Time Riders

CHAPTER 12

2001, New York

‘Waldstein destroyed his machine. He smashed it up, as well as burning allhis notes and files. Fifteen years of hard work… destroyed because he suspected timetravel would ultimately harm this world.’

‘Wow,’ gasped Maddy. ‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?It’s like deleting all the code for a game just to kill one bug.’

Sal looked up from her food, so far barely touched. ‘So, why did he want to make a timemachine in the first place?’

‘His wife and son died in 2028. He made no secret of what was driving him to go back intime.’

‘To save them?’

‘No, to see them one last time, to say goodbye to them.Waldstein knew he couldn’t save them — he couldn’t alter history — but he could at least tell them he loved them both momentsbefore their lives were to end.’

Liam shook his head slowly. ‘That’s a tough one, so it is. To have the chance tosave those you love, yet not do it because that’s the right thing to do.’

Foster nodded. ‘Yes. Waldstein was a very principled man.’

‘Did he manage to see them when he went back?’ asked Sal.

‘No one knows if he was successful. He never spoke about it. He returned, as Imentioned, a very changed man, immediately afterwards destroying all his work. He began acampaign for all research in time technology to be halted. His desperatewarnings that the world could be destroyed by time travel began to find an audience and inearly 2051 an international law was passed strictly forbidding the development of thetechnology. Waldstein became a recluse after that, rarely seen in public, but content that hiscampaign had put an end to time travel.’

Foster sighed. ‘But, of course, it didn’t.’

He finished his beer. ‘It was obvious that every major corporation, every country,every tin-pot dictator, anybody with the money, the resources andmanpower, was secretly working on their own time machine.Waldstein had shown it was possible and that was enough.

‘So, in direct violation of the international law, this agency was set up. Quietly,secretly, working on their very own machines.’

‘Let me guess,’ interrupted Maddy, ‘to go back in time to killWaldstein?’

Foster shook his head. ‘No. Just as Waldstein couldn’t save his family, so theagency can’t go back in time to prevent him from making his machine. History cannot be violated, it cannot be changed — that’s thetidal wave I mentioned a while back, remember?’

They nodded.

‘You see, time can cope with very small changes. History can sort of heal itself of very, very minor alterations, because there’s amomentum to events, a momentum to history. It’s as if history wants to go a certain route. But,’ said Foster with a cautionary glance up atthem, ‘but, a more significant change, for example going back in time and talkingWaldstein out of building his machine, or even killing him… well, something like thatwould be enough of a change to cause a tidal wave.’

He looked out of the window at the busy street aglow with neon lightspilling down from a billboard advertising Nike sportswear.

‘The agency was set up to be ready for what they knew was coming: future timetravellers, those who’d want to change the past and rewrite the present — terrorists, religious fanatics, megalomaniacs, the criminally insane. Anyway — ’ hepushed his stool back and stood up — ‘that’s enough of the history lessonfor now. I think it’s time I took you three outside and showed you a little of the worldout there, the time and place in which you’re going to be based. Particularly you,Liam.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll need to play a little catch-up if you want tofamiliarize yourself with the world of 2001.’

Maddy shrugged. ‘It doesn’t look so different. Just as busy, noisy, smelly as2010.’

‘Oh, but this is a very different New York,’ saidFoster.

Maddy looked out of the window. ‘Not really… I see the same ol’, sameol’ out there: adverts for Burger King and McDonald’s, Nike and Adidas, yellowcabs and guys trying to sell cheap AA batteries that don’t work.’

‘I think I’d better show you something, Maddy. I think it’ll mean a lotmore to you than Sal and Liam.’