Prologue

Federal Bureau of Time Management

Code Red Alert–Asset Request Form 4012-56

Date requested: May 15th 4012

Details

Alert: Time Displacement Anomaly level 1

Date of Anomaly: February 27th 2017

Source: Unknown

Actions Required

Assign Agent. This assignment is volunteer status only.

Primary Objective: Discover source of anomaly. Assess threat level to timeline. Eliminate if threat level is deemed 0-1%.

Secondary Objective: If threat level higher than 1%, no action must be taken. Collect relevant data and return to base for review.

Notes

Due to proximity to the Cataclysm of 2020, this mission is deemed highly dangerous. The investigating agent must proceed with extreme caution. Timeline must not be compromised.

Captain Haran Lyons

Agent in Charge.

Federal Bureau of Time Management.

…

Special Agent Melody Lyons was seated at her desk when the asset request form flashed up on her screen. And her heart literally missed a beat.

They all knew about the supposed anomaly—the station had been buzzing with the news since the alert was picked up two days ago. An alert from an unidentifiable source, which had echoed down the centuries from a time long before the technology should have existed. Nearly two thousand years in the past. Nothing that far back had ever been recorded, and most of the Bureau considered it must be a glitch in the system. The captain had been in meetings for the last four hours to decide whether they should send an agent to investigate or just adopt a wait-and-see approach and hope it would disappear without intervention.

Now it looked like the mission was on.

And she wanted in.

More than she’d ever wanted anything in her life before.

Growing up, she had dreamed of joining the Federation’s elite time control unit. She’d gone to the academy, done her time on the surface, and even a rotation in deep space. But through it all, this had been her dream job. She was quite aware that many of the other officers believed she had gotten where she was through unfair means. But that was untrue. She’d finished at the top of her class in every course she’d taken. She’d worked hard and was proud of what she’d achieved. She had more successful jumps than any agent—well, live ones, anyway.

She’d already drafted out her application to volunteer—including all the reasons why she was the best agent for the job—and she swiped her hand over the send key and sat back, blew out her breath.

The captain wouldn’t be happy, but then he was also her adopted father and wouldn’t like her putting herself in harm’s way. But she had always promised herself she wouldn’t use their connection to further her career, so she was damned if she’d allow it to hinder her.

On the positive side, she doubted there would be many volunteers.

The danger that something might go wrong with the jump—and there were so many possibilities—increased with the distance in time. Most jumps were limited to days or weeks. The longest she’d ever gone back was a year and that had nearly ended in disaster. Only her quick reactions had saved her from a sticky end.

But she was willing to risk it.

That period in time had always fascinated her. While she’d never admit it to her colleagues, her secret hobby was watching old movies and TV programs from the pre-Cataclysm days. Certainly, she’d never reveal that she had a particular fondness for romance. They would probably see that as a sign of impending insanity and likely she’d never get sent on a mission again. Somewhere in the last two thousand years love had become extinct. These days, compatibility, emotional and genetic, was what mattered in a relationship.

Of course she didn’t believe in love, either.

That didn’t stop her wanting to go and see what the Earth was like before the Cataclysm.

Now all she could do was wait.