‘And quite rude, so you are,’ added Liam. ‘That’s always a help.’
‘And,’ she said, squeezing his hand, ‘you know what the right thing to do is. The right course to take with your life … no one normally has the luxury of knowing which way their life
‘You have acquired privileged knowledge of your future,’ said Bob. ‘This is a tactical advantage that you will be able to use to — ’ He stopped talking and held an arm out. ‘Liam, you should step back. I am detecting particles.’
Liam sat down on the trough beside Lincoln. ‘And not everyone gets to see all that you’ve seen, Mr Lincoln, and still get to go back to live their lives.’ He shrugged sadly. ‘Me and Sal don’t have that.’
She nodded. ‘This is what we do now. This is what we’ll
In front of them, a portion of the darkening blue sky, dotted with the first early stars, began to tremble and squirm.
‘Oh, look,’ said Liam, brightening, ‘here’s our lift home.’
CHAPTER 86
2001, New York
Maddy could hear the fighting had resumed; this time the crack and rattle of gunfire was much closer.
She was worried that something, or someone, would knock or damage the antennae array above. It would take just one stray bullet, that’s all,
Becks was outside fighting alongside the men. She could imagine the support unit was quite at home, content, covered in blood and mud, doing what she did best.
She heard someone bellowing orders, Devereau she guessed, followed by the deep throbbing
Both colonels had insisted the three machine-gun teams would be the last line of defence, the fort would be their Alamo.
Clearly these plans were now fluid.
› Maddy?
‘What?’
› The density probe has just picked up some movement.
‘Repetitive … not random?’
› Correct.
‘Grab an image!’
› Affirmative.
She saw the light-meter on the displacement machine flicker as energy was discharged, despatched along the heavy-duty insulated cables up through the jagged hole in the roof to be targeted by the array outside: space- time being discreetly teased open, an unfathomable spatial dimension punctured with a pin hole.
She watched the monitor on the right as a blocky low-resolution image appeared. The same image as last time: a muddy field, some sort of low hut, a darkening sky. But this time she could just about make out the blurred silhouette of some stupid fool caught mid-air doing star jumps.
‘That’s them!’
› Affirmative. Activate the window?
‘Yes! Do it!’
The light-meter, bars of LEDs like a graphic equalizer, fluttered excitedly with the sudden expenditure of accrued energy. Two remote windows being opened simultaneously: one a hundred miles south of here, another in New Orleans, 1831. That was going to drain their charge completely. The rest then … was going to be up to them.
She listened to the displacement machine’s circuitry hum, saw the green charge display silently wink to red, one light after the other.
And the rest was going to be just waiting. And hoping.
Yet again.
Another of the leviathans slowly collapsed to its knees, the thick armour plating over its chest misshapen and twisted under the battering of a steady sputtering stream of high-calibre rounds. Blood was pouring down its front from numerous ragged wounds. It flailed its huge blade-tipped fists pitifully, angrily.
‘Got us another one!’ roared Sergeant Freeman, punching the air.
‘Come along! Here! This is good. Right here!’ Wainwright waved the other machine-gun teams into position against the trench wall. ‘Fire on those eugenics! Upper chest area … there are gaps in the armour! Do you see?’
Devereau was studying the slope below, illuminated now by crimson flares being shot into the night sky from their landing raft — bathing the whole mud-churned and cratered battlefield with a flickering blood-red light. Beyond the six remaining eugenics clanking slowly uphill bearing the weight of their armour — surely several tons of it each, he guessed — British soldiers were amassing in the borderline. He could see officers moving among knots of men, poised to step over the top and support the eugenics with a rush. And there, sitting astride sandbags, a British officer calmly observing the events uphill from him through a pair of field glasses.
CHAPTER 87
2001, New York
Becks watched with detached fascination at the brutal ruthlessness of these enormous beasts. Their arms swung tirelessly, scooping out of the trench and into the air bloody parts of men and divots of dirt alike. There were no moments of hesitation, no doubts, no confusion of morals or ethics — as much thought devoted to the process of killing as an electric band-saw might give to a plank of wood.
She could identify with that: a world simplified down to the barest essentials, to mission parameters. And that’s where her empathy, her sense of kindred-spirit, with these curious monsters ended. She too had her
One of the machine-gun teams lay in tatters just beyond the nearest leviathan, the thick barrel of the gun still smoking and aimed skyward on its tripod legs. She ducked down low, scrambling over the writhing bodies of the wounded, between the giant’s thick legs. At the same time that the genic sensed her movement below it she reached the machine gun, pulled it off its mount and swung its aim up.
No armour plating beneath it, the high-calibre bullets found plenty of soft flesh to rip through. The genic flailed, enraged, the feed-pipe that protruded from its small face flapping from side to side. She heard a deep moan coming from its chest, its throat; a cry of rage and agony locked behind a sealed mouth.
The gun’s stuttering fire ceased as the over-heated barrel choked on the ammunition belt. But she’d done enough damage. Blood rained down on her as the leviathan took several staggered steps, finally flopping on to the downhill side of the trench. She felt the ground vibrate with the impact of several tons of iron and flesh.
As another fresh flare exploded above the trench, bathing them in an artificial crimson dawn, she took in the state of play of the battle with one snapshot blink of her eyes. Two eugenics remained, the last of them, wreaking havoc further along the horseshoe. She saw arcs of dirt and glistening wet viscera spinning up into the night sky.
