Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [46]
Two days and nights they’d been here already and both nights, like clockwork, rain had come down in a torrential downpour, soaking them all and making sleep impossible. Tonight hopefully, with Becks hard at work – a one-man construction team, they’d at least have shelters to huddle beneath.
‘You used to work on a ship?’ said Whitmore, his breath wheezing past each word. ‘Was that before you became … what did you say you were – some sort of time-travelling secret agent?’
‘I didn’t really say it like that, Mr Whitmore. Did I?’
He scratched his beard. ‘I think that’s exactly what you said.’
‘Oh well, even though that does sound a little barmy, that pretty much describes me and Becks, so it does.’
Whitmore shook his head. ‘I’m still trying to get my head round this being real, you know? It’s just –’
Liam grinned. ‘Oh, it’ll mess with your head all right. That’s for sure.’
‘You’re really from the future?’
‘Well, actually, not precisely the future as it happens.’
Whitmore looked confused by that.
Liam wondered if he should really say any more. Becks was right in that the more information they handed out to these people the greater the potential risk to blowing the agency’s anonymity. But he also figured what the heck … they were here and the future was sixty-five million years away.
Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
‘I was born in Cork, in Ireland in 1896, if you must know. And I should’ve died in 1912.’ He looked at Whitmore and his grin spread even wider. ‘Aboard a ship you might just have heard a little something about … the Titanic.’
The man’s eyes widened. Lam, Franklyn and Jonah joined them then, all five of them filling the quiet jungle with their rasping breath.
‘What’s up?’ said Lam, noticing the goggle-eyed expression on Whitmore’s face.
‘That’s … surely … that’s just impossible!’ blustered Whitmore.
‘Well now,’ replied Liam, looking around at the Cretaceous foliage, ‘you’d think all of this little pickle we’re in would be impossible, right? I mean … us lot stranded in dinosaur times?’
Whitmore ran a hand through his thinning salt and pepper hair. ‘But the Titanic … you were actually on the Titanic?’
‘Junior steward, deck E, so I was.’
Jonah pushed his frizzy fringe out of eyes that were filling his face. ‘No … way … dude!’
Lam wiped some sweat from his brow. ‘This is just getting weirder and weirder.’
‘I was recruited, see. The agency plucked me moments from death just as the ship’s spine snapped and apparently both halves went sliding under. Made no difference to time, do you see? It made no difference to history whether my bones ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic with everyone else’s or not. That’s how the agency recruits … poor fools like me who’ll never be missed.’
‘My God,’ whispered Whitmore. ‘That’s really quite incredible.’
‘What about the other one?’ asked Franklyn.
Jonah nodded appreciatively. ‘Yeah, your foxy goth girlfriend.’
Liam assumed he was referring to the support unit. ‘Becks? No … she’s, uh … she’s certainly not my girlfriend.’
‘Whatever,’ said Franklyn. ‘Where does she come from?’
Lam shook his head. ‘Maybe we should be asking when does she come from?’
Franklyn’s face stiffened at being corrected. ‘Yes … when.’
Liam decided a small white lie was better right now. Telling them she was some kind of a robot killing machine probably wasn’t the best thing to be telling them. The last thing their little group needed was a reason not to trust Becks. They all needed each other, and they certainly needed her help.
‘Oh, Becks is from the future. 2050-something or other. I guess that’s why she talks a little funny every now