‘Foggy? Sure. So, Coop, are you still doing that whole X Files thing down in Washington?’
‘You know I can’t comment on that.’
He heard Damon draw a breath.
‘Damon? What the hell is it?’
‘I think I’ve got something you might want to take a look at, if you can get up here quickly.’
Chapter 14
7.01 a.m., 12 September 2001, outside Branford, Connecticut
Maddy was knocking on the adjoining motel room wall for him to get up. Liam yawned and cracked open eyes to look at the digital clock on his bedside ledge. Just gone seven.
He thumped the wall back. ‘All right! Jay-zus! I’m getting up, so I am!’ he shouted.
He heard Sal’s muffled laughter on the other side.
Bob was already awake. Not that he ever slept. ‘Maddy has instructed me to tell you we are getting ready to move on.’
They’d all decided they needed a good night’s rest before resuming their journey up to Boston. They’d all been strung out, far more exhausted than they’d realized. A week in Ancient Rome struggling to stay alive and now this. Fatigue had finally caught up with them all.
‘Maddy says we will eat some breakfast then set off.’
Liam’s stomach still groaned. Last night’s triple-decker meat platter pizza was still lying heavily in his gut. He wondered if he could manage anything else right now.
They met outside in the car park beside the RV. Rashim was looking particularly ill.
‘Jesus, what’s up with you?’ asked Maddy.
‘I’ve been up all night, vomiting.’ His face looked almost grey.
‘The food wasn’t that bad!’
He shook his head, his dark ponytail wagging limply. ‘No, it’s my fault. I was stupid. The food was too rich. I’m used to synthetic proteins. Soya products.’ He gulped air and stifled a belch that could easily have been an empty retch. ‘Not used to the real thing.’ Rashim had had a mixed grill. Wolfed it down as he relished the texture and savoured the billionaire-luxury of eating nuggets of real meat.
Foster obviously hadn’t slept well either, dark bags evident under his sunken eyes. Maddy looked at the men in their party with a mixture of pity and contempt.
The diner was open and several trucks were parked up in the gravel car park, their drivers inside already tucking into pancake and waffle breakfasts. Further along their side of the highway was an out-of-town mall called North Haven Plaza. Across acres of car park it looked open already. At least the eateries probably were.
‘OK then, let’s try and find something a little healthier over there, if you guys are feeling a bit precious.’
‘Let me quickly check in on SpongeBubba.’
Maddy unlocked the side door to the RV for him and Rashim stepped up inside.
‘Morning, skippa!’ chirped the robot, squatting in the passenger seat upfront. It was playing with the steering wheel.
‘We’re having some food over there.’ Rashim pointed through the windscreen at the mall. ‘We won’t be long.’
Maddy joined him inside. ‘Does your robot have a wireless broadcast protocol?’
‘Sure.’
‘If anyone comes looking at our vehicle… cops, for example, can he bleep a warning over to Bob?’
‘Yes, of course.’
She looked down at the lab unit. ‘Reckon you can do that for me, then, SpongeBob?’
‘SpongeBubba,’ corrected the robot. His lips quivered a jocular, angry snarl. ‘That’s my name, missy- miss!’
Maddy rolled her eyes at the lab unit’s pre-programmed plastic expression. ‘Just tell your toy to keep a lookout,’ she said to Rashim. ‘OK?’
The mall wasn’t busy. A few people inside walking freshly polished floors, mostly people who worked there. Clearly no one felt like shopping today. A jazzy rendition of a Stevie Wonder hit wafted across the bright and cheerful circular centrepiece atrium and a pair of overweight security guards shared a joke with a janitor and made one or two heads turn with their echoing laughter.
‘Up there,’ said Maddy, pointing to a balcony overlooking the atrium. ‘RealBean Coffee. The place looks open. We can get a panini or…’
She checked herself. Stupid. Sure, although the mall looked no different to any other in her time, it was still 2001. No one did paninis back then. Back now.
‘… or maybe we’ll get a toasted sandwich or something.’
Chapter 15
7.20 a.m., 12 September 2001, Interstate 95, south-west Connecticut
‘Information: you are driving too fast,’ said Faith.
Abel turned to look at her. ‘The driving is suitable,’ he replied.
‘You are driving at a faster velocity than specified on the roadside indicators.’
Abel narrowed his eyes at her, then turned to look back at the road ahead flanked by signs indicating, advertising, proclaiming all kinds of things. Finally a speed indicator wooshed past on his side. ‘The number fifty-five indicates a recommended velocity.’
‘No. I believe it means maximum velocity. You are in excess of that. That will attract unwanted attention.’
Abel lifted his foot off the accelerator, causing the truck behind to brake hard, and then a moment later the driver leaned on his horn angrily. Abel looked over his shoulder. ‘Why did the vehicle behind make that noise?’
Faith followed his gaze. ‘I believe he is annoyed.’
‘Annoyed,’ Abel repeated. ‘Why?’
She frowned for a moment. ‘I do not know why.’
The truck driver overtook them, glaring down from his cab as he passed by.
The NYPD squad car they’d stolen in the early hours of the morning had been replaced with a different car. After listening to police chatter over the radio, they’d quickly realized the vehicle’s identification number on the roof was going to make them too easy to track down. Before the light of dawn had fully arrived, they’d switched to a solitary car parked in an empty forecourt. It was small and bubble-shaped and an uncomfortable squeeze for Abel’s broad frame as he wriggled into place behind the steering wheel, but at least it wasn’t going to draw the attention of any police helicopters scanning the highways for their stolen vehicle. Of course, it wasn’t until dawn that they saw their new ride — a Volkswagen Beetle — was a rather conspicuous tangerine orange decorated with hand- painted pink daisies.
They drove in silence for a while, as they had in fact done all the way from Brooklyn. As he drove, Abel’s mind carefully sorted through the data he’d acquired in the last thirty-two hours and twenty minutes of life. Not a particularly long life, but certainly a very busy one so far.
The first nine hours of his consciousness, just as with Faith and the others of his batch, had been spent in a sterile cloning room, illuminated with a soft amber glow coming from the half a dozen growth tubes. Each of them had contained a candidate foetus held in stasis, but now recently ‘birthed’.
Six of them, naked and coated in the gelatinous protein solution drying out on their bare skin. They had sat huddled together on the cool tiled floor with empty, childlike minds. Frightened, confused. And then, without any warning, wireless wisdom had begun to flood into their minds: torrential packets of data and executable applets of AI software that shooed away the childlike fear and replaced it with impassive machine-mind calm.
