The Fabric of Time

by Fae York

  Emelia leapt to her feet and ran to the other room, then returned to his side with a first-aid kit in one hand and an old T-shirt in the other. Gently, she cleansed the area around the wound before carefully pulling out the pieces of shrapnel with her tweezers. With the shrapnel removed, Aleph groaned and opened his eyes. He blinked a few times then groaned again.

  “I transported too close to the action,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Got hit by a stray concussion grenade.”

  “This wound is from my time? What’s going on out there?” Emelia asked, applying layers of gauze.

  “I’m not sure . . . the massacre isn’t supposed to happen for another two days or so,” Aleph winced as she secured strips of the old T-shirt tightly over the gauze.

  “But this is exactly what is described in our history books,” Aleph said. “The bombs, the chaos, all of it. This is what happens right before the so-called ‘super weapons’ are released and the real chaos begins.”

  Emelia helped Aleph to his feet. “Could the history books be wrong? About the date of the massacre?”

  Aleph nodded. “It’s either that, or Time recognizes too many influences from the future in this time right now. Rather than create various improbabilities, it’s sped up the timeline to take us all out at once.”

  “We have to get to the FBI. Now,” Emelia replied. She grabbed the DNA analysis papers from off of the couch and handed them to Aleph. She was reaching for the front door when a voice came from the living room.

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” Vane said, walking toward them, “until I get that bone sample.”

  Aleph instinctively stepped in front of Emelia, but she pushed him gently to the side.

  “You said two days, Vane. We had an agreement,” she said calmly.

  Vane didn’t even bother to look at her. He was staring at Aleph, his gloved hand pulsing with electricity.

  “Another traveler?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Which sector are you from? And who gave you authorization for this time period?”

  Aleph didn’t say anything but held Vane’s gaze.

  “He’s from another time, Vane,” Emelia answered. “He is here to help.”

  “Emelia, you have no idea who this man is,” Vane barked, taking a step forward. “For all we know, he could be working with the Minutemen. I told you, you can’t trust anyone.”

  A woman’s scream came from outside the building, and they all looked to the window. An army tank was prowling down the street, headed for the city.

  “If I shouldn’t trust anyone,” Emelia snapped, “then I sure as hell don’t trust you.”

  Vane’s expression darkened and he opened his mouth to speak but Emelia continued. “Look, I will give you my bone sample. But right now thousands of innocent people are about to die, and I might be the only person who is willing to stop it. If I die in the process, it’ll only be a bonus for you. You can haul all my bones to the future, one piece at a time.”

  Vane stood there bristling for a moment. Then, his glove stopped pulsing and he responded. “Fine, but you aren’t going alone. As much as I would love to rid myself of your stubborn ass, you are of more use to me alive.”

  Aleph brushed Emelia’s back with the analysis papers and squeezed her hand. She understood what he had to do. Without a word, Aleph shimmered out of 2018, leaving Emelia alone with Vane.

  “Where did he go?” Vane asked.

  “To his own time,” Emelia said. “But he’ll be back. He just had to take care of some things.”

  Vane scowled. “He looks familiar, Emelia. If he were a governmental traveler, I know that I would recognize his face.”

  Emelia bit the inside of her cheek. “Honestly Vane, I don’t really think he is what you need to worry about right now. He isn’t going to harm either one of us, and you’ll still get what you came for at the end of this. We have bigger things to focus on.”

  “Fine,” Vane consented. “I’m hoping that you have at least some semblance of a plan?”

  Emelia cleared her throat. “I had a plan, unfortunately Time decided to speed things up. Do you have any idea what’s going on out there right now?”

  “I know that a few moments ago, a presidential address aired,” Vane said, “Thicke has enacted martial law in response to the terrorist attacks and D.C. will be the base for the nation’s military operations. If you plan to get into the FBI, you’ll want to get in before the military takes over and shuts the building off to outside access.”

  Emelia tugged at her ponytail with a confused look on her face. “Thicke isn’t president?”

  “He is now,” Vane shrugged, “and even if he isn’t, he’s still somehow in charge.”

  Emelia shook her head. “Okay, I guess I’ll figure that out later. Do you still have that badge for security clearance at the FBI?”

  Vane nodded. “I keep a time capsule in the parking garage of the FBI. Anything that we’ll need will be in there.”

  Emelia nodded back. “I’ll drive.”

  ☐ ☐ ☐

  The road leading to the FBI was a crowded, although well organized, traffic jam of military vehicles, soldiers, and police cars. Helicopters were hovering in the sky, waiting for clearance to land and lights flashed all around them. Emelia looked around her, the hair on her arms standing on end.

  Despite all the shouting officers and scurrying soldiers, Vane, sitting in the passenger seat of her car, was so calm that he looked out of place.

  “I’ll see if I can get into the parking tower, but all the entrances are either blocked or heavily guarded,” Emelia said.

  Vane rolled his eyes. “I’ll handle it,” he said, blinking out of sight.

  No one would let Emelia into the parking tower, so she parked in one of the available handicap slots in the almost empty visitor’s lot. Though the area was crawling with police officers, she doubted that anyone would bother with parking tickets at this point.

  Emelia quickly got out of her car and walked toward the main entrance. Everyone was so busy that her presence went very much unnoticed until she got to the front door.

  With a feigned amount of confidence, Emelia strutted up to one of the guards and flashed her security badge. “I’m under direct orders from General . . . Kapuchek,” she threw out the name, praying to god it sounded official, “to carry out an assignment in the lab.”

  The guard stared at her, unmoving. “We’ve been given orders that no one is to enter this building.”

  Emelia opened her mouth to argue but didn’t have to. Just then, Vane stepped through the doors from inside, wearing the stripes of Sergeant Major and the 4-stars of a General.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “Allow her through, she is with me.”

  Both men snapped to attention, shouting “Sir, yes sir!” in unison.

  “Ms. Plater,” he said, extending his hand. Emelia stepped forward, nodded to each guard, and let Vane pull her through the doors. When they stepped inside, they were surprised to find that the entire first floor was empty.

  “Everyone will be on the upper floors,” Emelia said. “That’s where we have accesses to the main database.”

  They walked briskly to the elevator.

  “Where on earth did you get that uniform?” she asked.

  “It’s a long and rather unimportant story,” he replied. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  The elevator sounded as they reached the fourth floor. As they passed her office, Emelia glanced through the crack in the open door and tried not to gasp. Her desk was littered with books and stacks of holograms. Her walls were strewn with maps and diagrams, peppered with pushpins. There were three soldiers sitting shoulder to shoulder on her couch and one in her office chair. The whole scene was bizarre.

  They hurried toward the lab, which was also now filled with men in uniform. When they reached the door, Emelia stubbed her foot on its corner and Vane muttered a string of profanities.

  “Keep going,” he said between gritted teeth.

>   “They’re everywhere,” she whispered.

  Every room they passed was filled to the brim with busy military personnel. Luckily, very few people paid them any attention and, those who did, froze to salute the General in their midst.

  After several adrenaline-filled minutes, Emelia stopped in front of the room where The Wizard was housed. Vane waved his security badge in front of the scanner and the door clicked open. Emelia tentatively stepped into the room and took a seat at the computer. Vane followed closely behind her, quietly closing the door.

  “I don’t know how much time this uniform will buy us,” Vane said. “Pretty soon someone will realize that we don’t belong here. Work fast, I think you can use this to log in.” He handed her a card with a username and password.

  She typed in the information and the computer came to life.

  Suddenly, Emelia realized that she had no idea what she was looking for. Aleph had given her three names, but nothing else to go on. She hesitated at the keyboard, unsure where to start.

  Vane’s impatient eyes bore into the back of her head.

  “What are you waiting for?” It was less of a question and more of a command. “Look, we don’t have time for you to sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. If you can’t do this, you’ll probably get yourself killed and this whole mission will have been a complete waste of my time.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Just approach it like any other crime scene investigation. Start with the simplest assumptions. Look into things like motive, means, and opportunity. Test your theories. Follow your gut. You’re supposed to be good at that.”

  Emelia swallowed and nodded once, turning her attention back to the screen. She started typing slowly and within three minutes she was deep in the heart of the system. As Emelia searched, she made notes on an open document, piecing things together bit by bit. Somehow, every single file that she opened turned out to be exactly what she needed. It was as if breadcrumbs had been laid out for her to follow. Her fingers flew over the keys and her eyes skimmed the information, taking everything in.

  Finally, Emelia cursed beneath her breath and sat back in her chair, stunned. She was staring at the document she had created, her notes smattered across the page.

  “You aren’t going to believe this,” she said.

  “What?” Vane asked, his eyes fixed on the closed door.

  Emelia touched his sleeve and nodded to the monitor, “Look.”

  He took a step forward and leaned over her shoulder, his eyes scanning the document.

  “You found it,” he said.

  Emelia was pleased that he sounded so impressed.

  She nodded slowly. “There’s more, too, so much more. But this is our focus right now.” Emelia tapped the screen and Vane nodded back.

  “We have to shut down this weapon,” she said.

  A bang came at the door and Emelia flinched.

  “Shut down all those files,” Vane commanded. “We need to get out of here.”

  She emailed herself the document then shut the system down, rising from her chair. Vane opened the door and spent a few moments conversing with a soldier that Emelia couldn’t see. After a short conversation, Vane gestured that it was safe to exit and they stepped out into the hall.

  20 The Weapon

  “I can’t believe it,” Emelia muttered as they shuffled toward the stairs, “how could someone want to kill all those people.”

  “You don’t want to believe it, Emelia,” Vane said distractedly, opening the door to the stairwell. “There’s a difference.”

  “Can you think of a good reason to slaughter thousands of innocents?” Emelia asked accusingly.

  Vane shrugged, offering no input, and upped his walk to a slow jog down the stairs. The way that he kept looking at his watch, Emelia knew that he didn’t have much time. Not thirty seconds later, Vane stepped down and his black boot punched straight through the rusted metal stair. He swore under his breath and yanked his leg back up, peeling back a layer of thin metal and creating a gap in the staircase.

  “We are going to have to split up,” he said. “Just for a second.”

  “Okay.”

  “If I were you, I’d head back up,” he suggested, gesturing to the gap between them. “Take this,” he said, handing her his power glove. Then, with a mock salute, he was gone.

  Emelia turned back up the stairs, each footstep clanging through the echoey stairwell. She could hear voices a few floors below, so she stepped up the pace. A few minutes later, Emelia reached the door to the roof and tugged at the old doorknob.

  Emelia stepped out into the blustery air, slightly winded from so many flights of stairs. She looked around and spotted a man in a black travel suit fifty feet to her left.

  “Well, that was fast,” she shouted, waiting for Vane to shout something back. The man turned around and Emelia found herself face to face not with Vane, but with Meredith Jane’s murderer.

  Immediately Emelia turned to the door behind her. Unfortunately, from the outside, it didn’t have a handle, only a keyhole. Her heart thumped in her throat, and she anxiously looked around her for another exit.

  The man approached and Emelia clenched her fists instinctively, her fingers closing around the glove that Vane had given her. Backing away from the assassin, she silently slid the glove on and flexed her hand a few times to activate it. Electricity coursed through the fibers and into her fingertips. The traveler’s eyes widened when he noticed the weapon and Emelia smiled.

  Without thinking twice, she lunged toward the man and her fist connected with his jawline and exploded in a jolt of electricity. He staggered, and she hit him again, this time in the chest. Emelia struck him again and again until the glove powered down and the man was left in a crumpled heap at her feet, wheezing. Then, Emelia turned on her heel and ran across the roof, eyes searching for any other door.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Emelia saw the assassin struggle to his feet. Her stomach churned, but she pressed forward. Emelia lungs were on fire, her legs were pumping as fast as she could go and yet somehow, he was still closing in on her.

  “VANE!” she screamed, but the howling winds tore the sound from the air. Rounding the corner, she ducked behind a ventilation duct to try to catch her breath.

  Through a slit in between two metal tubes, Emelia could see the assassin advancing. With that image for encouragement, Emelia took a deep breath and stood again, her shoes slipping on the damp cement ground. She reached the edge of the roof and, with nowhere else to go, turned to face her attacker. He pulled back his arm and she braced herself for impact, but it never came.

  In an instant, another man materialized between Emelia and the other traveler. Aleph. They wrestled back and forth for a moment, Aleph clearly the stronger of the two.

  Her attacker lunged and Aleph ducked just in time; Emelia tried not to watch as the man toppled over the roof’s edge and down to the pavement below.

  “Excellent . . . timing,” she wheezed in between breaths, her hands on her thighs.

  “Yeah. Anytime, sweetheart,” Aleph said with a toothy grin.

  Emelia straightened out and walked toward him. “Did anything turn up from the DNA samples? Do we know who the Does are?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “We were right. The samples that you gave me all matched up with missing government travelers.”

  Emelia shook her head. “That’s insane.”

  “I know!” He opened his mouth to say something more, but the sounds of approaching helicopters broke into their reverie and snapped them back to reality.

  Aleph held his hand out to her, “We’ll talk more later, let me see the glove.”

  “It’s dead,” she said, handing it over. Emelia watched as he fiddled with a few wires then pulled the glove over his own hand. He flexed and the glove glowed back to life.

  “Or not,” she mumbled.

  He grinned again and took it off, tucking it into his back pocket. “The gloves are easy to recharge, you just gotta know
how. I’ll teach you when we aren’t trying to save the world or whatever.”

  Emelia chuckled and slid her hand into his.

  “I found out,” she began, “where the weapons are located. It’s in one of the Pierce Global warehouses across town. It’s a long story, but I don’t think that Thicke is behind the terrorist attacks. He may still play a part, but the real mastermind is Anton Pierce, the owner of the Pierce Global corporation.”

  “You are brilliant.” Aleph kissed her on the forehead. “Did you know that?”

  Emelia smiled up at him. “Yes. Yes, I did. But you can tell me all about it later. Right now, we need to get off of this roof. Any ideas?”

  “I have my ways.” Aleph disappeared before her eyes and shortly afterward reappeared on the other side of the door that Emelia had come from.

  “It’s easier to open from this side,” he teased, winking in her direction.

  Emelia rolled her eyes at him but couldn’t help herself from smiling. They started down the stairs and Emelia called out to him over the banging of their feet. “We need to get into the city.”

  Aleph nodded.

  They reached the gap in the stairs where Vane had left her. Aleph jumped from one end to the other without breaking stride, but Emelia hesitated at the stair’s edge. She swallowed hard, her gaze wandering to the darkness below.

  “Um, Aleph?”

  Aleph, who had continued his descent, turned around and doubled back to help.

  “Jump,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Jump?” Her hands were a little shaky.

  Aleph held out his arms. “I’ll catch you, don’t worry.”

  Emelia backed up, took the leap, and prayed that he was telling the truth. As promised, Aleph caught her then propped her back up on her feet. Without another word, they continued down the stairs and out into the parking garage.