Timewise
an excerpt

Timewise

Tyler Smith meets Zane Tucker three times before Zane meets him. A lot of people upon seeing a statement such as this scoff and say that’s impossible. It should however be know that it’s not impossible.

But it is very, very awkward.

Now the third time Tyler meets Zane is the most important time for the sole reason that it savers his life. It happens like this:

Tyler is late for his photography class. The halls are all but empty, a swirl of paper left in the wake of hundreds of students fleeing before the tardy bell. Tyler Smith is thirteen years old. He is two weeks into his eight grade year at Lewis Baker Secondary School. He is short and scrawny with brown eyes, brown hair and brown skin. He is still Tyler then, still Tyler Smith and not yet Ty, the Timewise operative who exists everywhere and nowhere all at once.

He isn’t in a hurry. Unlike some people who break into a sprint the second the tardy bell rings, Tyler has never seen the difference between five and ten minutes late and later he’ll think that maybe that has been his problem all along. Because five minutes can make a difference.

At six minutes late, he’s rounding the corner of the hallway and he feels it for the first time--cold’s vice grip seeping into his chest.

Then he sees it. The thing standing in the hallway is pale blue with huge black eyes, long spindly limbs and a single vertical slit where there should be a mouth. Tyler blinks, once, twice, again but the thing doesn’t go away. It just hovers there in his vision, staring, unmoving, a child’s nightmare made flesh.

Slowly, very slowly, the thing extends its hand towards him, long, thin fingers unfurling without any apparent malice. Still, the cold that had found its way into Tyler’s chest intensifies. It builds up in his stomach and seeps into everything else, his veins, his lungs, his limbs until he can’t move, let alone breathe. He watches, entranced as the pale blue fingertips start to glow with a vaguely electric light.

(he is seven minutes late to class and he knows this is somehow significant)

“Crissakes!” a voice bellows from somewhere behind him. “Ge’DOWN!”

Tyler spins around, almost on autopilot, just in time to catch sight of a black blur moving towards him before the guy knocks him to the ground in a tackle worthy of a linebacker. Tyler hits the floor hard, air whooshing out of his frozen lunges.

Blue lightning crackles above him, charring the brick on the wall in the spot his head had just occupied. The heat from the blast does nothing to thaw the cold in his chest.

“Move on!” the guy roars, roughly dragging Tyler to his feet. “Go, go!”

He steers Tyler into an empty classroom, shoves them inside, pulls the door shut and locks it behind them. He peers out the single glass pane in the window. \ “Quiet,” he cautions. “Last thing I need is some civilian mucking this up.”

He turns from the window and slides slowly down to the floor, burying his face in his arms. “I’m sunk as it is.”

To Tyler’s surprise, he recognizes the figure. He is tall and skinny with a hollowed out features and dark brown eyes. Ty had seen him before. Just a few weeks ago, before his life had taken a turn towards the fantastic.

(or had that been when it started?)

“You’re Kevin Jones,” Tyler says.

Jones stiffens. “What? No.” He shrugs, panic starting to fade into composure. “Well actually, sure, bu’only sometimes. Never could ge’used to all the covers. Crooked, you know?”

Tyler can’t place the accent. There’s something inherently strange about the speech patterns, something foreign that he can’t identify. Familiar words with unfamiliar usages and slurs.

“Actually,” the guy says, pulling some sort of black disc from his pocket. “The name’s Zane Tucker.”

The name strikes a chord with Tyler, something resonating from a distant dream. “Zane Tucker,” he repeats.

“Sure,” Tucker replies. “Zane Tucker. Prally my whole life.” He flips the disc over in his hands and for the first time, raises his gaze to meet Tyler’s own. “Ty?” he says. “Shitfuck and damn. Ty Smith?”

“How the hell do you know that?” Tyler says, unconsciously stepping backwards. There is a tremor in his voice. “I never told you my name.”

“Someone on high hates me,” Tucker moans.

“How do you know—”

“You’re not appose to be here!” Tucker bellows, scrambling to his feet. “You can’t be here! S’going to get muck up! Tanked straight down under.” He cuts himself short and takes a deep, calming breath. “Skorry, skorry. Wait,” he laughs. It’s a hollow sound with a maniac edge to it that cuts deep. “Wait, no, 21st century. Sorry, sorry. It’s been ages this week.”

“What was that blue thing,” Tyler says hesitantly.

Tucker looked frazzled, his dark brown hair was sticking up in clumps. There was a maniac glint to his dark eyes. His black shirts was faded, his jeans were torn. He looks like he hasn’t slept in years. “Can’t say,” he explains. “Still your future.”

He spins the disc again, turns to stare out the door’s glass pane, gives another hollow laugh. “Look at me,” he mutters and he’s not talking to Tyler anymore. “Stays straight in line. Follows the rules. See me now. Never thought, never thought…”

“Thought what?” Tyler asks.

Shaking himself from his trance, Tucker turned back around. “The thing’s keyed onto you,” he says shortly. “Which means any tick now, Timewise will come slipping in.”

“Timewise?”

Tucker graces him with a crooked smile that looks all out of place on his gaunt features, like he’s never quite learned how to grin. “Haven’t heard of them yet? S’a good thing.” He taps the black disc, once, twice, a third time. “Still, Timewise shows and the whole thing ge’shot hellwise. The thing’s keyed you as a target and it’s going at you hard.”

“What was it trying to do?”

“Laser flash,” Tucker says, staring out the glass pane. “Trying to kill you.”

“Wait? Trying to kill me? Why the hell would it want to kill me?”

That finally draws Tucker’s attention back to him full force. “They’re kind of indiscriminant, Ty. But that doesn’t matter. Just shut it and listen. Few ticks here and all hell is gonna cu’loose. Now I’ve got a pulse here.” He shows him the disc in his hand. “Gonna short out all things electronic. What I need you to do is pull the fire alarm and ge’out quick as possible.”

“But what happens to you?” Tyler asks, voice shaking. That pervasive cold has settled back in his stomach and all he can see is Zane’s face twisting until all he can see are eyes, big and black.

“Crissakes Ty,” Tucker says, cuffing him in the back of his head. “I need you focus. When I say, you pull the fire alarm and you run. Don’t tell anyone about this. You can’t. Not your friends, not your family and not even me. We can’t have you mucking everything up.”

“But…” Tyler protests.

“You still talk too much,” Tucker says with his strange, crooked grin. “I’m gonna be straight with you, always am. Things are going to turn out all right. I’ll be seeing you soon.” He frowns. “Hopefully not soon for me, but quick enough for you. Jus’ remember…” He looks strangled for a moment, half choked on his own thought. He forces a swallow. “Jus’ don’t tell anybody and don’t look back.”

Tyler nods furiously. There is a crash out in the hall, a sudden commotion and Tyler thinks he can hear voices someone giving orders but the voice is muffled by the walls, distorted past recognition. The cold’s back in the pit of his stomach. His head is throbbing, the world is tilted dangerously, very nearly ready to tip him off. There’s something in his head, screaming that this is wrong. That he shouldn’t be here. The classroom is spinning. He stumbles into a desk. Tucker seizes him but the shoulders, dragging him up straight, high enough to meet his eyes. “You hear me, Ty? Don’ tell anyone and don’ look back.”

“I hear you,” Tyler croaks.

“Good,” Tucker says. “Les ge’to it.”

He crouches next to the door, one hand poised on the doorknob, the other clutching the disc. “Ready?”

Tyler nods. He’s lying

Tucker flings the door open and tosses the disc into the hallway. Tyler hears a small, almost mechanical whir under the clatter of the thing skidding across the floor. “Go!” Tucker hisses.

Tyler scrambles out the door, not even glancing down the hall towards where the unearthly blue creature had stood only minutes before. There’s a tiny sound, like a million machines dying all at once and then the lights cut out. Tyler can hear the screams of shock from the various classrooms. Behind him, the door bursts open a second time and Tyler can hear Zane Tucker’s footsteps slowly padding away. Then, in the distance, an indistinct clamor of voices.

He stumbles, trips, almost falls, but he catches himself in time, groping along the rough brick walls until his fingers latch onto the fire alarm. He pulls and even as he hears the pulsing whine of the alarm, even as he sees the student body pouring into the hall, even as he hears the confused clamor of a thousand voices, he doesn’t stop running. He just keeps going, keeps running out the door, nearly flattening a girl with honey blonde hair and an intense look. “Ty?” she calls after him, but he hardly hears her because he’s already out of the school, into the blindingly bright sun of the crisp, clear fall day.

And he doesn’t look back.

He doesn’t look back.