by Ethan Bibile
“Well, I guess it’s good that one of us is,” Quinn said, before he kissed Laura again, making it the second time that day and in total. Morgan simply stood there, watching them as he had before, trying hard not be awkward. It was an incredibly hard job. Eventually, Quinn and Laura broke apart, after several moments.
“Are you guys just going to be kissing each other from now on?” Morgan asked in his metallic voice, and Quinn and Laura both smiled at Morgan, unwrapping their arms from each other. Quinn took a step towards Morgan, putting a hand on the silver metal plate on his shoulder.
“Don’t worry Morgan. We won’t forget you,” Quinn said, reassuring Morgan, which got a smile out of him. Suddenly, the intercom crackled like it had done so many times upon Quinn visiting Nigellia. For a second, Quinn thought it was Sagra, only to realise that they were nowhere near Nigellia.
“Hello, Quinn,” Called a voice, which Quinn eventually identified as Emily’s. “Could the three of you take your seats? We're going to use the magnetic grab upon our ship and tow you to T.A.S.P.A, alright? You won’t need to steer or turn your engines on either,” Quinn, Laura and Morgan did as Emily asked them to, taking a seat in their respective chairs. They watched out the cockpit window as one of T.A.S.P.A’s ships flew in front of them and suddenly the Audion was being towed out of the hangar.
After a while of silence aboard the Audion, Morgan spoke. “You said Agross told you his master plan,” Morgan said, and Quinn’s smile vanished from his face. “What was it?”
Quinn sighed, knowing that he was going to have to relay the horrors to his two friends sooner or later. So, he decided to speak now, rather than forever hold his peace. Quinn began to tell the plan just as Agross had, sharing every single little detail. He told them about the Time Watches; About the time in the other dimension. About the paradox; About Agross’s potential rule over the universe; About how he had spread the Time Watches throughout time and space to send T.A.S.P.A running around like mice trying to find them. About how Agross saw this all as a game, a game that he was winning.
Laura and Morgan were frozen in silence for a matter of seconds, completely in shock at this news, neither of them really knowing what to say.
“That’s… that’s just… whoa,” Laura said, expressing her true feelings straight away. Quinn couldn’t have agreed with her more.
It took them a couple of hours to reach their destination. Quinn first saw it up ahead, a grey, miserable looking planet that didn’t look particularly inviting. Clouds seemed to swirl upon the surface, and Quinn had to admit that this did not look like the planet that would house a base for an agency bent on saving the universe.
“The place looks… nice,” Quinn said, lying straight through his teeth just in case Emily was still listening. He didn’t want to offend her and not get the job just because he called their planet stupid.
“Don’t bother lying,” Emily said, and Quinn sighed in relief. “We all hate it, but it works well,” Quinn knitted his eyebrows together, before glancing at Laura and Morgan, feeling like he was missing something. He wasn’t sure what just yet.
Emily’s ship led the Audion into a descent towards the miserable looking planet, a cone of fire surrounding both ship’s noses. It wasn’t long before they entered the atmosphere and Quinn, Laura and Morgan got their first look at the planet.
The first thing they all noticed was how much it was raining. Rain pelted down in the bucket loads, pounding upon the roof of the Audion. They could barely see the T.A.S.P.A ship, despite it being right in front of them. Quinn turned on the headlights which lit up the ship in front of them and nothing else. They continued the descent towards the ground until they could make out features. The terrain was incredibly rocky and jagged. Rocky mountains were everywhere, the surface incredibly uneven. Among the terrain were rectangle, grey buildings with open roofs, where Quinn could see spaceships parked inside. There were multiple hangars for the ships of T.A.S.P.A and there were no other buildings. Was this all some sort of joke?
Both the T.A.S.P.A ship and the Audion descended into the hangar, touching down on the concrete ground beneath them.
“Well, this looks… nice,” Laura said putting on the polite act. Laughter erupted from the intercom where Morgan’s voice used to come from.
“Really, don’t bother talking this place up. We all insult it. Come on, we’ll take you to the tower,” Emily said before the intercom crackled and Emily’s presence was gone. Shrugging at the other two, Quinn got up out of his seat and the three left the cockpit of the Audion. They descended the staircase and went into the lounge before going into the cargo bay where Quinn opened the door.
Much to their surprise, despite having no roof on top of the hangar, the hangar was completely dry. Quinn, Laura and Morgan walked down the cargo ramp, Quinn with his hand out, trying to catch water droplets. He looked forwards. The entire wall was missing, thus leading to the outside world where rain didn’t seem to be pelting down.
“Welcome,” Said Emily, her and her Unit standing at the bottom of the cargo door. As the three stepped off the ramp, it closed behind them. “Come on then, let’s go,” Emily said, not bothering to waste any time at all. Quinn, Laura and Morgan followed her out of the hangar. As they did other spaceships descended into the hangar from above.
“Stay on the path. Unless you want to get wet,” Emily said, giving the three a smile, before stepping out of the hangar. Quinn, Laura and Morgan stopped and looked up. There, above them was a transparent blue path above head height. It followed a roughly carved stone path on the ground, which twisted off into the distance. The blue overhead path stopped the rain from falling on their heads and getting them wet. Quinn guessed that was what had been above the hangar.
Both Quinn and Emily’s groups went up the path, which seemed to be slightly illuminated by the overhead blue one. Quinn tried to look out at the rocky world beyond them for any kind of tower or building but saw none. They simply continued following Emily and her group up the path, going up and down, through twists and turns.
Eventually, up ahead they saw a faint blue light, that wasn’t coming from the blue path overhead.
“What’s that light up ahead?” Laura asked, voicing Quinn and Morgan’s thoughts. Emily turned around and smiled.
“You’ll see.”
The group continued walking up the path until they eventually reached the blue light they had seen off in the distance. A grey metal object stood against the rocky wall. It had a firm, rectangle base with two rectangle sides sticking up from the base. On one of the sides, there was a small keypad with a screen. Generated between the three sides was a shimmering blue substance, waving back and forth slowly. It wasn’t doing anything at all. Despite this, Quinn knew exactly what it was.
“It’s a teleport,” Quinn said, genuinely impressed. Teleports weren’t supposed to be invented for another five years. “How’d you get one?”
“How did you know it’s a teleport?” Emily asked curiously, giving Quinn a bemused look.
“I… read,” Quinn replied, nodding his head in response, hopefully satisfying her.
“We’ve got the top engineers working here. We use this planet to park our ships. In case anyone follows us, we lead them here. Even if they find the teleport they won’t be able to get through, the security measures are pretty extreme,” Emily explained.
“That’s impressive,” Morgan said, nodding to Emily. The rain and the blue substance reflected off parts of his body that weren’t covered by clothing.
Emily input a security code into the keypad before a retinal scanner popped out of the teleporter and scanned Emily’s retina. Then, a microphone popped up.
“Emily Burwood, friends and guests,” Emily said as clearly as she possibly could. The devices then retracted themselves back into the teleporter. Suddenly the blue material began to shimmer and waver faster than before. The colour slowly changed until it shone out a bright white colour. Everyone covered their eyes, so used to the darkness
of the planet. Emily and the members of her Unit stepped through, and then somewhat cautiously, Quinn, Laura and Morgan followed.
The three-continued shielding their eyes as they stepped through the portal and they instantly felt the cold air upon their skin change to a warm breeze. The three all slowly lowered their hands from their eyes, and they got the first good look at where they were.
They all stood upon a beautifully paved white path that stretched out beyond them. Behind them was the teleport which showed an image of the rocky and rainy terrain, the portal itself against a large rock. Surrounding them was a beautiful green forest. Trees lined the white path, flowers and bushes littered throughout the forest. Every single plant was well kept. A pleasant aroma met their noses, most likely from the flowers. The sky was a pleasant blue colour, perfect clouds dotted throughout the sky. And up ahead of them was what Quinn had been looking for.
A beautiful city was ahead of them, white buildings filling the landscape. One building stood out in particular. Directly ahead of them, at the end of the path, was a huge white building. Up came a white trunk, stretching up high, upon which was a large circle on the top, its edges sticking out over the white truck. The circle on top reminded Quinn of a dumpling, a food from back home. The building was perfectly smooth, large glass rectangles placed all over the place.
“This place is beautiful,” Quinn breathed out, T.A.S.P.A exceeding his expectations. The entire planet seemed to be made from beauty. He walked forward after Emily and her group in some sort of trance, Laura and Morgan walking alongside him in the exact same kind of state.
They continued walking up the path, taking in every tiny bit of their surroundings. Suddenly the path turned into a large circle, where on the ground was a golden symbol, and Quinn realised that the symbol was the same as the badge T.A.S.P.A members wore on their jackets. The symbol was of the tower in front of them, Quinn looking up to compare the symbol and the real thing. Surrounding the golden version of the tower on the floor was a golden circular border, upon which lay the words ‘Time and Space Protection Agency’.
The seven-people continued walking forward past the symbol on the ground towards the building. As they continued to walk forward, Quinn noticed that there was no door to enter the building. He looked around, scanning up and down for some sort of door, but couldn’t manage to find one at all.
Quinn, Laura and Morgan all stopped right at the base of the building, staring up at it. None of them had any idea how to get into the tower. Perhaps it was just decoration?
“Emily?” Quinn asked, turning his gaze from the top of the tower to the member of the agency, only to find that she was gone, and her Unit members were walking straight through the wall. Eventually, they had all disappeared, leaving the three alone outside. After a few moments, Emily poked her head back outside, which looked strange as it had nobody.
“What are you waiting for?” Emily said, and her hand suddenly came through the side of the building, not attached to a body either. “Come in,” Emily gestured for them to follow her, and with slight hesitation, the three did.
The wall might have been a centimetre thick, as it took them only a millisecond to pass through it and enter the building. Quinn looked around, eyes broad in wonder yet again at this beautiful planet.
The room was wide, very wide. A set of spiral stairs that stuck to the circular wall led up to the top of the building which when Quinn looked up caused him to feel dizzy from seeing stairs placed that high. At the base of where the circular building sat on top of the trunk, there was an impressive light and glass display that looked quite beautiful. On the ground, there was a white desk where two people sat. A large wall stood behind them with a display upon it, the screens each showing numerous numbers. The largest one that was centred saying ‘four hundred and six’, a number that resonated with Quinn, although he was too much in awe to care. People walked from behind the wall, talking to each other, others coming out of a room to the right. The glass rectangles caused light to shine through into the building, illuminating it. Quinn looked behind him to see that the strange door they had come through was now glass and he was able to look out into the world beyond.
“I know it’s weird,” Emily said, leading the group forward. “Freaked me out the first time I came here too. It’s funny though when we get new people and they just walk into the side of the building thinking it’s the door. Because its glass from this side we can see through. Gives us all a laugh,” Emily said chuckling to herself.
She led the group behind the wall where there was a tall glass tube that went up to the roof. Inside the glass tube was a flat white elevator which people were hopping onto. As Quinn, Laura and Morgan looked up, they noticed that there were bridges branching out connecting to the elevator so that people could stop off at any floor.
The group of seven hopped into the elevator and took it to the top of the building, Quinn, Laura and Morgan looking through the bridges into each of the floors to see what they contained.
The elevator arrived at the top. The only people being on it now were Quinn, Laura, Morgan and Emily, whose comrades had stopped off on a different floor.
They found themselves in a foyer-like room, which made a hexagon shape. Each side of the hexagon having a door upon it that would no doubt lead to the next exciting room. Emily stepped forward, opening the door to the room directly in front of them, gesturing for the three to go through.
The room wasn’t huge, yet it wasn’t small either. It mostly resembled a business room, a long, state of the art wooden table in the centre of the room with white, hoverchairs around the table like the ones at Quinn’s desk back upon Nespritia. Screens surrounded the walls, holographic computer screens and keyboard all around the room on the table. The room was filled with a hand full of people, all different species and a few humans. Most of them wore the white jackets that were standard uniform, apart from two humans. One had brown hair and the other had long blonde hair, both of whom were talking to someone.
“Dad!” Emily said, diverting the attention of the man who was talking to the two humans. He looked up at his daughter, smiling at her. The two humans turned around and Quinn saw that they were a male and female. The male had neatly combed brown hair, his fringe brushed to one side of his forehead. The female with blonde hair had glasses. Both couldn’t have been older than Quinn.
“Emily!” Said the man joyously, walking up to his daughter, hugging her. “How did it go?” He asked urgently. “Agross got away, didn’t he?”
“Of course, he did, we knew we weren’t going to catch him today,” Emily said shaking her head. Her father sighed to himself. He was about Quinn’s height, yet he was somewhat a little larger around the middle than Quinn was. He had greying hair that had begun to
“And these are?” He said, smiling kindly, having authority in his voice at the same time as he turned to look at Quinn, Laura and Morgan.
“Ah yes,” Emily said. “We found these three at Agross’ base, Quinn here having fought Agross,” Emily said, gesturing towards Quinn, who smiled modestly.
“You fought Agross,” Emily’s father said, looking at Quinn rather sternly. Quinn could see that he was ever so slightly impressed, as shown by his eyes. “That was incredibly stupid, I’m surprised you're here to tell the tale,” Quinn knew how lucky he was to be here. “What’s your name?” It wasn’t really a question, yet more of a command.
“My name is Quinn Fenton, sir,” Quinn said, adding in the sir, which reminded him of the Reslavi and Lord Flendres. “This is Laura Somers-” He gestured to Laura who smiled politely. “-and Morgan,” Quinn said, gesturing to Morgan too. Emily’s father looked at the three of them, Quinn looking a little worse for wear.
“My name is Cedric Burwood, and I am the leader of the Time and Space Protection Agency,” He said, introducing himself. So, Quinn had been right to call him ‘sir’. “Now excuse me for asking, but what kind of idiot ventures out to kill Agross.”
Quinn sighed, knowing th
at this question would come. He looked down at the floor, gathering himself. He knew he would need to re-piece himself before he started speaking. He looked up and began to tell the leader of T.A.S.P.A his story.
He began to recount every detail of his adventures. How he was from the future. How Agross attacked his family and planet. Escaping Nespritia. Discovering he was stranded in two thousand and sixteen. Finding out that Agross was in this time and learning about T.A.S.P.A and swearing to join them and bring down Agross. He hadn’t noticed until the end, but at some point, Laura had grabbed his hand in comfort, which he didn’t realise he was squeezing, Laura acting as his anchor.
“You’re from the future?” Cedric asked, almost desperately. “Tell me, was there any word of Agross’ defeat?” Once again, he said it as an order.
“No,” Quinn responded immediately. He had never heard of Agross before that one, fateful night. Yet now that the question had been created, so had Quinn’s curiosity. Why had he never heard of Agross before in his entire life?
Cedric looked away, annoyed. He then turned back to Quinn, Laura and Morgan.
“Mr Fenton, I’m going to offer you something,” Cedric said, sweeping his grey hair to one side. It didn’t do anything. He stood up straighter before offering his proposal. “As you seem to know from Agross, he spread Time Watches throughout space and time. For this reason, we have time travel in our ships,” Quinn could feel his heart pumping as he heard the words he never thought he would hear in his entire life. They had time travel? They could time travel! Time travel shouldn’t have even been invented yet! Was it possible? In this seemingly impossible place maybe, just maybe, it was possible.
“If you wish it, we can send you home.”
Quinn’s head was spinning. He could go home. He could go home! He could return to his universe, the universe that he loved and knew, not this unfamiliar one. He could go back to a normal life that teenagers should have, he could live his life away from this war. He could simply remember this like it was all a long nightmare.
