Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 78

2001, New York

Sal felt it again, the early ripples, the faintest sensation of dizziness. But it looked like no one else had felt it. Cartwright still had his gun on Maddy.

‘This… this is my life. This world. This reality!’

‘Y-you have to step outside now… rejoin your men,’ replied Maddy firmly.

Sal was impressed with her calm, her cool in the face of his wavering gun.

The old man shook his head and laughed. ‘What? You’re expecting me to just walk away from this? The greatest discovery in the history of mankind… and what? I just walk out into that backstreet and try to forget about it?’

Sal glanced at the other two kids. They met her gaze; eyes exchanging a shared imperative.

We’ve got to do something.

‘Listen!’ cut in Maddy. ‘If the wave comes and goes while you’re in here… y-you’ll be left behind. It’ll rewrite the present without you — ’

He smiled. ‘Oh… I think I could live with that, Maddy. In fact, I’ve been waiting a long, long time for something like — ’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘This isn’t about state security any more, is it?’

He shrugged. ‘All right, yes! And why not? This thing… this time machine… it’s a boy’s dream! It’s a man’s dream! Mankind’s dream, goddammit! To travel anywhere, to any time, to see it all. To see things no other human will ever see!’

‘It’s not a toy, Cartwright. You know you… you just can’t think of it that w-way.’

‘Oh, right! You… some snot-nosed teenager and her buddies… you’re to be entrusted instead, are you? You’re the guardians of time, huh?’

Sal glanced at the others again, then took a hesitant step towards the old man. She looked to see if the other two were going to do likewise. Laura remained where she was, trembling, face ashen. She shook her head. Too frightened. Edward, however, took a silent step forward along with Sal.

She had no idea what she intended to do — make a grab for the gun?

Oh God, the thought made her knees wobble.

‘I was selected!’ replied Maddy. ‘I didn’t freakin’ want this, Cartwright! Jesus! In fact, I didn’t have much of a freakin’ choice at all!’

The old man shrugged. ‘Guess what? I don’t really care.’ He stepped towards her, across snaking cables. ‘This is what I want. And I’ve spent my life waiting for it. Preparing for it.’

Sal noticed something blinking on one of the monitors.

‘I’m an old man,’ he continued, stepping on to concrete floor in the middle of the archway, clear of any cables that could trip him up. All the while the aim of his gun remained resolutely on Maddy. ‘My whole life, my whole adult life, has been leading towards this moment. And I’ve known for so many years that a time machine was going to arrive under this bridge, in this archway, on September tenth, 2001.’ He sighed. ‘Can you imagine what knowing about something like that does to you? Knowing that near the end of your natural life… something truly wonderful is going to happen.’ He shook his head. ‘And what?’ He laughed drily. ‘You’re telling me to just forget about it? Just walk away and forget about it?’

Over Maddy’s shoulder Sal could see the blinking cursor in Bob’s dialogue box. He was trying to tell Maddy something. A warning of the impending time wave?

‘The things I’ve wanted to see, Maddy Carter… the things I’ve dreamed of seeing over the last fifteen years, the destruction of Pompeii, the fall of Atlantis, the crucifixion of Christ… the battle of Bunker Hill, George Washington crossing the Delaware, Lincoln giving his Gettysburg address! The arrival of Columbus…’ His rheumy old eyes were alive with naive wonder. ‘My God! The impact of the K-T asteroid that ended the time of the dinosaurs! Can you imagine actually seeing that impact for yourself?’ He shook his head. ‘How far back can I go? Do you know?’

Maddy spread her hands. ‘I… I don’t know. I — ’

‘The beginning of life on earth? The first division of cells?’ Cartwright seemed lost in his reverie, of the things he could see, the places he could go. All his now for the taking.

Sal suddenly felt the hairs on her forearms stand on end, and knew it was here — the time wave. A moment later the ceiling light dimmed and flickered and they all felt it, a moment of imbalance, the floor dropping away beneath their feet. The monitors over Maddy’s shoulder all flickered and went dead. Laura cried in alarm and Edward gasped as the ceiling light flickered off, leaving them, for a moment, in complete darkness.

Then the monitors flickered back on and the ceiling light fizzed, blinked and bathed the archway in its cold blue glare once more.

Cartwright giggled joyously. ‘Good God! That was it? Wasn’t it?’

Maddy nodded slowly. ‘Yeah… I think it was.’ She looked at him accusingly. ‘You should’ve been outside our field. You should have been out there with your people. This messes things up. This — ’

‘But I wasn’t outside,’ he said calmly. ‘So why don’t you just get over it?’

‘You don’t understand… you’ve been written out of the present. I’ve got no idea what that means to you or — ’

‘That suits me fine,’ he smiled.

Sal noticed the blinking cursor was back on-screen and all of a sudden it occurred to her what Bob was desperately trying to tell Maddy.

‘Maddy!’ she cried, pointing at the monitors. ‘You need to look!’

Maddy turned to glance over her shoulder. ‘Oh no!’ She turned back to Cartwright. ‘GET OUT OF THERE!’

His wiry brow furrowed. ‘Uh? What’s up?’

‘ MOVE! ’ she screamed.

The displacement machine’s hum changed in tone as stored-up energy prepared to be released.

‘LOOK!’ shouted Maddy, pointing to the ground at Cartwright’s feet. He looked down, wondering what was so special about a chalk circle and, within, a small irregular section of the grubby concrete floor scooped out and…

‘OH GOD, CARTWRIGHT, GET OUT!’

It happened in nanoseconds, the instant appearance of a sphere of energy around the old man. Most of him was inside, all but his left hand.

Sal thought she saw in that fleeting moment dark shapes swirling around him like demons or ghosts, a window on to some world that an uneducated person, a superstitious person, someone from the Dark Ages, might have called Hell.

Then he was swept away. Gone.

The sphere pulsed and shimmered, and now she could see what appeared to be an undulating Texas-blue sky, and an arid and drab landscape… and the wavering outline of a shape stepping through. Liam staggered into view with a distinct look of nausea on his face, and a moment later the sphere of supercharged tachyon particles vanished with a soft pop of rushing air.

‘Jeez, that was an odd one,’ he said queasily, bending over, nauseous and heaving.

‘Liam!’ yelped Maddy. ‘Oh my God… I thought you were going to get all mushed up with Cartwright! I…’

He raised a hand to hush her. ‘Just a second, just a second… I’m gonna — ’

He threw up on the floor and on to the still-twitching hand Cartwright had left behind.

Sal rushed over to him. ‘Liam? You OK?’

He wiped his mouth and looked up at her with his bloodshot eye. ‘I

… I just… I’m all right now.’ He straightened up and looked down in disgust at the hand and the acrid-smelling puddle at his feet. ‘That wasn’t like I’m used to. That one felt really odd, so it did.’

Maddy shook her head. ‘I’m not sure what happened. Cartwright was standing in the circle. I forgot the countdown was due.’ There were tears in her eyes, running down her cheeks. ‘Oh God, Liam, I thought you were going to end up a twisted mess with him and…’

‘Well…’ Liam rubbed his mouth dry and grinned. ‘I’m all right now, aren’t I?’ He spread his hands and looked down at himself. ‘Or have I got an extra arm or something stuck on the back of me head?’

She nodded, wiped her eyes and laughed. ‘No… no, you’re just fine as you are.’

‘Did it work?’ asked Liam. ‘Has anyone looked outside?’

‘I think a time wave came,’ said Laura, looking at Sal for confirmation.

‘That’s right.’ Sal nodded. ‘I’ll go see.’

She turned back to the entrance, hit the button and the shutter slowly began to crank up. They gathered around the rising corrugated shutter and as it lurched to a halt they stepped outside into the dark night.

Manhattan glistened brightly across the Hudson, a towering wedding cake of lights. A commuter train rumbled overhead along the Williamsburg Bridge, and the evening was filled with the soothing white noise of far-off traffic and the echoing wail of a police siren.

‘Normal New York,’ said Liam. He puffed out a weary sigh. ‘That was a bleedin’ mess and a half we got out of, so it was.’

Sal reached out and hugged him tightly, embarrassed by the tears rolling down her cheeks. She squeezed him in a self-conscious way, just like anyone might a big brother, and then let him go.

‘But here we are again,’ she whispered.

They watched New York in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts for a long while.

Maddy stirred. ‘I better go and sort out the return window for the support — ’ she corrected herself — ‘for Becks.’ She turned and headed back inside.

The rest of them savoured the evening panorama, watching beads of car headlights edging forward along FDR Drive across the river, and a ferry cutting the mirrored reflection of Manhattan with its wake. Finally, it was Edward who stated the obvious as-yet-unfinished business.

‘Me and Laura, we got to go back, don’t we? To get things back to the way they were?’

‘Yes,’ Liam nodded. ‘But I don’t suppose it has to be tonight.’

‘Good,’ whispered Laura, ‘I’m not feeling so good.’

‘We’ve got some beds back inside,’ said Sal. She looked at the girl and the Chinese boy. Both looked pale and ill, their faces smudged with a fortnight’s worth of grime. And Liam… She realized he looked disconcertingly old and young at the same time with that streak of white hair at his temple.

‘I’ll go make some coffee,’ she said.