Day of the Predator Read online

  ‘Wel , duh,’ sighed Maddy.

  ‘They need our help?’ said Sal.

  ‘But can we help, though?’ said Liam. ‘Can I go into the future?’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Maddy pinched the tip of her nose thoughtful y. ‘Think about it. Every time we bring you back from a mission in the past, you’re going forward in time, aren’t you?’

  > This is correct. A mission operative can travel forward and backwards. However, energy expenditure is signi cantly higher moving forward.

  Sal looked at the other two. ‘But maybe there are other eld o ces further in the future than us who wil deal with this?’

  Liam nodded. ‘She’s right. If we’re not the only team, then perhaps somebody else is closer in time?’

  Maddy gave it a moment’s thought. ‘Then why direct the message right at us? I mean … right here, right now?’ She turned back to the desk. ‘Bob, was this a broad-spectrum signal beam, sent out for everybody to pick up …

  anywhere … anywhen?’

  > Negative. It was a narrow, focused beam.

  ‘Meaning it was meant for us?’

  > That is the logical assumption, Maddy.

  > That is the logical assumption, Maddy.

  ‘But surely there are other teams in the future,’ said Sal.

  ‘Somebody closer in time and –’

  ‘Maybe there are,’ cut in Maddy, ‘but any eld o ce based after –’ she looked at the screen – ‘after the eighteenth of August 2015 is going to be a ected by the time wave also, right?’ She stared at the other two. ‘So maybe we’re the closest una ected team? Maybe we’re the eld o ce closest before this date?’

  Liam sighed. ‘Aw, come on. Why is it us again? We only just got ourselves xed up after the last bleedin’ mess and a half.’

  > Hel o, Liam. I have a question.

  ‘Good mornin’, Bob.’

  > Is ‘bleedin’ a reference to the high body count of the last mission including the extensive damage to my last organic support frame? Or is it an expression of anger I should add to my language database?

  ‘It’s Liam being al stressy,’ said Maddy.

  > Angry?

  ‘That’s right.’

  Once again they stared in silence at the partial message displayed on the screen, al of them silently hoping it would just go away or change into another message simply welcoming them to the agency.

  ‘It’s for us, isn’t it?’ said Sal after a while. ‘We’ve got to x this time problem like we did the last one.’

  Maddy nodded. ‘I think so.’

  Liam’s jaw set rmly. ‘Wel , I’m not going anywhere Liam’s jaw set rmly. ‘Wel , I’m not going anywhere

  ’less I’ve got Bob coming with me. I mean that, so I do.’

  ‘OK,’ said Maddy. ‘That’s only fair.’ She turned round to face the computer monitors. ‘Bob, can we speed up the growth cycle of the foetus we’ve started o ?’

  > A rmative. Increase the nutrient mix of the feed solution. Introduce a smal electrical charge to the suspension uid to stimulate cel activity.

  ‘How quickly can we have a body ready for you?’

  > Growth cycle can be increased by 100% with acceptable risk to the biological life form.

  ‘Half the time,’ said Maddy. ‘That’s stil … what? Thirtyeight hours?’

  > Correct.

  ‘Could we not birth the clone any earlier?’ added Liam. He looked at Maddy and shrugged. ‘I mean, does it need to be a ful y grown man?’

  > Optimal age for organic support unit is approximately 25 years old. Muscle tissue and internal healing systems are at their most functional.

  ‘But, as Liam says, could we eject the clone from the tube at a younger age? Or would that … I dunno, kil it?’

  > Negative. A growth candidate can be functional from approximate age of 14 onwards. However, the support unit’s e ectiveness would be compromised.

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Liam.

  ‘It means Bob won’t be quite as big a brute as he was last time,’ said Sal.

  ‘So … what if we birth the clone at say … about

  ‘So … what if we birth the clone at say … about eighteen years of age,’ asked Maddy. ‘How useful would he be?’> An eighteen-year-old clone would o er approximately 50% of normal operational capacity.

  ‘He’d be half as strong?’ said Liam.

  Maddy nodded. ‘And how much time would that save us o the growth cycle?’

  > 14 hours.

  She looked round at the others. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘We speed up the growing process and then empty him out on to the oor twenty-four hours from now?’ said Liam. ‘And we’l have an eighteen-year-old Bob, with half the muscles?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘But he’l stil be dangerous to other people, right? I mean … doesn’t make any sense me having him by my side if he’s just –’

  > A rmative, Liam. I wil be capable of causing death with or without weapons.

  Liam managed a weak smile. ‘Then I guess it’d be good to have you back, Bob.’

  > Thank you. I look forward to being ful y operational again.

  Maddy slapped her hand on the desk. ‘Right, then. I guess we have a plan of action. Since we’ve got no time to waste, Sal, could you go see to the growth candidate? Let’s get that process sped up.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And I guess I bet er start gathering al the data I can on this Edward Chan guy,’ she said, pecking at the computer’s keyboard.

  ‘What about me?’ asked Liam.

  Maddy tapped her ngers absentmindedly on the desk.

  ‘Er … hel , I don’t know.’

  ‘I suppose I’m co ee-maker?’

  She smiled. ‘If you’re doing a run to Starbucks, can you grab me a chocolate-chip mu n as wel ?’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ cal ed Sal from the back room’s doorway.

  CHAPTER 12

  2001, New York

  ‘So, this is what I’ve got,’ said Maddy, producing several sheets of computer printout.

  This evening the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant’s eating area was deserted apart from them. Brooklyn’s streets were quiet, everyone back home now that the last light of the evening had gone. Al home, watching the news on their TV sets. Today’s sky had been divided al day by the thick column of black smoke from the col apsed Twin Towers, and New Yorkers were emerging from the fog of shock and dismay at the day’s events to a mood of contemplation and mourning.

  They were lucky to nd even this place open. Only a couple of sta seemed to be on, and they were busy half the time watching the news updates on a smal TV set up right on the counter.

  ‘Edward Chan, as you guys wil remember Foster tel ing us, is this bright young maths kid who went to the University of Texas. He graduated there, then went on to do some post-grad work.’

  ‘What is that … what’s post-grad?’

  ‘It’s just more studying, Liam. The kind of studying where you tel your teachers what speci c area you intend where you tel your teachers what speci c area you intend researching, and they just check in with your work every now and then, and help out if they can.

  ‘So anyway,’ she continued, looking down at the printouts and reading, ‘at the university he sets out to do a research paper on zero-point energy.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Jeez, Liam … are you going to keep stopping me to ask what stu is?’

  He looked hurt. ‘I’ve got to learn al these modern words, right? I mean, I’m stil real y just a lad from Cork who’s running to catch up on the last century, so I am.’

  Maddy sighed. ‘It’s sort of like energy that’s supposed to exist at a sub-atomic level. It was stil just theoretical mumbo … jumbo in my time.’

  ‘I think they started building something to do with that in India in my time,’ said Sal. ‘Experimental reactor or something, because we were running out of oil and stu
.’

  Maddy scooped up some fries from her box. ‘Anyway, if I can continue, Liam? Chan set out to do a paper on zeropoint energy and ended up changing course. Instead he wrote a paper on the theoretical possibility of time travel. The main point he was making in his work was that the theoretical energy that was assumed to be there in normal space-time, the sub-atomic energy-soup that was meant to be everywhere, was in fact a form of “leakage” from other dimensions. He writes this science paper and does nothing else notable until his death from cancer a few years later at the age of twenty-seven.’

  the age of twenty-seven.’

  ‘So, like Foster told us,’ said Liam, ‘this Chan lad is the true inventor of time travel, not the Waldstein fel a?’

  ‘Wel , he did the theoretical work that led to Waldstein’s machine, so I guess they’re both responsible for inventing it.’

  ‘The message from the agency said he’d been

  assassinated,’ said Sal.

  Maddy nodded. ‘Which means … what?’ She looked at both of them. ‘I’m guessing it means someone is trying to prevent time travel being invented?’

  Liam reached for a ketchup sachet. ‘So … hold on. Isn’t that what the Waldstein fel a wanted in the rst place? To make sure time travel never got invented. Isn’t that why this agency thing exists, why the three of us’re here instead of dead?’

  ‘So why would the agency want us to save Chan?’ asked Sal. ‘I mean … no Chan means no time travel, right? That means no more time problems.’

  ‘S’right.’ Liam raised a nger. ‘The message didn’t actual y tel us to save him.’

  Maddy leaned forward. ‘It was an incomplete message. Maybe that’s the bit we missed at the end?’

  ‘But we don’t know that for sure,’ replied Sal. ‘Maybe it was someone from the future let ing us know that time up ahead was changing and that there was now no more need for the agency … for us?’

  Maddy shook her head and pointed to the message printed out on paper. ‘Look … it begins with printed out on paper. ‘Look … it begins with

  “contamination event”. I’d say that suggests they considered this to be a bad thing. And they’re not too happy about it.’

  They were silent for a moment, al three of them staring at the printed words on the page, trying to determine the intent of the message.

  ‘Foster was very, very speci c about this,’ said Maddy after a while. ‘History must go a certain way, for good or bad. Even if the history yet to happen features some kid cal ed Chan who makes time travel possible … that’s the way it has to be. And if it changes from that, the agency has to x it.’

  Liam nodded after a few moments. ‘I suppose you’re right. So … do we know where his death is going to happen?’

  ‘The date in the message is August eighteenth. In our database it mentions Chan was one of a class of highschool students who were on a eld trip to the Texas Advanced Energy Research Institute, on this date. This is biographical data on Chan taken from 2056. If this real y is an assassination at empt by somebody, the chances are they have access to the same data as us. In other words, they looked at Chan’s biography and noted he was going to be at a particular place at a particular time …’

  ‘And sent themselves back in time to be there waiting with a gun,’ added Liam.

  Maddy nodded. ‘Yup.’

  ‘Wel …’ Liam bit his lip anxiously. ‘You can see now why I’m so bleedin’ keen to have big ol’ Bob by my side. why I’m so bleedin’ keen to have big ol’ Bob by my side. Seems these bad guys have got guns with them and Bob’s a dab hand at dealing with people like that, so he is.’

  Maddy glanced at her watch. ‘We should probably get back to the arch. The time bubble is due to ip over in a few hours and we could al do with some rest. Bob’s new body should be ready to birth tomorrow morning and then we’l be ready to send you guys forward in time to see what’s what.’

  Liam sighed. ‘Back in that ol’ bathtub for me.’

  CHAPTER 13

  2001, New York

  Sal stared at the curled-up form in the growth tube in stunned silence for a good minute before she nal y gasped. ‘Oh no.’

  By the dim red light of the back room and the peachcoloured glow of the tube’s interior up-light she could see they’d real y messed up with growing Bob’s body. Wel , actual y … it looked like she alone had messed things up. They’re going to be mad at me.

  Maddy’s voice echoed through the open door into the back room. ‘How’s he looking?’

  Sal didn’t know what to say. So she said nothing.

  ‘Everything OK in there?’

  They’ve got to nd out sometime.

  ‘Uhh … no. Not real y,’ she replied.

  ‘What’s the mat er?’ Maddy’s head appeared in the doorway, squinting into the gloom of the hatchery. ‘Sal?

  What’s up?’

  ‘It’s uh … it’s Bob …’ she said.

  ‘Oh God, what now? It’s not a mis-growth, is it? We can’t a ord to start o another one.’

  Sal had caught a glimpse of the few mis-growths that had been oating in the tubes back here not long after had been oating in the tubes back here not long after Foster had recruited them; they’d looked like awful freakshow specimens in some carnival tent, contorted, with faces like gargoyles and demons and limbs twisted into impossible claw-like stumps. She thanked God it wasn’t something like that.

  ‘No, it’s grown just ne … it’s just …’

  Maddy took a cautious step into the hatchery, her eyes yet to adjust to the dim red lighting. ‘Wel , it looks OK

  from here. Two arms, two legs … nothing weird and gross sticking out,’ she said.

  Sal studied the adult-sized form oating in the murky pink soup. ‘I think I must have put the wrong foetus in or something,’ she ut ered.

  Maddy took a few steps across the oor, careful not to hook her foot in a power cable and pul over one of the other tubes holding the other tiny foetuses in stasis.

  ‘Come on, Sal, what’s the prob–’ Maddy’s voice tailed away as she stood beside her. ‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘I see now.’

  Sal bit her lip. ‘I … I must have … I’m sorry. I didn’t check it rst. I … just didn’t see.’

  Maddy looked at her. ‘You didn’t see?’

  ‘They al looked the same!’ Sal replied, her voice rising in pitch. ‘Look, I’m sorry!’

  ‘Oh, that’s just great, Sal. Just great! Now what are we going to do!’

  ‘I’m sorry, OK? Sorry. I didn’t see. I just –’

  ‘Sorry … is that it? Sorry doesn’t help us. There’s no

  ‘Sorry … is that it? Sorry doesn’t help us. There’s no time to grow another one!’

  Liam stepped into the back room. ‘Hey! Ladies, ladies!

  Whatever is the mat er?’

  ‘Wel , why don’t you come and look for yourself,’

  snapped Maddy irritably.

  Liam made his way cautiously forward until he was standing between them.

  ‘Meet your new support unit,’ she added sarcastical y. Liam frowned at the dim outline in the tube, then suddenly his eyebrows shot up into twin arches. ‘It’s a …

  it’s a … it’s a …’

  ‘Girl,’ said Sal helpful y.

  ‘Oh Jay-zus-’n’-Mother-Mary … I never knew we got baby boys and girls.’

  Maddy reached down to the oor and picked up one of the empty glass containers the foetuses had come in. She held it close to the growth tube to take advantage of some of the softly glowing light coming from within.

  ‘There,’ she said after a while, her nger pointing at a smal marking at the bot om of the glass.

  Sal leaned closer, screwing her eyes up to see it bet er in the dim light.

  ‘It says XX … that’s al . What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Maddy tut ed and shook her head. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  Liam shrugged. ‘Me neither,’ he said,
his eyes stil locked on the naked female form inside the tube.

  ‘It means female. And XY means male. You guys can be

  ‘It means female. And XY means male. You guys can be real morons! It’s to do with the chromosomes.’

  Liam managed to drag his eyes away. ‘Cromer-what-ama-jinxie?’

  Frustrated, Maddy banged the perspex tube with the palm of her hand. ‘Doesn’t mat er. I’l explain another time. The point is what are we gonna do?’

  ‘If we start another one o , it’l be at least another thirty-six hours before we can send someone to investigate the Chan thing,’ said Sal.

  ‘That’s my point!’ replied Maddy, removing her glasses and rubbing her eyes. ‘The message sounded urgent. Right?

  God knows what damage is happening to the timeline ahead of us right now!’

  ‘We don’t have much choice,’ replied Sal. ‘Unless …’

  Maddy nodded. ‘Unless you go check it out on your own, Liam.’

  Liam looked at them both. ‘You’re joking, right?’

  Neither said anything.

  ‘Right,’ he replied. ‘Wel , the answer is … not on your nel y! No way! No sir! I’m not going into some spangly future place without a Bob –’ he looked again at the female form inside the tube – ‘or a Roberta by my side. It’s been hard enough for me trying to get my head around 2001 and al your crazy modern ways. There’s no way that I’m doing 2015 al on my own, I’m tel in’ you.’

  Maddy sighed. ‘Al right, then.’ She looked at the shape oating in the goo. ‘That thing may not have the brute strength of the last one, but at least you’d have Bob’s AI strength of the last one, but at least you’d have Bob’s AI and database along with you.’ Maddy turned to him. ‘And this is just a scouting mission anyway. Just a quick visit to see what happened to Chan.’

  Liam’s face hardened. ‘That’s what Foster said to me the last time … and look what happened. I got stuck in the middle of an invasion for six months.’

  Maddy reached a hand out and touched his arm. ‘Wel , this time we’l just be more cautious.’

  He chewed his lip in thought for a moment, then nal y nodded. ‘Jeez … al right. I suppose if it’s just a quick look-see.’

  Maddy gently slapped his shoulder. ‘Good. Sal?’