That was the final straw. Too much to handle. Too much stress. He’d beamed a warning back to the 2001 team. But that was it — the last thing he wanted to do with this. That day, fourteen years ago, was the day he decided to finally close the doors on his special little project. To mothball it. Put locks on it and walk away. The agency was back there in 2001. They now had everything they needed to function — and that was always his intention anyway. For them to be self-sufficient: entirely on their own and working to preserve this timeline.
They certainly didn’t need a heartbroken old man like him keeping tabs on them.
He’d closed those doors and locked them with a few final solemn words.
I’m sorry… you’re on your own now.
Fourteen years ago.
And, since then, most days he thought of them: those three hand-crafted genetic products, so carefully designed for their roles. Liam with his robust, quick-witted mind. Sal with her enhanced visual acuity. Maddy with a mind designed for data sifting. In a way, they’d almost been like his own children. Like two daughters and a son. They were back there, all on their own with an older copy of the boy as the closest thing to a mentor for them. If they could just hold things together, prevent anyone else unseating this timeline for just a little longer, just until 2070… then it would all have been worthwhile. Job done.
Mission accomplished.
Waldstein had even begun to believe it was all working out. There’d even been days when he hadn’t bothered to routinely check that tatty, yellowing page of newspaper with the personal ads on it. All, it seemed, was fine, going to plan. They were back there doing their job… and mankind was counting down its last few months and years until Pandora happened. Before they wiped themselves out.
Then all of this exhausting stress. Three days ago, out of the blue, that message from the Maddy Carter unit demanding to know all about Pandora. Demanding… and threatening.
His three ‘children’ were rebelling against their father. Like Joseph Olivera, demanding to know what Pandora was and threatening to come off-mission if no satisfactory answer was returned. With that brief message, they’d switched from being part of his plan to being a very big problem.
Oh God help me… Opening up that dusty old lab again after all these years, pulling those military-class foetuses out from cold storage, growing them, ‘hatching’ them and briefing them — briefing them to execute his own children — had been one of the hardest, most painful things he’d had to do in his entire life.
He’d sent them back to 2001 little more than an hour ago and he’d just realized something. He was probably never going to know for sure if they’d been successful. Most probably they had. Six lethal killing machines arriving right inside their archway without any warning whatsoever? His poor children wouldn’t have stood a chance. The kill team had instructions to terminate the TimeRiders, destroy every item of equipment in the archway, then terminate themselves.
He should have thought to instruct them to send a final message when they had completed those objectives. Just before they self-terminated… a simple message to let him know the deed was done.
TimeRiders successfully terminated.
But in his panic and haste he hadn’t.
Waldstein looked out of the window as gentle spots of toxic rain began to spatter heavily against the glass. Well… it was almost certainly done and in any case, there wasn’t much time left now for anyone to steer history from its proper course.
‘It’s nearly time.’ He sighed, leaving a small cloud on the glass. In a few months’ time a virus was going to be released by either the Japanese or the North Koreans; no one was ever going to know who. Mankind was going to be almost completely wiped out in the space of a few short weeks.
‘Nearly time.’ His words echoed across an empty boardroom. W.G. Systems was a shell of a business now. A few caretaker staff left, but most had been let go eighteen months ago; there really was no more need for his business empire to be making any more money. Far better his employees spent what little time left with their families and loved ones.
‘It’s nearly time,’ he whispered once more.
I’ve done all that you asked me to do… please, now, let this be enough.