TimeRiders: City of Shadows (Book 6) (13 page)

However, Waldstein devised a safe way they
could make contact. If the team
desperately
needed to communicate with them in
2054, there was a way that they could do so. He called the method ‘a drop-point
document’.

Joseph had been impressed by the man’s
ingenuity.

It was a private ad in a Brooklyn newspaper.
They had a
yellowing page of newsprint contained in a glass case here
in 2054. A dog-eared page that had somehow survived intact through half a century. If
the team in 2001 needed to send a message forward in time, they simply had to dial that
newspaper’s classifieds desk, and place a personal ad to go in the next issue. A
personal ad that was to begin with the words, ‘A soul lost in time’.

The personal ad represented history being
meddled with in a very small way. It would cause a tiny change. A tiny, harmless time
wave that would ripple across fifty-three years to the present and change just one
thing: the sheet of newspaper in that glass case.

That was the
only
method of
communication Waldstein intended to permit them to use. Safe. Secret. Untraceable. Under
no circumstances were they to beam a tachyon signal forward. If anyone in the present
was scanning for telltale signs of time-travel technology development, the tachyon
particle would be the giveaway. The smoking gun.

Pandora
.

Joseph would have completely forgotten about
that word if it wasn’t for another discovery he made not so very long after
Waldstein returned from 2001, content that his team based in Brooklyn – the
TimeRiders
 … that was the nickname he had for them – were ready
to do the job entirely on their own.

As it happened, that team was the
first
team based in that Brooklyn archway.

They did quite well. Lasted quite a long
time.

7.27 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven
Plaza, outside Branford

Maddy led Foster by the hand out of the
coffee shop, through the stools and tables to meet the others in the middle of the
toddler play area, ‘Chuckle Zone’.

Liam spoke first. ‘Bob just picked up
a warning signal from SpongeBubba.’

‘I also just detected two
idents,’ added Bob.

‘Where?’

‘Three hundred and seventy yards in
that direction,’ he said, pointing along the central concourse of the shopping
mall towards the front entrance to the parking strip beyond. He was pointing in the
direction of their RV.

‘They must have visited our bus
first,’ said Sal.

‘How did they know which vehicle was
ours?’ Maddy asked. The parking area out front already had a few hundred cars in
it. Even more now surely.

‘Your lab unit,’ said Bob. He
turned to Rashim. ‘Your lab unit must have left its wireless communication
on.’

Rashim nodded. ‘They must have homed
in on Bubba’s signal.’

‘All the way from New York?’
said Liam. ‘I thought –’

‘It’s only a short-range signal.
Half a mile and you’d lose it,’ said Rashim.

‘Then they must have already been
tailing us,’ said Maddy. She looked at Foster. ‘Do you think?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t
know. It’s possible.’

Becks had been watching the quick-fire
conversation, her gaze snapping from one person to the next. But now her eyes suddenly
widened as they settled on something at the far end of the concourse. ‘They are
here,’ she said softly.

She pointed.

All of them turned to look. Two silhouetted
figures emerging through large rotating glass doorways, striding purposefully in their
direction, the pallid glow of morning light outside behind.

‘Jay-zus! There’s two of
them!’

‘We can’t fight,’ said
Maddy. ‘We’ve got to run!’

Bob stiffened, bristled like a guard dog.
‘I can fight them. I can provide you with time to escape.’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Bob,’
said Liam. ‘They’ll rip you to pieces, so they will.’

‘Shadd-yah! Who
are
they?’

‘We’re wasting time,’ said
Maddy. She turned to look in the opposite direction. The concourse carried on another
fifty yards where it terminated as a circular eating area, tables and plastic bucket
chairs surrounded by a dozen fast-food outlets. A lift and a couple of escalators could
take them up to a balcony overlooking the central area, and the upper floor of shops.
But as far as she could make out, the only way out of the mall was back towards the
approaching support units … and out of those big revolving glass doors at the
front.

‘How about in there?’ said Sal.
She pointed towards a large store with two floors, upper and ground. A pre-school toy
store called TOYS-4-TOTS! All bright, happy-clappy colours inside. Out in front of the
store a tall, surly-faced young man was putting on the head of a costume, the
store’s mascot, a livid
pink dinosaur that Maddy suspected was a
blatant rip-off of Barney.

‘Yes! Go! Go!’ She grasped
Foster’s hand and led the way. The others followed.

She pushed her way past a toddler on reins.
The child turned to watch them pass by, blue eyes suddenly round and wide at the sight
of Bob. Presumably thinking he was another store mascot, the toddler chuckled gleefully
and reached out to grab and hug one of his tree-thick legs.

‘Back off!’ boomed Bob. The
toddler toppled backwards in shock, landing and bouncing on its nappy-cushioned behind.
It gazed up at them in confused silence, watching this odd assortment of grown-ups leave
the play area before finally deciding to bawl.

Maddy led them into the store TOYS-4-TOTS!
She shook her head.
How’d they get away with a name like that?
Still
early enough in the morning it was mainly staff milling around inside: puffy-faced teens
in gaudy pink store shirts bearing plastic name tags.

It was the right place to hide, cluttered
with racks of chunky, plastic nonsense, large furry soft toys, rotating display stands
of storybook CD-ROMs and nursery-rhyme favourites.

‘Everyone split up! We’ll lose
’em in here.’ She had hold of Foster’s hand still. She wasn’t
going to let it go. She wasn’t losing him again. ‘Split up … and
we’ll rendezvous …’

Where?

‘The diner?’ said Sal.

‘Yes …’ Not the RV.
Definitely not the RV. There might be another of them waiting for them there. The diner
was next to the motel. Good enough. ‘Make your way to the diner!’ She looked
back out past the knock-off-Barney mascot standing out on the concourse. She could just
make out the distinctive outlines
of the support units. Closer now.
The pair of them could so easily be Bob and Becks.

‘Go!’ she hissed. ‘We
stand out like a sore thumb. Split!’

Their group fragmented in different
directions: Rashim and Sal; Bob, Liam and Becks.

She pulled Foster with her, quickly weaving
past an extravagant diorama made from BaBe-Blox building bricks into a maze of aisles
laden with romper suits and cute, frilly Babygros. He was already breathing hard. This
was getting difficult for the old man. ‘Maddy … I …’

‘Shut up, Foster! I’m not
leaving you behind.’

She crouched low, pulling aside clothes
hangers on a rail to peer out. Across the store she could see the top of Rashim’s
head for a moment, then it was gone behind a row of super-large Sesame Street cuddlies.
She looked back at the store’s entrance, hoping to see the support units striding
past and missing them.

Nothing for the moment. Perhaps they’d
already gone past.

‘Maddy …?’

‘Foster, shhhh … I’m
trying to see –’

‘Excuse me? Miss?’

Maddy turned to see a member of staff
looking down at her. A girl in a pink shirt, with a nose stud and
up-way-too-late-last-night red-rimmed eyes, stared wearily down at her. A face that
clearly indicated this was too early in her cruddy day to put up with customer-stoopid
like this.

‘Ma’am, you’re not really
allowed to hide among the clothes like that.’

Maddy straightened up.
‘I … err … I was just looking
for … umm … bargains.’

‘I think it might be best if you step
out of the store, ma’am.’

Maddy remained where she was, her eyes on
the store’s entrance. ‘Just give us a sec here … we just
need … to uh …’

‘You need to leave, miss. You’re
clearly not shopping. You’re being a nuisance –’

‘Christ!’ Maddy turned on her.
‘Just give me a freakin’ moment, will you? It won’t kill
you!’

The girl didn’t like that.
‘I’m asking you politely to leave, please. If you don’t, I’ll
call the manager. I’ll call mall security.’

Just then Maddy saw them. The support units
standing in the entrance, two pairs of grey eyes sweeping the toy store like prison
searchlights.

Knock-off Barney, the implausibly pink
dinosaur, sauntered cheerily towards them, probably wearily parroting the store’s
moronic catchphrase:
Friends That Play Together Stay Together!!

The female support unit –
Becks
,
Maddy found herself thinking – lashed out with a fist and caught Barney in the throat.
He disappeared from view.

‘Whuh?’ said the girl in the
pink shirt to herself. ‘Did she just punch Joshua … ?’

The male support unit’s eyes panned
round and caught sight of Maddy just as she was about to duck back down out of sight. He
raised his arm, something in his hand glinted. Someone screamed.

And then the gunfire started.

7.29 a.m., 12 September 2001, North Haven
Plaza, outside Branford

Maddy felt a warm puff of displaced air on
her cheek as the shot whistled past her head. She heard the shot impact on something. A
soft thud followed by a gasp.

She turned to see the girl on her knees
beside her, dark crimson blossoming across her store shirt. She looked down at the blood
then at Maddy, perplexed.

‘I … I … just got
shot …’

Another couple of gunshots, deafening in the
shop’s stillness. The baby clothes hanging from the rail above Maddy lurched and
danced. A blizzard of foam stuffing erupted from a Humpty Dumpty on a shelf nearby.

Maddy remained hunched down, Foster beside
her. ‘My God, we’re gonna die!’ she whimpered to him. There were
raised voices outside the toystore in the mall’s main concourse. A male voice. Two
of them, issuing a sharp challenge. A warning.

More shots, aiming out of the store this
time.

‘Maddy … you go!’ It
was Foster.

‘They’re distracted!’ she
whispered. ‘Come on, let’s –’

‘No!’ He shook his head.
‘I can slow them down. You go!’

‘Slow them down?’ She made a
face. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Not
fight
them … I’ll talk to them.’

More shots. One of them hit a wall nearby,
showering them with flakes of plaster.

‘You can’t talk to –’

‘They’re just like Bob! They
have the exact same AI.’

‘Yeah, but … but
they’re running an entirely different freakin’ mission! You step out,
they’ll shoot you just as soon as look at –’

Foster grasped her arm.
‘Maddy … I’m dead anyway.’

He didn’t need to explain that. They
both knew he was dying. She knew he was dying the day he walked out of that Starbucks
and left her in charge of the team. But somehow the reality of that had seemed removed.
With time looping for her in New York, he was never going to die. Every time she’d
gone to visit him in Central Park, he was the same old Foster. No sicker. But then, of
course, he wouldn’t be. It was always the same moment for him. The same morning
over and over and over.

Since she’d grabbed him from Central
Park, time, for him, had
advanced
. Two days, that was all it had been, but
enough time that she could clearly see he was getting worse. A dying man. He should be
in a hospital bed, a hospice, kept comfortable on a drip perhaps, not running for his
life through a shopping mall.

‘They know me,’ he said.
‘It’s enough … it’ll confuse them. They may let me
talk.’

‘
Know you?
’

‘There’s no time to
explain!’ He pushed her. ‘Go! Just go!’

Maddy glanced at the girl beside them. She
was in shock, pale. Alive, but maybe for not much longer unless she got some help.

The gunfire was beginning to wane. Whomever
the support units had been exchanging shots with outside on the concourse, police, mall
security, it was nearly a done deal now.

‘Foster, I …’

He shushed her with a finger over her lips.
‘This is goodbye, Maddy. Don’t ruin it by blurting something
stupid.’

She pulled his hand away.
‘Foster …’ She wanted to call him by his
real
name.
‘Liam …’

Foster smiled. ‘It’s a long
while since I’ve been called that.’

‘Please …’ She had no idea
what she wanted to say. Something meaningful. ‘
Please
’ wasn’t
it. ‘
Please
’ was just so pathetically lame.

‘For the love of God,
Maddy … will you just bleedin’ well go!’

‘Liam …’ she said again.
‘I, I …’

He waved her silent. ‘I loved you,
Maddy. Each time. I always did. Even when I knew …’ He stopped himself. So
much he wanted to say, and so little that he could in this all too short heartbeat of
time. ‘Just
go
!’

She heard footsteps inside the store. Heavy,
purposeful footsteps drawing closer.

Then, cursing herself for being a coward,
for leaving him behind, she scooted on hands and feet, through aisles of chunky plastic
playsets, beneath rows of fur-hooded children’s anoraks and racks of cheerily
coloured wellies, perfect for little feet to stamp in autumn rain puddles. She scuttled
on all fours until she finally stumbled upon the moving metal grated steps of an
escalator.

Foster waited until she was out of sight,
stood up, his hands raised above him. Both support units levelled their weapons at him.
The male support unit was bleeding from three gunshot wounds, one to the forehead. A
dark trickle of blood rolled sluggishly down between thick brows, down the side of his
nose from a circle of puckered flesh above his eyes. A perfect take-down shot from some
policeman or mall guard. Whoever
had taken that head shot must have
died wondering how a man could be shot between the eyes and shrug it off like a mere
gnat bite.