Author's Note, Part II: Okay, there was a teeny, tiny continuity error I didn't see until I posted. It's all fixed now (I think). For the record, the final security field into the control room is red.
Chapter 10Suarez took point. They stepped into a large cavern with a high ceiling of carved rock. The egg looked even bigger as they approached it. Flint scanned it again with his eyes, following her lead as they moved closer to it. Cargo containers surrounded it like pebbles around a lake.
"So, is there an official name for this thing," he asked, "or is it really called an egg?"
She was checking her corners carefully as they moved. "It's a transtemporal transport, or a T-three. Calling it an egg is more cute."
There was a flash of movement to the right. Suarez was all over it, firing off several rounds and taking out at two unarmed cargo workers who stepped out up from behind a stack of crates. They had no time to surrender before they were gunned down with accurate shots. Suarez approached the bodies where they lay on the floor of the cavern. One worker's eyes were open, frozen in shock as death greeted him in quick fashion.
Flint saw Suarez look away from the body. Again, she seemed suffer a wave of shock or regret. Her neck was wet, glistening in the wake of sodium lights high above them. Her face was flushed, her breathing uneven and labored. After a moment, she reached down and removed a band from the worker's wrist, putting it in her pocket. She then moved to the other worker and removed an identical bracelet. She handed it to Flint.
"You okay?" he asked, genuinely worried for her but also for his own welfare. He was relying on her to help him make it out of there.
She did not look at him. She licked her lips and swallowed. "I'm fine," she said quickly. "Put that in your pocket."
"What is it?" he asked, complying.
"Our ticket into the egg. It's a high-tech swipe card."
Again, she led the way. They approached the loading ramp of the egg. The black walkway was inclined at nearly forty-five degrees, making it difficult to see what lay in wait at the top of the ramp. Suarez began climbing, undaunted by the prospect of what may jump out at them. As they entered the egg, it occurred to Flint that his estimates of the vehicle's size were considerably off by a margin.
"It looks smaller from the outside," he noted.
"It is. You're entering the inside now," she said, as though it explained it all.
"Excuse me?"
"Welcome to the world of temporal tampering, Flint," she said, annoyed. "Time and space mean nothing in here. An egg is a finite size on the outside, but inside," she said, waving the barrel of her rifle at the walls, "it can be as big or as small as it needs to be."
"So, how big are we talking in here?"
"There are infinite possibilities. The operator can make it anything it needs to be. Today's contestant has made a cargo ship out of it and is transferring supplies from one time to another. Every step you take is another step into a unique period of time and space. You're seeing the past and the future when you look out there."
They reached the top of the ramp. A blue shimmer surrounded them, startling Flint.
"What the hell was that?" he yelped, turning and trying to identify the source.
"A security measure," she said. "If you don't have one of those bracelets we just took off those guys back there, you bounce off like a ball. Trust me – it's not pleasant, especially if you're running at full speed. It'll knock you back a good twenty feet if you're going fast enough."
She forged ahead, with him in tow to the top of the ramp. What Flint saw when they got there amazed him. What should have been an enclosed area equivalent to the hold of a ship was more like a warehouse in size. Row upon row of cargo was stacked, waiting to be offloaded into the new base. Suarez pulled Flint to the side and down behind a container as two workers passed by them.
"Back to hide and seek," she said quietly, breaking his awe of the egg's capacity.
Flint looked around at the containers. Pallet loaders with solid front skids waited silently for drivers to move the boxes. They looked like abandoned pets that had given up looking for owners and decided to stay where they were, just in case. He had never seen a warehouse so full of supplies ready to move in all his years with the Joes.
"Why wait?" he asked.
"What?"
"Why wait to offload all this stuff?"
"It's like I told you – baby steps. Give Cobra too much, and it will blow the whole plan. This is a timed distribution of weapons and supplies. You'll notice, none of the workers are Cobra."
He had not, but when she mentioned it, it was true. They were not wearing uniforms emblazoned with the crimson seal of the empire. They were, in fact, quite anonymous.
Suarez moved again, motioning for Flint to follow. She pointed two fingers at her eyes, then bladed her hand to left to tell him there were bogies on the flank. He saw them – three workers taking inventory. Suarez and Flint slipped by them unnoticed. They seemed to play such a game for a while, dodging those who might sound an alarm with finesse. It reminded him of when he was a boy, playing "kick the can" in the summer twilight hours, trying to get the last score in before the streetlights came on and it was time to go home. That time seemed so far away, so ancient as he followed her, trusting she was leading him in the right direction and that they would stay alive as they ventured deeper behind enemy lines.
He took a mental inventory of ammunition on him. They were running low and would have to conserve, making every shot count. He tried to see what Suarez had on her, but he could not see the front of her vest. He trusted that she was prepared. Despite the way she had played all of them in the beginning, he had come to believe she was genuinely on their side, trying to right what had been turned drastically wrong. Somewhere in the equation, he was even glad he was the one on the mission and not Allison. She was in good hands with Doc, and her prognosis was positive when he left her.
When he viewed his own outlook, the odds did not seem so favorable. He had his doubts as to whether or not they would even make it out of the mountain alive. Unless Suarez had a card up her sleeve, there was little to suggest the mission was anything more than a one-way ticket to a posthumous retirement, maybe a nice medal someone would put in a memorial display in his honor. He had done it for other soldiers who had been killed. Flint had no doubt the same would be done for him. It was not that he was vain about his service with the Joes. It was that the camaraderie they shared was closer than family sometimes. It was a matter of pride and of the notion that they were protecting good, innocent people in the world. They were willing to die for it. Some had already paid the price, and the Joes had made sure that none of them had been forgotten and never would be.
They came to the end of one of the cargo rows. Suarez pointed upward with her rifle at what looked like another control room.
"That's our target," she said quietly. "It's a controlled-access bridge. That's where the magic has to happen."
"What do we do when we get up there?"
"If all goes well, we're going to start a feedback loop in the spatial controls that will cause the egg to fold in on itself. Once that happens, everything else it's brought with it gets consumed. There should be virtually nothing left but a memory."
He gave a half-hearted low chuckle. "Piece of cake."
"That's what I say."
She moved forward toward an inlet in the wall. To the immediate left was a set of stairs that wound upward in neat ninety-degree turns. They ascended four flights, stopping when Suarez indicated there were guards ahead of them. She motioned for Flint to take his turn dropping them from the other side of the doorway. He darted across the open doorway, locating his targets. Three guards stood watch in a small entranceway room, aloof and unsuspecting that anyone had infiltrated their vehicle so cleanly. He gave himself a three-count before turning the corner and firing. One dropped immediately with a headshot, crumpling to the floor in a heap. The other fell with two shots to the torso. The third suffered much the same fate. The second target writhed and coughed as Flint bound into the room. The guard was struggling to reach his weapon that had skidded away in the attack. His hand molded around the grip as Flint approached, weapon raised. The guard saw him and tried to bring the weapon around but was stopped cold and dead by a shot from Suarez. There would be no taking of prisoners. There was only one way to handle the enemy, and that was to eliminate it as found.
Suarez toed one of the bodies, making sure there was no response.
"And stay down," she commanded quietly.
She walked to the set of sliding steel doors and inspected them. She placed her hand on the doors, closing her eyes, and listening. He noticed a slight tremor in her hands. She clutched her fingers together, flexing them to regain control. She looked at Flint, knowing he had seen her hand.
"You want to let me in on the secret?" he asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Flint," she protested, trying to recover her poise.
"Up until now, you've been the picture of complete confidence. Now, you look like a green seeing battle for the first time. I want to know why. You owe me that much."
She wiped at her forehead with the back of her hand and leaned on the doors. "I don't owe you a damned thing. I'm saving your collective asses. The least you can do is stop annoying me with questions I'm not allowed to answer."
Without another word, she reached for the control panel to the right of the door and ripped off the housing. The inside was myriad of advanced electronics Flint could only imagine. There were no wires. It was a series of chips and lighted circuits that he could not begin to decipher. Using two fingers, she began pulling out components, dropping them on the floor without care. Soon, there was a hole large enough for her to reach in with her entire hand. She closed her eyes, as if envisioning the guts of the panel. Her hand tightened taking hold of one last piece. She yanked it with force, pulling her hand out quickly as a shower of sparks blew out the hole.
The large silver doors slid open without a sound. Flint raised his rifle, prepared to engage whatever lay beyond them. There was no enemy, though – just another set of silver doors. Suarez stepped inside the small room. Again, the blue field buzzed and lit with her passage through the threshold. Another panel lay in wait. She paused and turned to him.
"You've done your part, Flint. Now, get out of here."
He looked at her sharply. "Not a chance."
"You don't understand," she shot back. "Your job is done. Now, get out of this mountain."
"We're going in together."
She pulled her rifle up at him again, only this time, her finger was solidly on the trigger. "Go home, Flint."
Unlike before, he knew she was not posturing. She meant what she said. He froze, seeing the barrel pointed directly at his gut. Without looking, she put one hand out and touched the control panel. The doors slid open, and she began backing through them into yet another anteroom, holding him at gunpoint. Her body was suddenly enveloped in a shimmering light, red this time, that disappeared after two steps. He watched her back away from him.
The doors began to close. Before she could react, he dove toward the floor, passing through the same field. It tingled on his skin as he launched himself at her. She was out of his vision as he rolled on the floor, bringing up his weapon to bear on her as he landing, kneeling on one knee.
"Goddamn it, Flint!" she yelled, pulling the barrel of her rifle up toward the ceiling.
He held her in his sight, unsure of what she would do next. She threw it against the wall in a controlled rage. The sound of metal on metal was sharp in his ears. The shock of her action was even sharper.
"Just for once, why can't you do what I ask?" she hollered.
"Because you got me into this, and I'm going to see it through to the end," he answered hotly, carefully standing.
"Oh, the irony!" she lamented. "You have no idea."
"Then educate me!"
She began pacing manically. "Forget it," she snapped. "I'll figure it out later. We need to get this part done and quick."
"I don't understand!"
"Just do what I tell you from now on!" She moved for the control panel at the next set of doors.
He looked down at the abandoned rifle on the floor. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
She turned back and saw his reference. "It's empty," she said, calming, though some frustration remained. She pulled out her sidearm and readied it in her left hand. "There's only one man in this next room. Don't kill him."
"Why?"
"If he goes, we all go, and in a very nasty way. We need him alive. Ready?"
He nodded. He had no choice. "Ready."
She placed her hand on the panel. Flint aimed for whatever lay beyond the doorway. When they opened, Suarez moved quickly into the room. Flint took the right flank behind her. As she had told him, there was one man inside, his back to the doorway. He was dressed in black pants and a crisp white shirt. His back remained to them as he leaned over a console, supporting himself on his arms. Slick black hair reflected in the diffused lights of the room. Either he did not know they had entered, or he simply did not care.
Flint took a quick look around the room. More banks of monitors were inlayed in the walls and workstations. Unlike the Joe command center, where there were keyboards and chairs, the room was unlike Flint had ever seen. It reeked of computers so advanced that Mainframe would have been like a kid in a candy store for just ten minutes inside the room. For the first time, Flint saw a level of technology he could compare to that in his own time. There was a measuring stick with which he could benchmark just how far ahead they were in Suarez's time over his own.
The information the monitors displayed meant nothing to him, but he had no doubt it did to Suarez. Black polished floors reflected the information that scrolled on the screens, creating a parallel flow of data. She eyed the screen closest to her for a concentrated moment before returning her attention to the man in the room.
Suarez trained her sidearm on the man's back. She was calm, collected. "Temporal Enforcement, James. It's time to go home."
Flint saw the man's shoulder start to shake. A deep, throaty laugh followed, yet the man remained in position. Suarez took a step closer, the nine millimeter secure in her hands. James sighed, the laugh finally subsiding. He shook his head, still facing away from them.
"You have no authority here, Officer. This routine is getting a bit old."
Suarez took another step closer to him. "You've had your fun. Now, it's time to pack it up and go back where you belong."
Before Flint could react, James whipped around and withdrew his own weapon from the belt around his waist. He aimed at Suarez, who did not flinch at the action.
"You're out of your jurisdiction!" James yelled.
Now Flint could see the man's face. James was young, maybe in his late twenties. He had seemed older when he spoke, but his face took away the sense of experience his voice gave him. Ice blue eyes against raven dark hair gave him almost a demonic look, that of a madman. His eyes twitched in agitation as he held his gun up at Suarez. He wore a bracelet like the one Flint had taken off the dead cargo worker in the outer area. Its shiny surface glinted in the rainbow of colors from the screens.
Suarez scowled. "You made it my jurisdiction when you broadcast secured tech documents to a bunch of thugs. I'm getting tired of cleaning up after you."
"I'm tired of all of you playing God," James said, thrusting the gun forward at every other word for emphasis. He addressed Flint. "Do you know what it's like to have an entire world run by fewer than twenty people, to know that you have no control over your destiny? People like this," he said, pointing the barrel at Suarez, "call themselves an authority, but all they really do is stifle free-thinkers like me."
"You didn't think this one through very well, then, James," Suarez said, holding her ground. "We practically waltzed in here. Then again, you had a hard time finding people to commit to this idea of yours, didn't you? Security is pretty lousy."
"My people have vision, Officer," James said resolutely. His voice calmed, became more controlled and confident. "They're willing to risk their lives to take people like you out of power. They know the truth, and they're here to do the right thing."
Flint stole a glance at Suarez. She was standing there stoically, weapon trained on James. She seemed unfazed by his accusations. He, on the other hand, was more than disconcerted by the man's words. James sounded sincere. That put Flint in a difficult position. He knew Suarez had been vague in her reasons for the mission in the first place. Now, James was adding to the conundrum.
He looked at James, lowering the barrel of his rifle ever so slightly but enough that both Suarez and the man noticed.
"What do mean, James?" he asked.
James looked at Flint but did not relinquish his aim at Suarez. "I'll bet this officer hasn't been very forthcoming with you, has she? See, that's the way they work. They do what benefits them the most and keeps them in power."
"Not true," Suarez countered.
"Oh, really?" James challenged. "Your precious Temporal Council holds all the power. So secret, so omnipotent – you say you're protecting us, but we both know that's a lie. It's about power, and it's time someone else has a little of it, to try a different way."
"Give me an option, James," Suarez said, almost as in a plea. "We can both walk away from this, and the timeline will be none the worse for wear. We can go back, and I promise you the Council will hear your grievances."
"I'm tired of talking," James said. "And I'm tired of the echelon of power. It has to be changed, and I'm the one to do it."
Flint listened to the exchange, only becoming more confused by the words flying back and forth.
"Hold on a second," he interjected, raising a hand to stop them. "What is he talking about?"
James answered for Suarez. "I'm talking about a secret sect that controls the lives of everyone. Imagine knowing there are twenty people who can change history to their liking, to further their own agenda. What would you do? You'd fight, wouldn't you?"
"We have never changed the course of time for our benefit, and you know that," Suarez argued.
"No," James said, "you just ignored the opportunity to make things better. You just sit back and let people suffer and die needlessly when you could change it."
Suarez did not relent. "And here you are, where you don't belong, backing the wrong team. It's bad enough you're here, but you're giving power to the wrong side."
James' ire rose again. "We did it your way once! Look where it got us! So much suffering and death, and no one on the Council gave a damn. You all live in your insulated world while others scrape just to survive!"
Flint was trying to keep up with the manic pace of the conversation. He sidestepped, bringing both of them into his firing scope. He had no idea whose side he was on, and he was not willing to take any chances. He angled himself so that he could target either one of them if the need arose. Most of all, it protected him stray fire in either direction.
He tried to process what James was saying. "Where does it get you?" Flint was willing to hear an answer from either one of them.
"More like where it didn't get us," James said.
"Don't go there, James. Even you know revealing future events is off limits," Suarez warned.
James held back for a moment, considering her admonishment. "Not for long," he said to her. "When I'm done, everyone will know the truth. Millions of lives will be saved."
"And no one will believe you," she said sympathetically. "History as you know it will not exist, and you'll be considered a crackpot. All you're doing now is making new problems for the future."
"At least things will be different," James said pointedly.
"By allying with Cobra?" she asked, incredulous. "You don't know what you're doing. Save yourself a step and go sleep with wolves."
He looked at Flint. "Talk about backing the wrong side – she's the devil incarnate. I'm laying the groundwork for others to carry on what I am about to start. You have to believe me."
"James," she said with an air of finality, "I'm only going to ask you one last time – please give me an option."
Seconds passed as the wheels turned in James' head. Then he broke out in a broad, ironic smile. His eyes closed, and again he laughed. He shook his head in disbelief.
"You're a damned Cassie, aren't you?" he asked, though it was more of a revelation.
Flint looked to Suarez again. He saw her throat flex as she swallowed hard. Her jaw was tight, making her temples flex with stress. She said nothing in return.
"What's a 'Cassie'?" Flint asked, directing the question to James, certain Suarez would not answer.
James held fast to his aim at Suarez, his knuckles bleached against the black steel of his gun.
"A 'Cassie'," he said, "is a special breed of the Council's soldiers. They're a privileged little bunch that gets to see the entire timeline . . . right up to their demise. Look at her," he accused, "she's practically swimming in sweat. And wouldn't you be if you knew you were about to die?"
Flint could tell by the look on her face that James was telling the truth. "No one has to die here," he offered. "We can work this out."
Suarez kept an intense eye on James. "No, we can't, Flint," she said simply. "James isn't giving me any options, so it ends here."
The smile fell away from James. "I saw the timeline, too," he said. "It was my last accomplishment before coming here. Like you, I can carefully plan what needs to happen."
"You don't know what you're doing," she warned. She held her stance, no wavering in what Flint was sure had to be tense, sore muscle.
"Come with me," James offered. "We can change the future and our own lives. We can save those millions who don't make it. We can be the saviors of our time."
Suarez shook her head. "I can't let you do that. We've seen what happens, and trust me – it ain't pretty."
"What about you, Flint?" James said. "You willing to risk that she's preventing us from saving so many lives when you could do something about it?"
"Hell," Flint said, "I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Unfortunately," James said, conceding, "she's right. It's not like I can haul you to the future to show you. You're stuck here."
"So are you, James," Suarez said. "You know you can never go back home. Once you change the time here, there's no going back."
"And why the hell would I want to go back?" he queried. "I'll take my chances creating my own timeline, and I guarantee it will be a hell of a lot better than the job your people have done. I've already started. I know I can do this."
Suarez shook her head. "You're not the first to wish that."
"It's not a wish!" He looked to Flint again. "You'd be a powerful man very quickly. Imagine knowing anything you wanted to know. Secrets of the past would be revealed – the Holy Grail, Roswell, Kennedy, Hoffa . . ."
Flint thought about the offer. Its tempting fingers touched his mind and caressed it with the possibilities. He could save Allison, maybe even prevent Cobra's rise to power in the first place. He savored the thoughts, how he could make things better or not even happen at all.
"I don't think Flint's buying that one, James," Suarez said. "You don't know how to control what you've unleashed. We can both walk away from this alive. Give me your weapon and let me take you back where you belong."
"You know what I think?" James said to her. The timbre of his voice said he had made a decision. "I think that only one of us is getting through that door, and I'm absolutely positive it's not going to be you."
Flint watched in slow motion as the two raised their weapons at each other with intent. James leaned forward, as if to close the range to Suarez. She remained positioned and met him head-on. Flint pulled the trigger in a split second, making his choice of targets. In the still of the control room, three bright flashes bounced off the walls as three shots rang out in the waning hours of night. Two bodies reversed their polarity and jumped backward as weapons fire was exchanged. There were two dull thumps as Suarez and James hit the floor.