This morning, however, he’d caught her on the doorstep watching life on Farringdon Street go by.
She smiled. ‘It’s really yummy,’ she managed to reply, her mouth still half full.
Bertie finished his malt cake and then self-consciously licked the icing from his fingers.
She watched him and smiled. She decided she liked him. His bashfulness. His awkwardness. He seemed nice. Perhaps there might be a time for the two of them to get to know each other a little better. Maybe not right now. Maddy had her agenda, Liam seemed keen on that too … to once and for all chase down the answers to all their questions. And, of course, all Sal could do was tag along, despite her growing reservations that this was ultimately going to take them nowhere good.
But there would be an afterwards to all this nonsense, wouldn’t there? Perhaps then there’d be some time for her to get to know Bertie.
She noticed he seemed particularly fidgety this morning. Something clearly on his mind. Something he wanted to ask.
‘The doctor …?’
‘Rashim? What about him?’
‘Would he be …? Well, that’s to say … is he …?’ Without warning Bertie was blushing. It started with his ears, then crimson flooded from them across his pale cheeks. ‘Is he your older brother?’
‘What?’ Sal giggled at that. ‘No! He’s just my … friend. My colleague.’
Bertie nodded vigorously. ‘Ah, I see! Quite! Yes, indeed! Quite!’
Sal suppressed an urge to giggle again. ‘Seriously? You thought he was my brother?’
‘Well, you see …’ Bertie fiddled with the chain of his timepiece. It looped from the top button of his waistcoat down to a pocket above his hip. ‘You are both similarly brown people. I thought perhaps you were related in some way.’
She couldn’t help but smile at his awkwardness.
‘There are many brown people where I and Rashim come from, Bertie. We’re not all related.’
He nodded, wagging his head vigorously. ‘Yes, of course … I realize, that was a rather stupid question to ask. I … I am just curious about you. You are so very different to other people. In fact, all of you are so very –’
‘SAL!’ Rashim’s voice echoed from behind her, from within the brick labyrinth beneath the Holborn Viaduct. ‘SAL! Come quickly! We have a signal from them!’
A moment later Rashim emerged from the darkness into the faint pall of daylight leaking in from the side entrance on to Farringdon Street.
‘Oh.’ He stalled at the sight of Bertie standing in the doorway with her.
Sal shot him a warning glance. ‘As you can now see, Rashim, I’m not alone.’
‘Yes, uh … yes, you’ve got company.’ He nodded politely. ‘Good morning, Bertie. Do you mind if I borrow my, uh … my assistant? There is some work that needs to be done.’
Bertie deferentially tapped the peak of his cloth cap. ‘Yes, yes, of course, Dr Anwar. Don’t mean to get in the way of any of your experiments!’
Sal turned to Bertie. ‘Sorry, I should go. Important things and all that.’
Bertie was nodding vigorously again. ‘Yes, yes. I quite understand.’
‘Another time perhaps?’
He looked confused.
‘Cake?’ She nodded at the balled-up paper napkin in his hands. ‘And maybe even a cup of tea to go with it? You and me?’
Bertie understood what she was suggesting. Tea and cake. Together. At some unspecified time. Soon. The last patches of his face not mottled pink finally coloured in to give him an even tone just a shade off lobster red. ‘Yes, I … I would like that. A lot.’
Sal hurried back inside, followed Rashim as he led her through to their dungeon, ducking as they stepped through the low arched doorway and closed the thick oak door behind them.
Bertie stood alone on the doorstep, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Quite thrilled by the fact that Miss Vikram had been the one to suggest another liaison. Not him. Her.
‘I’ll be damned,’ he uttered with jubilant disbelief. ‘We shall be having tea and cake together.’
So thrilled was he, in fact, that he almost didn’t notice the key she’d left behind on the wooden stool beside the doorway. In her haste to return to work for Dr Anwar, she’d quite simply forgotten to take it with her.
The key. The key that unlocked that thick oak door that she and the others in her group were so careful to keep firmly locked at all times.
Bertie picked it up. He was about to call after her that she’d left it behind. But then he stopped himself. Two reasons. Now he had a genuine reason to knock and call for her. Perhaps on that occasion he could suggest a date and a venue for their tea together.
The other reason?
An insatiable curiosity to see what the devil it was those people got up to in that archway of theirs.
Chapter 30
1994, ruins of the rebel camp, Nicaraguan jungle
The early-afternoon return of the intense humid heat was unbearable, the sun past its zenith beating down on the jungle clearing. The like-clockwork ‘noon monsoon’ had arrived, pounded the world below into cowed submission then vanished, and now wisps of steam rose from the dark sodden dirt all around them.
‘Oh, come on, Rashim!’ muttered Maddy.
Adam looked at the metal casing in her hand. ‘You’re certain that tracker of yours actually works?’
‘Yes, I’m sure. Here …’ She handed it to him to take a look at. ‘One of these things was on Liam when he got stuck back in the seventeenth century. God knows what it went through – salt water, Thames water … ewww!’ She made a face. ‘Countless piratey battles and probably had loads of sailor sweat and rum slopped over it.’ She smiled. ‘It still worked, even after all that.’
He turned it over in his hands. ‘And it beams a signal?’
‘Emits a tiny number of tachyon particles at a steady rate. Like a pulse.’
He nodded appreciatively at it. ‘Impressive.’
‘And made, more or less, from about twenty dollars’ worth of RadioShack components.’
Adam grinned. ‘If you released the design details in CB Radio Ham Monthly, every geek could go make himself one of these.’
She smiled at that. ‘Which is precisely why I probably won’t.’ She turned to Bob. ‘We got anything yet?’
‘Negative.’
A dozen yards away, Liam was talking to Billy. Maddy and Liam had huddled together and revisited the question of whether they needed to keep their secrets from the guide. It was a short conversation that resulted in the same conclusion. Why bother? No one was likely to believe a half Miskito, half Hispanic, pipe-smoking old jungle tracker. But Maddy suggested it might be a good idea that they prep him with at least some information before the portal popped open in front of him. They didn’t want him turning tail and running off into the jungle. Or worse: unslinging his assault rifle and emptying a whole clip of ammo into the thing.
She watched as Liam spoke quietly to him. She could see emotions on his face passing like scudding clouds as Liam explained things. One moment, the eyes in his toad-like face bulged wide, his jaw hung open, a dark ‘O’ of incomprehension. The next, he was frowning intensely, concentrating hard. The next … he simply chuckled.
She wondered what the hell part of ‘We’re time travellers from the future trying our best to work out whether this world is doomed or not’ would make the guide laugh.
Go figure.
‘Maddy, I am now detecting precursor particles,’ said Bob.
She sighed. ‘About time!’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Adam. ‘Precursor particles?’
‘Before we open a portal, we do a check to make sure we’re not opening it in the middle of, say, a crowd of people.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘That would be quite messy. Or opening it, say, in the middle of a mountain or bisecting something like a tree. That would result in whoever emerged becoming sort of “welded” with the tree. Again quite messy, and, of course, totally fatal. So we do a
density scan. Basically a really tiny, pinhole-sized version of the portal where we can remotely take a look-see that there’s enough open space to inflate the full thing. Sometimes we grab a snapshot image through that mini-portal. That allows us to see what sort of terrain we’d be stepping out into.’
Adam nodded. ‘Makes sense.’
‘Anyway, it’s all good. It means they picked up our signal and they’re just getting set to open it up.’
She looked across at Billy. Liam was probably telling him the very same thing, getting him ready for what was about to appear before them.
There was something vaguely nostalgic about watching another person witness this for the very first time, seeing their reaction: the look of incredulity on their faces, the dawning realization of what this meant – that time travel was actually for real.
It reminded her of the very different person she’d once been, now … what, over a year ago? A girl who believed she was just a computer games programmer, a code-monkey who designed user interfaces. A girl who believed she was living in a grubby studio flat in a rough part of Queens. A girl who believed she had family living in Boston, just a short one-hour flight away if she needed home comforts … a girl who believed she’d been rescued from certain death on one of those regular city-to-city flights back home.
Watching Billy’s face made her homesick for the person she’d once – not so long ago – been.
‘Information: I am detecting a tachyon surge … there …’ Bob pointed at a patch of ground five feet away from them.
‘Keep your eyes on where he just pointed!’ she called across to Billy. ‘That’s where it will appear!’
Liam carried on talking, she saw him draw the shape of a circle with his hands. They waited expectantly, silently, for ten, fifteen seconds; even the hooting and birdsong coming from the jungle seemed to settle down ever so slightly, as if every creature within was holding its breath with anticipation and staring out, hoping to catch a glimpse of this impossible thing.
Then, without warning, she felt that familiar puff of displaced air on her face. For a second she closed her eyes against the blown-up grit and dirt, then opened them again.
The sphere hovered before them, the familiar oil-slick interference running across its surface, making spirals and twisted renditions of the three figures waiting in the dark on the other side of chaos space.
‘Bob, go tell them to come through. We can discuss things out here.’
‘All of them?’
She gave it a moment’s thought. ‘Yeah, why not? Leave SpongeBubba behind and make sure the archway door’s locked. And tell computer-Bob to give us an hour then open another window.’
‘Affirmative.’
Bob stepped into the portal. His silhouette became part of the convoluted pattern for a moment. Maddy shot a glance at Billy and struggled to stop herself smiling at the goggle-eyed expression he was now pulling.
She noted Liam was smiling at the sight of that too.
A minute passed and then finally she saw movement in the undulating oil slick. Rashim emerged first, instantly frowning and blinking at the impossibly bright sunlight. Sal followed him out, doing likewise, shading her eyes with both hands. Then Bob and finally Becks emerged. Behind them the portal collapsed in on itself and vanished with a soft pop.
She couldn’t help but smile at their clothing. Of course, none of them had expected to be coming through. So they were still dressed in their Victorian attire: Rashim in his dapper velvet waistcoat and crisp white morning shirt; Sal and Becks in their long layered skirts and bodices. They reminded her of old colonial-era explorers: impractically dressed, determined to maintain some decorum and hold on to that legendary British stiff upper lip despite the sweltering heat and glare of the mad-dog sun.
Adam was laughing with delight, amused by the very same thing. He stepped forward and presented a hand to Rashim. ‘Dr Livingstone, I presume?’ he announced boldly.
Rashim looked utterly perplexed. ‘No … uh no. It’s Dr Anwar, not Livingstone. You recall, we have already met, you know, Adam … a few hours ago?’
Chapter 31
1994, ruins of the rebel camp, Nicaraguan jungle
Rashim took a swig from Maddy’s water flask and wiped away the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. ‘Good God, it is hot here.’
‘Aye, it’s the humidity,’ replied Liam. ‘You get used to it after a while.’
They were sitting in the dappled shade of one of the few tents that still remained standing. Above them was an awning of camouflage netting with brown brittle leaves woven into it. It was blocking out most of the glare, although a few angled shards of light speared down between the webbing. Rashim bent over, pulled his shoes and socks off and began rolling up his trouser legs.
‘Very classy look, that,’ said Maddy.
‘What is this place?’ Rashim looked around. ‘It looks like an army camp.’
‘It’s a camp that was – until this morning – being used by armed rebels,’ she replied.
‘Where are they now?’
‘We’re good. They’re all gone. They won’t be coming back.’
Rashim sat back up in the canvas chair, waggled his long bony toes to feel the air circulate between them. ‘That’s better.’
‘Anyway … Rashim, you were saying something about an interesting theory?’
‘Yes. This Pandora. The extinction event in 2070,’ replied Rashim. ‘I have been considering an interesting notion that it might be the marker for some sort of artificial termination point.’
‘What the hell does that mean – artificial termination point?’
‘This may sound odd …’ He shrugged. ‘It does sound odd, but stay with me …’
Maddy sighed impatiently. Rashim could be a shade on the patronizing side sometimes.
‘Have you considered that this whole world might be some kind of experiment? Or a better word might be … simulation? A complex model. And –’
‘You’re suggesting this is a virtual reality?!’ Maddy looked sceptical. ‘A frikkin’ computer simulation!?’
‘No.’ Rashim shook his head. ‘No, simulation was the wrong word to use. I suggest it is real. This is all real, but somehow this world is isolated in some manner. In much the same way you would isolate a bacterial or viral culture from contaminants. I am talking about laboratory protocols, ensuring the subject of your experiment is properly isolated from random variables.’
‘You’re suggesting this whole world is some gunk growing in a Petri dish?’
‘Petri dish,’ he said, nodding. ‘That is a good metaphor for what I am saying, yes.’
Maddy glanced at Liam, then Sal. Her eyes were narrowed; she was looking up at the sky, clearly giving the idea some thought.
‘So, the theory is that we are stuck in this metaphorical Petri dish,’ continued Rashim.
‘Us?’ said Liam. ‘You mean just us? An experiment on just us?’
‘No. I am thinking this is an experiment on a global scale. An experiment on everyone. On humanity itself.’
‘Blimey!’ Liam cocked a brow. ‘That’s quite … that’s quite an idea, Rashim.’
‘It might be a valid answer to the Fermi Paradox.’
‘The Fermi whatty-what-what?’
‘The Fermi Paradox – the answer as to why Earth never encountered a single extra-terrestrial radio signal in over a century of searching for one.’
‘SETI was still going on? In your time?’
Rashim nodded. ‘Yes, Maddy. There were still one or two radio arrays hoping to hear from someone. Right up until the end. So … it is a theory as to why we have never heard from anyone.’
‘Actually, that gives you two possibilities,’ Maddy replied. ‘Either there is life only on Earth and the rest of the entire universe is completely barren. Which, apparently, is totally unlikely given the universe is pretty much infinite. Or –’ she acknowledged his theory with a nod – ‘you’re right, we’ve been isolated from the univer
se somehow.’
‘Put in a box,’ said Liam.
‘Pandora’s box,’ Adam added.
Liam was smiling and frowning at the same time. ‘All of mankind? Earth?’
Maddy puffed her cheeks out. She let her gaze wander out across the clearing. On the far side, Bob was standing watch; a hundred yards away on the other, Becks was doing likewise. Maddy was pretty certain none of the rebels would be coming back. All the same, it seemed a sensible precaution having them patrolling the perimeter.
‘Well, that’s a fascinating idea. Maybe a little crazy?’
‘It is no more crazy than some of the notions superstring theorists have posited,’ said Rashim. ‘Eleven spatial dimensions. Overlapping multiverses. Russian Doll nested universes.’
‘Well, true, I guess. That’s a big ol’ experiment when you think how old planet Earth is – what, four and a half billion years old?’
‘My theory is that the experiment is only on a tiny, tiny portion of Earth’s lifespan.’
‘Since humans have been walking around?’ suggested Maddy.
Rashim held up his hand and pinched air between his thumb and index finger. ‘Much less than that. A loop of history that takes in the Voynich and perhaps the Holy Grail. A loop, much like your field office in New York in its two-day loop, but on a much grander scale,’ he continued.
‘My God,’ uttered Adam. ‘A loop? That could explain artefacts of history that shouldn’t be here!’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For example, the Voynich Manuscript. The Holy Grail. How come my name was embedded in a text that dates back to the time of Christ? Unless … this history has somehow happened at least once before, and some or all of us have been involved in it.’
Maddy stroked her chin thoughtfully. ‘Rashim, you’re seriously suggesting all the history that we know, all that we’ve seen, might have occurred before?’
‘It is a theory. That is all. But yes – perhaps even many, many times before. And these documents are perhaps a residual trace of previous runs through this loop of time. Something that earlier versions of yourselves have somehow managed to embed permanently, to leave behind. To be found by future versions of yourselves.’