A Mutiny in Time (Infinity Ring #1)

“Riq is an absolute prodigy when it comes to languages,” Brint said when he introduced him. “He learned five languages by the age of five, and he’s set a goal to pick up one a year since then.”


“You guys are supposed to be smart,” the young man said. “I’m sixteen. You’ve got three seconds to guess how many languages I know. Go.”

“Sixteen,” Sera said, her voice laced with annoyance.

“Wow,” Riq responded. “Stunning. No wonder they chose you for this.”

“They didn’t choose us,” Dak said. “We invented a time-travel device and no one else can make it work. Ever done that before? Invent a time-travel device?”

Riq rattled off something in another language. All Dak knew was that it had a lot of clearing of the throat.

“You need to spit somewhere?” Dak asked him. “Or did you swallow part of your oversized brain?”

“If I did, maybe I should spit it out. It’d still be bigger than yours, apparently.”

“Okay,” Brint said as he stepped between them. “Good to see you two hit it off so well. We’ll be coming back to Riq tomorrow for some language-device training.” He mumbled, “That ought to be fun.”

Next they were introduced to Arin, a young woman with thick blond hair. Of all the Hystorians they’d met so far, she seemed the most stressed, clutching a disorderly stack of papers to her chest.

“Arin is in charge of creating a Hystorian’s Guide for each Break,” Brint explained. “She’s been combing through our archives, gathering the information that will be most useful to you in different time periods.”

Arin shook hands with Dak, then Sera. “Archives sounds impressive, but what Brint means is that I’ve spent months rummaging through boxes full of mildewed papyrus and crumpled bamboo scrolls. There was one twentieth-century Hystorian who left behind a numbered collection of soup-can wrappers. I still can’t figure out if it’s an important cipher or if the poor man was simply a very organized hoarder.”

Mari gave Arin a warm smile. “It’s been daunting, but Arin’s done a marvelous job.”

“I thought I’d have more time, that’s all,” Arin said softly, and then she wished them luck and scurried away.

Dak realized too late that he should have thanked her. By the time he thought of it, they’d already made their way around the room, returning to the platform with the podium.

Brint turned to Dak with a satisfied smile on his face. “Now that we’ve done that, we want to take you to meet the people going with you on your trip. They’re highly trained —”

The sound of an explosion cut off his words. The entire operations center rocked, throwing half of the people to the ground. Dak stumbled into Sera and they crashed into the wall. She wrapped her arms around him to keep both of them from toppling over.

There was a second boom, followed by another jolt to the room. This time Dak and Sera did fall — he landed on top of her and heard her grunt despite the ringing in his ears.

Brint and Mari both stumbled over to Dak and Sera and helped get them to their feet. For the moment the explosions had stopped, but the Hystorians were shouting, running around with panicked expressions on their faces. It was mass confusion.

“What’s going on?” Dak asked. His heart rate had skyrocketed, and he noticed Sera was holding his hand. He pulled away, embarrassed.

Before anyone could answer his question, the huge monitor that dominated the room went black. When it came back online a moment later, a face filled the screen. It was a woman with flaming red hair and lipstick the color of black oil, her face all hard edges. The room hushed as everyone stared at the screen in horror.

After all was completely silent, the fierce-looking woman spoke.

“You really thought you could hide such a thing from the SQ?” she asked, her voice biting with hate. “We’re coming, Brint. We’re coming for your precious Infinity Ring.”





THE LADY IN RED’S announcement was immediately followed by a series of shattering explosions that rattled the operations room and sent ceiling tiles raining from above. Clouds of dust arose where pieces of ceiling hit the floor. Dak cradled the Ring to his chest protectively. That nasty woman had threatened to come take it from him, and no way would he ever let that happen.

“Come on,” Brint said tightly, throwing a worried glance at Mari. “We don’t have any time to mess around.”

He grabbed Dak by the arm and escorted him roughly up the aisle that rounded the room. Mari and Sera were right behind them — Dak noticed that Mari had retrieved the SQuare, and was hurriedly placing it back into her satchel. Brint came to a panel in the wall and pushed. The whole thing pivoted open. The four of them slipped through into a hidden room that was only about eight feet across and completely empty. Dak turned to see Riq follow them inside, then Brint shut the panel.