Alex Scarrow - Time Riders

Maddy laughed. ‘The billionaires of tomorrow always seem to start out in garages,don’t they?’

Foster shook his head, eager to continue. ‘The story goes that he tested his ownmachine, went back to somewhere in the past. However, he returned acompletely changed man .’

‘Why?’

‘He claimed he saw something on his trip that scaredhim.’

‘What?’

‘Waldstein never told anyone what he saw. But whatever it was itconvinced him that his work on developing a working time machine was dangerous. He becameobsessed with preventing any further work on time travel. Over the years, Roald Waldsteinbecame rich from other inventions, became an influential voice and campaigned very publicly toensure this technology died.’

Maddy slurped her Dr Pepper. ‘And obviously it wasn’t halted.’

‘Obviously.’

‘So what happened?’ asked Liam.

2066, New York

Karl parked the coach outside the rear of the museum where the loading bay andtrade entrances were. The men clambered off silently, efficiently, weapons slung over theirshoulders, crates and kit bags carried between them.

Kramer helped one of his men with a canvas sack full of ammo clips. It was heavy enough toensure his arms were aching by the time they carefully placed it on the ramp leading up to themuseum’s shuttered loading bay.

He looked around quickly.

The cover of night and sparse lighting from a sputtering arc light almost certainly meant noone had spotted them yet.

Yet.

Soon enough, though, there’d be armed police descending upon them.

Karl, a lean and muscular ex-marine in his thirties, approached him. Once upon a timehe’d been Technical Sergeant Karl Haas — that wasbefore the army spat him out, surplus to requirements. Karl was Kramer’ssecond-in-command. While Dr Paul Kramer might be the brains — the visionary — it was Karl to whom the men would turn once the fightingstarted.

‘Dr Kramer, sir?’

‘Yes, Karl.’

‘You’re absolutely certain it’s here?’

He couldn’t blame the man for asking. Once they broke into the museum,and sealed themselves inside, there wasn’t going to be any turning back.

Kramer patted his shoulder. ‘It’s here, my friend. Trust me.’

They worked the loading-bay door open with a sledgehammer, smashing the locking bar andpushing the heavy aluminium doors in. Almost immediately a bell began to ring somewhere insidethe dark cavernous building.

‘It’s OK,’ said Kramer, ‘there are only a few security guardsinside.’ He looked over his shoulder at the night sky and the distant glow of a policehoverjet sluggishly patrolling the dead skyline of Manhattan. ‘The police, on the otherhand, will be with us soon, I’m sure. We should get everything inside as quickly aspossible.’

Karl nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, and turned smartly away.

He helped drag in the crates and bags of equipment. Once everything was inside, they pushedthe loading-bay doors closed. The area, stacked with wooden packing crates, flickered to lifein the dazzling, strobing light of a welding torch sealing the service door shut.

‘Make sure that’s properly secured,’ ordered Kramer. He turned to Haas.‘Karl, take a dozen men and round up the security staff. Bring them to me.’

The man nodded and headed towards the doors to the museum’s galleries, quickly pickingsome men to go with him.

Kramer felt the item in his pocket: his small notebook. He silently prayed that hewasn’t making a horrendous mistake.

You know it’s hidden here, Paul.

So many reasons why he could be wrong. Maybe it wasn’t down in the basement of themuseum, but instead in some other building… Maybe the code was copied downincorrectly… Maybe he really did destroy it…

Have faith in your instincts, Paul.

If he’d got it wrong, though, they were going to be nothing more than a couple of dozenangry idealists trapped in a dusty old building full of priceless museum exhibits boxed awayin the hope of better times.

He guessed the armed police might be wary of using heavy-calibre or incendiary weapons forfear of damaging the nation’s irreplaceable heirlooms. But they’d be coming in,one way or another, and there’d be gunfire.

They’ll shoot first and worry about the chipped potterylater.

2001, New York

‘Waldstein destroyed his machine. He smashed it up, as well as burning allhis notes and files. Fifteen years of hard work… destroyed because he suspected timetravel would ultimately harm this world.’

‘Wow,’ gasped Maddy. ‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?It’s like deleting all the code for a game just to kill one bug.’

Sal looked up from her food, so far barely touched. ‘So, why did he want to make a timemachine in the first place?’

‘His wife and son died in 2028. He made no secret of what was driving him to go back intime.’

‘To save them?’

‘No, to see them one last time, to say goodbye to them.Waldstein knew he couldn’t save them — he couldn’t alter history — but he could at least tell them he loved them both momentsbefore their lives were to end.’

Liam shook his head slowly. ‘That’s a tough one, so it is. To have the chance tosave those you love, yet not do it because that’s the right thing to do.’

Foster nodded. ‘Yes. Waldstein was a very principled man.’

‘Did he manage to see them when he went back?’ asked Sal.

‘No one knows if he was successful. He never spoke about it. He returned, as Imentioned, a very changed man, immediately afterwards destroying all his work. He began acampaign for all research in time technology to be halted. His desperatewarnings that the world could be destroyed by time travel began to find an audience and inearly 2051 an international law was passed strictly forbidding the development of thetechnology. Waldstein became a recluse after that, rarely seen in public, but content that hiscampaign had put an end to time travel.’

Foster sighed. ‘But, of course, it didn’t.’

He finished his beer. ‘It was obvious that every major corporation, every country,every tin-pot dictator, anybody with the money, the resources andmanpower, was secretly working on their own time machine.Waldstein had shown it was possible and that was enough.

‘So, in direct violation of the international law, this agency was set up. Quietly,secretly, working on their very own machines.’

‘Let me guess,’ interrupted Maddy, ‘to go back in time to killWaldstein?’

Foster shook his head. ‘No. Just as Waldstein couldn’t save his family, so theagency can’t go back in time to prevent him from making his machine. History cannot be violated, it cannot be changed — that’s the tidal wave I mentioned a while back, remember?’

They nodded.

‘You see, time can cope with very small changes. History can sort of heal itself of very, very minor alterations, because there’s amomentum to events, a momentum to history. It’s as if history wants to go a certain route. But,’ said Foster with a cautionary glance up atthem, ‘but, a more significant change, for example going back in time and talkingWaldstein out of building his machine, or even killing him… well, something like thatwould be enough of a change to cause a tidal wave.’

He looked out of the window at the busy street aglow with neon lightspilling down from a billboard advertising Nike sportswear.

‘The agency was set up to be ready for what they knew was coming: future timetravellers, those who’d want to change the past and rewrite the present — terrorists, religious fanatics, megalomaniacs, the criminally insane. Anyway — ’ hepushed his stool back and stood up — ‘that’s enough of the history lessonfor now. I think it’s time I took you three outside and showed you a little of the worldout there, the time and place in which you’re going to be based. Particularly you,Liam.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll need to play a little catch-up if you want tofamiliarize yourself with the world of 2001.’