Chills ran down Mills’ spine. Then something touched her shoulder. She started to jerk away, before realizing it was the hipster. “It’s me.” He raised his voice to a soft whisper so the others could hear him. “Everyone, back up. Slowly, quietly. Keep your eyes on that… thing. And whatever you do, don’t turn your back.”
Swallowing, Mills stared at Skolnick. “What about her?”
The saber roared again. Neck muscles wrinkling, it stabbed its head at Skolnick. Its long teeth sank into the woman’s belly. Blood exploded outward, coloring the damp leaves a dark crimson. Multiple organs slid to the ground, slipping and skittering across the mud-drenched needles.
Mills gasped, her hand flying to her mouth to cut it off. Not that it mattered. The saber knew about her. Knew about all of them.
Wordlessly, she and the others followed the hipster on a slow, cautious retreat. The saber watched them for a minute or two. Then it dipped its jaws to Skolnick’s corpse.
Blutchk. Spluuch. Pluuchk.
Mills fought back the urge to vomit. Her brain whirred and clanked like well-oiled machinery as she forced herself to concentrate on the future, on survival. She lacked food and water, shelter and weapons. Even worse, she lacked the skills to produce any of those things.
If she hoped to survive, she needed to contact the outside world, to get help. But how? Her satphone had failed and died. And the presence of a saber-toothed tiger, long extinct, indicated they were in some remote region, far removed from civilization. An area yet to be explored by modern man.
In short, she had no resources, no skills. No means of communication and not even a prayer of anyone stumbling upon her. She might last another hour, another day, another week. But that didn’t change the horrible truth that had begun to permeate her brain.
Death was coming for her.
It was just a question of when.
Chapter 12
Father Time, Morgan thought, is one vengeful bastard. Of course, that didn’t change her culpability. After all, she and her fellow scientists had challenged the mythical timekeeper on his own turf, not the other way around. So, they bore at least some responsibility for all the evil that had been subsequently released into the world. And like it or not, a reckoning was coming.
It was just a matter of time.
Over twelve hours had passed since the initial uprising. Twelve hours since she and her allies had raided the Warehouse, seized the arsenal, and forced most of the opposition into submission. And yet, she had surprisingly little to show for it. Just rooms full of people — agitated dignitaries, grim-faced guards, and her increasingly nervous allies — as well as a hatch that refused to open. Unfortunately, full control of the station — and more importantly its communication systems — had eluded her.
Head down, she paced back and forth across the brightly lit room. Hoping against hope, she waited for shouts from Codd and Issova. Excited shouts, shouts of success. But all she heard was the continuous, quiet pecking of fingers on keys.
A burning sensation reappeared in her right waist. Breaking off her pattern, she walked to the room’s southeastern corner and slipped into the hidden dead space between a pair of filing cabinets.
The burning sensation morphed into searing pain. Gripping her waist, Morgan inhaled a sharp breath. Keep it together, Amanda, she thought. You’ve got to keep it together.
Shrugging off her tattered lab coat, she let it drop to the floor. Then she pulled up her crimson stretchy tee and peered at her waist. Her bandages, a rush job by Dr. Adnan, were soaked through with blood.
Tentatively, she gripped a bandage and peeled it back, exposing a deep, jagged gash. She’d received it during the uprising, a not-so-generous gift from one of Hatcher’s now-subdued guards.
Gently, she probed the wound, right where the knife had first slit her skin. Her head spun in circles and she nearly passed out from the pain.
She pulled the bandage back over the wound and picked up the lab coat. Folded it into a wad and held it tight against her waist.
Morgan leaned against one of the cabinets. It felt refrigerator-cool and its smooth surface soothed her nerves. Staring off into space, she thought about the long, torturous path that had brought her to this place, this time.
It had all started with Tony’s disappearance in Sector 84, an isolated woodland area within the Vallerio Forest. His apparent demise destroyed her, sending her into a tailspin of misery and despair. After several days of moping and grieving, anger erupted within her. She’d entered the Barracks and made her way to Tony’s area. Then she’d turned destructive, throwing things, breaking things. That was when she discovered it.
The package.
While flinging books to the floor, she’d heard a mysterious clunk. Pausing for a moment, she saw an old leather-bound copy of the Jules Verne classic, Journey to the Center of the Earth. She’d picked it up and cracked it open. Inside, she’d discovered a hollowed-out interior, filled with a thick brown envelope.
With great trepidation, she’d opened the envelope. Inside, she discovered a treasure trove of papers. All night, she’d sat on her brother’s bed, reading his scrawls about 48A. First with skepticism. Then with curiosity.
And finally, with fear.
The next day, she’d returned to work, ignoring the pleas of others to take more time, to properly mourn her brother. She began viewing Hatcher’s video feeds — the ones for the far corners of Sector 48—in secret. That day, she adopted his quest to unearth the truth.
Day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month, Morgan studied those feeds, confirming the existence of 48A. Eventually, she recruited Codd and Issova to her cause and they discovered the sector’s hidden feeds. After that, the truth became impossible to ignore. She, along with the other researchers, had been recruited to Hatcher Station on an epic quest to push back the boundaries of time. But someone had corrupted their work. Twisted it, changed it. Turned it into something unholy.
One by one, she’d brought scientists, technicians, and rangers into the fold. They scoffed at first but that quickly changed as she showed them indisputable evidence of wrongdoing.
A few people had wanted to go public with the information. But Morgan convinced them otherwise. Hatcher’s guards controlled the Lab and with it, the building’s external communications equipment. Since their loyalties lay with the Foundation, she knew they’d never let the truth out into the open.
Leaving Hatcher was a difficult, but not impossible task. However, taking evidence from the premises was a different story. Guards subjected exiting employees to multiple searches, relieving them of any and all items prior to departure. So, the odds of escaping with even a shred of evidence were nonexistent. And thanks to the gravity of the situation, Morgan suspected anyone caught trying to do so would wind up dead.
So, she offered an alternative plan. On June 18, Hatcher was scheduled to host a group of high-powered dignitaries. During the dinner, she and the others would stage a bloodless uprising. They’d seize the arsenal, conquer Hatcher, and use the Lab’s communications equipment to release their evidence to the proper authorities as well as to the media.
Unfortunately, her plan had gone off the rails. The bloodless uprising quickly turned into a protracted gunfight. During the battle, one of the guards had managed to alert the Lab. The Lab’s guards had proceeded to shut the hatch, effectively sealing off the communications equipment. They’d probably contacted the Vallerio Foundation as well and Morgan knew fresh forces couldn’t be far off.