Time Riders

CHAPTER 21

2001, New York

‘Umm… that thing’s a complete mong-head,’ said Sal,studying the figure from the perspex tube pityingly.

Maddy regarded the creature with something approaching motherly sympathy. ‘Are you sureit’s meant to be like that?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Foster, ‘the on-board computer is preloaded witha basic program of artificial intelligence: its adaptive learning code. It’ll pickthings up quickly enough, you’ll see. The most important thing right now is that itimprints you people on its mind. Particularly you,Liam.’

He frowned. ‘What do you mean by imprints?’

‘Think of it as being a bit like a chick hatching from an egg and deciding the firstthing it sees is its mother. To ensure the learning code embeds more efficiently, let it bondwith you first, Liam. Go on… go say hello.’

Liam looked uncertainly at Foster.

‘Go on, it’s perfectly safe.’

He turned to look at the large muscle-bound form on the ground and imagined this thing couldquite easily rip his arms out of their sockets and beat him over the head with them if itdecided that might be a fun thing to do.

Warily, Liam took several steps forward, grimacing as his shoes slipped on the drying smellygunk on the floor. He kneeled down beside the giant and studied it more closely.

‘Glaf… bug… drah?’ it gurgled in a deep voice thatseemed to rumble up from its chest. The creature was entirely bald, not a single hair on itsmuscular body, its skin pale, almost milk-white. Liam offered the pitiful creature a friendlysmile.

‘Hello there.’

‘Eh-oh,’ it mimicked.

‘My name is Liam,’ he said, pointing at himself. ‘Me…Liam.’

‘Leee-hammm,’ it repeated as it climbed to its feet and stretched out both bighands curiously towards Liam’s face. He swallowed nervously as the thing’s largehands cupped his face.

This thing’s going to crush my head like a ripe melon.

With hands still wet from the sticky fluid, it curiously stroked Liam’s cheek.‘Lee-aaamm?’

‘Liam,’ he corrected.

‘Lii-aam.’

‘And you are…?’ Liam turned to Foster. ‘Does it have aname?’

Foster shrugged. ‘You can decide on the name you want to give it. Try not to think ofsomething too stupid, though. The name’s got to last.’

Sal suddenly giggled at the sight of the thing’s genitalia.

Maddy turned to the old man. ‘Foster, maybe the first thing we should do is give itsomething to wear? I mean… Sal’s only thirteen, and I’m… well, I justdon’t want to be looking at that right now.’

‘No, I’m sorry… Patrick is acompletely dumb name for him,’ said Maddy. She sipped her coffee as she studied thelarge muscular form across the floor while Foster finished putting some clothes on him.‘There was a stupid kid’s toon called SpongeBobSquarepants that had a dumb starfish character called Patrick.’

Liam shrugged his shoulders. ‘I had a big bruiser of a cousin called Patrick. The nameseemed to fit.’

Maddy smiled. ‘I’ve got the perfect name for him.’

They looked at her expectantly and her grin widened. ‘Arnold! You know? After the Terminator guy?’

Liam looked confused.

‘Arnie… Arnold Schwarzenegger!’ she continued.

Sal looked surprised. ‘Do you mean Schwarzenegger? The forty-fifth president of theUnited States?’

Maddy gawped at her. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. President?’

‘Of course! I remember now,’ Sal continued. ‘We studied him in Americanhistory; they amended their constitution to allow him to be a presidential candidate. Born inEurope somewhere, wasn’t he?’

Maddy nodded.

‘He started out life playing some kind of robot in a sci-fi movie once, didn’the? What was the movie called?’

‘Duh…’ Maddy rolled her eyes. ‘TheTerminator?’

‘Oh… yeah,’ said Sal, ‘that was it.’

‘I love those Terminator movies. They were so cool.’Maddy ran her eyes over his hulking form and nodded approvingly at her suggestion.‘Arnie’ was the perfect name.

Liam was about to ask what they were both talking about — Terminators? Toons? Sigh-fies, Sponge-bobs? The girls might as well have beentalking in Mongolian as far as he was concerned.

‘There was this funny bit in Terminator 2,’ Maddycontinued, ‘when the hero, this kid called John Connor, introduces the terminator robotto this other guy as his Uncle Bob — ’

‘Uncle Bob?’ cut in Liam. ‘Bob. That’s a good name. Nice andsimple.’

Sal nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes… he looks like a Bob.’

Maddy stared at them. ‘You don’t want to call him Arnie?’

They shook their heads.

‘Sounds like a daft name, so it does,’ said Liam.

Maddy’s shoulders sagged. ‘All right, then, Bob it is. Nice and simple. At least it should be easy enough for dumb-nuts overthere to say.’

Liam looked across at Foster and the large clone. The clone was dressed now in a crumpledblue boiler suit and Foster led him across by the hand, like a child, to join the otherssitting around the table.

‘Here we are.’ Foster sat him down beside Liam. The armchair’s tiredsprings creaked under his immense weight. ‘The basic speech software should have fullyinstalled by now. Give it a go and talk to him.’

Liam looked up at the large, hulking clone sitting beside him.

‘Uh, hello again.’

The thing nodded and replied slowly in a deep voice that rumbled through the archway almostas loudly as one of the trains that routinely rattled over the bridge above them.‘Hell-o, Liam.’

Foster leaned forward and spoke slowly. ‘His full name is Liam O’Connor. Let meintroduce these other two. This is Madelaine Carter, and this is Saleena Vikram. But sheprefers the name Sal.’

‘Hell-o, Madelaine. Hell-o, Sal.’

‘And you,’ said Liam, pointing a finger towards him, ‘we are going to callyou Bob.’

His emotionless face considered that in silence for a moment. Then finally, with a sincerenod, he announced solemnly to them all, ‘I am… Bob.’

Foster smiled encouragingly. ‘Excellent! The name’s registered in his memory;that’s all the introductions done.’

‘So, what happens next, Mr Foster?’

‘You all get a good night’s rest. It’s been a long day for all of you.Tomorrow we’re going to be very busy.’

‘Doing what?’ asked Sal.

‘Training, of course.’