They looked like children playing dress-up, children who’d raided their mother’s wardrobe and each taken a single item they rather fancied.
The creatures trotted silently along the tarmac road, cautiously watching both ways for signs of an approaching vehicle, even up into the starry sky with wide fearful eyes. They padded several hundred yards up the road. Finally, after a small noise from the ‘child’ — some sort of instruction — the pack of creatures flitted quickly across both lanes and into the enormous field on the far side. The stalks here were shorter, with pommel-like heads of something fluffy that batted against her face as they lumbered through.
Running beside her, she caught a glimpse of another ‘ape’. Stretched over his shoulders, she saw the dark shape of Lincoln’s long limp body. His head bumped up and down lifelessly against the other creature’s bulging chest … and for a moment she was afraid the man was dead, that she was all alone with these freaks. But then Lincoln flinched at a bump and spat a curse at his ape. A big three-fingered fist smacked the back of his head to shut him up. Lincoln snarled indignantly, cursed and struggled with the creature, landing ineffectual punches with his fists on its enormous shoulder, a heaving powerful elliptical bulge of muscle tissue that flexed and wobbled beneath ghost-pale skin as it continued to lumber with all the grace of a rhino, oblivious to Lincoln’s pitiful and futile attempt to fight back.
Sal closed her eyes, relieved he was still alive. Relieved she wasn’t alone, and desperately hoping these creatures were leaving a trail that Bob and Liam were going to be able to follow.
CHAPTER 42
2001, New York
‘All right, then, young lady,’ said Devereau. He puffed out a foul-smelling cloud of cigarette smoke that Maddy subtly wafted away from her face with the gentle flap of her hand. The colonel didn’t seem to notice that. ‘You’ll have whatever help I can offer you. But I’ll wager we have nothing of your sort of technology in our bunkers.’
‘Thank you.’
He shrugged. ‘If these gadgets, contraptions and devices of yours do what you say they’ll do, then perhaps it should be us thanking you …’ He hesitated, frowned and then slapped a hand over his tired eyes and shook his head. ‘But yes … no! Arghh! The logic of this time travel is confusing.’ He sighed. ‘Of course, if you’re successful and change history back to your version of events, I would not know any different, would I? We would know nothing of … of what has been done?’
Maddy nodded.
‘Affirmative,’ said Becks.
‘Good God, this time-travelling nonsense plays the devil with your mind,’ he muttered. ‘I should think it must drive you to madness dwelling on such things all the time.’
‘It gives me a headache,’ Maddy conceded. ‘But I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it now.’
It was dark in the archway. The generator had been turned off to conserve what fuel was left in the tank and the glow of a candle flickered across Maddy’s messy desk, reflected in the dark screens of the computer monitors. Outside the archway she could hear Devereau’s men talking in whispers, could see the glow of their cigarettes in the night as they kept watch for the Southern sky navy.
‘So … this travelling through time, what is it for you, Miss Carter, a profession?’ He wheezed a smoker’s laugh. ‘A hobby, is it?’
Maddy looked down at the mess across her desk, caught in the dancing glow of the candle light.
‘More a duty, really,’ she replied. ‘Not one I chose exactly. It just sort of happened, ended up being me and a couple of other poor suckers who have to do it.’
‘And you, Miss Becks? What about you?’
Becks looked at Maddy questioningly.
‘Hell, why not?’ Maddy smiled casually. ‘Go on, you might as well tell him the truth about what you are. None of it’s going to make any difference when … if … we can fix this mess.’
Becks nodded slowly. ‘That is true, Madelaine.’
‘What you are?’ Devereau looked confused. ‘You said “what” just then, didn’t you? Not “who”!’
‘I am a support unit,’ said Becks. ‘That is to say, an artificially engineered life form. My organic frame has been genetically edited and designed for combat and reconnaissance roles by a military DNA-software contractor.’
‘She’s also a real barrel of laughs,’ added Maddy.
Becks frowned, disgruntled at that. ‘I have developed basic humour files.’
‘Genetic?’ said Devereau. ‘Is that the word you just used?’
Becks nodded. ‘Yes.’
Devereau stroked his beard. ‘The Anglo-Confederates have been experimenting with a similar-sounding invention. Eugenology I believe they call it, playing with the bricks and mortar of nature itself. Playing in God’s very own laboratory. Is this a similar thing to what you just said?’
‘Affirmative. The manipulation of genetic data. Altering the growth instruction code of stem cells to produce an organic life form that meets specified criteria. In my case, I have physical strength that is approximately four hundred per cent greater than a normal female of similar build. I also have a hyper-reactive immune system capable of repairing extreme body damage.’
‘Which means you can shoot her and she’ll pretty much just shrug it off like a bee sting.’ Maddy took her glasses off and rubbed tired eyes. ‘Although that doesn’t stop her kvetching about it.’
‘I can feel pain. That is necessary damage feedback data,’ said Becks. She looked at Maddy. ‘Kvetching? What does this word mean?’
She shook her head. ‘Moaning. Don’t worry about it … I was trying to be funny.’
Becks cocked her head momentarily and filed something. She turned back to Devereau. ‘It is possible to destroy this body,’ she continued. ‘It is possible for the reactive-immune system to be overwhelmed. If too much blood is lost, for instance, this body’s organs would systemically fail like those of a normal human body.’
Devereau seemed to draw back from her into his chair, putting a few inches more space between himself and Becks.
He eyed her warily. ‘The South has experimented with eugenic creatures on the battlefield before. They’ve been fooling around with that ungodly science for the last thirty years. Twenty-three years ago at the Battle of Preston Peak, when our boys were making a push along the Sheridan-Saint Germain section of the front line, they put on to the battlefield an experimental company of those devils.’ Devereau shook his head, recalling old headlines. ‘The press at the time called them “The Almost-Men”.’
He ran a hand through dark hair, threaded with silver-grey at the temples. ‘It was a massacre. The rumours of the time, the stories in the press, were truly horrendous. Three thousand men holding the town of Preston Peak, most of them recent draftees from the state of Ohio. Just boys, really … We lost every last one of them. When the North counter-attacked with a tank regiment and steam-walkers and retook the town, they found only parts of bodies.’
He tossed his Gitane on to the floor and crushed it with the heel of his boot. ‘They found a …’ He looked at Maddy. ‘This isn’t very nice, Miss Carter.’
‘Well … I guess you’ve started now,’ she replied uncertainly. ‘You might as well go on.’
‘As you wish. They found a body mounted on a wooden crossbar. A head, arms, torso, legs, all from different men. As if these creatures had been mocking man, parodying the Southern science, trying to make their very own creature. The soldiers entering the town found very few of the creatures alive … They’d turned on each other, you know? As if killing every human in the town hadn’t been enough. But before turning on each other they’d turned on the Southern officers who’d been assigned to lead them. Trust me, Miss Carter, you really wouldn’t want to hear what they did to them.’