Emerald placed her back against a concrete pillar, wincing as bullets pelted the other side. This was not how this operation was supposed to have gone.

Arriving in Seoul, Korea had been nice enough. Lovely city. The accommodations had been nothing to complain about. Then began the search for the artifact. Emerald had been hoping that they would be able to find the artifact in good time. Perhaps in the hands of a collector they could pay off or maybe a museum with a single night-shift security guard that could be bribed to look the other way.

But no. Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

The initial signal had come from north of Seoul. Not Goyang, Paju, Yangju, or any of Seoul’s other satellite cities, but north of Seoul. What was north of Seoul?

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. That was still its official name, but as of five years ago, it was effectively just another branch of the People’s Republic of China. China, for all their faults, had the second largest psionic research facility in the world. The Jingshen.

They found the artifact first.

Research and infiltration suggested that it was currently secured within an old North Korean bunker, awaiting transit to the central Chinese Jingshen facility.

A bit of concrete exploded as a bullet ripped through the pillar above Emerald’s head.

This facility was falling apart.

“I thought you said they were handled.”

“Uh, Emerald, my fair Lady Emerald. Perhaps, perchance, as it may be, conceivably, mayhaps you have forgotten… We are not supposed to be instigating a diplomatic incident today.”

“There wouldn’t be an incident if they were asleep like you said they would be.”

Alexanderite let out an undignified squeak as a chunk of the pillar he was cowering behind blew apart. “Yes, well, clearly someone woke up.”

“You think?”

Emerald shot him a glare, looking over just in time to watch a cylinder fly through the air toward their cover.

Pure reflex took over Emerald. Her thumb hit the winding stem of her pocket watch. Time froze. Bullets stopped pelting her column. The pitched wail of the facility’s alarm went silent. Shouts of soldiers, cracks of gunfire, and stomping boots stilled. The grenade in the air froze as well.

Emerald stepped out from her cover, calm, collected, and with a smile on her face. She looked around the room. It was a control room of some sort. Several computers sat around a trio of large curved desks, all sitting atop terraced levels in front of a several large screens on the far wall, set between the pillars that Emerald and Alex were using as cover. There were two entrances into the room. Both on the opposite side of the room. Soldiers peeked around both.

They were trapped. Alexanderite’s handling of the situation left much to be desired.

To make matters worse, an upper level balcony looked down at them, providing even more places for soldiers to pelt them with their firearms. Several other concrete pillars up there provided enemy soldiers with similar cover.

Reaching up, Emerald grasped hold of the frozen grenade. It didn’t budge. Not even the slightest.

Upon restarting time, the sudden momentum carried her arm backwards for just an instant. But she had been prepared. In the blink of an eye, it was sailing back through the air toward the open doorway where the soldiers were standing. The second the grenade left her fingertips, she stopped time once again to keep the soldiers from shifting their shots toward her. All-in-all, she had been in real-time for less than a second.

Stepping over to the frozen Alex, she joined him in his cover and restarted time again.

“You know Alex…”

Alex yelped in surprise. Emerald had to grab hold of his frilled cravat to keep him from leaping out into the line of fire.

“We tried this whole thing your way. It didn’t work.”

The boom of a detonating grenade sent a compression wave around the pillar, billowing Emerald’s dyed black hair. Alex choked, looking like he had the wind sucked out of him.

“My turn,” Emerald said.

“But diploman—”

Letting go of Alex, Emerald stopped time again. Having already had a quick analysis of the situation, she didn’t hesitate as she moved straight to the doorway where a grenade had not just exploded. She walked to the back of the four soldiers leaning around the doorway, avoiding the bullets frozen in mid-air as she approached. Pulling up her own G22, she aimed at the back of the rearmost soldier’s head.

Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze. Reposition. Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze. Reposition. Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze. Reposition. Unfreeze. Fire. Freeze.

Four bodies were falling, but none had quite hit the floor just yet.

Hallway clear.

Looking around, double-checking that she was not in the line of fire of any active combatants, she unfreezed time once again and knelt to collect a trio of grenades from the downed soldiers. Grenades in hand, she froze time and moved back into the control room.

In rapid succession, she pulled the pins of the grenades and tossed them up to the balcony. Nothing would actually happen if the grenades went off while time was stopped. If they did go off, she might as well have tossed them at solid iron statues. But the moment the third grenade was out of her hands, Emerald dashed back to the cleared corridor and restarted time.

Three rapid booms went off, accompanied by shouts, cries, and screams of those up on the second floor. From their perspective, it would have looked like grenades just appeared behind them. If they survived, anyway. Otherwise, their perspectives would likely have turned a little darker.

With two thirds of her current problems now gone, Emerald quickly cleared the other hallway in the same manner as the first. For good measure, she collected their grenades, tossed them up to the balcony, and then moved back behind the concrete pillar. Emerald restarted time, waited for the explosions, and then listened.

Silence.

Blissful, peaceful, silence save for the wail of the building’s alarm system.

Well, that and Alex. He emitted a constant, high-pitched squeak like a balloon slowly deflating. It was only audible during the momentary pauses in the shrieking alarm.

“Lovely,” Emerald said with a smile, choosing to ignore both noises. “Shall we move on?”

“We are in so much trouble.”

“What, no flowery words for this occasion?”

“This is going to start a war.”

“Nonsense. These kinds of things didn’t turn the Cold War hot. They’re not going to turn this state of psionic arms race into a war either. China still wants to pretend that North Korea is its own entity, so they can’t really do anything. North Korea threatens everyone and everybody, but that isn’t anything new. They’re a leashed dog in China’s yard.”

“What if this changes things? What if China lets loose the leash? Or what if they decide to do something themselves in retaliation for kicking their doggy?”

Emerald blinked in confusion. “It’s just a metaphor. And if they do decide to do something… well, good thing we’re securing the artifact. Speaking of, we should hurry before reinforcements show up.”

Stopping time, Emerald performed a quick survey of the room to ensure no one was about to attack them when they emerged from their cover. She, obviously, was in little danger. Alex, on the other hand, possessed no such defenses. Luckily, the room appeared completely clear. Restarting time, Emerald caught no sign of movement or heard the rustling of clothes. If anyone was alive, they were pretending otherwise.

Wise.

Alex followed behind her as they headed toward one of the hallways. The one they had not entered from. He went to great efforts to avoid looking at the ground and the bodies. However, a bit of chatter from one of the soldier’s radios made him stop.

Emerald didn’t understand Korean. She had considered learning while here, but had never gotten around to it. It was a bit regrettable now, but she had been holding out the hope that they would find the artifact and be back in the States before it actually came into use.

“Apparently the whole of the North Korean army is going to be on top of us in thirty minutes.”

“Best make haste then.”

“Wait, I might be able to stop them.” Bending, still avoiding looking at the bodies, Alex groped about for the radio.

As soon as he picked it up, Emerald realized what he was going to do. She fished a pair of earplugs from her pockets, jammed them into her ears, then promptly clamped her hands over her earplug-filled ears.

Holding one hand to his chest and the other extended out like an opera singer, Alex proceeded to sing into the radio.

Presumably. Emerald couldn’t hear a word of it and was glad for it. The man could not carry a tune if his life depended on it. Whatever key he tried to sing in was doomed to be the wrong one. His tempo and pace faltered and accelerated at random. Truly, there was no one less suitable to wield his artifact. Yet, for some reason, he did.

Five minutes of his silent gesticulating while Emerald kept an eye out and her ears closed—and found the switch to deactivate the base’s alarm—Alex finally finished. He waved at Emerald over and over again, miming her removing the earplugs. She didn’t do so right away, making sure that the lingering effects of his power being active were well and truly dispersed.

“There,” he said. “I handled them.”

“Oh, like you handled these guards?”

“I think I needed to sing in Korean. I did that, this time.”

Emerald started walking away, moving down the hall. She mumbled to herself as she walked, “I think you need to learn to sing.”

Luckily, the bunker wasn’t a large place. It had a single entrance and defensive area, which they had bypassed thanks to Alex’s partial handling of the situation, the control room from where upper echelons of the military would have conducted affairs had this facility ever been used, and finally living quarters. The living area held a canteen and barracks for the soldiers and regular staff. A different hall took Emerald and Alex to a far more opulent living space, looking more like a two-star hotel.

There were a few guards along the route. All were slumped over and unresponsive. Emerald had an itch to shoot every single one of them, just to ensure that they would not become problematic in the future. However, firing on one would likely break the spell over the rest. Accidentally tripping the alarm was likely what had landed them in that spot of trouble back in the control room. And knives were a bit too messy for her tastes.

No. Best to keep quiet at this juncture.

With a psionic detection tool in hand, Alex motioned toward one of the hotel-like rooms.

Emerald didn’t speak. There was a man she didn’t want to wake slumped over at the end of the corridor with enough decorative medals on his chest to double as body armor. Instead, she motioned for Alex to back away and then placed her hand on the door handle.

It wasn’t locked. There was no resistance in pushing it open. No one shouted or fired at her. Pausing time, she took a quick glance inside the room.

There was their artifact. Even with time stopped, she still caught that whiff of kerosene that all artifacts smelled like to her.

On a small table at the foot of a bed, a small glass case held… Emerald was fairly certain it was a hair pin. It could have been a weapon, but it didn’t really look like an effective one. It was mostly straight, though a bit wavy as it had been fashioned in the form of a snake. The material was pale greenish. Jade, probably, given the region.

Seeing no other threats in the room after a quick walk-through, she went back out into the corridor and restarted time. Still silent, she motioned for Alex to take the lead. He carried a large shielded case—too large for the object, but they hadn’t known exactly what it was when setting off. The thick gloves he wore would keep him from binding with it on accident. She set up outside the room, ready to watch for anyone approaching.

Alex didn’t make it more than a step into the room before jumping back out, tackling Emerald to the ground in the process. She would have yelled at him were it not for the rapid pops of suppressed submachine gun fire coming from inside the room.

Throwing Alex off her, Emerald stopped time with a hasty tap of her thumb against the button on the end of her pocket watch’s winding stem.

With all the time in the world now at her disposal, Emerald got to her feet, brushed herself off, and noted the slumped officer at the end of the corridor had stirred somewhat at the noise. That was irritating. More irritating, however, was the room. A trail of bullets were in the process of flying through the air and into the wood of the door. They effectively formed a mild barrier to entry, forcing her to duck under them.

Emerald peered back inside, leaning around the doorway.

A pair of men stood near the far wall that had absolutely not been there before. There wasn’t even a closet for them to have popped out from. Both wore black body armor and clothes with no visible insignias, logos, or other identifying markings. What stood out, however, were their firearms. PP-2000s, easily recognizable by their distinct shape, kitted out with suppressors, laser assists, and holographic sights.

A third man, between the two firing their submachine guns, looked as if he had jumped into the room, grabbed hold of the glass case, and was now in the process of… running into the wall?

Moving into the room beneath the spray of bullets, Emerald changed position to get a different perspective on the situation.

The alternative perspective didn’t change reality, however. The man really was in the midst of a full sprint toward the wall. His helmet and the glass case were roughly equally ahead of him with the angle he was running at. Both were a finger’s length away from the concrete wall. If Emerald restarted time, he would crash straight away.

Emerald, standing such that one of the firing soldiers would have to shoot the other and both would have to turn ninety degrees to face her, held out her pistol. She first aimed at the closer soldier. He was the obvious threat with his PP-2000. However, he wasn’t the objective.

Emerald switched her target, aiming for the side of the head of the man running with the glass case.

She wasn’t stupid. Because she wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t about to assume that her opponents were stupid. These men hadn’t been in the room a moment ago. There was clearly a plan of action here. The wall felt solid to her hand, but stopped time could make a lot of things feel solid that weren’t actually. Water, for instance, wasn’t any less solid than steel.

Dismissing a slight hesitation as she wondered if she really was picking the correct target, Emerald restarted time and immediately fired her G22.

A bullet ripped through the case-carrier’s head from ear to ear, just under his helmet. Momentum, unfortunately, could not be stopped as easily.

The world itself ripped open just in front of him, swallowing his falling body.

Emerald fired a shot at the closer soldier before he could turn toward her and then immediately stopped time to reassess the situation.

The case-carrier’s legs stuck out from the rip in the wall, which still felt solid under her fingertips. The case itself was on the other side.

The closer of the two shooting soldiers was in the beginning stages of succumbing to gravity, dead.

The other shooting soldier had pivoted in the short time that time had been flowing. One foot was through the wall, much like the case-carrier’s legs. The rest of him was still out, now aiming toward where Emerald was.

The situation had moved from slightly below ideal with the oncoming North Korean army to excessively subpar in mere moments. Emerald was stumped as to what to do about it.

With all the time in the world, she examined the dead soldier, the legs of the soldier, and the pivoted soldier. Stopped time wouldn’t let her interact with them in any meaningful way, but she could look over their gear and check for any sign of technology that would allow them to move through these rips in the wall. Unable to locate any, Emerald had to presume that whatever anomalous occurrence was going on was not specific to these soldiers.

That meant that she would be able to go through it.

Should she, was the real question.

Emerald didn’t know what was on the other side. There was another room further down the corridor, but something told her that these rips wouldn’t simply lead to the adjacent room. The soldiers weren’t dressed like the rest of the North Korean soldiers. They were clearly here for the same reason that Emerald was.

To secure the artifact.

Which was now on the other side of the wall.

Perhaps she could grab the downed soldier’s legs and drag him and it back over? No. He was surely dead and wouldn’t maintain a grip.

Emerald did not fail. With her ability to stop time, she could jump through, stop immediately, and assess the situation based on what she saw over there. Would Walter approve? No. No he would not. But Emerald didn’t care.

Not wanting to be shot as she jumped through the wall, Emerald repositioned out of line of fire of the sole remaining soldier. She raised her gun, unfroze time, and pulled the trigger.

As the bullet raced through the man’s skull, she jumped over the legs of the downed man.

A sickening squelch filled the air just before she made it.

Her shoulder slammed into the wall.

Stumbling backward, unsure of what was going on, she paused time again.

Her ignorance quickly changed to relief that she had not been a half-second faster in her jump.

The legs of the man who had carried the case were clearly no longer attached to anything. Blood pooled around the severed thighs, smearing against the wall where it leaked out. The soldier Emerald had just shot was in much the same position. Dead from the bullet rattling around under his helmet, but also falling away from the wall without one of his legs.

Emerald glared. Three dead bodies and a solid wall.

And no artifact.

Smile creeping across her face, Emerald knelt down and glared at one of the fallen PP-2000s.

“Someone is going to pay for this,” she said to an utterly still world.