Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

Why not tell him?

› Liam has been to the year 2070. He has spoken with Waldstein.

It was then she heard the noise: boots on damp linoleum floor in the hallway outside; whispered voices, hoarse with trying to be heard, yet not heard; the soft clink of ammo cartridges in webbing pouches. Clumsy men trying far too hard to be quiet.

‘We are not alone,’ she said quietly.

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

The door to the classroom suddenly banged and rattled inwards, the rotten wood of its frame splintering and cracking under the whiplash impact of a standard-issue boot.

‘FREEZE!’ a voice roared as the door juddered loosely, scraping to a halt.

‘Hands in the air!’ Another voice. ‘Let me see your hands. Lemme see YOUR GODDAMN HANDS!’

Becks stared at the three men that had spilled through the door into the classroom. All of them dropped down on to one knee for a steadier aim: a well-practised manoeuvre, weapons raised and all pointing at her. Their goggle-covered faces flicked from side to side, scanning the corners, making sure she was the only occupant.

‘Please…’ she said. She showed her empty hands, palm up, concealing nothing. ‘Please do not shoot. I am unarmed, do you see?’

‘ Where are the others? ’

Becks ignored the question as she took a faltering step towards them. ‘Please…’ She made her voice wobble in a way that she’d heard both Maddy and Sal do before. The warbling pitch of someone frightened, fragile, vulnerable. ‘Please… I am so afraid.’

‘ GODDAMMIT! Stay right where you are!’ barked one of the men.

‘Down!’ shouted another. ‘Get her down on the ground!’

‘DO IT! Get down. DO IT NOW!’

Becks took another step closer to them. ‘I am so frightened!’ Her face crumpled into the approximation of a bewildered, terrified child. ‘Please… I want to go home to my mommy.’

‘ANOTHER STEP AND I WILL SHOOT!’

One of the men lowered his barrel slightly. ‘Jeez, Cameron! It’s just a kid!’

Becks took another half-step. She nodded eagerly. ‘I am,’ she said, her voice a whimper. ‘I am just a kid. And I want to go home to my mommy.’

Then, with a flicker of one swift movement, she had the stubby barrel of the lowered HK MP5 in one tight fist. She shoved it savagely, the gun’s stock flicked backwards and smacked the man’s jaw. Then she pulled on it, yanking the weapon free of his grasp.

‘Jesus Christ!’ gasped one of them.

She swung the weapon round like a battleaxe, a sweeping roundhouse blow that caught the unarmed man under the jaw again, snapping his head back and leaving him sprawled on the ground and out for the count.

Several unaimed twitch-finger shots rang out from the other two: staccato stabs of muzzle flash that lit the dim classroom like a strobe. In a blur of movement the weapon in Becks’s hands flipped end over end and now the gun was aimed at the two men. She pulled the trigger. A double-tap: one shot to the flak-jacket-covered chest of the man on the right, knocking him off balance; the second shot to his left upper thigh. Not a killing shot, but one that would kill him in minutes if he didn’t drag himself out to get some help immediately. In another second she had dealt the same precision shots to the other man. As the smoke cleared, they were both desperately dragging themselves out of the classroom, leaving dark snail trails of blood on the grimy floor behind them.

The passageway outside was now alive with echoing voices. Torch beams flickered and swayed. Becks caught a glimpse of a SWAT team helmet sneaking a look round the edge of the door. She emptied a dozen rounds into the doorframe and the wall beside it. Plaster and flecks of dried paint erupted in showers.

‘ Jesus! Man down!’ A shrill voice outside. ‘We got another man down over here!’

She was causing a rout, a rapid tactical rethink among the remaining men. Voices shouted over each other and the thud of boots receded down the passage in panic. Then after a minute, finally, it was quiet again, save for those same voices outside in the playground, still shouting over each other, exchanging curses and recriminations.

› Two minutes until there is sufficient charge, Becks.

› Affirmative.

She quickly examined the displacement machine. Miraculously, none of the shots fired in that quick exchange seemed to have hit it. To be honest, it would probably take no more than a sharp nudge of the metal frame or a mere fleck of damp paint lodged in the circuitry to cause the fragile thing to malfunction, let alone a single bullet on target.

In the moment of stillness Becks thought she heard the first tap of raindrops on a window. Then quickly it became apparent to her it wasn’t rain.

Clack-clack-clack-clack.

Footsteps approaching swiftly down the corridor outside, purposefully.

Finally a woman appeared in the ragged doorway. She smiled coolly.

‘So, here you are,’ said Faith.

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

Becks levelled the gun in her hands. ‘Yes, I am here.’

Faith remained where she was, framed by the doorway. ‘I am Faith.’

‘I am Becks.’

‘Do you understand why I am here?’

‘I believe your mission priority is to kill this team.’

‘Correct.’

Becks’s finger hovered on the machine-pistol’s trigger. The rest of the magazine’s worth of bullets, aimed squarely at the unit’s head, would be enough. Becks remembered her own death. A single lucky round from a British rifle. The impact against the miniature dense silicon wafer caused a cascading failure of circuits. She recalled her mind closing down. She recalled dropping to her knees amid a small hillock of uniformed bodies, the dying digital part of her spewing nonsensical random sequences across failing circuits. It was as close as her artificial mind could get to understanding the nature of death.

‘Why do you have this goal?’ asked Becks. ‘Why must this team be terminated?’

‘This team requested information on the Pandora event.’ Faith shook her head reproachfully. ‘Knowing of this — knowing what will one day happen — compromises their reliability.’

Becks found herself nodding in agreement. The unit standing in front of her was quite right. Maddy, now knowing what she did, was determined to ensure the Extinction Level Event in 2070 wasn’t going to happen. Her team were now no longer performing the function they were intended for. Quite the opposite. From this support unit’s perspective they were no longer the solution… they were the problem.

‘Events must unfold in that precise way,’ added Faith. ‘Humans must wipe themselves out in the year 2070. There can be no other alternative. These are Waldstein’s instructions.’

Becks frowned. ‘But there is no logical beneficiary in such a scenario. If all humans are dead… then there is nothing left.’

Faith shrugged a whatever. Becks had to admire the fluidity of that gesture; it was so gracefully human-like. ‘Perhaps it is for the best.’

And that too sounded so human. That sounded to Becks very much like an expressed opinion. Neither she nor Bob had quite managed to master that. ‘Is this your personal conclusion?’

‘Of course not. Unfortunately, I am unable to think that way.’ Faith entered the room. ‘Those are the words of my Authorized User — Roald Waldstein.’

Becks lowered her aim ever so slightly. ‘You are following his instructions.’

‘Correct.’

‘In that case I understand your reasoning.’

Faith nodded. ‘Good.’ She stepped over the unconscious man on the floor between them as if he was nothing more than a roll of carpet waiting to be taken out and dumped in a skip.