Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

I’m sure I’ve met this fella before somewhere.

The young man placed the box on the ground and pulled out the top book, leather-bound withpages of thick cartridge paper, the handwriting of recent visitors scrawled across every page.Recent, that is… up until eight months ago when the invasion of east-coast America hadbegun.

‘The guest book,’ the man said, passing it over to Liam. ‘Every visitor isfree to sign it and write a message.’

Then it came to Liam, right then, where he’d seen the man before.

The security guard?

He looked once more at the young face of the worker, more closely this time — theheart-shaped mole emerging from his brow. This man looked to be in his mid-twenties. Thesecurity guard who’d spoken to him and Maddy, he must’ve been in his mid to latesixties. The worker standing before him was… related somehow.

Not related, fool.

The resemblance was unmistakable.

It’s the same man.

Liam felt an irrational urge to reach out and hug him. The man was a connection through time,a link to where they wanted to be. He could almost smell home… almost glimpse the worldback in 2001. It felt good.

‘Ah, sod it,’ Liam blurted, all of a sudden, ‘I’m no bloodyNazi.’

Bob cocked his head curiously and looked at him. The worker did likewise.

‘Neither of us are. I’m Irish, actually, and he… ’ He pointed at Bob.‘And he’s… well, he’s not German either.’

The worker’s expression remained frozen, perhaps suspicious that this was some kind ofa devious test.

‘Truth is, we’re from the future and we’re here to put history right.Aren’t we, Bob?’

Bob shrugged. ‘That is correct.’

Liam grinned. ‘I’ve actually met you in the year 2001. Guess what? You’restill working here. You’re a security guard, guarding these very books, so ithappens.’

The worker’s eyes narrowed. ‘I… I don’t understand.’

‘You don’t have to understand. I just wanted you to know that.’ Liamreached out and grasped the man’s arm. ‘I want you to know that we’re goingto make things right again. It’s all going to change and when it does it’ll belike this invasion never happened.’

The young man’s expression changed. ‘Hang on, are you fellas resistancefighters?’

Resistance fighters. It would make explaining things a lot easier than trying to convince himthey were time travellers. Liam nodded. ‘Yes… as it happens, that’s exactlywhat we are.’

‘Well, why the heck didn’t you say? The name’s Sam Penney!’

Liam held out a hand. ‘My name’s Liam.’

‘So what… uh… what were you sayin’ about meeting me before?’

‘Sorry, forget that… I was thinking of someone else. Now listen, can you helpus?’

‘Sure! Sure… anything I can do, anything at all I can — ’

‘Could you keep a watch on the stairs for me? Let me know if anyone’s comingdown?’

‘Sure.’

‘We’ll be just a few minutes here, Sam Penney. Then we’ll be gone again.Can you keep this a secret? Not tell anyone?’

‘Sure.’ The young man looked from Liam to Bob. ‘So what’re you fellasgonna do?’ His expression changed. ‘You’re not putting a bomb or anythinglike that down here, are you?’

‘No. Nothing like that. None of these precious things will be damaged. All right? Youhave my word, so you do.’

‘Oh… OK. So what are you — ?’

‘I can’t tell you that, Sam. All I can say is… that it’s part of thefight back, all right? You have to trust me on this.’

Penney gave it a scant moment’s thought, then nodded. ‘Guess that’s goodenough for me.’

‘So you keep watch at the top of the stairwell, all right? Give us a fewminutes.’

‘You got it.’

Liam watched the man walk back up the stairs, then he looked down at the open visitor’sbook in his hands. He turned to Bob. ‘So what do I write?’

‘They will need to know an exact geographical location. I will give you theco-ordinates down to a yard in accuracy. Also they will require a time-stamp: year, month,day, hour and minute.’

‘Right. And the other thing… How do we make sure they’re going to be able to find this book in over four decades’ time, you know, wheneverything’s about to be torched?’

Bob stared at him blankly. ‘I have no suggestions.’

2001, New York

‘There’s nothing left,’ whispered Maddy, panning her torch aroundthe basement. Her voice was a weak, defeated croak. ‘I thought maybe… just maybe-’

‘There are a lot of shelves down here,’ said Foster. ‘We should spread outand check them all.’

‘They’re all empty, Foster! Don’t you see? Ifthat guest book was stored down here along with all the rest of the museum’s paperwork,then it was probably looted long ago, along with everything else. Maybe used as fuel for acampfire by the survivors, or those things outside.’

Foster’s face tensed as he looked around. ‘Liam’s a clever lad. He wouldhave made sure it was somewhere hidden, somewhere safe.’

‘Yeah? Where exactly? And how’re we going to find out where?’

‘A sign,’ whispered Sal.

The others turned to look at her standing outside in the stairwell on the bottom step.‘A sign,’ she said again.

‘You see a sign?’

‘No, I don’t see one, but that’s what he wouldhave done. If he came down here, he would have left us some sort of a sign.’ Her facelooked hopeful. ‘Wouldn’t he?’

Foster nodded. ‘She’s right. Some marker that would have survived this amount of time. Something permanent.’ He walked back into the stairwelland panned his torch around. ‘And right here somewhere, that’s where I’dleave a sign. Come on,’ he said, ‘everyone look.’

They did as he instructed, their torch beams snaking along the rough breeze-blocks of thestairwell walls, looking for something etched into the concrete, something scratched on thepiping running down the side, something carved into the wooden double doors leading on to thebasement floor. Something that might last forty-four years and never be completely erased.

‘Come on, Liam,’ whispered Foster, ‘if you’ve been down here, let usknow.’

They searched in silence for a few minutes, carefully sweeping their torches across thewalls, the stair handrail, heating pipes running up the side of the doorway, an electricaljunction box… even a fire extinguisher, still sitting on its wall mount, but…finding absolutely nothing.

Maddy sighed. ‘Maybe he left a sign but it was scrubbed off, or plastered over, or wornaway. It’s been a long time.’ She shook her head, frustrated. ‘Or maybe he didn’t come back this way. And he and Bob stayed in theWashington area. Or…’ The words hung in the silence between them, unsaid.

Or maybe they just died back then.

Sal’s head dropped, her dark fringe flopping down over her eyes. ‘It was a wasteof time,’ she muttered. ‘We’re never going to find them.’

‘Maybe Sal’s right.’ Foster nodded. ‘We should probably think aboutheading back whilst it’s still light outside.’

Her dark eyebrows were locked with a frown as she gazed down at her feet.

‘We could always try again tomorrow morning as soon as the sun comesup,’ continued Foster. ‘We’ll have eight or nine hours of sunlight to lookaround down here. Actually, Liam may well have left us a clue upstairs in the main hall, for all we know. We’ll have more timetomorrow.’

Maddy reached out and patted Sal’s shoulder. ‘Hey, Sal, Foster’s right. Wecan try again tomorrow. Don’t cry, it was just a — ’