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against Cindy Spinnaker’s body. It was the one day she had come to work early to type up Dr. Ron’s notes for his single class, which were to be included in the fall syllabus. Her wide eyes and vacant smile reflected her momentary excitement at thinking her boss had arrived before her—now a frozen flash in time, like a surreal photograph. What looked like a third eye etched into her forehead winked tears of red, which puddled on the floor beneath her.

Chapter 18
    Aug 10 (04:15)
     
    Monty inched past building after building, oblivious to their darkness, with the moon providing barely enough light to navigate the frontage road and yet remain unseen. Approaching the lab, he tried to blink back fatigue’s clutches on his weary eyes and mind. He replayed today’s events and always ended at the same two things that pounded his nerves: Dr. Ron was never coming back, and if he didn’t succeed in getting another time slip open, it would have all been for nothing. Fearful of waiting at the house any longer, he figured he would take his chances and hide in the lab, watching for an opportunity to present itself.
    The Porsche’s tires rolled over the asphalt almost silently as he passed. A beat of hope filled him at seeing only one police car parked out front, yellow police tape pulled across the entrance. No sign of the officer, though, who must have been either inside or patrolling the grounds. Monty couldn’t have the officer interrupting him before he could finish—all he needed was fifteen minutes. The building’s lighted sign was out and the darkened fence line around back seemed to confirm the complex’s power was still off. He had no idea how he would get power back on, assuming as he did that the police or someone from the power company caused this outage by flipping a switch or locking down the meter. If that was all, he just had to figure out where the switch or meter was and then flip it back on. But first, he set up a diversion.
    For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Monty hopped over the fence. He had planned on the electrified barrier being off. What he hadn’t planned on was getting stuck on the fence’s barbed-wire top. He wasn’t paying attention because he was looking past the laboratory complex to other properties and realized that the lights were not on anywhere to the south of the highway for about three blocks. He was noticing this, puzzled and unsure what he would do if he couldn’t just flip a switch, when he got stuck. A particularly nasty barb was biting into his arm, drawing a little bead of blood from his forearm. Frozen for a moment, stuck and in plain view of anyone who might look his direction, he decided to try to work his way back to unhook his tangled arm. Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye that terrified him to his core: lights! His head spun around and he watched from his twelve-foot-high perch above the ground in horror as the power was coming on in sections toward him, and very quickly: a square section of lights three blocks away, then two blocks away, then the next block. He panicked and yanked his arm out of the tangled wire, ripping a deep gash between his elbow and wrist. Now free, he turned his shoulders and flexed his knees to jump, when the property’s spotlights erupted. Then, like in a slow-motion highlight reel, he was airborne.
    ~~~
    The man pulled the Cadillac off the road at the same place by the billboard and watched. Only one police car sat in front of the lab’s entrance, but no one appeared to be in the car. He would only have one, maybe two officers to eliminate and find the data his handlers wanted, and maybe clues to his target’s whereabouts. He might even get lucky and have the target show up.
    He was about to exit the vehicle, his driver’s-side door slightly ajar, when lights started to blink on a few blocks behind the complex and then on and around the complex itself. Pulling the door shut firmly, he watched for