Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

Their authority was unquestionable. His co-operation was non-negotiable. Command lines deep inside the quad-processors of all twelve linked PCs thrummed insistently along silicon pathways; lines of code barking like guard dogs yapping at a perimeter fence, compelling him to assist these support units in their quest to zero in on Maddy, Sal and Liam.

He had already done that, though — followed his programming. Told them where they could locate the girls. There was no command line, however, telling him what he couldn’t also do.

Warn them.

Help them.

2001, New York

Alpha-one — Abel — stood at the intersection, scanning the street, thick with people in their smart clothes, hot and flustered on their way to work. Jackets draped over clammy arms, rolled-up shirt sleeves and rolled-up newspapers. Coffees in plastic cups, breakfast bagels sweating away in paper bags.

Abel cocked his head, momentarily distracted from his mission’s parameters, fascinated by these curiously busy, busy people. How different they looked from people in his time. There was an ‘energy’ about them. A vibrancy. As if all the little things they did actually mattered. So unlike humans from his time. Those were slower. More economical, even lethargic, in their actions… as if movement itself had a criminal cost attached to it. There was a phrase for the way humans behaved in his time. A phrase that occurred again and again across the digi-sphere in media streams.

Human inertia.

Mankind had given up. Articles had been written and published on all digi-media. Articles about how the world was too far gone to save now. How there was little left for humanity to do but calmly face whatever fate awaited it as the world’s ecosystem collapsed.

But these eager humans, pushing past him on either side, desperate to get to their jobs on time… these humans seemed almost like a different species of animal entirely.

Alive. Energetic. Hopeful.

Alpha-six: [Visual contact established.]

Abel brushed away those thoughts. ‘Thoughts’ were for humans. He had something far more certain, far more precise; he had instructions.

Alpha-one: [Confirm location.]

Faith could see their faces on the far side of Broadway, heading south, walking very quickly, anxiously, weaving through the pavement traffic against the flow.

Alpha-six: [Targets on Broadway. Abel, they are heading towards your current location. Request permission to intercept.]

She waited patiently for several seconds, keeping pace with the girls on the opposite side of the traffic-jammed avenue. Her bare feet slapped the pavement, attracting the curious glances of passers-by. Perhaps that or the fact that she was wearing nothing but a plastic anorak and jogging bottoms she’d wrenched from the body of the female human she’d encountered a little earlier.

Their necks were surprisingly easy to snap. Such fragile things really, humans.

Alpha-one: [Permission granted. Engage and terminate.]

‘Confirmed,’ said Faith under her breath.

She stepped into the road a little too hastily in front of a bus just as an intersection traffic light behind her flipped from red to green. The bus knocked her flat and immediately lurched to a halt with the loud hiss of brakes.

A moment later, still assessing whether the heavy impact had damaged her in any significant way, she was looking up at a circle of concerned faces staring down at her.

‘Just stay still!’ someone insisted.

‘Someone call an ambulance!’

‘ Julii! ’ someone cursed. ‘The woman just stepped out!’ The bus driver looked round at the gathered faces. ‘She just stepped out right in front of me! It wasn’t my fault!’

Faith sat up stiffly.

‘You should stay still!’ cried a large-framed woman. ‘I’m triage-trained. You should stay still until a triage mobilus arrives.’

‘I am fine,’ she replied calmly.

A policeman pushed his way through the gathering crowd and crouched down beside her. ‘Best do what she says and stay put.’ His dark purple uniform quivered ever so slightly; the round silver badge on his chest morphed into a metal spread-winged eagle.

Faith watched him call the incident in on his radio then listen to the unintelligible sound of the controller’s crackling reply. ‘There’s help on its way, people.’ Faith noticed the matt-black grip of the cop’s firearm in its holster riding high on his left hip.

‘Not required,’ she said, reaching for it. ‘ That will help.’

‘Jahulla! What’s happened over there?’ asked Sal. She stopped and pointed.

Maddy turned to look. She could see in the middle of Broadway a growing knot of people gathered round the front of a bus. ‘Some poor sucker just got squished by the look of it.’ She grabbed Sal’s hand. ‘Come on… somebody just got unlucky. We’ve got to get back home before everything changes.’

Before there’s no Williamsburg Bridge? No subway?

‘There’s more changes coming,’ said Sal. ‘They’re coming!’

‘I know! I can feel it!’ It was like an almost constant vibration now, tickling through their feet as if they were standing on some sort of foot-massaging mat. Change after change, each one causing a tiny piece of reality to adjust. And all around them minor things flickering — winking out of existence, winking into existence, or morphing into some alternative-history variation.

She saw the large Toshiba LED screen looming over Times Square shimmer and become a much wider display that spread out either side of the building it was mounted on. On its longer screen she saw what appeared to be mechanized chariots racing each other round an oval race track.

‘Sal, look at that!’

At that moment they heard a piercing shriek from the crowd.

‘What now?’

The crowd gathered round the front of the bus scattered like pigeons startled by a handclap. They both saw a pale and slender, bald-headed figure get to her feet. A young woman in an orange anorak standing in the middle of Broadway, entirely alone now, looking directly at them.

‘My God… that looks just like…’

Becks?

The young woman slowly raised her arm. For a creepy second Maddy imagined it was a ghostly visitation of Becks pointing accusingly at her. Some Scrooge-like apparition come to haunt her in the middle of Times Square.

Then several loud cracks filled the air — like the snap of a bullwhip — and the shop window right behind them exploded into granules of glass that cascaded on to the pavement.

Maddy stared agape at the shattered window, while the rest of Times Square seemed to register a gun had been fired and collectively dropped to the ground.

‘Shadd-yah! She’s shooting at us!’ yelled Sal.

‘What?’

The pale young woman began to stride towards them. Maddy could see she was barefooted. She raised her arm again and fired another three shots at them. This time Maddy felt her hair whisked by a bullet passing right beside her ear.

Oh crud!

‘RUN!’ screamed Sal, grabbing her hand and pulling her. ‘ RUN! ’

2001, New York

The pavement was clogged with people either cowering on the ground or scooting for cover. Maddy glanced over her shoulder. The young woman — almost certainly a female support unit — was weaving her way across logjammed lanes of traffic. Impatient with her progress, she leaped up on to the long bonnet of an ornately decorated car, gold oak leaves and murals all down the glistening panels to running-boards at the side. The driver — at the vehicle’s rear — gaped wide-eyed at the sight of the firearm in her hand.

She leaped gracefully across from the bonnet of one car to the next, like a girl playing stepping stones across a babbling stream.