Four shots blasted chunks from the brick walls of the basement. A series of thumps and curses followed. If Garrick was sliding down the stairs, he would soon be able to take a clear shot at them.
“Get your old battered self down here,” called Riley, attempting bravado. “I have a nice sharp gift waiting for yer organs.”
Garrick fired another shot in reply and fragments of brick stung Chevie’s cheek.
This is like Star Wars, thought Chevie. We’re the rebel base and Garrick is the Death Star.
The bird sprouted more feathers.
“Chevron? Agent, hurry,” said Riley urgently.
“Coming.” Chevie fought the urge to slap the alt-tech computer. “Get into the pod.”
“Inside?”
“Yes. Get in.”
Riley did not like the idea of backing himself into an even smaller corner, but the only way out was in.
Legs flashed by on the pavement outside. More thumps on the stairs. Chevie thought she saw a scrabbling hand out of the corner of her eye.
“Riley! You cannot escape me.”
In the pod, Riley sat on the bench, hands clenched on his knees.
The bird was fully clothed in feathers now, and the speech bubble said: i am all warmed up.
Then the bird disappeared, and a menu began loading on screen.
“Yeah, yeah, what are my options?” shouted Chevie, as though that could speed up the ancient computer.
There were two choices: systems check or activate wormhole.
She selected activate wormhole and, after a few fizzling seconds of nothing much, the familiar corona of orange light bloomed inside the pod.
“No!” came a voice from the stairs. “I forbid it!”
Two shots plowed into the concrete floor, throwing up sharp chips.
Almost in his sights, thought Chevie, and she realized that she would have to run the gauntlet to reach the pod herself. For two seconds Garrick would have a clear shot.
The longer I wait, the sooner he shoots me.
Chevie was prompted to remove her key, and the bird reappeared with a countdown in his speech bubble. Thirty seconds. Chevie had half a minute to get herself into the past.
Thirty seconds. No time to think.
“Run!” called Riley from inside the orange glow. “Run!”
She did, diving the last few feet into the belly of the pod. She noticed immediately how cold it was in there. Freezing. Her breath burst from her in clouds, then crystallized immediately. There was frost on Riley’s hair and brows.
“When do we go?” he asked. “Why are we still here?”
Chevie did not answer, just turned to face the pod’s doorway. Through the orange light she could see Garrick dragging himself down the stairs like a corpse that refused to lie down and die.
“Infernal time machine!” declared Riley, striking the bench. “Let us away!”
Garrick’s head was cocked and his skeletal face pointed their way. From the depths of sunken sockets, his eyes were locked on them, beaming malevolence into the pod.
Chevie stood and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Wake up, Victoria! Wake up and run.”
Garrick raised his weapon to fire but thought better of it, unwilling to risk damaging the WARP pod. Instead he continued his grim crawl.
The pod began to beep. The complicated series of whoops and whistles was matched by small lights on the fuselage.
Chevie suddenly remembered something from Orange’s time lecture. The tests were pretty successful, he’d said. There was a small number of aberrations, usually on the return trip, but less than one percent, so acceptable in a scientific sense.
Oh, my God, she thought. We haven’t been taking bisphosphonates. I don’t even know what those are. We could come out the other end with monkey parts or dinosaur heads.
But she didn’t say anything to Riley, because her voice had been snatched away by the orange light. She didn’t lay a warning hand on his shoulder either, because her hand was gone, whisked away as though she were made of sand.
I am sand in the wind, she thought.
As am I, replied Riley in her mind.
The last thing to go was their sight, so they completed their dematerialization watching Garrick reach the bottom step and begin his lurching hop across the floor.
He’s going to make it, thought Chevie. We’re not rid of Albert Garrick yet.
She would have closed her eyes and bowed her head, but her head was gone, and now so were her eyes.
The Battering Rams
HALF MOON STREET. LONDON. 1898
Riley felt himself go and initially presumed that the going would be similar to his previous journey through the tunnel of time. It was not.
In fact, this trip was the opposite of his first in almost every way. At the most basic level, he was going back as opposed to traveling forward. Just as a physical journey changed according to a person’s direction, so too did a quantum one. Where he had felt propelled, now he felt somehow suctioned into his own past life.
Riley had heard of primal recollection occurring when a subject was under hypnotism—indeed, Garrick had mesmerized him on occasion—but Riley could never remember anything that had happened while in the trances, probably because Garrick had bolstered his own mesmeric talents by swabbing the boy’s upper lip with an ether-soaked sponge.
But now vignettes from his life played out before him, projected on the shifting surface of the wormhole.
The ginger-haired boy. He is Tom. Ginger Tom, Ma always called him. We are half brothers. I remember now.
Teenage Tom looked down on little Riley, holding out a hand. Come on, brother. I have a penny for lemonade. We will share a bottle.
Tom ran down a beach, and Riley felt himself trot after, following footsteps in the sand. The brothers ran toward a pier, and Riley could hear the plinky-plonk music of a barrel organ.
Brighton. I live here.
Tom turned his head and called over his shoulder. Ma loves ’er bulls-eyes. Shall we bring her a twist?
The scene flickered, and now little Riley was a baby in the arms of a lady, gazing up into her kind, soft face. His mother wore a plain blouse and her hair in braids.
Tom is named for his sadly departed Da, and will be a heartbreaker like him, she said, tickling his chin. But you, my little shillelagh, will carry the name Riley, like your dad. And your Christian name shall be the name of my family, the proudest clan in County Wexford.
Riley would have cried if he could. She was Irish. I remember now, he thought, and, The name? What is my name?
But then the picture changed, and Riley saw his father looming large and warm above him. The similarity of his face to Riley’s own was instantly apparent.
This is a secret, his father was saying. I am only showing this to you because you can’t speak yet and you won’t remember. He opened up his hand, and lying on the palm was a golden shield with letters embossed on its face. And the letters were F, B, I.
Those letters mean I have to protect people. One person in particular. Funny little Mr. Carter. Look, he’s outside waiting.
The infant Riley followed his father’s pointing finger to see a man pacing beyond their front door. His legs flashed past, and all Riley could make out were shining black ankle boots and a horseshoe signet ring.
Riley’s father shook his head. This guy is a pain. A royal pain. He’s trying to weasel out of testifying after all this time. But no matter how much of a jerk he is, I have to thank him, because, without Carter, I wouldn’t have you, or your mother, or your half brother, Tom, for that matter. Without hi
m, and this gadget.
The gadget Riley’s father referred to was a Timekey slung around his neck on a thick cord.
With this, I can take you to see my home. We will all go one day. It’s a new world, my dear son.
Another scene change, and this time Tom was beside him in the bed they shared, whispering. “I’m off for a gentlemen’s engagement on the pier,” he said. “Just between us, eh, Riley boy? No need for Mater and Pater to be informed. On my return there will be barley sugar for you, and perhaps tales of a kiss from pretty Annie Birch.”
Riley watched his half brother slip through an open window and heard an oof and slap of feet as Tom landed on the street below.
Moments later the toddler Riley felt a presence in the room and a low-tide stink of rotten fish wafted through the window. A man stood in the shadows, a blade jutting from his fist. It seemed to the child that the man had simply appeared on the spot.
“Magic,” he said. “Magic man.” The man moved so quickly that the shadow cast by the hall lamp seemed to lag behind.
It was Garrick, come on business, and he leaned over the small boy, knife hand raised overhead, on the point of ensuring his silence, when Riley spoke again.
“Magic man.”
Something strange happened to Garrick’s face: it warred with itself until a smile broke out. Not a happy smile; rather a momentary relaxing of his features.
“Magic man,” he said, repeating the toddler’s mumbled words. “Once upon a time . . .”
On hearing this phrase, young Riley burbled happily, certain that a story was forthcoming. And this innocent mumbling saved his life, for Garrick found himself judged a magical storyteller by this little fella and decided not to do away with him until after the main job.
When Garrick returned barely a minute later with blood on his blade, the boy Riley still expected a bedtime story and met him with a broad grin of baby teeth.
“Story, magic man,” demanded the three-year-old. “Story.”
Garrick sighed, shook his head, and blinked at the fanciful notion that had popped unbidden into his mind. Then, with only a moment’s hesitation, he tucked the boy inside his greatcoat and left through the same window he had come in by.