I’ll always remember how out of place the white, puffy clouds seemed against the bright, blue backdrop of morning. The sky was so vibrant and full of life. The ground, on the other hand, not so much. 

Even swaddled by a winter coat, cold managed to prickle whichever pieces of me it could reach.

Gloves. I groaned.  I should have spent a little longer searching for them. Frantic hands were tossing things from under the bed when my roommate announced the arrival of Teagan, his girlfriend. Due to our history, my face was the last she wanted to see. The announcement was a formality, basically a dismissal: “I don’t know where you’re going, but it can’t be here.” Was heavily implied. 

It’s amazing how removing one cog in a machine can reveal how important that piece truly was. Nobody hears the creaks. Nobody checks the cracks. The breakdown almost always goes unnoticed at first. So unnoticed that when it finally comes crashing down, it’s almost as if out of nowhere. We were all friends once. Me, Landon, Teagan and… Mentally, I sighed. Keyword; once. Funny how without this story, you would have never known. We were strangers now.

Remnants of snow flurries from the day before sloshed beneath my every footstep. The parts that weren't smashed into the grass, clung to the bottoms of a pair of shoes I instantly regretted selecting as soon as I slammed the car door. 

Had I known the yard was going to be so watery, I probably would have put a little more effort into my excuse as to why I couldn't be there. Problem being: All the excuses I could string together fell apart the second I heard Landon's "So what're you doing today?" 

He didn't even bother to greet me. He just started talking, as if we'd only just exchanged words moments ago. This was made worse by how his voice sounded to me. Yes, he was excited, but somehow I could make out the threads of loneliness lying beneath. 

Or maybe it was the guilt I had been dragging around for the past couple months convincing me I was hearing something that wasn't even there.

I hadn't exactly been the best friend he'd always known. 

Perhaps he wasn't lonely at all. Maybe I was the lonely one.

I approached the door, smirking at the loud rock music wafting from inside. 

His text said he would be in the garage and from the sound of it, he was in the middle of a one man concert; off key. I raised my knuckles to the door. When there was still no response, I tried the doorknob. 

Some band I didn't recognize washed over me. The cold spun through the room, alerting Landon of my presence. He clapped both his hands over the naked skin of his bare arms. "Dude, it's cold as hell out there!" He exclaimed, motioning me in. "Hurry up and close the door!"

"What hurry? I almost died getting across here." I did my best to kick the slush from the bottom of my shoes before closing the door. "Have you seen your yard?"

The weirdest grin I'd ever seen curled it's way through his expression. Well, that's not creepy. 

"No, I've been out here for three days now. What's wrong with the yard?"

Three days?! "Your yard's a mess. Looks like a slushie machine puked all over the grass." I said, shrugging out of my coat. The second it was off, I wanted to pull it back on. "How are you out here like this?" 

"You'll get used to it." He pointed to the corner to the left of me. "But just in case, I brought mom's heater out." 

My thoughts were still circling the "three days" part. "Where did you sleep?" Every syllable I spoke was accompanied by a swirl of condensation reminding me this discussion could have been held in the house.

"Floor." He replied, shrugging. He nodded at some rolled up blankets. "Same as we used to when we were kids."

Back when things were normal, before his dad had got sick, before a lot of things, Landon and I used to camp out in the garage all the time. We were allowed to as long as we kept our hands off the tools. 

I dragged the heater over to a plug, questioning my sanity on the way. "So what's up?" 

“I wanted you to see this in person. You're definitely going to be glad I called you." He said, cackling like a mad scientist.

"See what?"

"Well, you definitely won't be seeing much of anything over there." He said. The closer I became, the more excited he got. "Come on! I feel like you're walking slow on purpose!" When I reached the table, he pointed at a cardboard box. It was entirely too large to say there wasn't much of anything in it outside of broken glass and gears.

"Really?! I cut like, fourteen lanes of traffic for a box of scraps?!"

"Not just any scraps." He assured me, turning over the box. Two cracked lenses, some knobs, and a mess of wires rolled out. "Luminous scraps."

I rolled my eyes. "Man, how many times do I have to tell you that shit ain't real?" I grumbled.

"And how many times do I have to tell you that it is?" 

"Until you can prove it."

He fluttered his hand dramatically over what I could only see as junk. "Well, here it is."

"Um, dude… No." 

He picked up one of the lenses. "This is what's left of a pair of their goggles." He said, flicking it at me.

I snatched it from the air between us. "Let me get this straight: You called me all the way over here to sort through some trash?"

"Luminous trash!" He declared confidently. "I'm telling you, man. I know I'm right."

"Landon…" I groaned, recalling how many times my friend had been "right" in the past. There was the time he was "right about a bracelet". Oh, and let's not forget the time he was "right about these boots". No, no… The time he was "right about this watch because it has the Luminous insignia on it" and this was after me warning him countless times that he had no idea what their insignia looked like because Luminous didn't exist. Before cancer, the organization was just a passing hobby for him. He collected all sorts of memorabilia and talked constantly about what he would do if it were real, the same as one would while daydreaming over what they would do if they ever won the lottery.

After his dad passed and his mom practically became a zombie, Luminous went from being just a hobby to taking over Landon's life.

"Honestly, this looks like a smashed pair of some steampunk goggles you could get off eBay." I said, shrugging. The majority of his memorabilia was purchased off that site. If the place did exist, there was a good chance almost every penny Landon earned was funding it.

"Funny you should mention that." He walked over to one of the shelves to collect two more boxes. 

"What's that?" 

He cut the tape off both boxes. As I looked on, trying to contain my annoyance, he popped open the flaps, revealing two pairs of goggles. "This is how I'm going to fix those." He dangled one set in front of me. "Amazon has them too."

I smirked despite myself. "You're going to use cosplay goggles to fix something that is allegedly technology based?" 

"All I need is the base. I think all the wires and knobs are here." 

"How would you know that?" I snatched the goggles from his finger. "For all you know this mess goes to something else."

"Oh, ye of little faith." 

"Which brings me to, once again, why did you call me?"

"Because I'm going to make you eat your words. Luminous does exist." 

"You could've sent that through text." 

"I know." He started fiddling with the wires in an effort to avoid eye contact. "It's just, we haven't really hung out since… Ya know…"

By the inflection in his voice, I knew he wasn't about to make this about his dad. This one was on me. He didn't need to say Kara's name for the implication to suddenly suck all the air out of the garage. Not too long after his dad, I found myself burying my girlfriend after some drunk ran her off the road. I tried to lay my feelings alongside her, but just the idea of her was still damn near crippling and I hated it. Though he was careful not to say her name, it was instantly my only focal point. 

Kara. Kara. Kara. 

She was the missing cog. Virtually overnight, Teagan became somebody we used to know. Her breakup with Landon came swiftly and blindsided the both of us. In hindsight, it explained why even after taking up with my roommate, she refused to see me. I was a dark smudge; a reminder of the past. She was ready for a future and it was obvious that the one she craved didn’t center around us.

Over time, not long after Teagan disappeared, though our friendship existed long before there was a Kara or even a Teagan for that matter, my interactions with Landon became less and less until they were almost nonexistent. No longer did I check in with him. 

His mom may have become a zombie, but I had become a ghost. The cold now forgotten, I was suddenly very hot, almost suffocatingly so.

Immediately noticing the change in me, Landon's expression fell. "Sorry man. I didn't mean to… I mean, I wasn't trying to… Ya know…" He went to one of the lower shelves to grab a toolbox. 

"The anniversary is coming up." I said, offering to help lift it onto the table. 

"I know. My dad's just passed, remember?" We hoisted the toolbox onto the table. He was unlocking it when he paused to look at me. "You can't keep closing yourself off, man. It won't-"

Anger welled up in my chest. "If you're about to tell me it won't bring her back, I'm about to leave." I wanted to say something along the lines of "I'm not you," but no matter how annoying his antics could be, this was still Landon. 

He shifted his attention back to the toolbox. "Dammit, I forgot the keys. Be right back."

The door swished open, spinning a new wave of cold through the room before closing, leaving me alone. I turned to the mess of wires Landon had abandoned. 

Something about them caught my eye. All the lines had tiny inscriptions on them. It wasn't in any language I'd ever seen but with English and one semester of French being my only sources, there was no telling what I was looking at.

Cold wind swirled through the room once more, announcing Landon's return. "Have you ever seen electrical stuff like that before?" He asked. 

I turned to the sound of jingling keys. "Dude, what happened?!"

His fingers were dusting frantically through the tangled locks on his scalp. "Don't you dare laugh!" He shouted. 

I swallowed the lump of laughter that was making its way up my vocal cords. "What happened?" I repeated, this time, strained.

He was still swiping at his hair. Flakes of white fluttered free, disappearing midair. "I fell, okay? Damn, ya happy?"

I couldn't hold it any longer. Landon's head yerked upwards at the sound, as if it had been ages since he last heard a laugh. He stared at me; one hand still on the wires, the other on my chest.

The smile started in his eyes first. It weaved a slow line through his features until it was a full on laugh. 

He wiped his eyes in order to sober, took one look at me, then dissolved into a fit all over again.

I was the first to stop. Probably because standing there laughing with my friend felt surreal, as if it were someone else's experience. 

"So," Landon shook his mind free. "Keys." He crossed to the toolbox, still smiling broadly. "I've missed you, man." 

I nodded, but didn't speak, anticipating my next sound to not be as upbeat as the last. Seemingly from nowhere, tears had formed in the brims of my eyes.

The lid flipped open, revealing his dad's tools. Landon selected a few pieces. "Even if it's a waste of time," He said, tossing me a screwdriver. "I was thinking it would be a good way for us to spend time…" He shrugged. "I dunno. Together. Like the old days.” 

There was so much I wanted to say, starting with a heartfelt apology, but nothing came. Instead, Landon nodded as if I'd been speaking the entire time then we went to work. 

******

Over the next couple months, Landon and I practically lived a silent existence in his garage. The only signs of life were the clicking of tools or an occasional food inquiry. 

Though I didn't believe in Luminous, after that first day, I no longer felt the need to poke holes in his theories. His obsession had become my focal point. 

It was the middle of summer when Landon finally snapped the lenses in place. He'd assumed this to be a one and done task, but there were no instructions to sift through. All the knobs and buttons needed replacements and don't get me started on the quest for a new keypad. As I said, it had been months.

He grabbed a cloth and some glass cleaner. "So, what do you think?" He asked, spraying them down.

Mentally: I think we just poured months into some expensive ass cosplay goggles. Aloud: "This was your project, man. What do you think?" 

"What powers these things?" He said absently. He continued to shine though there wasn't a speck of dust on them. "I mean, I didn't notice a charging port or anything." He flipped them over. "Did you?" 

That's because they're cosplay goggles! "No."

He started pushing the buttons, avoiding the numbers. 

I looked on, awaiting his inevitable disappointment. Suddenly, the lenses lit up. A deep, golden hue reflected back at me. "Hey, what did you just do?!" 

"Huh? Why?" 

Those things had to have cost thousands. Landon turned them in order to see what I was talking about. A few numbers had appeared on the left side. "I wonder what these are." He was a little too calm for me. "They're warm." He ran his fingers across the keypad. Immediately, the numbers on the front reacted, warping to a new set. "Wow."

"Wow?" I repeated. That's it?  "Are you going to sell them?"

His face folded into an offended scowl. "Why would I sell them?" 

"They've got to be worth a mint." I noted. "Where did you say you found them again?"

"I didn't." He said, now eyeing me suspiciously. "And here I thought these last couple months had opened your mind a little.”

There isn't a person alive who isn't open to money. I was thinking this at the same time as his "I'm going to use them."

"For what?" I hadn't noticed a costume anywhere. "Is Comicon coming up?"

He sighed. "I'm telling you, Luminous is real."

No. No, it really isn't. The look on his face kept those words off my tongue though. If he wanted to believe, who was I to challenge his faith? Instead, I inquired about the aspect of "using them". 

His expression softened, but not by much. "If my research is right, these are how they travel."

They?

"You know, their agents." He must've read the confusion right off my eyebrows. "The goggles receive their coordinates then transport them anywhere across time. Well, almost anywhere. Apparently they're not allowed to cross their own paths in time."

I zoned out. He might as well have been speaking in calligraphy. "Since you're such an expert, what are those numbers?"

He frowned. "Now that, I don't know." He typed something else. "Ugh."

"What?"

"I don't want you to be right. I really don't. I need it to be real." He leaned in closer, his nose almost grazing the buttons. "It just has to be." His face contorted into a pained look. "I mean, imagine having that kind of power, man. I could bring back my dad." Again, he didn't speak her name, but the look in his eyes when he looked up at me was enough to know that Kara had also made the cut in his crusade. His voice cracked. "What's wrong with me wanting everything back to how it was?" His fingers flitted across something else. "I just want my life back." On the right, some words appeared. And with that, POP! I was alone in the garage. 

I ran to the now empty spot. "Landon!" The toolbox rattled across the floor, sending tools sprawling everywhere as I all but threw myself under the workbench. Prayers for a prank went unheard. He wasn't there. I tripped over my shoelaces, stumbling to throw open the door. "Landon!" Again, nothing. I ran across the grass, tossing his name every few feet. My shouts were swallowed by the windy night air. "Landon!" 

His mom. I ran to the house. It seemed as if my fist reached the door before the rest of my body had a chance to hit the porch. "Mrs. Pereira!" I slammed my knuckles against the wood harder. "Mrs. Pereira!" 

I was on my way to try the backdoor when I made out the sound of hinges groaning to an open door. She seemed confused to see me darting up the porch, as if I'd shook her from a dream. She offered no words of her own. Instead, she continued to stare, seemingly through me. 

"Mrs. Pereira?" 

I hadn't noticed the smell of alcohol before, but now there was no mistaking the putrid aroma twirling in the air between us. Slowly, almost painstakingly so, cobwebs of slumber crept from a pair of blue eyes. Just when I thought she was about to ask who I was, her lips parted in a silent inquiry. Instead of speaking, she pulled the sash to her robe a little tighter. 

"I hate to bother you, Mrs. Pereira, but have you seen Landon?"

The woman that I knew, who found time to bake chocolate chip cookies for each and every sleepover Landon and I had ever had and the woman who was staring off into the space behind me, clutching her robe as if I were a stranger, were not one in the same. I almost expected her to say "Landon who?" Instead, she squinted. "Isn't he with you? He told me you two were working on something huge."

Up until that exact second, it hadn't occurred to me that I hadn't seen so much as a hint of her the entire time we were in the garage. To my recollection, I hadn't even asked about her. I wanted to shove the blame on Landon for not bringing her up, but it wasn't his fault. I should have asked. The tips of my ears flamed with unspoken embarrassment.

Guilt coated every syllable. "He isn't in the garage."

She blinked. It was a sluggish gesture. The sweep of her cheeks was so stagnant, she could have easily been asleep and I wouldn't have known the difference. "It's okay. It's fine." She said suddenly. "He never goes far. I'll tell him you were looking for him when he gets back."

Before she closed the door in my face, I already knew it was a long shot, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that her son had vanished. 

******

"Then what happened?"

I met the gray eyes across from me. "What do you mean?" 

"Sounds to me like you didn't even believe in Luminous… What flipped all that?"

I frowned at the memory ambling through my mind. "Murder." 

"Murder?" She repeated me, only her version didn't sound nearly as forlorn. 

"They thought I killed him." I said. "His mom was sure of it. She told every ear that would entertain her." Memories of cops swarming my dormitory couldn't be erased. For how many cars that scattered the campus, you would have thought I'd taken hostages. My hands in handcuffs. My roommate's shouts of "What did you do?!" over and over. To pour salt into the wound, his arms were wrapped around Teagan in a protective embrace, as if whatever it was, I was already convicted. "As soon as I made bail, my research into Luminous began and the rest, as they say, is history."

"Did you ever find him?" 

"Who?" 

"Your friend… Ol' whatshisface… I mean, Landon. Did you ever figure out what happened to him?"

Momentarily forgotten, memories of Landon crawled back to the front of my thoughts. In the few months since receiving my goggles, I hadn't seen nor heard from or about him. I wouldn't allow myself to embrace the idea that he was dead though. I couldn't. He was out there. He had been right about Luminous the whole time. He needed to hear it and it needed to come from me. 

"No." I shook my head. "He really did vanish." The initial reason for accepting my goggles was to return Landon to his mom, but alongside the fates of several agents before me, I found this to be an illegal action. There would be no bringing him back. 

Not by any of my efforts anyway.

"That's crazy." The girl said. 

Crazy? I glanced up at her again. A sympathetic smile greeted me. Pulled away from her face was a reddish brown ponytail. She started to stand, causing it to sway, but thought better of it. Instead, a gloved hand was shoved in my direction. "I don't think I caught your name earlier."

"Caleb." 

"Caleb?" She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Which one are you? I'm looking for Caleb A."

"That would be me."

She smacked her head. "That's crazy! Something told me it was you!" She bobbed my hand up and down enthusiastically. "I'm Ava! You're part of our group."

"Group?" 

"Yeah, they're grouping us in fours for something major." She shrugged, releasing my hand. "No idea what that is, but it's me, you, a girl named Odyssey and some guy called Bob." She grinned. "I wonder if that's his real name. Who the hell would willingly go by the name Bob?"

I stared at her until the voice was stripped away, leaving only the movement of her lips. To anyone else, her immediate friendliness might have felt warm and inviting. To me, it seemed intrusive. My goggles hadn't been on my head for long, but they'd been there long enough for me to understand that "groups" weren't the normal. 

Again, Landon weaved his way through my thoughts. His original investment in Luminous wasn't from a selfish place. It was just a concept he immersed himself in, the same as one would with comic books or anime. So many things had "gone wrong" since then.

His dad. 

Kara.

His mom.

Me.

Desperation had taken over. Or at least, that's what I'd told myself. His desperation to be a bandaid in all our lives was so deeply rooted that he was willing to throw his entire soul behind something nobody believed in.

I'd told myself so many things about my best friend. I'd called him delusional, desperate and on more than one occasion, crazy.

Only to discover how right he truly was. I was the one who was wrong.

"Hey, Earth to Caleb?" A pair of fingers snapped in front of my face. She grinned at my reaction. "Where did you go?"

When I didn't respond, she said: "I was saying I think that's Odyssey and Bob." She made a face at "Bob" before pointing across my shoulder. Lace from her bracelet brushed my left cheek. "Over there by the door. I'm going to go check." She pushed from the table. She was on her way past me when she paused and backed up a few paces. "You know, you could always come along."

"Thanks." I replied, shaking my head. Tears were starting to well in my eyes. "But no."

I couldn't let her see my shame. I hadn't killed him, but everyday I was haunted with one burning question: Would things have gone differently had I believed not in Luminous itself, but in him?

The answer to this was harsher and loomed over me no matter where I was in time…

Even with all the advanced technology at my fingertips, there was a strong possibility that I may never know.

For four days, we took turns playing look out while Jan slept. Every time his body would stir, the glow would return. It didn't work when Toilyn tried, but for me, when I would touch him, the blue and gold would calm itself, once again out of sight, but never out of mind.

"What's that all about?" She'd questioned on the second night. 

I removed my hand from Jan's chest to turn to her. "What?"

"He wasn't a traffic light last we saw him unless I missed something." 

I shrugged. I had as much understanding as she did: None. 

"You should get some sleep." Toilyn advised as I followed her down the stairs. Again, we were huddled inside the doctor's home. Not the best plan, but at the moment, our only plan. We had no idea what was going on at Luminous. There weren't many available options. 

"Hey, what's that look?" Toilyn waved her hand in front of my face. "Cheer up. We're still alive."

"For now." I replied, throwing my legs over the arm of the loveseat. 

Toilyn settled across from me on the couch. "It's been three days."

Exactly. I thought, rolling everything through my mind like a tumbleweed. It felt as if we'd been in this forever, but only a small amount of time had passed. In three days, how were we still alive?

"You never explained what happened back there." I said, changing the subject. "At Noir."

"Which part?" 

I mimicked how she'd held up her palms in the lab.

"So you're saying you've never pushed the red jewel?" She tapped hers with the nail on her middle finger. 

"Obviously." 

She fiddled with the lace on her bracelet. "It's a kill switch. Ashes everything the beam touches. Well, no. That's not quite accurate. I think our moods control it because I've used it to subdue a few agents without actually killing them." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "I'm sure they wished I had though. It's never pretty."

"Is that why your record at Luminous is so long?"

She continued to fiddle with the lace, now guiltily. "I don't use it often, but it has gotten me out of a lot of tight spots." She smiled thoughtfully. "Since Jan messed with yours, it probably spits out roses or some shit now."

Jan… Somehow all conversations led back to him. I turned my nose upwards as if he could be seen through the floorboards. 

"Hey, he's going to wake up and we're going to save the world…" Toilyn's gaze took its place alongside mine on the ceiling.

"What do you think they did to him?" 

She moved as if she was going to shrug, but thought better of it. "Have you considered that whatever happened to Jan, Luminous knew it had to happen?"

Yes. No matter how much I didn't want to absorb the suspicion, I couldn't shake the feeling. Aloud: "But what?"

She rested her elbows on her knees. "The tech."

"What about it?"

"If Bateman's assignment was to watch Jan, Luminous had to know that Noir would eventually get interested in him."

"The remote, Toy. We already knew that."

"What if Noir's motivations were about his remote, but Luminous' are about the rest of it?"

She had my attention now. "He can't do anything else."

"Oh yes he can." She nodded thoughtfully. "Remember how his chest had all that dried up blood with no marks?" She crossed a line on her chest. Two more before: "He can heal himself. All of this has to have something to do with that tech."

"Altura!" I sat straight up excitedly. "When Gillian cornered me in her office, she said that my meddling turned two assignments into one."

She mumbled something.

"Huh? What?"

She jumped up and started pacing back and forth around the coffee table. On her seventh rotation, she snapped her fingers triumphantly.

"Care to share with the rest of the congregation?" 

"Him! Jan!"

Oh, well that explains everything… "Him, Jan… What?" 

"I think…" She clapped her hands. "No, I'm almost certain. Jan's the cure." 

"That would mean Luminous knew he needed to be captured by Noir for his tech to… I don't know. Whatever they did to him." 

"Whatever it takes." Only the voice wasn't coming from either of us. Coming down the stairs, slowly, slowly… Almost as if she was floating, was the last face I expected to see: Juniper. "Z…" She greeted as her boot lifted from the final stair. "Toylin…" Inside the corridors of Luminous, her essence always carried a familiar air, almost as if she was meant to be there, but here… Here inside our “safe house” she seemed out of place, otherworldly even; reminding me that she always was, we’d just somehow forgotten. Juniper just was and at that moment, she was outside the library, where we’d never seen. Where she didn’t belong.  

Turquoise and purple waves of hair swayed from side to side as she glided around the couch. She came to a stop beside Toilyn, whose mouth was now hanging open. 

"Are you planning on catching flies in that thing?" She smiled, though the humor didn't quite touch the glassiness of her white eyes. She waved at the couch behind them. "Shall we sit?"

Toilyn didn't relax until Juniper had already taken a seat and even then, she took her place apprehensively. 

"Don’t you have some books to file?" 

"Gillian thought it best if I come." 

"Toilyn's right, isn't she?" I questioned. There was no need for pleasantries, only honesty.

"For the most part." Juniper's voice swirled through the room, brushing every surface like a feather. 

Toilyn gritted her teeth. "Luminous knew then. Luminous knew the whole time." 

"I knew." Juniper said quietly.

"You're Luminous!" I snapped. 

Juniper's head jerked up at the harshness in my voice. "Not everything that exists within those walls is Luminous." She paused as if contemplating her words. She nodded though neither Toilyn nor I had uttered a sound. "I saved your job all those years ago."

She didn't go into specifics but then again, it wasn't needed. The trimmers of Brie's ghost never left the deepest caverns of my subconscious. No matter the lengths I took to cast her out, she would always be there, lying in wait.

"Gillian was going to terminate you, but I couldn't allow that to happen. I knew in order for the timeline to be spared, you had to exist." Juniper continued. 

"Then why were they trying to take her off the case?!" Toilyn demanded. 

"Because I told her you needed to believe nobody would go after him." 

"Wait… What?" I didn't like how any of this sounded. They used me… Us. They used us. "You tricked me!"

"I knew Toilyn wouldn't let you go after him alone, yes." Again, Juniper's head was nodding and again, I didn't like what was falling from her face.

"We could have died!" Toilyn exclaimed, jumping to her feet. I knew that fiery burning in her gaze all too well. She was already flexing her fingers.

"I knew because of her bond with Jan…"

"Who?! Not me!" Juniper was one wrong syllable away from Toilyn's fist connecting with every body part they felt like pummeling. 

"No. Not you." If Juniper was worried in any way about Toilyn, her poker face was unclockable. "You."

"We don't have a-"

Her hand was up, swatting my protests away. "I knew you wouldn't stop until you had him back."

"No, stop trying to pretty this up, Juniper. Luminous sacrificed us." Toilyn said angrily. "Nine times out of ten, since Z had broken law before, Gillian had no problem sending her in there with no back up. In her eyes, Z is expendable."

"You were there." Juniper stated matter of factly. "As I knew you would be."

"Only me!" Toilyn's fists were shaking now. "That means in your eyes, I'm expendable too!"

"And yet, you made sure she made it out." Her face still a mask of tranquility, she glanced up at Toilyn. "As I knew you would."

"I'm going to check on Jan before I do something I won't regret." Toilyn turned on her heels and stomped away from the living room. She continued to stomp each and every step until she was at the top. 

"Are you angry with me too?"

Yes. Aloud: "No, I'm confused. When I was at the library… Juniper, you spoke to me." Something clicked. "Wait a second, when I came to you for advice, were you just keeping me distracted?"

"He had to open the letter." That wasn't an admission, but all the same, it spoke volumes. 

"But the wreck, his assistant, none of it was his fault."

Glassy white eyes cascaded through the betrayal in my expression. "He needed to believe it was." She blinked once. Twice. "Had he not humbled himself, neither you nor Toilyn would be alive. Opening that letter set into motion the man who protected the both of you." She stood. "I'm not apologetic in any way if that's what you're seeking. He's the cure. One man can save millions of lives in this timeline."

"But what about us, Juniper? What about me? I thought… I thought we were friends. Wait… Where are you going?"

Her tiny feet were almost at the stairs, as if I wasn't questioning every conversation that had ever passed between us. Light illuminated the curtains, allowing sunlight to peek through as the sun rose. The shroud of what was left of night had slowly fallen away during our conversation, giving way to the fourth day. "He's about to wake up." Her hand on the banister, Juniper paused to look at me. "My silence gave him the push he needed to protect you." Even with the distance, I could tell that I'd hurt her somehow. Oh, the irony! She allowed Luminous to use us for a suicide mission and somehow I was being offensive. Before I could raise this point, she continued: "Don't ever question my love for you, Z. We are friends."

******

I had no concept of time. It could have been hours, possibly days. For however long, when I regained consciousness, my wrists were bound above my head. Some type of conversation was always happening around me. How frazzled it sounded, they were determined for me to wake up. Whoever "they" were. 

I had no idea when someone had graciously relieved me of my shirt, but I was reminded to thank them every time that sliver of leather lashed across my bare chest. Sometimes it was needles. I had overheard them mentioning they were attempting to synthesize the pills in my utility belt. From what I could gather with strained hearing, they were shooting me up with it like I was some kind of a fiend. Though their curiosity was keeping me alive, something about the revelation didn't sit right with me.

One thing I was careful to make note of was how I was hardly ever alone. There was always the sound of shoes in the room, except when those shoes were boots. Somehow I knew the boots were more important. They carried a different kind of weight. 

Female weight, I'd theorized by the aroma of perfume wafting towards my nostrils whenever she was near. 

Another day had come to a close, or so I'd told myself. 

Again, I could hear boots. Step. Step. Step. The same steps I had been listening to for the longest, but dared not lift my head. If she knows you’re awake, she’ll come over here. I warned myself. Somehow I knew this to be true. Though I willed myself to remain statuesque, the silent chant meant absolutely nothing to her. The more I mentally begged her not to, the closer she came until I could feel the warmth of her breath tickling my skin. I resisted the urge to jerk away as she ran her fingers along an already healed lash across my stomach.

“I know you’re awake.” Her words were like a fist punching through my chest to grip my heart. Almost instantly, it started to beat faster. “I can see the sweat beading on your brow.” I couldn’t help but wonder if she could smell the terror seeping from my pores. She backed up a few inches. I couldn’t see her, but I was still aware of her presence. Whenever anyone else was with me, they paid the doors no mind. Everything about her felt different, right down to how she vacated the room. She was always careful to close the door behind herself. 

“Do you know where you are?” From the sound of it, she was further away now. A lot further. Good.

Don’t open your eyes… Don’t open your eyes… The last thing I remembered was saving Toilyn's life. After that, my entire existence was a blur.  Time seemed to pass slowly yet, I was aware the world was ambling along without me. I had no idea how long my hands had been roped to that ceiling, but I knew it had been forever since I was near a friendly face. Z… Toilyn… Were they alive?... And if they were, were they elsewhere in a similar predicament? 

Through the slits that I would chance here and there, I could tell I was in a lab of sorts. I had no idea who she was, but I could make out a hazy view of the boots I'd come to memorize. They were a deep, leathery brown. Above those, she was wearing a black jumper. Swaying in the small of her back was a long, sleek, black braid. Her hand was hovering over a metal table, in deep thought. Finally she selected a syringe. She flicked the needle before holding it up to the light.

When I first awoke, because she was always alone, I thought I'd imagined myself a companion. A few days later, maybe she was a ghost. (Or maybe I was hyping up my thoughts to override my common sense.) Either way, neither was not the case. The hands I was watching were of a darker complexion. Definitely real, definitely alive. 

"Dax!"

I knew that name. This was bad. A separate set of boots shuffled into the lab. I barely had enough time to reclose my eyes. 

"You screamed?"

"Funny." She didn't sound like it was hilarious in the slightest. "Did you find Dr. Patil?"

"Yes. I disposed of him. We caught up to the wife, but we're unable to locate the kids."

"Forget the kids. A man is more likely to spill his guts to the woman of the house. Not the babies."

"Suri…"

Suri. Did I say bad? I was mistaken. This was the stuff of nightmares. "Going by your tone, I can tell I'm not going to like what you're about to say next." I could hear movement. Possibly her turning to face him. "Let me guess: Your team didn't locate the blueprint." 

His reply was inaudible, but her "Dammit, Dax!" was not. "How could you have been so careless in the first place?!" The sound of a slap resonated through the room. "Find them!"

"Suri…"

"Don't Suri me…" She mimicked his tone flawlessly. "Do you realize what your stupidity may have cost us?!"

"Stupidity? Need I remind you that you were the one who insisted upon toting them to the college? Why were they on you in the first place?"

Sounds of a struggle, at first. Those merged into ones of a different kind of connection. Were they really… Yep, no mistaking that sound. They were full on making out like I wasn't hanging just a few feet away. Ugh… Dax and Suri… Ew. Just wait 'til I tell Z. Mentally, I sighed. If I live that long.

"You worry too much." Dax's voice whispered into what I imagined were a pair of lustful eyes attached to a sadist. 

"We almost didn't grab him!" I was ninety-six percent certain the "him" in question was me. "If we're going to crush Luminous once and for all, there can be no more mistakes." 

"There won't be. Let me handle this." 

A few days later, or nights, or whenever, for some reason, I could tell something had happened. I didn’t feel any different as they bustled about me, but I knew something wasn’t the same as it had been. For one, though movement in the room always felt unsure and rushed, this felt more grave, as if they were trying to move onto something else. I waited just in case someone decided to double back. Finally, I couldn’t take the suspense any longer. I opened my eyes to a tiny slit. I looked down at my torso. It appeared no different than the last time I’d seen it. Whenever that was. Bruised but nonetheless, healed. I studied my pants then chanced a look at my arms. Both sets were filthy but at least I wasn't just a Christmas ornament in my boxers. For all intents and purposes, I was relatively unharmed. I was so busy scrutinizing my limbs that I didn’t hear the footsteps at the door. The knob turned slowly, catching my attention.

I barely had time for my eyes to slam close before Suri burst into the room: “Wake up!” She slapped me. It stung, but with all the practice of staying motionless, I had enough common sense to not react. She did it again.

"I know you're awake!" She pressed my cheeks between either of her fingers, hard. "All we needed was your tech!"

She shoved me away from her. I could make out the sounds of her pacing back and forth. "If they're here, (Somebody's here!) there has to be more to you than that stupid remote." She jabbed a finger at my chest. "Marlo!"

"Yes ma'am?" 

"Get the defibrillator."

"Ma'am? Why?"

"If he wants to pretend to be a corpse, perhaps we should treat him as such."

"Ma'am?"

"If you ma'am me one more time… Get the defibrillator, Marlo!"

Instantly, all pretenses drained from me. My heart began to race; threatening to tear its way out of my chest. I struggled against the restraints.

Suri grabbed me once more. "I knew you were awake." She sneered though I had yet to open my eyes. I didn't know what was about to happen, but my knowledge of defibrillators was enough to know I didn't want to watch it happen.

I could hear the door opening again. "Shiloh, where's Marlo?" 

"Suri, you can't do this." Came the response. "This is Dax. This isn't you."

"I don't know why you're even here. Where is your idiotic brother?! He's such a waste. I don't know why you insist on keeping him around." Suri snapped.

"The same reason you've obviously forgotten about." I heard whoever Shiloh was, murmuring. 

"What did you just say?"

"N-Nothing." Came the hasty response. "That's right. Now, bring me the damn defibrillator!"

"Suri…"

"Now Shiloh or you'll be the next thing I hang from this ceiling!"

There was a short silence. A set of nails raked my torso, a small warning that Suri was still present. I could hear the door reopening. Three words, full of reluctance, filled my ears: "Plug it in.

Please… There was enough hesitation for me to scrape together a little hope. All of it dissolved under Shiloh's sigh of resignation. "Just turn this dial and when you're ready…"

"I know how to use it!" The sounds of what I assumed was Suri snatching the paddles from Shiloh prickled my eyelashes. "Get out!"

"Are you sure?"

"I want that damn tech!"

The cool touch of metal caressed my skin. I yerked away from the invasion. "All you have to do is tell me what I want to know." When there was no response, she tiptoed so close to me that I could smell what she had for lunch on her breath. "Fine then."

There was no need to shout "Clear!" This wasn't a medical drama. 

I couldn't keep my eyes closed any longer. Every piece of me felt like it was on fire. A scream ripped from my vocal cords. I thought I knew every sound that my body could ever produce, but no. Pain tore from every part of me and there was nothing I could do. 

Her laughing face warped into an expression of pain. She clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop it!” She shrieked.

Blue began to tear from my feet. It started as a slow burn, at the tips of my toes before crawling up my legs. I attempted to close my mind off from the pain, but it rippled from me anyway. I was a slave to the throbbing agony.

“Stop it!” She was screaming now. Our screams mingled in the middle of the floor. The blue was now curling from the tips of my fingers. It poured uncontrollably from me. She tried to scramble from the room but the glow had all but blinded her.  She clambered to a wall in order to feel her way out.

"Shiloh?!" She steadied herself on a piece of railing. "Dammit, Shiloh?!" I could still make out her screeching for Shiloh as she frantically pulled herself through the door.

Toilyn… Z... 

There was a time where I imagined our paths crossing again. Were these my last moments, I didn't want to waste them crippled with torment. I wanted to think of better times, better scenery. I wanted to remember how Toilyn's nose would scrunch up right before she said something sarcastic or how Z would smile at nothing in particular when she thought nobody was watching. I wanted to embrace them. No, cling… I was clinging to them. Neither of them liked me much, but they were friends… My friends…

And I loved them.

My lips parted, releasing the only sound that meant anything to me: “Z...”

And then, the world went dark. 

Toilyn and I had been sitting in front of Gillian's office for what felt like an eternity. Every once in a while, a lower ranking agent would stop to wish us luck. 

Facetime with Gillian was reserved for the higher ups and Toilyn and I were practically the lowest level of bottom feeders. If we saw more than the hem of her pants, it was considered noteworthy. "This is ridiculous. I'm just going to walk in there." When I didn't say anything, she smiled: "What?"

"Don't hold back on my account." I retorted. "I want to see you kick that door in." I was only partially joking. I stood up. "I'm going to knock again. There's no way she doesn't know we're out here." 

My fist didn't get the chance to touch the wood. It swung open, revealing Rurick, Gillian's assistant. A quick scan over and around her revealed that she was alone.

"I need to speak to Gillian. It's urgent."

"Come in." Rurick said, watching Toilyn stand to join me. "No, no." She shook her head. "Just her." She stepped back far enough for me to pass. With one last glance at Toilyn, the door closed. 

"Rurick, I-"

"You're Z, correct?" She interrupted as if this was the first time our paths had ever crossed.

"Look-"

"You know Gillian doesn't open her office unless it's an emergency."

"I said it was urgent when you opened the door." Realizing the irritated tone I'd suddenly taken, I quickly threw a "ma'am" on the end. 

"So you did." She turned on her heels to face me: "Am I to assume that your insistence on seeing Gillian has to do with a failed assignment?"

No. Yes. No… With yes undertones? I almost shrugged. "It has to do with my current assignment." I held up Dr. Patil's toggle switch. "It has to do with this." 

She leaned against the corner of the desk behind her. As she folded her arms, a few wisps of hair slipped away from the severe, raven colored bun atop her scalp. "And Gillian is supposed to…?"

I hadn't thought that far ahead. "I lost Jan." Though the voice had fallen from my lips, I still couldn't believe the words were being said. 

"What's that?" She jabbed a finger at my hand. "Does it go with that thing?"

"It…" He. "He's a person. He's my assignment." 

"Well, where is he then?"

Even as she was asking, I could tell she already knew. The inquiry was nothing more than a formality. 

Anger slid to the front of my thoughts: "You already know, don't you?"

She smiled coyly, reminding me that I never really liked her. She was Gillian's right hand but nothing would have made me happier than cutting off the left. 

"You two… You and…" Though she said "that one", I knew she was referring to Toilyn. She said her name as if she'd just stumbled across a new disease. Apparently, the dislike was mutual. "There's always something. You know Luminous' policy on the matter, do you not?"

You've got to be kidding me. "Rurick, if I don't get in contact with Gillian, it could mean the destruction of humanity as we know it." 

"We don't know it." She said matter of factly. "We're Luminous."

Is this a joke? 

"As an agent of Luminous, you are tasked with completing assignments, whatever it takes, are you not?"

"Yes, but-"

"No, no, no. See, that's your problem now. You waltz in here looking high and low for answers, hoping they're plastered on the walls. You want us to hold your hand and lead you instead of garnering your own solutions. If we have to figure things out for you, what do we need you for?" 

It was taking every ounce of strength I had left not to punch her in the face. "Why did you even open the door if you weren't going to help?"

"Your tone, agent." She was enjoying this, I could tell. "I opened the door so that I could be the one to tell you that you're off the assignment. We'll handle it from here."

"Rurick-"

"No. There will be no more questions on the matter as far as you're concerned, are we understood?" She started to walk around the desk. "You are dismissed."

"No." I planted my feet, ready for a fight.

"No?" She repeated it as if it was the first time she'd ever heard such a concept. 

"What about Jan?"

Her back still to me: "Are you hard of hearing, agent?" 

"I'm not leaving him with Noir."

"Were you this passionate when you handed him over to Noir?" She threw herself in Gillian's chair. "Get out."

"I didn't hand him-"

"Your actions caused this! Yours!" 

I was already thinking it, but hearing it aloud cut deep. Tears threatened the brims of my eyes as I backed away. My hand was on the doorknob when I thought better of it. There was no way I was leaving Jan. 

I inhaled deeply. Exhaling, I steeled my spine. "You know what, Rurick?" There was a chair in the corner that I imagined was reserved for higher ups. I took measured, leisure steps over to it. Just slow enough to give Rurick enough time to realize my intent. "I am not leaving until I see Gillian."

She stood up. Even with my entire employment history flashing before me, I wouldn't budge. If I was to be terminated, let it be that… But not with Rurick's shady, beady little eyes thinking she'd made me stand down. Screw that. 

Instead of towards me, she walked to the wall on her left, my right. She pulled the Luminous logo plaque forward. The wall groaned as it rose into the air. 

"Follow me." 

I will not. 

When I didn't move, she made a gesture at the gaping hole in the wall. "Gillian will see you now." 

My eyes swung from Rurick to the wall. Who did she think she was fooling? "If Gillian is in there, you're more than welcome to let her know I'm willing to wait." I crossed my legs. "I'll be right here." 

Rurick's eyes rolled in an entire sphere around their sockets. She grumbled something before stomping through the hole. 

Stairs? I could hear the downward trajectory. Or maybe I couldn't. Curiosity compelled me to inspect further. 

What is this? I'd imagined Rurick humming a catchy little ditty as she tightened the screws on a pair of shackles. This type of assignment seemed right up her alley: Keep Z at Luminous, whatever it takes. Instead of two chains linked from a wall, I was faced with a staircase spiraling towards… To where? Maybe the shackles were at the bottom.

No longer could the click clacking of Rurick's heels be heard. Nope. Not even.

"Z."

I whirled around. I hadn't heard the door open behind me. Even without a name in the air between us, I knew. She walked around the large, Oakwood desk. Not once did her pale, green eyes leave my face. Her hair was weaved into a long, red braid. It swished behind her as she lowered her frame into the chair. She gestured at the chair that I'd left unoccupied.

After we were both seated, her face relaxed into a warm smile. "Why didn't you leave when Rurick told you to?"

I don't like Rurick. "Ma'am…"

"Please… Call me Gillian." The introduction was merely a formality. The regalness projected with her every step made it impossible to imagine any other name crossing her lips. 

I don't know what I was expecting. What I did know was that the inviting warmth to her posture probably wasn't meant to be intimidating, but it couldn't be helped. "Um, Gillian…" I stammered.

"What's that?" She pointed at my right fist, which was still curled around the toggle switch. 

"Noir apprehended my assignment." They already know that, stupid. "That doctor… Uh, Dr. Patil… He… They enlisted him. He gave me this."

She motioned at me. I stood long enough to put it on her desk. "Ah…" She held it up to the light. "It's a homing device." She sat it back down. "You press the button. They show up." She was thinking about something. "Did you kill the doctor?"

"No ma'am." I said quickly. I did not need "Killed doctor who brought Covid-19 to 1999" penned on my record. 

"Good." She nodded. "I'm removing you from the case." 

"Excuse me?" 

What about Jan? 

"Your assignment was the timeline change of Covid-19 to Covid-99 was it not?"

"Yes, but-" 

"The assignment did not list a person." She spoke in long, measured words that reflected "don't let the smile fool you" across my face. 

"Yes, but-"

"What I've gathered is you decided this, this…"

"His name was Jan." I flinched. Is. 

"Jan." She repeated. "You decided he was your assignment without proper research into Altura." 

"Dr. Patil." I said quickly. "He caused the timeline change by choosing to help Noir."

She nodded despite it being obvious that she already knew that. 

"They were after Jan." 

Again, she nodded. " So what I am to understand is that through your meddling -"

"Jan." I couldn't hold it any longer. "They took Jan!"

"He wasn't your assignment. He was someone else's." 

My spine went rigid. "Excuse me?" 

"We've had eyes on him for a while. A man who unlocks time travel in a lab will always be a person of interest." She said, ignoring my jaw scraping the floor in shock. "Because of your interference, two assignments became one assignment." 

"Was Jan Toilyn's assignment?" I had to know.

"Not that it's any of your concern but, no." She folded her hands on the desk. "I was unaware of your involvement until Bateman informed me that he encountered the both of you in the library." 

So he was Bateman's assignment. "This is not my fault." He always was. 

"Fault?" Her smile curved into a smirk. "You're off the case. You'll be receiving a new assignment shortly." 

"I'm not leaving Jan with Noir."

"Am I to understand that you're refusing to stand down?" 

He saved my life. "You don't understand!" Standing down was not an option.

"Oh I do. I understand that you should be terminated and yet, I am choosing reassignment instead. What more is there to be understood?" Gone was the warmth in her posture. "Need I remind you that you took a person unaffiliated with Luminous to Area 51?" In its place, a cold, calculating glare. "Your interference led to Noir apprehending not just anyone but a man who has the ability to time travel unchecked! Do you not understand the gravity of this situation?!"

Better to be terminated than a coward. "You can't just leave him!" I shouted defiantly.

"Stand down, agent!"

"I won't leave him!" 

"Then you leave me no choice."

The hole in the wall that Rurick had disappeared through was once again filled with her annoying form. Only she was flanked by two other agents. 

My eyes darted from the agents to Gillian. "What is this?" 

I had not noticed her hand slide beneath her desk until it was too late.

"Take her." 

"What the hell?!" 

The agents on either side of Rurick rushed towards me. I slapped my hand on my wrist, hoping I turned the correct knob. Blue ricocheted from my hands. The impact sent them flying backwards, one across Gillian's desk, to the left of her. The other sprawled into Rurick. Startled by the sudden onslaught of flailing arms, she attempted to dodge, but lost her footing. They collapsed in a heap on the carpet. Before anyone could gather themselves, I was on my feet and out the door.

Toilyn's head jerked up. "What's going on?!" I didn't need words. She was already on her feet running down the hallway beside me. 

"We've got to save Jan!" I shouted above the rising sounds of boots stomping the floor behind us. The elevator ride to the bottom felt longer than the one up. The second the door opened, I shouted “Scatter!” Please understand. Hopefully she understood. I didn't check to see if she was still behind me. Agents were blurring as I passed, some calling after me, most not. 

What mattered was me putting as much distance between them and me as fast as I could.

******

The suitcase still laid in the middle of the front yard, abandoned. A few ties and a shirt had blown to the other side of the street. 

With storm clouds now sprinkling rain across the roof, Dr. Patil's house appeared every bit of dreary as it had the night before. 

I sighed. None of this was supposed to be happening. Though the droplets had developed into a full storm, I didn't seek shelter in the house. I had no idea how long I stood at the edge of that abandoned lawn but, what I did know was I had no idea I was holding my breath until Toilyn suddenly appeared beside me. 

I threw my arms around her, relieved. She returned my embrace for a few seconds before holding me at arm's length. "We should go inside. He owes us that much."

I followed Toilyn across the yard, nodding the entire distance. He did owe us.

The front door was wide open. Toilyn paused on the porch long enough to place an arrow in her bow.

With me practically glued to her back, we walked the entire foundation. We checked bathrooms and bathtubs, upstairs and downstairs, kitchen cabinets and closets and we didn't stop opening doors until Toilyn nodded that we were indeed, alone. 

We were on our way out of the kitchen when I thought about it. "What about the garage?" 

The kitchen had three doors. One to the backyard, one we were in front of, and one that was by the refrigerator, still open, leading to the garage. "If anybody's here, they had to of heard us by now." 

When I didn't say anything, she crossed to the open door, arrow tip first. She disappeared for a few seconds before reappearing. "Clear." She passed me. I waited before following. 

She was shrugging the quiver off her shoulder as I was entering the living room. She looked up. "So, are we going to talk about what happened back there?" 

I took my place on the loveseat across from her. "I don't even know where to start." I admitted, sliding my hands down my face. I really, really messed up.

She slid over the edge of the couch and folded her arms across her chest. "Start with what the heck we were running from."

I opened my mouth. The longer I spoke, the deeper the furrow in her eyebrows became. She leaned forward. I could almost make out the thoughts dancing in her eyes. Were it not for the fact that I knew her, one could easily mistake that she was meditating. 

When I finally closed my mouth, she shook her head in disbelief. 

"Wait… Before anything else, do you honestly believe that I would've kept it a secret had Jan been my assignment?"

That's what you got out of that?! "I had to be sure."

"One, you know how I feel about offline assignments." She was right. It was how the term "Offline" drew its first breath in the first place. I did know. "Two, I wouldn't do you like that." She said, obviously offended. "You're my best friend. I jump, you jump, remember?" She stuck her fist out. "I'm just going to chalk this up to temporary insanity. Cool?" We bumped knuckles before her face relaxed. "Now that that's settled, what are we going to do and are you sure Luminous doesn't know we're here?"

"I have no idea."

"Huh?"

"That's your answer to both." I shrugged. "I don't know." 

"Perfect." She smacked her fist into her open palm. "Just perfect."

"We have to go after Jan." That was the only thing I knew for sure. 

"If they had plans to kill Jan, why didn't Bateman do it when he caught up with him before? Think, Z. Why only adjust his remote?"

"I don't know! What if it were me, Toy?!" I shouted, frustrated. "Would you be sitting here trying to make it make sense if this was about me?!" 

"Okay then…" She settled back against the couch cushions. "Let's go get him." She frowned. "How though?"

I held up the homing device, which I'd managed to reclaim during the commotion. "If this summons one of theirs, we can use it to gain some sort of information, right?" Please say "yes".

"Z…" Toilyn tilted her head thoughtfully. "What if Brie answers the call?" It wasn't a "No". 

I shrugged. I hadn't considered that. "We'll cross that bridge if it gets here." We wouldn't exactly have a choice. As far as either of us knew, no Luminous agent who had ever entered Noir had exited in the same condition. With that being said, in the grand scheme of things, neither of us knew where Noir was. The homing device was our only option. "All I know is we can't just abandon Jan." 

"And we won't." She stood up and stretched, yawning loudly. "Ya know, I think I'm going to take a shower. If I'm going to die today, I might as well be fresh when it happens." She hopped over the back of the couch. 

I watched as she disappeared from eyesight. Despite her lack of presence, I could still hear her rummaging around above me. Toilyn wasn't exactly known for her discretion.

I threw my legs over the arm of the loveseat. On the one hand, I knew we needed Luminous to back us on this and then there was the other hand: The one that knew Jan was the primary focus for a reason and needed to be saved. But from what? That was the real question. Were we saving Jan from Noir or were we protecting him from Luminous? 

My eyes weighed heavily with the burden. I didn't realize how exhausted I was. I kept blinking to stop the sleep from pushing down my lids, but to no avail. With one last struggled blink, my eyelashes settled on my cheeks. 

I awoke to Toilyn frantically shaking my leg. "You're kidding me!" I rubbed my eyes sleepily. I hadn't realized I was asleep if we're being honest here. 

"You can sleep when you're dead and with how this day is shaping up, it'll be soon." She held out her hands. I placed mine in hers. Once I was on my feet, she said: "You know what I was thinking about in the shower?"

"Do I really want to hear this?" 

"Pervert." She smirked. "One of the sheets in the envelope we had laid out a paper trail."

"Yeah, so?"

"Altura stands to rake in billions manufacturing a cure for the disease they created."

"Okay…"

"Is that what happened in 2020?"

I gasped. The thought had never crossed my mind. "From my understanding, they stumbled" I did air quotes for "stumbled". "Upon Covid-19 in a lab somewhere in Asia and the testing went south quick. People were blaming the consumption of bat soup for a while." 

"We both know that's not true."

"But what if that's what happened?"

"First we save Jan." She dragged her gear off the floor. "Then we can swap COVID conspiracy theories while we save the world." She gestured at the homing device, which had fallen from my hand while I slept. "I don't think it would be wise to press that button here. There's a good chance this is the only place that isn't being watched. If nobody comes a knocking, we're going to need it for Jan." 

I reached down to pick it up. "Okay, where then?"

She shrugged the arrows over her shoulder. "We could always go back to the nursing home since that's obviously where the good doctor was rubbing elbows with Noir." 

I punched the coordinates into my goggles as Toilyn did the same. "Nursing home it is." 

******

"So, upstairs or down?"

Toilyn pointed upward at the hole in the ceiling. "You only have to teach me once. I'm not interested in going through that again." 

"Down it is then." I held up the homing device. "Ready?" 

She turned to press her back against mine. I waited long enough for her to plant her feet before pushing the button. 

I don't know. I guess I thought the hallway would immediately swarm with a Noir agent or ten. I didn't expect to see Dax's mendacious hazel eyes manifesting across from us. 

"Well, well, well… This is unexpected." He said calmly. Almost too calm. "Z… Long time, no see. How's tricks?"

I pushed my hands out in front of me. The blue spiraled, aiming for his head, but he dodged it easily. "Oh, I see someone has an up-" Toilyn released her grip. The arrow connected with his left shoulder. He stumbled backwards, holding the stem. "What the hell?!" I nodded at Toilyn. She returned the gesture, immediately understanding. His gaze narrowed on the both of us as we approached. "Someone has been busy." He strained against the pain. He clenched his teeth. "To what do I owe this honor?"

"Cut the crap, Dax." I wasn't the agent that he thought he knew. I didn't have time for the mind games. 

His hand still wrapped around the stem, he stood strong. "Okay then, what do you want?" 

"We want access to Noir, you prick." Toilyn's aim had not lowered from his face.

Surprisingly, of the emotions his eyes were reflecting, fear wasn't one. "And why…" Pain was. "Why would I do that?" He winced. 

"You know why." I said.

He laughed menacingly. "I'm guessing you're… You two…" He laughed again. "The inventor, am I right?"

"Take us to Noir or I'll put this through your throat." She gritted her teeth. "Your choice." 

"How long…" His fingers tightened around the stem. "How long…" He snapped it off at the end. "How…" Again, he grunted. "... Did you practice that line?" The tip's jagged edges disappeared as he pulled himself free.

I threw my fist in front of myself. The impact slammed into his chest. He slumped down to the hardwood floor. 

"Okay Z, I see your hustle. I really do, but um… Don't we need him to get into Noir?" 

"No." I crouched down to snatch the goggles off his head. "Their goggles are basically a rip off of ours, right?" 

"Uh huh." 

She had to be kidding me. "Ours keeps a hold of our last coordinates for twenty-four hours." I pushed the buttons on the side.

"I hear you." She held up her hand like we were in the back of a classroom somewhere. "Who's to say those coordinates are Noir's?" 

I hadn't thought of that. "We've got to try." 

"Hey, this is your show. I'm just a side character tagging along for the side quest." She punched in the coordinates. "One that we might die on but that's neither here nor there."

"Toy…"

Whack! Whack! Whack!

Three sharp knocks on the door snapped me to attention. 

We weren't supposed to be sleeping anyway but after leaving the library, neither of us were in any condition mentally to question another person. 

The blanket that I had rolled up to create a barrier between us was now burritoed around Jan. He'd spent the first few hours upon arrival tinkering with my bracelet. 

"Surely you would like this thing to do something better than what it does." He'd said, plucking a tiny screwdriver from his utility belt.

I was standing inside the bathroom door toweling my hair. 

"You just can't keep your hands to yourself, can you?" I'd said though I didn't try to stop him. For years, I'd silently yearned for an upgrade. I grabbed my clothes from the floor to get dressed. When I returned from the bathroom, he was in the bed, face pointed at the ceiling, snoring so obnoxiously that the windows vibrated with each exhale. 

My bracelet was still on the table by the door, insides on display. Oh, he is so fixing this when he gets up. I had every intention of hitting the road as soon as we were both showered but instead I found my hands rolling up a blanket so that he couldn't suck the skin off my face with his snoring. 

Whack! Whack! Whack!

There it was again. I grabbed Jan's gun from its holster to peek out the window.

"I can hear you breathing."

Toy. I swung open the door.

"I was about to start kicking." She said, pushing past me. She noted Jan's still sleeping form. "Before you ask, finding you wasn't hard. I could hear his snores all the way on the other side of prohibition." 

She put her fist out. I bumped her knuckles. "What's that?" I asked, though it was a stupid question. 

"This is why I left you guys at the library." She held up the bow. "Judging by how quickly you've decided to play house with this one, I'm sure you managed without me just fine." She shrugged the quiver of arrows off her shoulders. 

Play house? "Really Toy?"

Her laughter stirred Jan. "Nice of you to join us, Sleeping Beauty." 

He sat up. His hair was in a tousled pile atop his scalp. "Ugh, I must be having a nightmare." 

She winked at him. "Nope, it's me." She sat the bow beside the quiver. "Juniper told me where you guys were going so I headed here." 

"What's up with the gear?" I ran a finger tip along the backside of one of the feathers. "Can you even shoot?"

"These were a gift from the chief of an Iroquois tribe. He insisted that I take them so I hauled them to headquarters to see if keeping them would disrupt the timeline." She shrugged. "Gillian said I could have them so I hightailed it out of there before she could change her mind."

"Hold up, you saw Gillian?" Gillian was the elusive mother of Luminous. The most I'd ever seen of her was the back of her heels at the end of a hallway once. 

"Now you know damn well…"

I tilted my head. This was important. 

Toilyn nodded. "Okay, okay… I saw her-esque. Her adjacent."

"Huh?"

"Her office door was open. I totally caught a glimpse of her leather jacket, it was red and rather form fitting might I add… That is, before Rurick shoved these at me. I

tried to get around her but she's not stupid. I'm sure she's used to agents trying to sneak a peek." She said, shaking her head. "Like it's completely unnatural to have an interest in your employer."

"Is that why you left us at the library?" 

"To roll up on Gillian?! Are you insane?!" She grinned. 

When my face didn't crack, hers softened. "Aw, you weren't worried, were you?" Now completely fascinated by her gear, anything to avoid my irritation, she continued:  "Oh! As Rurick was trying to get rid of me, I overheard some higher ups whispering about Alaska."

"The Alaska?" 

She nodded. First, she looked at Jan. Then, as if he couldn't hear, she lowered her voice. "But that's not all."

More elusive than Gillian herself, was Alaska. Whereas Gillian had sightings here and there, I didn't know anybody who had been anywhere near Luminous' sister site. What I did know was that allegedly, somewhere in Alaska was another base of operations. I was starting to think it was just an urban legend. "When she caught me watching them, Rurick gave me a package to take to the library like they don't have people for that."

Apparently you. You're people. "So?"

"I swear, it was like they didn't want me to hear what they were talking about."

She had to be kidding. "Um, we're not even allowed to know where Alaska is." 

"I hate to interrupt, but I'm still here." Jan said, clearing his throat a little too dramatically. When our heads turned, "What's Alaska?" 

Time for a subject change. "Did you open it?"

"Open what?"

I shot her a look. "Just my luck, Juniper would've seen my crimes all over my face." She said, catching on. "Since I brought her up, Juniper said y'all managed to scrape together a lead from that letter. A Dr. Carlito Patil if I remember correctly." 

As she was prattling on and on, I couldn't help but start combing my memories. No matter what, I was one hundred percent sure I'd never mentioned any of that to Juniper. Like I said, she just seemed to know everything about everybody. 

"... and then I came here, like I said."

Uh… I hadn't heard anything before that. 

"Which reminds me…" She stepped over the towels that I'd left on the floor. "Just in case you forgot to, I went ahead and did the groundwork for you. The good doctor has tenure at a college not far from Altura. He used to teach a Psychology course but after your assistant's untimely demise, he switched to a course on, get this, Luminous Corp!"

Jan visibly flinched at "assistant's untimely demise". As quickly as it appeared, he erased the pained look in his eyes. He all but bolted to the bathroom and slammed the door. 

I awaited the sound of running water before turning on her. "Really, Toy?" 

"What?" She flopped down on the now unoccupied bed. "Something I said?"

I caught her up to speed with Mavis and how Jan tied into the entire ordeal. She waited until I was done to speak: "So all of this could have been avoided is what I'm hearing."

"Toy, don't be an ass." I shook my head. "He's really struggling with this and I need him to keep it together." 

"I'm not trying to be an ass." She said, leaning back on the bed. "Some accountability could be the type of humble pie this guy could use a plate or seven of." 

"Do you want to be constantly reminded of your worst mistake?" I snapped. "To spend every day with the reminder that you made the wrong choice?! To know that no matter what you tell yourself, it's your fault?!"

"Whoa…" Toylin sat back up. "This isn't about you, Z." 

"I didn't say it was." 

"Uh huh." She nodded knowingly. To her credit, she didn't press the issue. Instead, she gestured towards my still mangled bracelet. "What happened there?"

"You really have to ask?" I replied, grateful for the tonal shift. 

"Is he, uh, going to... Ya know, put it back together?"

"I intended to last night." We hadn't heard the door reopen. Jan didn't look at either of us as he pulled the chair from beneath the table. "I finished it but I was so tired."

I threw all my best signals at Toilyn with my eyes. She tried to ignore me. Finally she sighed grudgingly: "Hey Jan, look, about earlier, I wasn't trying to be a jerk." 

"Some people just can't deny their natural talents." Jan muttered.

Toilyn cut her eyes at me. I shook my head quickly. What we didn't need in that tiny hotel room was a fist fight. 

I grappled for a subject change. "So um, what's it going to do when you get finished?" I averted my gaze from Toilyn's fourth eye roll. 

"I have no idea."

Of course he doesn't. I could almost hear Toilyn mouthing the words. He cleared his throat: "I was trying to put this…" He slipped a bottle from his utility belt. He held it up. "I'm attempting to put this tech into your bracelet."

"What does that tech do?" Toilyn beat me to it.

Jan shook the bottle before putting them away. "They're pills. They give me the ability to heal certain things and I can shoot from my hands."

"Shoot what?" I noticed that both of us were inching closer to Jan's freshly showered back. 

"Energy beams. They don't kill but they'll put a guy down." 

Toilyn scrunched up her nose. "Then why do you carry a gun?"

"To keep a guy down." He was still clicking the gears and springs back into place. "I have to take that pill everyday."

"What happens if you don't?" I pressed. 

"I almost died once so I'm leaning towards death. I would probably die." He weaved the lace back through the band. "I've never gone a full day. After that experience, I wasn't stupid enough to try it again." He held up the bracelet. "You won't have the same issue because I combined my tech with Luminous'."

Toilyn studied it while I was clasping it around my wrist. "We've got to get going." She said finally. "Dr. So and so doesn't know we're coming."

"Obviously." Jan stood up. 

"Guys…" I could see the argument coming. 

Toilyn typed the coordinates into her goggles then tilted them so that I could see. Jan typed the same into his remote. He disappeared before either of us.

She rolled her eyes. "He is so…"

"So what did they say about Alaska?"

She shrugged. "Whisper, whisper… Alaska… Whisper, whisper. I got nothing. As usual." 

"One day we're going to find out there is no base and Alaska is code for something else. Watch."  

"Could you imagine?" She reached up to tighten her ponytail. "Let's hurry up and catch up to your boyfriend."

Boyfriend?! I nodded at her new gear. "You bringing that?"

"Why?" She scanned my face. "Are you blushing?!" 

"Ugh, are you bringing that or not?"

"You are!" 

"Toy!"

She burst out laughing. "Oh, come on, I'm just messing with you, Z." Noting the aggravation carving its way through my expression, she snorted back her giggle and cleared her throat. "No, I doubt we'd keep the element of surprise with me dragging those around." She replied, pressing the sides of her goggles at the same time as I did. Within a blink, we were standing in an empty classroom. The first thing I noted was the lack of Jan. 

Humor drained from Toilyn in an instant. "Where is he?!" She hissed like I had him shoved in my back pocket or something. 

"Definitely not in here." I replied, rushing to the door. I flung it open. Several students paused to look at us but other than that, we were practically invisible. 

"When I get my hands on him…" 

"Toy, what's your deal with Jan?"

"What do you mean?"

Really? I almost stuck my boot out to trip her. Almost. "Nothing. Nevermind."

"No, I want to hear this." 

"Just forget I brought it up." 

"Uh huh." She stopped abruptly. 

"What?" 

"Nothing." She pointed at the end of the hall. A wooden bar with large, gold letters marked the room as 202 Dr. Carlito Patil. "His classroom is right there." 

We fell in step behind a purple and red backpack until the carrier opened the door to the classroom. 

"Dammit."

Dammit was a fair assessment for the wall to wall seating. Each and every chair had a student clinging to Dr. Patil's every word, including one by a gigantic chalkboard which was occupied by Jan. He nodded at two empty seats to the left of him. We managed to maneuver around the classroom without calling too much attention to ourselves. Every once in a while, a student would grumble in protest as we bumped into the back of their chair. 

"Any questions so far?" Dr. Patil turned from his dry erase board. When he noticed Toilyn and I, his body went rigid. His eyes flashed a panicked brown to his students. They continued taking notes, unaware. He inhaled a huge breath in an attempt to compose himself. It was obvious that he hadn't counted on the object of his teachings to show up for a class. That would be like teaching a course on Paleontology only to have a T-Rex come crashing through the ceiling. Talking about something isn't the same as experiencing, though judging by the way his eyes panned frantically across us every few seconds, he probably would have preferred the T-Rex. 

"C-Class…" He tried after about fifteen minutes. "We're going to dismiss early." He spoke the words slowly, as if to give his students time to object. They were out of those chairs and gathering their things before he could change his mind. I watched the door, lest he decide to scramble out after them.

The entire time they were filing out, I didn't avert my gaze. When the final head was out the door, he moved to close it behind them. 

I was thinking it would be best if Jan were to speak first since his assistant might have mentioned him at the same time as his mouth was opening: "We need to ask you a few questions, Dr. Patil, if that's alright." 

Dr. Patil swung his eyes from Toilyn, to me, then stopped on Jan. "I know you two. You're Luminous, right?" Before we could get the words out, he continued: "Who are you?"

Jan's cheeks flushed a bright crimson. Apparently he'd forgotten that in this timeline, he was a nobody. "You knew my assistant, Mavis Crowley."

Dr. Patil shuffled behind his desk to sit down. A deafening silence crept across every surface in the room. We exchanged looks. Toilyn leaned forward first: "Did you know that his assistant passed shortly after agreeing to meet up with you?" 

Dr. Patil nodded. He looked like he could use a stiff drink. "I saw it on the news." He inhaled deeply. "So you're the inventor she was talking about. Her… Her boss." 

"Jan." Jan reminded him.

"She didn't call you that. She called you-"

"Look, Mavis left me a letter saying we were to meet up with you but I didn't get to read it until recently." Jan's voice slashed the rest of Dr. Patil's sentence in half.

I glanced at Toilyn to see if she'd caught that. Her eyes were still trained forward, intent. 

Dr. Patil opened the bottom drawer on his desk. I flinched to my bracelet at the same time as Toilyn. He pulled out a manila envelope. "I was going to give her this." A shaky hand held it upwards. "Please don't hurt me." 

Toilyn stood up. We followed her to the desk. The closer we became, the more unhinged his body seemed to become. He released the envelope with a slight YELP! 

"We aren't going to hurt you." Jan assured him. 

"I didn't mean you." 

"Who?" Toilyn pointed from me back to herself. "Us?" 

He nodded shakily. "I know what Luminous does." 

"So, teaching a stupid college course makes you an expert?" Toilyn chuckled. She sat down on his desk. "I barely know what Luminous does. Enlighten me." 

"Toy…" I shook my head. 

"What? He's the one with all the fancy degrees." Dr. Patil all but melted into his desk chair as she moved closer. "I'm seeking an expert's opinion." She leaned a little closer, her breath now able to flutter his hair. "So, by all means, what do you know about my occupation that I don't?"

"Toy…" I grabbed her shoulder to pull her away from him. "We aren't going to hurt you. Why do you think we would?"

"Mavis was worried she was being followed." He admitted though his position in the seat didn't relax. "She was asking too many questions. I warned her. She said our only hope was her boss, J-" He thought better of it and nodded at Jan. "You. She said that you were unraveling the secrets to time travel. I told her that Luminous already existed. That there was no need to figure out something that already existed." He sighed. "For weeks she was scrambling around, gathering as much information about them as she could. When her efforts barely scratched the surface, she came to me about you again. She said she knew if she could prove to you that she was right, you would help us." He sighed. "I set up the meeting. I told her to bring you to me. She said she was on it. The next time I heard about Mavis, her car was wrapped around a tree."

"Luminous had nothing to do with her death." I hated my job, but not that much. "That's not what we do." I assured him though he didn't appear convinced.

"Altura did this." Jan murmured. "You said it yourself. Before she started in on Luminous, she was sure she was being followed." He slammed his fist down on the desk. "I should have listened to her!"

"You're not the only one." Dr. Patil said quietly. "I told her she was being paranoid. That nobody was going to track her every move over a few books." 

"But it wasn't just a few books, was it?" Toilyn asked.

"No." Dr. Patil shook his head. "Altura has been conducting research on different pandemics throughout the ages. They started with the Spanish Flu." He paused. Though nobody posed the question, he continued: "I've never worked at Altura but Mavis used to be my student. I shouldn't have helped her. I have a wife. K-Kids. I have kids, a family." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I suggested that we meet up because of what's in that envelope."

We left him at his desk, still shaking his head, wiping at tears that were falling faster than he could brush them away. 

******

Toilyn busied herself displaying the contents of the envelope as Jan and I looked on. It was only four sheets of paper and a weird looking key. I reached across her at the same time as it slipped out. She picked up one of the papers and began reading. Jan moved to do the same. It was quiet for all of thirty seconds. His voice rose above our thoughts: "It says here that China obtained the patent to do the testing on Coronavirus." 

"Yeah, but that didn't happen in 1999." I said quickly. I held up the key. "I wonder what this goes to." It didn't look like a house key or anything typical that I could think of. 

"Wait a second, this says that Altura paid China millions in order to do testing." He handed me his paper. He tapped his finger on the middle paragraph. "See? Right there. It says that Altura bought the rights."

"I'm guessing in the original timeline, when Altura burned to a crisp, China decided to do what it wanted to do, but for whatever reason, they didn't move forward for years." I shrugged, accepting the paper. "It's crazy how Coronavirus got its start as just a strand of the common cold."

"In the wrong hands, it became a bomb." Toilyn mumbled absently. 

Jan and I glanced at one another. He looked as if he was about to say something then decided against it. He opened his mouth twice before grabbing the other piece of paper. 

I scanned the paper he'd given me. The majority was figures; the paper trail if you will. At the very bottom, something caught my eye: "Guys, listen to this: Altura's research was leading them towards human testing. Right here it says they were funding a nursing home as a front for testing."

Toilyn's head jerked up. "Uh uh. That sounds like you're trying to say that Altura was about to start testing on defenseless old people." 

"It wouldn't be was, Toy." I handed her the paper.

She didn't even look. Instead she balled it up and went to her quiver. "Let's go." She said angrily. "No more reading. I know all I need to know."

"Here's the address of the nursing home." Jan pointed at his paper. 

"Wait a minute! What if we missed something?!" I held up the key. "Did anybody see anything about this?"

"Girl, are you deaf? No more reading. We've got to stop these pieces of shit." She didn't state as much but I knew she was thinking of the only person who had her back when she spoke her truth: Her grandmother. "Grab everything because I doubt we'll be coming back here." 

"What about this?" Jan had gathered all the papers.

"Burn it."

******

"I didn't see this coming." 

The three of us stood in front of the abandoned building in shock. "What the hell, Jan? Did you get the coordinates right?"

"Don't look at me. You're the one who wanted to storm the castle… So where's the princess?"

"There's no way this is the place." I couldn't believe it. No, I wouldn't believe it. "But, we have to check it out anyway."

"Why? It looks like the big bad wolf has already been by. One more huff and puff and that roof is as good as gone." 

"Sounds good to me." Toilyn was already inserting an arrow in her bow. "Let's go."

Jan grumbled something unintelligible as he tightened the loops on his utility belt. He pulled his gun and fell in line behind Toilyn. Why we were following the one armed with a bow and arrow, I'll never know. She kicked the rickety gate open. 

"I don't think this is such a good idea." Jan murmured as Toilyn's boot was connecting with the door. It groaned in protest beneath the weight, but didn't budge. 

"Stand back."

Jan turned to keep an eye on our backs. I stepped out of the way but kept my attention on Toilyn, lest we find ourselves under fire. She threw her entire weight behind the next connect. The door swung off the hinges and landed on the inside. Again, nothing. 

"Is this how you guys always do this kind of stuff?" Jan came through the door, still backwards. "I mean…"

"Shhhh!" Toilyn said quickly. "Do you hear that, Z?"

I heard it. Unlike when we found Jan, there were so many holes in the foundation that the hallway was well lit. To the untrained ear, we were alone but buildings have a language all of their own. Murmurs warning us of the presence of inhabitants by the squeaks of feet attempting to sneak across the linoleum sounded on the other side of the wall. In the busyness of daylight, such sounds would go unheard, but this was an abandoned building. Allegedly. 

Before we could react, the wall to the left of us caved, Jan threw himself in front of me as the ceiling crashed on top of us. 

"Jan?! Z?!"

I could hear Toilyn but I couldn't move. Jan was across me, pining me in place. I didn't know if anything was broken but that was the least of my concerns. "Jan?" I whispered. I needed him to be alive. Please, PLEASE let him be alive. "Jan? Jan?!" My voice sounded so far away. "Jan?!" My eyes had not produced so much as a shadow of a tear since 2011 in my own timeline but they were pouring now. It wasn't even the pain that was ripping through my head that was hurting me. "Jan?!"

"Z? Z?! I can hear you!" I could hear Toilyn frantically attempting to free us. "Keep talking so I can get this right." 

"Toy! Jan's unconscious!" I strained beneath his weight. 

"I can't move!"

"Hold on! I've got you!" 

I could see a few lights above us as Toilyn was throwing rubble. "We shouldn't have come here! This is my fault!"

"This isn't about fault, Toy! We should have known with the timeline change that this was a possibility! This is on both of us."

"And me." 

"Jan?!" If I could move, I would have hugged him. 

"Shit." He coughed. "What the hell happened?"

"Toy?! Jan's alive!"

"And probably deaf after that." He said. 

"Something's wrong. I don't hear Toilyn anymore." Moreover, I couldn't hear anything. "I can't get to my bracelet."

"Luckily, I don't need a bracelet." He shifted a little. The debris glowed a soft blue before exploding into the air. It landed around us like a crime scene outline. 

He jumped up and offered me a hand. I threw my arms around him. He returned my embrace before: "Do you hear that?! Something's going on!"

Toylin. Without thinking, I all but tossed Jan aside. The stairs struggled to support our weight but I didn't care. As my foot hit the top step, all the adrenaline faded from me.  Against the wall was a face I hadn't seen in ages. Brie pushed herself back then whirled around, landing a kick in Toilyn's stomach. She stumbled backwards before lunging at Brie's middle. They landed on the floor, not far from the hole that almost crushed Jan and I. Toilyn jumped to her feet and grabbed a handful of Brie's hair. Brie screamed and flailed her arms in an attempt to latch on to Toilyn.

"I should have done this a long time ago." She sneered, leaning over Brie. It was damn near inaudible from those stairs, but to me, the words were echoing through my ears. To me, she was shouting.

Her hands still tangled in Brie's hair, she dragged her to the hole. 

"Let her go, Toilyn!" Jan cried out. 

She kept dragging. Brie's screams filled every nook and cranny in the room. Jan aimed his gun at Toilyn. "Please don't make me shoot you." He pleaded. "Do something, Z!" 

It was as if something clicked in place. Toilyn's eyes widened in realization at the sight of me still frozen on the top step. "Z?" Her grip loosened. 

"Please don't." It was all I could string together. "Please."

That was all Brie needed. She swept a kick beneath Toilyn's boots. Toilyn's eyes flashed surprise a split second before stumbling backwards.

"Toy!!!" I screamed. Her body disappeared. I listened for the connect. Sprinkles of dust fluttered through the opening. "Oh my God!" 

Brie's eyes raked across me coldly. Jan rushed at her but his legs were still aching. There was no way he would reach her in time before…

I was right. With a simple wink, she slapped her hand against her headset. 

Jan barely stopped in time. "Dammit, she got away!" 

"Is she- Is Toilyn-" I was beside Jan now, whose eyes were downward. 

"Look, her chest is rising and falling." He jumped down and landed to the left of her. Due to his legs, he almost lost his footing in the debris. He limped to her side to kneel down. "Toilyn? Toilyn, can you hear me? It's me, Jan." He patted her cheek softly. First the right, then the left. He braced himself long enough to place his hands on her chest. "Come on Toilyn…"

I rushed to the stairs. Unlike Jan, I wasn't in denial about the pain I was in. I reached the bottom step just as Toilyn was sitting up. She shook her head groggily. "I'm… I'm okay… I think."

Jan snapped his fingers in front of her face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two and three broken ones if you don't back up." 

"Good." He smiled and stood up. "She… She's…" His legs buckled. "Fine."

As I said, I was a new agent. I couldn't have had my bracelet for a year and yet, Brie's ghost still loomed over everything I did. No matter where I travelled, she was already there, slathering every surface with reminders. She didn't want me to forget why I put on the bracelet, is what I told myself. 

If you haven't noticed, all agents have a shoot on sight air about them. Guilty until proven innocent, so to speak. Back then, I wasn't like that at all. I was the know it all who knew absolutely nothing. When an agent of Noir approached me, I was on my ninth, maybe tenth, assignment. I had never dealt with Noir up until that day, I need you to understand that. Teaching somebody about something gives them knowledge. It doesn't grant them instant understanding. Back then, in my eyes, Noir had some good points. Especially when it came to their agency. Noir brought people back all the time. Why not me? Is what I swaddled myself with after that first encounter. 

Dax knew exactly which buttons to press and exactly how much pressure to apply in order for me to consider defecting. "All you have to do is give me some information on Luminous." 

Again, I was fresh off the boat. Aim directly between his eyes, shoot, then step over his old, feeble body as he writhed in pain is what I should have done. Instead, my inexperienced mind was already sifting through my memories, determined to unearth something of use. When I couldn't produce anything useful, he shrugged it off. "No big deal." He'd said. In that very second, I should have known it was time to move forward from the conversation as if it had never happened but I just wanted her back so bad. Instead, I absorbed all the flowery promises he weaved around me. He would go ahead and bring Brie back, no problem. "Easy", so he said. In return, one day he would arrive to collect the information I had gathered about Luminous over time. 

I remember bursting into tears. Take that, Luminous! I'd thought. I was so happy! I'd finally figured it out. I remember throwing myself into his arms and sobbing uncontrollably. He'd allowed the onslaught as if people were throwing themselves at him daily.

"I'll be back." He'd murmured against my scalp. Faster than I could blink, he vanished. When he reappeared, Brie was pressed against his chest.

"Is she… She…" I couldn't bring myself to utter the word.

"Dead?" He'd finished casually, as if he said it all the time. As if the word was that simple. "No. Just unconscious." He laid her head down on the pillow before turning his attention back to me. "Okay, so ends my part of the bargain. I'll be back for yours." And with that weighted promise, he was gone. 

I grabbed the nearest chair so that I would be the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. This was important, is what I'd told myself. Without my steady hand to guide her, she wouldn't know what to do. Or where she was for that matter. Again, Dax had arrived while I was on assignment so again, I was neglecting my duties. This was more important, I'd reasoned with myself. 

In real time, it was 2020. She'd been gone for nearly a decade. In some way or another, everyone's life had ambled forward without her. Except mine. Mentally, I remained frozen in a moment in time where she was by my side. The world had changed in many ways and yet, I was the one clinging to the remaining fragments of my broken memories. 

For almost an hour, I sat in that chair, watching her chest rise and fall. I fought with myself to leave her be, to not shake her from her slumber. 

When she finally stirred, again, I fought with myself. The idea of having her in my arms once more… Just the thought…

Unaware of my presence, she sat upward on the bed. A coil of brown hair slinked across a bare, slightly tanned shoulder. Her eyelashes swept the curve of her cheeks several times in a blink, finally revealing a pair of inquisitive brown eyes. Little flakes of green sparked beneath the flicker of the naked lightbulb above her head, the same as they had all those years ago. I watched as she studied her hands. First the left, then the right.

Every paragraph… 

Every sentence…

Every word…

What was I to say?

Slowly, ever so slowly, time caught up with our situation and she realized I was in the room. She rubbed her eyes.

We had three rules. THREE. And there I was, eye level with the one that mattered most.

"Who are you?"

No. "W-Who am I?" I stammered.

Due to my own ignorance, I thought removing someone from their timeline and bringing them back was the same. I mean, on paper, both concepts appeared so similar. Three words was all it took for me to learn how wrong I truly was.

She nodded. "Where are we?" She studied the hotel room. Her gaze combed all four walls and slowed to a confused halt on a mirror positioned by the bathroom door. She watched as her reflection traced the lining of her cheek. She did this to each side. She tugged at the last t-shirt I remembered ever being pulled over her head. It was one of mine. She rubbed the glittered four leaf clovers. Specks of glitter flaked off, forming a shimmery pattern on her lap. Her eyes never left the mirror. "Who am I?" 

In an instant, my entire world shattered. No, no, no! What had I done?

"Y-You don't know me?" I tried. Maybe she needed her mind to catch up with her memories. 

Before she opened her mouth, I already knew the answer but watching her eyes swing from the mirror only to form one word was like a sword being sliced through my soul: "No."

What is this?! I rushed to her side. "Look closer at me." We were so close now that if I chanced it, our lips would touch. "Are you sure?"

She held my gaze.

For every blink I offered, each a symbol of my desperation, I knew it was no use. She didn't know me. 

She pointed at herself. "I'm?"

I couldn't face her anymore. I nearly tripped over the chair in my attempt to get away from her. "You're Brie!" I shouted, clapping my hands over my ears. This wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want this. 

Were it not for the obligation binding me to that room, I would have grabbed my goggles and abandoned her. She didn't deserve that though and as much as I wanted to deny it, I understood that fact. She didn't ask to be there. I did.

Slowly, almost breath by breath, I removed my hands from my ears. As soon as they were down, without missing a beat, she was there: "Who are you?" 

"I'm…" There was no need to tell her my real name. She wouldn't have recognized it anyway. "I'm Z." 

"Do we know each other?" She was standing now. Instinctively, I took a few steps back. 

"We did." I replied. "Once." 

"What do you mean by once?" She crossed her arms in the same way that the Brie I'd once known used to. 

What was I supposed to say? "In a former life." I tried.

Her expression folded into a look of horror. "A former life?" She repeated. A hint of fear weaved it's way to the surface. It shimmered across the tears she was now desperately attempting to fight. "Am I-" She couldn't say the word. Instead, she lowered her voice to barely a whisper: "Is this Hell?" 

Get it together, Z. "You're not dead and this definitely isn't Hell." Why did people always assume Hell? No one ever said: "Is this Heaven?" or "Is this purgatory?" Always Hell. Truth be told, it said ALOT about the human condition that everyone assumed Hell, even without the fire and or brimstone. 

Now her hands were on her hips. "If I'm not dead, where am I and how did I get here?" 

Might as well approach this with an honest mind. "I asked for you to be here." 

"Why? Where did you get me from?"

"I'm an agent of time." I braced myself. "Basically, I'm a time cop. It's our job to keep the timeline intact." I released a long, drawn out sigh. "I took the job to get you back only to learn that I couldn't so I tasked someone else with the job." 

"Wait… To get me back?" 

I nodded.

"Back from where? "Where was I?"

Might as well rip the band-aid off. "Dead."

She slapped her hands over her mouth. I went to move towards her but her eyes had rolled to the back of her head. She collapsed back on the bed, motionless.

Well, that didn't go as planned at all. 

"It's too quiet. You'd think these hallways would be full of doctors." Toilyn whispered. " I don't like this."

"The coordinates said this is the place." I replied though I had the same concerns. 

"Didn't Covid originate in China? Why didn't they send us to China?" 

Though our thoughts were the same, I was doing everything to keep my suspicions to myself. 

Plink! The sound of what could have easily been a can rolling across the linoleum caught my attention. "We are not alone." I hissed. 

She held her finger to her lips a split second before flinging open the door we were crotched behind. A hail of blue and red spiraled down the hallway. I rushed out to provide cover. On the floor beside a soda can was a rat. Half baby, half old and gray. The noises it was making though… "It's safe to say you got it, Toy." 

She grinned. "What?"

"Yeah, but who has you?" From behind us.

Our eyes still locked, we froze. 

She dropped and rolled across the hall, firing an array of beams. I followed suit. 

"You missed." Came the response. 

Toilyn snatched something from her hip and tossed it down the hallway. It smacked against the wall and burst light across all four corners, including a short, long haired guy with a gun pointed right at us. 

"On your feet." He ordered. 

When neither of us moved, he started to laugh. "Typical." 

Who was this guy? Though he didn't put his gun away, to his credit, he didn't open fire as we were getting up. 

"Some things never change. Relax. I'm not going to shoot." He placed his gun back in its holster. "And you are?"

My eyes narrowed suspiciously. I wasn't exactly acquainted with every agent at Luminous but this guy definitely didn't fit the profile. "We could be asking you the same question." 

He ran his fingers through his hair. "You could… Hey, could you put your hands down? I put my gun away."

Toilyn, whose aim was still on his face, didn't move. "Not until I know what you're doing here."

Before either of us could so much as flinch, he pulled his gun and shot to the right of us. 

"What the-" 

"Jeez… You two are so jumpy." He walked past us. We watched as he crouched over the rat that Toilyn had blasted moments ago. We'd completely forgotten it. "You shouldn't leave stuff like this lying around. The government would love to figure out how to use this technology." He said, placing his hands over it. It started to glow. When he stood back up, it was a normal, everyday creature again. 

"How did you-" Toylin began, watching it scurry off into the darkness.

He held his hand up. "I'm guessing you're here about the timeline change." He held his hand out for us to shake. "I'm Jan."

"You're what?" I said. Neither of us moved to shake his hand. 

"Okay…" He shrugged. "Jan's my name." He leaned against the wall, boot against the wallpaper. "I'm here for the same thing."

"You're Luminous?" I said.

He shook his head. "No."

"You're Noir." Toilyn's hands were up again before I could stop her. She rushed at him, fists flying. 

He dodged the onslaught easily. Notably, without attempting to shoot her. 

"Stop, stop!" I shouted. "Toy, he's not Noir!"

They weren't paying me any attention. "He's not Noir!" I tried again. 

She was on top of him now. "What?!" She snarled back at me.

That was all he needed to launch her off of his stomach and into the wall. He pressed her against the paper with her wrist twisted against the small of her back. 

I aimed my hands at him. 

He released her immediately. "I'm not Noir." He said, raising his hands.

"Why are you here then?" Toilyn asked, rubbing her wrist. 

"Can I put my arms down?" When I nodded, he continued: "I was trying to explain earlier before you two went all vigilante on me. Name's Jan." He smiled. "I'm an inventor."

"Why would an inventor have an interest in 1999?" I said skeptically.

"I have an interest in time in general. If I may…" His hand barely brushed his holster but it was enough for Toilyn to ready herself to dive on him again. 

"Why are y'all like this? I wasn't reaching for my gun." He smirked. "In the year 2000, an inventor will crack the code to the mysteries of time travel." He held up what appeared to be a normal, everyday television remote. "I am that inventor."

I folded my arms across my chest. "If you're not Noir or Luminous, how did you get a hold of our tech?"

"I didn't." He wiggled the remote which was looking less and less normal and everyday by the second. The glass face plate shined a little. "This allows me to time travel undetected for the most part."

"It's you." Toilyn groaned, smacking her forehead. "I thought you said there wasn't an offline."

"There wasn't." I scoffed. 

Jan was right behind me. "Offline?" 

"It would explain why they only sent you." Toilyn replied, ignoring him.

"Or maybe they only sent me because they figured you were going to show up either way." 

She gestured at Jan. "No, he's the assignment, Z. Something this dipshit does is going to change the timeline." 

"Dipshit?" Jan waved his remote. "I'm hardly a dip anything. The both of you were rolling around the hallway shooting at something you didn't even have eyes on and you're calling me names?! I've run into plenty of agents in my travels and out of all of them, y'all would be the dipshits." 

"Can I kill him? Please let me kill him."

"Why would I be the cause of the timeline change if I just told you that's why I'm here?" His voice sounded as if she'd just made the stupidest point he'd ever heard. 

Though he had a valid counter point, our very existence had the ability to affect the timeline. Apparently, in his travels, no one had mentioned that fact. Just moving a cup a few spaces to the right in 1774 could cause a tsunami in Japan in 1996. We had a meticulous occupation and they made sure we never forgot it. 

I voiced this fact and slowly, almost as if something was falling into place, the smug expression on his face dissolved and his demeanor relaxed. For some reason, that made me uneasy. "What did you do?"

"What do you mean what did I do?" He blushed. "I didn't say I did anything." 

"Your face is telling an entirely different story and I don't have all day." 

"It's small. I swear."

Toilyn shook her head. "Earthquake wiping out millions small or a paper cut on the president small?"

Again, he was running his hand through his hair. He thought about it for a couple seconds before reaching down. We looked on as he was patting his pockets frantically until he produced an envelope from his back pocket. "I took this." 

Neither of us moved to retrieve the "this".

"What exactly is that?" Toilyn asked, her fingers were only a mere millimeter from the dial on her bracelet. 

"Wait! Wait!" Jan wasn't blind that was for sure. He tore the edge of the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. "It's just a letter." 

Toilyn's aim was pointed at his head now. "To whom?"

"Me! It's to me!"

"Wait a second, Toy." I pushed her hands down. "Why would a letter to you cause the entire human race to be wiped out in 2000?"

"I don't know." He opened the flaps on the envelope. "I haven't even read it yet."

"Don't read it now!" I warned him. "For all you know, reading that letter is what causes the timeline change."

"Who's it from?" Toilyn demanded. 

"Before I put the finishing touches on this," He gestured at the reattached remote on his belt. "I put in my resignation at the research facility I was working for. Shortly after, someone bombed the building and my name and face were everywhere."

"Why didn't you just go back in time and find out what caused the explosion?" I asked. 

"I couldn't." He blushed sheepishly. "I've caused a timeline change before." He sighed. "The agent who caught up with me did something to my remote. Now I can't go but so far into my own timeline."

I almost dove on him. Why didn't he tell us that in the freaking beginning?! I was thinking this as Toilyn was demanding the same. 

"So let me get this straight: You're acting all uppity and you, you right there… You yourself have caused a timeline change?! It's nice to see that while you were stocking up that belt you made sure to pack the audacity." She turned on me. "Now can I kill him?!"

"All I have to do is say yes." I said calmly.

"Okay, okay." He rolled his eyes. "Can we get out of here first? I'll tell you everything you want to know."

"You can do that right here, right now."

"She has a point." I agreed, nodding. "Where exactly is here anyway?"

"This is Altura, Thanksgiving day, 1999. He gestured at the wallpaper. "Apparently they slapped some paint and wallpaper across it and according to my records, they reopen in two weeks." 

"This is your facility." I thought about it. "When did you get that letter?"

"In 1999, before the explosion." He frowned. "Why?" 

"I'm trying to figure something out here." 

"What are you thinking, Z?"

"He said he finished that remote in 2000. This place was up and running again that same year, right?" 

"Yeah." 

"That would mean that him going to 1999 to get the envelope could have altered the timeline to where it never got burned up in the explosion. What if this building was never rebuilt and this is the original foundation?" 

"Wait a second!" Toilyn snapped her fingers. "What if whoever wrote the note knew about the explosion and was trying to warn him since they knew he was leaving?"

"Or… What if the letter is from my secret admirer?" Jan held up the paper again. "Y'all are talking like I'm not standing right here."

"What if the note was warning him about the virus?" I said, turning my attention back to him. "Who all knew about your time travel research?"

"Nobody." 

"Jan…" 

He shifted uncomfortably. "Okay, one person knew." 

"Was it your girlfriend?" Toilyn rolled her eyes. "It's always the girlfriend."

"No." He actually sounded offended. "I had an assistant." 

"Why does it feel like we're having to keep peeling back layers from you? What aren't you saying?" I demanded. 

He released a long, defeated sounding sigh. "My assistant was the one who wrote the letter. She died shortly after giving me this. I was so upset… I didn't think."

"You?" Toilyn said sarcastically. "I refuse to believe it. Say it isn't so." 

"I didn't think to take it with me. I put it in my desk." He continued, ignoring her. 

"How did she die?" I asked.

"Car accident." He paused. "What was that look?"

"We're going to the library."

"Why?"

"We can't take an offline to the library." Toilyn said, shaking her head. 

"If he really is my assignment, until we sort this mess out, he's going everywhere I go." I looked to Jan. "Right?"

He shrugged it off. "I mean, it's just a library." 

Toilyn smirked. "Just a library."  

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.