Midnight Sunrise (Working Title)
8:45 PM
Standard procedure: double tap, one in the chest followed by the second bullet in the skull. Johnson followed put two bullets in the Mean Man and saw his blood splattered all over the wall. Agent Johnson scanned the room to make sure that there were no witnesses. The battered agent holstered the gun under his left arm and let out a sigh of relief. He couldn’t believe that the Mean Man was finally dead. Johnson checked his watch. He had few minutes to spare. He casually walked over to his duffle bag few metres away and unzipped it. In the bag was what appeared to be a helmet. He put it on. The heads-up display indicated the time, 8:46 PM. Johnson flicked a virtual switch in the display. This was the part he dreaded. Time travelling wasn’t a natural activity for a human body. In fact, nothing should pierce itself into a timeline that it didn’t belong in.
Johnson braced himself for the infinity of pain that was coming in the next few seconds. When he flicked the switch up, a green button appeared. The agent clenched his teeth and eyes as he pressed the button. The pain of travelling in time was a unique one. Words can’t describe the sensation. Johnson never got used to it. His brain felt like it was getting ripped apart from the inside. That’s because that was exactly what happens when a person travels in time. The user of the time device is literally ripped apart into the most fundamental particle and transmitted into the designated time destination. Then once the upload into the destination is completed, there are rebuilt particle by particle. For the user, this procedure is an infinity. To an observer, it took less than two seconds. The portable time devices are all connected to the Time Chamber in the Lab in an undisclosed location. Only agents with top security clearance have the knowledge of the exact location of the Lab.
Johnson tried his hard not to vomit. The pain was particularly bad this time. The high-pitched sound went through his whole body. He couldn’t take it anymore. As he fell onto the cold floor, he vapourised leaving the helmet behind.
He woke up in the Chamber.
it felt like he had a hell of a hangover. Johnson laid in the empty white room for a while. The terrible sensation was long gone, and he was glad to have stopped another neutron bomb attack. He also couldn’t believe that he killed the Mean Man, the agency’s most wanted man. Eventually Doctor Leiter entered the Chamber and gave him the medical check. He was then transported to the agency’s hospital in a white van to his regular room. It was the standard procedure to monitor time travelling agents for a week. Johnson was looking forward to the week of timeout.
Johnson couldn’t tell the time or the day. He didn’t know how long he’s been sleeping. He was in his regular bed with the life support unit beeping. He took a sip of water from the glass of water on the bedside next to him. It was dark outside.
He was still weak.
The door opened.
As Johnson struggled to keep his eyes open, he could make out the figure of a nurse. For a second, he didn’t register what was happening. It was the Night Nurse. He saw her fall to her death an hour ago, before he killed the Mean Man. She seemed to move in jiggered motion, fast then slow. She was holding a metal tray. Johnson knew what was on top of the tray. She picked up a syringe filled with green fluid. As he tried to alert the staff outside, he saw the two security staff dead on the ground outside his room. As the cold thing hit him, his saw the Mean Man standing at the door.
“Let’s go for a ride Agent Johnson” The Night Nurse said in a playful tone before injecting him.