AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Breathing right now is risky," I countered.
"True that. What now? Crawford's on the out and Jack's still under house arrest."
"At least he's in the building and not some prison the Prime Minister has conjured for misbehaving Time Surgeons." I twisted the top of my paper bag to close it up; couldn't risk losing any doughnuts. "Crawford, though, is a worry."
"What can we do?"
"Spread the word. Prepare everyone. Anderson is taking over completely, and RATS is in trouble."
"As if we weren't already," he muttered, and then with a nod of his head, he pushed off, lest the guard saw us gossiping.
The rest of the mess hall slowly dissipated. I escaped in a clump that hid me for the most part from Dopey and made my way toward the dorms. My classes were done for the day, and I hadn't been rostered on the flight simulator at all. If I was lucky, I could convince whoever was guarding our bedrooms that I had homework to do in my room.
I'd hoped by now to have achieved more than I had. Despite attendance in class being mandatory, I'd planned to have at least some idea of what to do to get us out of this mess. I was stumped, for the time being. I knew where Jack was, but couldn't get to him. And I knew Crawford was on the way out and couldn't prevent the disaster that would ensue once he was removed.
I felt impotent and trapped. Out of time, but also out of options. In two short days, Anderson and his Idiots had remade RATS as quickly as a Surgeon remade Time itself. Sergei, thankfully, had been quiet since our last round, but that wouldn't last long, either.
By tomorrow, I expected Ivanov to have another go at Luna's secrets, and I had no idea if Anderson considered fighting the ex-cosmonaut a priority or not. Surely, he'd want to at least repair any rips caused. But repairing a rip and preventing Sergei from getting that information were two different things, I thought.
Where we would rush in there to prevent the theft of knowledge, I pictured Anderson cautiously and carefully following in Sergei's wake to fix his mess, because confronting the evil Russian was too dangerous. RATS' remit was to fix Time, to keep Time healthy, not to stop a lunatic from stealing secrets that might or might not —at least according to Anderson and his ilk —be important to the ongoing health of Time itself.
Unless he was made to see how devastating to RATS, Time and time travel in general Ivanov's machinations were, Anderson would take the path of least resistance —read 'least danger' there —and not bust a gut to thwart him.
Of course, there was my family to think of. My alternate family, but still all that was left of my family in this universe. Anderson didn't even know I was out of time yet, let alone know that the alternate Wyldes were busting up Time alongside Sergei Ivanov.
I wondered why Jess hadn't told him that yet? And then I decided she didn't want to give me too much headspace inside the new Chief Overseer of RATS' brain. I'd hoodwinked Crawford, according to her. How easily could I hoodwink Anderson, too? No, Jess would want to keep Anderson for herself for a while, but when that failed to get her what she wanted, she'd change tactics.
I wasn't out of the woods yet, but there might be time to fix things.
How I was going to do that, though, I did not know.
The guard on duty on our floor of the dorms, when I got there, was one I'd nicknamed Grumpy. Actually, this was Grumpy 3.0, as opposed to Grumpy 1.0 through to 5.0, but you get the picture. My chances of a quiet afternoon in my room ostensibly studying weren't looking so good.
"Halt!" he said, arm up and out in the usual Idiot SWAT fashion.
"Wylde, Novitiate, free period to study. Sir!" I offered. This one required a different tactic.
"You've got study rooms for that downstairs, Novitiate."
I held up my bag of doughnuts. "The others would steal my stash. Sir. I came up here to hide it."
"What's in there?"
"It's mine," I said, hugging the crumpled bag to my chest.
"Let me look at that, Novitiate. And that's an order."
I reluctantly handed over the goods.
"Doughnuts?" he said, incredulously.
"They're the first to go in the mess," I muttered.
"You're stashing doughnuts inside your bedroom?"
"I've got a sweet tooth. Sir."
He reached in and pulled a sugar-coated doughnut out and then took a large bite out of it, chewing slowly as he watched me. I said nothing, letting my hair fall down over my face and hide me. He ate the whole thing and then pulled out a second doughnut, shoving that into his mouth in one go, making him look like an evil chipmunk feeding himself up for winter.
