She and Dadda had once gone along to a technology expo, while they’d been in Shanghai on one of her Pikodu tournaments. One of the last as it happened; international relations between China and India were beginning to chill then. A sign of the troubled times ahead. At the expo she had tried out a prototype of a thing they were calling a Reality Hat. It looked like a shower cap with marbles stuck all over it. She’d put it on and almost instantly she found herself smelling things, hearing things that weren’t there, and then finally seeing herself in a Roman street. Of course nothing was quite right. The scene was computer graphics, very realistic, but still there were little jerks in the animation here and there that gave it away. The visuals, the smells, the sounds were being transmitted into her head, stimulating the senses. She had been stunned by how convincing an experience it had been.
But standing here, now, in history, for real … the Reality Hat seemed like a shallow experience by comparison.
‘Hold your horses …’ muttered Liam, ‘look at that fella over there,’ he said, pointing along the street on the far side. Bob and Sal turned to look. Across the thoroughfare they could make out a tall thin man in a scruffy threadbare coat, a battered felt hat stuffed thoughtlessly askew on a mop of dark unruly hair. He had emerged from a tavern, quite clearly the worse for wear. He stood, or more accurately swayed, outside the door, surveying the busy street in front of him.
‘Jayzus … he’s had a few!’ Liam turned to Bob. ‘Do you think that’s our fella?’
Bob’s eyes narrowed for a moment. ‘I have an approximate height match.’
‘And he does look a bit like the Lincoln in the painting,’ said Sal.
He certainly had the thunderous scowl, the dark brooding eyes hooded by a frown that all but hid them in the fading light of the afternoon.
‘Right, good enough for me,’ said Liam. ‘Let’s go grab him before he does something foolish.’
Liam hopped off the store-front porch they’d been standing on. He waited until there was a gap in the horse- drawn traffic before leading them cautiously across the muddy street.
Lincoln hitched up his trousers, hanging loose round his waist. He should have spent his money on some decent food, not on drink. He shrugged at that. He could find something to steal to eat. The docksides were an easy place to forage for food; there was usually a dropped sack here or there. A man could always work for a cooked meal even if he couldn’t find paid work. A man might find himself sleeping rough, under the stars here in New Orleans, but he’d never find himself starving.
Lincoln belched. A real howler that turned heads up and down the street and solicited tuts and muttered disgust from a portly gentleman and his sour-faced wife as they walked past him.
He tipped his hat and grinned at them before congratulating himself on a world-class burp. He ambled drunkenly into the street, his long legs feeling as unstable beneath him as a pair of circus stilts.
He was just about to take another stride forward when he felt something grasp the back of his coat collar and suddenly found himself lurching backwards, flying through the air and landing heavily on the ground.
It took him several moments to comprehend the fact that he was lying on his back in the dirt and looking up at salmon-pink clouds lit by the setting sun and three silhouetted heads peering curiously down at him.
‘What in … tarnation! Who the …?’ he started to blurt.
‘Mr Lincoln?’ asked one of them. An Irishman by the sound of his accent.
Lincoln groggily struggled to get himself up on to his elbows. ‘Now who … who ishhh the infernal f-fool of a halfwit that … that …’
‘Are you Abraham Lincoln?’
Lincoln’s eyes struggled to focus on the face that had said that. ‘And … and who the d-devil … wishes … wishes to know?’
A much deeper voice rumbled. ‘Please confirm your name.’
Lincoln’s eyebrows arched as he took in the sight of Bob. ‘Good g-grief, ssshir … are you a man or a … some s-species of a grizzly bear?’
‘Shadd-yah! Liam, check out the mess that wagon’s making!’
‘Jay-zus! That’s a pretty pickle. C’mon, let’s get him up,’ Lincoln heard the Irish voice say. He felt a strong pair of hands grabbing him roughly.
‘I … AM … FERPECTLY … I mean … p … puh …
He felt the hands release him. Slowly, with a lot more effort than he’d originally thought he’d require, he managed to pull himself back on to his wobbling-stilt legs. The twilight world of New Orleans was spinning round him like a cartwheel. And those three faces, none of which he could quite focus on, still seemed to be looking at him.
‘Are you all right?’ The Irish voice again.
‘I AM FINE!’ Lincoln bellowed hoarsely. ‘FINE AS A … a … a … FINE as a goat in a briar patch! Fine as an OIL PAINTING!’ He managed a grin. ‘Ah’m asssh FIT … asssh … a … a …’
‘As a …?’
He opened his mouth. He was thinking of saying
The last thing he heard before the world spun on to its side and he passed out was someone saying, ‘Oh … gross, all over my shoes — charming.’
CHAPTER 11
1831, New Orleans
‘…
It was wholly dark now. Lincoln could hear the gentle lapping of the Mississippi against the hull of a boat nearby and somewhere deep inside his throbbing mind he figured out he was slumped along the docks somewhere. The sky above was clear and the moon high among the stars, casting a surprisingly strong silver light across the river and the city, now finally settled and still for the night.
‘
‘
The voices were speaking quietly, not quite a whisper, but almost.
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A pause.
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A deep voice. ‘
‘
