The world stopped ending in a flash. Changing to a peaceful, quiet little town. Nothing was wrong here. Like the last few hours were nothing but a dream.
"Miss Cielo Cavallone, welcome to the Temps Commission."
The Temps Commission was a lot... simpler than Cielo imagined. She expected flying cars, automated everything, more talking animals in robot suits, etc. Instead the Commission was mainly human run and not too outlandish from what she was used to. Even the clothing was more on the vintage side of things. For the most part, she was slightly disappointed that there wasn't more to the place.
"So where exactly are we? Like I know we're at your organization but like where? Or when? Is that the better question?"
"Technically speaking we are in the year 1955. Of which timeline and where? That's constantly changing. To sum it up easily, this place moves consistently and exists outside of time." AJ started walking towards the largest building.
"I see. That would explain why it's so peaceful here." Though she almost took back her statement seeing someone in a military uniform with a rifle on their back pass by them.
This was a place filled with killers that were trained for their personal use. Cielo was at the bottom of the hierarchy here. In knowledge and strength and honestly, she had nothing to make her stand out from those that came here. She needed to stand tall like Five always did if she wanted to survive here.
She took in everything that she could about the place. The people seemed peaceful enough. Hard to tell when each person would immediately push themselves to the side of the hallway at the sight of AJ. The small casted glances at her were more questioning her presence than threatening. He must not take a lot of newbies from the looks of it.
This was equally as extravagant as the Umbrella Academy. By far anything that Cielo was used to that was for sure. The many portraits hanging off the walls of notable figures and famous paintings was one thing. It was in the fact that every single thing they had was no doubt authentic. One wrong step and she breaks thousands of year old vase that contain some sort of ancient disease. In her head that's a very possible event.
In a lot of ways, she could see this place maintaining a cult-like mindset. The dedication to this place was already shown through most of the members that she met. The ones that didn't being Hazel and Five that showed the negative side of blind devotion.
To make it even creepier, the announcement system kept repeating different phrases about how they should act in order to protect the timeline. She heard at least two of them in the span of 5 minutes in the building. She'll have to buy some earbuds if she was going to work here.
"This will be your office. Please make yourself at home." Her office was already packed with everything she needed. A desk with a bunch of supplies, floor to ceiling bookshelves, and surprisingly a couch stationed in front of a lit fireplace.
"I get an office? You're actually serious about making me your assistant? I thought you were just saying that to bring me here."
"I'm very serious. Though I will come clean to admit that this was the Handler's old place. Do not take offense to it. It was just what we could provide at the moment." He snuck the name plate off the desk, behind his back when he thought she wasn't paying attention.
"What happened to Handlebar then? Demotion?" She wandered around the room, mainly looking over the collection of books. Placing her briefcase down on the floor as she was starting to get annoyed carrying the bulky item.
It was pretty light for the most part but it was hard to carry properly. It kept banging against the side of her leg or when she tried to carry it in her arms it was more of a hassle with the size alone. If these things were so important she would think they would make it have a more practical design.
"Killed, actually." Her hand flinched away from the book spines. The Handler was alive only an hour ago. Though that went for the rest of the world. She didn't even know if the Umbrella Academy had properly found a way to escape. Though knowing Five, there was no way he was going to go down that easily.
"You say killed. I assumed that means that it was at someone's hand. Yours? Or should I say, your workers?"
"You really have a keen attention to detail." He neither confirmed nor denied that his hand played a part in whoever took the life. "The bottom line is that she is not going to be an issue."
"Is it really that easy to replace someone here?" Finally, she joined him to sit by her new desk. Though him sitting behind it made her feel like she was at a job interview.
"Do not muddle the lines Miss Cavallone. The Handler was a very valuable asset. Though she had some questionable actions, losing her means more work for us to relocate all those beneath her to another. Mindsets to be an executive like her are hard to come by. That is not you."
"So I'm not going to be an executive? I'm not going to have to kill people right?"
"I suppose your role is going to be a bit harder to explain to someone with no knowledge of how this place runs. For some background information, the Commission is made up of 3 main parts. On field operatives like Number Five, analysts that inform us of our changes, and finally operators of the Infinite Switchboard that monitor any anomalies."
She nodded to the information. It was relatively simple that she could see why the system worked. Observe, relay, and act. As long as everyone did their role, there was less of a chance for the worst to come.
"What category would you put me in then?"
"We," he emphasized, "would be classified as all of the above. To make it simple you will have an opposite role of Number Five who was solely an operative. You will not be dirtying your own hands if that's a worry you currently have."
"And that's different from what Handlebars did?" The Handler always told him where to go and who to kill. The last thing Cielo wanted was to be what the Handler was to those she watched over. If she wasn't Five then she was the one controlling their lives.
"The Handler never made decisions on her own accord. She carried out our will. You will learn how to read the timelines, how to follow through with any decisions you make, and plenty more. The main goal is that I want you to learn what is required and not. Though for the time being I will restrict you from ever carrying out any operations yourself."
Demanding all the decisions without ever dirtying her own hands. But this time, she was the start of the action. Choosing everything and going down the line until it was done. No face shown for who gave the order. Now she was starting to feel like having the Handler around would ease some of the guilt she would eventually bear.
"But before we go into any specific details of your position, I need to ask, how is your knowledge on world history?"
"World history? Um, pretty good? I think."
"You think. Hmm. That won't do."
"You're not seriously going to make me take history lessons are you?" She whined.
"History is bound to repeat itself to those that fail to learn from it."
"History is bound to change if there's a group of time travelers messing with it."
"Exactly. That's why it is up to you to decipher what is necessary for the sake of the timeline. First, with learning what is the norm." Her attempts to question his ethics go over his head.
"What even is that norm? Why must the apocalypse happen? World wars? Why can't you just let the system flow as the majority of humanity thinks it does? The theory of parallel universes basically covers that what doesn't happen in this timeline, will be in another. Choices make infinitely more possibilities; you can't stop that."
"Choices make unpredictability."
"And that's a bad thing? When you have the ability to observe all like Santa Claus, you'd rather stick to an old formula because you can predict what they would do?"
"And you really think that our formula is flawed when it is the reason why humanity only lasted so long?"
"It was also your decision to end it all in 2019 and for what? I'll admit I understand having a few... eliminations could be helpful but I can hardly see why centuries of pain and suffering don't result in a decent ending. You have a choice. You, like the rest of humanity, can make a decision that ultimately saves all. But you don't? Why? Because time deems it so important?"
She could and couldn't see them getting along. In a lot of ways he reminded her of Lance. Questionable actions that went against her moral compass but they have reason. On the other hand she was scared that she would come out of her training as a different person. One that only cared about the timeline over the people she wanted to save in the first place. She needed to see why before what.
"Come with me. I think you will find it very humbling for us to visit the ISB room." She stumbled in suddenly having to follow after him. Stopping for a second to run back for her briefcase then to chase after him.
"Just to clarify, you're not bringing me to some sort of torture chamber right?"
"You really must get out of your head that we are some sort of evil organization that ruthlessly kills anyone."
"While I wouldn't say you or your organization is necessarily evil per say, can you repeat that second part of your statement? More importantly, can you properly deny it?"
"I will show you that it is not true once we are in our non-torture room."
It was hard to read AJ's emotions when he didn't speak. His robot body didn't have the same small flinches nor any facial expressions that a human would have. Cielo was used to being called creepy for knowing more to a person at first glance. She couldn't find a single clue about this fish besides the fact that he was extremely enthusiastic about his job.
If she had to guess, he was having a lot of fun in their conversation. He looked at her like she was a child curious about the world around them. Amusement in his words that was easy to contradict her statements. Though she wasn't certain because he was in a position where she did know nothing. The higher position in this entirely unfamiliar situation made her second guess everything she knew about everything.
AJ knocked on the door labeled as the Infinite Switchboard room. The one that opened the door was a short man that Cielo had never met before. "Oh? Mister Carmichael! To what do we owe the pleasure?"
"Miss Cavallone, meet the analyst Herb. Herb, I would like to introduce one of our new recruits Miss Cielo Cavallone. I would like to use the ISB room privately. Is it a bad time?"
"Ah yes, no I mean of c-course. Just a-a moment please. Only a moment." The man frantically ran inside. Though Cielo was worried about what was lies in this room, she was more glad that she met a decently normal person here.
It didn't even take a minute for everyone to file out of the room while still acknowledging AJ and her in a respectful manner. Herb being the last one to hold open the door for them to enter. The one to close it behind them as well, leaving the two alone again.
The small room was poorly lit with wide tv screens that fully covered the top of the walls. The rest of the space taken up by multiple wire ports and switches. Hardly a proper work space seeing how many people that were just in the room. She glanced down at one of the notebooks that someone left behind. The page neatly filled with a list of people, events, dates and a lot of lines connecting everything. The work made her think of Five and his bedroom walls.
"Go ahead. The ISB will answer any questions you have about us and our actions. What historical event do you want to see?" He gestured for her to sit down.
"There's a lot. But let's start easy. World war 1. Why didn't this place stop it? What does humanity have to gain from such a tragic event?"
"Ah a classic." She watched as he moved each wire into place as she slide into the seat. Lights slowly coming to life around them. Cielo jumped when the tv screen directly in front of her suddenly blasted static noise. Quickly turning to show off an impossible movie like scene.
Bodies littered the floor. The few that weren't in hazmat suits or protective wear shown to have died of unnatural causes. Those that were trying to protect themselves didn't move. But the more the screen showed, the worse it got. Until she saw the burnt markings on the old building walls. The shaping was what she knew from history textbooks. This was the timeline where WWII was the first.
"Timeline 15930. A timeline without your form of World War 1. However, that does not mean that the world is filled with peace. Humanity could only take so much before they erupted. Without your version of the first, humanity was not prepared for 1939 advanced technology and lack of military intelligence in multiple government bodies. No one stood a chance and those that won became their own worst enemy. Fighting becomes addicting when winning is the only thing you know."
No, no this wasn't what Cielo wanted to see. A timeline without the world war one was supposed to be- anything but this!
"W-world War 2! If 1 was inevitable then w-why repeat another one?!"
He changed the screens. Rather than feeling the panic like the first scenario, this one was eerie. The buildings were fine; filled with materialistic items. An empty echo of what should be but wasn't. It was all a ghost town. She never thought that nothing could look like so much. As she requested, there was no fighting in this timeline.
"Timeline 792432, one of our more difficult runs but no World War 2 as desired. We made humanity see that fighting was detrimental to their future and stopped the grand scale war that was the second World War. Humanity celebrated for years. Spending money frivolously, creating families they couldn't support and using up resources like no tomorrow. Without the war after that, recovery was not possible."
The roaring 20s and the Great Depression came as a pair. People became drunk off of happiness that they didn't care to plan ahead. Which would explain why everything was okay but no one survived. They drove everything to the ground themselves. A slow descent to an unlivable hell that no one thought was possible without gunfire.
Why do the world wars have to be necessary despite the indeterminable amount of pain? Because humans will create worse if they never know the hell's end. World peace wasn't impossible. It was just one that wouldn't have humans thrive the way most wanted.
"Then... then the twin towers... something smaller..." The lesson was working its way into her head. She thought the most of people. All these tragedies were not of super powered events. They were of humankind's decisions. Their ruthless and selfish behaviours.
She refused to look at the screens again. She didn't need to look at it to hear the violent screams of conflict. Multiple crowds chanting phrases she couldn't understand. Languages screaming at one another with full hatred. There was life but not the kind she wanted.
"Timeline 849761 the prevention of the twin towers falling on September 11, 2001. This doesn't cause an apocalypse but it's not that much better. Airlines remained lenient with their regulations that made illegal international trade that much easier to accomplish. Country connections became tense, people loved to point fingers, yet culprits were never found. Leading to well, this." Cielo shut her eyes, pulling all the wires out.
All the machines becoming silent with only the white static screens lighting the room. The proof was shown to her. There was always going to be conflict in history. Humanity strives forward off the shoulders of those that suffer. There was so much of it though and none of it could be avoided. Not without more sacrifice.
"Now do you understand what we do? Disasters create awareness. It forces adaptively and resiliency. With each incident, there is more to grow. Time is not full of hatred. Time is everlasting learning and growth."
"The apocalypse, 2019. Show me a timeline that doesn't have the 2019 apocalypse." She whispered. A last attempt to find some hope in despair.
"Such a timeline does not exist." She snapped her head in his direction.
"What do you mean it does not exist? How is that even possible?"
"Now that's the real question isn't it?"
"You can't just create timelines on will?"
"I told you before; we don't control time. Only monitor it and try to push in a way that prolongs it as much as possible. We cannot control humanity's desire that we are forced to take drastic measures at times. A new timeline requires the build up of small tweaks to blow up at the right moment. Such actions have not been discovered yet. What must happen, must happen. Time is confusing like that."
She briefly wondered what kind of horrors this fish has seen in his life. He pulled these events up so easily that it couldn't have been the first time he's done so. These and countless more times that humanity had subjected itself to the worse. There must have also been some frustration to know that the omnipotence power of the ISB couldn't produce an answer to the 2019 apocalypse. That he couldn't either.
"Then 2019... that has to be the end?"
"Not necessarily." He started to plug in a few different wires. "You and Number Five wouldn't be the first to try stopping the apocalypse. There have been a few selective incidents where we were able to postpone it for a few days from the April 1st you knew. None of those lasted. However, like I said, small tweaks create new."
The screens came back on. Each one of them showing a different scene. All of them being surveillance of Cielo. That time she called out to Klaus running from the police. Spending the morning with Five. Lance and her visiting Meritech. Saving Allison. Her with the Umbrella Academy at the Superstar lanes.
The final one she looked at was her giving an umbrella to Five. The day that started it all for her.
"You, Miss Cavallone, are not meant to be in any of these clips. I didn't bring you here solely because of your relationship with Number Five. I brought you here because you have an ability to change timelines. If you're so determined, then I wouldn't fully rule out that an apocalypse-free timeline exists. Time has kept humanity alive for as long as it can. Rather than thinking why end it, think why can't it continue?"
She leaned against the ISB with her hands holding her head. "You make good arguments Mister fish head."
It was exactly as she thought. She was never meant to meet the Umbrella Academy. Even the chair-fish of the Temps Commission couldn't reason why she made the decisions she did. Yet here she was. Alive and on a road to be some sort of higher power person. Cielo Cavallone, the supposed to be normal human, was more of an anomaly than anything else. And she hated that this nonsense wasn't over.
At least she was relatively safe here. Though AJ wasn't the most welcoming host. For good reason though. All of this information was overwhelming to take in at once and all of it was memorized in the tiny fish brain. Time management was more complicated than she thought. He needed to be strict in their rules or any of the scenarios she just watched would occur.
"I understand why you have hostilities against us but we are not enemies. If you allow me, I can teach you all that this universe has to offer. As much as there are tragedies, there are greater wins. Ones you can keep in history."
He was sweet talking to her. Ever since they met he told her that he could amount to more only with his help. The version of Cielo now was inadequate. Someone that didn't understand anything about the world. He had made it very clear he had no use for her specifically. He wanted to the exploit the anomaly version of her that snuck into this mess.
"Do you understand now? Shall we begin your lessons?"
"Wait, one more event. I want to see one more thing here. I'll cooperate after that I promise."
"Of course. What would that be?"
She took a deep breath in. Hugging the briefcase sitting on her lap tightly. "April 1st, 2002, show me the morning at the Umbrella Academy."
His hands paused over the dials and wires. "The day that Number Five first performed his temporal jump if I'm remembering correctly?"
"Yes. Please show me Five that morning. He should be in his front yard by himself." This was the moment of truth. What this machine shows her will determine whether this was all worth it.
The screen in front of her turned back on with an aerial shot of the Umbrella Academy. Turning a dial zoomed in on Five sitting by himself. He was invested in whatever he had written in his notebook. The young boy still had an innocent bounce to his actions as he held the notebook proudly in front of him. His supposedly perfected equation ready for his father to check. Soon interrupted by Grace calling him in for breakfast.
That's all it was. Just as the Handler told them, Five never met Cielo in 2002.
'You ruined my life.' The words that he spoke to her was not unpracticed. The way he looked at her when they first met wasn't fake. She didn't know how but Five wasn't lying about his experience. Until she figured out how she will always have questions about how she was involved with all.
Nodding to herself, Cielo forced herself to put on a straight face. There was a bigger force in play. Anything she says is useless to fight back. If she can't beat it, she'll join it.
"Where do we start?"
