Clock's Ticking

France

Traveling through time, correcting what others have set on the wrong path is interesting work to say the least. My partner, Mobius, and I have been working on tracking down a variant that has been killing our agents, or what we call Minutemen. Currently we are working on a case that took place in Aix-En-Provence, France in 1549. We are in a chapel, which is very beautiful, the stain glass looking down on us, while the sun behind it lights the room. When Mobius and I arrive there are already other agents on the scene, processing evidence and getting the time line ready to be reset.

Unfortunately, we only have so long before we have to leave, otherwise we could start a stable alternate timeline. Mobius and I look around the scene and I kneel next to one of the men before looking up to the lead hunter, "what happened?"

"The hunter and his Minutemen responded to a routine nexus event."

"Whatever you wanna call it, it doesn't look very routine."

"It appears that when they arrived, somebody got the jump on 'em."

"You think?" Mobius, who has been standing and looking over the bodies with me, turns to the lead hunter.

"It's him," the male hunter on the scene states.

I look up to Mobius, who puckers his lips a bit, "he's right," I nod. "The stab wounds look consistent with the others." I stand and walk around, back over to Mobius, "positioning of the bodies indicates they didn't know what hit them." I look to the female hunter, "did you guys find the reset charge?"

"No," she shakes her head, "it was gone when we arrived."

The second hunter sighs, "this is the sixth attack in the last week."

"Yeah, you don't think we know that," I cross my arms and look over to him, "we've worked every one of these, just like you."

Then we hear the door open and the male hunter shouts at whoever or whatever it is, "hey!" I turn and notice it's just a small child.

The hunter goes to run at the boy but Mobius stops him, "wait, stand down! Stand down."

I sigh softly, "it's just a kid." I walk around the pews and toward the child, speaking to him in French, "I'm sorry... my friend is an imbecile."

"Hey, yo!" The male hunter calls out, "I speak every language on the timeline too. Jackass."

I walk into the hall with the boy, but he doesn't seem to be scared, if anything I'd say he's a bit confused. I pull out my tablet and pull up a small animation for the child, before handing it to him and indicating for him to tap on the screen, which he does. When he does the animation pops up and plays as a hologram. "Do you know who did this?" The child turns to the stain glass window in the hallway and points up to it. The window has a depiction of the Devil on it, the horned creature sticking out his blue tongue.

Mobius walks up next to me and speaks to the child in English, "don't worry that Devil's afraid of us. We're gonna take care of him. And we're gonna put you back where you belong."

I hold out my hand and the child hands me my tablet back, before Mobius playfully taps on his chest, causing the child to smile. But when he does there is something off about his mouth, it is blue. "That blue..." I gesture to my mouth, still speaking to the child in French, "what is that?"

The child digs through his pockets and pulls out a pack of gum. Kablooie gum to be specific, which has a habit of turning the chewers mouth and spit blue. "Devil bearing gifts," Mobius looks over the candy, having taken it from the child when he handed it to us. He turns back to the male hunter, "go ahead and run this for sequence period and any hints of temporal aura."

"You know we won't get anything," the hunter sighs.

"Just give it a shot."

I turn back to the child as I hear a device start to beep, "the branch is nearing red line. We need to go."

"Okay," Mobius nods.

I smile to the child, "go wait outside."

The child nods and heads outside and the three of us get ready to set a charge and leave. But when we walk back into the chapel a portal door opens and a office walker steps through it, addressing Mobius, "sir, there's something you'll wanna see."

Mobius takes the file and opens it, before looking over to me, "we have some work to do back at the office."