A van pulls up and someone throws a black bag over your head. That's what you get for walking the Eastside at night, alone. They knew where you lived, where you spent all your time. They cased your routine and finally caught you. It's the Freelancers, it has to be. Ghosts just like you. You don't have much time left.
You scream, but you're already inside the van and no one can hear you.
"Should I gag him?" a familiar voice asks. There's no reply; the driver probably nodded. The bag is lifted briefly enough for a cloth to be slotted between your teeth and tied behind your head. Everything goes dark again. You take deep breaths, assuring yourself it'll all have been worth it. Liber8 will make it to 2012. History will be changed.
The drive is long and you've lost track of how many blocks it's been. But you know you haven't left the city. Vancouver's a big place, and their headquarters will be in someplace nondescript. Some place part of the community no one would think to check. A hand tightly grips your arm and you're shoved out the van and through a door. You count each step like an escape is even possible. An elevator ride down and into a long hallway, the air feels damp, the smell musty. You're in the city's old underground tunnels.
You struggle to get out of the handcuffs cutting into your wrists, elbowing the Freelancer prompting you forward, and hear him grunt in pain. Then there's a needle in your neck and you lose consciousness.
You wake sometime later stripped of your clothes and dressed in loose white pants and an undershirt. Barefoot. You're laying on the floor and the first thing you see are steel bars and fluorescent lights. Looking around, you're trapped by tall, cloudy glass walls. The cell is about 6 feet by 6 feet, enough to lay down, to sit, to pace, but not much else. The floor is hard and there is no bed, not even a cot. You groan, sitting up. The new environment is jarring; you thought you'd be dead by now. You bang on the glass and shout. Nobody comes.
Hours later, you see a face beyond the glass. It's the Freelancer from 2077.
"Comfortable?" he asks. You respond with a rude gesture. He sneers.
"Why haven't you killed me?" you ask.
"It wasn't up to me to decide."
"Then who decides?"
"I can't divulge that information."
You bang on the glass. "You can't do this!"
"You're an anomaly, Mr. Sadler. A glitch. We can't allow you to walk the streets and change history."
"I didn't do anything! I kept to myself! I-"
"It's not a risk we can afford to take." The man turns to leave and you bang on the glass again.
"What you've done is inhumane. I need food and water and-"
"These things will be provided to you, in due time."
"'In due time?' After I die of thirst?"
"Just another hour, Sadler. Here, you'll learn to be patient."
The man leaves what appears to be a large room with high ceilings. You can see a row of cells similar to this one, as if they have been prepared in advance for some influx of "time anomalies."
One, two, three...
Ten cells. Enough for the members of Liber8 and two extra.
The Freelancer is true to his word, and a meal is brought to you along with a bucket for waste. Opening the cell wall would allow a large enough exit for escape, so the ceiling grate is opened and the items lowered down to you. You tear into your meal voraciously. The bucket is a relief as well. But there's no pillow forthcoming. No blanket. And the lights. The lights are always on. Why? You feel like you're in a zoo, like some tourists will walk in any second to watch you pace your cell like a caged animal.
Your second day, or maybe your third or fourth, it's difficult to tell in this place, you get to meet the rest of your tormentors. You won't get a much different answer to why you've been captured and caged like this - your father might do the same thing, were he in the same position - but you'll get to meet the person who will decide your fate.
An older man, a man Dr. Melville's age, sits behind a gold desk, hands folded. Instead of paper files, he's manipulating a holographic touch screen from your time. Otherwise, this feels familiar. He even looks like him. Same short, gray hair neatly parted on the left, same taut lips. Or maybe it's the confinement and the lights messing with your brain. Already? Your mind is stronger than that.
"Jason Sadler." He's reading the name off a chart, question in his voice, as if you aren't the famed Alec Sadler's only child. The man who discovered time travel and changed history forever.
He minimizes the window and looks up.
"You have no idea how important you are, do you?"
You shrug. You did, and you do, and you're definitely aware now.
"I'm just a guy," you say. "You've got the wrong guy."
You look around the room, and this meeting has drawn several other members into the room. A pale, brown-haired man and a young black woman hang back by the door, whispering to each other. They wear the same black suits, her in a pencil skirt.
"I'm not the Jason Sadler you think I am," you fervently insist, but the Freelancer from 2077 approaches and stands beside his boss. He can confirm you are, in fact, the Sadler heir. That you're responsible for the mess they've been forced to clean up.
"You will tell us all you know, Jason," says the man behind the desk. You shake your head. You can't, you won't. You're protecting eight dangerous criminals and a Protector whose very presence will make ripples in the timeline, but your father is depending on you. He put all his faith in you. You can't-
"Whether you want to or not."