“Tomorrow, midday.”
“I shall inform him of his new assignment. Our stores here are limited when it comes to weaponry, but please take along extra ammunition and any other survival supplies you think you might need. Where are you starting the hunt?”
“Don’t know yet. Soto said he’d show us the way to where he thinks a nest of chupacabras might be hiding.”
“Then, I will bid all of you a good-night. Dr. Tanner, if you want, we can discuss my plans for you in greater detail in the morning.”
“I am looking forward to it. I shall see you at breakfast.”
Jamaisvous strolled out the way he came.
“Still don’t trust that bastard. Be on guard, Mildred. Especially for Doc.”
“Of course, Ryan.”
“All right. Dean, you’ll stay with Doc and Mildred-”
“The hell I will!” Dean exclaimed.
Ryan’s face fell into a stoic frown and he gave his only son a cold glare.
“What did you say to me, boy?” Ryan said in his quietest tone of voice.
Dean knew that tone. Feeling the contents of his stomach turn to stone, the boy stood his ground and repeated himself, only without voicing the annoyance or anger in the reply.
“I said, ‘the hell I will.'”
“That’s what I thought I heard. What makes you think you have a choice in the matter?” Ryan asked.
Dean continued to stand his ground. “I’m tired of getting left behind. I can protect myself.”
“Yes, you showed keen judgment back in Freedom,” Ryan retorted. Dean didn’t look pleased at being reminded of how he’d ended up as a bargaining chip for the flamboyant Beck Morgan, who’d been serving as the mall’s baron in charge. Morgan had snatched the opportunity of Dean’s being incarcerated to force Ryan and the others to serve as sec men, supplementing his own weak task force.
“Not his fault. Was mine,” Jak said simply. “Dean backed play. Caught us both. Baron let me go work while kept him. Knew you’d feel stronger about kin.”
“I would have done the same for either of you,” Ryan replied.
“Yeah, but baron didn’t know.”
“True. All right, then. Mildred, looks like you and Doc are on your own here with Silas. Dean’s coming along. And Doc, there’s more here than meets the eye… Don’t know much about that man. He wants your help, but mebbe what he wants is to make some use of you. Use that could leave you worse off.”
“Thank you, my friend,” Doc answered, and lifted a hand in farewell as they moved off. His mind kept repeating Ryan’s words like a mantra, “Make some use of you… worse off,” a mantra that sent his thoughts tunneling back through time….
Maryland, Virginia Redoubt, 1999
CHAN HAD SEEMED unsurprised when he glanced up and greeted Doc, until he had a delayed reaction with a shocked double take.
“Greetings and salutations, Chan, my boy,” Doc replied easily, stepping closer to the seated man. “I see they still keep you on the night shift.”
His approach sent Chan skittering to his feet. The small man nearly lost his footing as the wheeled chair he’d been sitting in rolled away from the desk. Striving to regain his composure, he gasped out, “Wh-what are you doing here?”
Doc made a waving “bye-bye” motion with his right hand. “Leaving, I hope.”
Chan frowned, taking in what Doc was wearing. “Aw, shit, Doc. Where did you get the sec gear?”
“I liberated it, just as I plan to liberate myself.”
“Not again. You can’t be serious.”
“I am deadly serious,” Doc replied flatly, all humor and warmth erased from his voice as he stepped closer to the technician’s workstation. “Now, I am hoping you will just pretend I am not here while I borrow your keyboard to access this computer and make a few entries and corrections into Operation Chronos’s temporal guidance array.”
“You want to make a chron-jump, Doc? That takes time.”
“Time? Do not speak to me of time, you twit!” Doc said with a sneer, suddenly losing all patience. “What I have no ‘time’ for is useless debate!”
“I can’t let you do this,” Chan replied as he scooted over to the panic button mounted on the far wall of the control room. Such buttons were mounted in flip-top Plexiglas boxes and scattered throughout the redoubt in case of emergency. “There’s no telling what you might screw up. Besides, you haven’t been prepared.”