Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [61]
Liam looked at her. ‘You do?’
‘Of course. It was part of the data package Maddy Carter uploaded prior to departure. I have the complete set of US Geological Survey maps for the State of Texas.’
Liam’s eyes glistened by the light of the campfire. ‘We could actually do this!’ He looked at them all, piecing together on the fly something that was beginning to resemble a plan. ‘Then, in theory, Becks, you could lead us right to this place that will one day become this dinosaur park?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘And if we know some fossil-hunting fellas find a whole load of fossils, as you said, Mr Whitmore, sometime in the 1900s, then could we not place some fossils of our own right there?’
‘I suppose we –’
‘Negative,’ cut in Becks. She understood now where Liam was going with this. ‘That would represent a significant contamination risk.’
Liam clenched his teeth in frustration. ‘Come on, Becks, we have to break a few eggs, so we do.’
She cocked her head. ‘Break eggs?’
‘You know … how does it go? To make an omelette. We leave a message to be found. So, all right, it causes a new load of contamination problems. But then we have a chance at being rescued, getting these people back home where they should be, and then … then we go and fix that little problem.’
‘This action introduces a third independent source of contamination.’ She looked coolly at the group gathered around the campfire. ‘Already there are two potential sources of time corruption. One in 2015 – the absence of Edward Chan. The second, this time, the presence of humans where there should not be any. Either or both contamination sources have a high probability of already causing significant time waves in the future.’
‘What if …’ started Jonah, but he almost stopped when every pair of eyes swung on to him. Clearly now wasn’t the time for some flippant wisecrack. But he continued anyway. It seemed like a smart idea to him. ‘What if … like … we left a message that was, you know, like, too important to become common knowledge.’
They stared at him in silence. No one was telling him to shut up, so he elaborated. ‘I mean, like hushed up. Like, say, Roswell.’
Liam shrugged. ‘Roswell?’
Kelly snorted a dry laugh. ‘The supposed sight of a crashed UFO in 1947. Conspiracy nuts love that story. According to them it was a real flying saucer from outer space with real live LGM onboard.’
Laura saw Liam purse his lips in confusion. ‘Little Green Men,’ she said helpfully.
‘Anyway,’ continued Kelly, ‘despite the fact it was most probably just a crashed test jet of some kind, you still get nut-jobs going on about wanting to free the little green men from their years of medical testing and enforced imprisonment.’
Jonah made a face. ‘Yeah … but how do we know for sure it ain’t true, Mr Kelly, eh? Point is, it could’ve been just a test jet, it could’ve been an alien spaceship, but the world will never know ’cause the government being, like, totally paranoid douche bags, hushed it all up. Kept the secret to themselves.’
‘Oh, come on, kid,’ said Kelly, ‘that’s a load of –’
Liam waved him silent. ‘Hang on! No, wait! Jonah has a point … I think.’ He scratched his cheek, deep in thought for a moment. ‘Look, the point is people like the government … Your American government, right, if someone, some everyday person discovered a fossil that suggested something as amazing as the invention of time travel and they told the government, what would they do?’
‘You kiddin’?’ said Juan. ‘They’d end up all over it like a rash, man. Secret service, Homeland stiffs in black suits an’ dark glasses an’ stuff.’
‘I’ll tell you, dude. Whoever found it would end up having an unfortunate accident,’ said Jonah, looking at Kelly. ‘Always happens, like … always. In fact, anybody who knew about it, was related to somebody who knew about it, would end up dead or in Guantanamo or someplace. Either way, there wouldn’t be anyone walking around talking about it.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ said Liam. ‘It would remain a secret.’ He looked at Becks. ‘And so nothing