A Tuesday in Time

The assignment hadn’t looked difficult. I stepped sideways, and reentered Time. I had chosen my landing spot perfectly – Vienna, early December, the Christkindlmarkt. Air crisp and chill, with snowflakes drifting gently down out of the black sky, more delicate than any of the glittering jewelry on display. The indulgent scent of gluhwein and pastries made my mouth water; there’s nothing like hot spiced wine on a cold night in one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

There are no stars to be seen, but the massive chandeliers strung between both ancient buildings and new, like Bridges through Time, are ephemeral enough for any fairy tale. If only the people wandering under them had any idea how close they were to genuine, old fashioned Magic…

I splurged, and allowed myself to savor five whole, precious minutes at the Market before I got down to business. At the six minute mark, I took a last cold breath and set about my task. The nearest entrance to the subway wasn’t far; I made my way down, dodging tourists and locals alike, though no one was rushing. The subway itself was irrelevant, of course, but it disconcerted attentive people when someone vanished abruptly from one step to the next in front of them (most people are oblivious, and wouldn’t notice if a cat stood up and began reciting Milton, but there are always a few, and we try not to cause them any further distress than can be helped. Those souls tend to be overwhelmed enough as it is).

A train arrived, and I timed my Bridge to coincide with stepping through the doors. No one was paying any mind, and didn’t see that I took a step sideways and instead of getting onto the train, I went… somewhere else. Florida, to be precise. A small coastal town, jam-packed with tourists, snowbirds, and the elderly, with a few locals cursing softly under their breath as they tried to get every day business done around those who were on no set schedule whatsoever.

My clothing got a few odd looks, but that was nothing new. The people who notice me assume I’m on the way to or from a Comic Con and I let them. My leather breeches, knee-high laced boots, button down collared shirt and cotton jacket aren’t weird enough that I end up on the internet, but I definitely stand out a bit. Mostly I get asked if I’m cosplaying as Zoë from Firefly; a wink and a smile is usually enough to send people on their merry way without having to engage. I have to admit, the resemblance is rather striking, though her hair always looked better.

I landed in a small beach town, behind an obligatory seafood restaurant. The air here smelled of salt, exhaust, burnt oranges, and… Florida. It wasn’t a bad smell. I found it rather invigorating. I was close enough to the Gulf to hear the waves crashing on the beach, which was an entirely different sort of delight than Vienna, but just as stimulating, and, dare I say it... magical. I love my job.

Being a Time Warden is an elite post, and one I aspire to. For now, I’m a lowly Time Adjustor, which isn’t a bad gig. I get to see Austria and Florida in the span of 15 minutes, after all. But we don’t have the authority to make the really big changes, or get be on the front lines to ensure an Event goes according to plan, or even know what the plan is, usually. We get an assignment from the Clocktower, step into Time, complete our mission, and return to the City. The mission might be something as complex as convincing a timebound to defect to the other side in order to set off a necessary series of Events without his catching on, or it may be as straightforward as tripping a man as he is about to go meet a first date so that he crashes into someone with a full cup of coffee, necessitating a detour to tidy himself up that results in him being late, and his date leaving in a huff before he arrives – the final result being that the couple did not meet, fall in love, and produce a child who would give birth to another child who would one day cause a cataclysmic and earth-ending Event. The smallest possible change is always best. You cannot stop a ripple once it’s begun, but you can usually prevent the rock falling into the water in the first place. That’s where I come in, and why I’m in Florida. I’m here to stop a rock. Or in this case... throw one in.

“I’m looking for an old friend,” I told the scrawny bartender in a dark, sketchy dive bar after he asked what he could get for me. “Jace Alexander? I thought I’d stop and surprise him.” He looked me up and down and raised an eyebrow, one hand scratching at the graying grizzle on his jowls.

“Ya just missed him.” He offered, after considering me for a solid eleven seconds. This was news, and not the ‘good’ variety.

“I missed his shift? Odd, he told me he’d call when he got off work at four, it’s not even a quarter to three…”

“He didn’t come in today. Had a family emergency up north, had to catch the red eye to New York last night.”

I have been punched in the gut before, and this felt exactly the same. It took me a moment to catch my breath. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. My mission had been perfectly clear-cut: Find the man called Jace Alexander, and ensure that he stayed late that night so that he could meet his future business partner, who was working on a technology that would shape the future in vitally important ways, and who would wander into the bar on a whim later that night. Jace had a unique mind and stellar education (which he was currently fertilizing, but it was time for it to grow), and would be able to think of solutions to problems that were stumping the current development team. He had to be there to meet this man.

The mission file had included his name, a photo, a paragraph of biography and where to expect him, but nothing else. We can’t have smart phones in our line of work, they fry immediately when we hop, so I couldn’t even look up his socials. But if he had left last night, I ought to have been notified. Something was going terribly wrong.

“Did he say where in New York? Would you have an address there?”

He snorted. “I dunno, lady. We ain’t close. We don’t exactly exchange holiday greetin’ cards.”

I nodded, disappointed and disoriented. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I very nearly missed seeing the way the bartender glanced at a table in the back, tilted his head a fraction of an inch in my direction, and made himself scarce. My blood went cold. I had noticed that the bar was nearly empty, but it was mid afternoon on a Tuesday, it would have been more strange if the bar had been full. I had also noticed a table with three hulking men in a dark corner, all wearing large trucker hats that shielded their faces, and I hadn’t thought anything was concerning about them.

Until they all stood up at once, facing me. One of the nice things about being a Warden is that they were entrusted with weapons. As an Adjustor, I was never near anything really dangerous, and was expected to flight-not-fight, so I had nothing to protect myself with except a folding knife and some very basic self-defense moves. The men fanned out, one in front of the door, the middle one blocking a dirty window I didn’t want to jump through anyway, and the 3rd between me and the hallway to the bathrooms. Using the only available option, I attempted to Bridge to somewhere – literally anywhere – else, protocol be damned. I stepped sideways and I… went one step to the side. The man blocking the hallway grinned, and held out a large, pulsing crystal on a gold chain that looked bizarrely out of place in his ham-like fist. A Time-lock. I had never seen one before, but it couldn’t have been anything else. They were forbidden for anyone besides a Warden, and supposedly only a Warden could even use it. I swallowed convulsively.

“Didn’t think we’d have one of these, eh, Zelda?” He sneered at me, taking half a step closer. They were timebound; they didn’t know what I was capable of, and weren’t going to take unnecessary risk by charging, which was the only thing that saved me.

“Zelda? I look nothing like Zelda, have you ever even played it?” I demanded, and they glanced at each other in confusion; I took that split second to slide up onto the bar and swing over it in one motion. Next moment the (much larger than my own) butcher knife that the treacherous bartender had been using to hack up a pineapple was in my hand and I had three feet of concrete between me and my would be assassins. They glowered, and came closer. If they’d been using guns, it would have been over long since, but they seemed the type who liked to be hands-on, as it were.

I reached back and scrabbled at the door the barkeep had left through, but he’d locked it from the other side. It was solid, built to withstand a hurricane or drunken patrons, so breaking it down wasn’t an option. I readjusted my grip on the sticky knife handle, knowing I could only get one of them, two at most, before I’d get taken. This is not what I was trained for. Still, I knew the value of my life, and intended to sell it dearly.

Just then the door behind me clicked as the lock was undone, and a man’s voice was saying, “Chet, I was only gone for forty minutes, you didn’t need to lock…”

The door was pushed open just enough to see a very startled Jace Alexander trying to take in the scene before him. Before they could react, I threw the knife at the one in the middle and had the satisfaction of seeing it hit him in the face and hear his scream before I’d grabbed Jace by his shoulder and shoved him back through the door, slamming it shut and twisting the bolt closed a moment before a heavy thud pounded on the other side.

“RUN,” I yelled at the befuddled man before me, taking his hand and pelting down the dim hallway that led to the tiny kitchen. The bartender was waiting in the shadows, and tried to jump me. He got an elbow to the nose for his trouble, and I kicked his knee for good measure on the way by.

“Do you have a car?” I demanded, when we’d burst out into the sunlit parking lot, still clutching his hand. He stammered something about a jeep, and held out the keys he was still holding in the other fist.

“Let’s go, then,” I snatched them from his hand, shoved him into the passenger side, and darted around the jeep as two of the men burst through the back door and charged us. Fumbling the key into the ignition cost me three seconds, by which time they’d reached the jeep and I threw it in drive and pulled away with squealing tires, intensely thankful that Jace had backed in to his spot. One of the men had grabbed a cast iron skillet on his way through the kitchen, and managed to smash the back window as we tore past, and I don’t know if Jace or myself screamed louder as glass shattered everywhere.

“What the hell is going on!” He shouted, frantically buckling his seatbelt and clutching the door frame as I swerved into traffic and tried to get as much space as possible between us and our pursuers, who were running for their own car. It wouldn’t do me a lick of good to Bridge if they caught up before I could convince Jace he needed to come along. Sticking as close to the truth as possible would help.

Thankfully, I had a cover story for why I had sought him out if my initial plan (flirting at him) didn’t work. “Are you Jace Alexander?” I shouted over the sound of the wind; we’d merged onto the freeway and it was loud. He confirmed what I already knew, then asked who the hell I was. I couldn’t fault him for his language.

“My name is Clara.” This was true. “I’m a talent scout in the tech industry.” Definitely not exactly true, but kind of close. “My employers are looking for someone with a very specific skill set to fill a role at a start-up, and your name surfaced. Turns out we have some mutual connections, and I was in the area anyway so I thought I’d look you up.”

My little speech was somewhat incongruous since I was shouting it over the sound of wind roaring in through a window that a hitman had just smashed. Jace looked at me like I was insane. I tried again.

“I asked about you, and the bartender told me you had had a family emergency, and flown to New York last night. I was about to leave when those men came at me, and the bartender left me to their mercy. I’d jumped over the bar to try to get away, you showed up just in time. Do you know why they were after you?”

“After me?? I was an innocent bystander in all this! You’re the one who went all Mission Impossible on us and nearly got me killed!”

“None of the trouble started until I asked about you!” I shouted, and it wasn’t because of the noise this time. “Why did he say you’d had an emergency if you were just out running an errand?”

This time Jace opened his mouth, but nothing came out. I was driving like a crazy person, but this was Florida and I fit right in. I was checking our tail, and hadn’t seen any signs of pursuit. My hands were still sticky from the pineapple, and adrenaline surged through my system. A storm was coming up, angry black clouds building over the sea. It fit my mood.

“He told me I had to go to the liquor store warehouse across town because our delivery had been cancelled.” Jace said at last, his voice so quiet I almost couldn’t hear him. “He’s never done that before. I’ve never left in the middle of a shift – if something needs to be picked up, he’s the one who does it. But I got over there, and they had no idea what I was talking about, said the delivery was already out, so I turned around and came back early. What is going on?”

“I don’t know!” I veered onto an off-ramp without warning, causing the driver behind me to honk and swerve. I took a series of random turns until even I couldn’t have said where we were. There was a beach ahead, though, which felt promising. A car pulled away from the curb ahead of us and I was in the spot almost before he’d left it. We sat for a long moment, breathing heavily and staring at nothing. I held my hand up experimentally, and confirmed it was still shaking, though not as badly as before, and definitely not as badly as Jace Alexander’s. He couldn’t even get his seatbelt unbuckled.

“Let’s go to the beach and talk it out,” I suggested, trying to calm my voice, “I’ll feel better in a wide open space.”

“Go to the beach?! We need to go to the police!” His voice was a touch hysterical. I couldn’t blame him.

“And tell them what?” I demanded, “That your boss sent you on an errand to get you out of the way so that I, a person who hadn’t even planned on coming until today, could get shanked? We have exactly zero proof besides your broken window, they’re just as likely to think it’s insurance fraud! Sure, blame your busted window on a thug with a frying pan!” I was shouting again. Passersby looked at us curiously. I took a deep, cleansing breath and tried to tamp down my own hysteria.

Jace stared blankly ahead again, his face stricken. “And your boss sure as hell isn’t innocent in all this.” I added, more calmly. “He got you out of the way, left me there for those men, and then tried to stop us in the kitchen, remember? You aren’t safe right now, Jace. Neither of us are. Let’s go.”

I got out of the car (I had never buckled my seatbelt in the first place) and headed for the sea. I wanted the ocean at my back, where no one could sneak up on me. I knew I could Bridge while swimming if I needed to, I’d done it once before just to find out. Could I take Jace with me, though? I hoped I wouldn’t have to try it.

Within a few yards, Jace had caught up to me, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, eyes wide and wary, head on a swivel. Good. He ought to be terrified. I bit my lip, worrying at it. I was going to have to tell him the truth. Or something closer to the truth than what I had given him earlier. I knew from his file that he was a smart cookie, he wasn’t going to be credulous for long, and if he figured it out before I could tell him, he wouldn’t follow me anywhere at all – I wouldn’t, in his shoes.

“Jace, I’m reevaluating what I’ve been told to tell you.” I blurted, as soon as we hit the sand and the crowd thinned a little. The storm was close, now, almost right overhead, and the rain was closing in fast. He didn’t say anything, just watched me. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“You are being considered for a tech company, all that was true. Your experience and education make you perfect for it. I was sent to help facilitate that connection. So I thought. They shouldn’t have known I was coming, but they were waiting for me. How did they know I’d be there? It was routine! Just a normal job, I’ve done this hundreds of times, so why you and why now?”

Jace shook his head, his Hawaiian shirt flapping in the wind. I could see his mind whirling, trying to piece answers together. I hoped he had more than I did.

“That letter I got last week,” He said eventually. I missed a step.

“What letter?”

“I got a certified letter in the mail, saying someone would be in touch soon, and I needed to go with them, and I could trust them. It said a lot of other things that I found implausible, but then they happened today.” He looked down (not that far down, I’m taller than average) at me, and said, “The letter said that when I met with this person who was going to take me somewhere, I would have clarity, only the word was spelled c-l-a-r-a-t-y. I thought it was an odd typo. It was talking about you, wasn’t it… Clara?”

Me, I just stopped and stared at him. I hadn’t been given my assignment until four hours ago. I knew nothing about a letter. And the timebound were only given insights into the future if they were somehow crucial to Events and needed to be prepared to work with us knowingly. A Warden ought to be on this case, not me. This went significantly deeper than I was equipped to handle. I had to get him to the Clocktower, like, NOW.

“Clara!” A voice called, and I almost sank to the sand in relief as a figure wearing very similar clothing as my own approached.

“Pierson! How did you find us out here?” Pierson was the Warden who had given me the case file. It was starting to make sense; he must have realized he’d given me the wrong one and was here to take charge.

“I see you escaped the Time-lock,” He said, sidestepping my question and stopping about four feet off. “Well done – we’ll make a Warden of you yet!”

His words brought a flash of pride, until I realized what they meant. Time-lock. Huh. I laughed, ducking my head so he didn’t see the anger in my eyes just yet, buying Time. It all made sense, all right. He was a traitor. He’d set me up. Jace was crucial, not just to a tech company, but possibly to Time itself. Pierson was the only one who could have planned it. The truth was sickening.

“Why do you want us dead?” I finally met his eyes; I believe in being straightforward. His smile turned into a sneer. Jace looked between us, deeply worried. He should be.

“That’s Warden business.” Pierson answered. “Hand over the subject and I’ll let you walk away, Clara.”

“I almost died for him today, I am not letting him go just like that!”

“Your mistake,” Pierson said, pulling a gun from his waistband and pointing it at Jace. Before the bullet left the barrel, I did something that is absolutely discouraged, if not strictly forbidden, for Adjustors to do. Microtime gets messy, mistakes can be made, and only Wardens are supposed to use it. But what the hell, it’s a day for breaking rules. I stepped into the micro timeline, moving with infinite care, which required every shred of self-control I posses. Within the span of a heartbeat that took me several agonizing minutes, I stood next to Pierson and twisted the gun until it pointed at his own head. He hadn’t expected that; most Adjustors haven’t learned to navigate that timeline. His mistake.

When I stepped back into normal Time, his eyes were widening as the gun went off, and the bullet meant for Jace ended up inside his own head.

As his body fell, Jace started retching, and I had to swallow hard to keep from following suit. “How did you get over there? How did you do that?” His questions were valid, but I wasn’t prepared to answer them.

“We can talk about that later. Jace, you need to come with me. We both need answers.” I held out my hand, which hardly shook at all anymore. He stared at it, then at the body, and last at the storm, which had caught us up. Rain was hitting hard and fast, and thunder rolled ominously. The beach was alien and hostile. Jace wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and took a tentative step closer to me, taking my hand with his unsoiled one. I pulled him close, gave him a smile that I hoped he would be reassured by, and we stepped sideways, out of Time.