Quantum Break by Cam Rogers

fight.
    “Yeah, boss. We’re live.”
    This is what they’d trained for. Chronon-1 could now move freely. Interruptions to causality flow would have no hold over them.
    “Actual, C-1 is chronon-active.”
    “Boss, heads up. Getting word: gunfire on fifth, and Reaper squad is down. Fifty percent casualties. Looks like a grenade mishap.”
    “Are you fuckin’ serious, Don?”
    Chronon-1 was the only squad on-site authorized to deploy rigs. Reaper squad was filled with regulars. Nothing special, but casualties meant leaving DNA, fiber … evidence. Ah, Monarch had the best cleaners in the biz.
    “’Fraid so, sir.”
    “You’re in charge, Don. I’m overseeing Guardian’s sanitization run. Buzz me if you need me.”
    Guardian squad was hanging out in the atrium. No rigs, no skills. This wasn’t how Gibson had imagined his first live chronon op: coddling a gang of masked chumps. Fuck this, man. Right in the car.
    Guardian squad’s CO—a young senior operative, carbine strapped across his chest—saluted as he strolled over, like he was still in the Corps. Didn’t even take the mask off to do it.
    Asshole.
    The light from the double-dome superstructure was throwing down crazed shadows that made Gibson’s eyes hurt.
    “Boss,” Donny piped up over the earpiece. “Be aware: the two strays from the time lab aren’t among the bodies.”
    Stupid idea for a building, Gibson thought, taking it all in: a football field’s worth of space between here and the other side of the dome. Racks of Segways spaced around it just so the civvies could get to the stairs. So fuckin’ inefficient.
    “Do what we do, Don. Lock it down. They’ll be in there.…” His eyes traversed the geometrical curvature above him, the inner and outer webwork clashing into still more patterns.
    Gibson stopped where he was, eyes up. Well, Randall Gibson thought. Ain’t that something . “Don?” he said. “Look out a window.”
    “Hey, Randall,” Guardian’s CO said, eye on the time. “You ready?”
    Gibson kept his eye on the ceiling. “Sure, sure. Listen, let me borrow that six-pack your boy’s carrying.”
    Donny piped up. “Well shit, boss. Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
    “Wait twenty seconds, Don, then tell me what you see.”
    *   *   *
    Jack and Will had covered about ten panels—maybe a hundred feet—and were making good time.
    “See? No big deal. Close to halfway there and no casualties.” No response from Will, so Jack checked behind him. “Will?”
    Will was where they’d started.
    Eyes screwed shut, frozen on the spot, Will stammered, “I-I can’t move, Jack. I…” He looked down. “Oh God.”
    “Will, look at me, okay? Straight ahead. Slow and steady steps.”
    “I…” Will never finished the sentence. He was staring down, fixated by the glass at his feet, the drop beyond it.
    “Will?”
    His head whipped up, breath snagged in his throat, and, suddenly, Will was running right at him.
    *   *   *
    “Whoop,” Gibson muttered, tracking the grenade launcher’s barrel across the underside of the dome. “We got a rabbit.”
    Forty-millimeter grenades have a casualty radius of about 130 feet, so Guardian squad had hunkered themselves behind the info stand. Gibson had positioned himself as far away from his target as possible, firing at an angle. Mama Gibson didn’t raise no dummy.
    Gibson sighed and pulled the trigger. The M32 kicked with a satisfying thoonk.
    *   *   *
    Will sprinted straight for Jack.
    “Will! It’s cool! Rel—”
    Three glass panels thirty feet behind his brother shocked white as the entire superstructure smashed into the underside of their feet. Jack was knocked on his ass, the handgun striking sharp against his tailbone, ankles and shins wracked with splintering pain; Will left the surface completely, arms pinwheeling, and came down hard, smashing into the glass. Jack couldn’t hear himself shout, “What the fuck was that?”
    He couldn’t hear