She returned her attention to the console, determined to understand how it worked and what it was capable of. If it had dragged her back through time, then surely she could go back further and find a way to prevent the Bleed from ever taking hold, thereby restoring the future that she remembered. Even thinking about what had happened, what was going to happen, and what might now never happen was confusing. Her life had become a swirling brain-stew of epic proportions, and she knew it would be impossible to keep track of all the possible outcomes and permutations. Was there even any point in trying?
Of course there was.
She cursed herself for being defeatist.
Maddie knew she had go back to basics. It was the number of questions that was overwhelming her, not the questions themselves. She needed to approach her situation in the same way she repaired faults with machines: step by step, stage by stage, troubleshoot one issue and then move onto the next. And the first step she had to resolve was obvious: STOP THE BLEED. If she could get back to the beginning and warn Jenny, maybe she’d be able to prevent the Bleed from ever getting a hold?
She laid her hands on the console and cleared her head, thinking about jumping back to London three weeks ago, visualizing the top of the Shard. She remembered it being an unusual-looking building and, as if it was trying to help her, the machine projected an image of the pre-Bleed London skyline. Good. She was finally getting somewhere. “That’s it,” she said. “Take me there. Take me there before all this began.”
The clockwork room never felt like it moved, so it was impossible to tell from inside whether or not her location had changed. She braced herself, ready for whatever this crazy antique world might be about to throw at her, then ran through the exit.
She knew before she’d reached the window on the landing that it hadn’t worked. Surfers Paradise. Southern hemisphere stars. Maybe she’d got the location wrong, but had she managed to jump back the required number of weeks? The streets outside remained a sea of people, but that wasn’t proof positive. She went down a couple of floors, looking for confirmation, and found a room where the guests were stoned and unconscious. The door had been propped open with a pile of dirty washing, and Maddie could hear the TV playing. She tiptoed in, holding her breath and wafting her hand in front of her face to dissipate the smoke haze, and saw that absolutely nothing had changed. The TV news was the same as before. The planet was still being devoured by the Bleed, and Jennifer Allsopp, the betrayer of everything and everyone, was at last in captivity.
Maddie dragged herself back upstairs. It didn’t make sense…she could make the impossible machine cooperate to an extent, but why hadn’t she been able to make it fly or move or materialize or do whatever the hell it did to get from point A to point B via all manner of space and time diversions? She could access and configure the machine, but little else.
And then it struck her.
“I’m a mechanic. I’m never gonna get anywhere without a pilot.”
7
SURFERS PARADISE, AUSTRALIA
It had all happened so fast that Jenny hadn’t been able to get her head around it. From a squad car, to a holding cell in a local copshop, to a prison van, to being blindfolded and shackled and bundled into a helicopter, to being chained to the wall in another holding pen, and now to this: a small concrete-walled cell, barely big enough for her to take more than a couple of steps in any direction. No windows. A metal door with no grille. Total isolation. She didn’t know if she was scared or angry, or what was getting to her more—was it the fast approaching Bleed and the fact she was helpless to do anything about it from here, or the fact that she’d been betrayed by the only person left in the world who could help her? Fucking Maddie. Fucking bitch.
She was completely unfamiliar with the area, so didn’t have any idea where she was being held. She’d tried talking to the officers who’d brought her here, but none of them had replied with anything more than grunts and shoves. Her request for a lawyer (not that she knew one) had been laughed at. Her basic rights—food, water, sanitation, information—had been unilaterally ignored.
Surely they must have seen what had actually happened in London? She thought that anyone who’d been watching must have understood that she was as much a victim of the Bleed as everyone else, that she’d been played for a fool by the gods just as the rest of the world had been? But no. It appeared that she’d become a convenient hate figure for those left alive to aim their nervousness and fear at. There was no point them getting shitty with the Bleed, that wouldn’t make a scrap of difference. It seemed to be far more satisfying to use her as an emotional punching bag instead.
Then again, maybe she deserved it? She was, after all, the one who’d opened Pandora’s Box and allowed evil to consume the planet.
Part of her wished they’d just get it over with quickly, but it was several more painful hours filled with self-recrimination before the oppressive silence was abruptly ended and the corridor outside her cell was filled with noise. Jenny had figured she was the only prisoner in this jail, because she’d heard nothing from any other inmates in all the time she’d been banged up. Even when she’d screamed out in anger, or for food or water, her cries had been met with nothing but utter silence, but now she could hear boots on the ground, the rattling of locks, the cumulative buzz of whispered conversations.
They were
