The Bureau of Time (7 page)

Carefully, she crawled out of bed, the mattress groaning obnoxiously beneath her. She was barefoot, but still wearing her jeans and shirt; the floor was cold on her feet. She crept past the other agents, but she could have run by banging pots for all it mattered – the other women slept soundly. The door proved trickier, letting in a bright beam of white light. She slipped through a crack, shutting the door behind her.

The base was silent, ghostly. Overhead signs pointed the way to the mess hall. She shivered again, wishing she had a jacket to wear. Twice she caught sight of a patrolling duty officer at the far end of the corridor, and she hurried along, her feet slapping against the tiles.

The mess hall reminded her of a school cafeteria, with rows upon rows of metal tables and chairs. There was a large serving counter, with metal covers over the empty trays.

Shaun was already there, hunched over a table. Two steaming cups of coffee sat before him. He looked up at her blearily, his white hair plastered over his forehead. She threaded her way through the tables and sat opposite him.

“It’s decaf,” Shaun said, nodding at the coffee.

“Thanks.” Cassie wrapped her hands around the cup, grateful for the heat. Steam curled upward, filling her nostrils. “My dad never liked coffee,” she whispered, her tiny voice magnified by the room’s emptiness. “Said it made him sick just to smell it. I always made a pot in the mornings, just to annoy him.”

She gave a soft laugh, her eyes still on the coffee. “Seems like a million years ago now.”

Shaun took a long drink, placing the cup down with a quiet
tap.
“You made the right decision.”

“People keep telling me that,” she said, staring at her own reflection in the coffee. “I don’t know that I did.”

“The Adjusters wanted to kill you,” he said, his voice soft but his tone somber. “They would’ve kept coming after you, again and again. Your family could have been hurt.”

She nodded. It was the reason she had joined, in the hope that distancing herself would protect her family. And that here, she could learn more about
what
she was – a Timewalker.

“The Bureau would have found you anyway,” he sighed.

She took a tentative sip of coffee, the liquid burning her upper lip. She flinched and put the cup down. Glancing up, she found Shaun and his slate-gray eyes staring hard at her – not as fiercely as Tallon had, but kinder, as though he was looking at a long-lost friend.

“I – I wanted to thank you,” she began, her throat thick.

“For the tour? Don’t mention it. They don’t even pay me for it.”

“Not for that,” she said, the words tumbling out. “For saving me, I mean. I know you were the one who did it. And – well, thank you.” She blushed, realized she was stammering like a fool, and drew up short.

Shaun hesitated, his eyes dropping. “What I did…it’s supposed to be impossible. I can regenerate parts of my body, but I’ve never used my powers to heal someone else before.”

“Then how did you do it?”

He offered a maddening shrug. “Don’t know. The Docs don’t know either. We’re mysteries to them. I’m the first Timewalker the Bureau’s had in years. They don’t really know what we’re capable of, and neither do we.”

Shaun reached across the table and put a hand over Cassie’s. She flinched, recoiling slightly, but he pinned her wrist in place – gently, but firm enough that she couldn’t pull away. She felt a spark at his touch, and a strange rush of heat raced through her body.

A headache flared to life along her scalp.

“Ow,” she said, rubbing her neck with her spare hand.

“That’s your Affinity,” he told her. He withdrew his hand, and the headache faded. “It’s part of what makes us different. Accessing your Affinity is the first thing you need to learn as a Timewalker.”

Learn.
That brought it all back to Cassie – the sheer reality that she was going to become an agent for the Bureau. The anxiety returned again, a weight crushing her chest.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” she blurted out, breaking Shaun’s grip. “I can’t – I can’t become a
soldier!
”

Shaun’s gaze softened and he withdrew his hand. “This isn’t easy, what we’re asking you to do. But this is the best place for you. You know what you are, Cassie, you know what you’re capable of. Out there,” he gestured indistinctly to the ceiling, “out there, we’re outsiders, loners; if people knew what we could do, we’d be labeled as freaks or monsters. But the
real
monsters are the ones trying to kill us because of what we are – because of a genetic quirk that we can’t control.”

Shaun leaned on the table, capturing Cassie with his conviction. His words made
sense
to her – she found herself agreeing with him, her mind slowly accepting this new reality.

“Don’t think about the future,” he told her. “Don’t think months ahead, or weeks. Just day to day, hour to hour. You’ll get through this, Cassie. You’re going to be with us, with our unit. We’ll always be there, working with you – together.”

She took a deep breath, and gave an almost imperceptible nod. Wasn’t this what she had wanted? To know she wasn’t crazy? To find people who had the answers she’d known existed all along? Shaun was right – the further ahead she thought, the more impossible it all seemed. But as long as there was someone beside her, supporting her, as long as she took it one step at a time, she knew she could manage.

“Okay,” she said, offering a weak, hesitant smile. “I think I can do it.”

THE DAYS

Shaun edged down the hallway, staring down the barrel of his carbine.

The hallway was shrouded in darkness, hiding the children’s toys left abandoned on the thick carpet. He flicked on the tactical light, painting the corridor white, revealing the blood stains on the wall. His throat closed over and his heart pounded furiously. He nudged aside an action hero with the toe of his combat boot – lying forgotten on the floor, the hero clutched a Bowie knife as though the little plastic weapon could ward off the evil lurking in the house.

There were two doors at the end of the hallway. One hung slightly off its hinge; beyond, an empty bathroom with a cracked mirror, a ribbon of crimson smeared across the glass. His palms were slick with sweat, forcing him to wipe each hand on his fatigues. He angled toward the second door, which was slightly ajar. His tactical light drifted over the doorknob, the silver glistening wetly. His stomach churned with fear and apprehension, his mind whirled:
Please no, it can’t be possible, please God no—

He pressed the carbine’s stock into his shoulder, and with his spare hand, he pushed the door open. He entered the room, swinging the weapon around, the world turned into still-frames, frozen by the bright tactical light.

The walls – blue, now scarlet.

The bed – jagged slashes torn in the covers and mattress.

The body – a twelve-year-old boy, hanging by his belt from the ceiling fan, an Adjuster knife buried hilt-deep in his chest.

And worst of all – the eyes, open and glassy, staring straight into Shaun; the corpse’s mouth stretched in a silent scream:
Why couldn’t you save me? Why did you let a Timewalker die?

He couldn’t answer. He collapsed to his knees, and the carpet was soft and wet beneath him – except it wasn’t carpet, it was more bodies, young children, older teenagers, and they were all screaming at him:
Why are you the only Timewalker alive?

*     *     *

Shaun’s eyes flew open.

For a long moment, he lay staring at the ceiling, the nightmare fading back into the dark recesses of the night. Guilt writhed inside him, followed by a toxic mixture of despair, anger, and fear. He gripped the sheets, his fingers digging into the mattress, finding the well-worn grooves from the nightly terror.

For a brief moment, the usual hopelessness threatened to consume him, the ghostly scream of the twelve-year-old Hayden Miller echoing around his mind.
You couldn’t save me. I was just a boy. I died and the Bureau couldn’t save me. You are the only living Timewalker.

And then, with a sudden rush, it came to him:
I’m not alone.

Cassie Wright, the Shifter from Pennsylvania. She hadn’t been a dream – the pager shoved under his pillow was testament to their late-night conversation. She was
real
, and he was no longer alone.

The revelation took his breath away, and the guilt retreated, though only by degrees. Hayden Miller was the closest the Bureau had come to rescuing a Timewalker – and they had failed. Ever since that night six months ago, Shaun had prayed against all hope that they would finally manage to rescue a Timewalker – that, just once, they would find something other than another broken body.

A loud klaxon split the air, shocking him out of his thoughts.

The Bureau’s routine had become ingrained in Shaun so deeply that his body acted without conscious thought anymore. Lights snapped on in the dormitory where he bunked with the twenty other operators who were currently on rotation in Temporal Operations. Within five minutes he had made his bed, smoothed the sheets down, changed into his black-and-gray fatigues and neatly folded his other clothes in a perfect square.

Shaun’s bunk was directly opposite Ryan’s; Tallon had his own private quarters on the base, as did every Captain. Several fresh-faced recruits had been placed in the empty bunks on the far side of the dorm – they were slightly older, in their late twenties. Shaun and Ryan were the only teenagers in the entire agency, but their age wasn’t a consideration for the Bureau.

You are Operators of an elite United States paramilitary agency.
The line had been drilled into his head since his first days at the Bureau, now almost a year ago.
Whatever you were before doesn’t matter. We will remake you. You will be a new person, with a single purpose – the defense of this nation.

The operators made their way at a quick, precise pace through the corridors. The early-morning training was integral to maintaining an effective force against the Adjusters. Most of the more experienced units carried out their own training under their Captain’s orders – but Tallon had kept Shaun and Ryan under the care of Drill Sergeant Mathers and the Basic Training program.

“This is so demeaning,” Ryan muttered to Shaun as they passed through a double-door and outside onto the asphalt drill square. “We’re not recruits anymore.”

“Yeah,” Shaun agreed, absentmindedly. His attention was focused elsewhere, on the female recruits trudging up the hill to join them. A pre-dawn chill permeated the world despite the impending summer’s day, wrapping Brightwood Ranch in a blanket of watery gray. Through a gap in the thick woods, Shaun saw the fifteen-foot-high fence that ringed the entire base. It was tipped with barbed wire, but the fence’s real protection lay in the material itself – the metal was charged with an electromagnetic field that prevented Adjusters from teleporting inside the base.

Shaun stood a little straighter, peering over the recruits’ heads. His Affinity started buzzing and a bright beacon flared in his mind.

“Who are you looking for?” Ryan asked, then a moment later, answered his own question. “The new girl?”

“Cassie,” Shaun said. Ryan arched one eyebrow and Shaun scowled. “Captain told us to keep an eye on her. I have to train her Temporal powers, remember?”

“Right,” Ryan said coolly, with an air of disbelief that irritated Shaun. His rebuttal fell dead on his lips when he saw her – a distinctive flash of red hair, her body far smaller than the other women. Her Temporal Signature burned in his mind, pinging like a SONAR burst.

The recruits formed up into an orderly square, and Cassie was cut off from Shaun, stranded in the back of the gathering.

Drill Sergeant Mathers, an ill-tempered man who enjoyed his job far too much, paced back and forth in front of the recruits. He bellowed for fifty push-ups, his loud voice startling birds from the trees. Shaun dropped, the asphalt rough beneath his hands.

The first thirty push-ups came easily to him. Then he saw Mathers’ boots stop directly in front of him and his gut squirmed.
Thirty-one, thirty-two.

“Timewalker Briars!” Mathers spat, loud enough that everyone could hear.
Thirty-three, thirty-four.
“Still stuck in the paddling pool, boy? Thought you’d be about done with basic training by now. How many times have you failed your assessment?”

Shaun’s cheeks burned angrily.
Thirty-five, thirty-six. Every day, every day he comes to make my life miserable. Thirty-seven.

“Answer me,
Timewalker!
” Mathers shouted, throwing as much scorn into the word as possible. “Tell a mere mortal like me why I still have to look at your disgusting face every morning!”

Thirty-eight. Best to answer him, or he’ll make it worse. Thirty-nine.

“Captain’s orders, Drill Sergeant,” Shaun managed between breaths, staring at Mathers’ boots a few inches from his nose.

“Captain’s orders?” Mathers repeated, with a harsh laugh. “Tallon’s precious
human weapon
still has to train with the
girls?
”

Forty-two, forty-three.
Shaun let out a low, angry growl. He’d heard it all before – the jibes about his Timewalker status, about Tallon keeping him with the recruits. Mathers’ blatant sexism went unchecked as well, because as despicable as the man was, he produced results – and the Directors cared about results above anything else.

“Get that dyed crap out of your hair, Briars,” the Drill Sergeant spat. “It looks you stuck your head in a bag of flour. Disgraceful.”

Forty-nine, fifty!
He let out a shaky sigh of relief as Mathers stalked off. He hated the Drill Sergeant, as did most of the recruits; but Shaun was a particularly favorite target for Mathers because of his age and abilities. Shaun pushed himself upright, his arms burning. He sucked in fresh oxygen, Timewalking his tired muscles back to their previous, energized state. Around him, the other recruits had finished at the same time – all except one.

Shaun’s heart sank when he saw Mathers advance on Cassie like a wolf drawn to an injured deer.