The Bureau of Time by Brett Michael Orr

place – an examination room that was uncomfortably cold, the walls sterile-white. She sat opposite Doctor Amita Sharma, with a metal table between them. The walls were bare, and a camera in the corner of the room blinked red, recording everything. Beside the Doctor, Shaun slouched in his chair, his arms folded, slate-gray eyes fixed on Cassie and making her self-conscious.
    “I’m going to shuffle this deck of cards,” Amita said during their first session. “You’re going to tell me the order that the cards are in.”
    “I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “If you don’t show me the cards first, how can I remember what the order is?”
    “This is not a test of your memory,” the Doctor said. Her black hair was pulled back in a fierce bun. “This is a test of your Temporal abilities. Now, are you ready to begin?”
    Cassie swallowed past a thick lump in her throat. She glanced up at the camera. Are people watching this? Studying me? She shivered. The room unnerved her.
    “Let’s begin,” Amita said. She shuffled the deck and placed it face down in the middle of the table. “What card is on top?”
    Cassie opened and closed her mouth. This is crazy. It’s an impossible test.
    She looked imploringly at Shaun, as though he could help her somehow. He leaned back in his chair, biting the inside of his cheek.
    “Come on,” Amita said sharply, rapping a finger on the table. “What card is it?”
    “I don’t know!” Cassie said, exasperated. “I don’t understand how this could possibly test my – my abilities! ”
    Just saying the word – ability – felt foreign to her. Her Affinity was slowly spreading across the base of her skull in a static-filled headache. She felt Shaun’s signature burning brightly inside her mind, but her actual powers were far beyond her reach.
    “Just pick a card,” Shaun said, rolling his eyes. “This whole test is a waste of time.”
    “Timewalker Briars,” Amita said, glaring at him. “You are here to assist me in activating this girl’s powers. I am the supervising physician with decades’ of experience analyzing the Cronus gene – I don’t need your commentary.”
    Shaun took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling, anger roiling off his body in hot waves.
    Cassie returned her gaze to the deck of cards. This is impossible, she thought. I’d have to be psychic. Or be able to see the future.
    The future.
    “I get it now,” she murmured. But that doesn’t make it any easier.
    She named a card at random: “Queen of Hearts.”
    Amita flipped the first card over. Six of Clubs. She shuffled the deck. “Try again.”
    “Seven of Diamonds.” She was wrong again. Of course. As Amita flipped the correct card over, Cassie shut her eyes and dug into the back of her mind, reaching into the static of her Affinity – the part of her mind that could access Temporal Energy.
    There was nothing there.
    Shaun’s signature roared like a bonfire in the darkness, but there was no hint of the strange power that had rushed through her on the football field.
    “Try again,” Amita snapped.
    “Ace of Spades?”
    “Black Joker. Try again.”
    The cycle repeated, day after day. Shaun became distant and fed-up, often leaving the room for long periods of time, returning in an even worse mood. Amita remained persistent, shuffling and dealing the top card again and again. Sometimes she had a clipboard with her, and would scribble notes in an illegible scrawl; other times she simply let the camera record it all.
    Cassie became increasingly frustrated with herself, and with this stupid, pointless test. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t access her powers. Shaun’s presence confused her Affinity more, but when he was absent, she couldn’t concentrate on the deck of cards at all, her thoughts straying to him even when she wanted to block everything out.
    The first week passed like this – early mornings, exercise and training, classroom lessons, Temporal