Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

She immediately wished she hadn’t said that. They all realized they’d run out of options. It hadn’t needed spelling out quite so bluntly.

Sal slumped down on one of the armchairs around the breakfast table. ‘I guessthat’s it.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ replied Foster. ‘It does seem like that’sit.’

1957, Washington DC

That’s it, then. We’re finished.

Liam looked at the dark hulking silhouette of the support unit, standing in the alley besidehim. Still, calm, as always — free of doubt and despair.

The sleet had turned to rain and pattered softly around them and the darkness flickered everynow and then with passing light as searchlights from above panned routinely across therooftops, across the top of their little backstreet.

‘You must assign new mission parameters,’ Bob’s voice rumbled.

New mission parameters?

Liam could have laughed cruelly at that. There was nothing they could achieve now, not in thetime they had left. In just under two days’ time, a tiny explosive charge insideBob’s head would leave him little more than a comatose giant, a mindless, dribblingvegetable. Liam figured he might be able to keep Bob’s body alive, feeding it like a bigbaby, keeping it going with protein and water. But to what end? Bob would be gone…unable to protect him any more.

‘I don’t know what to suggest, Bob,’ whispered Liam. ‘Doyou?’

Bob was silent for a few moments. ‘Negative.’

Go back and rejoin the freedom fighters?

Liam’s smile was thin. He wondered what they’d make of theirsuperman — Captain Bob — slumped against a tree trunk,drooling long strings of saliva and staring lifelessly at their crackling campfire. Hardly thestuff of legends.

He’d listened in on those men talking about Bob in hushed reverential tones, huddled inone of the tents. It was almost a form of worship. One of them told an exaggerated account tosome newcomers of the raid in which Liam had been rescued, claiming he’d seen ashimmering ‘godly’ halo around Bob as he strode unharmed through the prison camp,protecting him from the guards’ bullets… and angels in the clouds lookingprotectively down on him.

Liam wondered if that’s how all the legendary figures in history began, as tales toldround a campfire, then retold and retold through successive generations, grandfather tofather, father to son, each time the tale growing more exaggerated.

An odd thought occurred to him. He wondered if the ancient Greek hero, Achilles, had merelybeen a support unit like Bob, caught up somehow in the Siege of Troy, his presenceunintentionally becoming a part of history. Or how about the super-strong Samson from theBible? Or Attila the Hun? King Leonidas of the Spartans? He wondered if any of thoseimplausibly heroic characters from history were the unintended side-effect of a mission liketheirs… some other agency team going about their work, leaving unavoidable footprints intime.

Footprints in time.

‘You must assign new mission parameters.’

Footprints in time.

‘Oh my God!’ he whispered. ‘Footprints.’

Bob remained silent.

‘Footprints,’ he whispered again. ‘Bob?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘I think there’s a way we can communicate with the fieldoffice.’

‘Negative. Tachyon transmissions can only — ’

‘Shhh!’ hissed Liam. ‘Listen to me. How long will it take us to get to NewYork?’

2001, New York

Maddy realized she’d nodded off. The steady muted chug of the generator inthe back room had lulled her into a fitful sleep.

She’d been dreaming.

Dreaming of the day she’d been snatched from a doomed airliner, waking up on this samecot and opening her eyes to see Liam slouched on the bed across from hers. That daft, lopsidedgrin on his face.

She realized how much she missed Liam. Even Bob. If she added up the looped Mondays andTuesdays they’d all been here in this archway together — before things had gonewrong, that is — it came to several weeks’ worth of days. That’s all. But itseemed like she’d known them both so much longer.

She missed them.

Another memory floated into her half-conscious mind. Foster taking them down to the Museum ofNatural History. She’d been there before on school trips. But this last time had beendifferent. This time not a bored schoolkid gazing at dusty old exhibits behind glass panels,but seeing these things as precious heirlooms of the past, mark-points of a history crying outto her to protect it, to preserve it… to keep it unchanged…

She remembered…

Maddy jerked herself out of her drowsy wool-gathering.

‘Oh my God!’ she whispered.

The generator was still chugging away in the background. She climbed offher bunk and looked around the archway. Sal was sitting at the long desk listlessly staring atthe turned-off monitors.

‘Where’s Foster?’

Sal gestured towards the sliding corrugated door leading to the back room. ‘In the backfiddling with the generator, I think.’

Maddy paced across the floor, slid the door to one side and stepped into the smelly darkness.‘Foster!’

Torchlight flickered towards her, and over the noisy chug of the generator she heard him makehis way over. ‘What’s up?’

‘Foster, I think… I think there’s a way Liam can communicate withus.’

‘Sorry. What’s that you say?’ he replied, cupping his ear.‘It’s noisy,’ he barked, ‘let’s step out.’

They emerged from the back room and he slid the door shut. The noisy percussive rattle of thesickly-sounding generator was once more a background thud.

‘What were you saying?’

‘Liam… I think there’s a way Liam could try to contact us.’

Foster shook his head. ‘You know Bob can’t return atachyon beam transmiss-’

‘Yes, I know that,’ she cut in impatiently. ‘Listen… the museum. TheMuseum of Natural History…’

‘What about it?’

‘When you took us there, Liam and I were looking at the visitors’ guest book. Wewere having a laugh at some of the comments.’

Foster shrugged. ‘And?’

‘Anyway… the museum has kept a guest book in the entrance foyer since the museumfirst opened. They have an archive of them that they kept in the basement. They’ve keptthat archive since, like, the 1800s, I think.’

Foster’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Yes!’

‘If we go there — ?’

The old man nodded. ‘They might still be down there!’ The hope on his face madehim seem much younger. But only for a fleeting moment. Almost as quickly as it arrived, thehope faded away.

‘But Liam doesn’t know all this.’

Maddy grinned. ‘But he does! The security guard there told me. Liam was standing rightbeside me at the time. He was telling us both! And if I remembered…?’

Foster’s lined face rumpled with a wide lopsided grin. ‘Then Liam wouldtoo.’

‘That’s what I figured.’

Foster nodded. ‘Yes… yes, he would. He’s a smart lad.’

‘So,’ she continued, ‘if he made his way to New York and visited the museumin 1957, it’s possible he could have left a message for us in there.’

Foster nodded. ‘And that message could give an exact time and location for us to open areturn window for them.’

‘Closer to home? Maybe in New York? Would we have enough of a charge left to dothat?’

Foster glanced at the blinking LEDs. Another red light had turned back to green.‘Generator isn’t going to last much longer, by the sounds it’s making. Thefuel tank’s virtually on empty. We need it to get the charge meter up to ten greenlights, at a guess.’