Folios/v7/Time-landscape-2019/MS-160
“You told me that the rebellion of seventeen forty-five was successful,” Katy said suddenly. They were sitting leaning against each other inside the outhouse. “The second Matthew said that the uprising ended in a Jacobite victory. In his … world, plane of existence – whatever you want to call it – Carlisle surrendered to the Rebels and they marched on through England. Charlie won the right to rule Scotland and so it had been an independent country since seventeen forty-five, but you said that it was awful. There was a huge famine and half the population of Scotland died because there wasn’t any work and hardly any food. You – he – said that their king kept trying to invade England. He refused to support England in this war.”
“But … that’s not what happened. I know my history. That’s definitely not what happened. The Jacobites were defeated.”
Katy shrugged. “That’s just what the second Matthew said. I don’t think I’ve remembered it wrong.”
“So he is from a place where the Jacobites won? Some kind of different version of history?”
“I suppose.”
“But, Katy!” He sounded so relieved that she looked up in surprise. “That means that it doesn’t happen! If Matthew Two wasn’t from this world, then none of the things that happened to him will happen to me, and I won’t get sent back. You won’t die!”
“Matthew, the Scots being independent probably won’t make a difference to how this war goes.”
“How do you know that? It might make all the difference in the world! If the Scots weren’t fighting with us, we’d have fewer soldiers. They have a truce with France, so France might not have fought either. And that man who saved us at the river was a Highlander. If he hadn’t been there, we would have been killed! Already things have happened in new ways because of that one difference.”
“What are you saying? That all of history changed because of a single uprising? That if one little siege – the siege of Carlisle over a hundred years ago – had gone differently, it would have changed the outcome of everything that came after?” She stopped talking. She needed to think. Matthew began to speak but she shushed him quiet. “It was you – us,” she said eventually. “We changed the outcome of the siege. Durand might have surrendered if we hadn’t been there. You made him promise that he wouldn’t.”
“No. That … we can’t… This isn’t real. You can’t possibly be suggesting that us just being there changed the whole course of history!”
“I think it might have,” she admitted, “although it sounds awfully big-headed. But it makes sense. Maybe we weren’t in Carlisle in this other world, so Durand surrendered straight away and the Rebels carried on their invasion of England. Maybe they managed to get to London before the English army had a chance to get there to stop them.”
“So, in our world we delayed the surrender of Carlisle long enough for the army to be mustered to defend England?” he asked, a little sceptically. “So that meant the Jacobites didn’t win and Scotland remained a part of Britain.”
“Exactly.”
He threw his hands up in exaggerated disbelief. “But that’s ridiculous. We aren’t… We didn’t know any of that would happen. It was all just chance!”
“I wish I had a better explanation, but I don’t.”
He was silent, resigned.
Katy tried to remember what else Matthew had told her in 1745. “You told me about the war – this war – and how it went,” she remembered. “Something was happening when you were sent back. Something big.” She bit her nail, deep in thought.
“Can’t you remember what it was?” Matthew stroked the hair off her face. His touch was distracting.
“I can’t remember,” she said, frustrated. She hadn’t taken too much notice of what Matthew had been saying at the time. She hadn’t known it would be so important. “Does it matter? We’re living in a different version of the war. It might not even happen here. Those things happened in a world in which the Jacobites won the uprising. Everything might be different this time.”
“But there’s a chance it might happen. Lots of things are still the same. Any information about where even a single Russian rocket might drop is better than nothing.”
“A rocket,” she said. “There was a rocket! All of the generals were killed at once. You tried to stop it and couldn’t.”
Matthew drew in a horrified breath. “All of them? All of the generals were killed? There would be no one to command the soldiers or plan the tactics. The army would have no chance of fighting and winning. Are you sure? How did it happen?”
Katy paused, trying to pull the memory from the back of her mind. It had been in a different life, and she had been so scared and upset that she hadn’t been focused on what Matthew was telling her. She had been in the middle of a siege and had just lost the man she loved – she hadn’t cared about the details of a war a century in the future. It hadn’t been important.
She closed her eyes and tried to picture 1745. They had been in her bedchamber. Matthew had been toying with a slice of bread. She could see him picking crumbs off the crust. But what had he said? What had happened?
She opened her eyes suddenly and stared in horror at Matthew. “They were in a meeting. In a tent. A rocket hit it. It caught fire. Everyone was killed before they could escape. All of the commanders – English and French.”
“Yes, but when? When does it happen?” Matthew sounded desperate.
“I don’t know, Matthew. You didn’t tell me anything like that back then. You said I’d died – shot during a battle by the river. Then later a rocket hit a tent full of the commanders.” Katy knew she sounded irritated, but she couldn’t help it. “The Russians managed to get close enough to the tent by going up the river.”
“A river? But … that’s where we are now. You didn’t die, not here. It must be a different river. A different battle.”
They were silent.
“The Highlander,” Matthew said suddenly. “He saved us by the river. You would have been shot if he hadn’t been there.”
“So?”
“In that other time, that other version of this war, the Highlander wasn’t there to save you. Because the Scottish hadn’t fought alongside the English.”
“He saved my life,” Katy said. “I would have died.”
“But you didn’t! You’re alive. And that means this rocket – the rocket that killed the commanders – is coming today. It’s going to happen now!”
> ALERT: Subjects in time-landscape 1854 in danger
> Intervention recommended
>> Intervention denied
Kate and Matt searched through half a dozen identical, desolate labs trying to find any trace of the bacteria before they reached the basement. It was cold – too cold for a building that should have been without power for decades. Kate pressed a hand against the wall. She felt the hum of a generator and knew they were in the right place.
“Look,” Matt whispered. “The floor. It’s clean.”
Almost every other surface in the building had been covered in dust. Wherever they went they’d left a trail of footprints in the grime like tracks in the snow. But here, in the depths of the basement, the floor was immaculate. There was even a broom propped against the wall.
“Someone comes here. A lot.” Kate swallowed, shining her torch down the pitch-black corridor. It illuminated a bolted metal door, with a sign that read BACTERIAL STORAGE ZONE. DO NOT ENTER.
“Oh, no. No, no, no,” she muttered. “They really do have it. They can’t, they wouldn’t…”
“Let’s find out,” Matt said, catching her shoulder and rubbing a thumb into the muscle. “We need to find out.”
“I can’t,” she said desperately. “This isn’t happening. This was supposed to have ended twenty years ago.”
“Kate, it is happening. We need to go in.”
She nodded. They moved towards the door.
“The freezer is still running,” Kate said. “They’ve kept it going all this time.”
Matt turned the large handle and the seal of the door pulled free with a long, slow hiss. Lights came on inside, flickering weakly on and off before settling into a dull glow that revealed rows of shelves that were packed tightly with vials, each one neatly labelled with a bright-yellow sticker stamped with a skull and crossbones.
“Shit.”
“How much do they need?” Matt asked, voice hovering somewhere between horrified and awestruck.
“They could destroy the entire planet in a day with this stuff. If the contents of this room got released…” Kate stepped into the freezer and carefully picked up a vial. It was labelled with an expiry date and a stock number as if it was any normal lab chemical instead of a deadly weapon.
“Kate, look,” Matt called. He was holding a blue folder that had been dangling from a piece of string attached to the wall by the doorway. “It’s a logbook of the stock. Look.”
She ran her eyes down the page. Columns, filled with dense handwriting, listed the quantity and stock number of vials that had been taken out. The dates showed that almost every week for the last few months at least five vials had been checked out. The last log was only two days ago, when fifteen vials had been removed.
“They’re taking it somewhere. This isn’t over.”
A sound echoed down the hallway that led to the freezer.
Footsteps.