PROLOGUE
###
Event 110107 from the Chronicles of Ideal Histories
Translated by Senior Historian Gordon Moyes
Classified Information
###
This is how it happens. Tyson March kisses his wife, leaves his home, and treks to the Tunnels. It’s early morning, the skydome has just ticked over to dawn mode. Street lights still illuminate the faces of workers trudging home from their night shifts. Later, they’ll testify that Tyson looked distracted and didn’t acknowledge their greetings as he passed by.
The train pulls up just as Tyson reaches the subway station. He steps onboard and rides to the Stables, end of the line. Already, a few time-travelling clients are queuing at the check-in gates. A grandfather with a pair of twin toddlers — one strapped to his front, the other to his back. A young couple dragging matching suitcases. The girl pauses mid-yawn, her eyes catching sight of Tyson. She nudges her boyfriend, and they both stare as Tyson steps through the marble pillars flanking the staff entrance. The security unit set into one of the stone pillars lights up.
Tyson March, Head Wrangler, 205722.
At the pillar glowing green, Tyson steps through into the atrium and makes his way to the back of the cavern, where the staff lifts take him down to sublevel two. The doors open to a burst of activity. A team of medics, white coats swishing, cut across his path. Two techies push a wide trolley stacked with processor units.
‘Transport Department got you doing an early jump, Tyson?’ One of the techies, who’ll remain nameless because he’s insignificant to history, smirks.
Tyson shakes his head. ‘Nah, making a jump for the Hall of Histories.’
The Techie’s smirk fades. ‘May the Fates be with you.’
Tyson lowers his eyes guiltily. He feels the Fates pulling him towards the wrong path, making him forget about his duty, his wife Beryl (scientist, wrangling talents 0), and his two daughters, Lenora and Adana (wrangling talents unverified). At the end of the corridor, Tyson reaches the prestigious Hall of Histories burrow. He scans his biotat ID. The bay doors glide open, revealing the cathedral-esque cavern. The main mechanics’ workshop takes up most of the ground floor. Tyson edges around the perimeter, careful to avoid the crane hefting a giant tank into the air.
‘Watch the pillar!’ shouts one of the engineers.
The crane driver eases on the brakes.
The mechanic shakes his head at the sight of the tank’s busted undercarriage. ‘Fates, the beast in stall four did a real number on this tank.’
‘Don’t blame the beast,’ says the engineer. ‘Blame the wrangler who was driving.’
Tyson slopes to the administration office.
Tammy 2.0, the AI assistant, glows luminously from the cylindrical airscreen. ‘State your name and jump coordinates.’
‘Head Wrangler March. Jumping to 1937 on the sixth day of the fifth month. Time 17:00. New Jersey. United States.’
‘State your business.’
‘Returning Historian Hiroko Ito and Historian Roy Freeman to their natural timelines.’
Tammy 2.0 scans his paperwork. ‘Coordinates land you into a registered hot zone. The probability of a time pirate abducting a time machine is 87%. The probability of time machine death or permanent injury is 75%. Recommendation to delay jump until further assessment.’
Tyson grins. ‘Override recommendations.’
‘Further warning that the Hall of Histories arranged for you to jump on a chronotardan by the name of Junto. The beast attempted to escape through time last night and had to be chemically subdued by the wrangler on duty. In its attempt, the beast caused considerable damage to the tank mounted to its back.’
‘So have the mechanics drill another tank to him and let’s get going.’
‘It has already been done.’ Tammy 2.0 swivels around an airscreen displaying a digital signature pad. Tyson holds one finger against the hologram. The fine whorls of his fingerprint ripple across the air, then disappear, sealing the contract.
Tyson heads down the ramp wrapping around the edge of the main workshop. At the bottom, his team waits for him in a pick-up truck. They consist of:
Junior Wrangler Tahiyat Singh (Navigational gene sequence match 85%. Wrangling talent 7.2)
Field hand Zara Alcott (Failed three navigational gene screenings. Wrangling talent 0).
Field hand Thomas Tan (Navigational gene sequence match 41%. Wrangling talent 3.1)
‘Happy anniversary, Pied Piper!’ Tahiyat shouts.
‘Twenty years and still jumping.’ Thomas beams. ‘What’s your secret?’
‘Have the best team watching your back.’ Tyson’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘Did you play the bowie pipe to the chrone, Zara?’
‘Sure did, Pied Piper. Don’t know if it helped, though. She’s been skittish all morning.’
Tyson floats up an airscreen from his ring and logs on to the RAMEN control panel.
Adopomine level 20, Melatonin level 89. Treonine level 300.
As Tahiyat leans in to check out the numbers, Tyson scrunches up the airscreen, conveniently preventing the other wrangler from offering a professional opinion. They drive along the tarmac that separates the Stalls from the main mechanic’s hangar. The burrow houses ten stalls. Inside each stall, a chronotardan beast squats like a hilly mound. As the truck drives past, the beasts strain against the time tethers trapping them in the current timeline.
From stall four, Junto the chronotardan rears up on its hind legs, scrapping its bulbous head across the ceiling before driving its full weight down onto the flagstones. The force of the vibrations causes the force field in front of the stall to shimmer. Unfazed, Tyson gets out of the truck.
‘Stay here,’ Tahiyat orders the two cowering field hands. He follows Tyson out onto the tarmac. ‘Boss, you want me to get the Stable Master on the line?’
‘Whatever for?’ Tyson seems amused.
Tahiyat hesitates. ‘Well, Junto’s not looking too good.’ He gestures to the chronotardan, which is now trying to camouflage against the wall; its rough grey-blue skin matches the limestone perfectly. Only the silver tank mounted like an armoured exoskeleton over its back gives it away. Also, the six hyala spots embedded in its hide. Instead of appearing like glass orbs with cloudy nebulas swirling inside, Junto’s spots are dull and tarry, clear signs of a sick chronotardan.
‘Pass me my wrangling gear,’ Tyson orders. He pulls leather braces over his Cubenskin suit. Tahiyat detaches two wrangler whips from the truck’s charging station, winds them into neat coils and tucks the whips snugly into leather pockets stitched to the back of Tyson’s braces.
Junto’s tree-stump legs splay out until it’s slumped on the ground. It rubs its bulbous head against the gravel, pushing up the folds of skin as it tries to remove the metal harness.
‘Are you sure you’ve been playing to it?’ Tyson is quick to accuse his loyal team.
Zara holds up a bowie pipe through the truck window. ‘I played until I was dizzy, Boss. Song for Welcome, Ada’s Lullaby, and the one for safe travel.’
Tyson swears. He reaches over his shoulders for his whips.
‘Shouldn’t we call the Stable Master or Traffic Control?’ Tahiyat interjects. ‘Double check we can still jump?’
‘And risk not being paid?’
‘If we explain the situation, it’ll be fine.’ Tahiyat switches on the speakeasy microphone in the collar of his Cubenskin suit. ‘Patch to Traffic Control.’
‘Get off the line!’ Tyson yanks Tahiyat towards him by his collar as a voice rings over the feed.
‘Hello? Officer Petrine Sanders from Traffic Control. I can confirm the time-space fabric is clear. Ready to jump when you are, Wrangler March.’
Tyson pushes Tahiyat away. ‘I’m ready to jump now. Open the force field.’
The translucent orange shield stretched across the arched stone entrance fades along with the faint buzz of static.
‘Tyson—’ Tahiyat starts to say.
‘Next time you override my decision will be your last,’ Tyson growls, and Tahiyat goes quiet.
Tyson steps into the stall; Junto’s gullet flares. It grunts a single warning, then stamps down onto the flagstone with its front paw, shattering the slab. Tyson reaches above his shoulders and unleashes the twin pair of wrangler whips. Electricity crackles as he swings the whips in widening loops before slicing through the air to land two blows across Junto’s chest.
The chrone roars; it rears up onto its hind legs. Before it can crush Tyson, the wrangler jinks sideways. With a quick flick of his wrists, he lands more blows onto the chrone’s front legs, zapping them until they slide uselessly onto the ground.
Tahiyat tries again to intervene. ‘Junto’s adopomine levels are dropping even lower. If you keep whipping, you’re going to permanently damage its chronotransmitter pathways.’
Tyson switches off the feed. Junto’s four feelers twitch uselessly as Tyson unhitches his herding hook from his belt. He aims the disc for the rail above the tank door, hits a switch and a metal claw attached to a cable shoots out. The claw zips through the air and catches neatly around the rail over the door. The cable retracts. Tyson sails three metres through the air to perch safely on the door of the tank before pressing the speakeasy feed. ‘And that’s how you get things done, folks.’
He eases open the door and steps inside the tank. From the central navigation unit, Rami 2 lights up. ‘Welcome aboard, Wrangler March. I’m awaiting your authorisation to open the wormhole gate.’
‘As the Fates will it.’ Tyson presses his biotat arm to the security panel. Stone grinds against stone as the back wall slides apart to reveal a wormhole tunnel.
Tyson steps inside the wrangler pit at the front of the tank. Junto’s crown protrudes from a hole in the middle of the pit. The folds of skin on its head are red and cracked. Its antennae shafts are stretched tight and are locked in place through four keyholes in the glass dome roof.
Tyson ignores the swollen, oozing cuticles and grabs the lower antennae.
The chrone lets out a low, drawn-out groan and lumbers into the wormhole.
‘Adopomine levels are almost too low to make a jump, Boss,’ Tahiyat calls out over the feed.
‘Sting him.’
‘Are you sure—?’
‘Just do as I say!’ Tyson’s eyes shudder. He tightens his grip around the antennae and attempts to meld with the chronodardan. With a feral roar, Junto tries to break the bond. It lurches into the wormhole, scraping the side of its stank against the wall. All four antennas have fully unfurled and lash across the roof, bringing down shards of stalactites.
‘Sting it again!’ Tyson snarls.
The second time Tahiyat administers the chemical stimulant, electricity sparks from the antennae endings, spread outwards over the glass dome.
‘Boss, you’re starting to glitch!’ Tahiyat panics.
The electric current pulses and dances, hums with energy, then rips through the wormhole, shattering the remaining stalactites clinging to the roof. The strip lighting along the ground flickers, then burns out altogether.
‘Boss—?’
By the time Traffic Control overrides the system to switch the time tether back on, both wrangler and chrone have disappeared. Tyson March fails to pick up the two Historians at the meeting point, nor does he or Junto appear anywhere-anytime on the universal timeline. The Stables opens an investigation that wastes even more resources and declares what the Hall of Histories has already foretold.
On the twenty-second day of the fourth month in the Year 344 A.T.T., Wrangler Tyson March turns rogue. An inquiry will reveal he works for the time pirate Stanley Walhberger, trafficking chronotardans across the universal timeline.
This is a historically accurate account of how Tyson March, Ruby Rum’s most celebrated wrangler, betrays the enlightened city of Ruby Rum.
Chapter One
Present place: The Enlightened District of Ruby Rum
Present time: April 22nd, Year 345 ATT (After Time Travel)
###
There are two types of people in the age of time travel. Type As are always on time. You know the sort, always tapping their feet or drumming their fingernails, annoying as hell. They colour-code their schedules, dividing their lives into hours, minutes, seconds. Then, there are the Type Bs. That’s me. Even if I wrote down a schedule, I couldn’t stick to it to save my life. I understand time exists, but it’s more like a fluid matrix, not a rigid clock face. If everyone were a Type B, society would be a lot less stressed, I think.
‘Ada! If you make me late for my first day of work, I’m going to dig up a jar full of digitardans, and drop their wiggling, spiky wormy bodies into your mouth while you sleep, you mouth breather.’ That’s my sister, Lonnie. She’s classic Type A.
I roll over in bed, groggy and disoriented.
‘Ada! Get. Up. Now.’
I can feel her angry eyeball glaring through the keyhole. ‘I’m up. I’m up.’ I stretch out my arms, accidentally sweeping off my memory rings charging on my bedside table. Two of the rings go flying across the manky carpet, and the third rolls somewhere under the bed. I hunker down on all fours and use a coat hanger to hook my ring from the dust bunnies. Luckily, Lonnie mistakes my movements as productive ‘getting up’ sounds, and stomps further down the hall, probably to harass Mum.
The tip of the coat hanger finally snags the cubenite band. I flick the ring towards me and somehow manage to float up a sideways airscreen projection of my 3 am streaming history. The Chronicle publication by the Hall of Histories that foretold how my Dad would turn rogue takes up most of the airspace. Then, there’s the endless social stream — people claiming to have spotted Dad, backed up by blurry photos of shifty silhouettes lost in the crowd. It’s never him, of course. There’s also the obituary notice that Silas the Stable Master officiated after the inter-dimensional manhunt that ended in Dad being killed by the police. Supposedly.
Not exactly what I want to see first thing in the morning. I crumple that particular screen, and the rest of my messy virtual life pops up. Unconfirmed appointments from my existential counsellor, too many field hand shifts blocked out on my calendar, and a bunch of overdue school assignments flash red.
I trash about twenty airscreens but when I try to dismiss my maths assignment reminder, the completed assignment pops open in mid-air. The pages are miraculously submission-ready. Lonnie must have lent a helping hand. My sister takes it as a personal affront that I’m failing school. I notice, though, she’s messed up a couple of easy questions, probably on purpose to make it look like I genuinely did my homework, because Lonnie’s too brainy to get those questions wrong accidentally.
I submit the assignment to the Brigadoon school portal, then throw on my field hand overalls. No matter how well I wash my work uniforms, the denim always carries the lingering funk of curdled milk. I inhale deeply. Hhmm… milk-fanged beetle chrone feed.
I can’t find my hairbrush, but that doesn’t matter because my hair is black, fine, and dead-straight. It would look very pretty if I took care of it like Lonnie, but all I can do is pull it back into a ponytail because it’s slippery and smooth and impossible to style. For special occasions, I wrap around a scrunchie and tell everyone that the nineteen-eighties are totally my jam. People are less likely to judge your poor fashion choices if you make out like it’s for historical immersion. Today is not a special occasion, though. I’m just pulling an early morning field hand shift at the Stables before going to school, so a boring scrunchie-free ponytail will do.
I try out a smile in the mirror as I’m doing my hair. I read somewhere you can fake-laugh your way to happiness; it’s all to do with tricking your brain into releasing happy chemicals. I stretch my cheeks and heave my chest. My fake laugh comes out shonky and weird. It’s not going to fool anyone, least of all, myself.
Down in the kitchen, Lonnie is viciously spreading kaya jam onto pieces of toast. She’s wearing her game face, like she’s already training for her first day being a waitress at the Stable’s Transit Cafe. She’s done something with makeup to look way older than she is. Her eyes are smoky, her heart-shaped face is slimmer, and her glossy black hair is swept off her face and tucked in an elegant low bun at the nape of her neck.
She looks twenty or twenty-one, a perfect waitress — almost. The only thing amiss is her obvious limp as she sets a coffee mug down on the cramped dining table in front of Mum. She has to shift several of Mum’s dim-light glass terrariums out of the way to put down the coffee mug.
Mum doesn’t look up. Her hands are crammed inside a glass jar, trying to transplant a genetically engineered sapling.
I grab our plates of toast and the remaining coffee from the kitchen and carry them over to the table. Lonnie stamps her prosthetic foot under the table as she drinks. There’s a slight delay before the prosthetic calf muscle flexes.
‘Did you update the module?’ I ask in a low voice.
‘What?’ Lonnie snaps.
‘Your foot’s lagging.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Something wrong with your prosthetic?’ Mum pinches the sapling between thumb and forefinger and moves it across to a terrarium dusting dirt across the table top.
‘No.’ Lonnie pushes her chair back. ‘We’re going to work now, then we’ll have school and we’ll be back by two.’
‘ ’kay. Have a good day.’ Mum doesn’t look up.
I linger in the doorway, buying Mum some time to remember that it’s Lonnie’s first day at work, or to remind me to come straight home and do my homework instead of spelunking in the Wild West. Anything to show she cared about our welfare.
Nothing. Mum doesn’t have a lot to say these days. None of us does. We used to trip over each other talking until Dad brought home an old Bowie pipe from the Stable. Whoever held the pipe held the floor, and the rest of us had to shut up and listen. Now, the old Bowie pipe is gathering dust under Mum’s bed. I trail Lonnie out the door.
It’s still dark at six in the morning. Something must be wrong with skydome. Again.
After six months living in the Troglands, we’re so used to the skydome blinking out, neither Lonnie nor I is surprised. We simply float a halo light from our memory rings and set off for the Tunnels.
We didn’t always live in the Troglands.
Ruby Rum is a subterranean city, ringed by desert mountains in the middle of the country the commoners call Australia. The city is a sprawling ant’s nest of interconnected underground caverns. There’s the bottom layer where the Troglanders live. There’s the exclusive Stellatarni up on the surface. The only people who boast that postcode are those Chosen to be time travelers.
When my Dad was a hotshot wrangler, we lived Downtown, between the Troglands and the Stellatarni; It’s still underground but so swish, most of the time, I wouldn’t notice we were underground. Downtown is one mammoth cavernous cell. Polished granite, marble, or sandstone walls meet oasis rooftops sprouting smart, dim-light gardens. State-of-the-art ventilation ducts pump fresh air around the clock, and AI skydomes mimic any hour of the day.
We lost a lot of our money to legal costs when Dad disappeared. Then, Mum lost her job — she was the lead scientist at Prosper-Gro. Without Mum working, we couldn’t afford the Downtown place, so we had to move into a government-allocated housing in the Troglands.
There aren’t marbled corridors here, only winding, dusty tunnels carved straight out of tuff. Cave-ins are common. On our way to the train station, we pass at least three Circa council trucks, probably trying to fix the skydome or else patching up the old ventilation ducts with gaffer tape.
Suddenly, Lonnie’s foot slips. I grab her arm before she falls.
‘For Fate’s sake!’ She kneels to try to reseat the prosthetic around her knee. ‘I do not need this on my first day of work.’
I crouch down to help. ‘It’s a physical contact issue. You’ve outgrown the prosthetic.’
‘It’s not a physical contact issue. It’s the monsoon rain. My joints always swell around this time of the year, and that makes the prosthetic slip—Ow-Get off me! You’re so clumsy!’ She slaps my hand away.
It doesn’t hurt or anything, but still, she slapped me.
Anger, acid-sharp, flares. I ball my fists and walk away.
Lonnie doesn’t call out for help. I imagine her slowly shuffling through the dark, one hand on the wall, the other held out for balance. It’s her fault if she falls over and breaks her neck.
Except Mum won’t see it that way. She’ll blame me for leaving her. And the last thing my family needs is another tragedy. Grudgingly, I wait near a doorway leading to a half-hidden level of shops.
The moment she catches up to me, the skydome switches on. Just like that, night becomes day. I can see perfectly the scowl on Lonnie’s face. ‘I did your maths homework for you,’ she reminds me.
Roughly, I wrap one arm around her waist like a crutch. ‘You messed up questions two and three.’
‘I didn’t want Mrs Lynch to get suspicious. If you care so much, fix it yourself.’
‘Can’t. I don’t know if I’m going to make it to class. Tahiyat scheduled me to help on a mount in the Epoch burrow today.’
‘Your shift ends at nine,’ Lonnie points out. ‘Anyway, aren’t you meant to be seeing Dr Kinney at lunchtime?’
Oh yeah. Monday is my regular session with the school psychologist. I’m forced to go because it’s in Dad’s work contract with the Stable that, in the event of his death, his family can make a one-time travel trip into the past to see him if we’re physically and mentally well. Mum threatened to leave me behind unless I underwent counselling. Which is annoying because Mum can’t even get out of her pyjamas some days, and Lonnie clearly has anger management issues, yet I’m the one who needs to go to therapy. I want to see Dad so badly, I don’t argue. In less than a week, Mum, Lonnie, and I will meet with Silas, the Stable Master, to organise the Farewell jump. Mum filled out all the paperwork. My stomach feels jittery every time I think about seeing Dad.
Not that Dad will know that we’ve seen him. Time-travel law dictates that we can’t talk or interact with him in any way. It’ll still be totally worth it. Dad could fix anything. He’ll bring back Mum’s energy and soothe the anger from Lonnie’s voice. One visit will throw off that heavy feeling that makes it so hard for me just to get through the day sometimes.
At the end of the tunnel, we approach a series of escalators that lead up to the Downtown station. The boundary between the Troglands and Downtown always jars me. One minute, we’re inside the cramped T2 tunnel filled with graffiti, usually rude pictures of the Three Fated Sisters being impaled on their own spindle, measuring stick, and scissors, the next we’re ascending a ridiculously long escalator into a cathedral-sized chamber. Queue a choir of angels. Fingers of light stream down between fluffy cloud,s wafting across the skydome. I catch a whiff of pine leaves infused in the air. Every stone surface has been buffed until it shines.
The 5-15 train is just pulling up at the station. Lonnie takes the last remaining seat in the carriage. She practices fake-smiling and checking out her reflection in the subway window.
‘Stop overthinking,’ I say.
‘Easy for you to say. You don’t think at all.’ She manages to say without breaking her grin.
When we reach the Stables, we push through the gaggle of tourists taking group selfies against the wall of geode crystal and join the queue at the staff entrance. It’s off to the side and you’re not bathed in the teal light filtering through the stained glass domed roof, but it’s way shorter than the regular line.
Despite the fact that Lonnie hasn’t been here since Dad was presented with a Guardian of Ruby Rum Award when she was twelve, she doesn’t even glance at the gem-crusted geode, the slivers of coloured glass twinkling down from the domed roof. I feel a little annoyed that she’s not … I don’t know… more impressed? Entering the Stable Atrium always makes me feel a sense of awe bordering on reverence. She’s showing more interest in the promos playing on the airscreens along the main hall.
— Dream of visiting the past but worried about riding a chronotardan? Our wranglers will set your mind at ease. Message Time Tours to jump anytime, anywhere!
—Feeling lost? Write a letter to your past self and let us handle the delivery! We post express using council-approved chronotardans. Change your future NOW!
— Is your True Love stuck in another timeline? Contact Everlasting, the first and only time-travelling dating agency!
Okay, so time travel is not all about political manipulations, assassinations, and clandestine negotiations to create the ideal version of events for the Hall of Histories. Most of the time, it’s private companies running multi-million dollar enterprises. More capitalist than noble, though now that I think about it, I don’t know how noble the Hall of Histories is after what they wrote about Dad.
Outside the Transit Cafe, there’s a waitress, a few years older than us with blue hair and a nose stud, setting up some outside tables. Her eyes skate over Lonnie. She offers a wary smile. ‘You the new girl? The Pied Piper’s daughter, right?’
‘Lenora March, but call me Lonnie.’ She clamps her hands onto the other side of the heavy table and helps drag it into place. Her rehearsed smile pays off.
‘Thanks.’ The waitress say,s sounding a whole heap friendlier.
I smother the urge to take the poor girl aside and warn her that this is what my sister does. Shower you with affection, then bite your hand.
All I say is, ‘Good luck,’ as if I’m talking to Lonnie, but really, I’m talking to the waitress.
Chapter Two
According to my schedule, I’m helping to clean a chronotardan in the EPOCH burrow on sublevel two. I’ve been a field hand since I was twelve years old and have never set foot on this level before. As soon as I step off the lift, minty-fresh oxygen streams out of the air vents and hits me in the face. Nick, the virtual assistant floating on the airscreen next to the wall panel, helpfully informs me I’ve been rejuvenated by thirty minutes.
‘Thank you,’ I say politely.
‘Would you like another shot?’ he asks.
‘Sure.’ Honestly, I could have stayed all day breathing in super-saturated oxygen. It beats drinking coffee. And I’m a type B, remember? I’m no good at keeping a schedule, but just then, the hatch doors to the burrow closest to my end of the corridor slide open. Out step three Historians wearing matching cloak-and-dagger robes. I can’t make out much of their faces beneath their cowl hoods, but one of them has pale, almost translucent skin stretched over a weak jaw that is barely disguised by a salt and pepper goatee. He’s also a head shorter than the other two.
My gut churns. That’s Gordon Moyes. I saw him once giving a sermon at the Hall of Histories, plus I’ve studied enough photos of him to recognise him anywhere. He interpreted the section in the Holy Chronicles that revealed my Dad would turn rogue, then announced at a People’s Day sermon a week after my Dad and Junto disappeared, which basically turned the Stable’s rescue efforts into a manhunt. No one disputes the Chronicles. They’re the true history of events witnessed and written down by the Zerzurans, the Guardians of the Timeline.
Whatever is written in the Chronicles has to be the truth.
Maybe.
I don’t know anymore.
I step into the middle of the corridor, point an accusing finger at Historian Moyes, and scream, ‘You’re a liar!’
At least, that’s what I picture myself doing in my head.
The three Historians draw level.
Do it.
Hurl accusations.
Spit on them!
I shrink back against the air vent. They’re walking past, I have one last chance to speak up. The cold air blasting from the vents gives me goosebumps.
The lift doors open, the Historians disappear inside. They’re gone.
I lash out and kick the glossy white paneled wall, leaving a boot mark.
What a chicken shit I am. It doesn’t help that I’m surrounded by the burrow for the Hall of Histories, the Department of Transport, and the Prefecture Unit. Fates, all the powerful government organisations are clustered on this level. I’m completely out of my depth. My Dad was employed by the Stables, but his main time-travelling client was the Hall of Histories. I grew up worshipping them (I hate that I still kinda do, even after their shitty reveal of my Dad’s destiny).
Finally, I reach the EPOCH burrow. There’s a golden sundial with text stamped in the middle of the cubenite bay doors. Welcome to the Eleanor Pryor Obscure College of Chronology. History is written by our time travelers.
I rake back my jersey sleeve and run my biotat, a desert lily inside a sand timer — it’s the same tattoo my Dad and my granddad had when they worked here —across the identifying groove built into the sundial.
There’s a tingling sensation, then my biostats flicker briefly over the display unit.
Adana March, Senior field hand.
