Read Time Salvager for Free Online

least jump him into the beginning of the scenario to give the time line another shot at a jump?” James asked.
    Smitt shook his head. “Nope. Put the fodder smack in the middle of the salvage. That whole time line is too frayed and unstable now for another jump. But those’re the rules. Usually only one shot at a salvage. That’s why there’s only a hundred or so of you Tier-1s, and why you make the big scratch.” There was a beep and Smitt’s eyes glazed over for a moment. He frowned. “Make that ninety-nine. Palia didn’t make it.”
    “Guess it really will be me and Shizzu at the reunions.” James raised his cup to his former classmate. Now they were down to two. He wondered which one of them would be the last man standing.
    Smitt grinned. “Just you, actually. Shizzu joined the chain, raised to auditor while you were fucking Grace.”
    “That fodder Shizzu is an auditor?” James grounded his teeth. He couldn’t think of anyone more unworthy of rising up the ranks to become a watcher of the chronmen. “You have to be kidding. What did that asshole do to deserve that?”
    Smitt shrugged. “It surprised a lot of people, to be honest.”
    “Black abyss.” He threw back the cup and slammed it down on the table. “Whole agency is going to hell.”
    Smitt stood up and again patted him on the back. “Get some sleep. You’re heading to Earth at the second rotation with the next shipment.”
    James made a face. “Earth?”
    Smitt grinned. “You have to take one for the team once in a while. You said you wanted a change of scenery. You didn’t say how nice a one.”

 
    FOUR
    M ING D YNASTY
    There was something about the city of Luoyang in northeastern China that reminded Auditor Levin Javier-Oberon of Habitat-C3 Oberon, the colony of his birth. Maybe it was the thick soot in the air, the uneven gray brick streets and walls, or just the sound of the city constantly buzzing at all hours of the day; it was definitely the squalor. That was the thing about poverty: no matter what planet or time period, squalor was squalor.
    Humanity seemed to shit itself the same way in 1551 C.E., during the height of the Ming Dynasty, as it did in the present. For some reason, the damn race never learned how to stay out of the gutter. Maybe that was why scientists estimated that mankind would be extinct by the year 3000. Well, not if Levin and the rest of ChronoCom had a say in the matter.
    He passed by a small koi pond in the slightly less squalid merchant district and paused to observe the ghostly glassy-eyed fish swimming around in the clear water. He looked at his own image reflecting through the ripples, his paint band doing an admirable job blending him in with the thousands of pedestrians walking through the city.
    His gaze moved up beyond the waterline to the stone and wooden building that wrapped around three sides of the pond, to the curved tiles that arced up to the center point of the roof. Behind it, the sun was half covered as it made its daily journey toward the western horizon. It was almost time.
    Levin willed the fourteen bands clinging loosely against both of his arms—six on his left, eight on his right—to tighten. He didn’t bother masking them with his paint band, instead passing them off as iron rings, commonly used by mercenaries as a blocking bracer. Like most operatives, he preferred to use as little of the paint as possible when on a job. Assuming his paid sources were correct, he would have need of those bands very soon. Levin walked up a short flight of stairs and swung open the red double doors that led him into the Hong Jiu Inn.
    It was a busy night, filled with patrons, but not more than the usual that he had observed over the past two days. The eating area was packed with merchants, locals, and soldiers. A group of drunken Uyghers filled three tables on the far left, caravan troops by the look of them. The table adjacent to theirs seated a group of Mongols. The guards kept careful watch over