"I'm telling you, Finn, I know that face!"

"That's good enough for me. Come on, we'll follow them and find out where they go. But just to play it safe, let's keep our distance. Worse comes to worst, we'll just waste an afternoon."

"What if worse doesn't come to worst?" said Lucas.

"You're asking me? You're the one who can't remember faces."

"I never forget a face. That's why this one bothers me. It hasn't been a long time, either." They watched the chests being loaded into a carriage, the old man and the young woman getting in. "Horses," Lucas said.

"What?"

"Horses. That face belongs with horses."

"Well, that should narrow it down," said Finn. "We haven't ridden horses in more than ninety percent of our missions."

"Something doesn't fit," said Lucas. "It's the right face, but somehow, it's all wrong."

"Well, I'm glad you cleared that up," said Finn. "Shall we see which way your right-wrong face is heading? I'd hate for this to keep you up all night."

"I have a feeling that it will. I'm not sure what memories go with her face, but I am sure that none of them is good."

6

"Vacated their rooms, you say?" said Adrian Taylor. "And no sign of Silvera?"

Jimmy Darcy stood uneasily before the terrorist leader. Only a short while ago, Adrian Taylor had been a small, whipcord thin young man with violently blue eyes, a sharp, slightly crooked nose, and a thin, cruel mouth. He knew that Taylor was considerably older than he was, though by how much, he could not say. Taylor had appeared to be, judging by the standards used before the advent of antiagathic drugs, eighteen to twenty years of age. He was, Jimmy knew, at the very least three times that age. Now, however, Taylor was transformed.

The skills of Jack Bennett had reshaped his face, shortening and straightening out his nose and giving it a slight, delicate upward turn. His jawline had been restructured, more gently curved, the sharp planes of his face smoothed out, the cheeks rounded, the soft flesh around the eyes surgically altered to eliminate the beginning signs of age. His mouth was full and soft now, the lips were those of a voluptuary. The ears were small and shapely, without the pronounced lobes they had earlier possessed. A small beauty mark now graced Taylor's right cheek. His adam's apple had been removed and the skin of the throat smoothed out. Taylor's hairline had been depilated to give him a higher forehead. He had round, full breasts now and decidedly and unsettlingly feminine hips. The extensive operation had been a masterwork, complete right down to the very last detail. Taylor even had Milady's brand, the harlot's fleur-de-lis, burned into his shoulder.

Transsexual operations had been reversible for many years. The purpose of the procedure had simply been to enable Taylor to become a "woman" for the purpose of the mission. When it was over, Adrian Taylor would be able to have his male organs back, either exactly as they were or redesigned to his own specifications. But it had become much more than an elaborate disguise. Taylor took a perverse pleasure in being as he was now. With each succeeding day, he fell more and more

in love with his new aspect.

Of all the Timekeepers, Taylor was the best known. The TIA had an extensive dossier on his activities. He was regarded as an expert in his field, ruthless, cold, and extremely dangerous. The one thing that no one outside the organization knew was what Taylor really looked like. Few people within the Timekeepers had ever glimpsed Taylor's real face. He changed his appearance almost as frequently as most people changed their style of clothing. Taylor was a true chameleon, but to Jimmy's knowledge, he had never gone so far before. It wasn't Taylor's sexual preferences that bothered Jimmy Darcy. There was nothing unusual in that. What frightened Jimmy Darcy was that Adrian Taylor appeared to have two personalities now. He was both Adrian Taylor and Milady. Sometimes he spoke as Adrian Taylor and acted like a man surgically disguised as a woman. Sometimes he spoke as Milady de Winter, living out the role. And sometimes, he spoke as Milady, referring to Adrian Taylor in the second person, as though Taylor existed elsewhere, as a separate and distinct being. He did so now.

"No sign of Silvera," he said once again, fingering his throat absently. "Adrian won't like that. I think we can safely assume that Silvera is no longer with us. Pity. He must have underestimated the opposition. You checked? You're certain? There was only Bennett and the woman?"

"They were seen getting into a carriage and driving away," said Jimmy.

"There can be no doubt that she's an agent," Taylor said. "Bennett has betrayed us."

"But he seemed totally committed to the cause," said Jimmy. "God, do you realize what this means? It's a complete disaster! They know who you are now! We're stopped before we've even started!"

"Not necessarily," said Taylor. He smiled. "That won't stop Adrian at all. Why should it?"

"I don't understand," said Jimmy. "How can we continue now?"

"You're not thinking, Jimmy." He was Adrian again, suddenly on his feet and pacing nervously. "Didn't I always tell you to have faith? All right, so they know that I've become Milady. So what? You forget that time is on our side."

"The chronoplate!" said Jimmy. "We can go back in time and outmaneuver them! Of course, we can go back and save Silvera and then-"

"Screw Silvera," Taylor said. "He made a mistake and he's paid for it. No, we don't need the plate, Jimmy, not yet. We can always use it as a last resort if need be, but we're still ahead. The scenario's progressing smoothly. They may know who I am, but for the moment, they don't know where I am. And, after all, we're the ones threatening to change history, remember? They're here to preserve the status quo. If they know that I've become de Winter, then they'll surely know that the real Milady's dead and that's just it. They need de Winter. Or, more precisely, they need a de Winter to insure that events in this period of history progress as they should. They can plant their own de Winter, but they wouldn't dare to do that as long as I'm around. No, they'd have to take me out first and that won't be so easy."

"But the very fact that they know," said Jimmy, "the fact that they're here-"

"Only serves to make the game more interesting," said Taylor.

"The game?" said Jimmy.

Tags: Simon Hawke TimeWars Science Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net