Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(52)
She barely made it out from under the spaceship store when it landed on the ground with a thunderous boom. Exhausted, Elise fell to her knees, but she knew she had to push herself back to her feet. She had to find a place to hide. Unfortunately, her legs had had enough. They gave out. Elise fell again and this time, she couldn’t get up. She rolled onto her back, gasping for air. One of the coneheads, the grinning one, appeared next to her.
“Get up!” he snarled. He held up his foot as if he was going to stomp down on her face.
“Not the head, idiot,” the other conehead said.
A crowd had formed around them. The grinning conehead grunted, picked her up by the front of her shirt. Elise lashed out, clocking him on the side of the face. The grinning conehead snarled and punched her in the stomach. Elise gasped and almost fainted from the pain.
“That’s for pushing me,” he smirked. “And this is for trying to run away.”
She continued punching and clawing at him, trying desperately to squirm out of his grip. He held her shirt with one hand and struck her again with the other. She squeezed her eyes shut as the blows rained down on her face and body, her own struggle weakening. Then the blows suddenly stopped. She pried her eyes open and noticed that her attacker wasn’t even looking at her anymore; he was staring up into the sky. Elise followed his gaze and saw a familiar ship hovering above them.
“Chronman,” the other conehead said hastily. “We appreciate your assistance, but we have this under—”
The conehead was yanked into the air and tossed like a rag doll into the ogling crowd. Grinning conehead dropped her and screamed as he was pulled into the air as well. Then she watched in horror as his body slammed down into the ground with force. Then James dropped from the air next to her and offered her his hand. “I have you,” he said, pulling her close, “let’s get out of here.”
NINETEEN
THE HUNT
Levin Javier-Oberon was having an awful week. Today was memorable, at least. He stared at the Watcher’s Board in the hallway outside the office of Director Young Hobson-Luna, head of Planetary Control on Earth. The Watcher’s Board was nothing more than a giant framed screen filled with hundreds of small electronically inked names, updated once a day at zero hour. Completely low tech: cheap, easy, and symbolic. The board served only one purpose: to display the current roster count of ChronoCom operatives.
Levin glanced down at the numbers near the bottom: 112,311 support, 2,266 administrators, 42,398 engineers, 3,021 handlers. His eyes moved up the list: 42,953 monitors, 3,341 chronmen. Both numbers had dropped since yesterday. The monitors by twenty-six and the chronmen by two. Levin then looked up to the last list near the top: 224 auditors.
Only 224.
From the tens of thousands of initiates at the Academy every year to the foot soldier monitors to the chronmen tiers and finally to the auditor chains, there were only 224 human beings like him out of a population of twenty billion humans in this solar system.
Levin was an apex, part of a select elite cadre that zealously guarded the chronostream. Only some of the largest corporations could field better military units. Obtaining this status was so rare and prestigious that the name of every person who had ever held the auditor emblem was forever etched in ChronoCom lore. No other rank could boast that. Every significant auditor event was carefully documented in agency records. Because auditors mattered. Auditors were important.
Well, today was a significant day for sure. A chronman had broken a Time Law, and not just any Time Law, but the first law, a cardinal sin that had never been broken in their history. Chronman James Abyss-plagued Griffin-Mars had brought someone back from the past, and he had done it on Levin’s watch. On Levin’s planet of stewardship. To make matters worse, after he committed that heinous crime, he broke out of Central right under Levin’s nose and disappeared into abyss-knew-f*cking-where.
Levin gnashed his teeth and his hands curled into fists. It was an unbelievable act of incompetence on his part. If he was in the directorship, Levin would have himself executed for such a stupid mistake. Even if he were able to right this crime, Levin would forever be known as the auditor who catastrophically failed in his duties. James escaping was actually the least of his concerns. He was confident he could hunt down the fugitive and drag him back for justice. The sting of the most important Time Law being broken hurt much more. He would consider honorable suicide if he thought it would clear some of that taint from his name. Hell, he still might have to, once the director was through with him. It wouldn’t work this way, though. Levin couldn’t escape his failure so easily. Things these days were never that simple.
The double doors at the end of the hallway swung outward with a squeak—the lower hinge of the right door making that noise—revealing a pitch-black interior. A draft blew out of the opening. The director preferred to keep the temperature in his office frigid.
A gravelly sounding voice barked out from within the darkness, “Black f*cking balls, Levin, you’ve f*cked up on a galactic scale. In my damn f*cking backyard, no less. Get your ass in here.”
Levin tore his gaze away from the board and entered the director’s office, intent on keeping his dignity intact. If he had to face possible orders to execute himself, he would do so with his head held high and his back straight.
“Have a seat, Levin.” Director Young gestured at the chair in front of his desk. “No, stand. Sitting is for those who aren’t f*ckups.”