TimeRiders: City of Shadows (Book 6) (8 page)

‘Hey … p-please! Don’t
sh-shoot, man!’ the other cop pleaded, his hand and finger still twisted in
Abel’s firm grasp.

‘Do you have the vehicle ignition
key?’

‘It’s in the c-car, man!’
He grimaced in agony. ‘It’s in the car!’

Abel shot a Bluetooth instruction to Faith
and she changed direction towards the squad car.

‘You will not discuss this intervention
with anyone,’ said Abel.

‘Whuh?’ Then the cop understood
and nodded vigorously. ‘No! OK! Sure … I … I won’t
d-discuss this. I promise.’

‘Your promise is not required,’
said Abel. Then he calmly shot the second cop dead.

He noted the pedestrians nearby staring at
him. Frozen with shock. It would take too much valuable time to pursue them all and kill
them. He decided so many eyewitnesses were an unfortunate collateral contamination, but
nothing that could be helped.

The squad car rattled to life as Faith
settled into the driver’s seat. Its siren squawked for a second before it was
turned off. Abel made his way over, pulled the passenger side open and got in beside
Faith. The car rocked under his weight.

‘Boston,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Please proceed.’

11 September 2001, Interstate 95,
south-west Connecticut

Liam had watched as the Bronx became a
suburban carpet of gradually more expensive homes interspersed with out-of-town
superstores fronted by acres of car park as the RV crawled north-east along Interstate
278, then along 95. It was slow progress for the day, bumper to bumper past slip-road
after slip-road; police blockades and random vehicle searches had reduced the traffic to
a crawl. They’d stopped once for petrol at lunchtime then finally hit some clear
road beyond New Rochelle.

‘It’s all new to me too,’
said Foster quietly. ‘All I’ve ever seen of this world is New
York.’

Liam nodded. ‘You never been tempted
to take yourself off and have a look around?’

Foster looked at him. ‘Have
you?’

‘I’ve not had any time. Feels
like we’ve been dealing with one problem after another since you pulled me off the
Titanic
.’

He realized, though, that the old
man’s question was an invitation for him to talk about what they now both knew but
had yet to talk to each other about.

‘She told me,’ said Liam.
‘Maddy told me you’re … 
me
.’ He shook his head.
‘Or I’m you, or however I’m meant to say it.’

‘I’m how you’ll become,
Liam. We’re the same person on either end of a number of years, lad.’

‘That’s what I can’t get me
head straight about, Mr Foster. It’s …’ He paused. ‘Or do I call
you Liam now?’

‘Just
Foster
,’ he
answered with a smile. ‘I’ve been used to that name for some time
now.’

‘So …’ Liam looked out of
the scuffed perspex window at a Greyhound bus, its windscreen striped with the reflected
glow of street lights passing overhead.

‘Do you remember all the same things
as me?’

‘Up to a point.’

‘Cork? St Michael’s School for
Boys?’

Foster nodded.

‘Sean McGuire and that stupid party
trick of his with the three apples?’

The old man grinned. ‘He was never
very good at it, was he?’

They both laughed. Liam felt odd. Memories,
personal memories that he hadn’t shared with anyone, and yet this man knew them as
intimately as he did. It was like talking to himself. Yet hearing a wizened, croaky
version of his own voice coming back at him.

‘You remember getting the
steward’s job with the White Star Line?’

‘Yes,’ Foster replied. ‘We
got the job only because that other Irish lad was caught drinking on duty before the
ship set sail. Remember his name?
Oliver
, wasn’t it?’

‘Aye.’ Liam smiled.
‘Stupid fella didn’t realize he was breathin’ his fumes all over the
Chief Steward.’

The RV halted in traffic, causing everyone
inside to lurch gently as Bob applied the brakes a little too keenly. A plastic bag full
of unlaundered underwear slid off a seat into the cluttered aisle.

‘So you remember that night as
well?’

Foster closed his eyes. ‘The night the
Titanic
went down? Of
course I do. How does anyone ever
forget something like that? I think what stays with me, Liam, what has stayed with me,
was the calm before all the screaming. When everyone was certain there’d be
lifeboats for all; that it wouldn’t come down to the type of ticket you’d
bought.’

‘Aye.’

‘It came suddenly, so it did. The
panic. You remember that?’

Liam nodded. It had. One moment
there’d been order and calm across the promenade deck, even the calming sound of a
string quartet playing. People talking excitedly about how this was going to be the news
story of the day tomorrow; how their eyewitness accounts – from the comfort of their
bobbing lifeboats – of the Unsinkable Ship slowly, gracefully surrendering to the sea
would be in every newspaper around the world. No panic. Not yet.

And then word had spread among them like
wildfire. Chinese whispers. Not enough lifeboats for everyone.
Not nearly
enough.

Then the panic. The horrible panic.

A thought occurred to Liam. ‘So,
Foster … were you recruited just like me? The same way?’

He could see a glint of light reflected in
Foster’s eyes. The glare of passing headlights on his drawn face. ‘Yes. Yes,
of course. I was down checking on the second-class cabins.’

‘And you were young, like
me?’

‘A bit younger than you are now,
Liam.’

Of course. Liam knew that. Felt that now. No
longer a young lad of sixteen, but subtly older in a million barely noticeable little
ways. A man, prematurely.

‘And was it an older version of
you … that recruited you?’

Foster hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘But does that mean I’m in some
kind of a loop that goes on and on? That I’ll get old like you, change my name to
Foster,
and then one day send myself back to 1912 to pick up another
me? Is that it?’

‘No. Not a loop exactly.’

‘Then what?’

Foster looked at Maddy sitting up front in
the passenger seat beside Bob. ‘She’s going to find out soon enough. If we
keep heading this way.’

Liam turned to follow his gaze, looking at
the back of her head. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Foster reached out to Liam and rested a
fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘Liam, it’s all going to come clear for you
soon enough. Perhaps far too soon.’

‘Oh, come on, Foster! Will you just
tell me –’

‘She’s going to learn.’
Foster lowered his voice just for Liam to hear. ‘And so is Sal. They’re both
going to learn the truth. And it’s going to be hard for them. Much harder than it
will be for you.’

‘Why? What do you mean?
What’s
going to be hard?’

‘Liam, you’ll
cope … because I know
I
coped. And I carried on the agency’s
work. I carried on doing the work Waldstein needs us to do.’

‘Jay-zus, you’re
annoying!’ Liam hissed. ‘Just tell me! What are you talking
about?’

Foster shook his head. ‘Maybe
it’s best for the girls if they find out this way.’ He patted Liam’s
arm. ‘Trust me … I think it’s for the best. You’ll learn the
truth together.’

Sal sat near the front of the RV, the
female support unit sitting dull-eyed and vacant beside her. It wasn’t Becks yet,
she’d decided. It wasn’t going to be
Becks
properly until
they’d uploaded her AI. For now, this thing was just a spare female support unit.
A blank-minded one at that.

‘That’s a gene-silicon
hybrid,’ said SpongeBubba chirpily.

‘I know,’ said Sal.

‘We had two dozen of those units on
Project Exodus!’ The lab robot’s goofy plastic grin widened. ‘They
were spooky!’ Its bauble-round eyes gazed at her curiously. ‘What’s
wrong with
your
gene-silicon hybrid unit?’

‘She’s got a name, you
know,’ said Sal, suddenly feeling protective. ‘We call her Becks.’

‘Becks?’ If the squat,
square-shaped lab unit had had shoulders, he’d have shrugged them. Instead, wide,
rolling, expressionless eyes above a fixed frozen grin regarded her. ‘Hello,
Becks! My name’s SpongeBubba!’

The support unit’s grey eyes remained
unfocused, unblinking, unintelligent. Fixed and lifeless. Her young face a frozen frown
of incomprehension.

‘Hello, Becks! My name’s
SpongeBubba!’ the lab unit chirped again.

‘She’s not been installed
properly,’ said Sal. ‘She doesn’t know her name yet.’ Sal
sighed. ‘She can’t speak anyway.’

SpongeBubba stroked his pickle-shaped nose,
a gesture he must have picked up from Rashim. ‘My model, Mitzumi HL-327 LabAssist
V4.7, comes with language modules and laboratory protocols pre-installed!’

‘Well, aren’t you
lucky.’

‘I didn’t have to have software
installed in me after manufacture. I was function-ready!’ SpongeBubba sounded like
a spoilt brat.

‘Well, at least Becks doesn’t
look really stupid.’

‘My model comes with a polyform
plastic casing and a library of programmable templates. Dr Anwar hacked the template
code to make me look this special way!’ SpongeBubba stroked his nose again.
‘He says I’m different to any other
Mitzumi unit because he
hacked my template code! Skippa says I’m
unique
!’

Sal glanced at Rashim. He was stretched out
on the seat opposite, fast asleep.

‘And your voice code too? Is that his
work or do all you models talk like this?’ Sal wondered how Rashim managed to cope
with SpongeBubba’s squeaky, high-pitched voice and permanent false cheeriness. Fun
for a while perhaps, but already she was finding the thing incredibly irritating.

‘Oh no! My voice was approximated from
a few audio files made from a children’s cartoon show that used to be on cable TV
at the beginning of the twenty-first century! My voice is very special!’

‘Can you use that special voice of
yours quietly?’

‘Oh yes! My volume output can be
modulated!’

‘Well, how about you turn it down for
me?’

‘Uh-uh.’ SpongeBubba wagged a
finger at her. ‘Only skippa can adjust my user settings.’

Sal wondered how Rashim could sleep so
readily. She toyed with the idea of waking him up and asking him to turn SpongeBubba off
or mute him somehow. The robot was still staring at her, that stupid buck-toothed
smile.

‘Shadd-yah! Are you always
so … so perky and annoying?’

‘Perky?’

‘Happy.’

SpongeBubba shook his whole body, his
version of a headshake. ‘No. I have no capacity to emulate human emotions. My
model doesn’t require that! There is a similar model designed as a domestic
support unit for civilian use. That unit is installed with gesture and mood recognition
and replication code. But Dr Anwar says that’s a pointless waste of install space
since if you know a robot’s a robot why pretend it can have feelings?’

‘So you’re not really happy, then?
You’re just designed to look that way.’

SpongeBubba stared at her, an unwavering,
goofy smile. ‘Dr Anwar designed me.’

Sal couldn’t work out if the robot was
blaming his owner, or just stating a fact.

Becks pointed at something she’d seen
through the windscreen. ‘Urggh … ge fug, duf,’ she gurgled
excitedly and pointed.

Sal nodded, pulled her hand gently down and
settled her. ‘Yes … cars, that’s right. Nice shiny
cars.’

Why me?
She shook her head.
Why
do I get to babysit these two morons?

‘We’re going to have to stop
for gas again pretty soon,’ said Maddy. The gauge was showing just under the
quarter bar. ‘Maybe we should pull over for the night. Find a motel. We’re
far enough away to be safe now, aren’t we?’

Bob nodded. ‘We are probably far
enough to be safe.’

Even now, so late, ahead of them was a sea
of traffic, red brake lights winking on and off as vehicles inched forward.

‘What do you think they’ll do?
Do you think they’ll keep coming after us?’

‘I have no information on their
mission parameters.’

‘But if, say,
you
were sent
to kill us, what would you be doing?’

‘I would persist until the mission
parameters were satisfied, of course.’

‘How would you go about that, Bob? For
example … what would you be doing right now?’

Bob scowled. Thinking. ‘I would
attempt to intercept police radio communications for references to stolen vehicles in
the vicinity of the archway. I would be searching the archway for
items
of useful intelligence.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘We left in a hurry. We
cannot be certain we have not left behind some information that could lead them to
us.’

He was right. They
had
left in a
hurry, a careless scramble to grab all their essentials. God knows what they’d
left behind, what fragments of information lay scattered around in their wake.
Maddy’s head began to throb with renewed stress.

She sat in silence for a while, her fingers
caressing her temples. She looked down into the stationary cars on either side of them.
The glow of radio tuners on dashboards. She imagined every single driver in every
vehicle on this road was tuned into a news station and listening to reporters recap the
day’s terrifying events. Late-night talk radio stations venting unbridled rage at
this cowardly attack on innocent American civilians. Experts hurried into studios to try
and make sense of things. Because that’s what everyone needed to have right now,
wasn’t it? Another explanation.

Why? Why are we being attacked? What did we
do to deserve this?

Of course, Maddy had been pulled from a time
– 2010 – when a lot of thinking had been done on why 9/11 had happened. The fact that
there had been warning signs. The fact that there had been people in the FBI, the CIA
screaming warnings to President Bush back in 2000 that something like this
Was.
Going. To. Happen. Imminently
. Maddy came from a time when there was
perspective,
hindsight
, on this day; from a time when everyone understood that
a terrorist attack on America was inevitable. But for the people in these cars all
around them this whole nightmare was still – and would be for years yet – a bewildering
and terrifying mystery.