Chapter Text
August 9th 2325
Brooklyn, NY, USA
Crono Academy of Time
“Congratulations, cadet. You are officially not a recruit anymore, you have become a real agent now. Crono Academy welcomes you in its lines!” General Starkweather smiled with his usual fake grin, like he didn’t fully believe in what he was saying.
With Hodge it was often like this, it looked like he didn’t really mean his words and that he wasn't really interested in what he had around him, always lost in his thoughts.
“Thanks, sir. You’re not going to regret it,” Alec said, making a small bow with his head.
“Oh, I know it,” he said, widening his grin that looked even less honest.
The man handed Alec a little metal badge, it looked like the old credit cards he’d seen during the twenty first century simulations. “This is your license, with your Traveller Code and the five pillars of the Academy. Don’t lose it, or it will count as an infraction.”
“Of course sir, thanks sir.”
He accepted the card, thin and light, and put it in his pocket, feeling the eyes of all his colleagues on him as he did so. He had been the only one of his class who passed the exam to become a traveller, and his comrades were now looking at him with their fake smiles, pretending to be happy for him when they weren't.
Isabelle and Aline, two recruits who attended respectively the first and second year of the Academy, were the only ones cheering for him standing on the first line.
Alec offered them a weak smile and turned his back, going out of the small stage and following the flow of travellers that had just welcomed him and were now going inside.
“Alec! Thank God… I was starting to fear no one was going to graduate this year!”
Jace Herondale, Academy’s golden boy and only person to ever have graduated at the age of fifteen, was the youngest traveller in history and seemed to like Alec a lot.
Alec didn't know why the most talented agent in Crono had chosen him to be his friend, but he liked the guy and just went along, trying not to sound too goofy as it went.
He had never been very good with people and the little prodigy made him feel like a fool, sometimes.
“Who would have predicted it, huh?” he asked, with a small nervous smile.
It's happening. It happened. I am a time traveller. It really happened.
“Me! I've been saying it from your first day, you looked so promising! I said this one is going to make it , and look at you now!”
“Yeah, I bet you say it to everyone who graduates!”
Jace slapped him on the back affectionately, making him flinch slightly. “When I say something I mean it, I'm not one to sugarcoat it. You'll learn.”
“Is there a chance you know when my first mission will be?”
He didn't know why he asked, really. Jace was just a traveller like him, there was no reason why he could have known the time setting of his first mission.
The boy surprised him. “Industrial Revolution, if I'm not mistaken. Not the best first day, but you’ll do great!”
“Industrial Revolution…” Alec hummed. He wasn’t a big fan of the modern age, he had always preferred simulations set before the year one thousand, and now he was going to get eight hundred years later.
“It sounds harder than it is, really. Victorian Era is a nice place, once you adjust a bit.”
“Victorian Era?”
Jace nodded. “London 1979 I think. Trust me, you’re going to have fun!”
Alec smiled weakly at that. He knew he looked ungrateful, but the adrenaline for the graduation was fading and his first day anxiety was starting to kick in, with the disappointment for his first mission.
It can't always be ancient Rome, Alec, he told himself. I've always known what I was getting myself into.
Jace said his goodbyes with another slap on the back and Alec walked towards his new room, finally a single room, not like the triple he’s had during his training.
He reached the door and showed his badge to the sensor. The metal panel, white and shiny, opened on its own in complete silence, showing the room.
It was very bright, with a huge window facing the skyline. Near the metal wall there was a futon queen size, and a black metal desk with an air cushioned chair floating a few inches on the floor.
On the thin mattress that would have adapted to the line of his back there were clothes that didn't fit the advanced room’s atmosphere.
He got closer, the sliding door closing softly behind him, and took a look.
Some dark grey trousers, a black vest with a black tie, and a grey coat. A few inches from the bed, on the floor, a walking cane and two black polished shoes.
He sat on the bed being careful not to sit on the clothes and inspected his badge. It was thin and light, silver coloured. On the front there was a picture of him, his name, his agent code and the status, that was now cadet. In the right upper corner there was a golden chip with his fingerprints, his retinal scan, his DNA and his health conditions.
On the back there were the five pillars of the Academy, in both English and Braille.
Time travellers had hundreds of rules that he'd had to learn by heart during his training years. The five crucial rules, though, were printed on his badge.
They were the most important ones, the ones he was forced to follow or he would have put at risk the entire time continuity and therefore the destiny of the human race.
- Time travellers must not have personal contacts outside their contemporary timeline
- Time travellers must not interfere with any event, big or small, except for the mission they were sent back for
- Time travellers must not reveal events that have not happened yet in the timeline they are in at any moment
- Time travellers must not refer to the program and its existence or say anything about the program and its existence to anyone outside the program itself.
- Every time traveller is assigned to their own immortal, with whom they must maintain a professional relationship.
He looked at them, brushing his fingers to the badge softly like he was scared he could break it only by touching it.
He stayed still, sitting on the bed, for a few minutes trying to elaborate everything that happened and the fact that on that very day he would have found himself in London in the late eight hundreds. This time it wasn't going to be a simulation.
“I hope I won’t look like an idiot,” he told himself, standing up and starting to undress himself.
His hands were shaking and it took him three times to get his vest right.
While dressing up, he took a small tablet from the desk and read what he had to know about the incoming mission.
Jace remembered the date almost exactly, it was 1875. His target was a man named Robert Dudley Baxter; a picture, a small description and his supposed position filled the rest of the file, with a list of his equipment.
Alec didn't know why he had to eliminate the target, and he knew he wasn't ever going to know it, either.
His job was to eliminate any potential factor Crono Academy knew was going to cause the end of mankind in 2500. Only the upper circle of the Academy knew exactly what was going to happen, the others just followed orders blindly, Alec included. It was dangerous to know the future and only a few could handle the truth without revealing it to everyone.
For this very reason, he could also only time travel in the past. Only the best agents, the ones with the highest ranks, could travel towards future eras.
Agents like Jace Herondale.
Alec doubted highly he was ever going to be good enough to travel in the future, let alone to be the one to know how mankind was supposed to end, but he was just grateful for his position and he was good with travelling in the past to help to stop the apocalypse.
It's happening. It's really happening. I'm going to time travel.
Once he was dressed, he got his e-bracelet next to the tablet and downloaded all the information to carry everything with him in the past, hiding the bracelet under the sleeve of his coat.
He got out of his room and walked to the office of the General, who asked for him before he left. He walked uncomfortably in his Victorian clothes, but no one was minding him.
Ha played nervously with his tie as he walked. He could have restarted a simulation gone wrong, he couldn't restart a mission. Every mistake was going to have repercussions on his timeline, time travelling was a risky job, for him and for all humanity.
Then he thought about his immortal. Every traveller was assigned to a human with the gift of immortality, they were incredibly rare, but also useful. It didn't matter how far back Alec was going to jump, his immortal was always going to be there to help him.
Alec had never seen one, but when he tried to imagine them he figured tall women with statuesque bodies like the goddess Athena, or old men with a white beard and a pointy hat.
Today he would have known his first immortal.
No.
Today he would have known his own immortal.
He showed the badge to the door and it opened, revealing the office Alec knew well, white bright, obscured windows, neon lights reflected by the metal walls.
The General wasn't anywhere in sight, but sitting on a black leather chair there was a boy, he couldn't have been more than nineteen, maybe less.
There was something strangely beautiful about him. He had long spiked hair with pink stripes, a sparkly purple shirt, and blue trousers with a glitter belt. His eyes were the strangest thing about him, golden with the pupils slit that, when they first saw him, brightened with a light Alec couldn't recognise. He was tall and fit, he had bronze skin, and the only thing Alec could think for a moment was beautiful.
There was something wrong with him, too. He felt uncomfortable looking at him, like looking at a find the differences book . He could see there was something off he wasn't noticing, the image of the boy in front of him was different than how it was supposed to be, but he couldn't have said why or how.
“I'm sorry, but I have an appointment,” he said, trying not to sound rude. He didn't want to wait for the handsome guy to finish, he was too anxious to start.
The boy looked at him with wide eyes for a few seconds, then smiled. Alec couldn't help but stare at his lips, almost magnetic, and that smile was so beautiful and sad at the same time that his stomach flipped.
“I missed you, you know that, right? It's been a century since I last saw you.”
Alec furrowed his brows. “Excuse me, do I know you?”
His smile widened and Alec thought he had never seen a smile sadder than that.
“I guess you don't. Come on, sit, Hodge will be here in a few moments and when he will you'll have to go away. I haven't waited one hundred years for a do I know you. ”
Alec didn't understand anything that strange guy said, but he sat anyway hoping that when Hodge came he would have talked to him first.
“God, it's so weird…” the boy whispered, still staring.
“Is it your first day, too?” Alec asked, because he didn't know what else to say. He knew it was impossible, he had been the only one to graduate that year, but he couldn't give himself any other explanation.
“Oh, no, I-”
“Lightwood! Here you are! I see you’ve already met Magnus!”
Starkweather's voice made them both flinch, and the man sat down at his desk, looking at them with a look more interested than usual. “I'm glad you're both already here. I called Magnus to give you an idea about what to expect after the jump, so you won't be confused in case he won't be exactly where you're landing.”
“Sorry sir, I don't… I don't think I understand.”
“Didn't he tell you? Magnus here is your immortal. He'll be the one to be with you during your next mission, and every other after that.”
“What?”
He turned around again to look at him, this time trying to be more careful.
That boy with spiked pink hair was his immortal.
And now that he was looking at him closely, he asked himself how he could have mistaken him for someone his age. He looked young, but there was something in his eyes as old as the world.
Those bright golden eyes were on fire and exhausted at the same time, and they were looking at him now, filled with so many emotions Alec couldn't recognise them.
“Nice to meet you, well, again,” Magnus said, offering him his hand.
Alec held it hesitantly, trying to picture his face in one thousand different years and locations at the same time, but he couldn't. “Nice to meet you for the first time, I guess.”
“Wonderful!” said Hodge, slapping his hands on the desk and making them both flinch. “His DNA is already in your bracelet for the jump. Did you read all the mission info?”
“Yessir,” Alec said. “I downloaded them in case I forget something.”
“Great. You can jump, then. Your colleague is waiting for you on the other side.”
“Here? Now?”
“Of course. You should know how to do it, by now. You passed the exam, after all.”
Alec knew it, he just had to type the exact date on his bracelet, but he had never done it before.
And what if I do it wrong? What if I jump five centuries forward instead of five centuries back? What if I don't find anyone waiting for me?
“It'll be alright,” Magnus said, confident. “You've already done it before. I've seen you doing it one thousand times.”
“Better if you stand up, boy, or you're going to fall on your ass when you jump,” Hodge suggested.
Alec stood up, set up his automatic translator on his bracelet, then he typed the date.
He hesitated for a moment, Magnus was still looking at him.
“Oh dear,” he sighed, moving his arm like he wanted to touch him, then putting it back on the desk. “I hope I brought some change with me, that coat is terrible on you.”
He didn't even hear Hodge's response to this. He clicked on the withe button and everything went dark.