The Eternal War

quite clearly were intent on taking him back to his hopeless, back-breaking and dead-end life in New Orleans, his mind continued to spin like a yarn wheel at the incredible sights and smells and sounds all around him.

This is the future of America, he told himself … the future, the future, the future … his feet slapping pavement to the rhythm of his mantra. He felt as excited as a dog with two tails.

This is the future! And, by Jove … I think I like the look of it!

CHAPTER 16

2001, New York

‘Oh, come on … you’ve gotta be kidding!’ Maddy slammed her hand on the desk, exasperated. ‘You lost him? Both of you? You actually lost him?’

Becks and Bob stood side by side, both still gasping from the aborted pursuit.

‘Abraham Lincoln is very fast,’ said Becks, a hint of shame in her voice.

‘Yes, and you — and numb-nuts here — are both meant to be superhumans! You know? Super-strong? Super-fast? That kinda thing?’

‘His sudden departure was not something that could be predicted,’ muttered Bob, like a scolded schoolboy. ‘He appeared to be unconscious.’

‘Perhaps he was faking it?’ said Sal. ‘Listening to what we were saying?’

Liam nodded. ‘And didn’t fancy going back home.’

‘Well … duh,’ sighed Maddy, removing her glasses and pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘You really think?’

Liam missed the sarcasm in her voice. ‘Yup, that’s what I think.’

‘Oh crud.’ She slumped down in one of the office chairs. ‘So how’re we going to find him now? He could be anywhere in New York.’

The five of them stood in a silent tableau for a while. In the background several TV stations quietly babbled the evening news to themselves.

‘Why are we so completely rubbish?’ Maddy muttered rhetorically. ‘Super-secret time-travel-prevention agency? I’ll tell you what we are … a freakin’ joke. That’s us. Three clueless kids and a couple of trained monkeys.’ She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes and started massaging away an emerging migraine with the tips of her fingers.

‘Well, to look at it this way,’ said Liam presently, ‘he’s a tall mouthy fella, so he is, wearing clothes from the last century. Someone’s going to notice him soon enough.’

‘And your point is?’

Liam shrugged. ‘He might cause a scene and end up on one of ’em news stations?’

‘Or get himself arrested,’ added Sal. ‘Weirdo like that.’

Maddy shook her head irritably. ‘This is New York, Sal. It’s all weirdos.’

‘But he’s got a mouth on him, so he has,’ said Liam. ‘I fancy that’ll land him in trouble with a policeman soon enough.’

An attitude. He has that all right.

Maddy suddenly opened her eyes. ‘Oh God! And lead the police right here! Right to our door!’

‘Information: we can establish an unencrypted and open link to the NYPD incident-report database,’ said Bob.

‘We could monitor this and respond to any relevant coms traffic,’ added Becks quickly. The pair of them were like two chastised children, both desperately seeking to redeem themselves.

Maddy sat forward, the chair creaking with the sudden lurch of movement. ‘OK, yeah, that’s … that’s something we can do.’

She turned towards the computer monitors and saw computer-Bob was already in the process of establishing a handshake link to the New York Police Department’s computer system.

‘Good boy, computer-Bob.’ She turned back to the others. ‘And maybe we’ll find him anyway, right? I mean he’s got no money so he can’t get a cab or a bus or a train. And he isn’t going to get a room anywhere looking the way he does. Thing is … where might he head?’

‘Over the bridge,’ said Sal. ‘Towards Manhattan … towards the bright lights.’

Liam nodded. ‘It’s what I would’ve done on me first night. You just want to see all that up close.’

‘Yeah …’ Maddy pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘He really did seem to like the big buildings. OK, then. Right, here’s what we do. We’ll split up and search for him. Bob and Sal, you two head over the bridge and go north up Bowery, Fourth and Broadway towards Times Square. Liam and Becks, you head down towards Wall Street. Those are the two glowiest, shiniest parts of town, right? Hopefully, he’ll make like a big dumb moth and head to one of those two places. If we’re lucky.’

She fumbled among the detritus and rubbish on the desk and found what she was looking for. She tossed Liam and Sal a mobile phone each. ‘I’ll monitor the police call-ins here. If we get a likely candidate, I’ll dial it in.’

Liam frowned. ‘Dial it in?’

‘Call you! On the phone … the thing in your hand! I’ll call you on that!’

‘Ahh.’ He nodded. ‘Right you are.’

‘So, is that clear, everyone?’

Four nodding heads.

‘And, Sal, Liam … Bob. Get changed back into your normal clothes. Quick as you can. You look like a convention of Quakers or something.’

CHAPTER 17

2001, New York

Lincoln stood in awe at the confusion of blinking, fizzing, flickering multicoloured lights, the neon signs in Chinese, pedestrian crossings blinking WALK and DON’T WALK, the cars and cabs looking to his eyes like impossible devices that shouldn’t be able to move on their own without the aid of horses in front — and yet they did.

His ears were filled with a riot of alien sounds, sounds he couldn’t begin to make sense of: a rhythmic pounding that spilled out of the back of a vehicle as it rolled past him, a noise so deep he felt his chest shuddering in synchronicity; the pavements and street filled with people speaking languages from all over the world, so it seemed, every one of them holding slim and shiny pebble-shaped contraptions to their ears and talking into them or alternately looking intently at their tiny glowing surfaces.

Languages, so many of them, but the most perplexing ones were those he had an inkling were some form of unidentifiable English. He could make sense of fleeting bits and pieces said, phrases shouted out from one side of the street to the other and peppered with words he couldn’t begin to try to decipher.

It was awe at first, and pride, that almost had him crying. Pride that his nation, his fellow Americans, ambitious and brave men and women, pioneers, adventurers and entrepreneurs, all of them, would one day build something so magnificently, toweringly spectacular and ingenious and colourful as this incredible city of glowing cathedrals.

‘Hell’s bells and tarnation!’ he gasped out loud. Even his thunderous voice was lost amid the bustling din of Chinatown. ‘This is a truly remarkable place!’ He shook his head with utter incredulity. ‘Truly remarkable!’

It was then a short woman standing directly in front of him said something.

He cupped an ear, realizing she was talking to him. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’

She looked to him to be Oriental and giggled shyly as she spoke. He bent down low, almost doubling over to hear her better.