Conman

Caleb filled her with every detail of the events, except that this time, he made himself the villain. After listening for a while, she thought for a moment before she spoke. "So you forced Kolade to take you with him, and you jumped into the tunneller before the globe closed?" She asked with confusion.

"Yes, and that lightning globe thing almost killed me! I simply did it as a joke, but I soon realized that the joke was too expensive. I could have died", Caleb said, feigning remorse.

One of the effective ways of getting away with a lie was to put yourself in a sorry state and fake emotions. This was something he learned in high school. Although he wasn't proud of it, he saw it as an effective method of getting out of situations like this one.

"Yes, you could have died! Your story isn't consistent with the type of person that you are, and even if it was, why the hell will you do that? Because you wanted to travel in time?", Lucy scolded. She bought the lie.

"I'll be truthful to you. I once wanted to travel in time, but not like this. The things I saw in 1967 made me realize that going into certain points in history isn't as pretty as one may think. It was probably the most traumatic experience I've ever had excluding the time I banged my head on the floor of my balcony".

Caleb then became serious. "The point is, I liked the experience, so I want to go on missions like that again. This time, I want to help this organization", Caleb said. Lucy was about to say something, but Caleb raised his palm, an indication that he was not done.

"I know what you're going to say. 'I'm not trained and I'm traumatized, but I can assure you I am not. I want to go out into the field commander, please. Kolade would train me", Caleb passionately begged.

Lucy stared at him with an uncertain expression. Was he really serious?

"And you're sure you're not exhausted?" Lucy asked. "I'm never better", Caleb assured. Lucy thought for a moment, before replying. "I'm sorry, I can't allow that. You are too young to--"

"Too young?" Caleb cut her rudely. "Not to be rude ma, but I'm not your responsibility. All my life, I've lived as an independent person, so I won't allow anyone to make decisions for me.

"If you aren't going to allow me to partner with him, then I don't think I want to stay here at all", Caleb snapped. What annoyed him was not the rejection, but the fact that he might bump into his past self.

According to some theory, existing in the same timeline with your previous self poses the risk of killing either of him simply by touching each other, or leads to Parallel Psychosis: A state in which the traveller of that time would develop the desire to kill the existing self in an attempt to restore the timeline's order.

Lucy was taken aback by the sudden outburst. Even Kolade stared at him with shock. Caleb suddenly wished he could take back his words, but it was probably too late, so he braced for what she was going to say or do next.

"Five am sharp, training room. Be there", Lucy simply said and walked out. Caleb watched her leave and suppressed his desire to scream out in delight. At least something good came out of it.

"The close call to death must have shaken you up a little bit", Kolade smirked. "Maybe it did", Caleb said and turned to leave. He looked at the watch, feeling very appreciative of it. He was yet to determine the limit of how he could jump through, but that would be for another time.

But there was one problem.

He was supposed to meet Lucy at five, but there was a problem. He left his previous timeline at two, which meant that when he get back, he would have only three hours to sleep.

As of now, he was exhausted, both physically and mentally. If he want to impress Lucy, he needed to be up and running.

* * * * * * * * * *

2022. Somewhere in England.

A middle-aged woman stared at multiple screens playing different content at the same time. She exudes a feeling of dominance as her streamlined face, her almost straight eyebrows, her pointed nose and her flawless white skin would make any man kill to be around.

The door to the control room opened, and a Hispanic man walked in. "Commander, there's an update", he said and handed her a transparent tablet.

Without looking back, she collected the tablet and looked at its content. Moments later, she returned the tablet. "Recruit?" She said flatly.

"Yes, commander. According to our research, he's sixteen years of age, and has just completed high school", he said. "Yes, I read the content, Henry. Is he connected to the TMF?" She asked.

"No commander, according to our research—"

"Can you quit the 'according to our research?" The woman interrupted him. "I'm the sorry commander. His fixed timeline was in 2018, but the wormhole that was opened before the last one sent him back to 2001. which was coincidentally his birth year, but the agent in TMF had him before we did", Henry said and felt a lump in his throat.

"Seems that you are slacking in your job Henry", The middle-aged woman smiled, but she wasn't smiling. "I'm sorry commander. I..I'll keep finding him", he said and turned to leave.

"And the missing watch?" She asked. "Huh?" Henry turned with a confused expression. "What about the missing watch? You know, the time jump thing?" She asked.

"I'm sorry commander, but I'm not following", he said with a frown on his face. "Those two shadows you sent came back, dead as usual, but one didn't have his watch. Would you help me investigate that please?", she asked gruffly.

"I will commander", he said and left the control room quietly. The middle-aged woman picked the mouse and scrolled to the middle-bottom monitor and highlighted it, and the image of her daughter playing with her on a beach filled the screen.

"It's only a matter of time", her hard face softened. "Sophie", she said and cleaned the escaping tear from her face. "Just wait".

She turned and left the room.

* * * * * * * * * *

A few weeks later.

After taking down his training partner for the fourth time, Lucy's voice came out from the speakers. "Enough training for today. Caleb, come to my office".

Caleb stood up and bumped their knuckles with his partner. "Great job Mark", he complimented. Mark simply nodded and took off his training gloves and walked out of the training hall.

As soon as he cleaned up, he wore his uniform and headed to Lucy's office.

"Sit down", she said. Caleb sat opposite her from the translucent desk. "You've done an excellent job in training over the past six weeks. I see some agent talent in you", she began.

"So I didn't meet up to your expectations", Caleb said feeling depressed. "On the contrary you do. But while I was observing you, I couldn't help but notice your personality changing while you parred with Mark. One moment you were fighting like the movie character Jackie Chan, and the next moment you are shooting like John Wick.

"Are you talking about the same person?" Caleb asked with a frown. "Yes", Lucy replied.

"I don't know what that was all about, but have you always wanted to be an actor?" She asked. "I've thought about it, but I live in Nigeria, so even if I auditioned, I don't think I have the skill or face to make it there. Besides, look at me, below average in beauty", he smiles wryly.

"There's nothing wrong with your face Caleb, but let's put that aside. You won't be fighting with Kolade", she said. "I understand. I knew I wasn't—

"You will be working with agent Hawking on another mission", she continued. "What? Really?" Caleb's heart leapt for joy again. "Yes, but not the fighting thing. You are too frail for the job. You are good at changing personality, so you would be great at impersonating people", she explained.

"Impersonating? I'm not sure I can do it", Caleb said nervously. It was true that he could act like another person, but he hasn't done it professionally. From when he was little, he always mirrored his uncle's way of speaking. So when he thought he had the talent for mimicry, he decided to go further and began obtaining characters from people and using them to entertain his siblings.

Being an introvert, that was the only social skill he had in communicating with people. But he couldn't just walk up to a girl and began speaking like Jason Statham. It would just sound strange.

"I don't think you can do it also, but this is your only option if you want this job, else you'll work like the rest of these agents typing on ancient IBM computers", Lucy said flatly.

"Okay, so when do I start?" Caleb asked. "How about in ten minutes? There's information I want you to extract from a neurologist in 2010. Here's the clipboard.

"Complete the job, and we'll talk about your salary", Lucy said with a smile. "Thank you. I'll go get prepared". Caleb said gratefully and left the office with a smile on his face.