#trac

Il dit “j’aime la lecture”,

Quelle magnifique parure,

Quand on n’a pas fière allure.

L’aura t’il a l’usure ?

Le jettera t’elle en pâture ?

Pour l’heure, il joue le garçon pur,

Il laisse tomber sa carapace de gros dur.

Son armure,

Se fissure.

Son âme, elle, se laisse aller à la luxure,

Son visage se déconfit, confiture,

Son cœur quant à lui, s’orne de dorures.

l’amour ? Pourvu que ça dur !

Time travel is subject to a ridiculous amount of regulation and monitoring. It has to be, or we'd be up to our eyeballs in paradoxes. People just don't think things through. One of the early experimenters jumped back 100 years and decided to stay there; she died a natural death in the 50s, which meant she was never here in the 2010s to invent her time machine, which then meant she could never have left. The time stream threw a hissy fit over that one; we were finding phantom memories of her strewn about for decades in all directions. Also a finger. Not pretty. It was that incident which prompted the government to create the Time Repair Action Committee, or TRAC. That’s where I come in. 

I’m Sergeant Blake Hanlon of the Time Police, although hopefully not for much longer. I’m cramming the technical stuff so I can sit the exam for captaincy next month. Captain Baggins (okay, that isn’t his real name, he just looks like Martin Freeman, his real name is Smith) reckons I’m a natural, but frankly, I’m finding it a slog. Field assignments, recoveries, sure, I love that stuff. The theory behind the fancy machines, though - oof, my brain. 

So that’s why, that day, when alarms started going off, I was less eye-rolly and more get-up-and-go; the practice exam on my desk could totally wait. Some idiot on an unauthorised trip needed saving, and me and my crew were going to play the heroes again. 

The klaxons were high-pitched and fast, indicating that whoever it was had gone quite a long way back in time. I don’t think I’d ever heard them quite so high before. It was a thrill, it sure got the adrenaline pumping. I could see Private Anderson feeling the same; we shared a grin on our way to the Travel Room. 

‘Big trip, Sarge. What’s the furthest back you’ve been?’

‘1900,’ I said without hesitation. It was a popular one. ‘Everyone wants to see Federation.’ 

She rolled her eyes. ‘You’d think they’d go for the gold rush, get in early and make their fortune.’ She affixed the regulation trackers and monitors to her uniform, and handed me mine. One for the shirt collar, one for the helmet, one for the belt. Theoretically they’d keep us in one piece, although Baggins had notoriously lost an ear a few months ago. Off the record, the guys in the lab were trying to grow him a new one, but it never worked out. 

‘I think most people are afraid to go too far back.’ There was a widely-believed rumour or myth that the further you time-travelled, the harder it was to come home. The boffins were still hammering it out; some said it was, some said it wasn’t. 

‘Are you scared?’

I snorted. ‘Nah. We’re not lone wolves with jimmied-together crap. Look at this stuff.’ I gestured at the Travel Room. It was super high tech, crammed full of time machines, wormhole creators, computers, screens, radios, and some stuff I didn’t even know the names of. It was staffed with, at that moment, three of the tech consultants. Charlie was fussing around the time machine we’d be using, while Jen and Aarave were programming coordinates into one of the computers. 

Aarave handed me a radio and gave me a stern look. ‘I want that back, this time.’ 

‘C’mon, man, I lose one radio!’

‘They’re expensive,’ he growled. ‘You can’t just buy trans-time comms from Aldi.’ 

‘Not to mention the possible security risk,’ Jen pointed out. ‘Whoever finds that radio could mess us up in all sorts of ways. They’re only supposed to be with authorised personnel.’ 

I knew that, of course; losing the radio had been a pretty major screw-up, so even though the reminder stung, I had to cop it. 

‘Right you are, guys, this one comes home with me. Scout’s honour.’

Charlie giggled. ‘You were never a Scout, Blake.’

‘Dob dob dob,’ I replied with a wink. I had been a Scout, but only for a few weeks. I didn’t feel like going into the details of why just then; too depressing, right when we had an exciting mission. 

‘So when are we going?’ Anderson asked. 

The three techies hesitated, glancing at each other.

‘What?’ I demanded. 

i present: the 326th attack battalion. (aka, dezcasi’s clones)

below the cut, there’s some info :)

En tête j’ai la totalité des temps Forts, morts, puissants de passion Quand dans tes yeux je fais un plongeon.

Le trac du tic me hante encore entière Quand tes cils s’affaissent et ferment tes paupières...

Tout est en suspens Le passé est un présent Et un futur évanescent...

J’attends par cette ouverture galactique Que tu fasses revenir avec la lumière le tic... __________