Free The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller by Edward W. Robertson Page B

over her face. "Because my religion specifically prohibits suicide."
    "He's living there. Probably because of its security. If so, he's not leaving any time soon."
    "Then we're done. You've seen the specs. The only way we get through the front door is if we buy a tank."
    "So we don't use the front door."
    "Side or service access is no different. It all funnels through security at some point. To get around it, we'd have to fall in from the sky." She opened her eyes. "Oh. So we fall in from the sky."
    I grinned. It was too early in the morning to get to work on logistics, but that made it the perfect time to break into Haltur's apartment. The paramedics had taken nothing but his body and his drugs. His pad was still there. I transferred its contents to mine. Didn't look like I could crack his homebrewed encryption, but the Pods would have much better luck.
    I was getting logy by the time the sunlight failed to fight through the constant clouds. I drank some coffee and thought about finding something stronger. As we drove the rental car across town, first to another electronics shop, then a sporting goods store, I caught my second wind.
    The unknown part of the map would be securing access to one of the few buildings in Brownville significantly taller than the G&A tower. But it turns out there are few wheels you can't grease when you don't care how much it costs. Bribe in place—our cover story was that we were foreign adrenaline junkies looking for the best Brownville could offer—we left our wings with the night manager of the Cotter Tower and returned to our hotel to wait out the day.
    Vette leaned on the windowsill and watched the street. "It's gone by so fast."
    "Always does. But you did good."
    "Doesn't that depend how it ends?"
    "Even so. Most people find this extremely disorienting. Sixty percent of new agents never make a second trip. Ninety percent don't make it to their fifth."
    "Lucky me."
    I paid close attention to my pad. "You don't have to go with me to the tower."
    She turned sharply from the window. "What the hell are you talking about?"
    "Drive up into the hills. Or stay right here. Wait for the Pod to bring you back safe."
    "Are you joking me? I wait in the nurse's office for Mom to come pick me up from school while you bust into a High Digital Age fortress by yourself?" She shook her head, smiling angrily. "This should have been over days ago. We failed to stop the murder. If it's so dangerous you're telling me to walk away, why would you go in?"
    "Because someone's corrupting this timeline," I said. "Altering billions of lives for personal gain. This is why the Cutting Room exists. If I don't find out what's happening, we may as well close down and go home."
    She laughed. "I still don't know what that means."
    "Dedication to duty?"
    "No, asshole. Why 'the Cutting Room'? Because it sounds cool?"
    I blinked. "Because we're editors."
    Vette gave an exaggerated shrug. "So?"
    "It's a movie thing. Back when film was physical, when they finished shooting, they took it to the editing room. They spliced together the parts they wanted to keep and left the parts they didn't on the cutting room floor."
    "And when someone makes an unauthorized change, we edit it out and splice the past back together."
    I opened my palm. "Exactly."
    "In other words, because it sounds cool," she laughed.
    I sighed. I keep perfect time—I always have—but I checked my pad anyway. An hour until go-time. I pulled a little green pill from my pocket and swallowed it.
    Vette gaped. "What did you just do?"
    "What does it look like?"
    "It looks like you're taking drugs minutes before we're supposed to break through G&A's security."
    I shrugged. "You've done plenty, haven't you?"
    "Yeah, to get through the Academy. We're on the job."
    "And you think that's less important than the Academy?" I said. "Think. Why would I do a thing like this?"
    Her eyes darted side to side. "Because you're scared out of your right mind?"
    "Maybe." I got out another