The Eternal War

‘I will consider the question,’ he said. She suspected that was probably going to keep him occupied for the rest of the day. Sal shook her head and giggled at him, then hunkered down, cradled her chin in her hands and resumed watching the world going by.

And then it happened,

Just as she was looking right at it, before her very eyes, the sign above a fast-food restaurant flickered and changed. For a moment she thought she might have been gazing at an LED screen that had finally decided to move on to the next picture in its image list. But it was just a scuffed plastic sign above the glass windows of a fast-food bar. One moment it had said KENTUCKY-STYLE FRIED CHICKEN, the next it simply read FAST FRIED CHICKEN.

She cursed under her breath, pulled out her mobile phone and dialled Maddy.

‘Yeah?’ she answered on the third ring.

‘I think I just saw a … No, I’m certain I just saw another time ripple, Maddy. A small one. You want to know what it was?’

‘It’s OK, Sal, it’s OK. We think we’ve got it nailed. Abraham Lincoln went and got himself squished by a cart in 1831. You better get yourselves back here, asap. If that’s another change you just spotted, then maybe the big time wave is coming right on its tail.’

‘OK.’

She snapped the phone shut and stuffed it back in her pocket. ‘Back home, Bob.’ She punched his arm. ‘Time for us to get busy again.’

CHAPTER 9

2001, New York

‘Can I go this time?’

Maddy looked at Sal. ‘No … that’s not your job.’

‘But I always end up in here … I never get to see anything interesting!’

Maddy shook her head.

‘But why?’

‘Too dangerous.’ Maddy mentally winced at that. That was a lame reason. The poor girl had been in almost as much danger here in 2001 as she might have been with Liam in the past. And Sal could see that too.

‘Come on, Maddy, it’s just as bad here! We’ve had mutants, soldiers … those weird dinosaur things. You’re telling me “here” is safe?’ She shook her head. ‘That is totally shadd-yah!’

Liam and the two units were listening to the row as they were getting dressed.

Maddy closed her eyes tiredly. She didn’t need this. How could she explain to Sal that every trip through a portal could quite possibly strip another year or five off her natural lifespan? That the bombardment of tachyons, the immeasurable forces of chaos space, had a lethal effect on the body: aged it, corrupted it … eventually killed it. How could she explain that to her with Liam just yards away, unaware that soon — far too soon — he was going to be a dying old man?

But then she and Sal were experiencing a milder form of that contamination themselves, living as they did in the archway’s resetting temporal bubble, weren’t they? It was coming for all of them one day, death.

Something her cousin Julian had once said: ‘We’re all dead the moment we’re born. Just, some of us get there faster than others.’ Prophetic really since he died not so long after, lost in the rubble of the World Trade Center’s north tower.

‘Please!’ said Sal. ‘I want to see some history too!’

We’re all dead …

At least this wasn’t a huge jump. A hundred and seventy years. Nothing really in the grand scheme of things, she supposed. The shorter the jump, the less the damage. Their jump to Sunday a while back had probably been little more a dose of poison than the normal Tuesday-night bubble reset. She sighed. Why not? Living here in this archway like mole people wasn’t really the sort of dream life a person would want to last forever, anyway. One trip into history … this trip, a relatively safe trip. Why not?

‘All right,’ she sighed.

Sal yelped and clasped her hands together with excitement.

They had some clothes in the archway that they used to travel back to their 1906 ‘drop point’ in San Francisco. The ‘drop point’ was a stash of support-unit embryos held in suspended animation in the safety deposit box of a bank that was due to be reduced to rubble and ashes by the infamous and imminent Californian earthquake. With a little customization and by losing the headgear — hat fashion seemed to move along far more quickly than other wear — they could pass as 1830s clothes. Maddy’s corset and skirts might be a size too big for Sal, but nothing that would attract any attention.

Liam was already nearly good to go in his brown jacket and waistcoat; Bob wore a striped linen shirt and scruffy cotton trousers. Becks was almost in the corset.

‘Becks, you can stay. Sal’s taking your place.’

She stopped fussing with the ties at the front. ‘Is this advisable?’

Maddy shrugged. ‘It’s New Orleans. What’s to worry about? Anyway, she’s got Bob and Liam with her.’

The support unit dutifully nodded and began to undress.

Maddy pointed towards the small archway where their bunks stood. There was a drape that could be pulled across for a little privacy. ‘Best you do that over there, Becks.’

Last thing she needed was Liam getting all hormonal.

‘Sal, you understand this is 1831?’

‘Yuh.’

Maddy bit her lip. Crud, this is going to be awkward.

‘This is a time of slavery.’

Sal’s eyes were drinking in the details of the dress and its corset, eager to get her hands on it, to try it on. ‘Yeah, I know,’ she replied absently.

‘Well … your, uh … you know … your skin is, like, dark …?’

Sal looked up at Maddy. ‘What?’

Maddy shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I’m just saying you may be treated … you may be called …’

‘I’m not black! If that’s what you’re saying!’

‘No but, what I’m trying to — ’

‘Shadd-yah! Dark means I’m African, now? You can lump us all together simply because we’re not white?’ Her brow furrowed with irritation. ‘I’m Asian!’ She shook her head and rolled her eyes and turned to follow Becks over towards the bunks. The drape swished across the archway behind them.

‘I just meant … people back then might not make the same distinction,’ replied Maddy, her voice fading to nothing.

Nice one, Maddy.

‘Uh … OK,’ she said, stepping back towards the computers. ‘Right, Liam, Bob, the candidate time-stamp is 5 April 1831, and I’m going to drop you in a few hours before the Abraham squashing incident. The paper said “evening”, so I guess that means about five or six. You’ll arrive at four in the afternoon and I’ve found a street map of New Orleans dockside area, circa 1834, which I guess is close enough. We’re opening a window in what looks like a storage warehouse of some kind.’

She checked one of the screens. They had a density probe testing the location for obstructions.

‘Anything on the density probe, computer-Bob?’

› Negative. Nothing has passed through the time-stamp location.

She nodded, satisfied with that. It seemed a quiet enough spot.

‘Young Abe Lincoln gets flattened on Powder Street, which, according to the map we’ve got here, is just a minute or two from your drop location. It’s one of the main streets; I’m sure you’ll find it easy enough. Just follow