Double Twenty

CHAPTER 7 - Sympathy for the Devil (The Rolling Stones)

"Time is a great teacher; it fixes many things." – Pierre Corneille

As the deputy director of the departmental house of radio astronomy research, Alejandro was responsible for managing and coordinating a multidisciplinary team. No one had ever asked him what that really meant. His wife found the salary decent, the hours acceptable, and he never complained about his job. The separation between his private and professional life was perfect, so Julien had never questioned him about it. When asked about his father's profession, he would say "manager" or "deputy director," and for his mother, he'd say "employee." This satisfied most people or administrative inquiries. The reality was somewhat different. Alejandro had been personally recruited 24 years ago by the current director of the service, Timothée Sundial, after his engineering studies. Sundial's specific criteria for the position boiled down to three qualities: Silence. Listening. Observation. The rest was just technicality. Since then, they had worked closely together. Alejandro collected and compiled data for his boss. Who would have believed him anyway if he had said that his main task was to track traces of temporal resonances across France? Even now, with his experience, he still found it strange, for lack of a better word. "Time travel exists," Sundial hadn't minced words during their first interview. Alejandro had simply absorbed the information, and that was enough to get him hired. Time and again, he had observed that what seemed impossible or crazy to the average person was part of his daily life. Julien's father had identified and mapped the locations of dozens of travelers, written notes, generated statistics, compared manifestations over different periods, and liaised with agents. Alejandro Carlos Garcia did not gamble, but he had a deep conviction that his son would be his next subject. The question now was from which era he came, how long the effect would last, and what it would imply for him and his family. Despite technological advancements and various iterations, it was still not possible to determine the exact year and age of departure for the subjects. Some stays lasted only a few minutes, causing just a simple déjà vu or flashbacks. Others, however, were much longer or more significant. What he sensed without fully understanding was that his son would be at the center of attention for both the Watchmakers and the Chrono Liberators.

Sundial, in his transparency, had shared with him the origins of the department. Alejandro had listened attentively, without prejudice, interruptions, or unnecessary questions. Established for two centuries, the order of the Watchmakers had the main mission of preserving the fragile balance of space-time, preventing any action that could destabilize the continuum. This duty was the source of the hatred that Ariane Morin harbored for the organization, their nemesis. Her grandfather Louis, a brilliant scientist, had left the comfort of 1972 for the turmoil of 1937 for fifteen days. The Watchmakers had no choice, according to their order's rules, but to prevent him from achieving his goal: killing Adolf Hitler. He had barely escaped physically unscathed and with all his memories intact. It had driven him mad to the point of abandoning his scientific research and cutting ties with his loved ones, except for his granddaughter, whom he considered his heir, the only one capable of continuing his work. Until his death in 1988, he pursued only one goal: creating a resistance network capable of fighting against the Watchmakers and changing the course of history if necessary. The Chrono Liberators. Ariane's motivation was both personal and ideological; she believed, like her grandfather, that humanity needed to rewrite its destiny to avoid the mistakes of the past, even if it meant eliminating opponents.

The game of temporal resonance had just begun, and each player, whether they realized it or not, had a crucial role to play.