Green Eyes on Illon

I threw the lever with a steady hand and watched the world beyond the windshield melt into infinity. Next to me, Emmet cried out in shock.

"Standard turbulence, son! No need to panic!"

But Emmett was already gone. His eyes were wide with fear, locked on the immaterial void swirling outside. In a way, I envied him. Oh, how I missed that rush—the one you get from your first time jump. But I've been a Time Coroner for 49 years now, and that feeling is nearly forgotten to me.

The void drags our Javelin in at light speed. It's a blink, and you miss it moment—one microsecond, you feel your guts pushing up against your spine, the next you're perfectly still, wondering if what you just experienced was even real.

That's how we felt when our Javelin arrived at a sudden stop in reality.

Emmet was the first thing I noticed. He was shuddering in his temp-suit, eyes shut tight. I placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just breathe, son. Come on. You were trained for this."

Gradually, Emmet's breathing began to slow. He retched a few times, but luckily he didn't spill his lunch. Behind his visor, I saw the emerald glint of his eyes as they cracked open.

They reminded me of his mother's. I chuckled and tried to imagine how proud of him she would be—her little boy, a Time Coroner like his father.

"You good?"

He nodded his head shakily.

"Nisi tempus," he said.

"Nisi homines," I replied.

Save time. Save mankind. That was the Time Coroners' motto. Glad to see he'd taken it to heart. The sound of wind blowing drew my attention away from Emmet. I turned and looked out the windshield, and I saw whirlwinds of red sand spinning outside.

Red sand?

"Dad? What's wrong?" Emmet asked. He could tell something was wrong. I unfastened my restraints and hurried over to the navigation console.

"This isn't Hades-9!"

"What?"

"We landed somewhere off course! Check the scopes! Give me a scan of the area, 800-meter radius!"

Emmet went to work firing up the scanners, scopes, and sensors to the correct radius. While he worked, I activated the navigation console. "Ajax, where are we?"

The holographic screens came to life with a quiet whir. Ajax, our Javelin's A.I., sounded over the cockpit's speakers. "Calculating your temporal trajectory now."

Emmet called out from where I'd left him. "I'm picking up massive radiation levels outside!"

Radiation? Our briefing said nothing about radiation.

"Are we in danger?"

"Shields are currently holding at 100%."

Ajax's monotone voice cut us both off. "Calculation complete."

We both turned our attention toward the screen as the results appeared.

"You have arrived on the planet Illon-1. The year is 3092, forty-one years after your present day."

I took a step back, all the more confused. Luckily Emmet was there to put my bewilderment into words. "Illon-1? That doesn't make any sense. Illon-1 is a city-world with no deserts to speak of."

I tried my next course of action. "Ajax, run diagnostics on all Javelin systems."

Ajax obeyed. We waited a few seconds before he came back with a reply. "All systems are fully functional."

I scowled. "Run diagnostic again."

A loud, humming tone sounded over the P.A. "Incoming call from Coroner Command."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Put it through."

One press of a button later, and a face appeared on the screen. I expected it to be an overseer from command. They must have noticed we were off course and radioed in to check on us.

But I was wrong.

My heart skipped a beat, and I leaped to attention, as did Emmet. The face that stared back at me wore a silver, eyeless mask and a white hood.

A Moirai.

The Moirai are the highest authority within the Coroners Society. They have the power to see everything, anywhere, at any time—past, present, and future. They are the ones who see the universe-ending events and then send us, the Coroners, to stop them.

So I hope you can guess why I was nervous.

"My Lady…we were not expecting a call from the high—"

"Status report," the Moirai interrupted. Its voice sounded between an ethereal whisper and a gurgling hiss.

I swallowed. "Yes, milady. Our Javelin seems to have gone off course, and our Ajax system is malfunctioning. We were supposed to arrive on Hades-9 on December 28th, 2021. Our mission was to--"

"You are not off course, Agent Damocles. Nor is your A.I. malfunctioning. The coordinates you received have taken you to the correct time and space. The Hades-9 briefing was simply a cover for your true assignment."

The Moirai continued. "I am here to brief and guide you through this mission. The council agreed that the task ahead of you requires our constant supervision."

I felt my stomach summersault. "Ah, well, we are honored by your presence."

The Moirai disregarded my statement, remaining emotionless. "Glass your javelin, and prepare to be briefed," she said.

"Yes, milady."

I turned to Emmet. "Glass the ship."

He could see the nervousness written across my face. "Yes, sir. Glassing now."

The entire ship turned transparent, allowing us to see through the cockpit and into the world outside. What waited for us was a red wasteland littered with ruined skyscrapers. The toppled ones were buried under dunes of scorching sand, while those that remained cast shadows blacker than pitch. The hot wind howled through these ruined structures, each gust singing a different anthem to this long-dead world. Behind the skyscrapers, a scorching, orange sun set like a falling flare against a jet-black night. By chance, I happened to glance at Emmet. My son was horrorstruck at the sight before him.

But I was unfazed. I'd already seen my fair share of apocalypses.

The Moirai's voice sounded behind us.

"As your A.I. previously stated, you are on Illon-1. The year is 3092, forty-one years after the present day."

"What is our mission, madam?" I asked.

The Moirai began its briefing. "What you are witnessing are the remains of the city of Empyria. While it stood, the city was home to a mad physicist known as the New Teacher. Their people worshipped him as a god, even as he tortured them for his experiments. Little else is known of him. Yet the Moirai have foreseen this: that somehow, his experiments eventually caused an Omega-10 level catastrophe."

Omega-10.

I took a moment to process the enormity of that scale. An Omega-1 is a single planet destroyed. Omega-2's and 3's involve catastrophes contained within a solar system. 5-7? Galactic plagues, black holes, solar flares. 8 and 9? I hadn't even experienced one of those. So an Omega-10 would have to be…no, I don't even have anything to compare it to. No Coroner in the history of the order has ever prevented, much less experienced, an Omega-10 before.

The Moirai continued. "Your mission is to investigate the aftermath of the disaster and discover the identity of the New Teacher. Once you accomplish your mission, we will locate and eliminate him in the present time. You are authorized to complete this mission by any means necessary. Is that understood?"

"What about the radiation, madam?" Emmet asked anxiously.

"Your temp-suits have been equipped with personal radiation shields. But be wary; they will only last for three hours at these levels. Once your shields are down, you have exactly 32 minutes to return to your Javelin before you succumb to radiation poisoning."

So we have a timeframe.

"Understood, madam. But why the secrecy? Why the cover?"

The Moirai was quick to respond. "We simply cannot let the public know that we have foreseen an Omega-10 level event. People would panic, and chaos would ensue."

"Seems like reason enough," Emmett said under his breath.

"Indeed," the Moirai remarked. "I will be monitoring your progress. Godspeed, Coroners."

The Moirai vanished with that final blessing, leaving Emmet and me to stare at the blank screen in silence.

“Did the Moirai say, ‘Omega-10?’” Emmet stammered. I nodded slowly, still shaken by the very same words.

"What are we going to do?"

As a Coroner, I have traveled to hundreds of eras on thousands of different planets. I have seen disasters no man was made to fathom.

I have seen planets collide like billiards in the deep dark of space.

I have watched toxic plagues consume entire galaxies in a blink.

I have even watched an eldritch titan as it fed on a collapsing nebula.

And I had prevented them all through time travel and clever planning. I have fulfilled my duty many times before, and I will fulfill it again.

"Grab your pike, son. We're going outside."

* * * * *

The javelin bay doors opened, and we blasted out into the red-hot wasteland. Our steeds for the day? Pikes—hovercraft designed solely for speed and maneuverability. They were fast, agile, and capable of carrying all the equipment we would need for our investigation.

We blasted over hills of red sand and molten metal, the setting sun a ball of fire behind us. Our current objective was to find the highest ground to run a temporal scan of the city. Temporal scans allow Coroners to see a live image of what a place used to look like at a specific point in the past.

It's a valuable and indispensable tool, one that has aided Time Coroners for millennia. Today, it would help us prevent the end of the universe.

Emmet's voice sounded over the comm.

"That hill on the east side of the city looks high enough to give us a good scan."

"Let's try it then."

"Be careful. This entire planet is hotter than hell."

"No," I chuckled. "Hell wasn't this hot."

We crested the hill Emmett described and parked our pikes. Once again, he was right. The hill overlooked the entire city and into the red-hot desert beyond. Emmett walked to the back of his pike and opened the storage hatch. From there, he withdrew a small, spherical device that glowed in his hand. "Temporal scan is going up!"

Emmet drew back and hurled the glowing sphere into the air. After a few seconds, it activated and flew by itself toward the city. Once high enough, it hovered above the skyline with a quiet whir.

A shimmering light shone down on the desolate city from the sphere, covering it like a massive mirage.

The scan was ready.

Emmet tapped the pad on his wrist, causing the city to rewind in time. "So," Emmet began. "What do you think caused all of this?"

"I don't know."

My words surprised him.

"Come on. You're telling me that after all your years as a Coroner, you can't think of anything?"

I leaned against my pike and sighed. "The possibilities are limitless and scarce at the same time. This New Teacher could have caused anything. Some things, though, are obvious. There are no signs of a battle, and our scanners aren't picking up any diseases in the air."

Emmet caught on. "So whoever this New Teachers is, he didn't summon a demon, open a dimensional portal, or create an intergalactic plague."

"Exactly."

"Maybe all this radiation is a clue."

"More than likely. But then again, there are a thousand different things that cause radiation. Perhaps we just need to figure out which one."

"I think it was a bomb."

I chuckled at Emmett's inexperience. Nuclear weapons were outlawed almost 800 years ago, and I should know; I was there when the treaty was signed.

"Humanity hasn't made any advancements in nuclear weapons since the 2040s. The biggest bomb they had back then could only wipe out a city. It doesn't make any sense to think that a bunch of physicists could just pick up where we left off and immediately create a bomb that could kill an entire universe."

"But what if they could?"

I sensed the anxiousness in Emmet's voice. "I mean, the Moirai did say that the New Teacher was the greatest mind of the millennium. If that title holds up, then maybe they could build a bomb that devastating."

"I still think it's unlik--"

"Found it," Emmet said triumphantly.

I looked toward the city as the footage slowed down. A hellish dome of white-hot energy was expanding from its center, consuming the buildings by the hundreds. Emmett froze the footage and turned me a victorious smirk. "Told ya, old man."

I grunted. "Hmph. You got lucky."

Secretly I was proud of him.

A loud beep sounded in our helmets. "Timer reads two hours and eleven minutes," Emmet announced. "We should get moving."

I returned to my pike. "Then saddle up. Follow the radiation to the exact epicenter. Let's go see what makes this bomb of yours tick."

Emmett held up his hand, and the sphere came flying back to him, landing in his grip like a baseball in a glove. "Way ahead of you."

* * * * *

Following the radiation signature led us to the epicenter of the blast zone. There we found a massive crater in the center of the city. It was so large you could've fit an entire sea into it. Our pikes at full speed, we traveled into the pit and rode for several miles more.

Finally, something appeared on the red horizon.

"Son, I think we found our epicenter."

An enormous, dark shape loomed in the distance. It was partially submerged in the sand, hiding all but one of the faces of its structure.

"Scanner. Give me a render."

A 3D shape materialized in the hud of my helmet, allowing me to see the entire structure.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I sent the render to Emmett. "Tell me that isn't what I think it is."

Emmett paused before radioing back. "It's exactly what you think it is. But who would build an inch-for-inch replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza out here?"

"Someone obsessed with ancient Egypt, I guess."

"Like mom was?" Emmett asked solemnly.

I didn't answer. It's funny how the concept of time brought Janet and me together, albeit in our own ways. She preferred to study the past by digging up ruins, and I chose to experience it by going there myself.

Things were happy for a long while. But after she rediscovered the Great Pyramids on earth, she became a completely different person. I guess all the camera flashes and museum exhibits were more enamoring for her. Until one day, a rotten piece of wood in a dark catacomb led to her end.

There isn't a day that goes by where I don't wish I could've caught her.

But the Coroners follow an unbendable code: Under the jurisdiction of the Time Coroners Society and the Moirai, time travel should only be used to prevent catastrophic events."

As if the death of my wife wasn't catastrophic enough.

"Your mom wasn't obsessed, Emmett. She just really loved her work." I didn't need to see Emmett's face to know he didn't believe me. We revved our pikes and hit the structure's slope at full speed. Once at the top, I quickly dismounted and stamped my foot on the metallic surface. "That's strange."

"What?" Emmet asked.

"If a bomb caused this disaster, and it detonated inside here, shouldn't the roof be destroyed?

Emmett paused to think about it. "You're right. Nevertheless, the source of the radiation is inside, which means we have to cut our way in."

His hand reached for his ray-gun.

"No!"

I gripped his arm, stopping him from drawing the weapon. "Don't fire it here. We don't know what kind of energy source we're dealing with. Shooting or cutting our way in might cause a chain reaction."

Emmett holstered his ray-gun and swallowed. "Then how do we get inside?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Look for an entrance."

And that we did. We scoured the top of the structure, searching for anything that might let us in until I heard Emmett's voice over the radio. "Dad, I found something on the north side."

I made my way over. Emmett was standing next to what looked like a hover-pad shaft, which was in working condition. I pressed the button, and we entered. As the pad carried us down, our night-vision activated. We descended into a massive plaza.

Touching down on the floor, we turned our searchlights on. A sickly yellow mist was in the air.

Emmet swiped his hand through the mist. "What is this stuff?"

"I don't know. Whatever you do, don't take off your helmet."

"Jeez pops, thanks for the tip."

"The signal leads this way. Let's move. We've only got an hour left before our rad shields drop."

We hurried into the shadows. The plaza narrowed into a dark hallway that stretched on for what felt like miles. Metal debris littered the path, and a strange oily liquid leaked from the ceiling.

The farther we went, the stranger things we began to see.

"Dad," Emmett muttered. "Look."

We entered a massive room filled with rows and rows of fluid tanks. Each tank housed a floating corpse, bloated and decayed. Through the stained glass, I could make out their bulging eyes, swelling cheeks, and porous, swollen skin. Many had wires and tubes protruding from their heads, which had been split open to reveal their rotting brains.

"What the hell?" Emmett shuddered.

"The New Teachers' victims."

We kept walking, trying not to think anymore about the hundreds of dead eyes staring back at us. After ten more minutes of walking, Emmet announced that we were close. "We're coming up on the epicenter of the disaster. It should be in this next room."

From the room with the fluid tanks, we entered another massive chamber. Our steps echoed like falling stones in a canyon. My light fell on a gigantic structure in the center.

"The radiation is coming from there," Emmet said quietly.

I stared at the giant structure in awe and fear. It was a shape without any order--a horrible amalgamation of undistinguishable angles and surfaces.

Emmett chuckled nervously behind me. "Heh, who do you think that belongs to?"

Radiation levels: immense. Shield dropping.

We both jumped. Emmett scrambled to check his wrist pad. "Dad, the radiation here is stronger than we thought! Even with our shields on, it'll kill us in exactly seven minutes!"

Seven minutes.

"Then that means we only have enough time for one temporal scan! Hand me the sphere!"

I could already tell that Emmett was beginning to feel the effects. Struggling, he tossed me the sphere. I activated it and hurled it into the air. Like before, it hovered in midair before projecting the room's temporal environment. With my wrist pad, I began to scrub through time.

"Come on, come on!"

"Dad, five minutes!"

"I know, I know!"

I began to swipe frantically till the room around us was nothing but a blur of sound and motion. "He's not here!" I shouted. "I can't find hi—AHA!"

The room around us stopped on a single frame.

"Found him!"

Now all I had to do was watch. I hit play on my wrist pad and let the time play on.

Through the swirling yellow toxin, I saw the dais. A giant, bare-chested figure now sat on the black structure. He was convulsing and babbling like a terrified manchild. Blood streamed from cuts all over his body, pooling around his feet—wires pulsing with white energy sprouted from his back and disappeared into the shadows of the ceiling.

But I couldn't make out his face through the swirling yellow mist.

I called out to Emmett. "Can you get a good look at him, son? Who is he?"

"Dad, I—I can't see! My eyes are burning!"

I needed to hurry. I swayed on my line as hard as I could, trying to get a better angle of the man with the device. Then finally, I caught his face, and my heart stopped. I zoomed in on the optics on my helmet to be sure.

He had Clara's eyes.

Suddenly I understood.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to escape everything. But I couldn't.

By some cruel timing, a familiar echoing voice sounded in my helmet. It was that cursed Moirai. "Dr. Damocles. If you wish to save the universe from extinction, then you know what you must do." I heard Emmett's voice sound beneath me. "Dad! Dad, where are you? I can't see! The radiation burns!"

My tears fell on the visor of my helmet as I reached for the field blade sheathed on my leg. Emmet must have heard me draw the knife. "Dad? Dad, is that you?"

Nisi tempus nisi homines.

Save time. Save mankind.