“Teleporting within the same universe is trivial,” Miller explained. “But crossing between the Shift and the Prime –cross-universe travel – well, that’s a lot harder. Individually, Adjusters can transfer between universes using large amounts of T.E. – that’s why we can detect Temporal Shifts ahead of time. But the more people you try to transport inside one wormhole, the greater the energy cost. To transfer something like a hundred people, you need a special device called a Gateway.”
“So, let’s find a Gateway.”
Miller grimaced. “FOB Chester is still waiting for a resupply from the Prime, and I’m having a hard enough time getting resources as it is. Gateways are difficult to construct, and very expensive. There was only one Gateway constructed here in the Shift, and that was a long time ago – it was purely for research, never used. It was broken apart, the pieces hidden in secure locations.”
“Where are the pieces?” Shaun asked, but he already knew the answer.
Miller arched an eyebrow. “Why do you think Zero was so interested in the White Tower facilities?”
“So we can’t cross over until we get another Gateway?”
“We could cross over individually if we wanted, but we need to bring an army with us if we want to stand a chance.” He gestured at the faceless Adjusters behind him, the soldiers observing the ruins like stone sentinels. “White Tower in the future – in the Prime – will detect the hostages, but they haven’t the resources to mount a rescue mission. Our position is here, defending this world against Zero.”
“What could that thing possibly have left to destroy?” The monster had already caused so much pain and destruction here at Brightwood – he had ripped out the heart of the Bureau of Time.
Now he just has to rip out the eyes.
“Eaglepoint!” Shaun gasped. “Eaglepoint Station! Out on Block Island, it’s an intelligence outpost that monitors Temporal activity. It’s the last remaining Bureau facility.”
“That’s where Zero will go,” Miller nodded, his eyes widening. The Adjusters snapped their heads around, the hexagonal devices on their temples pulsing. “We’re moving out!” he told Shaun. “Back to base; we need to gear up.”
Shaun turned to look at Brightwood Ranch one last time.
For over a year, he had called the agency home. He had slept in the barracks, eaten in the mess hall, trained in the mud and rain, pushed himself up and around the trails through the hills. He had snuck out of base late at night to sit on the metal railing around the satellite dishes and look up at the stars, contemplating his place in the universe that he’d once thought was completely unique and solitary.
Unique. There’s nothing unique about me, truly. I’m the younger copy of a man I’ve never known. A man that people like Miller look up to.
He swallowed past a lump in his throat, burying the thought.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about the Bureau of Time anymore. There were too many conflicting sides to the story. No black and white, only gray. He couldn’t rely on logic or reason, only his gut instinct. And that instinct was urging him to follow the future version of Hayden Miller and help protect Eaglepoint Station, to stop a madman from wiping out the rest of the agency.
“Shaun, come on, we don’t have much time!” Miller called out.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
There was nothing left of Brightwood but rubble, a partly-destroyed tarmac and a hangar with three helicopters and a dozen black SUVs. He thought of the hundreds of people who had lived on the base alongside him, dedicating their existence to protecting their country.
They were gone now, but Shaun was still alive, still able to honor their memory. He wouldn’t take back his title as Operator – not because of the Bureau’s lies, but because he wasn’t truly an Operator.
He was more than that.
I am a Timewalker. In every sense of the word.
“Let’s go,” Shaun agreed, turning his back on the base. He moved into the ranks of the Adjusters and stood beside Captain Miller. There was a rush of Temporal Energy around him, then a lurch in his gut, and he blinked out of existence.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE WARDEN
Cassie knew something had gone wrong when she opened her eyes.
She was standing in the middle of the Archives, the room around her torn apart with furious intensity. The safety deposit boxes had been ripped from the walls, the locks broken, the boxes opened and discarded on the floor. Their contents had been rifled through, but whatever the robbers had been looking for, it wasn’t White Tower’s documents. A much larger deposit box – almost a safe – had been broken into with some kind of heavy machinery, and was now conspicuously empty.
Her breath clouded in the frigid air. The vault door hung off its hinges, but beyond the light from the room itself, there was nothing but complete darkness – no floors or walls, just an endless black void that made her stomach churn.
Her knees shook dangerously and she sank down onto the concrete floor. She pushed aside bullet shells and deposit boxes, drawing her knees up under her chin. Tears poured down her cheeks, carving a track through the grease on her cheeks.
She let out a pained scream, low and raw. She tore at her own hair, pain searing across her scalp; loose strands came out, sticking to the blood and filth on her hands. She sobbed harder, letting her anger and grief consume her; she lashed out, grabbed discarded deposit boxes and hurled them against the wall. Documents and folders went flying in her rage, and she was screaming, sharp metal scraping her arms. Rivers of blood coursed along her arms, but she didn’t care, it didn’t matter – he betrayed me, betrayed us, HOW COULD HE DO THAT?
She grabbed another box and held it high over her head, her vision blurry and wet.
A strong hand wrapped around her wrist, freezing her in place.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t destroy government property.”
Cassie dropped the box and whirled around to see The First Timewalker, Warden of the Archives. Her mouth opened in shock. The Warden’s clothes were torn, his impeccable suit slashed apart. A bandage had been wrapped around his chest, the white cloth soaked through with red.
“Although,” he said, “I doubt you could manage to make things any worse.”
“You’re injured,” she said finally, her voice hoarse and broken.
The Warden glanced down at his chest. He had taken on the form of his younger self, just in his late twenties. He grimaced, and pressed one hand against the wound, turning the bandage a darker shade of crimson.
“We haven’t much time,” he said, his face contorting in a grimace. His words didn’t echo – they simply faded away into nothingness. She cast an uneasy glance toward the black expanse, her Affinity sparking as Temporal Energy formed and dissolved around her.
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere.” The Warden smiled, revealing a chipped tooth. He sat down on a chair that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “A space between spaces – a little pocket of the universe I can still control. This place can take any form you like. Perhaps this will be more comforting?”
The Warden waved his hand and the mysterious vault dissolved, reforming into the living room of Cassie’s family home in Pennsylvania. She was sitting on a sunshine-yellow couch, and the Warden was perched on a bone-colored stool; the entire room was exactly as she remembered it, down to the paisley curtains and gray carpet. Emotion swelled inside her chest, threatening to burst out, hundreds of memories flooding back – her parents, her childhood, her father’s warm embrace and her mother’s gentle touch.
That was all before. Before the Adjusters had entered her life, before the Bureau.
This was a moment in time, a snapshot of peace and serenity, never to be recaptured.
She leaned forward to touch the coffee table, but rather than solid timber, she felt cold metal.
It’s all an illusion.
“Why am I here?” she asked, figh
ting to control the tremor in her voice.
The First Timewalker observed her. “You have an important decision to make. A war is coming, Cassie. A war between two universes – and only one can survive. A war between an agency that claims to be protecting its citizens, and a rebel force that claims to be liberating its people. They cannot survive together.”
“I don’t want to fight,” she said, lowering her eyes. Her hair fell down over her face and she brushed it aside, her scalp still aching.
The Warden gave a choked cough. “You don’t have a choice. You must choose a side. I fear, however, that your decision has already been made for you.”
The house flickered, momentarily replaced with utter darkness. The house reformed again, this time missing its curtains. Through the window, there was nothing but the black void. The Warden pulled his hand away from the bandages, the material bloodied.
“The pocket is collapsing,” the Warden said, his hard eyes returning to Cassie. “You must listen to me, very closely. The Resistance and Zero no longer see eye-to-eye, and the resulting schism will add a third element to this struggle. My world, the world of ash and snow, is endangered, and your world will be caught in the crossfire, a new battleground. This conflict is inevitable, brokered by a vile creature who trades in nothing but death.”
“I don’t understand,” she gasped, shaking her head. “Resistance? What are you talking about?”
The First Timewalker leaned forward, his face turning white.
“You will understand in time,” he answered, his words hurried. “The future is divided between White Tower and the Resistance. The rebels once championed Zero, used him as their figurehead, but no longer. Zero has his own agenda, cloaked in robes of deceit and empty promises of power, guided by a corrupt image of his own making. He is dangerous, Cassie, and he must be stopped at any cost.”
The future. It seemed so impossible. The Adjusters are time-travelers. They had to come from somewhere – they came from the future. A world of ruin.
“Why are you telling me this?”
The Warden’s eyes softened, apologetic. “I believe he will use your family as leverage.”
Cassie jolted forward, her heart racing. “My family? What about my family?”
No, please no. Not my parents. Anyone but them.
“Your father is in danger,” the Warden said, and her heart broke. “Since your disappearance, he has been causing quite a stir in your hometown, asking questions that nobody is willing to answer.”
A painful knot settled somewhere in her throat. My dad. Trying to find me. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes. It had been weeks since the Bureau had taken her away from Hermitage. She couldn’t imagine what grief and distress her father had gone through, but she could picture him sitting on that sunshine-yellow couch, exactly where she was now. She could almost hear him begging, pleading with an unseen power to return his daughter, his only child.
“I have to help him!” She stood up, blood pounding furiously in her ears. She wanted to rush to her father’s side and protect him the same way he had tried to protect her from all the bad things in the world. How could Zero do this? Not my dad, please God, not my dad…
The Warden sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Not alone. I have taken the liberty of disrupting your teleportation, and your Bureau colleague too. There are no reinforcements, no allies left for you. You two are the best hope for finding your father and saving him from Zero’s wrath.”
She nodded, her heart hammering in her chest. My father is a good person. He doesn’t deserve this. It’s not his fault that I’m a Timewalker. He shouldn’t be used as a bartering chip in this secret war.
Aloud, she said, “I can do it. We can do it.”
The Warden stared at her, dark eyes moving behind his thin-framed glasses. He was looking older every second, and now she could almost see through him, patches of wallpaper appearing behind his body.
“I believe you,” the Warden said, frothy blood spilling over his lips. “Many millions of lives are at stake, Cassandra Wright. I hope you realize that, for all of our sakes.”
The ground tilted beneath her feet and she grabbed the couch, but the couch wasn’t there, and she was falling, down through the infinite void. She screamed without a voice, the air sucked out of her body. There was a lurching sensation in her gut, ripping her through time and space—
* * *
Forward Operating Base Chester was a hive of activity when the White Tower forces teleported back. They arrived outside of the base with an explosion of energy that rippled through the world, temporal anomalies flickering away like tiny shards of glass caught in the light.
Shaun observed the entire base for the first time.
To his right, the refugee camp marched away in neat, orderly rows of tents and makeshift mess halls, with more being constructed in the far distance. A consistent haze of dust curled up into the sky from trucks and workmen.
The main facility was on his left, clinging onto the edge of a towering cliff, the outside painted with mottled green-and-brown camouflage. One side of FOB Chester faced the flat plain and the refugee camp, while the other side looked down over the cliff and a thick pine forest that became blacker the further he peered into its depths.
He breathed again, this time tasting salt – the ocean.
“Where are we?” The entire compound was surrounded by dark-gray pylons, reminiscent of fence posts – except there was no chain between them. He could feel the force field though, an invisible barrier that rose overhead, protecting the base with an anti-Temporal dome of energy.
The shield let us through, he thought, observing the dome’s faint shimmer. Somehow it knows which Adjusters to keep out.
Hayden Miller squinted into the bright sunlight. “Rural Nova Scotia.”
“Canada?”
Miller shrugged. “It was less conspicuous than the United States. Besides, Zero has no interest with Canada – there was no Timewalker Program here.”
“Bet the Canadians are real happy about having you here,” he muttered. The group started toward the base, headed for a blastdoor in the cliff-side.
“They don’t know about the base,” Miller laughed. “Besides, you’re a difficult man to say no to. The other version of you, I mean.”
The blastdoor split apart vertically, allowing them into the cliff-side. The walls and ceiling glowed, provided a crisp but not overbearing light. The Adjusters walked together, serene and comfortable. Only when they were all together, like normal humans, did he realize that they weren’t so monstrous after all.
Another thought struck him, one that made his stomach churn.
“What am I like?” he asked, slowly, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. “In the future. Major Shaun Briars. He sounds important. I sound important.”
“You are important. You were a living legend in the Final War, and a great hero in the aftermath. You took control of White Tower, pieced together the crumbling remains of our government and brought something to the world that everyone had thought lost forever.”
“What was that?”
Miller’s voice was pained. “Hope.”
The older man directed Shaun down a corridor and through two more doors, his words filled with a powerful emotion. “You were, and still are, an influential leader. There are some that disagree with your leadership, fed poisonous lies by the rebels; but for millions of people, you are a symbol of mankind’s ability to endure adversity and return stronger than ever.”
Shaun swayed a little on the spot. He head was throbbing, and he felt nauseous.
“I’m not that man,” he murmured, shaking his head. He looked away, unable to meet Hayden’s eyes. They were the same eyes he had seen in his nightmares; only they had been glassy and lifeless, staring into his soul and judging him for letting a twelve-year-old boy die.
“I’m not a hero,” he said, his voice breaking. “I’m – just a screwup. I’ve messed everything up. You saw that, back there. The B
ureau, it’s gone. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have left. They didn’t deserve that. Cassie—”
“She’ll be safe,” Miller said firmly. “My soldiers will take care of her. She won’t be a prisoner, but under our protection while Zero is still out there.”
“That doesn’t make it right! The person you claim I become, the person you want me to be – that’s not me! I’ve made mistakes—”
“And Major Briars made mistakes too,” Miller hissed. They were alone in the corridors, but he lowered his voice, his tone furious but hushed. “Listen to me, Shaun. I know you. I know who you are. We are friends in the future, colleagues and comrades. Whatever differences there are between our worlds, we are still the same people. You can’t escape fate.”
Shaun’s blood turned to ice. “Zero once said something very similar to me.”
Miller grimaced. “And who do you think told him? Shaun, whether you like it or not, one day you’ll have to accept responsibility for what your counterpart did. You can’t hide from his choices…you might have to make those decisions a second time around.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we don’t stop Zero,” Miller said, turning on-heel and leading Shaun further through the base, “he will eradicate the Bureau of Time – the only hope you have of protecting your world against his forces. He might not have much of an army left, but it’s enough.”
“Isn’t destroying the Bureau enough?” Shaun demanded. “What’s he trying to do?”
Miller stopped abruptly and turned around. “It doesn’t end with the Bureau. He was the first Adjuster to be sent to this universe. He thinks this place is an abomination, an affront to the laws of nature. He wants to destroy your world, one way or another – starting with Timewalkers and anyone linked to them.”
Miller resumed walking, passing through another blastdoor and into an armory.
Shaun let out an appreciative whistle as he entered the weapons room. Dozens of assault rifles and handguns hung from steel racks on the walls. Low benches ran around the room, laden with cartridges of ammunition that he didn’t recognize. He pulled a handgun from the wall and ejected the magazine – instead of bullets, it contained a single battery cell.
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