Chronos Chronicles: The Man Who Can Move Time

Friends Are Always There

I woke up dizzy, I'm in a very unorganized apartment, full of 90s technology and hardware repair kits. A man approaches me with a flashlight, checking if I'm ok.

"Dude, sorry for the kidnapping, I dunno how to ask you about your powers without sounding creepy and getting caught by the cops"

"And this is the least creepy of the choices, I assume"

"Haha yeah, no, that was a mistake. I'm Brandon, Brandon Keisler. I worked on the Time Ship in Utopia years ago, before my music career caught up and we started touring in a lot of places. I resigned, thinking that was my big break, then we disbanded. Now they don't want me back, they said I got replaced easily and they continued my work without me"

"How did you find me?"

"Easy. When you manipulate time, you leave a lot of, how should I call it, freckles on the timeline. I get deja vus of starting my day 6 times, yet these deja vus are too vivid to be a confusion. I can actually remember what I did and I'm pretty sure you can't get a 6 layer deja vu."

"But how did you know it was me?"

"I still have access to all 25 Utopia satellites, and 12 microsatellites. I retasked the ones they weren't using to track any unidentifiable energy signature, and it ended up in the apartment a few blocks east, your home. I then used my drone to scan each and every one of the room for this new energy, and it hit a weak ping on your apartment. To confirm this isn't just you using an electric can opener, I followed you to work, I got surprised that you work in Utopia, and now It's all starting to make sense. I opened the worker's schedule to see which one just entered the exact moment you went in, all I had to do was wait until you clock out and I find you."

"And now I'm here"
"And now you're here"

"What exactly do you want?" I asked.

"I think I can help, but also if I discover even more abilities faster than your friends at that ivory laboratories can, you can recommend me to get my job back"

"That's all?"
"That's all"

"How did you even get those vivid memories? Pirkek never told me about his deja vu" I asked.

"No idea. But I think I got this ability when I accidentally exposed myself with tachyons while repairing the particle accelarator and now I can peer through time. Can you do the same?"

"No. I can only manipulate time, not see through it."

"Uh- where are my manners, it's late, you should go home now. We can start training at your off days"

"Training?"
"Yes. You might start getting enemies with your ability, you need to learn how to fight your way out of it"

I went home to sleep.

Sunday
I took a day off, and I went to Brandon's place to train, then he lead me to the rooftop where his equipments are on.

"What's that thing for?" I asked, pointing to a tall thing.

"It's a Chinese wooden dummy. You need to learn how to defend yourself quickly, so I figured you should train hand to hand combat. This fighting technique is all about speed, once you master this, even if someone figured out how to disable your powers, you can still walk away alive."

We trained every week. Once my vacation started, we trained everyday, the entire day. We also started bodybuilding to become stronger and fight more effectively.

As we're walking to buy food at the convenience store, a group of masked men gets out of an armored car.

"They're going to rob the bank!" Brandon anxiously whispered.

"I know we're both looking at it"
"They look like they'll kill anyone in there to get what they want, we need to go in"
"What?! And we die?"
"You have powers, and there will be collateral if we don't step in. This is your chance to use your training"
"Alright, but I'm resetting this hour once I get scared enough"

I told him to hold on, then focused. I only need to teleport in front of the getaway driver to knock him out. If I only travel a picosecond in the future, I won't move that much. And go.

I got on the driver's side window, and punched his jaw as fast and hard as I could. I knocked him out, and took all of his weapons, and his radio. We tied him up on a tree nearby and asked the bystanders to keep an eye on him.

"Hostage situation. If you're too slow, they'll have time to grab a hostage" Brandon said.

"How do I take them out if they're all spread out across the bank?"

"Travel to the past. Just a few picoseconds. Once you're near one, slow down time and accelarate yourself, you will then hit them as hard as you can, then move to the next one. I'll shoot whoever you missed, or if you're too busy"

"I can't do all that in a fraction of a moment"

"You're right, but also you can. If you get too excited, all of your physical attributes heighten, including reaction time. You'll see everyone slow down without even using your powers."

He injected me with adrenaline. My heart starts pumping fast, my eyes dilated, and my body urging me to move fast and do something that would exert a lot of energy quickly.

I focused on the robber nearest to a hostage, leaped backwards in time, slowed it down and kicked him as hard as I could.

I moved on to the next, then the other, until I got everyone. I got tired, but I got them.

While the hostages were cheering, Brandon started looking scared, I looked at him.

"Something's wrong", he said, "stairs".

I looked at the stairs and saw a man coming downstairs with a C4, I don't know what to do with it, so I stopped time everywhere, and made Brandon immune to it.

"I can't stop time forever, can we defuse it?" I said.

"No idea, this is a very improvised C4, one wrong move and we're barbecue" Brandon replied.

"Maybe if I go thousands of feet in the air and throw it, it would safely detonate there."

"You probably wouldn't be."
"Why's that?"
"What if, when you teleport, you still move in the same way you did before the fact?"
"What do you mean? If I freefall and go back here, I might still fall to my death?"
"Might. So what will you do?"
"I can't let these people die, Brandon. There's just more risk if we let this detonate.
"Then reset the time"
"I can't"
"Why?"
"Because if we reset the time, who knows what changes will occur? These robbers may go in a different bank, or worse already killed everyone before we go here, there's too much risk in changing what we already did."
"You will still throw it up the air, are you?"
"I have to"

I picked up the bomb, went 70,000 feet into the air, and threw the bomb. It detonated safely, but now I'm going down at terminal velocity.

"Now we'll know" I said, as I started focusing on the bank, about to re-enter it but milliseconds in the past.

I got to the bank, and I was just in standstill.

"I did it!"
"You did!"
"Stairs!"

Brandon shot the gun out of the robber's hand, and I ran in time to knock him out. The police finally arrived and arrested the robbers.

"Hell of a feat you did there Clockworth" Brandon said.

"Woudn't have done it without my friends", I said.