Victorie plus N

Chapter 21: Manipulators

"So the manipulators," I prod Teddy. It's finally the next morning -which just happens to be sunny, in contrast to the mood- where I plan to question Teddy until I know everything. If this is real- which I'm not convinced it is- he should be able to answer all my questions.

So here we are.

"Yes," Teddy says, taking a deep, nervous breath like he's gearing up for some poem recitation.

I nod my head at him, gesturing for him to get on with the explaining.

"Well, as I said, Nicholas Adams discovered the time curves. Solely by himself. But, he knew he would die of course one day, and he didn't want this discovery to disappear, but then he also didn't want it getting into the "wrong hands". Apparently, that meant the government.'

"So Nicholas hired a group of close colleagues that were in his division at college and taught them about Curves. He specially trained them in specific methods to advance the studies when he was gone and lay out ground rules. This proved very helpful because he died two years later of Tuberculosis."

Teddy looks at me to make sure I'm understanding what he's saying.

I am. But barely.

"So, after his death, the group of men trained more men, and when the original group of men died, the next group trained more men. Which is when things kind of went downhill," Teddy continues, "The third group was led by, as they appointed 'chairmen' or 'leaders' for each group, a malicious man. His name was never recorded, as far as us townspeople know, and so he'll forever remain name-less. He was concerned with evil and greediness- your typical villain. But he had another aspect to him- the power of persuasion. He was able to get the rest of the men to agree on a very, very, bad plan."

Teddy stops talking and then stares at me.

After a few seconds of him just staring at me, I ask, "Well, what was the plan!?"

"No one knows," he says, shrugging, "Nothing happened except that the rules to getting into a Curve became stricter and the number of people who knew also became stricter. As far as we know, the plan was either forgotten or it's still in development. But no one knows about the plan, except for the manipulators. Just one of those mysterious things people do. Well, after that, the man mysteriously disappeared, and almost all the rest died of a disease of some kind. A strange way to end that group, but that's when manipulators actually became specialized. The few remaining traveled to Curves and got stuck in time loops which I'll explain this evening..." he trails off, nervously checking his wrist-watch.

"I've go to get going, but the others are coming tonight and I'm going to tell them what happened. Bye!" he runs off. Again.

"Wait!" I yell after him, "I have questions!"

Like a million, but he's taken a fork off to somewhere and it's starting to rain. Ah well, I'll just have to save them. Till tonight.

Teddy's strange.