“Yeah . . . right. Rand Brock. Captain Rand Brock. Texas Rangers.”
“A Texas Ranger? I heard about you.”
“About me?”
“No. About the Rangers. You guys were legendary. Still are as a matter of fact. It should please you to know that the Texas Rangers are still alive and kicking in the future.”
“Yeah, I was worried about that.” Rand took another drink from her flask. “So why are you here again? Something about a ‘time rip’?”
She drew a long straight line in the sand. “Time is linear. One long line, year after year, day after day, hour after hour and so on. It all keeps coming, one after the next. But . . .”
“I get a feeling I’m not going to like thisbut. . .”
She nodded. “Someone is here, in this place, messing with time.” She drew a hash across the line. “Every time they try to movethrough time they rip it. Or maybe ‘fracture’ is a better word.” She drew a couple more hash marks and then drew lines off them. “The fractures become their own time lines. Kind of an alternate reality which messes up our realities in the future.”
“You have got to be kidding. How is that even possible?”
“There are lots of things that are possible in the future. Mostly because of things that are happening now, in your time. You call it the Industrial Revolution. In the next hundred years there are unbelievable changes that will happen, including air flight and men walking on the moon.”
Rand straightened at the mention of air flight. The driver said the attack came from the air. Maybe what she was saying did make some kind of sense. “And time travel?”
“And time travel. The problem is regulating it. There are those who think anyone should be able to go anywhere and do whatever they want.”
“Which leads to history being changed which changes the future.”
“Yes. There’s a group who think they can change things for the better. One of them, a guy named Wiley, managed to jump into time and he’s trying to corner the market on time travel by being the first to invent it. Then he can control it.”
“And offer it to the highest bidder.”
“Greed is something that’s pretty much the same no matter what time you are in.”
“What good is it going to do him in the future if he’s back here?”
“He’s hoping to keep it in the family. He can trace his lineage back pretty far and apparently whoever his ancestor is in this time was rich, smart and greedy.”
Rand rubbed his fingers over his eyes. “You’re giving me a headache.”
“It’s not me.” Shay pointed to the hash marks in the sand. “You’ve been split.”
“What?”
“There are two of you now. The blast that announced my arrival? It ripped your time line. So now there are two of you in two separate – yet parallel – time lines. It’s why you feel weak. You’re half of what you were.”
Rand staggered to his feet. The sudden movement made him dizzy and he wobbled enough so that he grabbed on to the boulder for support.
“I know it’s hard to believe but it’s true. You feel horrible because your life just got cut in half. If it happens again, you’ll be split again. Another fracture, another parallel time line.”
“How do we fix it?”
“Go to the source. So why don’t you tell me what it is that you know?”
“About time travel? Nothing. All I’ve got is a partner and a prisoner who look as if they were melted together like candle wax, a dead driver who said the attack came from the air, and lightning in the sky without thunder.” He went to his pack. “And this.” He handed Shay the strange piece of metal. “I found this in my partner’s body.”
“They were using them to experiment on,” Shay said.
Rand’s stomach turned at the thought. “Bastards.” He had no idea what had been done to Tom, but the results of it were enough to make him think that it had to have been horrible for anyone involved. Even to a cold-hearted killer like Hank Miller.
The touch of her hand on his arm was meant to be gentle and soothing but still his body reacted in ways that were far from gentle. Rand looked into her eyes and saw gold flecks over green and a clear calm gaze that gave him no doubt that she was entirely truthful with him.
