The sun dipped behind the far horizon of trees, behind the thin lines of campfire smoke. From inside the arch they could hear the voices of the others: Sal helping the support unit… Becks… get ready.
‘She’s been given orders to kill them all, then destroy your camp. Burn everything so there’s nothing left behind to leave fossil traces. We’ll know if she’s successful — ’ Maddy nodded out at the jungle — ‘when this all goes and we get New York back, and…’ She lowered her voice a little. ‘And the tricky situation we were stuck right in the middle of just before jungle-land arrived…’
‘Cartwright?’
She nodded.
‘So…’ He cocked a brow. ‘I’m presuming he, and the poor fella with the gun, are the chaps who found our message?’
‘Not exactly. It was found a lot, lot earlier. In the 1940s, apparently. But Cartwright runs this little government agency,’ she snorted, ‘an agency a bit like ours, I guess — small and secret. Its job for the last sixty years has been to be a custodian of your message. And to finally make contact with us in 2001.’
‘And he came knocking?’
‘Oh, he came knocking all right. Just before the last time wave, we had men with guns standing guard outside in the backstreet. In fact, they had several areas of the neighbourhood sealed up with roadblocks and soldiers and stuff. Helicopters overhead and everything. Quite a big deal. You’d have loved it.’
‘My fault.’ Liam looked guilty. ‘Sorry about that.’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t be. You had to send the message. There was no other way we would have found you.’
Sal was calling out for her. It was time.
‘Thing is, Liam,’ she said hurriedly, ‘we have to be ready to move, and move quickly. If Becks is successful… we’ll get all of that situation right back in our faces. We’ll be right where we were. So, I’m going to need to send you back to make sure they don’t get your message.’
‘Dinosaur times?’
‘Oh no. Not that far.’ She managed to stop herself saying because that would probably finish you off. ‘No… it’ll be the second of May 1941. You need to prevent some kids from finding a particular chunk of rock.’
He smiled. ‘And Cartwright and his agency will never have existed?’
She was ducking down under the shutter when she paused. ‘Well… his agency might not exist, or maybe it will, but it will be busy with some other secret it’s trying to keep from the American people.’
‘Right.’
‘When that time wave comes, Liam… we’ll need Cartwright standing outside when I turn on our time field. His life will be rewritten along with the rest of the corrected reality. He’ll have no memory of all of this.’
Liam bent down and looked under the shutter and into the archway. He could see Forby’s dark boots poking out of the end of the blanket they’d wrapped his body in.
‘And what about him?’
‘Forby? Not sure. If his body is outside the field I suppose he gets to live again, doing whatever job he was doing before Cartwright and his agency suddenly winked into existence. The point is… whatever that means for him and the old man, we won’t have a backstreet full of spooks with guns. We’ll be back to normal.’ She grinned up at him. ‘Which would really be quite nice.’
‘True… but do we not still have to get Edward Chan back home?’
‘One thing at a time,’ she sighed. ‘Come on, let’s send Becks on her way.’
Liam followed her under the shutter and then cranked it down after him.
He rejoined Maddy and the others gathered around the computer desk. He saw Becks standing in the middle of them, the assault rifle cradled in her arms, one of them swathed in bandages up to her elbow.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked over the hubbub of other voices: questions from Cartwright and the kids that Maddy was busy trying to field as she configured the return time-stamp.
‘I am fine, Liam.’
‘What about that spear wound? That looked pretty bad, so it did. Are you sure you’re fit enough to go?’
‘My organic diagnostic systems indicate my kidney was ruptured and is no longer functioning. The organ can be repaired later,’ she added. ‘It will not affect my performance.’
‘Your arm?’
‘My arm is operable.’
‘OK,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ve set it to one minute after the other window. There’ll still be background tachyon particles around from the previous window, but I’ve moved the location thirty feet away so there shouldn’t be any disruptive effect on your arrival portal. OK?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘You understand the mission parameters?’
‘Kill all the reptile hominids. Destroy all evidence of our camp. Return window set for two hours after arrival.’
Maddy nodded. ‘You got it. And, of course, remember to bring the gun back with you.’
One of Becks’s dark eyebrows arched slowly. ‘Well… duh,’ she said flatly.
Sal giggled. ‘That’s cool!’
Maddy grinned at Liam. ‘Looks like she’s been doing some learning of her own.’
He nodded.
‘All right, we haven’t got time to fill the tube. She’s going back dry. Stand clear of that circle on the ground.’ She pointed to the circle of chalk, and within it, a patch of concrete floor darker than the rest. She sighed. ‘We’re gonna need to fill in the floor once again after all this is finished.’
The others pulled warily back and Becks wandered over and planted her feet inside the circle, her knees bent, ready to react at a moment’s notice, the gun loaded, cocked and raised, the assault rifle’s butt pressed firmly against her shoulder and ready to fire.
‘Be careful, Becks,’ said Liam. ‘We want you back safely.’
She nodded hesitantly. ‘Affirmative, Liam O’Connor. I will be careful.’
‘Are we all set?’ asked Maddy.
‘Affirmative.’
‘All right, Bob.’ Maddy turned back to the desk mic. ‘On my countdown. Ten… nine… eight…’
The archway filled with the sound of power surging into the displacement machine, the green LEDs winking off one after another as they indicated the drain of stored energy. A three-yard-diameter sphere of shimmering air suddenly enveloped Becks. The ceiling fluorescent light dimmed and flickered.
‘Seven… six… five…’
Her cool grey eyes turned to rest on Liam and she smiled uncertainly.
‘Four… three… two…’
‘Good luck,’ he mouthed, unsure whether she could read that in the flickering fizzing light.
‘… one…’
And then she was gone. Air whistled past them all to fill the sudden vacuum created.
‘Wow,’ whispered Edward.
‘Now we wait,’ said Maddy. She shot a glance at Liam. ‘And we make sure we’re ready.’
CHAPTER 74
65 million years BC, jungle
Becks emerged from the surrounding sphere of undulating air, and dropped the last few inches with a soft thud of boots on hard mud.
Crouched, ready for action, her eyes panned across the fire-lit clearing: a dancing, flickering impression of hell. The creatures had converged in the centre of the area, picking through the shelters, the palisade, watching the campfire hungrily consuming the last of the branches that had been stacked on it.
A knot of them were gathered around the space where, only a minute ago, the return window had opened.
