They wait for you in the control room. You enter, looking old, looking hurt, wounded, beaten. Scared. You are the answer, but they ask anyway.

Will it be war?

You tell them it will be. You are a scientist, you are all scientists, and you know that your science and your technology and your weapons and warfare are the best, the ultimate, the last. What your weapons and ways do not know about lethality and devastation cannot be known. But you know that your enemies match you, weapon for weapon, horror for horror. And will for will.


You tell them it will be war and that it will start in five minutes. They hear what you say and it hits them all differently: the fear, the resignation, the hope, the dread. They hear what you say.

They think they understand your fear...

They don't.

You tell them to seal the laboratory. You tell them to assemble the Agents. You tell them to prepare the machines. You tell them to gather the Substance. The Substance of time and its control. Substance T.


They are stunned. In this time of ultimate war you wish to continue the experiments into time travel, time control? To what end? Are you mad?


Sadly, you are not. You tell them that existence, time, life for all of you will end in five minutes, four minutes. Time has a finite end in that sense. But looking backwards, stretching out behind you all, time seems infinite.


We are not cowards, they say. We will stay here and help in any way we can. We will not hide ourselves in the past.


No, you agree, we will not;

We will destroy the past.

We will go into the past and we will not stay put, we will go into our enemies' pasts, and we will destroy. Heroes will be waylaid, advances halted, wars subverted, miracles undone, the past corrupted. We will prevent the destruction of the future by destroying the past.


There is a moment, a heartbeat, two heartbeats. They understand, they think, your haggard and weary look, your fear. What effect will the destruction of the past have? Can this be done?

They think they understand your dread...

They don't.

Suddenly all is action. The laboratory is sealed, impenetrable, a black hole, immobile in time, at a minute to war, half a minute to war, forever. The Agents are assembled, porcupines bristling with the fluids, energies and devices of time, history, assassination. The machines are brought to ready, visions of thunder and tastes of lightening. Substance T is gathered, utilized.


This is not your dread, your fear. Your plan will succeed, you will destroy the past, you know it. It is certain. It is also certain that your enemies are doing the same, everything you knew and loved about your family, everything you admired and trusted about your government, everything you rely on about your technology, everything you cherish about your society, is now mutable, fragile. Vulnerable.


One by one your Agents slip into the past to work their terrible craft on the enemies' unsuspecting past.


Any moment now, hovering a half moment to war, gambling everything on your people's abilities and your technologies' miracles, the entire future hanging caught in this perfect and delicate web, any moment now, someone will call out your name, ask for your help, tell you that there is a problem… and then another… and then another…


>>The Game