Free New Pompeii by Daniel Godfrey Page A

perfectly possible for a particle pair to be taken from the past – or the present – and taken into what we perceive to be the future. But a particle pair existing in the future cannot move into the past. They would be swimming against the tide.”
    “So no time travellers?”
    “No. Not moving backwards anyway.”
    “But you’d still end up with paradoxes,” the voice persisted. “Therefore, the question still holds. If you take someone from the past, you will alter history. And, if you’re right, it would
already
have been altered, and we would probably know about it. So where are all the time travellers, Octo?”
    Arlen glanced behind him for help but neither Whelan nor McMahon responded. But then he smiled. Almost as if a new thought had sparked in the recesses of his mind. “There could be exceptions,” he said, finally relaxing. “For instance, what if you only took people with no futures. Say those about to die and whose bodies would never be found? How could they impact on history?” He paused. The room had fallen silent. “After all, they’d already be dead.”
    Kirsten started to shake. A white mist had started to thicken in front of her eyes. Which meant her time here was running out. But she could still see enough of the theatre to notice that McMahon was suddenly alert. He was leaning forward in his seat – mouth slightly open.
They’d already be dead.
    “I was speaking hypothetically, of course,” Arlen continued, suddenly breaking into nervous laughter. His voice became distant as Kirsten felt herself floating away. “That isn’t what NovusPart are proposing. But as the great Roman philosopher Seneca once wrote, ‘There is no genius without some touch of madness.’”
    There was silence. Finally, a single voice called out: “And what
are
you proposing?”
    “Power, gentlemen.” Whelan got to his feet. “If you can slow particles from a faster temporal stream into our own, then we can effectively create matter. And from matter flows energy. We’re basically looking to solve the world’s energy crisis. Let Dr Arlen continue, please. We’ll take questions at the end.”

16
    N ICK HAD ONLY just screwed his eyes shut when a light tap on his arm forced him to open them. Wincing at the pain in his head, he followed the point of Noah’s finger. Bathed in the orange light of the descending sun, he saw a Roman villa.
    He squinted. His migraine was a lot worse, and the small turn of his head was enough to make his surroundings spin. Noah leant forward to say something, but the boy’s voice was lost in the incessant thump of the rotors above them. Rotors. Nick shuddered. After their initial flight, he, Maggie and Noah had boarded a helicopter. The other two men hadn’t joined them for the second part of the journey.
    The small aerodrome where they’d made their pit stop revealed they’d been heading into old Soviet territory. The buildings had been nothing more than concrete bunkers – and they’d been set among a grey, decaying urban sprawl. It didn’t take much to imagine a golden hammer and sickle once adorning the sides of the buildings. Or a statue of men saluting the revolution.
    Nick glanced at his watch. They’d been in the air another couple of hours. The helicopter engine now seemed to be in perfect time with the beating inside his head. He needed something to distract him. He stared out of the window and tried to concentrate on the villa below.
    The building was set among vineyards, with larger crops of cereals nearby. A simple, narrow track led away from it and disappeared down a valley. There was no sign of any other properties. The track itself stopped at the villa entrance. There was only one way in or out.
    Nick paused to swallow the bile collecting in the back of his mouth. There was a good chance he was going to be sick. He could feel his stomach churning.
Swallow
, he thought.
Breathe. Then swallow. And concentrate on something
. He slumped forward – letting his