The Old Mine

3: Haunted

                   Cal stopped and bent over to look at something wedged in the wall near the floor. "Are these bones?" She smirked as she leaned in closer "Wait, do these look human to you?"

                   "Cal," Recke closed his eyes and rubbed the bride of his nose as he tried to still his growing frustration "We can't have people traipsing through here." He sighed as he realized this was going to be a much more complicated mission than he hoped. "I know you're kidding, and it's not funny."

                    Cal stood up smiling "At least I know what I won't be finding in here."

                   Recke exhaled sharply, his frustration growing into anger "Now who's breaking the don't tell rule?" His calmed himself until his emotion could match his expression then he continued, his face was serious as he looked her up and down "We have to find the L.U. before they send someone else. Do you really think they are all going to be that easy to beat?"

                     "L.U.?" Cal shifted her weight and folded her arms across her waist "What does that stand for?"

                    "Lost and Unknown" he stated in monotone "As far as we know it's only one item here, so we are looking for L.U.-1"

                    "Why LU-1," she laughed "You mean to tell me you reset the number with every case?"

                    "Yes, because some of the cases get sealed and some cases vanish because of future interruptions to other timelines." He took a deep breath as if remembering something "It resets so those bits of evidence just disappear, with the constant alterations to the timeline if it wasn't per case it would get. . . complicated." Recke sighed wondering how much trouble he was going to get into when he got back.

                    "Wait, if the evidence disappears. . . what gets complicated?" Cal peered around a corner into a dead end tunnel.

                    "The organizations that maintain the timeline exist outside of the timeline. We exist outside of time." He pointed at a skintight band on his wrist "This maintains the field that does it. . . Protects me from the jumps, without it I would blend into your time and age as you do."

                     Cal tried to look at the band closer, but Recke wouldn't let her touch it "So anyone can Time Jump as long as they have that band?" Cal pointed at it and stepped back towards the dead-end tunnel, then headed in deeper, deciding to go around it.

                    "No, there is a preexisting genetic." Recke kicked at the ground as they kept walking, why not tell her everything, he was already going to get yelled at. "Time Jumping originated with an allied race" He gently sidestepped the word alien "But the Genetic only exists within the Human species. It was discovered purely by accident."

                   Cal stopped and turned to face Recke "What, no fine details" She smirked "Not going to tell me the long, drawn-out story?"

                     Recke smiled at her slyly "Rules of operation."

                    "Interesting," she turned and continued heading into the mine.

                    "Yeah, the rules of operation are so damn interesting" Recke sounded bored but was just trying to not get distracted, he was determined not to miss anything. The last thing needed right now was to blow this mission, if he came back a success... maybe they wouldn't chew him out.

                    "I wasn't referring to those, I was referring to you." She chuckled "The way you speak reveals more about you then what you speak."