Read The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller Online

Authors: Edward W. Robertson

Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Cyberpunk, #Dystopian, #Futuristic, #High Tech, #Post-Apocalyptic, #Sci-Fi Thriller, #serial novel, #science fiction series, #Thriller, #Time Travel, #Sci-Fi, #dystopia, #The Cutting Room

The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller (33 page)

BOOK: The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller
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Which we'd followed back to the source.

I hadn't bought Davies' justifications. He was a murderer, hundreds of times over. Which meant he'd stolen the freedom of the future from hundreds of worlds. For all his talk, I still intended to take his life. Even if I proved unable to tear down his poisoned institutions, they wouldn't be able to bring him back. Not without changing Primetime. The one thing we can never do.

I don't say this to justify myself. Just the opposite. With what happened next, you might want to absolve me of my actions. Anyone in my position would have done the same. And be rendered blameless.

But I
want
the blame.

As I stood over Davies, pressing him into the table, fleshing out the final details of the case, he'd been doing some wriggling. Nothing I couldn't handle. But it had been a ruse. A maneuver to shift my weight far enough off his center for him to squirt to the side, brace himself against the desk, and deliver a mule kick straight at my balls.

It wasn't a great angle, and he had little leverage, but it doesn't take much. I dropped with a groan.

If Davies had been your average manager, he might have called security. Everything could have been different. But he'd been in the field. Spent decades there. Long enough to learn that when you put your opponent down, you make sure he never gets back up. In a flash, he flipped open his desk door and grabbed a long-bladed hunting knife.

He came at me from the side. I sat up. He thrust at my face. I raised my left hand and took the blade straight through my palm. White light seared through my nerves, but he hadn't been expecting that. Blade entangled, he attempted to withdraw, pulling his elbow back toward his body, but I stood and followed him in. And splayed my fingers.

This time, the pain blinded me. My skin shredded as a spring-loaded bone stiletto burst from my wrist. I'd had the Pod put it there. Completely organic. The one weapon I could sneak through Central security.

I slammed it forward, twisting my hips to put my full weight into the strike. The point slid straight through his ribs. My elbow jarred. Davies gurgled and embraced me, clenching my side, but his knife was trapped between us. He struggled, slapped at me, then staggered. I withdrew the stiletto and let him fall to the carpet.

Primetime medicine being what it is, I made sure to stab him through the eye, too. Straight through to the brain. I may have even wiggled the weapon around. I was angry. For Stephen and everyone like him.

Finished, I stood and took stock. My left hand had been cut straight through. After retracting the stiletto, my wrist was a sticky mess. Davies' blood was on me, too, though his wounds were so narrow they weren't bleeding much. I went to his private restroom to clean up the best I could. Wouldn't have to be sparkling. Just enough to make it outside.

I searched for a first aid kit. Nothing. No needles, either. Just when I thought I was going to have to bundle my hand in rags and hide it in my pocket, I spotted a tube of combined epoxy/putty under the sink. It was for plumbing, but it was the best I had to work with. I smeared it over my hand and wrist. It bonded in seconds. My skin tugged with each motion, but it stopped bleeding. I washed my hands, smoothed my hair in the mirror, and walked outside.

Davies' assistant looked up. I gave him a small smile and nod and went into the hall. The elevator dropped me off in the lobby. I had to pass through another security checkpoint, but it was just there to make sure no one tried to sneak in through the exit. I was paid no mind.

I climbed into a zipcar, gave it the backup facility's address. My hands began shaking so hard I nearly dropped my link. Verbally, I ordered it to call Mara.

"Blake?" she answered. Her face loomed as she drew closer to her link's screen. "What happened?"

"I moved," I said. "Can't talk. Meet me at the backup."

"Got it." She hung up.

The zipcar dropped me off a couple blocks from the facility. I headed upstairs, glancing to all sides. I was certain it couldn't be that easy, that they'd have someone waiting to intercept me, but the only footsteps echoing across the lonely concrete were my own.

Inside, I had the Pod treat my hand and wrist. I wasn't going on the lam after all. There was more work to do. I'd need to be in top shape. Finished, I set the Pod to new coordinates. Familiar ones.

Mara arrived as the machine finalized the trip. She was breathless, red-faced. "What's happening?"

"Primetime isn't unique," I said. "The other worlds have time travel. They would, anyway. Except Central systematically exterminates anyone who's going to help develop it."

"
What?
"

"That's what this entire case has been about. Davies has been expanding their operations. Taking them off-world. If we hadn't caught them, they would have been hidden for good."

I explained the connections, keeping them brief. Mara had a few questions, but her tone and expression told me she believed. By the end, she gazed at nothing, shaking her head, as if I'd told her both her parents had died in a zipcar malfunction.

"You should have come to me," she said, voice thick with emotion. "Talked it through."

I flexed my left hand. The Pod's repair job had been quick and dirty. I didn't have much feeling, and my palm was stiff, but my fingers worked well enough. It had also modified my bone stiletto to extend and retract without damaging my flesh. It didn't need to look perfectly natural anymore. Security wasn't as advanced where I was heading. I'd had the Pod print out a satchel of supplies, too. I shouldered the bag.

"What's done is done," I said. "It's time to tie up the loose ends."

"You're going somewhere else?"

"The G&A moon base. Central's been running this program for years." I stepped inside the Pod. The hemisphere sealed me in with the smell of warm plastic. "Killing Davies was a start, but if his people get to Joachim before I do, they'll move the whole thing. Leap somewhere else. We may never find them."

"I see." Her voice came clearly through the speakers. "I'm so sorry."

"Sorry?" I glanced up at the Pod's empty white ceiling. "For what?"

"He's right, isn't he? They could wipe us out at any moment. We can't let them have time travel. No matter the cost."

I went dead still. "What are you doing, Mara?"

"Saving us." She choked back a sob. "I'm so proud of you, Blake."

"Mara!"

The world went white. Numb. I floated between worlds. Time became a single point, infinite and meaningless. I wanted to scream, but I didn't exist.

Reality snapped back around me. I stood in a lush jungle, steamy and sweltering. Monstrous ferns erupted from the rich earth. Trees soared to colossal heights. Ahead, one of the trees lumbered forward—but it wasn't a tree, it was a neck, thirty feet long and attached to the biggest land-dweller any world has ever seen. The creature stretched its neck and chomped down on a high branch, stripping the leaves. I could hear its teeth grinding from here.

Behind me, an ear-tearing roar boomed through the jungle, curdling my blood.

I sank to my knees. She had sent me back further than I knew possible. By millions and millions of years. To lose me in the past. Nothing but the Pods at Central and the Cutting Room could have the power to reach back this far. Even if I concocted some crazy scheme to record what I knew, to try to preserve it for others to find, it would never survive tens of millions of years of caustic volcanoes, shifting continents, and erosive weather.

It was a hell of a plan. Especially for one she'd come up with on the fly. I had always known Mara was a champ at making snap decisions. I had never guessed she'd betray me.

But her plan wasn't perfect. She didn't know about the messages I'd set up for Vette. The ones that would only send if I
wasn't
around to check in. As I'd waited for Mara to arrive at the backup site, I'd updated them one last time, laying it all out.

I knew I could trust Vette. I'd spent a lifetime with her, after all. And you should trust her, too. Because if you're reading this, it means she found me. I make it back. And if I make it back, I know I won't fail.

The hunter roared again. Closer. A ten-ton horror trampled the ground, snapping saplings. I had a small bag of supplies, an extendable claw the length of my forearm, and two lives of experience across a hundred different worlds.

It didn't stand a chance.

 

THANK YOU FOR READING

 

 

This is the complete story of The Cutting Room--but I may continue it at a later date. If you'd like to hear if there are more episodes, or to know when I have a new book out, please
sign up for my mailing list (http://eepurl.com/oTR6j)
.

 

 

MORE BY ME

 

 

My other books, including space opera, epic fantasy, and the postapocalyptic
Breakers
series,
are available here
.

 

 

If you'd like to drop me a line, please email [email protected]

 

 

Or stop by
my Facebook page
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Table of Contents

THECUTTING ROOM:

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

BOOK: The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller
3.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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