Chapter 01

  Allosaurus

  I could see it through the sight on my launcher: rough brown scales, strong muscular limbs ending in sharp dirty claws, a crested head colored red to give the illusion of stained blood, large teeth actually stained with blood, and a jaw with the strength to collapse a shipping crate. I clocked it at about 40 feet long. It was one of the largest Allosauruses I had ever encountered. Its size wasn’t my main concern, though. It was the trails of white and bright pinks and greens that emanated from between its scales, flashing in the dull evening sunlight. Most obvious were the eyes, white and lifeless with the slit of a pale pink pupil not dissimilar in color to what was loaded in my gun.

  My finger grazed the trigger, waiting to take my shot at the creature standing in the forest clearing. My tongue rolled out of my mouth. A habit of focus I could never happen to shake from my youth. It had to be soon that I would get the signal. Too long, and the creature would either notice us or leave my shot line. I counted down from three in my head, eager with anticipation. 3…2…-. The static of the radio in my ear pitched up as the order was called.

  “FIRE!” It rang.

  My adrenaline spiked as my finger slammed against the trigger. Flying out of the chamber was one of the white dodecahedrons, the size of a baseball. It was headed straight for the ugly slit of the Allosaurus’s eye. In an explosion of whites, pastel greens, and pinks, the hedron exploded against its face.

  The creature didn’t flinch. It stiffened up, and all signs of life ceased to exist. The freeze hedron had been successful, and now it was just a matter of finishing it.

  I reloaded my gun and held my aim at the creature.

  Jumping from the woods, I could see the buzzed, mahogany-skinned head and muscular body of our commander, Commander Green. He held a long spear in his hand with the shaved corner of a white hedron accented with lavender and red acting as the blade. He slid under the dinosaur's chest, pointing his weapon up at its heart. Before he could stab and annihilate the creature, it zapped out of existence, leaving behind a pattern of white trails.

  I craned my head around, expecting it to reappear at any moment, but kept my finger firmly on the trigger.

  Commander Green rolled to the side as the jaws of the Allosaurus rematerialized and came snapping just over him. They chomped down upon the pile of leaves under him.

  Commander Green spun and re-aimed the spear at its head, but within a second the dinosaur had disappeared and reappeared beside him, smacking him over with the side of its face.

  “Commander!” I heard someone yell over the radio.

  From the woods I heard another shot ring. The creature evaded the fast-traveling freeze bomb, shifting in space to the right. It exploded on a tree next to me. Just far enough away to where I wouldn’t feel its effects.

  I recomposed myself and pointed the launcher back at the creature. My heart was pumping fast, but I was steady. I wasn’t going to let my crew die today. If I was correct, the dinosaur would counterattack whoever shot off the hedron. I aimed my gun in that general direction.

  The creature lurched over to that area, about ready to chomp.

  I shot off my weapon. The dodecahedron flew, zipping back and forth through the air as it found its target.

  Blam! It hit the Allosaurus on its lower back. Once again the creature was frozen in time.

  Another shot echoed from the woods to the left. A hedron much like the one in my gun, but this one had a sharper red and orange color in its trails. It hit the Allosaurus in the side of its wretched face. This bomb didn’t explode outward. Instead, it sucked inward, pulling apart chunks of the frozen dinosaur and deleting them from existence.

  As it finished, so did the freeze, and the Allosaurus roared in pain, shaking its head in hopes to remove its ailments. Blood rolled down its cheek. For a moment its eyes became their natural pasty yellow; however, it didn’t last long as the white color recaptured it with its reaching pastel veins.

  One more shot in the same spot would surely kill the creature. The glitch gun was fired again. Another orange and red dodecahedron rolled out through the sky, headed for the Allosaurus’s face. One of two things would happen now: either the hedron would kill the creature or the creature would notice it and find a way to avoid it.

  It was an inherent flaw of the glitch hedron. Its more direct threat to the creature alerted something in the infected subconscious, making it more likely to be evaded.

  The Allosaurus dashed forward and clipped through the ammo, running full speed at its attacker.

  “Hannah, get down!” I yelled over the radio. I quickly tried to find ammo in the pouch attached to my belt. I pulled one out, quickly trying to pop it into the launcher. My finger slipped, and the dodecahedron dropped on the ground next to me, letting out a glitchy resonance.

  I snatched it back up and forced it into the open ammo hatch. I locked it up, hearing the crack of the mechanism. One of the white hedrons was pushed into the chamber of the weapon. I aimed it at the charging creature and let the shot ring.

  Before the shot could reach its target, I saw the Allosaurus stumble forward.

  My hedron arched over its back and hit a nearby tree, freezing its branches from blowing in the wind.

  The Allosaurus crumpled to the ground with a resounding smack.

  I looked down at the open clearing to see Commander Green standing beside the creature with a glowing spear dripping in dinosaur blood. He wiped his face clean of some of the fluid that had fallen over him. I saw him reach for his radio.

  “Is everyone ok?” he asked.

  “Never felt more alive,” I heard Hannah say. Her faint Korean accent was still audible through the static.

  “Thank God,” Commander Green said. “Not an easy one today.”

  Folding back the nozzle on my gun, I secured the launcher in its sling around my back. I tightened it, and from the rock I had positioned myself on, I jumped down on a patch of leaves about four feet beneath me.

  Everyone else also closed in on Commander Green. I saw him point to each of us with his stained white gloves, whispering our names under his breath to ensure we still had the right headcount.

  “...and Cade,” he finished, pointing to me. “That makes five of us.”

  He pulled out a case from the bag on his back and brought it to the ground. He clicked off the latch. Inside the case was a drill and several syringes. They were ordered in ascending size with the largest to the right. That’s the one he took out along with the drill. He peeled the plastic back from the needle and approached the dinosaur's head.

  The animal gave off a final huff as Commander Green stepped up onto its bottom lip. He held the drill against the rough, leathery skin of the creature and held down the button. The device whirred and twirled down through the animal's cranium. Once it was sufficiently deep to reach the brain cavity, Commander Green took out the syringe and stuck the long needle down the hole oozing with sparkling pink blood. As he pulled back the plunger, it filled with a sappy white liquid. It was the rot of a time-infected brain.

  Commander Green removed the needle from the dinosaur’s head after the syringe had been filled. He flicked off a droplet sitting at the end of the needle. The white gunk fizzled on the ground, soaking into the leaves.

  “Benjamin, hand me another,” he ordered. The young brown-skinned boy, about 19 in age, had been staring at the flashy liquid. He broke out of his trance and knelt down to the syringe case. He handed him another large syringe, and Green repeated the process.

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  The syringe was filled with the same liquid, though now the color had become more fleshy with contamination of red blood. “Should still be viable.”

  No one was quite sure what was done with the liquid collected from the animals’ brains. All anyone knew was that it was a necessary checklist item for Time Officers. Returning from a mission without any would bode unsatisfactory marks. I had always wondered why the main mission wasn’t solely containment and elimination of the different fractures, but I supposed the higher-ups and scientists of Pentacore, our parent company, had an important use for the substance.

  Commander Green locked away the two syringes in a different, smaller case. It hissed once sealed, the coolant preserving the substances.

  We turned away from the clearing towards a previously forged path through the forest. It led back to where our camp was hidden: within the ruins of a local main street. I read a fallen billboard beside me:

  Summergreen Virginia Homeowners Insurance: So you're ready next time disaster strikes.

  I chuckled to myself. Ironic, didn’t cover it.

  In front of us was a stacked line of cars we had arranged prior, snuggled between two dilapidated buildings. A coniferous tree grew through the two-story building to the left, pushing up into the upper canopy of the prehistoric forest. It used to be a small town. Maybe not vibrant, but on a Friday night there would be people in the streets walking to get into the local bars.

  Now though it was abandoned, whether by choice or not. I looked down at a cracked skull on the ground. There was a hole in the top where some creature had tried to dig through the cranium. I wonder what he was doing before the Fracture had started.

  Commander Green opened the door to Randy’s, which I could read in faint yellow letters on the dirty glass of the building. He ushered us inside, checking behind us a few times to make sure we were alone.

  My foot kicked a fallen rusted bell, which clattered across the floor. I looked over at the bar in the back of the restaurant. Shards of glass from old bottles covered both the ground and counter. The shelves of alcohol had all but fallen. Ferns grew in behind them, peeking out, trying to grab the sunlight from the small hole in the roof where a rafter had collapsed. I could still see some old liquid, though, sitting, glaring at me in the face.

  I looked up to my crew, each in their white uniforms. Verona was in front of me, just a couple inches under my height. Her messy ginger bun bounced with each step. Her eyes were on the alcohol, already making plans for the night ahead. At 28 she was the closest in age to me, and we had formed a bond over the last couple of years, usually in places like this.

  In the lead, Hannah crawled through a broken window, fitting with ease due to her small build. Her feet touched down into our small camp clearing where our tents were set up around a central pile of logs.

  “Gather round,” Commander Green said, walking up to the fire pit.

  We all made a circle around the unlit fire. The commander took out a cigarette from his pocket and a lighter from his other. He bit on the end and lit the tip, blowing out a gust of tobacco-scented smoke.

  “Good work today,” he said. He looked at each of us. “But those were some close calls. That time mute was clearly more aggressive and powerful. It must’ve come from near the bulb.”

  “You haven’t picked it up yet though?” I questioned, pointing to the Geiger counter-like object attached to his belt.

  “We have a general direction now, but with the abundance of time mutes, it throws off my readings,” he replied.

  “When do you think we’ll reach it?” I heard another voice chime in. I looked over to him. It was Benjamin.

  “Tomorrow, the next day, next week,” Commander Green said. “Don’t focus on the when. We’ll get there when we get there.”

  Benjamin stepped back, embarrassed for asking. “Sorry, commander.”

  This was Benjamin’s first official mission. While his curiosity got on everyone's nerves, it wasn’t anything I could blame him for. I was just as curious my first year and got a scolding regularly from my commander then. Commander Green had a much more even temper. It was rare I saw him get angry, though he was often annoyed. I would've considered Benjamin lucky if he didn’t get stuck on our Jurassic mission. Jurassic fractures were known for their difficulty and lower success rate of mission groups.

  “Anything else?” Hannah asked, playing with a rock she had found below her.

  “I suppose not,” Commander Green responded, rubbing his forehead. He took another deep inhale of his cigarette. “Rest up, and Benjamin, you're on meal duty,” he said.

  “Yes, commander,” Benjamin replied, trying to hide his sigh.

  Commander Green just shook his head and walked over to the opposite side of camp, finding a seat where he could watch outside our perimeter through a car window.

  Hannah was the second to leave the circle, heading straight for her tent. She was the least sociable of anyone here. The moment all the information had been shared, she was off to hide in her tent and occupy herself with solo hobbies. None of us really minded it. I would consider her the most reliable of the group. Even Commander Green let her get away with more than she was supposed to, knowing she always had our backs when it mattered the most. It’s why she was in charge of the glitch hedrons.

  Verona tapped me on the shoulder discreetly as she started to walk over to the bar we had entered through. I nodded to her, inferring I would join her in a minute. She nodded back and disappeared through the open window. I looked over to Benjamin beside me. His head was held down. His short, dark hair dipped down over the tawny skin of his forehead.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked Benjamin.

  “Fine,” he replied. “Alive.”

  I knuckled him in the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”

  He gave a short smile.

  “You’re welcome to join us in the bar after your duties,” I said.

  Benjamin looked up through the windows to see Verona sitting up in one of the seats. “That’s alright.”

  I took Benjamin to be the shyer type and Verona to be the more intimidating type. Two people, it was hard to get to interact together even after spending weeks together in a forest of prehistoric predators. I knelt down beside him.

  “Your weapon doesn't bite, you know,” I finally whispered so as not to embarrass him. “Don’t tense up out there. That’s how we die.” Being the only person he seemed to feel comfortable around, I felt like it was my responsibility to guide him on the stuff the commander may have come short on correcting.

  “How’d you know?” Benjamin asked, looking up to me.

  “I’ve been there before,” I replied with a short sigh. I patted him on the shoulder and stood up straight.

  “I want my meat medium rare,” I said. “No more, no less.”

  Benjamin gave a short scoff. “Ok.” He knew those packaged meals could only be prepared one way.

  I turned away from him and headed towards the bar, where I saw Verona taking a swig out of a glass she had poured. I crawled in through the window, and my feet caused the rotten floorboards to creak.

  “Still trying to mentor the rookie?” Verona questioned, as I approached her.

  “He needs it,” I replied, slipping on top of the dusty leather barstool to the left of her.

  Verona scoffed. “He’s fired his gun maybe twice. That’s an average of once per week.”

  “Go easy on him. It’s not easy to adjust, especially in this time period,” I said.

  “The commander’s already given up on him. After this mission he’s going to get relegated to Ordovician,” she said. “He’ll be happier there anyway." She picked up an empty glass and blew out the dust. She poured it half full of the scotch she had been drinking.

  “He’s still got time to prove himself,” I replied, picking up the glass and clinking it against hers. I took a whiff of it before taking a sip. The strong stench of alcohol caused my nose to twitch, and I set the glass back down on the counter. I turned to see Benjamin trying to work the fire.

  “I admire your commitment to him, even if I think it's stupid,” she said.

  “Thanks, I guess,” I replied.

  Out of left field, she said, “You’d make a good dad.”

  I stumbled back in my seat. “I—I don’t want kids,” I blurted, almost choking on my spit.

  She started to pour herself another drink. “Just pointing it out.”

  I looked her back in the eyes. My fingers were tracing the lip of my glass. “Now you know,” I replied.

  “Now I know,” she repeated to herself, taking another long sip of her drink.

  I scooted my drink over to her. “I don’t think I'm in the mood tonight.”

  “God, I didn’t upset you that much, did I?” she questioned.

  I shook my head. “Just not in the mood tonight.”

  Verona set down her glass and brushed a strand of loose hair out of one of her blue eyes. “Cade, I’ll never understand you.” Her eyes passed over the burn scar on my right cheek.

  I had to pretend I didn’t notice. I scoffed. “Just trying to keep it professional.”

  She snorted. “Funny, is that what you call it?”

  “We are on the job,” I replied.

  “Are you on the job when you’re in my tent too?” She questioned, teasing me.

  My face soured. I didn’t particularly admire that aspect of our relationship. She was good company, yes, but our encounters had only ever made me feel guilty in the days following. Maybe it was the false impression I actually had feelings for her beyond the ones that transpired on top of her sleeping bag. Maybe it was something else.

  “I suppose so,” I finally answered her.

  “So are you free for some professional business tonight?” She asked.

  I ground my teeth on my bottom lip. I knew I should tell her no, but deep down I did crave it. My heart started to pound in my chest. I already knew this would be a decision I regretted, but those muffled thoughts in my mind telling me why I was wrong were ultimately overpowered by my need for warmth.

  “Consider it a meeting,” I said with a short smile.