Day of the Predator Read online

  ‘Hel o there, lit le baby Bobs!’ she cooed softly, waggling her ngers down at the frozen embryo. ‘Auntie Maddy’s here.’

  The conversation in the corner was get ing quite animated. Clearly Leighton had a passion for new-fangled things like steam ships and automobiles. And Liam was playing along nicely.

  Wel done, Liam.

  She placed the glass tube back and closed the lid of the refrigerated case, lifting it out of the jewel ery box and into her bag. She was about to close the lid of the jewel ery box when she spot ed a scrap of paper at the jewel ery box when she spot ed a scrap of paper at the bot om. What she saw on it made her heart lurch. Her name.

  A note for me?

  She reached in and picked it up. Just a folded scrap of paper, a few words scrawled hurriedly on it. Maddy, look out for ‘Pandora’, we’re running out of time. Be safe and tel no one.

  ‘How’re you doin’, my dear sister?’ cal ed out Liam.

  ‘I’m good,’ she replied, grabbing the scrap of paper, bal ing it up and tucking it into one of her gloves. She closed the box and lifted it back into the locker, much lighter now. She closed the door. ‘I’m al done here, Mr Leighton!’

  ‘Ah, splendid!’ He came over with his jangling keys and locked the deposit box for her.

  ‘Everything al right?’

  She glanced at Liam making a sil y face at her over Leighton’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes … yes, just ne, thank you.’

  A minute later they were exiting the bank on to Minna Street once more, Liam holding the bag for her.

  ‘Nice enough chap,’ he said.

  She turned to look at him. ‘A dozen hours from now he’l be dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, dead. That’s why the instructions said to ask for him speci cal y.’ She’d gured that out on the way back up the stairs. Because if anything happened, if the young man had caught a glimpse of anything inside the box, or heard either of them say anything suspicious … wel , he’d hardly have time to do anything with that knowledge, would he? The agency once again cleverly covering its tracks.

  ‘Jaayyzz. That seems not right to me,’ ut ered Liam. ‘Not to warn him somehow.’

  Maddy didn’t like it either. ‘It’s how it is, Liam. It’s how it is.’

  As they walked up Minna Street towards the main thoroughfare, Liam at empted to lift the mood. ‘You got our lit le babies?’

  She nodded. ‘Al in there. Baby Popsicles.’

  ‘Baby what?’

  CHAPTER 7

  2015, Texas

  Edward Chan and the rest of the touring party sat in the visitors’ reception room, munching on doughnuts and breakfast bagels and slurping orange juice from cartons as their tour guide, Mr Kel y, gave them an introductory presentation.

  ‘The Texas Advanced Energy Research Institute … or TERI, as we cal it for short, was established three years ago in 2012 when President Obama was re-elected. As you youngsters have been taught in school, the world is entering a new, tough and very chal enging time. The world’s population is nearly eight bil ion, carbon emissions have gone o the chart, the world’s traditional energy sources – oil and gas – are rapidly running out. We need to change the way we live or … wel , I’m sure you’ve seen enough doom and gloom forecasts on the news.’

  He paused. The reception room was silent except for the shu ing of one or two feet and the slurping of orange juice through straws.

  ‘So, as you no doubt know, the institute was set up as part of the president’s advanced energy research programme. And over the last three years we’ve used the bil ions of dol ars of taxpayers’ money set aside by this bil ions of dol ars of taxpayers’ money set aside by this initiative to develop the wonderful facility you’re visiting today.

  ‘We have some of the nest quantum physicists and mathematicians working here, and most of our research work has been to do with a thing cal ed zero-point energy. I’m sure some of you must have heard that term in the news.’

  Edward looked around at the other kids. A few heads were nodding uncertainly. One of them – a boy a couple of years older than him, short and chubby with curly ginger hair parted at the side and brutal y combed so that his hair kinked in waves to one side, reminding Edward of a Mr Whippy ice cream – raised a hand.

  ‘Yes, er …?’ said Mr Kel y, raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Franklyn.’

  ‘Go ahead, Franklyn.’

  ‘My dad says zero-point energy is just a bunch of wishful thinking. It’s like get ing something for nothing. And that’s impossible in physics, nothing’s free.’

  Kel y laughed. ‘Wel , Franklyn, that’s a good point, but you see that’s exactly what it is. It is a free lunch. And the idea that there’s such a thing as a free lunch isn’t a new one either. Remember Albert Einstein and his theory of relativity. Wel , he argued that even in a complete vacuum there’s a great deal left there. It isn’t just empty space, there’s energy too, endless energy waiting to be tapped. Even the ancient Greeks suspected that we walk through an endless soup of energy. They cal ed it “ether”. But the an endless soup of energy. They cal ed it “ether”. But the trick, kids … the trick has always been being able to isolate it, to measure it. Since it exists everywhere, it’s homogenous, isotropic … That’s to say it’s uniformly the same everywhere and in every direction.’

  The students stared at him in confused silence.

  ‘Trying to measure zero-point energy is a bit like trying to weigh a glass of water under the ocean. You know? It’s the same inside the cup as it is outside … and therefore since there’s no measurable di erence between what’s in and outside the cup, the logical statement to make would be the “cup has nothing in it”. Which would of course be wrong. So, we have a similar issue with measuring zeropoint energy. Only by creating a proper vacuum – and I don’t mean just sucking the air out of a space, I mean a proper space-time vacuum, a tiny one – can we observe what it is that remains.’ He smiled his polished public relations smile. ‘The energy itself.

  ‘And that’s what we have here at the TERI labs, a device that can create a proper space-time gap. A genuinely empty space.’

  Another hand went up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Keisha Jackson.’

  ‘Go ahead, Keisha.’

  ‘How big a hole have you got?’ asked the girl. ‘Is it big enough to step inside?’

  ‘Good Lord, no! No. It’s tiny. Very smal . It doesn’t need to be big. It’s a pinprick.’

  to be big. It’s a pinprick.’

  One of the boys at the back giggled.

  ‘Shortly, we’l be going through into the main laboratory, where you’l see the containment shielding that surrounds the area of experimentation. I believe the team is due to be opening a pinhole vacuum in the next halfhour.’ He splayed his hands. ‘Wanna go take a look-see?’

  Every head in the room wagged enthusiastical y.

  CHAPTER 8

  1906, San Francisco

  They returned to their al eyway with half an hour to spare, having spent an hour on the dockside watching the steam ships being loaded and unloaded, Maddy relishing every lit le detail of the past and giggling with unbridled delight as dockside workers knuckled their foreheads and do ed their caps at her politely as they walked past.

  ‘Oh my God! I feel like some sort of duchess!’ she whispered out of the side of her mouth to Liam as they turned into the al ey. ‘Everyone’s so … I dunno, so polite and proper back in this time.’

  He nodded. ‘Especial y to a lady … like yourself.’ He nodded at her dress, her amboyant hat with its ostrich feathers. ‘Them clothes mark you out as a lady of means. You know? A real y posh lady, so you are. Now, if you’d found some dowdy dress that made you look common, them workers would’ve walked on past without a by-yourleave.’

  ‘Oh, right … thanks,’ she said.

  Liam grimaced. ‘Ahhh, now see that came out al wrong-sounding, so it did.
I didn’t mean to say it like that.’

  ‘No, you’re probably right,’ she hu ed. ‘I’ve always been plain-looking. I’m sure shoving on a fril y dress and some plain-looking. I’m sure shoving on a fril y dress and some stupid feather hat isn’t going to make much of a di erence.

  ’ They walked down the al ey, sidestepping a toppled crate of festering cabbages until they reached the spot where they’d materialized several hours earlier.

  ‘Seems harsh that, though,’ said Liam thoughtful y.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That fel a back there, Leighton. You sure he’l die?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes … it makes sense.’ Yes, it did. But it was the feel of … the feel of … ruthlessness that gnawed away at her; the agency seemed to know everything about everyone – and exploited that knowledge mercilessly. In less than eighteen hours the young man she’d been talking to would be nothing more than a twisted black carcass amid the smouldering remains of that bank.

  And I have to learn to deal with that, she told herself. Liam seemed to sense her turmoil. ‘Wel , this is the job now, Mads. We don’t have much of a choice in the mat er. Do we?’

  She looked at him and realized it wasn’t just the young bank tel er that the agency was ruthlessly using, but Liam too. The side e ects weren’t apparent yet: the onset of cel ular corruption, the onset of premature old age. But they’d begin to show at some point, wouldn’t they? The more trips Liam was sent on into the past, the more damage it was going to do to his body, until, like Foster, one day he was going to be an old man before his time: his muscles wasted; his bones brit le, weakened and fragile; muscles wasted; his bones brit le, weakened and fragile; his organs irretrievably corrupted by the e ects of time travel and one by one beginning to fail him. She so wanted to tel him. To warn him.

  How many more trips, Liam? How many before I’m looking at you and seeing a dying old man?

  But she couldn’t. Not yet. Foster had told her it would be unkind for him to know his fate too early.

  ‘Let him enjoy the freedom of seeing history for a bit; seeing his future, his past … at least give him that for a while before you tel him he’s dying.’

  Liam smiled his lopsided smile. On the face of a grown man, it might have been cal ed rakish, charming even. On him it looked just a lit le mischievous. ‘You al right there, Maddy?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah … I’m ne.’

  He let go of her arm and checked his timepiece. ‘Return window any second now.’

  Almost on cue, a gentle breeze whistled up the al ey, sending the loose debris of rubbish skit ering along the cobble-stones. A moment later, the air several yards from them shimmered like a heat haze: a bal of air twelve feet in diameter, hovering a foot o the ground. Through the portal she could just make out the twisting, undulating shapes of the archway beyond and Sal waiting impatiently for them.

  You have to tel him, sometime, Maddy. Tel him time travel wil slowly kil him.

  She didn’t like the fact that Foster had left the decision She didn’t like the fact that Foster had left the decision to her. Having secrets like that, having something she couldn’t share with him or Sal.

  And what about that note?

  She could feel the lump of bal ed paper in her glove, something else she was being asked to keep from her friends. And why? And who was Pandora? She didn’t like that … it felt like she was being used.

  What? Like you just used that young bank tel er?

  ‘Come on, then,’ said Liam, stepping forward with the jewel ery case in his hands.

  ‘Liam?’

  He stopped. ‘What?’

  She could tel him about the note. She could also tel him about the damage time travel was silently wreaking on him. That every time he went back in time subtle corruption was occurring to every cel in his body, ageing him long before his time. She decided she’d want to know, to know that every time she’d stepped through a portal she was knocking perhaps ve or ten years o her natural life. She’d want to at least be able to choose for herself whether she was prepared to make that sacri ce for the rest of mankind.

  ‘What is it, Mads?’

  Or maybe Foster was right – she should keep the truth from him for as long as possible …

  She pul ed her glasses out of her handbag and put them on, then took the sil y bonnet o her head with its long, ridiculous ostrich feathers. Al of a sudden, dressed in her ridiculous ostrich feathers. Al of a sudden, dressed in her tight corset and bil owing lace skirts, she felt dishonest, a phoney, a fake and, her eyes meeting Liam’s, she felt like a liar.A worn-thin smile spread across her face. ‘Nothing, Liam. Let’s go home, eh?’

  CHAPTER 9

  2001, New York

  ‘Are you sure?’ shouted Sal.

  ‘That’s what Bob says.’ Maddy’s voice echoed from the archway through the open door into the back room – ‘the hatchery’ as they cal ed it now. ‘He says to at ach the end of the protein-feed pipe to the growth candidate’s bel y but on.’

  ‘How do we do that?’ Liam replied. ‘It’s not like there’s a socket to screw the thing into.’ The smal slimy foetus squirmed gently in his hand, stirring in its slumber. He grimaced as it did, feeling smal fragile bones shift beneath its paper-thin skin.

  It looked as vulnerable as a freshly hatched bird fal en from a nest, and yet he knew that this tiny, shifting, pale creature in the palm of his hand would soon be a sevenfoot-tal leviathan, bulging with genetical y enhanced muscles, with a deep, intimidating voice rumbling from a chest as broad as a beer barrel.

  ‘Bob says you need to push the feed pipe through the bel y but on,’ Maddy’s voice came back.

  Sal’s lip curled. ‘You mean … like … as if we’re stabbing it?’ she cal ed out.

  ‘Wel , obviously don’t stab it with the pipe!’ Maddy’s

  ‘Wel , obviously don’t stab it with the pipe!’ Maddy’s voice echoed back. ‘Gently do it!’

  Liam looked at Sal and shook his head. ‘I can’t do it. I’d be sick. Here …’ He passed the foetus to Sal.

  ‘Oh, right … thanks, Liam.’

  Sal cradled the thing in her hand and then gingerly reached into the perspex growth tube beside them to retrieve the feed pipe dangling down inside. She grimaced as she fumbled in the slimy growth solution, nal y pul ing out the tip of the feed pipe. As the slime dripped like mucus from the end of it, she could see the pipe ended with a sharpened tip.

  ‘Bob says you shouldn’t have to push too hard. The bel y but on skin is very thin and should … Oh, that’s just gross …’ Maddy’s voice faded away.

  ‘What?’ cal ed out Liam. Maddy didn’t answer immediately.

  ‘Maddy?’ chirped Sal. ‘What’s gross?’

  ‘He says the skin should pop just like a blister.’

  Liam looked sheepishly at Sal. ‘Real y, I can’t do it. I’d be … I’l be sick over the poor lit le fel a.’

  ‘Shadd-yah,’ Sal mut ered, ‘you are hopeless sometimes.’

  She took the end of the pipe between her ngers and gently drew it up until it hovered an inch above the foetus’s tiny bel y: translucent skin criss-crossed with a faint spider’s web of blue veins and a smal inward twist of rubbery skin.

  She took a deep breath. ‘OK … here goes.’

  She gently pressed the sharp end of the feed pipe into She gently pressed the sharp end of the feed pipe into the smal whirl of esh. The foetus shuddered in her hand; nger-length arms and legs suddenly ailing, its walnutsized head slapping against the palm of her hand.

  ‘Uh … Maddy! It doesn’t like it! It’s struggling!’

  ‘Bob says that’s perfectly normal … just push it in until the skin pops.’

  She heard Liam mut er something about Jesus before his legs buckled beneath him and he sat down heavily on the oor, then slid over on to his side.

  ‘I think Liam’s just fainted!’ shouted Sal.

  ‘Never mind him,’ Maddy replied. ‘We need to get the foetus hooked up
before it starts starving.’

  ‘OK, OK.’

  She pushed the tip against the bel y but on again, this time pushing despite the foetus’s protests, until she felt the skin give way, as promised, with a soft pop. A smal trickle of dark blood oozed out on to its bel y.

  ‘It’s in!’

  ‘Right, now, put bonding tape round the pipe and its bel y to hold it in place.’

  Sal picked up a rol of tape and wound it round as the thing squirmed indignantly in her hand.

  ‘OK. What next?’

  ‘Just lower it into the growth tube.’

  Sal stepped towards the plastic cylinder and lifted the foetus up over the open top. ‘OK, Bob Junior,’ she ut ered.

  ‘See you again in a lit le while.’

  Gently she lowered the foetus into the murky gunk and Gently she lowered the foetus into the murky gunk and then let it sink. It set led down through the pink soup, like a descending globule of wax in a lava lamp, until the feed pipe drew taut and it came to a rest.

  ‘OK, he’s in!’

  ‘Now close the growth-tube lid and activate the system pump!’

  Sal closed the tube’s metal lid and clamped it in place. She squat ed down to inspect the panel at the bot om of the tube. There wasn’t much to see down there. A manufacturer’s name – WG Systems – and a smal touch screen. She tapped the screen and it lit up.

  [Filtration system active]

  [Set system to GROWTH or STASIS?]

  ‘It’s asking me to set it to growth or stasis … shal I pick growth?’

  Maddy’s answer echoed back from the archway a moment later. ‘Growth for this one.’

  Sal tapped GROWTH and con rmed the instruction. Immediately she heard the soft hum of a motor whirring to life somewhere at the bot om of the tube. A light winked on inside, making the pink protein glow and lighting the foggy form of the foetus from below. She could see its struggling form set le, content now that it was get ing its feed despite the earlier discomfort of having the tube pushed into its bel y.