The Time Traveler's Almanac

The woman in red turned and sidestepped toward his bench, subvocalizing. “You’re my cover, yes? Let’s get out of here right now, it’s going bad.”

Pierce began to stand. “Yarrow?” he asked. The sailor who was trying to rouse his friend started tugging at his shoulder.

“Yes? Look, what’s your exit plan?” She sounded edgy.

“But—” He froze, his stomach twisting. She doesn’t know me, he realized. “Sorry. Can you get over the wall if I create a diversion?” he sent, his heart hammering. He hadn’t seen her in three years-subjective – she’d blown through his life like a runaway train, then vanished as abruptly as she’d arrived, leaving behind a scrawled note to say she’d been called uptime by Control, and a final quick charcoal sketch.

“I think so, but there are two—” The sailor stood up and shouted incoherently at her just as Pierce’s phone buzzed again. “Who’s that?” she asked.

“Hard contact in five seconds!” The other agent, whoever he was, sounded urgent. “Stay back.”

The sailor shouted again, and this time Pierce understood it: “Murderer!” He climbed over the table and drew a long, curved knife, moving forward.

“Get behind me.” Pierce stepped between Yarrow and the sailor, his thoughts a chaotic mess of This is stupid and What did she do? and Who else? as he paged Supervisor Hark. “Peace,” he said in faltering Carnegran, “am friend? Want drink?”

Behind the angry sailor the priest-students were standing up, black robes flapping as they spread out, calling to one another. Yarrow retreated behind him: his phone vibrated again, then, improbably, a fourth time. There were too many agents. “What’s happening?” asked Hark.

“I think it’s a palimpsest,” Pierce managed to send. Like an inked parchment scrubbed clean and reused, a section of history that had been multiply overwritten. He held his hands up, addressed the sailor, “You want. Thing. Money?”

The third agent, who’d warned of contact: “Drop. Now!”

Pierce began to fall as something, someone – Yarrow? – grabbed his shoulder and pushed sideways.

One of the students let his robe slide open. It slid down from his shoulders, gaping to reveal an iridescent fluidity that followed the rough contours of a human body, flexing and rippling like molten glass. Its upper margin flowed and swelled around its wearer’s neck and chin, bulging upward to engulf his head as he stepped out of the black scholar’s robe.

The sailor held his knife high, point down as he advanced on Pierce. Pierce’s focus narrowed as he brought his fall under control, preparing to roll and trigger the telescopic baton in his sleeve—

A gunshot, shockingly loud, split the afternoon air. The sailor’s head disappeared in a crimson haze, splattering across Pierce’s face. The corpse lurched and collapsed like a dropped sack. Somebody – Yarrow? – cried out behind him, as Pierce pushed back with his left arm, trying to blink the red fog from his vision.

The student’s robe was taking on a life of its own, contracting and standing up like a malign shadow behind its master as the human-shaped blob of walking water turned and raised one hand toward the roof. A chorus of screams rose behind it as one of the other seminarians, who had unwisely reached for the robe, collapsed convulsing.

“Stay down!” It was the third agent. “Play dead.”

“My knee’s—”

Pierce managed a sidelong look that took in Yarrow’s expression of fear with a shudder of self-recognition. “I’ll decoy,” he sent. Then, a curious clarity of purpose in his mind, he rolled sideways and scrambled toward the interior of the tavern.

Several things happened in the next three seconds:

First, a brilliant turquoise circle two meters in diameter flickered open, hovering directly in front of the rear wall of the beer garden. A double handful of enormous purple hornets burst from its surface. Most arrowed toward the students, who had entangled themselves in a panicky crush at the exit: two turned and darted straight up toward the balcony level.

Next, a spark, bright as lightning, leapt between the watery humanoid’s upraised hand and the ceiling.

Finally, something punched Pierce in the chest with such breath-taking violence that he found, to his shock and surprise, that his hands and feet didn’t seem to want to work anymore.

“Agent down,” someone signalled, and it seemed to him that this was something he ought to make sense of, but sense was ebbing fast in a buzz of angry hornets as the pinkness faded to gray. And then everything was quiet for a long time.

Internal Affairs

“Do you know anyone who wants you dead, scholar-agent?” The investigator from Internal Affairs leaned over Pierce, his hands clasped together in a manner that reminded Pierce of a hungry mantis. His ears (Pierce couldn’t help but notice) were prominent and pink, little radar dishes adorning the sides of a thin face. It had to be an ironic comment if not an outright insult, his adoption of the likeness of Franz Kafka. Or perhaps the man from Internal Affairs simply didn’t want to be recognized.