Day of the Predator

by Alex Scarrow

‘We can’t do that,’ she started. ‘We can’t just let you have it. It’s too dangerous!’

  ‘Too dangerous for the government? But apparently not too dangerous for a pair of kids to mess around with?’

  ‘We were recruited. Special y recruited.’

  ‘Recruited by?’

  Sal hesitated. ‘I can’t real y say.’

  He shrugged. ‘Wel , that can wait until later. It’s not so important. The fact is somebody needs to take charge of what’s in that archway.’ He cocked a questioning eyebrow.

  ‘I mean, somebody’s got to be in charge, right? Making sure there aren’t loads of other time machines and people running around when and where they shouldn’t be.’

  ‘And what … that someone’s going to be you, is it?’

  ‘Me for now, perhaps. In time I’l brief the current president on what we have. But believe you me, far bet er you have someone like myself looking after this on behalf of the American people than some terrorist group or some mad dictator looking for a world-beating weapon, a mad dictator looking for a world-beating weapon, a madman like Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. Hmm?

  ’ She shrugged a ‘Whatever’ at him.

  ‘Now,’ he said, nodding at the paper in her hands.

  ‘There’s a code there. Maddy seems to think you might know how to decipher it.’

  She looked down at the numbers, a meaningless jumble of digits that meant absolutely nothing to her at rst glance. But then, very quickly, the pat ern began to speak to her. Groups of three numbers, the rst into the hundreds, the second being numbers no greater than thirtyve and the last seeming to peak at numbers no greater than fteen, sixteen. She knew exactly what that was.

  ‘It’s some kind of a book code.’

  ‘Clever girl. But now, here’s the sixty-four thousand dol ar question. Which book?’

  She scanned to the bot om of the numbers and saw the last word of the message.

  Magic.

  Magic? What the jahul a sort of a clue was tha–?

  She looked up at him, a smile slowly spreading across her face. Of course, if Bob had it in his database, so the duplicate AI in the female support unit would also.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ said Cartwright.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She was almost tempted to tel him the book’s title anyway, since it wasn’t going to be published for another few years yet. Instead she at empted to suppress an irresistible urge to giggle.

  an irresistible urge to giggle.

  The old man sighed patiently. ‘Wel , you could, of course, just tel me. Which would be far more pleasant for the pair of us. Or we have a medicine cabinet ful of interesting drugs I can pump into you. Some of them with some quite horri c side e ects. And failing that there’s always the old-fashioned way.’

  ‘You take us back to the archway,’ she said, ‘and I’l decode the rest of this message for you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Hmm, now see, my concern is that we get back into that archway of yours and one of you kids’l shout out something else, and – pop! – you and al that machinery vanishes in a pu of twinkly time travel sparkles and smoke.’

  ‘She hasn’t told you yet, has she?’

  He frowned. ‘Told me what?’

  Sal’s smile widened, a nervous twitchy smile. ‘That’s actual y real y funny.’

  ‘Funny?’

  She nodded. ‘Funny.’

  ‘Why? What’s funny?’

  ‘She’s playing with you. How long have I been in here?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Please … tel me how long?’

  He looked down at his watch. ‘A few hours. Why?’

  ‘Exactly. Please.’

  ‘Five hours … ve and a half hours.’

  She giggled again. ‘You don’t have much time left, then.’

  The last of the congenial expression was lost from his The last of the congenial expression was lost from his rumpled face. ‘Stop messing around and tel me what the hel you’re talking about!’

  ‘Sure,’ she said amicably. ‘Our computer system is locked down for six hours. After that, it’s got orders to total y brick itself if Maddy doesn’t give it another codeword.’

  ‘Brick?’

  ‘Fry al the data. Al the machinery. Everything.’

  His bushy eyebrows both arced, and beneath his jowls his jaw began grinding away again.

  ‘You ready to take us back now?’ asked Sal politely. ‘I’l even say “please”.’

  CHAPTER 60

  65 mil ion years BC, jungle

  Broken Claw looked at the others in his family pack, predator eyes meeting predator eyes. In his claws he was stil holding the bamboo spear, the bloodied end of it embedded in what was left of the new creature. His mind worked hard trying to understand what he’d done. Trying to comprehend the fact that it wasn’t his claws that had ended this pale creature’s life, but the long device that he was holding, something other than him. Something he control ed. Something he had … used. He turned to the others, clicked and growled and mewled softly.

  Do you see? We kil ed the new creature with this. Their minds, al younger, less developed. His children stared, yel ow eyes burning with hatred, but not quite understanding, not just yet.

  But he did. And his older, wiser mind stretched a lit le further. This long stick he held, he understood now what it was and where it came from. They grew along the river in thick clusters. But now it was no longer simply a plant –

  the new creatures had fashioned it into something else entirely: a deadly weapon.

  Something deep in his reptilian mind shifted. Concepts, Something deep in his reptilian mind shifted. Concepts, very simple concepts, looking for each other amid a busy crowd of instinct-driven brain signals, nal y nding each other and embracing.

  His pack had no communicable sound for the concept. His mind had no word for the idea. But if he’d had a wider range of words to construct his thoughts from then his mind would have been ful of words like use, make, build

  … His smal mind suddenly produced an image, an image of a fast-owing river and a tree trunk lying across it – a device the new creatures had built to cross the river. He turned to the others, clicked his teeth and beckoned them to fol ow.

  What he had growing in his mind is what any human being would have cal ed … a plan.

  CHAPTER 61

  2001, New York

  They approached the archway. Cartwright nodded at his men stil standing guard outside. He gestured to Forby to join them inside as the shut er cranked noisily up. The other men he instructed to continue guarding the entrance, al owing no one else inside.

  One by one they al stooped under the shut er as it clat ered to a halt. As he fol owed the others in, Cartwright glanced up at the sky above Manhat an, beginning to lighten with the rst grey stain of dawn. Another hour and it was going to be daylight, New Yorkers get ing ready to go to work, and disgruntled civilians building up around the road blocks either end of the Wil iamsburg Bridge. Tra c police, TV lm crews and journalists were surely soon going to add to that, asking his men and the National Guard soldiers where their orders had come from. What the hel was going on? He and his discreet lit le under-theradar agency could do without at racting that kind of at ention. The terrorist-bomb cover story those men had been given would hold for a lit le while longer, but not forever.

  The last one inside the archway, he pressed the but on and the shut er rat led down noisily again. Forby removed and the shut er rat led down noisily again. Forby removed his bio-containment hood and then unslung his machine pistol.

  ‘It’s al right, no need to aim it at the girls,’ said Cartwright. ‘But just have it to hand, uh?’

  Forby nodded and lowered his aim.

  ‘So,’ he continued, approaching the desk stacked with monitors, ‘the computer? Before it’s al fried?’

  Maddy nodded. ‘Yes, of course. DOMINOES.’

  Cartwright shook his head. Of course. You idiot, Lester. He looked at the Domino’s
pizza boxes strewn across the desk, and would have slapped himself if he’d been alone. The dialogue box on one of the screens ickered to life as a cursor ashed and scut led across the screen with new text.> Welcome back, Maddy.

  ‘Hi, Bob,’ she said. ‘I’m in time, aren’t I?’

  > No system les have been erased yet. You had another seven minutes before I proceeded with your instructions.

  ‘Christ,’ mut ered Lester, ‘you weren’t kidding.’

  Sal shook her head. ‘Nope.’

  > My camera detects unauthorized personnel in the eld o ce.

  ‘Yes,’ said Maddy, ‘we have guests.’

  > Are you under duress?

  ‘No, it’s ne, Bob. These guys are OK, for now.’

  Cartwright tapped Maddy’s arm and spoke quietly to her. ‘Anything funny, I mean it … you say anything to that her. ‘Anything funny, I mean it … you say anything to that computer that sounds remotely like a warning and it’l be the very last thing you do.’

  She nodded. ‘Don’t worry … I’m not stupid.’ She sat down in one of the o ce chairs and faced the computer’s webcam. ‘Bob, we got a message from Liam.’

  > I am very pleased to hear that.

  ‘Yes, so are we.’

  Sal joined her at the table. ‘Hey, Bob.’

  > Hel o, Sal.

  She held up the piece of paper Lester Cartwright had produced earlier. ‘This is the message. Can you see it clearly?’

  > Hold it very stil , please. I wil scan it. A moment later the scanned image from the webcam appeared on one of the monitors and the image ickered light and dark as Bob adjusted the contrast to get a clearer resolution of the handwriting. Then a highlight box ashed around each handwrit en let er in rapid succession, until nal y a text-processing application opened itself on yet another monitor with the entire message typed out clearly.

  > Some of the message is in code.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Sal. ‘It’s a book code.’

  > The encryption clue is ‘magic’. Is this correct?

  ‘Yes.’

  > I have more than thirty thousand data strings that include the word ‘magic’.

  ‘I think that’s referring to the book you were reading the other day. Do you remember? We were discussing it.’

  other day. Do you remember? We were discussing it.’

  > Harry Pot er and the Deathly Hal ows.

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

  Cartwright and Forby leaned forward. ‘You have got to be kidding,’ mumbled the old man.

  ‘Hey, my daughter is reading those books,’ said Forby.

  ‘Is that the next one?’

  ‘It’s the last one,’ said Maddy. ‘Book seven.’

  ‘Jeez! What my girl wouldn’t give to get a look at that!’

  Cartwright cocked an eyebrow at his man. ‘Forby …

  please be quiet.’ The man obediently drew back and resumed his wary stance, the gun held loosely in his hands. Sal sat down beside Maddy. ‘Bob, you and the duplicate AI wil have the same digital book le, right?’

  > A rmative. The le was in my short-term memory cache when we downloaded the duplicate AI into the support unit.

  ‘Then this should be pret y much straightforward,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Yeah.’ Sal icked her hair out of her eyes. ‘You’ve just got to replace each three-number code with the let er. You understand how the code works, Bob, yeah?’

  > A rmative. Page number. Line number. Let er number.

  ‘That’s right.’

  > Just a moment.

  They watched in silence as clusters of numbers were momentarily highlighted on the document, while on another screen, pages of the book ashed back and forth in another screen, pages of the book ashed back and forth in a blur. The task was completed in less than thirty seconds.

  > The complete message is: Take this to Archway 9, Wythe Street, Brooklyn, New York on Monday 10

  September 2001. Message: Sip, two, sehjk, three, npne, gour, zwro, aix. Key is ‘Magic’.

  They stared at it in silence for a few moments, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Wel , that’s just gibberish, isn’t it?’ said Cartwright.

  ‘Are you sure you’re working from the same digital book le?’ asked Maddy.

  > A rmative.

  ‘The original numbers on the fossil,’ said Cartwright,

  ‘some of them were indistinct, or incomplete. I have access to the original piece of rock.’

  ‘No … it’s OK,’ said Sal. ‘If it’s just numbers it’s real y easy to work out. Sip is six. Sehjk, must be seven.’ She worked quickly, writing the numbers down on a scrap of paper.

  ‘There.’

  6-2-7-3-9-4-0-6

  ‘It’s not in the usual time-stamp format,’ said Maddy.

  > Please show me, Sal.

  Sal held the piece of paper up to the webcam.

  > It is a number. 62,739,406. Suggestion: it is the AI duplicate’s best estimation of their current time location.

  ‘Oh my God!’ gasped Maddy. ‘It actual y managed to work it out?’ She looked at the cam and smiled. ‘Wel , that’s you, actual y, isn’t it? A copy of you, Bob. Wel that’s you, actual y, isn’t it? A copy of you, Bob. Wel done!’

  ‘To the exact year?’ said Cartwright. ‘To the exact year?

  That’s … that’s incredible. How could anyone possibly –’

  > Negative. The best resolution guess can only be to within 1,000 years of that year.

  That silenced them al .

  They could be up to 500 years before or after the speci ed time location.

  ‘Oh jahul a,’ whispered Sal. ‘Then that’s no good to us.’

  ‘The nearest thousand years?’ Maddy’s head drooped.

  ‘How are we supposed to nd him in that?’

  Cartwright looked down at both girls. ‘So your machine can’t bring back your col eague?’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘It takes time to build up enough charge to open a portal, particularly for one that long ago. I don’t even know how long it would take to accumulate enough to open one then anyway, let alone do it thousands and thousands of times over.’

  > Information: approximate charge time – nine hours.

  ‘So we can do it,’ said Sal.

  Maddy laughed drily. ‘Yes, we can … but a thousand years? If we opened one window for each year it’l take us nine thousand hours … what’s that? Just over a year of constantly opening and closing portals.’

  ‘So? We’l do that for Liam, right?’

  Maddy sighed. ‘That’s opening one window per year. What are the chances of Liam standing right there in the two or three seconds of that year? Hmm? What if he was two or three seconds of that year? Hmm? What if he was asleep at that moment? Taking a leak? Hunting for food?

  To stand any sort of chance we’d need to open one … like

  … every day!’

  ‘This sounds like a needle-in-a-haystack problem,’ said Cartwright unhelpful y.

  ‘Oh.’ Sal bit her lip. ‘But we could try, couldn’t we?’

  ‘Three hundred and sixty-ve thousand at empts!’

  replied Maddy. ‘Do you want to have a guess how many years that would take us? Hmm? Lemmesee,’ she mut ered, as she gnawed on the nails of one hand. ‘Oh, there … three hundred and seventy-ve years or something.’ She made a shrewish face, growing pink and mot led with frustration and anger. ‘So, what do you say we get started, then?’

  ‘Then I’m sorry, that’s it,’ stepped in Cartwright. ‘I’m afraid your friend is stuck where he is. This facility wil need to be packed up by the end of today and shipped down to a more secure government facility.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ snapped Sal. ‘This is our … this is our home!’

  ‘It’s now a US government asset,’ he replied calmly.

  ‘And so are you, my dear.’

  > Suggestion.

  ‘You can’t do that! We’ve got … like, human rights and stu !’<
br />
  Cartwright’s smile was humourless and cold, the calm and empty gesture of someone who cared not one whit. ‘I wonder … who exactly is going to miss the pair of you?

  wonder … who exactly is going to miss the pair of you?

  Hmm? Family? Friends?’

  ‘The agency,’ snapped Sal. ‘And if you mess with us, if you hurt us, they’l come for you! They’re from the future!

  And they’re –’

  ‘Sal!’ barked Maddy. ‘Shut up!’ She grabbed Sal’s arm.

  ‘Don’t say anything more about the agency! Do you understand?’

  She clamped her mouth shut and nodded mutely. Maddy looked at Cartwright. ‘I think I can guess what you have in mind for us; you’l keep us under lock and key in some remote Area Fifty-one facility, like freaks, like lab rats. And that’s where we’l remain until you’re sure you know everything about this technology … then I guess you’l dispose of us, right? A drive out into the middle of the Nevada Desert and one shot in the back of the head for each of us. Is that how you lot work?’

  Cartwright shook his head. ‘Nothing so brutal, Maddy. You’re worth far too much to us alive. Even when I’m sure you’ve told me al that you know, we’re stil going to need guinea pigs to test your time machine on.’ He sighed.

  ‘Mind you, it would have been good to have your col eague too … I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of him being out there roaming around history. But I suppose if he’s sixty-two mil ion years away, I can’t see him doing –’

  Sal cast a glance back at the monitor.

  > Suggestion: rapid-sweep density probes. She pointed at the screen. ‘Maddy! Look!’

  She pointed at the screen. ‘Maddy! Look!’

  Maddy spun in her chair to look at the monitor and quickly digested the words. ‘Oh my God, yes! Probes. Density probes … that could work!’

  ‘What?’ said Cartwright, shaking his head irritably at the distraction. ‘What’re you on about?’

  ‘Tachyon signal probes to check a return location is clear of obstructions and that someone else isn’t wandering through it before we open.’

  Cartwright looked none the wiser.

  ‘It’s like … it’s like knocking on a door before entering. Like asking is anyone in there? It’s a lot quicker than actual y opening a portal. A lot less energy needed.’ She turned back towards the mic on the desk. ‘Bob, what are you suggesting? We can’t scan every moment over a thousand years … can we?’