The Eternal War

CHAPTER 35

2001, New York

‘You realize, young lady, that this is the dead zone?’ said Colonel Devereau.

She stopped and turned. ‘Dead zone?’

He pointed across the landscape of ruins leading down towards the East River. Beyond the river’s smooth dark water lay the skeleton of Manhattan. ‘We’re just about within range of their snipers. One of them might try and take a potshot if he’s bored enough.’

‘What?’ Maddy ducked down to the ground, her bound hands crossed over her head. Neither Devereau nor any of the other soldiers moved. A murmur of laughter rippled up and down the patrol line as they watched her fidgeting on her haunches.

‘Relax,’ he said. ‘It’s well beyond accurate range. All the same …’

He took off his forage cap, reached to his side and unclipped a carbine bayonet, popped the hat on the tip and raised his arm, sweeping the hat slowly in a figure of eight.

‘What are you doing?’ hissed Maddy. ‘You’re attracting attention!’

‘Indeed … I’m signalling the enemy.’

Maddy looked up at him as he stepped forward across the rubble, up on to the top of the low uneven wall of loose bricks. In the stillness, broken only by the tidal lapping of poisoned water nearby, she expected a shot to ring out and this reckless officer to drop, headless, like a butcher’s carcass.

Across the river, her eyes picked out faint movement, the glint of metal.

‘There,’ he said, stepping down. ‘They’ll spread the word on their side. We should be safe from potshots for a while.’

‘But — ’ she got to her feet — ‘but that’s the enemy, isn’t it?’

‘I know the colonel over there. Pleasant enough fellow.’

‘Know him?’

He sighed. ‘We’ve been staring over this wretched river at each other for years. Decades, actually. We meet once a year … for Thanksgiving.’ He turned to his men. ‘Don’t we, Sergeant Freeman?’

She recognized the bearded man who’d found her earlier this morning. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘A chance for the boys on both sides to let their hair down.’ Devereau pulled up some field glasses and inspected the Southern lines briefly. ‘In fact, a … couple of years ago, East River froze right over … the lads had a snowball fight.’

‘Whupped ’em good too,’ said Sergeant Freeman, grinning.

‘Indeed we did.’ He lowered his field glasses. ‘A good day,’ he added wistfully. He turned to her. ‘Now then, you say your “base” is here somewhere. And this miraculous time-travelling device of yours?’

She heard barely concealed amusement in his voice.

He’s humouring himself. For a moment she wondered what her fate was going to be if she failed to convince him that the broken machinery in the archway was what she said it was.

And what about Becks? Presumably she was still sitting inside awaiting further orders, or perhaps she was nearby, watching them even now. She wondered how the support unit would act once she spotted Maddy in cuffs being led towards the archway by men with weapons.

‘It’s around here somewhere,’ she said, looking across the wasteland towards the collapsed remains of the Williamsburg Bridge. That was her only way of orienting herself. The only landmark she could recognize. ‘Not too far from the support-works of that bridge over there.’

‘Right.’

‘I have a … a friend over there, though.’

Devereau looked at her sternly. ‘You’re not alone?’

‘Look, she’s not a spy either.’

‘Is she armed?’

Maddy shook her head. ‘No … no weapons, but she … well … she can be dangerous.’

Devereau seemed amused by that. ‘Twenty men … I think between us we can handle an unarmed woman.’

‘No … really,’ said Maddy, ‘trust me, she’s really nothing like me. She, well, she can be kind of deadly. I should call out to her first. Let her know it’s OK.’

The colonel eyed her suspiciously for a moment.

‘I won’t call out for her to run or anything … I promise.’

He stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘All right, then. But, to make it perfectly clear, I hear anything out of your mouth that sounds like a codeword or a warning, I shall be inclined to shoot you.’

‘Right. I promise.’ She cupped her hands round her mouth. ‘BECKS!’ Her croaky voice echoed off the shattered corner wall of a nearby warehouse; it bounced and reverberated through the rubble and maze of half-standing buildings, through dead Brooklyn, fading slowly like the memory of a dream. Finally, there was only the mournful whisper of a breeze teasing a window shutter somewhere to clap insistently against a rotten frame.

‘It’s Maddy! Are you there?’

Her voice faded.

‘It’s OK … I’m OK … these soldiers aren’t going to hurt me!’

Nothing but the far-off clatter of the shutter, the tidal hiss and draw of the languid East River nearby lapping at the shore.

‘It appears that this friend of yours has abandoned you,’ said Devereau.

Maddy shook her head. ‘No, she wouldn’t do that. She’s out there somewhere,’ she said, pointing towards the ruins of the bridge. ‘There’s this big shallow crater over there somewhere and our archway’s at the bottom of it. If we go a bit closer …?’

It was then a solitary sound caused Devereau’s men to drop to their knees and raise their carbines: the clatter of a loose slate tile sliding down a mound of rubble. Then silence once more.

‘Becks?’ Maddy called out again. ‘Is that you?’

The men were looking in all directions, up and around at the broken walls and exposed half-floors of gutted buildings, perfect positions from which a sniper could pick them all off. She heard some of them racking their carbines ready to fire, the click of safety nubs coming off.

‘Becks? You there?’

The stillness was broken by another sound of movement, the direction confused by echoes bouncing off the pockmarked walls of buildings either side of them.

‘Why did you leave me?’ a voice echoed across the stillness. The colonel and his men were turning, looking around nervously — here, there, everywhere — trying to determine where the voice had come from. It sounded almost sexless. Neutral. Unwelcoming. Almost hostile.

‘Becks? Where are you?’

‘Your departure was … inappropriate.’

‘I … I’m sorry, I just … I dunno what happened, Becks. I freaked out, I guess.’

A long silence.

‘Becks?’ Her cry faded to nothing, leaving Maddy with an unsettling thought flitting around in her head.

Becks doesn’t sound right. She sounds different. Her voice, normally so clinical, so reassuringly logical, seemed to carry the hint of a human emotion in it. Anger? Resentment? She’d never heard that in Becks’s voice before.

‘Becks? Please … come out!’ She glanced at the soldiers — all of them it seemed were fingering their triggers anxiously.

She’s spooking them.

‘Please! Tell your men not to shoot if she comes out,’ uttered Maddy to Devereau. ‘She won’t hurt anyone. I’ll instruct her not to.’

‘Instruct her?’ Devereau’s eyes narrowed. ‘You make her sound like a guard dog.’

She ignored him. ‘Becks! Please! Come out slowly! These soldiers aren’t going to hurt you or me. They’re not a threat!’

A few moments later the fading echo of her voice was answered with the sound of clattering rubble and then Becks’s face emerged from the gloom of the corner of a bombed-out basement to their right.

‘There!’ shouted one of the soldiers, and a moment later the air was split by the crack of two rapid-fire shots. A plume of cement dust exploded from a breeze block beside Becks’s head as she clambered out of the darkness into the pallid daylight.

Sergeant Freeman immediately bellowed a cease-fire.

She stepped forward down a slope of rubble towards them, unperturbed by the near-miss, her cool grey gaze on Maddy alone.

‘Raise your hands where we can see them!’ barked Devereau.

Becks approached slowly until she was no more than half a dozen yards from them, then stopped, calmly evaluating the threat level of the soldiers for a moment.

‘Becks!’ said Maddy. ‘It’s fine! These guys are friendly … just show them your empty hands!’

Becks slowly raised her arms and opened her hands to show her palms, then turned her attention on Maddy, cocking her head curiously. ‘Why did you leave me?’

She seemed to need an answer, as if nothing more could be discussed until the question was answered satisfactorily. Maddy could imagine the software in her head was stuck on a loop of code, running over and over in an infinite circle, unable to escape it until it had some relevant data to process.

Best to be honest with her.

‘I … I just wanted to go home. I …’

‘Information: you are not permitted to leave the agency.’

‘Come on, Becks, cut me some slack here! You said everything was all smashed up! Didn’t you?’

Becks nodded. ‘Affirmative.’

‘Well!’ Maddy shrugged. ‘So, I suppose I figured … I thought our team was all finished. That’s why I — ’

‘A mission is still in progress.’ Becks’s gaze flickered across Devereau then back to her, ‘and there is still a time contamination event that must be corrected, Maddy.’

‘Yeah? And how’re we supposed to do that, huh? Some other team’s going to have to sort this one out, because we’re totally freakin’ ruined, aren’t we?’

‘Negative.’

‘What?’

‘I have now made a complete evaluation of the damage. I can effect adequate repairs, if we are able to secure suitably adaptable components.’ She looked at Maddy with an expression that almost looked like a plea. ‘I must have new orders, Madelaine. What are your instructions?’

Maddy stepped forward, reached out for the support unit and grasped her scarred left hand tentatively with both of hers. She squeezed gently. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

Maybe it was in her mind, maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she thought she felt Becks return the gesture with the slightest squeeze.

‘Let’s go back to the arch, Becks. You can show me what we need to do to fix it up.’

She turned and nodded at Devereau and his men. ‘I think these guys might be able to help us out.’

‘Affirmative.’