Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

Joseph looked at him. ‘Perhaps…?’

‘What?’

Be very careful, Joseph.

‘P-perhaps… this project has already become too dangerous, Mr Waldstein?’

The old man stared at him for a moment. Joseph wondered what thoughts were thrashing around behind those intense eyes. He struggled to keep his composure. ‘I… I just wonder if things have become — ’

‘We don’t have much of a choice in the matter. This has to work. You understand that, don’t you?’

Joseph could hardly meet his eyes. ‘But…’

‘There are no buts, Joseph. We’re the first and the last line of defence. Do you understand? Do you honestly think we’re the only people in the world right now with viable time-travel technology? I’m not a fool. Yes, there’s a law now: ILA Ruling 234. A draconian law. But I’m not naive enough to think there aren’t people out there quietly working on time travel all the same.’

‘Yes, Mr Waldstein.’

He leaned over and squeezed Joseph’s shoulder affectionately. ‘You’ve seen for yourself what our team in the past have narrowly prevented.’

Joseph looked at the small window. Outside that window, beyond the reach of their laboratory stasis field, he’d witnessed a time wave arrive and leave behind it an irradiated wasteland. Just for a few minutes it had been there — a hellish landscape — then washed away by another wave moments later.

‘I know this isn’t an ideal world — ’ Waldstein laughed drily at that understatement — ‘but there are an infinite number of possibilities far worse.’ Waldstein squeezed his shoulder again. ‘Trust me. Just stay the course. You’re a good man, Joseph. I know I can trust you. I know that.’

‘Th-thank you, sir.’

He got up off the stool and stepped away. Other matters appeared to be on his mind. ‘I have a damned meeting I need to attend in Denver tomorrow. W.G. Systems’ investors, some of our major clients. I could do without that right now, but…’ He sighed. ‘It’s one I really do have to be at.’ Waldstein looked harried, stretched, like plastic wrap over the hard corners of a box, pulled taut to the point of ripping.

‘I know things have been difficult recently, Joseph. I… I wish Frasier was here with us still. It’s… well, what happened to him was horrible. I suppose it’s a sign of these awful times. You know, I sometimes think we deserve this hopeless world. All our mistakes have finally come home to roost, haven’t they?’

Joseph nodded, and Waldstein looked like his train of thought was heading off in some other direction. ‘Just you and me running this project now.’

‘Yes, Mr Waldstein.’

‘We need to keep things going. To keep things on track. All the hard work’s been done now. All we need to do now is just make sure our team can continue doing their job. I’m sure they’ll be fine back there.’ He smiled. ‘They’re good kids. I’m so proud of them. And you too, Joseph. They’re as much your creations as they are anyone else’s.’

‘Thank you.’

Waldstein nodded and turned to go.

‘Mr Waldstein?’

‘Yes?’

‘When will you want the embryos ready by?’

He sucked in a breath. ‘I hate doing this, you know? Having to step into that white mist. Knowing that it’s killing me cell by cell. Knowing that every time we open a goddamn portal we’re broadcasting our presence to those who might be looking for it.’

‘That worries me too, Mr Waldstein.’

‘And this, then, will have to be the last time. They’re on their own after this.’ Waldstein sighed. ‘Have the embryos good to go for this evening, will you? Let’s get it done and out of the way.’ He nodded to himself. ‘This evening.’

‘I will have them ready.’

‘Thank you. And after that… hopefully the Saleena unit will be ready to drop back in Brooklyn?’

‘She’ll need another thirteen hours, I think, to full growth. Then I’ll need a few hours to upload and configure her new memory.’

‘Fine, as soon as she’s ready get her sent back. You’ll be OK doing that on your own?’

‘Of… of course, Mr Waldstein.’ Joseph tapped his h-pad. ‘I have the insertion data-stamp as we discussed: outside the archway, directly after the 1941 corrective wave. I have it all ready.’

Waldstein nodded. ‘Of course.’ He sighed, trying a weary morale-raising smile. ‘Then that’ll be all our messy housekeeping done. Back on an even keel, as I think the saying goes.’

Joseph watched Waldstein go. Then, finally alone in the lab, he took in a deep breath and let it out.

Jesus.

He recalled a couple of things Waldstein had said. Things that had echoed what Griggs had been fixating on.

We deserve this hopeless world? We need to keep things on track?

Frasier Griggs was right. He was certain of it now. Quite certain that beneath his carefully orchestrated enigmatic composure, withstanding his publicly declared ambition to save mankind from itself — Waldstein had quietly gone insane. The man seemed utterly intent on steering the ship on to the rocks, not away from them. Intent on steering mankind towards its own demise.

Pandora.

Joseph realized it was all down to one person. Himself. Griggs had been foolish and confronted Waldstein directly. Now he was dead. Perhaps he could smuggle a warning to the team, just something to alert them to whatever this ‘Pandora’ was that Waldstein was attempting to preserve. Something discreet. A note. Something.

It’s just me now. I’ve got to do more than that.

He looked once again at the message from the past. The Liam-now-Foster unit had ordered a replacement Saleena like someone might dial up a pizza. The unit did his job diligently, loyally — just like he was programmed to do.

Saleena Vikram.

Olivera had an idea. Another way that he could attempt to derail this project. Something he could do, something subtle enough that it could be sneaked past Waldstein’s ever-watchful eyes. A deliberate, conspicuous continuity error in Sal’s memory line. Enough of a jarring continuity error that she’d end up picking at it like a scab, worrying away at it until she’d finally worked out what it meant. Now that was something Waldstein might not spot — some small additional memory embedded in her mind, a detail not quite right. A detail that was quite impossible to be true. And it would trouble her. Make her question things.

He’d been thinking about that last night as he’d sat alone in this lab, while trying to catch a few hours’ sleep on the metal-framed cot in the corner. While he’d been watching her grow in the tube, the faint outline of a child’s body floating in a glowing amber soup.

Then he had it. It came to him.

A certain blue bear that he recalled seeing in the dusty window of an antique shop back in 2001. Not too far from the archway, as it happened. Close enough, in fact, that she was bound to stumble across it sooner or later. See it with her own eyes and then wonder how it was possible that she’d recall seeing it tumbling over and over in an inferno in Mumbai, in the year 2026

13 September 2011, Interstate 90, Newton, Massachusetts

‘But that’s completely bleedin’ crazy!’ said Liam. ‘You’re saying… what? That I’m a…’

‘A meatbot, Liam. You, me and Sal — we’re just weedier, nerdier models of Bob and Becks,’ said Maddy with a bitter tone.

Liam laughed a little maniacally. ‘Aw, come on! That’s a corker, that is! There’s no way at all that I’m — ’

‘Think about it, Liam. Think about it!’

‘I don’t need to think about! I’m Liam!’

Maddy got up and took a step forward. ‘I was never on an airplane from New York to Boston. A plane that supposedly blew up,’ she said. ‘And you, Liam, you were never on the Titanic and Sal was never living in 2026 in Mumbai. They’re all just made-up memories.’