"If one could know both the position and vector of every particle in the universe, it would be possible not only to predict the future, but to completely retrodict the past—and, my friends, that day is soon upon us."

Company Headquarters, Division of Special Research
Company Prefecture (formerly Cuba)
October 7, 2347

Acrid smoke filled the lab, scorching Dr. Robert Berlin's throat and setting his eyes to water. The smoke was thick and black and heavy with the stench of burnt electronics—and beneath that, something sweeter, more sickly: the reek of burning flesh. Berlin's gaze settled for a moment on the bodies of the two young guards that lay just inside the laboratory door. Though their skin cracked and peeled in the oppressive heat, they didn't feel a thing; Berlin had already felled them with a blast from his concussion gun, caving in the poor boys' chests before they could draw on him.

They should not have tried to stop me, he thought.

Through the roar of the flames and the crack and pop of burning plastic, Berlin heard something else. Banging—frantic, angry—on the laboratory door. And along with it, his shouted name.

It was Simon Rip, he knew. Company Security. Head of Temporal Infractions, which meant he was more than smart enough to override the countermeasures Berlin had enacted to keep that door sealed.

Berlin was running out of time.

He barked a command at the lab's AI. An icy feminine reply, and the west wall of the lab retracted, revealing the interior of a massive concrete dome, two thousand yards across. For a moment, the air in the lab cleared, smoke whooshing out into the void and stale air from the dome taking its place. Then the magnetic containment shield kicked in, and the lab was once more sealed—an invisible barrier protecting it from what was to happen in the dome beyond.

At the center of the dome hovered a machine—one that looked for all the world like a house-sized gyroscope, its brushed steel surface gleaming dully with reflected firelight. When Berlin saw it, he smiled. And why wouldn't he? That machine was his baby. His finest achievement. The culmination of his life's work.

Outside the laboratory door, Simon Rip wasn't smiling. He wasn't banging anymore, either. Despite his impressive bulk, it hadn't been getting him anywhere—and besides, he had a better idea.

Normally, entry to the lab wouldn't have posed a problem for Rip—he had the proper clearance. But that whack-job Berlin had done something to the door's ocular scanner—something that had blinded the last three men who'd tried to enter. Rip suspected the damage was temporary—even Berlin would have a hell of a time jacking up the juice enough to do any lasting harm—but he wasn't about to bet his eyeballs on it. And the way he figured, he didn't have to. Not when he could simply borrow a couple of Berlin's.

See, up until Berlin caught a case of batshit crazy and barricaded himself in his lab, he'd been considered humankind's greatest living treasure—the kind of mind that comes along maybe once a century. You know the type. Aristotle. Galileo. Einstein. Hawking. Only you know what Berlin had that those guys didn't?

The Company, that's what.

Berlin's tech was the foundation upon which the modern era was built. Berlin's tech, as distributed by the Company. And the Company didn't cotton to the thought of their most profitable asset one day going quietly into that good night—not when they had the technology to prevent it. So, like the board and a few select investors, he got banked. Tissue by tissue, organ by organ—a spare for every occasion.

Rip was betting Berlin wouldn't lock down his own lab so tight Berlin himself couldn't get in and out. So he sent one of his boys down to Senescence and Regeneration, and had him fetch a pair of Berlin's eyeballs. They stared back at Rip from their jar of plasma as if they knew what he had in store for them. With a muttered epithet, Rip fished them out—the slick, warm plasma coating his fingers—and held them up to the scanner, shielding his own eyes with the crook of his elbow. The lock released with a thunk, and the door swung open.

Rip was inside.

To his right, a raging pyre of what looked to be every hard drive, server, and processor in the joint belched a toxic cloud his way, its heat singeing his hair and clothes. A dead, charred man lay on either side of him. Men he'd served with. Men he'd trained.

Rip pressed further into the lab until the air progressed from deadly to merely unbearable. "Berlin!" he shouted. "What the fuck have you done?"

Berlin didn't answer. Smart of him, Rip thought. The room was thick with smoke; Rip had only called to him to get a bead on where he was. But then the building shuddered, and a low whirring sound filled the air, and at once, Rip realized where Berlin was.

He was activating the Device.

But something sounded off. Not that Rip had the faintest idea what the Device was meant to do—its function was need-to-know, and the Company figured he didn't. But the test activations had been smooth, the Device emitting no more than a pleasant hum as its concentric circles whirled ever faster. Now, though, it sounded like it was going to shake apart. Like it was rending the very air around it. Which, Rip realized as he heard that familiar ionic crackle, was precisely what it was doing.

That crazy fucker was using the Device to open a temporal rift. A big one—bigger than had ever been attempted. But why?

Rip sprinted across the room toward the Device's controls, but he stopped short when he saw Berlin aiming a concussion gun square at his chest. And then his eyes caught something else: the crumpled form of Berlin's assistant, Ludwig, lying on the floor at Berlin's feet.

"You son of a bitch," Rip said. "Armed guards are one thing—but I swear to you, if Ludwig's dead, I'll end you here and now."

"Then lucky for me, Ludwig is merely unconscious. Though too long in this room, with all this smoke, and who knows?" Berlin shrugged and forced a smile. "I'll tell you what. If you'd like, you're welcome to leave right now, and take the good Dr. Ludwig with you—I won't stop you. Just leave me to my work, and no one else need die today."

Behind Berlin, the interior of the dome shimmered like a mirage. The air crackled with charged particles, and lightning arced from the Device to the concrete walls and back again, causing the building to shake as if at the epicenter of an earthquake.

"You know I can't do that. And whatever you're playing at here, I can't let you do that, either."

"My dear Mr. Rip," Berlin said, "whatever makes you think that you could stop me?"

A crack like a bomb blast, a white-hot burst of light, and the building lurched beneath Rip's feet, causing him to fall. When the ghost-green afterimage faded, the building was still, Berlin was sprawled out on the floor beside him—and the concrete dome was empty.

"Wh—" Rip said, trying unsuccessfully to find his feet. "When did you send it?"

Rip's voice sounded tinny and distant to his ears—and when Berlin replied, his voice sounded damn near nonexistent, though Rip could see that he was shouting. "Somewhen you'll never find it! And I'm afraid I'm off as well. Goodbye, Mr. Rip!"

Rip lunged at Dr. Berlin's wiry, prostrate form, but too late. Berlin had already activated the temporal manipulator on his wrist. For a millisecond, he crackled with the same charged particles the dome had, and then he vanished—leaving Rip to land on a patch of empty floor.

North America
367,000 BC

The clouds hung low over the mountaintops as a herd of mastodons trudged single-file across the glacial hardpack. Despite their shaggy, matted coats, the creatures trembled, for this high up, there were no trees to cut the wind—only the twisted, withered branches of low-slung shrubs.

Thirty miles and several thousand feet of elevation behind them lay the swamp in which they'd until recently resided. But this year's litters had been large, and with so many young to feed, the copse of black ash that had sustained the herd for so long was soon picked clean. If they were fortunate, they'd find another valley, another swamp. If they were less so, the herd's number would dwindle as the weak succumbed to cold or starvation, and that too would be a solution of sorts.

As the largest of their number crested the glacier, one of the calves at her feet let out a cry, and pressed his head into his mother's woolen side. At first, the mother thought it was a reaction to the cold, the biting wind, but then behind her other calves began to whine—and some adults as well—and she realized it was not.

The air overhead began to shimmer—to crackle with a sudden charge—and the herd scattered. Adults pushed each other aside as they fled, trumpeting in fear and anger, and calves stumbled as they struggled to catch up.

A crack like thunder, and the sky above the herd split in two—the tear burning like the sun. Then a massive, spinning object burst into being, whirling and grinding and looking like nothing this world had ever seen.

For a moment, it just hovered there, its component molecules reassembling, though of course the beasts below knew nothing of that. Then gravity took hold, and it plummeted toward the glacier below.

Ice shattered. Steam billowed. And mastodons wailed in pain and terror as the object tore through their ranks, furrowing the rock-hard glacier as easily as if it were fresh snow.

Then, as quick as it had begun, it was over. The machine came to a halt a half a mile downslope from where it had appeared, buried meters deep in ice. The air no longer crackled, and, threat gone, the herd's panic subsided. Slowly, they regrouped—tending young, nudging the fallen with their trunks to check for signs of life.

All told, nearly half their number'd fallen. But if they didn't forge on, more would follow. So with a few mournful trumpet cries, they did, leaving the glacier—and the strange machine it hid—behind.

Not one of them noticed as a slender, lab-coated man blinked into being behind them—the signs of his appearance somewhat subtler than that of his Device. But he certainly noticed them, watching until they disappeared from sight before blinking away once more.

Rotmensen Kill, New York
July 11, 1923

Rotmensen Kill was a lazy little backwater town in upstate New York whose namesake tributary emptied into the St. Lawrence River just two miles east. Prior to Prohibition, it wasn't known for much of anything at all. But since Prohibition, it'd become a hub for whiskey smuggling across the river from Canada, an operation made possible by the town's remote location and the fact that it was owned in its entirety by the New York Outfit.

The guy in charge was a gangster who went by the name of Dutch. Near as Simon Rip could tell, this Dutch character was just a two-bit thug bouncing around the streets of Brooklyn—until eighteen months ago, that is. Since then, he'd wised up quick, amassing an impressive array of investments—both legal and otherwise—and climbing the ranks of the Outfit almost overnight. Add to that his uncanny knack for evading arrest, and his legendary rep at the racetrack, and it looked to Rip like Dutch was getting help. Help from someone who knew which stocks and mares to pick, which gin-joints to avoid when. Someone with knowledge of future events.

Someone like Berlin.

Was it a long shot? Hell yeah, it was. But long shots were all Rip had. Chronology-actual, over a year had passed since Berlin had disappeared, and in that time, leads as to his whenabouts had been few and far between.

Now, you'd figure the smart play would be to tail this Dutch fellow back when he was a nobody, wait for Berlin to make contact—and you'd be right. Unfortunately for Rip, though, time travel isn't quite as precise as all that. It's more like skipping stones. Sure, you start out with a trajectory in mind, and can make a best guess as to velocity, but once you step out of the time-stream, there's no telling when you're going to end up. Shoot for fall of 1922, wind up in the summer of 1923. Which meant instead of tailing some dumb punk with no clout and no connections, Rip was forced to nose around a made guy's operation.

Which might explain why he was getting his ass kicked.

The guy's right cross was solid—Rip had to give him that. Split his lip in three places, loosened a couple teeth, and knocked Rip's cigar clear across the room. It skittered to a halt on the beer-sticky floor of the speakeasy and extinguished.

Rip dabbed blood from his lips with the back of one hand, eyed the guy who hit him. Big and dumb beneath a tweed scally cap, with an over-prominent brow, a pair of cauliflower ears, and a nose as crooked as a Chicago politician, Rip wanted nothing more than to teach this mook a lesson about manners. Would've, too, if it weren't for the mook's buddy, and for the dame.

Said buddy was as lean and squirrely as the mook was burly. The dame was lithe and pretty in a sunny summer housedress, and looked not just a little put out. But then, that was to be expected when some twitchy little mob thug was holding a knife to her neck.

So instead of kicking the mook's ass, Rip just shook his head and said, "You asshole. That cigar was an embargo-era Upmann; you've got no idea the lengths I went to get it. That makes two apologies you boys owe us—one to the lady for upsetting her, and one to me for the cigar. I'm not one to stand on tradition, so whichever order you'd like would be just fine."

The squirrel snorted, pressed the knife tighter to the woman's neck. The mook just stood and glowered, his job mostly over till the hitting started up again.

"You really expect me to apologize to this broad? I don't think you understand the situation here, mack."

"She's not a broad, she's a lady—and I'm pretty sure it's you who doesn't understand the situation."

"I understand you seem to like this broad. I understand unless you tell me who you are, walkin' in here like you own the joint and askin' all your pesky questions, I'm gonna cut her ear-to-ear. And I understand that as long as Dutch runs this town, there ain't a man around who's gonna do a thing about it."

"You're not going to cut her," Rip said.

The squirrel looked incredulous. "You don't think I'll do it?"

"I don't think you'll get the chance."

No sooner had the words tumbled from Rip's busted lips than the woman made her move, driving one stilettoed heel into the top of the squirrel's foot, and yanking his knife-arm to the right across her body so that her neck was no longer against the blade. Then she bit his forearm—two half-moons welling red—and slammed her head backward, smack into the squirrel's face. He went down spitting teeth.

Rip, for his part, took the opportunity to deliver a chop to the mook's throat, and a quick jab to his solar plexus. When he doubled over, gasping, Rip brought his knee up into the guy's nose. It snapped, pouring blood, and then the mook was out.

Mook attended to, Rip turned his attention to the squirrel, who was crying like a child and trying in vain to put his teeth back in. The dame was frowning and rubbing at the blood spatter on her dress.

"Took you long enough," Rip said to her. "You like watching me get hit?"

She smiled and glanced down at her chest, which, given the cut of her dress, was on prominent display. "That was for all the leering," she said. "Long as I've got to wear this silly get-up, you'd do well to remember my eyes are up here."

"I keep telling you, the dress is period."

"Funny—the other women in this when seem at home in more modest attire."

"Yeah, well, the other women got less to show."

Out of the corner of his eye, Rip caught a glimpse of the squirrel crawling for the door. "Ah ah ah," he said, closing the ground between them with three quick strides and grabbing the guy by the collar. "You're not going anywhere. Not until you give the lady an apology."

Without his muscle to back him up, the squirrel was unmanned—he could barely get the words out he was shaking so badly. "Listen, Miss, I'm really sorry—I was only following orders. I didn't mean nothing by it, I swear!"

"It's not Miss," said the woman. "It's Doctor. Doctor Serena Ludwig. Which is how you're going to introduce me when you take us to see your boss."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me—we three are going to see Dutch."

Dutch ran his operation from the offices of a cement factory just outside of town. It was surrounded on all sides by a limestone quarry, and beyond that, the rolling foothills of the Adirondacks. They headed out there in the squirrel's own Studebaker—a spacious, jouncey affair in gray and black. Rip made the squirrel drive, and kept him in line with the .45 he'd found in the glove box. Ludwig sat in back—her long legs stretched across the bench seat, her chestnut hair blowing in the breeze. Rip caught a glimpse of her in the Studebaker's rearview and smiled.

Rip had been working with Ludwig for the better part of a year now. He and his men were having a hell of a time tracking down Berlin, and he figured as his former research partner, Ludwig might have some insight into the way Berlin thought. This trip would go a long way toward determining whether or not she did—it was Ludwig who thought the Dutch angle was one worth pursuing. But even if it didn't pan out, Rip figured to keep her on—she was better in a fight than half his men.

"So," the squirrel said, "Whadda you two want with Dutch, anyway?"

"We're trying to track down an associate of his," Rip replied. "Fellow by the name of Berlin. You know him?"

"Don't think so. What's he look like?"

"Older guy. Wiry, like you, only not so twitchy. Scary smart."

"Doesn't ring a bell," he said. "Whatcha gonna do when you find him?"

"Nothing you need worry about," Ludwig replied. "Now how about you shut up and drive?"

When they reached the quarry's entrance, Rip gestured with the gun barrel, and the squirrel hopped out of the car with a sigh. He trundled over to the chain-link gate and slid it aside. The sun had dipped behind the hills to the west of them, and the evening air had taken on a chill. Ludwig crossed her arms across her chest as, with a crunch of tires on gravel, they drove inside.

The hodge-podge buildings of the cement plant were stacked at random to their left, but the squirrel drove right on by. Rip objected, but the squirrel said, "Look, you said take me to Dutch, and that's exactly what I'm doin'. This time a day, he ain't in his office—he's at the dig."

"The dig?" Rip asked—but then he saw it. Up ahead, an enormous pit, rimmed around with lights on wooden poles. At the edge of the pit stood a man in a straw boater hat and a seersucker suit—his back to them, his bony hands crossed behind him at his waist. As they braked to a halt behind him, he turned and smiled.

"Randall," he called to the driver, "You're right on time. And I see you've brought the friends I requested."

Randall nodded, and flashed his newly gap-toothed smile. "I did at that, Mr. Dutch. It played just like you said—give or take a couple teeth."

Rip was out of the car in a flash, the .45 leveled at this Dutch's head. Because in an instant, he realized he and Ludwig had been wrong. Dutch wasn't getting help from Berlin.

Dutch was Berlin.

When Berlin saw the gun, he tsked and shook his head. "Such unpleasantness," he said, "and so very ill-advised. I should have thought, Mr. Rip, you'd have the sense to know when you've been bested."

Rip looked around, not lowering the gun, and sure enough, Berlin wasn't bluffing. A half-dozen armed men formed a semicircle around them, leaving no exit but over the edge of the pit—a hundred-foot drop onto solid rock. Rip and Ludwig were surrounded.

"Your gun, please?" said Berlin. Rip handed it to him. "Excellent. Now, perhaps you and the lovely Dr. Ludwig might join me in a walk?"

"Whatever you say, Dutch." This from Ludwig, dripping sarcasm as Randall the gap-toothed squirrel hauled her from the car, leering all the while.

"It was supposed to be 'Deutsch', actually," Berlin said. "My idea of a joke, I suppose. But much as with my Pennsylvanian ancestors, the name was soon corrupted." Then, to one of his henchmen: "Tell the boys below to take a break—I'd like to show our guests what we've been up to. Randall, Tate—you're with me. The rest of you are to guard the pit's perimeter; no one is to go in or out without my say-so, understood?"

Berlin's stooges did as they were told. Tate—a comically large fellow that looked the entrée to the mook's appetizer—pressed a gun barrel into Rip's back and shoved him toward a rickety construction elevator, Berlin leading the way. The squirrel Randall grabbed a fistful of Ludwig's hair and dragged her along as well.

"The way I see it, doc," he said to her, giving her hair a yank, "you owe me a couple teeth. And when the boss is through with you, that's a debt I aim to cash in."

He tossed her to the elevator floor. She looked up at him with tears and murder in her eyes.

"You'll pay for that," Rip told him.

"You wanna bet?" Randall replied.

The elevator lurched to life and began to descend—and as it did, Tate's grip on Rip's arm loosened just a hair. Rip saw his chance and took it, lunging at Randall. But before Rip could lay a hand on him, the butt of Tate's gun bashed into the back of Rip's head. Rip's vision swam, and he fell to his knees. He tried to pivot—to take a swing at Tate—but once more, Tate was too quick. He delivered another crushing blow, this time to Rip's cheek. Pain exploded like a firework, and Rip crumpled.

"Enough," Berlin said. "Get him to his feet."

Tate grabbed Rip by one arm and lifted him as easily as a child would a doll. Then the elevator clanked to a halt. Berlin stepped off, and his two thugs pushed Rip and Ludwig after. Then they moved to follow, but Berlin turned and raised a hand.

"No," he said. "Stay here. My friends and I have some private matters to discuss."

"But boss—"

"Don't worry—I've no intention of straying from sight. If you see anything amiss, I trust you two know what to do."

The thugs nodded. "Good," Berlin said. Then, to Rip and Ludwig: "Shall we?"

He led them through the stark white moonscape of the quarry, his hands thrust into the pockets of his trousers, as if out for a leisurely evening stroll.

"Big of you, leaving your men back there like that," Rip said.

"I've no more interest in disrupting the timeline than you do, Mr. Rip. Those men may be idiots, but they're also shrewd in their own way—I could not risk them overhearing something they should not." He removed a hand from his pant pocket; in it was a Luger, which he aimed at Rip's chest. "But don't think for a moment I'd bring you here unarmed."

"Tell me, Doctor," Ludwig said, "how, precisely, did you end up leading this merry band of idiots in the first place? I mean, this Dutch fellow has a reputation that goes back years. But it's not like you've been camped out here for decades, playing the part of petty criminal—have you?"

Berlin laughed. "Of course not—and why should I have, when it's so easy in this era to create a reputation through lies and innuendo?"

"But there are arrest reports that date back years!"

"Ah, yes—the evidence of Dutch's misspent youth. Easily accomplished in this era of paper records. When one breaks into a precinct's file room, the assumption is that it's to steal. No one looks for what is there that wasn't there before."

"But to what end? Why go to all the trouble?"

"That, my dear, is elementary. I needed resources—the sort of resources that, should I acquire them through more honest means, might find their way into the public record. I am not a fool, Dr. Ludwig—I'm quite aware the Company has analysts poring over every scrap of historical data, looking for any indication of my whenabouts. So I turned to those who share my need for secrecy, and my dislike of formal records: organized crime. Now, as you might imagine, they are not a trusting group—nor are they prone to philanthropy. So I fashioned myself the sort of man that they might employ, and I used my knowledge of—shall we say impending market trends?—to prove my worth."

Rip scoffed. "Yeah, but why? So they could send you to the ass-end of Nowhere, New York?"

"No. So I could uncover this."

Berlin gestured toward the center of the pit. Jutting from the quarry floor was the limestone-crusted hulk of something huge—something ancient—its concentric circles forming arches that reached twenty feet skyward before curving toward the stone floor once more.

"The Berlin Device," Ludwig breathed. "But how?"

"Once upon a time, this region was nothing but mountains and glaciers," said Berlin. "It was really quite beautiful—you should have seen it. Not that it would do you any practical good to travel back and do so. The equipment required to properly excavate the Device from the spot in which I buried it won't exist until, well, now, so even if you were to find the proper when, there's not a damn thing you could do to beat me to this moment."

He was right, Rip realized. The only person to ever successfully send something larger than a human being back was Berlin himself when he disappeared the Device, and thus far, the brightest minds in all the Company'd had no luck sussing out how he'd done it.

Not that Rip cared much for how. No, what Rip wanted was the why.

"Okay, I gotta know," he said, "what the hell does this thing do?"

"It's a research tool—that's all," Ludwig said. "A processor of sorts."

Berlin laughed. "It's a weapon, is what it is. The greatest weapon ever devised."

"Ridiculous," Ludwig retorted.

"Is it? This Device is capable of detecting the position and vector of every particle in the universe, Mr. Rip—do you know what that means?"

"No, I don't."

"It means that, used properly, this device can predict the future right down to the tiniest detail, and likewise retrodict every moment of the past."

"That doesn't sound much like a weapon to me."

"Oh, I assure you, it is—and one far more powerful than any bomb could ever be. Just imagine—any moment of the past or future, laid bare for all to see. With this Device, one could topple nations, destroy religions—or start either one anew. One could shine a light upon the deepest, darkest heart of mankind's most horrid moments, or for a price, shroud them from the public's view. One could rob every man and woman on this cursed rock of their last illusory shred of free will, and rule them all forevermore—a God."

"You know I'll never let you do that."

"Why, Mr. Rip, whatever makes you think that I—"

But Ludwig interjected: "The Device belongs to the Company, Berlin—not in the hands of a madman."

"Indeed," Berlin replied icily. "And as far as I'm concerned, the Company can have it back. Now that I've removed this, that is." He removed from his pocket a cylinder of glass and steel, in which pulsed the strangest light. Rip watched it for a moment, mesmerized. It seemed almost... alive.

"What is that?" Rip asked.

"The baryon core," Ludwig replied, though she said it almost to herself—her eyes wide, her tone reverent.

"Quite," said Berlin. "See, the bulk of my Device is mere machinery, easily reproduced, but this—this is sheer magic. My greatest and most terrible creation. I daresay without this, you could spend a millennium dissecting this hunk of metal without ever duplicating its function. And far as I'm concerned, you're welcome to."

"You know damn well that isn't yours to take," Ludwig said.

"Nor is it yours," Berlin replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I'll be going now."

Berlin hitched up his jacket sleeve as though checking for the time. But of course he wasn't—he was accessing his temporal manipulator. For just a moment, his gun hand dipped. Rip glanced back at Berlin's stooges, but they were too close, too alert for him to make a move.

Problem was, Ludwig didn't seem to think so.

She lunged at Berlin, grabbing for the core. Berlin jerked it away from her, and they hit the ground in a tangle of limbs—kicking, clawing, rolling first one way and then the other as each struggled for the upper hand.

Rip scrambled to help Ludwig, but shots rang out behind him, and pocked the ground at his feet. He dove right, taking shelter behind a limestone outcrop.

Berlin's goons kept on shooting, pinning Rip where he hid. The fragile limestone coughed up dust wherever bullets hit, and Rip knew it wouldn't be long before the gunfire tore clean through.

Ludwig, it seemed, was having better luck. As Rip watched, she climbed atop Berlin, and tried to wrest the Luger from his hand. Again and again, she slammed his wrist into the ground, trying to get him to release it. It seemed as though success was near, but then Berlin heaved with all his might and sent Ludwig pitching forward in an involuntary somersault.

That's when the Luger went off.

It was a fluke, nothing more—an unfortunate convergence of Ludwig's bashing and Berlin's move to topple her. But that fluke buried a round square in Ludwig's stomach.

Bullets ricocheting off the stone around him, Rip watched helpless as, not six feet away, Ludwig lay trembling in a growing pool of blood. Berlin, under the protection of his goons' suppressive fire, clambered to his feet and dusted himself off. Then he called to Rip, straining to be heard over the din.

"Tell me, Mr. Rip, if you were to fire up my Device and train its focus on this very spot, just moments from now—do you know what you would see?"

Rip shook with impotent rage. "If I say yes, will it save me from having to listen to your bullshit bad-guy monologuing?"

Berlin ignored his snide response. "I'll tell you what you'd see. You'd see two men dead—dead by my hand."

Rip didn't have the energy to point out for the second time today that Ludwig was very much a lady—and it turns out, he didn't have to. Berlin's Luger pop-pop-popped, and his men hit the dirt. Rip peered around the outcrop, astonished.

"Quickly," Berlin said, "you haven't got much time. The rest of them will be here shortly."

"What... why..."

"Oh, for God's sake, do I have to spell it out for you? If you don't get Dr. Ludwig home—and soon—she is going to die. You are still wearing your temporal manipulator, are you not?"

Rip nodded.

"Good. Now get her home, and get her fixed. I'll not have her blood on my hands. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

Berlin triggered the temporal manipulator he wore on his wrist, and the air around him shimmered with the sudden charge.

"It would seem I've won this round, Mr. Rip, but have no fear—I'm quite certain we'll pick up this little game of ours another time."

And then Berlin was gone.

Rip stared for a moment at the spot Berlin had just vacated. Then he glanced back at the two men dead by Berlin's hand.

Why had Berlin sacrificed these men? Rip thought. Why hadn't he finished me and Ludwig when he had the chance?

Gunfire echoed across the quarry as the men on the perimeter caught wise to the fact the scene in the quarry had gone south, and behind Rip, the elevator whirred to life. Whatever answers he sought would have to wait.

Rip huddled over Ludwig's crumpled, bloody form and activated his temporal manipulator.

And as the sound of footfalls came ever closer, they vanished.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Copyright © 2010 by BEAT to a PULP