by Alex Scarrow
Footprints in time.
‘You must assign new mission parameters.’
Footprints in time.
‘Oh my God!’ he whispered. ‘Footprints.’
Bob remained silent.
‘Footprints,’ he whispered again. ‘Bob?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘I think there’s a way we can communicate with the fieldoffice.’
‘Negative. Tachyon transmissions can only — ’
‘Shhh!’ hissed Liam. ‘Listen to me. How long will it take us to get to NewYork?’
CHAPTER 72
2001, New York
Maddy realized she’d nodded off. The steady muted chug of the generator inthe back room had lulled her into a fitful sleep.
She’d been dreaming.
Dreaming of the day she’d been snatched from a doomed airliner, waking up on this samecot and opening her eyes to see Liam slouched on the bed across from hers. That daft, lopsidedgrin on his face.
She realized how much she missed Liam. Even Bob. If she added up the looped Mondays andTuesdays they’d all been here in this archway together — before things had gonewrong, that is — it came to several weeks’ worth of days. That’s all. But itseemed like she’d known them both so much longer.
She missed them.
Another memory floated into her half-conscious mind. Foster taking them down to the Museum ofNatural History. She’d been there before on school trips. But this last time had beendifferent. This time not a bored schoolkid gazing at dusty old exhibits behind glass panels,but seeing these things as precious heirlooms of the past, mark-points of a history crying outto her to protect it, to preserve it… to keep it unchanged…
She remembered…
Maddy jerked herself out of her drowsy wool-gathering.
‘Oh my God!’ she whispered.
The generator was still chugging away in the background. She climbed offher bunk and looked around the archway. Sal was sitting at the long desk listlessly staring atthe turned-off monitors.
‘Where’s Foster?’
Sal gestured towards the sliding corrugated door leading to the back room. ‘In the backfiddling with the generator, I think.’
Maddy paced across the floor, slid the door to one side and stepped into the smelly darkness.‘Foster!’
Torchlight flickered towards her, and over the noisy chug of the generator she heard him makehis way over. ‘What’s up?’
‘Foster, I think… I think there’s a way Liam can communicate withus.’
‘Sorry. What’s that you say?’ he replied, cupping his ear.‘It’s noisy,’ he barked, ‘let’s step out.’
They emerged from the back room and he slid the door shut. The noisy percussive rattle of thesickly-sounding generator was once more a background thud.
‘What were you saying?’
‘Liam… I think there’s a way Liam could try to contact us.’
Foster shook his head. ‘You know Bob can’t return atachyon beam transmiss-’
‘Yes, I know that,’ she cut in impatiently. ‘Listen… the museum. TheMuseum of Natural History…’
‘What about it?’
‘When you took us there, Liam and I were looking at the visitors’ guest book. Wewere having a laugh at some of the comments.’
Foster shrugged. ‘And?’
‘Anyway… the museum has kept a guest book in the entrance foyer since the museumfirst opened. They have an archive of them that they kept in the basement. They’ve keptthat archive since, like, the 1800s, I think.’
Foster’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘Yes!’
‘If we go there — ?’
The old man nodded. ‘They might still be down there!’ The hope on his face madehim seem much younger. But only for a fleeting moment. Almost as quickly as it arrived, thehope faded away.
‘But Liam doesn’t know all this.’
Maddy grinned. ‘But he does! The security guard there told me. Liam was standing rightbeside me at the time. He was telling us both! And if I remembered…?’
Foster’s lined face rumpled with a wide lopsided grin. ‘Then Liam wouldtoo.’
‘That’s what I figured.’
Foster nodded. ‘Yes… yes, he would. He’s a smart lad.’
‘So,’ she continued, ‘if he made his way to New York and visited the museumin 1957, it’s possible he could have left a message for us in there.’
Foster nodded. ‘And that message could give an exact time and location for us to open areturn window for them.’
‘Closer to home? Maybe in New York? Would we have enough of a charge left to dothat?’
Foster glanced at the blinking LEDs. Another red light had turned back to green.‘Generator isn’t going to last much longer, by the sounds it’s making. Thefuel tank’s virtually on empty. We need it to get the charge meter up to ten greenlights, at a guess.’
‘But if it can?’
Foster chewed his lip, deep in thought for a moment. ‘If we open a window close enoughto home… and even then, only for a few seconds. We’d need an exact time… I mean exact.’ His eyes methers. ‘Then… yes, we could make a window big enough for Liam. Possibly even forBob.’
‘Then — ’ she chewed a fingernail nervously — ‘then we have to go see, don’t we? We have to go check out the museum?’
Foster took a deep breath. ‘I don’t think we have any other choice.’
Maddy felt her arms and legs trembling. Oh God. Why did I have to openmy mouth and suggest this? The thought of stepping outside again terrified her. Butthe prospect of being stuck in this nightmare forever scared her infinitely more.
Foster turned to Sal. ‘Maybe you should stay here, Sal. Madelaine and I won’t begone long. We — ’
She shook her head. ‘No… I’m coming with you.’ She stood up, suckedin a deep breath, steadying her own nerves. ‘We’re a team, right? The three ofus… TimeRiders.’
Foster’s grin was infectious — both girls suddenly found themselves sharing it.‘The best, Sal,’ said Foster. ‘The very best.’
Sal shoved the office chair beneath the desk and zipped up her hoodie. ‘Then what thejahulla are we waiting for?’
Maddy nodded. ‘Atta girl.’
‘What the jahulla are we waiting for, indeed,’replied Foster. ‘I’ll get the shotgun.’
CHAPTER 73
1957, New York
Liam gazed out of the window at the streets of New York, crowded with brown andgrey stone skyscrapers so tall he had to scrunch down in his seat to look up to catch the verytops of them.
Some buildings he remembered seeing before when Foster had taken them through Manhattan: theEmpire State Building — Foster said a movie called King Kongwas made that featured the building and an eighty-foot gorilla swinging from the top of it.Liam suspected the old man was joking with him. The idea sounded too daft to be made into areal movie.
He noticed Kramer’s influence was already stamped across the streets of the city. Largebillboards seemed to hang on every street with the man’s face smiling benignly down uponthem. Messages such as ‘We are here to unite the world in peace’, ‘Unity isProgress’, ‘I promise you a thousand years without war’ were stamped beneathhim.
Liam could see troops on the street, checkpoints at some of the busier intersections,soldiers stopping pedestrians and inspecting identification papers. Above the tall buildingseither side of them, hoverjets patrolled the sky. And hanging motionless above the HudsonRiver he could see another one of those colossal grey command saucers — a clear reminderto everyone that the war was over, Kramer’s forces had won and that continued resistancewas… well, futile.
The uniform Liam was wearing was uncomfortable — the stiff collarmade his neck itch. Bob wore a similar uniform — SS. Black with silver buttons andepaulettes, an eagle on the left breast pocket and a red armband on the left arm featuring thelooped serpent.
Bob had managed to stop a German army automobile, a VW Kubelwagen, earlier this morningas it cruised
down a quiet suburban road in Queens. The officers were both easily dispensedwith by a quick edge-of-the-hand chop to the neck. The attack — Bob’s suggestion- had been a calculated risk. Some civilians on the road had witnessed it, but hurriedalong on their way rather than remain at the scene and risk being questioned. Somebody mightcall it in. It was possible. Either way, the bodies were going to be found sooner orlater.
Liam craned his neck to look up at the patrolling Messerschmitt hoverjets and wondered if thealarm had yet been raised to be on the lookout for the stolen vehicle.
Maybe. So far at least, the risk had paid off well. The uniforms and the vehicle had ensuredthey’d only been stopped at one checkpoint, and even then Bob’s fluent German hadgot them through without a problem as the young soldier eyed the death’s-head insigniaon their collars and dutifully waved them on.
Up ahead, Liam recognized the grand front of the museum. It looked no different from the lasttime he’d seen it, except, of course, for the fluttering crimson pennants dangling fromtwin flagpoles above the main entrance. He could see a lot of activity out front: workmengoing in and coming out of the building laden with boxes and crates.
‘What do you think’s going on there?’
Bob looked. ‘I do not know.’
Liam leaned forward, squinting as the Kubelwagen slowly edged up the busy street throughseveral traffic lights. ‘Looks like they’re emptying the place.’
That seemed to make sense of some of what they’d heard.
Last night they’d stopped off for food. As Liam enjoyed a plate of grits and bacon andBob joylessly slurped a dubious-looking mixture of porridge and scrambled egg, they’dlistened in on the quiet talk among the diner’s regulars: truck drivers and localworkers stopping off on the way home. There were cautious words being exchanged about someresistance leader down in Washington state ‘givin’ them Naziscum a goddamn hiding’.
One of the men perched on a stool, wearing a grubby old Yankees baseball cap and threadbaredungarees, piped up. ‘I hear’d say them fighters is led by the ghost of none otherthan George Washington! Ain’t no harm them Germans can do tohim… seeing as how he’s a ghost an’ all. Bullets go right onthrough.’
‘Ain’t no ghost, Jeb. Shee’oot, that’sthe dumbest thing I hear’d in a long time,’ said another. ‘What Ihear’d is he goes by the name of Captain Fantastic, orsomesuch. Folks are sayin’ he’s some sorta… military superhero. Reckon maybehe’s like some secret super weapon the guv’mint was holdin’ backon.’
‘Either ways,’ said a third, ‘them Jerries is gettin’ kinda nervous’bout him, ain’t they?’
Murmurs of agreement.
Talk moved on to Kramer’s recent grand announcement that mankind’s history was tobe completely wiped clean; all of history’s past hatreds, religious intolerances, racialbigotry was to be put behind them… and erased. And that,more than anything else, seemed to be an issue that enraged the men gathered around thecounter.
‘They ain’t gonna get away with it!’ snapped one of them. ‘We foughtthem British for this here country of ours. Then we fought us a civil war too! Theycain’t take that kinda history off of us… an’… an’… burn it!’
‘I’m hidin’ my books an’ stuff; my encyclopedias what I bought my kids for school. I’m hidin’ that stuff in my attic incase them Krauties come house-searchin’. Sure as heck ain’t burnin’ it like they told us we got to.’
‘Ain’t right,’ agreed the waitress behind the counter. ‘Justain’t right.’
Now up ahead at the museum, it seemed Kramer’s dictum was already being put intoaction. As Bob passed over the intersection, swung the vehicle right and parked on the kerb infront of the museum, Liam got a closer look at what was going on.
‘Oh boy,’ he uttered.
On the forecourt in front of the steps leading up to the museum’s grand entrance, hecould see what appeared to be a large pile of bric-a-brac, a rubbish tip of twistedwooden things, books and papers, frames and furniture, the tangled limbs of stuffed animals ofall sizes. He watched in growing horror as half a dozen museum workers carried out an Egyptiansarcophagus. Faded flakes of blue and gold paint and shards of ancient dry wood crumbled awaybeneath the fragile object, leaving a trail of debris down the steps.
And then, under the watchful eye of several soldiers standing guard, they casually tossed iton to the pile, where it split and shattered, revealing the brittle, shrivelled carcass of amummified pharaoh, snapping into several pieces as it tumbled stiffly down one side of thelarge pile.
A dozen yards away several drums of fuel were lined up and a soldier stood beside themwaiting for the order to douse the exhibits and set them on fire.
‘My God… they’re going to burn it all,’ he whispered.
‘It is logical,’ replied Bob. ‘Kramer wishes not to be located by anyfuture agency operatives. No history will mean no reference points.’
‘I hope to God they haven’t made a start on the things storeddown in the basement.’ Liam cast a sideways glance at Bob. ‘How long have we gotleft before your brain explodes?’
Bob’s cool eyes narrowed. ‘Two hours and fifty-three minutes. We have little timeto waste.’
Liam realized he was trembling from head to foot, and cursed the fact that he looked soyoung. Perhaps the SS uniform he was wearing would be intimidating enough to ensure none ofthe workers nor any soldiers they might encounter would dare to look too closely at him, dareto question why someone so young should have an officer’s rank.
‘We must proceed,’ rumbled Bob.
‘You’re right.’ He puffed out nervous breath. ‘Bob, you go tell thosesoldiers we have come directly on Kramer’s orders to supervise the job.’
‘Yes.’
‘And tell them we will be inspecting the basement area.’
‘Yes.’
Bob climbed out of the automobile with Liam following in his wake.
Oh boy… this better work.
CHAPTER 74
2001, New York
They almost didn’t find the museum. It was just another dusty grey shell of abuilding amid a landscape of them: jagged walls of crumbling masonry and cracked marble.
‘That’s it? Are you sure?’
Foster nodded. ‘As best I can tell… that’s what was once the museum.’He looked up at the sun, faint and sick, hiding behind scudding clouds. It was high in thesky. ‘We’ve only got an afternoon of daylight left. Come on.’
As the three of them made their way up the rubble-covered steps and into the museum’smain entrance, Sal spotted a pale face observing them from behind the rusting hulk of a caracross the street.
‘Look!’ she gasped. ‘They’ve been following us!’
‘I never doubted that,’ said Foster.
‘But they’re getting braver,’ added Maddy. ‘Fire off a shot to scarethem away.’
Foster racked the shotgun and aimed it at the sky. But then he stopped.
‘Actually, no. Probably best I conserve the ammo for when we really need it.’
The girls looked uncomfortably at each other.
‘Come on, let’s get this done,’ he said, leading the way over the rubble and stepping into the gloomy, cavernous interior of themuseum.
Maddy snapped on her torch, Foster another. Their twin beams picked form out of the darkness.Twisted beams of metal, dust-covered masonry, the scorched and charred remains of a grandwoodwork staircase across the way.
‘Where’s the big dinosaur skeleton?’ asked Sal.
‘The museum must have been emptied before their nuclear war.’
‘I suppose it makes sense,’ said Maddy, her soft voice echoing around the insideof the entrance hall. ‘If back in ’57 people knew a nuclear exchange was on thehorizon, they’d have moved all the valuables to special nuclear bunkers and stuff,right? Do you think they’d have taken everything? Those guest books too?’
‘We’ll have to see. Where did that guard say they stored them?’
‘I think he said t
hey stored them down in the museum’s basement. Some sort of anarchive down there.’
Foster panned his torch across the floor. There were doorways leading to other wings of themuseum, but he knew where the basement doors were; he’d visited this place often enoughover the years when not busy saving history.
‘Follow me. Up ahead on the right there’s a double door that leads down to thebasement.’
Maddy followed him as he stepped lightly across the dusty marble floor. Sal cast one lastglance over her shoulder at the outline of the front doorway, expecting to see the hunchedsilhouette of one of the creatures curiously peeking in.
She turned back to see Maddy and Foster a dozen yards ahead. ‘Hey, wait for me,’she whispered.
Foster’s torchlight picked out a faded sign on double doors: TOSTORAGE BASEMENT: STAFF ACCESS ONLY. He pushed against them, andwith the gritty sound of rubble and debris being pushed across the floor on the far side, theystiffly yielded.
He poked his head and torch through the gap. There was a stairwell beyond. He pushed againstthe doors until they were open enough to squeeze through and stepped inside. His torch pickedout smooth concrete walls and steps leading down.
‘Come on,’ he said.
Maddy reached out for Sal’s hand and could feel it trembling uncontrollably.‘Hey, it’s OK, Sal. Just down here, we’ll get what we’re after and beback home again,’ she whispered.
‘I… I can’t go underground again… I can’t,’ she hissed inreply.
Understandable really. The sensation of feeling trapped, cornered — especially aftertheir run-in on the subway. Maddy wasn’t too keen either.
‘I’m not going to leave you alone up here. Come on,Sal. We’ll be quick.’
Sal gritted her teeth.
‘O-OK.’
They made their way slowly down the stairs, finally joining Foster at the bottom. He wasplaying his torch around the entrance to the large basement floor beyond the stairwell. Unlikeabove, the floor wasn’t thick with piles of rubble and debris, but instead coated in asilt-like carpet of fine dust. Across the floor and along the walls lined with racks and racksof empty shelves was a thick layer of decades’ worth of dust.
