I chewed my lip, thinking up all the possibilities as we touched down on a modest airship base.
“This seat taken?”
A feminine voice caused me to jump halfway out of my skin and I looked over to find Ellen standing by the couch, arms crossed nervously over her chest. I hadn’t even heard her approach. Human women were far quieter than others.
I cleared my throat and shook my head, wordlessly offering her the space next to me.
“Where are we?” asked Ellen.
Tall golden spires shot up to the sky in the distance; glittering buildings that stood by sheer elemental power alone. The sky was unnaturally blue, the greenery and flora oddly bright and luscious. I imagined it probably looked like a dream to someone like Ellen, who came from a ruined technological wasteland of a planet.
“It’s called Londi,” I told her. “Nice place, isn’t it?”
“It’s beautiful,” she replied quietly.
I stole a sideways glance at her, trying not to be obvious. She didn’t notice. She was enamored by the city outside the ship. Diamond pavement and shimmering platinum vehicles glistened in the sunlight, throwing rainbows of light into the common room. No one seemed bothered by the presence of our ship.
“What could possibly be ruined about this?” Ellen murmured.
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I admitted.
I held up the factsheet for her to see and she took it from my hands.
“Enemies… Earth shifters? Destroy the planet with their rivalry,” Ellen read quietly to herself. “What’s an Earth shifter?”
I shrugged. “These people… You see them?” I gestured to the tall, willowy aliens walking the streets in the distance, faces stoic and calm. “They can manipulate the elements. Earth, air, water, fire. Seems like a few of them got a little power-hungry and ripped apart their utopia in the process.”
“Hmm,” was all Ellen said in response, setting the factsheet down between us and leaning forward more in her seat. Her eyes were bright and curious. I found myself thinking that maybe she’d found her calling with the Rogues, that maybe she could do well. Maybe she would even flourish, with all this opportunity to see the farthest corners of the galaxies and all the timelines in between.
But not all timelines were as pleasant as Rosa’s was. In fact, for all I knew, Rosa was just as ruthless and demonic as the rest of us. Who knew what she was up to down there on her pretty planet? It couldn’t all be magic and wonder. After all, Zik was from the same place.
“So, what’s your master plan?” Ellen asked while we waited to see what would happen.
I tensed. For some reason, I didn’t want to tell her. I didn’t want her to look upon me with her pure, kind eyes while I admitted my darkness. It would feel too much like a divine judgment.
“Haven’t the Rogues told you?” I replied. “You’re not supposed to ask that question.”
Ellen snorted. “Oh, come on, dragon Prince… What evil are you hatching?”
I cringed. So, she’d been told the truth about me.
I was going to murder Lee. How difficult was it to keep someone’s identity a secret?
“I, um… I read about you,” Ellen continued. “They gave me access to the intergalactic media files. It’s been fascinating, actually. But, you… You seem like you have a lot of, um, fun.”
I sighed heavily. “It’s really none of your business.”
Even I was surprised by the coldness in my voice. Ellen shied away slightly, visibly disturbed by the darkness in my tone. Still, she didn’t run away.
Courageous to a fault, maybe.
Thankfully, the awkwardness was cut off by Rosa’s reappearance. Through the window, Ellen and I watched in silence as she approached the ship, a small bundle of blankets in her arms. A handful of Rogue agents met her outside the ship. I pressed my face to the glass and craned my neck to watch as Lee held the time-lost sensing gun to the blankets. A flash of green burst from the gun, just like it had when it had been held to Ellen’s head.
“Is that a baby?” gasped Ellen.
I stiffened at the thought.
Not a single dark tourist on this ship was a good person. We were, by definition, criminals. We were accomplices in a massive, intergalactic conspiracy against the Time Agency. We were not supposed to be infiltrating ruined timelines, let alone doing the horrible things we had planned in them.
Though Rosa had been kind to me, she had a roughness about her. A strange darkness that echoed the darkness within me. Perhaps that was why I found myself wanting to trust her.
If Rosa had been after a time-lost baby, it couldn’t be good.
But, Ellen was smiling.
Rosa climbed the steps into the ship and disappeared from view, the bundle still in her arms.
“They said she’d been searching for years,” Ellen whispered, sitting back down on the couch. Her eyes glistened slightly, as if she was going to cry. “I heard Lee talking to another Rogue. Rosa’s baby… She died. Well, she died in her original timeline. I guess she lost her mind a little, started researching all this time-travel stuff, and she found out there was a timeline in which her child not only lived, but was time-lost. She could take her out of the timeline, alive and well.”
Oh.
Instantly, I felt wracked with guilt. Something worse, too. Shame, maybe. Here I was, plotting the death of my family, making nice with a woman who I assumed to be just as fucked up as I was, only to find out that she was a Dark Tourism veteran only because she’d been combing through timelines searching for her once-lost child.
There were few times in my life when I truly saw myself as a monster. They were brief moments; fleeting. But it was what I felt in that moment.
Ellen offered me a smile, misunderstanding my silence for emotion at what we had just witnessed.
“I guess not all of you are terrible,” she murmured.
I could see in her eyes that she was hoping that statement was true for me.
But, it wasn’t.
I was terrible. I was a monster.
Ellen would figure that out eventually. She’d run far and fast. And she would be much better off because of it.
Chapter 7
Quantum
Ellen
I had a lot to learn, that much was obvious.
The Rogues were, surprisingly, very thorough and patient in their instruction. I didn’t know what I expected. Operating such an extensive dark network of time travel undetected by the Time Agency required extreme intelligence and gracefulness. Of course the Rogues would be smart. Of course they would want to make sure I understood what was going on. They couldn’t afford to have any new recruits mess everything up.
However, I hadn’t accepted Lee’s offer with the intent to join them loyally. I’d done it because it was the only way I was going to survive this trip. Thankfully, after just two days of informal lessons, I was beginning to gather enough information to begin formulating my escape. I just wanted to be able to take the Rogues down on my way out.
It would be tricky. The Rogues were smart. Lee himself was frighteningly clever. It was almost as if he could read minds.
However, that wasn’t true. He was just a human. He wasn’t like those elemental aliens I saw yesterday, or a powerful, regal dragon like Markus. He didn’t have any special powers, though I could tell he wished he did. No, Lee’s only advantages were perfectly human. Intelligence. Wit. Astuteness.
“Ellen? Can we focus?” Lee said, waving a hand in front of my face.
I rolled my eyes at him. “I was just thinking.”
“About your pretty dragon boy?”
Lee was such a pest. Like the older brother I’d never had and was now happy to do without.
“He’s hardly mine,” I snapped in reply, settling back in my chair. “I can tell he’s up to no good. I’ll steer clear of that.”
Lee snorted. Clearly, he knew what Markus was on this trip to do. I desperately wanted to know, but I also wasn’t sure I want
ed to give up my ignorance. What if it was just as horrible as Zik’s torture fantasies?
But, what if it wasn’t? What if he was simply after a happiness as pure and whole as Rosa’s dream of finding her child again?
“Let me offer some advice,” Lee said, leaning across the table and smirking at me coldly. I fought the urge to spit at him. Something about his stupid face made me want to rip the blue hair from his head and shove it down his throat.
I supposed there was a darkness in all of us.
“Advice?” I asked.
“Mhm,” Lee replied, his smirk growing more pronounced. “Don’t waste your time thinking that the Prince is a good person. You must be dreaming, hoping, wishing, that despite the parties and the drugs and the women, that he’s redeemable. Believe me when I say, he isn’t. His Royal Highness comes from a long line of formidable, murderous, bloodthirsty dragon royalty. There’s a reason his surname is feared far beyond the boundaries of his own planet. Even if the Prince were an upstanding citizen, he’d still have darkness in his veins.”
My blood chilled slightly at Lee’s words.
But, still, I couldn’t believe him. People weren’t purely dark, just like they weren’t ever purely light. Even me… I knew I had a dark side. Maybe it wasn’t as strong as Markus’ dark side, but it was still there. So, despite all of Lee’s provocative declarations about Markus’ evilness, I was certain there had to be light in him.
Even Lee… There had to be something good in him. I just had to find it. Expose it. Use it to my advantage.
“Your concern for my wellbeing is touching,” I replied, keeping my voice light and unbothered. Lee chuckled and shook his head. I knew he could tell that I was pretending at remaining casual, but that very acting amused him. I figured it was best to keep him entertained, rather than disinterested or disappointed. I still feared I’d be tossed in with Zik’s other victims.
“Can I continue with the lesson?” asked the other Rogue agent at the table. She was a pretty girl with long silver hair and black eyes. Some kind of alien, but with mostly human features and abilities. She was obedient when it came to Lee, but I could also tell she wasn’t his number one fan. It was more useful information that I stowed away for later use.
Lee shrugged, the annoying look of superiority still stuck on his face. I had a feeling he was born with that expression. “Proceed.”
The Rogue girl, named Loretta, gestured to a small digital tablet on the table in front of us.
“So, Ellen,” she said. “This is the Quantum drive. It’s a Time Agency invention. It houses highly sensitive information and data; it’s the most confidential material in the known universe.”
“Not that confidential if you all got your hands on it,” I replied.
Lee snorted.
“Yes, well, we have some very skilled hackers on our side,” replied Loretta. “Our access to the Quantum drive is how we find ruined timelines that are scheduled for destruction. It’s also how we track the location of official Time Agents, so that we can be sure not to run into them when traveling through time and space.”
“You must also have Rogues on the inside,” I commented.
Loretta stiffened. “You’re clever.”
“She’s more than clever,” muttered Lee.
“Yes,” sighed Loretta. “We do have a limited number of Time Agents that we pay handsomely for their help, loyalty and secrecy. It’s a delicate, risky relationship. It’s one of the reasons why we benefit so much from particularly wealthy clients. It allows us to pay off the necessary people so that we can stay in business.”
Particularly wealthy clients. Like Markus. Why did everything go back to him?
“So, even away from Earth, money is the driving force for everything,” I sighed.
“I suppose so,” Loretta replied. “Now, let me show you how to use the search feature in the drive.”
Quietly and dutifully, I sat and watched Loretta go through an extensive tutorial on using the Time Agency’s Quantum drive. She showed me how to search according to planet, time period and how to scan through a variety of timelines.
The Rogues had an elaborate, sophisticated system of marking timelines for their clients. The federal Time Agents flagged timelines that were ruined, using their own algorithm for figuring out which ones weren’t worth saving. There were more obvious indicators, like what had happened in my timeline. Devastating war, famine and plague were clear triggers for destruction. But some timelines were also destroyed because they were too similar to another, with only a few key differences that would eventually lead to it imploding on its own. In order to avoid too-similar timelines continuing on alongside each other and messing up the time-space continuum, the Time Agents would have to determine which timeline deserved to survive and which one could stand to be destroyed.
It was all incredibly complicated, and I knew I could study these theories for years before I had any true understanding of the intricate details. Still, I wasn’t looking to be an expert. All I needed was to know enough to get myself out of here and shut these criminals down.
Something nagged at the back of my mind. I realized that if I exposed Lee’s operation to the real Time Agents, the intergalactic government would probably be able to get access to the Rogues’ extensive list of clients. Then, surely they would go after anyone who had ever paid the Rogues for their illegal services.
That meant Rosa would probably get in trouble, even though all she’d ever wanted was to be a mother again.
It also meant that Markus would be arrested for his crimes. Of course, he probably had enough money and influence to avoid too harsh of a sentence, and if he really was on this trip to do something horrifying, maybe it was for the best to turn him in…but I still couldn’t bring myself to see him as a totally bad person.
“So, how do they actually destroy a timeline?” I asked, leaning over the tablet and taking in an entire universe - literally - of information before me.
“It’s a fragile process,” Lee answered. “And unpleasant. We’re quite happy we don’t have anything to do with that part.”
Loretta pursed her lips. “The Quantum drive is equipped with a specific type of software designed by a human scientist. It allows the Time Agents to literally unwind time. It simply unravels, dissolving into nothing. Just small particles, floating around space.”
My stomach twisted at the explanation. The reality that such a thing would happen to my timeline, my parents, everyone I’d ever known, made me feel sick. I had to figure out a way to have a moment alone with the Quantum drive, so that I could find the scheduled date of destruction for my timeline. Maybe I could put a stop to it, or at least save my parents beforehand.
My list of tasks was becoming scarily long. Escape the Rogues, expose them for the monstrous criminals they were, try to stop thinking about a certain handsome dragon Prince and somehow save a ruined timeline.
I had my work cut out for me.
“I think that’s enough for tonight,” said Loretta.
“I’ll walk you to your room,” Lee said, standing up at the same time as me. I narrowed my eyes at him, but allowed him to lead me out of the central control chambers. I didn’t bother mentioning that I knew the way; Lee wasn’t doing this out of courtesy. He simply wanted to play with his newest toy for a little bit longer.
“Us humans really should stick together,” Lee sighed as we approached my room.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t pretend like you care at all about other humans. You fed nine of them to that monster.” I gestured with my hand to the farthest end of the hall, where we all knew the torture chamber was. That entire section of the ship was avoided by almost everyone. No one wanted to be anywhere near Zik and his twisted tortures.
But Lee only laughed. “You’re right.”
Crossing my arms across my chest, I leaned up against my door, clearly indicating that Lee didn’t need to take a single step further.
“You cross your arms when you feel threatened,�
�� he commented, nodding his head in the direction of my chest.
With a glare, I forced myself to drop my arms to my sides. “You’re such a sociopath.”
“Hmm,” was all he said in reply. “It’s an unconscious maneuver, you crossing your arms. Almost like the deepest corners of your mind are able to connect the dots between what is dangerous and what you need to defend yourself from it. But, still, your conscious mind tends to dwell on the possibility of peril. As if you crave it.”
I snorted. “I crave peril?”
“You crave darkness.”
Lee knew he was right, but I couldn’t bear to give him the satisfaction.
So, instead, I placed my hands on my hips and raised a single eyebrow at him. “And you… You’re a sadistic, money-hungry, psychopathic criminal who reaps monetary rewards from the torture fantasies of murderous monsters.”
“Yes,” he replied, smiling slightly. “You are correct.”
With a huff, I yanked open my door and made to slam it in his face. But, before I could, Lee called out after me from the hallway.
“You do know how to turn a phrase, Ellen Moore,” he said, voice dripping in sarcastic delight. “It’s no wonder you were a writer in another timeline.”
I’d had enough of the time-lost talk. It freaked me out, imagining all the possibilities that other versions of myself were experiencing at this very moment. Lee seemed to gain endless amusement from making me feel disturbed.
So, instead of responding, I slammed the door in his face.
Chapter 8
Tenth
Markus
A loud banging on the door to my room woke me from a deep sleep. I sat up with a start, shaking off the fading wisps of the dream I’d been steeped in; all I could remember were a pair of bright green eyes and the ghost of an angelic smile.
I growled in response to the knocking, and whoever it was took it as an invitation to open the door.
Lee’s second-in-command, a girl with silver hair whose name I couldn’t remember, poked her head in.
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