Temporal Exploring 101 - Deep Future

IV.14 Things that do not make sense, and a warning

"So, what have you been up to, Jake?" Natty asked.

The four of us – Jake Ferguson, Nancy, Natty and I – were sitting at an outside table of a small stylish cafe in downtown Arlesten, holding on to our cups of steaming hot cocoa – or, in the case of Jake, coffee.

I had informed him that I now officially had my Temporal Instructor's permission to discuss the situation with him.  We had decided to not tell him that Natty had accompanied me on my trip to to the 23rd century or, for that matter, how Natty and I, caught in the middle of a raging fire inside our school's volleyball hall, had escaped by way of an emergency temporal transit about a month ago.

"Mainly I have been monitoring the various activities of agents commissioned by my former team," the man calmly replied.

I raised one eyebrow. I had not really expected him to answer that question. In the past he had not exactly been forthcoming about his activities.

"Which agents? Are we talking about that so-called cleanup crew here?" I prodded.

Previously, Jake had explained to us that the autarchy's usual modus operandi included the commissioning of a cleanup crew, usually a bunch of hired locals – in the current case, hired temporal natives – whose task it was to wrap up the loose ends once a mission had been successfully completed. A bunch of small-time, and sometimes also big-time thugs hired to do that kind of job. As a rule, those people did not know anything about the prior mission or its objectives.

"It's a bit more complicated than that, actually." Jake paused to take a sip of coffee. "Oddly, in this particular case things are being handled in a manner that differs significantly from standard procedure."

He had my complete attention now. "Exactly how are things being handled differently?"

"Well, for starters, the team hired to do the cleanup is much larger in number, more diverse and and more organized than usual. They are about fifty people or so, some of whom have been strategically placed in rather specific social and professional positions. The members of the current cleanup team are not all thugs, either. The team includes people working for the police, for the BBC and for the Times. They appear to even have successfully infiltrated the political parties."

"However what's even more unusual is the scope of their activities. Only recently they appear to have been involved in a number of seemingly unrelated break-ins into private homes all over the country. The common element here is that while the place is usually found to have been trashed by the burglars, there is never any trace to be found of the owners of the residences."

"I talked to a journalist who has been investigating those incidents. Kimberly Ames of the Clariston Eye, a small London journal dedicated to report unsolved criminal cases that are considered to be 'mysterious' in one way or another. She claims that the police have never found any evidence of a struggle or such, implying that the owners of those places were either not at home at the time of the break-in or else that they escaped. In any case, they all appear to have gone into hiding."

Natty frowned. "I still don't see how you conclude that this would be related to your so-called cleanup team."

"Well, Ms Ames kindly provided me with a list of victims of those mysterious break-ins." Jake smiled. "And, guess what? The name of your classmate's grandmother, the one you told me about, appeared on the list."

"Granny Morgan? Are you sure?"

"I am positive. In fact, investigating the Morgan woman's case led me to Kimberley Ames and her journal in the first place."