Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

The boys left, the motel door snicked shut behind them. Becks took her place beside the window, the net curtain tugged slightly aside, patiently watching the slip road outside that led past a TGI Friday’s and a liquor store to their motel. Sal flopped on to the free bed and within a couple of minutes was snoring with a soft rattle that sounded like the purr of a cat.

And Maddy gazed listlessly at the muted TV set at the end of her bed.

12 September 2001, New Haven County, Connecticut

Agents Cooper and Mallard looked at the knuckle-shaped bulge in the cell door.

‘ She did that?’ said Cooper.

The duty officer at the county police station nodded. ‘We had to taser her and heavily sedate her, cuff her… and put her in a restraining jacket, or I reckon she’d have smashed her way out eventually.’

‘She’s conscious now, though?’

The officer nodded. ‘You actually wanna go in there with her?’

‘Of course.’

‘Jeez… don’t rile her up or anything.’ He fussed with a jangle of keys on his belt. ‘Don’t know why we’re holding her here. She should’ve been taken to the state — ’

‘On my orders,’ replied Cooper. ‘The less pairs of eyeballs on this, the better. And you and your boys did a splendid job taking her down at the mall.’ He smiled kindly. ‘I trust her in your care, officer. For the moment.’

He found the key and inserted it into the cell door. ‘This is some kind of Top Secret, isn’t it?’

‘Afraid so.’

‘Anything to do with the World Trade Center?’

Cooper shook his head. Keep it simple. Keep it terrorist-free. ‘No. Nothing.’

He turned the key in the door. ‘Back at the mall she hospitalized three of my men even after we’d tasered the heck out of her.’ He looked at Cooper pointedly. ‘Could you at least give me some idea what the hell she is?’

Cooper glanced at Mallard, then back at the cop. ‘She’s… the future.’ He pulled the cell door open; it clanged against the doorframe as it opened, slightly misshapen from the pounding it had received from the inside.

He stepped in, beckoned Mallard to join him, but held his hand up to the cop. ‘Just my colleague and me, I’m afraid.’

‘Right,’ sighed the officer.

He glanced at the bald-headed female strapped to the cell’s cot. She was wide awake and emotionless grey eyes swivelled murderously towards him. She was panting like a wild animal, flexing against the restraints.

‘She’s all yours,’ he said finally and closed the door on them.

Mallard looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘You sure we’re safe in here with her, sir?’

Cooper ignored him. He squatted down beside the cot; those grey eyes were now on him. Her panting and flexing stopped. No longer a wild animal. In a heartbeat she was calm and impassive. He could feel those grey eyes coolly evaluating him.

‘Release me,’ she said evenly after a while.

‘Ah! So… you can talk?’

‘Affirmative. I am able to talk.’

Cooper tapped his chin with his fountain pen for a moment. ‘I have no idea what exactly you are. I do know, however, that you’re not a normal human being.’

She said nothing.

‘We had a preliminary report back on a sample of your colleague’s blood…’ Cooper worked to keep his voice as cold and clinically professional as this young woman’s. ‘It’s not a match with any blood type.’

‘Correct,’ she replied. Her dark eyebrows knotted momentarily. ‘Abel is terminated?’

‘Terminated? You mean dead?’ No point lying to her. ‘Yes, he’s quite dead.’

He thought he detected the slightest flicker of a reaction on her face.

Terminated. God, yes… that’s what this was beginning to feel like — that awfully cheesy eighties science-fiction movie about killer robots.

‘The post-mortem also produced another very interesting discovery,’ continued Cooper.

This one’s a doozy. The pathologist who’d rung this little detail through to him was almost in tears. She was gabbling, confused, asking him questions none of which he could answer. Mallard had yet to hear this titbit of information.

‘Your friend, Abel, has no human brain.’

‘ Whuh? ’ Mallard’s jaw hung open. Cooper scowled at him and his mouth snapped shut.

‘The cranial cavity interior’s much, much smaller than a regular human skull. The space is taken up with additional layers of bone. A thoroughly reinforced skull. Inside all of that we found a brain the size of a fingernail and what appears to be some sort of embedded circuitry.’

‘The circuit has self-destructed,’ she said, cocking an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

He wasn’t sure if that was a statement or a question. He waited for more, but she just eyed him coolly. ‘Yes…’ He sighed. ‘It was pretty much fried.’

‘That is good.’

Was that the ghost of a smile there?

‘Abel was able to self-destruct.’

He thought he’d give the direct approach a go. At the moment she seemed willing to talk candidly. ‘Would you care to tell me who… or what… you are?’

‘Genetically engineered organic-silicon hybrid — Reconnaissance and Covert Operations variant,’ she replied. ‘With W.G. Systems AI version 2.3.11 installed.’

‘What does organic-silicon hybrid mean? You’re what?… Some sort of half human-half robot?’ asked Mallard.

‘Negative. I am a genetically engineered human frame with a dense silicon-wafer processor.’ Her eyes flickered on to Mallard. ‘A computer for a brain,’ she clarified for his benefit.

‘But… but — ’ He looked at Cooper — ‘we can’t do that kind of genetic engineering yet! Can we?’

‘No,’ Faith replied. ‘Not for another fifty years.’

‘My God!’ gasped Mallard. ‘Jesus! You’re from the… from the future? Is that what you’re saying?!’

Cooper was tempted to tell Mallard to shut up. Yes, at some point he was going to need to bring his new man up to speed. Mallard had already been exposed to knowledge way beyond being allowed to return to the FBI rank and file. Cooper decided he might as well get him right up there on the same page as him. The sooner, the better. ‘Why don’t you start by telling me what precise year you’re from?’ Cooper said.

‘My batch birth date is 25 June 2069. Waldstein sent us back to kill TimeRiders.’

‘Oh my God! Did she just say — ?’

‘That’s right, Mallard. You’re going to need to get your head round this. And fast. I can’t have you flapping your jaw like that every time something’s said. She’s from the future — get used to it.’

The younger man paled. He rocked on his heels uncertainly as his jaw hung open, catching flies once more.

Cooper decided he’d better go easy on him. After all, personally he’d had quite a few years to get used to the idea that anonymous time travellers had passed this way in recent years and just might have rather carelessly left one or two of their footsteps in history.

‘ The future? ’ he whispered.

‘Mallard, I need you to process that quietly, all right? I know it’s a helluva thing to take on board. So, just think about it for now, and later I will talk you through it, all the evidence we have. The whole deal. But for now? Right now?… I need you to shut up.’ He patted the man’s shoulder. ‘All right?’

Mallard nodded. Cooper turned back to the young woman strapped to the cell’s cot. ‘Why have you come back here to our time? Who were you after in that shopping mall?’

She started blinking rapidly.

‘You all right? What’re you doing?’ No response, just the rapid flickering of her eyelids.

‘Good God!’ Mallard was horrified. ‘I think she’s having a seizure. She’s — ’