Time Riders

CHAPTER 8

2001, New York

Half an hour later the four of them were sitting in a window booth, perched on tallstools around a table and tucking into double cheeseburgers and fries.

Liam’s initial reaction to the plate of food had been one of bemusement. The frieslooked like no potatoes he’d ever encountered before and the burger bun — waxy andbrown — reminded him, oddly, of varnished wood. The savoury smell wafting up, however,soon overcame him and, warily watching the others hungrily tucking in, he followed suit.

As he clumsily manhandled the well-stacked cheeseburger into his mouth, his eyes were on theintersection outside: the pulsing lights of a billboard, the busy throng of pedestrians, carsthat looked as sleek as dew drops, the neon glow from lamp posts and a sky, barely visibleabove the tower blocks, filled with the winking red and green lights of planes criss-crossingthe night sky.

‘It looks so different now,’ said Sal. ‘Justlike Mumbai. My dad brought me here on a business trip once — it was depressing. Theroads empty, and so many buildings, like, dark and empty.’

Foster nodded. ‘The year you come from, Sal — 2026 — New York was already adying city. People moved out, whole neighbourhoods were left deserted and began falling intodecay.’

Maddy finished a mouthful of burger. ‘It doesn’t look that different to me,though.’

‘That’s because right now we’re in 2001, only a few yearsbefore your time, 2010,’ Foster replied. ‘The global economic crash had onlyreally just started.’

Liam turned from the window to look wide-eyed at Foster. ‘I can’t believe this isalmost a hundred years in my future!’

‘For you, Liam, yes. For Maddy it’s just nine years ago, for Sal…it’s eleven years before she was even born.’ He sipped a mouthful of cold, frothybeer from a tall glass. ‘This is where you, as a team, will be stationed. The archwayunder the bridge is your base of operations: your fieldoffice.’

Maddy looked at him. ‘Are there other field offices?’

He wiped his mouth and nodded. ‘But you’ll never meet them or communicate withthem.’

‘Why not?’

He picked at the fries on his plate. ‘It’s just the way it is.’

Sal chugged a mouthful of Dr Pepper. ‘I still don’t get why we’re here.What exactly you want us for.’

‘You are police… sort of,’ Foster replied.‘Here to police time. To stop trespassers from the futurechanging things in the past. The agency is top secret. It really isn’t supposed toexist, so we don’t have a proper job title. But inside the agency, we call ourselvesTimeRiders.’

‘TimeRiders?’

Foster hunched forward and stroked his chin thoughtfully.

‘Look… think of time as a river. A river that always flows downhill. Well, we canride up it or down it. Ride time. Timeride. Just like being in a river boat with a paddle, wecan go against the flow. And your job will be looking for other people on the river goingagainst the flow when they have no business to. You’ll look for them, find them,terminate them and tidy up whatever damage they’ve done.’

‘How’re we going to do that?’ asked Maddy.

‘Well, I’ll be training you, of course.’ Foster smiledtiredly. ‘As quickly as I can. We need this field office to be operational again as soonas is possible.’

Sal looked up from her food. ‘The team before us… what were they like?’

Foster’s smile faded. ‘A little like you once, I suppose.’ The old manlooked away guiltily to gaze out of the window. He chewed on his lips for a moment.‘Young, inexperienced and frightened at first… and, ultimately, veryunlucky.’

‘That thing really killed them?’

He nodded. ‘Seekers are rare. And normally we do a density scan before pulling someoneback from a mission. That last time we didn’t and…’ Foster’s wordsfaded into an uncomfortable silence.

‘So,’ Liam cut in, ‘when do we start this training youmentioned?’

Foster turned to them.

‘Now.’

He sipped his beer again, took a deep breath. ‘I think we should start with a littlebit of a history lesson — the history of time travel.’