Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

‘Foster, I…’

He shushed her with a finger over her lips. ‘This is goodbye, Maddy. Don’t ruin it by blurting something stupid.’

She pulled his hand away. ‘Foster…’ She wanted to call him by his real name. ‘Liam…’

Foster smiled. ‘It’s a long while since I’ve been called that.’

‘Please…’ She had no idea what she wanted to say. Something meaningful. ‘ Please ’ wasn’t it. ‘ Please ’ was just so pathetically lame.

‘For the love of God, Maddy… will you just bleedin’ well go!’

‘Liam…’ she said again. ‘I, I…’

He waved her silent. ‘I loved you, Maddy. Each time. I always did. Even when I knew…’ He stopped himself. So much he wanted to say, and so little that he could in this all too short heartbeat of time. ‘Just go!’

She heard footsteps inside the store. Heavy, purposeful footsteps drawing closer.

Then, cursing herself for being a coward, for leaving him behind, she scooted on hands and feet, through aisles of chunky plastic playsets, beneath rows of fur-hooded children’s anoraks and racks of cheerily coloured wellies, perfect for little feet to stamp in autumn rain puddles. She scuttled on all fours until she finally stumbled upon the moving metal grated steps of an escalator.

Foster waited until she was out of sight, stood up, his hands raised above him. Both support units levelled their weapons at him. The male support unit was bleeding from three gunshot wounds, one to the forehead. A dark trickle of blood rolled sluggishly down between thick brows, down the side of his nose from a circle of puckered flesh above his eyes. A perfect take-down shot from some policeman or mall guard. Whoever had taken that head shot must have died wondering how a man could be shot between the eyes and shrug it off like a mere gnat bite.

‘You know me,’ said Foster.

The female support unit frowned, a hesitant, confused expression on her face. The old man standing before her looked very similar to one of the faces in her database. It wasn’t an exact match, but a very close one. Close enough that she wanted to take a couple of steps closer, see him more clearly and confirm his identity one way or the other.

‘Where are the others?’ asked Abel.

Foster shrugged. ‘Long gone.’

‘You are a part of their team?’ Halfway between a statement and a question.

‘You know me, don’t you?’ said Foster again, trying a lopsided smile. ‘It’s me. I’m your Authorized User. Now then… why don’t you lower your weapons?’

Abel narrowed his eyes. He had to admit the man standing in front of him with his hands raised did look very much like the man who had issued them their instructions: Authorized User.

He cast an uncertain glance at Faith. A glance that asked the question: Is he?

She was still working on that particular one herself.

The escalator carried Maddy slowly towards the shop’s upper floor; Baby-Toddler Wear. It was so still, so very quiet. All she could hear was the gentle hum of the escalator’s motor and the soft chime of mall music outside. Still down on her hands and knees, she decided to chance one last look. She lifted her head to see over the smoked glass side of the escalator, over the black rubber rim of the hand rail and she caught sight of Foster, standing just yards in front of the two units. His arms raised in surrender… but slowly lowering them as if the gesture of surrender was no longer necessary.

He was saying something, she could just about hear his voice, low, unclear. But it was definitely him doing the talking.

My God, he’s actually doing it! He’s actually talking them round!

For a moment there, just for a moment, she let herself believe something might go their way for once.

Then one of the units fired.

Her last image of Foster was him dropping to his knees in front of the killer meatbots. She thought she heard him swear at them, something Irish, something defiant… something so very Liam. Then, as the escalator carried her past a sales display and she finally lost sight of him, she heard four or five shots one after the other. Then one last executioner’s shot.

7.32 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven Plaza, outside Branford

Liam led the way out of the toystore’s upper-floor exit, on to the top concourse. The few mid-morning shoppers were frozen where they were; no one was going anywhere, merely exchanging expressions of panic.

‘Was that a gun I just heard?’ a woman asked Liam as he and the two support units rushed past.

‘Aye,’ said Liam, dragging a dawdling Becks by the hand.

‘We must stop and fight them,’ she said.

‘There’s two of ’em. And they got guns.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you that desperate to get yourself into a scrap?’

She cocked her head. ‘Scrap?’ Not used to Liam’s speech patterns just yet.

‘Inadvisable,’ said Bob. ‘The best course of action right now is evasion.’

Liam nodded. ‘Listen to your big brother.’

They were just passing a Barnes amp; Noble when half a dozen more shots erupted from the floor below and rang out across the mall.

‘Jay-zus!’

‘Oh my God!’ someone across the way screamed. ‘It’s terrorists!’

The ‘T’ word spread like a ripple across a still pond. People’s mouths dropping open into ‘O’s. The mall music suddenly stopped and a voice announced over the tannoy that an emergency situation was in progress and that all customers and staff were to proceed immediately to the nearest fire exits.

Inevitably someone screamed the ‘B’ word and the frozen tableau of confusion turned into a flood of shop staff emerging from the entrances of their respective stores, spilling on to the upper concourse. Suddenly it seemed like a very busy mall.

Liam and the other two joined the press of bodies heading towards the escalators at the end that would take them down to the front entrance and out into the car park.

Sal and Rashim had found a different way out of the toystore on the lower floor, a door marked STAFF ONLY that led to a stockroom piled high with cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. From there they found a door at the back that gave access to a service corridor of dull grey breeze-block walls.

‘Which way now?’ asked Rashim.

‘I don’t know.’ Her guess was left. Left would take them towards the entrance they came in, she figured. She led the way. Muted by two closed doors, they heard the faintest crackle of gunfire behind them.

‘This is insane,’ gasped Rashim. ‘Who in God’s name wants you lot dead so badly?’

‘Jahulla!’ she whispered. ‘Wish I knew.’ It felt to her like they’d been running non-stop for weeks. In added-up time for her, it was almost that. Just after sending Liam and Bob back to Rome, that’s when they’d been jumped in Times Square. Ambushed and pursued all the way back to the archway, and there, attacked yet again — one of the units even managing to dive through the portal right behind them and join them back in Ancient Rome.

Pandora. It was asking about Pandora that had set this off. Sal was almost certain of that. That and perhaps, somehow, it was linked to that poor, poor man who’d jumped back to 1831 to warn her about something.

But what was that warning? ‘ The bear ’. ‘ You’re not who you think you are.’ What the pinchudda was that supposed to mean?

I think I’m Sal. I’m Saleena Vikram. I’m a schoolgirl from Ajmeera Independent Academy in Mumbai. I used to play Pikodu pretty well. And listen to bhangra-metal. I’m the daughter of Sanjay and Abeer Vikram. And I used to live in a small apartment in Mumbai. Papaji used to buy and sell computer chips. Mamaji used to be an accountant. What part of all of that isn’t right?