Time for a Mission: The Chronomancer Chronicles

by KD Mack

  “It was and it wasn’t,” Steff said. “I’m sure if you tested their DNA, they’d be the same. But this was definitely the Rollins from the alternate timeline. Not our own gone rogue.”

  “It does speak harshly towards his capacity for loyalty,” Matias replied. “You said in your interviews that the previous timeline’s Rollins betrayed your cause and sided with Xavian. If he had the capacity to do it there, he most definitely has the capacity to do it here. I will have him placed under arrest immediately.”

  “What?” Bendon exclaimed. “You can’t be serious, sir?”

  “Can’t I?” Matias looked up at her. “Consider the situation, Bendon. The man betrayed the cause he worked for in this other timeline. It might as well have happened in the past. Xavian worked against Phoenix Base’s work previously, and he works against us, Chrono Corp., now. You two worked for Phoenix Base then, you work for Chrono Corp. now. Clearly, these timelines do not so much diverge as parallel. What happens in one is likely to happen in the other, in whatever way is most equal to that. As such, Rollins must be kept under watch, and we must question him to see if he has come in contact with Xavian here or any other forces that might be working against Chrono Corp.”

  “Sir, I understand your concern,” Bendon said, “but the circumstances that led to his betrayal in a different time have not happened here. He was not abandoned by his group or left behind. He was not captured by the enemy. Who knows what Xavian did to him there? And by all accounts, in the end, Xavian was working with Phoenix Base. There are complexities of that situation that are not present here. Rollins has always worked hard for Chrono Corp. and has never displayed any tendencies towards betrayal. He’s never even disobeyed an order!”

  Matias shook his head. “Your complaints have been noted, Bendon, but I urge you to go no further, lest I have to include this insubordination with your last in my report. I know this is hard, and I know you are friends with the man, but we have to think beyond our personal connections in times like these. The past, present, and future are all at stake in everything that we undertake. We cannot let ourselves forget that. He will be arrested and questioned. We’re not going to torture the man, for Pete’s sake. He’ll be perfectly well taken care of. We will find other anomalies that Rollins’ doppelganger may be responsible for, and we will respond to them with force and bring him in. I will call you both in for further debriefing once we have determined your punishments for ignoring orders. Dismissed. Feel free to check on our prisoner in the med bay. You’ve apparently grown attached to him.”

  Bendon’s jaw was set as they stepped out into the hallway. She told Steff to go check on Kreg.

  “I have to warn Rollins,” she muttered, and stormed down the hall.

  Steff watched her go with raised eyebrows. She wasn’t the only one grappling with Chrono Corp.’s actions. It was comforting. She didn’t want to have to go against Bendon when she had to go against the Corp. And she was becoming more and more sure that moment was coming.

  She had to wait an hour to see Kreg, who was still in surgery when she arrived. Steff had flipped through every old magazine they kept stocked in the place when they finally rolled him out in a wheelchair. He smiled wanly and, before she even thought it over, Steff embraced him, then assured the medics she would get him to his room.

  “Cell, you mean,” Kreg sighed.

  “We’ll go to mine first,” Steff said. “Though I’m afraid it’s not much better than a cell.”

  “You inviting me over to yours, darling?” Kreg teased. “I thought you had made it pretty clear you didn’t return my feelings.”

  “Don’t press it,” Steff laughed. “Anyway, I have to catch you up on everything. Matias is arresting Rollins.”

  “I mean, that makes sense.” Kreg stretched. “He arrested me. Man, you guys really have the best of the best here. I don’t even have any scars. They just slapped goo on me and everything sealed up.”

  “Welcome to the future,” Steff replied. “And not the Rollins we fought. The Rollins here. The law-abiding citizen Rollins.”

  Kreg scrunched up his face. “That’s like being arrested for your twin’s crimes. What’s the reasoning?”

  “He betrayed in one timeline, he betrayed in another. Same way you were a scoundrel in the other timeline and you were a scoundrel here.”

  “A scoundrel,” Kreg savored the word as she pushed him through the door into her excuse for a room. “I like the sound of that.”

  “They’ve got a tracker in me,” she said as she closed the door. “I mean, this room might even be bugged. But they put it in before we left on our last mission. I don’t know where it is. You saw how they did you. Unless you know, you can’t really find it.”

  Kreg shrugged. “I know people,” he said simply, then looked around. “You weren’t kidding. My room’s more sparse, but I think it might even be bigger. Bendon didn’t want to come for the get-well party?”

  “She was upset about Rollins,” Steff replied, not wanting to say what she was actually doing in case they were listening.

  Kreg settled back in his wheelchair. “Well, what now?”

  Steff sighed. “I don’t know. I guess we wait for the reports on Rollins, go after them. Bendon and I are going to get into some sort of trouble for going after Rollins in the first place. We’ll have to see what that is.”

  “Man, they get you the results they want, and you still get in trouble. This is why I can only ever be my own boss. I’ve got a problem with me? We usually settle it over a drink, like adults.”

  “Did I really fall in love with you?” Steff asked quietly. “The way you’ve been asking, it seems like the case. But when I remember us – I remember the fight. I don’t remember exactly how I feel, but it’s not the same thing as falling in love with you, I don’t think.”

  Kreg’s face fell. “I never said you fell in love with me,” he said, looking down at his hands. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t still think we’re supposed to be together. Even if it’s not romantically.”

  “Why, though?” Steff said. “Are you sure you aren’t just hungover from your old timeline feelings? You barely know me, here. I could be a lot different.”

  “You’re more cautious, I’ll give you that,” Kreg said. “That’s new. Not by a ton, but still.”

  “But how do you know?” Steff insisted. “That you aren’t just trying to pursue some old dream for a relationship?”

  “This,” he said, snapping his fingers and setting his fingertip alight. “This is what made me sure.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “In the old timeline, I could only control fire. I had to be dragged around by people who could travel through time, or get one of the old-timers to give me a suit. None of us future people used mechanical tech then. In this timeline, I could move through time on my own. But I couldn’t control fire. I had memories of it, but no way to access it. And then, when I saw you –”

  “When I was chasing you at the market?” Steff interrupted.

  Kreg nodded. “I put my hand up. It was instinctive, reactive. And I set the forest ablaze. I really didn’t mean to there, and I’m still sorry about that. I didn’t think I could do it. But I saw you, and I could. That has to mean something, right?”

  Steff felt herself blushing, though she wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t think we know enough about what’s going on to call it anything ‘meant to be’.” She could feel his disappointment radiating. “But,” she continued, looking up with a smile. “I’m glad you tracked me down. I think this is going to lead to something good, even if it was just your stubborn determination, and not fate, that made it happen.”

  They were lost in each other’s smiles for a moment, hers encouraging, his grateful, when the door swung open. Bendon stood there, holding a scalpel threateningly in one hand.

  “What the –” Steff said, jumping to her feet.

  “I’m with you,” Bendon said, slamming the door shut be
hind her. “Steff, I need you to take your shirt off.”

  “What?” Kreg tried to push himself up out of his wheelchair, then groaned and fell back. “Bendon, have you truly lost it? I mean, if you want to confess your feelings, I kind of had an inkling –”

  “That’s not it,” Bendon said, looking frustrated. “I’m with you guys, okay? I talked to Rollins and they dragged him away, kicking and screaming. I talked to one of the guys down in holding, a buddy of mine. He’s in a cell. They aren’t treating him well. They aren’t even telling him what’s going on. There’s something wrong here. You were right.” The words almost caught in Bendon’s throat as she said them to Kreg. “They’re making the version of time they think is right, and calling it the ‘authentic’ or ‘true’ one. They don’t know what’s going on. I bet Xavian was more right than I thought, though I’m still not entirely sure on him. But we aren’t going to find out if they throw us into cells .”

  “Is that our punishment?” Steff asked.

  “A month!” Bendon exclaimed. “They’ll have found the other Rollins long before we get out. We’ll miss everything. I’m not being shut out of this, and I think they’ll just cover it up. I think we’re only getting punished that harshly to keep us from asking anymore questions.” She raised the scalpel. “So, take off your shirt. We need to get that anchor-tracker out. And we need to be quick, and careful. Kreg, go get a med kit from the med bay. Tell them you’re feeling sick or something. You’re worried about getting injured again. Just whatever. You’re good at lying, we need stitch-gel. Figure it out.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kreg gave a mock salute and rolled himself out the door.

  “Bendon,” Steff hissed. “They might be listening.”

  “Not in here, I checked,” Bendon said, not explaining further. “Now, come on, before he gets back. He doesn’t need to see this. He can give me the stitch-gel and we’ll be good to go. I don’t need him yammering in here, anyway. They tried to make this version tamper proof. If I do it wrong –” she winced “– we’ll both get blown up or something.”

  “What?!” Steff exclaimed. “Bendon, I think you’re freaking out, and this isn’t a good idea –”

  “Steff,” Bendon said slowly. “When Matias calls us back in that office, we’re going to be thrown in the brig. And we’re not getting out until they’re done doing whatever they are doing. We need to be gone by then, but we can’t do that if you’ve got the biggest tracker ever in you. They’ve already made an appointment for an implant for me, and I don’t intend to be there for it. You’ll just have to pull me through since I’ll have to leave my anchor behind. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Steff said, nervously, pulling her shirt up and laying on her stomach on the bed. “You’re sure you won’t blow us up?”

  “Bite down on something,” Bendon said, not answering the question. “This is going to hurt like hell.”

  The next twenty minutes might have well as lasted twenty years. Steff screamed into the pillow on the bed as Bendon did her work, trying her best to stay quiet and not move, lest they set it off. Extraction was the longest, worst part, but finally there was a mess in the trashcan that Steff refused to look at.

  “Where is he?” Bendon said, holding a towel over Steff’s back. “He’s taking forever –”

  “I return!” Kreg rammed his way through the door, tossing a pack to Bendon. She caught it, squeezing the ice-cold gel across Steff’s back. Steff let out a huge sigh as the built-in pain reliever set in, her whole back going numb. “Hope you like that. I had to pretend to have a concussion then slip it when they weren’t looking. They had to do a whole check and everything.”

  “How would you have gotten a concussion?”

  “Told them I was racing down the hallway and fell out of my chair. Now that she’s done, can we do anything about this thing?” he raised his arm, still bearing the cuff, though it looked scorched after the fight with Rollins.

  “I can probably pick the mechanism with this,” Bendon looked at the thin blade. “If I don’t do it right –”

  “We’ll all blow up,” Steff said with a weak smile, pulling her shirt over, wincing as it stuck to the goo on her back. “We know. This is apparently the price of treason. Almost getting blown up twice in one night.”

  “So, we’re committed to it?” Kreg asked, sticking his arm out eagerly. “Treason, I mean? We’re really going to do it?”

  “We’re really going to do it,” Bendon said, fiddling with his cuff. “I hope you’re ready to be a time skipper again, Kreg. But you’re going to have to be better at it this time.” She grinned as the cuff came free in her hands, placing it on the mess in the trashcan.

  “Oh, yeah? Better than I was? Is that even possible?”

  “It better be,” Bendon said, looking between the two of them, grasping each of their hands in her own. “Because this time, we can’t afford to get caught.”

  Also By KD Mack

  The Paradox Journals Series

  Book One - Ripples in Time

  Book Two - A Time of Madness

  Book Three - A Switch in Time

  Book Four - A Time of Trouble

  Book Five - Just in Time

  Book Six - A Rift in Time

  Prequel - The Story of Amy, Elliot & Blaine

  Box Set - Books One - Six

  The Story Continues With…The Paradox Adventures Series

  Book One - Time for Hunting Rabbits

  Book Two - Artifact Hunting in Paris

  Book Three - Fight for the Scepter

  Book Four - A Time of Discovery

  Book Five - The Race to Apocalypse

  Book Six - Time for Deception on Oak Island

  Book Seven - Showdown with the Collector

  Book Eight - A Time for Hacking

  Book Nine - Trapped in Time

  Chronomancer Chronicles Series

  Prequel - Sacrifices Must Be Made

  Book One - The Time Hopper’s Gambit

  Book Two - Time for a Mission

  Coming Soon…

  You can also find all of my book titles with updated links on my author page here:

  https://books.bookfunnel.com/paradoxseries

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  About the Author

  I've enjoyed reading science fiction and fantasy from a young age, under the covers with the flashlight at night, enthralled in the worlds of Asimov, Heinlein, Foster and others. My clever dog, Dejah, is named for a Burroughs’ character - Dejah Thoris of the red planet we call Mars.

  I'm pleased to be able to share my love of all things weird, different, magical and out of this world, and I hope you'll be able to lose yourself in new worlds, on fantastic adventures in my books. Enjoy!

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