Joel Adrian - A Shattered Future

She blinked, struggling to confirm what she just saw.

Catalina turned, her face horrified, confirming what Mona thought she’d just seen. She stepped back to look at the floor of the house, where the Japanese Regulator had fallen.

There was a blood stain on the floor, but no body.

Tanner jumped back to his feet and charged her, shoving her to the ground.

She groaned as she met the floor again.

“The hell’s amatter with you, lady?!” Tanner was fuming, his cheeks dyed a deep red. “I had that guy! I could’ve made that second shot!”

She held a hand up, struggling to catch her breath. “No, no, just listen, okay? They’re Regulators. You can’t kill them.”

Catalina stepped through the doorway, her face scratched and cut up from her altercation with the Regulator. She let the pistol clatter to the ground and slumped against the wall. Her face was fraught with shock.

“We should just leave her, little lady,” Tanner said to Catalina. “She sure ain’t looking out for us.”

Mona lowered her gaze, trying not to let the words from Tanner wound her. Seeing him again was already hurting her. His anger clawed at her chest. “Just hang on. They’re like… law enforcement of time travel across universes.”

Tanner shook his head, his mind already made up. “Bull. How convenient you forget to tell us that during mission prep, or when the entire group was together.”

“Just listen!” she shouted. “In my world, this world,” she said, motioning to the area around them, “there were laws established to protect time travel. There’s a group called TRALE. That’s Time Regulation And Law Enforcement. They exist to prohibit regular people from screwing around with time travel and messing everything up.”

Tanner, now all out of steam, leaned against the decaying doorway and groaned. “So why are they here then? You’re a soldier. You’re on military business.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t work like that. If time travel is to be used for any purpose, it has to get approval. There’s an entire new governing body made for this stuff. When someone does transfer to another timeline, it’s for scientific study, or to apply knowledge we have now to research things from them. We’re never to use it to intervene.”

“So you’re like, some international time criminal now?” Catalina asked. “Why do it? Why try to intervene?”

Mona got to her knees, finally able to catch her breath. “I… when the bombs dropped, my squad and I…” She eyed Tanner, then looked away. “Okay, so from what they told us, some universes fall in line with each other, others couldn’t be more different. The ones that are similar to mine are almost guaranteed to go the same path.

“That means most of them are going to end in some kind of nuclear war like mine. My group and I, we decided we needed our universe was screwed, but if we could get back to one similar to ours, correct the course, it’d be okay. We’d have done all we could to prevent it.”

Tanner and Catalina watched her as she spoke.

“They never told us much about the Time Regulators,” she continued, “only that they were dangerous as hell. They’re government officials. But the government took a very conservative stance, that’s why meddling is so prohibited. They believe that to mess with anything major, anything significant, is to defy nature and free will.”

Silence fell over the room. She watched as Tanner and Catalina took in the information, keeping her eyes firmly off the Specialist.

“How’d they find us?” Catalina asked, arching her head towards Mona.

Mona shrugged. “I heard rumors they might be able to trace Requiem gems.”

“Why didn’t they come for us back in our world?” Tanner asked.

Mona shook her head. “They’re very strict on their powers. They’re correction-only. We hadn’t committed any crimes. Only by being here now are we in violation. They’re not trying to kill you, they want to imprison you. They’d have brought me in for a trial, though. I’d have been killed, deemed too dangerous. Rogue soldier? They’d have a field day killing me.”

Catalina pounded a fist into the floor. “This crap gets worse and worse.”

“Aye,” Mona said. She groaned and forced herself to her feet. “But we can’t kill them. Right now they’re hunting us. But if either of you killed one, they’d go into extermination mode. They’d wipe you out at any cost.”

Tanner smirked. “Oh, but popping them in the kneecap’s okay?”

She closed her eyes. “He was shooting at you. If they catch me, I’ll gladly face my sentence for that. But they both lived. They’re going to be coming for us though. This is why we need to get the hell out of here.”

Catalina stood and pulled a phone from her pocket. She started aiming it around.

Tanner held a hand up when she pointed the camera at him. “What are you doing, ink?”

“We need to document this, even if it’s not related to the war.” She transitioned into what Mona could make out as a kitchen, and then to the back of the house.

Mona kept her gaze from Tanner. She undid and retied her loose shoestring and holstered her pistol.

“You sure don’t like me much, do you?” Tanner asked.

Mona looked up. If you only knew, kid . “Let’s move out!” she called into the house.

They reconvened on the deck, Tanner taking guard and watching out into the woods. Clouds were starting to form overhead, but the afternoon sun was still setting high in the sky.

“Look, we just need to get back,” Mona pleaded with Catalina. “These Regulators are relentless. They’re not going to stop. If we get stuck out here after sun-down, we’re dead in the water. Let’s just head back with what we’ve got, okay?”

Catalina sighed. “If we have to.”

Mona started to walk down the steps, but Catalina caught her with an arm. Mona turned to face her.

“Just wanted to thank you,” Catalina said, nodding towards the yard. “If you hadn’t saved my ass out there, I’d… well, you know.”

Mona shook her head. “No, no, he shot the Regular.” She pointed a thumb at Tanner.

Catalina nodded. “Yeah, but you stopped him from killing ‘em. That would’ve been the end of both of us.”

Catalina walked past Mona, and the three started for the road.

Emersyn looked up and down the road, but it was desolate. Just as desolate as it had been 20 minutes ago. Joey’s wrist had doubled in size, and Bravon was resting against a tree, half-awake.

She was the only one who could move, and she needed to secure help. There was no way she could carry Bravon into the cave on her own.

“Child,” she heard Bravon call faintly.

She turned, glaring at him. He’d been trying to move and communicate and help. She wished he’d just sleep, right now he needed the respite. “Rest, sir. Please.”

He motioned for her to come over to him. She sighed . Military never knows when to shut up and sleep , she thought.

Emersyn made her way over to Sergeant Major Bravon Pearson, kneeling next to him. “Yes, sir?”

He shifted his position, bringing a sleeve up to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Things ain’t looking so good here. Bring me up to speed.”

“But sir, you’re—”

“But nothing!” he managed to shout. “Status report.”

Defeated, Emersyn tried to recall the cluster that had happened since they arrived. “Okay, um… some hunter killed Naomi.”

Bravon closed his eyes. “Damn. That’s the first soldier I’ve lost under my command in 8 years.”

“We split up. Mona, Tanner, and Catalina headed back on the road we came from to try and find evidence, or news, or something. Anything to help film or take pictures of.”