Time Salvager (22 page)
Levin thought back to his days at the Academy. “The Vallis Bouvard Disaster. Experimental chron lab in 2356 that conducted sanctioned retrievals of humans from the past. They discovered that the subjects were not only severely temporally displaced but caused abnormal ripples that tore holes in the chronostream.
All subjects’ physiologies and mental states also became unstable and degenerated at the molecular level within a four-week period. The tears in the stream around Bouvard Base destabilized the area, and a fluke ripple within the power generator caused a solar source meltdown in the cooling reactors, obliterating the lab and surrounding region in a two-hundred-square-kilometer area. This disaster was one of the primary catalysts that propelled all the corporations and governments to create a neutral governing body with jurisdiction over time traveling and the chronostream.”
Young nodded. “That’s right. So now you see our problem?”
“Yes, Director, whoever James brought back is causing havoc with the chronostream in the present. The consequences—”
“No, idiot,” Young snapped. “It means the entire solar system will soon realize that the Vallis Bouvard Disaster was a hoax. It was initially staged by our founders to scare all the governing powers to agree on ChronoCom’s creation. It’s now just a bogeyman story we propagate to keep the corporations in line and to squash any ideas chronmen may have about playing god and bringing someone back from the past. Do you understand the ramifications if word of this becomes public knowledge?”
“The Vallis Bouvard Disaster was … fake?” Levin was stunned.
“Yes, yes.” Young waved it off dismissively. “I was pretty fucking shocked, too, when I learned this. Listen, if we don’t capture James and whoever he brought back soon, word’s going to get out, and it’ll completely undermine the agency’s authority. Before we know it, we’ll have idiotic chronmen and corporations bringing people back by the hundreds and jumping to whatever time line they want. Black abyss, it’ll destroy the chronostream!” He stood up and shook his finger at Levin. “You want to fall on your sword? Well, this is how you’re going to do it. You’re going to capture James and this temporal anomaly. I’m assigning Geneese and Shizzu to you. Geneese is coming in from Luna and Shizzu just returned from auditor training.”
“Newly linked?” Levin knew Shizzu from the man’s Tier-2 days. He distinctly remembered an unremarkable but ambitious chronman he thought wouldn’t survive that tier, let alone make the jump to Tier-1, let alone to the brotherhood of auditors.
Young nodded. “You’ll get a division of monitors as well and your choice of tactics and personnel. Make sure they know how to keep their fucking mouths shut. I want this done quietly. Do you understand?”
“Your will, Director.” Levin bowed. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity—”
“Save it and fix the fucking problem, you stiff bastard,” Young struggled to stand. “Come with me. There’s more. We have more interested parties in this whole mess.”
Using a cane, Young hobbled around his desk. When Levin offered a hand, the director shot him a glare that would have killed a lesser man. Levin let the old man be; Young was still a fiery and prideful man. They didn’t have far to walk since Young led him to the room next to his office.
They walked into a large room with a long rectangular table. Outside of one wall made entirely from glass, the colored winds battered against the once-clear surface with black specks. The other three walls were barren, except for a small cabinet on the back right. Two people sitting close together at the far end of the table were conversing in low tones, only standing to address them when Young got close.
The first one: male, pale, corporate suit, was someone Levin had seen once or twice on the base. He looked like an off-worlder, though not from Mars or Luna. By the shade of his skin and body type, Levin ventured the man had originated from one of the Gas Giant colonies. The other: female, sleek, dark blue combat uniform—Levin recognized the insignia on her arm as from the Valta Mining Security Forces.
He sensed a dangerous edge in her; she was someone he’d have to watch out for. The woman’s hair was cut short to just above her ear, a custom among the military within the Gas colonies. Her face, while not unpleasant, was marred by a perpetual scowl and a cold cruel stare that had not changed since when he first laid eyes on her.
What made him particularly wary of this woman were her eyes; she was sizing him up as much as he was her. Like two predators, they acknowledged each other with a slight tilt of the head. They both recognized the dangers of the other. She wore no bands around her arms. Since corporate technology was different from ChronoCom’s and in most ways, far more advanced, he couldn’t be sure of her capabilities.
“Auditor Levin,” the man glanced at him and said. “The director says you will be leading the search for the perpetrator of this unfortunate incident.”
“Levin.” Young gestured. “This is Sourn, our Valta liaison with the agency.”
“And this is Securitate Kuo,” Sourn gestured to the woman next to him, “from our special operations.”
Levin nodded. “How may I assist?” This was the first time he’d ever seen anyone from the elite branch of Valta’s private army. The corp must have something important they wanted on Earth for Kuo to be here.
“We were distressed to hear about the mishap with your chronman on the recent Valta-sponsored assignment,” Sourn said. “It seems the work Valta has recently commissioned with ChronoCom was rife with issues.”
“I’m not aware of other incidents, Liaison,” Levin said.
“That’s beside the point,” Young cut in. “A Time Law breach is incident enough.”
Levin made note of that. The director was hiding something. There was much more to this situation than Young made it out to be. It was irrelevant, though. It wasn’t up to an auditor to question the leadership of ChronoCom.
“We’d like to assign Securitate Kuo to your mission, strictly as an observer and in an advisory role, of course,” Sourn said.
Levin frowned. Why would a gas-mining company care about his mission to retrieve a fugitive chronman? “Excuse me, Liaison. For what purpose?”
“Just covering our liability, I assure you,” Sourn added.
“The fugitive chronman is dangerous,” Levin said. “I cannot assure the securitate’s safety.”
Kuo’s smile was not very friendly. “That should be the least of your worries, Chronman.”
“It’s ‘Auditor,’ thank you.” Levin returned the smile.
“Very well then,” Young said. “See to it that Valta has access to whatever they need.” He kept his gaze on Levin. “ChronoCom’s relationship with Valta is a priority. See that it is kept close and strong.”
“Of course, Director.” Something in his gut was uneasy with this arrangement.
“The first thing I believe we should attempt,” Kuo began, looking directly at Young and Sourn, “is to see if his handler can get in touch with him.”
“Doubtful,” Young said. “The fugitive assaulted his handler and gave him a concussion, after all. I doubt he would respond to his handler now.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “However, Valta is prepared to make him a generous offer that might flush him out.”
“You’re going to bribe him? Reward him for breaking the Time Laws?” Levin sputtered. “We cannot allow this to go unpunished.”
Kuo gave him a dismissive smile. “While the corporation respects the Time Laws, there are more important matters at hand. The fugitive might have something we want…”
Elise woke up exhausted from a restless sleep. She remembered the craziest things, stuff she hadn’t dreamt about since she had smoked excessive amounts of marijuana in grad school. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to her surroundings. It was dark, but there were these goofy shadows dancing on the walls. She inhaled and nearly threw up, her gag reflex kicking in. It smelled like garbage here, wherever here was. And now that she thought about it, the left side of her body was freezing, and the right side felt like she had been roasting over a spit.
She yawned and sat up, and noticed the roaring fire a few meters away. A small part of her sighed; so much for the bad dream. That meant—she looked over to her right—James was actually real and she was in a world of bad juju.
“You’re up.” His voice bounced around the room. “How are you feeling?”
Elise took a moment and suppressed the first, panicked thought that popped into her head. She forced her body to inhale a few deep breaths and not to say how she really felt because she knew she’d regret saying the words to him later. In fact, she decided not to say anything at all. No good would have come of her flight reflex kicking up full tilt and her running screaming out of the room.
Instead, she waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She was sitting in the center of a dirty floor in what looked like a large husk of a building, with cracks streaking the concrete walls and floor. There were large square openings along the walls where once there might have been windowpanes. Everything was at a slant. She could hear waves crashing in the distance, but other than that and the crackling fire spitting sparks into the air, it was eerily silent.
She opened her mouth to say something and her nerves put new words in her mouth. She groaned and rubbed her bruised jaw. “My face hurts.”
“I’m sorry for that. I handled those two monitors.”
Elise didn’t like the vicious sound of that, but her body aching from their beating told her brain to let that one go. She stretched her arms out and pulled herself to her feet. “What happened? Last thing I remember was lying on the ground, then you showed up, and then the rumbling of your spaceship lulled me to sleep.”
“Bringing you back has caused some … issues,” he said. “I wasn’t—”
“Supposed to do that?” Elise said, still massaging her jaw to make sure everything worked. “No kidding, James. I could have told you that when we were at the hotel. Your face had turned sheet white—well, whiter than it already is—by the time we got to the room. Then when you left … you really messed up big-time, didn’t you, bringing me back from the past?”
He nodded.
“How did you do it, anyway? How is time traveling possible?”
James shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Elise was flabbergasted. “Wait, what do you mean, you don’t know? You’re a time traveler. That’s what you do.”
“I’m a user, not a builder. I fly the collie. I have no idea how that engine works.” He held up his arm. “I use these bands. I could care less what makes the exo power up or how the rad band protects me from radiation. Time traveling is the same way. There are people who build the technology and there are those, like me, who use it. There are not enough lifetimes for a person to know both.”
Elise looked around at the moss- and dirt-covered walls, and brushed her fingers along the grimy floor. Everything was damp, even the air. This world had a worn and tired look to it, as if the entire planet was slowly melting. Decaying. Even the rocks at her feet looked sad.
She should be grateful she was still alive; she knew that. However, much to her chagrin, as much as she tried to be grateful, she couldn’t find the silver lining to anything that had happened. After all, her beloved Earth was a wreck and she had been assaulted by the authorities on her very first day. She might as well be dead.
“Send me back,” she said. “Back to my time. Wouldn’t that solve everything?”
James shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. You’re considered out of sync with your time period based on your physical and chronological location. Time traveling creates tears in the chronostream that forever prevent anyone from jumping to that time and place again. I’m sorry; you can never return to your natural sync.”
“Well, how the hell do you do it, then? And wouldn’t jumping back create a tear too?”
James held up his armful of metal bands and pointed at one of them. “My jump band acts as an anchor that keeps me in sync with the present and pulls me back on my return jumps. Tears are only created during initial jumps. We’re essentially punching holes into the fabric of time, and the anchor allows me to return to the present by pulling me back through the same hole. You weren’t wearing one when we jumped.”
“How about you send me back to my time but somewhere else then? I wouldn’t want to go back to Nutris anyway, on account of all that radiation, but just, I dunno, drop me off in Mo’orea. Or New Zealand.”
James shook his head. “I could do that, but the auditors—the police force within ChronoCom—will detect that you are out of sync. They’ll send someone back to eliminate the discrepancy.”
Being called a “discrepancy” sounded sort of insulting. Elise mulled things over. Quantum physics wasn’t really her thing after all. “Well, that sucks” was her final analysis. Waxing eloquently about being trapped in an awful situation wasn’t her thing either.
She could feel the slight angle at which the floor slanted, reminding her of her vacation as a kid climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa before it actually toppled over. She walked to one of the large square openings and poked her head outside. It was completely dark, but she could make out the faint outline of other buildings. They were in a city that stretched to both sides as far as her eye could see. She looked down. On the ground level, ocean water flowed freely through the streets, crashing against the buildings as if they were in a canal. A sharp, pointy-topped building at the end of the street had completely toppled over at the base and looked like a syringe sticking out of the ground.
Elise turned to face James. “Where are we?”
“A metropolis in the old world on the eastern edge of the continent. Torn down by war. Overrun by the rising tides. I believe it was in the province of Massachusetts.”
“Boston?” She didn’t bother hiding the shock on her face. “What in Gaia happened to this place?”
James sat her down and then filled in the gaps with the major events that had transpired on Earth since her time, from World War III devastating the planet to the decaying plague that had rotted the planet to the ice caps melting and eventually swallowing 14 percent of the world’s landmass. Elise was so stunned that she had to sit down and then stand up multiple times.
