Untimely Agent: Angus Farseek, #1

Chapter 1

Here’s the sequence of events.

Distracted by text.

Ice patch.

Sliding.

Guardrail.

Falling.

And then the little creatures call Quick Slivers appeared. I didn’t know their name at the time, but that’s one of the first things Epoch Rex deemed worth my while to know.

For now, that’s all I’m willing to say about my death. Correction, untimely death.

Chapter 2

My existence is a bit of a gray area. So I died, but technically didn’t die. I mean, I’m going to die. Everybody does, but ‘everybody’ gets to tack vague words like eventually or down the road to that loaded statement.

I, however, know my death is a split second away.

Confused? So was I. So am I.

Let me take it back to just after the Quick Sliver creatures showed up.

****

My car was falling toward the dense woods below, the icy road a distant memory behind me and about fifty feet higher than my current rapidly deteriorating altitude. When you’re mid-air, pumping on the brakes and yanking the steering wheel left and right accomplishes a whole lot of nothing.

Full-panic mode set in.

I was seconds from dying. I thought of my wife and kids.

Suddenly, four little creatures made of silver blinked into existence on my dashboard. They were no more than eight inches tall and moved at a feverish speed. Their skulls were pointed, reminding me of a pea pod from the side. Little black eyes. Tiny mouths and stubby tails.

You’d think hallucinations would only take root after the impact, but not this time. Pretty optimistic of me to think I would be walking away from this crash with just a battered noggin and a parade of figments.

They darted around the interior of the car, whirling about me as if I were the center of a hurricane.

It was dazzling and, for the briefest of seconds, I watched them fly around, creating a sizeable amount of air turbulence.

I chanced a look out the windshield, expecting to see the pine branches rushing up at me, one in particular on a course to impale first the car then me.

But the trees weren’t rushing.

They weren’t moving at all.

I looked out my side window and realized my car was frozen in place. In mid-air.

The silver apparitions―of which I was certain they had to be at the time―continued their flurry of activity, revolving around me, almost a quicksilver blur.

One stepped out of the maddening aerial roundabout and hovered in front of my face, easily able to gouge my eyes out with its tiny claws if it were so inclined.

It spoke, its words almost as accelerated as its twitching movements. Off we go now!

I felt my body pulled upward. I shoved my arms defensively above my head, hoping to prevent crashing into the ceiling.

Instead, my body passed through the car and out into the open air.

The cyclone of silver creatures moved with me, still running around me. Instinctively, I knew they were the reason for my sudden ability to phase through metal and stand about in the air.

I wagged my feet, then refocused on the car beyond and the good portion of guardrail wrapped around its front bumper frozen in the air. My ride was still not plunging toward certain death.

The creature bopped me faintly on the nose and shot me a look of impatience. Had your fill?

What?

Answers from someone else. Just the delivery is all we have to muster. He tipped his pea-pod head at me and rejoined his swirling compatriots.

The air around me gusted even more, the very air pressure ratcheting up a notch. Being at the eye of a hurricane, even a mini one precipitated by odd creatures, is not an enviable position.

Off we go? What was going on?

A second later, before I had time to dwell on my unusual plight―off we went.

Chapter 3

They deposited me in a waiting room.

I can’t recall much of the trip, other than it was quite dizzying and involved sliding between dimensions. To me, it felt like being pulled through oversized sheets of wet toilet paper each time the silver creatures pulled me through a dimension. Afterward, the faintest dimensional aspect that seemed to cling to my skin, the wet toilet paper part, sloughed off upon arrival in the next reality. A few seconds later, I’d be dragged through another dimensional wall, and the icky feeling of having a thin sheen of dimensional gooiness slide free from my person would happen all over again.

I managed to catch glimpses of the worlds they tugged me through. Flaming-castle world. Scorched-earth world. Oddly-bright-forest world. And the next-to-last one—a jungle housing hundreds of playgrounds built in the vegetation’s rather solid upper canopy.

The last squeeze through dimensional barriers brought me to this inconspicuous waiting room.

I was told later that my escorts could slip through the cracks in time and space with ease. Quick Slivers, while small and unassuming, were warp beasts of the highest order.

They stopped their lightning-fast orbiting around my torso and floated down to the carpet. The one who had spoken to me in the car―at least I thought it was the same one―addressed me. All will be explained by Epoch Rex. Please have a seat and wait your turn.

Wait, what’s going on? Where am I? Take me back.

It frowned. Not time to go back yet. Don’t be in such a bloody rush.

The silver creatures stumbled into each other, fusing together and forming a ball of liquid metal which rose into the air. It spun lazily about for a few seconds and then disappeared, except for one. One creature, much smaller than the others and its head more triangular that sickle-shaped, reappeared and darted toward me.

I threw my hands up as it passed right through me and into my head. I doubled over and let out a yelp. I looked behind me, thinking the creature had simply ghosted through both my arms and my head, but it was nowhere in attendance. I felt its presence within, someone else inside my mind. The creature had ducked into my skull. That couldn’t be a good thing.

I backpedaled away from the spot my hitchhiker’s comrades had just occupied and fell into a chair. It jolted me back to reality, or at least the current one I was in, and I studied my surroundings in depth―not that there was much to the room.

It was small, twelve-by-twelve. The walls were white with two framed pieces of art on the wall opposite me. One was a rather abstract painting of a clock and the other a photo of a surfboard that looked like it was made from a chalkboard complete with school assignments written all over it.

The creature in my head radiated curiosity. I could sense it wanted to explore my memories. I didn’t know how to stop it from doing that. I had no idea how to force it out or block it from rifling through my memories. It seemed to hover about, waiting to pounce on any hint of a remembrance that might bubble to the surface of my thoughts. Weird how I could read its intent. Some sort of simple form of telepathy was happening. For now, it seemed to be waiting on me to call forth a juicy memory. I decided to focus on the here and now, hoping that would keep it from skimming through my recollections.

There were three chairs along the wall where I sat and three on the wall to my right, all metal except for their tan padded seats. A plant in a large brown pot with a hotbed of healthy green leaves sat in the nearest corner. The drop ceiling had two panels of lights, and very faint orchestral music was being pumped into the room.

Wait my turn? For what? There were no doors to exit the room, no windows that afforded any possible escapes.

I began to panic. Was this Purgatory, and I was waiting for an audience with Saint Peter? That was the one in charge of meeting and greeting new arrivals at the pearly gates, wasn’t it?

Before I could further wallow in my hysteria, another person appeared in the room accompanied by his own tornado of Quick Slivers. The newest arrival looked to be a teenage boy, maybe fifteen or sixteen. He had on red pajama bottoms and a black t-shirt. He was very preoccupied and didn’t notice me. He kept feeling his stomach with an off-kilter expression suggesting shock that he still had a mid-section to poke and prod. His escorts stopped spinning, and one floated up to talk to the boy.

The creature said, Come now, stiff upper lip and all that. It gently swatted the boy’s cheek. It’s all over and done with. No need to fret.

The boy stammered, B-but the tree . . . it was about to—

His chatty escort put a tiny finger to the boy’s lips. Now, now, bit of a change in your life’s plan about to happen. Don’t dither about, just accept it. The alternative . . . The creature shivered. It’s not one you’d likely select, now is it?

It dawned on me that my little creature had also wielded a grossly exaggerated British accent and manner of speaking. His was being much more forthcoming than mine, not that I had the foggiest clue what they were getting at.

The creature turned and walked back to his fellows, and they huddled up, this time fusing into a swirling spiral before blinking out. I watched to see if a creature would reappear and charge into the boy’s head, but none did. He was denied a tagalong. I didn’t know who was more fortunate in that regard, but thought he was since having someone lurking about in your head wasn’t something I’d volunteer for.

The boy finally stopped establishing that his belly was intact and not going anywhere without him and registered the room and my presence.

Before I could say word one to him, a large door appeared on the empty wall, unzipping out of nowhere from the top down.

A huge scaly green snout twice the size of my head poked its way into the room. I noted the jagged teeth that splayed both up and down along its mouth. Very reptilian. It huffed a breath out of its nostrils at the end of its snout and said, Two for one today? My lucky day. It paused.

I couldn’t quite see the rest of it from my bad angle, but the boy clearly could. His face went white, and his eyes popped wide.

The snout said, Step lively into my office. I’m not going to eat you. Already had my lunch.

I stood up, my temper having truly reached a boiling point. I wanted some answers and I wasn’t about to get any sitting around in a waiting room.

I grabbed the boy and pulled him along with me.

The snout retreated back out of the room, allowing us access to its office.

I dragged the boy inside despite his kicking and screaming and rather hurtful and foul comments about my mother and my upbringing.

It takes all types, I thought as I entered the den, or rather office, of Epoch Rex.

Chapter 4

It was a large office, three times the size of the waiting room. Making it even more impressive was its cathedral ceiling. I immediately understood the roominess as I spied the rest of the creature who owned the impressive snout. A dinosaur of some sort, looking almost like a scaled-down T-Rex; it was easily ten feet tall. Thankfully it was green with orange spots and not purple.

The boy I had dragged in with me gasped and retreated toward the zipper door.

I glanced back to see him run into a solid wall, our access to the room already zipped up and out of existence. A large zipper pull tab hung near the top of the wall, and the boy jumped up at it, hoping to yank it back open. The pull tab vibrated and then winked out before he could latch hold of it.

The dinosaur marched to a large glass desk, swinging his heavy tail toward us and away from the desk, which looked much too precious and imminently breakable for its owner.

It said, Not really one who likes to double up, but if I must. My supervisor thinks it expedites things to handle multiple agent arrivals in one fell swoop, but I’m altogether old-fashioned. Would much rather take you fellas one-on-one.

The dinosaur came across as jumpy. Part of me wondered if that was how it acted toward its next meals, but I immediately dispelled the notion. The fine carpet under our feet would never be present if the dinosaur were going to split us open and gorge on our innards. I rocked back and forth on the flooring, impressed by the thick padding. It was downright comfortable to stand on even wearing shoes. No expense spared here.

The creature had slender arms that were far more impressive than what you would find on an actual T-Rex. They spun all about, further conveying their owner’s frenzied demeanor. Its sharp teeth confirmed its role as carnivore in the food chain. Its thick legs told me it could outrun us, not that we had anywhere to go. The office, like the waiting room, had no doors. It did have a window, but we’d have to get past tall-dark-and-scaly to reach it. From the window’s sheer size, I doubted it was designed to be opened, and it looked much too thick for either of us to crash through.

Even though it looked like dinosaur, it gave off an alien vibe. I decided its origins were extraterrestrial, maybe a world where dinosaurs had become the dominant species. It certainly carried itself as one large and in charge, cunning and used to being at the top of the food chain.

The dinosaur stood on the other side of the desk and tapped at a blue tablet resting on the glass table, its black talons whipping through several files with practiced ease. If I had to guess, I’d say it was male.

He didn’t look up at us as he spoke. I’m Epoch Rex, your case worker. You report to me after your schooling and your instructors deem you worthy to go out in the field.

I immediately pictured Epoch Rex chasing us down and gobbling us up in a corn field. No, he couldn’t mean that, could he?

The boy next to me said, School? Instructors? What’s going on here?

Epoch Rex glanced up from his tablet and gave the boy a look that was an odd mix of pity and envy. Why, you two are about to become something upstanding and exquisitely grand. You’re going to be Untimely Agents. It’s really quite an honor.

Come again? I said, finding my voice to be far less confident than my partner in perplexity. At least he had managed to summon up some spine in how he threw out his questions.

Our dinosaur host pointed at my companion. Monty Gleason, sixteen and a half. Almost done in by a tree crashing into his bedroom. Terribly sorry about that. Not one of the better ways to go.

Go? What? I said, again feeling wholly inadequate in my questions and the degree of conviction with which I stated them. Monosyllabic queries don’t convey taking charge.

Epoch Rex waved his arms about, pinwheeling them in opposite directions, a feat I’m sure wasn’t wholly natural. See, that’s why I hate double-dipping in the talent pool. Too many questions coming at me from too many sources. He shook his large head and snorted, expelling a terrible breath from his pronounced nostrils.

I made calming gestures with my hands. Okay, let’s all settle down. Neither Monty nor I want to upset you. Why don’t we hold our tongues and let you fill us in. I’m betting you have a whole spiel for us that’s rather routine, right?

Epoch Rex gave me a guarded look that almost immediately dissolved into conspiring acknowledgement. He nodded at me and smiled. Wonderful. You elders may not get the respect around here, but you always keep your heads no matter what’s thrown at you. He glared at Monty. Unlike you upstarts. I know the consensus is to snatch up agents that are all youthful and full of vim and vigor, but there’s something to be said for adequately aged wisdom.

I tried to ignore his insult. Being forty-two, I didn’t exactly see where the elder jab fit, but I didn’t think speaking up now would be wise. Better to listen and ask questions later.

Epoch Rex gave Monty a lingering look, almost as if he expected the boy to lodge a protest.

The teen nodded for the dinosaur to continue.

The dinosaur said, You two have been whisked away from your lives a split second before your deaths, untimely ones I might add. Those are the only candidates we take. Can’t very well nab anyone moments before they expire of natural causes. Being too old is just not wise in this line of work. He pointed at me. You just barely make the cut, but don’t let that worry you. Many of us think a more seasoned individual makes for a better agent.

He stopped and looked at us, searching our faces for any reaction. I had to applaud him for not cracking up as I knew my dumbfounded look was completely laughable.

He maintained a professional air, as much of one as I could discern from his appearance―reading the faces of dinosaurs wasn’t exactly one of my skill sets, at least not yet.

You’re here to give your all as Untimely Agents. You two are going to zip around time and space and right wrongs, chiefly those perpetrated by the Absurdists.

Monty said, Say what?

I fell back into a comfy chair that hadn’t been behind me a second ago. Monty caught my dropping back out of the corner of his eye and settled into his own suddenly-there chair, groping behind him awkwardly as he sat down slowly.

Epoch Rex grinned. Ready to hear more?

We nodded, and the clerical dinosaur laid it on us. Hard.

Chapter 5

Epoch Rex cleared his throat―which, incidentally, doesn’t sound very pleasant coming from a prehistoric predator in a room with terrible acoustics―and launched into a more thorough explanation, no longer content to toss out cryptic details. The Untimely Agency is a cosmically-empowered, interdimensional police force in charge of maintaining the integrity of time and space. We yank individuals from their timestream at the exact second before their passing to put them to work as Untimely Agents. They go through training and are sent out into the field to stop volatile tampering which could lead to time unraveling or dimensional bleeds. Our primary enemies are the Absurdists, but we get a few individuals and small cells of chrono-terrorists who dip into the timestream bent on causing mischief.

You mean I was about to die? Monty asked.

Epoch Rex said, That’s usually the outcome when a hundred-year-old oak pays an unexpected visit to your bedroom without knocking first. Have to be mindful of rot on those oldies. He nodded. Yes, you would’ve died if the squad of Quick Slivers hadn’t whisked you away.

So they can send me back and everything will be a-okay, right? Monty gave our dinosaur host a winning smile.

No, that would change your timeline. You are only returned to your time when you die in the line of duty here.

What? I blurted out.

The dinosaur radiated a knowing ease, as if he had fielded these same questions many time before. That’s the beauty of our system; you get to exist long past your expiration date, doing good deeds, saving reality and all that. When you die, we put you back in the exact time and place, and let your untimely death unfold as it should.

What the hell is this? Send me home now! Monty stood up and moved to slam a fist down onto the desk. Halfway there, he rethought his outrage and only delivered a firm slap to the glass surface.

But then you’d be the victim of a Random Oaking. Epoch Rex looked at me and spoke out of the side of his mouth. That’s how we code his. Yours is going down as Not-So-Nice Ice. They let us have a little fun with the wording of the different deaths.

This is crazy! I’ve got school tomorrow. I want to go home! Monty was almost crying.

Slow down, Monty. It’s perfectly normal to feel the way you’re feeling. We have counselors to help with your transitioning. I just need to help you understand your new status quo, and then you’ll be on your way to the university. It usually takes a few months before you’re ready to be a full-blown agent. Some take longer, though.

I decided to change the subject, hoping it would calm Monty down. You called the things that retrieved us Quick Slivers. What are they?

Wish I could take credit for their naming, but that came from the higher-ups. Clever appellation when you think about it. Quick Slivers resemble quicksilver, the hipper name for Mercury, but they’re so much more than liquid metal with the atomic number of 80.

I started to wonder just where a dinosaur went to gain such a well-versed knowledge of the world. Dino College? Paleo University?

Why’d they talk all British? Monty asked.

Notice that, did ya? Most gloss over their Across-The-Pond manner of speaking. Some even assume the little buggers are just big anglophiles, but it’s so much richer than that. Their accents and stately demeanors are tied to their maker. Epoch Rex dramatically pointed to the ceiling, but with his tiny arms it came off as less impressive. They’re all fragments of the late, great H. G. Wells, a pioneer of modern science fiction if there ever was one.

Apparently dinosaurs are also well read. Who knew?

Could my circumstances get any stranger? Famous last words.

Chapter 6

I recognized the author Epoch Rex had tossed out. "H. G. Wells? The guy who