Alex Scarrow - The Eternal War

‘Bob?’ said Liam. ‘If that van does turn up and I give you the order to go and rescue Mr Lincoln, what’s your plan?’

Bob’s eyes narrowed in consideration for a moment. ‘Incapacitate the vehicle first. Then incapacitate any armed guards and proceed with extracting the target from the van.’

‘We want to get our fella out of there unharmed, so we do.’

‘Affirmative,’ he grunted. ‘I will assess the threat of harm to Lincoln and proceed only if the percentage is favourable.’

‘But you’re not going to kill those guards in that hut, are you?’ said Sal, looking at them. ‘They’re just old men.’

Bob frowned at her. ‘If they are an obstruction to the mission objective, they will be a valid target.’

‘Just give ’em one of your battle-roars, Bob,’ said Liam. He nudged Sal gently. ‘You should hear him.’ He’d seen men recoil from it before. A fleeting recollection filled his mind: the front few ranks of an army of veteran knights and grim-faced mercenaries had faltered, albeit for a moment, at the monstrous sight of Bob standing astride a mound of rubble at the base of the breached wall of Nottingham.

That heartbeat moment before the clash of arms, the thundering of thousands of boots, the jangling of a million rings of chain mail, the rising crescendo of every charging man screaming a noise of hate rinsed with fear … but, above all that, there’d been the deep bellow of Bob’s roar, like some sort of grizzly bear calling from one valley to the next.

‘That’ll scare the bejayzus out of them two poor fellas. They’ll scarper like rabbits, so they will.’

‘My size can be intimidating,’ said Bob matter-of-factly. ‘That is a factor that works in my favour.’

‘Do a scary face, Bob,’ said Liam. ‘Something really gnarly .’

‘Scary face?’

‘Yeah … sort of like your angry face, but much more so.’

Bob pulled up a file from memory. His brows suddenly rumpled and joined into the menacing ridge of a monobrow. His thick horse-lips pulled back to reveal a row of teeth that looked like they could stamp holes through sheet metal.

‘You remind me of a big bad-tempered dog that’s had its chewy bone taken away,’ said Sal.

Liam shrugged. ‘Perhaps, but would you hold your ground with a face like that bearing down on you?’

Actually, she imagined, she probably wouldn’t.

The three of them were silent for a while, the only sounds the restful far-off hiss of interstate traffic, the muted burbling of the TV set and the turf-war chirping call of jays and thrushes in the thick branches above them.

‘So tell me — I’m interested — are you happy with how today’s gone?’

Lincoln looked up from his feet at Agent Mead sitting opposite.

‘Is that what makes your day? Hmmm? Killing innocent American civilians?’

Lincoln’s jaw set. ‘I am an American, sir.’

‘Oh yeah? But what? You don’t like the way America is? Is that it? This is your way of changing it for the better , is it?’

‘I have no knowledge of your two towers or who it is that has decided to destroy them.’

‘Right,’ nodded the agent sarcastically. ‘You’re still going with the I’ve come from another time story.’

‘That is the fact of the matter, sir. Yes.’

The agent shrugged. ‘So … then, let’s run with the ball, shall we?’

‘Run with the ball?’

‘Why don’t you tell me your time-travel tale again.’

‘It is no fiction, sir! I live in the year 1831.’

‘1831, eh? I bet this is all pretty weird then, huh?’

Lincoln sensed the man was mocking him. ‘Of course.’ He answered drily. ‘As it would be to you if you had journeyed across one hundred and seventy years of time.’

‘So you must think it’s pretty far out, huh? Spacey? Futuristic?’

The other two men were quietly laughing along with their boss.

‘Well, since you ask, I think this world is decidedly rude. What I have seen of it.’

‘Rude?’ The agent shook his head. ‘That’s priceless.’ He grinned, amused by that. ‘Go on … you’re almost convincing.’

Lincoln was happy to. ‘Although what I have seen of its constructions and devices are quite beyond my comprehension, I do see clearly it is an amoral, selfish world.’

‘Really?’

‘Quite so, sir. And lazy. Why is it that everyone is so fat?’

The van leaned into a turning and then began to slow down.

‘Ah, looks like we’re nearly there,’ said the agent. He smiled coldly at Lincoln. ‘The next bunch of fellas who’ll be asking you questions aren’t going to be quite so indulgent, Abraham. You’re soon going to be thinking of us as the nice guys , trust me.’

Through the partition at the front they could hear the driver talking to someone, a crisp, professional exchange.

‘You’re going to vanish into a dark cell somewhere, Abraham. Every day of the rest of your life is going to be an extremely unpleasant one. And while all that’s going on I want you to think long and hard about what you and your terrorist buddies have done. All the innocent people you’ve wiped out today.’

There was the muffled sound of a voice raised as a challenge, a moment later the crack of a hand-gun.

‘What the — ?’

They heard a loud thud against the van, making the whole vehicle rock and a side panel bulge inwards. All three agents began to fumble inside their jackets for their weapons.

The rear door of the van was suddenly wrenched open, blinding daylight spilling inside. Lincoln looked up, his eyes narrowed against the glare, and recognized the outline of the giant he’d seen in that archway yesterday.

The men in suits had their guns out, aimed, and were all shouting in unison at the giant man to raise his hands … when, as one, they simply stopped.

‘Jumping Jeezus … what in God’s name is THAT?’ gasped Agent Mead.

The giant man paused and turned to look round at what they were staring at.

Finally Lincoln did the same. Looking out of the back of the van, he saw it for himself … an impossible sky.

2001, Quantico, Virginia

Liam and Sal stood up together and emerged from beneath the low branches of the cedar tree to get a better look at the rapidly advancing wall of reality, chasing its way towards them across the Virginian countryside.

At first it looked like a whole continental shelf was filling the blue sky, as if the earth’s crust had split and broken and one half of North America was sliding across and engulfing the other. But it wasn’t solid. It churned and changed like a liquid reality as it raced towards them. Like brewing storm-cloud formations filmed and then played in fast forward.

In among the looming darkness faint watermarks of fleeting possibility appeared: fantastic buildings that had never been, twisted creatures that had no place on this earth and a sea of tormented faces — lives glimpsed momentarily, people that could have been, but never would be.

‘Oh boy,’ gulped Liam. ‘It’s going to be a big one, right?’

Sal nodded. ‘Yes … a big one.’

Then it was upon them. The slam of a tornado moment. A maelstrom of thrashing energy and darkness. Liam kept his eyes open, absolutely determined to witness it all, this his first time to see a time wave up close, to be outside the archway and see for himself what reality replacing reality actually looked like. In the few seconds of it he thought he glimpsed a Roman soldier morph into something half human half mechanical; the screaming tormented face of a newborn baby become a girl, a woman, an old woman, a decaying skull — a complete life lived in no more than a second.