Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [53]
The fire crackled noisily, illuminating their faces as they gathered in a circle round it like so many amber-coloured ghosts in a graveyard. The jungle, beyond the thrown flickering glow of light, was dark and noisy with the far-off echoing cries of creatures calling to each other.
‘But how can we be sure that … thing won’t just freak out on us again?’ asked Kelly. He cast a glance at Becks standing several dozen yards away out in the darkness, motionless, dutifully keeping watch for any signs of a night predator entering the clearing.
‘She just won’t,’ said Liam.
‘Yeah, well, that doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.’ Kelly threw a small branch on the fire, sending a cascade of sparks up into the pitch-black sky. ‘I mean, it’s not like you knew she was going to attack Laura earlier.’
Liam looked at the girl. Her arm was bandaged with a strip of cloth torn from her sleeve. The black girl, Keisha, had done a good job with the dressing. It hadn’t been a particularly deep gash, but luckily hadn’t severed an artery. Laura must have been incredibly lucky; Becks had stumbled on the uneven ground as she’d lunged with the spear. Laura had been fortunate Becks hadn’t managed to get hold of her. Liam had seen enough of Bob in action to know that, male or female, these support units were lethal killing machines up close and personal.
‘She won’t,’ said Liam again. ‘I’ve discussed the situation with her.’
‘Discussed the situation?’ snorted Jonah. ‘Can’t you just pull some sort of plug on her? I mean … she’s a robot, right?’
‘No.’ Liam shook his head. ‘She’s not that sort of a robot. Not all wires and motors and metal bits. She’s an organic unit, what the agency call a genetically engineered unit.’ He looked around at the pale faces. ‘You’ve heard of that term, have you?’
‘Well, duh,’ sighed Keisha. ‘Any kid who watches the Cartoon Channel knows that term.’
Liam shrugged apologetically. ‘Anyway, she’s what we call a meat robot. Flesh and blood, so she is. But she has a real computer up in her head.’
‘And what? You sayin’ her programmin’ made her go for Laura with the spear?’ said Juan.
‘That’s right. She was concerned about all the contamination we were causing, and without me being there to discuss it with her she had to make a decision on her own.’
‘Concerned?’ said Jonah ‘Concerned? Dude, I’d hate to see what she’s like when she’s really mad at something.’
Liam ignored that.
‘Liam, you said contamination,’ said Kelly. ‘You mean, creating evidence we’ve been here? Like our camp and the bridge?’
‘That’s right. Every cut, every scrape, every footprint – in fact, everything we do – just our being here could potentially alter history in such a way that the future is totally destroyed.’ Liam glanced at the motionless silhouette of the support unit standing guard in the middle of the clearing. ‘It’s a basic command for her … like, I suppose, like one of the ten commandments would be to us.’
‘Thou shalt not mess around with time,’ chuckled a dark-skinned boy called Ranjit. ‘That would be a cool eleventh commandment to have.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jonah. ‘Thy shalt not kill your ancestor, for he begets –’
‘You think it’s funny?’ cut in Howard sharply. The others looked at him, taken aback at the outburst. Thus far he’d been one of the quieter members of the group. ‘You think messing with time is just some sort of a game? It’s the most insane thing man has ever done.’ He stopped himself short. Took a breath and dialled it back a bit. ‘What I’m saying is … it’s just pretty insane, time travel.’
Liam nodded sombrely. ‘He’s quite right. It is insane. Although a man called Waldstein is the first man to travel through time –’ he looked at Edward, the smallest face around the fire – ‘it all begins with you. It’s all based on work that you will do one day.’
‘So … theoretically,’ said Kelly, ‘if Edward had, for example, died in that explosion back in the reactor, and not gone on to do his work, then this Waldstein guy would not have invented a time machine?’
‘And we’d not have been blasted back into dinosaur