TMA: Agent Moon Ch. 01

"Command," she said aloud. More hidden sensors read her voiceprint, further confirming her identity. By now, the base would know it was her, and the elevator would—

There came a gentle humming sound, and Corinna felt the room descend. The further down she went into the earth, the more her concerns for her night faded away. She was 'on the job,' now. Only thoughts concerning her role within the TMA, as a seasoned field agent, entered her mind.

When the wall separated at the other end from the door, and Corinna heard the conversational buzz of technicians, soldiers, and scientists echoing through the halls, she was a single-minded woman, making her way through the tubular tunnels that had been dug through rock more than two hundred feet below ground. Not one of the uniformed personnel she passed – and gave short nods or quick greetings to – gave a second look at her mode of dress; the field agents of the TMA were seen as casual, eccentric, and often irreverent. At least one was even known to stroll through the halls with a katana strapped to her back.

Finally, Corinna found herself at the arched entrance of the Command Room, where she passed between a pair of burly, stoic sentries in their blue coveralls and automatic rifles held at attention. The table within the room was large enough to seat a dozen people, yet only two figures occupied a pair of chairs at the far end: the Director, Col. Radha Naveen, formerly of the British Armed Forces, and the American scientist, Dr. Phineas Jasper. The dark-skinned colonel, with her long, thick hair braided behind her, gave Corinna an expectant look as she entered.

"Agent Bellew," she said by way of greeting.

Corinna's upper lip twitched slightly in irritation; The Director's decidedly European accent, combined with her penchant for brevity, made her pronounce Corinna's last name as 'blew.' At the moment, Corinna actually found that funny, considering what she had finished doing when she had been summoned.

Corinna nodded professionally, standing at attention. "Director."

The Director smiled thinly, gestured to the unoccupied chairs. "At ease, Captain," she said, referring to Corinna's previous rank with the US Army. "Have a seat."

Corinna gave another nod, then slid out a chair at the end of the table and sat. She waited for Colonel Naveen to begin.

"You have a very impressive record with the TMA," the Director continued, folding her hands over a closed file atop the table before her. "In four years, you have earned a near-perfect record."

"Thanks you, Ma'am," Corinna responded.

"There is a very serious situation at hand," Naveen said, her eyes steady as she watched the slightly-younger woman. "The Rectifiers have apparently targeted and terminated an agent of the TMA. He was killed nine hours ago. It has taken us that long to determine who it was they killed."

Corinna bristled slightly. She had come to see her fellow agents – few as they were – as brothers and sisters. The thought of one of them having been killed by a Rectifier agent sent her pulse pumping. "Who was it?"

The Director opened the file before her. "Dylan Moon," she said, glancing perfunctorily at the documents before her as she flipped through them slowly. "Seven-year veteran with the San Antonio police department, twenty-two-year vet with the FBI. He has a phenomenally impressive record."

Corinna frowned, searching through her memory. "Director," she said at last. "I know everyone in the TMA. I've never heard of Agent Moon."

Dr. Jasper grinned his usual irreverent smile as he lounged in his chair. "That's because he hasn't been recruited, yet," he said.

Corinna frowned in confusion, an unspoken question in her mind.

The Director continued: "Dylan Moon is not yet a member of the TMA, though he will be, and must be," she said, stressing that single word. "His future actions need to be insured, if the timestream is to be maintained. For that reason, we have selected you to contact him, bring him in, and convince him that his future lies with the TMA."

Corinna nodded cynically. It would not be the first time she had been assigned a mission based upon her skills at seduction. For a moment, she allowed herself to remember those scant few days as Jack Kennedy's nurse in 1943 . . . "Of course," she said.

Col. Naveen leaned forward on the table. "We will need you at the top of your game, as they say," she said. "Mr. Dylan Moon is an aged man. He is currently 73 years old. Despite what you may think, your . . . bedroom manner is not specifically required for this mission. Your skills as an agent, a combatant, are."

Corinna took a breath. Strangely enough, she felt immense pride that she had been chosen not because she was 'good in the sack,' but because she still possessed the skills honed through years as a special forces soldier. Corinna smiled genuinely. "Thank you, Director," she said. "I won't let the TMA down."

"I sure as hell hope not," Jasper chimed in with a typically flippant reply. "'Cause if you screw up, it's everyone's ass."

***

Six hours later, Corinna stepped into the Tap Chamber, clad in her assigned attire. She carried no weapons on her, as was typical for an agent being sent through time and space. In fact, once she arrived at her destination, twenty-seven hours in the past and more than a thousand miles distant, she would blend in well with the local population of Seguin, Texas, a small town just at the fringes of the San Antonio metropolis.

Corinna shifted a bit in the tight Wrangler jeans, frilly pink blouse, and brown leather cowboy boots into which her jeans were tucked. She looked dubiously to the edge of the brim of the straw cowgirl hat that sat perched on her head. "Are you sure about this?" she asked aloud, knowing that anything she said could be heard in the control booth just above and behind her.

Col. Naveen's voice echoed through the hidden speakers in the spartan room: "Your best bet is to contact him at his ranch," she said. "He had placed an ad in the local newspaper asking for a general assistant. Horse riding and breaking, basic ranch management—"

Corinna spun around and faced the broad window above her, through which she could see Col. Naveen. "I haven't ridden a horse in almost fifteen years," she said. "The only riding I'm good at is on a horizontal stallion, if you get my meaning."

Even through nearly opaque indestructible plexiglass and a distance of more than thirty feet, Corinna could see the smirk on the Director's face. "Well, that may come in handy, too," she said. "Look, all you need to do is get close to him – by whatever means necessary – and protect him from the Rectifiers. Dr. Turgenyev's speculations are that he will agree to join the TMA once the truth of the Rectifiers has been made known to him."

Corinna's shoulders slumped a bit as she sighed. "Is Dr. T sure about this?"

At her question, a stoop-shouldered man in a white lab coat appeared beside the Director. As always, Dr. Andrej Turgenyev looked like he was six seconds from death, with his pale face and sunken eyes. He leaned toward the microphone on its long, flexible stalk.

"Yes, I am," he said simply. "All of my permutations lead to the same result."

Corinna sighed. Had those words come from anyone else, she would have been skeptical. But Turgenyev was the reason the TMA existed. Jasper may have perfected some of the Tap's applications, but the theories and workings behind the Temporal Probability/Redundancy Field Generator – the device that allowed time travel into the past possible – were almost entirely due to the work of the Lithuanian scientist. Since Hawking, since Einstein, since Tesla and Newton, there was no greater scientist than Turgenyev. As far as scientific applications went, the frail-looking genius was God.

Corinna nodded and stood in the center of the room, at the point where the four ominous-looking nodes mounted on the dark-painted walls were directed. "Okay. I'm ready."

A moment later, the faint whir of powerful motors could be heard beyond the walls, building up in pitch and power. Corinna felt the tingling sensation of static electricity playing over her body.

"Godspeed, Agent Bellew," came the Director's voice.

Corinna grimaced. I gotta teach her how to say my name right, she thought, just before the brilliant arcs of electricity lanced forth from the nodes and lit up the room with their brilliant display. Corinna convulsed for a brief moment, until the blue-grey halo of light opened around her, consuming her. Corinna gritted her teeth, held out against the pain . . . .

And vanished.

***

With a gasp of pain mingled with relief, Corinna fell to her hands and knees on the ground. She felt the nausea, and the trickling, prickling sensation of electricity across her body, waited for it all to fade. After four years of enduring such jaunts through time, Agent Bellew no longer gave in to the need to vomit, and her equilibrium returned rather quickly. Following a few deep breaths – inhaling the aromas of pine, mesquite, and horse manure – Corinna righted herself, and stood, finally opening her eyes.

She found herself on a country road, flanked on either side by broad horse pastures. A look down one direction gave her nothing but a winding road that vanished with the horizon; but a glance the other way showed her a large ranch house, no more than a hundred meters distant. There was an old truck – from the seventies, she figured – and a slightly newer sedan sitting on the simple gravel driveway near the front porch.

"Okay, Cori, here we go," she said to herself, and touched the implant behind her right ear. "Testing, testing, testing," she repeated, until her voice carried the inflections of an East Texas accent. She smirked, then rolled her eyes. Jeez, now I'm a Texan, she thought, and strode forward.

***

Just before knocking on the frame beside the screen door, Corinna made sure the synthflesh mask she wore was smooth and uniform. The goal had been to look like some fresh-off-the-farm country girl, not a middle-aged thirtysomething with crow's feet and smoker's wrinkles. A young woman would rouse less suspicions than a woman of Corinna's true age. And while she had the body to perfect the ruse, age had still begun to show around Corinna's eyes and mouth. Thus, the synthflesh mask.

Satisfied that she looked the part, Corinna effected a girlish stance, pushing her chest out and her firm buttocks back, and knocked on the frame.

After another knock, the door opened, and Corinna was surprised – pleasantly so – to see a well-built man, in his late twenties or perhaps early thirties, muscular but not overly so, with short black hair and a somewhat oval face. He had shimmering dark brown eyes and a confident curl to his lips.

"Can I help you?" he asked. His voice held no territorial accent; he sounded to Corinna as if he had been raised in the Midwest, or perhaps even the East Coast.

"Er, yeah," Corinna said, the implant converting her responses into typical East Texan parlance. "I'm here 'bout the ad y'all placed in the paper. Wantin' reliable ranch hands an' all."

The young man looked Corinna over briefly, but not in a way that he seemed to be assessing her sexually. It was more of a clinical look. "Been around horses much?" he asked.

Corinna smiled broadly. "All my life," she declared. "Hell, last year's rodeo, I broke three broncs myself."

He chuckled softly, slowly smiling as he pushed open the door. "What's your name?" he asked.

Corinna stepped up, letting her outstretched hand lead the way. "Cori," she said. "Cori Bellew."

His smile grew. "Bellew," he repeated, pronouncing her name correctly. "That's a good Texas name. I'm Dylan."

Corinna's smile faltered slightly, but she hid it through a forced smile as she squeezed the young man's hand. Dylan, she thought. That's Agent Moon's first name. But if this guy is seventy-three years old, I'm a freaking nun . . . .

"Nice to meet'ya, Dylan," she said.

***

He lead her into the spacious kitchen, after a quick tour of the living room, study, and dining room. The house had all the expected clutterings of a man in his seventh decade: pictures, most in black and white, framed in ornate rectangles and ovals on the walls, showing men and women from a bygone era as they posed stoically. A venerable gramophone sat upon a claw-footed table near a glass-doored display case filled with porcelain figurines and old wooden hand carvings. The patterns of the furniture, rugs and even the carpet suggested an eye from decades past. Even the wallpaper looked like something only seen in movies from the mid-sixties.

"Iced tea?" Dylan asked as he turned his back to Corinna, opening an avocado-colored refrigerator.

For a moment, the TMA agent could not help but admire the trim, athletic form of the man before her, the way his jeans – obviously, he had worn them often for several years – conformed themselves to his taut buttocks. Quickly, however, Corinna returned her mind to business.

"Sure, thanks a bunch," she said, frowning at her own words. This damn implant's making me sound like an idiot, she thought.

Dylan turned back, holding a pitcher in his hand. His green eyes sparkled as he smiled, an almost patronizing look. "It's Lipton," he said. "Still want some?"

Corinna blushed despite herself. "Sure," she said.

Smirking, he poured two glasses, set one before Corinna. "So, Cori," he said. "Let's get to the point. I'm a pretty busy guy, and I need someone who can help maintain the ranch. I've got eleven horses, a few of them geldings, some pretty old. I—"

Corinna interrupted after a brief sip of the sweet tea. "Um, I hope y'all will pardon me," she said. She worked her mouth and eyebrows for a moment. "But I thought Mr. Moon was, um, kind'a up there, know what I mean? Not that I'm complainin' one bit, I just, you know, wanna make sure I'm talkin' to the right guy."

Dylan paused a moment, his face unreadable. "Are you from around here?" he asked.

Corinna shrugged. "Well, kind'a. I grew up in Texarkana, been livin' in Hondo," she said, calling upon the information the implant gave her.

Dylan's lips split in a smile, and he looked down, chuckling softly as he rolled the glass of tea in his hands. "Nice town," he said, then lifted his head, meeting Corinna's eyes. "Yeah, I guess you might have heard of my old man. He passed away about ten years ago, left me the ranch."

Corinna smiled with both sympathy and self-admonishment. "Aw, jeez, Mr. Moon, I didn't know. I'm really sorry."

Dylan shrugged. "Life goes on," he said. "Anyway, this is my place, now. No reason to change the name of the ranch, since we have the same initials. I am a junior, after all." He winked as he spoke the last few words.

Corinna smiled. "True enough," she said, even as thoughts began tumbling through her mind: Okay, so this is Dylan Moon's son. Is he the guy I'm supposed to save? And if so . . . damn, Old Man Moon must have been at least forty, maybe even fifty when he knocked up the wife . . . .

"Let me give you a tour of the place," Dylan said, setting his glass aside and offering his hand. "See if you feel up to what I need done around here. I'm not making any promises; I've got a few more interviews before I make my decision."

Corinna rose, taking Dylan's hand. The man had a firm grip; his fingers were visibly callused. No stranger to hard work, is Mr. Dylan Moon, Jr., she thought. She found his eyes mesmerizing, his presence powerful and commanding. Even after a lifetime of being around men used to being in command – few of whom had earned Capt. Corinna Bellew's respect – she realized she was impressed by this simple man. And perhaps even a little aroused.

***

He showed Corinna around the ranch, took her through the barn and introduced her to Hal, Emma, Wildfire, Rusty, Milky Way, Stardust, and the other horses. Most extended their muzzles in invitation, and Corinna giggled as they ate sugar cubes from her palm. She patted their neck and flanks, stepped into the stalls with some of them. She was glad for her own basic experience with horses and the technical information the implant provided. Between that and her gift for acting, she felt she was convincing Mr. Dylan Moon, Jr., that she knew a thing or two about horses.

And then came the question she had been dreading.

"Care to take a ride?" he asked as they both petted Stardust's neck. The roan mare snorted as if offering her own opinion.

Corinna blinked briefly, calling upon the information within her implant. "Sure," she said at last. "I'll take Stardust."

Dylan nooded. "And I'll take Rusty."

***

Corinna was surprised at how well she took to the saddle. Even though she had not ridden a horse since she had visited her uncle's farm after college, it felt comfortable to grace the stiff leather and gather the reigns in her hands. And, thanks to her memories and the implant, she was able to guide her mount in a way that seemed natural. After only a few miles, Corinna was truly enjoying herself, and rode the mare with relative ease.

Returning to the barn, Dylan rode up beside Corinna, an approving smile on his face. "It's been a while since I've seen someone handle a horse like you," he said.

Corinna blushed. "Been a while since I really enjoyed it," she said honestly, then checked herself. "I-I mean . . . you know . . . ."

Dylan laughed. "Riding broncos isn't the same as taking the saddle on a broken horse," he said. "I know. All my horses are bridle-wise. You won't have to do any breaking here."

Corinna laughed. "Thank God!" she exclaimed. "I've had all I want in them damn rodeos." She cast a sly look to Dylan, more than conscious of the burgeoning attraction that had been fomenting over the previous two hours. "So . . . you sayin' I got the job?"

Dylan chuckled softly, letting his eyes wander over the apparently young woman. "Just one more thing," he said.

Corinna bit her lip, anticipating what that 'one more thing' might be, wistfully hoping that it lay between Mr. Dylan Moon, Jr.'s legs.

***

He slapped a thick, sudsy sponge into her hand and smiled upon Corinna. "I need to know that you understand how to tend to the horses after a ride," he said, stepping back as they stood in the barn's causeway. "Come back to the house when you're done."

Corinna said nothing as she watched Dylan walk past her and out of the barn. The sponge splattered thick, soapy suds on her boots. Her fantasies of all-out sex in the hayloft were completely dashed, replaced with redirected frustration. She looked to Rusty in his pen, who snorted and pawed at the ground. Her eyes narrowed.

"Oh, shut up," she snapped, opening the gate and stepping close to the stud. "And don't get any ideas . . . ."

***

She was sure she reeked of horse-sweat as she made her way back to the ranch house, letting herself through the back door of the kitchen. However, whatever gamey aroma she may have absorbed from her new equestrian friends was completely overwhelmed by the aroma of pan-fired bacon, eggs, and sizzling onions.

"All done?" Dylan asked with a glance over his shoulder as he stood over the stove.

Corinna licked her lips for a moment, again admiring the man's firm cowboy ass in his snug jeans. "For now," she managed to say.

Dylan smiled, nudged his chin. "Take a seat," he said. "You've done enough work for today."

Corinna did not have to be told twice. She headed to the small table in the kitchen, covered with a laminated floral-print cloth, and sat down. Two place settings had been set, with a bottle of red wine in between. Quietly, Corinna watched as Dylan moved about the kitchen, getting this and that. She admired the movement of his muscles beneath thin layers of well-worn denim and the cotton shirt he wore. He had broad shoulders, a strong back, thick, muscular thighs. Everything about the man exuded an essence of power of one kind or another.