XV

"Are... Are we going to die?" said Baal.

"...Probably," said Chernobog. She sank down against the wall to the floor.

"Oh, Darwin," said Zeus. He sank down beside her, looking at Megan. "I never got a chance to tell her how good her last essay was. I never apologised to Sarah for the divorce. And I never won the Wells!"

"Shut up. All of you," said Mirabi. She was breathing fast herself. "We... we might not. We're still here. Paradox reactions are meant to happen instantly. As soon as the time stream changes."

"M... Maybe it takes a little while to catch up?" said Ishtar. "Oh, Darwin, Newton, Einstein, Hawking and Dawkins!" He put his head in his hands.

"... Do I have time to call my parents?" said Chernobog.

I stared at all of them and at Megan's body. Somehow, my eyes seemed unusually sensitive and I took in every detail of all of them. Zeus's shoes. Ishtar's watchcom. The shape of the cloning tube in Mirabi's tunic pocket. The prototype mind scanner that Chernobog was still holding. The blood in Megan's hair. Not now. The words repeated in my brain, like echoes off mountains. Not now. It could not end this way. We shouldn't be kneeling here. It should have already ended. Mirabi was right. Paradox reactions were meant to happen the instant the future, past or present was changed. We could only still be here if...

...if there was another possibility.

My head snapped up. I gazed at the group again, my eyes again taking in all the details. The bruise of Ishtar's cheek from taking cover behind the table during the fight with Anubis's team. The blood on Mirabi's gloves from trying to save Megan. The red paint on Zeus's shoes from where he'd trodden in the edge of it. The scratch on Chernobog's forehead - I couldn't even remember where that had come from - and the mind scanner in her hand and the cloning tube - my cloning tube - in Mirabi's pocket.

Like two galaxies colliding, the connection clicked in the back of my mind.

_ _ _ _ _

"Give me those," I said, sitting up. I pulled the mind scanner out of Chernobog's hand and hooked the cloning tube out of Mirabi's pocket. "Doctor Zeus. I need your password for the time teleporter."

"What?"

"Now," I said.

"Erik?" said Mirabi, as I jumped to feet, pulled Zeus up and dragged him after me towards the stairs.

"I've got an idea," I said. "I think I can solve this."

"But you can't! You can't change the past," said Ishtar.

"I'm not going to," I said. "Come on. Move. Quickly."

I pushed Zeus ahead of me up the stairs and he started running under his own power. The paradox reaction hadn't happened, but it could be that it hadn't happened yet. We could be against some kind of temporal countdown. I could only assume that the clock would get to zero when Megan wasn't where she was supposed to be in - I glanced at my wristcom - twenty seven minutes.

We all raced into the Project teleporter room and Zeus got to work on the controls. I stepped up onto the pad, stuffing the cloning tube and mind scanner into my pockets.

"Destination?" said Zeus.

"Downstairs here. Five hours ago," I said. That would have to do for a start. I quickly linked my wristcom to the time teleporter controls so I could operate it myself from now on.

"OK. Ready," said Zeus.

"Erik," said Mirabi. "Whatever you're doing, is it going to work?"

"There's no reason why it shouldn't," I said.

Mirabi nodded.

"OK," she said. "Go for it."

Zeus pressed the button and I backstepped into the past.

_ _ _ _ _

I arrived downstairs in the corridor where we'd just had the shootout with Xibalba. I checked my date and time locations and was just in time to stop my wristcom sending out a signal to inform the ChronOps central computer at HQ that I was here and backstepping. That would create complications I needed to avoid. I absently glanced through the door of the room and confirmed it was already full of the Viking Weapons System crates. Xibalba had been ready to put his plan into action from the start. He must have just hung around for my investigation into the Professor's murder to see if it was connected.

However, Xibalba was back in the past right now and no one else was likely to come down here. I took off my helmet and tunic and left them both on the floor, keeping only my wristcom, equipment belt and shockstick, which I unclipped and held against my forearm. I ran as quickly and silently as I could up the stairs.

Inside the main room, I could hear the chatter and laughter from the project members as they prepared for the party to celebrate saving the library of Tutal Xiu. I ducked back out of sight down the stairs as Max Ishtar carried a box of decorations in and Dr. Alan Baldr walked past, talking to Arstan Veles on his palmcom and glancing around to check no one could see the subliminal music player he was using. I strained my ears, but there was no sign of Megan's voice.

I took the long way around, staying well away from the main room, listening at every junction, until I reached the project's offices from the other side. I was just in time and ducked back around the corner again as the relevant door opened.

"...Very well done indeed, Megan. It's an excellent piece," said Professor Henry Wei'To, stepping out into the corridor. "A splendidly argued study. Are you doing anything similar for your entry for the doctoral place?"

"Oh. No, Professor," said Megan, coming out behind him and immediately looking worried. "I've done something different."

"Wonderful. Don't tell me what it is. I'll wait and see," said Wei'To. "And don't worry. It's good that's it different. I've had far too many students over the years who take every opportunity to recycle their own work. You'll never become a real historian without broad horizons. But you needn't worry. You've already got those."

"Thank you," said Megan. "Should I get it for you now?"

"No, no. It can wait. You go ahead and help with the preparations. I'll join you shortly," said the Professor. "I just want to see which of new books have arrived."

"OK. See you later, Professor."

They went off in different directions, the professor going to towards the Yucatan room and everything that I knew was going to happen. I couldn't do anything about it, but it was nice to see that they had parted like this. Once Megan was over the shock of his death, she was probably going to remember this fondly. He clearly had been a good teacher.

Right here and now though, Megan came around the corner. I let her go two steps past, then stepped out silently behind her and pressed the tip of my shockstick to the back of her neck. She started at the voltage and then started to fall. I caught her and lowered her gently to the floor. She was out cold and the great advantage of a shockstick was that it induced a very deep sleep almost instantly. She'd wake up with no conception of how much time had passed and assume she'd tripped and blacked out for just a second. Finding the Professor dead later would hopefully be enough to make her forget all about it.

I pulled the cloning tube out of my pocket and turned it over. I'd been born in it, but, ironically, I didn't have a clue how to use it. There were no instructions, but it looked like a small and streamlined manual bloodsampler. I pressed the end against Megan's upper left arm and hoped for the best.

It was a good guess. There was a soft hiss and the small viewing window in the side of the tube turned red as it took the blood sample. I pulled it away. There was only a tiny puncture wound and it wasn't bleeding. Medical tech had evidently advanced a lot in the next twenty five years. Megan wasn't going to notice. I turned the tube over in my hands, but there were no controls on it. I'd just have to hope that the process started automatically, which it apparently had last time when Mirabi had brought my DNA back. I slipped it into my pocket and tapped Megan gently with my shockstick again. She woke up with a small gasp, facing away from me on the floor. I instantly stepped back around the corner and dashed away silently before she could look around.

_ _ _ _ _

I took the long route around to the stairs in the opposite direction and made it up to the next floor to the university teleporter. My wristcom had recorded how Ishtar, Zeus and Baal had done it and I was able to hack in and link it to the project's time teleporter just by following the instructions on the screen. I stepped back onto the pads, having set the destination for four and a half hours into the future. I pressed the button myself this time and forestepped.

_ _ _ _ _

I arrived in the same place I'd left from and quickly ran downstairs. I was just in time to reach the foot of the stairs, dash down one of the side corridors and hide behind a conveniently placed Library catalogue terminal. In the main room, I heard Ishtar's voice.

"He... He said he was going to change downstairs."

My own reply and running footsteps followed. I ducked down lower as Mirabi and myself ran past and straight down the stairs, checking the power cells in our Uniguns. Zeus and the teaching assistants followed.

"Wait, wait, wait! Should we really be going down there?" said Zeus.

"Oh, don't be such a wuss," said Chernobog, and lead the way down the stairs herself.

"We have to help," said Megan.

Zeus groaned through his teeth, but followed her. Ishtar, Baal and Ishtar did the same and Megan started to go after them.

I ran up silently behind her, just before she could start to descend, and touched my shockstick to the back of her head again. I caught her as she fell again and lowered her gently to the floor. I knelt over her and pulled out the Jupiter Imperia prototype mind-scanner.

This was the riskiest part. Like my cloning tube, I had no idea how to use it or even if it would work properly after Baldr attempting to reverse-engineer it. But it was my only chance. Unless I wanted to keep going further and further back in time, hoping to outrun the paradox reaction and abandoning everyone else to their fate, I had to try. Luckily, it only had one button on it and it was pretty obvious how it was meant to be used. I rolled Megan over and gently placed the curved metal gadget over her forehead, the ends on her temples, making sure the contact pads were all resting on her skin and not on her hair. I took a breath, said a short formless prayer to Darwin - which was something I never normally did - and pressed the button.

The mind scanner bleeped once, in a positive, friendly sounding way. A small light on it, which I hadn't even noticed before, lit up orange in the centre of it. The light stretched sideways, growing as it filled a progress bar. It reached the end, bleeped again - this time more a chime - and turned green. Then it switched itself off.

That had to be it. I could only hope it had worked. I pulled the mind-scanner off and shoved it back into my pocket, the opposite one from the cloning tube. I turned Megan over again, touched the back of her head with my shockstick once more and dashed silently up the stairs out of sight again as she gasped and woke up. Hopefully, she'd again think she'd tripped and fallen and blacked out for a split-second for the second time that day, or simply be in too much of a hurry to get downstairs to worry about it. I paused at the top, listening, and breathed a sigh of relief as I heard her footsteps continue downstairs. I raced back to the teleporter.

_ _ _ _ _

The next step I needed to make was the most difficult. I was moving in space now as well as in time and going further back. I did some speedy mental calculations while I tore off my wristcom, my equipment belt and even my boots. Anything that contained ChronOps recognition chips, I had to leave behind to avoid raising the alarm. I used my wristcom in my hands one last time, to call up a floor plan of ChronOps HQ and get the Solar Positioning System coordinates I needed, then hid all of my equipment behind one of the potted ferns. I stepped onto the teleporter pads and programmed them for both a backstep and a co-ordinates jump (which always ran the risk of materialising inside a wall) eighteen hours into the past and nearly a hundred miles across the moon back to HQ.

_ _ _ _ _

I materialised in the middle of the medical unit at 7.45pm the previous evening. Doctor Timothy Ares, ChronOps's chief medical officer, fell out of his chair as I suddenly appeared.

"Devious Darwin on a missing link!" he yelled, sitting up on the floor. "Intruder...!"

"Shut up! It's me!" I yelled, ducking just in case the auto-guns did turn on.

"What in the...? Midgard?" said Ares, sitting up on the floor behind his desk. The doctor - the first medical one of the day - was in his forties with short, untidy dark hair and was wearing his trademark traditional long white lab coat.

"Level-1 temporal emergency. Imminent paradox risk," I said, using the standard ChronOps phraseology that everyone had drilled into them at the academy, as the door opened and two other medical staff burst in. "I'm backstepping. Don't sound the alarm. The central system can't know I'm here."

"Oh! Right. OK." Ares jumped to his feet and pressed a button built into his desk. The door shut and locked and the blinds over the windows automatically closed. "Situation?"

"High risk of a paradox reaction," I said. "I'm here - hopefully - to prevent it. Listen to me carefully. Some... stuff is going to happen tomorrow. Bad stuff. There will be no casualties, but you cannot respond to it. We need to keep this contained. No one else can know that I'm here."

"Very well," said Ares. He didn't look happy, but he knew the regulations and the risks they represented. If an officer turned up from the future and said he could prevent a paradox reaction, you immediately did everything possible to help him. "Will we need more staff?"

"Hopefully not," I said. I pulled out the cloning tube. "I think you've seen this before?"

Ares had been the chief medical officer all my career, which was the same as all my life. I assumed he'd been involved when Mirabi had brought the cloning tube back.

"Wha..? Yes. Wait, is this your one?" said Ares, taking it.

"Yes, but it's not me in there," I said. "It's someone else. Is it working?"

"Uh... Yes, it seems to be." Ares carried it over to his desk and ran a hand scanner over it. He typed something on the screen of his deskcom. "Yes. All readings the same as last time."

"Thank Darwin!" I said. The relief was immense. We weren't there yet, but we were on the way. "You have to keep her alive."

"That shouldn't be difficult," said Ares, staring at his screen. "The embryo looks perfectly healthy. It's developing at the same speed as yours. Exione, get a womb tank ready. Vediovis, get down to storage and dig out an incubator."

I sank down into one the chairs to the side as they got to work and started to wait.

_ _ _ _ _

I stayed awake all through the night and into the next morning, through the whole eighteen hours. Ares rigged up an x-ray eyecam and I watched on the wall screen as the embryo, transferred successfully to the womb tank, grew into a foetus. It then grew very quickly into a baby, who took her first breath while asleep and stayed sleeping very peacefully as Exione gently transferred her to the incubator and then to a folding bed Vediovis had also dragged out of storage.

At lunchtime, we felt the first explosion shake through the building. Then we heard the alarms blaring as the intruders - Anubis and his team - blew their way in. Ares, Vediovis and Exione all glanced towards the door when it happened, doubtlessly wanting to grab trauma bags and go running to help. But I shook my head, repeated that there weren't going to be any casualties. Ares nodded and called the command centre, making sure I was out of view of the eyecam, to say they were ready to receive any injured anyway. None came and no one else disturbed us. We watched the baby grow into a toddler, then a child, then a teenager and - finally - at about the time Mirabi and I were arriving at Oxbridge Luna - a twenty year old.

Ares ran the hand scanner over her again.

"Hormone levels normal or dropping," he said. "It seems to be finished."

"It is," I said.

Megan Uzume, identical apart from the untidy, fast growing hair, was lying asleep in the bed in front of me. I stood up and pulled the mind scanner out of my pocket again.

I almost hesitated, because everything rested on this. But it was the only chance. The only possibility. There might be others, but this was the only one I could see right now and I didn't have time to look for alternatives. I pressed the button and the progress bar lit up green, still full from end to end. Being careful not to touch the contact pads with my bare skin, I placed it gently on the sleeping girl's head again. She was a clone of Megan. She wasn't Megan herself. At least, not yet.

The mind scanner beeped happily. It made a soft humming sound and the progress bar slowly emptied, shrinking back the way it had come and leaving a purple light behind it. This reached the other end and the mind scanner chimed again and switched itself off. I lifted it gently off the girl's head. We waited.

"What is that?" said Ares. For some reason, we were whispering, even though the girl waking up was exactly what we needed.

"I'll explain later," I said, just as the girl stirred.

We all froze as she murmured, shifted slightly on the pillow and then blinked as her eyes opened. Realising she was in an unfamiliar space, she sat up and looked around.

"Detective?" she said. "Erik? What's going...?"

I sighed outloud. The relief was like a waterfall crashing over me. It had worked.

"I don't have time to explain," I said. I quickly crouched down beside her. "You remember what you told me about Xibalba?"

"Yes, of course. His name means...," said Megan.

"You were right," I said. "And he's planted a bomb in the library. We need to get back to Oxbridge Luna right now, because he's put it in a place only you can get to."

"Oh, gentle Darwin!" said Megan. "Right. Yes. Of course."

I took her hand and helped her stand up. Megan blinked down at her clothes - a spare medic's uniform in her size Exione had found while she was still asleep. I tapped in my own security code and unlocked the door we had been sealed behind for eighteen hours.

"Midgard, what exactly is this?" said Ares, who was examining the mind scanner.

"Don't play with it. It's important," I said. "Come on. Follow me."

We hurried through the medical unit to the nearest set of teleporter pads. Thankfully, the hospital wing was deserted. All the rest of the medical staff were probably downstairs helping with the investigation.

"Is... Is this ChronOps Headquarters?" said Megan, as I guided her onto the pads.

"Yes, it is," I said, as I operated the controls. I had to type in my username and two access codes to get the system to recognise me without any of my equipment, and then program another trip in both time and space, back across the moon to the university and forward into the future - or rather - back to the present.

"How did we get here?"

"I'll explain later. I promise," I said. I hit the transport button and stepped onto the pads beside her.

_ _ _ _

As soon as we