Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(108)

“Hush, please, High Scion, or you’ll give me away.”

“Don’t hush me, boy.”

The streets began to fill as the morning crowds, filtering through the narrow corridors of the city, came out single file along the moving walkways, standing uniform and straight as if duplicately dressed doll figures moving down a conveyor belt. The only way to tell them apart was by their height and faces. All else that could be controlled—dress, hair, accessories, clothing—was exactly the same. It occurred to James that it was fortunate the Adonians never perfected cloning, or he imagined he’d be looking at hundreds of the exact same people moving down an assembly line. Here and there, one of the Adonians would move out of line and proceed by foot along his or her way, while others still would join in and take his or her place. It was very orderly. The moving walkway never stopped.

James, at a steady pace, walked out of the park and joined in and stood still while it carried him toward the center of the city. He noticed the neural bugs perched on their poles every fifty or so meters, scanning away with their blinking blue lights, zapping at each person, reading minds and checking mental thought processes. One passed over him and he felt the static buzz as it brushed his brain.

This time period was by far the most difficult for any chronman to operate in. No one less than a Tier-1 was allowed, and even then, most Tier-1s were required to undergo rigorous mental testing and an audit before every jump until they could work this era. It was a salvage-rich zone, but one ChronoCom always had trouble fulfilling jobs in. With a dearth of Tier-1s, the agency would eventually have to tap into this period with less-qualified chronmen. Then they’d start seeing the body count climb.

So far, so good. By now, James was an old pro in the Big Brother time period. This was his sixth jump here, making him one of the more experienced Tier-1 in ChronoCom. There were only four to five other chronmen still alive who had had more. Still, though, he had to be careful: one missed thought could give him away. And unlike with most other jumps, there were very few places he could escape to if detected. If a security alarm ever tripped, the entire city would go on neural lockdown. There would be no place he could hide that the bugs couldn’t detect him. He kept his breathing regular and his thoughts a steady stream of nonsensical connections.

Morning stream steady. Steady is stability. Stability is work. Work is contribution. Contribution is whole. Whole is perfection. Perfection is …

James stayed on the moving walkway for ten minutes, his neighbors in front and behind changing often as they joined and exited this ever-long conga line. Though he was completely aware of his surroundings, he kept his head facing straight, just as all his neighbors did. In this city, standing out was considered undesirable and tended to attract the wrong sort of attention.

Finally, he reached his destination near the center of the city, where the Adonian Dome Defense was based. Being a floating city had its advantages; Adonia had the ability to move all over the oceans. This was an unfortunate necessity for the Adonians, since none of the nations of the world tolerated this city’s presence in their maritime waters for fear of Adonia spreading its influence. And, without the resources for a strong military, Adonia resorted to developing exceptionally advanced stealth technology in order to survive. At the time of this jump, there were forty-six of these Adonian cities on Earth and 319 generational ships in space.

In terms of the ripples in the time line, James knew he was on shaky ground. Adonia was currently parked in the middle of the Arabian Sea, cloaked and secretly siphoning oil reserves from the nearby Saudi Emirates. In six days, an underground earthquake near Sri Lanka would birth a tsunami, causing a small change to the water levels filtering in through the city. That in turn would cause their stealth hood to temporarily overheat, forcing the Adonians to reset the shield. All in all, the disruption would be six minutes long.

The neighboring four emirates and three countries in the area would launch forty-two rocket strikes in those six minutes, crippling Adonia. Over the course of three more hours, the bombardments would continue to hammer the floating city until every living soul was dead. Today, James was going to steal that advanced stealth technology and hasten the city’s death by a few days.

James left the walkway and joined a small line of people heading into the Dome Defense building. That was one of his annoyances with the Big Brother cities; there were lines all over the place. But with so many people packed into such a small space, it was the most efficient way to keep the city running. It took him another fifteen minutes, one blood test, and two neural bugs to traverse the final fifty meters before he made it into the building.

James continued moving deeper underground through the building’s thinning lines, each one getting shorter and shorter, like capillaries diverging from main blood vessels. Eventually, he would arrive close enough to the stealth hood’s location. He knew, however, that the fighting would start before he even got close.

His fake security clearance wasn’t strong enough to make it all the way to the highest clearance. In four levels, his free ride would run out and he’d have to get through by other means. Right now, he just wanted to get close enough and do the least amount of damage, kill as few people as possible, and cause the smallest time ripple before he made off with the stealth hood.

I don’t remember you being so careful around me. The young Nazi had appeared. You seemed content to crush my skull.

Oh hush, Grace shushed the boy. He’s busy at the moment.