TimeRiders: City of Shadows (Book 6)

by Alex Scarrow

  Rain spattered on her upturned face as she took in her surroundings. She blinked fat drops of it from her eyes as her mind silently assessed the present situation.

  [Information: translation error]

  Her first thought was how lucky she was not to be partially merged with something. A dense urban environment like this – the odds were probably even between empty and occupied space. She turned her mind quickly to situation-assessment.

  The rapidly decaying tachyon particles told her some of the story. She’d been misplaced spatially by – at her quick assessment – one or two miles. She was unable to be sure whether she’d also been misplaced in time: an overshoot of days, weeks, months. It was, of course, a distinct possibility. She had no idea at all when in time this rogue team had decided to head back to, but she was pretty sure, running the figures in her head, that she couldn’t have over – or under – shot by much time. Days or weeks at worst.

  Immediate matters first, though. She needed to blend in to whenever this was and certainly not be the cause of any unnecessary temporal contamination or undue attention. Then, when she was suitably dressed for this world, she could run the calculation in her head and work out precisely how far – spatially – she was from the intended location. There was no way of knowing in which direction she’d been offset, but if she could calculate a more precise distance then she’d have a viable search radius to work with.

  Faith looked around the small courtyard. The ground was cobblestones covered by mud and rotting vegetable peelings. Here and there mildew-covered nuggets of faeces – animal or human, she couldn’t tell. Clearly this small space was a dumping ground for the effluence and night-water that was tossed out of the small grimy windows that punctuated the towering walls all around this enclosed little courtyard.

  She noticed a long wooden pole with a crudely fashioned hook on the end, leaning against one of the walls. That, presumably, was how the clothes were retrieved from the washing line. She also noted in one corner a small wooden door that hung pathetically on failing, rusty hinges.

  It took her no more than a few minutes to retrieve the rags and change out of her modern clothes. She bundled them up under her arm and would figure out a way to dispose of them later. Her bullet-shattered lower arm and hand she wrapped up in a linen shawl. The blood had already coagulated and dried. It would eventually heal: the skin would re-grow, the bone and tendon beneath would re-knit.

  The doorway took her into a narrow walkway between damp brick walls, covered by a slanted roof of slate shingles that tapped with the rain. At the far end she could see the grey light of this dull day. And a wide street by the look of it.

  At the far end she emerged on to a broad cobbled road; rows of three-storey red-brick terraced homes, identical and equally as drab and squalid-looking as those that had surrounded the dingy space she’d just arrived in. The street was busy with people – people who didn’t look occupied. Women sitting on doorsteps looking on as their children played in the street. A pair of men smoking long clay pipes, standing beside an open fire in a grate, poking it to stir the dying embers to life. All of them in rags.

  She saw a sign. Presumably the name of this street; flaking paint on rusting tin – GREAT DOVER STREET.

  Faith crossed the street towards the fire, approaching the two men. They didn’t notice her coming until she tossed her clothes from the year 2001 on to the glowing embers. The synthetic fibres of her JC Penney office clothes flared up almost instantly.

  ‘Hoy! Watcha think yer doin’, love?’ Both men turned to look at her.

  ‘Fuel,’ she replied evenly, ‘for your fire.’

  One of the men grinned around the stem of his pipe. ‘Well, hello, m’dear.’ His red-rimmed eyes – one of them opaque like a boiled fish-eye, a cataract – looked her up and down approvingly. ‘Now there’s a pretty, pretty thing.’

  Faith offered her hesitant smile and picked what she considered the most appropriate response. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You ’ungry, love? Want sumfin’ to eat?’

  It had certainly been a while since she’d had a protein refuel. ‘Yes. I am hungry.’

  Both men looked at each other and grinned. Then the one with the clouded eye turned back to her. ‘Well, I got a nice bit of fish back in my ’ouse. An’ some cheese.’ He took a step towards her.

  Faith stifled the urge to adopt a combat stance and chop at the man’s neck with the side of her good hand.

  Blend in.

  ‘So ’ow ’bout you an’ me ’ead back to my gaff.’ He nodded to one of the terraced houses close by. ‘I only live over there. I’ll give yer a proper feed, love. Eh? Put some colour in ’em cheeks of yours.’

  ‘Fish and cheese?’ Faith cocked her head. Protein and fat. Perfect fuels for her body chemistry. ‘Those are both suitable food types. Thank you.’

  The man took his pipe out. ‘Tell you what, love, ya don’t ’alf talk funny.’

  Her lips flickered uncertainly. ‘I am new in this place.’

  ‘New? Another foreigner, eh?’ He reached and put an arm round her narrow waist. Faith decided to accept the overfamiliar gesture – for the moment. It didn’t appear hostile or threatening so she let it pass.

  ‘Come on, then, deary, come along with ol’ Terry.’ He pulled her to him so that her hip bumped clumsily against his leg. ‘I’ll look after ya, my dear.’

  He tugged her firmly in the direction of his house and Faith had begun to take a few steps with him when a female voice barked out.

  ‘You leave that poor girl be, Terry Matchins!’

  He stopped and turned. ‘Ah, not you!’ He spat a curse at her.

  Faith saw a woman who could have been any age between twenty and thirty-five – so very difficult to tell. The woman’s skin was ruddy with rose-coloured splotches, several teeth missing and the rest an unpleasant vanilla colour. She was short and slight with auburn hair tied up in an untidy frizzy bun.

  ‘You better let her go! Or I’ll box yer ears!’

  ‘She’s comin’ round mine for a bit o’ supper. Ain’t ya, love?’

  The short woman addressed Faith. ‘Love, that dirty ol’ goat’s not goin’ to feed yer anything that you’d want to eat. Terry ain’t got nuthin’ indoors but dirty intentions. He’s bloomin’ bad news is what ’e is!’

  Faith turned to look at him. ‘Is this woman correct? You have no food?’ A cold glare and her face so close to his presented a challenge that unsettled the man and his firm grasp on her waist loosened. ‘I … I just thought you was lookin’ a bit peaky, love. I thought –’

  ‘I know exactly what you was thinkin’!’ snapped the woman. ‘Go on, sling yer hook!’

  The man bared brown teeth at her. ‘I’ll slice yer up one day, Mary! Next time yer so drunk ya don’t know it’s night or day, I’ll give yer a ruddy scar to remember!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah! So you’re the Ripper, are you?’ She stepped forward and pushed him. ‘Go on with ya! Go pester someone else, you rancid old fart!’

  The man laughed and shrugged, and returned to his friend beside the fire.

  The woman offered Faith a hand. ‘He’s right, though, you do look awful pale, love. I got some leftovers from yesterday.’ She frowned firmly; a face that wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer. ‘Come on, let’s fix you some food. You look awful poorly.’

  Faith extended a hand to the woman. A handshake: she’d learned that gesture of formal courtesy from Agent Cooper. ‘Thank you. I am Faith.’

  ‘Faith, is it? Well, since we’re doin’ introductions, I’m Mary. Mary Kelly. You’ll be safe with me, love.’ Her ruddy face split with a smile that even Faith was able to judge with a fair degree of certainty was entirely genuine. ‘Perfectly safe.’

  Chapter 59

  14 December 1888, Holborn, London

  ‘Oh my God!’ gushed Maddy, ‘I so-o-o-o love this!’ Her face was one big toothy smile framed by the wisps of her strawberry hair and the lace of her bonnet. ‘All of this! These
posh clothes, this place! Don’t you think it’s so cool!’

  Sal was fussing with her lace cuffs. ‘I feel like an idiot in this dress.’

  Liam was in the same frame of mind as Maddy. ‘It feels like this could be our new home all right.’

  Maddy sighed contentedly. Her first night in Victorian London. ‘Yeah, it’s almost like back home.’ Home. New York. A strange choice of word for that place, that – home – since she’d never actually had one. ‘Just as busy and bustling and vibrant as Brooklyn.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Liam. His cheeks puffed up like a hamster’s as he worked his way through a pork pie.

  She looked around the open-top wagon with its four small round tables and tall wobbly stools. There was even a serving counter on the end, behind which a barista busied himself roasting coffee beans on an open skillet over glowing coals. A whole coffee shop complete with its own canvas awning and colourful bunting right there on the flatbed of an open horse-drawn cart.

  She grinned. ‘Starbucks 1880s style.’ She sipped steaming hot coffee from the mug cupped in her hands and smacked her lips. ‘Actually, even better than Starbucks. I mean, this is what I call fresh coffee.’

  ‘Aye.’

  The meagre light of the overcast afternoon was fading, the featureless December-grey sky becoming a deep ocean blue. Maddy watched as one by one glimmers of flame winked on like fireflies in the gathering twilight; oil lamps on the street, candles behind net-curtain windows. As evening began to settle on Farringdon Street, it became a Dickensian painting; splashes of midnight blue for the advancing evening shadows, and ambers and golds for the glowing pools of gas and candlelight. And, with the evening almost fully upon them, it seemed to be getting busier still.

  ‘They seem to like their nightlife,’ said Sal.

  Liam and Rashim had already spent a week of nights here in London as they’d been setting up the new field office. Partly because some of their banging around had been noisy enough that it kept attracting their curious landlord. He’d turn up at their door like a bad penny with various excuses as to why he was knocking. They soon realized that Mr Hook enjoyed his ale and was in the habit of spending his evenings in one public house or another, so their lifting, bumping and banging, bringing in bits and pieces of furniture to make it more like home, was better done then rather than during the day.

  Liam looked round the street. ‘It is actually busier than normally, so.’

  As well as a number of well-dressed gentlemen in top hats with elegant ladies on their arms – presumably quite usual for a Friday evening – there were several loose clusters of working men blocking the pavements further along the street. Liam presumed they were the overflow from various overcrowded public houses: men enjoying their ale at the end of the working week.

  Maddy’s mood had suddenly changed as her thoughts returned to matters at hand. ‘We have to figure out what happened to Becks,’ she said.

  ‘It must have been a translation error,’ said Liam.

  Rashim fussed with his glasses. ‘No, I don’t think so. I checked and rechecked everyone’s mass index. Something must have happened back in that school.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Maybe a rat ran into her square or something?’ said Sal.

  Rashim jumped on that. ‘Yes, it could easily be something like that … a rat, or a stray cat, or something.’

  ‘So, does that mean she’s somewhere here? Somewhere else in London?’

  ‘I don’t know, Maddy. It’s possible.’

  ‘She could be wandering around looking for us,’ said Sal.

  ‘Then we should have Bob and SpongeBubba switch on their Wi-Fi signals. If she gets within – what is it, half a mile range? – it’ll give her something to home in on.’

  Rashim sipped his coffee. ‘But, Maddy, it is also equally possible she experienced mass convergence somewhere. This London is a dense place.’

  ‘She’d be dead, then.’ Rashim nodded.

  ‘Maybe something happened to her back in the school?’ Liam looked at the others. ‘Maybe those meatbots finally caught up with us.’

  ‘No.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘I’d say we probably lost them.’

  The conclusion, then, wasn’t so great. Her body was lost: a pulp of flesh somewhere in London perhaps fused into the foundations of some building.

  ‘If that did happen, I just hope it was quick for her,’ said Maddy. ‘That she didn’t suffer too much.’

  Losing their half-grown Becks, though, was more than just losing a colleague. Friend even. Maddy felt that there might have been a chance to ‘reason’ with her AI to finally agree to open that locked portion of her mind. Somehow, having reinstalled her complete personality from the rigid binary confines of a hard drive – an object that was never going to be reasoned with – she’d begun to hope that enough things had happened recently for Becks to consider opening up to her, revealing whatever message had been waiting two thousand years to be heard. A message, by the way, specifically intended for her! She ground her teeth in frustration. A message, Becks had claimed, that had been sent by her.

  I sent myself a message from the future. Maddy shook her head, very much annoyed with her stupid future self. Why did I freakin’ well decide I have to wait until ‘certain conditions are met’ before I can learn what it is?

  ‘Rashim, do you think there’s any way we’re going to be able to grow any new support units?’

  Absently his fingers traced the felt brim of his top hat held reverently on his lap. Clearly he relished the whole dressing-up thing as much as she did. He’d even bought a fob watch on a chain to tuck into one of his waistcoat pockets.

  What a poser.

  ‘I think we’ll struggle to find the components we need in this time. We could perhaps use a brewer’s cask for a growth tube, but filtration pumps? Protein solution? We would need to take a journey forward to obtain those things.’

  ‘And that’s a risk, isn’t it?’ said Sal.

  Maddy nodded. ‘Yup, we run the risk of turning up on somebody’s radar if we do too much of that. We’ll have to think about this. Meanwhile, the foetuses will stay viable in the freezer unit?’

  ‘Provided the power supply does not fail us,’ he replied, nodding. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wonder if there’s something special on tonight?’ said Liam. ‘A parade or something?’

  They sat in silence for a while, all of them contemplating the busy street. The barista, seeing their hushed conversation had hit a pause for the moment, came round the side of his counter and over to their table.

  ‘Can I offer you ladies or gentlemen anything else? Only I’ll need to be closin’ up and movin’ on soon.’ He glanced at the gathering of men down the other end of Farringdon Street. ‘I’d rather be off before things get a bit frisky. I ’eard a whisper, see.’

  Liam nodded at the gathering of men. ‘What is going on down there?’

  ‘That’ll be another of them gatherings,’ replied the barista. ‘Blasted anarchists and troublemakers. They’re all worked up and makin’ a nuisance of themselves. All because of that gentleman murderer.’

  ‘Murderer?’

  He looked at them with momentary bemusement. ‘You know, the mad-in-the-’ead one? Been killin’ women? In the East End? You ladies an’ gents musta ’eard about that?’

  Liam, Maddy and the others shook their heads in unison.

  The barista took in the look of confusion on all their faces. ‘You … you do know about that, right? That gentleman … a knight or lord or something. Some say he might even be a friend of the queen!’

  Liam shook his head. ‘Can’t say that we do, sir.’

  The barista laughed incredulously. ‘Blimey! It’s in all the penny papers. It ’as been for the last fortnight! Been on them telegraph wires all round the world I wouldn’t be surprised. Everyone’s been talkin’ about it! You lot must be the last people in the country to have ’eard about it, then!’

  ‘We’ve sort of only just arrived
in the country, you see,’ said Maddy.

  The barista nodded. ‘Ahhh, foreigners! I thought I could ’ear somethin’ funny in the way you’s lot were talkin’. Where you ladies and gents come from?’

  Maddy met Liam and Sal’s eyes. They all shared a conspiratorial smile and she shrugged at the barista as if to say, Where do I even begin? ‘Well now, that’s kind of difficult to –’

  ‘Canada,’ said Bob. ‘We are from Canada.’

  The barista looked suitably impressed. ‘Canadians, eh? I suppose you don’t get newspapers and telegraph wires over there, then. Well –’ he shook his head – ‘to be honest, the whole thing’s a nasty carry-on. This won’t turn out well for none of us. Best advice I can tell you is – with all due respect – I’d suggest you might want to ’op on a boat ’eading back ’ome to Canada before it all kicks off over ’ere. It ain’t gonna be nice.’

  ‘Kicks off?’

  ‘Nasty business. Very nasty.’ His eyes narrowed as he gazed down the street. ‘The way things are goin’… there’ll be soldiers on the streets soon. Maybe even blood on the streets before long.’ He looked back down at them. ‘Best ’ead back to your ’otel or guesthouse and stay indoors this evening, that’s for sure. I ’eard a whisper them riots what we’ve ’ad across Whitechapel and the rest of the East End of London will be spreading to the rest of the city.’ He nodded at the growing crowd of men far off down the street. ‘And them troublemakers down there look like they’re making ready to ’ave a scrap with the police.’

  Chapter 60

  14 December 1888, Holborn Viaduct, London

  ‘Jesus, Liam! How did you not notice all this … unrest … was going on?’ A copy of the London Packet rustled in Maddy’s hands. She’d picked up a discarded copy lying on the doorstep of a haberdasher’s on the way back to their cosy little subterranean dungeon.

  She unlaced her bonnet and hung it carefully on the arm of a coat stand. ‘There’ve been riots and stuff going off all over the country!’