Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [102]
The small boy looked up at him.
‘Thank you, you know … for saving me from that shark thing yesterday.’
Edward shrugged like he’d done nothing more than buy him a Coke. ‘OK, Leonard.’
‘No … seriously, Edward, that was something … what you did. It could just as easily have gotten you. But you … you stayed right by me. You saved my life.’
Edward smiled. ‘Sure, Lenny. You’re my best friend.’ He sighed. ‘Well, my only friend. Like I said, I don’t do so good back home. You know, making friends and stuff.’
Howard felt a sour twist of guilt churn away in his guts. He’d come to kill Edward – that’s how he’d ended up here – and yet this boy seemed like a ten-years-younger version of himself. He’d had things the same way when he’d been at school: lonely because he dared to be different. It never changed, did it? Not even in his time, the 2050s. Kids always found a way to single somebody out.
‘Edward, I’ve got to tell you something,’ he said before he could stop himself.
‘What?’
‘I’m … I’m not who you think I am.’
Edward frowned and smiled at the same time, bemused. ‘You’re Lenny.’
‘No,’ replied Howard, ‘that’s just it, I’m not. I’m not Leonard Baumgardner. I’m not seventeen.’ He lowered his voice and his eyes flickered across the campfire towards the other three people on guard duty. ‘And I’m not from the year 2015.’
‘What? Serious?’ Edward’s eyes widened. ‘You’re one of them? An agent from the future too?’
Howard shook his head. ‘Not an agent. I don’t work for the same people. I belong to another group, a group trying to stop time travel, but … but in a different way.’
Edward stared at him silently. ‘Not Lenny. So what is your name?’
‘Howard.’
He heard Edward mouth the name quietly.
‘But listen, Edward … I … I managed to go back in time to find you …’ He hesitated, toying with how best to continue, when Edward spoke the words for him.
‘To get to me. That’s it, isn’t it?’
Howard looked away.
‘To stop me going to university? Stop me doing a degree?’
Howard couldn’t bear to meet his eyes.
‘Not to … oh no …’ Edward’s voice dropped. He’d figured it out. ‘No. Don’t say you came to kill me?’
Howard nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Edward … but yeah. To short-circuit history, to cut out a chunk of the past that should never have happened.’ In the dark he couldn’t see how the boy was taking it, just the outline of his round head and narrow shoulders gazing out at the dark plain.
‘That means you’re not really my friend, then?’
Howard felt that twist of guilt curl and flex like some restless eel making a nest in his belly.
‘That mean you’re still going to kill me?’
Howard shook his head. ‘No, not any more.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t need to. We’re stuck here now.’
Edward turned back towards him. ‘But we’re gonna get rescued. Those messages that we –’
‘No one’s going to find them,’ he replied, shaking his head.
‘How do you know?’
‘If they’d ever been found –’ he nodded towards the others – ‘and Liam and robo-girl’s people were able to come and rescue us, then they’d know what happens in 2015, wouldn’t they? They’d know about me. And they’d make sure you were never on that field trip to the TERI labs. They’d make sure you were kept as far away from that assassination attempt as possible.’
Edward’s face clouded with thought for a moment.
Howard offered him a smile that was probably lost in the dark anyway. ‘So, I’ve done what had to be done. I’m truly sorry it’s landed us here. I really am … but the world after 2015 is a much safer place without you. There’s no you, there’s no maths thesis, no Waldstein and no time machines. For good or bad … I know the world’s heading for dark times ahead, certainly it is where – when – I came from: floods, droughts, billions starving, oil running out, wars. But the world will get through that eventually. It can survive that.’
‘But it can’t survive time travel?’
‘No. We’ve been messing around with stuff we can’t understand, can’t control. We’re like children playing catch and toss with a neutron bomb. But that’s finished, Edward … It’s not going to happen. I’m relieved, but I’m also sorry