Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [148]
And what about the person, whoever that was, who tried to kill Edward? I suppose we’ll know whether history’s been changed enough that he or she makes some different choices. If we get the same message again from the future … then, well, we’ll have to deal with this all over again, won’t we? Hopefully not.
We just have to wait and see if this fixes everything. Nothing’s certain. Nothing’s final.
‘Everything’s fluid’… that’s Maddy’s phrase. What does that really mean?
So, the female support unit, Becks (still trying to get used to that name), is still healing. Those creatures really messed her arm up by the look of it. Bob says the regrown skin will probably show a lot of scarring, and the muscles and tendons may never be fully functional again. Which led to an argument between Maddy and Liam.
Maddy suggested flushing the body and growing a new support unit, one of the big tough male ones. But Liam got angry. He said ‘she deserves better’.
I don’t know what I think. After all, they’re just organic robots, aren’t they? And whatever knowledge her AI picked up would be saved, right?
But Liam says there’s more to them than just the computer … there’s something else in there, something human-like in their heads. So maybe he’s right. It does seem unfair to do that to her. After all, it seems she did really well.
Anyway, she’s got a name … I mean, how can you just flush something away that’s got, like, a name? It’s wrong, isn’t it?
Seems like the argument’s all settled now, though. Looks like we’re keeping her but also growing another Bob. Maddy said there seemed to be nothing in the ‘how to’ manual that says we can’t have two support units.
So why not?
CHAPTER 81
2001, New York
The old man was sitting on the park bench and throwing nuggets of dough from the crusty end of a hot-dog bun to a strutting pack of impatient pigeons.
‘I knew I’d find you here,’ said Maddy.
He looked up at her and smiled a greeting. She closed her eyes and turned her face up towards the clear blue September sky and for a moment savoured the warmth of the sun on her pallid cheeks.
‘Unobscured sun and a good hot dog … that’s what you said,’ she added, ‘and where else in Manhattan’s forest of skyscrapers are you going to get that?’
Foster laughed drily. ‘Clever girl.’
She flopped down on the park bench next to him. ‘We’ve really missed you. I’ve missed you.’
‘It’s only been a few hours,’ he said, tossing another doughy nugget out among the birds.
‘What? It’s been months –’
‘Yes, but for me,’ he said, ‘just a few hours.’ He looked at her. ‘Remember, I’m out of the loop now. I’m out of the time bubble. I said goodbye to you on a Monday morning.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘And now it’s nearly one o’clock on the very same Monday.’
She shook her head. ‘Yes, of course. Stupid of me. I knew that.’
They sat in silence for a while and watched a toddler on reins attempt to scare away the pigeons by stamping her little feet. The birds merely gave her a wide berth as she ambled through and then returned, to hungrily resume pecking at the crumbs of bread on the ground in her wake.
‘You hinted you’d be here, didn’t you? When we parted?’
Foster nodded. ‘I suppose I felt a little guilty leaving you so soon.’ He puffed out his sallow cheeks. ‘But I’m dying, Maddy. I won’t last very much longer.’
‘The tachyon corruption?’
‘Yes. It plays merry havoc at a genetic level. It’s like a computer virus, rewriting lines of code with gibberish. Out here,’ he sighed, ‘outside the time bubble, I might get a little longer to live. I might get a week or two more. Maybe a month if I’m lucky. That would be nice.’
She thought about that for a moment. ‘But … you’ll always be …?’
‘That’s right, Madelaine. From your point of view, I’ll always be found here in Central Park, at twelve fifty-two a.m. on Monday the tenth of September. Like all these other people,’ he said, gesturing at the busy park, the queue of people standing beside the hot-dog vendor across the grass, ‘like them, I’ve become part of the furniture of here and now … part