With a flash of blue, an older Hazel and Five arrived in a calmer street setting then the one they were just in: no war tanks, no Soviet soldiers, no war. Just a simple sunny day, intact stores with mundane people strolling the streets, doing their shopping and running their errands.
Five took in the sights around him before turning his attention back to the older Hazel. "Okay... what the hell was that?" he questioned immediately.
"The end of the world, November 25, 1963." stated Hazel with a frown.
" '63..." Five repeated before chuckling dryly. "You know, Hazel, I'm no history buff, but I don't recall there being a nuclear holocaust."
"No shit." Hazel answered simply.
"What about my family?" asked Five, already knowing the answer.
"Dead, like everyone else."
"And where am I now?"
"Dallas. Same street." informed Hazel. "Ten days earlier. Plenty of time to restore the timeline and save them." Hazel walked around the bench that was in front of them and took a seat, the time-traveling briefcase by his side.
"Okay," whispered Five, taking the seat beside Hazel as the cogs in his mind already began to spin. "So where do we start?"
"We? You're on your own, pal. I'm just here to keep a promise to Agnes."
Five could sense the underline twinge of sadness in Hazel's voice. "Is she...?"
"Dead?"
"Yeah."
"Cancer," answered Hazel, memories of the doughnut lady that changed his life replayed in his head. "Took her quick. But we had 20 good years together. I guess forever just wasn't in the cards."
Five's eyes filled with sympathy for the man as he took in his words, understanding what it was like to spend time with someone you love, only to have it cut short. "I'm sorry, Hazel..." Five's voice came out soft and full of sincerity.
Unknowinst to them, a bus stopped across the street from them and unloaded it's passengers, among them were three alarming looking men with nearly white-blonde hair. They unboarded the bus and started to make their way towards the two ex-Commission members.
Hazel nodded, accepting Five's solace. "Yeah. I'm sorry too, old-timer." Five gave Hazel a look of confusion. "Must not be easy to see your girl die again," Five sighed at Hazel's words and looked down. "She seemed very nice."
Five gave a humorless laugh. "I just can't seem to keep her or my family alive," muttered Five dejectedly.
"You'll get it eventually," assured Hazel as he looked down at the boy.
Five brought his head up. "What about the Commission?"
"I quit those assholes, remember? I don't owe 'em the fuzz off my peaches."
Five narrowed his eyes as he spotted the three white-haired men, their expressions definitely didn't look like they wanted to talk. "Well then, who the hell are those guys?" he questioned as he stood up, eyes glued to them as they took out their weapons.
Hazel spotted them too. "Shit." the graying man took the opportunity to quickly put something in the pocket of Five's blazer. "Run!" he shouted, shoving the briefcase in Five hands just as the men released fire.
Five held the briefcase over his face as he spatial jumped away. Hazel wasn't as fortunate as multiple rounds from the machine guns struck him in the chest, killing him instantly. Pedestrians on the streets screamed and ran away from the sounds of the shooting and the armed men.
Five appeared behind a light-blue chevy as he inspected the smoking briefcase. Glowing blue lights peaked through the bullet holes that riddled throughout the black exterior, the light sounds of electricity crackled from it.
"How many times did I say 'bulletproof briefcases'?" muttered a frustrated Five at the now-useless briefcase as he peaked over the hood of the car to get an eye on the perps.
The white-haired trio spotted the smoke coming from behind the car and prepared to aim. Five jumped once more, barely making it as they started to fire again. Once they finished shooting they walked around the car to find the briefcase, but no Five. They scanned the area quickly before walking away. Meanwhile, laying on the rooftop besides the wrecked car, Five panted heavily as he tried to catch his breath. Not even 5 minutes in 1963 and he's already been shot at.
Once he caught his breath, Five spatial jumped back to the alley he originally appeared at. He adjusted his tie and looked back, still trying to figure out what went wrong and how to go about fixing it. The sounds of police sirens were heard as they drove past the alley, clearly on their way to the crime scene. Five looked up at the window that faced out to the alley just in time to see a figure quickly close the curtain. Looking further up, Five could see a bunch of homemade equipment on the roof above the window and it sparked his interest.
Five walked up to the shipping and receiving door for Morty's Television & Radio as he jumped through it, landing on the other side. He walked up the staircase to a door with a glass window, the name MORTIMER GUSSMAN D.D.S, written on the glass. Due to the blinds on the other side, Five couldn't look in, so he raised his knuckles and knocked on the door.
The door beside it opened to reveal a suspicious looking, plain man. "What do you want?" he asked, periodically sticking his head out the door to look down the hallway.
"Hi," started Five. "I'm selling encyclopedias for my youth group," quickly lied the boy. "I was curious if--" Five couldn't finish as the man slammed the door close in his face.
Irritated, Five spatial jumped through the door, terrifying the previously suspicious man. With a shriek, the man clumsily and hastingly searched through the nearby kitchen drawer for something to protect himself with while Five looked on in amusement.
The man finally pulled out a pathetic little tool with a tiny blade and held it between Five and himself. "How'd you do that?"
"Don't really have time to explain," said Five with a sly smile.
"You from the Pentagon? Huh?"
"Definitely not."
"CIA? FBI? KGB?" he named off the different organizations as he shook with fear, the tool remained pointed toward Five.
Five saw a coffee pot on a nearby table. "Is that fresh?" he asked as he jumped from the doorway to the table, earning another scream from the man as he panted against his door frame.
"What..." he panted, his eyes stuck to Five as the boy calmly poured the coffee into one of the nearby mugs.
Five eyed him as he walked past him into the den, coffee in hand. He took a sip and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the coffee. "Hmm. This Colombian?" he asked.
"It's my own blend." responded the man.
Five hummed in approval as he looked around at the variation of newspapers scattered around the walls. Many had to do with flashing strange lights and flying saucers. The equipment that was around the room, along with the articles, gave Five just enough information as to the type of man he was dealing with.
"You ever heard of, uh, Area 51?" asked Five nonchalantly. "Roswell?"
The man scoffed before chuckling, throwing the little blade back on the counter. "Hot damn!" he exclaimed in excitement, his mood now contradicting the previous one as he grinned at the boy. "Whoo! See, I always knew we weren't the only ones," he pointed both his pointer fingers to either side of his head as he spun them quickly. "See, Eleanor thought my head wasn't screwed on tight, but... but it's all true, yeah? UFOs, crops circles..."
"Well, the truth is out there," played along Five with a convincing smile, mug in hand.
"No, no, no, no, no. The... The truth, it's right here in front of us." he walked up to Five with his hands outstretched to him, making the boy take a step back. "Tell me, why is it always an anal probe?" he asked genuinely.
Five narrowed his eyes. "Any closer, and I'll melt your brain." he warned with a smile.
The man took the warning and backed away immediately. "He needs a little space. Yes. I'll be over here."
"All those contraptions on the roof, you built those, right?" asked Five as he walked over to the equipment.
"Oh, yeah, yeah, sure did," proudly admitted the man. "Yeah, I've been tracking anomalies in... in the atmosphere. Just waiting."
"Waiting for what?" questioned Five.
The man's forehead creased. "For you." he said, motioning to Five with his hands. Five only narrowed his eyes in confusion as the man continued. "For all of you." he said before going into detail. "It all started in 1960, the year the Silvertone Omega was released. I was in the middle of a sale when something very... strange happened," the man recalled a flash of blue flickering light shining above in his loft, pulling his attention away from the sale. "So, for the past 3 years I've witnessed six energy surges in that alleyway out back. Same thing every time. A bright blue light, then something appears."
"Did you get a good look at any of them?" asked Five, looking over the board the man had set up with pixelated pictures pinned to it.
"Yeah, the first one. And then the big, sensitive one." he pointed to the man on the board.
Five turned around. "Sensitive?"
"Yeah, cried a lot, kept coming back to the alley, sat around for hours calling a woman's name. Uh..." the guy wracked his head in thought before snapping his fingers in remembrance. "Allison!"
Five instantly knew who it was. "Luther." he turned back around to look at the board.
"Yeah, he wasn't the only one. Uh, the others came too, off and on over the years, looking for each other. Eventually, all but one stopped." explained the man.
Five turned back to look at him. "Which one?"
"The little one," he said walking over to the board next to Five and pointed to the images under ARRIVAL #4 - DECEMBER 24, 1962. "The girl. She was the consistent one until about a month ago when she stopped."
Five squinted his eyes at the picture; it was nearly completely black with hardly any details. It wasn't until he looked further down the line of pictures that he saw a clearer one causing his eyes to soften as he could make out the shape of the figure.
"Elaina." he murmured softly, his finger tracing over the image.
The picture looked like it was from the day she arrived, the light from the vortex was enough to illuminate her as she stared up at it, a hand shielding her eyes from, what Five assumed, was rain by the way her hair stuck to her face.
The man saw a sudden shift in demeanor in the boy as he looked at the blurry picture. "Yeah... she'd, uh, come around a few hours every other week or so since her arrival. She'd roam around calling out different names, sometimes she brought a book, sometimes she cried..." he explained cautiously as he saw Five's jaw clench at his words. "One time she impressively threw a trash can at the wall." this earned a quirked brow from the boy.
With Elaina's temper, it was believable.
Five looked at him. "You said it was about a month ago that she stopped. I wonder why..." Five questioned the last part to himself.
The man bit his lip and shrugged his shoulders, answering Five's rhetorical question. "I have no idea. I figured it must've been the same reason the others did."
Five sighed. "So my family is alive. Shit. I think I stranded them here." he said, giving Elaina's picture one final look before turning to the man. "Now listen to me..." Five started walking up to the fidgeting man.
"Elliot. Elliot." spluttered the man as Five kept walking towards him before spatial jumping, causing Elliot to climb over the couch. "My name... My name is Elliot."
Five appeared directly in front of him. "Whatever, alright?" exclaimed a frustrated Five as he pointed to the board. "I got ten days to find them and save the world! Now I need your help to do that."
Elliot started to lamely point at himself as he felt a wave of honor. "You need... my... You know what? I, uh," he started to fiddle with the drawer of the desk behind him, searching through it swiftly. "I always thought that this, us, mugshot looked like arrival number five." said the jittery man as he pulled out a clipped newspaper article and turned it over to Five.
Five eyes widened at the mugshot of his brother as he reached out and grabbed it. "Diego." he breathed out.
"So then, that's helpful?" asked Elliot, his eyes sparked with relief.
"You have no idea." said Five as he folded the paper and quickly spatial jumped away.
As soon as Five was gone, Elliot let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in and let out an excited laugh, happy to know that he was, in fact, not crazy.