‘You did fine.’ Foster smiled. ‘You did just fine. I’d say right nowthere’s no team better trained to do this than you. You survived the ordeal.You’ll be able to cope with pretty much anything else this job has to throw at you. Ofthat I’m sure.’
‘Team? There’s no team. There’s just me andLiam now.’ She cast a glance at the bank of monitors in front of her and the upload bar,now inching past the halfway mark. ‘Oh… and a computer system that’s verysoon going to start insisting we call it Bob.’
It was then they heard the soft scrape of feet behind them. They turnedround to see Sal standing in the middle of the archway, a shopping bag in one hand, lookingcuriously down at the small crater of scooped-out concrete in the floor.
‘So what happened here? This place is a real mess,’ she said, shaking her headdisapprovingly. ‘I go out for a couple of hours to get some milk and bagels forbreakfast and come back and it’s like someone’s been drilling holes in the walloutside… and someone dropped a bowling ball on the floor here.’
‘Sal?’ Maddy’s jaw dropped. ‘Sal!’
A dark eyebrow arched quizzically. ‘Uh… yeah, and?’
‘You’re alive!’ Maddy leaped up from the desk and swept the confused girlinto her arms. ‘Oh my God, you’re alive! You’re alive!’
Foster could see Sal’s bewildered face over Maddy’s shaking shoulder.
‘Uh… is someone going to tell me what’s been going on while I wasout?’
2001, New York
Monday
They haven’t told me everything that happened. I can tell some things wenton that they’re keeping from me. But I know now that while I was out buying milk andbagels a time shift happened, the world changed and Liam and Bob went into the past to fixit.
Liam told me he and Bob were actually stuck in the past for six whole months! And I knowabout none of it. Time travel is such a strange thing to get your head round.
They said our field office was attacked, but no one’s told me by who or what yet.There are scratch marks everywhere on the wall outside, like someone took a scouring brushto the bricks. Maybe we were attacked by an army of porcupines or something.
Many of the things in the back room were broken, shards of glass and stuff everywhere, so Iguess there was a bit of a struggle back there. I wish they’d just tell me everythinginstead of trying to ‘protect’ me just ’cause I’m the youngest.
And Bob died. I know that’s affected Liam. He’s missing him. I see him typingto Bob on the computer system every day. Maddy tells him not to be so cut up about it- he’s not actually ‘gone’; he’s just in the computer instead.She said it’s no different to, like, chatting to a friend on MSN.
I miss the big guy too.
Foster says we can grow another Bob once the birthing equipment has been sorted out.I’m not sure how I’ll feel, though, about a Bob Version 2. It just won’tbe the same Bob. Or will it? I mean, they’re clones, so I suppose it will be exactlythe same.
Maddy’s been kept very busy. Foster says she’s the team leader and needs to doa lot of learning while we rest up and recover. The birthing tubes in the back room have gotto be replaced, and we’ll need new cloned foetuses and supplies of that gooey soupthey float in. Foster’s getting Maddy to sort out those things. We also have to get anew back-up generator installed to replace the old one and supplies of food and water anddiesel and so many other things.
We’re all going to be kept busy for the next few days, that’s for sure.
You know, I hate that I completely missed out on whatever happened. I feel like I’mstill the newbie here and the other two are now sort of like old hands.
In fact, all three of them seem a bit different, like what happened changed them somehow.Like, for example, Liam. He’s sort of older now. I swear he’s grown an inch ortwo taller. He seems bigger, firmer. Less boyish and a bit more manly. Obviously he’ssix months older than he was… but it’s actually like he’s two or threeyears older. It’s weird.
Maddy jokes around a little less now. She seems to have so much on her mind all thetime… like she’s about to sit a whole load of exams and she hasn’t doneany revision.
And then there’s Foster.
I worry about him. He looks so-o-o-o sick and so-o-o-o much older. Coming back from myshopping trip, it was like he’d sort of aged a hundred years in the time that I wasout. I figured it would be rude to blurt something out about how he lookedreally old all of a sudden. So I haven’t said anything about it these last few days. Iguess it’s a time-travel thing.
So incredibly weird, though, this time-travel business. It really messes with yourhead.
Sal looked up from writing her diary and slurped a spoon from her breakfast bowlof Rice Krispies. The cereal had gone soggy in the milk as she’d been scribbling away.She stared disinterestedly at one of the banks of computer monitors in front of her.She’d tuned the signal feed from CNN to the Disney channel, and right now Toy Story 2 was on — Buzz and gang desperately trying to cross abusy highway disguised as traffic cones. Sal had seen it many times over. It had been one ofher dad’s favourites.
The arch is quiet right now. Liam is on his bunk, his nose stuck in a historybook all about the Second World War. He does a lot of reading. Says he never ever wants tobe stuck again in a time he knows nothing about.
Maddy and Foster went out earlier. He told her he had a number of things to discuss withher ‘confidentially’. I don’t like that. That there are things he’stelling her and not me and Liam. It doesn’t seem fair. After all, we’re a team,aren’t we?
Sal had watched them both step out under the open shutter door a couple of hoursago. Foster had waved a goodbye. But there was something about the way he’d done that, arueful smile as he’d surveyed the scruffy place.
In fact, the old man had been acting very oddly these last few days. She wondered if it wasbecause he was tired. Foster seemed to have too much on his shoulders, too much to do. Shedecided, when they returned, she’d insist he sit back in one of thetatty old armchairs they had around the table, put his feet up and she’d make a fuss ofhim. Make him some coffee, some beans on toast. Whatever he wanted.
He looked like he could do with some TLC.
2001, New York
‘So,’ said Foster eventually, ‘so now you know everything youneed to know, Madelaine. Everything.’
Maddy stared back across the table at him. It was mid-morning, and Starbucks was relativelyquiet. The morning rush for take-away lattes and frappucinos had been and gone and now thecoffee shop was half empty.
‘And now you know why I’m dying. Why I can’trisk riding time any more. Why I can’t live in the field office’s time bubble anymore…’
‘You’re sure?’ She looked at him. ‘You’re sure the technologyis killing you?’
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘The damage it does builds up slowly over time. Youdon’t notice it at first, but it catches up
