The Bureau of Time

by Brett Michael Orr

  “These are the best military-grade weapons in the world,” Miller said, holding a shotgun with practiced ease. “Most of it is surplus from before the War, but White Tower manufacture a few of our own weapons. I even have gun especially for you, from the Prime universe.”

  Miller crossed the room, approaching a locked safe. He punched in a six-digit code and the door swung back, revealing a six-shooter – not an old-fashioned piece from the Old West, but a top-of-the-line military variant, polished and gleaming silver.

  “This was yours, in the Prime.” Miller retrieved the gun, holding it with an almost holy reverence. “The famous weapon that hunted the First Adjusters and sent nine of them to their graves. It was your – Major Briars’ – intention to destroy Zero with the same weapon, before he escaped to this world. Perhaps you can fulfill that wish, after all.”

  Shaun took the gun, heavy and cold in his hand. The long barrel was smooth but the grip had been intricately carved with names and diagrams. The six-shooter was an unconventional top-break model, and when he flicked the cylinder down, he saw .45 rounds shining back at him. He clicked the chamber back into place, marveling at how the gun fit so smoothly into his hand, as though it was meant for him.

  “That weapon saved your life, and mine, more times than I can count,” Miller told him. “It won’t let you down.”

  Miller pointed out the gear they needed for the mission. Minutes later, Shaun was fully dressed in fresh clothes – black cargo pants and a tight-fitting shirt – with a heavy belt around his waist. The six-shooter sat holstered on his left thigh, with several speedloaders ready to reload the gun at a moment’s notice. He eschewed Kevlar in favor of maneuverability – he could always Timewalk his injuries.

  The rest of the assault team gathered in the open room where Shaun had first met Miller. Forty Adjusters stood in rows, steel knives sheathed by their sides, their black jumpsuits fresh and neatly pressed. The white rook sat proudly on their shoulders, their faces and bodies identical like their clothing.

  They were men and women, Shaun thought, his spine tingling. Soldiers who sacrificed their lives…their bodies…for what? For a broken promise that White Tower would turn back time and erase a war from history. And now they’re just fighting to survive, to preserve what little they have left of their own world – and to defend mine, too.

  “Here, take this,” Miller said, handing him a small hexagonal device.

  “What is it?” he asked, turning it over in his palm. There was an adhesive pad on the back of the device.

  “Just put it on,” Miller said. “It’s a NeuroHex, designed for silent communications and neural enhancement. Adjusters struggle to talk – it’s very uncomfortable for them – so this will help.”

  Shaun hesitated, then ripped the plastic cover off and pressed the device to his temple.

  “I can’t feel anyth—”

  A wave of Temporal Energy coursed through his body and he let out a startled gasp. Dozens of voices washed through his skull, like he was standing in the middle of a bustling New York street. Miller’s voice came through strongest, but his mouth was closed in a thin line.

  “At attention!” his voice cracked through Shaun’s mind, and the chattering died down. The Adjusters shifted on the spot, turning their eyeless faces toward their leader. “I’ve gathered you all here for an emergency operation to defend the Bureau of Time’s last remaining facility, an intelligence outpost called Eaglepoint Station. Our Most Wanted, Zero, is en route to attack the base, and we must do everything in our power to defeat him.”

  Shaun realized his mouth was hanging open, and he quickly closed it.

  “You’ve all sacrificed a lot to defend your own world,” Miller continued, his mental voice somehow taking on a somber tone. “I realize I’m asking a lot for you to defend a world that isn’t your own.”

  He hesitated, throwing a guilty look at Shaun, before facing the soldiers again.

  “But this world,” he said, strengthening his mental voice, “is the only hope we have of evacuating our people, our loved ones, who are dying in the ruins of our universe. If this world falls, we fall with it. So we must fight, we must defend our future and our freedom! Will you fight?”

  A resounding chorus of “YES SIR” blasted through Shaun’s mind with enough force to rattle his teeth.

  “Form up!” Miller ordered the men. Aloud, “We’ll teleport to Rhode Island and take transport to Block Island. We can’t afford to alert Zero by arriving directly outside Eaglepoint.” Quieter, perhaps to himself rather than anybody else, “Let’s hope we get there in time.”

  Shaun placed a hand on his six-shooter, the metal cool to touch. His stomach churned nervously, but he forced his fear down, replacing it with a single, burning desire – to fight, to survive, to triumph.

  An image appeared in his mind, detailed and sharp as though he was actually seeing it right there in front of him. Zero kneeled on a concrete floor, his face bloodied and bruised, his mouth stretched into a wicked grin that revealed his teeth broken into jagged fragments. That image burned its way into the back of his eyes, haunting him all the way outside, every step forward another step closer to destroying that monster and eventually, somehow, finding Cassie and mending their broken relationship.

  Of those two goals, Shaun knew which would the hardest – and it didn’t have anything to do with Zero.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THE HOSTAGE

  A dizzying array of lights, her own private galaxy of constellations bursting into life then dying in an explosive shockwave. The lights blurred past her, then faded to black. Her entire body was being compressed, squeezed into an impossibly narrow tube, crushing the air out of her lungs. Rational thought was driven from her mind as Temporal Energy roared past her, through her, pulling her body apart and pushing it back together again.

  Then she slammed into the hard ground, sliding backward across a grassy field.

  She sucked in a lungful of crisp air, her chest burning in protest. There was another explosion of light, and Ryan materialized beside her. He staggered, his arms jerking out as though fighting off invisible attackers. He stopped twitching and stood gasping for air; then he saw Cassie and helped her upright with a single, strong pull.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, looking her over. His face was still bloodied and bruised, the imprint of a fist in his cheek, but he didn’t seem to care. His gaze lingered on her blood-streaked arms. “What happened to you?”

  “It’s nothing,” she said quickly, wiping her arms on her combat jacket. “Just a little scratch.”

  He hesitated, but didn’t ask further. He turned in a slow circle, eyes darting everywhere. “What happened to the Adjusters? And where the hell are—”

  He cut off mid-sentence, and she suddenly saw why.

  The football stadium of Birchwood High loomed over them, the school just beyond it – a place that had once been familiar to Cassie, but now seemed like a foreign land. Hermitage had been her childhood home, lost to her during her parents’ divorce, and only found again in the few months before her world had been turned upside time. Now, her short time at the Bureau felt like years, not mere weeks.

  “A lot’s changed since I was last here,” she murmured. Far too much.

  “I’d hoped to never come back,” Ryan admitted, eyeing the football stadium. Loud shouts rang out from the field, and through a gap in the stands, she saw teenage boys hurling a football at each other.

  Ryan gazed at the stadium, his eyes focused on something in the distance. “They told me, you know.”

  “What?” Then her scattered mind pieced it together, the way he stared at the stadium as though seeing a ghost. His own ghost.

  “They told me I died,” he continued, the words hollow. He swallowed thickly, his Adam’s apple rising and falling noticeably. “Anderson, and Doctor Sharma. Tallon was there too. They sat me down, and told me I died. Simple as that. And they told me you saved my life, that you brought me back from the dead.
I’ll never be able to repay that debt.”

  Ryan tore his gaze from the stadium, his dark eyes penetrating her, searching her intensely. She looked away from him, suddenly uncomfortable.

  “It’s nothing. I didn’t even know what I was doing.”

  “That makes it all the more amazing,” he said, placing a firm hand around her shoulder. His touch was warm, supporting; it sent a flutter through her stomach that she couldn’t explain. She rubbed her arms together, finding a convenient excuse to break out of his grasp.

  Ryan frowned at the sky. “Is it getting darker?”

  Cassie had lost track of time, but it couldn’t have been much later than mid-afternoon. The sky had turned a dark gray all around, the sun reduced to a dull speck, its feeble light struggling to push through the oppressive blanket hanging over the world. The air temperature was dropping rapidly, accompanied by a chilling wind.

  “This is wrong,” she agreed, rubbing her arms. “This is what happened last time. When the Adjusters tried to kill me.” Images flashed through her mind – the faceless assassins pursuing her across the field, blades in-hand. A lifetime ago.

  “Something tells me that the Adjusters didn’t bring us here,” Ryan muttered.

  Then she remembered, and it felt like a weight had slammed into her chest; she had almost entirely forgotten about the Warden of the Archives, as though the man himself was fading from her mind, and their conversation along with it.

  “My father!” she blurted out, grabbing Ryan’s arm so tightly he yelped. The words spilled out in an uncontrollable rush. “Zero is coming to find him; that’s why the Warden sent us here! I – I almost forgot somehow—”

  “Who’s the Warden?”

  “It doesn’t matter! We have to find my Dad!”

  Ryan didn’t hesitate or question her. Pragmatic as ever, he said, “We’ll be going in unarmed – they took my gun and knife.”

  “I can protect us.”

  She felt it too, a fiery power deep in her gut. At the base of her neck, her Affinity blazed, ready to unleash her Timewalking powers at a moment’s notice. She set off quickly, unable to bear the thought of her father in danger any longer. Ryan followed her through the woods, reversing the path she had taken that night, so long ago.

  Things are different now.

  Back then, she had been terrified, the outcast at her school, the crazy redhead girl who was running off to shrinks every other day. Now she was a Timewalker, and one of the only remaining soldiers from the Bureau of Time.

  The only person capable of stopping the Adjusters.

  “Careful,” Ryan warned as they approached the alleyway. They slipped through the narrow lane, Cassie alert for the slightest disturbance in her Affinity.

  A loud bang startled her and she whipped around to see a stray cat, its coat orange with patches of gray. Green eyes glared at her, filled with malice.

  “Shoo!” she snapped. The cat hissed at her, baring white teeth.

  The Temporal Spike came quickly and without warning.

  There was an explosion of light that sent the cat yowling and running for the woods; and then the Adjuster teleported into existence. Ryan let out a surprised shout, moving to protect Cassie, but she had already released her powers.

  Time shifted back several precious seconds, a ripple of energy sweeping outwards, moving objects into place around her. When she released her grip on time, she was staring at the cat, emerald eyes accusing her.

  “ADJUSTER!” she cried, spinning around just as the assassin arrived.

  This time, they had the advantage. Ryan tackled the Adjuster, slamming it into the fence, the wooden palings splintering with a loud crack. The monster howled and released its knife, the weapon clattering to the ground.

  Cassie snatched up the blade and plunged it into the creature’s chest.

  For a long moment, the Adjuster hung in mid-air, its mouth hanging open in a silent cry. Inky blood pooled around the knife, saturating its jumpsuit. A swirling black void opened from somewhere in its chest, enveloping its body and the crimson sash on its left arm. She pulled the knife free a moment before the monster vanished into a pinprick of space.

  Breathing heavily, she offered the knife to Ryan. “Here, you take it.”

  He chuckled, a strange sound given the circumstances. “Something tells me you’re better off with it.”

  She nodded, holding the knife in front of her like a mighty sword.

  They moved out of the alleyway and into the cul-de-sac. Two more Adjusters attacked them in quick succession, each one appearing in a flash of light that illuminated the unnatural darkness settling over the suburb. Each time, she Shifted, positioning herself to strike the incoming assassin. Blood coated the knife’s hourglass-shaped hilt, running down her hands and staining her wrists black.

  “That’s my house!” Cassie gasped, out-of-breath. Her heart leaped at the sight of her family home, and then broke a moment later. The signs of grief were obvious even from a distance. The manicured lawns had grown long and unkempt, mail was piled around the front door, and her father’s car – normally polished and shining – had been abandoned in the driveway, gathering dust.

  Streetlamps turned on as darkness rushed over Hermitage, plunging the suburb into an early nighttime, the afternoon sun swallowed by sinister clouds.

  “Stay close,” Cassie told Ryan. The soldier nodded, as though she was the experienced operator and he was the young recruit.

  Fifty feet from the driveway, the front door burst open, thrown off its hinges.

  Cassie let out a horrified shriek. Her father was marched from the house, a black bag over his head, an Adjuster on each arm. Marissa sauntered behind them, a wicked grin on her face.

  “DAD!” Cassie screeched, making to run forward; Ryan seized her and pulled her close to him, preventing her from running. She struggled, tears running down her cheeks, desperately trying to break free. “Let me go, it’s my dad – DAD!”

  “Stop it!” Ryan snapped, squeezing her tighter. He pressed his mouth against her ear, his breath hot. He lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “We have to be careful. Don’t do anything rash, just let me handle it. I won’t let anything happen to you or your dad, okay?”

  Cassie managed a stiff nod, a grief-stricken cry catching in her throat.

  “We’ll get out of this together,” he murmured, holding her in that protective embrace. “We’re all going to be fine, I promise.”

  Ryan let her go, his warmth lingering on her skin – the air was freezing cold and her breath turned to white clouds. She stayed beside Ryan, her heart aching for her father.

  The Adjusters and their hostage stopped in the middle of the street.

  Thomas Wright knelt on the asphalt, strong hands forcing him down. He shouted something, but his words were muffled by the thick cloth; in return, he was cuffed on the back of the head, and he gasped in pain.

  Cassie let out another cry, anger bubbling up inside of her, raw and uncontainable.

  “Let him go, you bitch!” she snarled, pointing her bloodied dagger at Marissa.

  The Russian Timewalker strolled forward, her hips swinging from one side to the other, long black hair flicking behind her head.

  “The little girl wants her daddy back,” Marissa purred, every word laced with venom. “How sweet.” She stopped twenty feet from Cassie, her head cocked to one side.

  “Let him go! This isn’t his fight!” Cassie screeched, forcing herself to stay still, to not throw herself at that woman and claw her eyes out.

  “Oh, but it is,” Marissa crooned. “He has served a purpose – to bring you to us. You involved him, whether you wanted to or not.”

  “Just let him go!” Cassie demanded. “Just release him – whatever you want, we’ll do it!”

  Marissa let out a harsh shriek of laughter. “What I want? This isn’t a negotiation!”

  She turned around, then glanced back over her shoulder, her mouth twitching in the ghost of a smile.

&nb
sp; “This is an execution.”

  Marissa gestured to her Adjusters, and suddenly the world seemed to move in slow motion.

  A scream tore out of Cassie’s throat, guttural and raw, containing all her emotion, all her anger, fear, confusion. Everything she had bottled up for days came rushing out of her in a noise that wasn’t even human.

  The leftmost Adjuster drew a steel blade and leaned forward, preparing to deliver the killing blow. Ryan barreled toward the captors, but even his long strides couldn’t carry him quickly enough. He moved sluggishly, as though he was running through thick oil.

  Cassie acted on instinct alone, abandoning her Timewalking powers.

  She slammed into Marissa, and the pair hit the ground in a tangle of limbs, Cassie’s forearm against Marissa’s neck. Marissa’s hazel eyes bulged, and she bucked her knees into Cassie’s stomach, propelling her backward. Cassie’s knife spun through the air and disappeared onto someone’s front lawn. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw Ryan grappling with the Adjusters; then a powerful burst of energy tore through the air, narrowly missing Cassie and singeing the side of her face.

  She cried out, instinctively clutching her cheek, the stench of burnt hair filling her nostrils.

  She felt something rise up inside of her, a rush of power that she’d never felt before, storming through her veins. She threw her hands out and a wall of solid energy exploded from her body, catching Marissa and throwing her aside.

  The Russian rolled backward and came to a crouch, blood smearing her cheek. She snarled and gestured with one hand, tearing a hole through the universe. A black void opened in the center of the street, reaching toward Cassie—

  She Shifted time again, and as Marissa crouched on the road, Cassie darted to one side, desperately searching for her knife.

  Marissa tackled her and then they were both on the road, rough asphalt tearing Cassie’s arms. A jet of energy blasted out of the sky, cutting a chasm through the road and earth. Underground pipes burst open and jets of water shot up into the air, drenching Cassie as she broke free and stumbled away.