The Day That Wasn't

Chapter 1

Five knew from the moment the handler let him out of her office, they knew. He could see it by the looks on their faces, especially of Dot. So he decided to keep an eye on her, hoping he could find any clue of how to prevent the apocalypse from happening.

It was just waiting till she turned up with a message for Hazel and Cha Cha and so he leaned against the wall, waiting for Dot to turn up, handing her message over to Gloria. It didn't take long.

'Gloria, the Handler knows Five is up to something. Get this to Hazel and Cha-Cha immediately,' she said and she handed the tube over to the older woman.

Gloria took it hesitantly from her and looked at it. 'Euh,' she just said.

'Immediately!' she repeated, before she turned around, walking back the way she came from.

'Okay. Yeah!' Gloria said, a little nervous. 'Euh, who are they?' she asked by herself while she walked to the tubes.

Five didn't hesitate, while Gloria was looking at the label of the tube, he blinked behind her. With one single blow he knocked her unconscious. He looked around carefully, but there was know one there. As quiet as possible he dragged her behind her desk, so people looking for her wouldn't see her. Then he opened the tube and took the letter that was in it. There was a single line of text written on it.

REASSIGNMENT: PROTECT HAROLD JENKINS

He didn't know who Harold Jenkins was, one thing he was certain of was that he didn't have much time left. Quickly he folded the paper and turned around to the typewriter on the desk. A paper was already on it, he just had to type his message.

The best he could do was to take Hazel and Cha-Cha out and the quickest and easiest way to do that was to let them kill each other. The first message was for Cha-Cha.

TERMINATE HAZEL FOR IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION

The second he wrote was the same line, but then addressed to Hazel. Hopefully this could keep them busy while he was trying to save the world. He took both of the messages and ran to the tubes.

The tubes were the system the commission used to get in contact with their field agents. He went through the corridor of tubes, looking for the names of the people he was looking for. Soon he found them. Cha-Cha's tube was on the right side of the corridor, he opened the tube and let the message he had for her go. Now the other one. He found Hazel's on the left side of the corridor right across Cha-Cha's.

'You know that's not how we do things here.'

Shit. The Handler was already here. He had hoped he could have had some more time to escape before they found out. Now he had to deal with her first before he could go back to his family. He leaned over Hazel's tube and crossed his arms.

'Where is Gloria?' the Handler asked. He knew she was playing a game with him, as always, but he was happy to play with it.

'Don't know. Couldn't find her anywhere,' he said while he shrugged. Unfortunately Gloria then found the perfect timing to let her hear from her. A groan from the desk, the Handler stood next to it and heard it. Her creepy smile faded away and now he could see the calm mask underneath.

'You're a great disappointment to me,' she said with a fake disappointed voice. He stood up, ready to fight. The adrenaline was already kicking in and helped him being alert, ready to blink if necessary. 'You can't change what's to come, Five. I truly find it so odd that you can't shedd this fantasy. You're a first-rate pragmatist! You belong here with us!'

'I don't belong anywhere, thanks to you,' he hissed. 'You made me a killer!'

'You were always a killer,' she simply said and she unzipped her skirt to reveal a gun. 'I just pointed you in a direction.'

He saw how she pointed the gun on him and he blinked. If he could get behind her, he could hit her. But the Handler knew his tricks and kept shooting and he kept blinking. He didn't know when his powers would fail on him, the only hope he had was to wait till the bullets ran out. Someone had pressed the security breach button and now an alarm went off buzzing in his ear.

He blinked behind one of the tubes. A shopping cart stood behind him, blocking the path. He heard the ticking of the Handler's heels on the floor. A few seconds and she was on the path he was on. In silence, he counted to five before he pushed the shopping cart to her. She managed to stop it with her heel and started shooting again, but he had already blinked away.

'What's the rush Five?' she said, something of enjoyment was in her normally so calm voice. 'We're just getting started!'

But he had counted her shots and he knew that she was out. He blinked a few meters behind her. 'Is this really how you want the last line of your report to read?'

'When I'm done, I'm done, I guess,' he said and he grinned while she turned around, pointing the gun on him again.

'You can't keep this up, Five. We both know that even you have a limit,' she said. She knew that he was almost out of fuel. She could probably see it on how he leaned on the tubes, sweating like hell. The warmth of the tubes didn't help either. 'I saved you from a lifetime of being alone. You owe me,' she hissed. Then she pressed the trigger, the click of the gun said enough to them. She pressed again, frustrated.

'I do owe a debt,' he grinned while she grabbed the other clip she had. He blinked behind her, while picking up one of the grenades in her office. 'But it's not to you.' He pulled the pin out and showed her the little thing in his hand before he rolled it to her.

'Shit,' she said, looking at it. He didn't even look back when he ran down the hallway, just fast enough to hide behind one of the walls.

A loud kaboom made the people that still were there scream even louder while they tried to evacuate. With his last spark of energy he blinked to the case room. He had to grab a case to return to his own timeline again, preferably with all of the other ones destroyed.

He grabbed the last grenade he had and pulled the pin with his teeth while he grabbed one of the cases with him.

'Hey! What are you doing?' one man behind one of the desks yelled to him right before the grenade blew off, tearing the man who sat there into pieces.

He didn't even think about it. While the room exploded he opened the case, taking him back to 2019.