Time Monitoring Force

­The duo arrived at a barber's shop. They paid the cab man and walked inside. Caleb saw that he wasn't alone. Three barbers were trimming the customer's hair.

An Igbo man with a grey-white beard that appeared to be the same age as Kolade dropped his barber and approached Kolade and him. "You came to barb your hair?" The man asked.

"Code penguin feathers 101", Kolade said a code robotically and sat on the waiter's sofa. "Welcome back agent. Who's this?" The Igbo man asked, scanning Caleb from head to toe.

"He's Caleb Christopher, and he's from 2018", Kolade explained. This statement surprised the Igbo man a lot. "You caught a living one?" He asked.

"Yes sir. I met him in the south district of a high school. He walked into that stale wormhole, again", Kolade said. "Wait, what do you mean by 'again?'" Caleb asked frowning.

"It was my mistake", Kolade said immediately. "Let's go", the Igbo man said and turned towards a door opposite the exit. After walking for a minute, the man stopped and opened another door. This time, the door was located on the floor.

"Mr Kolade, is that barber's shop a front?" Caleb asked curiously. "Positive. We don't want to attract unneeded attention from people", Kolade answered simply.

Caleb watched in surprise as the man opened the door and disappeared to the ground. "Where does this place go?" Caleb asked. However, Kolade didn't answer him.

They entered the door hole and dropped into a bunker. It was a view to be mesmerized about The bunker looked more like a bomb shelter than a place of residence. They were a lot of rooms on both sides of the hall, and a centre door ahead of them.

The three walked into the centre room which appeared to be a laboratory. Inside the laboratory, there were more than ten people there, all of them typing away on a joint 90s computer.

"Caleb Christopher eh?" A Latin-American lady walked into the laboratory and greeted. "Yes, ma. What is all this?"

The woman stretched her hands to him. "My name is Luciana Stone, but call me Lucy. I am the assistant manager of this secret agency. We are the Time Monitoring Force or TMF for short. We are scientists that came together to prevent inconsistencies in timelines."

"So you're a time police?" Caleb raised his brow. "Something like that", Lucy paused for a moment before she replied. "I believe Kolade would have filled you up on the reason you ended up here, in 2001".

Caleb nodded and looked around. "I have one question".

"Go ahead", Lucy answered.

"Can I see my family now? By now they should be looking for me. It's been four hours, and I haven't even reached my mum's shop, so I know that she would be very worried".

Kolade and Lucy looked at each other with uncertainty, something that didn't escape his notice. "I'm sorry Caleb, but that would not be possible", Lucy wore a wry smile.

"And why?" Caleb began feeling annoyed. "Do you have any idea about time travel at all?" Kolade chipped in. "Yes, time flows in one direction, and anything you do in the past affects the future or something. So?"

"Those theories are half-truths. You've mistakenly jumped seventeen years from your original timeline, and as a result, you've created infinite irrationalities that would be impossible to fix", Kolade explained. "In a nutshell, your future is now uncertain", Lucy added.

At this point, Caleb didn't even know what to feel anymore. The fact that on the last day of school, he fell into 2001, and right now he couldn't even go back home. The emotions he felt were very complicated.

"So what am I going to do? I didn't ask for this na!", Caleb said tiredly. Lucy wanted to say something but withdrew her statement. "You're exhausted Caleb, please rest up. Agent Kolade would lead you to a room where you can rest, okay?"

"Don't worry boss, there's still hope for you to go back to your family, but something needed to be done first", Kolade assured. Caleb kept staring at him, urging him to continue.

"From our research, these rogue wormholes are creating some kind of pattern that we can predict. The only way we prevent a global catastrophe is to close these things up. Do you understand?", Kolade said.

"Probably" Caleb yawned. "You have to rest up. I'll answer your questions tomorrow, I promise", Kolade assured and led Caleb to his room.

As soon as Caleb's body touched the bed, he switched off immediately. It was a long day.

* * * * * * * * * *

01:00am.

A huge muscular figure appeared out of thin air. As soon as his materialization was complete, he took out a flip phone, and the photo of Caleb filled the screen.

Without making a noise, the black figure walked stealthily passing the multiple rooms while using his thermal scanner to check what was inside. Then he stopped on one. The thermal imaging of Caleb appeared on the gun-like instrument's screen.

Taking out a small blow torch, he scorched the door handle. A minute passed, and the door handle melted over. The man simply pushed the door open and wedge the door behind him.

That was when he saw Caleb on the bed, sleeping away. He swiftly took out the pocket knife from his belt and slowly approached him.

However, just as he was about to, the alarm bell began blaring, startling both parties simultaneously. Caleb was forced to wake up from the irritating noise. It was at this moment he realized that he wasn't alone.

"Good morning sir, do you need anything?" Caleb asked still feeling exhausted. As he wasn't able to see the figure clearly, he sat up from his bed and rubbed his eyes.

In the next second, he found himself levitating in the air, unable to breathe. The black figure grabbed Caleb's neck and slammed him into the wall.

All the weariness in Caleb's eyes vanished instantly. He almost peed his pants in terror as the black figure took out a pocket knife and reached for his throat. Then, his fight or flight instinct kicked in. Caleb kicked the man's groin with his levitating legs, causing the figure to grunt and release him.

"Help, help!" Caleb screamed and ran to the door, but the figure grabbed his legs and dragged him back. Caleb wasn't going out like this, so he picked up the bedsheet on the bed and held it in front of him.

The figure who had recovered from the pain approached him again and slashed at his neck. Caleb dodged it again and threw the blanket over the man's head and ran for the door.

The door was stuck. Despite his best efforts, the door wouldn't even budge. The already pissed figure tore open the blanket and this time, he took out a pistol.

At this point, Caleb had resigned to his grim fate, but his raging instincts didn't agree with him. As if on autopilot, he found himself rolling on the ground and grabbing the man's leg.

With the strength he didn't know he had, he lifted the leg and yanked it sideways, causing the huge figure to slam to the ground. This action caused the gun to run across the floor.

Without thinking, Caleb grabbed the gun and shot at the figure multiple times, until the figure went limp. Caleb slumped to the ground, panting heavily. All of the tiredness in his body had disappeared completely.

Then, the door blasted open, and Kolade and the security personnel barged into the room.

"What the hell is going on here?" Kolade asked, before looking down and seeing the black figure lying in his blood.

"Are you people trying to kill me?" Caleb asked, pointing the gun at him. "Wait, wait hold on Caleb drop the gun", Kolade raised his hands, but the securities pointed their rifles at Caleb.

"Who is now this na?" Caleb's heart was already thumping wildly. He almost had a close brush with death while he was asleep. If that alarm bell didn't ring, he didn't want to even think about what would even happen.

"He's a time assassin. He was sent to kill people like you that jumped into the wormhole. Please drop the gun", Kolade said. "Assassin?" Caleb asked wearing a deep frown. He dropped the gun to the floor and sat on his bed exhausted as the adrenaline in his blood waned slowly.