftop of his tower. He said something about loving the view from up there. The sunrises and sunsets across the sea. “Watching the green lady slowly wading into the deep.”’
‘You mean the Statue of Liberty?’ said Liam.
‘Yes,’ replied Rashim. ‘He said watching the sea level rise made it look like she was a bather slowly wading out into deeper waters.’
‘So … we aim for the beginning of 2070. New York, then. If he’s not there, we’ve got enough time to make our way across to Denver before that Kosong-ni virus outbreak begins.’
‘That’s your plan, Mads?’ said Liam. ‘That’s it? A leisurely stroll across America in the hope of bumping into Mr W.’
‘It’s the best plan I’ve got. So what’s yours? Huh?’
He shrugged. ‘First-century Jerusalem, round about the time of you-know-who. I’ll go back there and see what I can see. Might even get his autograph if I can.’
She shook her head. ‘Sheesh, so just about as concise a plan as mine, then?’
He shrugged. ‘Details to be ironed out. The difference is nobody’s scanning for tachyons back then. Nobody’s out to kill me back then and nobody’s got guns back then … and, of course, I’ll have Bob.’
‘Uhh … actually, I was thinking we’d have Bob along with us.’
‘All right, so then we’ll toss a coin to see who’s having him.’
Maddy buried her face in her hands. ‘Jesus … Liam, are we really going to do this? Fling ourselves out there in different directions with just a frikkin’ hope and a prayer? Are we being stupid? Reckless?’
‘Haven’t we always been?’ He laughed. ‘As far as I can see, we’ve never had much of a plan. We’ve just dealt with whatever came our way.’
‘Great … and look where that’s got us.’
‘Alive, Mads … we’re alive.’ He leaned forward on to the table and nudged one of her shoulders with his. ‘We should be dead. In fact, we were never meant to be alive in the first place. So … everything we have now, every moment, every memory, and all that we know … it’s all a bonus.’ He grinned. ‘And, I promise you, we’ll be back in that dungeon in a few days’ time … and we’ll have all those answers between us.’
She looked at him. ‘Liam, what is it with you? Nothing ever worries you, does it?’
‘Ahh, I do my fair share of worrying … to be sure.’
‘But you always bounce back up with that dumb-ass grin on your face. Shiny, like a new penny.’
‘Speaking of pennies …’ He pulled a coin from his waistcoat pocket. ‘For Bob this is, OK? Heads or tails?’
CHAPTER 5
2070, New York
Maddy decided to open a portal somewhere familiar. Somewhere they’d know and at least be able to get their bearings. A quick pinhole viewing confirmed what they’d expected to see: Brooklyn’s streets lost beneath a permanent, stagnant carpet of water. Rooftops and windowsills growing green and wild with tall weeds and saplings.
The first two to go through, Rashim and Becks, burdened with backpacks crammed with tins of food, readied themselves on the sawdust plinths. Maddy counted them down and, with a hum building up to a crescendo, then a puff of evacuated air, they were gone. Just Maddy, Liam and Bob left.
She looked around their dungeon as the displacement machine recharged itself for the next release of energy. This place had begun to feel just as much a home to them as their archway beneath the Williamsburg Bridge once had. The modest touches of comfort had begun to clutter and cover the dungeon like barnacles on a ship’s hull: the hammocks strung up behind the curtains, the commode in the corner hidden by a sky-blue satin drape on a loop of rope, the threadbare armchairs round their communal table, messy with mismatched crockery, their kitchenette with its modern, out-of-place electric kettle, toaster and a single-hob stove, and a rack of shelves where plain vanilla cartons of milled oats jostled for space with the last boxes of Rice Krispies. Beside the armchairs and table, a small coal burner with a smoke hood and a chimney flue improvised to direct the smoke out of the archway through a hole in the wall on to Farringdon Street. Damp clo
thes hung on wooden laundry frames round it. Normally it glowed a welcoming, flickering amber. Now it was all cold grey ashes. In one corner were several tall oak wardrobes in which the accumulated clothing from several trips into the past hung tidily from coat hangers.
She looked around and felt sad. Yes, it was just beginning to feel vaguely homely. Well, it had been … then events had once again spun out of her control: the trip to the jungle … the tachyon beam there, Sal’s and Adam’s deaths …
Liam and Rashim had made a supreme effort to yank her out of the spiral of depression that she’d begun to orbit. They’d nagged and cajoled until she’d wearily given in and let them drag her away to explore the furthest reaches of the British Empire. An extended holiday travelling on steamships and trains to the Far East, India, Africa and back again. Bless them for trying so hard … all of that had helped. Had lifted her spirits. She suspected Liam was not only trying to keep her mind off grieving but also trying to show her that an exciting world lay out there beyond the soot-filled skies of London. That there was a life to be lived beyond the burden of what they knew about the future. If the end of mankind was just shy of two hundred years away from now, all three of them could still live out their natural lives, even find partners and, perhaps, if their engineered bodies allowed it, maybe even have children. And their children would have time to have children and grandchildren. Five, perhaps six, generations could live out their lives before the end of humanity finally arrived. That was a future worth living for, wasn’t it?
But, since they’d returned from their travels, this place hadn’t once felt like a home. With Sal gone, it seemed different. It was no longer some thrilling twilight Batcave from which the six of them could plan their next exciting adventure. Instead it felt like a truly melancholic place; like a party where too few guests arrive, shuffle their feet and mutter niceties before excusing themselves early. Maddy noted Sal’s few possessions lying around: her diary (that Liam seemed to have taken over), a loose folder of pencil sketches she’d made of them – some of them pretty good – and there was her hoody, still hanging over the side of her hammock, and a pair of her trainers tucked side by side beneath it.