Mother? thought Chevie. Oh, God. His mother’s ashes were in that vase.
Vallicose stumbled backward against a silk-covered ottoman, which caught her awkwardly behind the legs, sending her sprawling into a cluster of Roman columns. Chevie was after her like a cat, pouncing on Vallicose, winding her with a knee to the solar plexus. In a flash she had unclipped the Thundercat’s buzz baton and sidearm, and then, making sure to break bodily contact, she touched the baton to Vallicose’s bare wrist, sending fifty thousand volts coursing through the fallen woman’s frame, knocking her unconscious.
Chevie swung around, expecting Box to be looming over her, but he wasn’t. Colonel Box was sitting at his desk where the bulk of the dust had fallen, sweeping it into a pile, and there were tears on his cheeks.
This development was as much a surprise to Box as it was to Chevie, because though she could not possibly have known it, this was the first time since infancy that Box had cried, or even felt remotely saddened—or for that matter, emotional in any way. Emotions were simply a waste of time, and the only feeling Box had ever permitted himself was a slight smug satisfaction when each step of his grand plan had been ticked off the list. He had promised himself to feel some measure of genuine happiness when the throne of England was his, but now it seemed that would have to be deferred until Savano and her ridiculous band were dealt with.
But to have his mother’s ashes scattered like this…Used as a weapon against him. How could Box have foreseen that, even with all of his calculations? Such an act was so random, so barbaric.
But why do I care? he asked himself. This pile of ash is not my mother.
But he did care, and the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he swore that he would kill Savano with his bare hands with savage glee.
Box tidied the ashes into a square, shaping the edges with his index finger, gathering his mother, and then stood, expecting to find Savano dangling from Vallicose’s fist, awaiting her fate, possibly with a final impudent quip on her lips. But he was disappointed (another new emotion) to find that the girl had somehow vanquished his new bodyguard and had him covered with a pistol.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he said, testily. “In every single calculation I have made since your unlikely arrival here, you have been long dead at this point. The odds against your surviving are so overwhelming that it would be better for you, Cadet Savano, if you just lay down and died right now.”
Chevie was inclined to disagree. “I think my odds are pretty good, Box. Better than yours. And another thing. Don’t call me Cadet. I am Special Agent Savano of the FBI. Remember those people? You were attached to them once upon a time.”
Box sniffed. “Once upon a time that shall never come to pass.”
The door had three panels, and now the bottom section surrendered its integrity, totally mulched by the acidity and force of the sewerage. The water level rose a foot in ten seconds, tugging at Chevie’s legs. She needed to leave.
“I am going to go now, Box. And you are going to stay here with your lapdog.”
Box seemed not to notice the gun. “That is incorrect. You are not leaving here alive, Savano. You defiled my mother’s ashes.”
“Gun,” said Chevie, wiggling the barrel. “See? Gun.”
Box made his thinking face, sticking out his jaw and chewing on the problem.
“I would have liked longer to ponder this situation,” he admitted. “But a leader must be adaptable in that we have several fall-back positions, several alternate options, as it were.”
This is insane, thought Chevie. I am not going to argue against insanity.
Huge pounding noises came down the corridor and broke against the door. The high shrieking of tortured metal rose in discordant counterpoint to the bass rumblings of tumbling masonry. It sounded as though a wailing dinosaur was crouched on the roof, battering the walls.
Maybe the tunnel is amplifying the sound, thought Chevie, but she didn’t believe it.
This is all happening. It’s not a nightmare.
Of all the incredible situations that Chevie could recall enduring in either timeline, surely this was the most bizarre: trapped with a fifth gospel saint in an underground lair while sewer slurry threatened to engulf the building.
And there were other factors that she didn’t have time to mentally list. Beyond bizarre.
Chevie and Box came to simultaneous decisions.
“Take off your belt,” said Chevie. “I’m just going to shoot you in the leg.”
“Pass me the gun,” said Box. “I must kill you posthaste and make good my tactical retreat.”
“Excuse me?” said Chevie, incredulous.
“Pardon?” said Box.
“Okay,” said Chevie. “Whatever. I’m shooting you in the leg. Do whatever you like. Dance a jig. But my advice is to take off your belt for a tourniquet and stand completely still.”
The water level rose, knocking over the Roman pillars, lifting the ottoman from its stubby legs.
Too much talking, thought Chevie. I need to get out of this death trap. Riley could be in trouble.
Box seemed a little amused by Chevie’s threat. “What I don’t understand, Cadet Savano, is why you would want to stop me? What was so wonderful about our shared future? The entire world was an inefficient shambles.”
Chevie felt an anger build inside her, and she allowed it to erupt through her words. “What about your world, Box? I was there. I saw it. Most of the planet is enslaved. You bombed half of Europe. Your secret police murdered millions, including my father.”
“So shoot me,” said Box. “With one bullet you will save the world from my empire, but you will doom it to World Wars I and II, as well as the many other conflicts I am certain there have been since I left the future. Is that really better than my empire? Are you willing to make that choice? Especially since you will never know the effect of your decision, as I have had the time pod in Half Moon Street destroyed.”
The water was icy against Chevie’s thighs, but she shuddered mostly from the realization that she was stuck in the past forever.
“Vallicose told me that under my regime apartheid never even developed in South Africa,” Box continued, calmly swishing the water with his fingers.
Chevie was incredulous. “Because you enslaved the entire country.”
“Exactly,” said Box. “So much more efficient. Now give me the gun; you can’t shoot me.”
&nb
sp; “I can’t kill you,” said Chevie. “But I can shoot you.”
“So why haven’t you?”
Yes. Why hadn’t she? The water was rising. Riley needed her. Why was she having this conversation?
“You were speaking,” she said weakly, just to give some answer.
“And you were waiting until I had finished? Really?”
He was right. It sounded ridiculous.
Box’s eyes were suddenly crafty. “You cannot shoot me, Cadet, because I am your savior.”
“Don’t call me Cadet!” But just as Traitor Chevie had once struggled to be free inside Cadet Chevie’s head, now the cadet was stirring in her subconscious.
“You are a cadet. My cadet. And I am your Blessed Colonel. For your entire life you have prayed to me. You have listened to my recorded speeches. Vallicose told me all about our future together.”
Chevie backed up a step. “No. That future is dead. Look around you.”
Box chuckled coldly; it sounded like the ratcheting of a shotgun slide. “Dead? Cadet, really. Do you think that I put all my egg grenades in one basket? No. This is a setback. Boxstrike is destined to occur. You have merely delayed my emergence.”
“All the more reason to shoot you,” said Chevie, already knowing what Box would say next.
“So why don’t you?” Box spread his arms wide. “Go ahead. Pull the trigger and damn yourself to hell.”
Suddenly Chevie’s gun felt so heavy.
He is a man. An evil man. You know this.
“Shoot your savior, your religion. You cannot.”
Chevie pulled the trigger, but the bullet flew wide, blasting a chunk from the brickwork. Box did not even flinch.
“Your own faith protects me,” he said, raising his eyes to heaven. “I am a new god. Shoot!”
Chevie felt a surge from her subconscious as the old Chevie, the scared, cowed cadet, fought to be free.
No. I will not be that person ever again.
She fired again. This time hitting a cushion, which exploded in a whump of feathers. Box was unscathed.