Time Riders: The Doomsday Code (10 page)

‘I wonder what those two talk about,’ she said.

Liam smiled. ‘Aye.’

Becks nodded at the incoming low-frequency Bluetooth signal. She agreed with her colleague’s observation.

[01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01101110 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111]
she said.

His grey eyes swivelled to look down at her.

[01110100 01101000 01100101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100.]

Her mind processed the suggestion for a moment. ‘You are correct,’ she said aloud after a moment’s consideration. ‘We should practise verbal communications when possible.’

Bob’s voice rumbled out past his thick lips. ‘It … feels like a long time since I have communicated verbally.’

‘Feels?’ She looked at him curiously. ‘
Feels
. This is a very human word to use.’

He vaguely remembered the muscle movements required to pull off a smile. For a moment, as he worked his lips, he looked like a horse baring its teeth. ‘Agreed. Humans use unspecific terms of measurement often in their verbal communications.’

‘Words like “feels”, “seems”?’

‘Affirmative.’

She stored that observation, then looked at him. ‘You …
seem
 … to have absorbed more human behavioural characteristics than I have. Yet we are both running identical versions of the AI. I am running version 3.67.6901 of W.G. Systems Mil-Tech Combat Operative AI module.’

‘Confirmed.’ He nodded. ‘I am running the same version number.’

They walked in silence for a while.

‘It is my observation that the silicon-carbon interface between the processor and the undeveloped organic brain has produced unanticipated side-effects,’ said Becks. ‘Additional soft-coded AI sub-routines.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob. ‘I have also noted this.’ He trawled through terabytes of data stored from months ago. ‘During my mission with Liam O’Connor, input from the organic brain allowed my AI to recalibrate mission objective priorities. I was able to make a tactical
decision
to save him.’

‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I have access to that … memory also. That was effective. Because my AI is a duplicate of yours, I benefit from that decision tree advancement.’

She cocked her head, a lock of dark hair swinging across a face momentarily frozen in deep thought. ‘I believe a human would extend a verbal gesture of gratitude.’ Her smile was more goat-like than horse-like. ‘Thank you.’

He acknowledged that. ‘Affirmative.’

‘On the last mission I observed some basic principles of humour from the humans. Would you like me to upload a joke?’

Bob nodded. ‘Affirmative. I have very few files on humour.’

She tilted her head and Bluetoothed several megabytes of data his way as they walked in silence. Bob blinked the data away into long-term storage and replayed a memory of jungle terrain, standing atop a cliff face and looking down at a group of nervous-looking children.

‘It appears you made Liam O’Connor … laugh?’

She nodded. ‘Cluck, cluck,’ she added drily. ‘I called him and the others chickens. They laughed at this.’

He frowned, pondering. ‘Why did they find this amusing?’

She frowned too, puzzled. Eventually she looked up at him. ‘I do not know.’

Sal drew up outside the front window of the store. ‘This is it,’ she said. She called the support units back to join them and they stepped inside, a musty smell of mothballs and dust tickling her nose.

Becks and Bob led the way in, Liam following after them. ‘What sort of thing do I want?’

‘Large, plain coloured woollen smocks,’ replied Sal. ‘Nothing patterned.’

Liam nodded and headed off down a cramped aisle spilling over with costumes of all sorts of colours and eras. She watched him admiring a pirate’s costume, inspecting its lace cuffs and braiding with a grin on his face. She shook her head. He looked like a kid in a toy store.

She turned to see if there was someone in the shop she could ask for some help, and was walking back towards the shop front and the dusty front window when something caught her eye.

Something blue. Something vaguely familiar … sitting in a wooden rocking-chair to the side of the store window. A teddy bear. She walked over, squatted down to get a better look at it.

‘I know you,’ she whispered, lifting one of its threadbare paws.

She remembered this bear – this little faded blue bear – this one-eyed bear; she remembered it from somewhere, tumbling head over paws.

Where do I know you from?

She was pushing her mind to explore the fleeting image when Liam called out from the back of the shop. ‘Sal! Sal? Is this any good?’

She got up and headed back into the shop’s tight warren of musty aisles to try and find him; the little bear, for now, forgotten.

Maddy looked round at the sound of the shutter rattling up. She saw four pairs of legs and then Liam ducking down and stepping into the gloom of the archway.

Here we go.

He stood up and waved a hand at her. ‘You should see the daft bleedin’ costumes we –’ He stopped dead. ‘Who’s
this
?’

Becks was straightening up beside him as he asked. Her cool eyes evaluated the visitor. ‘This person is Adam Lewis,’ she answered. ‘He should not be here.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Maddy. ‘You can say that again.’

Bob ducked inside. ‘Unauthorized presence.’ His deep voice filled the void. ‘He must leave immediately.’

‘Relax, guys,’ said Maddy. ‘He already knows too much. I can’t just turf him out.’

Sal was the last in. She hit the switch and the shutter descended noisily.

Both support units approached Maddy, a united wall of disapproving frowns. ‘This person is not authorized to be in here. This is a security –’

Maddy raised her hand. ‘I get it. It’s a security breach. But here’s the thing –’ she nodded at Adam – ‘
he
found
us
. We …’ She shrugged guiltily. ‘All right,
I
 … was careless. I left a breadcrumb trail that he’s followed.’

Liam stepped around Bob and Becks, warily looking at the man. ‘He’s the fella you went to see?’

‘Yes. Adam Lewis.’ She turned to him. ‘Why don’t you say hello?’

Adam’s eyes remained on the intimidating form of Bob standing over him. ‘Uh … hi.’

Liam broke the stony silence with a proffered hand. ‘Well now, there’s always room for another, so there is. My name’s Liam O’Connor.’

Adam, relieved, grasped it.

‘And this here is Sal.’

She waved. ‘Hi.’ Adam returned the gesture. But his eyes flickered towards Bob. ‘Is this the, uh … support unit you were telling me about, Maddy? Am I safe –’

Liam followed his gaze and grinned. ‘You mean safe from Bob?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve heard a little about his … uh …
exploits
.’

‘You mean ripping the arms off bad Nazis?’

‘Yup.’

‘Oh, now don’t you worry about Bob. He’s a good, reliable chappie, so he is. He means well.’

Maddy got up from her chair and addressed Becks and Bob directly. ‘As team strategist, I’m
authorizing
him to be in here. In this field office. Is that understood?’

Both support units nodded like children and chorused, ‘Affirmative’.

She turned to Adam. ‘Temporarily, understand? Until we’ve checked out this Voynich Manuscript.’

‘Uh … that’s fine with me.’

‘Once this is done, once we know what’s in there … then we’re going to have to figure something out, Adam Lewis. You can’t stay and we can’t have you walking away from this, blabbing to everyone.’

He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t! Honestly!’

Her eyes narrowed.

‘Listen,’ he said, standing up, ‘I’ve sat on the fact that I
know
time travel exists for seven years! I haven’t told a soul in all that time. I wouldn’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Really, I wouldn’t! It would
ruin
me; and ruin my professional reputation, apart from anything else. I’d never get another data security contract again!’

Maddy pursed her lips. ‘I can imagine.’

‘Anyway,’ he added. ‘I’ve been there before – treated like a complete nut, no one believing me. Been a laughing-stock. No thanks, I don’t fancy that again.’

Liam put his hands on his hips. ‘Well, you seem all right to me, chap.’

The support units both remained quiet, four grey eyes silently appraising him.

Maddy turned to them. ‘And you two – you’re not going to rip him to pieces as soon as my back’s turned, are you?’

Bob spoke for them both. ‘Negative. Adam Lewis has been temporarily authorized.’ He offered the man a hand the size of a baseball glove. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Adam Lewis,’ he rumbled.

Adam grasped it lightly. ‘Uh … sure, pleased to meet you.’

Becks did the same, offering a slender but equally deadly hand.

‘Sure she’s not going to …?’

Maddy laughed awkwardly. ‘Twist your finger off again?’

‘Negative,’ replied Becks with a friendly smile, grasping his hand. ‘Not unless I am ordered to.’

Maddy grinned and pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘Well OK, great, introductions made. We need to set you two support units up for the trip: data uploads, relevant history, period languages … the whole deal.’ She looked at Adam. ‘You said you’ve got a good knowledge of this bit of history?’

He nodded. ‘Twelfth-century history. It’s become something of an obsession.’

‘Good, then I’ll need your help putting together the data package. You can start by giving Bob and Becks a verbal briefing on the historical situation – what you were telling me earlier about the political situation: Richard and John and all that.’

‘All right.’

She turned to Liam and Sal. ‘A quiet word?’

‘He dies?’

Maddy watched their guest through the open door of the hatchery. He was sitting on the arm of one of the armchairs and talking Bob and Becks through the relevant bits of Plantagenet-era history.

The hatchery was illuminated by the soft peach glow of half a dozen growth tubes, each holding a curled-up foetus, maintained in stasis and ready to be activated and grown at the touch of a control screen; they hummed softly, the gentle aquarium-like noise of the pumps of their filtration systems.

‘He dies. I looked him up.’

‘When?’

‘Soon. Very soon.’

‘Jay-zus,’ uttered Liam. ‘How?’

‘That’s not important. The point is, even if he does blab, there’s not much chance for him to get anyone to listen. And, anyway, no one’s likely to believe him. Remember, the poor guy’s been a laughing-stock before.’

‘I don’t understand why you let him in,’ said Sal.

Maddy bit her lip. ‘I didn’t have much choice. He turned up on our doorstep. He
knows
we’re time travellers. I couldn’t just tell him to go away, could I? Anyway, he knows everything there is to know about the Voynich –’ she turned to Liam – ‘and about the time period you’re going back to. And if we’re going to try and find out what else is in that document, having the
only
guy to have ever decoded some of it around … might be a smart move.’

Sal nodded. ‘This is true.’

Maddy sighed. ‘I feel like I’m pushing you two on this. It’s not like the last two times, when we had no choice but to act and act fast. This time … I dunno, this time maybe we could just let this go; let some other team worry about it. But there’s been a change – not a big one, I’ll admit, but it’s right under our nose and –’

‘It’s OK, Mads.’ Liam put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We got a job, so. An important one.’

Sal frowned unhappily. ‘Maybe I got it wrong? Maybe that movie was always on and I just didn’t notice it before.’

Maddy shook her head. ‘You haven’t been wrong yet.’ She glanced at Adam again. ‘Thing is, what he decoded …’

Tell them, Maddy – tell them about the message in the safety deposit box.

‘What he decoded sounds too much like an important message. You know? Like our kind of message. We need to know.’

Liam grinned. ‘Ahhh, it’ll be fun anyway. Knights and maidens and maybe even a chance to meet Robin Hood? I can’t wait to go!’

‘It’ll be interesting to see,’ said Sal, lowering her voice pointedly, ‘to see how our two pet killing machines work together.’

‘What,
Punch and Judy
?’ said Maddy. She nodded thoughtfully. ‘This’ll be a good field test for Bob, I guess.’

‘Aye.’

‘And this Adam … do we trust him?’ asked Sal.

‘Not really,’ said Maddy. ‘But he’s here right now, and I figure what he knows may prove useful. And … this is going to sound harsh, but he dies really soon anyway.’

‘Seriously?’ said Sal.

Liam looked at her. ‘And you’re going to let him die?’

She sighed. ‘I have to. It’s the way we have to do things, isn’t it?’

Liam climbed up the creaking ladder behind Bob and Becks. Bob was the first into the displacement tube with a hefty splash of water.

‘Why the big water tube?’ asked Adam.

Maddy was busy at the computer table discussing portal coordinates with computer-Bob, so Sal answered for her. ‘It’s filled with a mixture of water and disinfectant so they won’t be carrying back any of those bugs on your skin.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘And it’s also a buoyancy device, so we send back them and the water, and nothing else.’ She pointed to the small yard-wide crater in the middle of the archway’s floor. ‘We’ve had to open a portal
not
using the tube a couple of times. And that’s the result: we end up sending a chunk of floor back too. Which is not good.’