‘What are you doing?’ hissed Maddy. ‘You’re attracting attention!’
‘Indeed … I’m signalling the enemy.’
Maddy looked up at him as he stepped forward across the rubble, up on to the top of the low uneven wall of loose bricks. In the stillness, broken only by the tidal lapping of poisoned water nearby, she expected a shot to ring out and this reckless officer to drop, headless, like a butcher’s carcass.
Across the river, her eyes picked out faint movement, the glint of metal.
‘There,’ he said, stepping down. ‘They’ll spread the word on their side. We should be safe from potshots for a while.’
‘But –’ she got to her feet – ‘but that’s the enemy, isn’t it?’
‘I know the colonel over there. Pleasant enough fellow.’
‘Know him?’
He sighed. ‘We’ve been staring over this wretched river at each other for years. Decades, actually. We meet once a year … for Thanksgiving.’ He turned to his men. ‘Don’t we, Sergeant Freeman?’
She recognized the bearded man who’d found her earlier this morning. ‘Aye, sir.’
‘A chance for the boys on both sides to let their hair down.’ Devereau pulled up some field glasses and inspected the Southern lines briefly. ‘In fact, a … couple of years ago, East River froze right over … the lads had a snowball fight.’
‘Whupped ’em good too,’ said Sergeant Freeman, grinning.
‘Indeed we did.’ He lowered his field glasses. ‘A good day,’ he added wistfully. He turned to her. ‘Now then, you say your “base” is here somewhere. And this miraculous time-travelling device of yours?’
She heard barely concealed amusement in his voice.
He’s humouring himself. For a moment she wondered what her fate was going to be if she failed to convince him that the broken machinery in the archway was what she said it was.
And what about Becks? Presumably she was still sitting inside awaiting further orders, or perhaps she was nearby, watching them even now. She wondered how the support unit would act once she spotted Maddy in cuffs being led towards the archway by men with weapons.
‘It’s around here somewhere,’ she said, looking across the wasteland towards the collapsed remains of the Williamsburg Bridge. That was her only way of orienting herself. The only landmark she could recognize. ‘Not too far from the support-works of that bridge over there.’
‘Right.’
‘I have a … a friend over there, though.’
Devereau looked at her sternly. ‘You’re not alone?’
‘Look, she’s not a spy either.’
‘Is she armed?’
Maddy shook her head. ‘No … no weapons, but she … well … she can be dangerous.’
Devereau seemed amused by that. ‘Twenty men … I think between us we can handle an unarmed woman.’
‘No … really,’ said Maddy, ‘trust me, she’s really nothing like me. She, well, she can be kind of deadly. I should call out to her first. Let her know it’s OK.’
The colonel eyed her suspiciously for a moment.
‘I won’t call out for her to run or anything … I promise.’
He stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘All right, then. But, to make it perfectly clear, I hear anything out of your mouth that sounds like a codeword or a warning, I shall be inclined to shoot you.’
‘Right. I promise.’ She cupped her hands round her mouth. ‘BECKS!’ Her croaky voice echoed off the shattered corner wall of a nearby warehouse; it bounced and reverberated through the rubble and maze of half-standing buildings, through dead Brooklyn, fading slowly like the memory of a dream. Finally, there was only the mournful whisper of a breeze teasing a window shutter somewhere to clap insistently against a rotten frame.
‘It’s Maddy! Are you there?’
Her voice faded.
‘It’s OK … I’m OK … these soldiers aren’t going to hurt me!’
Nothing but the far-off clatter of the shutter, the tidal hiss and draw of the languid East River nearby lapping at the shore.
‘It appears that this friend of yours has abandoned you,’ said Devereau.
Maddy shook her head. ‘No, she wouldn’t do that. She’s out there somewhere,’ she said, pointing towards the ruins of the bridge. ‘There’s this big shallow crater over there somewhere and our archway’s at the bottom of it. If we go a bit closer …?’
It was then a solitary sound caused Devereau’s men to drop to their knees and raise their carbines: the clatter of a loose slate tile sliding down a mound of rubble. Then silence once more.
‘Becks?’ Maddy called out again. ‘Is that you?’
The men were looking in all directions, up and around at the broken walls and exposed half-floors of gutted buildings, perfect positions from which a sniper could pick them all off. She heard some of them racking their carbines ready to fire, the click of safety nubs coming off.
‘Becks? You there?’
The stillness was broken by another sound of movement, the direction confused by echoes bouncing off the pockmarked walls of buildings either side of them.
‘Why did you leave me?’ a voice echoed across the stillness. The colonel and his men were turning, looking around nervously – here, there, everywhere – trying to determine where the voice had come from. It sounded almost sexless. Neutral. Unwelcoming. Almost hostile.
‘Becks? Where are you?’
‘Your departure was … inappropriate.’
‘I … I’m sorry, I just … I dunno what happened, Becks. I freaked out, I guess.’
A long silence.
‘Becks?’ Her cry faded to nothing, leaving Maddy with an unsettling thought flitting around in her head.
Becks doesn’t sound right. She sounds different. Her voice, normally so clinical, so reassuringly logical, seemed to carry the hint of a human emotion in it. Anger? Resentment? She’d never heard that in Becks’s voice before.
‘Becks? Please … come out!’ She glanced at the soldiers – all of them it seemed were fingering their triggers anxiously.
She’s spooking them.
‘Please! Tell your men not to shoot if she comes out,’ uttered Maddy to Devereau. ‘She won’t hurt anyone. I’ll instruct her not to.’
‘Instruct her?’ Devereau’s eyes narrowed. ‘You make her sound like a guard dog.’
She ignored him. ‘Becks! Please! Come out slowly! These soldiers aren’t going to hurt you or me. They’re not a threat!’
A few moments later the fading echo of her voice was answered with the sound of clattering rubble and then Becks’s face emerged from the gloom of the corner of a bombed-out basement to their right.
‘There!’ shouted one of the soldiers, and a moment later the air was split by the crack of two rapid-fire shots. A plume of cement dust exploded from a breeze block beside Becks’s head as she clambered out of the darkness into the pallid daylight.
Sergeant Freeman immediately bellowed a cease-fire.
She stepped forward down a slope of rubble towards them, unperturbed by the near-miss, her cool grey gaze on Maddy alone.
‘Raise your hands where we can see them!’ barked Devereau.
Becks approached slowly until she was no more than half a dozen yards from them, then stopped, calmly evaluating the threat level of the soldiers for a moment.
‘Becks!’ said Maddy. ‘It’s fine! These guys are friendly … just show them your empty hands!’
Becks slowly raised her arms and opened her hands to show her palms, then turned her attention on Maddy, cocking her head curiously. ‘Why did you leave me?’
She seemed to need an answer, as if nothing more could be discussed until the question was answered satisfactorily. Maddy could imagine the software in her head was stuck on a loop of code, running over and over in an infinite circle, unable to escape it until it had some relevant data to process.
Best to be honest with her.
‘I … I just wanted to go home. I …’
/> ‘Information: you are not permitted to leave the agency.’
‘Come on, Becks, cut me some slack here! You said everything was all smashed up! Didn’t you?’
Becks nodded. ‘Affirmative.’
‘Well!’ Maddy shrugged. ‘So, I suppose I figured … I thought our team was all finished. That’s why I –’
‘A mission is still in progress.’ Becks’s gaze flickered across Devereau then back to her, ‘and there is still a time contamination event that must be corrected, Maddy.’
‘Yeah? And how’re we supposed to do that, huh? Some other team’s going to have to sort this one out, because we’re totally freakin’ ruined, aren’t we?’
‘Negative.’
‘What?’
‘I have now made a complete evaluation of the damage. I can effect adequate repairs, if we are able to secure suitably adaptable components.’ She looked at Maddy with an expression that almost looked like a plea. ‘I must have new orders, Madelaine. What are your instructions?’
Maddy stepped forward, reached out for the support unit and grasped her scarred left hand tentatively with both of hers. She squeezed gently. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.
Maybe it was in her mind, maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she thought she felt Becks return the gesture with the slightest squeeze.
‘Let’s go back to the arch, Becks. You can show me what we need to do to fix it up.’
She turned and nodded at Devereau and his men. ‘I think these guys might be able to help us out.’
‘Affirmative.’
CHAPTER 36
2001, somewhere in Virginia
Liam was shaken roughly awake. By the slanted stripes of blood-red dusk stealing in through the slatted windows, he could see it was Sal tugging on his arm.
‘What … what?’ he muttered irritably.
‘Some weird midget just ran in and stole Bob’s gun!’
‘What?’ He took a moment to digest that. It sounded like the tail end of some bizarre dream. ‘What did you just say?’
‘Midget … or maybe it was a child.’ It sounded like she wasn’t sure this wasn’t a dream either. ‘It happened so fast. I was talking to Bob … and this thing just ran into the kitchen, grabbed the shotgun and ran out again.’
‘Thing?’ Liam sat up on the creaking sofa. ‘Where’s Bob?’
‘Ran out after him to get it back.’
Good thing too. It was the only weapon they had between them. Apart from Bob himself, that is. He shook away the last tendrils of sleep, stepped through the kitchen where Lincoln’s long frame was sprawled across the table, still fast asleep. The back door was wide open.
‘He went out of the back?’
Sal nodded.
Liam stood in the doorway. He could hear a fast-receding rustle and thrash of movement across the cornfield at the end of the weed-infested garden. In the failing light he could just make out where Bob had entered the field, leaving a wake of broken and flattened cornstalks.
‘He’ll get it back, I’m sure,’ said Liam. ‘He’s fast.’
‘Hope so.’
The setting sun was no more than a golden sliver trembling on the horizon, the clouds combed out across the sky directly above it like cotton candy, a fleshy pink.
‘We’ll make a move as soon as he gets back,’ said Liam. ‘Grab as many tins as we can carry and –’
‘Liam,’ whispered Sal.
‘What?’
‘Do you see that?’
‘See what?’
‘There.’ She pointed down the garden towards the edge of the field. He saw nothing but the dark parting of flattened stalks amid the chest-high wall of gently swaying corn.
‘What? I can’t see any–’ Then all of a sudden he did. Dark shapes, slowly emerging from the field and stepping into the garden.
‘Hey! Who’s that out there?’ Liam challenged.
The shapes moved carefully towards them, low shadows blending in with the tufts of weeds and the darkness of the ground.
Jay-zus.
Liam dragged Sal back inside the kitchen and slammed the door shut. The noise roused Lincoln from his slumber. ‘Curse you! I was sleeping!’ he snarled.
‘What are they?’ whimpered Sal.
‘I don’t know, to be sure … but –’
The door suddenly lurched on its hinges, rattling from an impact. A splintered crack ran down the middle of it.
‘What the devil is going on here?’ roared Lincoln, still bleary-eyed with sleep.
‘Chuddah!’ gasped Sal. ‘The window!’
Liam turned to see hands fumbling at it – no … not hands … not quite … They looked peculiar, but moving, scrabbling, scratching too quickly to identify what it was that looked so odd about them. The grime-covered glass suddenly shattered as something was lobbed through it.
‘Out! Out!’ Liam barked, pushing Sal ahead of him and dragging Lincoln out of his chair. They tumbled together from the kitchen and into the dark hallway beyond.
He slammed the door closed behind him. It would swing into the hall, which meant they could lean things against it to prevent it being opened.
‘Block this! We need to barricade it!’
They looked around themselves desperately and Lincoln gestured to a tall floor-standing grandfather clock. Liam nodded. He and Sal helped him drag it across the dust-covered floor and tilted it back to lean against the kitchen door with a clumsy thud. It chimed noisily in protest at the rough treatment.
They could hear the back door being battered and finally swinging inwards; the bark of wooden chair legs bumped and scraping; the clatter of things knocked, falling, shattering and rolling across the floor.
‘Th-they’re inside!’ whispered Sal.
A moment later the door they and the grandfather clock were pressing their weight against shuddered under a huge impact. As if someone or something on the far side was wielding a mallet.
Lincoln cursed. ‘Who the devil is this?’
‘I don’t know … I don’t know!’
‘Not people,’ hissed Sal. ‘They’re not human!’
To their right along the dark hallway leading to the front of the farmhouse the handle of the front door rattled as something tested it. Liam turned to see a hairline crimson seam of twilight glowing between the bottom of the door and the doorstep. It flickered with movement as God knows how many shapes began to gather outside.
‘GO AWAY!’ Sal screamed.
A crash against the front door and Liam saw a sliver of light in the middle of the door’s oak panel.
That’ll not hold for long.
Stairs. He remembered there was a staircase in this hallway. Up to the first floor.
‘Over there – the stairs, we need to go up!’
‘Are you quite mad, sir?’ snarled Lincoln. ‘We shall be trapped with nowhere to go!’
‘Doesn’t matter – Bob will be back soon. He’ll sort them out.’
‘He is but one man! There sounds like no less than an army of men out there!’
‘They’re not human,’ said Sal again.
The front door shuddered violently under the impact of another heavy blow and a second blood-red line of a crack joined the first. Not a hairline thread this time but a ragged gash.
‘Upstairs! Now! It’s our only chance!’
‘OK … yes … come on!’ Sal nodded quickly.
‘Damn you, sir! I will not run like a yard dog. Find me a weapon and I shall –’
‘For cryin’ out loud,’ snapped Liam, ‘what is it with you? Do you want to die?’
Lincoln’s face was thunder. ‘I am no coward, sir! I shall stand and fight!’
‘Well, I am,’ said Sal. ‘So can we go … please?’
They suddenly heard the clatter of falling grit on the floor beside their feet. They turned to look where it had come from to see what appeared to be a jagged red eye on the plaster wall beside the kitchen door.
‘Wuh?’
It blinked. Or,
more precisely, it flickered.
‘’Tis a hole,’ said Lincoln.
A small fist punched through the plasterboard and broke off a shard of plaster, which crumbled to the floor with a hiss of cascading powder and grit. Another small dull ‘eye’ of dusk red appeared beside it. And another.
‘Oh Jay-zus wept! They’re breaking up the bleedin’ wall!’
Lincoln pursed his lips. ‘Perhaps then, we should … as you suggested …?’
‘Run? Come on!’
The kitchen door bulged and cracked from a heavy blow and the grandfather clock lurched with a tuneless jangle of chimes. The three of them scrambled down the hall – past the front door, yielding again under yet another hammer blow. A strip of wood clattered to the floor and through the fresh gap Liam thought he caught a glimpse of something that resembled a face, wide and flat, with pinhole-small black eyes, and a hole – was it … a hole? – for a nose.
What are these things? … Demons?
‘Up! UP!’ he screamed at Sal and Lincoln. ‘GO UP!’
The front door was looking horribly fragile now, a spiderweb of cracks and gashes that flickered and widened with each shuddering blow.
Liam followed them up the wooden stairs, stumbling more than once in the darkness. Sal was waiting for him on the landing at the top. ‘Which way, Liam? Which way?’
‘Either! Just go!’
Behind him – down the stairs – he heard a splintering crack, either the kitchen or the front door finally giving way. He could hear Sal still there in front of him, hopping uncertainly from one foot to the other, Lincoln beside her, panting heavily.
‘GO!’ Liam screamed.
Sal fumbled along the dark landing, hands patting and feeling the wall in front of her for a door to open.
Liam heard the grandfather clock collapse on to the floor, filling the house with a jangling chime.
They’re through!
He turned away from the stairs as he heard feet, scratching – claws? – on the wooden floor and a bizarre humming. Almost like human voices, but humming as if the things down there – whatever they were – were somehow gagged.
He turned and started in the dark, patting the damp peeling walls with his hands to feel his way. ‘Sal!’ he hissed.