Infinity Cage (35 page)
Authors: Alex Scarrow
CHAPTER 60
In a dark alleyway beside the service entrance to a municipal swimming pool, a fox rummages through tied-up bin bags of rubbish, a light rain hisses against wet tarmac and, far off, a police siren wails insistently.
Just a normal Tuesday morning. Just another day, five hours from breaking daylight. But this world is never truly asleep. In New York, it’s eight at night, the streets busy and noisy with the last late-working commuters heading home and the early party people coming out. In Mumbai, it is seven in the morning and the streets are already busy with bicycles and rickshaws and exhaust-spewing cars. In Israel, it is four in the morning, one hour before the first Muslim call to prayer can be heard echoing from tinny PA systems above the terraces and rooftops of Jerusalem.
But right here it is quiet. Everyone’s fast asleep. Silent, except for the soft hiss of rain, and the rustle of a plastic bag being pulled around by a hungry fox.
Then something stirs. A fresh breeze from apparently nowhere, a breeze that stirs loose rubbish into a lazy catch-me-if-you-can circle … just a playful breeze … or, perhaps, something more than that …?
Well, here you are then … finally. I’ve been waiting here for you at THE END for the last five years. What took you so frikkin’ long?
All right, already … just messing.
Well, sort of. Because it’s been a bit like that, knowing how it all ends and not being able to share that ending with anyone (I mean ANYONE … not my agent, my editor, my family, my best friend, my dog, etc., etc.) until now. It’s been so-o-o hard not letting anything slip out!
I’ve been quietly watching friends and fans theorizing online, posting on Twitter, Facebook and on the TimeRiders website that they know already how this whole thing ends. Quietly watching, reading … and, of course, cackling to myself. I’ve often been asked if I knew how the series would end from the start and the short answer is … yes. Longer answer is that I knew how it all ended before I started writing the very first chapter. (Remember that one? Liam? Aboard the
Titanic
? Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?) With a story involving time travel, you really do need to know how it all ends before it starts. Time travel’s like that.
So, the majority of the story was carefully planned; however, along the way, some events did actually surprise me. For example, Rashim … he was never initially meant to tag along
with the team. He was actually meant to be a walk-on character in the fifth book,
The Gates of Rome
, and then quickly dispensed with. But I just, well, warmed to the guy. No, it wasn’t that; it was Liam, Maddy and Sal who warmed to the guy. So I had to listen to them. They were nagging me to recruit him into their story.
That sounds a bit weird, I suppose. But, really, that’s how it’s been with this series. And, you know, I’ve never had that before, not with my adult books – the characters actually becoming real people in my mind. Coming alive, off the page, entering my head and chattering away even when I’ve finished writing for the day. Hence the dedication at the beginning of this last book. So, although this series has finished, they’re certainly not gone. In fact, they’re alive and well and stuck somewhere back in the first century, jotting down the wise, common-sense words of a certain bloke called Jesus. Making sure their account of his life and his message is free of any potential misinterpretations and ambiguities that might be exploited by kings, emperors, caliphs, princes, priests, presidents and prime ministers, down the line.
Liam and the others are going to be steering the next two thousand years of our history, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to do a better job than humanity has done thus far. What will this last loop of history be like, I wonder?
Well, that’s what I’d like you to ponder. In fact, this is my request of you, Dear Reader … to imagine, perhaps even put into words on paper (or online) what they might get up to in the past, what their actions might change, how the timeline might alter, what today might be like because of them, because of the wisdom they choose to write.
I know their story continues in my mind (seriously … I’ll be tempted to go back to them sometime in the future and see how they’re getting on!) … and in
your
mind. I’d love to read
what you come up with. I’d love you to post your fan-fiction on the Internet and see where you take them. For instance, you might decide that Maddy went back to join the others, or that she
did
go back to live with Adam. (Was that a portal in 1994, or just a gust of wind? Hmm … Your call.)
So … I hand the baton over to you. After all, Liam, Maddy, Bob and Becks are now our characters – not just mine but yours too. They’re our mutual friends.
The TimeRiders website (
www.time-riders.co.uk
) will, by the time you read this, have a fully functioning fan-fiction section where you can upload your story and read those of other fans, where you’ll be able to like and comment and provide feedback to each other.
Who knows …? Perhaps in writing the further TimeRiders adventures, you’ll get a taste for storytelling and one day be an author whose books I’ll be avidly reading. From tiny acorns an’ all that …
OK, so I guess I’d better sign off soon. Otherwise I’ll probably get all emotional; there’ll be tears and we’ll both feel awkward and uncomfortable.
Just a few thank-yous from me. Thanks to: Shannon Cullen and Wendy Shakespeare, my faithful and reliable editorial team; Deborah Chaffey, best friend, partner and consistent beta reader; Jake, my son, first-ever reader and continuity spotter. And, finally, Mum and Dad … whatever you put in my baby milk must have worked.
I want to leave you with this last thought. If you go and read up on the head-scratching physics of time, you’ll discover it’s not a straight line we walk down; actually it’s an endless loop. Which means … if you think about it … the future’s
already happened
. And, if the future’s already happened, maybe that future will contain the technology for time travel. If so … then
that can only mean one thing. Somebody may already have done it … travelled back.
Which means, this world, this reality we all know so well … maybe this is a ‘wrong’ reality? Maybe this is a contaminated timeline. I mean, how the heck would we know if it wasn’t!
Just sayin’.
Alex Scarrow
NB: I’m still waiting for you to decode that message in the dedication of
The Day of the Predator
. Now, what are you waiting for? It’s easy.
