Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

‘That’s right,’ said Foster. ‘Let’s go get something to eat. Iknow a great burger place just over the bridge.’

2001, New York

Half an hour later the four of them were sitting in a window booth, perched on tallstools around a table and tucking into double cheeseburgers and fries.

Liam’s initial reaction to the plate of food had been one of bemusement. The frieslooked like no potatoes he’d ever encountered before and the burger bun — waxy andbrown — reminded him, oddly, of varnished wood. The savoury smell wafting up, however,soon overcame him and, warily watching the others hungrily tucking in, he followed suit.

As he clumsily manhandled the well-stacked cheeseburger into his mouth, his eyes were on theintersection outside: the pulsing lights of a billboard, the busy throng of pedestrians, carsthat looked as sleek as dew drops, the neon glow from lamp posts and a sky, barely visibleabove the tower blocks, filled with the winking red and green lights of planes criss-crossingthe night sky.

‘It looks so different now,’ said Sal. ‘Justlike Mumbai. My dad brought me here on a business trip once — it was depressing. Theroads empty, and so many buildings, like, dark and empty.’

Foster nodded. ‘The year you come from, Sal — 2026 — New York was already adying city. People moved out, whole neighbourhoods were left deserted and began falling intodecay.’

Maddy finished a mouthful of burger. ‘It doesn’t look that different to me,though.’

‘That’s because right now we’re in 2001, only a few yearsbefore your time, 2010,’ Foster replied. ‘The global economic crash had onlyreally just started.’

Liam turned from the window to look wide-eyed at Foster. ‘I can’t believe this isalmost a hundred years in my future!’

‘For you, Liam, yes. For Maddy it’s just nine years ago, for Sal…it’s eleven years before she was even born.’ He sipped a mouthful of cold, frothybeer from a tall glass. ‘This is where you, as a team, will be stationed. The archwayunder the bridge is your base of operations: your fieldoffice .’

Maddy looked at him. ‘Are there other field offices?’

He wiped his mouth and nodded. ‘But you’ll never meet them or communicate withthem.’

‘Why not?’

He picked at the fries on his plate. ‘It’s just the way it is.’

Sal chugged a mouthful of Dr Pepper. ‘I still don’t get why we’re here.What exactly you want us for.’

‘You are police … sort of,’ Foster replied.‘Here to police time . To stop trespassers from the futurechanging things in the past. The agency is top secret. It really isn’t supposed toexist, so we don’t have a proper job title. But inside the agency, we call ourselves TimeRiders .’

‘TimeRiders?’

Foster hunched forward and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

‘Look… think of time as a river. A river that always flows downhill. Well, we canride up it or down it. Ride time. Timeride. Just like being in a river boat with a paddle, wecan go against the flow. And your job will be looking for other people on the river goingagainst the flow when they have no business to. You’ll look for them, find them,terminate them and tidy up whatever damage they’ve done.’

‘How’re we going to do that?’ asked Maddy.

‘Well, I’ll be training you, of course.’ Foster smiledtiredly. ‘As quickly as I can. We need this field office to be operational again as soonas is possible.’

Sal looked up from her food. ‘The team before us… what were they like?’

Foster’s smile faded. ‘A little like you once, I suppose.’ The old manlooked away guiltily to gaze out of the window. He chewed on his lips for a moment.‘Young, inexperienced and frightened at first… and, ultimately, veryunlucky.’

‘That thing really killed them?’

He nodded. ‘Seekers are rare. And normally we do a density scan before pulling someoneback from a mission. That last time we didn’t and…’ Foster’s wordsfaded into an uncomfortable silence.

‘So,’ Liam cut in, ‘when do we start this training youmentioned?’

Foster turned to them.

‘Now.’

He sipped his beer again, took a deep breath. ‘I think we should start with a littlebit of a history lesson — the history of time travel.’

2066, New York

Dr Paul Kramer looked out at the dark streets of the city, the boarded-upbuildings, the discarded vehicles left rusting down the backstreets. Every so often theircoach passed a pedestrian, a small scruffy corner shop, a light glowing through a grimywindow.

New York was a rundown relic of the thriving city it had once been. There were whole blocksthat were now little more than deserted shells, populated by feral packs of dogs andpigeons.

The coach was heading down Central Park West, off Broadway. Kramer had seen films made sixtyyears ago that showed these streets full of life and colour and hope. Now it was a dismal andgrey place, a city dying piece by piece, block by block.

The coach slowed down as it passed a police precinct building, the windows protected by metalgrilles.

‘No need to drive too cautiously, Karl,’ said Kramer. ‘You’ll makethe police suspicious.’

Karl Haas, driving, picked up the speed a little.

Kramer twisted in his seat and looked back down the coach. His men, two dozen of them, satquietly in their seats, lost in thought, pensive. All of them fighting fit, wearing combatfatigues, ready for their mission. The aisle between both rows of seats wasclogged with their kit: crates and canvas carry-bags full of weapons.

He smiled proudly.

Good men, aren’t they, Paul?

‘We’re nearly there,’ he said to Karl.

Karl nodded and then barked out to the men behind them: ‘Make ready!’

They stirred immediately and he could hear the rattle of firearms being racked and readied touse. They were all experienced, many of them ex-military… all of them firmly committedto Kramer’s plan. None of them married or leaving children behind.

A one-way trip away from this dying world clogged with nine billion people — most ofthem starving. What Kramer was offering these young men was hope ,a chance to change things for the better.

In the thigh pocket of Kramer’s combat pants was the one little thing that was going tomake that possible for them: a black notebook.

Karl turned a corner on to 79th Street. The intersection was busier than normal with a fewpedestrians hunched over and miserable, shuffling their way home. Ahead of them was the grandbuilding itself — the American Museum of Natural History. Like so many others, it wasboarded up, covered in pigeon droppings and mostly dark, waiting in vain for better days.

Kramer felt his heart sink at the sight of its once-proud entrance now darkened with urbangrime and defaced with graffiti. This once-great nation deserved better; this city deservedbetter. The museum was a pitiful reminder of a grand time when Manhattan really was the centreof the world.

He could cry, honestly… he really could.

2001, New York

‘It began with theory: a paper written in 2029 by a talented Chinesemathematics graduate called Edward Chan,’ said Foster. ‘According to him, on paperat least, it was possible to bend space and time in such a way as to create a hole . But it took another fifteen years, and someone else, toconstruct a prototype that sort of worked. The man’s name was Roald Waldstein, a quitebrilliant amateur physicist.

‘There were all manner of huge corporations and military research teams working day andnight to be the ones to make the first time machine. But it was Waldstein, working in littlemore than a garage, who managed to overcome the practical difficulties of turning the theoryinto a functioning device. It was Waldstein, one man on his own, who beat corporations andgovernments to the prize.’