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snowdice · 2 years

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 128]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. Feel free to send in asks about anything at any point, even if it’s not for the part of the story I’m currently on.

If you aren’t interested and don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.”

See the Folds in Time Universe Master Post for edited chapters. Not yet edited chapters are under the cut. I also have a playlist on youtube for this story.

Going to work on this for a bit. Hoping to get a good amount done, but we will see. I’m a bit tired because I had to get up early.

Chapter 46

Virgil was correct about his ability to find the location of the farmer’s market. After they ate and finished their coffee, they set out to investigate the location of the time anomaly. “I ended up under the stage,” Virgil informed him. The stage had already been taken down, but it was easy to see where it had once been based on the depressions on the ground.

Logan had brought a few of his tools when they had left that morning and he pulled out a modified iPad.

“You hide your time travel tech as an iPad?” Virgil asked curiously.

Logan glanced at him and said nothing.

“…You made your time travel tech out of an iPad!” Virgil exclaimed.

“It is one of the most easily accessible technologies of this time that is also portable,” Logan shrugged. “I use what I can get.”

“How did you manage to invent time travel with 21st century technology?” Virgil asked.

“It took me a couple of decades,” Logan replied.

“It took them literal centuries.”

“Well, I knew it could happen, so I simply made it happen.”

“You’re terrifying,” Virgil stated.

Logan just hummed and set the iPad scrolling through its diagnostic programs. It scanned the area around them for anything that might indicate time travel.

“Well,” Logan said. “There is definitely an anomaly, but we already knew that. It’s a strange one, however.”

“What do you mean?” Virgil asked.

“I’d assumed whatever had caused you to end up here had dragged you here, but what I’m finding doesn’t seem to be remnants of something to cause time travel. On the contrary, it seems to be similar readings to what stopped Janus time travel to stop working in previous circumstances. I don’t know a lot about the time travel technology from your time, but I have noted they tend to briefly ping off of times near to your destination in order to recalibrate when going a certain amount of time. Perhaps your device did a brief landing here at the wrong time and then was deactivated much like TPI devices have been deactivated beforehand and you got stuck.”

“What does that mean for me?”

“Well, it means your device isn’t broken,” Logan said.

“Then why isn’t it working?” Virgil asked.

“Because,” Logan said. “whatever is deactivating it is still here.”

Virgil looked at his feet as though expecting to see the device sitting on the ground somewhere.

“Not here here,” Logan clarified, “but close by. They have a limited range from what I understand, though I don’t know precisely how far. It’s definitely in this time however. But it’s strange,” Logan tapped out a few things on his device, double checking that he hadn’t missed anything with his regular monitoring.

“It’s not causing any other problems.” Logan continued. “We’ve only ran into them once or twice before and we’ve never managed to get our hands on one too actually study it, but each time we’ve seen them, they created some sort of issue in the environment, but there are no obvious time abnormalities or weather problems. In fact, if I wasn’t looking for it, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Okay, well then, can’t we just find it and shut it off?” Virgil asked. “That’s what I know Janus did when he ran into them.”

“It is,” Logan confirmed. “The only issue is without the obvious environmental clues I have no idea where it actually is to turn it off.”

“How the hell do we find it then?” Virgil asked.

“I’m not sure,” Logan said. “It definitely was here when it switched on, but it’s definitely not here anymore.” He looked around. “Perhaps it was attached to the stage or put in the musician’s instrument cases. Then again, by that logic, it could have been put in anyone’s bags or in a since emptied trashcan.”

“So, it could basically be anywhere?”

“Basically,” Logan agreed. “We will check the easiest possibilities to track down and if that produces no results, I’ll… figure out something.”

Virgil grimaced. “That sounds promising.”

“I will do my best,” Logan promised. “I just wish I knew more about these things.”

Virgil seemed to hesitate. “How would you go about learning more about it?”

“Well,” Logan said, “if I can get my hands on a similar device, I could probably figure out a more reliable way to track it.”

“You do,” Virgil said.

“I do what?”

“You do have one.”

Logan frowned. “I assure you, I do not.”

“But you do,” Virgil said. “Eventually.”

“…Oh, I see.” Logan replied. “Do you perhaps know where we do eventually find it?”

Virgil pressed his lips together. “I think I might already be saying too much,” he said. “It’s stuff you shouldn’t know about yet in your personal future. People aren’t supposed to…”

“Time is not nearly as sensitive as the TPI seems to believe,” Logan said with an eyeroll. “In fact, most of Janus and Patton’s interactions so far involve accidently giving more information than necessary.”

“I don’t know…”

“I’m a time traveler from the 21st century who lives with a French man from the 1800s,” Logan said. “I’m not asking for a run down of every part of the event, just a time and place to point us in the correct direction.”

Virgil still didn’t seem convinced.

“It would really only be a time saver,” Logan argued. “I could just blindly look for time distortions, but it’d take a while…”

“Fine,” Virgil said after a moment. “This is probably entirely stupid, but fine. Give me a moment to think about what exactly I can tell you, so I don’t mess everything up.”

Logan smiled slightly at his overly cautious behavior but waited patiently.

“Janus met Pat once in Cuba. There was a time distortion during Camaguey Carnival of 1755. Pat took the device that had been causing the disturbance and left before Janus could catch him.”

“Camaguey 1755,” Logan repeated. “Got it. I’ll look into it, and we can see what we can do. It’ll still take a few days to prep however.”

Logan would need to find exact coordinates and he’d have to talk to Patton considering he’d just recently gotten back from an unwillingly long trip to pre-history. He’d probably be willing to go, but he’d mentioned Logan making him a “time survival pack” before he was willing to go back into the timestream. They’d need to talk about what exactly that entailed and get the supplies for it. His mind was already making plans about what he needed to do.

Virgil nodded. “Should we head back to the apartment then?” he asked, interrupting Logan’s thoughts. Logan glanced at him. He had actually planned to show the man around a bit today instead of spending all of their time thinking about time travel.

“I cannot be sure that my roommates will have cleaned up their French toast nonsense by now,” he said. “We should likely wait to return until at least the lunch hour. It is not as though we could do anything about it today. We will need to plan.”

“Okay,” said Virgil, “then what are we going to do for the next 3-4 hours?”

“Well,” Logan said. “Perhaps I can show you around the town a bit more so as to not make more of a liar of myself than I already have.”

“Sure,” Virgil agreed with a smile. “What will you be showing me.”

“I was thinking we could visit the local museum. We can compare notes about how wildly inaccurate the exhibits present history.”

Virgil rolled his eyes at Logan, but there was something warm underneath his expression. “Fine,” he said, “but I bet I know more than you.”

Chapter 47

The museum was interesting, not because it taught him any more about the events behind the exhibits on display, but more that learning what people in the 21st century cared about and how they presented past events was an anthropological lesson in its own right. Their conversation became a game of not only finding the mistakes made in the exhibits, but also Virgil hypothesizing why those mistakes were made: prejudice, missing information, and unreliable secondary sources all contributed, and Virgil spent a lot of time talking through the possibilities.

They spent a few hours there before heading back to Logan’s apartment.

Not without stopping at a small, hole in the wall, bar inhabited only by day drinkers. When Virgil gave Logan a weird look, he explained, “I have to bring back a peace offering for running off this morning if I want Patton to agree to a time travel mission for me.”

“…And Patton likes… vodka?” he guessed.

“No,” Logan replied, amused. “This establishment serves cheeseburgers which are apparently the ‘best in the city.’ They do not, however, cook anything else. Not even fries.”

When Logan handed him an unlabeled brown paper bag that looked as though it had been dipped in hot oil instead of just it’s contents, Virgil shot him a raised eyebrow. “Ah, yes,” he said, “the quintessential 21st century American meal.”

“You once ate only bagged pepperoni meant for pizzas for breakfast for a week once.”

“I told you that in confidence,” Virgil said, smacking him lightly with the bag of grease.

“And I have told no one,” Logan responded. “Therefore, I have not violated any part of our agreement.”

“You’re making fun of me. That’s definitely a part of the agreement,” Virgil said.

“I don’t remember there being any clause like that in our verbal contract,” Logan replied with a slight smirk. Virgil rolled his eyes. “Besides, I’m not truly making fun of you. The decision to fuel your body solely with pepperoni is, while not the best strategy and one that would certainly prove detrimental in the long run, it is better to eat that then nothing.”

“Oh,” Virgil said. “Uh, good.”

“I’m simply citing another example where not as healthy food in the long term can be good in the short term.”

“But in this case instead of depression eating to stay alive, the purpose is bribery.”

“Exactly,” Logan said. “Bribery to end the time distortion and get you back to the proper time.”

“Alright, fair enough.”

“You don’t have to eat any if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, no, I’m going to.”

“Then why are you complaining?” Logan asked amused.

“I just thought you should know your time has way too greasy food,” Virgil said.

“Thank you for the information,” Logan said dryly. They’d made it back to the apartment by then, and Logan stuffed the bag he was carrying under his arm to unlock the door.

“And where have the two of you been?” Patton asked when they walked into the kitchen.

“I have cheeseburgers for you,” was how Logan answered.

Patton rolled his eyes as Logan set the bag down in front of him. He was sitting at the kitchen table typing on a laptop. “The French toast wasn’t that bad,” he said.

“I will take your word for it,” Logan said pleasantly.

Patton just shook his head and reached into the bag for a cheeseburger. Logan kept looking at him, and that obviously meant something Virgil didn’t know, because Patton glanced up at him after eating a couple of bites. “What?” he asked suspiciously.

“Virgil and I went back to where he arrived,” Logan said. “There are signs that one of the devices that cause time distortions is present.”

“There aren’t any weather disturbances though,” Patton pointed out.

“It seems to be a more advanced version,” Logan answered. “Which will make much more difficult to track.”

“Okay,” Patton said, “then what are we going to do?”

“Well,” Logan said, “if we could get our hands on an older version, we could probably use it to narrow down the current one’s location.”

“And how exactly are we going to get an older version?” Patton asked, eyebrow raised.

“I understand that you have only been back from your last trip for a little over a week and that your last trip through time was a bit difficult, but,” he nodded towards Virgil, “we do know of the time and place one exists that you would have a good chance of being able to find, deactivate, and bring home.”

Patton groaned. “And judging by the source of this information, steal off of the TPI.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.”

“At least, in this case, you will go into it knowing there will be no major disasters.”

…

Should Virgil… say something. It’d be rude not to mention the whole time shredding almost drowning bullshit, wouldn’t it? Then again… giving him foreknowledge could be a danger to the timestream. He debated with himself whether general social courtesy should outrank the possible destruction of time or not.

…

Maybe he’d just suggest a boat if they didn’t plan to take one? Just in case?

“Fine,” Patton said, “but you’re finishing your tech updates and making me a survival pack before I make any jump. I’m not making the same mistake again.”

Logan nodded. “I can do that,” he agreed. “Just tell me what you want in your survival pack.”

“I’ve already been working on a list,” Patton said. “I’ll email it to you.” He turned back to the computer he’d been working on and typed a few things. “You can add to it if you think of anything.”

Logan looked at his phone as it dinged. “…Do you really need all of this?”

“Yes,” Patton said, taking another bite of his cheeseburger.

“…I’ll do my best?”

“You’ll do it,” Patton returned.

“Right.”

“I’ll start researching Cuba in the 1700’s,” he said.

Virgil saw him pull up google on his computer. He looked at the 21st century computer and then back to Patton. He couldn’t help but think of the museum he and Logan had been to earlier that day. “Do you want help?”

Chapter 48

It took a little over two weeks to get everything set up. Logan had already been in the process of updating their equipment for quite some time, and this situation only spurned him on. He also then had to figure out a way to meet all of Patton’s demands for his new survival kit. His list had already been quite long before he’d started to add to it. He’d even slipped in a request for a boat at some point despite Logan’s protests that Camaguey Cuba was nowhere near the sea.

Thankfully, Virgil didn’t seem to mind the delays too much.

In fact, he may have had a hand in the delays as his natural inclination towards anxiety seemed to infect Patton and cause him to add and add to his list of safeguards for Logan to make. He and Patton were spending a good amount of time together, actually. Patton was fairly good at researching the places he planned to go at this point, but Virgil was undeniably more experienced with that sort of thing considering he worked with the TPI. Patton seemed to appreciate his input.

Roman, on the other hand, decidedly did not. The two of them were prone to arguments about clothing which had gone beyond talking about Cuban clothing to arguments about clothing from pretty much all of time.

Logan could not tell if they were friendly debates or not. He’d even asked Patton who had claimed he also could not tell. Neither Roman nor Virgil’s responses when asked directly about the nature of their relationship were helpful either. Logan did notice that Roman changed the fabric of the outfit he made for Patton after one of their conversations.

Virgil was not much help to Logan unless you counted the intel, he’d given that helped Logan choose the correct time and place. At least, not in the sense that he was able to help with the mathematics and physics Logan was dealing with.

He was, however, good for company. Especially as his sleep schedule much more closely resembled Logan’s own in those weeks. Typically Roman and Patton went to sleep at a much earlier hour than he did himself and Logan would work alone in the living room, but with Virgil living in the apartment, there was constant companionship while he worked, and less volatile company than he was used to working with (assuming, of course, Roman had gone to sleep by that time). It was nice.

He seemed to fit into their little group in a way Logan had not anticipated. Or at least, socially he did. Physically, there were simply not enough beds and Logan had been sleeping on the couch for two weeks.

Eventually, with all of their combined efforts, everything was ready to go. Patton had three different time appropriate outfits, a good amount of knowledge about the festivities he was about to attend, new time travel equipment, and a survival pack that could help him survive an apocalypse. Patton was planning to arrive in Cuba two days earlier than the TPI protocol would send agents like Janus. That way, he would have time to set up and get acclimated before the TPI sent in their surveillance and touchdown agents.

“This is cool,” Patton said, flexing his fingers to see the hidden screen on his palms light up with a map of the area.

“It’s organized the same as your previous device, except for, of course, the control panel to control the cloaking technology and the access to the survival kit.

“Looks great, Lo,” Patton said, still fiddling with it. He changed it to its default state of a metal band projecting the screen and then back to the time appropriate bracelet Roman had designed. There weren’t many possibilities programed for hiding the device yet, but more could be designed in the future. For now, it only had the default band, the bracelet, and a wristwatch.

“I’ve already tested it a good number of times, but you should familiarize yourself with it anyway before leaving.”

Patton nodded, flicked his fingers and disappeared for a moment before reappearing in the same place. Then, he did it again and reappeared directly next to where he’d been standing. He did similar things a few times before predictably getting bored and starting to do ‘tricks’ which mostly involved landing in ridiculous poses and also accidently jump scaring everyone in the apartment at least twice. Eventually, Logan confiscated it for the evening so they could have dinner in peace.

Patton went to bed early, planning on leaving the next day. Roman quickly retired to his room shortly after leaving Logan and Virgil alone in the living room.

Despite knowing already his calculations were perfect, Logan still sat on the couch checking over them one more time just to make sure. Virgil sat on the floor with his back against the couch watching videos on Logan’s cell phone with headphones borrowed from Patton’s collection.

He glanced up when Logan shifted positions and Logan flashed him a smile.

Virgil removed the headphones to speak. “Thanks by the way,” he said, “I already said it to Patton and will again in the morning, but thanks for helping me out with all of this.”

“It wouldn’t have been particularly kind of us to leave you stranded,” Logan pointed out.

“Yeah, but still, you’ve all been working really hard. Right now you’re up at 3am working on it.”

Logan shrugged. “I’d likely be up working at 3am on something anyway,” he said.

“Sure,” Virgil said, “but this time it’s for me so, yeah, thanks.”

“You’re welcome then,” Logan said. “Any time.”

Virgil tilted his head back to grin at him. “Was that a time travel pun.”

Logan scowled. “No.”

“It sounded like a time travel pun.”

“It was not intentional. I will never intentionally say a pun.”

“You’re telling me you live with Patton and never make puns?” Virgil asked.

“I, unlike my roommates, am a responsible adult,” Logan insisted.

Virgil seemed skeptical. “Is that why you’re drinking forbidden coffee out of an orange juice carton at 3am.”

“Not so loud,” he hissed, leaning forward to put Virgil’s mouth and glancing back towards the hallway to see if anyone was about to come storming into the living room with another intervention.

His hand was bit.

“Ow!” Logan exclaimed, taking his hand back. “How do you know?” he hissed. The ruse had been working on Roman and Patton for years because neither liked orange juice.

Virgil rolled his eyes. “I can smell it,” he said. “I’m not dumb.”

“It’s worked on everyone else.”

“No,” Virgil said. “It’s worked on one dramatic idiot and one man who trusts people not to lie to him way too much. I, however, am a paranoid asshole with a doctorate. You can’t fool me.”

Logan couldn’t help but smiled. “I suppose I have met my match,” he said.

He tilted his head all the way back, so his skull rested on the couch cushion and he was staring straight up at Logan with his piercing hazel eyes. “Heck yeah you have,” Virgil said, and Logan was not much more sentimentality, especially not romantic sentimentality, but there was something about the shadows making the room seem cozier and the almost golden glint in his eyes from the lit lamp beside Logan that made it more difficult to breath.

68261

He was relaxed here in Logan’s apartment at 3 in the morning, looking up at him with warm eyes. He fit, slotting into place with an ease Logan had not expect. He’d found Professor Virgil Eran interesting from the moment he’d first heard him speak and had glanced through his university profile for information on whoever had plugged his virus into their computer. He had found him endearing when they’d corresponded through emails and occasionally one sided video chats. It was different with him right in front of Logan, within arm’s reach. He could reach down barely a few inches and brush his slightly unruly hair out of his eyes.

“You good man?” Virgil asked.

“I am perfectly well,” Logan said, clearing his throat. He glanced away from Virgil. “I think perhaps my roommates have a bit of a point when it comes to caffeine.”

“Maybe at 3am,” Virgil said in good humor. “You’re not a college kid.”

Logan glanced at the college professor on his living room floor. “Well, thank goodness for that,” he mumbled

“I think your calculations are fine anyway,” Virgil said, gently taking the papers out of his grip. “Why don’t we do something else?”

“Like sleep?” Logan asked.

“You think you’ll be sleeping anytime soon?” Virgil inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Fair point.”

Virgil grabbed the television remote from side table. “Why don’t we watch a bit of that time inappropriate copy of the Epithet File I know you have.”

“Sure,” Logan agreed. “You can come onto the couch if you would like.”

“Nah. You can come to the floor.”

“…Fine.”

Chapter 49

Patton left in the morning and from there it was just a waiting game. Which, was Virgil’s least favorite type of game. He tried to keep his anxiety on the down low considering it was Logan and Roman’s lifelong friend who was running around some other century, and they were both obviously nervous as well, since the last trip had ended in disaster.

…

This trip was going to end in disaster a little bit too, but Virgil was going to ignore that. At least he wouldn’t be gone for months.

The point was, Roman was constantly going to the gym which was, reportedly not normal behavior and Logan spent his days re-checking calculations that were too late to correct and had worked considering Patton had been in contact occasionally.

Yet, despite the fact that he was clearly an anxious wreck as well, Logan eventually forced himself to put his lined notebook paper away for a bit. Roman was out once again when he did so and Virgil was doom scrolling on his phone.

“We should go out to dinner,” he declared suddenly.

Virgil glanced at the pile of take-out containers stacked near the kitchen trashcan. “Sure,” he agreed.

Which was why Virgil was leaving the apartment for the first time in the last three or so days. Logan had asked him if he wanted anything in particular, but he didn’t care and also didn’t know what restaurants were around, so he was just letting Logan lead him wherever he wanted.

He should not have trusted him.

He glared at Logan, but the man only seemed entertained by his ire. “Really?” Virgil asked.

“I wanted to see for myself if you were really that bad with chopsticks.”

“I’m not,” Virgil said, crossing his arms. “It was just the anxiety about the social situation, and I resent this.”

Logan just laughed, knowing well enough that Virgil wasn’t actually irritated. Honestly, he felt fonder than anything that Logan had chosen to take him here. “It’s actually pretty good sushi.”

“21st century American Midwest sushi,” Virgil drawled. “I’m simply quivering with anticipation for that authenticity.”

“It’s unanimously considered the best sushi in town by my friend group,” Logan said as if the fact that Mr. Asiago Cheese Bread For French Toast and Mr. Went Along With Cooking Asiago Cheese Bread French Toast approved of the restaurant would inspire any confidence in Virgil. If he could even call the place a ‘restaurant.’

“It’s. In. A. Mall.”

“So?” Logan asked.

“It’s a sushi stand in a mall. There isn’t even seating.”

“There is seating,” Logan argued nodding at the five chairs sitting in front of the counter. The seating was completely empty which could be because their eating schedule was off and they were eating dinner at 3pm, but more likely meant everyone else in the time had more sense than the man in front of him.

“Where is your sense of adventure for trying new things?” Logan asked. “Are you not an anthropologist. Don’t you want to experience the culture of the time first hand.”

Virgil glared at him.

“Please try it,” Logan said sill amused. “It really is good.”

“If I get food poisoning, I’m blaming you,” he warned.

“Noted,” Logan said, inclining his head. Then, Virgil reluctantly allowed him to lead him over to the sushi stand from where they’d been hiding behind a trash can so as not to be in the direct line of sight of the man standing behind the counter.

The man greeted them as they approached. He obviously recognized Logan and even asked about Patton and Roman as they took a seat. Virgil did have to admit, despite his instinctual misgivings about mall sushi, what he could glimpse of his set up seemed legit. It looked like a real sushi bar if a bit smaller than usual. Where they had sat, there was a glass case in front of them with chilled fish on display and Virgil could see a large rice cooker behind the man along with a normal refrigerator.

Laminated menus were handed to them. They were only one page front and back, but honestly that was probably a good thing. If it had a bunch of complicated or fancy stuff, Virgil might have been worried.

Well, he was still worried, but he wasn’t running screaming. At least his setup looked like it probably wouldn’t give him too much food poisoning. Logan suggested a rainbow and a snake roll and they got some different types of nigiri.

The chef was nice, and he assembled the sushi fully in Virgil’s view which made him a whole lot less leery about the meal. He seemed to know what he was doing at least. Of course, the fish was not as fresh as it would have been in a coastal area, but it was clearly properly handled. When he was finished, he handed it to them all on one big plate.

He had to admit, when correcting for ingredient availability, it was actually pretty good sushi. He would not say it was the best sushi he’d ever had, but it was worlds better than he’d expected. Logan could obviously tell what his opinion was and was overly smug about it.

“Yeah, yeah,” Virgil said when they were finished. “You’re good at picking restaurants.”

“I’m sure you are also when in a place you are familiar with.”

“I’m not actually,” Virgil said with a laugh. “I always panic choose the worst option.”

“Well, I tend to be quite decisive about such things,” Logan said. “I guess we make a good match.”

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Uh, what are we going to do when we get home? Because sitting there drowning in anxiety like we have been for the past couple of days isn’t the greatest.”

“Do you have anything in mind?”

“You guys have Blockbuster still?”

“No,” Logan said. He paused. “We do have a Family Video store I think.”

“Is it close? Let’s go there.”

“And why are we not just using a streaming service?” Logan asked. “Or using my… library of movies.”

Virgil shrugged. “It’s the charm of it,” he said.

“The charm of a business already made obsolete and on the brink of collapse?”

“Exactly,” said Virgil with a smile.

“Very well,” Logan said. “If that is what you’d like to do I will look up its location on my phone.”

They were in a building that would look abandoned if there wasn’t a light on inside within 15 minutes. The video rental store had clearly seen better days. Its carpet’s pattern was clearly from another decade and had been trampled over so often it was basically like walking on the linoleum beneath. There was a door on the sign asking patrons to close it behind them because the spring used to close it had long since ceased working.

There was only one person working, a guy in his 30s who glanced at them briefly and then went back to looking at his phone. Ah, yes, Virgil’s favorite type of employee.

“What movie would you like to watch?” Logan asked. He glanced at one small, but still surprisingly present section filled with DVDs.

“I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Isn’t that the point? Stop by a movie rental place on a Friday night, grab a more than likely crappy movie and some Milk Duds and proceed to sit and watch the stupid thing anyway because you already paid for it.”

“Virgil, I grew up in the 90s. This isn’t exactly exciting for me. There is a reason streaming sites took over the market,” Logan replied. “Also, it is Tuesday.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Just panic choose a movie with me, nerd.”

“I don’t ‘panic choose’ anything,” Logan said. “I-”

“You do today,” Virgil interrupted.

“I…”

“Choose a letter.”

“…S?”

“Great!” Virgil dragged him off in the direction of the movies that started with ‘S’.

“This is just… gross,” Virgil said a little under an hour and a half later and about an hour into the film.”

“It is a random romantic comedy from 2002,” Logan responded. “What did you expect?”

“Yeah, but there’s weird sex jokes and actors that are probably from Mars and then there’s actual on screen physical abuse between the romantic couple.”

“I will concede that point,” Logan said, “but I will remind that this could have all been avoided if you had allowed me to do proper investigation of the movie choices before renting it.”

“Ugh, yeah, yeah,” Vigil replied, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. “Just turn it off.”

Logan complied, reaching over to eject the DVD from his computer. The three roommates didn’t actually have a DVD player connected to their TV, so they’d chosen to use the desktop computer in Logan’s room.

Virgil was laying on Logan’s bed with Logan sat propped up against the headboard. Logan leaned over to peer down at him. “Thanks for helping distract me,” he said. “Despite the fact that we now know more about what we’re doing, I still get worried about sending Patton through time. His last time travel experience didn’t improve my confidence. I have been… rather nervous.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help, at least a little,” Virgil replied.

“You did,” Logan replied. “A lot.” His hand reached down to touch pat his shoulder, but then lingered there for a moment too long.

Virgil sat up suddenly and Logan had to jerk back to keep their heads from colliding. “I…” Virgil choked out once he was sitting up. “Um…”

Logan’s mouth curled into a half smile. He offered a hand and Virgil took it.

Virgil glanced at the hand. “I, uh, I am an anthropologist.”

“I am aware,” Logan said with a raised eyebrow.

“And, uh, you were born in this time, so technically I’m studying you…”

“I’m a time traveler, Virgil,” he said amused. “I doubt I am a pure specimen for any studies you may be doing.”

“Right,” Virgil said. “That’s a good point. You’re right.”

70210

There was a pause. “So then,” Virgil said. “No moral quandaries. Just two people sharing a bed and watching a romance movie.”

“It was a bad one.”

“It really, really was,” Virgil said with a grin and then Logan was leaning forward and Virgil’s hand was on Logan’s shoulder.

And then the door was flinging open. “I’m home!” Roman declared as Virgil scrambled back, banging his head on the bed’s headboard.

“Fuck,” Virgil hissed.

“Roman! You need to knock!”

“Since when?” Roman asked, plopping down on Logan’s bed between them.

“Since we have a guest,” Logan said meaningfully. Virgil hid his reddening face in his hands, curling into as tight of a ball as he could.

“You were both in here, it’s not like one of you were naked,” Roman said flippantly. Virgil debated the merits of staying curled up in a ball for the rest of his life. There was a second of silence, and Virgil was glad he couldn’t see the expressions on their faces from his ball when Roman said, “Oh my god!”

Chapter 50

The breakfast table was silent the next morning. Though if one could call it a breakfast table when Logan was only drinking a cup of tea, Roman was chewing on a slice of unbuttered, untoasted bread, and Virgil was still either asleep or avoiding them both in Logan’s bedroom was debatable.

“…Look,” Roman said.

“We aren’t talking about it.”

“How was I supposed to know the two of you were getting it on?! Put a sock on the door next time or something. It’s common courtesy!”

“We weren’t having sex,” Logan hissed. Roman opened his mouth. “Shut up and learn to knock,” Logan said, pointing his spoon at him threateningly.

Yet, still, because it was Roman, the other man opened his mouth again. Luckily, before he could say anything else on the matter, there was a loud crack from the living room.

“I’m going to need a towel please!” Patton called.

“I’ve got it,” Roman said instantly, jumping to his feet, leaving Logan to walk to the living room.

“Why are you wet?” Logan asked immediately upon taking in the sight of his roommate. He was soaked, water dripping from his form like he’d just gotten out of a pool seconds before.

“There was an ocean in the church,” Patton said.

“What?” Logan asked.

Patton pushed his sopping wet hair out of his eyes. “The time distortions were a lot more intense than ones we’ve seen before,” he said. He held out a small innocuous appearing device whose only mechanism appeared to be a switch to him. “Be really careful with that. It’s unstable and we might have damaged it getting out.” Patton winced and removed his timepiece. “Actually, speaking of that. This might need a checkup too.”

“Were there issues with the tech?” Logan asked taking both devices in his hand.

“…No,” Patton said looking a bit sheepish. “We just… may have turned off all of the safety protocols.”

“Patton I just made this for you!” Logan said, horrified.

“And you did a really good job!” was Patton’s reply, “but we didn’t really want to drown in a church.”

Logan took a slow breath. “I’ll make sure it wasn’t damaged,” he said.

“Thanks, Lo!”

Roman entered the living room then, bright blue towel in hand. “I have returned bearing gifts!” he declared.

“My hero,” Patton said with a laugh, taking the towel and using it to wipe off his face and then start to dry his hair.

“So, an ocean in a church?” Logan asked.

Patton nodded. “I’ll have to thank Virgil for suggesting the inflatable raft.”

He paused as he finished running the towel through his hair and started to dab at his clothing. “I saw Remus,” he said.

Roman froze. “You did?”

“Uh huh,” Patton replied. “He was with Janus. I didn’t think I should say anything to him since that trip was way out of sync though, sorry.”

“Yeah, no, that make sense. That’s fine.” Roman hesitated. “How was he?”

“He seemed good,” Patton said. He flashed them a smile. “Happy. He’s quite the character actually. He and Janus seem like they’re good friends.”

“Oh,” Roman said. “That’s… that’s good.”

Patton’s face screwed up slightly. “He did flirt with me though, so that was weird.”

“He what?!” Roman practically screeched.

“It wasn’t particularly innocent flirting either,” Patton said, grimacing.

Roman took a moment to think about it before pulling a face that one would expect to see on a small child trying a lemon for the first time. “That’s disgusting! That’s like… that’s like my brother flirting with my brother. Gross!”

“It was… it was weird,” Patton said.

“What did he even say?” Roman asked.

“Mostly it was comments on my…” he made a motion with his head that apparently Roman could interpret.

“He talked about your butt!”

“…Well, he didn’t exactly use that word.”

“That sounds about like Remus,” Virgil said, poking his head into the hall.

“Oh, you’ve finally decided to join the land of the living, Emo?” Roman asked.

“Shut up,” both Logan and Virgil said at the same time.

Of course, he did not. “You know, Pat-pat, speaking of posteriors…”

“One more word out of you and I will actually kill you,” Virgil threatened.

“Um, what’s going on?” Patton asked.

“I’ll tell you later,” Roman promised.

“You will not,” Logan said. “Keep your gossiping tendencies under control.”

“Okay, but now I want to know,” Patton said with a pout.

“You go take a shower,” Logan ordered.

Patton shared a look with Roman that told Logan there was no way he wouldn’t have the whole story along with a good number of embellishments by the end of the night. Then he shrugged. “Yes, boss,” he said. Logan rolled his eyes as he turned towards the bathroom, the towel still on his shoulders. He was dry enough that he wasn’t dripping anymore, and he slipped off his waterlogged shoes and socks so he wouldn’t track water to the bathroom.

“Put that in the biohazard hamper,” Logan called after him.

“I know!” he called back.

“And you,” Logan said to Roman, “clean up all of the water he got on the carpet in the off chance there are any pathogens in it.”

“Why do I have to do it?!”

“Because you’ve annoyed me,” Logan said, “and I need to insure these two devices do not explode.”

“Ugh, fiiiine,” Roman said, dipping back into the hall.

Virgil glanced over at him, the picture of awkwardness. “Uh,” he said. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Logan said.

“…Are those things really at risk of exploding right now?” he asked.

Logan glanced at him. “Technically they are always at least slightly at risk of exploding, but admittedly the chance is further from 0 than I would like it to be at this point.”

“Great,” Virgil said. “One more thing to be anxious about.”

“You don’t need to be anxious about it, Virgil,” Logan said.

“Uh, I think I do need to be anxious about the maybe bomb in your hands.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” Virgil said with a sigh.

“We are two mutually consenting adults. There isn’t any shame to it.”

“Can we please talk about our very embarrassingly interrupted kiss after you’ve dealt with the explosives?”

“Very well,” Logan said. He walked to the other side of the room to grab a statis chamber from a cabinet drawer.

“What’s that?” Virgil asked as the cube shaped device popped up.

“It’s a stasis cube,” Logan said as he put the two devices in his hand into it and activated. “It will allow them to cool down completely from their earlier use in a safe environment. It will be less dangerous to work with them later.”

“If it just takes 5 seconds to deal with them, why are you making Roman clean up?” Virgil asked amused.

“Like I said,” Logan said. “He annoyed me. Speaking of,” he glanced into the hallway where Roman currently was. “How do you feel about leaving before he gets back to get coffee.”

Virgil smiled at him. “Sure,” he said. “Escape the apartment for coffee part two.”

Chapter 51

It took a few days after Patton got home for Logan to first make sure the timepiece and the distortion device were not at a risk of exploding and then to study the distortion device.

“It’s similar to what little we’ve seen of TPI technology,” Logan had mused, sitting on the couch while studying the information he’d managed to get off of it. “It’s definitely derived from the same technology unlike my time travel device, but it looks a bit different, and this version at least is rather shoddily made. Of course, creating disorder and almost ripping apart time is easier than seamlessly moving through it.”

“So, they’re probably from my time then?” Virgil asked.

“Most likely,” Logan agreed. “Though it could always be a Remus situation where they were from another time originally but accidently ended up in the TPI time. Either way, the origin of their purposeful time travel was certainly around your time.”

Virgil glanced at the device he’d set on the table in front of them all. It looked innocent sitting there, but it had the power to destroy so much, and they didn’t even know why. “Do you think whoever made this trapped me here on purpose?” Virgil asked.

“It would be a big coincidence if you in particular got trapped in this time in particular,” Roman said.

“I was thinking the same thing actually,” Logan said. “You do work with the TPI and with Janus, a time agent who both often is caught in the middle of devices similar to this being used and who runs into Patton frequently. Plus you know Remus, Roman’s brother even if we didn’t know that connection before you were trapped here and we already had a correspondence before you landed here. It would be strange for you to have ended up here on accident.”

“But why?” Virgil asked. “I am somehow connected to all of you, but I’m still not a time agent myself.”

“All I am to the TPI is a walking history book. I’m not actually involved.”

“Well,” Logan said. “Perhaps someone knows something we don’t.”

“Or maybe it’s just a happy accident!” Patton said. Virgil highly doubted that and it made anxiety churn in his gut.

“Well,” Logan said, “accident or not, we do now have a solution to the issue. I’ve managed to use this device to recalibrate my calculations and we’ve gotten a ping. I know where the signal blocking Virgil’s time device is coming from.”

“Where?” Roman asked.

“It looks like a local trash dump,” Logan replied. “It must have just ended up in a trashcan that day and was emptied before we checked.”

“Well, that should be easy enough to get,” Patton said. “Give Roman and I the exact coordinates and we can go and get it now.”

“Wait, why are we the only ones who have to dig through a garbage dump?” Roman asked.

Patton gave him a look.

“Oh,” Roman said, eyes lighting up. “Oh right!” Then, he scowled remembering he was going to be going through a garbage dump. “Fine,” he sighed.

“Think of it as an adventure!” Patton said.

“We’re time travelers. We have so many more exciting adventuring opportunities than dumpster diving, Pat-Pat,” he whined, but he still got up. “I’ll go get changed.”

Patton stood up and handed Logan his phone, so Logan could program the location of the distortion device into it while he changed as well. “We’ll text you when we’re heading back! I’ll give you a 15- and 5-minute warning,” Patton said with a wink. Virgil immediately hid his face in his hands.

“Do you think the TPI is hiring?” Logan asked as the door closed. “I’d love to move to a different century without those two.”

“Time agents don’t usually live in 4500s,” Virgil said, face still hidden behind his hands. “They’d probably still place you in this century, especially since you’re comfortable here.”

“No escaping them then,” Logan sighed.

“Mmm,” was Virgil’s response.

He felt Logan shift on the couch next to him and a warm palm touched his wrist, gently tugging his hand away from his face in a way that Virgil could resist if he really wanted. Virgil let the hand fall with a sigh. Logan smiled at him when he could see his face and Virgil smiled back despite how he could still feel heat in his cheeks.

“You will be going home this evening, I’d imagine,” Logan said.

“Yeah,” Virgil agreed softly.

“I would like to give you a gift before you go, if you’ll allow it.”

“Uh, okay,” Virgil agreed.

Logan nodded and leaned back to grab something out of the pocket of a jacket that was currently hanging over the side of the couch. “Ah,” he said when he found whatever he was looking for. He glanced at Virgil. “It is a ring, by the way, but this is not a proposal.”

“Well, I’d certainly hope not,” said Virgil dryly. “An impulse elopement would be a little off brand for us both.”

Logan smiled at him. “Very true,” he agreed. Then, he opened his palm revealing a small ring.

“So, then, what is it?” Virgil asked.

72530

“It is an emergency time travel device,” Logan explained. “It’s not particularly complex. It can only take you here to this room between 2 weeks and one year from now, but if you ever need something from me, you can use it.”

He offered the ring and Virgil opened his palm to let him put it in his hand. He studied the ring for a moment. It was a rose gold and very light.

“It also has some security measures,” Logan said. “It wouldn’t do to make an emergency time travel device that someone else might easily try to take from you. It’ll disappear when you put it on. You’ll still be able to feel it and take it off whenever you wish. It’ll become visible again if you take it off.”

“An invisible ring?” Virgil asked, curious.

“Yes,” Logan said with a smile. “It is designed to store your space time coordinates for up to 48 hours just so you’re aware, but as I said you can take it off whenever you wish and… I won’t use it against you.”

Virgil looked at him. “Okay,” he said. “Can I put it on?” Logan nodded, and Virgil slipped it on his finger. As promised it disappeared from view as soon as he did. He could still feel the weight of it on his finger though.

“You turn it three times counterclockwise to activate it,” Logan said, making Virgil look up from the seemingly empty space on his finger he’d been staring at.

“It would drop you right about where you are sitting.”

“Thanks,” Virgil said. It wasn’t nearly enough to say how much he appreciated the gift, but he hoped his tone said enough.

“Don’t use it against me?” Logan asked with a half-smile, and Virgil realized just how much trust was being put onto him by giving him a device that was directly linked to their base of operations despite knowing Virgil worked with the TPI.

Virgil shook his head. “I won’t,” he said. Deciding to throw out his nervousness and embarrassment over last time he shot forward to kiss Logan quickly on the lips. They bumped noses and Logan’s glasses ended up askew in the process, but Logan didn’t seem to mind judging by his delighted laugh when they parted.

“Thank you,” Virgil said again.

“Of course,” Logan replied.

Virgil could still feel the ring on his finger even after Patton and Roman got back from the dump with the device that had caused this whole mess. He could still feel it when Logan turned it off and his time piece reactivated. He could still feel it there when he made it home and gave an excuse as to why he’d left his trip early. He could still feel it when he got an email from an unknown sender making sure he got home okay.

Arc IV: (To Be Named)

Chapter 52

“What’s this?” Janus asked when a giant bowl was set on the coffee table in front of him.

“We’re eating on the couch tonight,” Emile said cheerfully.

Janus raised an eyebrow and switched off the tablet he’d been using to look at him. “Why?” he asked.

Emile shrugged and set a second huge bowl down next to Janus’s. “For fun,” Emile said. He turned back towards the kitchen and Janus leaned forward to look in the bowl. It was spaghetti with some sort of creamy sauce and a few different vegetables mixed in along with some shrimp.

“I made green tea,” Emile said, coming back into the room with two mugs.

“Thanks,” Janus said, taking one of the mugs with a small smile.

“What were you doing?” Emile asked as he took a seat beside Janus. He nodded at the deactivated screen now sitting on the end table.

“Just doing some puzzle games,” Janus said.

“That sounds fun,” Emile said with a smile.

“Head doctor said they might be a good thing to do to pass the time when I told him to fuck off after suggesting reading.”

Emile sighed. “Dr. Figueroa is my colleague. You could try to be polite.”

“I thought I was supposed to be my authentic self in therapy,” Janus replied.

Emile just huffed and rolled his eyes. Janus couldn’t help but smile as he picked up his mug of green tea.

The last few months had been…different. In a lot of ways, Janus’s life had become harder than it had been before. It had been easy to do nothing but eat pre-prepared meals, go to work, and pass out in his empty house every day. It wasn’t good for him. He’d known it even then, but it had been easy. This was not.

Emile had offered, insisted really, that Janus move into his house for a bit just to get back on his feet.

He’d taken time off of the TPI which would have been given to him anyway since he’d spent so trapped in the past. He’d had to give a report of what had happened, and he’d mentioned Patton, but he hadn’t mentioned everything. They’d offered him a shrink when he’d asked.

Janus had told Emile he needed to tell him something about why he’d been distant, so he wouldn’t end up chickening out, but he’d asked for a bit of time to figure out what to say. He’d finally worked up the courage to talk about it with Dr. Figueroa two weeks ago. Much like with Patton, it was easier to talk to someone who hadn’t been involved in Janus’s mistake, but it still wasn’t easy.

He was running up on the deadline he’d given for having that talk with him. It had to happen soon, and they both knew it, but Emile was just patiently waiting for him to suck it up. It felt… wrong to use his kindness without him knowing, but it was also nice to get to spend time with his brother. He didn’t even dare to hope that he’d still have the chance once he told him.

He was moving back into his own house in less than a week. He’d tell him then so if Emile ended up kicking him out of his life, he wouldn’t have to kick him out of his home too.

For now, though everything was fine. Harder, more complicated, and in threat of exploding at any moment, but fine. Fine wasn’t something he’d really felt in a long time. Or at least, fine while in his own time wasn’t something he’d felt in a long time. There’d been a few moments with Patton sitting next to the fire outside the hole in the ground they’d slept in for those few months where the man would turn to look at him and he’d felt fine. Yet, Patton had been right. Those moments were unsustainable with how Janus was actually feeling deep down.

“This is good,” Janus said, after taking a couple of bites of the pasta in front of him.

“Well, I always was the only one in the house that could cook,” Emile said, and that was true. “It was either learn to defend for myself or eat a cheeseburger for every meal.”

“Hey, I had a good burger seasoning.”

“Not for every meal, Janus.”

“Meat, dairy, bread. What more could you want?”

“Vegetables, Janus.”

“You could have put pickles on!”

“I don’t like pickles.”

“That sounds like your problem, not mine,” Janus argued.

Emile shook his head, turning his eyes to the ceiling. “How have you been surviving on your own?”

“Well, I mean,” Janus said. “Badly.”

“Right…” Emile said. He leaned over to bump their shoulders together. Janus flashed him a smile.

“Speaking of,” said Janus. “Could you physically force me to pack tonight? I meant to do it today and instead I ended up playing puzzles games.”

Emile chucked. “Sure, I’ll help you after dinner.”

“You don’t have to help me,” said Janus. “Just make me do it.”

“Maybe I want to help,” said Emile.

“Oh, yes, packing. The most entertaining of Thursday night activities.”

Emile hummed and then glanced at him. “Remember when you helped me pack for college?” he asked.

“Mmm, I do,” Janus replied.

“I was so stressed about going somewhere new,” Emile said, “that I avoided packing for weeks. Every time Mom would ask me how packing was going, I’d tell her it was going fine but in reality, I hadn’t even started. You’d come home two days before I had to leave because you were going to help me move into my dorm. It’s like you could sense no packing had been done the moment you stepped through the front door.”

“You were doing your ‘hiding the broken horse statue from mom’ shuffle,” Janus said with a smirk.

“Well, you walked me straight to my room and we packed everything up in those two days,” Emile said. “You made it so much easier.”

“Yeah, because I hovered over you until you did it and did half of it for you,” Janus snorted.

“It wasn’t just that,” Emile said. “You also found the music streaming station run by the university and put that on and talked about what your freshman year was like. You also had tips on what things I should and shouldn’t pack when moving into the dorm.”

“You still took all of the cartoon stuffed animals despite my advice.”

“I thought there’d be more space on the bed,” Emile frowned.

Janus snorted.

“But anyway, just having someone else around made me happier. It wasn’t just about the workload being halved either. You being there made me feel less lonely and reminded me I’d always have someone to come back to.”

Janus internally winced. He was sure Emile hadn’t meant to make him feel guilty in any way. In fact, he probably was trying to do the opposite, but him saying that just reminded Janus that it hadn’t been true. Janus had abandoned him for literal years and hadn’t been someone he could always come back to.

Emile had proven himself to be at least close to who he was before Janus messed with time the few last months. There were a couple of differences here and there, and Janus could not be sure if they were from him changing time or from him avoiding his brother for the past three years and him naturally changing. Most memories they shared that Janus cautiously brought up or Emile mentioned on his own were consistent with what Janus remembered, but he hadn’t pushed too hard or dug too deep. It just made him feel more guilty about avoiding the man for so long.

It made him want to ignore the man more, because it seemed every choice Janus ever made only hurt him.

…

Well, perhaps not the college radio station when helping an anxious 18-year-old pack up his childhood bedroom.

He should probably tell Emile that his words made him feel guilty because that was obviously not the intention and he’d want to know. He should probably apologize properly for leaving him alone for three years without an explanation. He should probably provide an explanation for those three years.

He should probably go see the head doctor again soon.

(He should probably stop calling Emile’s colleague who was in the same field as him a head doctor derogatorily in his head.)

74430

For now, he just glanced at Emile. “You’re trying to bully me into letting you help pack with logic, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Emile confirmed without remorse.

“Fine,” Janus sighed, “but only if you let me do the dishes for you.”

Emile took a long moment to consider the offer. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said, “but okay.”

“And no doing anything sneaky like getting bags ready for me on your own while I’m doing it or the deal is off,” Janus said.

“You always think of all possible loopholes, Janus,” Emile sighed.

There was a long silence.

“Agree, you prick,” said Janus.

“No promises,” Emile replied cheekily with laughter in his eyes, and things were good for a moment more.

Chapter 53

Today Janus was moving into his house in 24th century for the second time in his life, and honestly, the house wasn’t going to look much different than it had when he’d first moved in. Janus had unpacked his things more at Emile’s house in the past almost 6 months than he had in the two and a half years he’d liven in his house. His house held clothes, bare bone furniture, and exactly one skillet from when he’d decided to be daring and tried to cook himself an egg. All he’d really customized for himself was the setting on the LXC device which controlled the lights, media across the home, and prepackaged food ordering and prepare.

He almost felt embarrassed that his house was so empty. Emile, of course, knew that his mental health had been fucked, but the blankness of his house was a physical reminder of this fact especially considering how he used to keep house before all of this. He’d warned Emile about the fact that his house was empty, and he had said he understood, but still.

They gathered all of the luggage in a pile in Emile’s guest room. They’d had to get permissions from the TPI to allow Emile to travel to his house, and Janus went ahead and filed to give him permanent permission to travel there.

The decision felt far too hopeful for someone who hadn’t had that conversation with his brother yet, but it had made Emile smile in the moment.

Emile took three of the bags and Janus took the rest. He waved his arm and selected the third saved location on the device. In a moment, he was standing in the living room of his dark, empty house.

…

His supposed to be dark and empty house. More of the lights were on than Janus had ever switched on himself, and half of the windows were open. (He didn’t even know some of those windows opened.)

They were letting in the sounds of birds that made the lakeside their home as well as cool late fall breeze. There was also a racket coming from the kitchen. Emile was beside him a second after he himself had appeared. He looked around for a moment. “Did you leave it like this?”

“No,” Janus replied.

“Do you have squatters?” He had a security system from 2 millennia in the future on his house. He highly doubted it.

“I’m going to go check the kitchen,” Janus said, moving towards the noises coming from the other room.

He stopped in the doorway to his kitchen only to see Patton standing at his kitchen counter cutting up a carrot on a cutting board Janus didn’t think he owned, and if he did, it was buried in a box somewhere.

“What are you doing?” Janus asked.

“Cooking!” was the immediate reply.

“In my house?” Janus asked. “How do you even know where my house is?”

“I may be just a little bit ahead of you,” Patton said with a wink while tapping the side of his nose.

Janus sputtered. “This is my house!”

“I know!” He said it so cheerfully while being a purposefully obtuse asshole that Janus could help but crack a smile and shake his head. He’d missed him after spending so long alone with him though he wasn’t go to admit that to him when he’d broken into Janus’s house to…

“Again, what are you doing?”

“I’m making you soup.”

“Why?” Janus asked.

“Well,” Patton said. “I know it’s a bit of a rough time for you, so I thought I’d give you a nice welcome home present and what better present than food!” He smiled at him widely.

Janus looked closer at what he was making. “You’re trying to prove to me you can cook.” Patton frowned at him. “Have you considered I have had enough fish stew for a lifetime?”

“Nope!” he said. “It’s entirely different this time anyway. I have carrots!”

“I don’t like carrots,” Janus lied blandly.

“Liar!” Patton declared.

“No, I’m not,” Janus continued to lie.

“I mean, that was definitely a lie,” Emile interjected from behind Janus. He was looking at them curiously. “Er, hello, who are you?”

“This is Pat,” Janus said.

“The illegal time traveler you’ve been tracking?” Emile asked with a questioning lilt to his tone.

“Ah, yes, well,” Janus said with a cough. “We came to an understanding when stuck in pre-history.”

“And now he is cooking you soup in your house?” Emile asked.

“I’ve long since stopped trying to make sense of him,” Janus grumbled.

“Well,” Emile said. “Hello Pat.”

“You can call me Patton,” he said easily. “I hope it’s nice to meet me, because I’ve already met you.”

“We haven’t been meeting in the correct order,” Janus informed Emile. “So, he’s apparently already met you which will happen in your future. It is also something he shouldn’t be talking about,” he scolded. Patton took that with a shrug.

“I hate time travel,” Emile said, his nose scrunching up. “Isn’t life already confusing enough.”

Janus winced, not relishing the upcoming conversation with him about how confusing his life was now because of time travel.

“Don’t you work with the TPI too?” Patton asked.

“That doesn’t mean I like time travel,” Emile said. “I’m a stationary agent and I like that just fine.”

“Time travel can be a bit complicated sometimes,” Patton acknowledged, “but I don’t think it’s all bad.” He finished chopping up the carrot and turned to put it in the self-regulating soup pot. Janus squinted at it. It was certainly not something Patton had in the 21st century. So, the question was. Had he gone out and bought time appropriate cookware before breaking into Janus’s house or had he gone through Janus’s storage to find it?

“You’re a free agent time traveler, right?” Emile asked.

“Depends on what you mean by free agent,” Patton said. “I have always worked with a group of people, and we have rules and procedures. It’s basically a time agency itself, just not the TPI.”

“And you’ve met me before?”

“I have,” Patton confirmed, “but Janus is right in that I can’t say much more than that about it. In fact,” he said wiping off his hands on a towel hanging from his apron. (The apron was covered in cartoon squirrels and totted the phrase ‘I’m a nut for baking.’) “I should probably be getting out of here.”

“You’ve never been worried about us meeting out of order before,” Janus pointed out with a frown. He didn’t particularly want Patton to go even though the man had broken into his house and possibly went through his boxes of kitchen equipment.

“Well,” Patton said. “There’s meeting wildly out of order, there’s meeting in order, and then there’s what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?” Janus asked alarmed.

Patton just shrugged with a smile.

“No, Patton, what are you doing?”

“Soup should be done in about an hour, but you can leave it on all day. I got a pot that’s fridge safe, so just shut it off and stick it in there before going to sleep.”

“Patton.”

“See you later! Bye!” He said and disappeared into thin air.

Janus sighed and rubbed the bridge of his brow. “Why is he like this?”

“Janus,” Emile asked. “Why did your self-declared mortal enemy make you soup?”

“Because he’s an asshole, that’s why.”

“Uh huh,” Emile said, looking at him oddly.

“What?” Janus asked.

“What exactly happened when you were stuck in the past?” Emile asked.

Janus sighed. “A lot happened. A lot.” He glanced at the soup pot happily performing its function on his kitchen counter. ‘I hope it’s nice to meet me, because I’ve already met you,’ rang in his ears. Fucking Patton with his little hints about the future. It gave Janus just a bit of courage though knowing that Emile at least didn’t flee the continent after the conversation they had to have. He was at least around enough to meet Patton. “In fact,” Janus said. “It’s probably time I told you what happened. Everything that happened.”

Chapter 54

They sat down in the living room. Janus let Emile have the couch and sat on one of the matching armchairs. There was a squeaky sound when he sat. The plastic covering the chair had been delivered in was still on it.

Emile had a pleasant, open but curious expression on his face and Janus suddenly had an idea what it felt like to be his patient.

“I,” Janus began after a moment, shifting uncomfortably on the squeaky chair. “I don’t know how to start this conversation. I talked about what I wanted to say and possible ways to say it with Dr. Figueroa, but I… I still don’t know.”

“I guess I should start by saying that I did something horrible that I need to apologize for and I’m not sure if apologizing will even be enough. The problem is you don’t even know what that horrible thing is.” Janus stared at his feet. “So, first, I should probably explain what I did. I just don’t know where to start.”

“Maybe start with what happened before it,” Emile suggested. “Just lead up to it. It might help explain why whatever it was happened too.”

Janus took a breath. “Okay,” he said. “That day was just like most that I remember. We both woke up early. I was going to the TPI and you were going to where you worked your residency. We ate leftover pizza for breakfast because both of us were exhausted. You because it sucks to be a resident and me because I’d been working on a big case.”

“I was getting frustrated with the case. That was my first mistake: being impatient and angry. It was just a thief, but a slippery one. She’d stolen a half-broken time piece and was using it to rob banks within about a 50-year time frame. I had an idea of where she might go, but no one would listen to me. Or at least,” Janus quirked a half smile, “that’s how I interpreted it. They said they’d look into my idea, but they were being extra cautious because of how close in the timestream her actions were to most of the agents’ lives.”

“I was so tired of the case and so egotistical. I decided to check it out on my own without being cleared by the TPI. I went back in time without thinking of the consequences and that was the worst thing I’ve ever done.” Janus took a breath. “I’m not sure how, but somewhere in the course of my self-appointed mission…” He trailed off. He didn’t know how to say it. He really didn’t.

“What happened?” Emile asked when he didn’t continue.

“I…” and his next words probably sounded like crackly nonsense to Emile’s ears because he couldn’t get his thoughts straight and his tongue wouldn’t make the words right.

“I don’t even remember living in that town or the fact that Mom used to work at that bank,” he choked out. “I didn’t think and I didn’t check and…” There was a long silence. “I erased you,” he finally managed to say in a whisper, but in the quiet of his barely lived in house, the words were loud.

There was more silence. “But I…” Emile said after a moment.

“I went back and fixed it,” Janus said, “but I… didn’t do a perfect job. I don’t even know how much I messed things up. It would have been one thing if it’d just been me. If it had just impacted my life, but I did it to you and I don’t even know how to start to apologize.”

Nothing was said for a long moment. Janus didn’t look at him.

“…Huh,” Emile finally said.

Janus risked a glance at him. He didn’t look irate, but he did still look confused which was probably the reason for that.

“I’m sorry,” Janus said. It was really the only thing he could say at this point.

Emile tilted his head to the side. He took off his glasses and cleaned them with the edge of his shirt with slow circles. Since he was 15, Emile only cleaned his glasses with specially designed wipes, but he’d held onto the habit of cleaning his glasses with his shirt anytime he needed a moment to think. Janus wasn’t sure if Emile even realized he was doing it, but he knew it was a signal for Janus to be quiet for a few seconds.

The glasses were perched back on Emile’s nose after a few seconds. “I think I remember that,” he said contemplatively.

“…What?” Janus asked, and he was no longer avoiding looking at Emile. He was now blatantly staring at him.

“Well, I didn’t know what it was,” Emile said, “but I did have a very odd dream on the day you mentioned and suspiciously I had said dream in the middle of the day and woke standing up.”

“A dream?” Janus asked.

“A very vivid dream,” Emile said. “I don’t believe you actually erased me completely from existence. My life was simply shifted slightly. I was working as a social worker for about 5 hours and then I was back in my appropriate place.”

76874

“Why didn’t you tell me about that?” Janus asked, but then immediately wince at his own hypocrisy. “Er… never mind.”

“I didn’t know it was possibly real,” Emile said. “Honestly, I thought I was just really tired. I’d been overworking myself a lot. I took the rest of the day off after that.”

“You shifted reality for a few hours, and you didn’t realize it?” Janus asked.

“Like I said, I was really tired and nothing seemed to be wrong…”

“Wait, but things were different,” Janus said. “Didn’t you notice things were different.”

“Not… really,” Emile said. “Like what?”

“Like…” Janus said. “Like a whole bunch of things!”

“Like…?”

“Like you had a different job title and you worked different hours.”

“I thought I’d fallen asleep standing up or had a vivid audio-visual hallucination at work from stress. I asked for a switch a couple of weeks later.”

“You used to hate time travel, but then you took a job at the TPI.”

Emile gave him a drawl look. “I still hate time travel,” he said. “I literally just said that not 5 minutes ago.”

“Well then why would you work for the TPI.”

“Because time travel is so confusing and distressing that people doing it on a regular basis as a career need psychological support.”

“Plus, Lia asked for my consultation when developing the mental health part of the Agent Management Office,” Emile continued. “Considering I already knew quite a bit about time travel from being around you, she knew me personally, and I’d finished my residency, she decided to give me a job offer when my advice panned out.”

“W-well,” Janus said. “You were allergic to pineapples.”

“You mean my childhood allergy?” Emile asked. “That has since resolved itself in my adult life?”

“It has?” Janus asked.

“Janus have you considered,” Emile said, “that some if not all of the inconsistencies you were seeing in my life have to do with the fact that you hadn’t spoken to me in 3 years?”

“I… uh… hadn’t considered that,” Janus admitted honestly.

“You were looking for information to support your incorrect world view,” Emile said sounding very much like a head doctor and not like a brother, “and you found some.” He sighed. “It makes sense after having faced a traumatic event where you effectively thought you’d killed a loved one that you weren’t thinking clearly.” The head doctor analysis voice slipped just a bit. “I just wish you’d talked about it with someone.”

“Sorry,” Janus said, because no matter which way this conversation had gone and no matter the revelations, the point was an apology. “I’m sorry.”

Emile sighed. “I would have forgiven you even if you had erased me,” Emile said. “You didn’t mean to, and you did your best to fix it. You did fix it even if you were an idiot about it.”

“What about for being an idiot and not talking to you for three years?” Janus asked.

“I already did forgive you for that Janus,” Emile said pointedly. “What did you think the last 6 months were?”

“Pity?”

Emile gave him his disappointed and exasperated head shake. “Promise to never do anything like that to me again,” he said, “and I’ll forgive you.”

“I promise,” Janus said immediately.

“And in the future, you’ll talk to me if you have any issue even if you think it’s horrible.”

“I think I’ve learned by lesson on that one.”

“And that goes for other people too,” Emile said. “If anything goes wrong with someone, you talk to them or if that’s too hard you talk to someone so they can convince you to talk to that person.”

Janus nodded.

“Great!” Emile said. “Then you’re officially forgiven for everything. Though I expect you to go to therapy and keep working on making yourself feel better, so these things don’t happen again.”

And Janus… didn’t know how to feel about that. He should probably feel happy and thankful or at least relieved, but if he was being honest, he just felt kind of empty in that moment like an old well that had finally run dry. Fuck his head doctor and fuck Patton. Wasn’t this supposed to make him feel better? Everything was fine. He hadn’t actually erased Emile permanently from the timeline, in fact, he’d apparently still existed in some form in the alternate timeline Janus had temporarily made. Emile had forgiven him both for erasing him and ignoring him even though that was far more than Janus deserved. This was something he’d never even dared dream would happen, but it had been exactly what he’d wanted.

Yet, he still didn’t feel good, not really, not like how he remembered feeling before all of this happened.

Though was that really a surprise? Things were not like how they were before. He and Emile were no longer close. There was love and affection there, but they didn’t really know each other. The last six months had been nice. He’d been able to pretend for a bit that everything was back to normal, but in the moments he hadn’t been able to pretend that, it’d been a bit stilted and awkward speaking to his brother especially at the start.

Beyond that, Janus was just used to misery at this point. It was his default state. Not being miserable took effort and energy he didn’t always have. He felt himself slipping into sadness or numbness even during times he should be feeling good. He’d noticed himself experiencing a sense of desolation when Emile cooked his favorite meal or in the middle of watching a ballet performance Emile had suggested they go to and he’d been looking forward to in the days before or even now when he should be so happy, so ecstatic. Everything should be okay, but it wasn’t.

“You doing alright over there?” Emile asked, and Janus didn’t know how long he’d been silent.

Instinct said to say yes and force himself to move on, but he wasn’t going to break his promise that fast. “Not really, no,” he admitted.

“That’s okay,” Emile said. “Anything I can do to help?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Why don’t we go taste the soup your arch nemesis,” there was a light teasing tone to his voice, “made for you. Some of the vegetables won’t be completely cooked yet, but I’m sure it’s already good.”

“Yeah,” Janus agreed. “Yeah, okay,” he got to his feet, the chair making that plastic squeaking sound again. “Maybe we could unwrap the furniture in here before you go home.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Emile said with a smile.

Chapter 55

Somehow, the strangest thing about his life right now was a picture on the wall. It was one that he’d gotten after college when he moved into his first actual house. It wasn’t anything special. It was just something that had caught his eye when he was specifically looking for something classier to put on his wall than the posters he’d hung in his college dorm and apartment with Virgil. It was a tall painting of a tree, but segmented into four parts, each representing the state of a tree in different seasons. In the top left, the three had small leaves and little buds, on the top right it had full leaves bathed in sunlight, in the bottom left the leaves had changed colors and started to fall off, and in the bottom right the tree was devest of leaves but covered in snow.

It was on the wall near Janus’s bed. It was one of the first things he saw when he opened his eyes in the morning and was usually what reminded him that everything was different now when he woke.

The picture had been in a box in the houses garage up until the Saturday before the last. Saturdays had become his and Emile’s unofficial unpacking Janus’s house day. They would usually pick one or maybe two boxes that had been sitting untouched for years, unpack it, talk, and eat dinner together.

Notably, dinner was usually not provided by either of them.

Patton had gotten into the habit of breaking into Janus’s house. Janus would sometimes catch him doing it briefly, but often Patton managed to avoid him. This was quite the feat considering Janus was not currently working and thus stayed at home a lot of the time. Patton had repeatedly reprogrammed Janus’s kitchen taking away the option for pop tarts entirely and replacing the option with real food. Janus’s kitchen was constantly stocked with something to eat that wasn’t trash. He also liked to leave around different smelling hand soaps, flowers, and paper cranes. Janus had an entire drawer in his nightstand dedicated to storing paper cranes now.

The newest one was still on his nightstand from the night before, sitting cheerfully in the way of his view of the tree paining when his alarm woke up that morning. He sighed. He had not missed getting up early for work.

He was finally going back to working at the TPI this morning. His therapist had signed off on it last week, saying his was fit for duty. Considering they were apparently still understaffed at the TPI and Janus was a senior agent, this was met with much relief. Janus himself still wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

He turned off the alarm and stood. Dr. Figueroa had him write out a morning schedule to follow when he’d expressed his struggle to get the day started. Either Patton or Emile had taken it upon themselves to copy the schedule on virtual sticky notes that appeared in every location necessary for getting ready in the morning.

First, he took a shower. He threw his nightclothes in the laundry chute. There were currently dozens of different scented soaps in his shower all in small bottles that had about 2 or 3 uses. Janus presumed they were curtesy of Patton. He decided to use one at random and it ended up being cotton candy scented.

Next, he got dressed. That was easy enough since he always wore the same outfit to work every day. It didn’t matter what he wore much since missions would force him to redress anyway.

Then he went to his kitchen and sat down at the counter. He pushed the pop tart button. As expected at this point, he did not get a pop tart for breakfast. Instead, he got two eggs, toast, a sliced apple, and a few cherry tomatoes with green tea. He ate his breakfast while finishing one of the puzzles he’d been working on the night before.

Once he finished, it was time to finally face going back to the office. He sighed, stood up and pulled up the screen on his timepiece. He selected his office as his destination and was off.

The first thing that happened upon appearing in his office was he got a face full of… something.

He sputtered, smacking the things fluttering about his face out of the air. “What is wrong with you?” was the first thing out of his mouth before he’d even really confirmed that the culprit of this attack was who he’d automatically assumed he was.

Remus, as anticipated was standing not 2 feet away from him.

Remus had apparently gotten into the prop department again because he had some type of softly glowing glittery confetti was no all over Janus as well as their entire office.

“Remus, I told you no!” Lena snapped. “You know it’s impossible to clean up 3150s sparkle nukes.”

“Welcome back!” Remus crowed.

“I hate you,” Janus replied. “I just took a shower.”

“You’re fine,” Remus said with an eye roll.

“This shit doesn’t come off in decontamination,” Janus spat. “If my first mission back sends me to a time where I’ll be tried as a witch for glowing, I’m blaming you.”

“We’re going to 2510,” Remus informed him. “You’ll fit right in.”

Janus grimaced. “Ugh, that decade.”

“It’s my favorite decade!” Remus exclaimed.

“Of course, it is,” Lena grumbled. “Just don’t bring anything gross back this time.”

“No promises,” Remus replied.

Janus chose to disengage from the conversation as Remus and Lena argued about was and what wasn’t allowed to be brought back to their shared office from what was well known as the least tasteful decade in history. It was also one of the least turbulent decades in history. The population was too busy making shitty ice cream flavors to wage war.

At least they were giving him an easier assignment for his first time back. He turned to his desk and pulled up the files on his next mission, glancing through them. It was just a small blip that the TPI had noticed in a small town in 2510. It probably wasn’t much of anything, but they had no record of what had caused it, so they were going to send someone to look. Honestly, they’d usually just send in a surveillance agent and be done with it, but they’d probably handpicked this one for Janus in particular. He’d be insulted if he didn’t honestly still feel a bit off kilter being in the office.

To his surprise, he didn’t have a scheduled meeting with Rhi. It wasn’t particularly important to see a mission coordinator for something this small, but it still wasn’t the usual protocol. Instead, he was just instructed to pick up his costume at the costuming department and leave in about an hour.

“Do we really not have an appointment with Rhi?” Janus asked.

“Senior agents haven’t really been meeting with Rhi unless it’s a high priority mission,” Lena told him. “We have too many newbies running around and there’s not time.

“That’s concerning…” Janus said.

“It’s better than trying to rush the inexperienced ones through. We at least have a general idea of what we’re doing. They’re trying to train up more mission coordinators, but that’s taking a while.”

Janus still frowned, but he glanced back at the mission instructions. He’d have to make sure he thoroughly understood what was being asked of him before leaving if he wasn’t meeting with Rhi. “We should go get changed,” he told Remus. “2510s clothing is notoriously difficult to put on.”

“Five minutes back and he’s already dying to get my clothes off,” Remus said cheekily.

“I would rather tear my own eyeballs out of my socket than see you without your pants on again.”

Remus just wiggled his eyebrows.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” said Lena when Janus looked at her in exasperation. “He’s finally not Fred’s and my problem anymore.”

Chapter 56

Getting ready for the mission was a bit of a mess honestly. The costume department barely even spared them a glance before sending them on their way. Remy at least was still there to give them one last debrief before sending them off into 2510, though he looked exhausted.

“Are you sleeping?” asked Janus.

“I’m drinking coffee,” was the reply as he shooed them out onto the streets.

The timeline disturbance that had been picked up was somewhere in one of the shops on that street.

“Do you want the bakery or the karaoke/stripper bar?” Remus asked.

Janus raised an eyebrow at him, and Remus clapped him on the back.

“This is why we’re partners,” he said.

He plodded off towards the building to their right, and Janus turned to the building on the left. It was a small bakery and coffee shop painted in bright colors and sporting the Brazilian and Albanian flags.

There was a soft tinkling bell sound when he entered the shop, and the person behind the counter glanced over at him briefly before finishing putting a pastry in bag for a customer.

Unfortunately, their attention meant Janus wasn’t going to get away with snooping around the store without buying anything. He glanced around the interior of the shop as he walked up to the till.

He glanced into the bakery display case the worker was standing behind. Oh… oh that all looked disgusting. He was not depressed enough anymore to willingly eat any of that.

“Uh,” Janus said when the worker looked at him. He glanced up at the wide selection of drinks over their head and winced at the ways the letters moved on the screen. He was pretty sure his dyslexia wasn’t quite that bad. Why did anyone choose to make letters move around and shake on purpose? As someone who had to deal with that on a daily basis, it wasn’t exactly entertaining.

“Is it possible to get a banana and chocolate potato chip smoothie, but without the potato chip part?” he asked.

“Sure,” the worker replied. “Anything else?”

Janus shook his head.

“Can I have a name for that?”

“Jay,” Janus replied.

“Alright. It’ll be out in a minute.”

Janus nodded and turned, able to take in the rest of the establishment now that there weren’t eyes on him. It was as colorful on the inside as it was on the outside and seemed to have a retro cowboy-space theme mixed with posters from a contemporary werewolf romance movie. Janus had actually seen that movie one. It was surprisingly tolerable.

The seats at least looked comfortable. There were a good number of tables and three couches. All of them were mix-matched. A few of the tables were outfitted with holographic chess and checkers, but most were normal tables. There were even a few physical boardgames and some bookshelves full of books, though he thought some of the bookshelves might just be there for decoration. He wasn’t sure which were and which weren’t.

He pretended to be very interested in the decorations as he waited on his drink, using that as an excuse to look around the entire shop. He was turned away when the door chimed again.

“Hello,” a familiar voice said, making Janus turn around instantly. Janus could immediately tell that the man hesitantly lingering in front of the bakery display was not the Patton that he’d spent months holed up with or who had broken into Janus’s house repeatedly to replace his soaps and cook him meals. He seemed out of place which was saying something in 2510. He had the air about him that he was an 80-year-old grandpa trying to embrace youth culture, but not quite getting it. He also spoke in an accent that people around him would probably assume was him just not being fluent in Spanish but was actually him not being completely comfortable speaking Spanish from half a century ago.

“Uh…” said Patton looking at the menu, a crease between his eyes.

“I’d suggest the banana and chocolate potato chip smoothie without the potato chips,” Janus said. Patton startled, whipping around to face him in surprise. “That’s what I got, though I would leave out the potato chips.”

Patton’s eyes narrowed on him. It was not, of course, the first time that Patton hadn’t been thrilled to see him, but it was the first time Janus had been happy to see him and he hadn’t been happy to see him in turn. Janus had gotten used to a Patton that liked him and he found himself not quite prepared for the way he pursed his lips in annoyance at the sight of Janus.

“I’ll do the banana and chocolate potato chip smoothie, but with the potato chips,” he said in a way that made it sound like he thought he was getting one up on Janus for some reason.

“What flavor of chips?” the worker asked.

“Er, what flavors do you have?”

“Uh, I think drywall, oak wood, and limestone.”

Janus almost laughed at his expression. “Uh, do you have any naturally edible flavors?” he asked.

“We might have grass.”

Patton squinted as the worker bent to look under the cabinet. “Oh, wait, no, it’s glass. Is that alright?”

“…Maybe just no on the chips.”

Janus did his best to school his features, so it wasn’t obvious he was laughing at him. He didn’t think he did a very good job considering Patton was glaring at him after turning around. That or he was just already pissed at Janus by default. It could go either way honestly.

“So,” Janus said when the worker turned away to start making Patton’s drink. “What are you doing here.”

“It’s none of your business,” Patton said with narrowed eyes.

“I mean, we could both be here for the same reason,” Janus pointed out. “We could share intel.”

“I doubt we’re here for the same reason.”

“How would you know?” asked Janus.

Patton just looked away from him. He immediately looked confused at the movie poster his eyes landed on.

“Unless,” Janus said curiously, you aren’t here for a reason, reason.” Patton said nothing. “It was a pretty small disturbance, so it would make sense that your equipment might not pick up on it.” At least at this point. “Acting the tourist, Pat?”

“I’m just doing research,” Patton said, crossing his arms.

“Research?” Janus asked.

“I’ve never been here before,” Patton admitted. “I wanted to get a feel for it and other places just in case there ever was an issue.”

“You just did France, didn’t you?” Janus asked.

Patton frowned and Janus smiled slightly. “It was recent,” he admitted.

“Well,” Janus said. “If you want some advice. I’d start with figuring out accents when you’re in different times.”

“I don’t need your advice,” Patton said and then smugly, “Janus.”

It took a bit for Janus to scan back through his memories and remember that Patton hadn’t known Janus’s name in France. He would have only figured it out after his friend Lo hacked into Silver Mountains University’s system and figured out Virgil had an appointment with him. Janus raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that, Patton?”

He frowned, pouting like whenever Janus told him he wasn’t allowed to try to catch a bird and make it their pet. It was strange to meet a version of Patton who had not lived in a hole in the ground with him for months when Janus had already done that. Patton was on the back foot for once throughout this conversation. Every time before this, he’d managed to somehow twist it around even when he’d been younger than he was right now. When Janus had arrested him at the University, he’d managed to figure out his equipment wouldn’t be stopped by the TPI’s despite having no idea what the TPI was.

In France, even when Janus had thought he’d been winning by taking his phone, he ended up getting access to a University in Janus’s time with information on the TPI, a situation that still had not been resolved.

Today, however, Janus knew far more about Patton than Patton expected. He still didn’t know exactly what his agency or whatever it should actually be called did, but he knew some things about it. He knew Patton was from the 21st century which explained the anachronisms in his speech in different times.

“You could help me look if you’d like,” Janus offered casually.

“Why?” Patton asked suspiciously.

Janus shrugged. It was not because he missed him, he insisted to himself. It wasn’t because after spending so much time with him, not getting to talk with him all day was strange. It had nothing to do with the fact that the few times he’d ran into a farther along version of Patton since he’d moved back home, their interactions had been brief and tinged with something. No, the only reason Janus was inviting him along was so he could teach this younger version a few things, so he hopefully didn’t go about messing up time. “We worked well together in France, didn’t we?” he asked. “Besides, it’s just a small mission without much danger to the timeline.”

“Pat,” the person at the counter called. Patton turned to him to go grab his smoothie, thanking the worker before turning back around and walking over to Janus.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll help, but you have to answer my questions.”

“I’ll answer the questions that won’t endanger any timelines or secrets of my agency.”

Patton considered it for a moment, taking a sip of his drink. “Fine,” he agreed.

“Good,” Janus replied. “We’ll start by looking around the coffee shop for anything unusual. Did you have any questions now. It’d look more natural to be walking around if we were having a conversation.”

“Does the glitter in your hair have to do with the style of the time or…?”

Janus sighed.

Chapter 57

Luckily, the cashier didn’t seem to think them snooping around was very odd. To be fair, the shop had quite a few odd decorations to look at. So, perhaps employees were just used to people walking around and looking at all of the different things. It helped that Janus and Patton were talking as they searched. They just looked like a couple… of friends… casually chatting and exploring the coffee shop together.

“So,” Patton said, keeping his voice quiet, though luckily the few patrons were on the other side of the shop. “What exactly is it that you do working for the TPI?”

“Well,” Janus said. “I’m a senior field agent. That means I am the person who actually goes on missions in different times. These missions can range from tracking down people who are committing crimes using time travel, stopping anything or anyone that could damage the timestream, and helping waylaid time travelers.”

“So, there are different types of agents?” Patton asked, curiously.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “There are a lot, but only four type time travel on a regular basis.” Should he be telling a very young version of Patton this? Probably not, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care too much.

“There are surveillance, touchdown, field, and cleanup agents,” he explained. “Surveillance agents do a bunch of things including research about the exact time field agents are going to and figuring out the best places for them to enter the timestream. Touchdown agents come slightly before field agents to do last second checks and stay when field agents are out. They mostly are just there to intervene if there are any unforeseen issues. Field agents actually interact with people from other times on a daily basis as they slip into the timestream and find whatever person or object they’re looking for. Cleanup agents come in afterwards and tie up any loose ends as well as observe the area for a few days to make sure nothing happened that no one caught.”

“Everyone else who works at the TPI is mostly in research and management. They don’t usually travel, though everyone who works there is licensed to travel if necessary.”

“That’s a lot of people,” Patton commented.

“What we do is important. We want to make sure we are doing it correctly.” It was honestly not meant to be a jab, but Janus could see Patton frown. He decided to change the subject. “Right now, we’re looking for something that’s causing a small disturbance.”

“What type of thing could cause a disturbance? Is it always a machine like the one in France?”

“No,” Janus replied. “That was actually unusual.” He thought for a second. “At least that used to be unusual, but lately we’ve seen more and more of that sort of thing.”

They were currently standing at a bookshelf, but nothing pinged Janus’s interest or time piece, so they moved on to look at a few of the movie posters. Patton seemed to grow more and more concerned the longer he looked at the posters.

“So, what is it usually?”

“Well,” said Janus. “Some things are natural events. No one’s really sure what causes those. There are theories, but I’m not really involved in that. We leave those alone for the most part if we find those. They’re usually small things, though on occasion they’re a bit bigger. Usually, time disturbances are caused by someone messing up. They say something wrong that gets someone curious and creates a butterfly or they leave an object that doesn’t exist in the time.”

“So, what do you think this one is?” Patton asked curiously.

“Well,” Janus said. “It’s a rather small disturbance, so it won’t be anything too major. Probably just an object out of place.”

“Hmm,” Patton replied. “Well, I’ve always been good at those find the difference games.”

“Have you now?” Janus said, unable to stop a slight grin from ghosting over his face.”

“Mhmm,” replied Patton. He drained the rest of his smoothie and then turned around, facing away from the wall of posters they’d been looking at. He slowly scanned the room, an action a lot less inconspicuous than what Janus had them doing, but he didn’t protest for now.

“That’s weird,” Patton declared, pointing rather obviously at a shelf. Janus noticed a woman looking at him funny. “Well,” Patton continued. “More like it isn’t weird, which is weird for here.”

Janus glanced at the shelf full of small figurines. Most of them were of mythical creatures: werewolves, dragons, and even one not even Janus recognized. Janus would guess, especially judging by the plethora of movie posters that they were all from movies or something of the like. However, Patton was correct there was one that stuck out from the rest. It was still a figurine, but unlike the rest, it was of a real animal: a cow.

“That is odd,” Janus agreed, peering at the cow. Figuring Patton had already been obvious enough, Janus stepped over to the shelf to study it more closely. When looking at it more closely, it became obvious that the cow was very unlike everything else on the shelf. It wasn’t even really a figurine like the ones around it. It looked more like a children’s toy. It’s fur was made out of a soft looking material instead of the stiff plastic of the werewolf next to it.

“It doesn’t really fit in with the collection, does it?” a voice asked from behind Janus.

Janus winced internally at the fact that a civilian had just noticed him acting oddly, but kept his face smooth externally as he turned to face the woman standing behind him.

“My friend and I were wondering what it was from,” Janus said evenly. “We recognized the rest of the figures, but I’m not sure where this one came from.”

“Well, that’s because it didn’t come from anything,” the woman said. “At least that I know of. I just didn’t know where to put the thing, so I put it on my movie figurine shelf.”

“Ah,” said Janus, a politely interested crinkle to his brow. “Where did you get it then?”

“A young kid came by about, oh, a week ago. He looked like a high school kid or maybe college. He seemed right confused and upset. He said he didn’t have any money on him, and got weird when I tried to ask him about his parents. I ended up giving him a free drink and let him sit here for a couple’a hours. We got to talking about my collections. See, I have a deal that if someone brings me back something of interest for my displays, they get a free drink. He insisted on giving me that in exchange for the drink even though I told him I’d given him the drink ‘cause he seemed upset.”

“I don’t even particularly want the thing, but he said he didn’t want it anyway, and he insisted, so I took it.”

“Interesting,” Janus said. “Do you mind if I touch it?”

“Go ahead,” she said with a shrug.

He reached forward to pick up the cow and felt the softest of fizzles that only someone who regularly time traveled would feel. Despite already knowing this must be what he’d come for, he still subtlety set his timepiece to scan it.

Patton was peering over her shoulder now. “If both you and the person who gave it to you don’t care much about it, do you think we could buy it off of you?” he asked. “I’m a big fan of cows.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess,” she agreed. “If you really like it. I don’t know what else I’d do with it.”

“How much?” Janus asked.

“Well it only cost me a Lemon CastelWalk and a scone, so about 12.”

“Sure,” Janus agreed, pulling out his wallet and forking over the currency. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem,” she replied. “Hope you can find some use for it.”

Janus gave her a smile and then looked at Patton. “I think it’s about time to go, don’t you think.”

Patton nodded. “Thank you for the cow statue,” he told the woman as they left the shop. They walked a bit down the street. Patton turned to him once they were out of sight of the shop window. “So, that’s it?” he asked.

Janus nodded and checked his time piece which had finished it’s scan. “The fabric is from the late 43rd century,” he confirmed, “but that’s not all. It’s stranger than that.”

“Stranger how?” Patton asked.

“The materials are definitely from the 43rd century,” Janus said, “but it’s not from the 43rd century.”

“What do you mean?”

“This,” Janus said, looking at the cow. “This doesn’t exist. Every object has traces of where it’s been no matter how much you clean it. My timepiece can register debris sticking to an object down to the microscopic level and give a general idea where and when they came from. There’s no time travel residue implying it came from the 43rd century or even just dust or dirt from that time period. There isn’t even anything on it from this time period from more than the week the shop owner said it was in her possession. My scans seem to be saying, this thing popped into existence a week ago and didn’t exist in any time or place before that.

Patton frowned. “Well then, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” answered Janus frowning down at it. “I have absolutely no idea.”

Chapter 58

Janus didn’t know what to make of the cow he’d gotten in 2510. He’d said goodbye to the young version of Patton and grabbed Remus before heading back to the TPI. He’d immediately handed the time anomaly over to the labs, but even after a few weeks, he hadn’t heard anything back yet. The labs seemed just as stumped as he was.

The older version of Patton still drifted in and out of his life, usually unseen, like a ghost in the night. Well, a ghost that cooked him plenty of healthy food.

It felt odd slipping back into his old routine of missions.

Sometimes it felt like no time had passed, but then he’d see the faces of new recruits or get a mission where he didn’t see Rhi and remember that things were different now. The TPI was strained, constantly running after time distortions with no idea what or who was causing them. The new recruits were stumbling to catch up to the agents who knew what they were doing but were still needed to fill the gaps. It made Janus grimace, but he didn’t know what the solution was.

It was nice to be able to talk to Emile about these things.

If Patton made sure he was taking care of himself at home with nice meals and an ever-changing option of soaps and shampoos, Emile made sure he was taking care of himself at work. Janus was now forced to have a water bottle at his desk to make sure he wasn’t spending the day dehydrated and, assuming he was not on a mission, Emile would either drag him away to eat lunch or bring lunch too him if he was too busy. Today was the later kind of day. Emile had messaged him about 45 minutes ago asking if he was free and then had taken his order for a local restaurant when Janus said he had too much to do.

There was a knock on the door and both Fred and Janus, the only two occupants of the office at the moment looked up.

“I’ll get it,” Janus said, getting up before Fred did. He knew Fred was currently in the middle of a report on a trip to 2000B.C. he and Lena went to. They’d let a new recruit tag alone for training purposes. It had gone badly to say the least. Fred looked exhausted and stressed which was unlike the usually cheery man.

Janus shuffled to the door and opened it. A man in his early 30s that Janus didn’t recognize was standing there.

“Hi,” he said. “I, uh, moved into the office next door. My name is Dave.”

There was a moment of silence. “Did you need something Dave.”

“Right,” he said. “Yeah, I was just wondering if your integrator is running, because mine isn’t.”

Janus glanced back at the report he’d been working on. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Well, is it, like, connecting to the TPI system?”

“I don’t know,” said Janus, “I was working locally.”

“Yeah, well that’s the problem with mine. I was wondering if anyone else was having the same problem.”

“Let me check,” said Janus, walking over to his desk. He went to open his email and an error message popped up.

That was… odd to say the least. The TPI had very, very reliable technology. If it was just Janus who could not access the system, he’d assume it was just a local problem, but if the next door neighbor also was having an issue, that could smell trouble.

“Fred,” Janus called. “Are you connected to the internet?”

Fred glanced down at his integrator and clicked a couple of buttons. “No,” he said.

“Hmm,” Janus said. He pulled up his timepiece. That at least connected to the TPI servers, so the servers themselves weren’t down, just the offices’ connection to them. “Well, I can still connect with my timepiece.”

“Same,” said Fred.

“So, what’s wrong?” Dave asked. “How do we fix it?”

“We don’t fix it,” Janus said. “We submit a tech support request.”

“Oh,” said Dave. “…How do you do that?”

Janus sighed and flicked his wrist to project a screen. “If you go to the web on your timepiece, it’s literally on the page that automatically pops up,” he said pointing.

“We can connect to the internet through our timepieces?” Dave asked.

“…Did you have any training?” Janus asked.

“Don’t be rude,” Fred said absently, still typing on his report.

Janus just rolled his eyes.

“Not on… that part. They did give me a handbook.”

“Have you read it?” Janus asked.

Dave shrugged which told Janus everything he needed to know.

“Just go back to your office,” Janus told Dave. “I’ll submit the tech support request this time since it’s affecting me as well but read your handbook and familiarize yourself with your timepiece for goodness’s sake.”

“Okay,” Dave said, turning around and wandering back to his office with no thoughts in his eyes.

“I’m not your fucking preschool teacher,” Janus muttered under his breath as he returned to his desk. “It’s not my job to hold your hand and wipe your ass.”

Fred glanced up at him. “Thanks for not saying that when he was still in the room,” he said.

Janus shot him a thumbs up.

He sat down at his desk and quickly submitted a tech support request. By the time he finished that, Emile was knocking on the door with a bag of food.

“Come in,” Janus said to him, and he did, pulling over Remus’s chair and plopping down the food on Janus’s desk.

“You look stressed,” Emile commented.

Janus sighed, already reaching into the bag to look at what Emile had bought. “Everything’s disorganized, everything’s broken, and no one knows how to do anything.”

“Yeah,” Emile said. “I’ve noticed the TPI is understaffed. Even with all of the new recruits, there never seems to be enough people to go around.”

“Yeah,” Janus said, pulling out a burger on a pretzel bun and going to unwrap it. “How about you? This all been messing up your job too?”

“In general, for the AMO, yes, because they have to get all of the new agents houses and everything. For my department, not as much, but we are seeing some agents getting stressed because they’re overworked. Mostly the more senior agents.”

“Honestly, I’m lucky stress makes me throw myself into work to avoid thinking about it. I shudder to think how all of the mentally healthy people are holding up.”

“Janus,” Emile scolded.

“Plus, I’m already set up to have an appointment with a head doctor at least twice a week, so I’m good on that front.”

“I guess that’s true. Just don’t overwork yourself,” Emile said.

“I’m fine Emile. Plus, they need me. I seem to be one of the few people around here who actually know what they’re doing.”

“I just worry…” he said.

“I can handle it well enough,” Janus promised. “I’ve got the toolkit or whatever the head doctor calls it. Plus… work wasn’t ever actually the problem.”

“I know. I know…Just…you aren’t even taking lunch.”

“I have a bit more time free in the afternoon,” Janus said.

“I was just in the middle of something today. If you’re free for a half hour or something, we could get a cup of coffee. How about that? Would that assuage your worry about me a least a bit?”

“Yeah,” Emile said. “Yeah, it would a bit. I have a break at 2, would that work?”

“Sure,” Janus said. He technically had a good amount of stuff to do, but Emile was right in the end. He should try to take breaks. It wasn’t his duty to do everything at the TPI. “A quick lunch now and coffee at 2.”

Chapter 59

Janus did fulfil his promise to Emile to take a short coffee break at 2pm. It was nice for both of them, Janus thought and was well worth it… even when he came back to a stack of work and an extra mission on his docket.

“Where did this one even coming from?!” Janus asked as he and Remus speed walked to costuming. “I was gone for less than 30 minutes. They can’t give us more than an hour warning anymore?”

Remus shrugged. “I just got back from a mission,” he said. “I haven’t even had time to write my report on that one.

“This is a mess,” Janus said. “Everything’s a mess.” Readings of a fairly large time distortion had popped up in 2158 Lille, France out of seemingly nowhere according to write up they’d been given. Though, honestly, with how disorganized the TPI has been, Janus wasn’t 100% confident they hadn’t just missed the thing somehow. It also was apparently giving very similar readings to the time device they’d ran into in Cuba. That’s why they were sending both Remus and Janus, despite the two of them mostly having been split up for missions in the past few weeks. If it was as bad as Cuba, they wanted them to have backup.

Of course, that was where the TPI’s consideration had ended. Remus and Janus were still being rushed through to this mission and not even seeing Rhi once more. Costuming barely even glanced at them when they got there. They just tossed clothing at them and only gave them a superficial look over before sending them off to decon.

It was almost disorienting how quickly they ended up in a completely different time and place. Janus was lucky that he was used to traveling through time. He could easily slip into the right language and accent and knew how to walk in the shoes they gave him. He worried about other people though.

They arrived, of course, a bit before the time distortion was meant to begin, especially knowing their devices might not work once whatever it was hit. They waited around on a bench near a small shopping area for a while.

“So,” Remus said. “How’ve you been?”

Janus glanced at him. “Better overall,” he said. “Shit’s fucked with the TPI right now though.”

“I know,” Remus said. “It’s been interfering with my many extracurricular activities.”

“You’re extracurricular activities?” Janus asked. “Do I even want to know?”

Remus show him a smile. “Probably not,” he said. “It’s just the usual: sex, drugs, alcohol, making sure Diesel Fuel has whatever she could ever want.”

Yet, even as he said it, there was something else in his eyes that gave Janus pause. “Are you sure things are alright?” he asked. “I could help with something if you need.”

“With what time, Janus?” he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“I could make time,” Janus said.

Remus just shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he claimed.

Janus wanted to press the issue, but then there was a buzz from both of their time pieces.

“Well,” Remus said, getting to his feet. “Duty calls.”

Strangely enough, despite giving off the same signals as the device from Cuba did, their time pieces did not shut off. The detected the time distortion like they were supposed to, but otherwise stayed active.

It was… incredibly easy to use their time pieces to find the source of the time distortion. Apparently, the caution about it considering that it was similar to the Cuba incident was unfounded.

The tracked the distortion down to a small children’s playground in the middle of the city. There was a device attached to the bottom of one of the slides. Janus flipped it off and balance was restored to time.

“Weird,” Janus said. “It definitely does look like the device we found in Cuba, but…”

“We aren’t currently swimming in an ocean,” Remus filled in.

“Yes,” Janus said. “You’d think the same type of device would have the same effect, but this one was pretty stable.”

“The main question is still who is putting them,” reminded Remus. “These are clearly not natural. Someone is doing this, but all we’re doing is running around trying to turn them all off instead of getting to the root of the problem.” The last bit was a frustrated mumble.

“You’re right,” Janus had to agree, “but so far these things have been practically untraceable. We can’t even figure out when they’re from. The most we can do is see when they’re active.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Remus said.

“No it-” Yet, before Janus could finish, he was cut off by a shout.

“Janus,” Patton’s voice called from the opposite side of the playground. “Hi!”

“Uh…” Janus said as he approached. “Hi.” He probably shouldn’t be too shocked to see Patton hanging around time distortions. He’d shown up at many of them before, but something about him showing up after the time distortion was already fixed threw Janus off. “We already dealt with time distortion…”

“Oh, good!” Patton said. “That’s good.”

“Yea-”

“So, I was actually wondering something.”

“Er, alright,” Janus said. There was a pause. “What?”

“Oh,” Patton said. “Um. You. Well, you once mentioned that you liked ballet.”

He hadn’t actually that he could remember, but he wouldn’t be surprised if a future version of him had. “Yes,” he said. “That’s true.”

“Yeah,” Patton said. “Cool, so I have a… nephew who’s been getting into ballet. And I’m trying to learn more about it. I was wondering if you had any suggestions for things to see about ballet to help me, er, get a better idea about how… it… is. You know?”

Before Janus could think of a response, Remus spoke up. “You were a much better flirt in Cuba,” he remarked idly. Janus elbowed him harshly in the side.

“Hey, Remus, honey,” Patton said, glancing at him with a sweet smile. “I saw an interesting looking coffee shop down the road.” He started digging in his pocket. “If I give you money, would you mind getting us all something to drink.” He pulled a few bills out of his pocket.

“Yeah… okay,” Remus said with a smirk. “I see how it is.”

Patton just smiled at him and handed over the money.

“Have fun you two,” Remus said, turning on his heels and striding off.

Janus glanced back at Patton once he was gone. “So, a nephew?” Janus asked.

Patton nodded. “Yep!”

“What exactly did you want to know?”

“Erm… I dunno,” Patton said. “I don’t know enough about ballet to know what to ask about ballet.”

“Well do you want to know more about the watching side or the dancing side.”

Patton bit his lip. “Well, I guess I’d like to know more about the watching side first,” he said. “Then maybe learn some basics about the dancing stuff if my nephew wants to dance.”

“Well, I actually do know more about watching ballet than participating, so that’s good.”

Patton ended up pulling him over to sit on the swings even though there was a perfectly good bench at the edge of the playground. Janus talked a bit about ballet in general and then gave him a list of particular shows he liked. He did try to stick to the 21st century and before under the assumption that this nephew was from the same time as Patton. There was still plenty of things to talk about even with those restraints.

Patton seemed interested as he talked, pressing his face against the chain of the swing to look at him as he talked with a smile.

They spoke about ballet for about 20 minutes before Remus eventually returned from the coffee shop.

“Thanks Remus,” Patton said, taking the cup he’d offered to him.

“No problem,” Remus replied, flashing a smile.

“Well,” Patton said, “thank you for the info Janus, but I really need to be going now.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Okay.”

“See you soon!” he said, typing something into his timepiece and immediately disappearing without even checking his surroundings. He was lucky the playground was strangely empty today. He left his drink on the ground without taking a sip.

“Well,” Janus sighed once he was gone. “We should probably be getting back to the TPI anyway,” he said, taking a sip of the drink Remus had gotten him.

“A London Fog?” Janus asked.

“It was the special,” Remus said, taking a sip of his own drink.

Janus shrugged. “We’ll finish these and head back,” he said. “The mission was shorter than expected anyway. They can deal with us being gone a couple of extra minutes.”

“Mhmm.”

Janus took another sip. “About the conversation from early,” he said.

“Uh, could we maybe talk about it later?”

“Remus, you’re my friend and clearly something is bugging you.”

“It’s nothing,” Remus said. “Really.”

“It’s clearly not ‘nothing,’ Remus.”

“I… well,” Remus said. “Maybe not, but let’s not talk about it right now. We’re on a mission.”

Janus snorted. “Remus, I’ve seen you drink on the job.”

“…Right,” Remus said. “But still. Things are busy. We should probably actually head back now.”

Janus sighed. “You’re probably right,” he agreed, “but really, we should talk sometime.”

“Sometimes,” Remus agreed, “just… not now.”

“Fine,” Janus said. “Ready?” Remus nodded and Janus pulled up his timepiece and pushing the correct button to get them back to decon. Remus copied him and they both were off.

Chapter 60

Remus pretty much bolted out of decon to get away from Janus when he tried to talk to him again or at least ask if he could come by and talk to him after work. Janus felt a pit of worry start to grow in his gut. There was something wrong, but Janus didn’t know what. In fact, thinking back, maybe there had been something wrong for a while, but Janus had been too caught up in his own shit of a brain to properly address it.

He walked back to his office still thinking about it. Maybe he’d get Emile’s opinion on what to do.

The lights flickered as he entered the hallway his office was in, and he paused. That was strange. Very strange.

He frowned, planning to message someone right away about whatever the fuck that was. It was one thing to be a chaotic mess of a time travel agency; it was another to literally not be able to keep the lights on. What was going on in this place?

He stepped into his office shaking his head. To his surprise, someone was already sitting at his desk.

“Virgil?” Janus asked, confused. “What are you doing here?” It wasn’t completely unheard of for someone in cultural outreach to come physically to the TPI, but usually agents went to them. It was more convenient to them and a bit more secure for the TPI.

“Oh,” Virgil said in a tone that made Janus narrow his eyes and expect the dish washer not to be loaded. “Hey Janus. What are you doing here?”

“In my office?” Janus asked, glancing at Fred who had obviously let him in. Fred shrugged. Glad to know they had great security here.

“Right, yeah,” Virgil said. “It would be your office, huh?”

“…Yes?”

Virgil paused for a split second and took a breath to regroup. “I was actually looking for your partner.”

“Remus?” Janus asked. “Why?” Then he paused. “What on Earth did he do?”

“Nothing,” Virgil said. “Well, I mean… probably something knowing him, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Probably,” Janus agreed. “I don’t know where he is right now though. He ran off when we got back from our last mission.”

“And you have no idea where he could have gone?”

“I actually would like to talk to him too,” Janus said. “So, if I did, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Chances he’ll come back to the office?” Virgil asked, hopefully.

“Very low since he’s avoiding me.”

“Great,” Virgil said, rubbing his temples. “That’s great. Why does this have to be physically difficult as well?”

“What exactly do you need with Remus?” Janus asked, noting the way Virgil was holding himself very tensely.

“I just need to talk to him,” Virgil said.

“Yes,” Janus said. “About…?”

Virgil didn’t say anything. He just looked off to the side.

“Why is everyone acting weird today?” Janus said, almost to himself.

“I’m not!” said Fred from his corner.

Janus shot him an unamused look. “Thank you for your contribution to this conversation, Fred.”

“Look,” Virgil said, “can you just tell him I need to talk to him about something private the next time you see him?”

“What on Earth do you need to talk privately to Remus about?” Janus said.

“Just leave it, Janus,” Virgil said.

He had his lips downturned in stern way that meant he was trying to hide something from Janus by feigning annoyance. Janus titled his head. “You two aren’t…”

“No! Ew!” Virgil said, looking disgusted. “He’s somehow the worst of two options which is saying something considering the French Toast.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Virgil. “Just, can I leave a note for him, or something?”

Janus paused, looking at him. Virgil squirmed under his gaze but didn’t seem like he was going to give in anytime soon. “Fine,” Janus finally relented. “You can leave a note on his desk. I’m not sure why you didn’t just email him.”

“It’s an in-person type of conversation,” Virgil said, wringing his hands.

“Whatever you say,” Janus said, walking over to Remus’s desk and clicking the memo button that brought up a screen people who weren’t Remus could write on. “There you go,” he said.

“Thanks,” Virgil said with a relieved grin, clearly happy he was no longer being interrogated. He grabbed the stylus tied to the side of Remus’s desk. (If Janus hadn’t tied it there, it would be in Mesopotamia by now, he was sure.)

Janus turned to go back to his own desk.

“Wait,” said Virgil. “It isn’t working.”

“What do you mean?” Janus asked. “It’s a note app.”

“It’s not tracking what I write,” Virgil said. He tapped the screen with his finger. “It’s not even responding.”

Janus leaned over to take a look for himself. He tapped it a few times and there was nothing, so he tapped it a bit more aggressively. A fuzzy line went across the screen and then it shut off abruptly.

“What is wrong with things in this office lately?” Janus asked with a frown.

“My stuff just froze too,” Fred said.

The door opened then, and Lena entered the room. “The coffee makers are all offline.”

“What do you mean the coffee makers are offline?” Janus asked.

“I went to get some coffee for Fred and I and they’re not working. Any of them.”

“That’s odd,” Fred said.

“You know,” Virgil said, shifting nervously on his feet. “This seems like a bad time for me to be here. Why don’t I just come back another time or better yet, Janus, just tell Remus to come find me.”

“Yeah,” Janus agreed. “There’s a lot of things going on apparently, so it’s probably best if you leave.”

With that, Virgil brought up the time device he was using and pushed a couple of buttons to return to his university.”

However, instead of disappearing like he was meant to do, he flickered once and then was immediately on his knees with his hand over his nose.

“Shit,” Virgil hissed.

“Are you okay?” Janus asked, kneeling next to him. There was blood coming from his nose which was concerning, but his eyes focused on Janus easily enough, though he looked very startled.

“I think I just hit the shield.”

“Is your timepiece not approved?” asked Janus, pulling on his arm to see the timepiece.

“I got it approved this morning,” Virgil said, taking a tissue Fred handed to him to press it to his nose. “It’s supposed to have access to the TPI all day. I used it not even 10 minutes ago.”

Lena was already on her own time device. She pushed a button and disappeared for a moment before appearing a couple of steps away. She stumbled and was caught by Fred. “Mine’s blocked too,” she said, “I only put in to go to the entrance of the building.”

That’s when the lights went out.

Chapter 61

There was screaming from somewhere down the hall.

“Do you think that’s like when kids would scream when the teacher would turn out the lights in elementary school for a movie?” Virgil asked hopefully, voice a bit nasally since he was still holding his nose.

Janus gave him a tightlipped stare.

“Yeah,” Virgil said, “that’s what I was afraid of.”

Fred calmly reached over and shut and locked the office door.

“And what good is that going to do?” asked Virgil.

Fred glanced at him, already moving to shove Remus’s desk in front of the door. Janus instantly went to help him. “Gives us time to regroup.”

“Or it locks us in,” Virgil argued.

Janus glanced over at him. “Don’t panic,” he said.

“The fuck do you mean, don’t panic?” Virgil asked, panicking, “Do you even know me?”

Janus sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Panic as much as you want but do it quietly.”

Virgil opened his mouth to speak.

“We know what we’re doing. You do not. Contributions from you that are only fears no matter how rational are not helpful at the moment.”

Virgil shut his mouth.

Janus turned Lena and Fred. “Okay, what do we know?”

“Malfunctioning coffee makers,” Lena said. “Malfunctioning tech in general really.”

“And not just now,” Fred added, now working on barricading the window with the cabinet he kept his hot chocolate in. “There’s been issues with the whole system for a while now, and they’ve been getting worse.”

“Right,” Janus said. “I’d been blaming that on new recruits messing things up out of ignorance or IT not having enough time do normal maintenance, but if everything is down when the shields are malfunctioning, that implies something else.”

“Are the shields even malfunctioning?” Lena asked. “That implies something went wrong with the program, but what happened to Professor Eran and I is what it’s supposed to do to people who don’t have permission to cross them.”

“So, the shields might be malfunctioning,” Janus said, “or someone went in and changed the permissions.”

“Considering the tech problems we’ve been having,” Lena said, “it’s possible someone’s been playing around in the TPI the system without knowing what they’re doing.”

“Or maybe they know exactly what they’re doing,” Janus suggested, “and they wanted to see our usual protocol for small issues before giving us a big one.”

There were a few moments of silence where they all were lost in thought.

“People are still screaming,” Virgil pipped in.

“Yes,” Janus confirmed. “This is obviously not just a virtual attack.”

“Which should be the priority?” Lena asked. “The virtual attack or the physical one?”

“The virtual part will be complicated, and if we stabilize the building physically, we’ll have more time and have everyone safe,” Fred said, “but on the other hand the virtual attack is obviously what’s letting the physical attack persist. If people had access to time travel and communication, the physical attack wouldn’t matter.”

“I think-” started Janus, but he was cut off suddenly by a horrible screeching noise like metal on metal. The room they were in jolted like they were in a car that suddenly stopped and then the world was turning sideways, and they were all toppling as the floor became the wall. Janus landed on top of Virgil. Hopefully the blood now staining his shirt was from the man’s already bloody nose. “-we should probably start with the time anomaly attack!”

#study break stories #not writing

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