Time Salvager (50 page)

Out of the corner of his eye, James saw Elise freeze in the adjacent room. She needed to run and hide. Escape. Anything but be here with him. He tried to gesture casually with his left hand, giving her the shooing motion, telling her to get as far away as possible. Instead, she held up her wrist beam and aimed it at Levin.

“You should leave,” James spoke in a loud voice and shook his head emphatically. He meant those words for everyone within earshot. “Just go. Please.”

“Civility?” Levin remarked. “This is a new side of you.”

The two circled each other like predators. Well, one of them was a predator and the other a cornered prey who could barely stand. James had to keep Levin’s back to Elise. Every second he bought here was one she could use to escape. He just prayed she got the hint.

He saw his three hallucinations off to his right stop what they were doing and watch the events in the room unfold. They were no longer jovial as their eyes stayed fixed on Levin. Little Sasha walked right up next to him and tugged on his arm.

“What are you looking at?” said Levin.

I don’t like him at all,
Sasha said, tugging again.

“Let’s deal, Levin. Mistakes were made,” said James, eyes focusing back on the auditor. “I’ll concede that I’ve broken the Time Laws. I’ll give myself up, but everyone around me is innocent. Let them go.”

Levin chuckled with no trace of humor in his voice. “You don’t get to negotiate, James. We’re way past that. You need to hand over the woman as well.”

“They were wrong,” James said. “ChronoCom. The Vallis Bouvard Disaster. It’s all a lie. There are no consequences for bringing someone back. I didn’t hurt the chronostream. The time line wasn’t affected.”

“Irrelevant. You broke the most important Time Law.”

“Don’t you get it? We’ve lost. Look around you! In the hundred and fifty years since ChronoCom has been around, what have we accomplished? How have we saved humanity? Now, we have a real chance to fix things.”

“You brought someone back from the past. There is nothing more forbidden.”

“Listen, the scientist I brought from the past … she can help,” pleaded James.

“You don’t get to choose who to save and who to bring back!” roared Levin, fists clenched as he took several steps forward. “We don’t make those decisions. You’re not a god.” He took a step forward. “Now, drop your bands and come with me.”

James had to keep Levin talking as long as possible. Elise had to realize that it was now time to abandon him. As a last resort, he dropped his hands. “We both know I can’t beat you.”

“So unlink all your bands and surrender. Explain your case before a tribunal.”

James sneaked a look to his left again. She was still there. Damn girl. Now he had little choice. “I won’t,” he said, resigned. He powered on his exo.

“Don’t throw your life away like this.” Levin’s exo pulsated and expanded. “You won’t stand a chance. I’m not Geneese or Shizzu.”

“I have to.” James gritted his teeth.

He charged, focusing his levels at a central point in Levin’s shield. If James had to die for Elise to realize that it was time to abandon him, then so be it.

Or maybe James would get lucky. Perhaps Levin’s exo was drained from the battle. His left arm was in a cast, after all. Maybe James had a chance. In any case, it was too late to second-guess his actions.

The first thing James noticed when his exo smashed into Levin’s was that the auditor’s exo was near full power. James’s already wavering and weakened shield was a shade of the auditor’s. He bounced off Levin’s exo and crashed into the wall.

James picked himself up off the ground and felt a force smack him from the side, this time throwing him through the far wall. He got up and extended eight kinetic coils, the most his exo could create in its current state. He attacked, weaving his coils back and forth, through the ground, and in random waves designed to throw off defending chronmen.

Levin wasn’t fooled in the slightest as he countered with sixteen of his own coils, tying up James’s strands and striking him with the others. James felt his exo crack as he flew backward through a windowpane and fell off the side of the building. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate. He didn’t have the levels to fly anymore. Falling to his death was as good a way to go as any.

Suddenly, he stopped in midair and was pulled back to where Levin was standing. “You don’t escape justice that easily,” he said, wrapping James up and holding him captive. The bastard had even robbed him of a good death.

“Can you just cut it out with this talk of justice,” James said, resigned. He snuck a peek at Elise’s hiding place; the foolish girl hadn’t moved. “Do you even know what your precious ChronoCom has done? We’ve been sold out, Levin. Our past is for sale to the highest bidder. This agency you cherish so much is just a figment of your imagination.”

To his surprise, Levin pursed his lips and nodded. “I’m aware, and my decisions will have consequences that I will pay once I bring you in. However, whatever taint the agency now has in its heart, it doesn’t change the right thing to do; in this case, it’s to bring you in.”

The auditor actually seemed remorseful, his usual stoic facade cracking as if he had his own demons to face. James grunted; he knew better. Levin wasn’t the type of person to second-guess himself. However, the pain on his face was unmistakable. It was the same James had felt every day since Sasha had disappeared.

Then he realized: Levin knew about ChronoCom breaking the Time Laws. He knew that the agency he held in such high regard was nothing but a sham. It was eating him up inside, but he still obeyed their orders.

“You’re a fucking hypocrite!” James spat.

Levin floated James close. “I assure you; I derive no pleasure from taking you in. We used to be friends, James, and I mourn that loss. You used to like my rigid morality.”

“Yeah, until you stabbed our friend in the back.”

“Obviously, you don’t know what rigid means. No matter—”

Elise appeared just behind Levin’s left shoulder, and though James shook his head to ward her away, she ignored him, quite unsurprisingly. She raised her arm and unloaded her wrist beam on the unsuspecting auditor. His exo flickered as it took a millisecond to compensate for her attack. It managed to block the brunt of the point-blank shot, but Levin’s back took the rest of the blast. He stumbled forward and dropped to one knee.

James had one chance. He charged forward. An exo would automatically catch any of his coils but it wouldn’t block flesh unless actively directed. Elise had forced his hand. He had to try. A raised knee caught the downed Levin straight in the chin, and then a downward punch cracked him on the side of the head.

Levin tumbled backward onto the ground, and James pounced. If he could knock Levin unconscious, they might have a chance. He threw himself into the air and slammed his fist toward the auditor’s face. At the last second, Levin moved his head to the side and James hit nothing but cement. James followed up by collapsing his lead elbow and pressing it down on Levin’s neck, trapping him in place. He cocked his free arm back and threw it with everything he had at the auditor’s stationary head.

James roared as his fist hammered down and came to a stop a few centimeters from Levin’s eyes. He struggled and pressed down, but an invisible force stopped the killing blow’s momentum. James growled and squirmed, desperate to will it forward, knowing that small space between his fist and Levin could cost Elise her life. No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn’t move.

“No,” he cried. He had been so close. Now, it wasn’t only his life that was forfeited, but Elise’s. His hands clawed at Levin’s face as a kinetic coil lifted him off of Levin and floated him in the air. Then he was flying backward, and the room became a blur as he spun out of control. James smacked into a concrete wall and blacked out.

When he came to moments later, he was lying facedown, his body a mass of throbbing pain. He was groggy and his eyes couldn’t focus, and black abyss, it hurt to breathe. He saw a blob across the room and blinked, trying to make out what was happening. A woman yelped and that snapped James back to reality.

Elise was floating in midair, her body stiff and her arms close to her sides. She looked terrified as Levin spoke to her in a soft voice.

The image of them so close together terrified James. What was he doing to her? Was she still alive? Was he as helpless to watch her die as he had been with his mother and all those victims from his jumps? Was James about to lose Elise like he had lost Sasha?

“No,” he moaned. “Leave her alone, you fucking bastard.”

James tried to get up but felt his knees buckle. He pawed at the ground and inched his way closer, first getting back to his knees, and then unsteadily to his feet. His hands, still dragging along the floor, found a slab of rock; it would have to do. He picked it up, held it over his head, and charged in one last moment of defiance. Who knew? He got close last time. Maybe he might get lucky once more.

It didn’t happen. Levin stuck one hand out behind him and the rock dropped on James. It rose in the air another two meters and planted itself between the two men. When James lunged for Levin again, the rock smacked him one more time. Blinded with pain, James tried to stumble forward. The rock continued to pummel him on the head every time he tried to move closer to Levin. Finally, dizzy, James felt his knees gave way, and he fell on all fours.

Levin turned around, shaking his head. “Stay down, James, damn it. I don’t want to kill you, but I will.”

When James tried to get back onto his wobbly legs, Levin shook his head. “You really do never learn, do you?” He flicked his finger and the rock shattered over James’s crown. He collapsed for the last time, his face bloody.

“It’s over.” Levin said, wiping the blood from his own mouth. He sounded angry, one of the few times James could remember him this way. “You don’t know what you’ve cost me with this fool’s errand. It would be in my right to rip out your throat now, but it would be a mercy to spare you the trial and a lifetime on a penal colony. As for this anomaly”—he looked over at Elise—“I won’t give Valta the satisfaction of their victory either.” Levin raised his hand at her. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. This should have never happened.” His hands glowed orange.

“Nooo!” cried James, his fingers stretching toward her, his mouth no longer able to enunciate the words as the blood congealed in his mouth.

He couldn’t quite focus on anything he looked at. Raising his head hurt as he looked for the only thing that mattered. He found her on the other side of the room, still floating in the air, caught in Levin’s kinetic coils. Their eyes met, she nodded encouragingly, and for the third time since he was a child, tears ran down his face.

“Stop this immediately!” Grace’s strong voice thundered over the howling wind outside. All eyes turned toward where she stood in the doorway, hugging a stack of papers to her chest. She must have been hiding, because she was covered in dust. Her face was smudged, and her hair was mussed and unkempt. There was no mistaking who she was, though. Grace still carried herself as if attending her own coronation.

Levin shot his other hand out at the new voice, another orange killing blow ready to strike. Then he stopped. His mouth fell open and he backed away. “It can’t be.”

“Put your toy down, you jackass, before you hurt someone.” She slammed the stack on the floor and walked across the room to stand between Levin and Elise. When he didn’t comply, she put her hands on her waist. “By the fish-eyed look on your face, you know who I am then, right? I don’t have to introduce myself to you?”

He nodded.

“Good. Hate wasting my time.” Grace pointed at the floating Elise. “Now put her down.”

When Levin still didn’t move or release Elise from his exo, she jabbed his chest with as much strength as a ninety-three-old woman had. She must have been quite strong, because he stumbled backward and fell onto his butt. “You can’t be here,” he mumbled, stunned. He shot James a furious scowl. “You sacrilegious shit. You brought back the Mother of Time.”

“Don’t talk about me when I’m in the room,” she snapped. “Listen, boy, we’ve been doing this all wrong. It’s time to make a change.”

“You can’t be here,” he mumbled. “The past is already…”

“Stop saying that.” Grace pointed at James. “That lug over there’s been trying to convince me of that for weeks.”

Levin looked confused. “I’ve spent my life following the Time Laws. The chronostream has been kept whole. The Time Laws forbid—”

Grace threw her hands in the air. “Those space-forsaken Time Laws. What a mistake it was for me to make that shit up. How was I supposed to know there’d be a goddamn religion built around me? Obviously, I’m a lot more brilliant than I give myself credit for,” she mused. She softened a bit and put a hand on his shoulder. “What’s your name?”

“Levin Javier-Oberon, Mother of Time.”

“Call me Grace. That title is so clunky. Tell me, Levin, do you know why I invented time traveling?”

“To save humanity.”

“Yes, but it’s not working, is it? Do you know why?”

Levin shook his head.

“I was shortsighted, using the Technology Isolationists’ situation as a template. My entire faction was always resource starved, so I created the agency to fill that need. I was wrong. That’s not what humanity really needs.”

“I don’t understand,” said Levin.

“We keep trying to stem the bleeding, plugging holes and patching the cracks. No matter what we’ve tried, things got worse. Every successive generation only looked at what was in front of their nose without seeing the big picture. The Technology Isolationists were guilty of this then, as is ChronoCom now. We’ve never examined the root of our problems. One day, and that day seems to be approaching, no amount of mending will work. Humanity will be beyond repair and our fire will burn out.”

Levin bowed his head. “All we can do is fight against the inevitable.”

“Perhaps, or perhaps it’s time we fix what’s broken.” Grace pulled him to his feet and led him by the hand toward Elise’s lab. “Come, I know just the place to start. Help me pick up these papers, dear. They’re quite important. Now, have you ever heard of this old Earth saying about teaching a man to fish?”