The Castle Mount Book One of The Adventures of a Time Whore

You remember seeing those old vids from the 20th century where they showed as dirty, congested, for some reason eternally rainy and an overall depressing place to live? Well, it doesn’t rain any where near as much as they said it would. Other than that, not far off.

If you come here in the winter, December or January, it’s really not a bad place to visit. The temperatures stay down in the nineties for the most part and the air is much better than they make it out to be on the national news. Either that or I’ve just become used to it. I know they say they’ve got global warming under control, but I’m not so sure. Still seems to be getting hotter and dryer each year.

I heard that as soon as they finish the Ozone Reconstruction Project in 2171, they’re going to start working on the Oceanic Reclamation Initiative. I’m really looking forward to that. I remember going to the beach in 1948 and seeing people splashing around in the water and really envying them. We haven’t been able to go in since the 2053 bacterial warfare incident with . Misunderstanding, my ass.

But they say once they’re able to stabilize the bacterial life into the ecosystem, they should be able to be re-establish all the larger marine life from the hatcheries and preserves that have been stocking up embryos for the past century. Yup. Someday.

The restaurant was on Highway 1, up in . I hadn’t been there before, so I let Dillon drive the hydro while I took in the sights. I don’t get out for drives nearly often enough. Smog has its problems, but it sure does make for beautiful sunsets. The purples and reds on the horizon were inspiring. If I was the type to write poetry or songs or shit like that I’m sure I would have come up with something right then.

Instead, I started making a list of things I had to get done before I went back out next week. I’d caught two infections from drinking water. I needed to get an immunization booster before I left. I should also make sure my hormones were balanced. I’d felt a little funny for a few days, like what PMS is supposed to feel like. My reproductive organs were shut off while I was still in an embryonic state, so it couldn’t be that. But I wanted to make sure my hormones were all in check. Like I said, they haven’t perfected the whole genetic engineering thing yet. We still have our glitches.

Oh, yeah, back to the romantic drive along the beach.

Dillon and I weren’t supposed to be “together”, the whole workplace romance thing being frowned upon. What, they’re afraid he might not send me on dangerous missions? Like he’d be able to stop me. But we grew up together so people knew we were very good friends. We left it at that and no one really asked questions. As long as we avoided actually fornicating in the office, we were fine.

The restaurant was called Callahans and the “gang”, as Dillon referred to them, was already there. I planted a smile on my face and managed to keep it on through all the greetings. All the way up to Aiden.

“Nice work, no temp. I’m on my way to clean up another of your messes tomorrow.”

No Temp is slang. Literally no time, meaning you don’t belong anywhere, anytime.

“What now?”

“You messed up the birth of the 55th president.”

“What?”

“Greta Thompson?”

“She wasn’t the 55th president.”

“No, but you met her on your last out?”

“Um…yeah, I remember.”

“Well, apparently, instead of being the grandmother of Andrew Thomlinson, she now credits a woman named Ashlyn with getting her in touch with her lesbian side”.

I couldn’t help it. I giggled. I thought Aiden was going to smack me. My brother is such an ass.

While I was back in the 20th century, I created a slight diversion to get a couple of fellow Chasers out of jail. It ended up with me kissing a young lady and, well, what can I say? It was a really good kiss. I don’t happen go that way, but I’ve got instinctive talents.

Well, I guess I sort of made her think twice about the dweeb she was supposed to marry. Instead of getting hitched to him and having babies, she dumped him, adopted a couple of orphans and lived happily ever after with a famous lingerie model from . Oops. My bad.

“If you weren’t such a time-whore, maybe you wouldn’t cause quite so many clean up ops.”

“If you tried getting some regularly, maybe you wouldn’t have such a huge stick up your ass.”

I went to take a drink from his beer, which he defensively grabbed. “Get your own”.

I stared him down. “I’m telling Mom you don’t share”.

That broke him. He actually cracked a smile. I’m adorable when I try.

We were triplets. All three of us looked somewhat alike, tall, blonde, slightly curly hair, grey eyes, pale skin, all of which can be resolved to any color needed for any given mission, but even though we were born of the same litter, we weren’t clones by any means, none of the Deltas were. Each was individually genetically structured. Aiden, the oldest, had much sharper features than either Archer or I. They matched his personality. He was the straight arrow. Good at what he did, which was Chasing, like me. However, he ran a team that stuck to more traditional slip and grips, usually folks with their ident chips still in place. And he held to the rules like a zealot. Perfect management material. All of that extra energy I talked about, he used to think his way out of trouble. Show off.

Archer, our middle brother, was a Linear cop. Well, more than that, he was a Special Engagement Officer. Lots of undercover work for various branches of the world government, which took over for the rather ineffective N.A.T.O. in the late 21st century after the nuclear devastation in the . Even though most of the problems were supposedly over, I still worried about him. Sure, at this point, most religions had been abandoned in favor of science, and the millennium long feuds between nations had been sort of settled. As advances made the quality of life of all people relatively equal, most everyone embraced the culture and technology from the West. But I knew there continued to be pockets of resistance where it was still necessary for those guys to go in and clean up bands of fanatics who would just love to overthrow the international social structure. I worried about him a lot, but I also knew he was excellent at what he did.

And I’d never say it to him, but Aiden was excellent as well. Not as good as me, of course, which showed in the assignments we were given, much to his disgust. All three of us were built to be the best. We just obviously weren’t built to get along with each other. Then again, from what I’ve seen through time, brothers and sisters usually don’t. Maybe it was the only natural part of us the engineers left alone. The sibling rivalry gene.

Captain Parks came in a little while later. I’d had a couple of beers and was somewhat relaxed. That ended the moment she looked my way.

“I didn’t do it”, I was already defending myself as she sat down next to me.

“Didn’t do what?”

“Whatever it is you think I did that’s making you make that face at me.”

“We’ve got a non-ident. 13th century .”

“Any clue on who?”

“No idea. An entire village is gone. Entire family trees wiped out. Nothing that played out in a major political change, but it certainly has rippled throughout the economy in the EU and apparently it prevented a reunification of Northern and that was supposed to have happened in 2025.”

“So the civil war in the 2076 should never have happened?”

“Nope.”

That would be tens of thousands of lives lost unnecessarily. By someone, some unknown Non-Linear, without the government mandated identification chip in their arm that would let me find them and stop them using any technology we had available to us. I would have to hunt them down the old fashioned way. Go back and ask around.

So, we didn’t know who it was or where exactly they were, just when the histories diverged. And I knew that whoever it was was responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of people in the Middle Ages, and responsible for the deaths of thousands more in a preventable war. I could feel my adrenaline start pumping already. God, I do love my work.

Dillon had been talking to someone across the table from me. He looked over where the Captain and I had our heads together. I guess the look on my face told him we were talking business and that I’d already started plotting and planning a strategy in my head.

I swear, for just a split second, I saw that serene look he keeps for me, that sweet little smirk he always has on his face, I saw it slip for just a fraction of a second.