Time Salvager (Time Salvager #1)(53)
The blaringly loud and vulgar voice coming out of Young’s mouth was a surprise for almost everyone who suffered it the first time. In all the years Levin had worked at Earth Central, he had met the director dozens of times and had never received a kind word from him. Levin appreciated his honesty, though.
Young was a frail, scrawny-looking man, with only a tuft of white hair on the crown of his head and on his chin. His back was stooped and his entire body leaned to one side, like a bent tree. His right arm, cut off at the elbow, hung useless from his shoulder, shattered decades ago in service to the agency.
Before his injury, Young Hobson-Luna was the longest-tenured auditor and second in the chain. He had retired from auditorship after he was no longer able to stand watch, and had moved over to the administrative side. Now, only Jerome, the head of Europa, was higher linked.
“I prefer to stand regardless, Director,” Levin said. “How is your shoulder?”
Young looked down to his right and shrugged. “Still twisted and useless. That’s what will retire you as well, Levin, assuming I don’t tell you to strangle yourself first or the guys in Europa don’t order me to throw you out of an airlock without your f*cking bands. Or both.”
“I will honor your wisdom, Director.”
“You are still ninth in the chain?” Young asked.
“Yes, Director,” Levin said. Right now he was, but for how long?
Young chuckled. “You think you’ll slip down the chain for this.”
“That would be the least of my punishments. I expect no less.”
“Always willing to take the beam to the chest even when you don’t need to. Admirable and f*cking stupid. Well, we have more important matters to attend to, so tell your self-righteous honor to f*ck off and let’s get down to business.”
Levin’s neutral face broke for a moment. “Pardon, Director? If you’re not here to punish me, why was I summoned?”
“Stop trying to get yourself hung, you imbecile. It doesn’t mean shit and solves nothing. Now you can sit down. I’m tired of looking up at you. Sit. It’s an order.”
Levin sat down, though he kept his body as erect as when he was standing.
Young rolled his eyes and his face became serious. He leaned forward. “Do you know what’s at stake, Auditor?”
“Director?”
Young leaned forward and rested his good elbow on the desk. “In the one hundred forty-eight years since ChronoCom’s official inception, no chronman has ever brought someone back from the past. Not once. Do you know why?”
Levin nodded. “The first Time Law expressly forbids—”
“Screw the laws for a second,” Young cut him off. “They’re just rules. The real reason that Time Law is the most egregious to violate is because…” His voice trailed off and he gestured to Levin.
Levin thought back to his days at the Academy. “The Vallis Bouvard Disaster. Experimental chron lab in 2356 that conducted sanctioned retrievals of humans from the past. They discovered that the subjects were not only severely temporally displaced but caused abnormal ripples that tore holes in the chronostream.
All subjects’ physiologies and mental states also became unstable and degenerated at the molecular level within a four-week period. The tears in the stream around Bouvard Base destabilized the area, and a fluke ripple within the power generator caused a solar source meltdown in the cooling reactors, obliterating the lab and surrounding region in a two-hundred-square-kilometer area. This disaster was one of the primary catalysts that propelled all the corporations and governments to create a neutral governing body with jurisdiction over time traveling and the chronostream.”
Young nodded. “That’s right. So now you see our problem?”
“Yes, Director, whoever James brought back is causing havoc with the chronostream in the present. The consequences—”
“No, idiot,” Young snapped. “It means the entire solar system will soon realize that the Vallis Bouvard Disaster was a hoax. It was initially staged by our founders to scare all the governing powers to agree on ChronoCom’s creation. It’s now just a bogeyman story we propagate to keep the corporations in line and to squash any ideas chronmen may have about playing god and bringing someone back from the past. Do you understand the ramifications if word of this becomes public knowledge?”
“The Vallis Bouvard Disaster was … fake?” Levin was stunned.
“Yes, yes.” Young waved it off dismissively. “I was pretty f*cking shocked, too, when I learned this. Listen, if we don’t capture James and whoever he brought back soon, word’s going to get out, and it’ll completely undermine the agency’s authority. Before we know it, we’ll have idiotic chronmen and corporations bringing people back by the hundreds and jumping to whatever time line they want. Black abyss, it’ll destroy the chronostream!” He stood up and shook his finger at Levin. “You want to fall on your sword? Well, this is how you’re going to do it. You’re going to capture James and this temporal anomaly. I’m assigning Geneese and Shizzu to you. Geneese is coming in from Luna and Shizzu just returned from auditor training.”
“Newly linked?” Levin knew Shizzu from the man’s Tier-2 days. He distinctly remembered an unremarkable but ambitious chronman he thought wouldn’t survive that tier, let alone make the jump to Tier-1, let alone to the brotherhood of auditors.