Finally, after a few seconds, she heard the hard drives whirring gently once again.
› I like the magic very much.
Sal smiled as she acknowledged how many terabytes of computing power had gone into that simple statement. If she had a mean streak in her, she could have asked him what colour he thought went best with violet, or what was tastier — chocolate or vanilla? It would probably lock the system for hours as Bob laboured through infinite decision loops to finally come up with the answer that he was unable to compute a valid response.
Bless him. Great at data retrieval, cross-referencing and processing. But don’t ask him to pick dessert off a menu.
CHAPTER 3
2001, New York
Monday (time cycle 45)
Most of the damage that happened here in the archway with the last time contamination has been fixed up now — the holes in the walls filled again, the door to the back room replaced with a new sturdy one. And we got a brand-new emergency generator installed. Some workmen came in to set it up. We had to hide the time-portal equipment from them, and when they asked about all the computer screens at the desk Maddy told them we were a computer-game developer. I think they believed her.
It’s a much more powerful generator, and more reliable than the last shadd-yah old one. I hope we don’t have to use it, though.
We’ve also got an old TV set, a DVD player and one of those Nintendo machines. Liam loves the games. He’s mad about one stupid game with silly characters driving around on go-karts throwing bananas at each other.