Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(114)

“James, focus on my voice!” Grace cut through the cacophony.

James grasped at her voice as she repeated his name over and over again. He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned his own name along with her until his heart rate calmed and the tension all over his body washed out and away.

James fell to his knees, then pulled himself up to the console. He looked at the readings and blinked. This couldn’t be right. According to the navigation, he had just passed the Southern American continent and was still a day out from Boston. Why was he up?

“What happened?” he finally choked the words out.

“I had to pull you out of your cryo sleep abruptly and your body did not react well to it. Listen to me, James…” Grace sounded urgent.

The dream rushed back to him, and he remembered every detail as if he had just relived it a hundred times over. “I think I get it,” he said. “I know what I have to do now.”

“For space’s sake, James Griffin-Mars, listen to me!” Grace screamed those words in his head so loud James reacted to it as if he’d been slapped.

“What is it?”

“You have to get back to Boston now. Smitt sent warning. They’re on their way.”

“Who—” He didn’t need to finish that thought; there was only one “they” whom it could be. He leaped to the controls and aimed the collie straight up out of the ocean. A day by ocean was less than an hour by air. He had to get to Elise before it was too late.





FORTY-THREE

THE RIGHTEOUS WAY

Levin stood at the launching pad of Earth Central and watched as the sixteen collies hovered in formation overhead. The Hops had been abuzz all morning about this impending attack. If Smitt was going to fall for the ruse, this is when it would happen.

The neural bug had gone online a few days ago and had already put to rest the question of the handler’s guilt. Within a matter of hours, Levin had learned that James was currently making a salvage in the Publicae Age. They were too late to act upon that information. Instead, they planted a trap that Levin was now about to spring. So much for brotherhood.

Part of Levin had hoped that they were mistaken about Smitt. He and Levin had once been friends, back in the day when Levin was still friends with James. Smitt’s arrest would heavily impact morale. Though of low rank, Smitt was a longtime colleague in the agency and was popular and respected by many. The other handlers would sympathize with his loyalty to his chronman.

“Your plan worked, Auditor,” Shizzu said, approaching from behind. “We just intercepted a subchannel transmission from Handler Smitt regarding the attack force.”

Levin bowed his head. “Where to?”

“East toward the ruins known as Boston.”

“You know where to go, then. I will join the attack shortly.”

“Your command, Auditor.”

Geneese and Shizzu shot up to one of the collies, and Levin watched as the small fleet headed east. His eyes followed the departing fleet until it was nothing more than small specks swallowed up by the darkening horizon. The fleet would reach Boston in less than thirty minutes. Sure, Smitt might have gotten a message to James’s base there; that couldn’t be helped. It was a small price to pay for discovering the location of the base. In the end, that small warning would do little to affect the outcome.

The fleet was a significant ChronoCom force, far too large to expend on one fugitive chronman, but Levin was not taking any chances. The ruins of Boston were vast, and a wasteland tribe, with unknown firepower and knowledge of the terrain, could wreak havoc on any invader. Overwhelming force was a sound decision. Levin wished he were going there right now with his men, but he had one more duty he had to oversee before he could join them.

“Monitor Kormin, arrest Handler Smitt and take him to the brig,” he said to the man he had assigned to watch over Smitt at the Hops.

“Apologies, Auditor, but Securitate Kuo ordered me to take him there the moment the traitor sent out the transmission. They’re both already in the brig.”

“What is she doing?”

“She is interrogating the traitor.”

“Stop her! That is a private matter.”

“I … I can’t, Auditor.”

“Black abyss,” Levin growled.

Of course Kuo would supersede his authority. If Smitt had spent even a few minutes in the room with her alone, Levin feared he might already be too late. He rushed back into the building, his hands balled into fists as he pushed his way through the crowded corridors, bowling down anyone who was too slow to jump out of his way.

Levin considered calling in squads of monitors in the event the situation escalated, but thought better of it. No monitor or auditor, for that matter, could stand up against her; he would be placing his people in a dangerous position. No, better he address this on his own. In any case, the confrontation had been coming to a head for weeks now. He should have managed Kuo from the outset. This was his failure. The burden of stopping her should rest squarely on his shoulders.

Levin reached the holding cells, and through one of the viewing screens saw Kuo in a cell with Smitt, who was strapped to a chair with his hands tied behind his back. Sweat glistened on the handler’s shirtless body, and his head lolled forward, swinging like a pendulum. His left eye was blackened and blood dripped out of his nose as he hacked and coughed.