Authors: Graham Storrs
“I guess we’re walking from here,” Jay said, pulling open the curtains and unfolding the doors.
They climbed down to the pavement and put their backpacks on in time to be joined by Harry, puffing his cheeks and looking like thunder. “Well, I suppose I was ’ad,” he began. Jay noticed he had brought a nasty-looking cudgel down with him. “Right royally ’ad, as you might say. I should ’ave known it to look at yer. Circus act! Brother an’ sister! My Aunt Fanny!”
He stepped toward Jay, fist clenched around the cudgel. “Well, I’d like to know what your game is, mate.” Jay and Sandra backed away.
“We’re sorry,” Jay said. “But we really, really needed a ride.”
“Where do you fink you’re going? You’re gorna pay your fare, mate. And you’re gorna give me the truth abaht this little charade you an’ yer little strumpet ’ave been playin’ at my expense.”
Jay just wanted the man to calm down. “Look, we don’t have any money. We thought you might look on it as a favour.”
“A favour? A bleedin’ favour? Will you stand still, you great beanpole, and give me my money?” He raised the cudgel, brandishing it menacingly.
“Jay,” Sandra said, looking around anxiously at the people staring at them. “Do something.”
Jay gritted his teeth in frustration. “Ah, bugger,” he said, and delivered a swift straight-arm punch to Harry’s solar plexus. The cabbie stopped dead in his tracks, mouth open, eyes wide with surprise, and sat down slowly on the pavement, unable to breathe. “I’m sorry,” Jay told him, and looked it.
They turned away and jogged off up the road.
“Nice punch, beanpole,” Sandra said, grinning.
“Thanks, strumpet,” he replied, not looking at her.
The boxy little electric railway engine pulled into the Central Line tube station with its liveried carriages behind it. There was an air of newness about the rolling stock that brightened up the dimly lit station. Sniper and T-800 found a part of the train that was less crowded and climbed aboard, trying to avoid contact with any of the other travellers. They sat down and kept their eyes on the seat-back in front of them.
This tactic worked until they reached Holborn, three stops into their journey with just one more stop to go. That was when three young men boarded the train and took seats near the two bricks. They wore short jackets and flat caps. They weren’t dirty or particularly untidy but they were obviously of a rougher sort than most of the people Sniper and T-800 had encountered so far. They talked loudly, in strong Cockney accents, and gave the impression they had been drinking since early morning. They spoke over-familiarly to the people around them, some of whom moved away down the carriage. Even before the train began to move again, they singled out the two bricks for special attention.
“Blimey, what’s this ’ere then?” one of them wanted to know. “Looks like a couple of toffs down on their luck.” His friends guffawed and he leaned toward Sniper. “You lost yer titfer, mate?
Maybe it fell off when you was sweepin’ chimleys this morning.” That got a good laugh from his companions.
Sniper looked up at him and his lip curled.
“’Ere! Don’t you go lookin’ at me like that!” the man cried in mock alarm. “Anyone would fink you was one o’ them bloody Boers.” Again, he scored a hit with his friends. Sniper’s fists clenched and, seeing it, T-800 looked at their tormentors and spoke in a quiet, reasonable tone. “You will have to excuse our appearance. We have just come from Cannon Street station where there has been a terrible accident. Our friend was killed and we almost died ourselves trying to save him.”
The man in the flat cap looked at T-800 for the first time. His good humour was gone and his eyes were hard and mean. “If I wanted to ’ear from you, fuzzy-wuzzy, I’d ’ave given you a banana. You darkies should learn to speak when you’re spoken to.”
T-800’s nostrils flared, but he held himself under rigid control. Sniper didn’t. He was on his feet in a moment with his gun drawn and pointed at the man’s head. “You fucking racist piece of shit!” he shouted. “I’m going to splash your tiny brain all over this fucking train!”
A woman screamed and another fainted. A general hubbub arose as men protested at Sniper’s outrageous language and his violent behaviour. The man in the flat cap gaped at the gun in his face in complete astonishment and mounting fear. The carriage walls began to buckle and an older man in a top hat began to vibrate in his seat.
T-800 was on his feet too and grabbed at Sniper’s gun, pushing it down. “For Christ’s sake, man, chill out! None of this shit matters. Let’s just get this damned ride over with and get out.
’Cause I tell you, I’m not going to die down here in this fucking hole in the ground, not for some arsehole who’s already been dead a hundred years.”
Even as he spoke, they pulled into British Museum station. The windows all down one side of the carriage cracked, and people gasped and cried out, confused and frightened. The man in the flat cap had pulled back, as far as he could. Sniper kept on snarling at him. It was obvious that he dearly wanted to hurt the man very, very much. And perhaps he would have had T-800 not grabbed him and dragged him off the train. Tiles were popping from the arched roof over their heads and many people inside the train were trying to get out. A general panic was setting in and the splash around them was intensifying, fuelling the growing hysteria.
A large piece of the ceiling fell onto the platform with a dull, heavy thud. It snapped Sniper out of his rage, bringing home the danger they were in. Without a word, he turned to the stairs and bounded up them, T-800 close behind.
They had barely reached the surface when the ground shook. A great gust of warm air rushed up the staircase behind them. Clouds of billowing dust enveloped them. They both kept running until they were outside in New Oxford Street, feeling the rumbling through their feet as the tunnel continued its collapse.
“Look!” T-800 pointed east down High Holborn where a section of the road had slumped and cracked. Horses were shying and people were screaming. Everyone was trying to get away, but the real danger was from the panic itself.
“Man! You brought the whole tunnel down.” Despite his shock, T-800 looked impressed. Sniper regarded the chaos with grim satisfaction. “Serves the bastards right.” The air above the collapsed tunnel began to shimmer. A woman screamed, and her scream, rapidly oscillating back and forth in time, became an eerie warbling that grated on the nerves. The front of a large stone building began to sag as if it were made of wet clay. A heavy coach with two horses was toppling over at the edge of the broken road. It fell and righted itself several times as Sniper watched, savouring the moment. “Come on. We’re only a couple of hundred metres from the reading room—and we’ve got eight minutes left.”
The traffic on New Oxford Street had come to a halt as the splash spread through the ranks of carriages and automobiles. People who had important dates with their own destiny were prevented from being where they should be, future meetings were being missed, future accidents—good and bad—would fail to happen. Small anomalies all of them, but many people were affected, each sending little ripples out through the timestream, together enough to damage causality.
Sniper and T-800 dodged between shying horses and shouting drivers. Shallow waves were rolling along the pavements. A flock of pigeons was moving above the houses with an impossible jerky motion.
“We’ve got to get past this shit,” Sniper complained, breaking into a run, but as they turned into Bloomsbury Street, they could see the traffic jam was already building there too and, with it, the growing splash.
* * * *
“That was a department store?” Sandra was amazed. No flashing holos anywhere, no robot assistants, no VR booths for trying clothes on, no beamed-audio ads gabbling away in your head. It had just been a big room with items on shelves and in display cases. With real people standing around to help you. A quiet, peaceful place—until she and Jay had entered.
“I guess they evolved a bit.”
Jay looked smart, elegant even, in a three-piece suit with a long morning coat and a high-buttoned waistcoat. The top hat had made Sandra giggle, but Jay quite liked it and wore it at a rakish tilt. Sandra too was looking different, in a long skirt that trailed the floor and a white blouse with frills and embroidery. The skirt emphasised her small waist, and the high collar of the blouse flattered her long slender neck. With her hair piled up, a little bolero jacket that matched the skirt, and a huge wide-brimmed hat, she looked the very picture of a well-dressed Edwardian lady. When she emerged from the changing rooms, Jay had fallen in love with her all over again. Unfortunately, stunning the shop staff and chasing the few customers out of the shop had caused a significant splash and they’d had to run as soon as they were dressed. They ran uphill, not because the street ran uphill but because everything ahead of them had expanded impossibly.
“It’s not far,” Jay said. They had come up Charing Cross Road and crossed Oxford Street into Tottenham Court Road, the splash diminishing as they got clear of the department store.
“We should have caught a tube,” Sandra said, spotting the Oxford Street entrance.
“No way would I want to be down there with the chance of a splash happening. Look, we’re just a couple of hundred metres away. We need some sort of plan for when we get there.”
“How long have we got?”
“Eight minutes. Getting this lot on took forever!”
“He could be there already for all we know.”
They had each taken large bags from the department store to replace their anachronistic backpacks—she a large tote bag and he a substantial Gladstone. Sandra reached into hers now and made sure her pistol was in easy reach.
They slowed to a rapid walk, drawing almost no attention—no more than such a handsome young couple would in any age—and made good speed. The chaos that had broken out in the department store was far behind them.
“There.”
They stopped dead. Ahead of them was the magnificent neoclassical façade of the British Museum. The building ran for two or three city blocks, its columns marching away down the street in an endless parade.
“Large, isn’t it?”
They turned quickly to find themselves standing next to a soldier. He was a tall man for the period—almost Jay’s height—and splendidly dressed in a dark blue tunic with gold braid all over his broad chest. He wore a tall dark furry hat with a white plume. A long sabre in a scabbard hung at his side. He was a handsome man in his early twenties, with a small, neat moustache. He smiled at them politely. Jay and Sandra simply marvelled at him.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “Corporal James Pettigrew of the 19th Hussars, at your service.” He gave them an abbreviated bow.
He waited in polite silence until Jay snapped out of his astonishment and said, “Er, Jason Kennedy.” He held out a hand. The corporal shook it and then looked pointedly at Sandra. “Oh. And this is my, er, sister, Sandra. We’re Canadians.” He pulled a face and muttered, “She may want to flirt with you at some point.”
Not hearing him, the soldier took the hand Sandra offered and kissed it lightly. “I’m most pleased to meet you, Miss Kennedy. You’ll have to excuse all the flummery.” He indicated his dress uniform. “Bit of a do on in Whitehall at lunchtime. Regimental thing. Can’t get out of it. Thought I’d spend the morning browsing the new Assyrian collection. Is that where you’re headed?”
“We came to visit the Round Reading Room,” Jay said. “In fact, we’re meeting somebody there, and we’re running late.”
“Then let me walk with you, as we’re going the same way.” He held out a crooked arm for Sandra to take.
“Really, it’s quite all right,” Jay began, but Sandra had already taken the proffered arm and set off with the corporal. She glanced over her shoulder and pulled her tongue out at Jay. He hurried to catch up.
“Goodness, you have medals, too!” Sandra was saying.
The Hussar’s face darkened a little. “Campaign medals mostly. That one’s the Queen’s South Africa Medal. The last real action I saw was the relief of Ladysmith.” He sighed. “More than two years ago now. Spot of bother with my nerves after that.”
“PTSD?” Jay asked, but the corporal had no idea what he was talking about. They walked across the broad concourse to the gigantic entrance and passed through the doors with no challenge. In fact, there were no guards, no metal detectors, no body searches, no ID checks. It was not at all like Jay’s previous visits to the museum. They passed through the vast entrance hall and out the back into the courtyard. There, in the centre, was the domed cylinder of the Round Reading Room. Jay looked up and saw open sky. In 2049 there was a glass ceiling over the whole of this huge courtyard. Given the likelihood of a splash happening soon, he was glad not to have that hanging over him.
“Well, I suppose I must take my leave,” Corporal Pettigrew said. He turned to Jay. “Will you be in London long, Mr. Kennedy? Perhaps I may be permitted to call on you—and your charming sister? I would be happy to show you some of the attractions, if that would please you.”