Falling (25 page)

The novelty of that could wear off real fast.

I'm going to have to find some way to stop them. Permanently. And preferably, this trip. I've had enough of all this. ReTracing. GenoBond. Everything. It turns out there really is no place like home.

A car nudged its way round the perimeter of the square, clearing a path through a group of giggling office girls headed for the withered lawns, clutching brown paper bags and drinks bottles wet with condensation. Suddenly, giddyingly, she was aware of the whole city writhing around her, a mass of her ancestors pacing familiar paths, enacting comfortable rituals, oblivious to the battle being fought right under their noses.

Century Technology. Well, at least I know where they're going to turn up.

Darting between parked vehicles, Jude emerged into the sunlight.

It would have been nice, she was beginning to think, to have lived here before. When the city was full to bursting. Irritating, all these people, and the sweat-perfume smell made her skin crawl. But still. There was something about it all. The continual background noise, where her city had a dappled pattern of sound and silence, every street pulsing to a different rhythm. The colours, the ever-shifting window displays and the vibrant poster boards. The voices, raised in laughter without fear of what kind of attention they might attract.

Very strange, and beautiful.

Turning at the corner of Great Windmill Street, she glanced back at the cars and the tourists and the children waiting for things they didn't need or appreciate, and thought: I need a soapbox.

Woe unto you, great city, for the end is nigh. Another three decades and there'll be wolves scavenging in this street. Actually, that was partially my fault – but the animals had just been abandoned after the last zoo keeper walked out, it was cruel, we were only going to let the herbivores out but we were drunk, made a little mistake with the cages…

Another three decades and ninety-nine out of every hundred of you will be gone. Fled to the Hursts, or dead in the gang wars. And who'll be left? You, the child with the ice-cream, tired and old and hustling for a living? You, with your shabby carrier bags leaking your few belongings as you walk? You, suit man, tending lettuces on a bomb site in Whitechapel, the nine-to-five forgotten and unmourned?

Parasites on a decaying corpse of a place. Wolves and gangs and the Ferrymen and Club Andro and me, all trying to get on with our lives.

At the next corner, where the vast skyscraper housing Century Technology's immaculate consultation rooms and tasteful display labs should have stood, there was a music shop.

A low little shop, with a crooked doorframe and wide first-floor windows cluttered with dead plants and stacked paperwork. A dormer window in the roof was leaking the stop-start sound of someone practising the saxophone. Badly.

She stopped at the low, dangerously spiked railings surrounding the basement access, and stared at the gleaming brass instruments ranged in the main window, stunned by unexpected defeat.

Now what?

Downstairs, behind the blacked-out windows of the basement, she caught the sound of breaking glass.

Bracing herself carefully on the few sections of railing that weren't razor sharp, Jude leaned over to read the metal doorplate.

CENTURY TECHNOLOGY. PLEASE RING FOR ATTENTION.

FIFTEEN

She rang the bell four times before there was any sign of life from within. That gave her more than long enough to notice the flaking paintwork, the weeds scraping an existence between the flagstones, and realise that this wasn't exactly a high class operation.

But that didn't surprise her, not really. A lot of things, from music to computers, had started in back alleys and basements. Big companies had never had much time for research. It was easier to wait for some obsessive working from his parents' garden shed to make the breakthrough, and then buy it off him.

She was reaching for the bell again when a thump and a muffled curse from somewhere inside announced the imminent arrival of the proprietor.

The door opened, just a crack, jerked to a halt by a rusty safety chain. Brown eyes blinked at her from the gloom. ‘What?'

Big on customer service, aren't they?

‘My name's Judith, erm, Rockerfeller,' she improvised. ‘Biotech Industries Limited. I'm interested in your current line of research.'

‘Not for sale,' he muttered, as if he'd said it too many times already, and moved to close the door.

Jude had seen that coming. She hurled her full weight against the door. His determination and hers collided through the flimsy wood, stopping it dead. Pain flowered in her shoulder.

‘I'm really very interested,' she repeated, fixing him with what she hoped was a commanding stare, ‘in your work.'

He rubbed at his forehead for a moment, as if hoping she was a delusion that would be massaged away. She was starting to get the impression that she'd woken him up, and he wasn't exactly a morning person.

‘Look, Ms Rockerfeller – like I'm going to believe that one. It's not for sale. What're you going to do, force me to sign the papers?'

‘No. But there are some people out there who'd be happy to do exactly that. In fact, they're not even likely to bother with paperwork. And they're going to be here any second, so I suggest you allow me inside, so I can stop them.'

I have no idea how, of course, but…

The brown-eyed youth blinked a couple of times, and took half a step back.

That relaxed the pressure on the door just enough to give her an opening. She stepped forward into the door, putting all her weight behind the movement, and the chain tore free from the doorframe. The door hit the wall and bounced back at her, hard, adding a third shoulder bruise to her collection.

‘Ah,' he said, scratching his unshaven chin as he regarded the broken chain. ‘Well, since you've made your point so forcefully, you'd better come in.'

The hallway was brief and smelled of damp and acetone. Another door opened into a scruffy office, containing a badly upholstered armchair, a coffee machine and a lopsided plyboard desk.

Following her gaze to the crumpled sleeping bag underneath it, the supposed biotech genius went red and kicked the telltale item quickly out of sight.

‘I'm not supposed to sleep on the premises,' he muttered, eyes downcast like a naughty schoolboy. ‘Business lease. But I get the feeling you won't be telling any tales on me, huh?'

‘Looking at this place, I wouldn't know where to start.'

He must have been about thirty, she decided, as he backed unsteadily into the light. Plump, red-eyed, tired and clumsy with intoxication. Drink? No, drugs, most likely. Pupils still dilated, hands a little shaky as he cleared paperwork from a chair for her, more nervous than polite.

No wonder he didn't know what to make of her. He probably wasn't even sure she was real.

‘What's your name?'

‘Martin,' he said, with a shrug, as if to diminish its importance.

‘All right, Martin –'

And that was when he stepped back, into the fragile glow of an emergency light, and she knew exactly who he was. The hard line of his jaw, the brown eyes that would soon be hollow and cold with disappointment as the world he gave his discovery to as a free gift snatched it, laughed in his face, and forgot him.

‘– Harchak, isn't it?'

He blinked.

‘Sorry, I've just realised –'

Yeah, what are you going to say, Jude?

‘– that we've met before. Somewhere. You really wouldn't remember.'

‘No,' he said, with that look her mother used to give her after the first dose of lithium of the day took effect. ‘I'll bet I wouldn't.'

No time to worry about reassuring him. What to do, where to start?

‘To begin with, I think we should take a look in the lab.'

Which would be the heavily reinforced door behind the desk, the one plastered with BIOHAZARD signs. Bet he takes those down when someone comes for the rent.

Martin frowned.

‘Is that going to cause some kind of problem for you, Martin?'

‘Are you a biologist?'

Jude bit her lip. ‘Not exactly.'

‘So how are you going to know what you're looking at? I could show you any old crap. Petroleum jelly. The mould from my coffee cup. And you'd sign up to buy it.'

Jude sighed. This just wasn't right. People were supposed to be grateful when you came hurtling through space and time to save them. All right, she didn't expect medals, but at least they shouldn't threaten to con you.

‘Look,' she admitted, lowering herself onto the broad arm of the nearest chair. ‘I wasn't exactly straight with you before.'

‘No shit,' he muttered, more disappointed than surprised. ‘Look. I'm just not in the mood for this. I've already been raided by the Biological Regulatory Authority and the police this week. There are no drugs in the lab. I'll give you my private stash if you'll just go. There's nothing else here of value.'

‘That depends on how you look at it. I'm not here to steal from you, Martin. But any minute now, you're going to get some visitors who do plan to take your life's work – and to kill you, too, probably. And they won't even need to use the door. I suggest you take me to wherever your valuable research is, so we can keep an eye on it, and wait for them to show up.'

Martin fumbled behind him, found a coffee mug, gulped at the contents. From the expression on his face, they didn't quite measure up to expectations.

‘This,' he mumbled, ‘is about the worst scam I have ever heard.'

‘That's reassuring. I've never considered myself the criminal type.'

Slamming the mug back onto the desk, he managed, ‘These guys who are going to turn up…'

‘Are big and bad. Oh, and they teleport. Kind of.'

He blinked.

‘Did I use the right word? Appearing and disappearing out of thin air?'

‘Considering that we're in the heart of the film industry here,' Martin muttered, producing a key from his pocket, ‘you came to the wrong office with this spiel. Take it next door, you could make a fortune.'

Jude managed a thin smile. ‘Convince you, and I get to save the world as I know it. Which is far from perfect, I admit, but it has to beat what Schrader and his buddies are planning.'

His lips moved. Echoing the name.

‘You've heard of him.'

‘He phoned.' Martin turned abruptly, sweeping paperwork away to reveal a crude and dusty answering machine. ‘Lots of times.'

Of course he did. Rational, by the book Schrader – who can pop back here any time he likes, of course. He'd have tried all the less disruptive approaches. Reported back in between each one, filled in all the paperwork. Violence and theft would be the last resort.

The squeal of rewinding tape, sharp enough to set her teeth on edge. ‘So what exactly did he say?'

Martin hit a key and a complaining screech of tape became Schrader's voice, tinny and distorted. ‘– regarding funding for your research. Please do return my call this time, Martin. Your work is extraordinary, and I'm sure we can reach an arrangement that will benefit both of us.'

He pressed another key, cutting off the terminal bleep. The silence was startling.

Jude frowned at him in the dusty light. ‘Why didn't you return his calls, Martin?'

The young man's gaze flickered around the unkempt room, as if collecting evidence to support his statement. But in the end, all he said was, ‘Why should I?'

None of my business anyway. Time's moving on –

‘The lab. Let's go.'

She expected more resistance, more time-wasting and persuasion. But that last question seemed to have knocked the fight out of him. Blank faced, Martin moved round the desk and fumbled the key into the lock.

‘Me first,' she said, as he reached to open the door.

‘There's a lot of delicate –'

‘I know that.'

‘You can't touch –'

‘I know that too. Now get out of my way.'

Cowed, Martin stepped back to allow her through.

More steps, only six of them this time. White walls, white ceiling, the smell of bleach overlaying decay. The set for a mad scientist movie, all brushed metal and glass. Mostly empty, she noticed. Looks like he really was raided. A pile of dog-eared receipts with official stamps, probably to account for whatever they took. Maybe I'm too late, maybe his research is already impounded or destroyed, maybe he didn't have copies…

And maybe there was something else she was overlooking. The striplight glare already glinting on flasks and tubes and the polished fronts of cabinets, though she hadn't switched on the lights and she hadn't seen Martin do it either.

And then figures moved in the shadows, and she realised they were there, all three of them. Waiting.