In the silence that followed, Shaun heard loud voices and shouting – then gunfire.
His hand flew to his gun, and Cassie mirrored his actions. The Warden glanced toward the door, becoming young again, his jaw tight. He turned back to the teenagers and said quickly, “They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?” Cassie asked, her question a mousey squeak.
“The Resistance,” the Warden answered, which of course was no answer at all, just another riddle. “Not enough time to explain. Listen to me, very carefully. This is the truth, whether you want to believe it or not.”
Loud bangs, muffled by the thick door, but definitely coming closer.
“You are not an accident, not some chance mutation caused by random evolution. The Bureau has always called you human weapons – that’s because they made you, they created you. In your world, White Tower was attacked in the late 1980s, crippled by the Adjusters in a comprehensive strike – you have seen the facilities, crumbling and forgotten.”
Cassie nodded frantically; Shaun gave only a grunt of acknowledgment. More gunfire, furious shouts, the last screams of dying men.
“In your world, the Bureau of Time continued their experiments on Timewalkers. They chose hospitals across the country, took infants and administered something they called Liquid Cronium Solution. They were making their own sleeper agents – they planned to recruit you into the reserves when you turned seventeen, and train you to become the most lethal weapons in all of human history.”
Shaun heard his own pulse raging in his ears, his indignation and fury growing. Voices shouted in his head, disillusioned, frightened, angry. They lied to you. Said you were a freak of nature. They made you into a weapon. They made you. Lied to you. They knew what White Tower was. They lied to you. They knew they knew they knew THEY LIED THEY LIED!
“You said planned,” Cassie said, her voice coming from a great distance. “Something went wrong, didn’t it?”
The First Timewalker threw a glance to the door, older and hunched-over once more. He raised his voice to shout over the battle raging beyond the door.
“There was a disaster. The Bureau of Time had much of its intelligence and research stored in another facility, buried beneath the World Trade Center. When the towers fell, the Bureau lost decades’ worth of information on the Timewalker Program – and they lost the names of all the children who were unknowingly a part of their experiment.”
A dagger went through Shaun’s heart.
The day he had lost his parents, the day his life, and the lives of millions of Americans had been changed forever, was the same day that the Bureau had lost the Timewalkers.
That was why there were so few Timewalkers. The Bureau had no way of finding them. That’s why they monitor Temporal Spikes – hoping to find Timewalkers and get there before the Adjusters. Hope. Hope barely saved me; hope almost killed Cassie; hope wasn’t enough to protect Hayden Miller.
“I’m sorry,” the First Timewalker said, “I truly am. You didn’t deserve this. None of us did. In this world, White Tower remained undefeated. They would eventually use Timewalkers as instruments of destruction in what we called the Final War, the apocalypse that doomed us to a nuclear winter.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Shaun snarled, slamming his hand onto the bench. “We didn’t need to know! What are we supposed to do now?”
“I don’t know,” the Warden said. His words were drowned out by the sounds of heavy machinery – a blade cutting through the foot-thick reinforced door. Sparks flew into the room, followed by an acrid stench of burned metal. “You deserved to know the truth. Everybody deserves to know where they came from. To know what they really are.”
“That’s not an answer!” Shaun growled, advancing on the old man, his fists clenched. “How can we go back now, knowing this?”
“Shaun,” Cassie cried out, “Shaun, leave him alone!”
The saw pushed through the door, carving out a jagged hole large enough for a man to crawl through. The First Timewalker shifted again, becoming younger, his eyes blazing with furious intensity. He seemed to grow taller and broader, towering over Shaun.
“I gave you the truth,” he growled, “more than you deserve. Only you can decide what to do with it.”
A black-clad figure crawled through the opening, assault rifle raised and ready—
Cassie screamed, reaching across to grab Shaun—
Shaun brought his handgun to bear, but he was too slow—
“You have to go!” The First Timewalker, Warden of White Tower brought his hands together in a thunderous clap. Temporal Energy burst from his body, enveloping the room and hurling Shaun and Cassie into a dark void, where they were falling, down through the infinity of space and time, plummeting into sheer nothingness and the all-consuming void—
Shaun’s feet hit solid ground and his knees buckled.
The earth was warm and dry beneath him, the sun harsh, beating down on his back. He collapsed on all fours, a low roar escaping him. He beat the ground with clenched fists until his anger faded and shock took over.
It felt as though the world was crumbling down around him, every truth he had accepted now revealed to be a fabrication – even his place in the universe was being called into question.
He saw the cornfield around him, the green stalks swaying in the breeze, but he paid them no attention. He felt Cassie’s presence as she knelt beside him, her hand on his back. She pressed her head against his, a piece of her hair falling down over his face. He stared at the cracked ground, at a crevice between two clumps of dirt, and imagined crawling down into that crack, hiding away from the world.
“I’m not going back,” he whispered. “I can’t go back. Not now that I know.”
Cassie froze. For the longest moment, there was only the cawing of birds, the rustling of corn stalks, and her breath hot in his ear.
Then she asked, very carefully, “Why not?”
He twisted away from her, resting on his knees. He stared at her. “Why not? Because they lied to us, Cassie. They – they made us believe there was something wrong with us; they said they didn’t know where the other Timewalkers were, they said they didn’t know what White Tower was!”
She flinched, and he realized he was shouting, but he didn’t care. He was angry, and she should be too. Why doesn’t she understand?
“So what?” she countered, her face flushed. “Shaun, we’re safe with the Bureau. They want to protect us. They can keep us safe from the Adjusters. We’re assets to them. They can’t afford to lose us.”
“Assets?” he exploded, getting to his feet. “I will not be treated like a tool for the Bureau to use! I don’t want to be protected because I’m worth something to them!”
“What choice do we have?” she cried, and he saw tears running down her cheeks. She’s just as shocked as you, just as confused, he tried to tell himself, but the rational part of his mind wasn’t working – it was being silenced by his anger.
“We can survive alone,” he said. “I’ve done it before, I lived rough on the streets, and I never needed the Bureau then. We’re better now, stronger. We can do it – together.”
He held his hand out to her. He silently pleaded that she would take his hand, that together they would abandon the Bureau. Leave their lies behind, start fresh. Just the two of us.
Her shoulders twitched, her eyes puffy and red.
“Shaun,” she croaked, “don’t do this, don’t make me choose…”
“Please,” he begged, his hand trembling. “Come with me, please come with me.”
Then he heard Tallon’s voice booming over the field, calling their names. They were moments away from being found – he could hear Ryan crashing through the field like a mad bull.
“I can’t,” Cassie cried, shaking her head. “I’m sorry Shaun, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
His hand fell down.
Tallon’s voice grew louder, and Ryan was almost upon them. Shaun felt something inside of hi
m break, that small part of his heart he had opened up to her, the part that had been eaten away by his parents’ deaths, by his cruel grandparents, by the brutality of the foster care system, the alienation of the streets, and the military reprogramming of the Bureau.
He didn’t say anything.
He turned away, walking at first, then he broke into a jog and finally an all-out sprint. His roaring pulse drowned out Cassie screaming his name, silenced the cawing of the black crows as they circled overhead, and quieted his own doubts. The voices inside his mind were replaced with one, an old familiar voice, and as he stumbled out of the cornfield and onto a highway, the voice uttered three final truths:
I am a Timewalker. I can’t change that part of me.
But I am no longer an Operator for the Bureau of Time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE ENCHAINED
Cassie knelt in the dirt, staring down the long row between the cornfields, hoping that at any moment, Shaun would reappear. She imagined him coming back into view, his eyes downcast; she could almost see him as he apologized and embraced her, making everything all right in the world again.
He never returned.
Salty tears blurred her vision, spilling down her cheeks in fiery tracks. Ryan crashed through the field and onto the path, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. He was saying something, but she couldn’t hear him – she withdrew from the world, everything becoming a distant blur of noise and color.
A helicopter wheeled overhead, the rotors buffeting the green stalks and almost knocking her over. Tallon was there, helping her to her feet, asking her questions that she didn’t have answers to. Where did you go? Where’s Shaun? Were the Adjusters there? Where’s Shaun?
She mumbled her replies, too numb to form a coherent sentence.
Ryan helped her up into the helicopter, asking her a steady stream of questions; she blocked him out, staring at the cabin floor, fixated on something the others couldn’t see.
“He just left,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “How could he just…walk away?”
At that, Ryan fell silent.
Through the static buzzing in her mind, she heard Tallon contact Eaglepoint Station and request a satellite to track down Shaun. A tactical team would be deployed to find him, to bring him back to Brightwood Ranch.
It doesn’t matter, she thought, a hollow pit opening in her stomach, threatening to swallow her whole. He said we were in this together. Why would he leave?
So what if the Bureau had made the Timewalkers? What difference did it make, whether they were a genetic mutation or a science experiment? Either way, Cassie’s life had been torn apart by the Adjusters – she had lost contact with her family, lost her freedom, and been turned into a soldier, broken down and reshaped by the Bureau of Time. At least the agency could protect her from the Adjusters.
Those faceless monsters were the true enemy, not the Bureau.
“We’re out of fuel,” Tallon shouted over the roar of the engines. “We’re touching down a few miles outside Brightwood and driving the rest of the way. Vehicles are already there waiting.”
Cassie nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
The helicopter landed in a grassy field, and she was led at a half-crouch under the blades toward a black SUV on the road. The driver was in the front seat, and she climbed into the back beside Ryan. Tallon took the passenger seat and the car pulled away from the helicopter, destined for Brightwood Ranch.
“Listen,” Tallon said, turning around in the seat to look at her. He hesitated, his dark eyes darting all over her face, analyzing her in a way that made her skin crawl. “I don’t know what happened out there, but if you know something, you need to tell us. Shaun could be in danger.”
She sniffed, wiping her cheeks for the hundredth time, her hand still coming away wet.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said, her voice tiny.
“Cassie, what happened?” Tallon asked. There was a sharp edge to his question, interrogative. She shrank back in her seat – what could she say? Should she tell him the truth, about the Bureau, about Timewalkers, about parallel universes? It sounded too impossible to believe, not unless you had seen the other world in the flesh.
“She needs time,” Ryan said, coming to her rescue. “Anderson will debrief her anyway.”
“Yes,” Tallon said, coming up short. He turned back around. “Yes, I suppose he will.”
The hills of Brightwood Ranch came into view. Cassie saw the anti-Temporal fence ringing the entire facility, protecting it from Adjusters. She also saw small figures standing outside the front gate, perhaps soldiers or guards, though she’d never known there to be so many outside the perimeter.
“Things are changing in the Bureau,” Tallon said, his voice unexpectedly loud and powerful. “I hope you know, for whatever it’s worth, that I wanted to be long gone before this day came. But unfortunately, schedules were moved up, and my role has changed with it.”
Cassie wiped her eyes. She didn’t know what Tallon was blathering on about, and she didn’t care either.
The people grew larger, and she could see their faces.
They didn’t have faces.
“This agency has grown too large, too quickly,” Tallon continued, as the SUV continued toward the front entrance. “It is the apex predator in a food chain evolving to defeat it. It cannot be allowed to operate unchecked. The scales must be balanced, and this war must be ended before it can begin for the second time.”
Cassie’s blood turned to ice. Tallon’s hoarse voice radiated power in the close confines of the car; no, it wasn’t his voice. His body was radiating Temporal Energy.
Carl Tallon was a Timewalker.
When it happened, Cassie couldn’t rewind time. Her Affinity was suddenly blocked, stopping her from accessing T.E. – she could feel it, but it remained beyond her reach.
Tallon drew his handgun from his belt and shot the driver in the side of the head. Blood splattered against the glass window, and the driver’s body sagged forward, depressing the accelerator.
A startled scream caught in Cassie’s throat, drowned out by Ryan’s roar of surprise.
The figures at the entrance parted, and the SUV slammed into the gate, accelerating even faster. The gate tore apart, taking a section of the fence with it; there was a rumbling explosion somewhere ahead of them, but her eyes were fixed on a tree ahead.
She fumbled with her seatbelt, trying to undo the clasp; Ryan dived over her and tried to grapple with Tallon. The Captain pushed the door open and threw himself from the moving vehicle, rolling away just as the car slammed into the tree.
Cassie’s body jarred, and the seatbelt cut across her body, knocking the wind out of her. The impact resonated through her bones, whipping her head back with a snap; blood rushed through her skull and made her dizzy.
“Get out!” Ryan roared, kicking the side door open. He undid Cassie’s seatbelt and dragged her out of the SUV and onto the ground, crouching over her protectively.
She looked around, dazed, struggling to comprehend what was happening. The world swam before her, then came together with sharp clarity. Tallon appeared out of nowhere and kicked Ryan in the face; the operator went sprawling, his carbine slipping beneath the mangled wreck of the SUV.
“Please,” Cassie gasped, fumbling for a weapon, for anything to defend herself with. “Please, please…”
Tallon towered over her, a wicked sneer on his face. “Have some dignity, you little brat.”
He lashed out with a clenched fist, and she hit the ground, her cheek stinging. From her vantage point, the world was turned on its side. The front gate was completely ruined, and the fence too—
The fence. Its anti-Temporal field was gone.
The base had lost its most import defense.
“Figured it out, little girl?” Tallon spat. He laughed cruelly, his true personality breaking through the tattered façade. “We rigged the generators with explosives. The Bureau is completely
dark.”
And then Cassie saw her.
The woman strutted through the ruined gate, long black hair sweeping down her back, her pale face hawkish – too severe to be truly beautiful. Behind her came three Adjusters, all wearing black with red sashes around their arms; and behind them came even more, teleporting into existence right inside Brightwood Ranch itself.
“Hello darling,” the black-haired woman said, the one with the Russian accent, the one who was called Marissa. She kissed Tallon on the cheek, as though they were close friends. She didn’t look much older than Cassie, perhaps only in her late teens or early twenties, but she carried herself with the confidence of a much older woman.
She glared at Cassie, sprawled on the dirt. “Get her up.”
Cassie tried to fight. She squirmed and crawled away, thrashing and kicking, desperately trying to use her Temporal powers, but nothing came to her. Tallon was too strong. He hauled her upright and clamped handcuffs around her wrists – ordinary ones, but it didn’t matter, because she couldn’t access her Affinity anyway.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, trying to twist out of his grasp. “Please! Don’t—”
Another vicious backhand left her seeing stars. She coughed blood onto the dirt, and watched silently as an unconscious Ryan was lifted up by two faceless Adjusters, dragged unceremoniously along the road.
They forced Cassie up the hill toward the base. With the power down, there were no alarms or protective systems, and the satellites atop the hill would have stopped receiving or transmitting; but the explosion had alerted the soldiers. Two groups swarmed out of the base, one heading straight up the hill toward the satellite dishes and the generators beyond; the other group saw the Adjusters and immediately opened fire.
Cassie screamed for them to run, but they couldn’t hear her. She struggled and fought, kicking Tallon’s shins, but then he put a knife to her throat, the blade biting into her skin and drawing blood.
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