Time Vault: Prelude

Tyler: 2142

His heart raced as he rounded the corner. It was not like Tyler Jynx to get rattled, nor do anything too daring. His mediocre life, living paycheck-to-paycheck, pushed him to the edge. It was time to do something daring, something drastic, which is why he was sneaking into the Time Vault. The Time Vault is the establishment that regulates and controls time travel. They also have time guards, who travel through time protecting the timeline from rouge travelers. The rules are simple. You cannot visit your former self or anyone who knew, you cannot tell people about major future events, and you had to return to the exact time and place that you left by the specified time allotted. Also you had to be wealthy in order to travel not because of the law but because it cost $2,000,000 for one trip. In the year 2142 the average person makes only $200,000 per year after living expenses and taxes are paid and are left with a mere $20,000 if they are lucky. Tyler did not fit into the wealthy category which is why he chose to sneak into the facility.

As a spaceship mechanic, Tyler was an intelligent person, so he had a plan to reach someone in the past without actually traveling to another time. An unauthorized trip is automatically detected and scans your DNA so that the time guards can easily find you. Tyler carried with him a leather-bound black book, which had no DNA signatures on it, so could be transported undetected to the past. Inside the book was a microchip used in space travel that recalled vessels deep in space to an exact location on Earth. This technology was developed by Tyler’s company after one bad jump sent a spaceship into the sun by one miscalculation in the complex differential equation used for light speed. Tyler got his hands on a chip after a routine maintenance check-up on Deep Space 239, one of the spaceships in his team’s landing bay. The chip needed to be replaced because DS239 was one of the most travelled spaceships, which took tourists to the depths of space on tours on a daily basis. Tyler pocketed the chip, knowing it still had some life in it, for no reason other than he wanted to study it further.

Tyler grew up in zone J, which stood for janitors, due to the history of his family not being part of the elite. Depending on which zone you grew up in, marked you for whatever jobs were available to you. Tyler always had a knack for creation and engineering, but he was not allowed to pursue his dreams because of being a J. On the side, he snatched up spare parts from the spaceships to work on his side projects, not that anything could become of his creations as it was forbidden to create unless you were from the E zone, elite zone.

The Time Vault was located in the E zone, as were many of the high class businesses. Tyler worked in the E zone as well, right across the street from the Time Vault. Carrying his latest creation under his arm, he walked slowly through the halls of the Time Vault, trying to avoid people as much as possible. Despite his clever disguise, as a janitor, he knew that if too many people saw him, he would be caught. He knew that the time travel section of the Time Vault was located somewhere on the sixth floor. It was common knowledge that everyone had to pass tests on the first five floors before reaching the apex, time travel floor. He was currently working his way up the hallway of the fifth floor, which was where the elevators stopped. All he had to do now is find the stairs for the sixth floor and find his way to a time capsule. A time capsule is basically a coffin that people lay in to be transported to their destined time period. It is also where they return when they make the trip back. It was learned early that one of the effects of time travel is extreme exhaustion and some passengers have been injured by passing out when they return and falling over. So if you return laying down, you can rest for a few hours before leaving the Time Vault.

Tyler passed an office space on his right, which looked liked it was rows of cubicles and on his left was another hallway with a keypad locked door at the end of it. The emblem he recognized right away, it was the office of the time guards. Straight in front of him was a dead end. Where did he go to find the stairs?

“I am here for my appointment,” a man said to the secretary sitting in the front of the cubicles on Tyler’s right.

“Just sign in here and I will bring you to your courier,” replied the secretary as he presented the man with a fingerprint scanner.

Tyler watched as the secretary walked the man to one of the cubicles in the room. He then realized that the staircase must be somewhere through the maze of cubicles. Tyler did not anticipate this obstacle. How could he make his way to the stairs without being noticed? Quickly thinking of what to do, he decided to search for a path to a trash receptacle located in the middle of the room. Making his way through the office, he tipped his head down and hid his face with his fitted hat as he glanced left and right searching for the stairs. Stopping at the receptacle Tyler reached to open it, all the while looking for the staircase. To his right, he noticed a black door marked with a red sign saying “Apex”. So he grabbed the bag out of the receptacle and worked his way towards the door, to another receptacle to the left of the door.

Stopping at the second receptacle, Tyler looked around to see if anyone was looking his way. He noticed that everyone seemed to be busy, so he quickly slipped through the door, and put the garbage bag down right in front of the door to hinder anyone who may follow him. Quickly he bounded up the staircase as fast as he could. He knew that now there was not turning back.