Tales of the Wheel

A Change of Pace: Part Two- What do Listeners listen too?

Summer, Earth Year 5739- Hub of the Wheel, Central Coma Cluster

Irma and Danny stepped off the elevator onto the observation desk of Listening. The outer rotating ring was in a position where they could see the gleaming skyscrapers of the domed City of Twilight spread over about one quarter of the ring. Irma recalled the awe it invoked the first time she saw it; Twilight was still a magnificent site to this day. Beyond just the physical structures, The Wheel itself could always be said to consist of three different elements combined.

The First was the Concept of the Wheel. The whole of the cosmos would always keep turning regardless, indifferent to anything but the perpetual motion itself. The Old Machines, biological life, no difference to the cosmos. Cycles kept turning, indifferent to concepts like morality or civilization. If such concepts were to have any meaning, we needed to incorporate them into the cosmic cycle. We needed a Wheel that aligned with the turning but fought back in a small way against the cosmic indifference. An indifference that most of life did not feel, but at the same time where all born into.

The Founders called it the “Paradox of Higher Biological Awareness”. Beings that feel, think and do care are born of a Universe that does not. Other philosophies and religions throughout human existence attempt to answer this question as well, often very poorly. Those that most closely algin with the Concept of the Wheel accept that the cycle cannot be altered, only endured and possibly (the goal of the Wheel’s founders) influenced to make some tiny adjustments. To have the cycle adopt a bit less indifference itself as each turn of the cosmic wheel occurs.    

The Second were The Hands on the Wheel. The Council of 5, The Directors, temporal agents & their support, the citizens of Twilight, the bureaucracy that brings both tedium but also order to chaos and indifference. Simply put the Hands are the leaders, enforcers, protectors, bureaucrats, teachers, trainers, diplomats, scientists, engineers and all the ordinary civilians of humanity whose hands steer the Concept to its goals.

The Third was the Body of the Wheel. A vast mega structure that was both now infinitely old by most human standards yet literally ageless by design as well. The large outer ring rotated around the inner ring and was attached to it by four ‘spokes’. The inner ring itself orbited The Hub and was attached by three spokes.

The City of Twilight housed a population of above 80 million souls on a regular basis. A massive, layered city of multiple levels that housed beings from at least hundreds of different points throughout time, it was astonishing both for being a unique wonder and for somehow managing to be a functioning society while existing ‘outside’ of time for the most part. More precisely, The Wheel did still exist within liner time and time could still reach The Wheel; it just had little impact on it. Proof of this sat with the section adjacent to Twilight. Drop Point was large conventional space port. Civilizations, human and some otherwise that eventually discover the Wheel are often engaged diplomatically. Trade deals are struck, ambassadors are sometimes exchanged and even occasional immigration can occur. Of course, the Wheel’s ability to have already gaged where any relationship ends up even as they “meet” a faction or civilization for the first time gives it a distinct advantage in any dealing with a linear society. The rest of the outer ring, and the majority of the Wheel’s structure overall consists of various power plants and factories, mostly automated and dedicated entirely to refining fuel sources and generating a good portion of the vast amount of energy needed to run the Wheel’s operations.

  The inner ring housed some of the most advanced laboratories in existence and was the center of all ongoing research and development projects given priority by the Council. The domain of the 3^rd Director, most of the activity that occurred here was highly classified, with even most temporal agents having limited access at best.

The Hub itself was shaped like a perfect sphere, but cut in half, with each half connected by several elevators. The lower half consisted of agent retrieval and the offices of the ACA. They are the personal tasked with Agent support, from the logistical side of most field operations to providing cover support for the Wheel “normie” agents who lived in their own times when not working. The upper half consisted of the Wheel’s two key monitoring departments, Listening and Observation. The large official Briefing Center was also housed here along with the dozens of attached breakout rooms that where usually used by agents. The Center itself was more for assembly style meetings with many agents and support staff together.

Smack dab in the middle of the sphere halves floated a thin, windowless circular disk, anchored to each sphere half by four thin struts. This area was known as the “Executive Offices” and housed the Directors, their immediate support staff and the Council of Five. Exec was only accessible via two highly encrypted teleportation booths located just beside the Briefing Center. It was said that even Mr. Eye, who seemingly had full reign of both the Hub and Research & Development, had no direct link to Exec.

The gal at the guard station located at the entrance to Listening recognized Danny with a smile. He introduced her as Sheila, and they started in on office co-worker chatter while she ran a quick security check on Lewis. Danny mentioned during his quick intro that unlike “normies” like them, Sheila was born, raised and lived in Twilight. Irma noticed a little side eye from her as the check was being run. Sometimes Twilighters could hold some pretty snobbish views on “normies”, especially someone from a time frame that predated the start of the colonization of the solar system. She recalled a few years back, during one of the few times she visited Drop Point, when she heard a local panhandler she had just given a few credit chits to mutter “Barbarian” under his breath when she revealed herself to be from the 1950’s as part of the standard customs procedures.

In this case though, Irma got the distinct impression little Miss Shelia here was trying to gage her relationship with Danny {See me, not an old maid yet! You’re still seen as competition}. “You are cleared Agent Lewis,” Shelia atoned. “Thank you, darlin’.” Irma responded with the most sickeningly sweat smile she could project.  The subtext of the entire brief interaction all went over poor Danny’s head, but Shelia understood. “Mind your own business honey, but If you do want to start something, then bring it on!”  

Listening itself consisted of four large monitoring stations that at full alert capacity needed to be manned by 2 individuals each. As Irma and Danny entered there were currently three individuals actively monitoring what likely mostly routine background noises. Irma noted one other gent in the room bent over in conversation with a lite skinned male stationed at the top right monitoring station. The figure himself was a tall dark-haired man of clearly Japanese descent, perhaps in his mid to late-30’s, wearing a white tank top that exposed several interesting tattoos along his left arm. Even more noticeable was the fact his right arm was not flesh, but a large rust colored robotic appendage. “Cyborg” Irma thought.

“Steveo!” Danny addressed the fellow siting in at the monitor closest to the entrance, “A gift from Ling, looking for cross reference.” He handed Steve the pad. He then introduced Irma. “Ah, Agent Lewis!” Steve nodded with more than a strong hint of recognition {My reputation precedes me, I guess? I suppose these office jockeys have a lot of time to gossip about the field agents}. “Hey, Mr. Adachi over there is the secondary being swapped out for you. Some big crazy Op I guess, eh.”

“Something like that, I’m sure.” Irma smiled. She gave Danny a quick ‘hold on just a sec’ look he acknowledged and she wandered down to the front to meet the man she was going to be replacing. {Wish I had a cig... no I don’t! Shut up me!}. “…no doubt Hiroshito, those communiques you intercepted on mission are from actual Escarians, not the Withered’s bio-organic Neo- Escarians. Given the level of their time travel tech, I’d guess mid-31^st century, back when the living Escarians’ resistance forces still had a few options and some hope.”

“Yeah, they’ll run out of both of those pretty quickly I’m afraid Mitch.” Hiroshito stated casually as he pulled a Johny Scar from the pack in his pocket and lit it, offering one to Mitch as well. Then seeing Irma, they both turn around. “Agent Adachi,” Irma extended her hand, which Hiroshito grasped firmly and shook, “Agent Irma Lewis. Great to meet you. I hope I’m not stepping on any toes here. A sub out can be frustrating for sure.”

“Forget it.” Said Hiroshito, “We both know this job involves chasing a lot threads. I’m a variant and the last thread I pulled leads us to a period within the ‘prime’ me’s lifetime. It’s not worth the risk, so now the “B” part of the mission becomes yours.” Irma, while trying not to notice the smokes, did notice the slight but unquestionably venomous tone placed on the word prime. “Tuthfully,” Irma thought “I can’t imagine what a variant must feel. To know you where the time lost copy while the actual you got to live their, and in some ways your life...who wouldn’t be bitter?”

“I heard you two mention an encounter with the actual Escarian resistance. I’ve only encountered a couple time cells that were stragglers after their big L. I always felt sorry as hell for the Escarians’ eventual fate, but those guys from the surviving cells where Fruit Loops. We had to put them down.” Hiroshito nodded knowingly, “I’ve battled a few of the survivor cells myself. They asked for no quarter and certainly gave none. I’ll fill you in on the details at the briefing, but the small squad I encountered from when the resistance still had strength was far more dangerous. Think of soldiers or mercs with limited gear but excellent training and motivation vs. the raving lunatics or,” He added with a dry chuckle, “the ‘fruit loops’ the survivors became.”

“Ahh, there both of you are.” A monitor dropped from the ceiling seemingly out of nowhere and the familiar voice {why does an ancient alien robot sound British anyway?} echoed from it as the familiar large red circle materialized onscreen. “Lead Agent Coldfire and I are just in the process of finishing a quick con fab with Director Saunders and we’ve decided to move the briefing up. Be ready in Breakout room F within the next 20 minutes.” The screen then quickly swiveled around to face Steve and Danny, “Greetings Daniel! Things have been so hectic lately, I haven’t had a chance to drop by. We should schedule a catch up. Things are well with you? How is Mei?”

“Hey Mr. E!” Danny replied. As he and Mr. Eye engaged in a quick bout of friendly small talk {Oh Grammy, one of my bosses is a talking TV. What would you think of that? God, I miss you…}. Hiroshito interrupted the chat quickly. “I’m heading over, coming?” He looked at Irma. “Give me a minute and I’ll catch up.” She replied, wanting to say goodbye to Danny.

Hiroshito nodded and headed for the door, “I suppose I will ‘see’ you there too Eye.” He dropped with a sarcastic smirk. “Indeed Agent Adachi, and may I say that is nice to hear that someone can still be occasionally witty while they themselves only possess Half a Wit. You are truly a beacon of hope to the less mentally developed throughout time.” One never saw a smirk turn to a grimace quicker as Adachi stomped out of Listening. “What is the story between these two?” Irma thought. Also, she had never conceived of the Eye being able to understand a joke, let alone dish out a brutal counter burn of his own.

She gave a quick goodbye the three operators with a warm nod and smile {O’l Shelia gets nothing but my back when I leave. Miss stink eye needs to earn her right to politeness!} “Well sailor, I guess we both have to get back to work.” She addressed Danny. “It was great catching up, I wish we had more time…” That last part came spilling out before she could think about it. “Me too!” Danny blurted, “I mean, we always get stuck dealing with shop talk, but I’d love to just hang out sometime… Um, I mean, Umm… would you like to catch a movie sometime?”

“A movie… a movie?” {why are you stuttering me??}, “That sounds great, but… I don’t know how that works. It’s 2010 your time, right?” Danny noted the current year of his life was actually 2017. “We can’t cross into each other’s time without getting in trouble, so how…” Mr. Eye’s screen, which Irma hadn’t even noticed had vanished after it’s little verbal barb session with Adachi suddenly dropped again just beside them. “There is no problem here! Let me suggest you arrange to meet up in Twilight. Your status as Wheel employees guarantees you automatic extended visitor visas and the city has a wide range of entertainment options, including films from nearly every era of Cinema. Daniel, I see the question forming on your face. Fret not about the paperwork. I can take care of it and push it through with extreme ease. I am happy to assist.”

“Is Mr. Eye playing ‘wing man’ to Danny?” Irma thought. There was clearly more to this disembodied alien program than she had ever considered. Had her initial impressions been too harsh? It’s not like the Hub and the Directors had ever been beacons of unimpeachable integrity during her years of service. Consciously she wanted to hear what Danny thought about Mr. Eye’s idea, but subconsciously she filed away a thought to find a way to get the Eye’s own perspective on certain things vs. relying on the Hub’s interpretation. {You’ve known for quite a while things weren’t as advertised. That’s really why you took the ground assignment, After the double tap. That plus grammy’s passing… stop it you! You are a temporal agent god dam it!} 

“…Yeah,” said Danny after a few seconds of thought. “I’ve done a couple long weekends in Twilight. It’s a great idea.” The red dot formed an almost heart shaped pattern before quickly switching to something more recognizable, “You two will love it. Once the mission is back underway, I’ll handle any of the tedious set up and report back to Daniel. Do not worry about any potential ‘office politics’ concerns on my part. Among many other things, I am the most sophisticated monitoring, calculation, advisory and tactical response tool that has been, currently is and will be. But the one thing I will never be is HR.”

Irma responded. “Sounds good then. Once I’m back…Uhm sounds good. Yes, I’d love to Danny.” They agreed to set something up and Irma left in such a haze of, “is this really just the same day I woke up to” before receiving the mission alert that she didn’t notice Mr. Eye vanishing back into the ceiling as though it did not want to intrude on her and Danny’s awkward but hopefully farewell. She got lost for a second as the wandering of her feet matched the wandering of her mind, but a helpful security officer pointed her in the right direction. Thinking about Danny, dates with Danny and the overall strange interaction with Mr. Eye, she barely noticed the officer’s initial hard ass questioning melt into an almost ‘she’s a celebrity’ like adoration when he ran her id.

Nodding appreciation to her guide for pointing out the correct hallway, she opened the door to break out room F and saw Hiroshito sitting in what appeared to be deep thought pose. Noting her arrival, he reached in his pocket for his pack of smokes. “We’ve got about five minutes or so. Cigarette?” He offered. Irma thought to herself as she mustered a quick smile and declined, more regretfully than Adachi would ever know. “Hell! When I got the message, I should have just called in sick.”