Cooper turned to look at her. Where the heck did she get that from? She was a robot, wasn’t she? Not some agony aunt. He figured she must have picked it up from some daytime TV show. Oprah or something.
Kaydee-Lee whispered pathetically, ‘Everyone ends up using me.’
‘Kaydee-Lee.’ Cooper held her hand. She didn’t flinch at that. It was vaguely comforting to have someone reach out for her, even if he did look like some kind of pale-skinned lizard wearing a Men in Black suit.
‘Kaydee-Lee… we need to know a little bit more about Liam. Was it just him? Were there others? Can you tell me?’
She dabbed at her eyes, wiped her nose dry, straightened her shoulders and did her best to put on a calm, totally-in-control face, just like the scary-looking FBI lady over the counter from her. She wondered what it would be like to be like her, so incredibly ice-cool. Kaydee-Lee could only imagine how wonderful it would be to be just like this agent lady: elegant, confident, disciplined, ruthless. She bet no one ever used her.
‘Miss?’
The woman stirred. ‘Yes?’
‘Is it, like, really hard to become an FBI agent? Could someone, you know, someone like me ever become one? Could I end up like you?’ she asked hopefully.
The woman exchanged a glance with her partner. It looked like he was giving her permission to go ahead and answer the question. Her grey eyes disappeared for a moment behind flickering eyelids, then finally she answered. ‘No. That is extremely unlikely.’
That figures. Kaydee-Lee sighed. I’ll be a waitress till the day I die.
Cooper looked like he was getting impatient. ‘Kaydee-Lee? Were there others? Can you tell me?’
She nodded. ‘Oh yeah, I can tell you. There were others all right. They wanted a place to go an’ hide up. They said they wanted somewhere quiet and private.’ She raised two pairs of fingers and air-quoted. ‘Somewhere where they could go and do their stupid science experiments.’
Chapter 54
9 October 2001, Green Acres Elementary School, Harcourt, Ohio
Liam and Sal vanished from their tape-marked squares with a soft pop. They were now back in Victorian London on 14 December 1888 with Bob and SpongeBubba. At least Maddy hoped they were.
She was a hundred per cent sure the recently rewritten displacement software was error free. OK, perhaps not a hundred per cent, but gosh-darn as close as it’s possible to be with hastily written computer code.
Just the three of them left here in the derelict school classroom now: her, Rashim and Becks. She looked round the room one last time. There was nothing left that they’d forgotten to send through. All they’d be leaving behind was a small pile of empty tin cans, plastic noodle pots and polystyrene coffee cups, a cheap sleeping bag that had popped its seam and spilled white stuffing, and a pair of extra-large size trainers for Bob that had proven to be still too small for him.
‘This is it, then,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, 2001.’
‘You sound sad,’ said Rashim.
‘Guess I am… a bit. This place has been my home, hasn’t it? Well, at least this time, this year, has been my home since…’ She smiled, stopping herself. ‘I was going to say, “since I got recruited”. But actually 2001 has been my only real home. It’s the year in which I was grown and birthed.’ She laughed. ‘It’s the year in which I’ve lived my entire false life so far.’
Rashim shook his head and tutted. ‘You shouldn’t think like that. It does you no good, Maddy.’
‘Relax. It’s not self-pity.’ She shrugged. ‘I think I’ve got used to the idea I’m nothing but a meat product.’
‘You are not a product. You are Miss Madelaine Cartwright…’
‘Carter.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, wincing, ‘ Carter. Even if someone invented you, came up with your life story, conjured up your name… you’re still a real person. You are a person. Just as real as any other, as real as I am. Do you see?’
Her eyes moistened. ‘Oh, that’s a really beautiful thing to say, Rashim.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘So very beautiful.’
He looked surprised. Perhaps even hopeful. ‘Really?’
‘No.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Slightly cheesy if anything.’ She punched his arm playfully. ‘But it was nice of you to say it.’ She turned round. ‘How are we doing over there, Becks?’
The support unit was studying a display on the monitor. ‘The displacement machine is nearly ready to discharge again, Maddy. Ninety-six seconds.’
‘You understand what to do once we’re gone?’
‘Affirmative. I will move the displacement machine into one departure marker, and I will stand in the other. I will displace alongside the machine.’
‘And?’
‘And?’ Becks cocked her head. ‘And… if there is a translation error I will ensure the machine and myself are destroyed.’
Maddy wandered over to the school desk and leaned over. ‘And what about you, computer-Bob?’
› I will erase all data on this machine once the last time displacement has been completed.
Effectively that was suicide for computer-Bob, a software self-termination. She patted the top of the monitor. ‘That’s a good boy.’
Agent Cooper regarded the SWAT team, huddled against the side of the unmarked van. A dozen of them in Kevlar pads, helmets and flak jackets. He’d called in an armed standby team from the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. They looked the business: stern-faced and relentlessly trained for this kind of thing — narcotics raids, gang busts. That’s what Cooper was telling them this was. The squad leader tapped his throat mic and checked each of his team had a clear comms line before locking off the command channel and giving his full attention to Agent Cooper and Faith, standing beside him.
‘Carry on, sir.’
‘We believe there are six of them. A male, late teens, perhaps early twenties. Caucasian, dark-haired. One female, red-ginger hair, late teens. One female, Asian-Indian, possibly a minor. Try not to kill her. We can do without the press calling the Bureau a bunch of child-murderers. There’s another Caucasian male, very big… I mean huge. And very dangerous. You’ll want to be sure to take him down first.’
‘Understood.’
‘Another female, Caucasian, small, most definitely another minor. She seems to be drugged or under some kind of sedation. Quite possibly she’s a hostage. Again, be careful not to kill her. Lastly, another male, Asian-Indian, late twenties, long hair and beard. We believe he may be this terrorist cell’s technician, quite possibly their bomb- maker.’
‘Another high-priority target?’
‘Definitely. But shoot to incapacitate, not to kill… if that’s at all possible. I need information from these terrorists. I’d very much like to have someone alive to talk to when the gun smoke clears.’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘And maximum caution. Do you understand? That big one is a lethal killing machine. Take him down first.’
‘Doesn’t matter how big he is, sir… a head shot will bring him down.’
Cooper wasn’t sure how much to tell the man; that back at the shopping mall in Connecticut it had taken seven cops, all of them emptying their magazines, to bring down Faith’s colleague?
‘Just don’t assume a single head shot’s going to do it… all right?’
‘You should focus gunfire at the temples,’ added Faith. ‘Its cranium is comparatively weak there.’
The ATF squad’s officer cocked his brow. ‘Are you guys…?’ He looked from Cooper to Faith. Neither looked like they were joking. ‘Seriously?’
‘You heard what she said.’ Cooper looked up at the gun-metal sky. A heavy bank of dark churning cloud on
