Tempus

Chapter Five

“Harry Potter was a great series,” agreed Emily taking a sip of tea. For the last hour we have been holed up in her office talking about everything from favorite books to family trips. We talked about things no one else really understood, except for those of us from zone seven. “But I preferred The Lord of The Rings.”

“Really? You liked them better than Harry Potter?” I asked disbelievingly. Crossing my legs I put my head in my hand. “What about the movie’s? I read the books and saw all of them when they came out, and the movies were great.”

“So were the movies for the Lord of The Rings,” said Emily. She was sitting at her desk organizing a pile of old looking papers while I was sitting up against the wall on a pillow. Her office was too small for more than one chair, but I didn’t mind. Just being in here helped sooth my jumbled thoughts.

“They were okay,” I reasoned, seeing this conversation would go nowhere if one of us didn’t give in a little. Setting the pile of papers she was finished straightening, under a thick volume she turned around and took off her glasses.

“I think it’s time to discuss what you came here to talk about now, child. No use procrastinating.”

I blew a strand of hair out of my face, and played with the edge of my shirt. It almost felt like I was home in this tiny closet of an office. Like I could pull out my cell and call Becca and see if she wanted to stay late and watch a show after work. But my few minutes of escape are over.

“Why did the federation cut training short for the cadets?” I asked pulling my knees to my chest. Leaning back in her chair Emily crossed her hands over her stomach.

“Alex told you about the attack on the French Headquarters I presume?”

“Yeah, and about her parents.”

“Then you know that the correctors have not been active for a few years now.  Without any activity we have no real way of knowing what is going on,” she said. “We are currently in the dark, and that frightens the Federation. Sowe are preparing for the worst case scenario, and one of our ways of preparation is getting as many people who can help in case of an emergency, through the training program as fast as possible.”

“But by cutting it short, people are less prepared or whatever right?” I asked. How could throwing teenagers into the flux help the problem if they don’t know what they are doing?

“That’s why we take people from time zones,” she says pulling up a map on her con tab. The map is an oval divided into small slivers labeled with different years and color coded. Each sliver represents a hundred years, until you get back in the BC sections. The very first section is labeled 3000-1000 BC and is titled ‘The Bronze Age’.

“The Federation takes adults and children alike from different time zones. Like you, they brought you here from the year 2013 and are educating you on how to become an agent. Since you’re from zone seven you don’t have to take classes on how to act or behave in the twenty-first century.”

“They can train you and then just send you right back to your home time, and voila they have an agent in the field,” says Emily pointing to zone seven on the map. It’s a yellow color and towards the front of the line.

 “Tempus travel only goes as far back as far as 1000 BC. People lose the ability to communicate though, so the earliest people taken are from the time of the Ancient Greeks and the Chinese.”

No wonder some people don’t like the Federation. They take people out of there dimensions without permission. I thought back to when Leann asked me if I accepted this mission. If I wanted to become a member of the federation, I wondered what would have happened if I had said no. Would they have sent me back happily to my old life? Something tells me I didn’t really have much of a choice, only the illusion of one.