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“Mobius, what the hell are you waiting for?”
“Hold on, hold your horses there, B-15. I’m getting something on the TemPad.”
Agent Mobius M. Mobius of the Time Variance Authority was having a good day. He’d gotten a drink, picked up a new magazine, and he hoped to sign off a Variant case in the next week, at most. There was a salad in the TVA cafeteria with his name on it. And there had been no casualties on this mission, though late 2020s Earth was not Mobius’s favorite location in the timeline.
Half his team was already back through the Timedoor. The reset charge dangled from B-15’s hand. But his TemPad was beeping lightly with an amalgam of strange readings and conclusions, variance energy compounding on itself. Mobius had never seen anything like it.
“What’s all this? Who is hiding ‘round here in plain sight?” he wondered, thrilled. Fun things happened so rarely out in the field.
“You really haven’t been out in the 21st century much, have you?” B-15 snorted. “We’re on Bleecker Street. There’s always off-energy like that here after 2023.”
Mobius looked down the road, straightening his tie as his eyes followed the passersby. It was a quaint little area. He’d always liked Greenwich Village—had known it would probably work out when he’d watched them building the place. One of the trees dropped a leaf on his head.
“Why?”
B-15 shrugged. “Not my department. Some person of interest ‘round here is a little more involved with the timeline than most humans.”
Mobius glanced down at the TemPad again. There was enough stored-up variance energy here for more individual Variants than he could count but it just… wasn’t going anywhere. What kind of human could be ‘involved with the timeline’ enough to do shit like that?
It sounded like something he should’ve heard about. But it was rather difficult to keep all of existence straight in one’s mind while existing outside of it.
Mobius inched along the street, raising the TemPad to scan the buildings. When he found the origin, he beckoned to B-15 and trotted across to investigate. The building didn’t seem all that pleased to see him.
Now that he was closer, though, the TemPad’s readings were settling. Mobius felt his eyes go a little wide. “How is this person not a Variant? Look at all this!”
“They’re… a magician of some kind,” B-15 said, sounding uncomfortable. “Professor… something. I can’t remember, we just call them the Fortune Teller down in the archives.”
“The Fortune Teller,” Mobius repeated thoughtfully.
“Oh, Timekeepers,” sighed B-15. “You’re getting an idea, aren’t you?”
“Look, I’m just curious, is all!” Mobius gave his brightest grin. “You’re saying they can see the future? That would certainly account for all this variance—if they’ve seen ultimate futures, they would have collected memories of timelines outside the Sacred Timeline, even if they do technically exist in it.”
B-15 looked bored. “Yeah, a bunch of variants contained within one body. Can we go, please, Agent?”
Mobius looked back at the building—which really was seeming to glower at him. “That seems dangerous. With all that energy, any nexus events that happen here would simply be absorbed into what the Fortune Teller has already accumulated. We just… leave them up here, unmonitored?”
“As long as they stay on the Sacred Timeline, it’s not our problem.”
Mobus gesticulated, excited now. “But all they can do is stay on the Sacred Timeline. They saw their futures, and so they’re already every possible Variant they can be. Which means no nexus! They can save a life, avert an apocalypse, and we’d never know, because they have a fourteen million timeline buffer.” Oh, so much for his salad. Mobius was spending the evening in the archives.
“Everything is blurred and stored here,” he said, pointing at the glowering building, “and for all we know, it could’ve already completely rewritten the Sacred Timeline.”
B-15 stared at him. “What the hell are you on about, Mobius?”
Mobius’s excitement dimmed. “Nothin’,” he sighed. “It just seems dangerous, is all.”
“Everything’s dangerous on this job. Now, are we getting back to the TVA?”
“How close are we to redline?”
B-15 checked the charge. “We have plenty of time. But I don’t think—”
“I’m going to go talk to them,” Mobius announced. “If we get in trouble you can tell Renslayer it was me.”
Mobius liked B-15 because when it came right down to a direct order, she didn’t argue. Missions were much more interesting with her. Somewhere deep down, she must also be curious about things within the timeline, for she let Mobius dither on occasion. When it was necessary to the mission of course. Mobius only dithered when it was necessary to the mission. (Of course.)
He knocked on the door to the grumpy-looking building with interest. He’d thought it had a knocker, but he must’ve imagined that. The door creaked at him.
Mobius stood on the balls of his feet. He grinned when the door swung open, lifting his hand in a wave to the figure that stood in front of him. They were as tall as most Loki Variants, but definitely better dressed. Their Cloak seemed to squint at Mobius of its own accord.
“I’m very busy,” they said tiredly. “If this is for an exorcism that I forgot about, I’m going to have to reschedule.”
“Oh, nothing like that,” Mobius said. “You do exorcisms? I haven’t seen an effective one since 1693.”
The Fortune Teller didn’t seem bothered by the date. “If you’re an immortal hoping for safe passage back to your dimension or sanctuary here due to a threat at home, I do usually handle that kind of thing. Unfortunately, though, for the time being you’ll need to contact Master Wong at Kamar-Taj. I should be free by the time you complete the registration process.”
“Ah. No, I understand.” Mobius tucked the TemPad out of view. “What has so occupied your time, may I ask?”
The Fortune Teller dragged their hand across their face, looking disgruntled. “Much as I would love to complain, it’s confidential.”
“Of course, of course,” Mobius said. “You are aware that you are an unsorted collection of inactive, variant timelines, yes?”
The Fortune Teller’s face changed. They looked just a little sadder, somewhere deeper than mere expression, and a whole lot older.
“I am aware,” the Fortune Teller said. “If you’re here about a permit, I can cite apocalypse waivers. I’ll have to find the documents, though, which might take a few days, and I’m quite busy.”
Mobius glanced at B-15, who was standing quite pointedly out of view. She raised her eyebrow at him. The timeline diagram on her TemPad blinked ever-closer to redline.
Mobius waved a hand. If the TVA cared about any of what the Fortune Teller mentioned, it would already be on file from some other previously erased branch. Mobius didn’t take any joy in bringing this individual more stress, even if he was about to reset this timeline.
“You’re fine,” he said kindly. “I was just making sure. It’s not a walk in the park, seeing that many timelines.”
The Fortune Teller smiled slightly. “I appreciate your concern.”
“One question though,” said Mobius. “Does your building happen to be, ah… how do I put this…?”
“A complete asshole sometimes?” The Fortune Teller glared up and sideways at the door and wall above them. “Yeah, it does. The Sanctum’s just pissed because I haven’t replaced the radiator on the upper floors yet.”
“Oh.” Mobius hadn’t had this much fun in months.
Behind them, something in the building flashed. The Fortune Teller looked over their shoulder and said something in a language even Mobius didn’t know, before turning back to the door. Mobius took the chance to look to B-15 again. She tapped her TemPad pointedly.
“Fine,” Mobius mouthed. When the Fortune Teller met his eyes again, Mobius bowed in 16th century fashion.
“I won’t take up any more of your time,” Mobius said. “Have a fine rest of your afternoon. And I will say, if anyone has to have the variance buffer to possibly be able to govern fate unchecked if they knew how, you seem like a fine candidate.”
The Fortune Teller gave him a half-smirk and bowed back. “I do try to keep my hands out of fate nowadays,” they said. “Tony was enough of a stretch.”
“Who?”
The half-smirk widened. “No one. Have a good night, Agent Mobius.”
Mobius blinked. The door closed without so much as a click, and the building had stopped glowering. Another leaf drifted down from the ivy above to land on the shining toe of his boot. It fluttered.
B-15 handed him the reset charge.
In the TVA archives, Mobius found the files on Doctor Stephen Strange were classified.