Residence Hall Raid

            My dorm room was exactly as I had left it, but everything was wrong. I had the same feeling as when I would jolt awake from one of my dreams. When I would start awake after having relived that night on the beach. When the smell of gunpowder and burning would still be fresh in my nostrils and my mind would struggle to accept that I was safely tucked away in Aechyr Academy. In those moments, I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

            But I hadn’t just woken up. I was just walking back into my room after a long day of class. My familiar small room should be a welcome relief. But as I scanned across the TV, the crappy movies, the camouflage bedspread, I couldn’t help but feel something was out of place. And yet, my conscious mind was coming up short.

            Then the thought of the worst possibility surged through me. I dropped my backpack and darted over to my bed. Dropping to my knees, my arm shot out and felt around underneath. Nothing. My go-bag was gone.

            Everything was in there. Everything important, anyway. Losing the change of clothes and extra toothbrush wasn’t the problem. Losing my backup radio and Arcane Tech Electro-Pulse Gun, on the other hand, keyed me into red alert. Worse yet, my journal was missing, too.

            My cover was blown.

            This shouldn’t happen. For a million reasons. First among them being that I was still in training. Kennedy Frost was not a full-fledged member of Time Peace. So, what had happened?

            Anarakia. They were here, it seems. That had to be it. The Charmies were working with People’s Front Nine, who were propped up by Anarakia. Local anti-monarchist protestors supported by Aechrian revolutionaries, who in turn were being puppeted by Time Peace’s archenemy.

            As David had laid it out, Anarakia were a loosely affiliated group of megalomaniacs bent on conquering alternate timelines. The key to this timeline was the island nation of Aechyr. I had already run into some Charmies on-campus. Maybe Anarakia really was working through them and had sniffed us out.

            Us. My team. I had to alert them.

            Fortunately, I still had one gadget on me. I raised my arm with the bulky silver watch on it. The Time Gauge had many functions, but the one I cared about right now was the comm.

            I twisted the bottom of three crowns until the watch face showed I was on the squad’s channel. Then I pressed it.

            “David, come in,” I said tensely into the watch. “I have a situation.”

            A moment passed without answer. That wasn’t like him. David was always attentive and responsible.

            “David, are you there? This is an emergency,” I repeated. The nervous energy was building in me. To relieve it, I paced around the room, looking for anything else out of place.

            “David, answer me,” I nearly shouted into the Time Gauge.

            “Yo, Kennedy,” Blake’s voice replied from an invisible speaker on the device. Blake. My teammate. My best friend.

            “Blake, we have a problem,” I hurriedly explained. “Someone just broke into my room and took my stuff. My gauntlet gun, my go-bag, all that jazz.”

            “When was this?” Blake asked. I recognized that tone in his voice. Gears were turning in his head. I had long learned that you don’t ignore Blake’s deductions.

            “I don’t know, I just got walked in,” I said. There wasn’t anything more I could give him.

            “Literally just now?” Blake pressed.

            I felt slightly annoyed at how vague “literally just now” could actually be. Blake could be asking if I had walked in that second, or if it had only been a minute. I’d have to be the one offering specifics.

            “In the last minute,” I clarified.

            “Because your light was on like five minutes ago,” Blake announced.

            Five minutes. We had a chance.

            “Did you see it go out?” I asked.

            “No,” Blake replied.

                I immediately darted for my window. The lights had been off when I walked in. Which meant either the thief had slipped past me in the hall outside, or he had found another escape. I threw open the window, the salty smell of the sea stinging my nostrils immediately. But I didn’t have time for the view. I stuck my head out and twisted around towards the roof.

            “I got him!” I hurriedly announced into my watch. A shadowy figure had just slipped out of sight behind the lip of the dorm’s roof. “He’s on the roof! He’s on the roof!”

            “I see him!” Blake called back. I heard the hint of an echo in his answer.

            I glanced back down, back towards the water. Halfway between the shore and where I was, Blake was standing at the edge of campus, his short spiky black hair identifiable under a glowing streetlight. There were only a couple of other students ahead of him, also returning to the dorms, but I suddenly realized we’d still need to careful. Even now, we couldn’t draw attention.

            “Keep him in sight,” I told Blake in a more muted tone.

            “On it,” he immediately replied in a similarly softened voice. His tiny form adjusted course and began to briskly orbit the building, staying far enough away to get an angle to the figure on the roof.

            I had the harder job now. I waited at the window, foot tapping anxiously as the other two students meandered towards the dorm. I couldn’t follow until I knew they wouldn’t look up. As I waited anxiously, I thought about running back into the hall and finding roof access that way. I should have done that earlier. I’ve been living here for weeks—I should know all the entrances and exits. Too late now. I’d waste more time that way. Better to stick with what works. If the thief could climb up the wall, so could I.

            Blake was nearly out of my sight. Glancing down, the two lingering students were nearly to the entrance. Good enough. I leaned out the window and glanced around. The dorm’s façade was in the more modern style on campus, which meant it was smooth, but I had one thing working for me. The tall sliding windows were basically doors. So to keep students from walking right out into thin air, there were waist-high bars outside each window. Like a mock-balcony. I just hoped they really were rated for safety.

            I put one foot on the bar and heaved myself up. I kept one arm back inside, pressing against the wall for balance. With my free hand, I twisted around and grabbed the bottom of the next gate up. The barrier beneath me was holding, and I had a grip on the one above me. But could I haul myself up?

            No time to waste on wondering. I let go of the interior wall and grabbed the bars above with both hands. I pushed off and heaved myself upwards. My arms burned as I suspended myself in midair… and wondered what the heck I was doing. I tried to quickly shift my grip one hand at a time, trying to climb up. Bad idea. As soon as I let go with one hand, I felt myself start to slip back down.

            I kicked out, more out of a flailing instinct than anything. My feet caught the inside edge of my window. My shoes slipped and scraped for a moment against the wall before the rubbery soles found a grip. Better. I tried climbing again. I shot one hand up and got a grip higher on the bar. I tried my other hand. Success.

            I pulled again, kicking off as best I could with one leg. I threw my left arm over the top of the rail, banging it into the glass of the door-like window as I did. I winced, but there was no light on behind the blinds. Even though the sun was beneath the horizon, I could be sure that no college student would be asleep this early at night. Not if they were normal.

            Either way, I had to be fast now. I pulled my leg up, but my foot stuck too far out to the side to get a grip on the lower rail of the barrier. I wiggled to the left and tried again. This time, my right foot was able to find purchase at the far end of the narrow barrier.

            I pulled myself up, standing level with this floor. This was taking too long. But there was no going back now.

            “Ken, where are you?” I heard Blake ask in his “totally casual” voice.

            “Coming,” I replied briefly, getting ready to jump to the next set of bars.

            “Cuz I think he’s going to jump to the next building.”

            Great.

            I didn’t bother answering but made a jump of my own. I replicated my last ascent, minus the initial fumbling around. Pull myself up, plant my feet inside the last window well, adjust, and pull again. I had just swung my leg up when Blake’s voice came out of my time gauge again.

            “He just made the jump. He’s heading north. I’m watching him, but he’s starting to book it.”

            Energy surged through me as I stood on the rail. One more story to go. How had this guy managed to do it so quickly? Well, he’d be a professional. Shame Blake couldn’t have noticed, but he probably had his head in the clouds. I was lucky enough he bothered to notice my light on.

            One more haul upwards, and then I had the lip of the roof within reach. Blake was squawking updates to me and getting worried at my lack of responses. But I didn’t have a free hand to reply.

I heaved myself up one final time and rolled onto the roof.

“I’m still here,” I panted into the watch. I picked myself up, ignoring my burning muscles.

“He’s looking around for another jump,” Blake reported.

“On my way,” I said, already sprinting towards the north end of my dorm building.

The edge raced towards me and I didn’t slow. I concentrated on pushing ahead, fighting the instinct to stop. I’d need the speed.

I hit the ledge and shoved off as hard as I could. For a split-second as my stomach dropped, I only felt mind-numbing panic. Then I saw the next dorm building shoot towards me. My leg shot out to step onto it, as if it were just another step on my run.

The impact shot up my calf as I hit, and I stumbled. I careened dangerously, but caught myself as I skidded to a stop.

My mind caught up to me a second later. I looked up. On the other side of the building was the thief. A moment later, he turned away from me and prepared a running start.

I charged. He was already off.

He jumped, then disappeared below the lip of the roof. I surged ahead. As soon as I reached where he had leapt from, I mimicked his motion.

This time, in the heart-stopping midair hang, I saw that the next building was a story shorter than the one I had just jumped off. My mind nearly locked up at the sudden realization. But as the roof raced up to meet me, something in me shouted, “Roll! Roll! Roll!”

I angled myself as best I could. I hit the roof. I tumbled, my shoulder stinging. My knees bashed into the surface beneath me, bouncing as I rolled.

I twisted around, but the thief clearly hadn’t had the same difficulty as me. He had taken off yet again. I pulled myself to my feet and hit the crown in my watch.

“Blake, where are you?”

“Following,” came his panting reply.

“Can you cut him off?”

“If I knew where he was going.”

At that moment, the figure shot to the side and darted over the ledge, again. I saw his hand catch the edge as he twisted around. A moment later, they released as he descended.

“Lost him,” Blake groaned.

“I got him, he went down East,” I said.

I reached the lip and looked down. The figure was on the ground, in the alley between this building and the next.

“He’s heading North again,” I whispered intensely. I had a sudden fear that he had heard my instructions to Blake. “Go, go, cut him off.”

“Working on it,” Blake replied.

I scanned the wall down, searching for the handholds the thief had to have used. Sure enough, this building was more old fashioned, and the brick exterior more mottled. Almost too mottled. He could have used any number of handholds, including some piping leading down towards a dumpster.

That’s as good a choice as any, I decided, and dropped below the ledge.

Grabbing the pipes, they stung cold against my hands. As I scurried down, some edges felt like they were cutting into me. I didn’t stop to check.

My shoes hit the corner of the dumpster. I let go too quick, nearly falling back into the garbage. I shifted my weight aggressively and started falling into the alley.

            My hands slammed into the asphalt and stung more than ever. But before the sensation could really sink in, I had already pushed myself up and was pounding pavement after the dark figure.

            He had just rounded a corner ahead, and I locked onto it.

            My watched squawked again.

            “Yeah, Quincy, I was just heading back,” I heard Blake’s oddly distant voice.

            Quincy? What—?

            I rounded the corner myself and saw the shadow sprinting towards a bridge that led across the road Blake had been following. As I drew closer, I got a glimpse of Blake from my elevated position.

            Sure enough, he was standing next to a girl in a wheelchair—Quincy. I could just make out her usual elegant bun in addition to her chair from where I was. But that was unmistakable. Quincy had been extremely helpful in getting Blake and me caught up while we were suspended. Running into her now was anything but. Of all the rotten luck.

            Blake was stretching awkwardly, as if he were tired. But I could see that he was really finding an excuse to hold the comm button down on his own time gauge.

            I was going to warn him that the thief was just above him on the bridge but caught myself just in time. Blake’s watch would broadcast my voice, just as mine broadcast his. And even in this desperate chase, we couldn’t alert anyone. Especially not someone who knew us.

            “Sure, I can help you out,” I heard Blake say and then his voice cut out. As I rushed closer, he stepped around behind Quincy’s wheelchair. He carefully turned her away as he glanced up towards me.

            Something on his face caught my attention. It wasn’t just worry about this recent turn of events. He was trying to tell me something.

            The figure was already past him, almost across the street. I jerked my head towards the thief.

            Blake reached around back and pulled something out of his bag.

            I only saw a glint of silver, but that’s all I needed.

            Now I nodded as I hit the foot of the bridge.

            Blake silently tossed his gauntlet gun up as I ran towards the spot.

            And… his aim was off. Despite myself, I wanted to swear at him. In his haste and desperation to remain unnoticed, he didn’t throw it over far enough. As it rose through the air, I thought it might get as high as the handrail, but it wouldn’t get over it. It flew nearly vertical and would fall right back on his head if he didn’t move.

            And then I knew what I had to do.

            I reached over and pressed the middle crown on my watch. Immediately, the bridge was isolated in a small black sphere. But it didn’t stay opaque for long. Soon, bright orange and yellow streamers twisted along the walls of the arena, cyan fireworks sparking behind them.

            But my eyes were firmly on the glinting gun hanging in midair. Oddly, it’s silver surface didn’t reflect the multicolored display around us. But that was part of the arena’s magic. It wasn’t exactly real. Not a thing in and of itself. Just an isolated segment of reality.

            Without slowing, I leaned out over the railing and reached for the gun. My fingers brushed it, but it tumbled away.

            Immediately, my hand shot back to the time gauge. I pressed the middle crown again.

            Before the gun could fall back down, everything snapped back. I was at the beginning of the bridge. I had flashed back to the moment the arena had activated around me. That was the power of the arena. At any moment, I could reset it back to the instant it had been created.

            So I tried the catch again. Rushing ahead, I nearly leapt over the rail as I reached for the gauntlet gun. This time, my hand wrapped around it easily. And then I started to tumble. I really had leapt over the rail.

            I fumbled for my watch. And then, all of a sudden, I had ground beneath my feet again.

            For the third time, I reached out for the weapon. I leapt, and I felt its weight in my hand.

            My other hand immediately reached out and pushed against the rail, shoving me back onto the bridge. Just right.

            My feet hit the ground and I took off, charging towards the edge of the arena. As purple swirls approached, I unintentionally braced myself as if I would hit a physical wall.

But I didn’t. I ran straight through, hitting nothing but air. The arena vanished as I plunged back into the real world. The only time that had passed was the time it took to complete that last iteration. If Quincy had looked back and up, she would have only seen that one attempt to grab it. Of course, if she had looked back, we would have other things to worry about.

I spared only a quick glance back to see Blake wheeling her away as if nothing had happened. Then I focused back ahead.

The figure darted around one last small building. I flipped the gun around until the handle rested in my palm. A flick of my thumb across the dial on the back switched It on. I heard a tiny whine as it charged up.

I reached the building and spun around the corner. Immediately, something hit my outstretched gun arm. My left jabbed an elbow upward automatically.

My attacker pulled himself in closer and we scuffled for a second until—

“Kennedy, enough!”

We pulled apart and I froze.

“Put it down,” David ordered. Standing farther off was Randy, holding my go-bag. David Greene, our ever-impassive team leader stared me down coolly from underneath his almost shaggy brown hair. His partner’s wiry frame was hardly panting from the chase. Or Randy just hiding it well. His sharp eyes still glared with the intensity of competition. His pointed but meaty face made the effect unnerving.

I flipped the silvery weapon around in my hand, facing the switch on the side towards David.

“It was on stun,” I explained calmly.

David glanced down at the device, and then eased up.

“Some test,” I grumbled. “I wasn’t about to get disqualified.”

David actually smiled a little. “Thanks for not trying to kill Randy,” he said.

Randy walked forward swinging my bag casually and grumbling, “Not that you could’ve hit me.”

He tossed me the bag and I caught it. I turned back to David. “It was a one-time thing,” I assured him, as if Randy hadn’t said anything.

“I don’t see why you’re so proud of yourself,” Randy sneered. “You didn’t actually pass the test.”

“Sorry David had to bail you out,” I retorted.

“Actually,” David interjected, “you did kind of fail the test.”

I shot him a dirty look. David was fast becoming infamous for his unfair tests. I wasn’t looking forward to the twist with this one.

“Use the lock we gave you,” he said, tapping my bag. “Saves a lot of energy.”

I didn’t say anything. He had told me to put the special device on my door a week ago. Maybe I’d have to give him this one. Not that I had to do it out loud.

“Still,” he said. “Good hustle. But you got lucky on the timing. And you can’t depend on luck for long. Trust me,” he added seriously.

I just nodded.

David turned to go, Randy following behind. He gave me an almost friendly punch on the shoulder as he passed. I didn’t react.

Good timing, I pondered to myself. As soon as they turned the corner, I tore open my bag and dug through past all my equipment. Past my own gauntlet gun, past my first aid kit, past the lock David had reprimanded me for not using.

Just as I was panicking that it was gone, I found it. My journal. I flipped through the pages just to be sure. Yep, this was it. The chronicles of all my dreams—my memories. My visions from each night of how I stormed a beach with a group of marines. None of it could be real, none of it happened. And yet part of me, a large part, was convinced that it had somehow actually happened.

No matter how many times David or the rest of Time Peace denied it.

I glanced up, but he and Randy were long gone. I zipped up the bag and slung the strap across my shoulder. And I couldn’t help but wonder if this really had been a test. Maybe I was being paranoid. Maybe I wanted it to be something more. Still, one fact remained.

I never kept my journal in my go-bag.