The Forever Man (W.A.R.P. 3)

‘No,’ said Garrick. ‘This ain’t how Albert Garrick goes.’

But it seemed as though this was how the great scourge of Garrick was to quit the earth, reclaimed by the wormhole for the particles in his body. The last strip of bark peeled away from the branch, revealing lighter wood below. With a soft snap Albert Garrick was cut adrift and began his ascent up to the waiting rift.

‘I will not!’ he shouted. ‘You shall not have me.’

Riley would have dearly loved to watch him go: to be sure this time, for once and for all, that Garrick was gone. However, just at that moment an explosion rose through the western trees; a great blooming flower of flame and black smoke, quickly followed by the roar of combustion with a strange noise like the clang of a blacksmith’s hammer on a giant anvil.

That explosion has Chevron written all over it, thought Riley. Or my name ain’t Something Riley.

So he took his eyes from Albert Garrick and ran hell-for-leather across the marsh in the direction of the explosion, praying that he would not be too late to save Chevie’s life.

One quarter of the hour earlier, Chevie had been in no immediate danger of dying, presuming that one could not actually explode from frustration. She had a million questions in her head and could voice none of them, for she was under strict instructions from Special Agent Isles to act like a statue. Still and quiet.

Isles is probably out of his jurisdiction, she thought. But he’s still my superior officer.

Her frustration came mainly from the fact that, as far as she knew, Riley was trussed up somewhere in that town, being subjected to whatever hellish torture Garrick had dreamed up for his witch-finding tests, and all she could do was sit here on a home-made sofa and grit her teeth.

And she had so many questions for Smart.

How can I get home?

Does my home exist any more?

Will I ever truly be myself again?

But all she could do was watch the professor flicker nervously by his desk, staring at his old-fashioned computer monitor. He was glowing on low wattage but with Chevie’s photosensitive vision he shone brighter than the Las Vegas strip.

Isles seemed impervious to stress and had bunked down in a back room, apparently content to snore softly until someone shook him awake.

Eventually Chevie could take it no more.

‘Do you have any motion sensors?’ she whispered to Smart. ‘Or cameras on the perimeter?’

Smart tried to smile and it seemed to hurt his face. ‘We don’t even have a perimeter, lassie. Agent Pointer is our advance-warning system.’

‘So what are you watching on that screen?’

Smart invited her to see for herself. ‘It’s infrared. From one of Agent Isles’s scopes. I found out that it picks up dark matter too. One of those accidental scientific discoveries you read about, like penicillin or radioactivity.’

Chevie looked at the screen. It was mostly dark except for a spooky red grin off centre.

‘The rift?’

Smart nodded. ‘The beginnings of it. Any time now it will open wide.’

‘And then the end of the world, right?’

Smart’s features relaxed into their habitual miserable expression. ‘Yes, no, who knows? I can’t say anything for certain any more. It might take months or years, or perhaps the rift will repair itself. But the anomalous energy has worn the inter-dimension’s skin so thin that it would take a burst of dark matter to bolster it. More than I have.’

‘Couldn’t you take mine?’

Smart tried to stroke her face and Chevie felt pins and needles along her cheekbones.

‘No, child. It might kill you and, besides, it would be nowhere near enough. No, I injured the inter-dimension and I shall heal it. I have a responsibility.’

The professor returned his attention to the screen, and was soon working on his responsibility. Chevie gave him two minutes to become completely absorbed, then backed away quietly.

I have a responsibility too, she thought. The FBI brought Riley into this and now I have to get him out.

It was more than responsibility she knew. More than duty.

She tip-tapped the floor with the toe of her boot until she found the knot in the wood, and pressed it. A single board see-sawed, and Chevie thought, If the pooch can squeeze through there, so can I. Just hold my breath is all.

It was a tight squeeze, but she made it.

Almost before Chevie’s feet touched ground, she realized that her plan had a few flaws.

She didn’t know where the town was.

She was unarmed and undisguised.

She could really use a pair of sunglasses right now.

And also, in point of fact, she had no actual plan.

I’m an improviser, she thought. That’s always been my talent.

Which would be just wonderful if she could improvise herself a map of this godforsaken swamp.

Luckily she did have cat’s eyes, which she would freak out over for years at a later point when Riley was safe, but for now she simply appreciated being able to see in the dark.

It’s a pity I can’t climb trees.

Chevie would grudgingly admit that she had a tendency to act on instinct rather than information, but on this occasion it was pure emotion. So she picked a path from many and set off along it. Yesterday she would not have seen even one path, never mind several, but her cat’s eyes noticed the slight bend in the grass stalks where they had been brushed more than once.

I am not even following my gut; I’m following my heart.

Which was pretty much at the top of the FBI not-to-do list, just below: Don’t shoot the agent in front of you in the butt. In fact, if this had been a legitimate mission she would have been removed for emotional involvement. She could just imagine her old boss, Special Agent Witmeyer, yelling at her: You’re off this case, Savano. You got too close to the kid.

But there was nothing about time-travelling mutations in the Fed handbook and she was nowhere near close enough to the kid.

Chevie tried to remember if this was the way Isles had brought her into the field office, but she had been pretty out of it at the time.

I remember a swamp, she thought. And trees.

That was a great help. You truly are a genius.

The word ‘swamp’ resonated with her.

Don’t s

wamps have alligators in them?

Chevie was pretty sure there were no alligators in England.

Yeah, but I’m also pretty sure that humans don’t have cat’s eyes, and dogs can’t talk.

And, speaking of talking dogs, Pointer appeared in front of her, poking his head through a line of scrub.

‘Woof,’ he said, or maybe it was ‘Ruff’.

Because they had bonded and she didn’t want to be impolite, Chevie tried to interpret the syllable.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Rough day all round.’

In response to this Pointer gave her the evil eye, which Chevie felt was unfair. ‘Hey, how am I supposed to know? It just sounded like a bark to me. You need to enunciate, Agent.’

This seemed to annoy Pointer so much his hackles rose, his head dipped and he drew his lips back in a snarl.

‘Pointer, dude. I don’t have time for this. You gotta take me to the town, OK?’

Cue more snarling and hackling from Pointer.

‘I know what Isles ordered me to do,’ she said. ‘But this is the perfect time. Garrick’s out in the swamp. We can sneak into Mandrake and rescue Riley. In and out. Five minutes. We’re gonna laugh about this tomorrow.’

Judging by the expression on Pointer’s face, it did not seem like he would be laughing at anything any time soon. In fact, it seemed to Chevie that he was downright angry. His flanks were heaving like bellows and he moved forward from the bushes, revealing himself and the remarkably square white patch on his hindquarters.

I don’t remember a white patch, thought Chevie, and then: Oh, shoot. Wrong dog.

If this wasn’t Pointer, it had to be one of Garrick’s dogs.

And he’s looking at me like I’m a cat.

‘Good boy,’ she said. ‘We can be friends, can’t we? You wanna smell my hand?’

But it seemed obvious that this dog was done sniffing. Now was biting time. The animal barked, three short yips that Chevie just knew were signals to his handlers, and then he attacked.

Chevie was forced to do something she never thought she could: punch an animal right in the eye socket. There followed two howls of pain, one from the punched and another from the puncher.

Chevie stuffed her hand under her arm, thinking: There’s a whole lotta bone in a dog’s head.