Alex Scarrow: Time Riders

‘Did… did we do it?’ Liam asked.

Maddy grinned and hugged him tightly in answer to his question.

‘Yes, Liam,’ replied Foster, ‘you did it.’

2001, New York

A couple of hours later, after Liam had given a more detailed account of his timein the past, he was fast asleep on one of the cots. His snoring seemed to reverberate throughthe arch even more noisily than the generator had.

Foster worked over at the computer desk. Having scrubbed Bob’s neural processor cleanof brain tissue and blood, he connected it up to the computer system and began downloading theentire content of its hard drive.

‘Bob’s AI is in there amongst that,’ he said, nodding towards the loadingbar slowly creeping across the screen.

‘That’s a lot of data uploading there,’ said Maddy.

‘Well, he was away for nearly six months; all the time, his eyes and ears recordingeverything that was going on.’

‘So, what’s the deal with Bob? Is his AI intact?’

Foster shrugged. ‘I’m no computer expert. So I don’t know how it works. Butthe code that makes up Bob’s AI will merge with the computer system’s.’ Hetapped the keyboard. ‘You’ll be able to communicate with him in there.’

‘Right. Six months of learning… I guess that AI code’s a lot smarter thanthe idiot that plopped out of the birthing tube.’

Foster chuckled. ‘Oh yes.’

She looked at him. ‘How are we going to grow ourselves anothersupport unit? Those tubes are smashed, the gunk they were growing in has all gone off-’

He raised a hand. ‘There’s going to be a lot of work to do to get this fieldoffice online again.’

‘I’ll help you with that… You look tired.’ If she was being honest,she would have said he looked ready to keel over and die.

‘New clone embryos and growing solution. The generator needs replacing. The walls fixedup. You need to replenish our supplies,’ he added.

‘A new generator. That’s going to cost money.’

‘Fine,’ said Foster, ‘just go find a hardware store and buyanother.’

‘We’ve got enough money?’

‘As much as you’ll ever need. It’s in a bank account.’

‘Cool. Do we get a debit card with that or something?’

He turned to her. ‘That’s one of many things I’m going to need to gothrough with you… before…’ His voice trailed off.

‘Before what?’

Foster looked uncomfortable. ‘Before I leave.’

‘Leave? Leave! You can’t leave us! Neither of us know what the heck we’redoing just yet. Jesus, I… I certainly don’t — ’

‘You did fine.’ Foster smiled. ‘You did just fine. I’d say right nowthere’s no team better trained to do this than you. You survived the ordeal.You’ll be able to cope with pretty much anything else this job has to throw at you. Ofthat I’m sure.’

‘ Team? There’s no team. There’s just me andLiam now.’ She cast a glance at the bank of monitors in front of her and the upload bar,now inching past the halfway mark. ‘Oh… and a computer system that’s verysoon going to start insisting we call it Bob .’

It was then they heard the soft scrape of feet behind them. They turnedround to see Sal standing in the middle of the archway, a shopping bag in one hand, lookingcuriously down at the small crater of scooped-out concrete in the floor.

‘So what happened here? This place is a real mess,’ she said, shaking her headdisapprovingly. ‘I go out for a couple of hours to get some milk and bagels forbreakfast and come back and it’s like someone’s been drilling holes in the walloutside… and someone dropped a bowling ball on the floor here.’

‘Sal?’ Maddy’s jaw dropped. ‘Sal!’

A dark eyebrow arched quizzically. ‘Uh… yeah, and?’

‘You’re alive!’ Maddy leaped up from the desk and swept the confused girlinto her arms. ‘Oh my God, you’re alive! You’re alive!’

Foster could see Sal’s bewildered face over Maddy’s shaking shoulder.

‘Uh… is someone going to tell me what’s been going on while I wasout?’

2001, New York

Monday

They haven’t told me everything that happened. I can tell some things wenton that they’re keeping from me. But I know now that while I was out buying milk andbagels a time shift happened, the world changed and Liam and Bob went into the past to fixit.

Liam told me he and Bob were actually stuck in the past for six whole months! And I knowabout none of it. Time travel is such a strange thing to get your head round.

They said our field office was attacked, but no one’s told me by who or what yet.There are scratch marks everywhere on the wall outside, like someone took a scouring brushto the bricks. Maybe we were attacked by an army of porcupines or something.

Many of the things in the back room were broken, shards of glass and stuff everywhere, so Iguess there was a bit of a struggle back there. I wish they’d just tell me everythinginstead of trying to ‘protect’ me just ’cause I’m the youngest.

And Bob died. I know that’s affected Liam. He’s missing him. I see him typingto Bob on the computer system every day. Maddy tells him not to be so cut up about it- he’s not actually ‘gone’; he’s just in the computer instead.She said it’s no different to, like, chatting to a friend on MSN.

I miss the big guy too.

Foster says we can grow another Bob once the birthing equipment has been sorted out.I’m not sure how I’ll feel, though, about a Bob Version 2. It just won’tbe the same Bob. Or will it? I mean, they’re clones, so I suppose it will be exactlythe same.

Maddy’s been kept very busy. Foster says she’s the team leader and needs to doa lot of learning while we rest up and recover. The birthing tubes in the back room have gotto be replaced, and we’ll need new cloned foetuses and supplies of that gooey soupthey float in. Foster’s getting Maddy to sort out those things. We also have to get anew back-up generator installed to replace the old one and supplies of food and water anddiesel and so many other things.

We’re all going to be kept busy for the next few days, that’s for sure.

You know, I hate that I completely missed out on whatever happened. I feel like I’mstill the newbie here and the other two are now sort of like old hands.

In fact, all three of them seem a bit different, like what happened changed them somehow.Like, for example, Liam. He’s sort of older now. I swear he’s grown an inch ortwo taller. He seems bigger, firmer. Less boyish and a bit more manly. Obviously he’ssix months older than he was… but it’s actually like he’s two or threeyears older. It’s weird.

Maddy jokes around a little less now. She seems to have so much on her mind all thetime… like she’s about to sit a whole load of exams and she hasn’t doneany revision.

And then there’s Foster.

I worry about him. He looks so-o-o-o sick and so-o-o-o much older. Coming back from myshopping trip, it was like he’d sort of aged a hundred years in the time that I wasout. I figured it would be rude to blurt something out about how he lookedreally old all of a sudden. So I haven’t said anything about it these last few days. Iguess it’s a time-travel thing.

So incredibly weird, though, this time-travel business. It really messes with yourhead.

Sal looked up from writing her diary and slurped a spoon from her breakfast bowlof Rice Krispies. The cereal had gone soggy in the milk as she’d been scribbling away.She stared disinterestedly at one of the banks of computer monitors in front of her.She’d tuned the signal feed from CNN to the Disney channel, and right now Toy Story 2 was on — Buzz and gang desperately trying to cross abusy highway disguised as traffic cones. Sal had seen it many times over. It had been one ofher dad’s favourites.