TimeRiders 05 - Gates of Rome (6 page)

‘Worst of it? What do you mean?’

‘A smart-virus, Rashim. It is an advanced smart-virus! A
Von Neumann
!’

Rashim nodded slowly. Von Neumann – a hypothetical premise imagined by a Hungarian theorist, John von Neumann, over a hundred and fifty years ago. Machines capable of harvesting their own resources for infinite self-replication. Nanotechnologists had tried experimenting with that concept at the beginning of the twenty-first century with little success. Little robots the size of blood cells. But robotically there were too many practical problems to overcome. However, biologically – a very different story. After all, bacteria were biological Von Neumann machines of a sort. But the Holy Grail – certainly in terms of weapons use – was a bacterium that could be smart, could be given genetic
instructions, an objective, a specified goal. Could be given a
target
.

‘A sample has been isolated and analysed by a team in Tokyo,’ said Dr Yatsushita. Rashim could see the man was clearly shaken.

‘And?’

‘It is designed to depopulate. Designed to target humans only.’

‘It’s engineered?’

‘Of course it is! On contact with any human cells, it activates, breaks down the cell structures into acids, proteins.’ He ran a hand through his silver hair. ‘It completely
liquidizes
the infected within hours!’

‘My God!’

‘The liquid solution is used by the bacteria to make copies of themselves, to grow spores – like feathers, like pollen – that can be carried by the wind.’

‘Are there any cases of immunity yet? Ethnic-specific resistance?’

Yatsushita shook his head. ‘No. Not yet. So far it seems no one is immune. Whoever made this did not care that it would kill the whole world.’

Rashim looked at the holo-screen shimmering in the air above his desk. Endless columns of data that needed collating and processing.

‘Now do you see why they want T-Day advanced?’ said Dr Yatsushita. ‘Something like Kosong-ni is what leaders have feared for decades. A perfect bioweapon.’

Rashim rubbed his temple. ‘Jesus.’

Dr Yatsushita nodded. ‘I have told our sponsors that all the T-Day candidates must make their way here
immediately
. We must finalize the mass index as soon as possible. We cannot keep changing the data.’

Rashim nodded. ‘Yes … yes, absolutely.’

His boss leaned forward. ‘Dr Anwar, you have family on the candidate list, don’t you?’

‘Yes … my parents.’

‘Call them, Rashim … get them here now. Before it’s too late!’

‘Brace yourselves,’ said Maddy. She looked at them across the breakfast table, Liam and Sal sitting beside each other on their threadbare sofa, eyes resting expectantly on her.

They’re not going to like this.

‘Jahulla! Come on, Maddy … what is it?’

‘This agency of ours … it’s, I’m not sure how to say this …’

‘Well, just say it anyway.’ Liam fidgeted impatiently. ‘I’m sure we’ve heard worse already.’

‘Not really.’ She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. ‘The agency is just us.’

The words hung above the table in the space between them. They hung in the stillness of the archway, accompanied by the soft hum of networked computers and the muted rumble of a train running over the Williamsburg Bridge above them.

‘What do you mean
just us
?’ asked Sal.

‘I mean exactly that, Sal. We’re
it
. The three of us.’

Liam sat forward, frowning, confused. ‘But … but Foster told us there were other teams, in other places, so he did.’

‘I know he did. But he lied.’

Sal looked past her. One eye lost behind a fringe, the other one just lost. ‘But …’

‘There was that message, Maddy.’ Liam leaned on the table.
‘That message from the future about Edward Chan, so there was …’

‘There is one other person in the agency,’ she replied. ‘It’s that guy Waldstein. Roald Waldstein.’

‘That fella who invented time travel?’

‘That’s him. He’s the one who set this archway up. He’s the guy who recruited Foster and the previous team.’

Sal shook her head, working it through in her mind silently.

Liam slapped a hand on the table. ‘Jay-zus-’n’-Mother-Mary! You know I … I was wondering why it’s always
us
who was dealing with everything! Why them other teams were too bleedin’ lazy to get off their backsides and help out!’

Maddy splayed her hands. ‘Well, now we know.’

‘But didn’t Foster say this Waldstein was totally
against
time travel?’ asked Sal. ‘That he, like, campaigned against it or something?’

‘Yes, he did. But he also set this up, secretly, as a back-up plan. I guess he figured that even with international agreements prohibiting the development of time-travel technology, on the sly, every government would be having a go at it.’

Liam laughed softly. ‘I knew it! I just bleedin’ well knew it!’

‘It’s not fair Foster didn’t tell us that,’ said Sal. She looked up at Maddy. ‘Why did he lie to us?’

Maddy shrugged. ‘I guess he didn’t want to overload us. Put too much pressure on us.’

‘Did he just tell you now, Maddy? This morning?’

She nodded. ‘Yup.’

Sal’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

‘Why? What?’

‘Why did he wait till
now
to tell you?’

‘I guess … I guess he figured from all the stuff I told him we’d been through that we were ready to find out.’

‘
Chutiya!
’ She stood up, biting her lip angrily. ‘He thinks we’re
bakra
? Stupid? What else is he holding back from us?’

Maddy would have liked to say ‘nothing’, but she wasn’t entirely sure that Foster had given them the whole picture yet. She too was guilty of that, holding truths back from her friends. For example, when exactly was she going to tell Liam that time travel was killing him? Ageing him? That he was going to look exactly like Foster very soon.

A bigger deal than that – that he and Liam were the
same person
. When the hell was she going to tell him that?

And what did that mean anyway?

Maddy had tried running that little doozy through her mind many times over. Did it mean Liam had been recruited from the
Titanic
before? Did it mean that this archway existed in a bigger loop of time, that one day Liam was going to be an old man? An old man who had somehow outlived her and Sal and now needed to renew the cycle by revisiting the last moments of their ‘normal’ lives and recruiting them all over again?

‘Maddy?’

She looked up. Sal was sitting on the end of the table. ‘There’s something I’ve seen, but I’ve been keeping to myself.’

Liam looked from her to Maddy. ‘Uh? Hang on! Has everyone here got a bleedin’ secret except me?’

Sal ignored him. ‘This may sound crazy, but … have we been recruited before?’

‘What?!’

Sal ignored him again. Her eyes were on Maddy. ‘Has Foster said anything like that?’

‘Recruited before? How do you mean?’

‘Foster said there was another team before us, right?’

Maddy nodded.

‘That they died. That that ghost thing … that “seeker” killed them.’

Liam cupped his jaw in his hands. ‘Hold on! That’s right! I remember that.’

‘Was that team
us
, Maddy?’

Sal’s eyes remained resolutely on Maddy, watching her fidget, delay … fudge.

Do I tell them that Liam is Foster? Because if Liam’s been here before … maybe Sal’s right and all three of us have
.

‘I’m asking because I’ve seen something I can’t explain,’ said Sal. She looked at Liam. ‘Your uniform from the
Titanic
.’

He nodded. ‘Aye, you told me you saw one a bit like my –’

‘No, Liam. No. It IS your tunic.’

Maddy frowned.
Her
turn to be silenced by a revelation. ‘What?’

‘In that antique shop, the theatre costume shop near us. There’s Liam’s tunic hanging up.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ replied Maddy. She pointed at the rack of clothes hanging just outside their bunk nook. ‘It’s over there!’

‘It’s the same, Maddy. Exactly the same!’

‘How can it be the same one, Sal? How can it be here and in that shop at the same time?’

‘It
is
. It’s missing the same button. It has exactly the same stain on it. The same shape in the same place!’ She stood up, strode over to the wardrobe beside the nook. She pulled out his white tunic, still on its hanger, and brought it over to the table. She spread it out beneath the light above them.

‘There. See?’

Liam got up and studied it.

‘You got that stain on the
Titanic
, right? Down the left side. Big stain. What was it … wine or something?’

Liam frowned. ‘I see it. Jayzzz … never even noticed that before.’

Maddy joined them. ‘Me neither. It’s faint.’

He looked at Sal. ‘I … I don’t think I ever spilled wine down me jacket. I don’t remember doing anything like that. Chief Steward would’ve had me guts for garters.’

‘So then it wasn’t you?’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe someone who had the uniform before me?’

‘That’s possible,’ said Maddy.

Sal shook her head irritably. ‘That’s not the important bit. The point is there are two copies of it!’ She looked up at them both. ‘Do you see? Maybe that means Liam’s been here before?’

Liam’s eyes widened. ‘This is …’

‘Messing with your head?’ asked Sal.

He nodded.

Who was it that once said, ‘A week is a long time in politics’? Well, that was a pretty good observation to take note of, if not to adapt very slightly.

Rashim stared at the news-stream from New London, in the north of England.

A week is a long time with a pandemic.

This particular media feed had been running uninterrupted for two days now; a digi-streamer dropped on its side on the street by some panicked cameraman, had still been broadcasting powered by its own hydro-cell battery pack. The signal was being streamed round the world, no doubt watched by millions of other frightened people like Rashim.

The street had been full of people running from faint blooms descending from the sky like flakes of ash from a bonfire of paper. The blooms – viral spores – landing lightly on scalps, backs of hands, faces had an almost instantly lethal effect. The street had been full of stampeding people, and screaming voices … Then, five minutes later, after the camera had dropped and settled on its side, it was silent and full of corpses.

Twenty-four hours ago, he’d been shaken by the sight of a solitary young girl staggering into the static view of the
digi-streamer. A girl no more than eleven or twelve, collapsing to her knees, whimpering with fear and agony as her left arm dissolved and bacilli-like growths, like veins on the surface of her skin, snaked past her elbow and spread to her shoulder, her neck, her face.

She’d collapsed into a huddle very quickly, quite dead. And over the next six hours transformed into a pool of reddish-brown liquid and a bundle of empty clothes.

He’d watched with increasing horror as the puddle had grown slight protrusions, like humps, almost mushroom-like, that eventually opened to reveal fluffy spore heads like those of dandelions.

A fresh breeze had carried those away long ago.

Somewhere in a refugee camp in Kazakhstan, his parents most probably looked like the girl now. A tangle of clothes and a puddle of liquid.

‘Rashim!’

It had all happened too quickly. The city lockdowns, quarantine. The complete shutdown of transportation systems. None of it had managed to stop the Kosong-ni virus.

‘Dr Anwar!’ He looked away from the holo-projection above his desk. Dr Yatsushita was leaning over the top of his cubicle partition. His tie loose and his top shirt button undone, his sleeves were rolled up and his lab coat dispensed with days ago. He’d taken to sleeping on a camp bed among the cubicles. As all of them had, working in ceaseless shifts to get things ready for T-Day.

‘I must have those figures now!’

Rashim felt disengaged from the hustle and noise of activity going on around him. The hangar floor was now filled with people, equipment and machinery being brought in. He could see on one side of the concrete floor some famous faces he
recognized: the vice-president, Greg Stilson, and the defence secretary. A few dozen yards away a Saudi prince and his family; next to him the bulk of some Central African dictator whose name he couldn’t quite remember and his three young wives. Rashim suspected he must have spent the last of his nation’s wealth to buy a place for himself on Exodus.

There were other faces he vaguely recognized: old men with young wives. The rich and powerful.

‘The figures! Rashim!’

Rashim nodded slowly, and palmed the data off his screen and floated it on to Yatsushita’s infopad. ‘It’s not even close to accurate,’ he muttered absently.

‘We have no more time,’ Yatsushita said, lowering his voice. ‘They will have to take their chances.’

So many of the carefully selected and vetted candidates for Exodus had not made it to the Cheyenne Mountain facility. Some of the B-list candidates had managed to be flown in, but there were many grid spots now either empty or filled with last-minute replacements. No longer the great and the brilliant, rocket scientists and geneticists. But a motley random collection of people – army truck drivers, clerical officers, project technicians – and, of course, a handful of politicians, billionaires, dictators; the well-connected who’d caught wind of Project Exodus’s last-minute chance to negotiate themselves on to the transportation grid.

Not exactly the best representation of twenty-first-century society to send back into the past to make a new start.

Rashim looked up at Dr Yatsushita. ‘You said “they”. They will have to take their –’

‘I am not going.’

‘Why?’

The old man shook his head sadly. ‘I cannot … not without my family.’

‘Still no news?’

Yatsushita shook his head. He had managed to get his wife and daughter on a flight from Tokyo to Vancouver. But there they’d been stuck. No commercial or military flights left. Not even using leverage as the senior technician on Exodus was going to get them over here.