Read TimeRiders: City of Shadows (Book 6) for Free Online

of anti-time
     travel activists who tried to assassinate Chan, Kramer’s bunch of
     neo-Nazis.’ Maddy paused. ‘Need I go on?’
    ‘Well,’ Liam shrugged,
     ‘apart from them, that is.’
    ‘The point is,’ cut in Foster,
     ‘the world, down the line, is anincreasingly grim place.’
     He looked at Sal. ‘You’ve seen the storm clouds of the future, haven’t
     you, Sal?’
    She nodded. ‘Not good.’
    ‘A world full of people who see the
     only way of escape is back through time. And we …?’ Foster looked around at
     them. ‘We’re who’re standing in their way. That’s a lot of
     enemies to choose from.’ He turned to Rashim. ‘Maddy told me your group came
     from 2070?’
    ‘2069 actually,’ Rashim sighed.
     ‘The world’s dying. I mean, it’s not good at all. The food
     chain’s poisoned so that we’re all living on soya-synth products. And the
     floods took a lot of land. Migrating people, billions. And wars. And God knows
     we’ve had a lot of them. But that’s what everyone’s worried
     about … petrified of, you see? A big war. There are countries and power blocs
     in my time that are in a desperate position. Desperate enough to consider the use of
     extreme weaponry: bioweapons, nanoweapons.’
    ‘What’re those?’ asked
     Liam.
    ‘
Plague
 … is
     perhaps the best word for it, Liam. Whether it’s something genetically revamped,
     or self-replicating nano-bots, either way it becomes a weapon that doesn’t
     discriminate over borders, nationalities.’ He looked out of the window at the
     flickering lights of Times Square. ‘We’re in a bad place. Desperate times.
     It’s inevitable that something like that will eventually happen. We’ll wipe
     ourselves out. We’re destined to engineer our own end.’
    ‘
The end
.’ Maddy leaned
     forward. ‘That’s what Becks said to me. That was what she said was the
     “reveal condition” for the Pandora message, the Grail message.
The
     end
.’
    ‘Pandora?’
    She looked at Rashim, wondering how much
     they should be letting their new, temporary accomplice in on.
    ‘All we know,’ said Foster,
     ‘is that the people who want you dead had access to weapons technology from 2054.
     Apparently, the very same foetus batch as Bob and Becks, no less.’
    ‘I don’t like the sound of
     that.’ Maddy stared at him. ‘That feels like an enemy very close to home.
     Perhaps someone inside the agency?’
    Liam started. ‘You mean a turncoat in
     our Mr Waldstein’s secret time-police force?’
    ‘A traitor.’ She pressed her
     lips together thoughtfully. ‘I just hope not. We can do without that.’
    ‘Maybe when you sent that message
     asking about Pandora,’ said Sal, ‘someone else got it? Intercepted
     it?’
    That thought was met with silence. A silence
     that lasted several minutes and ended when the waitress arrived with an arm laden with
     hot plates. She served them out, along with the drinks they’d ordered, and, after
     looking at their glum faces, put a hand on her hip.
    ‘This some kinda office
     party?’
    Maddy nodded. ‘Sort of.’
    ‘Sheeesh …’ The waitress
     made a face, half pity, half amusement. ‘I’d hate to work at your
     place.’ She wished them a perfunctory ‘bon appetit’ and left them to
     it.
    ‘We’re none the wiser as to who
     wants us dead,’ said Liam. ‘So, how about we decide what we’re doing?
     Where we’re going to go? Because … I’m completely
     confused.’
    Sal nodded at Rashim. ‘And what about
     our new friend? Is Rashim staying with us?’
    ‘Uhh …’ Rashim cleared his
     throat, fidgeted with his cutlery. ‘Well, I’d really like to tag along. You
     know, if that’s all right? I won’t be a nuisance.’
    Maddy shot a glance at Foster.
Is this
     my call?
She wondered if now they had Foster back with them, he might resume
     themantle of team leader, relieve her of the burden of making the
     decisions.
    Foster smiled. ‘You decide,’ he
     said