The Timeservers

Chapter 7

New York City, New York

The Ivory Tower

December 3, 227 P.F.E

0830 hours

Being a spectre you get used to having little or less sleep. Leo got the less sleep last night, what with having to plot how to recruit and subsequently train a new spectre, and a freaking candidate one at that. He didn't even have time to go over her files last night since his analyst and attention manager had to be in a meeting for a few hours and when they got back they were both beat. Answering the same questions about how things are going up North each time Kelly comes back from a mission always leaves him tired and frustrated with bureaucracy and Sophia reflects those emotions.
Leo takes one last swig of the coffee he brought, which is thoroughly doctored with milk and sugar since coffee is only a necessary evil to him. Thoroughly dosed, he leaves the shuttle and walks up to the school. There are lights on, mostly in the dormitory wing since class won't start for another half hour. Some students who don't stay in the school are also arriving but they don't give Leo a second glance.
It's a wet morning, with clumps of snowflakes hitting his head every few steps. One of the students slips in dirty slush coming up to the school and he walks over to them to help them up. It's a young girl, maybe fourteen. She takes Leo's offered hand shyly and then looks down at her cream overcoat. Tears well up in her eyes and she starts rubbing at the dirt desperately. "It's ruined! All of the girls will laugh at me. This is awful!"
"Hey, don't worry. Just a second, I'll get you something else," Leo consoles.
"How? I don't have time to go home and get my spares! No one will loan me theirs!"
"Come on." Leo guides the girl up to the doors and moves to open them.
"You can't just go into the IvoryTower! Who are you?" the girl demands.
Leo smiles a little. "Call me Nemo. Don't worry, I have authorization." Nemo, when Sophia asked him what his cover identity would be it was the only thing in his head. Nemo, as in what Herculesused to trick a cyclops, meaning nobody. He thought it was fitting, in a kind of ironic way.
Leo leads the girl to the dorms and takes a blank key from his pocket. The blank is loaded with a ton of authorizations for a ton of different doors, including the spare uniform room. He waves it over the lock and the door pops open. After ordering the girl to stay in the hall he enters the room and picks up one of the overcoats, a robe, pants, and shoes for the poor girl. It's not like anyone will miss them. "Take these and don't tell anyone where you got them. Bye." The girl starts to argue but Leo's already disappeared around the corner.
Teller, the headmistress, meets Leo in the lobby, which is filling up with students. "You're... them?" Teller asks, glancing cautiously at her students.
"No one will know who I am or why I'm here," Leo tells her.
"Thank you for having the decency to not wear the Guardian uniform," Teller says, looking over Leo's plain clothes. He'd ditched the uniform, opting for a pair of dressier grey pants, a button down shirt, and large glasses to hide his eyes from the people there. It sticks out in the Ivory Tower but not as much as a uniform would have and wearing an elite uniform wouldn't work because the students know all of the elite assigned to the school. "We'll wait till the lobby is cleared out. I don't want anyone to see this."
"I'll be as covert as possible. You can be in the room once I've recruited her, not during though. If she doesn't agree to recruitment we'll leave her here. She and you will be sworn to absolute secrecy. If either of you tells anyone you will both be brought in front of the Board of Commissioners for evaluation and punishment. I need to know, have you spoken to her about this?" Leo asks, crossing his arms.
"No, I stayed up with her all night. She tried to ask questions but I wouldn't let her. We talked about other things. I think she knew I was trying to say goodbye though," Teller admits.
Leo feels a twinge of guilt and wishes, for what must be the five hundredth time that he could let her just stay here. It will be better for her not to come. She'll have a life here. But she's already sworn herself to duty for her country. Leo gives up on the battle and recovers the mask of a good Guardian like he has to. "Alright, the lobby's clear. I'll let you know when you can come in."
Teller follows him to the high-level students' dorms and Leo gives her some busy work to get rid of her. He heads forVia's dorm. They'd both been lucky that she hadn't been stuck in a penance facility, her for the trauma it might cause, and Leo for shame of walking past people who couldn't help themselves but didn't fit the qualifications to get a Guardianship. He takes a deep breath and cracks open her door quietly.
Via Moss, the girl he's recruiting sits on the edge of her bed. She's looking away from him and didn't hear him come in. Her hands are wrapped together and Leo can tell that she's been digging her nails into her hands to regain some sort of control.
"How was your night?" Leo asks.
Via whirls around and raises a hand toher chest. Her eyes are wide, showing off the green even in the dim room. She seems to move slowly for a second, like she's trapped in honey the color of her hair. She's petite and innocent looking and the last person Leo would guess to have what it takes to be a spectre. She's also the last person he would want his Guardianship status to hinge on. "Who are you?"
"I unlock cages. Do you want to get out of this one?" Leo grins.
Via's eyes somehow go wider. "I have longer on my penance! Are you seriously going to take me from my dorm?"
"Not just this cage, the one outside it."
Via tilts her head. "What cage would that be?"
Leo looks around and waves his hand without pointing anywhere in particular. "This cage, this tower. You don't have to be a chancellor anymore."
A perfect storm of emotions crossesVia's face at this. Her brows crease and she has to sit on her bed which she sprang up from when he scared her. A cynical smile comes to her face. "That's not true. I have to be a chancellor. If I'm not a chancellor I'm nothing. I can't do anything else. I end, I stop mattering beyond my ability to avoid getting marked. I have one mark, one. I have done one thing wrong my whole life. I was raised to not do anything wrong. This is who I am. I can't escape from it." Tears start forming in Via's eyes and her voice starts cracking close to the end. She digs her nails into her palms again. This isn't going to plan.
"You see, I don't believe that. No one can be reduced to one variable, to one aspect of their personality. Especially not someone like you. I can already think of one alternative to chancellor which I think you'll totally rock."
"Like what?" Via demands. She looks up at Leo and her eyes are rimmed with red.
"Being a Guardian."
"You want me to be a Guardian? An elite? Just throw me in a penance facility for life, the shame won't be so bad."
"Better, a spectre."
Via bursts out laughing; full blown laughing. She's almost toppling from her spot on the bed. "Spectre's deal with Historians. I've never even met one. I don't know how you got in here since you're obviously insane and also this is the Ivory Tower, but there's no way you would be a real Guardian after that suggestion!"
"Then explain this." Leo pulls out his screen and the badge given to him by the Guardians. Leo calls his name into the screen and his page comes up. He holds the screen and badge up for her to see and Via looks them over with wide eyes.
"You're a Historian defending New America. How?" Via backs away a little, years of being taught to avoid Historians kicking in. Her eyes drift up to his as she tries to find the gold in them.
"I'm pretty good. Don't worry, as anyone that you ask at the Spire will tell you I have no loyalty to NorthAmerica. I also have basically no memory of that place either."
Via looks at him a little differently now, taking on a sad expression. "You were wiped?"
"Everything gone. I didn't even know my name."
"So you chose Mythos?"
"That's my spectre name so, yeah, I chose it. I know my real name though, I think. I don't have any memories to back it up."
"So what's your real name?"
"Galileo Daniels." Via smiles a bit at it. "I know, it's totally Historian. They hate it at work."
"Galileo, the guy who found out the earth revolves around the sun instead of the sun revolving around the earth?"
"That's an interesting thing for a New to know."
"My dad taught me about that stuff, albeit slightly illegally. He thought it would be important. He heard some Historian saying 'those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.' He thought that there was enough out there that we don't want to repeat that the risk of teaching it was low in comparison."
"He's not wrong. Genocides, wars, nuclear weaponry. They all deserve to be buried back there, but the people they affected don't. No one deserves to be forgotten."
"That includes the guy you left behind in North America, Galileo. How can you stand being here when the person you used to be would be ashamed of it?"
"I have the hope of doing good. I don't know what I left and I hope that I'm not missing out on anything great, but I was alone and running through the forest when I was found. I have to believe I was running from something."
"Why do you think I would want to be a spectre? I don't want to be someone else. I don't want people to be scared of me."
"And they aren't already?"
Via seems to mull over something in her head then looks back at Leo. "If I did this, could I go on missions to Historian territory?"
Leo tries not to let his confusion show. It's probably the one question he wasn't anticipating. Maybe there's more to Via than meets the eye. "That's kind of what we do."
Via takes a deep breath. "I guess I'll do it."
"Not so fast. I would like you to join us but you have to know what you're getting into. No contact with anyone from your life before joining the Guardians. You can show no sympathy or loyalty to Historians. You'll have to choose a new name. You'll be put in danger; you'll have to go undercover. You have to learn about Historian culture, how to defend yourself, and spy craft."
"I'll do it."
"This is real danger. You need to consider it for longer than a second. You could be killed, trapped in a tear, or put in prison the rest of your life."
"Well, according to your logic, I choose this prison for the rest of my life anyway, or the potential of freedom-at least for a while. I'm in. I don't need to consider. I'm done being perfect."