Borrowed Time
“Detective Watson?”
The sound of simulated gunfire and hellish screeching drowns out the stranger’s entrance. A small fist strikes the mahogany desk with surprising force. The blonde dame shoots up, sending her wheeled chair sliding across the room, only for it to be caught by the man standing by the door.
“Let me guess. Your team’s fault?”
The detective’s head snaps around to see the newcomer, and she rushes to pick up her half-empty whiskey glass and lean casually against the desk.
“Ahem. Of course. As usual.” She hides her face by taking a deep swig. “How can I help you?”
“My name is Anon. I need to borrow some time.”
“Anon, huh?” Watson taps the rim of the glass against her teeth. “Aren’t you Kronii’s man?”
Anon gives a hesitant smile.
“The one and only. Well, at least in this timeline.” He slides the chair back to Watson, who catches it with her free hand and swivels it under the desk.
“And why would the Time Warden’s lover need more time? Maybe he’s trying to do something that she wouldn’t like?”
Anon stares at the floor for a few moments while the detective patiently sips her whiskey.
”Yeah. You could say that.”
Watson opens a drawer beside her, retrieving an old but well-kept pocket watch.
”Well, I don’t care much what it’s used for, but I sure would like it back. What kinda collateral you got?”
Anon reaches over his shoulder, producing two strangely-shaped sheathed swords from behind him. The detective’s eyes widen.
“A-are those the real deal?”
”See for yourself.”
Anon unsheathes one of the swords, hands it to her, and pulls up his sleeve. He holds out the exposed forearm and gestures to it with his eyebrows. The detective hesitantly pierces his skin with the blade. A small trickle of blood appears, and Anon shakes his arm.
The two of them watch as a droplet of crimson flies from the wound and slows to a total pause in midair. Watson appears sufficiently amazed. Anon rolls down his sleeve.
”So how about it? The weapons that can change the flow of time for the device that can escape it.”
Watson thinks for a moment, then nods. She hands over the pocket watch in exchange for the other sword.
”Wonderful. I’ll be back in just a moment,” says Anon as he leaves the room.
The detective sees a sharp flash of light through the textured glass of her office door, and walks back to her desk.
”Why’s he in such a hurry?” she ponders, sitting down and rejoining the Apex queue.
In Anon’s eyes, time seems to slow to a crawl before entirely stopping. He walks down the hallway and nudges open the door to the outside world.
The sky is painted in lights of navy and gold. It’s raining, just a little bit, the sparkling drops of water suspended in midair.
Anon clicks a button on the watch.
The world is flung sideways, a gust of cosmic wind blowing against Anon’s coat. He sees countless copies of the door to the detective agency, of each car on the street, of each drop of rain. The hands on the watch start to spin - the hour hand forward, the minute hand back, the second hand moving too fast to tell which.
Anon comes to a stop inside a cozy home. The curtains are closed. Candles are lit. Trails of steam hover over pots on a stove. He sees a man and a woman, dancing to unheard music. Love is in the stagnant air. The second hand on the watch slowly ticks forward a few times. In slow motion, the gorgeous girl in the apron wraps her arms around the man’s neck and leans in to kiss him.
Anon clicks a button on the watch.
The house shifts around, new furniture and decoration cycling in and out. Morning sunlight streams through the window. Two children are frozen in the middle of an intense chase. The man from before, dressed for a busy day, has his mouth wide in an attempt to shout past the breakfast packed into it. The woman is there too, a mug of tea in her hands and a beaming smile on her face.
Anon clicks a button on the watch.
The domestic scene disappears, replaced by a hospital bed, a wrinkled, grey-haired, fragile man lying in it, and the very same woman from before, looking as ageless and beautiful as ever, sitting beside it. Her smile is wide, but horribly pained and soaked in tears. The old man’s arm is outstretched, cupping one of her cheeks. Anon reaches out to wipe a tear from the other.
Anon clicks a button on the watch.
Reality fades away. The navy-haired woman becomes the watch’s - and Anon’s - only focus. Her tears take a while to dry up. Even once they do, the crying doesn’t seem to stop. But when you’ve run out of tears, crying starts to sound like laughter. The woman secludes herself away, manic with sorrow, for years. By the turn of the next century, she looks to be recovering - at least enough to return to her job. But her heart isn’t in it. Time moves lazily.
Anon clicks a button on the watch.
The images before him accelerate. His eyes remain focused on her face. Soon enough, from Anon’s perspective, centuries are passing in seconds. In his peripherals, he watches civilisation change, rise, and fall. He watches human society depart into space. He watches people, bloodlines, ecosystems, and then stars live and die.
Through it all, her face hardly seems to change. That beautiful smile never returns.
He persists, going beyond the end of human existence. Beyond the last supernova, beyond the decay of the final black holes. She remains, as do her uncurving lips and her hollow eyes.
Eventually, the pocket watch seems to jam. Anon glances down at it, seeing all three hands stuck at 12 o’clock. End of the line.
He sighs, then clicks a button on the watch.
The universe reforms around him at incomprehensible speed, shooting him back to the era he is familiar with.
The day he met Ouro Kronii is a day he remembers all too well.
Anon is in a rush, late to work for the fourth time that month and on the last ropes of his boss’ patience. You can perhaps imagine how inconvenienced he might feel when, just outside his workplace, a madman in somehow more of a rush appears out of nowhere and collides with him on the footpath. Anon falls to the ground, clutching his shoulder at the point of impact. He turns to yell at the offender, but only glimpses the man looking over his shoulder before flicking a switch on a device in his hand and disappearing into the air. Anon’s fury is replaced by confusion.
Still staring at the empty space, he is not ready for the heeled boot that then tramples on his upper back. He emits a brief yelp as he is pressed into the ground again. His new assailant is much kinder than the first, though. Their momentum carries them forward a few more steps, before they double back and lean down to help him up.
”Ah shit, I’m so sorry.” Her voice, deep and soothing.
Anon looks up at the helpful soul. Her eyes, bright and striking.
”Hope you’re okay, I gotta go though!” With her unintended victim on his feet, she turns to keep running.
”Wait!” Anon grabs her by the arm. She looks a little frustrated, but mostly just surprised. “Who are you?”
Anon clicks a button on the watch.
The two hurried strangers, eyes locked, freeze into another diorama. The watch ticks backwards. The past self and future lover unmeet and separate. Hundreds of cars drive in reverse. Light itself seems to flow upwards to the sun.
Anon blinks, appearing in his own bedroom about an hour prior. He sees himself, lost in blissful, ignorant sleep. He reaches out an arm, resting it on his younger self’s shoulder. He holds it there for a moment. He whispers a soft apology, then shakes himself awake.
He blinks again. He is back outside, sitting on a bench across the street from his old workplace. He sees himself walk calmly up to the entrance.
A few minutes later he watches as his wife chases a time traveller across reality, and ceases to be his wife.
Detective Amelia Watson sees a flash of light outside her office in the corner of her eye. Anon opens the door, his shoulders burdened with something unknowable. She hasn’t done much detective work recently, but can read people well enough to know not to make the joke she was planning to on his return.
”So, uh… how’d it go?” she asks.
”Just give me the swords.”
Anon tosses the pocket watch to her. With a little bit of concern on her face, she sets it down on the desk and stands up to carry the swords over to him. He accepts them with white-knuckled hands, sheathing them behind his back once more, then gives the detective a tight, nearly constricting hug. She tenses up for a moment, but then relaxes and pats him on the back. He lets go, shakes himself off, and walks out the door.
It is past midnight when Anon enters his home. He sneaks through the house, past what once could have been his children’s rooms, to his own. There, on the bed, is the goddess who would have been his wife.
But he can’t put her through that kind of pain. He leans the swords against the edge of the bed and begins packing as many of his things as he can into a suitcase. Clothes, cologne, anything that would tip her off to something being wrong. Once satisfied that his trail has been scrubbed clean, he sets the suitcase by the door. Turning back to Kronii, he bends down to kiss the sleeping stranger on the cheek. Her lips curl upwards just slightly at the gentle contact, freezing Anon in place. Every fibre of his being is telling him to wake her up and hug her tighter than ever before, or to just curl up beside her and fall asleep, pretending this whole ridiculous ploy has been a fanciful dream.
But it's too late for that. The woman sleeping here has never met him. If she woke up with him there she'd just kill him on the spot.
Maybe that wouldn't be too bad.
On his way out of the room, Anon spots a photo on the bedside table - one of Kronii, and only Kronii. There is an empty space beside her where he should have been, but at least she is still smiling. He adds the photo to the suitcase and leaves his life behind.