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then … and, of course, I’ll have Bob.’
    ‘Uhh … actually, I was thinking we’d have Bob along with us.’
    ‘All right, so then we’ll toss a coin to see who’s having him.’
    Maddy buried her face in her hands. ‘Jesus … Liam, are we really going to do this? Fling ourselves out there in different directions with just a frikkin’ hope and a prayer? Are we being stupid? Reckless?’
    ‘Haven’t we always been?’ He laughed. ‘As far as I can see, we’ve never had much of a plan. We’ve just dealt with whatever came our way.’
    ‘Great … and look where that’s got us.’
    ‘Alive, Mads … we’re alive.’ He leaned forward on to the table and nudged one of her shoulders with his. ‘We should be dead. In fact, we were never meant to be alive in the first place. So … everything we have now, every moment, every memory, and all that we know … it’s all a bonus.’ He grinned. ‘And, I promise you, we’ll be back in that dungeon in a few days’ time … and we’ll have all those answers between us.’
    She looked at him. ‘Liam, what is it with you? Nothing ever worries you, does it?’
    ‘Ahh, I do my fair share of worrying … to be sure.’
    ‘But you always bounce back up with that dumb-ass grin on your face. Shiny, like a new penny.’
    ‘Speaking of pennies …’ He pulled a coin from his waistcoat pocket. ‘For Bob this is, OK? Heads or tails?’



CHAPTER 5
     
2070, New York
     
    Maddy decided to open a portal somewhere familiar. Somewhere they’d know and at least be able to get their bearings. A quick pinhole viewing confirmed what they’d expected to see: Brooklyn’s streets lost beneath a permanent, stagnant carpet of water. Rooftops and windowsills growing green and wild with tall weeds and saplings.
    The first two to go through, Rashim and Becks, burdened with backpacks crammed with tins of food, readied themselves on the sawdust plinths. Maddy counted them down and, with a hum building up to a crescendo, then a puff of evacuated air, they were gone. Just Maddy, Liam and Bob left.
    She looked around their dungeon as the displacement machine recharged itself for the next release of energy. This place had begun to feel just as much a home to them as their archway beneath the Williamsburg Bridge once had. The modest touches of comfort had begun to clutter and cover the dungeon like barnacles on a ship’s hull: the hammocks strung up behind the curtains, the commode in the corner hidden by a sky-blue satin drape on a loop of rope, the threadbare armchairs round their communal table, messy with mismatched crockery, their kitchenette with its modern, out-of-place electric kettle, toaster and a single-hob stove, and a rack of shelves where plain vanilla cartons of milled oats jostled for space with the last boxes ofRice Krispies. Beside the armchairs and table, a small coal burner with a smoke hood and a chimney flue improvised to direct the smoke out of the archway through a hole in the wall on to Farringdon Street. Damp clothes hung on wooden laundry frames round it. Normally it glowed a welcoming, flickering amber. Now it was all cold grey ashes. In one corner were several tall oak wardrobes in which the accumulated clothing from several trips into the past hung tidily from coat hangers.
    She looked around and felt sad. Yes, it was just beginning to feel vaguely homely. Well, it
had
been … then events had once again spun out of her control: the trip to the jungle … the tachyon beam there, Sal’s and Adam’s deaths …
    Liam and Rashim had made a supreme effort to yank her out of the spiral of depression that she’d begun to orbit. They’d nagged and cajoled until she’d wearily given in and let them drag her away to explore the furthest reaches of the British Empire. An extended holiday travelling on steamships and trains to the Far East, India, Africa and back again. Bless them for trying so hard … all of that had helped. Had lifted