The Bureau of Time (16 page)

“Agents and operators of the Bureau,” he began, his voice booming around the room, “I have gathered you here today to announce the largest and most important mission in this agency’s history.”

Shaun sat in the front row like a guest of honor. On his right was Ryan, and after him, Captain Tallon; they both watched the stage with rapt attention. Tallon leaned forward slightly as though determined to absorb every word of Anderson’s speech.

Cassie sat on Shaun’s left. She hadn’t talked about her training with Agent Hunt, or said more than a few words to him all afternoon.

I don’t blame her,
he thought, glancing at her.
The Bureau has done things like this before – but this is a new low, even for them.

Cassie held herself with far more confidence than he’d expected. Her red hair was in a bun, and he found himself staring, Anderson’s speech washing over him without making an impact. The room rumbled with disgruntled conversation, but he ignored it like static noise.

Cassie caught his stare, and he snapped his head around, his pulse quickening.

“General Lehmann will explain the details of the mission,” Anderson was saying. From the intense whispering around the Ops Room, Shaun realized that they’d all just been told about the operation.

Ryan leaned in close to Shaun and muttered, “You two knew about this already, didn’t you?”

Shaun answered with silence. Ryan hesitated, then added, “We’ve faced worse odds before. It’ll be fine, I know it.”

Ryan leaned to the opposite side and whispered something to Tallon. General Lehmann clicked a projector remote and images flashed up on screen.

“We’ve chosen this location for the ambush,” Lehmann said. Red circles appeared on the screen as he talked. “A construction yard out in West Virginia. We know that Adjusters are drawn to Timewalkers, so we’re arranging sniper nests in positions Alpha and Delta, looking down on the Timewalker location, Charlie.”

Shaun pulled back the collar of his shirt, sweat beading along his neck. Ryan was wrong – they’d never faced anything like this before. He’d always had Clockwork beside him, always had Eaglepoint telling him in advance when the Temporal Spikes would occur.

This was uncharted territory.

“The operation will commence tomorrow at 0900 hours,” Lehmann finished. “Units Clockwork, Blackforest, and Whirlwind will be deployed to the combat area. Codename for base is ‘Little Hill.’ Your Captains will brief you further. Any questions?”

Shaun had a million questions.
What if this doesn’t work? What if the Adjusters don’t come? What if they
do
come, and there are more than we expected?

The questions fell dead on his lips.

The agents and operators stood, honoring the Generals and Directors who would sit safely in the base, watching the mission from a satellite in the sky. As the crowd filtered out of the Ops Room, Shaun caught wayward glances in his direction, and several people clapped him on the back, offering hollow words of support that did little to ease the knot of fear in his gut.

The afternoon passed in a flurry of activity as Clockwork Unit prepared for the mission at hand, going over the details time and time again. There seemed to be little point though.
Stand in the open. Wait for the Adjusters. Pray everything goes according to plan.

There was advice given, but Shaun heard only parts of it.

“We can’t afford to kill the Adjuster. Lower your shots, aim to wound. If something goes wrong, we’ll have snipers ready to provide cover fire. Don’t get cornered. Keep in the open, where we can see you.”

Afternoon slipped into the evening too quickly.

Brightwood Ranch was charged with energy, everyone alive with conversation – except the two Timewalkers who would soon face the very worst kind of danger. Shaun went to bed well before curfew and stared at the ceiling of his dormitory. He pretended to be asleep when the other soldiers entered the dorm, and hours after the lights were turned off, he slipped into unconsciousness.

His nightmare returned in the early hours of the morning – but instead of reliving Hayden Miller’s death, this time he opened that dreaded bedroom door to see two bodies hanging there. First, he saw Cassie, a knife buried hilt-deep in her chest, her hair ragged and matted with blood. Her face was contorted in a silent scream, her eyes open and staring at him, accusing him of letting her die.

Then, he saw his own body hanging from the ceiling fan, disfigured and almost unrecognizable, except for the shock of white hair and the scars across his exposed arms. A message was scrawled in blood on the wall, each crimson letter three feet high:

You Cannot Escape Your Fate.

THE GOD

The helicopters touched down outside the abandoned construction site, blowing up a thick plume of dust that engulfed the skeleton of a half-completed skyscraper and a dozen temporary buildings. The rusted corpses of several trucks groaned against the buffeting sheets of wind, and a towering crane rocked dangerously, the metal hook swinging like a pendulum.

“This was all supposed to be a commercial hub,” Tallon explained, shouting over the roar of the helicopters’ engines. “A few buildings and an entire suburb all around here, but ever since the ’08 crisis, it’s been a ghost town.”

“Why do we always get the spooky-ass abandoned places?” Ryan complained, hopping down onto the dry grass. “I always get the feeling that something’s watching me.”

Cassie ignored their conversation. She checked her equipment for the umpteenth time, as though hoping to find hidden courage in her weaponry. She was lightly armed – just a concealed knife and her Glock 17C, with two magazines of spare ammunition strapped to her thighs.

Shaun stood from beside her, his jaw tight. He dropped to the ground and helped her down alongside him.

Temporal Operations’ snipers were already taking up positions in the skyscraper, the scaffolding creaking loudly as the soldiers hid themselves in hard-to-reach places, their sights trained on a large clearing in the center of the construction yard. The crane came to a gentle stop, looming over the whole area, somehow standing despite years of neglect. Nature had started reclaiming the forgotten equipment – spades, wheelbarrows, even the tow-bar of a truck, now rusted and buried in wild grass.

“Remember the plan,” Tallon said, facing the two Timewalkers. “We’ll have you covered at all times, but we need at least one Adjuster alive. So when they come, let the snipers do the work, and if you have to shoot, aim to incapacitate – we can’t afford a fatal shot. We have the anti-Temporal handcuffs with us; the moment the Adjusters appear, we’ll make a move to injure and capture one of them, okay?”

Cassie managed to nod, not trusting herself to speak.

The walk seemed to take forever, every step harder than the last. She wanted nothing more than to run back to the safety of the helicopters but she forced herself to continue, to put one foot in front of the other.
You can do this. Trust in the Bureau. They’re going to protect you, they’ll make sure nothing bad happens.

She wasn’t sure she believed herself.

Then they were there, in the center of the abandoned construction yard. The skeletal skyscraper was on their right; the site office was away to their left; the crane overhead. Ryan and Tallon took up defensive positions, supported by Whirlwind and Blackforest.

“Back to back,” Shaun commanded, standing against Cassie. There was something secure in his presence against her, something that made her heart ache and shone a tiny ray of light against the darkness gathering in her mind.

Her hand drifted toward her holstered Glock, and she reached for her Affinity, trying to detect the telltale signs of an Adjuster attack. The harsh July sun beat down on her shoulders and she started sweating beneath her black combat gear. She blinked salty sweat from her eyes, struggling to see past the haze rising from the ground.

Minutes dragged on in silence, and still nothing. She stirred, her legs aching.

A voice spoke in her ear, startling her.

“Clockwork, this is Eaglepoint,”
a female voice said over the comm.
“Please be advised, a large Temporal Spike has been registered over your immediate location. Standby for impending extratemporal arrival.”

Fear and adrenaline dumped into Cassie’s body, an uneasy cocktail of emotions running riot through her mind. Her Affinity twitched as the universe moved around her. She could feel Temporal Energy shifting, rippling like a stone tossed into a calm river.

“You heard that?”
Tallon said.
“Sounds like we’ve got company, over.”

“Copy that,” Shaun replied. His body was tense and rigid against hers, his eyes darting all over the construction yard. He dropped his hand and looked at her. “Are you ready?”

“I think so,” she breathed. Her entire body trembled. She could feel the universe pulsing around them, invisible T.E. curling into thick ribbons, splitting apart and slamming back together again, preparing to accept the teleporting Adjusters. She tensed, expecting the explosion of light, the snarling assassins and their viciously sharp blades.

It was a sickening, wet
thump
that began the attack.

“What was that?” she asked, her voice going several octaves higher.

Shaun shook his head, a silent
I don’t know.
Out of the corner of Cassie’s eye, she saw a body tumble from the skyscraper, landing on the ground with a nauseating
splat.

One of the snipers, his throat cut from ear-to-ear.

A heartbeat later, she heard a surprised shout, and through her commset:

“CONTACT!”

This
time, Cassie felt the Adjusters arrive one after the other with powerful bursts of T.E. like miniature bombs, each accompanied by a blinding flash of light. Bodies rained from the skyscraper with scarlet splatters like dropped buckets of paint. Gunfire roared across the construction yard, followed by a burst of voices over the radio.

“Eyes on, eyes on! Three hostiles—”

“—lost Donovan! Shit, there’s more—”

“—Little Hill, Little Hill, requesting immediate backup—”

“—I’m pinned down in the northwest, repeat—”

“Clockwork, retreat! Retreat!
CASSIE, SHAUN, GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE
!”

They were too late to respond to the new orders, shocked by the sudden turn of events. With another rapid-fire burst of energy, three Adjusters emerged from their explosive wormholes, crimson sashes around their arms. Their steel knives shimmered in the scorching sunlight.

“Fire at will!” Shaun roared, drawing his handgun and squeezing the trigger. Behind him, two more Adjusters appeared, bearing down on Cassie. Gunshots deafened her, and her ears rang with a sharp whine.

Tallon’s order to avoid killing Adjusters was the furthest thing from her mind –
surviving
was the only thing she cared about.

There was no hesitation this time. No doubt in her mind. She raised her gun and fired, the bullet passing straight through the monster’s chest. The Adjuster collapsed into a black hole, but the second creature used the momentary distraction to slash at her. The knife passed through her combat jacket and pain flared along her arm. She lashed out with her gun, smacking the monster in the face.

The assassin recoiled and she fired at point-blank range. Inky blood splattered over her face and clothes, foul-smelling and unnaturally thick. The creature disappeared into nothingness—but there was no time to rest. Shaun was fighting with another Adjuster, his bullets somehow diverting around the monster; his gun made a heart-stopping
click,
and she saw the slide flick back, the magazine empty. He fumbled for a spare magazine, tripping backward as the monster advanced on him.

Cassie sucked in a shallow breath, held her handgun with both hands, and fired.

The Adjuster howled, a swarming black hole consuming its body as it disappeared into the fabric of the universe. Shaun slammed a new magazine into his Glock.

“Thank you,” he gasped. She felt a small ripple of T.E. and watched as the cuts along his arms and chest faded into thin scars.

He reached across and grabbed her arm. A thrill of power surged through her veins, invigorating her like a cold shower – the wound on her forearm healed over, leaving nothing but a white line behind.

“We should—” Shaun began, but then he gave a startled yelp and stepped back. A powerful burst of Temporal Energy swept through the construction yard, a piercing pain striking Cassie’s Affinity. She fell to her knees, gasping for air, her head throbbing.

A gust of ash and snow billowed around them, reeking of smoke and death.

The voice wasn’t human.

It was cruel and wet, vicious and wholly evil. Cassie felt a colossal amount of T.E. radiating from the newcomer’s body; her Affinity sent lightning bolts down the back of her spine – a silent alarm screaming at her to
run
.

“How
dis-a-pointing.
”

Three pairs of boots crunched against the dirt – the Voice and two others, one on either side. Cassie kept her eyes down, unable to find the strength to look up.

A shadow fell over her face, and the Voice crouched down, a long hand reaching forward, gripping her chin and forcing her gaze up. She struggled, tried to resist, but the monster in front of her was far too strong.

It looked like another Adjuster with a blank face, a hexagonal device attached to its temple. Its breath reeked of rotting meat, and this close, Cassie could see the hollow eye sockets covered by a thick layer of skin, slightly sunken. The creature wore a black jumpsuit, and the scarlet sash around its left arm was tied carefully, the knot elegant and precise.

“This is
ironic,
” the Adjuster said, rolling its words into a low growl. “Twenty years too early, I see. A great shame.” It laughed, a wet chuckle in the back of its throat. “In another circumstance, I might afford you mercy because of who you become, but – I’m in a rather
tight spot,
you see?”