Clock Breakers

Rule 4: Write Everything Down on Round One

"You're not stopping by Juniper first?" Jaysk asked.

"Not necessary. I know this campus and the type of people in it around then, so long as we're not wearing vests or carrying heavy, no one will bat an eye."

"You still have a gun in your belt," Nash said.

"Yeah," I said, "it's mine. Don't worry about open carry rules, there's uniforms everywhere. Besides, you're always dressed like a math professor, you should be fine."

"Hey, just because I understand the importance of business casual in the workplace-"

"Save it Nash, I'm not in the mood. Now let's get going."

"You don't want a debrief of mission parameters or safety precautions?" Jaysk asked.

"Nash will fill in what's needed. Don't touch myself, don't get arrested, fake names, standard procedure."

"Don't touch anything," Jaysk corrected. "Even the smallest change-"

"Can drastically change the future of that time leading to a complete shift in the timeline and our current subjective present, as well as potentially creating a new multiverse split due to universal computational error, I know, okay, let's go."

Nash and Jaysk shared a look as Nash stepped towards me, hand hovering over his watch. I twisted the dials on my watch, showing Nash my coordinates once set. He copied them and nodded to me before we tapped the glass.

As soon as he landed, I pinned Nash to the wall of the single-stall bathroom, cupping his mouth. His wide eyes darted around in confusion for a moment before I raised a finger to my lips. He nodded and let out a breath as I released him, looking around the room barely big enough to fit us both. I pressed myself against the door, listening to the hall. I motioned for him to back up as I opened the door. He was pressed against the wall, making a face as I backed up into him to worm around the door. I shrugged an apology to him once we were in the hall. He nodded and shrugged in understanding, looking around the corridor.

It was white linoleum, with silent, bright lights killing every shadow that skittered around, the doors old, thick metal. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, giving us the easiest landing place to scan - there was only one place to look. I glanced at my watch. It was just after noon, meaning these halls would be abandoned a few more hours.

"Okay, we're clear," I said quietly.

"How do you know?" Nash whispered.

"Morning crew leaves by eleven. It's 12:30 now, nobody else will show up until around five for the evening shift rolling into night shift."

"Why not?" Nash asked, his voice growing slightly louder. "What building is this?"

"Technically between buildings," I said with a smile, beginning to walk forward slowly. "The hard science and soft science buildings are connected by an underground tunnel system. There's a few different layers to it, but the deeper you go, the less foot traffic there is. The floor above us, second from the bottom, actually has the most because there's an offshoot leading directly to an auditorium built into the hill. Three floors of basement above that are all but empty and the current class gets out at one."

"You know, just for the record, we don't typically port into bathrooms. You know, just in case someone was in that single stall?"

"Like I said, it's abandoned right now. The most we'd see is maybe one person going to an office or a lab to pick something up, but they won't notice us."

"How?"

"Nash, have you ever been to college? Everyone's too tired to care. Also it's not like this place is barred or anything - we can't get into any rooms without keycard access, but the halls are wandered to clear heads."