Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

‘Come on now, Mr O’Connor,’ the man’s muffled voice returned. ‘That’s no way to welcome your good neighbour, is it?’

Liam cursed. He looked back over his shoulder. SpongeBubba was out of sight and most of their bits and pieces from 2001 were covered by a tarp. By the faint glow of lamplight Delbert Hook wasn’t going to see anything much, and most importantly, not the far wall, vandalized as it was with holes all along the length of it.

He quickly slid the bolt to one side and pulled the door open — catching Delbert still hunkered down, caught in the act of attempting to sneak a peek through the keyhole. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Hook?’

Delbert awkwardly straightened up, flexed his neck and smoothed down his waistcoat. ‘I… well, I heard some knockin’ going on in here. Thought perhaps one of you might have got stuck. Locked in by mistake, so to speak.’

‘No.’ Liam offered him a reassuring face. ‘No, we’re just fine.’

Delbert was craning his neck curiously, trying to see past Liam. ‘Is that some of your scientific paraphernalia I see behind you?’

Liam looked over his shoulder at the dim hump of the tarp in the middle of the floor. ‘Aye. Just assorted bits and pieces.’

‘A lot of bits and pieces by the look of it.’ Delbert frowned suspiciously. ‘I didn’t hear you bring all of that lot in.’

‘We used the Farringdon Street door, so we did.’

‘Very quietly it seems.’

‘Ah well, we didn’t want to disturb you up the front.’ Liam offered him a polite smile. ‘Don’t want to be a nuisance or anything.’

There was an awkward silence between them as Delbert’s head ducked and weaved to get another look past Liam, and Liam shuffled subtly from side to side to obscure his view.

‘So, is your Dr Anwar going to be starting his experiments soon, is he?’

‘When he’s good and ready.’

Delbert gave up on the peeking. The doorway was too narrow. ‘Well, if you gents need anything… any supplies? You know I’m the man to call on. I can get you anything you want.’ He winked. ‘ Anything.’

Liam nodded. ‘Well, if we do need your help, Mr Hook, we’ll be sure to ask.’

The little man stood on tiptoes and craned his neck to one side, one last time. Liam mirrored him. ‘Anything else, is there, Mr Hook?’

He sighed. Back down on flat feet. ‘No… no. Just remember, your rent’s due on the Sunday.’

‘Aye, every Sunday. I won’t forget.’

‘Right then.’ A frustrated smile flickered across Delbert’s lips. ‘I’ll bid you good day.’

Liam watched him turn and go, whistling tunelessly as his feet scuffed the floor and he finally disappeared from view. He closed and bolted their door.

‘OK, SpongeBubba, you can come out now.’ The lab unit shuffled out of a dark corner.

Liam heard Rashim’s voice echoing down the passage and out of the hole in the back wall. He couldn’t make out what he’d said, but it sounded encouraging. A moment later he spotted the soles of Rashim’s feet followed by his rear appearing in the crawl space as he slowly, awkwardly, reversed back out.

He stood up; his chest and back, hands and face were caked with dirt and grime. But he was grinning like a child. He held up a loop of modern plastic-sheathed flex, taped off to insulate the end. ‘I managed to patch into their copper wiring.’

It took him another few minutes to wire in a heavy-duty transformer and then finally pull out a desk lamp from beneath the tarp. He plugged it into a four-way connector.

‘So, here it is.’ Rashim licked his lips anxiously and flicked the switch. ‘Hopefully.’ The desk lamp’s bulb flickered on with a dull snick.

‘And voila! Now we have power!’

9 October 2001, Green Acres Elementary School, Harcourt, Ohio

‘OK. So we’re jumping to 14 December 1888. That’s a clear day and night after Liam and Rashim’s return, so we shouldn’t get any tachyon backwash.’ The boys had had a total of nine days back there fixing their new ‘home’ up, ready for their complete relocation.

‘This is how we’re going to go about it,’ said Maddy. She pointed at the PCs. ‘We can operate this displacement window on just one of those. It’s a relatively close time-stamp, just over a century away.’

‘One hundred and twelve years, nine months and — ’

‘Thanks, Becks. Like I said, just over a century — so we’re nowhere near pushing the calculative side of things. One PC will be enough. The rest we’re gonna box up and send through.’

She looked around the derelict classroom, their home for nearly three weeks. It was almost empty now. All that remained was what they’d found in there: abandoned tables and chairs. She pointed at the two squares marked in tape on the floor.

‘We’re going in pairs. Obviously. But the way I see it, we’ve got a bit of a problem with the last displacement.’

She hesitated to see whether Liam or Sal were thinking along the same lines as her. Keeping up to speed. She sighed; of course they weren’t. Liam shrugged at her to get on with it and Sal stared vacantly.

‘Right,’ she said with another sigh, ‘good to see you two are on the ball.’

Liam nodded assuredly. ‘Aye.’

She rolled her eyes, noting that Liam wouldn’t recognize a gentle prod of snark-asm if it slapped him in the face.

‘The last displacement, guys, has to transport the displacement machine itself. We can’t leave it behind. Which means a certain amount of untested risk.’ She looked at Rashim to elaborate.

‘Yes… uh… yes, you see, when we activate the last time window, we will effectively be severing the power supply to the displacement machine. In theory the heavy lifting has already been done by opening the window, so this should not, theoretically, be an issue. But — ’ he spread his hands — ‘it is untested. The interruption could cause a glitch.’

‘And if it does that?’ said Liam.

‘We could lose our machine and be stuck in 1888,’ replied Maddy.

‘The window could collapse in on itself,’ continued Rashim. ‘Or the time-stamp might deviate in location or time.’

‘Which is why someone has to go at the same time as it,’ said Maddy. ‘Go with it.’

Liam’s eyes widened. ‘You mean one of us has to run the risk of being turned inside out? Or get blended with a brick wall?’

‘Or get lost in chaos space?’ added Sal.

Maddy shook her head. ‘You won’t end up merged with it. Remember, these are separate displacement envelopes. But, if a glitch does happen and the displacement machine remains here in 2001, or — I dunno — ends up blapped ten years into the future or something, we need someone right there alongside it to destroy it. To make sure it doesn’t end up in someone else’s hands.’

‘Stuff that,’ said Liam. ‘If that happens then it happens.’

Sal shook her head. ‘I… I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to end up… lost.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Maddy replied solemnly, ‘I’m not actually asking for volunteers to go alongside the machine.’

‘Jay-zus, Maddy! Don’t be a daft idiot! We can’t do this without you.’

Incredulity on her face. She half-laughed at that. ‘I’m not frikkin’ volunteering, Liam! Do I look like a stupid moron?’

‘Then who?’ asked Sal. She looked at Rashim. ‘Not…’

He grinned. ‘I’m not a stupid moron either.’

‘Becks,’ said Maddy, settling the issue. ‘It’s Becks who’s doing it.’ She looked at the support unit sitting cross-legged beside Bob, dismayingly small and slight in contrast to him — an orange compared to a pumpkin.

Becks nodded. ‘Maddy and I have already discussed this. I am logically the most expendable team member.’