Day of the Predator

CHAPTER 20

2001, New York

Maddy and Sal stared at the shimmering window in the middle of the archway. Through a curtain of undulating, rippling air they could see the dim outlines of the storeroom they’d sent Liam and the support unit to.

‘Something’s definitely wrong,’ whispered Sal.

Maddy nodded. ‘That’s the third back-up window they’ve missed.’

Five minutes ago they’d been cheerfully prepping the scheduled return window, assuming that the simple scouting mission had been a success and Liam and the support unit would be ready and waiting to come back and tell them what exactly had happened to Chan.

Now, for the third time, both girls were staring at a dark storeroom with no sign of either of them.

‘Oh boy,’ uttered Maddy. ‘I don’t know what we do now. That’s it — we’ve tried all the back-up windows.’

› Maddy?

She stepped towards the desk and leaned over the deck mic. ‘Yes?’

› You should try the six-month window.

‘Yes… yes, you’re right.’

Bob was right, it was worth a try. She clicked the PURGE button on the screen and the shimmering window in the middle of the archway vanished with a soft pop and a gentle puff of displaced air. She entered a new set of time coordinates: exactly five months, thirty days, twenty-three hours and fifty-five minutes after the time they’d been sent into the future; exactly five minutes before the support unit’s mission time span was up and it was scheduled to self-destruct. It made sense. It would be the last possible chance to rendezvous with a return window. With the support unit dead, Liam would not be able to receive a tachyon signal to instruct him on a new rendezvous time-stamp. If they weren’t there, in that storeroom six months after arriving and impatient to get back home, then Maddy had no idea what she could do next.

She clicked on the screen to confirm the new time coordinates and then activated the displacement machinery. Once again a twelve-foot-wide sphere of air began to shift and undulate, revealing the storeroom again. Both girls squinted for a while at the dark space beyond. Same store cupboard… a few things had been shifted around; clearly someone had had a spring-clean in there. But no sign of either Liam or the support unit.

‘Oh,’ said Sal. ‘We’ve really lost them.’

Maddy pinched her chin. ‘No… let me think.’ There was a way to communicate with the support unit. A tachyon signal beam. That’s what they’d done last time: aimed a broad beam of particles in the direction in which they’d guessed Liam and Bob were and transmitted an encoded signal back through history. It had worked. Bob had picked it up.

‘Bob,’ she spoke into the mic, ‘can we send a tachyon signal beam forward?’

› Affirmative. We have enough power.

‘Right… what if we send it to, say… five minutes before whatever happened to Chan, happened.’

‘What message?’ asked Sal.

‘I dunno. Something like — abort the mission, something is going to go wrong.’

Sal nodded. ‘Yes, we should do that.’

Maddy sat down in one of the office chairs and purged the open window. It puffed out of existence. She then opened the message interface and quickly tapped in a message.

Return to the store cupboard immediately. We’ll pick you up there. Something is about to go wrong with your mission. Something is about to happen to you. A return window will be waiting for you.

Bob’s dialogue box popped up.

› You wish to send this message?

‘Yes, immediately.’

› Recommendation: a narrow beam transmission.

A narrow beam meant she needed to know quite precisely where to aim it. But she had no idea where the two of them might be. They might have been somewhere else in the facility. Something may have caused a detour, a fire alarm perhaps? Or some malfunction in the lab may have resulted in everyone being evacuated.

‘Bob, let’s make the beam broad enough to sweep the whole area. Make sure the support unit gets the message.’

› Caution: there will be technology in the vicinity that may be unpredictably affected by tachyon particles.

‘I really don’t care if we mess up somebody’s experiments, or damage their precious gizmos… I want Liam to get that damned message!’ she snapped angrily. ‘All right?’

› Affirmative. Wide beam sweep to cover vicinity.

Sal looked at her. ‘Are you sure about this?’ She nodded towards the computers. ‘Bob just sort of cautioned us, didn’t he?’

Maddy spun the chair to face her. ‘You got any other suggestions?’

Sal shook her head.

‘Right, then,’ she replied, her voice brittle. ‘We have to make contact.’

Stay calm, Maddy. You’re the leader, so stay calm.

Her face softened as she reached for her inhaler on the desk. ‘Sorry, Sal… I’m just a bit stressed and — ’

‘No, it’s OK.’

‘I don’t know what else to do.’

› Confirm transmission?

‘Bob, you cautioned me… because what? Is there some sort of danger to Liam if we throw a whole load of tachyon beams forward?’

› Information: tachyon particles might interfere with zero-point energy experiments that are being conducted at the institute at this time.

‘But does that endanger Liam in some way?’

› Unknown. Records show zero-point energy research was abandoned as being potentially hazardous. There is very little public domain data on the Texas Advanced Energy Research Institute’s work in this field.

‘So? What do I do?’

› Recommendation: do nothing.

‘Nothing?’

› Correct. Wait for possible contact from them. Sending a tachyon signal forward may endanger Liam and the support unit and might also present a security risk for the agency.

Maddy stared at the screen in silence. ‘You want me to do absolutely nothing? When they might be in trouble and need our help? You’re asking me to do nothing but sit on my hands?’

› Affirmative. A tachyon signal might be detected by sensitive instrumentation at the institute and the message intercepted. This would clearly alert them to the existence of time travel and the agency.

‘They could know time travel is possible fourteen years before Edward Chan does his maths paper,’ added Sal. ‘Our message to Liam might alter history just as much as someone killing Chan.’

› Sal is correct.

‘So you’re saying we wait for them to get themselves out of whatever’s happened?’

› That is my recommendation. They are very capable.

Maddy chewed her lip in thought for a moment. ‘And this is my call?’

› You are team leader. I can only offer data and tactical advice.

‘Right, well then I say forget potential contamination, forget any of their zero-point experiments we might be messing up and stuff any security risks for the agency. They’ve pretty much left us all alone to fend for ourselves so far… I’m damned if I’m going to sacrifice Liam just to keep them happy. We warn Liam and the support unit to abort the scouting trip. We get them back home and then… then… we can deal with any time changes we may have caused! All right?’

Sal nodded. ‘I suppose it’s a plan.’

Maddy turned to the computer screen. ‘All right?’

The ‘›’ cursor blinked thoughtfully on and off in the dialogue box and they heard the computer’s hard drives whirring softly. Finally, after a few moments the cursor flickered forward.

› Affirmative.

‘Cool,’ said Maddy. ‘So, Bob, send that message to five minutes before Chan’s recorded time of death.’

› Affirmative.

As Bob proceeded with beaming the message, Maddy prepared to open a window yet again in the storeroom for the same moment in time and resolved to keep it open for at least ten minutes. That would give them enough time, she hoped, to receive the message, wherever they were in the institute, and make their way back to the storeroom. She was about to activate the time window when Bob’s dialogue box appeared centre screen.

› Information: there is an intense energy feedback loop interfering with the tachyon signal beam.

‘Meaning?’

› 87 % probability that this is an explosion.

Her breath caught in her throat. ‘An explosion?’

› Correct.

‘Oh my God.’ Maddy felt the blood drain from her face. ‘How big?’

› Unable to specify. It is a large signature reading.

She looked at Sal. ‘Oh my God, you don’t think…?’

Sal swallowed nervously and didn’t say anything — her wide eyes said it all.

‘Bob, tell me it wasn’t us that just caused that to happen — our tachyon signal?’

Bob’s cursor blinked silently for a few seconds.

The tachyon signal is the most likely cause of the explosion. The precursor particles may have caused a reaction.

‘Oh God, what have I done?’