The Eternal War

CHAPTER 28

2001, Quantico, Virginia

The inside of the derelict barn smelled of compost, the afternoon light spearing in between the loose wooden slats and catching sluggish airborne motes of dust.

‘Here this’ll do us for now,’ said Liam, catching his breath.

Lincoln sat down on a desiccated bale of hay. ‘Young lady,’ he began, still out of breath himself, ‘and gentlemen … we meet again, third time to my counting.’ He frowned. ‘Liam. Liam O’Connor? If memory serves me?’

‘Aye.’

‘Please now … please tell me my timely escape from that under-bridge dungeon of yours is not the cause of all this … this alteration?’

Liam laughed desperately. ‘I’m afraid that … and your untimely jumping into our window home from New Orleans, Mr Lincoln. That’s what’s caused this, all right. A bit reckless and … not too clever of you, truth be told.’

‘You have become a timeline anachronism,’ rumbled Bob. ‘Until you are safely returned to your original time-stamp, history will remain contaminated and this timeline will persist.’

Sal handed him a worn smile. ‘You’ve been a very naughty boy.’

‘So it would seem.’ Lincoln looked down at his feet, sombre. ‘I believe I owe you all an apology.’

Liam, getting warm inside the barn, unzipped and took off his jacket, one of a bunch of hooded sweatshirts branded with various sports team names splayed across them that Sal had purchased for him from Walmart some time ago. He wore them without knowing — without particularly caring — who the Yankees, Redsocks or the Bulls were.

‘Bob, what do you suggest we do now?’

‘Recommendation: we should remain here for the moment, Liam, and await a tachyon signal. They know our location. Madelaine will attempt to open a return window for us.’

‘If she can,’ said Liam.

Bob nodded. ‘Correct. If she can.’

Lincoln looked up. ‘Your time-travelling machinery is broken?’

‘The displacement machine requires a lot of power, so it does. We draw it in from the city’s supply … a lot of it,’ Liam said, unfastening the buttons of his waistcoat. ‘If New York has changed and we’re not getting any energy, then we have a bit of a problem.’

‘We have a generator, though,’ said Sal.

‘Aye. For what good the thing does.’

‘Maddy’ll be running it by now,’ she replied. ‘It just takes a little while to charge up the machine.’

‘This is only a positional translation,’ said Bob, ‘the energy requirement for the return portal will be small. I estimate only three per cent of capacity charge would be required.’

Sal peered out between the wooden slats. ‘There then … shouldn’t be too long for us to wait.’

‘What if this “portal” of yours … does not appear?’ asked Lincoln. ‘What then? Are we stuck in this place?’

‘Jahulla.’ Sal made a face. ‘Are you always this pessimistic?’

He shrugged. ‘No woodsman ever felled a tree by smiling like a fool at it.’

Liam pursed his lips. ‘Very poetic.’ He joined Sal in looking out at the distant farm-cum-refinery and the fleet of smoke-belching tractors and combines buzzing around in the field. The first of the vehicles was returning up the ramp and into the cavernous dark entrance of some sort of delivery bay with a payload of harvested crop. It reminded him, bizarrely, of termites feeding their queen. He shuddered at the unpleasant comparison.

‘If Maddy’s got technical problems her end …’ he began.

Jay-zus, now, when does she ever not?

‘… then I suppose we’ll not be getting a portal back home,’ said Liam.

‘Hang on!’ said Sal. ‘It’s worth a go, I guess.’ She pulled the mobile phone out of the pouch of her hoody, flipped it open, selected Maddy’s phone on quick dial and held it up to her ear. A moment later, she shook her head. ‘No signal.’

Liam looked back outside, up at the sky, blue and cloudless, just like the normal 11 September had been. The sun had dipped past midday an hour ago and glinted with a bronze warmth off the hull of the airborne vessel hovering several miles away and yet still looking impossibly large.

‘If there’s nothing from Maddy by the time it gets dark, it means she’s got problems. No power most likely.’ He shucked his shoulders. ‘Which means we’ve got good news and bad news.’

Sal turned to look at him. ‘Bad news first, Liam. You should always do bad news first.’

‘All right … bad news is it means we’re walking home. The good news is that if Maddy’s got no power, the archway field won’t be on, which means it won’t reset without us.’ He looked at Bob. ‘I suggest tonight we start making our way north-east, back to New York. What do you think?’

‘Affirmative. That is a valid plan. If we maintain a direct true-line route back to New York, I will be able to detect any narrow-beam tachyon signal she might attempt to send.’

‘Tonight? Night, sir?’ said Lincoln. ‘Night? Why on earth would you want to choose the night to walk home? It’s when all manner of scoundrels and thieves emerge for their nefarious purposes.’

Liam continued to study the distant airborne object. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m a little nervous about all that stuff out there. That’s pretty advanced technology, isn’t it, Bob?’

The support unit joined him beside the wall of the barn and peered out. ‘The airborne vessel may be using lighter-than-air technology.’

‘You mean … like a balloon? Like them Nazi airships?’

‘Affirmative. The ground vehicles appear to be using conventional combustion engine technology. Comparable to the normal timeline.’ He turned to Liam. ‘With closer inspection we could determine more precisely what technology levels exist in this alternate timeline.’

‘Uhh … how about we don’t make a closer inspection?’ He slapped Bob gently on his back. ‘Nice idea an’ all, Bob, but to be entirely honest I’d rather we just made our way back home as quickly and as quietly as we can.’

‘I agree,’ said Sal. She was going to say something about being a little perturbed by the workers she’d glimpsed emerging from the refinery and shuffling down the ramp. Barely more than dots at that distance, but there’d been something unsettling, almost inhuman about the way they moved.

‘Night-time I suggest, Mr Lincoln,’ said Liam. ‘Given these people have big floaty air vessels, we’d be far more easily spotted in the day.’

‘Night-time,’ Lincoln grumbled. ‘Well now, Mr O’Connor, we shall just have to hope this is a safer world by night than my … home — place — time …’ He shrugged the end of the sentence away. He was still struggling with the terminology of time travel.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much,’ said Sal, ‘we’ve got Big Bad Bob. He’ll look after us.’

‘Affirmative. I am a support unit. Your safety, Mr Lincoln, is a primary mission parameter. You are to be safely escorted to the New York field office, and from there returned to 1831.’

‘Anyway — ’ Sal put on a cheery smile — ‘I’m sure Maddy’s going to get things up and running and open that portal any time soon, right, Liam?’

He tried to wear the same breezy optimism on his face. But it didn’t take. Instead he cocked a sceptical eyebrow at her. ‘I presume you’re talking about some other team there, Sal? Right?’

‘Uh? Why?’

‘Well, to be sure, and I’d hate to think I sound as grumpy as our new lanky friend here, but — ’ he shrugged — ‘it never bleedin’ well seems to go quite that smoothly for us.’