The Time Travel Chronicles (3 page)

All my father heard was that a Chrono had murdered his only son. Somehow that made me—and all my kind—guilty by extension. Back then I was dumb enough to believe it, and innocent enough to think that joining Central could somehow atone for sins I’d never committed.

I pushed the memory away and abruptly changed the subject. “So, how far back can you blink?”

“I went back two seconds once,” she said, thankfully following my cue, “but usually it’s less.”

That barely rated above
déjà vu
. Better than ninety-nine percent of the general population, but still at the bottom of the totem pole at Central. Kids with
déjà vu
couldn’t blink very far. With some work, Abi might someday manage five or six seconds. Maybe.

“I bet your reflexes are pretty good, huh?” I said, reaching out to flick her in the ear. With preternatural awareness she ducked and I missed.

“Ow,” she growled, rubbing her ear and eying me with absolute betrayal. “I don’t get it, why’s that hurt?”

A squadron of girls clutching armfuls of books and sunbrellas scurried past. I gestured to the building squatting at the heart of Central like a beige wart: Administration. A thorough dousing of chill air greeted us upon entering.

“Didn’t I already tell you about psychic pain?” I asked.

Abigail continued rubbing her ear while sporting a look of utter confusion. Oh yeah, that was the
getting-shot-is-a-bad-idea
portion of the speech I’d rewound through.

“Blinking is just the transfer of information from your future-self to your past-self,” I said, leading Abi down a wide corridor jammed wall-to-wall with filing cabinets and administrative assistants bustling about with the sort of lackadaisical enthusiasm only mind-numbing paperwork can inspire. “So in one timeline I flicked your ear. Your body didn’t like that and released a burst of tachyons, transporting your mind back before the assault, which is why you ducked the second time. You knew it was coming because you
remembered
it. Same goes for the pain; you always remember the pain.”

“That’s dumb. What’s the point of blinking if you still get hurt?”

“Time heals all wounds,” I said, navigating the labyrinthine maze of halls and administrative office space. “You ever stubbed a toe?”

Abi grinned. “Nope.”

Oh yeah, déjà vu. Lucky.

“Well, trust me, it hurts worse than childbirth.”

“You have a kid?” she asked with surprise.

“No, that’s hyperbole. I’m trying to make a point.”

“Oh.”

I stopped at a pair of thick, blast-proof steel doors. “Anyways, the memory of pain isn’t quite the same thing as pain itself. It still hurts, but time dulls the edge.”

“Uh huh.” Abi nodded absently, her mind thoroughly absorbed by the imposing doors.

“And that’s blinking in a nutshell,” I said, waving my personnel badge across a security sensor. A red light blinked twice before turning green. The doors slid open and a mechanical voice filled the hall, “Welcome, Agent Kaelyn Kwon.”

Chapter Three

NOW

“Did you ladies see that?” Maddix said, trotting over to where Zoe and I had landed, his rifle clutched in one hand while he gesticulated madly with the other to where his discarded parachute flapped like a plastic bag in the breeze. “I nailed the landing!”

I fumbled at the chest straps tethering me to my own nylon jellyfish with shaky fingers; adrenaline-soaked muscles aren’t ideal for tasks requiring fine motor skills.

“Also worth noting,” Zoe said, already free of her chute, “is the fact that you didn’t get shot this time.”

Maddix’s scowl ruined his pretty boy looks. “You wound me.”

“Nope, you can thank the bad guys and their bullets for that,” Zoe said.

“Speaking of the bad guys,” I said, finally splitting on semi-amicable terms with my parachute. “You’re up, Maddix. Shake a leg.”

Maddix sighed and rolled his neck, the corded muscles around his throat bulged as vertebrae popped. “Ya know, charging straight into enemy territory is probably the reason I get shot so often.”

“Somebody’s got to take one for the team,” I said.

“And we love you for it,” Zoe added.

“You’d better.” Maddix smiled and said to me, “Start the timer.” And then he fast-forwarded through time and space, disappearing in a blur of color that kicked up a stiff breeze and tugged me forward half a step.

My guts were kinked into impossibly tight coils. Maddix liked to play it cool, but we all knew how much was at stake. Haven was Crask’s headquarters, home to hundreds of his fanatical chrono-gifted soldiers. Men and women he’d brainwashed into believing they were God’s chosen.

After putting Jiang Jintao atop the Chinese throne four years earlier, Crask had set up his base of operations in the air over Hong Kong, effectively putting him out of Central’s reach while fighting holy wars around the world to the highest bidder.

Crask was the leader of his own religious movement, but he was first and foremost a businessman.

Our presence on Haven could spark a war, but Crask had taken one of our own and, consequences be damned, we were going to get her back.

Eleven seconds after he’d left, Maddix’s voice crackled through my radio-piece. “Oh god, this place is enormous. This is gonna take forever.”

“Quit complaining. It’s not like you’ll remember any of it,” Zoe said, keeping her rifle sighted on the stairs, ready for any soldiers with more bravery than common sense to appear.

“I’m the one down here sprinting my ass off,” Maddix said, “so I’ll complain all I want.”

“How’s it looking?” I asked, watching tendrils of clouds stream by overhead.

“Uh. Nothing on the top floor. Lots of storage and equipment, food and clothes,” Maddix said. “Bunch of engineer types running around, lots of overalls. A couple soldiers stationed at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Leave them for now,” I said. “We’ll deal with them once you’ve located Abi.”

“Roger, roger,” he said. “All right, ready for round two whenever you are.”

I closed my eyes and released a burst of tachyons that sucked me back through time, the sensation not unlike stepping into a whirlpool.

BLINK

When I opened my eyes, Maddix and Zoe were standing in front of me, completely oblivious. “Start the tim—” Maddix was saying.

I held up my left hand to stop him while massaging my temple with my right. The slurry of future memories settled into place and I said, “Top floor’s clear. Soldiers at the bottom of those stairs—” I pointed to where Zoe’s rifle was already aimed. “—leave them for Zoe.”

“Afraid I’ll steal all the fun?” he asked.

Zoe smiled and said, “More afraid you’ll get sho—,” but Maddix blitzed away before she could finish.

Chapter Four

THEN

Abigail sat one row below me on the aluminum bleachers, watching Zoe’s Judo class hip-toss one another like sacks of potatoes. The slap of flesh on padded floor was accompanied by groans and giggles from the onlookers.

“Pop quiz time,” I said, picking at a kernel of corn wedged between my incisors with a wooden toothpick. “Tell me why there’re so many girls down there.”

Abigail let out a slight huff. “Is that the best you can do?”

“Humor me.”

“Tachyons bond to the X-chromosome, so females have access to twice as many time-manipulating molecules than males.” Abigail’s fingers twiddled with the multi-colored bracelet that had mysteriously appeared on her wrist sometime in the last week. I hadn’t asked where it’d come from, or why a certain red-headed boy on the mats kept glancing up at the bleachers in Abi’s general vicinity, but I had some educated guesses. “Which is why all the boys here are Blitzers.”

“Why is that again?” I asked, playing dumb.

Abigail shrugged, her bony shoulders rising up to her ears. A subconscious gesture she often used despite knowing full well the answer to whatever question I’d asked. She had a sharp mind, but that intelligence had never received due credit in her life before Central. To the time-locked, Chronos were cheaters, gaming the system to get ahead.

People couldn’t look past Abigail’s chrono-gifts to see all the other ways she was exceptional.

“Of the three types of Chronos, Blitzers use the least amount of energy because they're traveling with the flow of time, so the current is doing most of the hard work for them,” Abi said, locking eyes with the boy on the mat who, now distracted, never saw his Chinese training partner with pigtails—or her foot—flying towards his skull. Abigail winced and gripped her bracelet between white knuckles as the boy went down. “The…uh…the tachyons just give Blitzers that extra nudge.”

“And who uses the most energy?”

“Pausers.”

“Not Blinkers?”

She smirked and said, “Nope.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause…” her words trailed away as she watched the boy dust himself off and limp towards the locker room with the rest of his cohort.

After a couple seconds of silence I said, “That’s a well-thought-out argument. Keen insight. Beautifully articulated.” I tossed my toothpick at her head. She scooted sideways and snatched it out of the air. Her
déjà vu
was getting pretty impressive.

“Huh?” she grunted, ripped from her daydream. She studied the object in her hand before recognition dawned. “Ew, gross!” She dropped the toothpick and wiped her palm on a denim-covered thigh.

“It’s just a little spit.”

“I thought you were supposed to be mentoring me, not traumatizing me!”

“Toughening you up. It’s a big bad world out there,” I said. “Now, Miss Dazed and Confused, you never answered the question: why do Pausers use more energy than Blinkers?”

Abi shook her head with mock disgust before answering. “Blinkers go backwards, working against the current, but pausing stops the whole stream. The best Pausers can stop time for forty-five seconds at a time, but it completely depletes their tachyon reserves.”

“What about the best Blinkers?” I asked. “How far back can they go?”

“Um…” She frowned. “Well, it takes thirty-two seconds for reality to solidify,” she said, reasoning her way towards an answer. “So once it’s set, you can’t go back any further.” Abi glanced up, her face contorted in a show of dubious triumph. “Right?”

“Oh no, you
can
go back further,” I said, noting the red-headed boy emerging from the locker room. “You just
shouldn’t
. But we’ll cover that tomorrow.”

Abigail’s head snapped to attention. “We’re done?”

“For now.”

Abigail followed my gaze to the boy, then back to me, then back once more to the boy. She nodded sharply, making her decision in an instant, said “See ya,” and then, suppressing what appeared to be the urge to skip, walked in the boy's general direction with all the nonchalance her teenage-self could muster.

Chapter Five

NOW

Barely four seconds after Maddix had disappeared for his fourth round of hyper-speed hide-and-seek, his voice crackled over the radio, “Crap. Gimme a mulligan.”

“Already?” Zoe asked, sharing in my surprise.

“Yeah, I uh…” his voice trailed off, leaving only hissing static, “the door shut behind me. It’s locked. I’m stuck. Tell my past-self not to run into room 3013B.”

“Better than getting shot again,” Zoe said, her wide smile parting to show teeth.

I tried not to laugh. I failed, but I did try. “How far back you want to go?”

“Ten seconds should be good,” Maddix said. “Nothing terribly interesting on this floor anyhow.”

So far there hadn’t been anything of interest on Haven’s top floors. Housing and supplies to keep Crask’s personal army happy and productive.

The idea of living on a hover-compound gave me chills. No different than a boat, except there’s no chance a boat’s engines will fail and send the whole damn thing plummeting into Hong Kong.

I was pessimistic when it came to a hundred thousand tons of metal breaking the laws of gravity.

A hand on my shoulder interrupted those thoughts. I looked over at Zoe’s milky white eyes as the world slowed, coming to a gradual grinding halt. An unnatural stillness settled. The wind calmed, and the thrum of a world in constant motion dribbled to a stop.

“Why’d you pause?” I asked, marveling at the serenity of the moment.

“We need to talk.”

“About?”

“Expectations,” she said with her typical bluntness, “and what it is you’re hoping to find here.”

“I’m hoping to find Abi.”

“I am too,” Zoe said softly. “But you need to prepare for the possibility that she isn’t here for the reasons you think she is.”