Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [6]
‘The good news is there are more of them. There’s a supply of viable candidate foetuses, all engineered with the silicon processor chip already housed in the cranial cavity. They’re ready to grow to full term and, of course, come with basic learning AI code pre-installed.’ The Foster on the monitor smiled coyly. ‘If you’ve been smart, you managed to retrieve your last support unit’s chip and preserved its AI …’
She nodded. Yup. Well, Liam had done that messy business.
‘… so any new support unit doesn’t need to start out from scratch as a complete imbecile, and you can upload the AI from the computer system. So, like I say, the good news is there’s more of them. But the bad news is they’re not going to be delivered to your front door like … like … some sort of a pizza delivery; I’m afraid you’ve got to go and get them yourselves.’
Sal called out a thirty-second warning and Maddy’s mind returned to the icy water in the displacement cylinder. She eased herself in beside Liam, her breath chuffing out at the cold. ‘Uhhh! This is f-f-f-freezing! How d-do you c-cope with it?’ she asked Liam, her teeth chattering.
He offered her a lopsided grin. ‘It’s not like I get a choice, is it?’
‘Twenty seconds!’ called out Sal.
‘When did you say we’re going, again?’ asked Liam.
‘I t-t-told you: 1906. San Francisco.’
Liam’s eyebrows locked in concentration for a moment. ‘Hold on now … is that not the same year that … that –?’
‘Yes?’
‘I remember my dad reading it in the Irish Times. It’s the year that –’
‘Fifteen seconds!’
Maddy let go of the side of the perspex cylinder and began treading water. ‘Liam, you’ve g-got to go under now.’
‘I know … I know! Bleedin’ hate this bit.’
‘Maybe Sal and I should t-teach you how to swim some time?’
‘Ten seconds!’
‘Oh Jay-zus-’n’-Mary, why does time travel have to be done this way? Why did that Waldstein fella have to be so stupid as to invent bleedin’ time travel in the first place!’
‘You wanna blame someone … b-blame the Chinese what’s-his-name guy who worked it out in the first place.’
Liam nodded. ‘Aghh, well, him too!’
‘Five seconds!’ called Sal. ‘You really need to duck under now!’
Maddy held her hand above his head. ‘Need me to push you under?’
‘No! I’ll just … I’ll, ah … All right!’
Liam sucked in a lungful of air and clasped his nose with his free hand.
‘S-see you on the other side,’ she uttered as she pushed him under the water. Then sucked in air and submerged as well.
Oh Jeez … here goes.
Her first time. Her first time into the past, not counting her recruitment from 2010. She’d been too busy checking the coordinates were set right, arranging the return window time-stamp, checking Sal had pulled out the right clothes for them to wear from the old closet in the back room, making sure she remembered the details of their mission … too busy with all those things to realize how utterly terrified she was at the prospect of being pushed out of space-time, through chaos space – and God knows what that was – to emerge back into the space-time of nearly a hundred years ago.
She opened her eyes under the water and saw the foggy form of Liam’s scrawny body thrashing around in blind panic. She saw bubbles zig-zagging up around him. She could see the dim lamp on the computer desk through the tube’s scuffed plastic, the faint outline of Sal … then …
… Then they were falling, tumbling through darkness.
CHAPTER 4
2015, Texas
‘OK, students, we’ll be arriving at the institute very shortly, so I want you all to be on your very best behaviour,’ said Mr Whitmore, absentmindedly scratching at the scruffy salt-and-pepper stubble around his mouth. He considered it a full beard even if no one else did. ‘As I’m sure you will be,’ he added.
Edward Chan sighed and looked out of the coach’s broad window at the scrub beside the highway. Outside the air-conditioned comfort of the coach it was another blistering Texas day. Hot and bright. Two things he hated. He much preferred his dark bedroom back in Houston, drapes drawn,