The night that Adam had died.
Adam … the one person she’d met in all this time that she could imagine herself sharing a life with, a life after this endless exercise in fighting fires … this mystery … this nightmare … was finally resolved. Back there in the jungle she’d stupidly allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to share the rest of her life with him, to have children with him if it was even possible, to grow old with him. She’d imagined the fanciful tales of time travel they could have told their sniggering, disbelieving grandchildren. ‘You reeeeally met a Roman centurion, Grandma? You really were mentioned in the Holy Grail, Grandad? Yeah … right.’
She smiled in the dark. What a lovely could-have-been that would have been.
And, after all that, they’d returned home to Victorian London. There’d been that long holiday abroad to India, the Far East and to Africa. She’d needed that. Time away from their dark, depressing dungeon. Time spent not dwelling on the end of the world. She suspected both Liam and Rashim had conspired to keep her as busy as possible, to show her there was an exciting and colourful world out there beyond the suffocating confines of their bubble existence.
‘Maddy? You asleep?’
‘Sorry, I zoned out for a while there.’ She silently totalled up all the months in her head as best she could. ‘About two years or so at a wild guess.’
‘Two years? Is that all? It feels so much longer.’
It sure does. They’d been through so much together.
‘You know … it was very strange going back to my single-unit in Denver.’
‘I never asked you, Rashim … in all that time, I never asked whether you had someone close to you in this time? A wife? A girlfriend? Family?’
‘I had no wife or girlfriend. Not while I was working on Project Exodus.’
‘What about before?’
‘Yes. Of course. One or two relationships.’
‘Serious ones?’
He was silent for a while. ‘No. Nothing serious. I like to keep my life as uncomplicated as possible.’
‘What about any family?’
‘I have two sisters and my mother. They live in New London right now.’ He corrected himself. ‘Well, that is … they lived in New London.’
‘I’m sorry, Rashim. God, I’ve been so wrapped up in Waldstein and gazing at my own navel, it didn’t occur to me you might have had someone you cared for in this time. You must have been worrying about them these last few months, you know, with K-N and stuff?’
‘A little perhaps. But I haven’t seen them for years. We were not that close.’
‘Two sisters? So, were they older? Younger?’
‘Older. I was the spoiled baby of our family. The one my mother doted on.’
She shook her head. All this time, and she’d never thought to ask him questions like these. Never even bothered to enquire about his life before they’d met. ‘I’m sorry … we’ve never really talked much about your life before you got stuck in the past with us.’
‘Don’t worry, Maddy.’ She heard his sleeping bag rustle. ‘It seems we have always been kept busy with one thing after another.’
‘You can say that again.’
They were silent for a while. She listened to the only sounds of the mountain forest: the creak of dead wood, the rustling of a gentle breeze carrying dust and grit across sterile ground.
‘Maddy?’
‘Yes?’
‘If Waldstein presents us with a reason, a compelling reason … which gives us no choice but to accept leaving this world as it is now …?’
‘You want to know what we’re gonna do next?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Damned if I know.’
She wondered about that. If – and it was a big if – they even found him alive, what would he tell them? What could possibly justify this being allowed to happen? A fate worse than this?
Jesus … it’s got to be a frikkin’ horrifying alternative, if mankind almost completely annihilating itself is the better choice of the two!
But, if whatever he revealed to them actually made sense and this was how things needed to be left, then Rashim was right – what next?
Does Waldstein have plans for us? Or will he just pat us on the head and let us go?
She wondered if he’d have a functional displacement machine. He must do. In which case, she wondered if he’d grant them one last wish to go wherever, whenever, they wanted. Grant them a happy-ever-after ending.
‘Maybe he’ll let us choose a time we could go back to … let us pick some place to live out the rest of our lives?’
‘That would be nice,’ replied Rashim.
‘Yeah, it would. I’d say we’ve frikkin’ well earned something like that.’
She heard him shuffling in his sleeping bag again. ‘If he did let us go wherever we wanted to, where would you choose to go, Maddy?’
‘I don’t know. The first time I ever went back in time, it was to San Francisco in 1906. The beginning of the twentieth century … it was so cool. I loved the clothes, the buzz of activity, the sense of great things lying ahead.’
‘Like two world wars?’
‘Uh? Yeah, OK. Those were pretty bad. But, like, there’s the rest of the twentieth century? How cool would that be? To see all of that? The roaring twenties? The decades after the Second World War: the fifties, the sixties, the seventies?’
How about one particular decade? The nineties? If Waldstein gave her a golden one-way ticket back, she could see herself choosing 1994. She might just go to a city called Norwich in England and look up a scruffy young British college student with a ponytail and a scrappy beard.
‘Rashim, what about you?’
‘I think I would like to go back to the 1700s.’
She laughed. ‘Back to being the notorious Blackbeard, pillaging and looting your way across the high seas?’
‘That must sound wrong, the pillaging, the looting … but yes, I enjoyed being Captain Anwar. I enjoyed the freedom, the adventure. Liam and I made very good pirates.’
‘You boys really enjoyed yourselves back then, didn’t you?’
She could hear the wistful smile in the tone of his voice. ‘It was fun, yes. I do sometimes wonder how things might have been; how many ships we would have amassed in our fleet eventually. How famous, or infamous, we would have become.’
‘Well, maybe you’ll get a chance to find out? You know, if Waldstein lets us go on our merry way.’
‘I suspect he will not.’
‘You still think Liam might be right, don’t you? Do you think he’s baiting us?’
She heard Rashim as he adjusted position. ‘It is a possibility we must take seriously. He may be luring us to him to dispose of. To tidy up his loose ends.’
‘You really think we shouldn’t be doing this, don’t you? You think this is another stupid –’
‘No. I do accept this is our best chance to seek answers from him. I wonder whether he knows anything at all about the transmitters.’
‘He must do, surely?’
Maddy heard Rashim sigh irritably, then rustle in his sleeping bag once again, trying to find a more tolerable spot on the hard ground.
‘I wonder if Liam and Bob have found the other one in Jerusalem yet?’ he said.
‘If it’s there, they’ll find it. Liam and Bob make a pretty resourceful team together.’
‘Yes, they do.’
‘I can’t wait to get back actually,’ said Maddy. ‘To compare notes with him. To find out what he’s found out.’
‘If we can get back, that is.’
‘We’ll get back. Waldstein has a machine. He sent those support units back after all.’
‘Yes, he did.’ Rashim mulled over that point for a second. ‘So that means at some point he had a machine. But when was that? How long ago was that? Ten years ago? Fifteen years? And now … given everyone’s dead and the world lies in ruins, has he even got a power supply? A back-up generator?’
> ‘Of course he must. I mean, he figured out we needed one, for emergencies, in Brooklyn. I’m pretty sure he’d have a back-up too.’
‘Yes. You’re right.’
‘And he knew K-N was coming, right? So I think it’s safe to presume he’s been preparing for this.’
‘We are making a lot of assumptions here, Maddy. We may not find him. He may not have survived the virus. He may not have a functioning machine still. He may not have a power supply for the machine now … and, even if none of those things are a problem, he may not agree to send us back home. Like I say, a lot of assumptions.’
‘Yeah … yeah. I know. Situation normal, huh?’
CHAPTER 42
First century, Jerusalem
The young man, Linus, led them back through another smaller entrance in the wall of Hezekiah into the rat runs and narrow alleyways of the upper city. He kept a small home above a carpenter’s workshop. Two small bare rooms, separated by a curtain. He ushered his elderly parents out of one of the rooms.
‘This is yours. You can stay in here. Do not go out. I will return later with some food.’
They sat in the room and waited. Through a small opening in the wall, the sun shone in; a square patch of weakening daylight climbed the stone wall opposite as it began to set.
‘Do you hear that, Bob?’
He nodded. It was the distant sound of raised voices, the clatter of shields, the occasional ring of a blade. Rioting in the upper city.
‘We caused that one as well.’ Liam sighed. ‘So much for discretion.’
Linus returned an hour later with a basket of bread and a flask of olive oil, and the man with the thick dark beard.
‘This is Isaac.’ The two men sat down with them and Linus handed the food out.
‘The people are rioting in several other places,’ grinned Isaac. ‘Your arrival in Jerusalem has finally encouraged them to rise up and be heard.’ He looked at Bob. ‘This “man” … what is his name?’
‘Bob.’
‘Bob?’ Isaac and Linus looked at each other. They both tried out the name again. ‘Bob?’ Isaac shrugged. ‘A strange name.’ He turned to Liam. ‘Bob … he is not a mortal man, is he?’
‘No.’
Both men gasped. ‘Then … he must be an angel? A creation of God?’
Liam shook his head. Both men watched curiously as Liam whispered to himself, seemed to listen for an answer, then finally spoke. ‘Linus … Isaac, you must understand, there’s been a lot of confusion today. I am not who you think I am.’
Linus stared intensely at him. ‘You are the one we have heard much about. The healer, the performer of miracles. The one who is God’s son.’
‘There is such a man, but it’s not me.’ Liam shook his head. ‘I’m just a normal person. The one you want is called Jesus, and he’s out there somewhere in this city.’
‘No!’ Isaac shook his head. ‘I was there! I saw you in the temple grounds this morning. You and this giant, turning the moneylenders’ tables over. Challenging the priests …’
Liam shook his head. ‘No. That other man wasn’t me.’
‘I saw you and him … and the others who joined you break through the Romans like they were frightened old women. I saw you escape from the temple grounds.’
‘Yes … yes, that bit was me. But –’
Again Isaac looked at Bob. ‘This one took an arrow through his neck … and yet he is alive still. You have healed him. Or he is blessed –’
Linus cut in. ‘And we both witnessed you create a pillar of light out of darkness.’
Both men stared at Liam intensely.
‘Why are you denying these miracles?’ asked Linus. ‘Do you not trust us?’
Liam wondered how best to explain himself. He could have a stab at the truth, but explaining time travel, the far future, what exactly Bob was … how a simple torch worked, all of that would be impossible to describe to them without it sounding other-worldly and supernatural. He might as well just say they were angels sent by God. Far more importantly, he needed to steer things back in the right direction. Today’s big mess may already have thrown history right off the rails. The people of Jerusalem were now busy chattering about a giant and a small pale guy, and not about a certain carpenter’s son called Jesus.
He needed to point these two men in the right direction.
‘There is a real prophet in the city right now. He’s the one with all the words coming directly from God. Me? This giant? We’re just … travellers from afar.’
‘You are more than just travellers,’ said Isaac.
‘No. Think of us … as witnesses.’ Liam looked at their disbelieving faces.
They want to hear something more impressive than that.
‘Think of us as heavenly assistants. We came to make sure that God’s messenger is heard by everyone.’
Linus’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
‘The man you were talking about, Linus?’ continued Liam. ‘The speaker, the healer from Nazareth? That’s not me. Trust me, there is another man. He was at the temple this morning. He was the one who first turned a table over. But there was a confusion … where there shouldn’t have been. Confusion … and in that confusion –’ Liam looked at Isaac – ‘you have simply mistaken me for him.’
‘But … you. And your friend –’
‘We should have been watching. From a distance. That’s all.’ Liam shrugged. ‘But even angels can make mistakes.’
‘Who is this man, then?’
‘His name is Jesus,’ Liam said again. ‘You have to listen to him … not to me. He is the one with the answers. He’s the one with a very, very important message from God.’
Linus leaned forward. ‘Do you know … do you know what his message is?’
Liam shook his head. ‘Only … that what he says will change everything. Everything you have been told by your leaders … it’s all wrong. It’s all lies. Jesus is the one with the answers.’
Both men’s eyes widened.
‘And only this one man can tell you.’
‘Where … where is this man, this Jesus?’
‘I don’t know. In Jerusalem somewhere. I think he’s safe. He had some men with him. Some followers. But tomorrow I think you’ll find him …’ Liam looked to Bob to help him out.
‘On the Mount of Olives,’ he whispered hoarsely.
‘That’s right. The Mount of Olives,’ said Liam. ‘In the morning. He’ll be out there …’
I hope. He wondered if they’d already altered history too much. Perhaps the riot in the temple might have changed Jesus’s plans.
‘He will be talking to the small group of followers who came with him. But … you have to spread the word. His message has to be heard before it’s too late.’ Liam almost blurted out that Jesus only had a few days left before he was destined to be betrayed by a disciple, arrested and crucified. ‘Tonight … tell as many people as you can that Jesus from Nazareth will be out there tomorrow and ready to reveal the important message he’s brought from God. He’s going to tell everyone.’
‘And what of you and the giant?’
‘We must be there too. To watch over him. But … this time, we’ll watch from a distance. That’s our job.’
Linus nodded slowly. ‘That is your work, as … as commanded by God?’
Liam glanced at Bob. ‘Yes. As commanded by God.’
CHAPTER 43
2070, Rocky Mountains
Maddy awoke, starving. Last night’s stodgy soy-flake stew had sated her hunger enough for her to finally drift off to sleep. But during the night her stomach had clearly made quick work of it and was now grumbling for breakfast.
The fire had gone out. The sky was overcast: a muddy brown that threatened drizzle. Heywood was awake; Rashim was still out for the count and snoring. He’d rolled over in his sleep and now one cheek was flat against the ground. The white dust of the viral residue was plastered like flour across his forehead and cheeks.
She nudged him with her
foot and he stirred. ‘Wake up, sleepy.’
Rashim yawned, rubbed his eyes and opened them. ‘We have about eight miles to cover today.’
Heywood peeled off his sleeping bag. ‘We’ll get there today if we make an early start.’
Maddy nodded. ‘Breakfast, then.’ She looked at the trailer. ‘Anyone fancy that soyo-broth again?’
‘You really wanna fuss with makin’ another fire and boilin’ up some water?’ Heywood made a face. ‘That’ll take us at least an hour.’ He got up with an old man’s grunt and wandered with stiff legs over to the trailer. ‘Why don’t we take our pick an’ see what’s in these ol’ cans?’ He pulled out a penknife. ‘It may be cold … but it’s still food.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
Rashim rubbed the dust from his face. ‘This residue is disgusting.’
The silent forest now echoed with the tak-tak-tak of Heywood banging holes into the lid of one of the tins. He wedged the blade of his knife into one of the holes and see-sawed the serrated side until he’d created a jagged edge he could bend back. ‘Reckon this one looks like it’s got green beans in here. Anyone want greens for breakfast?’
Rashim curled his lip. So did Maddy.