The Agency
The Keepers of Time
Part 1: The Event
Chapter 1: The Agency
(Note: Just for the record, during all conversations between Nate and Kit, both of them are speaking German. I'll clarify the details later.)
1.
In the year 2985, many scientific advances have been achieved. Cures for almost all diseases, transportation systems on Earth, almost every luxury found for every social class. However, there was one advance that all have envisioned, but none have acquired: the advance of time travel. Many have been trying to develop this ability, but all have failed. All, but Dr. Hugh Hurley.
"Dammit, that's wrong too!" Dr. Hurley shouted, crumpling up a piece of notebook paper and hurling it across the room.
The scientist had taken up the dead study of time travel, and had come within grasping distance of discovering it. He sat on a squeaky swivel chair in a cramped laboratory, the only light coming from a decrepit fluorescent lamp that cast a milky white glow on his cluttered desk.
Hurley sighed and stared at the ceiling. He ran his hand through his shaggy white beard and shut his eyes. Working on this project for three years, and still hit the same roadblock, no matter what. There was never enough energy to send a person back in time.
Hurley got up to get another cup of coffee. It had been sitting in the pot for a few hours at least, and Hurley grimaced when the bitter taste of stale coffee hit his palette. He sat back down at his desk, and suddenly the idea hit him.
Power converter.
Yes! That would amplify the amount of energy needed to create the rip in time to send the traveler back by sending the energy through the converter, changing the AC current to a DC current. Why hadn't he thought of it before? But theoretically, if one were to go back in time, age (or age-regression, in this case), would take hold of the traveler, and probably cause them to become unborn. They'd simply fade from existence. Then another idea came to him. A body support system. Like a suit or something. Something that would protect them from the effects of time travel. He racked his brain for another burst of insight. Nothing came up.
(come on hurley you can figure this out)
He sighed and dropped his head on the table. The idea was figured out, but how would he protect the traveler from time itself?
The idea, actually, came from a book he'd read as a child. Stephen King's novella, Four Past Midnight. More specifically, the short story "The Langoliers". The people were able to escape the effects of time travel by being inside of something. If he could create a bodysuit that would create a bubble of a time-withstanding environment, it would protect the traveler from the effects of time travel! Brilliant!
With a sudden burst of excitement, Dr. Hurley ran the figures again. Everything checked out. Ecstatically, he thumbed the number for the World Science Center to propose his theory of time travel.
2.
5 years later in 2990, with time travel now a reality, the Government spent millions of dollars to fund the building of the first working time machine. After several months of backbreaking labor and careful planning, the first prototype of the time machine, named "Crusader", had undergone its first successful test run.
The United States government hastily worked to protect Crusader from foreign countries, fearing sabotage. Their work was successful, and the development of the first time machine was kept under wraps by being hidden within a secretive government group, called the Historical Protection and Research Agency. This agency protected the time machine and the time stream along with it.
Then, in the dawn of the new millennium, Dr. Hurley, along with several other HPRA technicians, developed a time travel suit that allowed the agent to freely jump around through time as they wished. However, the agent would still have to remain out of sight from any other beings from other time zones. Finally, in 3195, technicians fixed the problem and developed a new travel suit that could create a perfect hologram of another being. It was also around this time that anthros finally gained civil rights within normal society. Then, 15 years later, one of them was drafted into the HPRA. This is where our story truly begins.
3.
Nate Underwood woke up to his alarm at 7:30 in the morning. He was an Umbreon of 27, and the events that took place on this day would change his life forever. He yawned and switched on his bedside lamp. He shook his head and ran a hand through the charcoal fur on his forehead. He stood up and opened the shades on his window. Sunlight streamed in through the blinds, bathing the entire room in light and reflecting off of the gold rings on his forehead and upper arms.
Nate slipped on his black HPRA shirt, and changed from his sweatpants to a pair of jeans and tied his combat boots. He threw on his fleece bomber jacket and left the room of his apartment. He took the stairs down to the bottom floor. There were already several people in line for the transporter; hopefully they wouldn't take long.
Nate took a seat next to a rather fat man reading a newspaper, and tried to ignore the man's stench. It was a sweaty, dirty odor, like old damp rags left piled in the corner of a room. The man coughed loudly, shaking the newspaper and clearing his throat.
Nate checked his watch. He had 5 minutes to get to the HPRA building. The hefty man went up to the transporter and selected his destination. The metal doors slid around him, and when they opened, the man was gone.
The transporter was a large circular metal plate in the floor with a blue dot in the center. At about eye level was a blue computer screen and a retinal scanner. Nate stepped onto the panel, and the blue screen immediately jumped to life. The retinal scanner lowered at his eye and stopped.
"Please hold for 5 seconds for a retinal ID scan," it asked in a mechanical voice.
The scanner cast a green light over Nate's right eye, and went back up into its indentation above the screen. The screen popped up with four different destinations: "Berlin, Germany", "Las Vegas, Nevada", "Historical Research and Protection Agency building", and "Tokyo, Japan".
Nate hit the button for the HPRA building, and a metal door slid shut around the transporter. The machine scanned Nate's body, and a white light filled the chamber. The next thing he knew, he was standing in the transporter machine near the front door inside the HPRA building.
Nate stepped in front of the main gate, and placed his hand on the scanner that slid out from the door. It scanned his handprint and asked for his HPRA identification card. He pulled it out of his wallet, and stuck it in the slot. The machine scanned his card, and slid it back out. Nate took it and the gate opened.
The HPRA building's main hallway was lined by pods that held the time travel suits. Nate opened his pod by scanning his hand again, and sat down in the pod. The door closed, and his computer screen lit up. It showed a mission. He was expected to travel to Schloss Bayern in 1450 AD to confirm exactly how the castle was destroyed. It had been fighting nomadic enemies for months, but records stopped on March 14, 1150.
Nate hit the "Confirm Jump" key on the keyboard and there was a blue flash as his TimeSuit was donned. A loud electrical discharge boomed around the small pod and he saw the pod fall away as he was pulled into the time stream.
4.
There was another electrical discharge as the time jump was completed. He stood in a secluded area of the Southern Tower. There was a distant rumble as boulders fired from catapults impacted near the castle. Nate carefully opened the door to the hallway. He turned left, trying to find a way to document the battle without being seen.
But to get there, he'd need to pass through populated areas of the castle. He'd need a hologram of another person before he could go there.
Nate carefully walked down a hallway to his left, and stopped at a corner. There was an armed guard standing at the corner. Nate quickly captured his appearance and activated the Hologram Generator to take on the guard's appearance and walked back the other direction. As he turned another corner, someone, a woman, called out to him.
"He, Sie da! Weißt du, wo Helmar ist?" she asked. Nate turned to face a female Vulpix with a golden chest plate and silver leg guards and brown leather greaves that reached almost to her knee. She wore no shoes, but then again, the technology in the 1400s hadn't developed shoes for paws quite yet. Her mane hung down to her shoulders, with a lock falling down directly above a deep brown eye. The final thing Nate noticed was the jeweled rapier at her side.
His helmet beeped and a message came up. "Foreign language detected. Attempting to translate...translation successful."
"I'm sorry, but I don't," he replied, turning away.
Then the woman spun him around. "Trying to trick me, I see! You still haven't lost your sense of humor, even after these months at war."
Nate had no idea what to say. Luckily, she continued talking.
"I have to talk to you. We've got a problem in the North."
"What's going on?" Nate asked but he knew full well what it was.
"The Britains deployed a catapult. But this one's different than the others. It throws..." she trailed off.
"What does it throw?"
"It throws...fire. I have never seen anything like this before. We must do something!"
"Lead the way," Nate said.
She swiftly turned around and walked down the hallway behind her. As he followed behind her, he took the time to scan her and get any information.
Her name was Kit Herrmann, born on May 28, 1427 in Bayern, Germany. She was a highly skilled fencer and tactician. She was betrothed at one point to a German warrior named Wolfgang Heuer, who was killed during a siege of an enemy castle in 1444. She's very stubborn, courageous, and always interested to learn. Nothing historically important in her profile, which surprised Nate due to her background.
Kit pushed open the two large mahogany doors leading to the front lines of an intense battle. They stood on the drawbridge, with two guards on either side of them, ready to raise the bridge in case the defensive line broke. Also in case the line was broken, a gorge was dug around the front of the castle. It looked pretty deep; a quick scan showed that it was approximately 350 meters deep.
"Come on. We can get a better view of the battle from up here," Kit said, leading Nate up a rope ladder to a parapet above the drawbridge.
The war being fought from below was one of the most violent battles that Nate had ever seen. There were German knights charging down a hill into throngs of British knights in a desperate attempt to force a retreat. Hard to believe that the Germany that Nate saw in the 1900s and in the 1940s couldn't budge a British line.
As Kit and Nate focused on watching the battle rage below, neither of them saw the British catapult hurl a flaming boulder directly above the parapet that they were standing on.
It impacted with a deafening crash, raining stone and bricks down upon them. The sheer force of the blast caused the parapet to fall.
In a frantic attempt to save himself, Nate hurriedly hit the "Recall" button on his left arm. But, he didn't notice that Kit's elbow was touching his chest when he jumped back to the HPRA building.
5.
Nate reappeared inside his pod intact, but noticed that he had much less room than he did when he originally jumped.
Then he realized there was another person in the pod with him.
"Where am I?! What just happened?" someone asked furiously. Immediately Nate realized it as Kit. "Who the hell are you?"
Nate placed his hand over her muzzle. "Please, be quiet. If the HPRA finds you here, I'll lose my job and end up in jail."
Kit furiously threw his hand off of her face. "Then you tell me where I am and who you are," she said venomously.
Nate sighed. After this, he could simply take her back and wipe her memory. "My name is Nate Underwood. The building you're in is the Historical Protection and Research Agency in the year 3210. My job is to protect the time stream from catastrophic damage, which your presence might cause."
Kit chuckled. "Is that so? Well, Mr. Future, why not show me around?"
Nate was about to send her back to her time zone, when he got an idea. She wasn't important historically, and records showed that she was killed when they were blown off the parapet. She supposedly fell into the gorge surrounding the castle.
"Alright, but you're gonna have to stay at my apartment. My shift isn't over for a few more hours. Hang on."
Kit nodded and grabbed Nate's arm. There was a loud electrical crackle as Nate activated his suit's cloaking function. He opened the pod and stepped outside onto the metal grated floor.
"Gods, this floor is freezing," Kit whispered.
"Be quiet. The cloaking stays up during movement, but it doesn't muffle sounds," Nate replied. Luckily, nobody was around.
They made it to the Transporter, and when Nate and Kit stepped inside, the Transporter said that only one passenger at a time could enter the Transporter.
Damn, Nate thought, Now what?
Nate prayed that nobody was at the apartment building when he scanned his retina and sent Kit through the Transporter alone. Then he went through, quickly throwing on his cloaking as he stepped out.
God was smiling on him today, it seemed. Nobody was in the hallways, and they made it to Nate's apartment room on the 4th floor without being noticed.
When the door slid shut behind them, Nate dropped the cloak. Immediately, Nate's computer, official name XL231, codenamed "Axel", hovered over. Reflexively, Kit drew her rapier and pointed it at the computer. It hovered nonchalantly, flashing "New Messages" over and over on its screen.
"Kit, put it away. Axel's not gonna hurt you," Nate said. Kit reluctantly sheathed her rapier, but didn't take a wary eye off of Axel. "Axel, aren't you going to introduce yourself to our visitor?"
"My apologies," Axel responded with an almost human voice. "I am Model Number XL231, codenamed 'Axel' by my owner, Nathan Underwood of the Historical Research and Protection Agency."
"Kit, I gotta head back before they realize I'm gone. Now, to avoid anything going horribly wrong, you have to stay in this apartment," Nate said, already headed out the door. It slid shut behind him with a soft click.
"Do you have need of anything, Miss?" Axel asked after a period of brief silence.
"Hm? Oh, not right now," Kit replied. She'd completely forgotten he was there.
She took a few minutes to check out Nate's apartment. She stood in the large living room, adorned with only a circular sitting area, and two reclined chairs facing a dark gray rectangle that took up the entire south wall. She walked around the room for a moment, looking at the various books on the shelves next to the gray rectangle. She liked this room; the carpet was soft under her feet.
Satisfied with her appraisal of the living room, Kit strolled through another sliding door to the kitchen. It consisted of a four-burner stove and oven. But where did you put the wood? Where was the poker? How could Nate live this way? The stove wasn't lit; the room was freezing, as was the linoleum floor. The next thing she noticed was that there were no servants or cooks in here. Who fixed the meals? Who washed the dishes?
Resolving to figure out the kitchen dilemma at a later time, Kit went to the bedroom. The bed was rather large, and was a complete mess. One of the pillows was on the floor, and the blankets were wadded in a heap at the foot of the bed. And Kit assumed there were no maids to fix the bed, either. Nate had several things to learn about living on his own.
Since the sight of the miniscule battlefield that Nate called a bed was more than she could bear, Kit un-crumpled the blankets and spread them over the mattress, and straightened the pillows. If Nate lived with his bed a mess, she didn't even want to look in the bathroom from the adjoining door.
Needing some time to think about a list of things that needed to be improved here, Kit sat down on one of the reclined chairs by the gray rectangle. The chair was very comfortable and soft. Kit found herself unable to keep her eyes open. She was almost asleep when Axel hovered behind her.
"If you're tired, Miss, the bedroom is through that door," he said suddenly, startling Kit out of her wits.
"Please don't do that," Kit replied, ignoring her speeding heart.
"My apologies. I noticed you were exploring Mr. Underwood's apartment. Is there anything you'd like to know about?"
Kit thought for a moment. "Yeah, I wanna know about Nate."
"Very well, Miss. I shall open Mr. Underwood's HPRA personnel file," Axel replied, hovering in front of her, and projected a picture of his face and a short biography. Kit hadn't seen Nate without his helmet, and she liked his picture. His dark eyes gazed back at her thoughtfully, and his charcoal fur seemed to glow from the light of the holograph.
Agent Name: Karl Julius Schwarzbek, changed to Nathan Brian Underwood in 3202
Age: 27
Born: 3183 in Bonn, Germany
Current Status: Active
Area: Research
Parents: Katrin Judith Reinhauer, Florian Hans Schwarzbek
Race: Umbreon
Bio: Underwood was born on November 10, 3183 in Bonn, Germany. He was born under the name of Karl Julius Schwarzbek, but he had the name legally changed to Nathan Brian Underwood on February 8th, 3202. The reason for this name change was due to his father, who was abusive when drunk, and eventually killed his wife, Katrin Judith Reinhauer. Once Underwood turned 18, he moved to America and enrolled at Michigan State University, where he graduated with honors with a major in Early World History. 2 months afterward, he was drafted by the HPRA.
"Is that all, Miss?" Axel asked.
"Yes, that's all. Thank you," Kit replied. No wonder he spoke German so fluently. Maybe she doesn't really have to go back home quite yet.
"Miss, Mr. Underwood has just arrived in the apartment lobby. I just thought you'd want to know."
"Very well," Kit said, getting up.
She stood in the entryway, and waited for the door to slide open. When it did, she waited for Nate to take off his jacket before speaking.
"So, how'd your day go?" she asked.
Nate stopped for a minute and tapped his forehead with his eyes closed. "Uh...not too bad. Slow, as usual," he replied. After the first couple words, the rest of the sentence came out very fluently.
"What do you mean slow?"
"Nothing interesting happened. Nothing ever does." It was good to speak German after so many years of speaking only broken English. "So did you check out the place?"
"Yes, I did. I have a few questions," Kit said as she followed Nate into the kitchen, preparing herself for the icy chill of the cold linoleum floor on her bare paws.
"First, don't you want to take that armor off? It can't be very comfortable," Nate pointed out.
For some reason, Kit wanted to say that she wore nothing underneath her armor. But that was untrue. Instead, she shrugged and pulled off the metal plating and greaves, revealing an emerald green cotton tunic that reached halfway down her thighs and was belted around her waist.
"Now, what did you want to ask?" Nate continued as he pulled a pot out from a cabinet near the stove and poured water in it from the faucet.
"First, where are your cooks and servants? Who serves your food?"
This question got Nate to laugh. "Who else? I do."
Kit was appalled. The Master cooks and serves his own food? What anarchist place did he live in? "And I suppose you wash the dishes and clean the house, too?"
Nate nodded. "I've got nobody else around here, and Axel doesn't have hands." When the water started to boil, he poured in a box of dried noodles.
"My final question is how do you heat that stove? I don't see any wood or a poker or anything."
"It's heated using gas and flame. The knobs on the edge of the stove change how much gas is released, and there's a small flame inside the stove to light the gas to create the fire that heats the stove."
"Fascinating," Kit replied, gazing at the small ring of flames beneath the pot.
Nate set a bowl in the sink, and poured the pot's contents into the bowl. Kit watched, amazed, as the water drained from the bottom without losing any of the noodles.
"What magick is that?" she asked.
"It's not magick. It's a colander. It's a bowl with holes in the bottom that hold larger things while draining liquid," Nate replied, dumping the noodles back into the pot and tossing in a chunk of butter from the refrigerator.
"Are you hungry?" he asked when the butter had melted.
""Yes, quite," she replied. Nate scooped out a heap of noodles from the pot, and dropped them on two plates. He carried them over to a small table in the kitchen, and set them down on opposite ends.
Kit ate in silence, a million questions swarming through her head. When they finished, she yawned, exhausted. The day's events took a toll on her.
"That reminds me. You can have the bedroom tonight. I'll sleep in the living room," Nate said, picking up the dishes and putting them in the sink.
Almost against her will, Kit stood up. "That's alright. I don't mind sharing a bed."
Nate turned around, startled. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," she replied, giggling to herself.
"If you say so."
Together, they went to the bedroom. Nate changed into his sweatpants and got into bed. Kit slid in beside him, tunic still on. Nate closed his eyes and was almost asleep when Kit hugged him.
"What are you doing?" Nate asked, too stunned to think clearly.
"I want to be with you," Kit replied. She moved closer to him.
Nate was too stunned to speak. Kit took his brief moment of silence and kissed him softly.
"Kit, don't you think this is a little...rushed?" Nate asked, once he could speak.
"Not at all," she replied. "If you don't want me, that's alright..."
"I never said that," Nate pointed out. To prove his point, he slid his hand along her side and Kit arched her breast into it. Instinctively, he squeezed it softly, causing Kit to moan in pleasure. She licked his cheek, and ran her tongue across Nate's lips. He did the same, and eventually their tongues met, and they held each other as their tongues wrestled. They slid over teeth and bumped against palettes as they groped at each other.
Nate was the first to get things going. He slid his hand under her tunic, and stroked the moist lips of her vagina with his index finger. He slowly stuck his index finger and middle finger into her, and stroked the wet tunnel. She moaned again, this time accidentally breathing a stream of fire down Nate's throat. It traveled down his throat, burning the entire way down. This sudden burst of heat caused Nate's hand to instinctively curl into a fist, and all five of his fingers entered Kit at the same time. She cried out with a quick yelp of pain and pleasure, and waited for Nate to continue with his entire hand. To her pleasure, he did.
She felt his hand enter her up to the third knuckle, and retract. She felt her stomach tighten, and pressed closer to Nate.
(oh gods I'm almost there come on faster faster)
She eventually reached her climax, drenching Nate's jeans and a large portion of the bedspread. She laid her head on the pillow, and unbuckled and removed her tunic. She lay naked on the bed as she helped Nate remove his pants and shirt. She rubbed his cock gently, circling one finger around the head. She guided his cock between her legs, and pulled him inside of her. She gasped when he was in all the way, and then he started moving his hips.
Nate placed one hand on the headboard of the bed to steady himself and placed the other on her breast. He squeezed it in time with his movements, loving the tight warmth of her pussy around his length. Kit grabbed her other breast, and licked the hardened nipple. He thrusted inside of her quickly, but not painfully at all. This was much better than what Wolfgang could do. Sure, he was a bit bigger than Nate, but he wasn't nearly this gentle.
Nate gritted his teeth as he felt his knot start to grow. Kit felt it too and quickly decided whether or not to take it inside of her or not. She lacked the birth-control abilities that her mother had, and wasn't exactly sure if she would get pregnant. Kit finally decided that she'd deal with the problem when it arrived, and the next time Nate thrusted in, Kit pushed against it and it entered her. Nate slammed in one more time and then released. Kit sighed in complete bliss when she felt his hot seed pump into her womb, filling her to the brim.
She and Nate rolled onto their sides with his deflating knot still stuck inside her. She hugged him closely, and fell asleep with her head on Nate's shoulder. Yes, she'll be staying.
Part 1: The Event
Chapter 1: The Agency
(Note: Just for the record, during all conversations between Nate and Kit, both of them are speaking German. I'll clarify the details later.)
1.
In the year 2985, many scientific advances have been achieved. Cures for almost all diseases, transportation systems on Earth, almost every luxury found for every social class. However, there was one advance that all have envisioned, but none have acquired: the advance of time travel. Many have been trying to develop this ability, but all have failed. All, but Dr. Hugh Hurley.
"Dammit, that's wrong too!" Dr. Hurley shouted, crumpling up a piece of notebook paper and hurling it across the room.
The scientist had taken up the dead study of time travel, and had come within grasping distance of discovering it. He sat on a squeaky swivel chair in a cramped laboratory, the only light coming from a decrepit fluorescent lamp that cast a milky white glow on his cluttered desk.
Hurley sighed and stared at the ceiling. He ran his hand through his shaggy white beard and shut his eyes. Working on this project for three years, and still hit the same roadblock, no matter what. There was never enough energy to send a person back in time.
Hurley got up to get another cup of coffee. It had been sitting in the pot for a few hours at least, and Hurley grimaced when the bitter taste of stale coffee hit his palette. He sat back down at his desk, and suddenly the idea hit him.
Power converter.
Yes! That would amplify the amount of energy needed to create the rip in time to send the traveler back by sending the energy through the converter, changing the AC current to a DC current. Why hadn't he thought of it before? But theoretically, if one were to go back in time, age (or age-regression, in this case), would take hold of the traveler, and probably cause them to become unborn. They'd simply fade from existence. Then another idea came to him. A body support system. Like a suit or something. Something that would protect them from the effects of time travel. He racked his brain for another burst of insight. Nothing came up.
(come on hurley you can figure this out)
He sighed and dropped his head on the table. The idea was figured out, but how would he protect the traveler from time itself?
The idea, actually, came from a book he'd read as a child. Stephen King's novella, Four Past Midnight. More specifically, the short story "The Langoliers". The people were able to escape the effects of time travel by being inside of something. If he could create a bodysuit that would create a bubble of a time-withstanding environment, it would protect the traveler from the effects of time travel! Brilliant!
With a sudden burst of excitement, Dr. Hurley ran the figures again. Everything checked out. Ecstatically, he thumbed the number for the World Science Center to propose his theory of time travel.
2.
5 years later in 2990, with time travel now a reality, the Government spent millions of dollars to fund the building of the first working time machine. After several months of backbreaking labor and careful planning, the first prototype of the time machine, named "Crusader", had undergone its first successful test run.
The United States government hastily worked to protect Crusader from foreign countries, fearing sabotage. Their work was successful, and the development of the first time machine was kept under wraps by being hidden within a secretive government group, called the Historical Protection and Research Agency. This agency protected the time machine and the time stream along with it.
Then, in the dawn of the new millennium, Dr. Hurley, along with several other HPRA technicians, developed a time travel suit that allowed the agent to freely jump around through time as they wished. However, the agent would still have to remain out of sight from any other beings from other time zones. Finally, in 3195, technicians fixed the problem and developed a new travel suit that could create a perfect hologram of another being. It was also around this time that anthros finally gained civil rights within normal society. Then, 15 years later, one of them was drafted into the HPRA. This is where our story truly begins.
3.
Nate Underwood woke up to his alarm at 7:30 in the morning. He was an Umbreon of 27, and the events that took place on this day would change his life forever. He yawned and switched on his bedside lamp. He shook his head and ran a hand through the charcoal fur on his forehead. He stood up and opened the shades on his window. Sunlight streamed in through the blinds, bathing the entire room in light and reflecting off of the gold rings on his forehead and upper arms.
Nate slipped on his black HPRA shirt, and changed from his sweatpants to a pair of jeans and tied his combat boots. He threw on his fleece bomber jacket and left the room of his apartment. He took the stairs down to the bottom floor. There were already several people in line for the transporter; hopefully they wouldn't take long.
Nate took a seat next to a rather fat man reading a newspaper, and tried to ignore the man's stench. It was a sweaty, dirty odor, like old damp rags left piled in the corner of a room. The man coughed loudly, shaking the newspaper and clearing his throat.
Nate checked his watch. He had 5 minutes to get to the HPRA building. The hefty man went up to the transporter and selected his destination. The metal doors slid around him, and when they opened, the man was gone.
The transporter was a large circular metal plate in the floor with a blue dot in the center. At about eye level was a blue computer screen and a retinal scanner. Nate stepped onto the panel, and the blue screen immediately jumped to life. The retinal scanner lowered at his eye and stopped.
"Please hold for 5 seconds for a retinal ID scan," it asked in a mechanical voice.
The scanner cast a green light over Nate's right eye, and went back up into its indentation above the screen. The screen popped up with four different destinations: "Berlin, Germany", "Las Vegas, Nevada", "Historical Research and Protection Agency building", and "Tokyo, Japan".
Nate hit the button for the HPRA building, and a metal door slid shut around the transporter. The machine scanned Nate's body, and a white light filled the chamber. The next thing he knew, he was standing in the transporter machine near the front door inside the HPRA building.
Nate stepped in front of the main gate, and placed his hand on the scanner that slid out from the door. It scanned his handprint and asked for his HPRA identification card. He pulled it out of his wallet, and stuck it in the slot. The machine scanned his card, and slid it back out. Nate took it and the gate opened.
The HPRA building's main hallway was lined by pods that held the time travel suits. Nate opened his pod by scanning his hand again, and sat down in the pod. The door closed, and his computer screen lit up. It showed a mission. He was expected to travel to Schloss Bayern in 1450 AD to confirm exactly how the castle was destroyed. It had been fighting nomadic enemies for months, but records stopped on March 14, 1150.
Nate hit the "Confirm Jump" key on the keyboard and there was a blue flash as his TimeSuit was donned. A loud electrical discharge boomed around the small pod and he saw the pod fall away as he was pulled into the time stream.
4.
There was another electrical discharge as the time jump was completed. He stood in a secluded area of the Southern Tower. There was a distant rumble as boulders fired from catapults impacted near the castle. Nate carefully opened the door to the hallway. He turned left, trying to find a way to document the battle without being seen.
But to get there, he'd need to pass through populated areas of the castle. He'd need a hologram of another person before he could go there.
Nate carefully walked down a hallway to his left, and stopped at a corner. There was an armed guard standing at the corner. Nate quickly captured his appearance and activated the Hologram Generator to take on the guard's appearance and walked back the other direction. As he turned another corner, someone, a woman, called out to him.
"He, Sie da! Weißt du, wo Helmar ist?" she asked. Nate turned to face a female Vulpix with a golden chest plate and silver leg guards and brown leather greaves that reached almost to her knee. She wore no shoes, but then again, the technology in the 1400s hadn't developed shoes for paws quite yet. Her mane hung down to her shoulders, with a lock falling down directly above a deep brown eye. The final thing Nate noticed was the jeweled rapier at her side.
His helmet beeped and a message came up. "Foreign language detected. Attempting to translate...translation successful."
"I'm sorry, but I don't," he replied, turning away.
Then the woman spun him around. "Trying to trick me, I see! You still haven't lost your sense of humor, even after these months at war."
Nate had no idea what to say. Luckily, she continued talking.
"I have to talk to you. We've got a problem in the North."
"What's going on?" Nate asked but he knew full well what it was.
"The Britains deployed a catapult. But this one's different than the others. It throws..." she trailed off.
"What does it throw?"
"It throws...fire. I have never seen anything like this before. We must do something!"
"Lead the way," Nate said.
She swiftly turned around and walked down the hallway behind her. As he followed behind her, he took the time to scan her and get any information.
Her name was Kit Herrmann, born on May 28, 1427 in Bayern, Germany. She was a highly skilled fencer and tactician. She was betrothed at one point to a German warrior named Wolfgang Heuer, who was killed during a siege of an enemy castle in 1444. She's very stubborn, courageous, and always interested to learn. Nothing historically important in her profile, which surprised Nate due to her background.
Kit pushed open the two large mahogany doors leading to the front lines of an intense battle. They stood on the drawbridge, with two guards on either side of them, ready to raise the bridge in case the defensive line broke. Also in case the line was broken, a gorge was dug around the front of the castle. It looked pretty deep; a quick scan showed that it was approximately 350 meters deep.
"Come on. We can get a better view of the battle from up here," Kit said, leading Nate up a rope ladder to a parapet above the drawbridge.
The war being fought from below was one of the most violent battles that Nate had ever seen. There were German knights charging down a hill into throngs of British knights in a desperate attempt to force a retreat. Hard to believe that the Germany that Nate saw in the 1900s and in the 1940s couldn't budge a British line.
As Kit and Nate focused on watching the battle rage below, neither of them saw the British catapult hurl a flaming boulder directly above the parapet that they were standing on.
It impacted with a deafening crash, raining stone and bricks down upon them. The sheer force of the blast caused the parapet to fall.
In a frantic attempt to save himself, Nate hurriedly hit the "Recall" button on his left arm. But, he didn't notice that Kit's elbow was touching his chest when he jumped back to the HPRA building.
5.
Nate reappeared inside his pod intact, but noticed that he had much less room than he did when he originally jumped.
Then he realized there was another person in the pod with him.
"Where am I?! What just happened?" someone asked furiously. Immediately Nate realized it as Kit. "Who the hell are you?"
Nate placed his hand over her muzzle. "Please, be quiet. If the HPRA finds you here, I'll lose my job and end up in jail."
Kit furiously threw his hand off of her face. "Then you tell me where I am and who you are," she said venomously.
Nate sighed. After this, he could simply take her back and wipe her memory. "My name is Nate Underwood. The building you're in is the Historical Protection and Research Agency in the year 3210. My job is to protect the time stream from catastrophic damage, which your presence might cause."
Kit chuckled. "Is that so? Well, Mr. Future, why not show me around?"
Nate was about to send her back to her time zone, when he got an idea. She wasn't important historically, and records showed that she was killed when they were blown off the parapet. She supposedly fell into the gorge surrounding the castle.
"Alright, but you're gonna have to stay at my apartment. My shift isn't over for a few more hours. Hang on."
Kit nodded and grabbed Nate's arm. There was a loud electrical crackle as Nate activated his suit's cloaking function. He opened the pod and stepped outside onto the metal grated floor.
"Gods, this floor is freezing," Kit whispered.
"Be quiet. The cloaking stays up during movement, but it doesn't muffle sounds," Nate replied. Luckily, nobody was around.
They made it to the Transporter, and when Nate and Kit stepped inside, the Transporter said that only one passenger at a time could enter the Transporter.
Damn, Nate thought, Now what?
Nate prayed that nobody was at the apartment building when he scanned his retina and sent Kit through the Transporter alone. Then he went through, quickly throwing on his cloaking as he stepped out.
God was smiling on him today, it seemed. Nobody was in the hallways, and they made it to Nate's apartment room on the 4th floor without being noticed.
When the door slid shut behind them, Nate dropped the cloak. Immediately, Nate's computer, official name XL231, codenamed "Axel", hovered over. Reflexively, Kit drew her rapier and pointed it at the computer. It hovered nonchalantly, flashing "New Messages" over and over on its screen.
"Kit, put it away. Axel's not gonna hurt you," Nate said. Kit reluctantly sheathed her rapier, but didn't take a wary eye off of Axel. "Axel, aren't you going to introduce yourself to our visitor?"
"My apologies," Axel responded with an almost human voice. "I am Model Number XL231, codenamed 'Axel' by my owner, Nathan Underwood of the Historical Research and Protection Agency."
"Kit, I gotta head back before they realize I'm gone. Now, to avoid anything going horribly wrong, you have to stay in this apartment," Nate said, already headed out the door. It slid shut behind him with a soft click.
"Do you have need of anything, Miss?" Axel asked after a period of brief silence.
"Hm? Oh, not right now," Kit replied. She'd completely forgotten he was there.
She took a few minutes to check out Nate's apartment. She stood in the large living room, adorned with only a circular sitting area, and two reclined chairs facing a dark gray rectangle that took up the entire south wall. She walked around the room for a moment, looking at the various books on the shelves next to the gray rectangle. She liked this room; the carpet was soft under her feet.
Satisfied with her appraisal of the living room, Kit strolled through another sliding door to the kitchen. It consisted of a four-burner stove and oven. But where did you put the wood? Where was the poker? How could Nate live this way? The stove wasn't lit; the room was freezing, as was the linoleum floor. The next thing she noticed was that there were no servants or cooks in here. Who fixed the meals? Who washed the dishes?
Resolving to figure out the kitchen dilemma at a later time, Kit went to the bedroom. The bed was rather large, and was a complete mess. One of the pillows was on the floor, and the blankets were wadded in a heap at the foot of the bed. And Kit assumed there were no maids to fix the bed, either. Nate had several things to learn about living on his own.
Since the sight of the miniscule battlefield that Nate called a bed was more than she could bear, Kit un-crumpled the blankets and spread them over the mattress, and straightened the pillows. If Nate lived with his bed a mess, she didn't even want to look in the bathroom from the adjoining door.
Needing some time to think about a list of things that needed to be improved here, Kit sat down on one of the reclined chairs by the gray rectangle. The chair was very comfortable and soft. Kit found herself unable to keep her eyes open. She was almost asleep when Axel hovered behind her.
"If you're tired, Miss, the bedroom is through that door," he said suddenly, startling Kit out of her wits.
"Please don't do that," Kit replied, ignoring her speeding heart.
"My apologies. I noticed you were exploring Mr. Underwood's apartment. Is there anything you'd like to know about?"
Kit thought for a moment. "Yeah, I wanna know about Nate."
"Very well, Miss. I shall open Mr. Underwood's HPRA personnel file," Axel replied, hovering in front of her, and projected a picture of his face and a short biography. Kit hadn't seen Nate without his helmet, and she liked his picture. His dark eyes gazed back at her thoughtfully, and his charcoal fur seemed to glow from the light of the holograph.
Agent Name: Karl Julius Schwarzbek, changed to Nathan Brian Underwood in 3202
Age: 27
Born: 3183 in Bonn, Germany
Current Status: Active
Area: Research
Parents: Katrin Judith Reinhauer, Florian Hans Schwarzbek
Race: Umbreon
Bio: Underwood was born on November 10, 3183 in Bonn, Germany. He was born under the name of Karl Julius Schwarzbek, but he had the name legally changed to Nathan Brian Underwood on February 8th, 3202. The reason for this name change was due to his father, who was abusive when drunk, and eventually killed his wife, Katrin Judith Reinhauer. Once Underwood turned 18, he moved to America and enrolled at Michigan State University, where he graduated with honors with a major in Early World History. 2 months afterward, he was drafted by the HPRA.
"Is that all, Miss?" Axel asked.
"Yes, that's all. Thank you," Kit replied. No wonder he spoke German so fluently. Maybe she doesn't really have to go back home quite yet.
"Miss, Mr. Underwood has just arrived in the apartment lobby. I just thought you'd want to know."
"Very well," Kit said, getting up.
She stood in the entryway, and waited for the door to slide open. When it did, she waited for Nate to take off his jacket before speaking.
"So, how'd your day go?" she asked.
Nate stopped for a minute and tapped his forehead with his eyes closed. "Uh...not too bad. Slow, as usual," he replied. After the first couple words, the rest of the sentence came out very fluently.
"What do you mean slow?"
"Nothing interesting happened. Nothing ever does." It was good to speak German after so many years of speaking only broken English. "So did you check out the place?"
"Yes, I did. I have a few questions," Kit said as she followed Nate into the kitchen, preparing herself for the icy chill of the cold linoleum floor on her bare paws.
"First, don't you want to take that armor off? It can't be very comfortable," Nate pointed out.
For some reason, Kit wanted to say that she wore nothing underneath her armor. But that was untrue. Instead, she shrugged and pulled off the metal plating and greaves, revealing an emerald green cotton tunic that reached halfway down her thighs and was belted around her waist.
"Now, what did you want to ask?" Nate continued as he pulled a pot out from a cabinet near the stove and poured water in it from the faucet.
"First, where are your cooks and servants? Who serves your food?"
This question got Nate to laugh. "Who else? I do."
Kit was appalled. The Master cooks and serves his own food? What anarchist place did he live in? "And I suppose you wash the dishes and clean the house, too?"
Nate nodded. "I've got nobody else around here, and Axel doesn't have hands." When the water started to boil, he poured in a box of dried noodles.
"My final question is how do you heat that stove? I don't see any wood or a poker or anything."
"It's heated using gas and flame. The knobs on the edge of the stove change how much gas is released, and there's a small flame inside the stove to light the gas to create the fire that heats the stove."
"Fascinating," Kit replied, gazing at the small ring of flames beneath the pot.
Nate set a bowl in the sink, and poured the pot's contents into the bowl. Kit watched, amazed, as the water drained from the bottom without losing any of the noodles.
"What magick is that?" she asked.
"It's not magick. It's a colander. It's a bowl with holes in the bottom that hold larger things while draining liquid," Nate replied, dumping the noodles back into the pot and tossing in a chunk of butter from the refrigerator.
"Are you hungry?" he asked when the butter had melted.
""Yes, quite," she replied. Nate scooped out a heap of noodles from the pot, and dropped them on two plates. He carried them over to a small table in the kitchen, and set them down on opposite ends.
Kit ate in silence, a million questions swarming through her head. When they finished, she yawned, exhausted. The day's events took a toll on her.
"That reminds me. You can have the bedroom tonight. I'll sleep in the living room," Nate said, picking up the dishes and putting them in the sink.
Almost against her will, Kit stood up. "That's alright. I don't mind sharing a bed."
Nate turned around, startled. "Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," she replied, giggling to herself.
"If you say so."
Together, they went to the bedroom. Nate changed into his sweatpants and got into bed. Kit slid in beside him, tunic still on. Nate closed his eyes and was almost asleep when Kit hugged him.
"What are you doing?" Nate asked, too stunned to think clearly.
"I want to be with you," Kit replied. She moved closer to him.
Nate was too stunned to speak. Kit took his brief moment of silence and kissed him softly.
"Kit, don't you think this is a little...rushed?" Nate asked, once he could speak.
"Not at all," she replied. "If you don't want me, that's alright..."
"I never said that," Nate pointed out. To prove his point, he slid his hand along her side and Kit arched her breast into it. Instinctively, he squeezed it softly, causing Kit to moan in pleasure. She licked his cheek, and ran her tongue across Nate's lips. He did the same, and eventually their tongues met, and they held each other as their tongues wrestled. They slid over teeth and bumped against palettes as they groped at each other.
Nate was the first to get things going. He slid his hand under her tunic, and stroked the moist lips of her vagina with his index finger. He slowly stuck his index finger and middle finger into her, and stroked the wet tunnel. She moaned again, this time accidentally breathing a stream of fire down Nate's throat. It traveled down his throat, burning the entire way down. This sudden burst of heat caused Nate's hand to instinctively curl into a fist, and all five of his fingers entered Kit at the same time. She cried out with a quick yelp of pain and pleasure, and waited for Nate to continue with his entire hand. To her pleasure, he did.
She felt his hand enter her up to the third knuckle, and retract. She felt her stomach tighten, and pressed closer to Nate.
(oh gods I'm almost there come on faster faster)
She eventually reached her climax, drenching Nate's jeans and a large portion of the bedspread. She laid her head on the pillow, and unbuckled and removed her tunic. She lay naked on the bed as she helped Nate remove his pants and shirt. She rubbed his cock gently, circling one finger around the head. She guided his cock between her legs, and pulled him inside of her. She gasped when he was in all the way, and then he started moving his hips.
Nate placed one hand on the headboard of the bed to steady himself and placed the other on her breast. He squeezed it in time with his movements, loving the tight warmth of her pussy around his length. Kit grabbed her other breast, and licked the hardened nipple. He thrusted inside of her quickly, but not painfully at all. This was much better than what Wolfgang could do. Sure, he was a bit bigger than Nate, but he wasn't nearly this gentle.
Nate gritted his teeth as he felt his knot start to grow. Kit felt it too and quickly decided whether or not to take it inside of her or not. She lacked the birth-control abilities that her mother had, and wasn't exactly sure if she would get pregnant. Kit finally decided that she'd deal with the problem when it arrived, and the next time Nate thrusted in, Kit pushed against it and it entered her. Nate slammed in one more time and then released. Kit sighed in complete bliss when she felt his hot seed pump into her womb, filling her to the brim.
She and Nate rolled onto their sides with his deflating knot still stuck inside her. She hugged him closely, and fell asleep with her head on Nate's shoulder. Yes, she'll be staying.
Chapter End Notes:
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended, and is applicable for all consecutive chapters that follow.