by KD Mack
“Because we move too quickly to be caught,” Kreg joked, but agreed, “I don’t think they can. Which means someone, or some other group can, or something else entirely happened and we’re interpreting it wrong.” He smacked his forehead. “Andrea!”
“What?” Bendon asked.
“Her name was Andrea!” He looked to Steff. “Do you remember? She was good friends with Amy, I think. Bit of history there. She tended to run things if Amy wasn’t around.” He leaned against one of the tree trunks. “I was really hoping to keep them all out of this, especially since Blaine Corp sort of caused the whole catastrophe in the first place, but we might have to make contact with our old friends if we’re going to manage to get anything done.”
“Andrea,” Steff said slowly. “I’m sort of getting it now, but it’s still very vague. She keeps slipping away. The others weren’t quite that bad to remember.”
“Who?” Kreg asked.
“Andrea!” Bendon replied. “You literally just said her name. Explained who she was.”
“Andrea!” Kreg smacked his forehead again. “Yes, sorry. It just seemed really wrong there, for a moment. Andrea, Andrea, Andrea. Remember that. It’s probably important that it’s harder to remember her.”
“I think she had the right suit on,” Steff said. “The right one for how they were before, I mean. Would they really have developed the same kind? You said it yourself, new timeline, new suit. But I think it was right with how I remember things…”
“Is she from the other timeline?” Bendon suggested. “I mean, is that what you’re suggesting?”
“I don’t know!” Steff threw up her hands. “Every time we learn something else, it feels like everything makes less sense. Does this tie in with everything with Chrono Corp.? Or is it something entirely different?”
“The important thing right now,” Bendon said, “is making sure we have a clear little report for Matias. We ran into someone in the timeline. They appeared to be in distress and were not in control of their travel. They were pulled or fell from the timeline, and cried out as if it was involuntary. Per orders, we did not follow. You two have identified her as a woman named Andrea from the previous timeline, and Steff, you think she was wearing the same kind of clothes she wore during that timeline. We can let them draw the conclusions, or send us after those coordinates if they think it’s necessary.”
“Good enough for me,” Kreg said. “Let’s get through this list, get all these scouted out, then sit down over a good long dinner and quite a few drinks and see if we can put two and two together.”
“I actually agree with you,” Bendon said.
“Be careful, you might end up doing that too much.” Kreg grinned.
“Shut up. Let’s stake this place out.” Bendon led the way, Steff falling in step behind Kreg, trying to turn this over. The others might be able to just jot it down and dismiss it for now, but she had a feeling Andrea was much more relevant to this whole situation than Xavian would end up being. Xavian was clearly on a new path, here. Was Andrea even off the old path? If she was right about the suit being the same… Is that what had been allowing all these strange things to appear in the timeline in the first place? Something that wasn’t supposed to be there, stuck there? But it was a person, now. That was bad.
They stopped a little way away from the church. It was deserted and had clearly been so for some time. The roof was rotting away, rafters visible at spots, the bell tower – built of stone – looking precarious jutting out from the rotted beams, though Steff thought it likely it would outlive the rest of the building. They settled in for another stakeout.
“I wonder why an old church was setting off the detector,” Steff wondered aloud.
“Might not be the church, but something in it,” Kreg said. “Looks like this whole area is pretty deserted. I wonder why?”
“Chrono-sickness, according to the logs,” Bendon said.
“Ah,” Kreg replied, and fell silent. That was too close to bringing up the near-fight from before the jump. Steff was grateful that Kreg at least seemed reluctant to prod the bear.
She wondered, as they sat, what Xavian had done. Matias had said he could have either made it so none of his work there ever happened. That seemed the simplest solution. Send himself a letter back in time telling him to not go through with his plan, or do it somewhere else. That would mean different people saved, or fewer people, or even none at all. Or had he methodically gone through time, transporting each person away to a new location as they came in? That seemed like agonizingly long and slow work. He’d be several weeks, if not months, older by the time he finished it. But he had been so resolute when they had met with him. She had a feeling that’s what he had done. And that Matias and his men would probably manage to catch up.
“Honestly, I just think it’s a new stage in human evolution,” Kreg said as they watched the sun set behind the church. “Maybe it was started by exposure to the time stream and that sort of thing, but isn’t most evolution a response to the environment, if you think about it? Before long, every human will be able to travel or something like it without trouble.”
“And the chrono-sickness?” Bendon asked. She apparently wasn’t going to shy from the topic.
Kreg shrugged. “Not sure. But I figure with something this new, some people’s bodies would have a hard time adapting. Or maybe it didn’t sit right, the time travel gene. Got messed up. That happens, sometimes.”
Movement caught Steff’s eye, and she grabbed Bendon, pointing towards the bell tower. A light had come on up there. There was no shadow where a bell should have hung. Someone stood near one of the openings in.
Bendon let out a curse. Steff turned to her in surprise. She wasn’t usually the type.
“It’s Rollins,” Bendon said. “What is he doing here? He should be back at headquarters. Is this some sort of test?”
Chapter Six
Steff didn’t even comprehend what she was seeing at first. Bendon broke out in a run for the building, Kreg following half a second later, Steff behind him. She wanted to call out to Bendon but didn’t want to alert whoever was in that tower, whether it was Rollins or not. It had been hard to see him. She knew Bendon was closer to Rollins than she was, but it still seemed strange that it was him. That being said, Rollins had helped Xavian, at the end of things, in the other timeline, if she was remembering things correctly. Steff cursed under her breath. This was all getting out of hand. She caught up to Bendon at the door to the church and grabbed her friend’s arm.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“If this is some test, I refuse to be a part of it,” Bendon replied. “I get why you are under scrutiny. He goes without saying. But I have always done my duty to Chrono Corp. and I am not going to let Matias yank me around by setting us up for some anomaly that isn’t even real. Is this what they’ll all be? Just some test to see if we can actually report what we see to him without intervening? It’s insulting. It’s the kind of work you make cadets do to prove a point. I’m not playing that game.” She pushed the doors to the church open. Kreg gave a glowing smile to Steff.
“She’s got fire! I mean, not like me. But you know what I mean!” He flicked a small flame alight in his hand as they entered the darkened room. Dusty, cobweb-covered pews spread out in front of them, and birds shuffled in the rafters overhead. The whole place looked like it was rotting away, except for the belltower. A newly fitted door with a heavy lock sat in the stone arch that presumably led to the stairs going to the top.
“Do you think he saw us?” Steff asked as Kreg focused for a moment, turning the flame in his hands blue-hot and melting away the arm of the lock. It fell to the ground with a sizzling thunk.
“Doesn’t matter,” Bendon said. “Let’s get this taken care of and then get back to Matias and demand a real mission.”
Steff couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Bendon this angry. Bendon hadn’t even been this angry at her, which she actually found comforting.
>
Bendon led the way up the stairs, running fast enough that Kreg was panting when they reached the top. Another door, another bolt, and Bendon yelled out for Rollins as Kreg worked on burning it away. Steff nearly told her to stop, but didn’t want to risk angering her further. She could be right. A test like this was entirely something that Matias would pull. But if this was the other Rollins –
How could it be the other Rollins? she thought to herself. She and Kreg were both the versions of themselves from this timeline, they had just accessed other memories. The other timeline didn’t exist anymore. This had to be their Rollins. Kreg seemed entirely unbothered – more entertained – by Bendon’s antics. The lock fell away, and Bendon kicked the door open.
Rollins turned to face them.
But it wasn’t Rollins. Not the Rollins Steff had met at Chrono Corp., the stuck up, awkward, off beat guy that Bendon had taken a liking to for some unimaginable reason. No, this was the other Rollins. The one they had left behind. The one who had sided with Xavian. Kreg had his hand out, was moving forward ready to shoot flame, but Bendon stepped in front of him.
“Rollins?” she said, sounding uncertain. She could see the differences. The different way he held himself. The look of utter contempt on his face.
“Oh. So, you found me. I figured it was only so long before I couldn’t keep the anomalies in check anymore.” He looked between the three of them. “What, exactly, are you hoping to gain from this? Do you even know who I am?”
“Of course, I know who you are, Rollins,” Bendon said, clearly not wanting to believe what was happening. “Did Matias put you up to this? As some stupid test?” Where her voice had been angry and sure before, it was now wavering. She was trying to prop up a version of events that had already collapsed in front of her.
“Matias,” Rollins said, as if trying to recall something. “Oh, yeah. The Blaine offshoot.”
“I told you,” Kreg hissed, and turned to Bendon. “Look, this guy is bad news. Can I blast him, please?”
“Still just a fire starter, Kreg?” Rollins asked, sounding bored.
“Time skipper as well,” Kreg snapped. “This time things are different. What the hell are you doing here, man? Was us beating you once not enough?”
“You do remember, then. You found something I left in the timeline, I presume? I was hoping to stir up some memories. It’s no fun to get vengeance if the people you’re against don’t even know why you’re mad at them, don’t you agree?”
“See? He’s admitted he’s evil! Let me roast him!” Kreg said to Bendon.
“If he’s – if he’s whatever you’re saying he is, we need to bring him in,” Bendon replied. “Full stop. He comes with us. We don’t kill people who are screwing with the timeline. We take them in and let Matias and the others sort out the rest.”
“I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere with you,” Rollins replied. “This is a bit awkward, but I wasn’t planning on you lot finding me yet? I really had more I was working on before we can do the whole showdown thing. And I’d prefer to do it when all of you are reunited, not just the future crowd. But if you insist… I could kill you now.”
“Fat chance,” Steff said, letting off a shot. It hit Rollins in the shoulder and he let out an angry yell, throwing out his hand. Kreg realized what was happening at the last moment and threw up his own again, blasting fire against fire. The heat was excruciating, and Bendon and Steff both staggered back, reaching out for each other.
“You can’t do that!” Kreg screamed. “You couldn’t do that before, and you shouldn’t be able to do it now!”
“Did you ever think there might be some people in this world who have a better idea of what’s going on than you do?” Rollins sneered, letting off another blast of flame. Kreg met him again, and the papers on Rollins’ desk started to smoke.
Steff looked around in a panic, “Try not to destroy his stuff!” she yelled to Kreg. “Everything in here, we need it to understand his plans!”
Bendon was at Steff’s ear, whispering a plan, “The first shot didn’t down him. He has to have protective gear on under his clothes, even to handle stun rounds like these. We need to hit him at the same time. As soon as he lets up on the latest gout.”
Steff nodded, and Rollins was already lowering his flame, Kreg doing the same. They could only do it at that intensity in bursts, Steff realized, seeing the sweat streak down Kreg’s face. His hands were shaking and he was as pale as someone who had lost a lot of blood. Rollins threw his hand out behind him, setting the desk and bookshelf behind him on fire. The flame caught immediately, Bendon’s and Steff’s shots passing through the space Rollins had occupied at the same moment.
He appeared on the side of the room, directly next to Kreg, laughing. “Wait until I’m distracted and shoot together? Cute. But you can’t stay still in a fight like this.” He blasted Kreg before he could react, and Kreg was thrown against the window, the glass shattering behind him. Steff jumped forward, grabbing his leg just in time to yank him back through before he could fall. He curled on the floor, moaning, scorched and bleeding.
Bendon unloaded her clip at Rollins as he vanished and reappeared around the room, laughing until three of her shots landed, sending him sprawling back into his own rapidly spreading fire. He let out a roar of rage and tried to stagger to his feet. Bendon hurried to reload, Steff trying to drag Kreg away from the fire.
“Bendon!” she yelled. “I need the code! To send him out of here!”
Bendon met her eyes, hesitated for half a second, then yelled a string of numbers. Steff tapped them into the jump monitor, brushing a chunk of smoking hair off Kreg’s face. “Jump,” she urged him, “Just don’t jump far, please. We’re not done.”
He vanished from her arms as Rollins finally made it to his feet, Bendon finally done reloading. She raised her gun at Rollins, her voice firm. “Rollins, you are being ordered to stand down for time skipping and other crimes, in accordance with the regulations of Chrono Corp. Surrender now.” Steff was surprised she could muster such control in her voice after being so confused only a few minutes before.
Rollins laughed, throwing his head back, then looked back at Bendon, “Bullets can’t stop fire,” he snarled.
Steff was running as his hand rose in the air, her arms wrapping around Bendon after she let shot after shot off in the incoming flame, then they were in the vortex, a burst of fire appearing and disappearing after them, and then they were falling out into a field of snow.
Bendon let out a yell that didn’t finish until they were prone in the snowbank, then jumped up and looked around, wildly.
“Where are we?” she asked. “Steff, what did you do?”
“I had to get us out of there,” Steff panted. “He was going to roast you to the bone. We can track him down again. I can’t get you back.”
Bendon gave her a look with a deep intensity Steff didn’t even want to encounter right now. She already had one person with feelings for her. It was probably platonic, she reassured herself.
“Kreg should be here,” she panted. “We met here before. The Corp. doesn’t know about it.”
“They do now,” Bendon’s voice was strained. “Steff, the physical –”
“They put an anchor in me, didn’t they?” Steff smiled as coldly as the snow around her. “I figured.”
“Not just an anchor. That’s there, though not where you would expect. It’s pumped up. Full tracking capabilities. You can’t take a walk without them knowing your exact location the whole time.”
Steff sucked in a deep breath, letting it out as a fog. “We are going to deal with the implications of all of that later,” she said, looking around. “Kreg?!”
The door to the small cabin swung open, a severely battered Kreg leaning out/ “Hey,” he said weakly.
Steff ran forward, thanking everything she had been right about where he had gone. “Thanks for getting me out of there,” he said to Bendon as they came up. “I appreciate it.”
�
�Thanks for not being an idiot and running,” Bendon replied. “Let’s get you back to headquarters. You need to see the inside of a med bay stat.”
Kreg nodded weakly. “I shall not go willingly into that dark night, don’t worry. Drug me up.”
Steff held on to him as they jumped back into the timeline. Before they stepped out into Matias’ office, Steff looked at Kreg.
“So, if Rollins was from the other timeline –”
“Andrea probably was too,” Kreg said, nodding. “Which means there’s a whole lot more going on here than I expected at this point.”
Chapter Seven
Once Kreg was secure in the med bay, Matias took them back to his office, and they told him everything that happened. Bendon took full accountability for rushing into the scene, which Steff admired. She could have easily pushed it off on Kreg – he probably would have taken the fall, too, and Matias certainly would have believed it – but Bendon was a person of principles. It was one of the reasons Steff had her as a friend in the first place. Matias listened seriously to the entire account, finding Andrea, finding Rollins, the things he had said, then stood and looked out the window. They were stories up, here, and far below he would be able to see the training areas for the newer recruits where they were being run through every conceivable type of physical obstacle course.
It was several minutes before he spoke.
“We can deal with the issue of directly disobeying orders later,” he said, “though I will say now that I am incredibly shocked it was you, Bendon, who led this foolhardy charge.”
“I recognized Rollins from the window,” Bendon said. “I thought that you had set up some sort of test for us. The kind set up for those in training. I was offended and I let my emotional state get the better of me. It won’t happen again.”
“Seeing as your emotions almost got an important prisoner, yourself, and a teammate killed, I would hope not,” Matias replied. “Nonetheless, due punishment will be discussed and meted out soon enough. In the meantime, we have to ensure we figure out what is happening here. I will transmit the anomalous detections back to the researchers. They should be able to scan specifically for any other anomalies that match it, which will hopefully allow us to better locate this Rollins more quickly. You are sure this was not the same Rollins on this base?”