The Doomsday Code

CHAPTER 85

2001, New York

‘Yeah, the film poster’s gone,’ said Sal, standing outside the Golden Screen cinema and studying the billboards. ‘What’s that?’ she said into her cell phone. Several yellow taxis lined up on the far side of 7th Avenue were honking at a delivery truck backing into a side road.

‘Yeah, I’m positive! No sign of it. Nothing on the “coming soon” list. It’s gone.’

She nodded several times at Maddy’s instructions, then hung up. She looked around. This was Tuesday morning as she knew it; she was out and about a little earlier than normal, but it all looked as she expected it to look.

Times Square hummed with life, the sky a deep welcoming blue and no sign of this movie The Manuscript. It was gone. The tiny ripple they’d felt just half an hour ago had been Adam Lewis’s claim to fame being subtly erased from history.

No film starring Leonardo DiCaprio on the run from sinister agents and clutching an ancient-looking scroll in one fist.

She suddenly felt a rumble in her stomach and realized she hadn’t eaten a thing since yesterday lunchtime. She checked her watch. It was 7.23 a.m. An hour and twenty-two minutes to go until Tuesday turned into its regularly scheduled horror show. Time enough to go for a bottle of soda and a cream — cheese bagel.

Maddy tapped her phone and put it down on the desk. ‘It’s gone, Adam,’ she said. ‘The movie about you and the Voynich, well … it never happened.’

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘What does that mean, though? Have I been deleted from the world or something?’ His eyes widened with a horrible thought. ‘Oh God, is there another different me out there somewhere?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No … it’s OK. Just the one you. But your life’s a different one now, that’s all. If the wave had come while you’d been standing outside, you wouldn’t know any different. You’d be off living that life, wherever it is. But because you were inside our field, it means you’ve got to go out and track your new life down, find out what it is … where it is.’

‘I — that’s — you telling me I might not be living in New York any more?’

Maddy shrugged. ‘I dunno. You could be. You might be living back in England. Who knows?’

He pulled his apartment key out of his jacket pocket. ‘You’re saying if I go back to my apartment, it might not be mine?’

‘I’ve no idea. Probably not.’

He looked like he was struggling with the idea of that.

‘Your life is probably going to be very different, Adam. You should go and find out what it is. Maybe call your mom and dad — you’ve got parents, right?’

He shrugged. ‘I did. God knows if I do now.’

‘Call them. Talk to them, find out who you are.’ She laughed softly, not unkindly. ‘They’ll probably think you’ve gone mad, though.’

‘You can say that again.’

Adam stood up uncertainly, grabbed his expensive suit jacket, draped over the back of an armchair. ‘It’s been a weird twenty-four hours, hasn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘Very weird.’

‘I feel … I feel like I’ve known you, and Sal and the others, for ages. But I knocked on that shutter just a day ago.’

She smiled sadly. ‘That’s time travel. Messes your head up.’

He looked at her. ‘Could I not stay?’

The question caught her unawares. A part of her longed to say yes. To have someone she could share the leadership role with. To have someone she could offload on to … to confide in. To …

He can’t stay, Maddy. You know that.

‘Adam … I, uh … I don’t think so. I’m not sure I have the authority, the right, to be recruiting people.’

‘But,’ he said coyly, ‘surely I know too much now? I’ve got to be some kind of a security risk? Better for me to join you chaps, right? Than be out there — you know, blabbing about all the stuff I’ve seen?’

‘I don’t think you’ll blab, Adam … I trust you. Anyway, if you come back here on Wednesday with a film crew in tow, you’ll simply find us gone.’

He hesitated, staring at her as a long and uncomfortable drawn-out silence filled the space between them. ‘All right.’ He nodded finally, awkward, a little embarrassed. ‘OK, well … I thought I’d ask. You know? If you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?’

She felt she owed him something of an explanation. ‘I’m sorry. The three of us are still new here. We’re still just trying to figure out whether we’re doing our jobs right. And I … just don’t think I’m meant — I’m allowed — to be signing anyone else up for the cause.’

‘No, that’s fine. Sorry I, uh … I asked.’ He stepped across to the computer table to collect his hard drive. ‘OK for me to take it back?’

She considered that for a moment. His work on decoding the Voynich was on there; his photographs of stones in the Kirklees Priory graveyard were on there. But then, none of it would mean much to anyone now.

She nodded. ‘Sure.’

He picked it up and tucked into the pocket of his jacket. ‘I suppose this is goodbye, then?’

She pressed her lips together, holding back an urge to change her mind, to tell him he could stay. ‘Yes. It’s goodbye, Adam,’ she said eventually.

His feet clacked across the concrete towards the door, and he pressed the green button. The shutter rattled up, letting daylight creep in across the archway.

He turned round. ‘Maybe one day I can write a book about it?’

‘As long as you call it fiction,’ she smiled. ‘Become an author? Why not? Sounds like a great idea.’

He ducked down to go under and looked outside. ‘Lovely day out there.’

He was about to step out, when she called out. ‘Adam!’

‘Yes?’

‘Your new life … I’m pretty sure it won’t involve you working in the World Trade Center.’ She looked briefly down at her watch. ‘Just … listen, you don’t need to go looking there this morning, OK? Go call your folks first thing. Forget about going to work.’

‘Will do.’

‘Promise me.’

He looked back at her, made a face, confused. ‘All right … I promise.’

‘Go on,’ said Maddy. She found her voice catching. She didn’t need him to hear that. To see that there was a struggle going on inside her head. ‘Go on and find what your new life is.’

‘Say goodbye to Sal for me,’ he said. Then he ducked outside and she watched the grey flannel of his office trousers walk up the cobbled backstreet and out of sight.

‘Take care, Adam,’ she whispered.