29 March 1955
Out in the hallway, Five didn't leave just yet instead he pressed his ear up against the door as he tried to hear just what it was that Dot had deemed so important to tell the Handler. He knew that had other things to worry about, but he couldn't help but try to figure what had been so important that the bright woman had looked so warily at him (because in this case the Handler was right, when at the Commission, time was the one thing that they had an abundance of). It was like she had been caught off-guard to find him sitting there.
Unfortunately for Five, the Handler's door seemed to be too thick for that sort of thing—likely built that way for that very reason—and so Five was forced to wait in a small alcove off to the side as Dot retreated from the office, some time later, with her little red folder clutched tightly to her chest. Instead of returning to the Case Manager offices as he thought she would do, she instead briskly made her way to the Tube Room with a shiny pneumatic tube clutched just as tightly in her hands. Blinking in behind her, it was there that Number Five found himself listening in to a most intriguing conversation; one that would lead him to push his plan into motion.
"…Gloria!" Dot hissed, catching the elderly woman's attention.
"Hm?" Gloria hummed, peering up at the blue-garbed woman over the rim of her glasses.
"Gloria, the Handler knows that Five is up to something" She hurriedly muttered, handing the bespectacled woman the pneumatic pod in question. "Get this to Hazel and Cha-Cha immediately"
"Uh…" Gloria hummed as she held the pod at arm's length to try and read the minuscule inscription scrawled there.
"Immediately" Dot reiterated firmly, one hand on her shoulder to redirect her over towards the tubes.
"O-okay, yeah" Gloria stammered as she took the pod offered to her and shuffled over to the tubes.
"Immediately, Gloria!" Dot worried, shifting nervously as she clutched tighter to her little red folder "The Handler has deemed this one as urgent"
"Mmhm, uh, who're they…?" Gloria hummed absently, though she did move a little faster as she tried to find the correct tube for 2019. There were very few missives ever labelled as 'Urgent' and even less by the Handler, herself. Whatever was in that pod, Five knew that he had to find out.
Eventually Dot retreated from the Tube Room to return to her other files and as Gloria turned her back to Five, he struck. Blinking across to the desk as quietly as he could, he plucked up a stapler that idled next to the typewriter and reappeared back behind the bespectacled woman, only to knock her over the head with the stationary. Once she was unconscious, Five was free to steal the desired pneumatic pod from her wrinkled grip, drag her body off to the side and then he quickly moved back to the office at the end of the hall, unscrewing the lid as he went.
Unfurling the message in the pod, Five found something that puzzled him. The slip of parchment was no different that the others, the typeface was the same and even instructions were written in the usual tone. There, written in Times New Roman were the words:
LA COMMISSION DU TEMPS ET DE L'SPACE
OFFICE MEMORANDUM:
DATE: 0893457983 TA
TO: HAZEL & CHA-CHA
FROM: C893467A
REASSIGNMENT: PROTECT HAROLD JENKINS AND VANYA HARGREEVES
"Vanya…?" Five mouthed, brows furrowed in confusion. No one had seen hide nor hair of his sister since Tuesday after one of their famed family meetings. Normally this wouldn't raise a brow—especially considering the drama that seemed to revolve around their family—but unlike the others (save for Allison) she had a son now, one who relied on her for most things and Five knew from personal experience, that it was rather unlike Vanya to leave behind something—or someone—that she loved so dearly. No, Five suspected that there was some sort of foul play involved because Vanya had stopped taking her pills—she'd said as much—which struck that out of the conversation. The other name—Harold Jenkins—wasn't familiar to Five, however, and he wasn't sure what this guy's connection was to his sister. Maybe Diego would know; he always was a nosy one.
Hurried footsteps pulled Five from his stupor and he quickly shoved the golden missive into his pocket and—thinking quickly— he pulled out two new slips of parchment; one for Hazel and one for Cha-Cha, before he set to work. He had to be quick, if the Handler was already onto him then he didn't have much time left before the shit hit the fan. The first missive he addressed to Hazel, ordering him (under the guise of the Commission) to kill Cha-Cha for immediate extraction; whilst the second missive was addressed to Cha-Cha and she was commanded to kill Hazel for immediate extraction. He knew that the two wouldn't argue against the missive because what the Commission wants, the Commission gets. But Five hoped that if those two killed each other, then those two loose ends would tie themselves up nicely and he would be able to focus on stopping the apocalypse as he had previously promised to do so.
"…You know that's not how we do things here, Five" The Handler scolded as she strode into the Tube Room with the sort of air that demanded either respect or fear. Five had to smother the flinch that threatened to make itself known when she caught him shoving the two pneumatic tubes into their chosen tubes and he felt the stolen missive burn a hole in his pocket. He hoped that she wouldn't try to search him, although knowing her, she'd just kill him. "Where's Gloria?"
"Don't know. Couldn't find her anywhere" Five shrugged as he faked concern by leaning up against the control panel next to him. The Handler quirked an inquisitive brow, clearly not believing the boy's words. Especially as a low painful groan echoed out from the bespectacled woman on the floor as she began to stir. Damn woman couldn't stay quiet for half a damn second!
"You're a great disappointment to me, Number Five" The Handler scowled as she drew herself up, taking note of her collapsed colleague on the floor. She stepped forward towards the small enclosed space, making Five match her step-for-step as he determinedly moved out into the center of the hallway. "You can't change what is to come! I truly find it so odd that you can't shed this fantasy! You're a first-rate pragmatist, you belong here with us!"
"I don't belong anywhere, thanks to you!" Five retorted, his eyes blazing with vengeful fire. "You made me a killer"
"You were always a killer" The Handler sneered, amending his statement as she seductively leant down to unzip the long slit of her dress. Running from her hip to her ankle, the dress parted to reveal a section of leg that held several holsters; one in particular holding her beloved Walther pistol. "I just pointed you in a direction"
She plucked her prized pistol from the garter at her thigh and pointed the firearm at Five, her finger hovering over the trigger for only a moment. Between this blink and the next, gunfire lit up the Tube Room as the Handler fired on Five with reckless abandon. Blinking out of the way, Five ducked & dodged out of the crossfire and did his best to distract the Handler long enough that he could figure a way out—out of the Tube Room and out of the Commission. In the meantime, the sound of the alarm blared throughout the halls and alerted security to the breach. Five knew that his time was running short, particularly as he watched Gloria scramble to her feet behind the Handler and crawl out of the office with the help of Dot (who had returned to update both the Handler and Gloria on the situation).
"…Security breach in the Tube Room…Security breach in the Tube Room…" The feminine voice on the intercom blared.
"What's the rush, Five? We're just getting started." The Handler called as she searched for any glimpse of the schoolboy assassin. When she did, she fired on him with deadly precision.
Shit! Five was sure that if he couldn't teleport, he would've already fallen prey to one of her wayward bullets. Ducking out of the Tube Room if only for a moment, Five Blinked off to the Handler's office where he pilfered a couple of grenades from her trophy stash, before he reappeared behind one of the control panels further down the hallway.
"Is this really how you want the last line of your report to read?" The Handler sneered as she strode with purpose towards his hiding spot
"When I'm done, I'm just done, I guess" Five shrugged in reply, stepping out into plain view with a forced grin on his lips. There was sweat already beading on his brow by this point and it was clear to anyone who knew him that he had almost reached his limit of jumps.
"You can't keep this up, Five! We both know that even you have a limit!" She crowed as her pistol retrained itself on the schoolboy, but did not fire again. "I saved you from a lifetime of being alone! You owe me!"
"…Please evacuate. Do not panic. Remain calm…Please evacuate. Do not panic. Remain calm…" The intercom instructed calmly; a strange juxtaposition to the chaos in the Tube Room.
CLICK…CLICK…CLICK
"I do owe a debt" Five nodded in agreement, grinning giddily as the Handler's pistol decreed itself empty. Blinking from his place in the hallway to the entrance, Five—armed with the stolen grenade in hand—pulled the pin and tossed it back in to the pneumatic tube-lined hallway. "But it's not to you"
"Oh shit…!" The Handler cursed as her eyes alighted on the weapon taken from her boudoir.
All eyes followed the armed detonation device as it rolled across the floor of the Tube Room, before coming to a stop at the Handler's feet. For a moment, as Five took refuge outside, he worried that the old grenade wouldn't detonate and then he would have an angry blonde gunning for his throat once more. But he needn't have worried because as soon as his back pressed up against the brick wall, the explosion ripped through the Tube Room and intense heatwave that followed, swallowed up all adjoining rooms. But Five wouldn't put it past the Handler to find some sort of back door to slip out of and escape the fire.
Blinking straight into the Briefcase Room, Five quickly snatched up the closest briefcase and programmed the dials to the day he left and set the co-ordinates to the Umbrella Academy. Plucking the second grenade from his pocket, Five grabbed the pin between his teeth and chucked it onto the shelf behind him as he ran pell-mell out of the way in the hopes to get as far from the room before the grenade detonated.
"Hey! What are you doing—? AHHHHHH!" The operator of the Briefcase Room called after Five. He barely even got the rest of the question out before the flame has enveloped him. Five would have been next had he not thrust up the time travelling briefcase between himself & the blast, just as the windows blew outwards, and flicked the switch. Instead of the heat of bulging flames swallowing him up, it was the familiar blue of time travel that swaddled Five. Hurtling through time and space, the schoolboy assassin soon found himself at the mercy of quantum vortex until he was spat out once more on the other side. He could have, however, done without the singed hair tips and soot-covered cheeks.
WHOOSH!