He stopped and waited for me.
“I am sorry, I forget such things. I will repay you soon,” he said, but then he turned and walked up a track leading away from the highway.
“Hey, my car and stuff are at the motel,” I said, stopping.
“Don’t worry, they’ll be perfectly safe, for you’ll be back in just a few moments.”
I hesitated, as this was outside my experience.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He continued walking, nodding but saying nothing; so I walked beside him in silence. I was glad I had my K-Bar in its sheath strapped to my calf, but I wished I had my Colt .45.
We rounded a bend and there was a small shack set back amongst some trees. He went straight up to the front door and pushed it open. It hadn’t been locked.
I followed, slightly cautious, but found myself in a pleasant enough sitting room. He put a couple of lights on.
“Sit please,” he said, pointing to an armchair.
It wasn’t a request, so I almost backed out of the room.
“Please, Ed, sit down. You have my word that you are in no danger,” he said.
I sat.
I have tried to recall exactly what happened then, but it is still hazy. I remember Michael sitting in the chair opposite mine, taking a hold of what I had thought was a cell phone, but after he pressed something, the room started to spin. I felt paralysed, being unable to move at all. He was sitting there, with that damn smile on his face. Then I blacked out.
When I came to, the room was gone. I was lying on my back on a vinyl-covered bench. Michael was standing looking down at me.
“Are you back with us?” he asked, some concern in his voice.
I sat up, shaking my head to clear it. I felt hung over. “I’m okay, what happened?”
“It often affects people the first time. But as you get used to it, it does get easier.”
“What does?”
“Come with me, all will be revealed,” he said, opening a door and walking out into a wide corridor.
It appeared to be some kind of underground command centre, as there was no natural light, and uniformed men and women were coming and going everywhere. The uniforms were black, but the insignia was unfamiliar. I immediately thought I had been snatched by Russians. I knew Russian and the writing and insignia weren’t Russian. I then began to think UFO and Aliens. I began to worry. Was I going mad?
A loud-speaker system kicked in with some announcement. It was in English, but meant nothing to me. It was directing some group to attend a centre for something.
Michael pushed open another door and entered. I followed, feeling vulnerable and nervous.
It was a rather plain but functional office. Everything was grey, black or steel. He sat down behind the desk, and pointed to another seat next to the desk.
“Ed, please sit down and I will explain. If you have any questions, and I know you will, please wait until I have finished.
“You are now in the Command Centre for an agency which goes beyond national and international boundaries. This agency has been in existence for a very long time indeed, and will be here long after you and I are no more. We recruit only the best men and women from their own eras, utilising them after they have become less useful in their chosen paths or professions. Special care is taken, so only a very few are approached to become agents. You are one of these few.
“As you are aware, technology is developing faster and faster, new concepts are becoming reality every minute of every day, so the boundaries of science are expanding so rapidly that we can hardly keep up. The universe is a fragile place, and human life is constantly being threatened by all manner of things, least of all by mankind itself.
“Firstly, you have to grasp something wholly new, for most of this centre exists outside of time.”
I started to say something, but he waved me to silence.
“Yes Ed, I know. Time, the one barrier that man repeatedly attempts to conquer, and yet continually fails - Time, the great destroyer, the great leveller, the final victor. Well, there are those who have conquered time, after a fashion, and they continually attempt to alter events for their own benefit. Fortunately, they are very few, and we are many. Their activities are obvious, and for the moment, they are detectable and preventable.
“We do not fully understand the technology that makes this centre possible, or even the technology that allows us to send our agents to their destinations. We do know that man was not the manufacturer, but merely the agent and the heir to the legacy of those ancient builders.
“Strange as it may seem, we are a law enforcement agency dedicated to preserving the laws of human history intact, so for many centuries, that very activity has been a full time job. Our main adversaries are from the distant future, so we have yet to meet them. They, like us, utilise the construct agent system, and so we have no real idea who the enemy are, or indeed, from when they originate. Their agents are snatched from different eras, very much in the same way as we recruit our officers.
“We want you to become an agent of The Time Protection Agency, and serve a different organisation as loyally and courageously as you served the United States of America.”
I sat for a moment resisting the urge to laugh. This really was weird, but then, it made some sense, in a silly sort of way. I thought about everything he had said, but all my questions were scrapped, as I fought the fog, and thought of new ones.
“You said, construct agents, what does that mean?”
“It is physically impossible to send anyone through time, either forward beyond the year 2250, or back before 1950. No one knows why, but we suspect that this period is when the centre was constructed, so we can literally step through the walls of time into the centre from any moment within that short time-frame.
“We are in a place outside the time-frame continuum right now, but you and I are still ageing. Say, for example, you wanted to go back to J.F. Kennedy’s assassination in Texas on November the 22nd, 1963. All you have to do is go to the Despatch Centre, select the date and step through a door in the fabric of time and, hey presto, you’re there.”
“Where would I end up, exactly?” I asked.
“Ah, that depends on where you’re going, but either in a deserted and secure place or a safe house. We have safe houses dotted around the world, so you would end up in one of them with a local liaison officer to assist you if necessary. Incidentally, we have a permanent officer in Dallas at that time, as the enemy seem quite keen on altering that event in history. Initially, we thought the whole event was one of theirs, but our investigation proved that it wasn’t.”
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but he held up his hand.
“Let me continue. Outside that small period from 1950 to 2250, time is still an impenetrable barrier for man to pass directly. However, our technology has a way round the problem. Based on the genetic codes of each agent, we construct humans actually in the target time, clones of sorts, and transmit the agent’s memory, intelligence and personality to their new body, so once there they act as agents until their time is up.”
“You mean until they die?”
“The only way for an agent to return is to die. But only the construct dies, remaining as a corpse in the target time. The agent’s non-corporeal aspect returns instantaneously to his or her original body, which is kept here in a stasis field.”
“What about memories, shock, trauma and the like?”
“Good question. The system has a mental buffer. You, for example, would have a construct designed and prepared for, say, the first century AD. Your body is placed into stasis, while everything about you, your memories, your DNA and genetic construction, absolutely everything that makes you an individual is downloaded into the buffer zone. There your mind is prepared by the computer system, all the additional languages, customs and skills required are also downloaded, so once complete, your mind and personality is sent to the newly constructed body at your target date and location.