Despite the engineers’ best efforts, time drones have a loud buzz. So when Hanover’s time drone popped in early one sunny Cretaceous morning, it was noticed immediately.
Not by the dinosaurs the drone’s owners sought, who were not in the area, nor the flies swarming a chunk of rotting fruit on a tree branch
“Blitzkrieg!” the parrot screeches, hopping from perch to perch inside the brass cage. “Blitzkrieg! Blitzkrieg!”
“If that parrot continues its intolerable squawking,” I say through clenched teeth, “I shall not be responsible for my actions.”
“Cheer up, Miss O’Reilly.” My fellow time travel agent chuckles. “Hernandez must like you a lot to send
Her target would arrive any minute.
Tatum Albright emerged from the portal dressed in the usual style of 1922—a travel suit comprised of a gray skirt, blouse, and coat—blending in with the bustling Paris travelers as Gare de Lyon’s clock tower chimed the top of the hour.
The train station hummed
If you’ve never had the misfortune of being tasked with finding a needle in a haystack, allow me to summarize the experience for you in four words: I’d rather eat dirt.
Regrettably, I don’t have that option.
Case 43b has been my strangest yet. The file includes a black-and-white photograph of a
“I’m Luke Skywalker, and I’m here to rescue you!”
I stride through the doors of my time machine, my compact, titanium blaster swinging jauntily from my hand.
Beneath her white lace cap, the young woman’s eyes widen. She scrambles to her feet. The iron chains clamped to her wrists rattle loudly.
“For the last time, Mr. Hernandez,” I enunciate, poking savage holes in my lime-green blotter with my peacock pen, “you cannot land in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517.”
“Killjoy,” mutters the time traveler on the other end of the phone. “All I wanted to do was have a look around.”
A column of pure white light shone down on Phineas T. Phoenix, illuminating the assembly of witnesses and lawyers, all of whom had come to see him pay for his crimes.
A second beam of light appeared. The prosecutor entered the view of the court, lowering the hood of his white robe, revealing his pale, bald head. He stared at the criminal, savoring the moment.
Light burst across the room, exploding in a shower of sparks.
Chaimon lowered his pen and glanced up from the treaty spread across his desk. Ah, he’s back.
When the sparks faded, a familiar figure materialized. Dressed in a black coat and matching fedora, his outfit looked out of place in the castle’s study where Chaimon’s sword collection covered the stone walls. Then again, a time traveler couldn’t help obscurity.
The salty smell of the harbor in Baltimore hit my nose and I know exactly where and when I am.
I trip over my own feet, still woozy from the jump, and catch myself on a newspaper stand. To my great and pleasant surprise, my hip doesn’t ache after nearly slamming into the sidewalk.
Hank wandered about the empty house, bored out of his mind, from the kitchen with a fridge full of meals, to the TV showing only reruns, to the shelf of books he’d read a dozen times, then all over again. He’d expected having his parents away for five weeks would give him a sense of ecstatic freedom.
Read it now
“Five minutes, King.”
I let out an irritable sigh at the warning transmitted into my head. “Copy.” I’ve only just arrived, and I’m already running out of time.
Where did he put it?
The serum has to be here. We’ve spent years tracking it across time and space and through the fibers of alternate dimensions.
“One more time. Please, Dude.”
“You’ve already tried ninety-nine times, John!”
“No sweat, Dude. One hundredth time’s the bomb.” John paced in the only open area the lab equipment left them.
“I don’t know. Dr. Perrault’s due back in the lab soon.”
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