Infinity Cage (14 page)

They were issued ID tags and assigned quarters in a holding centre, with the exception of Rashim who was allowed to go about his business. According to their records, he was already supposed to be an FSA citizen and resident in Denver. Which was technically true; a younger version of him was out there somewhere. Not in Denver, but south of the city in a bunker beneath Cheyenne Mountain working on Project Exodus; working hard on preparing for T-Day – the day they were going to transport 300 carefully vetted candidates back in time.

Maddy and the others were given bunks in a dormitory. Just like the immigration hall, it was a large, bare-walled prefabricated building, bolted together in segments to create a cavernous, carbo-steel interior that was filled with three-storey bunk beds in a number of penitentiary rows. The uniform-grey blankets of most of the beds had been pegged across the frames by the ‘inmates’, creating an improvised labyrinth of private personal spaces. Laundered clothes hung like fairground bunting from the frame tops, suspended across the crowded gaps between the rows of beds that had become accepted as communal walkways. The dormitory hall constantly reverberated with a thousand voices echoing off the flat ceiling. Even at night, when the
clinical-blue fluorescent strip lights that glared down on them eighteen hours a day had been switched off, there was enough murmuring, crying, snoring, farting and the occasional irritatingly persistent barking cough to keep her awake.

Maddy had been expecting that they’d kick their heels here for two or three days while Rashim got in touch with someone important and vouched for them. That was what she’d expected. She could cope with a few boring days, sleepless nights and gloopy, tasteless protein paste served from a clattering, noisy canteen three times a day.

But two weeks had passed by so far, and not a word from Rashim.

‘Man over there said to me … he been held here three months,’ said Heywood.

‘Three months? You’ve got to be kidding me!’

Maddy was hunched up on the middle bunk. Becks and Charley were sharing the bottom one. The bunk above her creaked with Heywood’s weight as he leaned over the lip of the frame to talk to her.

‘S’pose it’s just what they gotta do. Hold us until they know what the hell they gonna do with us. They got people gettin’ into the FSA all the time. Up from Mexico, down from Canada, from the east coast, from the west coast –’

Maddy shook her head. ‘But we’re wasting critical time.’

Heywood nodded. ‘How long until that virus of yours hits?’

‘I don’t have a precise date. It’s a best guess. Weeks, days. Not long. A while after the invasion of North Korea, but I’m not sure …’

‘So what you gonna do? Try an’ bust out?’

The idea was tempting. Becks could quite easily deal with the wardens inside who supervised the containment camp. After all, they were just a bunch of bored swing-keys armed with
nightsticks and tasers. But, outside, the building was walled in and patrolled by soldiers and circled constantly by airborne security drones. There was only so much Becks could do. A taser dart would drop her just as easily as anyone else.

‘No. We’re just going to have to sit tight for now, I guess.’

‘You sure …’ Heywood started speaking, then stopped himself.

‘Am I sure, what?’

‘Well, that your Really Important Friend, Rashim, that he’s … you know, not just sort of abandoned us to rot in here?’

‘Of course he hasn’t!’ She glared at him. ‘I completely trust him! We’ve been colleagues for a long time …’

Not that long … not really. And do you really completely trust him, Maddy?
She grimaced at the pernicious whine of that distrusting voice in her head. Wanted to shut it up.

Why did he agree with you so readily, Maddy? Why was he so keen to get back to 2070? Hmm? Ask yourself that, stupid.

She balled her fists, as if that was going to help. Rashim could have dumped them at the Median Line. He could have just told the officials he was on his own if getting back here was his game plan all along.

‘Look,’ she said eventually. ‘He got us into Denver. I’m sure he’ll get us out. I’m sure he’s working on something right now.’

Heywood made a sceptical you’re-the-boss face and sucked a whistle through his gap teeth. ‘Well, I guess you know him best.’

‘Yeah, I do.’ She leaned back on the hard mattress.
Or maybe he’s finally back home now and having a whale of a time, catching up with old friends, girlfriends, having a party until time runs out for everyone.

Heywood settled back on his mattress. She heard him belch. ‘Meantime, three square meals a day, a shower room with hot runnin’ water, and a bed … I guess I can wait.’

She looked past the bunk frame up to the dormitory ceiling. Several large holo-screens were projected from wall-mounted light-beams. Canteen sitting times and washroom-turn notifications were displayed up there, as well as a constant roll of ticker-tape news.

+++
North Korean Premier Ye-jin Kim issues final demand for Pacific Alliance navy vessels to withdraw immediately from what have been claimed by N. Korea as territorial waters. Japanese Prime Minister Tomozawa contends that the shale-oil super-reservoir lies fifty miles beyond the N. Korean sea boundary
+++

‘And that?’ she muttered to herself, ‘that’s our ticking clock.’

How much longer do we have before that shouting match between those far-off countries turns into a deadly bioweapons war? And how long before Kosong-ni breaks out?

‘It’s totally crazy,’ she muttered again, more to herself than anyone else.

We end up all but wiping ourselves out because two nations decide to squabble over the last scrap of oil
. She sighed.
Six months from now over nine billion people are going to be just rags and bones.

She wondered if, right now, Waldstein was sitting comfortably in some ivory tower not so far away from here, watching the very same news feed. She’d seen a couple of blurred video grab-frames of the man stored on their database. One of them taken from Montreal, the very last of the TED Talks, the one where he’d claimed his own work, the discovery of a viable time-travel technique, could destroy so much more than just humanity.

She could imagine him now: twenty years older, his wild, frizzy hair now snow-white and yet those manic wide, watery eyes still intense, still burning. The enigmatic genius. The recluse. The one person who could choose to change the course of history. But was deliberately choosing not to. Just sitting on his withered old hands and waiting for the end to come.

She read the ticker-tape headline again. Two countries happy to annihilate each other over the last of the oil, like children fighting over a packet of sweets in a playground.

What are you thinking, Waldy? Huh? Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Are you thinking that maybe we all deserve to go out like this?

They finally managed to squeeze their way into the temple compound. This morning it seemed the entire courtyard was crammed with people, standing room only. It looked like every last person in Jerusalem, Jews and Gentiles, had converged on this space within the walls.

Beneath the porticoes of the northern wall something was already going on. Liam looked up at the top of the wall and could see a knot of Roman legionaries gathered there and looking warily down on what might be the beginning of something they’d need to come down and deal with.

Liam turned to Bob. ‘We should get closer.’

‘Agreed.’

‘I guess we won’t need the goats any more.’

Bob looked down at the animals that he was leading, relaxed his grip and dropped their tethers. The goats clattered on their hooves, bleated angrily, then skittered away into the crowd, trailing their tethers behind them.

Bob led the way, shouldering his way forward with Liam following in his wake. Presently they emerged into the shadow of the wall at the front of a crowd of onlookers. There was a space around Jesus. He was standing on one side of a wooden table, remonstrating with a couple of traders behind it.

‘This is unacceptable! This is … you are turning my father’s house into a marketplace!’

‘Your father’s house?’ One of the men stood up. ‘Your
father’s
house?’ He laughed incredulously. ‘Who do you think you are?’

‘You know who I am!’

‘We’ve heard what people have been saying. You’re that one from Nazareth, aren’t you? You’re that troublemaker!’

‘You want to know who I am?’ Jesus shook his head sadly. ‘Is it not bad enough that you soil sacred ground by making a profit from the faithful? That truth alone is not enough no matter who points it out?’

‘You’re the speaker who has been claiming to be born from God. Aren’t you?’

Jesus’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are wanting me to blaspheme, aren’t you?’

‘If you are the son of God …’ The trader’s expression was a challenge, a dare. ‘What would you have to fear?’

Jesus smiled. ‘Nothing.’ He turned to the crowd of onlookers. ‘I am the son of
Jehovah
 … and my father wants these profiteers removed from his house!’

At the mention of God’s name a collective intake of breath from the onlookers was followed by a silence that rippled out across the crowd, like a pebble tossed into glass-smooth pond water.

The tradesman’s eyes widened. ‘You all heard that? You people! You heard this man?’ He stepped out from behind his table, more assuredly now. There was a hint of a smile there; this fool of a country peasant had just sentenced himself to death. ‘You all heard him?!’

Voices whispered and muttered. Liam looked around. The gathered crowd suddenly appeared uncertain. A moment ago it seemed like they were united behind Jesus, united in their
resentment of this trader and his fellow profiteers. Ready to rally behind this troublemaker from Nazareth and kick every last parasitic tradesman and money-changer out of the compound. But this unexpected announcement, this bold claim in front of too many witnesses … the forbidden utterance of God’s name – Jehovah – that was a foolish misstep.

Right then it seemed Jesus was entirely alone. Dangerously alone.

The tradesman cupped his hands. ‘Someone call for the priests! Call the temple guards!’

But Jesus appeared to welcome that. ‘Yes. Why not?’ He smiled, quite calm. ‘Bring them here; bring all of them right here! The priests, the Pharisees – they, just as much as you, are guilty of turning an act of devotion to my father into a filthy money-making business!’

‘This fool claims he is the son of God! He uses the Lord’s name openly! He blasphemes in this holy place!’

The crowd looked on uncertainly. Liam glanced up at the wall again; he could see a centurion had been summoned and was regarding the altercation below with growing concern.

‘Who will help me throw these profiteers from my father’s house?’ called out Jesus. ‘Who will stand with me?’

The silence was deafening. Not even the minders, his ‘disciples’, who had entered the city with Jesus, dared to step forward.

Bob tapped Liam’s shoulder and leaned down to whisper. ‘Liam, you should take advantage of the fight and attempt to enter the temple.’

Liam looked towards the tall building. There were still people queuing to get in, still temple guards standing beside the entrance, so far completely oblivious to this exchange going on beneath the porticoes of the north wall.

‘What fight?’

Bob strode forward out of the crowd. ‘I will help you!’

Hundreds of pairs of eyes widened and jaws hung slack and open at the size of the support unit as he crossed the paved ground and stood next to Jesus.

To Jesus’s credit he retained his calm composure and merely smiled up at the giant. ‘Bless you,’ he uttered to Bob under his breath.

Bob nodded. ‘You are welcome.’ He leaned forward, picked up the wooden table and swung it up, causing a cascade of shekels, talents and sestertii to arc up into the air and shower down on to the onlookers, then hurled it across the shaded cloister against the back wall where it shattered.

Liam looked up and saw the legionaries beginning to react. When he turned to look at the temple building again, he saw a flurry of capes as the temple guard began to hurry over.

‘Oh, I get it … 
this
fight.’