Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [9]
He looked at her, disgusted. ‘They made a movie about it?’
The smile on her face slipped and became a guilty grimace.
Liam tutted and sighed. ‘Good people died an’ all … for what? So they can become part of a flickering peepshow a hundred years later?’
She shrugged. ‘Uh, s’pose … but it was pretty good, though. Fantastic special eff–’
His sideways scowl silenced her.
‘Never mind.’
They turned left on to the road, heading up it towards Fourth Street, dodging several piles of horse manure along the way. Fourth Street was a little busier, but nothing compared to Mission Street. The road was a broad thoroughfare, a hundred feet wide, thick with carts and pedestrians and a tram line that rattled with trams laden with passengers inside and hanging precariously on the back, dinging their bells to clear the track ahead.
‘Oh my God, this is so amazing!’ she gushed.
Liam tugged her arm. ‘Shhh … you’re sounding like a tourist.’
Mission Street was flanked with five- and six-storey brick buildings, warehouses, offices, factories, banks and legal firms. She caught sight of a tall building dominating the skyline – fifteen, perhaps twenty storeys high that looked like a small version of the Empire State Building.
‘I didn’t know they had skyscrapers back then … uhh … I mean back now!’
Liam nodded. ‘Nothing like this in Ireland.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘And you’re telling me all this gets totally destroyed?’
‘Uh-huh. Tomorrow morning, April eighteenth, the great Californian earthquake. According to our history database, much of the downtown area is destroyed by the quake … and then the resulting fire destroys most of what was left in this area … the fourth and fifth districts.’
‘Jeeeez … that’s a real shame, so it is.’ Liam locked his brows for a moment. ‘Hang on! Strikes me as a bit stupid that the agency has picked here and now to store our supplies if it’s about to be brought crashing down.’
‘Well, duh!’ said Maddy, making a face and rolling her eyes. ‘Think about it! It makes perfect sense!’ She looked at him as if he’d just put on a pair of shoes the wrong way round. ‘Liam, I thought Foster said you’re meant to be smart?’
He pouted his lip, feigning hurt. ‘Well, Miss Smarty Pants, you’re obviously itching to tell me something, so get on with it.’
She sighed. ‘It’s perfect, because the bank vault where our replacement engineered foetuses are located will be completely destroyed in the fire. Everything. All the safe deposit boxes, their contents, all the client paperwork … everything. No paper trail.’
Liam grinned. ‘Ah, very clever.’
‘Exactly.’
The hubbub on Mission Street was added to by the noisy clatter of a sputtering engine. Its noise blotted out everything as it slowly approached them. They finally saw the vehicle rolling down the middle of the street on flimsy spoked wheels, following a man on foot waving a red warning flag before him.
‘Wow! I didn’t know they had cars then!’ Maddy shouted in his ear.
He shook his head. ‘Now who’s being dumb! Of course we did!’ He watched the vehicle slowly rattle past, steered by a man wearing a cap and goggles. Beside him sat a woman sporting a cloud of ostrich feathers above her head, her gloved hands clasped over her ears at the cacophony.
‘Now I know that’s an Oldsmobile Model R,’ added Liam as the vehicle finally turned right off Mission Street and the laboured clatter of internal combustion allowed them to talk easily once more. ‘There were quite a few of those things dashing about Cork – yes, even Cork – when I left.’
She shook her head. ‘Hardly dashing.’
They walked on another few minutes in silence, Maddy enjoying playing the lady in her own period-piece Hollywood movie and Liam feeling like this was something of a trip home for him. Back to his time, back to a place where he could talk easily with anyone and not be made to feel like a complete moron for not knowing what a digicam was, or that Seven-Up wasn’t some kind of a ball game, or that a Snickers Bar wasn’t some sort of sleazy nightclub.