Time Thief by Greg Krojac

Author:Greg Krojac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Time Travel, Cosplay, Steampunk
Publisher: Greg Krojac
Published: 2021-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

12:49, Saturday 25 March 2073

Bureau of Temporal Affairs HQ, Embankment, London EC4

To say that the room in which Ari found himself in at the Bureau of Temporal Affairs was minimalist would be an understatement. It housed a table and three chairs, each looking as uncomfortable as the next. That was it. No wall decorations. Not even a filing cabinet. Ari knew what would happen next – an interrogation followed by judgement followed by punishment.

The agents hadn’t been rough with him – he didn’t resist arrest – but they had taken his pocket watch from him. After what seemed like an age but was only a couple of minutes, two men in magenta Nehru suits entered the room. Ari went to stand up but one of them gestured to him that he should remain seated. They sat down opposite Ari.

One of them smiled at Ari but it wasn’t a gesture of friendship.

“Ari, may I call you Ari?”

“I prefer Aristotle.”

“Okay. Aristotle it is. I’m Agent Wolfe and my colleague is Agent Sheldon.”

Agent Sheldon was taking notes. The conversation was being recorded but he preferred to have a more tangible backup too. Agent Wolfe continued.

“Aristotle. Why did you travel back to 2020?”

Ari flirted with the idea of not telling the two agents but lying didn’t sit well with him. Besides, these people could have his licence rescinded and what job could he do if he wasn’t a Temporal Private Investigator. It’s all he’d ever known. Along with his steampunk persona, it’s who he was.

“I wanted to save Doctor Spencer. Doctor William Spencer. I was in the library, reading a book about him when the book’s content started to fade away into nothing.”

“Who’s Doctor Spencer, Aristotle?”

“He is – he was – a researcher on Project Clockwise.”

Agent Sheldon queried several databases but could find no record of Dr Spencer. He shook his head.

Ari looked anxious.

“I did not imagine him. Honest. He did exist. I know he has never existed for you but he did exist.”

Agent Wolfe’s tone softened.

“Aristotle. It’s okay. We believe you. As Temporal Agents, we’re well aware of collateral damage that could be caused by timeline manipulation. There have been a couple of instances when people have gone back to a previous time to try and change their personal history but, both times, we were able to prevent the disruption.”

Ari wasn’t expecting that.

“You believe me?”

“Yes, Aristotle. But the problem is that we can’t deal with this situation directly. Those two earlier instances that I mentioned originated from this timeline. However, we believe that this time the manipulation is being instigated by somebody who’s acting outside our timeline.”

“Outside the timeline? Is that possible?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Like a parallel timeline?”

“No, not parallel, Aristotle. We think it’s from a source that doesn’t exist yet – not from our point of view anyway. We think the time thief is from the future, so he or she is still outside our timeline, as it has not yet been experienced.”

Nobody had even mentioned the idea of punishing Ari yet.

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