THE DIFFERENCE
Shaun made his way up the steep path toward the satellite dishes. It was late afternoon, and two days since they had captured Zero. The Adjuster refused to talk, and mess hall rumors had started about an Enhanced Interrogation Techniques being called in from the CIA. Still nothing – except Zero’s repeated demands to talk with the Timewalkers.
Shaun used a low-hanging branch to pull himself higher up the hill, his boots slipping on the thick carpet of pine needles. The air was fresh and warm, driving away his thoughts of Adjusters and hidden secrets. He rounded the final part of the climb, walking away from the satellite dishes and toward a flat, grassy area.
He stopped, his breath caught in his throat.
Cassie sat with her back to him, her red hair loose behind her back. The setting sun bathed her in a fiery light, the horizon turned to a burning orange. The breeze swept across the hills, rippling her hair behind her, and stirring the long grass around her legs. She wore dark gray-and-black camos with a tank-top, and she was peeling grass strands apart, letting each broken half flutter away in the breeze.
Everything about that moment seemed perfect – tranquil and calm, captured in an instance of time. She turned and smiled at him, her eyes sparkling brighter than ever before. He wished that moment could be preserved, a photograph to carry forever.
He sat down beside her and leaned back.
“This is nice,” Cassie whispered, staring out across Brightwood Ranch. Birds chirped and fluttered between the trees. Down at the ground level, the fence shone in the sunlight, protecting the entire facility. There was the low groan of the satellite dishes, and nothing else except them sitting on the hill.
“So peaceful,” Shaun agreed. He let out a long sigh. “I feel so tired.”
He hesitated briefly, then laid his head in Cassie’s lap, staring up at the sky. White clouds drifted lazily overhead, the world reluctantly passing into evening. She ran her hands through his hair, sending a pleasant shiver down his spine.
“I could stay like this forever,” he murmured. “No more running, no more fighting.”
It’s impossible though. The Bureau has no endgame, because the Adjusters don’t have one either. This life never ends.
“We could,” Cassie said, looking down over his face. “We could leave.”
The statement shocked him. He wanted to believe that they could walk away, that they could put this madness behind them, but—
“It wouldn’t work. Out there, we’re blind. The Adjusters would find us, one way or another. The Bureau too. If we walked away, they’d find us and bring us back. We signed our life away – our life in service.”
Her hands stilled. Softly, she said, “I know that.”
“We have to stay here. The Bureau is the best place for us.”
The lack of conviction in his own voice scared him – he spoke the words like it was government rhetoric, parroting the company motto without believing the message.
When did this happen? When did I stop trusting the Bureau? When did I stop believing that we were heroes fighting the ultimate evil?
“Hey,” Cassie said, breaking his thoughts. She leaned over him, her eyes twinkling with the spark of life that had driven him to do the impossible that night in Hermitage. “We’re in this together, right? As long as we’re both here, then it’s the right place to be.”
His heart gave a funny little skip, and he smiled.
Then she kissed him, and nothing else mattered.
* * *
Cassie stared at the deck of cards.
Doctor Amita Sharma’s fingers hovered over the top card, her other hand gripping the pen so tightly Cassie thought it might snap it half. The Doctor’s usually neat hair was tied back in a loose ponytail, and there were dark bags under her eyes. She tapped the edge of the table with the pen, irritated.
“Are you ready to begin, Timewalker Wright?”
Cassie nodded eagerly. She had never been excited for one of her Temporal training sessions before. She dreaded them, tried to avoid them; but not this time. This time she knew it would be different. She could feel it, in the way her Affinity buzzed at the back of her skull, in the way that her blood seemed to hum with hidden power. Her body felt different – had felt different since she had saved Shaun’s life at the construction yard.
You can do this, she told herself. You know what to do.
Her debrief hadn’t mentioned her powers. She couldn’t say why she didn’t tell the Bureau about her powers – they had been spending so long trying to unlock them, they deserved to know, didn’t they? Her stomach churned at the memory of Shaun bleeding out on the ground, Zero’s knife shining with scarlet blood.
They don’t need to know, she thought. Nobody needs to know. What happened…what I saw, is for me alone.
“Name the card I’m about to draw,” Amita said, barely containing her boredom. She expected the experiment to go the same way it had dozens of times before. A small part of Cassie feared the same thing too.
Perhaps it was just a fluke. Or maybe – her heart leaped into her throat – maybe someone has to die.
She pushed those fears down, and took a deep, calming breath, steadying herself.
“Three of hearts,” she said, picking a card at random. So far, she hadn’t been lucky enough to guess the card on the first try. Sure enough, Amita turned the top card over to reveal the Two of Clubs.
Amita scratched something down on her clipboard. Without looking up, she said, “Wrong. Try again.”
Cassie glared at the card, focusing all her effort on it. She thought back to the construction yard, to the emotions that had taken control of her. She knew how her powers worked now – they stemmed from her emotions, from her passion, from her fear and her desperation; that’s what she had felt, absolutely desperate, as though she would do anything in the world to—
A ripple of energy tore from her body, blowing Amita’s clipboard into the wall. The Doctor’s face registered shocked surprise for just a fraction of a second, before a blinding light swept through the examination room, moving everything back into its original place.
Cassie gasped, her pulse thundering. She gripped the table, fighting a sudden spell of nausea. The sensation passed a moment later, leaving her throat parched. The deck of cards was still there on the table – undealt.
“Name the card I’m about to draw,” Amita said, her fingers brushing the top of the deck.
“Two of clubs!” Cassie shouted, startling Amita. “Sorry,” she added, but not much quieter. I’m right, I know I’m right. I did it, I shifted time!
Amita frowned. She scratched something on the clipboard first, her fingers still resting on the topmost card. With an infuriatingly slow gesture, she lifted the card and turned it over, reading it privately first. Her eyes went wide, her cheeks paling.
Carefully, she revealed the card. Two black clubs shimmered under the fluorescent light, the plastic cover glossy and bright.
“I did it,” Cassie breathed, almost unable to believe it.
“A lucky guess,” Amita declared. “The odds are reasonable, after all. Another card—”
“You don’t understand,” Cassie argued, her voice rising, “I saw you deal the card, I—”
A sharp knock on the door cut her off mid-sentence. Amita glared at Cassie, her dark eyes shooting her a silent warning.
“It’s open,” Amita said. The door opened a few inches, and Agent Natalie Hunt stuck her head through the gap, smiling broadly at Cassie. She always had the nicest, friendliest smile out of anyone in the Bureau, as though the pressures and dangers of the world couldn’t squash the optimism from her heart. It was infectious, and Cassie found herself returning the smile, her spirits lifting.
“Cassie,” Natalie said, ignoring Doctor Sharma entirely. “Director Anderson wants to see you and Shaun, down in Sector 9.”
Cassie hesitated. “I have my training…”
“You have to come right away,” Natalie said, offering Amita a cheerful smile that only made the Doctor scowl. Cassie excused herself, her fingers trembling with a mixture of anticipation and the latent power that had surged through her body. She followed the older agent through the base, her Affinity sensing Shaun’s signature long before she saw him at the blastdoor to Sector 9.
General Lehmann stood off to one side, talking with Captain Tallon.
Cassie had always been good at reading people, but she could never quite work Tallon out. He held himself with an air of arrogance and command, and talking with the General, he appeared completely uninterested.
“Good, you’re here,” Director Anderson said, his eyes dark. “Let’s get started while that thing is feeling talkative.”
Shaun stood beside her, his hand brushing against hers deliberately. She blushed furiously, her thoughts suddenly distracted. She forced herself to refocus, to think about what lay beyond the blastdoor – that creature of unfathomable power and treacherous lies.
Natalie cleared her throat, and Cassie realized she’d missed what Anderson had been saying.
“…put this on you,” he finished, holding up a flesh-colored device in the shape of a small circle.
“It’s a microphone,” Natalie explained for Cassie’s benefit. “Zero won’t know you’re wearing it, and he’ll think you’re completely alone.”
“What about the soldiers?” Shaun asked, frowning. “Will he talk with guards in the room?”
“We don’t know what Zero will do,” Lehmann growled, approaching the group. “He said he would only talk with you two – alone. This is the closest he’s going to get, and he’ll have to be happy about it.”
“It’s worth trying,” Anderson added. “We’ll be listening in the whole time, and talking to you via your commset – here, put this in.”
Cassie clipped the device into her ear. She turned her back on the other men for some privacy, and Natalie pulled Cassie’s shirt away from her body, pressing the microphone against her chest.
“Remember, we want intelligence information,” Lehmann said, when both Timewalkers were ready. “Keep control of the conversation, and don’t let him distract you. We’ll both be in your ear the entire time,” he said, indicating Anderson. “Captain, you had something to say?”
Tallon nodded stiffly. His dark eyes glanced all over the pair, finally settling a foot above Shaun’s white hair. “It was something I…overheard, at the construction yard,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I want to know how Zero reacts to it – something one of the other Adjusters said.”
“What is it?” Cassie asked.
“Tell Zero that The Tower has fallen, and see how he responds.”
“What’s that mean?” Shaun questioned.
“Sounds like the Adjusters were talking about taking control of the skyscraper,” Lehmann observed. “Doesn’t sound important to me.”
“I want you to tell him anyway,” Tallon continued, ignoring the General. “It might shake his confidence.”
Anderson signaled to the cameras, and the blastdoor split apart with a pneumatic hiss, revealing Sector 9 itself. There were smaller cells off to each side of the white corridor, locked doors that she hadn’t noticed the first time around. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the doors, nor see into the cells – each door had a single metal slit for delivering food, and nothing else.
She shivered. The air was much colder here, and she realized they must be deep underground now, far beneath the forest and hills.
“Good luck, we’ll be right outside,” Natalie said, squeezing Cassie’s shoulder. The soldiers cranked open Zero’s cell, and the Timewalkers entered the white room beyond.
* * *
Zero sat perched on his stool, a wax figurine in the approximation of a human.
Shaun had to stifle a shocked gasp. The rumors were true – Zero had been interrogated, badly. The creature had an ugly bruise on one side of his face, extending from the place where his eyes should have been, down to his abnormally wide mouth. His shoulders were slumped, his black jumpsuit ripped in places. The hexagonal disc on his forehead remained in place, but was crusted with blood as though somebody had tried to remove it by force.
The Adjuster stirred when the cell door slammed shut.
The five guards snapped to attention as the Timewalkers approached the inner cell. Each of the soldiers held their guns at the ready, prepared to intervene.
“I wondered how long it’d take before you came back,” Zero drawled. His voice was wet, filled of moist things growing in dark places, of blood and grease. He stood awkwardly, favoring his left knee. “The prodigal war heroes return.”
Don’t let him distract you, Shaun thought, gritting his teeth. Anderson said they know about the future. I can’t let him sidetrack me.
“We’re not here to chat,” he said, his voice echoing around the outer cell. “We need information about the Adjusters, why you’re here. What do you want?”
Zero laughed, his mouth opening wide to reveal bloodied gums, black ichor smeared over his teeth.
“I thought I had made my goal clear. I want to kill you, Shaun Briars.”
His blood turned cold. He exchanged a nervous glance with Cassie, who sidled closer to him. Despite his lack of eyes, the move didn’t go unnoticed by Zero.
“How sweet,” the monster cackled, his mouth twitching higher on one side. “Star-crossed lovers, how original. Of course, I have the benefit of knowing how the future plays out – a great love story, or a tragedy waiting to happen..?”
He trailed off into an enticing question. The future. So many possibilities, so many eventualities that might never form into reality.
“You want to know your future,” Zero hissed, stepping closer to the glass wall. His anti-Temporal handcuffs glowed bright blue, restricting his powers. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, boy? Do you want me to tell you about the man you become? About the great Major Shaun Briars? The man who condemned a world to ash and ruin!”
He roared the last word, slamming his fists against the glass. The soldiers twitched, their carbines aimed straight at the glass walls. Cassie jumped, taking half a step back, clutching Shaun’s arm so tightly her fingernails dug into his skin.
“He’s getting angry,” Anderson said over the comm. “Control the interrogation.”
“We don’t care what he knows – or claims to know – about the future,” Lehmann added. “We need hard intel about Adjuster movements and activities.”
Cassie spoke, her voice wavering at first then hardening with forced determination. “We’re not here to ask about the future. We want to know what the Adjusters are doing now. Why are they killing Timewalkers?”
Zero stepped back from the glass wall. “Why else? Timewalkers are a threat to human society. We are eliminating them. We are saving your world from a terrible future.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Cassie said, releasing Shaun’s arm. She took a step toward the inner cell. Her voice shook with fear and anger. “Killing innocent children? They’re not a threat to anybody.”
Shaun’s gut churned, and he thought of Hayden Miller hanging from a ceiling fan. How many other children has Zero killed? They tried to kill me, and Cassie too; there must be dozens more that the Bureau never reached in time.
“You are so naïve,” Zero growled, but there was no aggression in his voice, only calculated calm – he was enjoying himself. “It’s not what Timewalkers can do now, it’s what they will do in the future! I know you have seen it, you have seen our world – a world consumed by fire and snow, the byproducts of a nuclear winter that Timewalkers helped cause!”
Cassie glanced at Shaun, and he knew what she was thinking. The other world. Was that the future?
“Yes,” Zero drawled, elongating the word. “Yes, I am right, am I not? I am generously performing a great service for your world; I am preventing that disaster. You should be thanking me, not keeping me chained up like some petty murderer.”
“You are a murderer,” Shaun countered. “You and all the other Adjusters. You killed children, you stalked and tried to murder me and Cassie; you killed those soldiers – they weren’t Timewalkers, what did they do wrong?”
“They chose the wrong side!” Zero snarled, pacing back and forth, a caged animal. “The Bureau of Time is the same as White Tower, an infectious disease, a cancerous cell! They must be quarantined—”
“Wait,” Cassie shouted, cutting him off. “You said White Tower. What is White Tower?”
Zero stopped his pacing and turned his eyeless gaze toward her.
“Start wrapping it up, this is going nowhere,” Anderson said over the comm.
“My, my,” Zero said, shaking his head. “The Bureau really has kept you in the dark. You don’t even know what White Tower is? They started this war. They’re the reason I came to your timeline to begin with. The reason everything went to hell.”
“This is useless,” Lehmann agreed. “We can’t confirm anything he’s talking about. Ask him where the Adjusters will strike next.”
Shaun gritted his teeth, biting his tongue until warm blood spilled into his mouth. He Timewalked the cut without a second thought, enjoying the familiar rush of power through his veins. He wanted to ask Zero so many questions, but he knew the General was right. They had to know what the Adjusters were planning.
“What more do you want from us – what’s next? Killing more Timewalkers? Attacking the Bureau?”
“What’s next?” Zero repeated, his mad cackle filling the cell. The soldiers flinched, but they held their ground, their guns trained on the Adjuster. He didn’t even acknowledge the men, as though they were nothing but a piece of furniture to be observed and ignored.
“I’ll tell you what’s next,” Zero spat, inching closer to the glass wall. He lowered his voice, filling every word with boundless malice. Perhaps it was an illusion, a trick of the light, but Shaun could have sworn that Zero’s eyeless sockets blazed with a fiery light. “My men will come and destroy you, they will wipe the Bureau from the face of the earth. We will be victorious, we will have our justice, we will avenge our loved ones’ deaths—”
“We’re pulling you out,” Lehmann announced.
“—we will RISE against those who would enslave us—”
“No! Tell him what I heard!” Tallon shouted over the comm. Shaun had to hold a finger in his ear to drown out Zero’s enraged screaming.
“—and we shall deliver your people, we shall free them—”
“Let’s go, this is over,” Anderson said. From behind them, the cell door cranked open, but Zero was still yelling, spittle flying onto the glass wall.
“—you will pay for what you’ve done!” he finished, black blood spilling over his lips. Cassie’s face had gone sheet-white, and Shaun was lost for words, stunned by the ferocity of Zero’s outburst. At the very last moment, he remembered Tallon’s sentence, and blurted out:
“The tower has fallen.”
Zero draw up short, his aggression vanishing like a candle flame in a storm. His head cocked back to the other side; the reinforced door was fully open now, and guards were stepping through to guide the Timewalkers out.
“Is that so?” Zero said. For a moment, he said nothing. Cassie was already halfway out of the room, but Shaun lingered, unwilling to leave.
“Timewalker Briars,” one of the guards shouted, tapping Shaun on the shoulder. “Timewalker, I have orders to pull you out of here.”
Zero sat back on his stool and crossed his legs.
He stared straight at Shaun, and grinned wickedly. “If I were you, Major Briars, I’d get a good nights’ sleep. One of us ought to.”
The guard dragged Shaun out of the cell, ignoring the boy’s protests. The steel door slammed shut with a resounding boom that shook the walls and rattled his teeth. The Bureau’s personnel had gathered just around the corner, various expressions of disdain, shock, and confusion spread across their faces.
“That was a waste of time,” General Lehmann said, shaking his head. “We lost good men to capture that piece of shit, and he won’t tell us anything useful. The mission was a disaster. It’s over.”
“No,” Shaun said, so quietly that his words were lost in the ensuing conversation. Only Cassie, standing right beside him, heard him speak. “No, it’s only just begun.”