I could … I can … go anywhere I want.
She could hear the surging whine of energy building up in the lab.
Decision time. One shot. One chance. No take-backs. No second chances. Where I choose to go, I’m going to be there for the rest of my life.
So maybe this was finally it: her chance to live a normal life. Surely she’d earned that right by now, hadn’t she? After all the crud, the heartache she’d been through. Surely …?
She stepped through the doorway, down the short dark passage, and joined Becks in the lab.
‘The displacement machine is now charging.’
‘Becks?’
The support unit stopped what she was doing and looked up at her.
‘You know, you have a choice too. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘I have a choice?’ She said that like she was questioning the idea.
‘Of course you do! You’re not my slave. Or Liam’s. Or Waldstein’s.’ Maddy came round one of the desks towards her. ‘In the end, we’re no different, you and me. Right?’ She laughed. ‘You know what? We’re just two orphans now. That’s us … just two lost girls looking for a place to call home.’
Becks frowned. ‘I do not know what to choose.’
‘You don’t have to come with me, Becks. You don’t have to go to Liam. You’re free to go wherever the hell you want!’
‘I do not … know what to choose, Maddy.’
‘Well, OK.’
Time … time … we’re running out of time!
‘OK, what would make you happy, Becks?’
‘Happy?’ Happiness – she cocked her head at such a curious notion. She stood up straight, and her grey eyes seemed to lose their intense focus for a moment as she pondered that. ‘Mission priorities being met. Data compressed cleanly and filed correctly … things being tidy.’
Maddy chuckled at that. ‘Seriously? Things being tidy?’
Becks nodded. ‘And …’
‘And what?’
Becks’s face seemed to colour ever so slightly. ‘Being … needed.’
Needed?
‘My God? Becks? Seriously?’
She nodded, looking almost sheepish.
‘Do you realize how … human a thing that is to say?’
‘Humans prefer to serve?’
‘No, not serve … but … we just … it’s hard to explain.’ Maddy thought she understood what Becks meant by that one word – having someone not just to be close to, but having someone that you know … just know … isn’t going to make it through life without you being there for them. Maybe that’s what home is … a place that eventually falls into disrepair and collapses into dust without you to care for and nurture it. A place … or a person.
‘So, all right. Think … who do you reckon needs you most, Becks? Is it Liam? Do you want to go back and be with Liam?’
She narrowed her eyes for a moment. ‘It is Bob … I think. His AI has room for further development. I believe he still processes emotional thought as heuristic logic.’ She frowned. ‘I would like to help him appear more human.’
‘OK … that’s good, that’s –’
‘And there is also Liam. I believe he needs me too. He is rash, impulsive. He needs tactical guidance.’ Becks huffed and looked at Maddy. ‘Men … huh?’
Maddy laughed at that. She had no idea where Becks had heard that. A sitcom perhaps, or a film.
‘And who is the person who needs you most, Maddy?’
She shrugged. ‘I … I’m not sure.’
‘Liam’s message was clear: our choice has to be made quickly.’
‘I know … I know!’
Becks looked at the display screen. The energy-storage bar was showing enough charge for a portal to be opened. ‘We should hurry up, Maddy.’
‘I know!’ She shook her head. ‘I guess we’d better be quick.’ She looked around Waldstein’s secret lab. ‘Last place I want to be frikkin’ well stuck forever is right here.’
Becks reached across to the screen and started tapping in data. ‘Do you know where you want to go, Maddy?’
Time to decide, Maddy. Tick tock. Tick tock.
‘All right.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, OK … I know …’
CHAPTER 59
First century, Jerusalem
They found another way out from the labyrinthine catacombs. Rather than having to come out via the temple, they’d found a path that led them to daylight via a winding route which had eventually taken them into the city’s sewer system. The blinding sunlight made Liam’s eyes water as they emerged into the warm light of a new dawning day. Above them a tall brick archway supported an aqueduct leading across the shallow dip of the Kidron Valley over the high wall and into the city.
Ahead of them, as they looked east, they watched the sun, molten and liquid like a ball of lava, slowly rise above the shimmering brow of the Mount of Olives.
‘Do you think our message got through?’
Before leaving, they’d headed up to the archive of religious texts stored beneath the temple, each scroll of parchment carefully rolled on a wooden pin, tied up and sealed with a wax tablet and placed in a clay jar. One day, a thousand years from now, an army of mercenaries and crusaders would be rampaging through this freshly taken city, burning, looting and far, far worse. Few places would remain untouched by it. The catacombs beneath this temple, the holiest of holies, would be one of the few places left intact … and two brothers by the name of Treyarch would discover the archive and, united by their desire for atonement and forgiveness, would determine to protect the holy building – now part synagogue, part church, part mosque – from the rampaging mercenaries. More importantly, they would discover a particular scroll, yellowed and brittle and cracked with age.
‘We will know this soon enough,’ said Bob. He nodded at the hillside.
They made their way up the gentle slope, past goatherds, merchants, traders and pilgrims flocking into the city for the coming Passover. Liam paused to rest for a moment. He turned round to look at the walled city. Its pale stonework was coloured peach by the rising sun. The myriad flat terrace roofs spilled threads of smoke from chimneys into the clear blue sky. He studied the high walls of the temple compound, the tall temple building in the middle of it.
Look out, you lot in there … a big change is coming. Somewhere, a dozen miles north of them, a man with a message worth hearing was travelling from one small town to another, attracting a modest band of followers and the growing concern of the Pharisees in that building.
They reached the first row of trees and picked their way through the dappled light and shade of the olive grove, walking uphill until finally Bob came to a halt. ‘This is the location.’
Liam looked around. Yes. This was where they’d arrived. There was the bush, the stunted olive tree. Weary from the climb, he sat down on a flat rock, shuffling on it until he was vaguely comfortable. Bob settled down on the ground beside him.
They listened to the faint calls of people on the dirt track below, the distant market hubbub coming from the city, the twitter of sparrows in the trees, the chirruping of grasshoppers.
‘So, Liam, you said our mission now is to steer the next two thousand years of history in a different direction?’
‘Aye. There’s work to be done, Bob. We’ve got just one shot at this.’
‘We are not preserving history any more, we are –’
‘Hell with that! We are writing history. A brand-new one.’
Bob nodded slowly, reconfiguring his priorities, rules. ‘I understand,’ he said presently.
‘We’ve got two thousand years to play with and by the end of it we’d better bloody well not be fighting each other still … or it really will be over for the lot of us.’
Bob nodded thoughtfully. ‘So, your plan is to replace Jesus as the Christian prophet? To create a new religious faith?’
‘No!’ Liam shook his head. ‘No … I … I wouldn’t know what the hell to say. I wouldn’t know where to sta
rt with any of that. I’m not prophet-material.’
As they’d picked their way through the labyrinth of tunnels, he’d explained to Bob what he’d seen and heard: the Caretaker, the conversation … the tachyon beam being deactivated, an end to time travel … and this last chance for humankind to get it right.
Bob’s frown deepened. ‘Then what is your plan?’
Liam shrugged. ‘I don’t think we need to come up with anything new. It’s all there already, I think. And it’s good.’
‘I do not understand. Please clarify.’
‘The way we should behave to each other? The once-and-for-all guide to how we should all live our lives? I’d say it’s all there in what I heard him preaching. I don’t think I’d change a single word of what Jesus was telling those people.’ He shrugged. ‘I think he’s got it just about right.’
‘Then … you will not be altering history?’
‘Oh, but we will, Bob. We are going to completely change history. We have to.’
‘Please clarify how this will happen if you don’t intend to alter the message that Jesus is –’
Liam absently picked up a dried twig. ‘We’re going to make sure it all gets written down … exactly as he says it.’ He started idly drawing circles in the dusty soil. ‘See now, what I heard him say on the hillside? It all made perfect sense to me. As a guide for living?’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t say I’ve heard anyone put it much better than Jesus did.’
‘So your plan is that we write down what he says?’
‘Aye. We’re gonna record it … faithfully. Accurately. Honestly. Word for word.’
‘We are to write a new Bible?’
‘I suppose … yes. That’s it. That’ll be our plan. We’ll be the authors of the Bible. A brand-new one.’
That would at least be a start. Theirs was going to be a true account of the story of Jesus, a far more reliable record than the old one, comprised as it was of second- or third-hand accounts written decades and even hundreds of years after the man’s death.
Liam wondered if they could do more than just that, though. Perhaps they should alter the way things were going to go over the coming week. What if they actually saved Jesus from crucifixion? Spirited him away from that grisly end. How different might the world be if he went on to live and spread his message for another twenty or thirty years? After all … last time round he’d had only seven days in Jerusalem to make his mark. Just seven days to educate us.
Or is that the point? Does he have to die … become a martyr in order for his words to leave a lasting legacy?
Liam had no idea. Foster … the Caretaker … had been quite specific. He’d said history could be changed. In fact, he’d said history MUST be changed. And … the sooner history went off the rails and trundled in a brand-new direction, the better.
Perhaps that’s what they’d do, then. Perhaps that was their mission now: to protect Jesus. Make sure he got more than just a few precious days to get his teachings out there. They were going to be his bodyguards … More than that, they were going to be his chroniclers, his archivists, his biographers. Perhaps even his close friends. If there was one thing he and Bob could do with the lifetime they had left, it would be to ensure Jesus’s message would guide mankind towards its eventual judgement day. That those words weren’t going to be fabricated, mis-translated and wilfully misinterpreted by people centuries from now with dark hearts and darker goals.
He looked down at the dusty ground beneath his feet. Absently he’d been drawing a twisted loop, like a figure of eight lying on its side. He smiled … he recognized that it was the symbol for infinity.
Only infinity, eternity … would be ending very soon. No more chaos space. No more torment of a forever for Sal and countless others caught in that artificial hell.
With one hand, he began to scrub out the symbol … despising the torment it represented. But he stopped. He’d brushed away just the start of the loop on the right and now what remained of it looked just a little bit like the symbol for a fish.
A fish … or the broken open end of an eternal loop.
Maybe we could use that as a symbol? The broken loop.
A symbol of the new faith, not a cross this time, representing a grisly death, but a broken loop – a reminder to mankind for the next two millennia. A reminder that there were going to be no more chances, no more take-backs, that this time round was our very last time to get our lives right.
A fresh and cooling breeze made the brittle leaves around them whisper. He looked up at Bob. The support unit gave him a crude, thick-lipped smile.
One day, hopefully, he was going to finally get that right; he might even look less than terrifying. ‘Liam … I am picking up precursor tachyon particles. A portal is due to open.’
‘Good … looks like they got our message, then.’
Liam looked up at the air above the dry ground, where he expected to see it open. It began to shimmer like the air above a campfire. Suddenly a six-foot-wide sphere inflated from a mere pinprick; it hung in the air before him. Its surface rippled and undulated, and in the swirling oil-colour pattern he thought he could see ceiling strip lights and dangling loops of electrical flex, the pale walls of a small room … and the dark outline of … what …? One figure – was there more than one? – standing there.
He waved at them. ‘Come on, then! You coming through or what?’
‘Do not be scared, ducks,’ grunted Bob. ‘Cluck … cluck … cluck.’
Liam looked at him.
‘That was not amusing, Liam?’
‘Not really. Anyway, it’s meant to be chickens … not ducks.’
Bob gave that a moment’s thought, then his deep voice rumbled softly and his meaty shoulders shook and his thick horse-lips parted. ‘Chickens. I see. That is amusing.’
CHAPTER 60
1994, UEA campus, Norwich
In a dark alleyway beside the service entrance to a municipal swimming pool, a fox rummages through tied-up bin bags of rubbish, a light rain hisses against wet tarmac and, far off, a police siren wails insistently.
Just a normal Tuesday morning. Just another day, five hours from breaking daylight. But this world is never truly asleep. In New York, it’s eight at night, the streets busy and noisy with the last late-working commuters heading home and the early party people coming out. In Mumbai, it is seven in the morning and the streets are already busy with bicycles and rickshaws and exhaust-spewing cars. In Israel, it is four in the morning, one hour before the first Muslim call to prayer can be heard echoing from tinny PA systems above the terraces and rooftops of Jerusalem.
But right here it is quiet. Everyone’s fast asleep. Silent, except for the soft hiss of rain, and the rustle of a plastic bag being pulled around by a hungry fox.
Then something stirs. A fresh breeze from apparently nowhere, a breeze that stirs loose rubbish into a lazy catch-me-if-you-can circle … just a playful breeze … or, perhaps, something more than that …?
Author’s Note
Well, here you are then … finally. I’ve been waiting here for you at THE END for the last five years. What took you so frikkin’ long?
All right, already … just messing.
Well, sort of. Because it’s been a bit like that, knowing how it all ends and not being able to share that ending with anyone (I mean ANYONE … not my agent, my editor, my family, my best friend, my dog, etc., etc.) until now. It’s been so-o-o hard not letting anything slip out!
I’ve been quietly watching friends and fans theorizing online, posting on Twitter, Facebook and on the TimeRiders website that they know already how this whole thing ends. Quietly watching, reading … and, of course, cackling to myself. I’ve often been asked if I knew how the series would end from the start and the short answer is … yes. Longer answer is that I knew how it all ended before I started writing the very first chapter. (Remember that one? Liam? Aboard the Titanic? Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?) With a story involving time travel, you really do need to k
now how it all ends before it starts. Time travel’s like that.
So, the majority of the story was carefully planned; however, along the way, some events did actually surprise me. For example, Rashim … he was never initially meant to tag along with the team. He was actually meant to be a walk-on character in the fifth book, The Gates of Rome, and then quickly dispensed with. But I just, well, warmed to the guy. No, it wasn’t that; it was Liam, Maddy and Sal who warmed to the guy. So I had to listen to them. They were nagging me to recruit him into their story.
That sounds a bit weird, I suppose. But, really, that’s how it’s been with this series. And, you know, I’ve never had that before, not with my adult books – the characters actually becoming real people in my mind. Coming alive, off the page, entering my head and chattering away even when I’ve finished writing for the day. Hence the dedication at the beginning of this last book. So, although this series has finished, they’re certainly not gone. In fact, they’re alive and well and stuck somewhere back in the first century, jotting down the wise, common-sense words of a certain bloke called Jesus. Making sure their account of his life and his message is free of any potential misinterpretations and ambiguities that might be exploited by kings, emperors, caliphs, princes, priests, presidents and prime ministers, down the line.
Liam and the others are going to be steering the next two thousand years of our history, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to do a better job than humanity has done thus far. What will this last loop of history be like, I wonder?
Well, that’s what I’d like you to ponder. In fact, this is my request of you, Dear Reader … to imagine, perhaps even put into words on paper (or online) what they might get up to in the past, what their actions might change, how the timeline might alter, what today might be like because of them, because of the wisdom they choose to write.