CHAPTER 76

65 mil ion years BC, jungle

Becks fol owed the spat ers of dark blood into the jungle. By moonlight the streaks of blood were black and glistened wetly. The trail didn’t lead too far into the jungle, fortunately. If it had, she suspected she’d have been unable to fol ow it; the moonlight was beginning to fail her, blocked by the drooping leaves from the canopy trees above.

She heard them before she saw them: the rat ling breath of one snorting like a winded bu alo and a chorus of mewling voices that sounded like a pitiful choir of simpering children. Her eyes picked them out. The creature she’d managed to hit was curled up on the jungle oor. Around it an array of the smal er creatures, females and cubs, al pawed and stroked the wounded one, as if somehow that would magical y heal their pack leader. She stepped forward until she was looking directly down at the creature with the broken claw. The pack, perhaps twenty of them here, became quiet; a forest of yel ow eyes that glowed with soft uorescence and narrowed with fear looked up at her.

‘… Help … me …’ The facsimile of a human voice came from one of the females. Becks recognized it as an came from one of the females. Becks recognized it as an at empt to duplicate the cries of the human cal ed Keisha. A part of her computer mind calmly informed her that a mission parameter remained outstanding, and could not be successful y agged as completed until, at the very least, the wounded creature was con rmed dead.

But another part of her mind, a very much smal er part, a part that contributed thoughts as foggy sensations rather than runtime commands, spoke to her.

Just like me.

She remembered being born, released from growth amid a cascading soup of warm liquid, lying like this creature, curled like a foetus on a hard oor; feeling bewildered, frightened, confused. An animal mind of sensations, feelings … but no words.

She squat ed down to get a closer look at the creature. The wound was in the middle of the creature’s narrow chest, and from the pulsing of ink-black blood down its olive skin, was almost certainly going to prove to be fatal.

‘You wil die,’ she announced coldly. And then realized talking to them was il ogical and pointless – these wild things were no more intel igent than monkeys. But, on the other hand, it felt like another way of processing, ltering her own thoughts … giving words to that part of her mind that wasn’t high-density silicon wafer.

‘I am here to kil you,’ she said. ‘This is a mission requirement.’

The yel ow eyes studied her silently. Perhaps those eyes were trying to communicate something, pleading for were trying to communicate something, pleading for mercy.

She stood up again and changed the clip in the assault ri e for a fresh one. The mission voice had no time for such an irrational sentiment and gently cajoled her to proceed with the task.

Complete Mission

1. Terminate alpha male of species

2. Terminate remaining hominids (optional)

3. Retrieve al evidence of human habitation

‘I am … sorry,’ she said. She cocked her head, curious. There’d been a strange e ect on her voice. It had ut ered ever so slightly. It had actual y made her sound more convincingly human; she’d sounded almost

indistinguishable from the school students she and Liam had spent the last fourteen days in the jungle with. Those three words real y had sounded so very human. For a moment she was almost tempted to say them once again. Instead, she raised the ri e swiftly to her shoulder, her bandaged nger slipped on to the trigger and beneath the dressing the recently vat-grown muscle tissue tightened and pul ed. A shot rang out. Her nger muscles released and pul ed again … and again … and again.

By the time the last of the creatures opped lifelessly across the body of Broken Claw, the clip was empty and the barrel warm.

the barrel warm.

The jungle was stil , every nocturnal species stunned into silence by the rapid crack of gun re. For a few moments she listened to the shifting breeze, the muted rumble of the nearby river.

‘I am … sorry,’ she said again, and realized this time her voice sounded at and emotionless, as it always did. She turned on her heels and headed back towards the remains of their abandoned camp.

2001, New York

‘Where did you send him?’ barked Cartwright, swinging the aim of his gun on to Maddy.

‘I … I j-just sent him back … to help Becks kil the –’

‘You’re lying!’ he snapped.

‘Honestly I –’

He red a shot past her head. Behind her one of the computer monitors exploded amid a shower of sparks and granules of glass.

‘Real y,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t advise lying, young lady. I can put a bul et through your stomach right now … and believe me when I say that’s one of the most painful ways to go. Slow and very, very painful.’ He took a dozen steps towards her. ‘Now, I’l try again … where did you send him?’

Maddy swal owed nervously, her eyes on the gun. ‘I …

just … I …’

just … I …’

‘Maddy!’ yelped Sal. ‘Something’s coming!’

Cartwright stopped where he was. ‘What’s that?’ he shouted back over his shoulder, keeping his eyes rmly on the older girl.

‘Did you feel it? A tremor?’

‘No,’ he replied, his eyes and aim stil on Maddy. ‘I didn’t feel anything.’

‘I felt something,’ said Edward.

‘Oh my God … the jungle’s changed,’ said Laura.

‘Something di erent. I don’t know what. Something –’

Sal nodded. ‘The set lement’s gone. It’s an early ripple

… the big change wil fol ow.’

Cartwright cursed. He desperately wanted to see this.

‘You!’ he snapped at Maddy, waving his gun, ‘over there by the entrance. NOW!’

Maddy nodded meekly and hurried across the archway to join the others standing in the entrance and looking out at the jungle. Cartwright joined them, keeping a cautious few yards’ distance and holding his gun on them as he watched the evening jungle. ‘What happens next?’

‘The big wave,’ said Sal. ‘You’l feel dizzy just as it …’

She looked at him, her eyes round. ‘Do you feel it now?’

His eyes widened. ‘My God, yes! Like an earth tremor!’

On the horizon the orange stain of dusk was blot ed out by what appeared to be a rol ing bank of raincloud, a storm front rushing in from the Atlantic at an impossible speed.

‘What is that?’ he gasped.

‘What is that?’ he gasped.

‘The wave?’ whispered Edward.

Maddy nodded. ‘Another reality.’

It crossed over the island beyond the broad river and amid a churning soup of thick, shimmering air, realities mixed and became eeting impossibilities. Amid the churning reality soup they saw the winking ickering outline of tal buildings warping and twisting and Maddy thought she saw for a eeting moment a swarm of creatures in the sky like gargoyles, dragons – a possible reality, a possible species that in this correcting reality had no place, existing for a mere heartbeat, then erased. Then the wave was over the river and upon them. The archway exed and warped around them, the ground beneath their feet momentarily dropping away, becoming void.

Then, just like that, they were staring at a brick wal , ten feet opposite, across a cobbled stone backstreet. The rol ed-up tarpaulin with Forby’s corpse inside, that they’d placed just outside the entrance, was gone. Instead he was standing to one side of the entrance, talking in hushed tones with two other armed men. A spotlight ickered across the backstreet as overhead they heard the whupwhup-whup of a circling helicopter. Cartwright’s jaw hung slack and open, his gun arm lowered down to his side. ‘This … is … incredible.’

‘Isn’t it?’ said Maddy.

Forby looked up from his conversation. ‘Whuh? Oh, sir?

’ He looked perplexed, as did the other two men. ‘I uh …

’ He looked perplexed, as did the other two men. ‘I uh …

didn’t hear the door opening. You OK, sir?’

Cartwright’s face was stil immobile, stil frozen with incredulity.

‘Sir? Everything OK?’

He looked at his man. ‘Uh? Yes … yes, just ne.’ Alive once more. A faint smile of relief stretched across his thin lips. ‘Good to er … it’s good to see you again, Forby.’

Forby frowned and nodded. ‘Sir?’ Then he noticed Edward and Laura. ‘Who are these?’

Cartwright shook his head, gathering his confused wits.

‘I’l … I’l explain later.’ He turned to Maddy and the others. ‘Inside, you lot. Let’s close this door.’

Forby stepped forward but Cartwright waved him back.

‘You best stay outside for now, Forby, al right?’

He icked his gun at Laura. ‘Close the shut er.’

She began to crank the handle, but Sal stepped in and pressed the green but on. ‘It’s OK, we’ve got power now.’

The shut ers clat ered down as a smal motor beside the door whined.

The old man took a moment to compose himself, to try to make sense of what he’d seen, and what he may yet see before the night was through. The shut ers clat ered down and the whining motor was silent.

‘Al right,’ he said presently. ‘Al right, so this means your friend and the cloned girl … they’ve been successful. They’ve kil ed those freaks in the past. So that means no reptile hominids.’ He nodded as he talked. ‘Al right … I get that. I understand that.’

get that. I understand that.’

‘Cartwright,’ interrupted Maddy.

‘And … and Forby’s alive now, because … because …’

His eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of things.

‘Because what happened … didn’t happen. No reptile monsters means he couldn’t have been at acked. But then that’s just crazy … that doesn’t make any … I mean … I actual y saw that thing rip his …’

He was rambling.

‘Cartwright,’ said Maddy again. ‘Listen to me, you need to hear something.’

‘… and he was dead.’ He turned to look at the oor. Halfway across, a pool of blood had congealed. Forby’s blood. ‘I mean … there! Look! It’s his blood! He was –’

‘Cartwright!’

The old man’s confused eyes darted from the blood back to Maddy.

‘This new reality is stil wrong,’ she said. ‘This reality with you and Forby and men outside and a helicopter buzzing overhead and your secret agency. It’s al wrong too. This is something else that should never have happened.’

‘What?’ His face creased with confusion.

‘Your life,’ said Sal. ‘Should be a very di erent one.’

‘In our timeline … in the correct timeline, you’ve lived a di erent life to this.’ Maddy tried appealing to him with a friendly smile. ‘Perhaps even a much bet er life … I dunno, with children, grandchildren?’

‘I’m not married!’ he snapped. ‘I don’t have children!’

‘I’m not married!’ he snapped. ‘I don’t have children!’

‘But, see, that’s what I’m saying –’

‘This agency is my wife! This secret! This secret! Time travel! It’s my secret. I know things that even our president doesn’t. I know time travel’s already happening! That’s what I’m married to! This … this knowledge! That’s my life!’ He raised his gun again and aimed at the frown between Maddy’s eyes. ‘And you’re not going to take that away! Do you hear? NO ONE IS GOING TO TAKE THAT

FROM ME!’