Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

‘Yes… that’s it exactly,’ said Liam, ‘we’re awaiting a sign .’

The word rippled around the gathered men, whispered with growing excitement and awe.

A sign. A sign.

‘Do you… do you m-mean,’ continued the corporal, ‘a s-sign from theLord?’

‘From the field off-’ added Bob helpfully. Liam elbowed him in the ribs andhe closed his mouth.

‘From the what?’ asked Panelli.

‘A sign,’ repeated Liam, ‘from, you know, from… beyond .’

Whispers spread like a breeze among the men. Liam spotted several anointing themselves withthe sign of the cross.

‘ Beyond ,’ uttered the corporal, wide-eyed.

‘That’s right,’ said Liam, trying to keep his voice even and his lips fromcreasing, ‘from… you know who.’

A silence settled over the men.

At that moment a scudding cloud happened to pass out of the way of the sun, sending a burstof dazzling rays down on to the snowy ploughed field, bathing Bob in a warm light. The fuzz ofcoarse nut-brown hair growing on his coconut-like head seemed to glow for a moment, glow justlike a halo.

A collective gasp passed through the gathered men, and one by one they began to kneel, eventhe weasel — Panelli — who Liam would never in a month of Sundays have thought wasthe church-going type.

Oh, just great. That’s all we need.

1957, woods outside Baltimore

The soup sploshed into Liam’s bowl from a ladle smelled and looked almost asunappetizing as the gruel he’d grown used to eating in the prison camp.

He looked up at the man who’d served him. ‘Thank you.’

The man offered an awkward smile and tugged his cap politely. ‘Is there anything I canget for Captain Bob?’

Liam considered that for a moment. Bob was clumsy with a spoon. Chances were he’d endup dribbling the soup all down his front.

Not very inspiring. Not very saint-like.

‘Our leader would like some bread, if you got any.’

The man smiled, delighted to be of service. He rummaged in a backpack and produced a longloaf of stale bread. Liam nodded a thanks, tucked it under his arm and began to head back tothe tent before hesitating and turning back round to face the man.

‘Uh… our leader sends his blessings for the food.’

The man grinned broadly. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ crossing himself as he spoke.‘God bless him.’

Liam made his way across the camp, illuminated by the glow of a crackling fire and silvershafts of moonlight, lancing down between the branches of the forest. He nodded politely tothe others he passed, offering blessings from Bob along the way. Over thelast couple of days, the camp’s atmosphere seemed to have changed from being that of thesecret den of a band of patriotic freedom fighters to that of some kind of a monastery. Menwho’d exchanged bawdy jokes one day seemed pious and reflective now.

They believe Bob is some warrior angel sent down by God. What do youexpect?

Finally, reaching Bob’s modest lean-to, he ducked under a flap of cloth and steppedinside. ‘I picked up some bread for you. I’m afraid it’s not that usualhigh-protein vomit-like gunk that you normally ingest back in the field office.’

‘I have consumed this food type before,’ said Bob, reaching for the offered loafof bread and biting off the end of it. After chewing on it for a moment, his saliva breakingit down, his on-board computer analysed the protein content.

He nodded. ‘This is adequate.’

Liam sat down on a wooden crate opposite. ‘You know, I thought I was going to be stuckin that camp forever. I thought I was going to die in there.’

He shuddered at the memories of those months inside, the faces of prisoners he’d grownto know well. Wallace, he wondered, what had become of him in the chaos? Did he survive themassacre? Had he escaped? Liam hoped so.

He slurped noisily on the soup. ‘I found myself wondering if I’d have been betteroff staying on the Titanic . Drowning to death would’ve beena lot quicker than starving to death, eh?’

‘Correct,’ announced Bob. ‘Death by oxygen denial takes approximately threeto five minutes.’

Nice. Soothing words.

Liam put down his spoon, reached out and patted one of Bob’s meaty shoulders. ‘Iknow this probably won’t mean much to you, since Foster says your mind is just a littlemachine filled with codes and programs and stuff. But… Isuppose… look, I just want to say thank you, Bob. Thanks for coming and gettingme.’

He saw some kind of expression flicker across the support unit’s rigid face. Was itsome sort of involuntary muscle twitch, or was it a smile? Whatever it was, it almost lookedconvincing.

They ate in silence for a while. Silence that is, except for Liam’s soup-slurping andthe grinding of Bob’s teeth — sounding not unlike the grating noise Liamremembered his Uncle Diarmid’s cows made as they chewed on their winter maize.

‘So you’re suggesting we stay here indefinitely until we get amessage?’

‘Negative.’

‘Just say “no”, Bob. It sounds more natural.’

‘No.’

‘Then how long for?’

‘We wait another seventy-eight hours, fifty-seven minutes.’

‘Uh?’ Seventy-eight hours and fifty-seven minutes seemed somewhat specific . ‘Bob, why exactly that long?’

‘By that time, I must have self-terminated.’

Liam dropped his spoon in the soup. ‘Excuse me? Self-terminate … what exactly does that mean?’

Bob stopped chewing on the bread and turned his cool grey eyes on him. ‘Basicoperational requirement: six-month lifespan in the field. If I fail to return from a missionafter six months, I must self-terminate. They know this. So they will not attempt to send meany messages after six months. If we are to receive a message it will occur beforethen.’

‘Six months? But… but you’re telling me you’re going to destroy yourself in… in… in…?’

‘Three days, six hours and fifty-seven minutes’ time,’ answered Bobhelpfully. ‘I must terminate by then.’

‘But why?’

‘To prevent my computer technology being used.’

Liam suddenly realized he felt something for the big automaton in front of him. A fondness?He knew it didn’t make any sense that he should care for what was basically ameat-and-muscle weapons platform with a personal organizer stored up top. Perhaps, in a way,it was because they were both new to this timeriding thing. Bothnew boys. Or maybe it was the thought of being alone in a world that should never have beenwithout Bob to watch over him, to protect him.

‘Bob, can’t you decide not to destroyyourself?’

‘Negative.’

‘What if I were to give you a direct order? As the mission operative, I’m incommand here, right?’

‘This is correct.’

‘So if I were to order you to cancel — ’

‘This protocol cannot be countermanded. It is firmware.’

‘Firmware?’

‘Built into the computer’s design. It cannot be overridden.’

Liam looked up at his expressionless face. ‘But that’s stupid!’

‘It is unavoidable.’

Liam looked down at his soup, growing cool in its bowl. ‘Doesn’t the thought ofdying, well… does it not scare you?’

‘Negative.’

‘Bob, say “no”… not “negative”.’

‘No.’

‘You don’t have any strong feelings about… about terminating yourself?’

‘My consciousness is merely procedural code; my memories are stored on my internal harddrive. My body can be regrown from a single cell. I can be endlessly duplicated, LiamO’Connor. I have no concept of death. So I have no concept of fear.’