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5
RATS Was Mine
Mimi
Itwasstartlinghowquickly things deteriorated after Mr Anderson and his cronies turned up at RATS. In short order, he'd arrested Jack and Amanda, spiriting them away to a locked and guarded room somewhere within Shadowship none of us could find, and then he'd gone and threatened Dr Crawford's permanent removal from the facility at the backlash. Not to mention the fact he'd grounded all Novitiates. Ostensibly, for their protection, while investigations into recent alarming events were undertaken.
In reality, there were only four seats available on an Orion, and two of them were now occupied by an overseer and their security guard, leaving the other two for a Surgeon and Intern only.
The mood at the Academy had consequently plummeted. If the hallways had been drafty before, they were now shadowed and icy.
I crept down a lesser-used corridor that led into the Technical Division section of the building, adjacent to the hangar. The hangar was officially off-limits to Novitiates now, and being seen in there carried repercussions. As yet, we didn't know what those repercussions were but considering Jack and Amanda had apparently been arrested for saving Time, it was anyone's guess as to what would happen to a Novitiate caught in the wrong place by Anderson's heavily armed idiots.
RATS had its own Security Division, of course. They wore blue overalls which, when compared to the black-clad fatigue-wearing SWAT team now spread throughout the building, seemed rather tame. They could carry rifles but usually relied on tasers and brute strength instead. I'd had my fair share of run-ins with Security but I didn't see them as oppressors. They simply did their job — a job described as protecting RATS and its staff — sometimes a little too eagerly.
Rugby tackles were not out of the norm.
But they had nothing on Anderson's Idiots. And now they'd been declawed. Anderson had decreed they not carry their long-nose rifles unless RATS was under attack. How he got away with that when Dr Crawford was still technically in charge, I didn't know.
One last check over my shoulder to make sure I hadn't been followed, and I knocked three times on the door to the room we'd commandeered, waited for a count of four, and then knocked twice more.
The door opened and a narrow-eyed, dark-skinned, white overall-wearing dude with a shockingly large afro stared at me and said, "Password?"
"Let me in, Dean," I hissed, checking over my shoulder again. "I swear SWAT is breathing down my neck."
"That's not SWAT, Mouse," Dean Jordan said, opening the door wide enough for me to slip inside before he closed and locked it again. "That's the end of life as we know it loomin' over our shoulders and stabbin' us in the back. Repeatedly. With a blunt and rusty knife. While screechin' like a Banshee. And howlin' at the moon. Fuckers!"
I snorted at his theatrics and took in who was in the room with us.
Sally Groves sat off to the side, tablet computer in her lap, fingers swiping. She stopped whatever she was doing long enough to acknowledge my arrival with a small smile that was soon gone as her eyes were drawn inexorably toward another person. That person was none other than alternate universe Bryan Fawkes. A Surgeon at his own RATS, he was currently grounded at ours until further notice, or until he stopped stalking Sally and acted like a conscientious member of the Royal Academy of Time Surgeons. Or maybe never. It was hard to tell with Jack and Jack had made it clear it would be him who gave this Bryan a pass or not to fly.
The final member of our ragtag group of rebellious and oppressed time travellers was Rafe Hoffman, an Intern and one-third of Jack's flight crew. I was officially the last third of that flight crew, but having been grounded and in a relationship with Jack that may or may not be known to Clive Crawford, it was debatable whether that still stood.
Considering he was under house arrest, and RATS had been invaded by militant politicians, it didn't really matter right then.
"Rafe," I said, rushing over to where he was sitting. I hadn't seen him since we'd returned from alternate RATS. He'd been in the sickbay but with all the ups and downs — read 'deaths' and 'drugging' there — the infirmary had been operating behind closed doors. "How are you feeling?" I asked, hovering like a mother hen.
"I'm fine, Mouse. Almost one hundred percent."
"Which is a good thing," Dean said, leaning against a desk off to the side, "'cause we need all the help we can get right now." He flicked a gaze towards Sally that meant something; a look shared between them that left me a little unsettled.
Sally lowered her tablet computer and cleared her throat, her gaze tracking back across the room to me.
"What is it?" I asked, not liking the worried look in her eyes. "What's wrong?"
Of course, everything was wrong right then, but no one corrected me.
"It's Jack," she said and my heart thudded inside my chest painfully. I felt Rafe reach up and grab my wrist and then gently direct me to the nearest chair to sit down. My legs felt like jelly, my chest felt too tight.
"What?" I whispered.
Sally didn't waste any time elaborating, bless her. "There were several witnesses to his arrest in Dispatch yesterday. I managed to speak to three of them and they all said the same thing."
"What, Sally, what?" I rushed to say when she paused for breath.
"Easy, Mouse," Rafe said from beside me. "We'll fix this."
I wasn't sure we could. And what exactly were we fixing now?
