Morley pulled the signature recorder from beneath his jacket with a disgusted sneer and tossed it in Bryan's lap. "Test this against our regional database and see if anything comes up. I'll call Seer for an explanation."
Bryan slid to the back of the van while Morley shuffled through his notes. Everything looked in order. The operation should have proceeded flawlessly. Grabbing the phone, he manually dialed Seer.
"Seer Signature Department, Gehen speaking," said a woman's voice on the other end. She waited quietly while Morley explained the situation as calmly as he could manage. There was a short pause while she pulled up the file.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Griffith." she said, sympathetically, "the signature reading we received was corrupt. Our equipment wasn't able to filter out the noise."
Morley put the receiver back down and turned around to see Bryan pulling an ID sheet from the printer with a grim look on his face. Without a word, he passed it on to Morley and pointed at the header:
Jennifer Gehen
Seer Signature Analyst - Beta Level
"How long do you think they've been on the inside?" asked Bryan.
Morley stared at the ID for a moment. "Since the beginning, for all we know," he replied, gravely. "Get the gear ready."
The morning sun appeared through a hazy sky as a Hunter van cut its engine in the shadow of Seer Headquarters. The enormous concrete building dwarfed the two figures as they crossed a vast park and disappeared through a discreet iron door. Security cameras tracked their every move as they donned goggles and began tracing the steps of their suspect. No alarms were raised.
Jennifer Gehen was performing a routine systems check when the door flew open and the armed men came in. Startled, she backed into a cabinet just as one of them raised a bronze cylinder from his belt. She almost made it.
Morley pulled his goggles down and approached Jennifer's frozen body. The dart had struck just as she started to phase out and she now stood, immobilized, with the lower half of her body locked in the present time and the upper half shimmering just beyond it.
Bryan carefully extracted the dart from her shoulder, tucking the spent firing tube into his coat pocket, while Morley secured a restraining cuff to Jennifer's ankle. Within minutes she revived.
"Jennifer Gehen, you are under arrest for data tampering, interfering with a criminal investigation and altering reality through illegal manipulation of time." Morley flipped his ID toward her as he spoke, "Do you understand what I have just said?"
She gave a quick nod of her head. "Morley, please understand I was doing this to help you!" Her face rippled and wavered. "I'm not the one you're after. Please!"
Morley signaled to Bryan to take her from the room.
"Wait!" Jennifer stepped awkwardly forward and tried to take hold of his arm but her translucent fingers passed through unobstructed. She looked at her hands with terror in her eyes. "Don't let it happen like this!" she cried. "Remember your daughter!"
Morley wheeled around and knocked her feet out from underneath her. "Don't you ever mention my family again, Gehen!" he snarled. She looked up at him in response but the words caught in her throat and she said nothing. Bryan stood her up and escorted her out of the room.
Morley held back as they left and went into Jennifer's office to call for a Hunter backup squad. He hesitated for a moment at the phone and reached instead for a memo taped to a bound Seer report. The subject header was highlighted orange: "Anachronite RE: Chrono Walker Evolution."
Anachronite. The word was unfamiliar but the sound of it made his skin crawl. Seer was holding something back from his group. Perhaps they weren't so mystified by the chrono walkers as they appeared.
The rest of the memo was vague but indicated that important information was enclosed in the attached report. He set the note back down, determined to read the report later.
As Morley reached for the phone receiver, he stopped short, alert to a sudden danger. Looking around cautiously, he saw that the office was vacant. The room was too open to accommodate an ambush but something still wasn't right. He turned back to the phone and his gaze fell on the memo. The subject was no longer highlighted.
Frantic, he tore through the report but he was too late. Whatever it had contained a moment ago was now gone. Every page was blank. Morley warily raised his communicator to his lips and paged Bryan.
"Is Jenn still with you?" Morley asked in a low voice.
"Yes," he answered uncertainly, "I'm taking her down the lifts now. Is there a problem?"
"Her office has just been disturbed," replied Morley. "We have a second walker in the building."
