Agents of Time: Chapter Four; Rewrite history

Verena peeled off her wet blouse, leaving her in a t-shirt and bulletproof vest. She dumped the wet shirt on the floor of the car. At least being damp in the chill air of the night took of the edge of being near a burning building.

As the car slowed for a stop light she turned to her partner James. Allegedly unable to hear properly, and as we and covered in ash as she was, he had been strongly quiet. Probably just lost in his thoughts.

She decided to test his hearing. “James?”

He blinked and looked at her. “Did you say something?”

She nodded.

“Oh.” He turned back to the road as the light turned green. “My hearing seems to come and go.” He paused, brow furrowed. “What happened back there?”

Verena glanced behind the seats, the unconscious Premier lay sprawled out in the back. He was still alive, right?

She twisted out of her seat belt and held a few fingers under his nose. Air brushed past them. He was breathing, that was something.

He checked his pulse next. Slow and steady. Likely just passed out from the night’s events.

What had happened?

“I’m not sure.” She said.

“I don think earthquakes normally start things on fire like that.” James glanced in the rear-view mirror.

“I don’t think earthquakes act, like that either.”

No, they don’t.

“Did the blueprints say anything about an underground bunker?”

James took a moment to process her words, once again not quite understanding them. “No?”

“We’ll wait till we get back to HQ to figure it out.” Verena decided, looking out the window as the car left the quiet residential streets and moved into the highway towards an overpass.

James hummed in reply, and, keeping on eye on the approaching pass, he pressed a button under the steering wheel.

The space under the overpass shimmered, purple sparkles being swept up into a whorl that intensive as they got closer. Until the purple washed over them, cutting out the view of the cityscape roadway, to reveal a circular brightly lit cement tunnel.

Verena crawled into the back of the car as James steered them out of the tunnel, into facility resembling an underground parking garage. Expect instead of housing common vehicles crammed together with tickets tucked into the windshield wipers. This one was an expansive space fille with high performance cars, and tactical armored vehicles. All of which, was buried in the depths of the Bavarian Alps.

As James parked the car next to an armoured truck, Verena scooped the premier up, puling him towards the hatch. Which opened to reveal two agents, tidily dressed in suits. Clean suits.

She on the other hand was starting of feel like a damp sponge left to dry on the side of the sink.

“He’s alive, just unconscienced. Physically he shouldn’t have more than a few bruises or scrapes but have a physician check him over.” She said as she stepped out of the back of the car.

Her job was done here. They’d take care of the rest. She glanced at the Premier once more as James closed the hatch behind her. What had made someone want to blow him to smithereens so much? The masked men who had temporarily hijacked their car returned to her mind. Did the Torin have something against him?

James tapped his watch against a metal post by the car, checking the vehicle back in. “Time for a shower.”

“You need to get your hearing checked.” She noted the small tracs of dried blood marring his right ear.

“You need to get your-” James scanned her. “Everything checked. Theres no way you go out of there unscathed.”

“I’m fine.” She waved him off. She should get checked, but nothing was beating feeling warm and clean right now. “See you at the briefing.”

“Alright.” James looked dejected.

Verena approached the cement wall, a doorlike line engraved in it. Pressing her watch to the wall made the lines grow purple, the cement within shimmering like the teleportation portal from earlier.

Verena stepped though it, James was still watching her, not wiling to leave himself until she did.

The man’s ears were bleeding, and he was more worried about her.

Savouring the warm, clean, comfort of her quarters didn’t last long. Shortly after Pdressing in a pair of black cotton slacks and a crewneck cropped sweater, her watch pinged. An alert glowed on the screen. Report to The Meeting room.

Verena pressed her watch to the door to her quarters, it lit up like the portal door in the garage, and allowed her to step through it, and out into another space.

The meeting room was more of an understatement to describe it space. This the hidden section of the agency where the Director conducted all his important business, was the size of a roomy apartment. Or maybe it just seemed that way. The dark walls soaked up the antique lights mounted to the walls, and the pale bits of light that emerged through a stained-glass dome standing above the other end of the room. The dire contrast to the platform under it, sporting a circular set of holographic screens.

A silhouette of a figure stood within the screens, his back to her, focused on a task. The Director.

She glanced over her shoulder; James wasn’t here yet.

She stepped off the tele-pad, one of the few in the agency. They were locked to entry unless summoned, unlike the tele-doors which let anyone with a watch through.

James boots tapped behind her as he appeared on the platform. Before Verena could turn, the Director spoke.

“Welcome Agent, Operative.” He addressed them their respective positions as he turned to face them. The blue lights of the screens cast a ghostly light on his dark skin, blonde hair turning silver.

Verena fell in step with James, stopping just a few feet from the platform. One of the screens played a muted video feed. A shaky video of a news camera and anchorwoman standing outside the gates of the Governors house, still ablaze.

“I know you typically don’t verbally debrief, but I’d like to hear accounts from both of you.”
“Yes sir.” Verena nodded. She started to organize the sequence of events as the Director continued speaking.

“We’ve reviewed what footage survived the power outage, and pinpointed the explosion to about 13 hundred, along with the seismograph information. Whatever it was that caused it, came from directly below the estate grounds.”

“So, it was man made?” Verena said.

James moved in the corner of her eye. “It didn’t seem man made. The only other thing that would account for a man made quake with that much force would be, nucular.”

The director nodded, swapping the video feed for the blueprints of the manor. “It was not nebular. We suspect it came from a bunker below the manor itself. Of course records of anything below the estate don’t show anything other than an old cellar from when the original castle was built.”

“I never saw anyone else when I was watching from outside. Nobody entered or exited the grounds while we were there.” James paused.” Well, not until after the thing lit up.”

“We did encounter the Torin. They’d attempted to hijack our vehicle. Likely had their eyes on the Primer themselves.” Verena added.

The Director nodded thoughtfully. “Walk me thought it”

“Well,” James sighed as he collected his thoughts.

“We monitored the event from a distance until about twelve fourty-five, then I went onsite, James monitored everything from a distance.” Verena glanced at James, looking for confirmation

He nodded. “I’d say the tremors started a few minutes after that. Which is when I got out of the car, in the case Vere-agent Laufy needed backup.”

Backup. Verena frowned. “Agent, Corbin?”

“Tybalt.” James said quietly, eyes widening as he remembered.

“Missing in action.” The Director stated.

That was just a fancy way of saying, probably dead, but not having found a body.

“He’s an highly experienced agent, im sure he’ll show up.” James said.

A heroic death if any. As, sudden as it was.

It happened. Especially in this line of work.

“What’s next?” the Director prompted them to return to the point of the meeting.

“Then.” James paused. “Then I ran to the gate, the power went out so I figured I could open it manually. I felt someone following me. I suspected they had something to do with the power outage. “

“You were watched?” The Director frowned.

“I don’t know-”

“We didn’t see any sighs of being monitored, but we were prepared given the nature of the situation.” Veren took over for James. “I got the Premier out of the building. Whoever rigged the event must have incapacitated his bodyguards, I never saw them.”

“We found each other shortly after emergency services arrived, so we slipped back out to the car.” James recovered his voice. “Only to find it occupied by Torin agents.”

“You locked it?” The Director looked at James.

“Yes sir. Always sir.”

“We fought them off and came back here.”

“So, we have the Torin to suspect for this then.” The director mused, turning back to his screens.

“Yes sir. Although why they seemed to want to kidnap the premier and blow him up seems contractive.” Verena said.
“They could have called in the tip. Rigged a trap. Still disposing of you two, as well as the Premier wouldn’t have gained them much. Chances are they may know about our contractual agreement to protect the Premier. And simply sought to disrupt our plans. The question is, how they know.”

That could paint Tybalt a mole. Which was, unfathomable. A loyal agent as there ever way, Tybalt.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Verena mumbled.

“We’ll continue to review it. In the meantime, we have more important matters to discuss. I have a new mission for you two.”

A new mission? Already? Usually, they had at least twenty-four hours to recover. James looked equally as puzzled beside her.

One of the screens in front of the director expanded, filling the space in-between him and the two agents. He handed them both files. One of the few things they kept analog in the Agency, Buring paper was a lot easier then trying to permanently delete data. Especially on such a large scale.

Verena kept her eyes on the screen; James however was already nose deep in the file.

A map and a castle were enlarged on the screen, large letters pasted across the top. COUNTRY: Bevlecruv. PLACE: Houndsworth estate, Mannington.

None of them seemed familiar, but the names themselves seemed European, maybe part fo the commonwealth?

“Sir?” James spoke up beside her, “I think the handler has gotten the date in my alias wrong? It says I was born in the year nineteen hundred?”

“No, that is correct.” The Director didn’t elaborate right away, clearly savouring their confusion.

The handlers never made mistakes. Verena peeled open her own case file, flipping through the few pages until she landed on the Alias page. A page outlined with two identities, her true one, and her alias. Usually, each agent had a range of years they could “play” Theses changed as the agents themselves agreed, but they usually were within a few years of their real age.

She traced her finger across the alias,
Lady Vanessa Parker, of House Codith.

Age Twenty-Two,

Birth Year: Eighteen Ninety Nine.

Verena read it again.

Lady? What was this some sort of roleplay carnival mission?

“I’m sure your confused.” The Director smiled
“Yeah no kidding sherlock” James mumbled, just loud enough for Verena to hear.

“If you flip to the first page, I will explain.”

Paper rustled as both agents flipped the loose pages, James flipping too fast. One page fluttered to the ground, landing in a pocket of light like a prophecy.

Both agents automatically bent to pick it up, Verena got to it first. Technical specs were laid out on it, along with sketch of a large boxy machine, with a circular loop in the center.

James peered over her shoulder. “Time Machine?” He read the title at the top. Verena let him pluck it out of her hands.

This had to be some, joke

The Directors smile widened. “It’s brilliant isn’t it. The ultimate power, the ability to converse through time.”

The agency was ahead of the curve in terms of technologic advancements, but, time travel? Verena stared blankly at her file.

“I’m sorry sir, are you saying that we’ve invented time travel?” James’s voice was dripping with anticipation. Of course he’d be thrilled by this prospect.

“Yes.” The Director said warmly. “Your mission is to travel back in time, to the fallen country of Belecruv. You will be ensuring that its reign falls earlier then in the current timeline, as well as unseating the heir to the throne by whatever means possible.”

“Whatever, sir?” James’s tone fell.

“Whatever.”

“This is a diplomatic mission then?” Verena pushed the time traveling to the back of her mind.

“In a way, yes, its an undercover one. Agent Laufy will be taking the place of a lady in waiting to her Majesty Queen, and James will be the chauffeur she brings from her personal estate a gesture of goodwill from the family to help the royal family adjust to the newfound world of automobiles.”

A lady. That sounded so, sophisticated. Verena examined the screens again, studying the castle.

The Director contained talking. “Once you’ve traveled back in time, infiltrate the castle and establish your cover, you will be working largely independently. It’s hard to monitor and contact you over time. We have deducted that we will be able to communicate to a limited extend on the watches. You can give us update we can contact you if needed.”

Travel back in time, unseat an heir, changing the route of history as they knew it, and then come back as if nothing had changed. It sounded so simple yet so, impossible. Verena’s head buzzed with uncertain questions, while beside her, James seemed to be vibrating with excitement.

Would it be safe? Has it been tested? How did they know who the heir was? How much would this alter history? How did they-

“If you two would follow me.” the Directors voice broke through her thoughts. She glanced back up at him as he vanished from the platform The teleportation portal build into it, sparkled purple, beckoning them. Another one of the restricted paths that only the Director and those he chose could access.

James beat her too it, spinning on his heel to face her as he jumped into the portal,” See you on the other side!”

If only she could be as excited as he was about this.