The Eternal War

‘Aye. It was Bob here,’ said Liam, slapping his meaty shoulder, ‘that yanked you back out of the way. Do you not remember?’

Lincoln remembered that. Remembered being winded and lying on his back. But then it was all a confusing mixture of things he might or might not have seen or heard. The only thing he’d been sure of was the whispered conversation in the dark of the dockside. The mention of his name. The mention of a destiny. The mention of the Jenkins storehouse and the specific time of some mysterious rendezvous.

‘Yes, perhaps I do remember something of that,’ uttered Lincoln. He cocked a bushy eyebrow, narrowed his eyes as he struggled to make some sense of his whisky-soaked recollection. ‘A big … fast wagon? Barrels on it … was it?’

Liam nodded. ‘Aye. A distillery wagon. The horses were running wild, so they were.’

‘There, you see?’ said Maddy. ‘Liam and the others went back to save you.’

‘Back?’ Lincoln nodded. ‘That’s some of what I heard these three say to each other. Back … they came back in time?’

Maddy shot a look of irritation at Liam and Sal. Careless talk. They should’ve been much more cautious in what they were saying and where they were saying it.

‘Yes, Mr Lincoln,’ she admitted. ‘Yes … they actually came back in time.’

Lincoln’s scowl vanished and was replaced in an instant with a smile that looked horrifically out of place beneath his dark brooding eyes. ‘INCREDIBLE!’ He suddenly grasped her hand firmly and shook it. ‘Most incredible!’ He let her hand go and advanced towards the others.

‘Sir!’ he said, reaching out for one of Bob’s large paws. ‘Sir! As unsettlingly strange as you look, I am indebted to you for saving my life as you did!’ Lincoln’s energetic voice filled the archway as he pumped Bob’s arm furiously.

Bob looked at Liam for help.

‘Just say “no problem”, Bob.’

‘No problem,’ he rumbled.

‘And you, sir!’ he greeted Liam. ‘You, sir, I suspect, by the way you talk, are from Ireland!’

‘Cork in Ireland, aye. Liam O’Connor at your service.’

‘A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr O’Connor!’

He let Liam’s hand go and then graciously bowed in front of Sal, taking a gloved hand and kissing it. ‘Young madam!’

Sal giggled as if his kiss had tickled. ‘I’m Saleena Vikram. Uhh … just call me Sal.’

He glanced at Becks, reaching for her hand. She eyed him distrustfully as he grasped it and then, about to kiss it, he hesitated, taken aback by the livid ribs and swirls of scar tissue running across her hand, her forearm, all the way up to her elbow. He quickly released his tight grasp.

‘You … you have been in a fire. I am sorry. I hope I haven’t hurt you, ma’am?’

‘I am called Becks,’ she said coolly. She looked up at Maddy, who offered her a subtle nod. ‘Yes, that’s right, a fire. But I am all better now.’

He nodded politely. Finally he turned back to Maddy. ‘And you, Miss Carter, I presume you lead this small and remarkable group of mysterious heroes and heroines?’

She shrugged self-consciously. ‘I muddle through somehow I guess, Mr Lincoln.’

He stood back, hands on hips to study them all. ‘Quite remarkable,’ he uttered again. ‘And am I to truly believe that I am standing in a time that is in my future?’

‘Yes,’ said Maddy.

Lincoln looked at the row of computer monitors on the desk, different sizes displaying different news feeds from around the world. ‘And those pictures … those moving pictures, they are of this time?’

‘Yes … live cable-news feeds,’ she replied, realizing as she did that there was little in that answer he’d understand.

He leaned forward, studying them closely one after the other. ‘Remarkable. Like … like little windows looking out upon every corner of this world of …’ His words died as he pulled in a gasp.

‘Good Lord!’ he yelled, stepping towards the monitor on the end. ‘These buildings! Are they as giant as they appear?’ he said, pointing at one screen. Maddy turned round. On one screen MSNBC was doing a news story on Wall Street. There was a library image taken from a news helicopter of Manhattan’s skyscrapers.

‘Oh yeah … that’s New York. Where we are right now.’

‘New York, you say?’ Lincoln bent over the messy desk, peering closely at the monitor. ‘That is New York! Remarkable!’

Liam gently nudged Maddy as Lincoln’s gaze wandered from screen to screen, muttering with ever-increasing incredulity.

‘Are we not causing contamination here, Maddy?’ he whispered. ‘I mean he has to go back, so … to be the President of the Union states?’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ she replied.

‘Surely we can’t send him back to his time knowing about all this?’

She cursed quietly. ‘He already knows too much. I need to think what we’re — ’

‘GOOD GOD!’ Lincoln suddenly exclaimed. ‘A DISASTER!’

‘What now?’ Maddy pulled away from Liam and rushed forward. ‘What is it?’

Lincoln’s pointed finger was shaking. ‘A calamity, Miss Carter, a calamity I tell you! Right there through this window! Look!’

She followed his goggle-eyed gaze and saw he was watching the looping footage of tomorrow’s trade towers disaster.

‘No … no, see, relax, this isn’t live.’ She shook her head, wondering how she was going to explain the difference between live footage and recorded footage to a man who’d never seen a moving image before.

‘Are there people living in that structure? That tall tower?’ He turned to her. ‘In what city is that explosion happening?’

‘New York.’

‘Tarnation! You mean here? This very place?’ Lincoln turned to the others. ‘Is this future of yours in the middle of some war?’

Maddy shrugged. ‘Well, sort of …’

‘Then we must join the fight!’ Lincoln turned and rushed into the gloom towards the far end of the archway.

‘Mr Lincoln!’ called Maddy. There was no answer. But she could hear the corrugated-iron shutters rattling under the impact of his fists. ‘Oh crud … he’s a real pain,’ she groaned, and made her way across the floor to join him.

‘Mr Lincoln?’

‘Where is the door, Miss Carter? We must join this fight and defend our — ’

‘Mr Lincoln … will you please calm down!’ She pressed the green button to one side of the shutter door and with the whine of the motor and the clank of chains, the shutter lifted, spilling evening light across the archway’s floor through the slowly widening crack.

‘There’s no war going on right now! No invasion of America!’

‘But I saw it just then, Miss Carter, with my own eyes! A vast explosion!’

‘It’s just an image of something that’s going to happen. That’s all. Nothing you need to get all upset about! OK? Look … everything’s fine outside right now!’

The shutter rattled to a halt. For a moment she was unsure whether to show Lincoln the world outside. The more details he learned of the future, the more contaminated his mind was going to be. For an anonymous man with little or no influence on history, that might be an acceptable contamination. But for a man destined to be president …? Well, like she’d said, he already knew too much. A little more wasn’t going to make any difference either way.

‘Take a look … everything’s just fine.’

She gently ushered Lincoln forward, stepping into the cobbled alley. She grabbed his shoulders and turned