The Knights of Time and the Forgotten Book

Chapter 14: Guard Duty

“Ugh why are we doing this anyway?” Brandon whined as I woke him up.

Our last station shift was two hours ago and I’d been guarding the diary for almost four hours. We were taking it in turns, spending four hours at a time, then two hours for sleep or anything else. That would leave at least two people guarding the notebooks at a time.

By then, I was tired and bored out of my mind. So much, that I thought I was starting to hear voices in my head.

“I knew you weren’t listening to Peter when he was telling us about the mission protocols,” I said. I roamed about the room.

“I was listening to what he was saying I just- I’m really forgetful.”

“Like I haven’t heard that before.”

“But I am.”

“Like when you forgot how to open the HQ door the day after they told us how we can use the Keeper to get in.”

“Yeah but-”

“Or like when you forgot to log out of the server after they specifically told us to not do that.”

He looked at me with droopy eyes. “Just, shut up. I'm too tired to deal with this.”

I laughed. “When you weren’t paying attention, Peter said that it’s our duty to take full responsibility of matters which might sever a fixed point in time, altering the running time stream. He said that most of the time, the Dark Arrows have something to do with it. Most people living in the messed up time stream usually have no idea what they’re doing or who the Dark Arrows are. We, at least, can mostly know what to expect from them.”

“Except we don’t.”

“Except we don’t,” I repeated.

He stood up and rushed his fingers through his hair and rubbed his forehead quizzically.

“What about Salaì, Francesco and the King of France?”

“What about them?”

“How did they trust us so easily?” he asked.

“See, I knew you never pay attention.”

“Just answer my stupid question.”

I laughed. “I asked Philip a question along the same lines the other day. He said the Keeper contained some thingamajig with a long-ass technical name. He said it manipulated brain neurons to make the people around the wearer trust him immediately.”

“Ohhhh, now I remember.”

“Yeah okay,” I said, smiling.

“Is that why they didn’t seem to care that we were teenagers?”

“Yup. The Keeper acts like fog. It blurs out other details which don’t have to do with how much they need to trust the person who wears the Keeper.”

“Man, I should start paying more attention to what the other Knights say.”

“You think?” I said sarcastically, smiling.

We walked together to the wine cellar and sat together on a barrel. As soon as we’d arrived, Jeremy went to have a meeting with Francesco about security precautions. I was bored, tired and slightly dirty from sitting in that cellar for so long. But as I sat there, I felt a sudden pang of energy. The kind of energy which comes after a long, sleep deprived night, when it’s three in the morning but you don’t feel like sleeping, and you suddenly have the urge to start a dance party.