Chapter 10: CHAPTER 8

March 22nd, 2007

Time Mansion

New York

Jake had lost count of the number of three-day cycles he had been through. Both he and Zoe had gotten used to the life at The Time Mansion. Oh, and Zoe had officially moved into his room.

Their day started out simple. They would wake up and have breakfast. Then, all three of them would go for a walk and observe the world around them to notice any changes. Jake wasn’t sure how he would be able to memorize everything but turns out it was pretty easy. Seeing the same things over and over became so common that he believed he could walk the streets blindfolded. Then they would return home where Jake would study the history books to acquaint himself with the flow of time while Zoe would study the technology of time travel. 

Then, they would hit the gym where Jake would get to see Zoe in her sexy black sports bra and leggings. Then, they would return, have dinner and that’s it.

Just like each cycle, Jake expected this cycle to be the same. Except, this morning, all three of them were in for a shock.

 

***

 

When they left The Time Mansion, Jake knew something was wrong. The air smelt cleaner than ever before. He couldn’t hear the horns of the cars or the sound of people having conversations.

And when they left the side alley, All three of them stopped to stare at the condition of New York City. Or rather, what was once New York City. 

Jake couldn’t believe his eyes. It felt like they were in some futuristic city. There were lanes built in the sky where the cars moved silently, and the shop that used to sell knick-knacks wasn’t there anymore. The people weren’t rushing to their destinations and there wasn’t a single kid riding a bicycle.

Rather, the land was covered with trees and Jake could even spot a small lake nearby. There were rough paths made on the ground where the people walked calmly from one place to another. Sure, there were houses built, but even they looked like they had gardens on the terraces. He could feel the peace ooze from the world

“Well, it looks like the training period is over,” Zoe sighed. 

“What makes you say that?” Jake quipped.

Zoe gave him a withering look.

Liam cleared his throat.

“Let’s hit the computers to see where the history changed”

 

***

 

“Alright, both of you. Your first major mission,” Liam started. “We’ll start with the research. Match the history books of the major events to the information on the internet. I’ve told both of you how to do the research. Jake, find out where the timeline changed. Zoe, check the general information of this time period”

Both Jake and Zoe listened to his orders. Jake started with the latest events, the first one being the Cold war. Jake checked the details and found out there was no cold war. Then he went further back to World War 2. Again, he noticed that it didn’t happen. He went even further back to World War 1. 

The first World War had happened. 

‘Whatever changed, it definitely happened during this time,’ Jake mused. 

He dug deeper, going through all the battles in the First World War. The first battle was The Battle of The Marne. As Jake started matching the details on the internet to those in the history books, He seriously began to notice inconsistencies. Originally, Germany won against the Russian Empire but lost against the British and French forces in the west. But in the new reality, the germans lost on both fronts. Someone made sure that Russia won that battle. 

Jake looked at other battles, and sure enough, Russia was constantly a major player in the war. Even in battles they weren’t originally supposed to take part in, Russian troops were leading the allied soldiers. 

The Gallipoli campaign, which the allies originally lost, was won because Russia sent its ships totally destroyed the Ottoman Empire. The Battle of Jutland and The Battle of Verdun, both played out differently. 

After seeing this pattern, Jake started doing the research about Russian Empire. He wasn’t surprised to note that there was a reference to a new advisor of Nicholas the 2nd, the last Czar of Russia, at least originally. It looked like in this timeline, the Russian Empire never ended. What he was surprised to see was that the New advisor introduced a lot of new weapons and technological advances in the field of Science, advances that were not even introduced till the year 2015. 

Jake did not doubt that he had found the time traveler.

***

 

Jake found Liam and Zoe in deep conversation when he found them. It looked like they were discussing the current state of the world.

“I found the time traveler,” Jake interrupted.

They stopped their conversation and looked at him.

“You did? That was very fast,” said Zoe. “Who is it?”

Jake showed them the information on his laptop.

“Sometime before the First World War started,” Jake started his answer,” The Czar of Russia, Nicholas the 2nd, gained a new advisor. This advisor, a scientist, guided the Czar all through the war. Under his guidance, Russia never lost a single battle. In fact, they attacked and ended the whole Ottoman Empire. He also stopped the assassination of the royal family thus leading to the continued survival of the Russian Empire.” Jake looked at them both intently.

“And get this,” he continued. “He introduced several new weapons and made vast scientific discoveries, thus making Russia the superpower of the world instead of the United States.”

Both Liam and Zoe pondered his explanation.

“You’re right,” Liam finally said. ”This scientist is definitely our time traveler. Now, we have to figure out where and when did he land and what exactly did he intend to do.”

“Liam?” Zoe interrupted his planning.

Liam stopped and looked at her questioningly.

“This scientist, whoever he is, has done a really good thing.” She started in a meek voice. “I’ve looked at the recent reports. There’s no war since the First World War, there have been huge strides in technological advancements, and the pollution is so low that global warming isn’t even a coined term!” Her voice was slowly gaining confidence as she saw that both the old man and Jake were listening to her. “Do we really need to stop him? He has done a lot of good in the world.”

After listening to what Zoe had said, Jake wanted to agree with her, but he decided to reserve his judgment until after listening to what Liam was going to say.

Liam sighed. “Indeed his actions look good Zoe but while his intentions might be good we cannot guarantee the consequences they will have. Have you heard of the butterfly effect?”

They both nodded.

“Let me tell you both a story related to it. A butterfly in Africa lands on a giraffe's nose, the giraffe sneezes, which spooks a gazelle, the gazelle bonks into a rhinoceros, and the rhinoceros blindly stampedes into a village killing some villages. The villages, filled with anger, hunt down the rhinoceros and as a result, the village eats for a week. You see, a single butterfly stopped a whole village from starving.” Liam finished his tale.

Both Jake and Zoe paused to think about it.

“But still, we are 90 years in the future from when he landed. Shouldn’t we be able to see any bad consequences?” Zoe asked.

“In the case of a normal person, sure. But in the case of a time traveler? No. You see, a time traveler is constantly influencing the timeline. Every time he makes a major change the timeline switches. So, sure, right now it’s a world which has only seen peace, but, if he decides he wants to rule the world we would just as quickly see New York become a wasteland.” Liam answered her question. “That’s why we can’t let anyone make any changes to the timeline. Any chance of their heart being corrupted is a chance that an apocalypse becomes the reality.”

Liam looked at both of them, hoping they understood what he was saying.

Jake took a deep breath. “In that case, let’s get started on locating him then.”

 

***

 

Upon further research, they discovered that the scientist, whose name turned out to be Dr. Aleksei Conners, wasn’t alone. Rather, he brought with him a small army of 50 men armed to the teeth with futuristic weapons. It took them a whole day to narrow down the place where the scientist arrived. They finally narrowed it down to a cathedral near the Alexander Palace, the place where the Czar lived. The Saint Catherine's Cathedral in St. Petersburg was near enough that the distance to the palace wasn’t too much but far enough that the royal family won’t be threatened. It was also removed from the public eye so so won’t attract any attention.

They determined that since Dr. Conners was the primary advisor of the Czar, he most probably lived either in the Alexander Palace or very near it.

“Alright, this is a map of Alexander Palace,” Zoe started, laying a big map with markings done on the dining table. “As you can see, three main entrances.” She pointed out each of them. “Now, all these entrances are heavily guarded. There are constant guard patrols done throughout that palace. Due to such high security, the chances are, that the scientist lives there only. If he’s in there, he most probably lives in the advisor’s chamber in Alexander Palace” She pointed out the rooms in question. “The royal family lives on the first floor, so the major focus of security should be there. That means the advisors' chamber on the ground floor is not as well protected. But, there should be a couple of guards stationed outside his room.”

She paused to take a breath. “He also has a small army with him, so chances are, at least some of them are stationed around his room.”

“What about the weapons?” Jake asked.

“Right, the weapons. There’s a private armory at the alexander palace where the weapons should be kept if they are indeed kept there. Of course, it’s also possible that they shipped out the weapons to the soldiers at the front line. That would definitely make destroying the weapons a fair amount difficult.” Zoe answered.

“Indeed, but when they would have arrived then weapons would have been kept in the Czar’s armory. So if you make your time of arrival close to Dr. Conners’ group, you should have enough time to destroy the armory and all the weapons in it.” Liam pointed out.

Jake and Zoe thought of his plan and nodded. 

“How do we destroy the armory?” Jake asked.

Liam sighed. “As much as I hate to say this, you’ll need to use a grenade to destroy the armory.”

“But won’t that destroy the weapons belonging to the Czar as well?” Zoe asked. “That could change the future too.”

“It will.” Liam sighed. “The thing about time travel is, if you go back even once, you have made irreversible changes. The only thing that can be done is, to make sure those changes don’t have any major impacts. Because once the timeline has deviated, it will never regain its original path. We, as Time Knights, try to make the deviations as small as possible.”

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Both the younger Time Knights fell silent after hearing that. To think that no matter what they do, the timeline will never be the same. The thought was daunting. Jake thought of all the people he saw every morning on his walk around the city. He wondered how many of them he’ll never see again. 

Zoe coughed lightly, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“What about the soldiers? Will they have the guns they brought?” She asked.

“I don’t think they will. They would probably have had to demonstrate the power of the guns they brought. I doubt the Czar would let them carry anything so dangerous around his family.” Jake answered. “No, they would definitely be armed but not with their own weapons.”

Liam nodded his agreement.

“Then what is our objective? I doubt we can apprehend 50 trained soldiers along with a scientist.” Jake asked.

“No, I’m afraid you cannot apprehend them. We never apprehend any time travelers. For one, we do not have any place to hold them. And secondly, even if we could make space, you would still have to drag them to the extraction window at the right time.” Liam said. “Your objective is to terminate Dr. Conners and destroy the weapons. Your secondary objective is to terminate as many of his soldiers as possible.”

Jake nodded grimly. He had suspected that the mission requirements would be to terminate them. He just had one question.

“Our objective is not to kill all of the soldiers? Just as many as we can?” He asked.

“It seems like Dr. Conners is the brains of the operations.” Liam started. “The only mention of these soldiers is at the time of his arrival. That means these soldiers were not a big part of this operation. They were most probably there to ensure Dr. Conners’ protection.”

Jake and Zoe both nodded, understanding what he meant.

“That means that killing Dr. Conners should get rid of most of the major changes to the timeline. And without his guidance most of the soldiers wouldn’t know what changes to make for Russia to win, Zoe concluded with a smirk.

“Exactly! As long as Dr. Conners was killed and the Armory was destroyed your mission would be completed. But, you know, please try to kill as many of those soldiers as possible to reduce the deviation from the timeline.” Liam finished sheepishly.

Jake nodded, pleased that the first part of the planning was done. Now, came the most important part.

“How will we kill Dr. Conners?” Jake asked the question that was going through all of their minds.

They fell quiet, all intently gazing at the map.

“We know of only one place Dr. Conners can be found for now and until we figure out another place he will be at, we will plan our attack according to this knowledge,” Jake said. “For this, we need a way to infiltrate the Palace. Any ideas?”

“Servants,” Zoe said after they spent a long time pondering the question. “Servants often move without being seen. They have the passages that are separate from the main passages and they reach everywhere.”

Both the men considered her plan

“That gives us two additional problems to think about,” Jake interrupted her thought. “First, how do we get access to the servants' passage? Because we can’t just walk into it otherwise one of the servants might recognize us and report to someone.”

“And the second?” Zoe asked, understanding the issue with her plan.

The second problem is that one of our targets is in the armory. What would the servant passage do to the armory? After all, what role do they have there?” Jake explained the next problem. 

“Right, that’s an issue,” Zoe said.

Jake squeezed her hand when he noticed that she was disheartened. “That was a good idea. In fact, this is the only one we have. We just need to figure out a solution to these two problems,” He said, as he consoled her.

Liam nodded. “This plan can be done in a couple of steps. The first is, that you need to find the servant's entrance and sneak in without anyone recognizing you. Then, you need to do two different things. First, you’ll need to kill Dr. Conners and second, you need to destroy the armory. After this, you need to leave the Palace without being noticed by all the servants and soldiers who got alerted by the sound of the explosion in the armory and make your way to the extraction point.”

“Is that it?” Jake asked dryly.

“That’s an impossible task for two people, Liam.” Zoe agreed with Jake.

“It’ll certainly be difficult,” Liam agreed. 

‘Yeah, right.’ Jake thought. ‘Because getting out of a palace filled with guards is just a bit difficult. And who knows how big a perimeter they’ll form after the explosion.’

Jake voiced this thought.

“You’ll have two options. Either you get out before the perimeter is made, or you find an evacuation place in the palace.” Liam answered his question.

Both of these were daunting tasks. The palace would definitely be guarded by the soldiers outside the walls. So they’ll either have to leave before they mobilize or find a location in the Palace where they can be hidden till the exit window while it is being actively searched.

Both of these seemed like impossible tasks.

Zoe was intently looking at the map.

“Look,” she pointed out two rooms on the map. “The armory is here and the advisor’s room is on the other side. If we want to be quick, we’ll have to split up, do one job each, and get to a rendezvous point before we leave.”

Jake had noticed that. He didn’t like it.

“We can’t split up. We’re breaking into a palace. There are going to be armed guards ready to fuck us up if we are caught,” Jake protested. “There’s strength in numbers.”

“Neither of us can take on armed guards,” Zoe argued back. “The only way we get out alive is if we complete the mission in as little time as possible. And we can only do that if we split up.”

Jake knew she was right. That didn’t mean he liked it. He grudgingly nodded. 

“Let’s get back to the topic,” Liam interjected. “How will you find and enter the servants' entrance?”

“The only option I can think of is, we need to bribe one of the servants,” Jake said.

“That still leaves us the option of being noticed,” Zoe replied.

“We probably won’t be reported if we are being escorted by one of the servants,” Jake answered. “Maybe we can say we’re applying for a job or maybe we can pretend we are new servants being shown around.”

“You won’t have long to set up everything once you’re there. Every day you wait, more things will change and the deviations will get larger,” Liam said. “We’ll try to place you within a day of Dr. Conners's arrival and I would suggest you locate the servants immediately.”

“Alright, that leaves us with the last step,” Zoe said. “The escape window.”

They all fell quiet, surveying the map between them. The escape window was undoubtedly the most important part. The final part of the plan. If they missed it, they would be trapped in the past. The very thought made Jake shudder. He couldn’t imagine living in a time of constant war, without knowing anyone around them.

As Liam said, they had two options. The first one is to stay in the Palace and find a way to secure the predecided location. Or the next option is to get the fuck out of there before they rally the guards to reach the exit location outside the palace.

Each plan had its pros and cons. Staying in the palace meant that they could reach the extraction location earlier and barricade it while waiting for the window to open. Getting out meant that they wouldn’t be behind enemy territory and would easily be able to blend in with the local population. 

and Jake didn’t like either of these plans. Unfortunately, it looked like these were the only options. “How many windows should we set up?” Jake asked.

“Normally we set up 3 windows. The first one after 12 hours, the second one after 24 hours, the third one after 48 hours, and the fourth one after a week,” Liam stated, “but, that was set up by my old team. Since you are the operatives now, the choice will be yours.”

Both the younger Knights thought about the setup of the window.

“Let’s keep the old method,” Jake declared. “But with a couple of small changes. We’ll add a window at the three-minute mark at the drop location, in case we end up at the wrong place.”

He thought how much trouble they’ll be in if they arrived at the drop location while a bunch of soldiers was passing through or something. Better be safe than sorry.

He noticed that Zoe agreed with his idea, which pleased him.

“Alright, what options do we have outside The Palace?” Jake asked, finally planning the arrival and evacuation of the Time Knights.

 

***

 

It took a lot of discussions, but finally, they were able to decide on the locations. All that was left was a few preparations like clothing and weapons, and a good night’s sleep and they were ready for action.

As they were finally getting up from the table, Jake nudged Zoe.

“Hey, want to go out exploring the new world?” He asked. 

“Yeah, sounds like fun,” She answered with a smile. “See you back here in 10 minutes?”

Jake grinned and nodded. He was very excited to see the new world. The short glimpse he got showed a very futuristic world and he could only imagine what wonderful things he might get to see. And he really loved spending time with Zoe. 

Ten minutes later he was back in the dining hall dressed in a navy blue trousers and a red shirt, waiting for Zoe to show up. She soon stepped out of their room, looking gorgeous in a tight-fitted light blue jeans which highlighted the curve of her ass and a yellow crop top that left her smooth waist open for Jake to see. She was wearing a sly smile than made his trousers strain against his cock.

Jake swallowed deeply and held out his hand to his lover. She placed her hand in his palm and together they stepped out into the open.

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