City of Shadows

Chapter 59

14 December 1888, Holborn, London

‘Oh my God!’ gushed Maddy, ‘I so-o-o-o love this!’ Her face was one big toothy smile framed by the wisps of her strawberry hair and the lace of her bonnet. ‘All of this! These posh clothes, this place! Don’t you think it’s so cool!’

Sal was fussing with her lace cuffs. ‘I feel like an idiot in this dress.’

Liam was in the same frame of mind as Maddy. ‘It feels like this could be our new home all right.’

Maddy sighed contentedly. Her first night in Victorian London. ‘Yeah, it’s almost like back home.’ Home. New York. A strange choice of word for that place, that — home — since she’d never actually had one. ‘Just as busy and bustling and vibrant as Brooklyn.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Liam. His cheeks puffed up like a hamster’s as he worked his way through a pork pie.

She looked around the open-top wagon with its four small round tables and tall wobbly stools. There was even a serving counter on the end, behind which a barista busied himself roasting coffee beans on an open skillet over glowing coals. A whole coffee shop complete with its own canvas awning and colourful bunting right there on the flatbed of an open horse-drawn cart.

She grinned. ‘Starbucks 1880s style.’ She sipped steaming hot coffee from the mug cupped in her hands and smacked her lips. ‘Actually, even better than Starbucks. I mean, this is what I call fresh coffee.’

‘Aye.’

The meagre light of the overcast afternoon was fading, the featureless December-grey sky becoming a deep ocean blue. Maddy watched as one by one glimmers of flame winked on like fireflies in the gathering twilight; oil lamps on the street, candles behind net-curtain windows. As evening began to settle on Farringdon Street, it became a Dickensian painting; splashes of midnight blue for the advancing evening shadows, and ambers and golds for the glowing pools of gas and candlelight. And, with the evening almost fully upon them, it seemed to be getting busier still.

‘They seem to like their nightlife,’ said Sal.

Liam and Rashim had already spent a week of nights here in London as they’d been setting up the new field office. Partly because some of their banging around had been noisy enough that it kept attracting their curious landlord. He’d turn up at their door like a bad penny with various excuses as to why he was knocking. They soon realized that Mr Hook enjoyed his ale and was in the habit of spending his evenings in one public house or another, so their lifting, bumping and banging, bringing in bits and pieces of furniture to make it more like home, was better done then rather than during the day.

Liam looked round the street. ‘It is actually busier than normally, so.’

As well as a number of well-dressed gentlemen in top hats with elegant ladies on their arms — presumably quite usual for a Friday evening — there were several loose clusters of working men blocking the pavements further along the street. Liam presumed they were the overflow from various overcrowded public houses: men enjoying their ale at the end of the working week.

Maddy’s mood had suddenly changed as her thoughts returned to matters at hand. ‘We have to figure out what happened to Becks,’ she said.

‘It must have been a translation error,’ said Liam.

Rashim fussed with his glasses. ‘No, I don’t think so. I checked and rechecked everyone’s mass index. Something must have happened back in that school.’

‘Like what?’

‘Maybe a rat ran into her square or something?’ said Sal.

Rashim jumped on that. ‘Yes, it could easily be something like that… a rat, or a stray cat, or something.’

‘So, does that mean she’s somewhere here? Somewhere else in London?’

‘I don’t know, Maddy. It’s possible.’

‘She could be wandering around looking for us,’ said Sal.

‘Then we should have Bob and SpongeBubba switch on their Wi-Fi signals. If she gets within — what is it, half a mile range? — it’ll give her something to home in on.’

Rashim sipped his coffee. ‘But, Maddy, it is also equally possible she experienced mass convergence somewhere. This London is a dense place.’

‘She’d be dead, then.’ Rashim nodded.

‘Maybe something happened to her back in the school?’ Liam looked at the others. ‘Maybe those meatbots finally caught up with us.’

‘No.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘I’d say we probably lost them.’

The conclusion, then, wasn’t so great. Her body was lost: a pulp of flesh somewhere in London perhaps fused into the foundations of some building.

‘If that did happen, I just hope it was quick for her,’ said Maddy. ‘That she didn’t suffer too much.’

Losing their half-grown Becks, though, was more than just losing a colleague. Friend even. Maddy felt that there might have been a chance to ‘reason’ with her AI to finally agree to open that locked portion of her mind. Somehow, having reinstalled her complete personality from the rigid binary confines of a hard drive — an object that was never going to be reasoned with — she’d begun to hope that enough things had happened recently for Becks to consider opening up to her, revealing whatever message had been waiting two thousand years to be heard. A message, by the way, specifically intended for her! She ground her teeth in frustration. A message, Becks had claimed, that had been sent by her.

I sent myself a message from the future. Maddy shook her head, very much annoyed with her stupid future self. Why did I freakin’ well decide I have to wait until ‘certain conditions are met’ before I can learn what it is?

‘Rashim, do you think there’s any way we’re going to be able to grow any new support units?’

Absently his fingers traced the felt brim of his top hat held reverently on his lap. Clearly he relished the whole dressing-up thing as much as she did. He’d even bought a fob watch on a chain to tuck into one of his waistcoat pockets.

What a poser.

‘I think we’ll struggle to find the components we need in this time. We could perhaps use a brewer’s cask for a growth tube, but filtration pumps? Protein solution? We would need to take a journey forward to obtain those things.’

‘And that’s a risk, isn’t it?’ said Sal.

Maddy nodded. ‘Yup, we run the risk of turning up on somebody’s radar if we do too much of that. We’ll have to think about this. Meanwhile, the foetuses will stay viable in the freezer unit?’

‘Provided the power supply does not fail us,’ he replied, nodding. ‘Yes.’

‘I wonder if there’s something special on tonight?’ said Liam. ‘A parade or something?’

They sat in silence for a while, all of them contemplating the busy street. The barista, seeing their hushed conversation had hit a pause for the moment, came round the side of his counter and over to their table.

‘Can I offer you ladies or gentlemen anything else? Only I’ll need to be closin’ up and movin’ on soon.’ He glanced at the gathering of men down the other end of Farringdon Street. ‘I’d rather be off before things get a bit frisky. I ’eard a whisper, see.’

Liam nodded at the gathering of men. ‘What is going on down there?’

‘That’ll be another of them gatherings,’ replied the barista. ‘Blasted anarchists and troublemakers. They’re all worked up and makin’ a nuisance of themselves. All because of that gentleman murderer.’

‘Murderer?’

He looked at them with momentary bemusement. ‘You know, the mad-in-the-’ead one? Been killin’ women? In the East End? You ladies an’ gents musta ’eard about that?’

Liam, Maddy and the others shook their heads in unison.

The barista took in the look of confusion on all their faces. ‘You… you do know about that, right? That gentleman… a knight or lord or something. Some say he might even be a friend of the queen!’

Liam shook his head. ‘Can’t say that we do, sir.’

The barista laughed incredulously. ‘Blimey! It’s in all the penny papers. It ’as been for the last fortnight! Been on them telegraph wires all round the world I wouldn’t be surprised. Everyone’s been talkin’ about it! You lot must be the last people in the country to have ’eard about it, then!’

‘We’ve sort of only just arrived in the country, you see,’ said Maddy.

The barista nodded. ‘Ahhh, foreigners! I thought I could ’ear somethin’ funny in the way you’s lot were talkin’. Where you ladies and gents come from?’

Maddy met Liam and Sal’s eyes. They all shared a conspiratorial smile and she shrugged at the barista as if to say, Where do I even begin? ‘Well now, that’s kind of difficult to — ’

‘Canada,’ said Bob. ‘We are from Canada.’

The barista looked suitably impressed. ‘Canadians, eh? I suppose you don’t get newspapers and telegraph wires over there, then. Well — ’ he shook his head — ‘to be honest, the whole thing’s a nasty carry-on. This won’t turn out well for none of us. Best advice I can tell you is — with all due respect — I’d suggest you might want to ’op on a boat ’eading back ’ome to Canada before it all kicks off over ’ere. It ain’t gonna be nice.’

‘Kicks off?’

‘Nasty business. Very nasty.’ His eyes narrowed as he gazed down the street. ‘The way things are goin’… there’ll be soldiers on the streets soon. Maybe even blood on the streets before long.’ He looked back down at them. ‘Best ’ead back to your ’otel or guesthouse and stay indoors this evening, that’s for sure. I ’eard a whisper them riots what we’ve ’ad across Whitechapel and the rest of the East End of London will be spreading to the rest of the city.’ He nodded at the growing crowd of men far off down the street. ‘And them troublemakers down there look like they’re making ready to ’ave a scrap with the police.’