Time Shards--Tempus Fury Read online

  Activating the spindle’s communications array, Cochrane spoke aloud. “Sergeant Myfanwy Cochrane, 138th Kinetic Infantry, Lima one-one-oh-niner.” While she reported in, the rest inflated their cots and dug into their rations. At Meyers’ instruction Kwame sat, back to the wall, remaining motionless.

  “Dee, you’ve got mail,” Cochrane said. After a moment, she added quietly, “… it’s from a PreCog.”

  The whole team looked up at that, forkfuls of food halted midway to their mouths. Mail was rare enough. Private channel messages, sent from HQ to a grunt, were unheard of. A private message from Military Intelligence?

  Unimaginable.

  “Probably just foreseeing a dear John letter,” Peters cracked. “Or maybe they forecasted you buying the farm.” Meyers kicked him and shot him a reproachful glare.

  “Sorry, Dee,” he mumbled. The sweeper swallowed, then got up and cautiously approached the spindle array, wiping his hands on his fatigues.

  “Specialist John DeMetta, 138th Kinetic Infantry, Delta one-two-two-six.”

  The rest of the squad waited in hushed silence while he telepathically received his message. When he finally turned around and walked back to his cot, he said nothing. Peters and Meyers exchanged worried glances.

  “Well, what is it already?” Peters burst out.

  “Cut the chatter, Peters,” the sergeant snapped. “The message is for him, nobody else. Got it?”

  “It’s okay, Sarge,” DeMetta said. “It’s not classified. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell to make of it.” He frowned and shook his head. “It didn’t make any sense… just something about a… a girl. Amber.”

  No one said anything.

  “Dear John,” Peters sent to Meyers.

  She nodded.

  2

  Richardson Home

  San Diego, California

  Amber woke up.

  She lay with her eyes closed for a few minutes, trying to capture her dreams, but finding the images frustratingly vague, like a mental itch she couldn’t scratch. Broken snippets tickled her brain—swirls of pyramids, Roundhead and French Napoleonic soldiers, dinosaurs, and talking, flying bowling balls… and a man with violet eyes, stars streaming through their depths.

  At first it all seemed so real.

  Then, in the way of dreams, it made no damn sense.

  The image of a man suddenly crystalized—early twenties with strong features, and a scar on his cheek. Dark shaggy hair falling to broad shoulders, a silver torc around his throat.

  Cam, she thought. Yes, that seemed right.

  Once his name and face solidified in her mind, so did others who had populated her dream. Nellie—a young Victorian woman with auburn hair and clever green eyes. Harcourt—another Victorian, but older and somehow irritating. Blake—a World War II British soldier who’d saved her life more than once…

  As quickly as the images came, they blurred again, and faded. Try as she might, she couldn’t hold on to them.

  Darn it! She tried one more time to grasp the memory, then shrugged and realized what she really needed.

  Coffee.

  With a yawn she stretched out on her bed, reveling in the crisp clean linen sheets, then looked around her bedroom. A menagerie of well-loved stuffed animals on the shelf. The picture window looking out on Mission Bay. The cast of Firefly looking back at her from the poster on her wall, promising her that they aimed to misbehave.

  From downstairs the muffled sound of canned laughter came from the TV. She could smell waffles and bacon, and her stomach growled. Slipping an oversized Padres jersey on over her underwear, she wandered barefoot down the shag-carpeted stairs to grab some breakfast. At the bottom she paused for a moment to stare at a tall, stately grandfather clock standing against the far wall in the entryway.

  Huh. That’s new.

  “Mom? Dad?” she called out as she wandered into the dining room. “Hey, when did we get a grandfather cl—”

  Amber stopped in her tracks. Neither her parents nor sister and brother were there, but two more grandfather clocks stood upright at either end of the table.

  “Okay… that’s weird.” Her voice echoed in the empty room.

  Fighting a rising sense of unease, she backed away and went into the family room, following the comforting sound of the TV. Another grandfather clock stood there like a monolith, parked in front of the television set, the dancing black and white static reflecting off its glassy face. It made no sense.

  Amber’s heart started racing.

  She went back to the entryway and approached the front door.

  Nothing scary there, she thought even as her heart galloped in her chest. Just a door.

  As she reached for the door handle, it seemed to recede, the air thickening around her hand like warm gelatin. Clenching her jaw, she pushed through, grabbed the handle, and shoved the door open, stepping out onto the porch.

  There was no one in sight.

  Across the street, a grandfather clock stood on the porch, facing her. Two more were on the sidewalk in front of the house, side by side, as if caught in mid-stroll. Another was down at the corner, and yet another in the middle of the front yard next door. Three more stood sentry at random spots along the street and sidewalks.

  A low rumbling noise came from down the block, like the sound of garbage bins being rolled out. The street a few houses down rippled like an oasis in the desert heat. Amber watched as the ripple turned into a long sinuous shape rising out of the asphalt—a huge crocodile swimming through the street as though it were water. It drew abreast to her house, then submerged, vanishing from sight.

  Heart hammering in her chest, she retreated back into the house, bolting upstairs. At the top she threw open a door before registering that there wasn’t supposed to be one there. On the other side, instead of the hallway, there was a small room, featureless and unfurnished…

  Another door on the opposite wall.

  Running to the door, she flung it open. Another equally sterile room, another unwelcoming door. In full panic mode, she turned back to the first door, but instead of leading to the stairs it opened to yet another small room with yet another door on the far wall.

  Fear mixing with anger, she screamed, and ran for that door. It opened to a small room with a door. She opened it, to find another door.

  And another door.

  And another.

  And another…

  Time and again she burst through, great shuddering breaths pumping through her lungs, turning to sobs as she twisted knob after knob. And then, when her terror seemed too much to bear, she opened yet another door and rushed inside—

  Into pitch darkness.

  3

  Evacuation Zone, somewhere in the ruins of the Khan el-Khalili

  souk El Qahira Governorate (formerly Cairo, Egypt)

  February 2, 2219

  Twenty-five minutes before the Event

  Even when the ancient city had been alive and full of people, its alleys and souks had formed a confusing warren. In the moonlight, the ruins of the lost Cairo megalopolis were a surreal and disturbing labyrinth—yawning holes in twisted chunks of concrete or metal or stone that stood like abstract statues of lost souls. For the pair of soldiers nursing the wheezing, cantankerous hovercraft through the maze, over broken streets littered with dust, ash, and tangles of bones and skulls, it was a waking nightmare.

  The vehicle kicked up great plumes of dust, the twin headlight beams barely piercing the haze in front of them. Both soldiers kept their eyes peeled for trouble, alert for whatever might be lurking in the twists and turns of the haunted streets. Sergeant Cochrane gritted her teeth, her grip so tight on the jumpy, uncooperative stick of their commandeered vehicle that her fingers cramped.

  “How much further to the extraction, DeMetta?”

  “We’re close—less than a klick,” he answered.

  “And how close are the Ouroboros?”

  “Still advancing through central city. Everything west of Gezira Is
land is overrun, and they’ve reached Tahrir Square. To the north, the main body has just crossed Ramses Street, and there’s a division coming down Salah Salem to do a pincer action from the east.”

  “Just great,” Cochrane thought darkly. “Can we still get out through the south?”

  “If they don’t encircle the whole city first.”

  “How soon before we’re in range of their Medusae?”

  “At the rate they’re closing in, I’m guessing twenty minutes, if we’re lucky.”

  If they failed to elude the dragnet closing in on them, the approaching Ouroboros vanguard would crack their psyches like eggs and absorb them into the hive mind, just as it had done to more than two-thirds of the human population of Earth. It had taken less than sixteen months.

  Cochrane increased the hovercraft’s speed as much as she dared.

  They turned a corner, and the maze around them exploded into light. They caught a fleeting glimpse of a dazzlingly bright, vaguely human shape as a deafening psychic banshee scream tore through them, overloading their senses with raw bursts of pure insanity.

  “Berserker!” That was all Cochrane managed to get out before the lightning storm raged through her neural pathways into the core of her brain. Her body’s muscles locked up, causing her to simultaneously slam on the braking thrusters and rev the accelerators. With a queasy lurch, the hovercraft flew into a spin, careening out of control. They hurtled forward, slamming directly toward the shrieking inferno of glaring light.

  Something struck them with a sickening crunch and another explosive burst of intense brightness. An instant later they clipped a section of wall and rebounded before finally coming to a juddering halt.

  “We’re not dead,” DeMetta said aloud, sounding surprised.

  “As if we’d be that lucky,” Cochrane replied, rubbing her neck. “What happened to the scream job?”

  DeMetta looked behind them. A pair of blood trails led to where the former human had been torn in two. For a change their shit luck had a silver lining—the hovercraft had crashed into and killed the thing that sent them out of control in the first place.

  Bad things happened when psychics overloaded and blew out their psionic power. In most cases they died horribly, brains turned into gray mush. In the case of berserkers, though, the manifestation of self-destruction was more spectacular.

  Berserkers were what remained of a flameout case whose brainstem remained just intact enough to become id-driven, walking psionic Chernobyls. Some psychically annihilated any mind they encountered, others demolished everything in their path with frenzied telekinetic blasts. It no longer mattered what faction they’d served—they were, to all extents and purposes, the psychic undead.

  “Berserker contact resolved,” DeMetta deadpanned.

  Cochrane nodded. “I’ll take it.” She turned her attention back to the controls. “Let’s move.”

  Their hovercraft’s turbines caterwauled more than before as Cochrane urged it back to life. Its battered skirt panels rattled as they sped through the maze of rubble. Crossing the wide thoroughfare of Nafak Al-Azhar into a sector of lesser devastation, they pulled up at their contact point—the domed remains of a grand Ottoman mosque.

  The ancient wooden front doors were scorched but still finely engraved with tessellated geometric designs. Cochrane stood by, covering DeMetta with her assault carbine while he beat on the door three times, then twice, then three times again, and finally sent the password to anyone within ten meters.

  “Khanda.”

  “Kirpan,” came the countersign a moment later.

  They pushed open the great doors and entered the sacred space. Chains of unlit brass lanterns hung suspended from the domed ceiling overhead. It was richly tiled with arabesques and ringed with calligraphic verses from the Quran. Below that were rows of broken stained-glass windows, some tall and long, others forming clusters of little portholes. Stray pale beams of moonlight lanced down through them, illuminating a smooth stone floor littered with fresh corpses.

  A tremendous firefight had occurred here. There were a few dead Transcendentist troopers in urban camo fatigues and spiked turbans, but the majority of the casualties were wearing civilian clothes—working smocks, facemasks, aprons. Judging from the stacks of crates, overturned tables, and a scattering of spindles, tools, and material, the mosque had been converted into a guerrilla weapons factory.

  “Over here,” a Japanese-accented voice called out. A pair of Transcendentist soldiers—one Asian, the other Slavic, their impressive beards and mustaches fastidiously groomed—had taken position behind the ablutions fountain. They rose from their cover and saluted the new arrivals with great formality. “Prefect Lance Corporal Anzai and Initiate Svoboda, Unified True Transcendent Forces, at your service.”

  DeMetta thought of how Peters would refer to them as “Trancin’ Dentists.” He carefully concealed that memory—the Transcendentists were notoriously humorless. It was strange to be allied after generations of warring with them, but even quasi-religious, deeply controlling cultists were better than a voracious hive mind.

  “Sergeant Cochrane and Esper Specialist DeMetta,” Cochrane said brusquely, all business. “What happened here? Rogue faction?”

  Anzai shook his head. “Unaffiliated. Criminals, in fact. Our intel tipped us off to an underground bombmaking operation here in the ruins.”

  “So close to the hive advance? That’s suicidal.” She shook her head. “Never mind, we don’t have time for this. We were told there were three of you. Where’s your prisoner?”

  Anzai turned and pointed behind him.

  Nearby lay a sealed metal capsule roughly the size of a sofa. A small bank of system monitors and controls was on one side, instructions and notations all in Cyrillic. It took Cochrane a moment to recognize what it was—a hibernation pod, just like long-range astronauts used in the old days, back when nation-states had space programs. She shot a glance at DeMetta.

  “Do you buy any of this shit?”

  “Hell no, and we sure as hell don’t have time to figure out what their game is, either.”

  She turned back to the Transcendentists, eyebrow raised. “Your prisoner is in there?”

  “Yes, ma’am. In suspended animation.”

  “Well? Open it up and get him out! Let’s go!”

  “Ma’am! We can’t open the capsule!” Anzai’s previously unruffled composure cracked.

  “Then he’s a no-go,” she replied. “We’re out of here. Now.” Her gaze was steely.

  “Surely we can lift it together between the four of us—”

  “Look, Corporal, I don’t know your TK ratings, but even if we can lift it to the street, there’s no way in hell we’ll be able to fit it on the hovercraft. Either crack it open now, or he’s staying here.”

  “We cannot leave this in the hands of the Ouroboros,” the corporal responded flatly. Cochrane cocked her head slightly and stared at the man through narrowed eyes.

  “Okay… just what the hell do you people have here?”

  “We have to get it out of the city!” Svoboda insisted.

  “What the fuck do you people have here?” Cochrane shouted.

  Taking a deep breath, Anzai replied, “We—we strongly suspect… it is a PreCog.”

  The two Gestaltist troopers stared at him.

  “A rogue PreCog?”

  “Precisely, ma’am.”

  Cochrane and DeMetta looked at each other. Precognitive operatives were among the rarest and potentially most powerful psionic talents. Letting one fall under Ouroboros control would be an irreparable strategic disaster. The ability to forecast the future was the only advantage the Alliance had left over the hive mind.

  She put a hand on DeMetta’s shoulder. “DeMetta, I need you to see what’s really inside there—and do it fast.”

  * * *

  DeMetta nodded. Unslinging his carbine, he carefully set it on the stone floor and knelt by the capsule, stretching a hand over its sleek surface. Closing
his eyes and probing its interior, he could just sense a glimmer of the mind inside, but any cerebral activity was buried in hibernation. He had to dig deeper.

  There.

  All at once he had a clear picture of the unconscious figure. It wasn’t what he was expecting.

  “There’s a girl inside,” he said over his shoulder. “She’s only fourteen.”

  “Can you hear me?” he asked her.

  “Yes…”

  A thought occurred to him—something he had been mulling over for three years.

  “Are you… Is your name Amber?”

  “No… My name is Sensemayá.”

  “I’m John,” he replied. “We need to get you out of here, Sensemayá.”

  “Wait… It is time…”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “They are coming…”

  The girl shocked DeMetta by projecting an image into his mind—a huge army pouring off the Salah Salem freeway and coming down the Nafak Al-Azhar. Not an army of soldiers. These were—or, had been—ordinary people. Their anonymous numbers filled the wide boulevard like a river, moving inexorably, their advance eerily silent, their blank eyes staring into the distance.

  Leading the somber procession were three sallow-skinned bald men dressed in tattered shrouds, their oversized violet eyes glowing brightly. They stood like statues with their arms at their sides, palms facing out as they glided down the road, feet levitating over the asphalt. The Alliance called them Medusae—the Ouroboros shock troopers—and they drew their power from the vast entourage that followed them.

  DeMetta came out of his trance, eyes snapping open as he leapt to his feet.

  “They’re here! Coming down Al-Azhar!”

  “Get her out of the capsule,” Cochrane barked. “Now!”

  But the capsule was already opening. With a smooth mechanical whirring, a crack of light appeared along the side of the sleek metal tube as the lid automatically lifted open. A slender young girl with long black hair was nestled within the soft foam, dressed in simple white cotton pajamas. Her features seemed South American, or perhaps Slavic-Eurasian.

  She opened her eyes.

  “It is time,” she sent.