into the East River.
Like any normal family moving house, it was a revelation to Maddy, Liam and Sal discovering how much clutter they’d already managed to acquire. Magazines and books, a Nintendo and a TV, a kettle and sandwich toaster, a chemical toilet, a wardrobe full of clothes, a shelf in their bunk archway filled with half-used toiletries. And rubbish. A small pyramid of empty drinks cans, a teetering Jenga tower of pizza boxes and takeaway cartons.
As they left the archway, tired after a busy day, the last of Monday’s fading sunset left the sky a deep blue and there existed that momentary gasp of air, that fleeting pause between the last of Manhattan’s office dwellers vacating the city and the emergence of the first eager beavers of New York’s nightlife.
Times Square was still busy, but mostly with ambling tourists coming home to their 5th Avenue hotels after a day’s sightseeing. Bob, SpongeBubba and the freshly birthed girl clone — yet to be called ‘Becks’: they were still debating whether to consider her a new personality entirely, that was still up for discussion — were left to watch over the SuperChief and the archway. The rest of them headed across to Manhattan, one last time in Times Square. They found a Mexican-themed place that looked out across the winking lights and animated billboards, the news ticker around the Hershey store, the stop-start intersections and sluggish convoys of yellow cabs, gaggles of goggle-eyed tourists, and the last city suit walking home with a gym bag slung over one shoulder.
It was quiet in the restaurant. They ordered from the waitress quickly and then were left alone to the privacy of their faux dark wood and red-velvet-cushioned booth to talk.
‘So…’ Maddy clasped her hands like a host desperate to get her party started. ‘Here we are, then.’
‘Aye,’ said Liam, ‘the first proper chance I’ve had to sit down, rest and eat in ages.’
Maddy nodded. It seemed an eternity ago that they’d been cornered by guards in Caligula’s palace. Since then they’d been running, hiding, scavenging. She realized she hadn’t eaten properly in days, the best part of a week in fact. That went some way towards explaining her ordering the triple bean and beef mega-burrito.
‘You’re running,’ said Foster. ‘I can understand that… but have any of you thought where to?’
‘No.’ Maddy tucked hair behind her ear. ‘Not yet.’
‘Well now, to be sure, we want to know who sent those support units after us.’ Liam looked at Sal for support. She nodded. Clearly the most pressing question hovering between them all.
Maddy shook her head. ‘Somebody from the future. Obviously. I don’t know.’
‘Did you say the male units looked just like our Bob?’ asked Foster.
‘Yup. Like his evil twin or something.’
‘These are military clones you’re talking about,’ said Rashim.
She nodded. ‘Military use, yeah.’
‘Then if they looked exactly like your Bob, they’d be from the same or a similar birth batch. The cloning process develops genetic-copy errors if you reproduce from the same DNA indefinitely. So the batches have relatively small print runs. Twenty maybe thirty units per base DNA pattern.’ Rashim stroked the fine tip of his nose. ‘I recall that the military contractors producing clone units back in the 2050s were constantly having to start over with new candidate genomes to engineer.’
Liam chuckled. The others looked at him and his face quickly straightened. ‘ Back in the 2050s? ’ He grinned. ‘I mean, doesn’t that sound odd? That’s the future for all of us, so it is. The far future for me!’ He shrugged; no one seemed particularly tickled by that. ‘Just sounded a bit funny, that’s all.’
‘When does your clone unit come from?’ said Rashim. ‘Do you know his precise inception date?’
‘Bob?’ Maddy struggled to remember. ‘Uh, I think it’s the 2050s…’
‘2054, if I recall correctly,’ said Foster.
‘Then your enemy, whoever sent those killer units, must come from the same time.’ Rashim folded his arms. ‘That’s an assumption, of course.’
Liam shuffled uncomfortably. ‘But who’s our enemy? Who’ve we gone and annoyed?’
‘What?’ Maddy laughed. ‘Who’s our enemy? You mean apart from some secretive association of Templar Knights? A government-backed top-secret project called Exodus, that group of anti-time travel activists who tried to assassinate Chan, Kramer’s bunch of neo-Nazis.’ Maddy paused. ‘Need I go on?’
‘Well,’ Liam shrugged, ‘apart from them, that is.’
‘The point is,’ cut in Foster, ‘the world, down the line, is an increasingly grim place.’ He looked at Sal. ‘You’ve seen the storm clouds of the future, haven’t you, Sal?’
She nodded. ‘Not good.’
‘A world full of people who see the only way of escape is back through time. And we…?’ Foster looked around at them. ‘We’re who’re standing in their way. That’s a lot of enemies to choose from.’ He turned to Rashim. ‘Maddy told me your group came from 2070?’
‘2069 actually,’ Rashim sighed. ‘The world’s dying. I mean, it’s not good at all. The food chain’s poisoned so that we’re all living on soya-synth products. And the floods took a lot of land. Migrating people, billions. And wars. And God knows we’ve had a lot of them. But that’s what everyone’s worried about… petrified of, you see? A big war. There are countries and power blocs in my time that are in a desperate position. Desperate enough to consider the use of extreme weaponry: bioweapons, nanoweapons.’
‘What’re those?’ asked Liam.
‘ Plague… is perhaps the best word for it, Liam. Whether it’s something genetically revamped, or self- replicating nano-bots, either way it becomes a weapon that doesn’t discriminate over borders, nationalities.’ He looked out of the window at the flickering lights of Times Square. ‘We’re in a bad place. Desperate times. It’s inevitable that something like that will eventually happen. We’ll wipe ourselves out. We’re destined to engineer our own end.’
‘ The end.’ Maddy leaned forward. ‘That’s what Becks said to me. That was what she said was the “reveal condition” for the Pandora message, the Grail message. The end.’
‘Pandora?’
She looked at Rashim, wondering how much they should be letting their new, temporary accomplice in on.
‘All we know,’ said Foster, ‘is that the people who want you dead had access to weapons technology from 2054. Apparently, the very same foetus batch as Bob and Becks, no less.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that.’ Maddy stared at him. ‘That feels like an enemy very close to home. Perhaps someone inside the agency?’
Liam started. ‘You mean a turncoat in our Mr Waldstein’s secret time-police force?’
‘A traitor.’ She pressed her lips together thoughtfully. ‘I just hope not. We can do without that.’
‘Maybe when you sent that message asking about Pandora,’ said Sal, ‘someone else got it? Intercepted it?’
That thought was met with silence. A silence that lasted several minutes and ended when the waitress arrived with an arm laden with hot plates. She served them out, along with the drinks they’d ordered, and, after looking at their glum faces, put a hand on her hip.
‘This some kinda office party?’
Maddy nodded. ‘Sort of.’
‘Sheeesh…’ The waitress made a face, half pity, half amusement. ‘I’d hate to work at your place.’ She wished them a perfunctory ‘bon appetit’ and left them to it.
‘We’re none the wiser as to who wants us dead,’ said Liam. ‘So, how about we decide what we’re doing? Where we’re going to go? Because… I’m completely confused.’
Sal nodded at Rashim. ‘And what about our new friend? Is Rashim staying with us?’
‘Uhh…’ Rashim cleared his throat, fidgeted with his cutlery. ‘Well, I’d really like to tag along. You know, if that’s all right? I won’t be a nuisance.’
Maddy shot a glance at Foster. Is this my call? She wondered if now they had Foster back with them, he might resume the mantle of team leader, relieve her of the burden of making the decisions.
Foster smiled. ‘You decide,’ he said softly. ‘It’s your team now. Not mine.’
She picked at the burrito on her plate, fumbling with both hands to keep the mince and assorted gunk from spilling out either end. ‘I suppose we could use Rashim. He’s got a better understanding of the displacement technology than I have.’
‘Than any of us,’ added Foster. ‘To be fair.’
