Free Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 by Michele Callahan Page A

himself out of the Rear Admiral’s reach. What a joke that had turned out to be. Tim now believed they’d been trying to recruit him into some sort of specialized unit. Perhaps these three were part of the plan.
    Or were Alexa, Luke, and Sarah for real and Chicago’s nine million residents in grave danger? Did the Casper Project know, if that were the case? And if Tim called, would they believe him? Or just lock both him and Sarah in a cage for the rest of their lives?
    Luke grinned and kissed his wife full on the mouth. “Yes, very handy, and it’s how we’re going to get to the top of the observatory tonight.” Luke’s attention shifted away from his wife to the two of them. “Stay here for a while Rest. Eat. We’ll leave at eighteen-hundred hours.”
    Just like that Tim was committed hook, line and sinker.
    Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle as Alexa chipped in, “We’ll stop and get you some clothes, Sarah. And shoes that fit you.”
    Tim shook his head. World-ending disasters afoot, leave it to a woman to worry about clothes.
    Luke pulled Alexa close and wrapped his arm around her waist. “There’s a storm blowing in tonight. Sarah, you look like you could use some rest. I’ll do some research on Negative Matter, and what kind of theoretical weapon you could be dealing with. Then we’ll head over to the Hancock Observatory and see if Sarah can ride the lightning.” Luke’s pathetic joke did nothing to ease Tim’s mind.
    They needed a game plan. In the field he’d counted on the top level guys on his team to analyze the opposition and the dangers of the mission. Strengths. Weaknesses. Tim had known every guy on his crew, trusted them with his life. He’d known the personalities of all the players. He knew who to talk to when the crazy visions started going on in his head, who would listen to his warnings and who wouldn’t. But he never went it alone. Never tried to argue logistics on the ground or outsmart the toughest sons of bitches on the planet. He got them in and out, and he watched their backs.
    But this time there was no clear enemy and no team to brainstorm. No spook to give them a hint about what the hell was really going on. No information. And no control over the game. That was the most frustrating thing of all. He wasn’t used to being completely in the dark. He hated being out of control. That was one of the reasons he was a pilot. He loved the feel of directing the machine, even if his rational mind told him that all control was an illusion, with a stick in his hands and his seat rumbling beneath him, rationality was easy to ignore.
    He was totally in the dark, surrounded by people he didn’t know. And worse? He sat next to a woman who couldn’t sneeze without potentially blowing something up. That he’d seen for himself.
    Where had she come from? Really? What was going on here? A lightning strike and alien manipulation of her DNA? Good God. How was he supposed to wrap his head around that?
    And he was more convinced than ever that someone had stolen his work. Even if that wasn’t the case, and these “aliens from the future” were for real, who better to understand their technology than him? He’d been on the brink of creating that kind of device himself, until the spooks became his personal shadows and he gave up his last ounce of hope that his work would be used for good. That was why he’d corrupted his own work and destroyed the rest. This kind of thing shouldn’t be created. Some things humanity should just leave alone.
    Nine million people needed him to figure this out. Fast. And all Sarah could do at the moment was stare blankly at a whorl of stained wood in front of her and hold back tears. It looked like she could barely move, let alone come up with a rational plan.
    She was an asset, a weapon. A piece on the chessboard he needed to learn how to play. At the moment, she wasn’t much better than a mannequin with red-rimmed, glassy eyes, lead-filled limbs, and a