The Agency (1081 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.89 on 31 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (View user info) at 2006-06-13 10:44:11 EDT
The three men were chatting loudly as they walked towards the end of the dimly lit street, rain spat gently down on them and they hugged their coats tighter to their bodies to try and stave off the cold. Window shops lining the street were closed up and dark, having serviced their last costumer of the day hours ago. This was nighttime, and only one building had any activity.
As the three men made their way towards the end of the street to that one building, they heard a voice. A voice coming from a dark alleyway that called out to one of them, beckoning one to come and speak with the stranger. The two friends asked the singled out man if they should stay, but he waved his hand dismissively at them and they split off, making their way to the active building and going inside.
The man, a dark haired 30 year old walked cautiously into the alleyway. In the shadows stood another person. A clean cut man who wore a dazzlingly bright white trench coat, a shocking sight in the city where so many were dying of poverty and the state was having to hand out welfare to more and more people. The entire country was following the suit of their capital city, and slowly falling into decay.
The clean cut man had a professional expression on his face, cool yet not cold. Calm yet not distant. The face of a man doing a job that he has done for a long time.
"I'm glad you came to talk to me." The clean man said in a voice that was smooth and reassuring. The 30 year old scoffed.
"Who are you?"
"Well..." The clean man said, "I really can't tell you my name. But for the sake of this conversation, you can call me X."
"X?"
"Yes. X will do nicely." X said with a sliver of a grin on his face. X pushed his hands into his coat pockets and stood staring at the other man for a moment.
"So what do you want?" The man asked X. The hint of a grin that X wore disappeared as the professional look took over his face again.
"I'm here to do a job." X said seriously. The man looked alarmed at this and took a step backwards.
"Don't worry about yourself. I don't kill people in my profession. You could say I work in security." X explained reassuringly.
"Security? Don't you sometimes have to hurt people in security?"
"No. You have never known about my security, and you never will beyond me. I will be the only person in my field you ever talk to." X spoke with a ring of truth. The man furrowed his brow in thought as he tried to imagine who X worked for. The government? Some secret corporation? An enemy state?
"I'm here because I do a job and I like to do it well. I am here to make sure things happen or do not happen. I, as well as others in my industry, write history." X continued, adding to the confusion the man was having.
"Write history?"
"Yes. While man whittles his existence out on Earth, my colleagues and I make sure he doesn't do something stupid like destroy himself, or make sure that as a collective, humanity removes the dangerous people from society." X explained in his manner, a calm and smooth voice meant to allay the anger of even the mightiest man. He was slightly disappointed in the appearance of his target, but kept that to himself.
"How do you know what to do?"
"Being from the future helps." X said plainly, which drew a laugh out of the man.
"The future? I knew you were crazy! Alright Mr. Future X person, have fun with that."
The man turned around to leave but heard X speak from behind him. Something in X's voice stopped him cold in his place.
"Caesar was a tall man. His eyes were blue and his hair, even though he was 46 at the time was still that rich, Roman dark brown. I met him as he crossed the Rhine and told him what was going to happen and what he needed to do. I pushed little thoughts into his mind that made him realize his true dream, which was to show humanity that everyone in power needs to be watched under a suspicious eye. That was a lesson that Caesar stood for." X said matter-of-factly, causing the man to turn around instead of doing what he knew he should do. To escape the crazy man and go join up with his friends.
But something about the way X said it unnerved something in him. Something about the way X was so clean, so calm and cool. He was a man who radiated knowledge and power.
"You're...from the future? Where in the future? What time?"
"Does it really matter? If I tell you that it will limit your perception of me and make me into something which I am trying not to portray. I do not want to appear as a man to you, I want to appear as an angel. A demonic messenger or a holy spirit here to guide you, that is for you to decide. Suffice to say, I am from farther in the future than you will ever see. I am from a future that is bright and rich and only paid for in the blood of the past. Mankind is dirty, and we are employed to clean it up so that some day my present exists." X told him, and it was true. Amongst the filth of the alley, among the darkness of the city, among the destitution of the poor, this single man stood strong and clean and pure. An angelic figure in a sea of sin and shit.
"So...why are you talking to me?" The man asked in a quietly hushed tone.
"I have come back to give you something and tell you another. I have used power levels you could never imagine and physics that are only beginning to be grasped just to speak with you. Doesn't that mean that what I have to say is important? Does that mean you will listen to what I have to say?" X asked, sliding his hands out of his pocket, revealing that he grabbed an envelope from his right pocket and now held it in his hands. The man starred at the envelope, immensely curious.
"I suppose so."
"Good. Then here it is." X handed the envelope to the man and nodded. "I come from a future where you did not do something. Where a vital difference in your life made all the perfection our society has achieved be possible."
The man looked at the envelope, but knew not to open it. He could open it at his leisure, X was only here it seemed, for a fleeting time.
"How did you know I would do this...thing... if you come from a future where it never happened?"
X grinned at the question. So he is a smart one. Good.
"You know few people think to ask that when I speak to them. A thousand times in a hundred languages I have done this and very few think to ask. How do I know? Well you will have to assume that I do, I can't reveal anything concrete that does not exist in this time period. Suffice to say, by the time I am born humanity figured out a way to see the other alternatives. The other chances of what may happen. A million universes spanning an infinite amount of space and time where a billion little differences make them all unique. And we know what you can do, from seeing the history of other universes, we know. So that is why I have this to say to you." X spoke calmly and clearly. He had to be careful not to reveal any truths or secrets that might throw humanity forward into technologies it wasn't ready for.
"Are you ready to hear what I have to say?" X asked, clear and precise.
"Yes."
"Alright. Inside that building, where your friends are, is something dangerous. It is your choice to go in. But I am forewarning you. You will change so radically you may never have dreamed it in your wildest fantasies." X told the man who was breathing heavily. The man starred at X shocked for a moment until X grinned a wide smile revealing a perfect set of perfectly white teeth.
"You are surprised I give you a choice? Why I don't just dictate your actions completely? It's because to choose is to be human. And you are human. I hope you make the right choice." X said, and then winked.
"You can now open the envelope."
And when those words escaped X's lips, he vanished. The moment he vanished the man felt something within him jerk around and come back, but the feeling was so quick he hardly believed he felt it. The jerk only existed for a period of time that man cannot measure as it is too nominal.
The man took the envelope and walked in a daze out to the main street and stood outside the active building with a banner hanging over the doorway. He looked at the envelope in his hands and then ripped it open extracting the contents.
Inside was a picture, a grainy black and white picture of thousands of soldiers marching in a military parade by the cameraman. They wore clean cut uniforms and wielded submachine guns. Each soldier was a replica of the previous, all the same height and appearance. Perfection in the uniform way they were one unit.
Perfection.
The man looked at the picture for a second before looking up at the banner of the building he stood before. The German Workers Party had been painted on a white sheet in big red letters as Adolf pondered what he would do.
Then he reached over to the doorknob and went inside.
User Reviews
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-07-27 00:42:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/90973
Fantasy Football, wooo!!!!!
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-07-27 00:35:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bubba camwhore http://www.ubersite.com/m/90963
Submitted by CrazyHorse (user info) at 2006-06-15 00:06:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by CrazyHorse (user info) at 2006-06-14 22:32:34 (#)
Ranking: 2
Fan-Fucking-Tastic
Did you get your inspiration from Command and Conquer: Red Alert?
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No why? And I'm quite a gamer but I never got into the C&C series (bad me) so do explain.
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There is a part where Einstein goes back in time and assassinates Hitler when he was a young man. The two scenarios are pretty different, but I could see where someone could use it as a launchpad.
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-14 22:46:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by CrazyHorse (user info) at 2006-06-14 22:32:34 (#)
Ranking: 2
Fan-Fucking-Tastic
Did you get your inspiration from Command and Conquer: Red Alert?
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No why? And I'm quite a gamer but I never got into the C&C series (bad me) so do explain.
Submitted by CrazyHorse (user info) at 2006-06-14 22:32:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fan-Fucking-Tastic
Did you get your inspiration from Command and Conquer: Red Alert?
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-14 00:02:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-06-13 23:56:14 (#)
Ranking: 2
so you're making time for uber again, eh?
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Wait till you see what I post tomorrow ghola. I am REALLY proud of that one.
Honestly, my life has taken a sudden turn to shit and I need something to preoccupy my mind. Ubersite is a nice outlet that I now have the time and energy for.
Hope you liked the story.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-06-13 23:56:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
so you're making time for uber again, eh?
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-06-13 20:20:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yeah, that's it. The old paradox of time gag. Yeah.
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-13 19:55:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Crystle I agree, and as I mentioned before this was difficult to write. It's a conversation between two people, and I couldn't write any descriptors about one of them, so it made it hard in parts. I tried to distract you from the awkwardness of not knowing anything about "the man" by putting more detail into X, but in doing that I couldn't make the whole thing be about him to the exclusion of the other.
It was an awkward piece I admit. Maybe if I had a lot of time to go back and edit it over the course of a month or so I could update it to a more readable level.
And it's nice to be back.
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-06-13 19:05:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
REALLY good.
A tiny bit of polishing.. changing a few minor words here and there to help flow, and this would be the start or a brilliant work.
VERY well done.
and welcome back.. I missed you!
Submitted by awesome_face (user info) at 2006-06-13 18:12:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Holy shit...that was like...wow...that was cool as hell...
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-13 18:01:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-13 13:14:27 (#)
Ranking: 1
Meh. Not a bad story, but you are a little off on some of the logic.
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dude, you'll be LUCKY if you can EVER right as good as HV. stupid n00b.
Submitted by Foolproof (user info) at 2006-06-13 15:24:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Welcome back.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-06-13 14:19:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-13 14:04:36 (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-13 13:14:27 (#)
Ranking: 1
Meh. Not a bad story, but you are a little off on some of the logic.
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How am I off on the logic? Considering I created the logic of the situation there is no way I can be off of it. It might differ from your logic, but it isn't your story.
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Having deeply pondered the above statement for the past few minutes, I've reached no sloution to its question except a slight headache.
If you were to create a world and the logic that is in it, could that logic be faulty? If your logic was 1 + 2 = cow in a world you made, knowing that is insane in the world you live in can you say the logic is pure? Why did I get stuck on that statemnet? Can logic be two opposite things for two different people?
See HV look what your fucking nazi post did to me, god damn Aryan -2DIE.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-06-13 14:16:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ah, but what would the world be without the legend of the Orgasmatron?
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-13 14:04:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-13 13:14:27 (#)
Ranking: 1
Meh. Not a bad story, but you are a little off on some of the logic.
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How am I off on the logic? Considering I created the logic of the situation there is no way I can be off of it. It might differ from your logic, but it isn't your story.
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2006-06-13 13:34:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Now if only you could write in verse, then we would have no need for orgasmatron, and his dirty linkwhoring ways.
Submitted by Webered (user info) at 2006-06-13 13:14:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Meh. Not a bad story, but you are a little off on some of the logic.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2006-06-13 13:03:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was cool.
Submitted by ubetidid (user info) at 2006-06-13 12:47:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2006-06-13 12:40:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What a great short story.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:50:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read some book not too long ago that had a similiar plot, I think it was Columbus: Watchmen, some shit.
Anyway the premise was that they found a way to send something back in time and through other clues learned that people had done this before in the past to stop a great tragedy. The difference for them was that it wouldn't affect an alternate reality, it would wipe out theirs.
Anyway neat little time travel story.
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:49:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
It was awkward to write. I had to include a minor description of Hitler and then almost never mention him until the end. That warped my way of writing because as you can see from my description of X I very much like to talk about what people are doing. I don't believe that people stand there motionless speaking, they are constantly doing stuff and it was giving me a headache not to put any descriptors around X's counterpart other than "the man". I couldn't use a name, I couldn't use anything really. It fucked with the flow sometimes.
And yes rain can spit gently. Whenever it's just a light drizzle I call it spitting. It's just imagery, imagine that you pissed off the sky (as you normally do) and it's spitting on your in anger. That might help.
Submitted by Spacegrass (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:43:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
A couple of minor things here and there (can rain really spit gently?), a couple of awkward sentences, but overall excellent. I got a little bit of a chill when I realized where you were going with this.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:39:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thats how good it was.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:39:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh, fuck yes.
Fantastic.
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:39:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:39:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent. Not nearly as much credibility as this deserved.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:35:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Goddamn I'm glad you're back.
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:28:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
*frown* Yeah but people don't like reading serious stuff. Oh well I had fun writing it.
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2006-06-13 11:01:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I rather enjoy your comedic posts, but this was complete brilliance.