Time Enough

"The three musketeers"

pre-event, 29th century- prologue

"And then I decided to approach her, and guess what I said to her!" The man said.

"What?" The other man asked curiously.

"Darling, even if I was in an anti-gravity chamber I would still fall for you!"

The other man laughed "And then she took out her pepper spray, didn't she, Theodore?"

"Ha-ha, very funny Aaron. You know you can't be as smooth as me." Theodore replied.

"My days are long over, Three."

Zack was walking beside them, he was listening but didn't say anything. His eyes were looking downwards. Suddenly he smiled, "Don't you think we look like the three musketeers?"

There was silence for a moment.

Theodore looked at him "The what?"

"Nothing, nothing." Zack sighed.

"Oh, kid." Aaron chuckled. "You're ok."

The trio was walking down the corridor. They were dressed in uniform. White jackets and rubbery pants. On their backs they had I, II and III written. Their heads were shaven clean and reflected blinding light from the powerful light-emitting diodes. They had fresh scars behind their ears from their communicator implants.

They reached the end of the corridor and the door in front of them opened, quickly sliding upwards. They were amazed at the view of the vast office as they entered. The floor was glass and the Earth was visible with all its glory under their feet. In the middle there was man with a blue hue sitting on a black chair behind his desk.

The man stood up and greeted them, "Welcome," he said, he was significantly taller than all three of them, "our heroes!". He had the rank of general in the federal army.

All three of them stood in a line with their hands behind their backs.

"This is the second time the federation needs your assistance." The general continued. "As you know, there's been a high concentration of closed timelike curves in limited spacetime. We must not let these accumulate or we risk the creation of a black hole. The federation, Earth, needs you. You must locate the one who is opening these curves and causing the disturbance and bring him to us. You're free to go, you'll receive more information from Lana."

"Sir", The three saluted the general and left.

The general sat down as the door closed.

• • •

The woman smiled as she was giving our trio their vaccines. "That's the last one!"

"Thanks, Lana" said Zack.

"Hey, what do you say we go out and grab something to eat after I come back victorious, Lana?" Theodore winked at Lana.

"I'll pass." Lana declined.

"Well, your loss." Theodore shrugged. 

"So you guys are ready to go now," Lana was putting down the needles "we'll keep in touch through One's communicator. Remember, do not use your CTC amulets in the first 8 months, we don't want more disturbance in spacetime."

The three entered a glass chamber together, they were carrying compact back packs with 10 kilos of gold each, for expenses. They took out and opened their amulets as Lana waved at them from the outside. The amulets stuck together like magnets, an individual amulet has a range of 15 years while all three together have a range of 3375 years, that's 15 to the power of 3. They all entered their designated points in spacetime and after a few seconds they were gone. Lana turned around and walked out of the lab.