A Day Out of Time

Chapter 1: Cat

T

he forty-eight-hour countdown to the Day Out of Time had begun approximately thirteen and a half hours earlier, at midnight. Like all seasoned agents, Cat Fiyero could swear that there was some kind of demonic game show clock in the back of her mind, slowly ticking its way towards utter chaos. The resulting tension along her shoulders and jaw made her disinclined to pet-sit, but that was exactly what was about to happen anyway.

The New Kid was cute in a wide-eyed, Labrador puppy kind of way. He glanced around the lobby of the Cirius Trading Company twice, as if to reassure himself that the only other people were the two agents in black, the single security guard hunched over in a misleading slump, and the double row of imposing portraits on the wall behind him. The snarling black dog on his new badge gleamed in the fluorescent lighting like the toy Sheriff stars Cat's brothers had worn in the seventies.

Stepping away from the front desk, he walked blindly past a marble wall chiseled with dozens of names, tucking the badge into his back pocket as he did so. Before it disappeared, Cat could just make out the metallic circle and upside-down L at the bottom of the badge that marked him as hers.

"I have scars older than this kid," Cat grumbled under her breath. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Specs smile, but it could just as easily have been for the benefit of the man-puppy heading their way.

"Commander," the New Kid said, offering Specs his hand. "Kevin Harrison, reporting for duty."

"Christ, I don't have time for this," Cat said, rolling her eyes. "Give him to Hill."

Specs put one hand on her shoulder. Still smiling down at the New Kid, he said, "I'm Lieutenant Forrester, actually. You can call me Specs. This is Commander Fiyero."

The New Kid's brown eyes went wide as he looked at the middle-aged woman in front of him. "Oh—sorry, ma'am."

"Ha, not yet. Give it two days and you'll be real sorry." As she led the way through the corridors, Cat glanced back at him and asked, "So are you a chipper or a natural?"

"A—a what?"

"Do you remember the Days naturally, or did they recruit you from some other agency and give you a chip?" Specs clarified.

The New Kid swallowed. "I've always remembered."

Something about his voice worked like water on Cat's tough old hide, and her steps might have slowed down just a bit.

"Did you have anyone to help you?" Specs asked as they came up to the first security checkpoint.

"Uh, no," he told the floor. "I didn't have anyone. It was just me."

"Rough time," Cat admitted. "Hold your badge against the screen, right in the middle of the box." She waited for the New Kid to follow her instructions, and when the screen turned yellow she nudged him aside and pressed her own badge in the same space. Specs copied her, and the screen softened into green.

"Did I do it right?" the New Kid asked as the door opened with a soft beep.

"You did fine," Cat said, leading the way over the pressure pads concealed beneath the tiles. The little group was halfway down the next dull grey corridor before she spoke again. "What did they tell you before punting you down here to me?"

"Um—well they, they sort of explained it, but then my—I guess he's my handler, or my recruiter, I dunno—he started talking about some old calendar made by, by what's his face—"

"The Gregorian calendar," Specs supplied, eyes sparkling as he warmed up to the topic. "The last of the old solar calendars. Introduced to the Western world by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 and eventually superseded by the Georgian calendar in—"