The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  Seamus rummaged in his bulging pocket for a pencil and a slip of paper and then recorded the readings. McCullen grabbed his shoulder. Seamus looked up to see the air thirty feet in front of them shimmering.

  “Did you amplify the signal?” said Seamus. “That could open a doorway!”

  “I didn’t do a thing. But if we can see through the rip, we can see if it’s my world. Or Miss Sanchez’s.”

  Seamus moved closer to the shimmering rip with the handheld sensor. Something flashed past the opening. It was large and white, but a moment later, it was gone. He hurried forward, eager to obtain readings. Perhaps it was a truck or a large automobile. Even a brief look through the rip could yield valuable information.

  One moment, the air was shimmering, and the next, the time rip opened wide, revealing an eyeless white head, like that of a giant earthworm. It was at least four feet in diameter, smooth and sickly pale. Then, its mouth opened, but instead of opening at the bottom of the face, it opened in the center, spreading sideways until the head was bisected, becoming a gaping crimson canyon, like a hungry wound.

  The air around him slammed Seamus to the ground and he braced himself as he was dragged toward the time rip and that gaping mouth. He wasn’t being blown from behind, as with a strong storm wind, but was being pulled, along with the sensors, pieces of gravel from the pathway and hunks of earth and plant life. Things flew into the mouth, but it remained open, waiting as the world was sucked into it.

  And then the door shut, the air stilled and he was left, gasping, hatless and covered in dirt on the grass.

  “That’s another one you owe me,” called McCullen. He was kneeling in front of the control panel. The sensors were in disarray, having been knocked down and dragged, but somehow McCullen had managed to close the time rip.

  A few of the customers at the Café du Monde had risen and were watching them, but after Seamus dusted himself off, he saw that they had returned to their tables. Yes, there you go. There is nothing out of the ordinary. You did not see anything other than two men with some mechanical devices, and one fell down.

  “What in the hell was that thing?” said Seamus.

  “It wasn’t from my world, that’s for certain. Perhaps that’s where the missing people went.”

  Seamus sincerely hoped not, and yet, he knew that McCullen might just be correct.

  Chapter 10

  December 27, 1863

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Hazel answered the front door, already knowing who would be on the doorstep.

  “Good evening, Miss Dubois. Care for an afternoon out?” said Mr. Wesley Ross. He was a man of medium height, well built with dark blond hair and ruddy cheeks. It was cool outside, and he wore a new wool coat trimmed with thin strips of black satin. Perhaps it had been a Christmas gift. The top hat he held was also new and his shoes were polished. Mr. Ross was a man who took care with his appearance, and in all other aspects of his life, but he usually wasn’t quite so fastidious.

  “Let me fetch my coat. Where will we be going?” Hazel moved aside to allow him into the front entryway and closed the door.

  “I was considering the botanical gardens.”

  They had visited the botanical gardens the previous May, and Hazel had loved the place. Everything had been alive and fragrant. It had made her feel far from the war and all her troubles.

  “That sounds delightful,” she said. “Let me get a few things.”

  She went upstairs, grabbed her handbag, put on her coat and the bracelet Mr. Ross had given her, and told Mrs. Washington where she was going. Then she joined Mr. Ross and took his arm.

  Out in front of her house stood his mechanical carriage, trembling slightly as steam puffed from its exhaust pipe. It was shaped similarly to the horse-drawn carriages, with large metal-rimmed wheels and curtained windows along the sides. The driver sat up high in the front, but instead of managing the horses, he operated the accelerator and brake pedals and turned a wheel on a long pole to steer.

  The Ross family carriage was black with silver painted accents outside and a royal blue interior. It was not the finest steam carriage in the city, but to own one at all was an accomplishment few families ever achieved.

  Mr. Ross handed her into the carriage, and she took the seat facing forward while he took the one across from her. The carriage growled and then lurched forward. Unlike many of the more ostentatious carriages with large windows set low and wide to allow people to see the fortunate passengers, this one had modest windows, and if Hazel sat back, she would not be gaped at by pedestrians. She might be a respectable young woman, but she retained part of her old instinct to remain unseen. There was no sense in making a spectacle of herself.

  “Thank you for the bracelet,” she said, shifting her arm to let him see that she was wearing it. “It’s absolutely beautiful.”

  “No less than you deserve,” he said.

  The way he was looking at her made her feel warm inside, but also uneasy. She felt her cheeks flush with heat, and she looked out the window. He loved her. Mr. Augustus and Mrs. Washington and the Professor all thought that he was going to propose marriage. But her eighteenth birthday was still more than a week away, and Mr. Ross still lived in his parents’ home. He may love her, but there was still time for her to think sensibly about her future.

  They arrived at the botanical gardens. The last time they had come, the plants were lush and in bloom. Today, the place was almost empty, and as they walked arm in arm along the winding gravel pathways, she saw that many of the plants were dormant and the branches of the leafless trees rose gnarled and naked into the air. It was not as lovely as in spring and summer, but still, it was the Christmas season, and Mr. Ross was not only her suitor, but her good friend.

  “The business is going well,” said Mr. Ross when she inquired. “I have taken over most of the duties my father and uncle have done, but there are still a few things yet to learn. They hope to both retire from their posts this summer.”

  “So soon? But how will the company get along without them?”

  “Well, with me, of course.” At her surprised silence, he laughed. “I am capable of running a business, you know.”

  “Of course, it’s just that, well, I suppose I still think of you as being so young.”

  “I’m nearly three and twenty. My birthday is in May, and they want me to have taken over every duty by then. Of course, both my father and uncle will always be available for consultation.”

  “It would be a shame to lose all of their wisdom.” She must have looked gravely concerned, because he smiled.

  “They’re retiring, not dying. They’ll be around for a few years yet, long enough to see the company prospering under my management. In the areas I’ve taken over so far, I’ve managed a seven percent increase in profits.”

  Talk of profits bored her, but she was proud of Wesley. She knew he had worked hard to learn the business and to make it a success.

  “In fact,” he continued, “the business is doing so well and prospects are so good, that by summer, I am going to be purchasing my own house. I’ve already started looking.”

  “Have you? What neighborhoods are you considering?”

  “I was hoping you would help me with that.”

  “Of course,” she said, and then realized what he meant. He was implying that she would assist in choosing a house because she would be living there. Her insides went cold, and then hot.

  Did she love Mr. Ross? That was the question, the burning question. Would he make a good husband? Yes. Was he kind, decent and hard working? Would he provide a good home and be a good father? Yes and yes. She would be a fool to let him slip through her fingers.

  One of her old school friends, Cassandra, had even said that if Hazel ever tired of Mr. Ross, she should inform her. He was a good prospect in every way
.

  “Hazel?” he said, and she realized that they had stopped atop a small wooden bridge that arched over a thin stream. The water looked cold and dark below, but the sunlight wavered and played against the submerged rocks in a striking way, and dark tendrils of living plants wavered beneath the surface, like beckoning fingers.

  “I need to ask you something,” he said. “You know my feelings for you.” He touched her cheek, and she looked up into his eyes. She could tell that he was worried, nervous and sincere. He slid his hand down her arm and took both of her hands. She wanted to pull away, to run down the path and keep running. And she remembered the other times she had run, or wanted to run. But she was a grown woman now, and running would not do.

  “Hazel, will you marry me?”

  At her hesitation and dismayed expression, he added, “Not immediately. I know you are not yet eighteen. And I need to take over the company, purchase a home and get things in order before I can take a wife. Ours would be a long engagement, over a year most likely.”

  He looked so hopeful, so sweet, and he had been so good to her. He didn’t care that she had no family connections and that she wasn’t even the daughter of the Professor. She had told him that she was the daughter of country folk, though she had left out the time she had been a runaway. He knew enough of her past to be repelled by it, but he was not. He was a man of integrity, of good humor, and yet, she was terrified.

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “I’m still young.”

  “Is there someone else?”

  “No! No. No one else. It’s simply that the thought of marriage and children still frightens me. I—I’m not sure.” Then she had an idea, one that would buy her some time to think things over. “And besides, you’re Methodist and I’m Catholic. I need to get a dispensation from the priest in order to marry you. It could take awhile.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said. And she knew he would. It was clear that he was disappointed, but he wasn’t angry with her. She had never claimed that she loved him, but she thought she might grow to love him, in time. Perhaps she was cold-hearted and romantic love was beyond the scope of her feelings. She wasn’t sure.

  Later, she undressed for bed, took down her hair and while brushing it, tried to think logically about the marriage offer. The little mechanical jackal sat looking at her with its green jewel eyes.

  It was Mr. Grey. She did not have any romantic notions about the man, and he was far, far too old for her. When they had met, she was eleven and he was somewhere in his forties. But she needed to be honest with herself. If it weren’t for Mr. Grey and the promise of some other life, would she have accepted Mr. Ross’s offer gladly? Yes. Unless some other dashing young man came along and swept her heart away, she would be content with Mr. Ross. Any woman in her position would be.

  So that was the crux of it. Mr. Neil Grey had promised to return on January 8, 1864, her eighteenth birthday. And she was waiting for him.

  Chapter 11

  December 27, 1863

  New York, New York

  “I couldn’t do it,” said Neil, dropping two sugar cubes into his coffee. “The man was creating medical implants to help people. He wasn’t making weapons implants.”

  Mr. March sat across from him in the New York coffee house of 1863, a huge change from the polished and sterile establishments of 2032. It was a place with a rough plank floor and bad lighting, but clean cups and decent coffee. It was only six years after he had last been in this time period, and the Civil War was now in full swing.

  Neil had allowed Mr. March to take him away from the twenty-first century, presumably to his next job, without telling him that he hadn’t killed Trevor Grant. He had feared that Mr. March would do it himself, or somehow force him to do it against his will. It was an odd thought, but he had the feeling that Mr. March could make him do things he didn’t want to do. It made a little flame of anger burst to life inside him.

  “The medical implants were a front for his true work,” said Mr. March, setting down his coffee cup. “It wouldn’t do for anyone to know about it. Do you think he would allow some person from their company’s network security department to see his work? His real work, that is?”

  That might be true, but it still didn’t add up. The young woman in the break room had been pleased with Trevor Grant’s work, and the funding request was clear. They had test subjects, many of them, who had benefited from the medical devices.

  “Unless I see evidence that the man was making weapons, I’m not going to do the job,” said Neil.

  “I have the evidence.”

  “Then give it to me. Let me see it as well.”

  “Why? Do I need to justify every job to you now? You always trusted me before.” Mr. March looked so sad, so disappointed, and though Neil couldn’t remember his father, he imagined that this must be how a disappointed father looked at his wayward son. “Look, Neil. Think about that man, Dubois. That was six years ago, and you’ve saved innocent children. The work you do is good work. You are the hand of justice, the triumph of right over wrong. The justice system fails, society fails, evil men and women go free. But you, you are the counter-balance to that.”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself then, if it’s so important.” Neil reached into his pocket and withdrew the card with the twenty-first century money on it. To anyone in this time, it would be a strange curiosity, but Mr. March would never allow anyone to have the chance to see it. Neil slid it across the table, and Mr. March took it. It would vanish to the place where the man himself went. And Neil never knew exactly where that was.

  “Because I can’t do what you do,” said Mr. March. “You move silently, you blend. You have a gift. Your kind of justice is not pompous and does not wear either a mask or a star on its chest. You do your work with such precision, a precision I could never duplicate.”

  Neil wondered if Mr. March was buttering him up, but he didn’t feel flattered. He felt tired, worn down and full of a terrible feeling—that he was not some hand of justice, but of something else entirely.

  “You need to go back,” said Mr. March, patting his pink lips with the napkin. He looked a little drawn, and his fair skin looked more pasty than usual. He wore a light grey suit with a crisp white shirt, the sort of clothing he always wore, the type that gave Mr. March the impeccably groomed air of wealth without ostentation.

  “I won’t go back,” said Neil. “Find me another job and show me the proof of guilt. All of it.”

  “And then what? Will you want to investigate the entire thing yourself to verify my facts?”

  “Perhaps. You were wrong about Trevor Grant and about Rick Gallo in Las Vegas.”

  “Have some sense, boy, and listen to reason. It’s a waste of your talents to have you investigating crimes, like some common street detective.”

  Neil disagreed, but he didn’t speak his thoughts. Another memory came, of reading about a great detective, a man in London, tall and hawk-nosed. Fiction. It was fiction, and there was a mystery, a dead person. Neil remembered loving the story.

  “I won’t do another job for you until I see proof.”

  “No, Neil. This is not how our arrangement works. You do not make demands of me. I make requests of you, which, up until now, you have fulfilled. And in return I have given you a livelihood, and most important, a purpose. A noble purpose.”

  Neither man spoke, and Neil sat back. He was not going to give in. He sipped his coffee.

  “There is something you need to understand. There’s a reason I do what I do. I believe in freedom, human freedom. I believe that individuals should not be controlled, not by governments or corporations or religions. Everything I do is ordered toward one goal, that of ensuring human freedom. Sometimes that involves snipping a time thread before something bad grows and begins to have negative effects. Dictatorships, religious monopolies, well-meaning morality c
odes, all of them impede the right of men and women to do as they please.”

  “Then why do you end lives? That’s taking away the most fundamental freedom of all.”

  “I only end a life when no other option is possible. You are not the only one who works with me. There are other ways to prevent certain events. Someone slips a condom into the wallet of the father of the next tyrant. A computer file is deleted or a building full of records burns down. Sometimes it’s as simple as making someone miss a train.”

  “You still end lives.”

  “All for a reason, for a greater purpose. It gives me no pleasure.” Mr. March sighed and watched a woman cross the room. “If you could see things as I do, you would understand the necessity of performing smaller acts to prevent greater horrors.”

  “The ends justify the means. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “If you want to put it so crudely.” Mr. March set aside his cup and stood. “Now, shall we return to 2032?”

  “No,” said Neil.

  Mr. March watched him, and Neil got the feeling that the man was making a decision. Then, he pulled a roll of bills from his pocket. It was currency from this time.

  “If that is how you wish it, I will give you this choice. You can stay in this time for now, until you see reason. And when you are ready to return to me, you may inform me.” He wrote a name and address on a piece of paper. “You may leave word there, and she will see that I get it. And if, for whatever reason, you decide to remain here, you may tell her that as well. I will not seek you if you do not wish to return.”

  “What about taking me home? To my own time.”

  “No. You can do less damage here. You can work as a dockside worker or on a farm somewhere. You’re young and so very strong. If you are determined to waste your talents, then let it be on your own head.”