Alex Scarrow - The Eternal War

‘Well now,’ said Devereau, sipping his cooling coffee. ‘I’m halfway to believing, Miss Carter, that you’re not a spy, or, at the very least, if you are one … not a very good one. And that might just spare you from going in front of a firing squad.’

Her jaw dropped a little. ‘Firing squad?’

‘Ahhh, I see that seems to have focused your mind a little. Yes, I have ordered men to be executed, an unpleasant and occasionally necessary part of being a front-line commander.’

‘I … uhh … look, I’m not a spy! God no! That’s … that’s not me … I — ’

‘Actually, you needn’t be alarmed. I suspect as much. You really are far too odd, young lady. However … I think it’d be a good idea if you start telling me — ’

‘Time traveller!’ she blurted out. ‘I’m a time traveller! I travel through time!’ Then winced at how ridiculous that must sound to him.

Devereau could have laughed at her ingeniously novel reply. But he rather fancied seeing how well thought out her outburst was. ‘Indeed? Now … is this the same notion as is used in that famous work … The Time Machine ?’

‘ The Time Machine ?’ Maddy’s mind raced. Yes, that old book had been written in 1895 — the correct 1895, that is. Perhaps even in this corrupted timeline the same author, H. G. Wells, could have been inspired to write the very same, or a very similar book?

‘Yes!’ she replied. ‘Yes … the technology exists to move backwards and forwards through time. Well — ’ she shrugged — ‘it will do. In the year 2044 they’ll work out a way to do it.’

Devereau nodded patiently. ‘And, let me see, you’re expecting me to believe you are from the year 2044, I take it?’

‘From the future, yes. But, actually, I kinda work in 2001. But not this 2001, if you see what I mean. A very different one.’

She was confusing him.

‘See, this is wrong. It’s all wrong! This … this … room, that ruined New York outside, this war! It’s all wrong. It shouldn’t be like this!’

‘Oh? How should it be?’

Maddy leaned forward. ‘Your side won! It won … over a hundred and thirty years ago! The North beat the South! America became one big nation. It became the world’s most powerful nation! Do you know this nation even managed to send a man to the moon ?’

‘Miss Carter — ’ he smiled wryly — ‘you’ll never know how much I’d love to believe a fanciful story as that, but — ’

‘It’s true! Honest to God, it’s — ’

‘This nation is a mongrel nation, and that’s all it’ll ever be. Too busy fighting itself, state against state, brother against brother. And now — ’ Devereau lowered his voice to a more cautious level — ‘and now we’re all but governed by France and Europe … and the Southern Confederacy is little more than a mere colony of Great Britain.’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No. You’re so wrong! This … is wrong! There’s a correct history, a way it should go. And in the correct history the North wins in 1865. And do you know why? Do you know how it wins?’

‘Go on.’

‘Because it made the issue of slavery — abolishing slaves — a war aim. It decided to make that the main reason for the war. And it worked!’

‘Slavery?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no slavery. There hasn’t been since, well now … since 1871 when the South signed an alliance with Britain’s King Edward VII.’

‘The South, the Confederates, don’t have slaves?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then … then why are you guys fighting each other?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s a question I ask myself every day.’ Devereau sighed. ‘Truth is, we’re underdogs of the British and the French. We’re fighting their war for them.’

‘My God … this is so wrong. This is all to do with Lincoln.’

‘Lincoln?’

‘A man called Abraham Lincoln. He was your president when the civil war started.’

Devereau shook his head. ‘There’s never been a President Lincoln — ’

‘Not in this timeline, no. But in mine — in correct history — it was his idea to make it about slavey! He’s the reason the North won the war!’

Devereau stroked his beard. ‘Now what a lovely idea that would be.’ He looked at her. ‘Timeline? What is that?’

‘It’s, uh, sheesh, it’s really hard to explain. It’s the way events in history go. They go in one way or another. We call each possible way in which a history happens a timeline . We have a machine that can transport you from one timeline to another.’ Maddy smiled. ‘You know, in my timeline this war ended in 1865. The North won and the states came together again. The United States will go on to do some incredible things …’ She held herself back from saying and some bad things .

Devereau looked down at the battered enamel mug in his hands and sighed, the deep wistful sigh of someone who wished he could share in this fantasy. Actually believe that it had a shred of truth to it.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘I can actually prove all of this to you. I really can.’

He looked up at her. ‘And how could you possibly do that?’

‘I’ve got things I can show you.’

The girl, this Madelaine Carter, supposedly from another time, another place, had walked into this room five minutes ago with a listless, almost defeated way about her. But now it seemed she’d found a spark of something inside; something quite infectious. Something he longed to feel himself.

‘What things?’

She grinned. ‘How would you like to see my time machine?’

2001, New York

Becks stood up the aluminium shelving unit that had been knocked over by falling bricks. Picked up loops of cable on spindles, dusty old motherboards, a box of electrical components, electronic gadgets and gizmos brought back to 2001, all stamped with the W.G. Systems logo.

She set these things back on their shelves, tidy and orderly, just as they had been before the archway had landed in this timeline with a crash.

She found the broom behind the cracked perspex displacement tube and began methodically sweeping the fractured and uneven concrete floor, pushing the fallen bricks and mortar into a pile in the middle. She swept the broom with a rhythmic rasp in the darkness, her eyes adjusted to the faintest glimmer of moonlight that found its way through the cracks in the archway above.

Her eyes dilated in the dark and registered little. They were glazed over. From the outside, looking to all intents and purposes like someone in a deep state of shock. Traumatized. A lost soul seeking solace in the simple task of tidying up.

But inside her head the silicon wafer computer hummed with activity, lines of code chasing each other in tireless loops as she tried desperately to make sense of the situation she was now in.

Alone.

Maddy was gone. There was no strategist. There was no team. There was not even a field office any more. This dark hole was nothing but dust-covered second-hand furniture, an old high-school desk and a row of computers that more than likely were never going to work again.

[DATA]

She shook her head. She didn’t want to acknowledge the data.

[DATA]

She closed a silicon-synaptic data gate, not wanting the machine code to tell her what she already suspected. That somehow this was all her fault. That she had provided inadequate information or, worse, inaccurate information to Madelaine Carter causing her to make an erroneous judgement call. That the team was now no longer operational.

She and Bob had both failed to apprehend the target: Abraham Lincoln. She realized that was perhaps the first error in a string of errors that had led them to this point. And now she was here sweeping bricks in the dark.