‘Hey! Miss!’ snapped Sergeant Freeman, swinging his carbine off his shoulder. ‘Where ’n hell you think you’re goin’?’
Becks turned to look at him as torchlight danced across her face. Quite calmly: ‘To turn the power on, of course.’
‘It’s through that far door,’ said Maddy. ‘There’s a storage room back there. It’s where our generator is.’
Devereau shrugged. They’d walked once round this odd construction. It reminded him of a termite mound: a large badly put-together hummock made entirely of crumbling bricks. There was presumably no place inside for this other girl – Becks – to run or hide. ‘Better follow her back there, Sergeant,’ he said to Freeman.
Both headed through the opening to the back room and a moment later Maddy sighed with relief at the reassuring sound of the generator chugging to life.
The archway’s strip lights flickered then winked on in unison.
Devereau cursed. He reached out towards the shutter door and yanked it down. ‘Gimme a hand,’ he said to a young soldier. Together they wrestled it down until it clattered and bounced against the floor.
‘We’re right in the middle of the dead zone!’ said Devereau. ‘Last thing we want is begging the attention of their sky navy with a careless show of lights!’
‘Oh … yeah.’ Maddy nodded an apology.
The computer monitors were on, all of them busy showing the system slowly booting up. Becks emerged, Freeman with her.
‘There was damage to the fuel tank,’ said Becks. ‘We have lost a significant portion of our reserves.’ She approached Maddy and Devereau. ‘We will need more fuel, Madelaine.’
‘To recharge the displacement machine?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘But hang on! What’s the point? You said the tachyon transmission array was –’
‘I believe it may be possible to acquire analogous transmission technology and reconfigure it to channel tachyon particles –’
‘Excuse me!’ Devereau made a face. ‘Can you two stop talking whatever gibberish mumbo-jumbo that is for a moment?’
They did and then both looked at him.
‘All right, now … I suppose I’m more than halfway towards considering the pair of you aren’t Southern spies.’ He pulled out his packet of Gitanes and lit one, hacking up a gob of discoloured phlegm on to the floor as he did so.
‘Do you mind?’ said Maddy testily. ‘That’s disgusting.’
He ignored her. ‘But you, miss – both of you, actually – have got yourselves a lot of explaining yet to do if you don’t want to find yourself chained up in a federal military prison.’ He pulled on his cigarette and puffed a cloud of rancid smoke into the air between them. Maddy wrinkled her nose at the stench.
‘A hell of a lot of explaining,’ he added.
Becks was silent. A guarded expression on her face.
Maddy shrugged. ‘Sure … why not? You might as well hear it all … everything.’ She turned to Becks, expecting her to sound a note of caution. ‘After all, this timeline isn’t meant to exist. None of it … not this war, not these soldiers.’ She smiled candidly at him. ‘Not even you, Colonel Devereau.’
‘I should not … exist?’ His voice was midway between incredulity and anger.
‘Not the way you are. Not like this.’
He frowned and jutted his bearded chin indignantly. ‘Ma’am, I rather like the way I am, if that’s all the same to you!’
‘Look.’ Maddy puffed her cheeks. ‘It’s really complicated. Devereau, I guess I’d better explain to you all about how time travel works.’ She nodded towards their threadbare armchairs. ‘Want to go grab a seat? This could take us quite a while.’
CHAPTER 38
2001, somewhere in Virginia
Bob’s single-minded pursuit of the small creature that had boldly dashed into the farmhouse kitchen and stolen their one firearm from right under his nose was getting him nowhere.
He was standing in a field of corn. It was too dark now for his eyes to pick out the broken stalks suggesting which way the creature had fled. He was four hundred yards away from the farmhouse, the light failing, and a cautionary warning flashing in his mind.
[Tactical error]
He was about to process that into an analysis tree when he first heard the shouting and banging drifting across the silently swaying field of corn from the farmhouse.
Several conclusions presented themselves:
The childlike creature is not alone
The gun being stolen was a distraction
The others are in danger
He bounded back through the corn, taking the path of flattened stalks he’d already made. Ahead of him, the noises grew more distinct, more frantic. From the sound of it he determined the struggle was coming from inside