AN: I did not invent (most) of the timey-wimey stuff in this chapter. The laws of time travel are mostly from Haddix's The Missing series, which was a pretty big inspiration for this story. Though none of the characters are present, so this is not a crossover, but I think I need to make clear that I did not invent the scienc-y stuff.

Chapter 13: Stability Never Lasts

9:46 PM; February 20th, 2312

Ren Cyders.

His name was Ren Cyders, and he was god-awfully confused.

Now, any seventeen-year-old would be terrified if they heard screaming wails and spinning red lights and saw grown men running in fear. But this was Ren Cyders, and he was supposed to be the 'tough, I-never-make-a-mistake-because-my-parents-and-older-sister-are-already-such-good-agents teen'.

But, then again, this was the building he had pretty much grown up in. Where Eurus, his older sister, grew up. Where his parents spent almost every waking moment doing what they did best with all the agents around them; fixing time where the competing idiots messed it up.

In pure fear, Ren latched onto the shoulders of a man running by and pulled him to face him. Emil Howards. "Do you know what's going on?" Ren shouted. "Is this a fire? I thought we fire-proofed all the buildings within a twenty-mile radius from here three years ago!"

"Not a fire." Emil replied, trying to make his look gentle as to calm the teen. He hoped his dark eyes were convincing enough, but nothing could mask the real fear going around the better half of the agency. It would be better to keep the boy in the dark for now; he was the youngest of the agency, so he definitely wasn't prepared for something like this. "Just another kind of emergency, where all the mature agents are needed. Stay out in the hall!"

Then he pulled away from the teen and ran off after the crowds that were pouring into a large screening room.

"Twenty-first century?" Ren heard Emil shout, and then he was inside the room along with one last woman, and the door shut.

The alarms stopped. The lights stopped flashing. The pounding noise of all the footsteps in the halls ceased. It was empty, white walls with a trim of blue, all brown wooden doors locked shut.

And Ren was alone in the middle of it.

He sunk down to the floor, sitting with his knees up to his chest. Mature agent? Not prepared? I've known this as my life, idiots!

He had grown quite used to getting left out of things. A child wouldn't be much help to a time crisis, and he knew it. The work wasn't an easy one. It was still plenty of fun passing tools and watching the monitors of whatever adventures and missions Eurus and his parents were sent on, anyway.

But that was before.

Wasn't Eurus sent on her first mission as a teenager? Seventeen? Sixteen? Fifteen? Yes, it had been something small. A twenty-third century suit had to be recovered from a busy tavern back in 1876. Maybe they had only selected Eurus because she was younger, and therefore smaller and lithe. But she had gone, and Ren had not.

It left its mark.

Ren pounded his fists into the floor. He couldn't do anything right now. He didn't have a card to enter the crisis or monitor rooms. His parents weren't in right now, just his sister, and she wouldn't be any help in getting him privileges. He didn't have an Elucidator, and that was the most frustrating. All the Agents had one. They were the most common tool when it came to time, mainly because they were so wide-ranged in their functions. Back in time, forward in time, inter-dimensional, alternate-universe, teleporting, shape-shifting, invisibility. You name it, the next model has got it.

Ren didn't even have a dumbed-down Elucidator, which was a regular one with 'parental controls' on it. It could only send you to a certain time, or only allow you to shift and return to normal, or only to visit another dimension for a short amount of time. All the ways it could be limited in function were mind-boggling. Only an experienced Agent had a full-function Elucidator, so Ren snickered at the thought of Eurus with a run-down model next to other's sleek, glossy ones.

Ren didn't have any of those things.

But he did have an idea.

Ren Cyders had access to one wing of the entire building. The Shifting Room. Probably because that was a young Agent's first field of training, but it was still something. It could still get Ren some knowledge.

He really cared about what was going on, what the red flashing lights and the coats flapping out behind Agents and the crowding in one room meant. He didn't know, and he really didn't like not knowing.

Ren knew there was a small, glass-walled area in the corner of the wide Shifting Room. Monitors were kept in there, and if he was lucky, an Elucidator. You'd need a key to get into the glass-walled viewing room, but Ren was certain he could make a clean breakthrough.

It's just for the information. You are not going to meddle with the Agent's mission. You want to be promoted, right?

Ren swiped his card by the door's edge, and it opened before him. The room was empty; silent enough so that you could hear a pin drop. Still, the teen couldn't shake off the anxious feeling that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

After fiddling with the knob for a good minute, the glass-walled monitoring room was open. Sucking in a breath, Ren stepped in.

It was a cacophony of information all at once. The monitors were already on and bursting with colors and recorded films from history. Lights flashed from corners on the desk; a small wailing sound pierced the air. Ren gasped and shut the door with his leg, covering his ears with his pale hands.

Acting quickly, Ren slipped on the hearing pieces and sat by the monitors, soaking up all the information he could.

2057. Female pathologist removed from history.

2093. Philosopher removed from history.

2134. Entire family completely erased.

2137. Royal family erased.

How was this possible? People don't just disappear from history. They are either taken as agents or forcibly removed from this plane of existence. No one just vanished. How far back did this go? Where did the chaos start?

2013. A girl. A dog. Distracted.

Ren was in shock.

"No, no, no!"

He paced the room, hands in his hair. This wasn't how it was supposed to go! She was supposed to have moved on by now, gotten over that stupid dog and go back to her creating.

Was it the dog messing it all up, or her?

Never mind. What he needed was to be recognized. To finally be respected as a member of this group. He knew exactly what he needed to do, and all it required was a little device.

Ren saw it. It was there, conveniently located on the table where he had just sat. How it got there, he wasn't going to question. Sometimes, in time, things just sort of… happened. And you weren't supposed to question, or you'd unleash paradoxes and conundrums. Simple logic.

Those idiots. Ren cursed the current Agents. All you have to do is bring her here. That's it. That's all you need to do, and all you need is a little device.

The pale-eyed teen fingered the sleek device in his hands, bringing it close to his face.

"Elucidator." He whispered. "Take me to 2013."

He landed with a crash, a steady throbbing in his head drowning out all noise. For a moment he just lay on the floor, vainly trying to gain back his senses.

Urgh… time sickness…

Ren was still rather new to the whole concept of the illness. It was only short-lived, just a minute or two after landing in a foreign time, but it was severe. You couldn't feel your hands, your legs, anything really, see anything, hear anything, speak, you could hardly think….

"Hello?"

At least, that's what Ren thought he heard. It was hard to trust any of his senses when he felt as numb as he did now. He felt like replying, but his tongue felt too thick and his jaw felt slack.

How long had he been like this? Seconds? A minute? An hour?

Groggily, he forced his eyes open. Light pooled into the small room from behind him. Had he landed in front of a window, then? Indoors, inside, room, window… good, yes, good.

He pushed himself to his feet, swaying a bit before grabbing onto the window's ledge to steady himself.

Squinting, the teen looked about the room. There was an abandoned device on the bed, small and white with cords sticking out of it. The blue bed sheets were rumpled and shoved aside messily, in a way that the owner would be crouched beside the bed, facing away from Ren….

"Esme Reyne."

No response, but Ren was fairly certain he could hear a small whimper from the other side of the bed.

Pathetic.

"Esme Reyne!" he repeated, putting as much strength in his voice as he could. "I know who you are, and you need to come with me."

There was no doubt that the girl was hiding behind the bed now. Ren could quite clearly see a mass of horridly-cut dark hair peeking out from over the bed, and the girl's labored breathing was easily noticeable now.

The teen marched over to the girl, arching his back to at least make him slightly more intimidating. Pale eyes locked – in just a second Ren could see all the emotion in the girl's expression. It reminded him, fleetingly, just for a second, that this was a human being and he was about to destroy her life.

No, this is the right thing to do. For… me. This is the past; the past can be fixed.

His own blue eyes stayed cold and emotionless as he raised the small contraption to the girl's face.

"Please… don't…" she whimpered.

Ren paled. I'm not hurting her. I'm not hurting her. This isn't a gun, it's not going to hurt her, just send her away….

"Elucidator! Take her to 2312! Now!"

The teen boy tried not to notice the utterly horrifying tone of voice he had used.

But, suddenly, he had worse things to worry about it.

The Elucidator's job was done in a second, maybe half of a second. But when it came to time and space and the science of understanding it all, a second could change everything, sentimental as it sounded.

When the girl, Esme Reyne, the cause of all the turmoil and the missing time agents and the rapidly approaching 2312 ripple, disappeared, she put up a fight. Ren wasn't sure what he expected, but not this.

She had lashed out. Grabbed onto what she could. In a second, it was too late, and the girl had disappeared with both her backpack... and the Elucidator.

NO!

Everything was suddenly still and silent once the girl disappeared. His pulse drummed madly inside his skull, and his ears were ringing with a sharp, screaming note. His hands flew up to cover his ears as he staggered downwards. It was just Ren, the teenaged not-quite-time-agent, in a room painted gray and blue with rumpled bed sheets and no Elucidator.

Ren was trapped in 2013.

The weight of the realization struck him with… fear? Anger? Sadness? He just felt numb, all over, but that didn't stop him from combing through his hair with his long fingers and sinking onto his knees.

He couldn't stay like that forever. He couldn't stay here forever, either. The Time Agents… they'd notice he was gone! They'd notice he was missing, and they would probably track him here, and then they would get him….

No, you idiot! This is time travel, you could stay here for the rest of your life and it wouldn't be a second for them!

…but they have time travel? A future, even just a minute after I left, could track me back here? Or no?

But then I wouldn't be the right age, and their machine isn't exactly up to date when it comes to younger Agents…

…aren't they distracted with the girl, though?

But if they can, why haven't they already…?

Would they come back for me?

Ren was making his entire brain ache, and he had only been thinking for two seconds. Everything was numb, everything hurt, he was so not prepared for this and he felt so lost….

Felt? He was lost.

"Esme? Esme?"

Ren jerked up from the fetal position he had taken on the carpet floor. Loud footsteps pounded on a flight of stairs, maybe a hallway.

Man… 40's… father. Oh no. Not good. Very not good.

"Esme! What was that noise? Are you alright?"

Suddenly, Ren felt himself being tackled to the floor, knocking the wind out of him and leaving him choking for breath.

The door hadn't opened. It wasn't the girl's father, it was a stranger, that had come to hurt him….

Come to rescue him?

"What. Have. You. Done?" The tackling man hissed. His voice was god-awfully familiar, but from the fleeting look Ren got at the man's face, he wasn't any of the Time Agents Ren knew from 2312. This guy was tall, 40-ish, raven-black hair, pale blue eyes…

And that was all Ren got of him. The man punched numbers into a… Elucidator? It looked so much sleeker than the one Ren had nicked….

It was all a matter of seconds. The girl – Esme's – father was approaching, babbling about noises. The (Time Agent?) was fiddling with the (Elucidator?) so quickly his fingers were a blur. Ren was marveling over the fact that it had only been, at the very most, 30 seconds since Esme had disappeared.

The tackling man swore, then hissed into his device as quickly as he could, "Send the miscreant to 2312! Then take me to 2335. Now!"

And they both were gone.

You can imagine Ren's surprise when he showed up in 2312, only to find that the girl had never arrived.

I somewhat-apologize for this chapter. Not entirely pleased with it...

Thank you Reggie Jackson, preciouslittletoonette, . , Dambusta3, and everyone else who helped in even the slightest bit. All your criticism and comments has really helped me to come back.

I also apologize that there is neither Warner nor Esme action in this chapter. I suppose that's what slowed me down for the past months (that's how long it took me to write this chapter, seriously). But I promise: they'll come back in the next chapter.

Oh, and, keep your eye on the chapter names starting with this one. You'll notice... something. Eventually.

Sorry for the long blob of black text. I guess I just have so much to say.