Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

The man stared into space in front of him. ‘This is it,’ he muttered, his voicecracked and tired. ‘It’s all over. They’re coming for us… coming toget us… to get us…’

Liam squatted down in front of him. ‘The Germans? Nazis?’

The man didn’t seem to hear the question, his eyes unfocused. ‘We should’veknown… should’ve prepared… should’ve realized this was going to happeneventually.’

Bob mimicked Liam’s posture and stooped down in front of the man. ‘Informationrequest: please tell us everything about your divergent history timeline.’

‘Bob?’

‘Yes, Liam?’

‘Let me try first, eh?’

He nodded. ‘You are the mission operative.’

Liam reached a hand out to the man and rested it on his shoulder.

‘Hello? Mister?’

The man’s eyes focused on him.

‘There isn’t much time,’ said Liam. ‘Listen to me, things can be changed. This isn’t how it was meant to be. We’re here to putthis — ’

‘No…’ replied the man, shaking his head. ‘No, you’re goddamn right this isn’t how it should be! They surprised us,just like them Japs did back in ’41.’

Liam looked at Bob questioningly.

‘Information: in the twentieth century, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on theUS naval base at Pearl Harbor. This act effectively brought America into the Second World-’

Liam held a hand up to hush him. ‘Tell me what’s been happening.’

‘What? Where on earth have you been?’ the man asked.

He shrugged. ‘At sea… for a long time.’

‘The Nazis launched an assault on the beaches of New England a couple of months ago.Overwhelmed our Atlantic defences like they were nothing, took New York inside of a week. Wemustered everything we had to hold ’em outside Washington. But… but they crushedour boys, swiped ’em aside. Their Fuhrer offeredterms,’ he snorted. ‘Our president and his cabinet and chiefs of staff to behanded over as prisoners — or they’d come in and get ’em.’

The man suddenly looked up at Bob then back at Liam. ‘Wait! You said this isn’thow it should be. What’s going on? Who are you guys? SOE? Secret Serviceguys?’

‘This may sound incredibly strange,’ said Liam, ‘but you need to believewhat I’m about to say.’

‘What?’ The man shook his head. ‘What is it?’

‘We’re from the future. From the year 2001. And right now is a bit of historythat shouldn’t be happening.’

The man’s face hardened. ‘This ain’t a time to play the fool, son. I-’

‘He is correct,’ said Bob.

‘We’re sort of agents sent from thefuture to gather information on what’s going on here,’ said Liam. ‘We needto find out what’s been happening.’

The man stared at them both in silence. ‘You’re crazy.’

Liam shrugged. ‘I wish I could show you something to prove what I’m saying. But Ican’t.’

‘Mission parameter: we have nothing on us from the future. This is an observation-onlymission.’

Through the shattered windows they heard movement going on outside above the drone comingfrom the sky: men barking orders, the jangle of equipment belts, the cocking of weapons.

‘Oh Jesus, we’re dead men,’ cried the man. ‘There are rumours theirFuhrer wants to completely wipe clean America’s government: the president,Congress, the Senate, all the top-level civil servants. They’ll kill every last personthey find in the White House.’

‘Listen,’ said Liam, ‘we’re going to change this. We’re goingto stop this Hiffler from doing what — ’

The man looked up at him. ‘Hiffler? What the heck you talking about, son? You talking’bout Adolf Hitler ?’

‘Yes, that’s it, Hitler . That’s the correctname, right?’ He looked at Bob for confirmation. ‘Did I say it right?’

‘Correct. Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer, leader of the Nazi Party and the ThirdReich.’

‘But that guy, Hitler , died about ten years ago. You guysgonna try telling me you don’t know that ?’

Liam and Bob stared at each other. ‘Assessment: history diverged at least ten yearsearlier than this time.’

‘1946 instead of ’56?’ Liam spoke under his breath. ‘We have to goback another ten years?’

‘That is correct.’

The man studied them both suspiciously. ‘Dammit, who are you guys,really? You Secret Service guys? Some kind of special forces or something? Tell me you gotsome secret plan… some kinda super weapon we can use back on ’em Nazis.Right?’

The sound of gunfire around the front entrance suddenly intensified.

‘They are coming now,’ said Bob. ‘We must leave. The portal is due to openin exactly one hour and thirty-three minutes.’

‘Right… but we know now that we’ve got to go back again… but further back next time?’

‘Correct.’

The man in the suit reached out and grasped Liam. ‘Have we got something secret hiddenaway? Some weapon we gonna fight back with?’

Bob answered. ‘There is nothing. In this timeline you and all the people in thisbuilding have a high probability of dying in less than five minutes.’ Bob mimickedLiam’s attempt to calm the man and rested a large palm on his trembling shoulder.‘But be reassured, citizen, this timeline will be completely eradicated once we havecorrected the time contamination.’

Liam shook his head as the hapless man stared at him in bewildered silence.

Yes, very reassuring, Bob.

The support unit turned to Liam. ‘We must leave now.’

2001, New York

‘There must be some way to hack past their security and access the rest ofthe online history database,’ said Maddy.

‘Maybe there isn’t any more?’ asked Foster. ‘Maybe the rulers of thistime consider history before this date, before the conquering of America, as irrelevant. Oneway they could have chosen to keep control of the American people is to delete records oftheir national history, maybe even world history.’

Maddy shrugged. ‘But these are the Nazis, right? Surely they’d want to keeprecords of Hitler’s rise to power, the Second World War and how in this screwed-uphistory they actually won it? I’m sure Adolf Hitler wouldwant all his subjects to know how brilliant he was and how hard a struggle he had as a youngerman… and all that rags-to-riches rubbish.’

Foster sighed. ‘It doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why all that’snot there, Madelaine. I really don’t. Perhaps, for these Nazis, the day they tookcontrol of America is all that counts. Everything before that was of no importance?’

Sal coughed politely and the other two turned to face her.

‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘maybe the Hitler guy died and the one who took overfrom him, you know, didn’t like him or something? Decided to remove Hitler from therecords?’

Foster nodded. ‘Sal might be right. We’ve been assuming DerFuhrer is Hitler.’

Maddy’s eyes widened. She looked for a search function on the mainpage and after a minute of trying various buttons labelled in German gave up.

‘God, these Nazis really suck at laying out a web page.’

‘Perhaps in this version of the year 2001 the Internet is a brand-new thing.’

She gave up on the idea of doing a search on the name ‘Hitler’. Instead sheclicked through the various article tabs along the timeline chart — scanning eacharticle for the name.

Five minutes later she shook her head.

‘No mention at all of Adolf. It’s like he never existed.’

‘But plenty of mentions of Der Fuhrer… theleader,’ added Foster.

Maddy ground her teeth with frustration. ‘So who exactly is Der Fuhrer ?’ She accessed the computer’son-site database, a vast encyclopedia of correct history, andpulled up files on Hitler’s high command, his inner cabinet… the men most likelyto succeed him. ‘Heinrich Himmler? Hermann Goring? Martin Bormann? JosephGoebbels?’ She turned to Foster and Sal. ‘One of them maybe?’