The Bureau of Time (10 page)

When she woke in the morning, the letter was perched up the end of her bed, with an envelope across it. She snatched the letter up, her stomach sinking when she saw the black lines obscuring her handwriting. The letter had been redacted, now saying only:

“Mom, Dad,

I’m okay, don’t worry about me. The government is taking care of me.

I love you both.

Cassie”

The letter wavered in her grasp and anger stormed through her gut. She scrunched the letter into a ball and shoved it under her mattress. Thoughts of the letter and of the secret conversation raged through her mind, chasing her all the way through the morning exercises.

That day was the first day she managed fifty pushups.

Drill Sergeant Mathers gave an appreciative grunt when she got to her feet again. He looked at her appraisingly, a strange glimmer in his eyes. Cassie matched his gaze with a furious intensity of her own, sweating pouring from her forehead.

“What got your fire started, girl?” The Drill Sergeant asked. “I don’t say this very often, but I think I was wrong about you.”

THE FACTORY

“We’re being deployed today.”

Shaun looked up from his pile of scrambled eggs, the fork halfway to his mouth. Tallon thumped down into the chair beside Ryan, banging his tray on the table with a flat
slap
. The mess hall hummed around them, hundreds of voices talking and laughing, rising above the rhythmic scraping of knives against plates.

“I hadn’t heard anything,” Shaun said, surprised. He pointed to his pager, sitting beside his plate.

“You wouldn’t have,” Tallon shook his head. “Not yet, anyway. It’s just come in – I only heard about it because I was talking with General Lehmann.” His dark eyes lingered on Shaun for a moment longer. “The General told me you had a private meeting last night. Guess I missed the memo.”

Shaun flinched at the venom in Tallon’s voice.
Since when did he develop emotions?
Tallon was usually the complete embodiment of cold, military precision. But there was something dangerous in his glare, in the rigidness of his shoulders.
He doesn’t like being kept in the dark. How is it my fault if Lehmann didn’t let him know?

Ryan arched an eyebrow at Shaun. “I didn’t hear anything about that either.”

“The General paged me last night, I didn’t ask questions.” Shaun offered his best nonchalant shrug and shoveled another forkful of eggs into his mouth. Through a mouthful of food, he added, “They just wanted my opinion.”

“What’d they talk about?” Ryan asked, nursing a cup of coffee.

“What do you think?”

“The new girl?”

“Yes, the new Timewalker,” Tallon interjected, tapping the table with his fingers. His commanding voice drew their eyes toward him. “Lehmann wants to assign her to Clockwork, with Agent Hunt on the detail to help protect her. Apparently he wants to test the girl in the field.”

His tone left no room for debate – he didn’t think it was a good idea, and neither did Shaun.

“Of course I’m sure Timewalker Briars agreed wholeheartedly with the idea,” Tallon added, scowling at Shaun. “I’ve heard what you did.”

A thrill of fear raced through his body.
Does he know I was out past curfew with Cassie – no, that was over a week ago.
Brightwood Ranch was a mysterious place, and although the walls didn’t have ears, they certainly had eyes. There were cameras everywhere, filming everything at all hours of the night.
What if someone in Security saw us and let Tallon know?

“I – I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, feigning innocence.

“Drill Sergeant Mathers,” Tallon snapped, his thick eyebrows narrowing. “I had to hear it from Agent
Flatley,
of all people, that my star operator – a
Timewalker
no less – is scrubbing toilets in his break hour. Mouthing off to a Drill Sergeant? I thought you knew better.”

“I was standing up for her,” Shaun countered, his voice rising. “It was her
first day.
I couldn’t just let—”

“She is a
soldier!
” Tallon growled, banging his fist on the table. “And you are an operator. It is not your place to dictate how a Drill Sergeant trains her!”

A few curious heads had already turned in their direction. A hot flush crept up Shaun’s neck, and he wanted to be gone from here, to avoid this kind of confrontation – but he couldn’t leave now, not without making things far worse.

“Heads up,” Ryan murmured, nodding toward the entrance.

Shaun glanced over his shoulder to see Cassie enter the mess hall. His Affinity flared to life, her Temporal Signature burning brightly inside his mind. His heart leaped, a strange mixture of emotions flooding his stomach.

I always wanted another Timewalker,
he thought, as Cassie collected a tray and helped herself to breakfast.
I was terrified of being alone, of being the only person like me. Now she’s here…I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Not like this.

“She looks pissed,” Ryan commented. As Cassie made her way toward their table, Shaun saw he was right. Her mouth was drawn in a thin line, her cheekbones taut with clenched teeth, and her hair was pulled back in an unusually fierce bun.

Cassie sat beside Shaun and began eating.

He glanced at Ryan, an unspoken question passing between them, and received a shrug in response.

“How was training this morning?” Shaun asked. Drill Sergeant Mathers had divided the recruits into two companies, training them apart, separating Shaun and Ryan from her – no doubt a deliberate effort from the Drill Sergeant to stop the two boys from protecting her.

“Fine.” She ate her food, her eyes on her plate.

Shaun hesitated, watching her stab a piece of bacon as though it had personally offended her.

“Agent Hunt told me you’ve really improved in your sparring,” he ventured, like an estranged dad commenting on a school report card.

“I’m okay.”

Two-word answer. Okay, we’re making progress.

Shaun’s pager vibrated intensely, and from the startled expression on the others’ faces, he realized theirs had gone off too. He reached for the device, his palms suddenly sweating. A thick lump formed in his throat as he read the message, first silently, then aloud:

“Units Clockwork, Blackforest; and Support Personnel, report to Ops Room One immediately. Temporal Spike detected. All Timewalkers required.”

“Told you,” Tallon murmured. All three men stood in unison. Cassie remained seated, no longer eating, just staring at her plate.

Tallon cleared his throat. “
All
Timewalkers. That means you Cassie. They want you with us.”

Her pale skin had gone a shade lighter again, and a rosy blush crept into her cheeks – not an embarrassed flush, but an angry one.

“Cassie, you coming?” Shaun asked.

Her hands formed into fists and she looked at him, her eyes blazing fiercely. “Are you sure you want a
liability
on your team? I wouldn’t want to ‘slow you down.’”

His stomach dropped, ice flooding his veins.

“You heard.” It wasn’t a question.

“I heard,” she spat, getting to her feet. Now there were quite a few people looking at them, and conversation at the nearest tables had fallen quiet. She didn’t seem to care; she stormed around the table, her face bright red, her eyes piercing him.

“Cassie,” Shaun said, putting his hands out defensively. “I’m sorry, I was just—”

“Just what!” she shrieked. Tears welled up around her eyes, and her bottom lip trembled.
She’s not angry. She’s hurt.
“You don’t believe in me? Is that it? You don’t think I’m capable of doing this?”

“No! It’s nothing like that, I just – don’t make me the bad guy here, Cassie. You told me you didn’t even
want
to be a soldier!”

“I don’t
want
to be!” she screeched. “But I
have
to be!”

From the other side of the mess hall came Blackforest Unit, led by a towering ex-Marine with a rust-colored beard. The rest of the unit were just as large and dominating, never intimidating but always on top of their game. Captain Clay, part-man-part-beard, stepped between Cassie and Shaun.

“All right, all right,” he rumbled, his voice thick with a Southern accent. He looked pointedly at the agents and operators who’d been unashamedly watching the argument. “What are y’all looking at? There’s nothin’ to see here.”

Nobody argued with Clay. The hurried scraping of chairs and plates masked the next exchange of words.

“I don’t give a damn about whatever little teenage breakdown y’all are havin’,” Clay growled, towering over Shaun and Cassie. “But I won’t be toleratin’ any of it in the field, understand?”

“Yes sir,” Shaun said, the words automatically falling out of his mouth. Clay turned his mountainous body around, a black shadow falling over Cassie.

“You have a powerful gift, darlin’,” Clay said, lowering his voice. “You have an ability to help protect people, an ability that people like me and my soldiers can only dream of. An’ you have a responsibility to use that gift.”

“I can’t use my powers though,” Cassie mumbled, her answer barely audible. Her eyes were downcast, red-rimmed and puffy.

“Not right now, sure. But nobody expected that of you. The agency is tryin’ to build you up, tryin’ to make you better. You have to trust us, trust the Directors, and your superiors. Believe in yourself, above anythin’ else.”

Cassie nodded, looking down at the floor for a long moment. Then she took a deep breath and held Clay’s gaze steady, her blue eyes shining with a fierce intensity that resonated with untold power. Temporal Energy started gathering around her body – not in great enough quantities for her powers, but strong enough for Shaun to sense with his Affinity.

“Okay,” she said, loud enough for the whole mess hall to hear. She looked at both Clockwork and Blackforest Units, matching the operators’ gazes without flinching.

“Come on then,” she said, pushing past Shaun as though he wasn’t even there. “What are you waiting for?”

Shaun turned to watch Cassie stalk out of the mess hall, her red hair swishing behind her back.

“Is it just me,” he wondered aloud, “or is she kind of hot when she’s angry?”

Ryan cuffed him on the back of the head, and he gave a startled grunt.

“Playtime’s over boys,” Tallon said. “Looks like we’re going on a mission.”

*     *     *

The helicopters set down in an empty parking lot, the blades whipping up a storm of dust and loose leaves that billowed toward the abandoned cement factory. The old building looked eerily haunted as dark clouds gathered overhead, threatening a storm. The asphalt of the parking lot was potholed and tearing loose in places, weeds growing through the uneven cracks.

Nature had long since reclaimed the factory. Thick ropes of ivy encircled the rusted iron gates, and long grass grew all the way toward the rough brick front. The glass windows of the front office were shattered, their jagged teeth grinning wickedly. Tall silos stood in various conditions – some still whole, others almost completely destroyed. The whole place should have been condemned and demolished years ago, but now the industrial complex simply stood there, waiting for the passage of time to grind it into the earth.

Shaun jumped out of the helicopter, his boots jarring against the hard surface. It had been an unpleasant journey. Cassie maintained a frosty distance from him, refusing to talk.
I shouldn’t have called her a liability,
he scolded himself.
Then again, she shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.

He threw a sideways glance at her. She looked terrified to be on her first operation, but she was holding up better than Shaun had. His first deployment had started out with vomit-splattered shoes and hadn’t ended much better.

The operators and Timewalkers were all dressed the same – black-and-gray combat fatigues without patches or identifying marks. They each had a communication device clipped into their ears, linking them up with Brightwood Ranch. Cassie had been issued only with the standard Glock, while the rest of the soldiers carried a carbine.

Shaun tightened his grip on his M4A1, the gun fitting naturally in his hands. He flicked the safety off and clicked the weapon into semi-automatic mode. The weight of the gun always soothed him – having something physical to hold onto calmed his nerves before a mission.

Tallon and Ryan stepped down behind him, followed by Natalie Hunt, her Kevlar vest stamped with the word
AGENT
on the back. Shaun had worked with her before – she wasn’t fully trained like an operator, but she could hold her own with the soldiers.

Blackforest Unit disembarked from the second helicopter, looking every bit like a Delta Force squad. Their presence did nothing to ease the tight knot in his stomach – the Operational briefing had been short, and frustratingly vague, but deploying two units to investigate a Temporal Spike wasn’t good news.

Eaglepoint Station didn’t know why the abandoned factory was experiencing a Temporal Spike, but if the Adjusters were active in the area, then the Bureau had to investigate.
Might be a stray Adjuster,
he thought.
Or another – no. No. It’s probably just an Adjuster.

“Clockwork, Blackforest, this is Brightwood,”
a clipped voice said through his comm device. The voice repeated the same information they’d been told in the twenty-minute Ops brief:
“Eaglepoint confirms, impending Temporal Spike nearing maximal discharge. Expect resistance from Adjusters.
S
ecure the facility and identify the source of the Spike. How copy, over?”

“Brightwood, this is Clockwork Lead,” Tallon said, gesturing for Clockwork to fall in behind him. “Good copy. Clockwork out.”

Shaun kept his head on a swivel as they passed through a gap in the gates. The wrought-iron groaned, sending a shiver down his spine. Blackforest split apart from Clockwork, heading to the four crumbling silos on the left side of the factory. Tallon led his operators to the front office, the faded lettering above the door naming the company as ‘Slater & Son’s Cement.’