“I just want to go home. I left people behind. They need me.”
“How long did you say you’d been living up there?”
“Long enough or too long. It was a good place, a safe place, until…”
“Until what?”
“You see, that’s the thing. I guess I haven’t had chance to properly stop and think about it until now. We were there to escape the chaos of down here, and everything was good for so long, but it fell apart real fast. Too fast. The power station exploded, and that was it.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did the power station explode? You said you’d been up there for years, so why now? What happened to change things? Did someone screw up or…?”
“No, no…it was nothing like that.”
Jenny went cold. “What then?”
“Corrosion,” Maddie said simply. “Things that shouldn’t have decayed started falling apart. Materials that should have stayed strong for hundreds of years just started to crumble. Don’t ask me to tell you why, because I can’t explain. I know how things should work up there, but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“The Bleed?”
“Who knows? Maybe. Didn’t see a lot of blood but, to be honest, I didn’t get chance to investigate. We couldn’t stop it, ’cause it should never have been happening in the first place. It should have been impossible; we never prepared for anything like it. And as soon as we found it, we just had to get out and get away. And now here I am, thousands of miles and about fifty years away from home.”
“And I thought I’d had it bad because I’d lost a few weeks.”
“What?”
“When I got here earlier today, it felt like just a couple of seconds since I’d been in London, but three weeks had passed.”
“Interesting. Doesn’t make any more sense, though, because you jumped forward and…”
“And you fell backwards.”
“That room, whatever it is, can sure do some weird tricks. I think you’re right. If we can work out how to use it and send ourselves the other way, maybe we will be able to undo some of this mess.”
“And do you think we can work it out?”
“I’m the best mechanic you’ll ever meet. There isn’t a machine on the moon or on the earth or anywhere else I can’t come to grips with.”
“Good to hear.”
Jenny stood up and kicked at the sand.
“Problem?” Maddie asked.
“That guy just now…he knew who I was, and he wanted to hurt me. And I…and I can’t blame him. I’m the one who let the Bleed in. This is all my fault.”
“Looks to me like you’re also the one who’s planning to make things right. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Easy for you to say. It just doesn’t feel right, us sitting here on the beach like this when there’s so much pain and death and devastation on the other side of the world.”
“None of it feels real to me yet, if I’m honest. Sitting out in the open like this is alien to me.”
“How did your people end up on the moon?”
“Is your news here full of warnings about pollution and disease and famine and war and climate change and so on?”
“Daily. Well, until the Bleed came and bulldozed everything else.”
“And have you got to the part where all the scientists are warning things are looking really bad and the world needs to come together to find answers to all its problems before it’s too late?”
“Yep.”
“Well, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, no one was listening. The leaders of the world sat there with their fingers in their ears, too busy looking out for themselves to do anything for anyone else. Got to a point where people couldn’t take any more. And when the millions of people who are going without are being preached at by the folks who have plenty…well, there’s only ever going to be one way a situation like that is going to end.”
“Another war?”
“You got it. It was a big one this time. Worse than all the other wars put together, and longer, too. Worldwide. And way before the dust had started to settle, it was pretty clear that there was nothing left of the world worth winning. Fortunately, some enterprising types had seen it coming and had started terra-forming the moon. I was one of the lucky ones who ended up with a roof over my head and a trade that kept me busy and in demand.”
“So what about the power station explosion? Will there be anyone left alive up there?”
“It was bad enough to do some serious damage, but not bad enough to end it all. I don’t know how many people died in the blast, but there are plenty of other bases up there. But shit, who knows what damage the radiation will do? No one’s ever blown up a power station in space before. If they can balance the power drains across the other substations and keep things moving, they should be okay. I need to get back up there and help. There are plenty of other mechs, but there no one that knows the ins and outs like I do.”
“All the more reason for us to go back to the hotel and work out how the clockwork room works. Then, if it works like you reckon and we can move through time, we might have a chance of putting all of this right. I can go back and stop the gods from destroying London, and you can travel back and prevent the Bleed from infecting the moon.”
“Travel forward. I’m ahead of you, remember?”
“Yeah. Confusing.”
“And you’re making it all sound easy.”
“I’m under no illusions. Nothing’s easy anymore.”
Jenny helped Maddie to her feet, and they started back towards the hotel and the clockwork room.
In the short time they’d been away, the sun had completely disappeared. The atmosphere in Surfer’s Paradise was different now. Fractious. On edge. It felt like they were never far from trouble. A larger group of religious folks were campaigning under a streetlight at the edge of the beach,
