Chapter Twenty-Nine

Mel dropped to her knees beside him, her breath sobbing in her throat.

He’d left her no choice.

But she’d hated to hit him. And no doubt, he’d hate her when he came around, which would likely be soon, since she was a wimp and she’d pulled the blow at the last second.

Calm down.

She was only doing what had to be done. He’d understand that once he knew a little more. In the meantime, she had to keep him alive. The alarm on her transponder had gone off while he was in the bathroom. Someone was close and getting closer. She had to presume they weren’t friendly, which meant she had to go. And she wasn’t leaving Quinn behind.

She loved him.

And she was coming to realize that changed everything. Maybe that’s why people in her time had stopped loving. It altered your priorities, and in a period when the very survival of mankind was at stake, perhaps love had not been important. Maybe it should have been. Right now, her priority was keeping Quinn alive. She’d worry about everything else once that was done.

So, she’d hit him.

He would get over it… Or not.

As she pulled the second transponder from her pocket and clicked it onto his wrist, he groaned.

Should she hit him again?

No, she only needed a few more seconds. She swiped her finger over the screen, then tapped in a code overriding the original sequence, resetting it for change of agent and time, sending Quinn to the future a day after she was due to arrive back. Which would give her time to sort something out. Though right now, she had absolutely no clue what—she was breaking every rule.

Rogue.

She didn’t allow herself to be distracted by the thought. Finally, she lowered her head and kissed him on the lips. As she straightened, his eyes flickered open. “Mel?”

She pressed her finger to the control panel and shifted back so they weren’t touching, otherwise there was a good chance she would be dragged through time with him.

His eyes widened. His arm came out as though to grab her.

And then he was gone.

Would she ever see him again?

What would happen to him in the future if she didn’t get back?

She sat back on her heels and took a deep breath. The alarm on her transponder was still vibrating, reminding her that it was time to get the hell out of there. She had three more hours. She could induce an emergency shift, but she wanted everything to appear normal when she got back. Which meant she had to elude her pursuers for three hours. She could do it. At a guess, she knew this world way better than whoever they had sent after her this time. She pushed herself to her feet and looked around the room. There wasn’t much here.

She picked up Quinn’s jacket from the chair and raised it to her nose, breathing in the scent of him, then pulled it on. It was bigger than hers, fitting better over her makeshift bandage, and the pockets were larger. There was a roll of money in one. Quinn’s pistol lay on the table by the bed, together with his cell phone. She slipped both into her pockets then crossed to stand by the window.

She flicked the curtain aside and peered out onto the street. It was dark now, but the streetlights were bright. The roads were still busy with traffic, and lots of people walked on the sidewalks. All the same, she spotted them easily. There was something a little off about them; they didn’t quite blend in. Maybe they’d been rushed and hadn’t got the clothes just right. Whatever it was, she noticed straight away. And she went still.

It was Brent—who Quinn had shot and killed that morning, and his partner who had vanished back to the future. This must be an earlier trip back for them. Well, earlier in their time, later in the present one. She only hoped that meant they had failed this time and so they’d gone back earlier to try again. It gave her a shiver to see Brent here now. Could she save his life if she went and gave herself up now? But would that also mean that they wouldn’t come back to the earlier time, and she wouldn’t get the transponder? If so, what would that mean for Quinn, lost somewhere in time?

She stepped back, letting the curtain fall in place. After one last look around the room, in case there was something she’d forgotten—there was nothing—she left, pulling the door closed behind her. The alarm was still vibrating, and she would bet if she was picking them up, they’d be doing the same for her. She needed to put some distance between them. They were on foot. For now.

She came out into the forecourt in front of the motel. A couple of taxis were parked up waiting for fares, but they were out on the main street and she’d be seen by the approaching men. Instead, she headed for the reception desk a few doors along. Inside, a bored-looking woman leaned on the counter, tapping something into her cell phone, totally ignoring Mel.

She cleared her throat and the woman finally looked up. “What?”

“Could you do me a favor?”

“It depends.”

Mel pulled a note off the roll in her pocket and slapped it down on the counter. “Will this help?”

“It might.”

She bit back her impatience and the urge to run. They must be close now. “Can you go get a taxi and ask the driver to meet me at the back of the building?” She pulled out another note and laid it next to the first. A hand with chipped dark blue polish snapped them up and shoved them in the pocket of her tight jeans. She sashayed around the counter and out the door. Mel moved to the window and peered out. Brent was just turning the corner into the forecourt, walking fast.

Come on.

The woman finally returned. “It will be out back, you can go through there.” She nodded to a room. “Hey, is your good-looking friend still here? You’re not running out on the bill, are you?”

“He hasn’t left.” Well, that was sort of the truth. “He’ll cover the bill.”

The door led into an alley that ran along the back of the building parallel to the main road. As she closed the door behind her, a taxi turned into the alley and parked up beside her. “Where to, lady?”

Good question.

“Just away from here for now.”

He shrugged but pulled out and soon they turned onto the road and were driving fast away from the motel. She peered behind her, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention. The transponder was still vibrating, but after a couple of minutes, the alarm switched itself off and she breathed easier. She had just over two hours to go. Where would she be out of trouble? “Is there a restaurant?” she asked. “Somewhere on the edge of town?” It occurred to her that there were a couple of things she was going to miss from this time and if she wasn’t planning on coming back…

“What do you want to eat?”

“Ice cream and beer.”

“No problem.”

He dropped her off at a place with neon signs and a large parking area. It was busy enough that if they did catch up with her, she could lose herself in the crowds. Though the alarm would let her know if they were getting close.

Two hours later, she let herself out of the side door of the building. She was feeling a little nauseous, no doubt from the twelve varieties of ice cream she had tried. It had taken her mind off Quinn. She’d have a day to decide what to do when she got back. Providing something hadn’t gone wrong in the meantime, and she’d return just to be arrested.

Right now, she had to find somewhere she could be alone for the shift. She was in a narrow alley running alongside the building, but she couldn’t presume no one would come out of the same door she had just exited. In fact, a few feet farther down, a couple were making out, pressed up against the wall of the building. She needed to get away from here. To her left were the lights of the forecourt, but to the right was darkness. She strode down there. Someone stepped out—two tall men, dressed in leather. Intimidating. She didn’t have time for this. She pulled the gun out of her pocket and aimed it at chest level. “Leave.”

Their eyes widened but they both backed away, melting into the shadows, and she hurried on. The alley opened onto what looked like an abandoned construction site, a half-built office block at the center. She waited for any movement, but there was nothing, and she crossed the open space and moved into the shelter of a roofless room. Above, the sky was clear, but the stars were invisible in the haze of lights from the town. While she’d been sampling the ice cream, a thought had been nagging at her mind—an idea she wished would go away but which she couldn’t quite banish.

She glanced at the transponder. The alarm was quiet. She’d lost her pursuers. But she was running out of time. If she was going to make a call, she needed to do it now. Problem was, she still wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. As she reached into her pocket for the cell phone, it beeped.

She considered ignoring it, but in the end, she pulled it out and stared at the caller ID. Jake. Just the man she’d been planning to call.

“Quinn?” he said.

“No, it’s Melody.”

Jake was silent for a few seconds. “Can I speak to him?”

“He’s not here.”

“Is he okay? Has there been another attack?” There was no panic in his voice, but a definite sense of urgency.

“No, but there was someone after us, so we…split up.” Why hadn’t she thought of this beforehand and come up with a story? Or more to the point, why had she answered at all? She knew why. That’s why she had been planning to call this man. Because she could tell Quinn that she had done everything she could feasibly do to help his friends. Then he might agree to stay with her. Be safe.

“Do you know where he is?”

She bit her lip. “He’s somewhere safe. For now.”

“We’re coming out there.”

Well, that would hardly help. “Really, there’s no need. You won’t find him. He’s gone.”

“Who are you, Melody Lyons? Where do you come from?”

“Haven’t you guessed?”

“You’re from the future. Are you here to destroy us?”

“If I was, you’d be destroyed.” That wasn’t entirely true. She hadn’t even managed to find them all yet. But it sounded more positive. “I was just here to investigate a time anomaly.”

“Is that what you do? Investigate…time anomalies.”

“And try to correct them.”

“And are we part of your time anomaly?”

She took a moment to peer around the corner of the building, but there was no one in sight. “Not really. You’re where you’re meant to be. But there’s something associated with you, and I’m guessing you know what it is.”

“Don’t go there.”

She heaved a huge sigh. “I have no intention of ‘going there.’ Look, I’ve got to keep on the move. There’s someone following me, and I need to keep ahead of them.”

“And Quinn?”

What would work here. Maybe the truth. “I’m trying to keep him safe.” Should she mention the end of the world? She’d leave that one until a little bit later. “I believe my mission has been compromised. Someone is after me. It wasn’t safe for Quinn, so I sent him…” She baulked at the last bit.

“To the future. Shit. You’ve sent Quinn to the goddamn future. And he agreed?”

“Not quite. But it was that or watch him die and I didn’t want to do that, Mr. Connelly.”

He exhaled loudly. “You’re sure he’s safe?”

“No.” She snapped the word. “But safer than he was here. And I’ll join him as soon as I can and sort everything out.”

“You’ll bring him back?” She was silent for too long. “Melody?”

“If he insists.” And if we’re both not arrested. Or dead. “I’m hoping he won’t.”

“He belongs here.”

If she was going to do this, she had to do it now. “There’s something else. Something you don’t know but that changes everything.”

“And that is?”

“Two years from now, there is going to be some sort of catastrophic event that will destroy most of the Earth and 95 percent of mankind.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Because it’s my history.”

“We need to stop it.”

“You can’t stop it.” She took a deep breath. “Look, we don’t know the details, but the center of the blast was somewhere in the USA. The whole of the northern hemisphere was wiped out. Get your friends and move away. Australia is your best chance. I can’t do anything more for you. I’ve already broken just about every rule in the book.”

“Why?”

“For Quinn. I love him.” Then she ended the call and dropped the phone to the floor, stamping it under her heel. What else could she say?

At that moment, she became aware of a throbbing sound coming closer and at the same time, the alarm on her transponder vibrated.

She peered around but could see nothing out of place. Then something made her glance up. A helicopter was approaching, low in the sky, and heading directly for her. She could make out a man hanging out of the open side, some sort of weapon in his hand. They must have been crisscrossing town looking for her, trying to pick her up on their own transponders. And it looked like they had found her.

She glanced at her wrist. Seconds to go.

He was close enough now to see that it was Brent. The bastard had some sort of huge gun aimed directly at the building where she was sheltering. The last of her guilt over not saving him vanished. Bastard.

She saw a flash of yellow light as the weapon fired. Her body tensed.

This was it, and her last thought was that she’d never see Quinn again.

…

“Quinn!”

The sound woke her, and she realized it was her own voice calling out.

Her whole body was shaking, her mind flooded with the promise of her imminent death. That flash of light. So close.

But she was alive. She hoped the missile had been precise and hadn’t taken out the restaurant as well. She forced herself to relax, and the shudders that ran through her body finally stopped. She opened her eyes to the dim red glow of the time displacement chamber.

She’d been pulled out just in time. In another second, she would have been blown to tiny little pieces.

The lights flashed on and behind her, the machine beeped. She tugged off the arm restraints and then the band from around her head. As she stood up, the doors slid open. The technician was a man she didn’t recognize. And he was alone. There were no armed guards to arrest her, so things were obviously still okay in this time frame. For the moment. But something presumably triggered someone to send Brent and his partner after her. She had a couple of things she needed to do and then she would lie low, hide away for another twenty-four hours until Quinn arrived. After that…

“You’re new,” she said.

“I just finished training. Rogers, ma’am.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He seemed genuine. But if Brent and his partner were going back illegally, they had to have help from someone on this side. All time displacements had to be authorized and logged. Who was giving them their orders? Who was sending them back and why? She doubted very much that her father would have given the order to have her eliminated, whatever he believed she had done.

She went through the detox procedure, removing her clothes and peeling the towel that was still wrapped around her off. The wound was really nothing more than a graze and wouldn’t need attention. When she came out, dressed in the regulation black jumpsuit, the technician handed her a couple of protein bars. She ate one quickly to settle her stomach and shoved the other in her pocket.

“Is the captain around?” she asked.

“He’s off base at the moment. He should be back tomorrow morning.”

That was lucky. She’d gotten her story sorted for when she had to debrief—she was going to go with the nothing to report scenario—but she preferred to put it off, if she could. And this meant she would be reporting to the second-in-command who was relatively new to the Bureau and didn’t know her so well. There was a good chance her father would recognize that she was lying.

She headed out and toward the main office. She wanted to know who was around, and what had taken her father off base. Was it coincidence or had someone arranged it?

The office was a large open plan room with twelve desks, one for each of the special agents plus two desks for the admin staff. The walls were curved, and a huge window filled one side of the room. Right now, it showed Earth, blue and green. There were four agents at their desks. They glanced up and nodded to her.

“Good trip?” Pete asked.

“Waste of time,” she replied. “Hey, is Brent around?”

“On leave. You need something?”

“It will wait.”

She crossed the room and put her head around the door to the lieutenant’s office. He and her father were the only two who had their own office space. “Hi, Gabe.”

He glanced up and smiled. “Melody. How did the job go?”

“I’ll file my report, but there’s nothing new.”

“Bad luck.”

“Yeah. I have a couple of possible leads, though. I’d like to schedule another trip.”

“You’ll have to take that up with the captain when he gets back. He’s in charge of this one.”

“No problem. Where is he anyway?”

“The Bhaxian ambassador asked for a meeting. He went over there this morning. He’s expected back tomorrow.”

Now that was interesting. The ambassador had been around when she came from the last shift. She was betting the Bhaxians would quite happily bribe a few corrupt Bureau officers to get what they wanted, whatever the hell that was. She still had no clue, but it had to be tied in to Quinn’s people somehow. And the time machine. Where the hell had it come from? Who had sent it back and why? “Okay, thanks. I’ll go do that report.”

She sat at her desk and quickly filed a report, pretty much saying nothing of any interest had happened. That almost made her smile. It was hard to believe how much she’d actually fitted into four days and three nights. The plane crash seemed an age ago.

She went into the system and reviewed the logged time displacements. There was nothing recorded for Brent’s trip. She knew the time from his partner’s transponder. That meant someone else inside the agency was working with them. Her money was on one of the technicians. Though another agent could have faked the permissions and changed the logs.

She looked around her. No one was paying her any undue attention.

A wave of exhaustion washed over her. She hadn’t slept much in the last few days. Maybe she should go get some rest. She considered going back to her apartment but decided that if anyone wanted to find her, that was where they would look. And if anyone did want to find her, then she didn’t want to be found. She slipped the transponder from her wrist, disabled it and put it into her pocket, so no one could track her.

“I’m going to head home and catch up on my sleep,” she said to the room in general as she stood up.

When she left the office, she walked in the opposite direction. Ten minutes later, she stood outside the door to her father’s apartment. She punched in the code, hoping her dad hadn’t changed it since she’d used it last. Luckily, the door slid open. A few hours’ sleep and then she would work out what she needed to do next. Neither she nor Quinn would be safe in any time unless she managed to root out the traitors in the Bureau and expose whoever was paying them. Something was teasing at the back of her mind. But she was tired and couldn’t get her brain to focus.

She’d sleep, then plan.

Her father kept a room made up for her, and she dimmed the lights, slipped under the sheet fully clothed, and was asleep in seconds. Her dreams were of Quinn, whirling through time and space.

She woke hours later, starving and with an idea of what she had to do next and where she might find the answers.

Would Quinn hate her? Although she’d done what she could for his friends, all the same she had an inkling that he wouldn’t be happy with her. Hard luck. He shouldn’t have told her he loved her. That meant he was hers to protect.

She made herself some breakfast and then spent a couple of hours on the info-system in her father’s office, looking up some old data, trying to piece together what might have happened. Obviously, anyone who had witnessed the Cataclysm of 2020 had been killed in the blast, along with just about everyone on Earth. One theory was it had been a nuclear war initiated by the North Koreans that had triggered an automatic response, then a chain reaction, and bang the world had gone up.

There were other theories, but none that tied in with Quinn’s friend’s mysterious mission in 2020. Was the mission responsible for the destruction of Earth? Or had they been sent back to try and prevent it and failed?

And who had sent them back?

Maybe the answers were with the Tel-group. Clearly, they were connected somehow. But no way would they reveal the secrets of any job they were employed to do. They had a code of conduct. No disclosure. Quinn could maybe read their minds, but then that was presumably a two-way thing. Besides, maybe they wouldn’t know the answers. But they would know who had employed them, and that might get them a little closer to the truth. If all else failed, approaching them was an option.

Finally, when she’d got as much information as she could find, she went to the safe and pressed in the code—it was the date her father had found her down on Earth. She slipped the laser pistol inside into her pocket. She had an idea it might be useful if only to stun Quinn if he was too vocal. After that, she left the apartment. Her father was due back and she didn’t want to see him. She made her way to one of the recreation centers and took a private booth on the viewing platform. She spent the next few hours staring into space and trying to get her ideas formulated into some sort of plan. When it was close to the time she expected Quinn, she stood up and stretched.

Time to go see what had caused the end of the world.