TimeRiders: The Eternal War

CHAPTER 52. 2001, Dead City

‘God’s teeth! ’Tis a freak show,’ whispered Lincoln.

Sal found herself nodding. She estimated there were about a hundred and fifty of them in the abandoned Albion Theatre. Rows of stained and faded burgundy velvet seats, sprouting tufts of stuffing through ripped seams, faced a stage made of damp and rotting wooden boards beneath a partially collapsed roof. Moisture dripped from above with a steady tap-tap-tapping and the waning afternoon light cast slanted rose-tinted rays down into the gloom of the auditorium.

Samuel, it appeared, was one of the leaders of this odd assortment of unnatural creations, along with two others: a leadership committee of sorts. One of them was even thinner than the type she thought of as salamander-like. Impossibly thin, she wondered where the creature managed to store its internal organs. Its arms and legs were stick-like, bulging unpleasantly at the joints. Its head, instead of being loaf-shaped like many of the other types, was tall and tapered like a traffic cone. Samuel had told them every eugenic’s shape was designed specifically for a purpose. Sal could only imagine this one was designed to slither through pipes, or at least wriggle through some very tight places. It looked like a flesh-coloured cigar with limbs.

‘… have ignored us … this long, because we … just a nuisance … not a danger!’

Its chest was so slim and its lungs must have been so tiny that it was forced to pant like a dog on a hot day, its words broken up into garbled bites between each rapid breath.

‘I say that we … stay hidden here.’ It shuffled on thin trembling legs to a stool at the side of the stage and perched on the edge of it.

Another of the leaders spoke. This one looked like an even bulkier version of the ape-type. It swayed, top-heavy with muscles that flexed and wobbled with a life of their own. Its head looked like an apple nestling — almost lost — between two watermelons for shoulders. And on top of its head, an old-fashioned top hat was perched. Sal realized that even though its head looked no bigger than an apple, compared to its body it had to be the same size as an adult human’s for it to fit so snugly.

It’s huge.

The rest of the eugenic was oddly out of proportion. Its waist tapered in, and the legs, short and fat, seemed almost like an afterthought.

‘If them humans come …’ it said with a voice so deep Sal felt something vibrate in her own chest. It stabbed a finger as big as a canteloupe at her and Lincoln. ‘If them come, maybe we kill these both … show them soldiers their heads. Them be frightened off! Not bother us no more!’ The ape’s deep voice made Bob’s barrel-round voice sound like the whine of a mosquito.

Samuel put the shotgun he’d been cradling in his skinny arms down on the stage and scooted forward. ‘No, that’sh shtoopid! We need them alive! If we kill them, they will really take a bloody revenge on all of ush!’

‘I’m sure no … humans will come … Samuel,’ whispered the cigar-like one. ‘They have … left us alone … this long —’

‘But that wash before shome shtoopid genicsh killed shome of them!’ Samuel scuttled across the stage and looked up at the ape’s tiny apple head. ‘It wash one of your lot lasht week, washn’t it?’

The ape shrugged guiltily. ‘Maybe.’

‘You idiot!’ snapped Samuel. ‘We’re all going to be dead thanksh to you!’

‘They won’t enter … the city, Samuel,’ panted the cigar. ‘They still fear … all the poisons and … the diseases.’

Sal noticed his thin legs were shaking again under the stress of standing. He may have been designed to squeeze into tight places, but clearly those legs weren’t created to hold his weight for long. Once again the cigar perched on the edge of the stool. ‘Why did you … steal some humans … anyway?’

‘Becaushe, Henry, becaushe I heard about thish fool’sh shtupid raid! I heard about the humansh being killed — women and children — and I knew we better have shomething to bargain with when they come for ush here!’

The ape stooped over Samuel, his looming shadow filling half the stage. ‘Call me fool again, Sam … I squash you!’

Samuel looked up at him, his ragged lips flapping. Sal wondered whether that was fear or frustration. The audience stared in silence and the tap-tap-tapping of rainwater continued in the background.

Sal watched the frozen tableau. For a moment she wondered whether somehow she’d been sucked down a rabbit hole and was stuck in some bizarre post-apocalyptic version of Alice’s Wonderland.

‘Gimme them humans,’ said the ape. ‘I kill them, go take ’em heads and throw at them redcoats if them come. That scare them away! If not —’ he grinned at the shotgun lying on the stage — ‘then we now got nice big gun!’

Samuel shook his head and tutted. ‘They have bigger gunsh, you big dumb mump! And many more of them too. We wouldn’t lasht a minute fighting them, Jerry!’

The ape — Jerry — smacked a three-digit fist down on to the old floorboards. The entire stage rattled. ‘I want fight them … not running like …’ He scratched his head, struggling for an example.

Samuel waited until it was clear Jerry wasn’t going to come up with anything. ‘Truth ish, Jerry, you killing humansh wash a big mishtake.’

‘Didn’t mean to, Sam! Them got in the way … an’… an’… just happened. Real quick.’

‘Well, we can’t un-happen it now. It’sh done.’ Samuel shrugged bony shoulders. ‘Perhapsh my taking shome human prishonersh wash a mishtake too.’ He lowered his big head on his narrow neck. ‘We’ve pushed our luck too far thish time. I shay we musht all leave. Find a new place to hide.’

‘Where will … we go … Samuel?’ wheezed Henry.

Samuel put a finger to his ragged lips, thoughtful for a moment. ‘We could try north?’

There was whispering and muttering from the auditorium.

‘Shome of you know I can read, right? … Well, I ushed to read thingsh that are called a book.’

‘Book?’ The ape’s apple-head frowned. ‘What them?’

‘Marksh on paper … you big mump. Wordsh. Knowledge.’

‘Call me a mump again and I smash you!’

Samuel casually waved away Jerry’s outburst. ‘Shush … let me finish. I ushed to read booksh about the world. How it ushed to be. They call booksh about that short of thing … hishtory booksh.’

The audience of genics muttered the phrase. Trying it out on their own varied lips.

‘There ushed to be humansh treated jusht like ush. They called them negroesh. They looked different. They had dark shkin, were treated like complete mumps. But shome of the pale humansh felt shorry for them and they figured they wash jusht ash normal ash other humansh.’

‘So … Samuel, what is … your point?’ said Henry. His thin wheezy voice whistled asthmatically.

‘You know about the human war, right? There’sh one shide called the Northies. And then there’sh our lot. Maybe … if we go north and find the Northies, they might treat ush different?’

‘Them Northies,’ rumbled the ape, ‘you say them human too?’

‘Yesh, of courshe they are.’

‘Them will treat us just same. All humans bad.’

‘Not all humansh. Shome of them —’

‘All humans BAD! I kill them what come in our city!’

Some of the audience of eugenics roared support for that.

Samuel sighed. He turned to look up at the big ape then pointed to the top hat rammed tightly on his head. ‘Then why, Jerry, if you hate humansh sho much, why do you try and look more like one of them? Hmm? And why did you pick a human name?’

Jerry’s face frowned at that: anger and confusion in equal measures. The theatre was silent for a moment. Samuel let that question hang in the air for the giant to ponder.

Eventually a big fist reached up and pulled the top hat off. Jerry tossed it across the stage. ‘Stoopid hat anyway,’ he rumbled.

‘Jerry … Henry … all of you, lishen to me! I shay we musht leave here tomorrow. I know the humansh are coming … can feel it in my bonesh … and they will kill ush all, if we shtay. I’m sure of it!’

Jerry shook his head defiantly. ‘Them come here? We gonna smash them up!’

There were more roars of approval from the seats.

‘Well, that’sh up to you. Me? I’m leaving tomorrow and I’m taking those two prishonersh with me,’ he said, pointing towards Sal and Lincoln.

‘Them stay here!’

Sam waddled up to Jerry. Stood toe to toe and glowered up at him. ‘They’re mine. I found them! You want them, you gotta take ’em off me.’

Jerry’s tiny black-dot eyes returned the challenge; his huge fists bunched and flexed as they glared at each other for a dozen silent seconds.

‘You gonna shmash me up, then?’

Jerry said nothing.

‘Well?’

Finally Jerry looked down, shame-faced, at the stage boards between his big feet. ‘No, Sam,’ he muttered.

‘That’sh right … you’re not.’ He shook his head. ‘Becaushe without me to figure out the complicated thingsh for you, you’d be losht.’ He looked out at the bizarre menagerie sitting among the rows of threadbare seats. ‘All of you would be!’

Their noises — chirrups, mutterings, howlings — dwindled to a silence.

‘We have to leave. The army men will come because humansh were killed. We should leave tomorrow morning, head north and find a new home.’ He glanced at Sal and Lincoln. ‘Not all humansh hate our gutsh. These two sheem different to me. Maybe them Northy people think different too.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe not, but I know we can’t shtay here, not no more. We knew thish day gonna happen eventually, anyway.’

Ancient weather-worn timber creaked to fill the long silence.

‘Sam’s right … I think,’ panted Henry. ‘We have … to go.’

Jerry looked at him, sensing wiser minds than his had reached a consensus he couldn’t begin to argue against.

He sighed. ‘Maybe you right.’

‘Of courshe I am.’

‘Sorry, Sam,’ he said finally.

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Sam reached out and patted one of his bulging knuckles. ‘You big ol’ mump, you gotta jusht trusht me. All right? We’d be real dumb to shtay put and fight them sholdiersh. Real dumb.’

Sam waddled towards the edge of the stage and looked out at the dark rows of seats. ‘And we ain’t no dummiesh, are we?’