29 March 1955
"…I must admit, Five, in all the time I've been here, I've never met anyone quite like you" The Handler mused as the pair skipped up the path to the temporally-placed headquarters of the La Commission du Temps et de L'Space. "Hazel and Cha-Cha, for example, are talented—certainly—but they just…they can't see the big picture, y'know?"
"Hm" Five hummed noncommittally as he listened to the Handler. Just as it had done decades ago, her sales pitch still held an alluring quality that made his ego preen; even if he that, deep down, coming back here was a death sentence. For whom, though, was the question.
Despite being back at the one place he had fought so hard to leave, he knew that being here was the best chance he had at stopping the apocalypse from even beginning. Even if he did wish with every inch of him that he had a better handle on his teleportation and time travel power, so that he could Blink right out of there without anyone being any the wiser; maybe a little pissed. But he couldn't, so he was stuck trailing after the blonde devil at his side.
"Your spunk, your enterprising spirit" The Handler grinned, really trying to hammer home his place amongst the best of the best at the Commission. "Well, it reminds me a great deal of myself, if I may be so vainglorious. In fact, if things work out for you here, you could potentially make a fine successor, Five"
Successor? Fat chance! Five inwardly scoffed as he remained ever calm on the outside, "I'd like to discuss the logistics of my family's safety at your earliest convenience. As well as this body replacement"
"Such chutzpah!" The Handler chirped brightly as the two made their way inside and began to climb the stairs to the first floor. It would seem that the Handler wanted to put Five to work as soon as possible. "It's refreshing, I'll admit, but slow, Five! All in good time! In fact, now that you've finally agreed to work with us, we've got all the time in the world!"
Trotting through the Departure Lounge and bypassing the Briefcase Room, Five and the Handler moved onto the more organised rooms of the paper pushers. "The Commission works in support of a delicate balance between the timeline of events and mankind's free will" The Handler continued, noting the stares and Five's wandering gaze with a knowing smirk. "The briefcase is no longer part of your kit, Five, free your mind. You're in management now. One of us"
Soon enough, the eye-catching duo made their way up to one of the many floors that housed the deskmen in charge of the case files for each agent and major event. Everywhere they went, Five's eyes roved over every nook and cranny without trying to seem rude. He hadn't spent much time in the headquarters, itself, aside from the Training Academy & the Infirmary. But those two buildings were shunted off to the side, over near the field so that both the sick & injured and the children could be out from under everyone's feet.
"…All the people on this floor are Case Managers" The Handler explained as the tour continued, her sweeping gestures pointing to several different open doors as she nodded polite, but firm, greetings to co-workers and moved with a poise that screamed respect or suffer the consequences. She was like the apex predator amongst a herd of prey; like the devil in six inch heels. Coming to halt in one of said doorways, she watched on proudly as Five stared at the sheer number of workers cramped into a room that never seemed to end.
"So many of them" Five whistled, impressed.
"Impressive, isn't it? To be a part of something so…grand!" The Handler gloated, "Come along"
"Mm!" Five rushed to follow the Hander as she continued on down the hallway, explaining the workings of the Commission.
"Whenever someone choose the wrong path and the timeline is changed, the Commission gets a report from Field Agents on the ground. These field reports are sorted and assigned to a Case Manager and they determine if anyone needs to be removed from the equation to assure that their event happens just as it should"
Through the winding hallways the two strode until they came to a stop next to a room filled with numerous metal chutes. The room—titled by a shiny metal plaque at the door, as the Tube Room—seemed to stretch on just as long as the office spaces, although instead of a multitude of workers, there was only one. A doddery old lady in a grey two-piece pant suit and thick oversized glasses, making her look like a prim & proper librarian. Five watched with eagle eyes as the old woman picked up a golden tube to inspect the label before moving over to the correct chute to send the Field Agent their next set of instructions.
"…Base on that determination, the Case Manager sends instructions via pneumatic tube to temporal assassins like you formerly were, Number Five" The Handler ended, their tour clearly coming to a close in the metallic tubed room. "Any queries so far?"
"Yeah…" Five drawled, rolling the curious words around in his head as he tried to think of something to say that wouldn't sound too inquisitive or interested. "Who was the Case Manager handling me?"
"Ah! You mean The Apocalypse" The Handler brightened as he caressed his cheeks again. She seemed to enjoy doing that; maybe she was trying to memorise this younger face of his, before he switched bodies? "Come, come, this way"
Following the blonde woman back through the twisting turns of the management building, Five was eventually led to a small room—one that was lined with filing cabinets and stacked with neatly placed desks. Each one held an old fashioned type writer plus a small placard with the individual's name; Five's, it seemed, already had his neatly printed on the only empty desk in the place. Coming to a stop next to the bare desk, Five's attention was then directed to the bright woman, who would be the neighbour sat behind him.
"Five, meet Dot" The Handler introduced the smartly-dressed woman in blue to the time travelling schoolboy assassin. Even though the others in the room tried not to be too obvious (although some were openly staring) about their appearances there, Five could still feel their burning stares. Which wasn't hard, considering that there were a fair few people shoved into the one room in neat little rows (it looked to have once been a classroom of some sort).
"Oh! Hi!" Dot cheerily chirped, waving at the infamous assassin with far more cheer than was ever necessary for any one person.
"Dot, here, is responsible for all apocalyptic matters" The Handler smiled, "In fact, it was Dot, here, who first flagged your appearance in 2019—"
"—No hard feelings" Dot smiled, waving off the compliment.
"Mm" Five grunted, hands in his pockets as he smiled tightly at the woman with forced politeness. It was the same smile that he used to use at Umbrella Academy press conferences and media exposes. Polite, but fake.
"Well, you certainly put us through the ringer, Five" The Handler chuckled dryly. "Outsmarting two of our so-called best temporal agents. If that doesn't spell leadership material, then I just don't know what will! I'm sure that you've all heard
"Hm" Five narrowed his gaze at the blonde as he shifted uncomfortably under all the stares. If the other occupants of the room weren't looking before, then they were now. Caught off-guard by the sudden exclamation, many of the typists bristled at the notion that this newly minted (however capable) Field-Agent-turned-Case-Manager could be up for a promotion so soon. Some of them had been in their positions for far longer than the schoolboy assassin had been in that apocalyptic wasteland.
"I suspect…" The Handler drawled, hiding a smirk in the corner of her lips as she pulled out Five's chair for him. "That you like a challenge, Five. Which is why I've given you a particularly complex first case"
Five took the red manilla folder handed to him as he slowly slipped into the chair offered to him, and flipped open the offending folder with curiosity picking at his brain. Inside, he found several pages containing statistics, black & white images of zeppelins & Hindenburg base and a couple of reports from the Field Agents responsible for this case. It looked like he was going to be responsible for taking down the famed Hindenburg balloon…or at least, telling so and so who to kill, for that to happen as history dictated.
"It's too bad that Joseph Späh decided against sabotaging the fuel tank; it would've been so much easier" The Handler chuckled dryly, all prim and proper as if the topic at hand hadn't been someone's life. "Anyhoo…! If you have any questions, I'll be right behind you" She pointed over her thumb over her shoulder before she spun on her ruby red heels and flounced back out of the door.
Five wasn't sure how long he sat at his newly-appointed desk as he finished the last of his report off. Despite the Handler's insistence that this tasked was more of a 'challenge' than the others, Five was still able to complete it relatively easily. Something for which he was rather thankful for, as the multiple questions whirling around in his head seemed to take over the majority of his focus.
Why were Klaus, Diego and Theodore at the meeting point? How had they known? What as the Handler up to? Why must the horrors of the Apocalypse continue? Why did everybody have to die? Where had Vanya gone? Why had the Handler offered him a job in management? Was it to keep a closer eye on him? How had he fallen for the allure of her words again? How the HELL was he going to fix this apocalyptic hot mess?
The constant tapping of the typewriter keys, the scratching of pencils on paper and the crunch of whole punches going through reams of paper filled the room with the white noise of your typical office (despite its contents). The gentle sounds helped to ground Five, creating a symphony of sound that petered and flowed with the occasional hushed conversation. Like this current one, where Dot (who sat behind him) had tried to strike up a conversation. "Hi~ya, Five!" Dot chirped, leaning a little to the side in the hopes of catching his gaze/attention. "How's it going?"
"I must have utter silence in order to complete this task" Five replied dryly, trying to make the chipper woman leave him alone despite the fact that he'd already finished it some time ago.
"Oh-oh okay" Dot stammered, blinking slightly at his sharp buffer. But with the kind of people that she had grown up working with, his sharp tones, cold shoulders weren't exactly and dirty hands were pretty much a dime-a-dozen at the Commission. Field Agents were always so jaded. "…Hey-a a few of us are having lunch together I was wondering if you—"
"—Ahem!" Five cleared his throat rather loudly as he aggressively pulled open the drawer by his feet to retrieve a pneumatic tube pod.
"…Oh, sorry. You're doing something"
Now that Dot had finally gotten the memo and left him alone, Five was free to stuff the finished assignment into the pneumatic pod and stand from his desk, making his way over to the Tube Room even as silent eyes protested his eager departure. But after his rather brisk interaction with Dot, no one else had the guts to speak up and tell him how things were really done in management; so they let him go.
Shaking off the uncomfortableness of the small room, Five retraced his steps to the Tube Room where he easily located the pneumatic pipe that he had been searching for (it was much easier with all the tubes separated by decade and labelled by year). The bespectacled woman from before was nowhere to be seen, but Five shrugged it off as he moved to search for the right tube. He was just about to send the pod off when the sound of clinking heels echoed down the hall; a haunting sound that was accompanied by a familiar devilish voice. One he had hoped not to hear so soon after returning.
"I'm afraid that's not procedure" The Handler scolded, leaning over his shoulder as she plucked the golden pod from his hands. Next to her stood the bespectacled grey woman from earlier. "Five, meet Gloria. Gloria is perhaps the single most important cog in our machine"
"Oh! Gloria dismissed, waving off the compliment as she blushed at the rare compliment, having joined the two when she had heard her name come up.
"Gloria, this is Number Five" The Handler introduced as she took out the slip of paper from the tube and unfurled it to see what Five had decided.
"Look at you! Deadly little thing! We're so happy that we decided to close the contract on your life!" Gloria chuckled as she took the empty pod handed to her.
"I'm afraid your reputation precedes you and it looks like you're building on it here" The Handler grinned wickedly as she glanced down to read over the inscription: TERMINATE KARL WEBER.
"Oh, Karl Weber!" The Handler gasped as she then handed the assignment back to Gloria, who in turn, slipped it back into the tube. "Now tell me, why unfortunate Karl?"
Five couldn't help but let the ever familiar wicked grin spread across his face as he replied, "Karl Weber is the butcher at the shop where Captain Ernst A. Lehmann acquires his weekly roast. So if Karl dies, his butcher shop is passed onto his son, Otto, who never washes his hands…which is disgusting…"
"So he's the one who gives the captain his roast…?" The Handler easily picked up his trail of thought.
"And that gives him food poisoning"
"Which makes him late for work—which delays the take-off!"
"And to make up for the lost time, the Hindenburg flies through a weather front of high electrical charge and humidity"
"And the static electricity inside the aircraft makes it a virtual tinderbox! Tiny engine sparks—"
"—And just like that, we have…ka-boom!"
No matter how much Five loathed returned to work for the Commission and all the dirty work he had done as a Field Agent, he couldn't lie. Five did enjoy these occasional volleys of intellect between himself and the Handler, on those few times that he actually indulged himself in her wiley ways. Sometimes it could be quite fun to play with the deadly little spider.