Alex Scarrow - City of Shadows

She looked at Mary and imagined that her hard drive looked like the skin on this woman’s face: pockmarked, weathered, lined.

A visual metaphor, of course. Not literally.

A drip of rainwater from the lamp-post landed on Mary’s upturned face. She wiped it away. ‘I wanted to be a musician, a piano player when I was a little girl,’ she said. ‘You know, I was brought up near a convent. And they had an old piano there they let me play on. I could play some pretty tunes on that, Faith, I could. Even though I couldn’t never read the music.’ She smiled wistfully and listened to the soft patter of raindrops all around them. ‘We all ’ave silly dreams when we’re children, don’t we?’

Faith felt she should nod at that.

‘Only dream I got left, I s’pose, is taking meself back ’ome ’gain. To me mum and dad. Be a little girl all over again.’ Mary sighed and the soft hiss of drizzle filled the silence.

‘What about you, Faith? Was you a bit of a dreamer?’

Faith hadn’t told Mary much about her past. In fact, Mary had assumed most of it — country girl from a farm? Longed for the excitement of the big city? Came to London with little or no money and soon found herself in trouble? All Faith had really needed to do was nod at Mary’s stated presumptions.

Did she have ‘dreams’? Faith gave that a moment’s thought.

[Information: I have goals. Objectives]

But dreams… in a different sense, dreams. She had trace memories: the faintest recollection of pre-born foggy images and muffled sounds. A growth cycle in her tube, before her miniature silicon chip became active and thinking became a digital process.

‘I sometimes dream,’ said Faith finally. She panned her cool grey eyes on to Mary. ‘I dream that I can go back home also.’

Mary laughed. ‘Right blimmin’ daft couple standin’ here, ain’t we?’

‘Yes,’ said Faith. ‘ Blimmin ’ daft.’

‘You an’ me… we should try and save every penny we make. No more of the gin, no more of the bad stuff… just save up all the money we can lay our ’ands on.’

‘Agreed. The gin is toxic to your body chemistry. It does you harm consuming it.’ Faith looked at Mary. ‘What is your intended purpose for the money?’

‘To pay for a train, of course! A train away from ’ere. A train back home. That’s where you an’ me should try and get. Back to our ’omes. This ain’t no decent place to live. Farm animals live a better life than most of the poor sods trapped ’ere in Whitechapel. I wish I’d never come ’ere in the first place.’

‘Correct. Many of the humans here appear to be in poor condition.’

‘It’s so hard to get by.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Even just gettin’ enough to eat. But then you walk no more’n a mile west… places like Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus… and you see ’em posh blighters in their fancy clothes, in their fancy carriages, stepping into fancy clubs and eateries. None of ’em done a day’s work in their lives. Ain’t right.’ She sighed. ‘If I ’ad a say in things… I’d change it all. Take what’s theirs and share it among all them poor beggars out there workin’ all day an’ night just to scratch together enough money to blimmin’ well eat!’

A thought occurred to Mary just then. ‘Where did you tell me your ’ome was, Faith?’

Faith looked at her. ‘I have no… home.’

‘Then, blimmin’ ’eck, you could come with me!’ Mary’s face creased with a gap-toothed grin. ‘How about that? Would you like that? Wales is lovely, Faith. Mountains and valleys. Nothin’ like London.’ She grabbed Faith’s arm. ‘We could both go live in Wales. Would you like that? You and me? We could pinch as much money as we can… save every penny, an’ buy us some tickets away from this miserable city.’

Faith’s tight lips curved, producing a practised-several-times, almost genuine-looking smile. ‘That sounds like a blimmin’ good plan, Mary.’

15 December 1888, Holborn Viaduct, London

Liam looked down at himself. He was wearing a pair of grey flannel trousers and a white cotton shirt; it was as time-neutral a look as they could get from his Victorian clothes. Maddy as well: just a plain grey skirt and a vanilla-coloured blouse — no frills, lace or bonnet. At worst they’d look like a pair of rather dull nerds in 2001.

Or a rather unimaginative couple.

‘So, it’s Piccadilly Circus, then,’ said Liam. They were heading for London, 2001, instead of New York. Having crunched the numbers, Rashim had come to the conclusion that the charge they could muster was not going to be enough to project them that far into the future unless they compensated on the geo-displacement and aimed for somewhere closer to home.

‘We’ll do a one-hour visit,’ said Maddy. ‘One hour then open the return window at the same place. And a two-hour back-up window for just-in-case. OK?’

Rashim was sitting at the desk. ‘Understood.’

Liam centred himself in his square. ‘Nice not to be going back wet.’ He grinned. ‘That’s a blessed relief, so it is.’

Maddy nodded. She tucked a small digital camera into a clutch bag. There were dozens of digital images of Piccadilly Circus on it, pulled from their database. They had a fair idea how it should look and she could reference those images on the camera. If it turned out to be only a moderately different Piccadilly Circus, then perhaps they were now heading along a timeline that was preferable.

‘Density probe is showing us a consistent all-clear,’ said Rashim. ‘Countdown is now at thirty seconds. Are you two all ready?’

‘Yes, we’re good to go,’ Maddy replied. She’d wanted Bob to go along with Liam. For protection, of course. But his mass was adding too much to the energy cost of displacing them. However, Maddy realized that of all of them, her memories — her programmed memories — were closest in time to 2001. Intuitively she’d have the best idea if London was looking odd, or the way it ought to.

‘One hour,’ she said. ‘Time enough to buy a soda and some tacky I’ve-Been-To-London T-shirt and come home again.’

‘Aye.’

‘And ten… nine… eight…’

She winked at Sal. ‘Chin-chin and toodle-pip, old girl.’ She grinned. ‘That’s the sort of thing they say in England, isn’t it?’

‘Remain still, please, Maddy!’ called out Rashim. ‘… and four… three…’

‘And be careful, you two!’ Sal called out, but her voice was lost in the buzz of energy building up.

‘… two… one…’

2001, Piccadilly Circus, London

A yard, walled in on all four sides and overlooked by a tall, grey stone building lined with soot-encrusted windows and ledges of surly-looking pigeons. Above them, a pale sky of combed-out clouds. They could both hear the dull urban hiss and rumble of traffic, the melodic cooing of the pigeons watching them from the ledge.

Just then a door opened on to the yard and a middle-aged man wearing trousers, shirt, tie and a dull brown sleeveless jumper took out a packet of tobacco and cigarette papers, sat down on the step and began to roll himself a cigarette.

He noticed Maddy and Liam standing there. ‘All right?’

Liam nodded. ‘Aye. You?’

He shrugged. ‘Middle-bad. But you have to make do, don’t you?’ He tucked a modest row of stale strands of tobacco along the paper. ‘You two new? I haven’t seen you around before.’

‘Just joined,’ said Liam. Joined what exactly… he wondered.

‘Ahh… you must be with the Licence and Trade Monitoring? Or Weights, Standards and Measures Approvals?’

‘The, uh… that’s the one. Started this morning, so we did.’ Liam watched the man lick one side of the paper. ‘You know that’ll kill you eventually, so it will. Smoking.’