Chase (ChronoShift Trilogy)

by Zack Mason

  "Why don't you get them?"

  "Fine."

  Irritation still lingered from their failed plans as they ascended silently in the elevator. Just one more of the many safety features Mark had installed in their secure facility was a top-of-the-line elevator which made almost no sound as it operated. They fully expected Rialto would invade their inner sanctum sooner or later, so they did their best to stack the deck in their favor.

  Door hinges were well oiled, squeaky floorboards were immediately replaced. In addition to all the electronic security, there were a plethora of hidden cameras throughout the edifice, and numerous secret passageways and hiding places. The only people who knew about these things were himself, Hardy, Ty, and Savannah.

  If either Laura or Randolph DeCleary had shifted into their time anywhere near the headquarters or the remote sensors, Mark and Hardy would have been alerted to the unfriendlies by a silent alarm long before they got to the upper floor.

  Yet, since Laura and Randolph had simply walked in, no alarm was triggered. The alarm sensors couldn't detect a shifter when not in use as the shifters were normally passive devices. They emitted no traceable signal unless activated.

  So, when the elevator doors opened, Hardy and Mark were quite stunned to see Laura and Randolph DeCleary standing over Ty's inert body. Uncharacteristically, both men stood motionless instead of jumping into action. Perhaps if it had been anybody but Laura standing there, or Randolph DeCleary for that matter, who they never expected to see in this modern era, they wouldn't have been taken off guard so completely.

  Yet, there they stood, frozen in place, unbelieving, watching the woman they had both loved, or at least they thought they had loved, standing over the body of their dear friend, and they couldn't tell whether he was alive or dead. Laura held no visible weapon, but Randolph wielded a gun in his left hand.

  Mark blinked several times as if trying to clear his eyes.

  The elevator's doors had been so silent, Laura and Randolph were still unaware of their presence.

  "Laura?" Mark was incredulous.

  Randolph whipped around. Forgetting the gun in his hand, he reached for a sword on his hip which wasn't there, a habit which now cost him any advantage.

  Mark drew his own pistol and shot Randolph square in the chest without taking his numbed eyes from Laura. Randolph flew back a few feet and fell. He didn't get up, but there was no blood. Body armor had stopped the bullet, but not the concussion of it. The shock had knocked the ex-knight out.

  "Laura?" Mark repeated. "What's going on?"

  She smiled, lifting her tan, slender arm for both to see. An all-too-familiar, gleaming silver bracelet adorned her wrist. It should have looked large for her size, but instead seemed a perfect fit. A perfectly nauseating fit.

  The magnitude of her betrayal shocked Mark speechless. He shook his head, disbelieving, not willing to believe.

  Being the more cynical of the two, Hardy accepted what he saw without reaction. This would have to be dealt with like anything else. "What did you do to Ty, Laura?" He asked.

  "He'll be all right," she purred. "I just tased him." As she slinked her way toward them, sashaying her hips seductively, it was all Mark could do to keep from falling under her spell again. She was incredible.

  "Stop right there, Laura." Mark turned the pistol on her.

  "Aw, you wouldn't shoot little ol' me, would you?" Her smile might have charmed the pants off a cobra or maybe even the Cheshire Cat himself.

  "One of us will," Hardy blurted. His gun was out and pointed on her heart too. It was one of the few times Mark had ever seen him looking emotional.

  Mark sighed. "Why did you tase him, Laura?"

  Unlike Hardy, all emotion had strangely left Mark. A cool indifference had taken roost. "What are you doing here? And what are you doing with DeCleary?"

  She clammed up. The distinct clarity of purpose in their tone proved they were serious about shooting her. Her seductive act deflated like a blow-up toy pricked with a pin. Slouching, she hefted herself onto a table, staring at them indifferently while she chewed some stale chewing gum she'd probably had for over an hour.

  "Let's have it, Laura."

  She refused to speak.

  "You ungrateful wench! We gave you everything! If you didn't like me, you had Hardy. Was there anything we didn't buy you? I saved your life for crying out loud! How could you betray us like this? Working for Rialto? How could you break in here and hurt Ty?" Mark's fury welled up like some uncontrolled beast, flashing and slashing fiercely.

  Then, just as quickly, it dissipated. He couldn't guess what was going through her mind. He'd never been able to.

  "I didn't break in, Mark."

  Thankfully, Ty was beginning to stir. He hadn't been truly unconscious, just incapacitated. Groggily, he struggled to roll over and lifted himself into a chair. They wanted to help him, but doing so would have cost them position.

  "H...H...Hey, guys," Ty croaked like a frog on its last legs. "I let her in."

  Mark frowned, but understood how she'd gotten the drop on him. He wouldn't have had reason to be wary.

  Randolph was moaning and rolling around now too.

  "They're waiting on Rialto," Ty managed.

  "Is that so?" Sarcasm dripped from Mark's words. He motioned with the pistol. "Gather your friend and get out of here. You disgust me."

  To her credit, for the first time, she looked hurt. She slapped Randolph's cheeks until he was fully awake and then helped him to his feet. She wrapped his arm around her shoulder and neck, lending support as they walked.

  They stumbled toward the door just as Savannah was coming back in.

  "What's going on?" she asked. The tension and injured men made it obvious something dramatic had just happened.

  Laura stopped just outside the doorframe and turned her face back toward Mark, her gaze not quite meeting his. "It's not like you think, Mark. Rialto's got a lot of control."

  "Everybody's got a choice."

  "It's not like you think."

  "Get out," he ordered.

  The tension in the room was palpable. The pool tables and cues were untouched, no one lounged on any of the couches. Each face was etched with a similar expression of stern concern. The only bright spot in the otherwise dreary morning was the smell of the warm pastries Savannah had brought.

  Ty was okay. The taser had hurt like the dickens, incapacitating him for a few minutes, but he'd shaken it off. Some of his muscles still spasmed every now and then.

  This building was their castle, their safe haven. It was the only place they could feel safe now that the war was on again. Here and only here, the enemy could not break in or sneak in. The only way they could get in at all was through subterfuge as Laura had done, and Mark had already laid down a new standing rule that no one outside the four of them was allowed inside the building at any time. Period. At least not without serious discussion beforehand.

  Mark asked Savannah to temporarily move her things into the building for safety reasons, and she agreed. He'd build her a nice private apartment in one of the upper floors until they could work something else out.

  All too easily, he could envision Rialto snatching her off the street, holding her hostage in order to get at them or secure a way into the building. She was to check in at certain times per day so they'd know if anything happened to her. Mark gave her certain code words to use under duress if she called or emailed and was being held against her will. If she thought she was being followed, Mark instructed her to simply not check in with them at the prescribed time and they would find her.

  He, Ty, and Hardy would all have to live in the building as well. At least, until the Rialto problem was solved. They didn't need more than one perimeter to defend.

  "How can we possibly stop seven of them, Mark?" Ty asked.

  "I don't know," was his quiet, pensive answer.

  "I'll tell you how. We’ll take them down one by one," Hardy declared.

  "Including Laura
?" Mark raised an eyebrow.

  "She's left us with no choice, hasn't she?" Hardy grimaced.

  "You're right...she hasn't," Mark admitted, "I know how you felt now, Ty. Having saved someone's life only to have it come back and bite you in the butt." Mark tossed an empty paper cup at the trash can. It bounced off the rim and hit the floor. "The trick is how do we do that, Hardy? If we just kill one, two, or three of them, the rest will shift back to undo it. We've been down this road before."

  "What if we ring an area with small explosives that would be triggered by an unfriendly shifter?" Ty offered. "We could lure one of them into a place, take that guy out, and then the explosives will kill anyone who shifts in to save them."

  Mark shot the plan down. "Too dangerous for us. Plus, they would just shift in farther away and use rifles."

  It was a brain-bending conundrum, the likes of which no warrior in history had ever had to contemplate. They harnessed all their creativity, yet still drew a blank. It seemed an unsolvable puzzle.

  Finally, Mark ended the meeting. "I'm going to go see Bobby Prescott and see if he can come up with any new tools we might use to gain an advantage."

  ***

  The tension in Rialto's boardroom was born not of preoccupation but animosity. They'd failed, which meant he blamed his people regardless of any culpability of his own.

  "There is no excuse for this!" Rialto ranted, "You had them in their headquarters and failed. Now they know you work for me!"

  Laura was defiant. She ignored his distasteful remark about her working for him. As true as that may be, she didn't like believing it. "We had Ty down and out," she replied, "We were waiting on you to get there to finish him off, like you requested, when Mark and Hardy showed up. If you hadn't let them get away, we'd be done."

  "Why did they get away, Torino? Why didn't you two follow Carpen and finish him off? If you'd done your job, Phillips couldn't have escaped."

  "The detector didn't work. We didn't know what time he shifted to."

  "What do you mean it didn't work? Was the battery down? You can't turn it off."

  "I don't know what happened. Carpen shifted and when I checked the detector, instead of a date and time, it had some kind of nonsense error symbols."

  "Did you break it? They're supposed to be indestructible. Give it to me." Rialto held out his hand.

  Torino gave him his detector. Rialto ordered him to shift in and out.

  "Look," He held it up to show him, "It's working fine."

  "It wasn't then."

  "Irvine, what do you say?"

  Stanley Irvine squeezed the bridge of his nose without removing his thin-rimmed glasses and closed his eyes in concentration. These meetings made him nervous. These people made him nervous. He'd been involuntarily sucked into this mafia of sorts, and the things lurking behind the eyes of the others made it clear to him he wasn't likely to get out very easily.

  "I couldn't say for sure..."

  "And if you were pressed to say," Rialto pushed.

  "Instinct tells me they may have developed some kind of jammer. It wouldn't be too hard to do. Create a small emitter that mimics the electromagnetic field emitted when they shift, but adds random fluctuations to that field, making it impossible for the detector to interpret."

  "Could you make some of those for us?"

  "Sure."

  "Why hadn't you mentioned this possibility before?" Rialto demanded.

  "Uh...it didn't occur to me it would be needed."

  "You're lacking, Irvine. Seriously lacking. I don't want to be caught off guard like this again. Do I make myself clear?"

  Having found his scapegoat, Rialto visibly calmed.

  "People, we've lost the element of surprise, but we've still got superior numbers. We'll match their technology again soon. The truce is off. Once we're ready, we'll attack, and this time we'll succeed."

  "Alex," Laura purred, "We did learn something interesting."

  "What?"

  "When I tased Ty? It turned his watch red. I thought it might have been the electricity from the taser that shut his shifter down."

  It took a minute for what she'd said to register, but as it did, along with all the corresponding possibilities, a genuine grin broke out on Rialto's face.

  If we were lost in fields of clover,

  would we walk even closer until the trip was over?

  And would it be ok if I didn't know the way?

  "Would You Go With Me?"

  ~ Josh Turner

  Hardy didn't like being cooped up. Not at all. In fact, he couldn't stand it. If he were in the field, that would be a different story. He'd once laid virtually motionless in a sniper's nest for over 18 hours, only moving once. He could stand being confined inside a small building for days on end if his mission were clear, and it was necessary for surveillance reasons.

  In this case, however, Mark was talking about an open-ended, self-imposed confinement until they could figure something out. Not that he was questioning Mark's leadership. Mark was absolutely right. They needed to stay out of sight and in a strong defensive position until they had a viable plan. It was just the vagueness of the timetable which rubbed against his ADD-leaning personality. Well, Mark and Ty could lock themselves up, but he had other plans.

  The cottage was a lot like he remembered, but there had been some changes made since he last saw it a year ago. The home was humble, yet quaint and inviting. The thatched roof's vibrant color had dulled after months of exposure to the elements. The log walls were now covered by roughly hewn planks of wood, stacked horizontally, one above the other. A window had also been added, and Hardy noticed a bit of blackened discoloration at one corner of it. The charred wood told him it had probably been scavenged from one of the burned-out villages nearby.

  He wasn't sure if she was home. If not, he'd just wait. She'd be back sooner or later. He raised his hand to knock on the door in spite of the lack of activity he sensed. The door swung open before his knuckles could even touch the wood.

  "Hello, Hardy," she smiled.

  "Hello, Abigail."

  "Come in. Have a seat. I've already put some tea on. Saw you coming." She withdrew back into the house.

  Indeed, she had two places set for tea, as if she'd been expecting him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside.

  She looked the same. Beautiful, pure, full of life.

  "I hope I'm not intruding," he said.

  "Not at all. Tis good to see you, to be sure."

  "We've got a situation in 2014. Rialto's got us bottled up..."

  "Surely you've not come to ask me to return with you," she cut him off.

  "No, no," he laughed, "Relax. That's not it. Mark's got us locked up inside headquarters until we can mount a counterattack, and I'll go stir crazy if I have to stay cooped up. I was hoping I could stay here for a time until we get things sorted out in the future. I'd be no trouble, I swear."

  Her laughter was light, like a bubbling brook. "Certainly! You are always welcome here, any of you. It would not look right though, us living in the same house. We'll set about building you a cabin next door right away."

  "That sounds like a lot of trouble. I don't think I'll be here that long. I'll be shifting back to headquarters during the day and staying here at night. Perhaps I can stay in a nearby village?"

  "Nonsense. I'll stay with a friend in the next town. You can have my house till you've got your own place."

  "I feel bad putting you out like that," he murmured.

  "It must be bad — the problem with Rialto, if you're taking such drastic measures."

  "It's not good. He's got at least six time-shifters with him now, besides himself, including good ol' Randolph DeCleary. You remember him from our little ’vacation' back in medieval England."

  "I surely do."

  "We're outnumbered."

  "God will see Mark through, of that I am certain." She took a long, slow sip from her cup of black tea.

  "I'm not so certai
n Mark believes in God," Hardy replied.

  "And you?"

  "What about me?"

  "Do you believe in God? Isn't that why you're really here? To learn about God?"

  The blood rushed to his cheeks. "I told you, I need a place to hang out."

  "You're blushing. Surely there are lots of places and times where you could hide. Why did you come here? Am I not right in what I suggest?"

  "Maybe."

  "Don't worry, we have plenty of time." Her smile was soothing.

  ***

  He spent a lot of time working on a home of his own. He hated putting Abbie out of hers. From time to time, he'd shift back and check in on Mark and Ty. They were curious about where he'd been hanging out, but they didn't pry. They knew he wouldn't do anything that would jeopardize security.

  He didn't return to the future every day after all. Sometimes, he'd spend weeks in the 1600's before shifting forward. Yet, for Mark and Ty, he'd only be absent from headquarters for however long he wished for them to perceive. It was fantastic. He was on an extended vacation, if you could call frontier life a vacation. His shifter made it possible to live two completely different lives, disconnecting centuries so they no longer progressed chronologically, at least with respect to him.

  The pristine untouched Massachusetts woods were gorgeous. The crisp air was fresh. The sky looked bluer than any you could see in modern day. Even the birds seemed to sing louder. Maybe they were happier. They certainly didn't have to put up with cars, noise, or pollution. No cell towers, no power lines, no billboards, no trash, nothing to blemish the landscape. And Abbie made very good company.

  He felt bad about taking time off from their normal operations. He could be out there saving people's lives and instead he was taking it easy, kicking it back in the 17th century. He needed some time off, he reasoned. Plus, they weren't doing normal "save" operations right now in 2014, not until they sorted the Rialto mess out.

  He built himself a structure which was essentially nothing more than a line shack. It had a small fireplace, a smaller table, and enough room for a single bed. There was no point in dedicating a lot of effort to it, as he spent most of his time visiting with Abbie in her cottage or out hunting. Once he'd finished his shack, he threw himself into bettering Abbie's house for her.