“THE YEAR 2045”

The alarm starts buzzing and Mary wakes up from her sleep. She sees her schedule for the day and sighs lazily. Peter wakes up a few moments later and looks at Mary, “You know you could just retire now, spend some time alone with me, we could...you know take that vacation to the beach side resort. I could paint the beautiful coastline with you standing next to it. I think you have done enough for the company and the people.”

Mary touches Peter’s face and says, “Haven’t done enough for you have I? All the things we built, all the technology we made, all those research and projects and in the end you were always waiting patiently for me to look at you and spend some time with you. Well, I think I have done enough for everyone except you. Let’s take that vacation Peter. Far away from all these responsibilities; just you and me.”

Hearing these words of love Peter reached her face and kissed her and they both smiled at each other. It was probably the last day at work for Mary. She had made her mind to let her children continue the work to move the company forward. She had wonderful kids; both were smart, young and hardworking. Mary couldn’t have asked for better children.

The decision of her unexpected retirement would cause a lot of unrest in the company so she had decided to keep it a secret and act normally. She had to tell Reed though, because he would know how to handle the news of her retirement. She starts heading to his office and is startled when she sees a familiar face entering his office. She jogs her memory and tries to recognize him, “It’s David! Mark’s nephew. What is he doing here?”

As Mary moves closer to Reed’s office she is stopped by Jane. “Ahem, Ma’am how are you doing?” Jane asks as she stands in front of her. “I’m doing fine as always Jane. Can I talk to Reed for a moment?” Mary replies. “Actually he is meeting someone important right now and he has instructed me not to let anyone enter...including you or Miss Anna.” Mary nods with disappointment and asks, “Well can I at least know who he is meeting and why?”

Jane hesitates a little but looking at Mary’s gaze she answers, “His name is Hunter, and he is helping the boss in a project. I think that’s all I can tell you.” listening to her she thanks Jane and starts feeling restless. “At Mark’s house his name was David and now, he is Hunter, something isn’t right. I think I should dig into Reed’s system.” she says to herself.

She takes the elevator and heads to her office, once inside she says, “Secure the office, no one comes inside.” the office doors shut and are locked.

She sits on her chair and says, “Access main system through director override” her computer screen shows her different main systems and she chooses Reed’s system. The computer prompts her to give director verification and she uses her fingerprint.

She now has access to Reed’s computer system. She starts going through different files and meetings and finds nothing suspicious. Browsing through a directory she finds a folder named “Project: Annex” she opens it and is prompted to enter a password. After 3 failed attempts the system warns her of a final attempt before the incident is reported to the security system.

She thinks hard and enters “14012040” it’s the day Reed became the head of MSAT. Pressing enter on the holographic keyboard, she looks at the progress bar nervously. The password checks out and she is granted access to the folder. Looking through the folder, her hand starts to shake. There are different sub folders with different names, the names are too familiar. They are named after the universes she had discovered when she was doing research on time travel.

She opens up a folder and sees several images of people and locations and many observational videos and a folder named ‘IMPORTANT’. She plays a random video and also opens that folder. The video starts playing; in the video she sees a man in a tuxedo killing someone with an axe.

When he is done he says, “It’s done sir, there are still 3 or 4 other complications I have to deal with. I’ll keep you posted, Harbinger out!” Her eyes grow wide and it becomes difficult for her to breathe, tears start flowing from her eyes and she starts crying, “Oh my God Reed! What are you doing...why...what is all this?” She looks at the “IMPORTANT” folder and finds different instructions given to the agents Reed had sent to that universe.

Appointments of agents with Dr. Mark are also recorded and kept inside the folder. It all seems so unreal and unbelievable. Reed has been fucking with time and realities of different universes for so long. The first event is recorded nearly 3 years ago. Countless people killed and countless lives ruined and for what? Four universes were altered and many other universes were just traveled for inspection and observation.

Reed had not started to alter them yet. “Mark, he fucking lied to me. I have to meet that son of a bitch again. I have to find out what Reed is planning. All those lies he told me and Reed; why would he be doing this?” there was too much uncertainty in her life all of a sudden.

“Looks like retirement has to wait again. I’m sorry Peter!” Mary says as she copies all the data from the folder to her own terminal. Mary couldn’t tell anyone about this, she had to investigate her son on her own. A lot of advancements were made since her time and she had to learn some new things which Reed and his team had discovered.

She also decided to travel to the universes where Reed had altered the events. The whole day she kept going through the theories and findings educating herself more and more, yet in the end the question still remained, “What is the purpose of all this?”

As her working hours came to an end she decided to send the files to her home terminal. While in the parking she was stopped by Anna who sat with her and said, “Reed says he will spend the night in his office, so I’ll go home with you!” On their way home Anna noticed that Mary is awfully quiet and she looked disturbed. “Mom? Is everything alright? I mean you aren’t this quiet when we travel together.” Anna said to which Mary replied, “I’m just a little tired, and there is too much on my mind right now. Things I cannot tell you.”

Anna nods and says, “It’s okay mom. Things always work out in the end you know.” but she is too pessimistic and says, “Not always Anna, not all the time!” They reach home and when everyone is at the dinner table Anna again sees her mother not eating anything. She just plays with the food and stares blankly at her plate. Peter notices this too and says, “So Mary, how did it go. I hope no one was too sad to see you retire!”

As soon as she hears this, Anna drops her fork and looks at her mother angrily, “Mom, retire? Hello...what is going on here?”

Peter reveals to Anna that Mary wants to spend some time alone with him and she feels that she has done enough for the company. “Yeah, well no announcement was made at the office so I don’t think she is retiring. Right mom?” Anna questions.

Mary looks at the wine in her glass and takes a sip, after a few moment she takes a deep breath and replies, “I’m very sorry Peter...you’ll have to wait for a little longer. There are still some things I need to do before I retire. I promise we’ll go on that resort. I promise my love!”

Peter smacks his lips and says, “As you wish Mary, I’ll wait for as long as you want!” while Anna jumps around the dinner table happily. “I’ll be working at home for a few weeks Anna. Tell this to Reed will you? When you go to the office tomorrow.” she says and Anna agrees. Reed was already playing his game and Mary had decided to intervene and stop him, “Time to set things right!” Mary says to herself as she sips her wine.