Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

‘Shadd-yah!’ whispered Sal. ‘I thought we were so-o-o-o dead!’

‘Me… too…’

The thump, rustle and crack of distant movement grew steadily quieter as the units moved further away.

‘We got to…’ Maddy grabbed at another breath. ‘We’ve got to get back to the archway.’

‘But won’t they expect us to do that?’

‘We need help.’ She looked at Sal. ‘We really need Bob.’

And we really need to get back to the archway before they figure that out too.

‘Come on.’ Maddy got to her feet then realized she hadn’t a clue which direction to start off in. ‘Which way?’

Sal looked up at the faint canopy of branches and leaves above them. She pointed to a dull, cream-coloured disc, still relatively low in the morning sky, playing hide and seek with them behind the mist-shrouded canopy of leaves and branches. So very easy to miss.

‘The sun,’ she said. ‘Rises in the east, doesn’t it?’

‘Yup. So that way.’ Maddy nodded to their left. ‘That way, then… should take us to the East River.’

They began to move slowly, cautiously, Sal one step ahead of Maddy, picking a path across the woodland floor that managed to avoid their stepping on the kind of gnarled, brittle dead wood that would crack like a gunshot.

They made their way through the wood in almost complete silence, for what seemed like an hour, but in all likelihood was no more than a few minutes. Finally Maddy thought she heard the gentle sound of the tidal lapping of water ahead of them. The ground beneath their feet stopped being a sponge of decaying leaves, forest moss and fir cones and became firmer, harder.

The cool mist was beginning to thin with the morning sun’s warmth working on it, and soon they could see past the narrow waists of forest-edge saplings to a small cove and beyond that the broad, flat surface of the East River.

Sal settled against the base of the slender trunk of a young tree. Maddy joined her and they studied the shingle and placid, lapping waterline in front of them; the soothing draw and hiss of low tide playing with pebbles.

‘There’s nothing,’ said Sal quietly. ‘New York’s just a wilderness.’ She shivered. ‘And it’s colder. How come?’

Maddy shook her head. She had no real idea. Maybe this was a world with far fewer humans in it. Less people, less pollution, less methane, less carbon — less global warming. Or more likely, given how chilly it felt — autumn cold — perhaps this was a world with absolutely no humans at all in it. It was a well-known fact among ecologists that if you took humankind out of the equation, you could easily knock three or four degrees off planet earth’s temperature.

Anyway, Sal was right; it was much cooler. No humans. Nice idea that.

‘Look! What’s that?’ said Sal suddenly. She pointed along the shingle cove.

‘What?’

‘Over there!’

Maddy squinted into the haze at what looked like a large chunk of driftwood, a log carried up on a high tide and left stranded.

‘It’s a boat!’

Maddy pushed her specs up her nose. Actually Sal was right. ‘I think it’s a kayak… or canoe or something.’

So much for no humans, then.

2001, formerly New York

She studied the twisted form merged into the trunk of the tree. It certainly explained the reason why Alpha-two’s ident signal had suddenly ceased to register.

The support unit’s head appeared to be buried within the tree; the rest of his body dangled lifelessly, slumped against the base of the trunk. It looked oddly like he’d been attempting to charge the tree head first, like an enraged bull, and the tree had simply decided to swallow him up to his neck. She cocked her head, fascinated at the glutinous and fleshy bubbling where the unit’s neck intersected with the bark. The instantaneous merging of trunk, skull and the computer inside at a molecular level would have instantly reduced Alpha-two’s head to a meaningless pulp.

Faith sensed the wireless signals of the other two support units drawing closer, approaching through the thinning mist.

Abel emerged first. His eyes immediately rested on Alpha-two’s body. ‘That is to be expected,’ he said calmly. ‘The area has a high mass density. There was a significant probability of intersection.’

Faith nodded. ‘Agreed.’

Alpha-four — Damien — emerged from the mist, his eyes momentarily on their colleague before reporting in to the other two. ‘I have not located the targets. They appear to have successfully evaded us.’

Abel nodded. ‘We must reacquire them immediately.’

Their three minds began to exchange data electronically, a Bluetooth committee meeting in the silent woodland space between them. All three support units frozen like statues absorbed in a collective reassessment of variables, options and mission priorities. A meeting of minds that resulted in a decision less than ten seconds later.

‘They will attempt to return to their field office,’ said Abel.

The other two nodded.

‘This way,’ said Abel. He turned on his heel and had just begun to force his way through a thick nest of thorny brambles when he stopped. Ahead of him stood twelve of them. Humans. Primitive humans.

The wood seemed to hold its breath in silent expectation as the Indians slowly spread out, bows drawn and ready to use. Charcoal paint smeared round their eyes and across the bridges of their noses; the whites of their eyes almost seemed to glow in the gloom beneath the canopy of leaves.

‘These are not our targets,’ said Abel.

One of the Indians replied with a barked challenge, a language of guttural croaks and hard consonants. He raised a tamahaken of wood and flint; a clear gesture of warning for Abel and the others to back up the way they’d come.

Faith drew up alongside Abel, her curious mind cataloguing these strange-looking humans. Their heads were also bald, except for a crest of hair in the middle, and they were naked, their skin a rich copper colour, adorned with tattoos of swirling, dark blue patterns.

‘I have no data on these,’ she said to Abel.

‘A significant time contamination has occurred.’ Abel looked at her. ‘But this is not a concern of ours.’

She took another casual step forward, curious, wanting to get a closer look at these odd-looking humans, when a nervous young hand released twine. The wood echoed with the vibrating hum of a bow’s drawstring and the sound of a fleshy thwack. Faith glanced down at the feathered end of an arrow protruding through the grubby orange nylon of her anorak.

She cocked her head as she looked down at it. ‘An arrow,’ she announced matter-of-factly as she yanked its bloody barbed tip firmly from her chest. Then she raised her pistol and fired.

‘You hear that?’ said Sal. She stopped paddling. ‘That was a gun!’

Maddy pulled the wooden oar out of the water and rested it across her thighs. A moment later, they heard the distant crack of another single shot echoing from the receding, mist-shrouded shoreline.

She swallowed nervously. ‘That’s them! I guess they came across the owner of this canoe.’

‘Who… what are they, Maddy?’

‘They’ve got to be support units, Sal. They’re Bob and Becks. Or very similar.’

‘But why are they after us?’

Maddy shook her head. ‘I don’t know!’

‘Maybe we caused it?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That message… the message we sent forward to Waldstein?’

God, Sal might be right. ‘You think it might have been… I dunno… intercepted by someone?’

Sal said nothing. Her eyes on Maddy’s.

‘Jeeez…’ She watched the shoreline they were leaving behind, the mist dissolving before her eyes. ‘Someone knows about us, Sal. Someone who knows where we are, when we are.’