L.I.T.

[This story contains excerpts from the Time-Keepers Manual, 12^th Edition, published by the Management at the Bureau of Time Safety, to assist the reader in understanding the terminology used. If there’s one thing you should know about Management, it’s that they love an acronym.]

The T.Wi.G.L.E.T. was malfunctioning.

[The Time-Winder, Garment-Loader, Expert-Teleporter device, often abbreviated to T.Wi.G.L.E.T., is the most advanced Keeper device in existence. Its state-of-the-art technology allows three unique functions, all designed to interface seamlessly with one another. The Time-Winder allows transportation of the Keeper to any time, accurate to a second. The Expert-Teleporter teleports the Keeper to any location within the Keeper’s assigned region. The Garment-Loader uses sophisticated Artificial Intelligence to automatically generate an outfit to allow the Keeper to blend in with the people around them, regardless of the time-period. It also disguises the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. so as not to draw unwanted attention to the Keeper.]

Time-Keeper 30098, also known as Nate, scowled at the device on his wrist, trying to resist the human urge to start hitting it. He was fed up with Management phasing in new models without rigorously trialling them first. This was only his third trip of the day and the machine was already giving him trouble.

He pressed a thumb to the T.Wi.G.L.E.T.’s fingerprint encoded power button and watched as the screen – currently in the form of a Casio watch – went blank. It didn’t matter how advanced technology got, turning it off and on again was still the best course of action. Leaning against the wall, he took a moment to listen to the din of 72,000 people singing along to Bohemian Rhapsody.

The two teenagers he’d just R.I.O.T.ed had been devastated Nate had tracked them down before Queen came on stage.

[Replace In Original Time (often known colloquially as R.I.O.T.), is the action of sending Time-Stowaways back to their original time-period. Time-Stowaways may alter historical events, either deliberately or inadvertently, thus wreaking havoc upon our Timeline. The main function of Time-Keepers is to guard the past from these illegal visitors to ensure our present.]

The teenagers clearly had no malice to their actions, they’d even dressed in matching white vests and jeans for the occasion – as if that wasn’t suspicious. Nate didn’t like them; they reeked of entitlement. He guessed they had rich parents that purchased an O.T.T.E.R. so their precious children could watch their favourite band play live.

[O.T.T.E.R. devices – One Trip Time Experience Routers, are a new challenge for the Keepers of today. Unlawful gadgets that circulate on the black market, they allow the user one return trip into the past for a short period of time and subsequently self-destroy. Commonly used for recreational reasons, they are numerous and the Bureau of Time Safety classes them as the top hazard to our Timeline.]

Holding the backs of their collars, Nate had marched the teenagers out of the main arena and into the corridor, giving all appearances of a father disciplining his children. Complaining with drawling, privately educated accents they’d begged to be allowed to listen to just one song, as if they had stayed up past their bedtime, not made an illegal and potentially disastrous trip into the past.

Nate pretended to soften and leaned in conspiratorially, his voice hushed, “Well, you know what Freddie says…”

The teenager’s eyes gleamed with hope, they were clearly used to always having things their own way.

When Nate spoke again his voice was curt. “Time waits for nobody, kids. Ta-ta.”

He allowed himself half a second to enjoy their disappointment before he hit the “return to sender” button and they were blasted back to the present. He hoped the T.O.D. gave them a bollocking.

[The Time Offenders Department (T.O.D.) is what awaits Time-Stowaways when they are R.I.O.T.ed by a Keeper. The Department receives the Stowaways, interrogates them about their intentions and methods of returning to the past and convicts them accordingly. The Department has a reputation for its uncompromising judgement and is generally feared by all Stowaways.]

Pressing a thumb to the power button again Nate watched the screen light up and flick through numbers and letters until it displayed the correct Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinates:

6.43pm, 13^th of July 1985, Wembley Arena, London

[Time, Date And Location (Ti.D.A.L) co-ordinates are the way in which Keepers orientate themselves. They can be conceptualised as a four-dimensional latitude and longitude.]

“Let’s try this again,” Nate muttered and entered his new target co-ordinates. The T.Wi.G.L.E.T. vibrated gently on his wrist and an error message appeared.

Target Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinates not locked. Risk of failure. Proceed?

Nate rolled his eyes; he’d have to go back to B.A.T.Z. HQ and get a new T.Wi.G.L.E.T. This would involve a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy and someone from the Tech Department condescendingly asking him if he’d remembered to reset the Time-Winder before each use.

[The Biologically Appropriate Time Zone (B.A.T.Z.) Headquarters is the Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate that Keepers return to when they finish working. It is not a static co-ordinate but rather an ever-moving point in time within the Bureau of Time Safety that corresponds to the biological age of the Keeper. For every hour a Keeper spends in the past, their B.A.T.Z. moves an hour forward. Every Time-Winder issued to a Keeper is paired with their individual B.A.T.Z. and will always return them to this point. This ensures Keepers will age correspondingly with their non-Keeper counterparts and reduces the likelihood of exploitation of their Time Winders. It also avoids Keeper Crossover (see Occupational Hazards). This policy was implemented after the Second Keeper Crisis (see Bureau of Time Safety Crises).]

Nate tried not to let it affect him, but most of the Tech Department got under his skin. He had been a Keeper for longer than some of the Techies had been alive yet some of those pasty-faced geeks talked to him as if he was simple. His most recent visit still raised his blood pressure if he thought about it.

“What happened here?”

“Got hit by a sword.”

“We don’t advise using any weaponry near the T.Wi.G.L.E.T.”

“I wasn’t holding the sword.”

“We advise keeping the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. out of range of any possible impacts.”

“Well, it turns out it’s hard to do that on a battlefield.”

“Keeping the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. safe must be your top priority.”

“Yes, but so is not being slaughtered by a mob of Yorkists.”

“It is vital to protect the technology.”

“You realise I wasn’t there for fun, don’t you?”

“And what about this?”

“Oh, erm, hit by a mace I think.”

“I really must advise you-”

“What? What would you advise me to do when I’m being charged at by an army? Tell them I mustn’t be near any weaponry? That it’s against the rules? Do you know how hard it is to run in a full suit of armour? It was the Battle of Towton not a bloody fancy dress party!”

Nate doubted whether anyone in the Tech Department had even heard of the War of the Roses. It saddened him how little his non-Keeper colleagues knew about history. All Keepers were historians first and foremost, it was the top job requirement. It wasn’t possible to continuously travel between different time periods without having a broad understanding of history. Keepers couldn’t just arrive at a Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate and look the part, they had to become someone from that time.

Keepers had to know when and who to bow to; if cars were an ingenious mode of transportation or fume-producing monsters choking the planet; if England was at war with or alongside the French; how to greet people on the street; which it was safe to admit to being: Catholic or Protestant; whether seeing children playing outside unaccompanied by adults was the sign of a good childhood or neglect. There was such complexity to their work which no-one, except for other Keepers, could fully understand.

Nate blamed whichever genius programmed the Garment-Loader for the Towton mishap. The armour was cumbersome and the weight of it had slowed him down terribly in the icy wind. Not daring to take off his helmet he’d dodged volleys of arrows, poleaxes and halberds until he’d found the Time-Stowaway – a young man dressed in home-made chainmail, sword in hand, advancing on the Yorkists. A wild fervour in his eyes, he’d been determined to seek glory or die in battle. What an idiot.

Luckily for Nate, the chaos of the battle had masked him R.I.O.T.ing the Stowaway. Despite being surrounded by thousands of people, no-one had noticed the man disappear and Nate had avoided a meeting with Management about Keeper discretion.

The Garment-Loader was the newest part of the technological trinity of the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. and Nate’s least favourite. 95% of the time it made a sensible decision, but the other 5%... He knew of one Keeper who was sent to Paris during the First French Revolution in the 18^th Century who arrived dressed as an aristocrat. That hadn’t ended well.

Nate had fared much better today, dressed in loose jeans and a black t-shirt with a print that said “Queen, live in concert” and a black and white image of the four band members. The T.Wi.G.L.E.T. was currently masquerading as a Casio C-80 calculator watch and a matching beaded bracelet and necklace.

When Nate first started working as a Time-Keeper, choosing outfits was part of the skill of the job. The newer Keepers would never understand the experience of walking into the Wardrobe department with a list of requests and watching as people scurried around fetching fur-lined cloaks, pristine Nike Air Maxes or hand-embroidered waistcoats. Once appropriately attired and transported to a Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate it had been up to the Keeper to conceal their technology from the people of the time. When they returned the clothes to Wardrobe they were shrewdly inspected for damage and repaired ready for the next Keeper. Nate had preferred when things were analogue; the clothes felt like they meant something.

He reset the Winder, then hit the shortcut for the Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate to return to B.A.T.Z. HQ, trying to mentally calculate how much this would put him behind schedule. The crowd roared as a steady drumbeat and synthesiser riff marked the start of Radio Gaga.

The display screen on the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. read:

Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinates locked. Proceed?

He pressed the confirm button and closed his eyes as time folded around him.

~~~

Nate felt himself arrive the same way you feel the slowing of movement as a train comes to a halt. He opened his eyes.

“Bloody hell.”

He had expected to find himself in the Keeper Bay of the Bureau, instead he was still in London. And it was on fire.

Being able to immediately assimilate to a Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate was a key skill for a Keeper. Upon arriving, it was crucial for a Keeper to quickly gauge their surroundings – both the environment and the people – and behave accordingly so as not to draw attention to themselves. Within a moment, Nate joined the throng of people hurrying along in the street around him, adjusting his expression to match theirs: distressed and fearful. He glanced down and found himself wearing extremely baggy breeches and a doublet with a long-sleeved white shirt underneath. As he picked his way along the uneven cobblestones he took in the devastation around him.

Flames billowed over London, feeding off the tightly packed wooden buildings and sending smoke whirling upwards into the night. A terrible orange glow lit the sky, the air felt dense and burned his nostrils and the scent of smoke pervaded everywhere. Children wailed as they were carried by their parents, fleeing the destruction of their homes and livelihoods. Amidst the hordes of people on foot, carts laden with goods pushed through the narrow street. Desperate to escape the confines of the City Walls, they all crowded in the bottleneck around Aldgate, the horses skittish and throwing their heads.

A voice cried, “Paul’s Church is burning, the lead is melting into the street!”

Something fell out of the sky and landed next to him with a thud. It was a pigeon, its feathers blackened by the fire.

Nate stepped out of the crowd into a little alleyway and tapped the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. hiding under his ruffled sleeve. He knew exactly when he was, and sure enough the display read:

11.32pm, 4^th September 1666, Aldgate, London

“The Great Fire,” Nate murmured. He’d never seen anything like it. He wondered where Samuel Pepys was now, was he too watching his city burn?

The pandemonium around Nate was disastrously captivating but he forced himself to concentrate on his own problem: the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. had taken him to the wrong Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate.

This was unheard of.

T.Wi.G.L.E.T.s, like any technology, weren’t faultless. They sometimes mixed-up Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinates and sent Keepers to the wrong place and time. But they never failed to bring a Keeper home. They were designed to return Keepers to B.A.T.Z. HQ at any cost - no matter if they were damaged or low on power - and were able to transport there unless they were physically destroyed.

Except Nate’s T.Wi.G.L.E.T. hadn’t brought him home.

He reset the winder and hit the shortcut for B.A.T.Z. HQ. The T.Wi.G.L.E.T. vibrated and an error message appeared.

Target Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinates not locked. Risk of failure. Proceed?

He turned the T.Wi.G.L.E.T. off and on, reset the winder and tried again.

Tar... Ti.D.A.L. ........ not locked. ........ failure. Proceed?

The display was glitching, the screen hard to read. With trembling fingers Nate pressed the confirm button and closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

The screen read:

..............................................................failure................

A lurch of fear made the Time-Keeper sway; he was L.I.T.

[Lost In Time (L.I.T.) is the most perilous circumstance a Keeper can find themselves in. If a Keeper arrives at a Ti.D.A.L. co-ordinate that is not on their schedule and cannot return themselves to their Biologically Appropriate Time Zone, there is no way for the Bureau to know where they are. The Bureau commits to ensuring the safety of every Keeper but it is next to impossible to find a Keeper when they are L.I.T.]

Nate had been in a plethora of dangerous situations throughout his career; the aforementioned Battle of Towton, Aberfan just minutes before the coal tip collapse, onboard the SS Princess Alice on her way back from Kent. None of them had ever truly frightened him because he knew that no matter what happened he could be safely back at B.A.T.Z. HQ in a split second. It was a lifeline always attached and ready to pull him home. Now he felt like an astronaut floating in space, watching as his spacecraft left him behind, untethered and alone in the endless nothing.

Finding a Keeper that is Lost In Time is not like finding a needle in a haystack, it is like trying to find one needle amongst every haystack that has ever existed.

If Nate ever made it back home again, he was going to give the Tech Department a right hiding.