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time-travelling moron it is who’s done this that they’re in big trouble.’

CHAPTER 8
    2001, New York

    It took three hours before computer-Bob’s dialogue box blinked on to the screen and Becks and Bob eventually stirred from the motionless trance they’d been in. Liam came and shook Maddy awake.
    She stared up bleary-eyed at Liam, fumbling for her glasses. ‘They done?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Where’s Sal?’
    ‘Viewing. Bob’s with her.’
    Viewing – Maddy knew what he meant. Sal was sitting out in the middle of Times Square watching for the subtle further ripples of a time wave.
    ‘Any more changes?’ she asked, sitting up and swinging her legs wearily over the side.
    ‘Not that me or Sal have noticed.’
    She shuffled over to the computer desk feeling worse than ever, if it was even possible, despite having managed to grab some quilt-time. She squeezed past Becks, still standing like a sentinel, her eyelids flickering and twitching like the wings of a humming-bird.
    She slumped down at the desk just as she heard the echoing hiss of their kettle stirring to life. Liam – bless him – was making Maddy her wake-up brew. Coffee, black, strong and treacle-sweet.
    ‘Hey, Bob, what have you got for me?’
    > Hello, Maddy. We have collated all the data hits for ‘Abraham Lincoln’ dating from 12 February 1809. There are 7,376 data references to the name. Most of these will be in reference to other people of the same name.
    ‘Right. So can you filter it down to occurrences in places where Lincoln was supposed to have lived?’
    > Affirmative. I have done this. There are 109 data entries in relation to the following locations. 1809 – Hardin County, Kentucky. 1816 – Perry County, Indiana. 1830 – Macon County, Illinois. 1831 – Coles County, Illinois. 1831 – New Salem, Sagemon County, Illinois. 1831 – New Orleans. 1836 – Springfield, Kentucky. 1846 – Washington DC. 1848 – Springfield, Kentucky. 1860 – Washington DC.
    ‘Right … and some of those hits will be him. Some will be other guys of the same name.’
    > Affirmative. There is one data entry I calculate to be of particular relevance. Do you wish to see it?
    ‘Yeah, put it up.’
    One of the monitors on her right suddenly stopped relaying a real-time feed of Wall Street stock values and instead displayed the sepia-coloured scan of an old newspaper. She saw the paper’s title banner:

The New Orleans Bee. Wednesday, April 6 th , 1831

    ‘So, which bit am I looking at?’
    Liam placed a steaming mug of coffee on the desk and settled in a chair beside her.
    ‘Thanks,’ she wheezed.
    > I will enhance the image.
    The scanned image zoomed in on a short article at the bottom of the page. No more than half a dozen sentences in print that was almost as faint as a watermark. The magnified image was horribly pixellated, like trying to read words cobbled together out of Lego bricks.
    ‘Sheesh, can you do anything with the image?’ Maddy wrinkled her nose as she squinted at it. ‘It’s just pixel garbage.’
    > Just a moment. I shall alias-average the pixels and apply character analysis. There will be a significant margin of error, which I can attempt to contextually interpret for you.
    ‘Just do what you can, Bob,’ she said, holding a tissue to her face and honking noisily again into it. ‘Oh crud, I hate feeling all blocked up an’ rough,’ she muttered.
    The scanned image blurred, softened then hardened again as if a cinema projectionist was messing around with the lens. Then a small highlighted green square appeared in the top left-hand corner of the image, grabbing a portion, analysing it, then moving along and highlighting another portion to the right. Step by step it moved right across the image, stepped down a row and began on the left-hand side once more. On another screen a document opened and words began to appear.
    Liam leaned forward and began to read it aloud.
    ‘Yesterday, in the evening a second fatal collision occurred