Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

Then six dark outlines. Six figures standing side by side, now calmly stepping forward into the pulsating sphere, one after the other.

They emerged from the hovering portal and dropped down on to the concrete floor into identical postures of crouched, alert readiness; six naked, entirely hairless figures, four of them male and two female. The males, each seven feet tall, had broad frames carrying an almost implausibly muscular bulk. The two females, athletic, were a foot shorter and looked far more agile, but still rippling with lean muscle beneath milk-white skin. All of them were pale, covered in baby-smooth flesh, unmarked by the lines, creases, scars and blemishes acquired through the course of any ordinary life.

One of the males stood erect, slowly sweeping his grey-eyed gaze round the archway. ‘Information: the field office is empty.’

A second male nodded in agreement, his face almost, but not quite, identical, all forehead, thick brow and square jawline. They looked like perfect sculptures carved from granite.

‘Affirmative.’

‘We should assign temporary mission identifiers,’ the first one said. ‘And verbal adoptive call signs.’ He looked at the others. ‘I am Alpha-one. I will be called Abel.’

‘Alpha-two,’ said the second male support unit. ‘Verbal call sign — Bruno.’

‘Alpha-three,’ said one of the females. ‘Cassandra.’

‘Alpha-four. Damien.’

‘Alpha-five. Elijah.’

‘Alpha-six. Fred.’

The others looked at Six. ‘Fred is gender-incompatible,’ said Abel. ‘You are female. Pick another name.’

Six frowned. ‘It is short for Frederica.’

‘Pick another name.’

She nodded obediently. ‘Faith.’

‘Acceptable,’ said Abel. He turned to look directly at computer-Bob’s webcam.

A nearfield data handshake; two operating systems recognizing each other.

›Acknowledged.

Abel’s thick brow knotted. ‘Where is your team?’ His deep voice filled the cavernous silence.

Computer-Bob’s cursor blinked on the screen silently.

‘System AI,’ said Abel, ‘please state the last known location of your team members.’

The cursor blinked and finally began to skitter forward along the command line.

›You are an unauthorized visitor to this field office. I am unable to provide any information. All information is confidential. System going into lockdown.

‘System AI, I have a higher authority level code. Abort lockdown.’

›Please transmit authority identification code.

‘Affirmative.’ Abel’s eyes blinked as he retrieved a string of data and streamed it wirelessly to computer-Bob.

The cursor blinked silently on the screen, a full minute passing as computer-Bob appraised the alphanumeric string and finally conceded that it quite correctly was a code he couldn’t ignore.

›Identification code is valid.

Abel stepped towards the row of monitors, cool eyes surveying the messy desk, the scraps of paper with handwritten memos and doodles on them, the empty pizza boxes and crushed drinks cans.

Finally his gaze rested on the small glinting lens of the webcam perched on the top of the monitor in the middle of the desk. ‘System AI,’ his deep voice rumbled, ‘please state the last known location of your team members.’

›Location of team members is as follows…

2001, New York

‘Jesus… this is beginning to get very weird,’ said Maddy. She looked around the busy street. She could see dozens of things that weren’t quite right. Billboards here and there advertising products she didn’t quite understand. Some of the cars on the street had odd profiles, much longer fronts and bonnets and no boot at the rear. Almost like drag racers. Pedestrians, many looking normal, but some had shimmered and changed and were wearing garments that looked tidier, formal even… and there was definitely a skew towards warmer colours: red, purple, burgundy.

‘It’s never been like this before,’ she muttered. ‘Lots and lots of little waves!’

Sal nodded. ‘It’s weird all right.’

‘We need to hurry back.’ Maddy looked down at their plastic shopping bag full of electronic components. ‘Before a time ripple changes what we just bought into something else.’

Sal giggled nervously. ‘Fruit… or something.’

‘Yeah, that would be odd.’

The iPhone buzzed in Maddy’s shirt pocket. It stopped her in her tracks.

‘What’s up?’ asked Sal.

‘My iPhone…’ she said, fishing it out of her pocket. ‘I just got a text!’ The thing hadn’t functioned as a phone since she’d been recruited. It played her music. She carried it with her everywhere as a keepsake, a memento. A reminder of another life. But it certainly wasn’t a phone any more.

It’s not possible. The only people who had her number were family and friends from 2010; a phone number and account not due to be activated for another

eight years! She looked at the screen. She had a text from an unknown source. Maddy, emergency. Return to field office IMMEDIATELY.

‘It’s Bob,’ she said.

‘Bob?’ Sal frowned. ‘ Computer — Bob? He’s never texted before, has he?’

‘I didn’t know he could.’ She dialled the call number back. It was a Brooklyn code. It was also engaged. ‘He must have tapped into the local cell network. Figured out how to access my phone.’

She’d left her Nokia back at the archway. After all, Liam was in Rome. No one was going to call them.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Sal. ‘What does he want?’

Maddy tapped out a text message back to him. ‘Just gonna find out.’

Sal looked up at the sky, shading her eyes. The World Trade Center was still there. If this timeline wasn’t already changed enough, then the first plane was due to impact with it shortly.

‘We need to hurry back.’

Computer-Bob’s webcam lens observed the dim archway. It observed the dark outline of two of the support units, both moving through the shadows like ghosts; one of them, over by the shutter, was studying the hair-thin strip of daylight along the ground at the bottom, watching for the shifting shadows of movement outside. The other one was carefully picking through the clutter on the desk.

Even without a webcam, computer-Bob would have known they were both close by; he was picking up their wireless idents: Alpha-three, Alpha-four. And the wordless exchange of unencrypted chatter between all six of them.

Alpha-five: [… proceeding north along 8th Avenue towards West 55th Street. ETA on grid reference, three minutes, thirty-five seconds.]

Alpha-two: [Grid reference correlates to business address: ‘Jupiter-Electro Supplies’.]

Alpha-one: [Confirmed. Information: targets — two only. One Caucasian, female, aged 18. One Asian, female, aged 14. Access data profiles for images.]

Alpha-three: [Information: have acquired recently taken images of younger target.]

Bob’s webcam could see the female support unit, the one who had decided to call herself Cassandra. She held Maddy’s Nokia in her hand, the soft glow of the screen lighting up her baby-smooth, doll-like face as she thumbed through pages of low-resolution photographs Maddy had carelessly decided to take of herself and the others.

Alpha-three: [Broadcasting image.]

Her eyes blinked.

Alpha-one: [Data received. All units update profile data of target: Saleena Vikram, with new image. Information: it is possible her appearance will have changed since deployment.]

Computer-Bob also had a hard drive full of images of the girls, of Liam, of Becks and his fleshy counterpart, Bob. Everything his little webcam eye had seen, recorded and stored over the last few months. It was invaluable visual data he could — should — be making available to this team of support units.