zarathrustra_ink

I hate my job
That's it. End of story.

Roll credits.

I wish. Honestly, when I decided to become an agent of time, I had no idea what I was signing up for. It reminds me of when you're a fresh eyed sophomore in highschool and the military starts parking their tables at your school. They lure you in with the perks, the benefits and leave off all the trauma. For some, that's enough. For others, it's about what happens after you sign those papers. (Because let’s be real and let’s be honest: If they roll in talking about PTSD and possible homelessness, would people sign as quickly?)

Now that I have a moment to mull it over, that's exactly what it's like!

I thought I would be preventing deaths, changing timelines or you know, at least fixing them. Something major like preventing slavery altogether or possibly something seemingly miniscule, like finding out who that guy was standing out there under an umbrella in a three piece suit the day JFK got assassinated. No. That's not even close to what a time cop does. Our job is to keep the timeline intact. They don't even care how we do it as long as people are dying when they're supposed to and the already deceased stay that way.

We have three main rules in our organization, but that's the most unbreakable of all the unbreakables: We aren't allowed to bring people back. Accidentally or otherwise. The dead must stay dead.

So how did I end up taking up such an occupation? What on Earth would make me sign on for not only an unforgivable, but lonely life? Believe it or not, pure ignorance. This story starts with a death and I'm telling you right now, there will be a lot of sorrow and betrayal along the way so go ahead and do what you need to prepare yourself.
Just know, it might not be enough.

The day I found myself outside Brie's hospital room, even then, as her family was huddled around her bed whispering about how her body felt warm to the touch, none of that mattered. She could have easily been sleeping, they said.

Only, she wasn't.
On that day, with tears in my eyes and fury in my heart, I realized no amount of preparation would ever be enough.

By 01/25/2011, time cops were a secret organization that EVERYBODY knew about. Well, not exactly. They were a conspiracy theorists' wet dream, is what they were. Cops traveling through time, righting wrongs and changing lives. Believe it or not, at one point, time cops were giving The Illuminati a run for their money. Videos, articles, entire college courses… You name it, Luminous Corporation was slathered across it.

That’s where all time cops come from: Luminous Corp. The light bearers. We bring the light. We light the pathway. What else was in that manual? Oh yeah, we are the torches in the darkest caverns of the past. Guess what isn’t in the manual? In order to bring the light, you must first go dark. What does that mean? The day half your pinky toe dips behind the doors of Luminous, you die. Can’t have people posting you across all social media platforms and putting that one picture where you look your most solemn, your most innocent, on a milk carton can they? (You know that picture. We all have at least one. If you don’t, there’s a good chance one of your family members has been waiting for the day your corpse hits the floor so they can produce it from a dusty ass shoe box. See, now they can save that picture for your obituary. Luminous is so considerate, aren’t they?)

As soon as you sign those contracts, before the ink starts to dry, they remove you from your own timeline. This comes with its own stipulations. You’ll come to find Luminous is nothing without their stipulations.

After you’re plucked from your timeline, they remove all memory of how or when it happened. From my understanding, it’s so that if you do revisit your timeline, you’re unable to warn yourself of anything. They also make it to where you are repelled by yourself or others attached to you. Anything more than seven feet reduces you to a pile of unusable mush. You puke. You cry. You… Other things. It takes a few days for the symptoms to subside. I should know. I’ve revisited my timeline several times. As morbid as it sounds, three years after signing the contract, I attended my own funeral. Safely tucked away, I observed row upon row of people I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years, snotting up tissues as if we broke bread together on the regular. Sure enough, there was that photo of me looking the picture of innocence and purity. (Ha!)

Since I brought up rules, we only have three. Before a contract touches a table, we are tasked with memorizing each and every syllable until they’re burned into our minds brighter than our own names.

1) You cannot alter your past or the pasts of your loved ones (Example: If you grew up poor, slipping your past self some winning lottery numbers is a no no. Poor is poor)

2) You cannot alter the timeline UNLESS a higher up signs off on it (Example: No matter how much you may want to throw caution to the wind and just smother baby Hitler, that is not allowed)

3) YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT FOR ANY REASON BRING A PERSON BACK FROM THE DEAD NOR CAN YOU ALLOW YOUR ACTIONS TO RESULT AS SUCH (If for any reason this law is broken, it is your task to right this wrong. Your failure will result in immediate TERMINATION)

I’ve touched on rule number three earlier and that’s because it’s the one rule that will find you terminated from Luminous. I’ve never witnessed anything but I’ve heard rumors about how they’ve been so pissed with an agent that they dropped him back in his timeline literally six seconds before he got hit by a bus. Was that how he died originally? There’s no way to know. Honestly, after your contract is over, depending on how you part ways, they can control whether you see old age or five minutes after you get the boot. Luminous doesn’t play about their rules. They have three. You follow ALL THREE. NO EXCEPTIONS.

Each agent is issued one weapon. Males receive a watch. Females receive a bracelet. Both items do the same thing. They are embedded with a silver dial. Two clicks to the left allows your hands to release energy bursts that will turn an opponent into a baby. No, I am not kidding. What’s even crazier, or cooler depending on what kind of headspace you’re into, three clicks to the right equals BAM! Instant geriatrics! The first time I used it in a fight, I was not ready. All the guy’s teeth fell out, his skin withered up like a raisin and a coffin popped up beside him. All he had to do was climb in. Okay, okay. I embellished a tad on the coffin. Either way, reading about it is one thing. Witnessing it takes it to an entirely different level I assure you. Beside the dial is a red ruby. The day I received my bracelet, they told me one thing: “Do not touch this unless you really mean it.” So far, I’ve never used it in combat. Did they tell me what it does? Of course not. That would be too easy.

For all other issues, we are trained in hand to hand combat.
Each agent is also issued a pair of time goggles. The left side flashes the timeline you're assigned to and the right tells you the actual assignment.

Alongside that is a stern warning of “Under no circumstances are we to expose our goggles to”...

*** Water (Submersion)

*** Extreme heat

*** Extreme cold

*** Stone/Concrete

All four could cause them to malfunction or worse, cause them to not work at all.

Most of the time, our jobs are nothing more than simple babysitting assignments, but if Noir gets involved, it can get a bit tricky.
What's Noir? See, you're asking the wrong questions. The question is "Who is Noir?" and the answer would be: Trouble. Noir was what we were fighting. Noir, meaning the darkness. I’ve always found it fascinating that Luminous had conspiracy theorists peddling their merch on all four corners of the planet (Where are my flat Earthers at?!) and yet, I’d never heard of Noir until I became an agent. As soon as you join Luminous, they make sure you know about Suri, the head of Noir. There was an entire chapter dedicated to her betrayal. We were tasked with this knowledge because at one time, she was one of us. With all the restrictions we had, knowing that defecting was possible was like dangling a million dollars in front of someone then telling them they'll never be able to grab it. (I mean, it's right there.) Noir was a constant reminder that no matter what the manual said, you could leave Luminous without being dumped in your original timeline. All you had to do was defect.

For all the time spent protecting the timeline, Noir had no such restrictions.
We brought the light.
They brought the dark.