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"I stand corrected." Jan hadn't closed his mouth since we arrived at Area 51.

"This is our library." I said as we approached the gate. "People associate this place with aliens and the great mysteries of the world."

"What they don't know is that a branch of Luminous is hiding in plain sight underneath this place." Toilyn pulled out her key card. "The general consensus is that the government keeps this place under wraps to hide any proof of life on other planets. Luminous built this place decades ago."

"For all the conspiracy theories Luminous gets thrown their way, no one has ever suspected this place…" I scanned my key card. "Our library."

"Somewhere in 2019, people were talking about storming this place." Toilyn said, backing up for the metal bars to swing open. "It was just a joke but it was all the internet could buzz about for an abysmal amount of time."

"Storming Area 51." I chuckled. "Classic."

"So what you're saying is: Aliens aren't real?" He actually sounded a bit disappointed.

"No, we're not saying that." Toilyn said, leading the way towards the elevators. She pushed the button. "We're saying they're not here."

The doors swished open. We climbed in and I pushed the button that would send us to the library; what some would refer to as a basement for how far beneath the ground we were traveling.

The entire way, Jan's mouth hung open in awe. He marveled at the gold and silver knobs on the panels, each leading to a different sector of the library. It was obvious he had millions of questions but the death glare Toilyn had yet to put away kept the inquiries at bay.

When the door opened to the floor she'd selected, she waited as Jan and I got out. "Well, this is where I leave you two." She said, reaching out to grab the door before it could close.

"What?!" I was taken aback. "Where are you going?"

"I'll catch up. I promise." She winked. "Later, losers." She thought about it. "Oh, and Jan?"

He perked up at the sound of his name.

"I have a solution for finding out what went wrong that only you can do."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. When you get there, you're going to have to put your hands over something. Can you handle that?"

He nodded and pulled out a tiny notepad and a pen. Of course he did. "What can I put my hands over?"

"Your mouth so that you can shut the hell up while Z figures this shit out." She let go of the door. It slid closed on Jan's infuriated facial expression. He shoved the notepad and pen back in his utility belt. I couldn't see her face but I knew wherever she was headed, she was laughing.

"I don't think we're going to get along." Jan shook his head. "Is she always like that?"

"We're going to the end of the hall." I said, biting my lip to keep from reacting. I walked away from him. Though it was funny, a part of me was wondering what Toilyn was up to. "There's no way a person can remember every moment in time. As much as we may attempt to cling to our memories, over time they become cloudy or we could remember the details incorrectly altogether. Because of this, Luminous built this place." I explained as I pushed thoughts of Toilyn to the back of my mind. I would deal with her later. "Every moment in time, be it great or small, is listed somewhere in this place. What we're looking for is…" I led him past a few agents. Slowly, almost comically so, each head turned to study Jan. One of these things is not like the other, I thought. I waited for one of them to say something but instead, they started whispering and one even flat out pointed.

"Um, Z? That's your name, right? Z?"

"Yes." I replied just as the baby goggles who dared to point tapped me on the shoulder. "Baby goggles" was yet another one of Toilyn's terms. This one designated for agents who hadn't touched that sweet, sweet five year line just yet. His goggles were freshly shined, a sign of a new agent, but now that we were eye level, I could see the wear and the tell tale signs of age on the lenses.
I whirled on him. He backed up three paces before gesturing at Jan. Every eye, including ones that weren't paying attention before, paused on us. "What is he doing here?" He asked, though it came off as more of a demand. "Do you even know who he is?" So not baby goggles.

"This is Jan."

"Oh, is that what he told you?" Yup, definitely not baby goggles. He had to be some sort of higher up. It was as if the agents who grabbed both Jan's arms had appeared out of thin air. He tried to jerk himself out of reach but to no avail.

"Tell her." The agent said, his voice drenched in the kind of warning you probably didn't want to get on the bad side of. My attention fell on the insignia pinned to his lapel. I'd seen that golden flame enough to know what I was looking at. He really was a higher up. "Tell her."

He and Toy would get along great. Aloud, "Tell me what?"

"This is the guy who messed with my remote." Jan nodded at the agent. "Nice to see you again, Bateman." The agent, Bateman, signaled the other agents to release Jan. "I see you're still as friendly as ever."

"So you're the Jan." The agent who had released the shoulder Jan was now rubbing said. "I've heard a lot about you. Somehow I imagined you taller and not as… " His eyes studied Jan's lithe frame. "Thin."

"Same." The other agent agreed. "How did you con her into bringing you here?"

"I didn't." Jan shrugged. "Apparently I made the assignment list."

"How did you mess up the timeline this time?" Bateman all but shouted. He looked as if he was just waiting for an excuse to jump on Jan.

Oh yeah, he and Toy would get along just fine. Aloud, "We aren't sure yet."

All three agents looked as if every fiber of their being was put into play to keep them from laughing in my face. "I brought him here to get a lead on a hunch I have." I said, ignoring their expressions. I'd seen that look so many times. I was numb to it now. I swallowed the mean remark that was festering on my tongue. "My goggles only told me what went wrong. They didn't list the cause."

"Sounds like Rurick is doing the assignments again." The right side agent said. "Last week she sent me to 1776 and didn't bother to send where in that year I was needed. I thought I was going to make sure the Declaration Of Independence went off without a hitch. Not even close." He laughed. "I didn't even get to meet Jefferson. None of them."

"You could always just go approach him yourself, you know." The other agent pointed out.

"I never do that." He replied. In what I'm sure was an attempt to project the image of a good little field agent in front of Bateman, he glanced at me. "Do you?"

Yes. Do you always fling your coworkers under the bus? I shifted my weight from one boot to the other. "Not for fun." To Bateman I said: "We won't be here long and if I find out I'm wrong, I'll return him to where I found him." Hastily I added a faint "Sir."

"He won't be needing an escort. Will you, Jan?"

"No." Jan mumbled.

I grabbed his arm to drag him away from the interrogation. Even with our backs turned, I could feel six pairs of eyes practically carving a path up our spines. When we reached the door, I shoved Jan ahead of me. He stumbled. Before he could fully react, again, his mouth was hanging open in awe.

Instead of books, the walls were lined with screens. Beneath each one was a metal bar, projecting which decade it was tasked with. I'd never been inside the library before the makeover but I could only imagine what it looked like with row upon row of bookshelves instead of screens.

As she was placing a book back on a shelf (What? I'm guessing you thought I was about to say there wasn't a single book in the entire building. Well, you would be wrong.), Juniper, our resident head librarian, noticed us.

A moment or two on Juniper. Juniper had been sixteen years old for going on a thousand years, or maybe more. None of us had any idea and from the image she projected, neither did she. Despite being one of the youngest faces in the building, she was actually one of the oldest. Though Luminous refused to recruit an agent before the age of twenty one, Juniper was a special case. Over the years, she allowed a few details to slip but for the most part, what I gathered was, without her, there would be no Luminous. Something about her paved the foundation that Luminous was built on. No one knew her original timeline or how she came to be. What I did know was she knew everything about… Well, just about everything. Her eyes, a ghastly solid white, were now pointed at us. It was a jarring experience at first but over time, it became a natural part of the library experience. Her purplish turquoise hair brushed across bare, silvery white shoulders.

"Hello!" Jan shouted suddenly. "I'm Jan!"

I didn't have a chance to warn him. Not surprisingly, he automatically assumed she was blind. It was a common misconception.

"Humor me, why would you shout at a blind person?" Juniper said. "If I couldn't see, would the bellowing of your vocal cords blast the gift of vision through me?"

"You can see?" Jan said, blushing.

"It's a good thing too. I can see your obvious ignorance from way over here. Best you not move in case it's contagious." She nodded at me. "Long time, Z." She tilted her head slowly to the right of me. "Curious. Where's Toilyn?"

I shrugged. "No idea."

Juniper chuckled. "Quite the busy body, that one. So what's on the menu today?"

"November 1999. I need to sort through the entire month."

"Follow me." She abandoned the stack of books to shuffle through Jan and I. We waited a few seconds before following. She didn't have to pause in front of the metal plaques. "I just moved the 90's to the back." Juniper was saying. "I'm hoping to have this place up to standard in a few weeks. Things got moved around during…" She glanced at Jan. "... Well, you know."

I did know. For the first time in the decades since the doors had opened, the library had suffered a perimeter breach. Noir had managed to hack our security system and because of how the computers were set up, all our information was compromised. Juniper managed to stop them before they could do any real damage but it changed her. The running gag was that she was a part of that library. From that day forward, it was no longer a joking matter. Now it was a fact. Though she never stated as much, it was obvious that she took the breach personally.

"Alright. The screen on the very end plays the year 1999." She gestured at Jan. "Make sure this one doesn't touch anything." She started to walk away, thought about it, and added: "If you need me, I'll be up front."

"I'm guessing she's not a fan of mine either." Jan said, watching Juniper. He waited until she was out of earshot before stating this though.

"You won't be making friends around here if that's what you mean." I started towards the computer she'd pointed us to. "You're not supposed to be here. I only brought you in case we were right about you."

"So you don't like me either?"

"You know what it is that I don't like?" I pulled the chair out. "People like Noir… People like you… You gain so much knowledge through time travel then you mess things up with reckless abandon."

As I was typing, he poked his nose across my shoulder: "So you've never messed with the timeline?"

"Yes and I pay for that decision almost everyday." I admitted.

"What did you do? Cause an earthquake?"

I held up my arm to show him my bracelet. "The day they gave me this was the day I learned what Luminous is really all about. I was naive. I only joined because I thought I would be able to bring…" I hesitated. "There was somebody I wanted to bring back. It took a lot of ground work on my part but eventually, I was able to get her back." I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the pain at bay. "Only it wasn't her. The day she opened her eyes was the day I learned why we protect the timeline."

"So what? She clawed out of her casket and attacked you?"

I pushed him away. "She wasn't a zombie."

For all the memories a mind chose to part ways with, there would never come a moment in time where mine would see fit to forget what it was like to bring Brie back. Nor would it erase the pain of having to let her go again.

I cleared my throat. "Do you want to know or not?"

He went to grab a chair. He spun it backwards and perched his head over the back of it.

"I'm listening."

"Before I start, just know when I got my bracelet, I thought I was going to be the first to outsmart Luminous. I thought I knew it all. I was so sure." I sighed. "I only fought for this job because I thought everything in my life would be fixed if she had never died."

"What was she? Like, your sister?"

I closed my eyes. "She was my world."