He drew his eyes away from the slideshow of images. They glistened with moisture, tears he was determined not to shed in front of the girls – more importantly, in front of his own men. ‘This is … this is really how our world should be?’
‘Yes.’
He looked back at the nearest monitor to see an image of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair standing side by side behind lecterns, addressing an audience of the press. Then an image of Homer Simpson strangling Bart Simpson.
‘And you, and all these devices of yours –’ he nodded at the tall rack of circuit boards to their left, the displacement machine and the large empty perspex tube – ‘this technology of yours could change my world to how they appear on these … what do you call them?’
‘Computer monitors.’
‘These … computer monitors of yours?’
She nodded. ‘This war should’ve ended in 1865. That’s how history is supposed to go.’
He stroked the thatch of dark bristles on his cheek, deep in thought. ‘This really is quite some story you are asking me to believe.’
Maddy sniffed. ‘Well, it’s the truth. Although, sometimes, you know, I wish it wasn’t.’
Devereau pulled on his beard with a gloved hand. ‘And you say this technology, this time displacing device can send you to any time?’
‘And any place too … yeah.’
Devereau noticed Sergeant Freeman out of the corner of his eye, standing nearby and just as bewitched by the slideshow of images. ‘What’re you thinking, Sergeant Freeman?’
The old NCO shook his head. ‘Seen a lot of things in my time, sir. Perhaps too many things. But this …’ He hunted down the right words to express what he was thinking. ‘These … these here pictures, if they are what this city, what this nation was meant to be, then I guess I gotta wonder how the hell we been so stupid we ended up makin’ this mess of a world we all livin’ in.’
Devereau nodded thoughtfully.
‘If we can fix our machine, we could change it back,’ said Maddy. ‘It would cause a time wave that would correct everything. You’d all live very different lives. Be very different people.’ She wondered whether she ought to add that some of them might not even exist. A different century and a half of history would mean very different family trees for some of these men.
‘And the thing is,’ she added, ‘none of you would have a memory of this war, because … well –’ she shrugged – ‘because it will have never taken place.’
Sergeant Freeman nodded. ‘I say “Amen” to that.’
Devereau adjusted the collar of his tunic. ‘And what, pray tell, is a “time wave”?’
‘A vibration through space-time that leaves behind it a recalibration of reality,’ replied Becks.
‘A wave of reality overwriting reality,’ added Maddy.
Devereau frowned. ‘I would become someone else?’
‘Correct, Bill,’ said Becks. ‘Everything and everyone is recalibrated.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Then surely my allowing you to alter history would be like … well, not to put too fine a point on it, ladies … it would be like killing myself.’
Maddy pursed her lips. He was, of course, in a sense quite right. A time wave would erase Devereau and everyone else and in its wake leave other versions of themselves or, quite possibly, in many cases leave absolutely no version of them at all.
She looked back at the slideshow of images. There were plenty of things wrong with the 2001 she and Becks had come from, but it had to be better than this war-torn Hell. She could see Devereau’s eyes, Freeman’s too, eyes that glistened with a deep melancholy. After all, she guessed they were both men who had spent most of their lives living in concrete bunkers and staring across the rubble and the river at men just like themselves.
These images on the screen were a beacon of hope … of what could have been.
‘Something else I should explain to you,’ said Maddy. ‘There’s no guarantee this reality is stable … that it will hold. Things are unbalanced right now and somewhere at some quantum dimensional level reality is sort of “considering” whether this timeline is stable enough to stick with … or whether it needs to adjust itself again.’
‘Adjust itself? What do you mean?’
‘Another time wave could just as easily come along and wipe this reality away and replace it with something far worse.’
Devereau frowned. ‘Worse?’
‘OK …’ She gave it a moment’s thought. ‘For example, a world in which the South has already won this war.’
‘Good God! A victory for the Anglo-Confederacy?’
‘Or much much worse,’ she added.
‘Worse!’ He stiffened. ‘Worse than that?’
‘Oh yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Trust me, Bill. You ought to see some of the crazy stuff we’ve seen. It’d turn your hair white.’
CHAPTER 40
2001, somewhere in Virginia
In stunned silence Liam watched the enormous vessel that had loomed above the farmhouse settle lightly on the ground, jets venting blasts of ice-cold nitrogen gas, filling the air around them with an arctic mist and a blizzard of snowflakes. From within the swirling fog he heard the heavy clanking of chains and winches and finally the thud of something smacking the ground heavily. A moment later he heard the clatter of horseshoes on metal, the throaty snort of horses and men’s voices softly calming them.
Presently, something began to emerge from the mist.
Bob shifted position, preparing himself to defend Liam.
‘Easy there, big fella,’ whispered Liam, and patted Bob’s side.
He could just about make out several dozen bulky four-legged beasts … but certainly not horses, as he’d first thought. They seemed to be heavy up front by the look of their faint silhouettes, with much more slender hindquarters. He squinted into the mist and the dancing flakes of snow, beginning to thin now as the sound of venting jets ceased.
He heard an ooofff of exertion from someone and the soft thud of boots on the ground. A figure was approaching them.
‘Uh? Hello over there?’ The figure drew close enough for Liam to see it was a man in a well-tailored army uniform.
‘Ahhh … there you are!’
He drew up in front of them, a trim man in his late twenties. Beneath the pointed peak of his white pith helmet Liam could see a clean-shaven face with a friendly smile spread across features that seemed artfully chiselled specifically to melt the hearts of women. He was wearing a smart crimson tunic with brass buttons that led down to an equipment belt cinched tightly round his waist.
‘Best not to run, gents,’ he said, and offered a hand in a crisp white glove. ‘Captain Ewan McManus. Third Company, Fourth Battalion, Black Watch Regiment.’
Liam offered his hand. ‘Uh … hello.’
‘I suspect you chaps have just had a nasty run-in, haven’t you?’ He cocked his head. ‘Some bother, was it?’
Liam nodded. The last few moments of shock, confusion, dismay, bewilderment were beginning to blow away like the thinning mist around them. He remembered Sal was out there, perhaps nearby still.
‘Yes! Oh Jay-zus! They took our friend. They …’ He was saying ‘they’ but he hadn’t the slightest idea what ‘they’ were.
‘Dammit! That’s not good news.’ Captain McManus grimaced. ‘You’re saying they’ve taken captives?’
‘Yes! She’s just a young girl, a child, really! And another one, a man. They were here just minutes ago … minutes ago!’
‘I know,’ said McManus. ‘We’ve been on their trail. Animals. We think it’s these ones. They raided a farm town about a dozen miles west of here earlier this afternoon. Awful mess. A blood bath. Killed the lot of them. Women, children.’
The officer turned round and cupped his mouth. ‘White Bear, up here, please!’
Over the man’s shoulder Liam could see a platoon of soldiers in similar tall helmets and red tunics sitting astride those beasts that he’d yet to actually identify. On
e of the men hastily dismounted and hurried forward to join them. He had long black hair in braids and dark skin pebble-dashed with faint smallpox scars.
‘Chief?’
‘White Bear’s our tracker. He’s a Mohawk. Absolutely the very best,’ assured McManus. He turned to the Indian. ‘Get me a heading. We’re going to follow them on the ground. All right?’
‘Dah.’ White Bear nodded and trotted off towards the farmhouse.
‘I suspect they’re heading north-east towards the Dead City. That’s where others of their kind have headed to in the past. We’ll do our best to catch them before they get in there.’
‘What are they?’ asked Liam.
The officer looked at him, surprised. ‘You don’t know?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I thought they were …’ He didn’t know where to begin. Monsters? Demons? He ended up offering a confused, harried shrug. ‘Me and Bob … we’re sort of new here.’
McManus looked up at Bob, acknowledging him for the first time. ‘Good grief, you’re a big chap!’ He turned back to Liam. ‘Jolly big, isn’t he?’
Liam nodded impatiently – like he needed to be told that. ‘Those things? Those creatures?’
‘Well now … yes, I suppose you must have at least read about this in the papers. That we’re using some more experimental types of genics to work on the plantations over here.’ He shook his head. ‘The Evening Times and the other newspapers were ranting about that when we were shipping out from London. We’ve had simple-minded eugenics working in factories and farms back home for ages, but these recent innovations – the dextrous hands with thumbs, and the larger brains; awfully clever stuff, if you ask me – well, that’s become a heated issue. They don’t like it, the idea of genics being smart enough to change the oil on an auto-locomotion engine, or being able to write their name.’
McManus looked at them. ‘But you must know about that, of course?’
Liam nodded convincingly. ‘Sure … yeah, of course.’
‘So,’ the officer continued, ‘we’re trying out these more advanced types over here in the southern states. Generally these smarter genics are really jolly good. Very impressive, actually. But we do get problems every now and then. They can flip out occasionally and turn exceedingly nasty.’
The officer suddenly shook his head with disgust at himself. ‘I’m sorry, awfully rude … I didn’t manage to get your names?’
‘I’m Liam, Liam O’Connor. And the big fella here is Bob.’
McManus offered Bob his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Bob and Liam. Now look … we’re going to try and run these genics down before they get to the city’s outskirts. We’ll do what we can to get your friends back … but – I’m not going to tell you a lie – they can be very unpredictable.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Liam.
McManus shook his head. ‘They can be gentle, tender, loving even. Then without any warning at all, without any reason, they can turn on you. Be quite deadly, in fact. There’s no knowing what sets them off.’ He looked at the trickle of drying blood running down from Liam’s temple and gestured at the gigantic vessel looming over them. ‘There’s a regimental surgeon aboard the ship type. I suggest you go aboard and let him have a look at you. And we shall go and –’
Liam shook his head. ‘No … I need to find her! Please! I have to come along!’
Bob nodded. ‘Affirmative. Enough time has already been wasted. We cannot lose them.’
The officer looked at them both, silently.
‘She’s my sister,’ said Liam finally, desperately. He tossed a hooded glance at Bob. ‘Both of our … sister. Isn’t she?’
Bob acknowledged that with an unconvincing nod. ‘Yes. We are … family.’
‘Your sister?’ McManus frowned circumspectly. ‘Hmm … I shouldn’t really do this, allow civilians along.’ He stroked his chin. ‘But … well, yes … missing family, you want to do all that you can to find them, don’t you?’
Liam nodded. ‘We won’t get in your way. We just want to find her! And our friend.’
McManus summoned one of his men. ‘Sergeant Cope? These two civvies shall be joining us. Clear some saddle space for them, will you?’
The sergeant, eyes dark beneath the brim of his helmet, and the rest of his face lost behind a large walrus moustache, nodded briskly. ‘Right you are, sir!’
McManus turned back to Liam and Bob. ‘You’ve ridden a huff?’
‘Huff?’
‘A huffalo?’ He shook his head. ‘Not to worry, you’ll be riding rear-saddle.’ He glanced at Bob. ‘Going to need to pick a jolly big one for you, though.’
At that moment the Indian tracker – White Bear – emerged from the farmhouse and jogged across to Captain McManus.
‘They go north-east.’ He gestured past the building towards the gravel road on which Liam and the others had entered the hamlet earlier that day. ‘Tracks go that way.’
‘How many do you think, White Bear?’
‘Fifty. Maybe more. Many different ones. Some big. Some small.’ He glanced quickly at Liam and Bob then back at his commanding officer. ‘Only one human track. Man, I think.’
Liam looked alarmed and the young officer raised a hand to calm him. ‘That may just mean they’re carrying your sister. To move along faster, you see?’ McManus turned to his men. ‘Platoon! Ready your mounts!’ And then he tugged something down from the side of his helmet, a padded leather pouch that settled over his ear. From that he pulled out a thick telescopic brass arm that curved round his jawline and ended with a brass mouthpiece.
He tapped it once. ‘Captain McManus to duty officer. We have some very reliable tracks down here. We’re going to follow them on foot.’
He nodded to a response coming through his earpiece. ‘Right you are … we’ll call you if we need you.’
He smiled at Liam. ‘Ready?’
‘Yes! We need to go now, before we lose them!’
The officer nodded over towards the two huffs that had had rear saddles cleared of field kit. ‘Of course. Let’s find your friend and that sister of yours.’
CHAPTER 41
2001, somewhere in Virginia
They moved through the darkness silently, across the seemingly endless cornfield. Sal was bouncing uncomfortably over the shoulder of some huge lumbering beast. She might have said ‘man’, but she’d only caught the briefest glimpse of it. It stood on two legs and had two arms, that much she knew, and that was about as much of a comparison as she could make to a human.
The group of them – ‘pack’ seemed like a better word – moved swiftly through the corn stalks, leaves and cobs swiping at her face. She tried to call out to Lincoln, not sure whether he too was somewhere among the pack – behind her, ahead maybe, draped like her over the large meaty shoulder of one of these things. But a hand, the oddest-shaped hand she’d ever seen – two fat fingers as big as aubergines and a thumb like a marrow – clumsily smothered her mouth, mashing her lips painfully against her teeth.
It seemed like almost an hour before the group emerged from the edge of the field and hesitated by the side of a tarmac road, the very same road, she suspected, they’d been driven along by the Chinese man.
It was fully dark now and a gibbous moon had emerged into the sky to bathe the night a quicksilver blue. Upside-down, she could see these creatures more clearly. They were all ‘human-like’ in so far as they stood erect on legs and their arms swung free. But their size and shape varied immensely. She saw that about a dozen of them were as large as the one carrying her. They teetered on small legs, incredibly top-heavy, with a muscle mass that put Bob to shame. They vaguely reminded her of silverback gorillas, except there wasn’t a single hair on them. Bald from head to toe, skin pale, almost translucent in the moonlight.
Their heads didn’t look anything like a gorilla’s head either: loaf-shaped skulls, smaller in fact than a regular adult human’s skull, with tiny, almost delicate, faces. Eyes so small they almost looked like mere pinhole
s. Beneath those, a gash. No nose, just an open flap of flesh, a hole. And beneath the non-nose, a simple lipless slit for a mouth.
Sal twisted her head and saw others, much smaller, agile-looking. They had slender torsos with a narrow ribcage that reminded her vaguely of a salamander. She noticed their hands were the same kind: two fingers and an opposable thumb. But these were long and thin with bony knuckles and fingernails that were more like claws. Their heads were similar, but the eyes much bigger. She glimpsed all-black eyes, wide and round, that blinked in the moonlight like those of an owl.
She saw one of a third type, the smallest, the size of a child, with a head disproportionately large. It must have been that one which had burst into the kitchen and stolen the shotgun. She wondered where that gun was. Whether this creature had dispensed with it … not knowing what it was or how to make use of it.
Are they that stupid?
She suspected not. They’d cleverly outflanked them in the farmhouse, bottling them up in the hallway. At the very least they seemed to know a house tended to have a back door and a front door.
This smallest creature, the ‘child’, had the same hand configuration, but the two fingers and the thumb on each looked completely human. The hands could easily have been those of some machine-worker who’d lost the little finger and the next one along of both hands in some unfortunate industrial accident. Its face looked odd in the light; she thought she saw some scarring around its lipless mouth.
One other thing she noticed about all these creatures, the last observation she made before the brute carrying her began to lope forward, and her vision blurred as her head bounced and bumped against his muscular chest, was that every one of them was completely naked except for a solitary item of clothing on them. One of the ‘apes’ had a lady’s straw sunhat on its head, the strap tucked under its chin to hold it on. Another had a threadbare winter scarf wrapped round its neck. One of the ‘salamanders’ even had a lady’s polka-dot summer dress on, far too large for its narrow frame.