Sainte Mère Église Church – June 12, 1944 | 06:13 Hours
The church wasn't sanctuary. It was a tomb waiting for its final occupant.
Bullets spanged off ancient stone as they staggered through the shattered west door. Dust motes danced in weak dawn light streaming through bullet holes in boarded windows. Overturned pews, shredded hymnals, and the iron stink of cordite filled the nave. High above, Private John Steele's parachute dummy still dangled from the clock tower, grotesque and silent witness to the slaughter.
Hank collapsed against the font, breath rattling. Blood, shockingly bright against the grey flagstones, pulsed from his leg, soaking the Nazi flag bandage Doc had tied. His face was pale parchment.
"Well," he rasped, lips twitching in a ghost of a grin, "the welcome committee's… enthusiastic."
"Shut up, Rigby!" Sarge barked, shoving a pew towards the door. "Jenkins! Barricade! Doc—patch the corpse before he starts smelling worse than he already does!"
Doc crouched beside Hank, Chronitron lens clamped to his eye. "Femoral nicked, not severed. Small mercies. Gangrene's advanced. He needs a field hospital yesterday."
"Yesterday's booked," Hank wheezed, his eyes flickering to Juni. "Focus, Sawbones. The ghost… the White Room…"
The Door in Time
Juni's burned Chronitron hummed feverishly against her chest. Its cracked screen flickered with the coordinates: 49°24'30"N 1°19'00"W (FUTURE RELATIVE) HE IS WAITING. HE IS SCARED.
ANALYSIS: her internal HUD blinked:
SUBJECT RIGBY: VITALS CRITICAL. BLOOD LOSS ACCELERATING. SYSTEMIC INFECTION: SEPSIS IMMINENT. TEMPORAL SIGNATURE: FRACTURED. PROXIMITY TO HISTORICAL DEATH POINT: 98.7%. WHITE ROOM SIGNATURE: CONVERGING.
"Where is it, Flux?" Sarge demanded, firing his Thompson through a barricade gap. BRRAP! A German screamed outside. "This ghost house of yours?"
Juni's gaze darted over shattered saints and bullet pocked marble. There—an archway beside the apse, half collapsed. Her Chronitron pulsed blue hot in its direction.
"There," she croaked, pointing. "The signal's strongest there."
Last Stand in the Nave
FWUMP! A grenade exploded against the main doors, showering splinters.
"Covering fire!" Sarge roared. "Flux, move Rigby! Doc, Jenkins—make noise!"
Doc grabbed a censer chain, swinging it like a medieval flail. "Taste sanctified steel, you Hunnish heretics!" Jenkins stomped an organ pedal, producing a groaning, discordant drone. "Liberty Belle encore!"
PURGE MODE: SUPPRESSED BY SHEER WILL. Juni hooked her arm under Hank's shoulders. He cried out as she heaved him up, his weight threatening to collapse her knees.
"Move, Sergeant Windmaker!" she snarled.
"Your… command… is my… flatulence," he wheezed, staggering beside her, each step leaving crimson smears across holy stone.
Descent into the Unknown
The archway led not to a sacristy, but to a narrow spiral stairwell. Darkness swallowed them as they descended, the Chronitron's blue glow their only light. The smell of wet earth and ancient decay thickened. The air vibrated with something deeper than technology—something old.
They emerged into a vaulted crypt lined with nameless stone coffins. In the center of the floor, the flagstones shimmered with a faint, rippling light. Reality distorted into a disc three meters wide, pulsing with the Chronitron's glow.
OBSERVATION:
SPATIO TEMPORAL INTERFACE DETECTED. SIGNATURE MATCHES POD ENTRY VECTOR (DEGRADED). DESTINATION LOCK: WHITE ROOM COORDINATES. STABILITY: MINIMAL. DURATION: UNKNOWN.
"This… is the door?" Hank whispered. His bravado was stripped away, leaving only raw fear. "Looks like… bad custard."
The Final Push
Boots pounded down the stairs above them. German voices barked commands.
"They are here! In the crypt!"
"No time," Juni breathed. She shoved Hank toward the shimmering disc.
"Juni—"
PURGE MODE: OVERRIDE – PROTECTION PROTOCOL.
She didn't push him alone. She stepped with him, dragging them both into the pulsing light.
The White Room
Reality tore apart. Stone, sound, and smell shredded into a howling vortex of fractured colour. Gravity vanished. Time became syrup, then shattered glass. Juni felt her atoms stretch thin. Flashes flickered through her mind:
Hank's face contorted in terror beside her.
Sarge's bellow echoing impossibly far above: "RIGBY! FLUX!"
The sterile White Room from her vision – straps, monitors, and a gaunt, terrified Hank.
Jenkins' tear filled eyes.
The shattered Virgin Mary in the Maquis chapel.
Then—silence.
Cold, sterile air replaced the crypt's rot. Harsh white light stabbed her eyes. She lay on a smooth floor, trembling, the dead Chronitron heavy against her chest.
Beside her, Hank groaned, blood soaking pristine tiles. His eyes flickered open, clouded with pain and confusion.
"M'lady…?" he rasped. "Did we… win the custard fight?"
Cleansing Protocol
Juni forced herself upright, scanning the room: small, circular, blindingly white. No windows. No visible controls. Just a seamless door set into one curved wall. The air thrummed with hidden machines.
The door hissed open, revealing an identical corridor. Empty. Silent.
A synthetic voice boomed from unseen speakers:
"Anomaly J. Flux. Temporal Contaminant H. Rigby. You are in violation of Chronometric Integrity Statute 7 Alpha. Submit for chroniton cleansing and causal realignment."
Hank coughed weakly, blood bubbling on his lips. He looked at the doorway, then at her, defiance flickering beneath the exhaustion.
"Cleansing… sounds… dreadfully dull," he whispered. "Tell them… Sergeant Fartquake… demands an audience." He tried to grin. It was broken. Beautiful. "And… ask if they… have any beans…"
End of Chapter 7
Juni clutched his dog tags, warm with his life. Ahead lay the White Room. Behind, a shattered timeline.
The chaotic love story had crashed through history itself.
The rescue was only beginning.