Chapter Text
1. Diffuse Nebula
A nebula (Latin for 'cloud, fog';pl. nebulae or nebulas) is a distinct luminescent part of interstellar medium, which can consist of ionized, neutral, or molecular hydrogen and also cosmic dust. Most nebulae can be described as diffuse nebulae, meaning that they are extended and contain no well-defined boundaries. Often serving as stellar nurseries, these expansive clouds are where new stars are born.
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: ██, Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1805
Objective: ████ Johann Rosenbaum, 37, black hair, patriarch of the Rosenbaum family. Often sighted carrying a thin wooden cane. Subject is hosting a meeting for the ██████ Society on 8.14 at 17:00 with various core members, including ████ ██████ and ██████ █████. Operative is to ██████ Rosenbaum and ████ stated core members of ██████. No backup is to be provided. Subtlety is advised.
Status: FAILED CLOSED
Notes: Unexpected Aurora intervention. Currently reorganizing investigations. —Operative ██
The mission was supposed to be simple.
The mark was a man in his late 30’s; dark hair, tall hat, navy tailcoat. It was straightforward, really, to swoop in and nudge him off the predetermined track of his otherwise unremarkable destiny.
Or, it would have been.
5200 stared blankly out of the small circular window from which he observed the empty street below, thoughts whirling, already envisioning the damning mission report he would be required to submit to central command. As he stood on the cold stone steps, with the recognition of what was unmistakably a failed mission dawning upon him, three truths became apparent.
1) Although the Order was never particularly specific about the circumstances surrounding each operation (not anymore, at least), he had yet to be given blatantly incorrect information.
2) It was currently just shy of 4:30 in the morning on August 15, 1805. For the past twenty-eight hours, he had been situated in a cramped corner of the clock tower in the center of the town square, waiting for the mark to appear.
3) The mark never appeared.
All of these truths combined to form a new, looming fourth: that Kanukei was going to kill him.
Not in a literal sense. Not immediately, either. But certainly he would send him on a wild goose chase up, year before year, crawling through the timelines to find exactly where the interference began. He was, unfortunately for 5200, extremely thorough. The boredom would kill him before the revelation.
Fuck.
5200 dragged a hand down his face, fingers moving down to thumb at the trigger in his coat pocket. The first rays of morning light dawned on deserted cobblestone.
It was time to return.
Activating the trigger and returning to headquarters from a leap was always an uncomfortable feeling—time unraveling and reforming around him as he races down the currents to his destination, the oppressive threat of the endless void nipping at his heels under the waves. It always left him feeling slightly out of place, the cold white walls and monotonous routine check-ins a glaring wake up call that this was the true reality, every other timeline a mere possibility.
5200 arrives at headquarters with little fanfare, striding past branching sterile hallways and towards the dark corner Snowbird liked to call his "nest". The man himself was engrossed in the contents of his tablet, tucked away in a little cubby beside a round window programmed with a digital display of a lush mountainous landscape to detract from the fathomless depths of outer space on its other side.
Looking up at the sound of 5200's footsteps, Snowbird's eyes widen with relief. "What took you so long? Problems with the objective?" he asks, hastily straightening up, fumbling and almost dropping his tablet in the process.
"You could say that, alright," 5200 sighs. "The mark never appeared and I saw no signs of another agent. You didn't notice anything on your end, did you?"
Snowbird shakes his head. "Aurora hasn't been active in that sector since before you left."
"Great." 5200 can feel an incoming headache as he braces himself against the bleached white wall. Although he has no doubt that this latest wrench in the Order's plans was Aurora's doing, it was unusual for there to be no traces at all of intervention. He'd have to submit an investigation request, and since it was his mission that went wrong…
"How long do you think I'm going to be exiled to hunt for the culprit? Long enough for the war to end?"
Flux would say he's overreacting. Snowbird just winces. "I'd offer to try and get a different agent on the case, but with the losses from the last confrontation…"
5200 sighs, again. With a facsimile of a smile that seems more like a grimace, Snowbird offers him a belated pat on the arm in solidarity.
"Hey, you know what?" he says, suddenly. 5200 doesn't bother responding to the rhetorical question as Snowbird barrels on.
"Kanukei may be a stickler for tying up loose ends, but"—he draws out the word exaggeratedly—"if he sees solid evidence implicating Aurora, even he will have to concede a lost cause, if you're picking up what I'm putting down." He winks, unsubtle as ever.
"You do realize it will take more than a few scraps of a paper trail to convince him, right?" drawls 5200. "Not to mention the fact that you were the one providing me with the intel," he adds, drily. "Thank you for volunteering to lead the investigation, Snowbird."
Snowbird waves his hands hurriedly in dismissal. "I have no idea what you're talking about. Nothing about the intel I collected indicated any interference! Anything else might just be a you problem, I fear. I'm just offering ideas as your dearest and most trusted friend—"
5200 scowls at him accusingly. "If you were going to bring up a possibility for me to avoid being sentenced to a millenia of boredom and paperwork, you could at least pretend to be more amenable to actually helping—"
At this, a recent memory tugs at the forefront of 5200's mind. It had been a different mission, another operation gone awry. That, however, was due to an oversight on the intelligence officer's part. Supposedly, according to the gathered information, Aurora was to make their move on a series of remote timelines in the double digits, limiting the ripple effects to the scattered timelines in that area. The intelligence officer drafting the mission assigned the operatives to the 480s with little thought. As it turned out, however, the officer in question had misinterpreted the estimated impact on neighboring timelines of the Aurora operation to be the timeline number; the actual operation took place in a timeline just neighboring the newly assigned Order operation. Needless to say, chaos ensued, central command was incredibly unhappy, and the entire area was deemed "unsafe and extremely unstable". Unsurprisingly the officer had been sentenced to solo cleanup duty in duly deserved punishment. At the time, being the good friend he was, 5200 had agreed to help when the poor, overwhelmed agent had turned to him in desperation, offering him much-needed days off, extra coffee, and, most importantly, a so-called "lifetime of favors". Now, though—
A lifetime of favors? Perhaps it was time to start cashing in.
"—If I recall correctly," 5200 says, almost casually. "I believe you owe me a favor."
"Fuck," Snowbird says, with feeling.
They put together the outlines of a plan over piping hot subpar coffee and Snowbird's various scattered notes. It's almost nostalgic, 5200 thinks, as Snowbird once again loses track of the conversation and begins exuberantly monologuing about an earlier team meeting. Back when the novelty of time travel was still fresh in everyone's minds and they had been nothing more than a group of friends with scientific backgrounds eager to test the limits of new technology, most of their projects had been put together in a similar fashion, over sleepless nights in cramped meeting rooms and empty hallways.
"—and even Flux looked like he wanted to bash a hole in the wall and asphyxiate in the vacuum of outer space than continue dragging on the debriefing any longer so we finally adjourned, thank God," Snowbird finishes, looking over at 5200 expectantly, as if anticipating a standing ovation and an award for his performance.
5200 just stares at him blankly and gestures towards his tablet. "So what were you saying about Kanukei's schedule, again?"
Snowbird sighs. "He'll likely be stuck in meetings with the higher-ups in central command until the next rotation. Which is when he'll probably hunt you down for your report, so—"
"—as long as I finish the job and return before then, there should be no issues," 5200 finishes.
"Theoretically," Snowbird says.
"Theoretically," 5200 echoes.
5200 works quickly, unwinding and rethreading timelines around him. He didn't have to do much to craft the supposed intervention of a clearly poorly-trained Aurora operative. A deliberately placed explosion in a timeline a few years earlier, a small accident involving a few parallel timelines before that of his previous mission, and 5200 had finished crafting the perfect narrative: An Aurora operative dove into a couple of earlier timelines and messed with Johann Rosenbaum's extended family tree such that the man himself never came into existence, while accidentally causing a slew of other phenomena: the extinction of blue whales, a great upheaval in Austrian high society, and the invention of the metronome pushed almost twenty years earlier, to name a few. In other words, this was clearly the work of an amateur— uncommon in the current tides of the war, with so many more experienced operatives than before, but possible nonetheless.
It's with this thought in his mind as he strolls around central Vienna that 5200 stumbles across the letter. It's wedged neatly between two bricks underneath a small circular window—the same window, he realizes, that he had gazed through one unsuccessful mission earlier, searching in vain for a man who never appeared. The white envelope was barely visible, only one corner exposed to the sun and 5200's observant eyes. Although the letter must have been placed in this location while the clock tower was still under construction, it is in pristine condition as he examines the plain paper. It's unsealed, and he opens it to reveal a small slip of parchment, on which is written a note addressed to him:
Dear Mysterious Operative,
To be honest, I wasn't going to intervene at first. But the Order isn't exactly subtle with their intentions, and poor Mr. Rosenbaum would have unknowingly caused the collapse of more than 20 timelines in this region under your influence, some of which I had been planning to visit for quite a while now. Naturally, upon realizing that my vacation plans were in danger, I caused a bit of chaos in some earlier timelines, as one does, and coincidentally may have disrupted your mission… that's my bad •_•
You're kinda messy with covering your traces, though. Your arrival left a wide open trail for someone (cough, Aurora) to swoop in and catch you red-handed—I was generous enough to tidy up the loose ends for you on my way out.
Don't worry, there's no need to shower me with gifts and promise me a lifetime of your servitude! As a concerned citizen, I'm simply doing my civic duty.
Best wishes,
M (a Good Samaritan)
5200 had never seen a message consisting of more blatant bullshit.
For one, the author of the letter was clearly insane. Unfortunately, they were also clearly the true culprit behind the failure of 5200's mission. Proper procedure would dictate he treat the letter as an unstable object and create an independent report and subsequent thorough investigation on the letter and the entire sector of related timelines, after which 5200 would be subjugated to a myriad of interviews and interrogations and recalibrations to determine whether his status as an Order agent had been compromised. They were as tiring as they were pointless, and 5200 had been tired for a very long time. He had been awake for so long his surroundings were starting to blur around him, which could not be a good sign. He stares down sullenly at the innocuous slip of paper, the edges of which were already wrinkling in his tightening grip.
Fuck whoever wrote this, he thinks, uncharacteristically petty. He looks up from his clenched fist in a haze of frustration, his gaze unwittingly straying to one of the small shops across the street of the square. Although he's too far away to properly make out the lettering, there was a painted logo of an inkwell next to the letters on one particular store's sign.
With a sudden jolt of inspiration, he thinks to himself, Fuck proper procedure, too.
One quick shopping trip later and 5200 is back in the town square, standing in the shade of the greak oak tree neighboring the clock tower.
With his new fountain pen and parchment in hand, he pens a letter of his own.
M:
I'm not sure how I feel about you stalking me, not to mention what brand of insanity possessed you to believe leaving a letter for me was a good idea. Based on your message, you're not with Order or Aurora, since neither of them are known for employing psychopaths of your kind. An independent operative, then? Hard to come by in this day and age—you've got guts to travel so far upthread alone.
How did you know I'm with the Order? It didn't seem like a lucky guess.
—So-called "Mysterious Operative"
5200's next mission creeps up on him without warning. Between the constant ebb and flow of his ceaseless work, the strange letter and his incongruous reply were shoved into the back of his mind next to the dusty shelves of other unnecessary memories. The briefing at headquarters is brief and sparse: in summary, an ambush, decades of painstaking work undone in mere seconds. And so he is sent to, in Fluixon's words, "fix the mess". Ever the reliable servant of the Order, he leaps to his destination without complaint, still half-awake, mind still sleep-addled.
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: ██, China, Zhou dynasty, 812 BC
Objective: Investigate Aurora presence in capital. Cleanup required. Operative ██ on standby as backup.
Status: COMPLETED
Notes: ████ may have fled to the ████ timelines in ██. Requesting approval to pursue. —Operative ██
Throughout many of the Order-occupied timelines, one constant held true: The Quanrong put an end to the Western Zhou in 771 BC, sacking the Zhou capital at Haojing and killing the last Western Zhou king You—thus marking the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period.
The palace burned steadily, its wooden buttresses creaking under the weight of the hungry flames. The damage done to the timeline was extensive, hence the destruction of the capital occurring over 40 years earlier. At this point, there was nothing to be done except attempting to salvage the situation, which 5200 sets about doing almost as soon as his feet touch the ground after the leap.
He clears the gates; reroutes the river back when it was but a bubbling stream; intervenes in confrontations between the Zhou and the tribes of the north; assists in the assassination of several princes; and, when he exhausts all his avenues, he jumps back to 812, and is pleased to find that nothing more than an ordinary raid had befallen the palace.
It's while surveying his handiwork, carefully skirting by a building that had somehow caught fire, that he spots the second letter. It's more of a note than a letter, actually, carved into a wooden tablet dropped unceremoniously on the ground dangerously near the raging flames of the wreck. 5200 gingerly picks it up, gaze catching on the untidy scrawl.
Dear Operative Who I'm NOT Stalking,
I get my intel from various sources. Just because some of my intel involving the Order also included some vague details about your mission doesn't mean I'm stalking you. In fact, I detest that assumption—can't a guy be a good Samaritan in peace without receiving baseless stalking accusations? I'm hurt.
If you must know, I have a little independent mission of my own that requires jumping around remote timelines upthread. Now that we've established we're pen pals, though, do you have any recommendations for timelines to visit? I liked 2149—Los Angeles isn't bad when the acid rain isn't burning your skin and the merciless sun isn't roasting you from the inside.
Eagerly awaiting your reply,
M
His feet carry him to an edge of the building that has not yet caught fire; he grabs a fallen piece of timberwood hastens to the outskirts of the palace walls, the smoke beginning to sting his eyes and clog his lungs. While scaling the stone walls in his escape, he spots the glimmer of a small river in the distance, which he marks as his destination. Both guards and attackers have dispersed by now, leaving him free to slip into the shadows of a seldom-treaded forest path.
He rereads the note again, perched on a small boulder on the edge of the forest overlooking the rushing water. Logically speaking, it was unsurprising that M had heard of the disaster in this timeline, not when he allegedly had access to classified information about Order missions as mentioned in his first letter. What concerned 5200, however, was how, yet again, M had known that it would be precisely 5200 who was sent to put out the fire. Vehement protests aside, it was clear that M was searching for information regarding 5200 specifically, a notion that both puzzled and troubled him. "Now that we've established we're pen pals…" 5200 snorted.
He tosses a reply etched on timberwood into the rapids and watches as it disappears under the currents in a rush of cold mist and crystal-clear water.
M:
If you say so. I'm still inclined to believe your motivations are suspicious. I haven't been to 2149 myself but I've heard stories from fellow operatives of how thoroughly miserable the weather is. You can thank Aurora for that—allegedly, a timeline upstream from 2149 was pushed too far and caused the atmosphere itself to thicken, thus worsening climate change to the extremes (a rookie mistake).
I don't travel up and down timelines to go sightseeing, but I do enjoy the snow in the north of the 600s, especially during winter.
Regardless of whether you're stalking me or not, I don't enjoy the unpleasant surprise of seeing an unexpected message during an otherwise ordinary mission. I'm leaving my next message in Theria, 545. Tell me where you're leaving yours, "pen pal".
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: ██, Theria, 545 BC
Objective: Reports indicate increased activity in the capital—most likely gearing up for war. Assist Operative ██ in ████ ██ ███ and ████ ██ for Theria. Keep tabs on the Sultan.
Status: COMPLETED
Notes: Staying behind to further monitor extended situation —Operative ██
Dear Pen Pal,
You forgot to sign off on your last note. Between the two of us, I have much better pen pal etiquette— I've used a consistent pen name while all you've done is plagiarize my genius nicknames. You should step up your game •_•
Cut Aurora some slack. They were being pressured by Order presence up and down— it's no wonder they decided to just trash the place.
I stopped by Iceland in 640. Since it's so early in this timeline, the glaciers are immense, huge blocks of blue floating above the frozen sea. I tried to get closer to one but my skiff got stuck in ice, and I almost drowned trying to pull it out. No matter how beautiful the sights, I wouldn't recommend taking a dip in there. The water was the kind of cold that freezes you inside and out, that seeps into your bones and settles in your veins.
As a desert civilization, Theria is the opposite: relatively warm year-round, but so incredibly hot in the summer. I searched for ages for some kind of oasis I could leave my message in only to find this sad little pond. I thought the mesquite tree guarding the pond looked a little lonely all by itself, so I planted a couple friends. I hope they grew well—maybe they've formed a small battalion by the time you're reading this letter. You should let me know.
Your most beloved pen pal,
M
5200 squints at the faded words on brittle parchment. The intensity of the sun's gaze was punishing during the day, so he reads the letter by torchlight after sundown, scattered constellations dotting the night sky. What was supposed to be a week's worth of his time had kept him in Theria for nearly double the amount. Snowbird had pestered him constantly about it during his extended stay—What happened to finishing your mission early, Thomas? What do you mean you want to go sightseeing, Thomas? Did you know that spontaneous decision making is one of the top signs of psychosis, Thomas? 5200 would rather launch himself into the sun than admit he was only spending extra time in the ancient city to search for a message left in some forgotten sand dune by an untrustworthy individual he knew nothing about.
I thought the mesquite tree guarding the pond looked a little lonely all by itself, so I planted a couple friends. He looks up and the distinct outlines of a veritable battalion of mesquites strike a harsh silhouette against the star-filled night. He'd had to fight through the spiny branches to even reach the edge of the pond. Briefly, he considers expanding the pond, cleaning up the tangled branches to clear a path for wandering wildlife stumbling across it in the future. Either way, it would be a meaningless gesture. Time and time again, he'd been reminded of the butterfly effect—in the improbable future that this tiny oasis would shift this timeline off its predetermined track onto a crash course towards destruction, it would be erased, and his actions would be in vain. In the much more probable possibility of this oasis continuing to exist in its tiny corner of an unchanging world, his efforts would still be insignificant. Only the stars would see and remember.
5200 places the torch gingerly on a rock next to him and begins to write.
M,
I'm sorry, I didn't realize my "pen pal" was such a stickler for rules. Should I perhaps consult the official handbook on How to Properly Correspond With Your Stalker, 5th edition?
I distinctly recall writing that the snow was nice, not directing you to swim around in the frozen Icelandic lakes. I'm surprised you almost drowned, though, given that most operatives nowadays have built-in bio-enhancements and stabilizers. Whatever entity you're working for is skimping out.
Theria has plenty of oases—it seems to me that you just looked in the entirely wrong direction. Nonetheless, I eventually managed to find this sad excuse of an oasis where you left your letter. You're right about the trees. There's enough that you can barely see the pond through the blockade of leaves and bark when at a distance, so I did some landscaping. The pond should become a proper oasis in a couple of years.
You have information about both the Order and Aurora, so I'm obligated to inquire if you're willing to part with any. Regarding Aurora, of course. I don't think you're open to trading information based on how infuriating your letters are and how you refuse to admit to your blatant stalker tendencies, but it's worth a try.
It's not as if any scraps of intel on upcoming missions will do us any good at this point. No one knows how long it's been, but with every new advancement we're eventually sent right back to where we were before. I'm sure Aurora feels the same. This war is an exponential graph nearing its asymptote but never quite reaching the axis. It'll take more than information to end it.
- 5200
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: ██, Ireland, 1601
Objective: ████ █████ English siege of Ireland. Reports indicate Aurora interference in the area as well as ████ ██ █ █████. Cleanup required. Operative ██ assisting.
Status: COMPLETED
Notes: Send backup for cleanup —Operative ██
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: █, Macedonia, 229 BC
Objective: █████ Antigonus III to ensure ████ █ as regent instead. ████ ██ █ ███ ██████ █. Consider investigating Illyrian pirates. No backup is to be provided.
Status: COMPLETED
Notes: Original mission corrupted. —Operative ██
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: ██, Sumatra, 685 CE
Objective: Monitor the Srivijayan empire's trade disputes with Tarumanagara. Long-term check-ins required to be filed in ████-A. No backup is to be provided.
Status: COMPLETED
Notes:
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Mission Log ██████████
Timeline: ██, Greenland, 1820
Objective: Reports of water poisoning at ████ Channel near ███ Island. Aurora agents may be undercover in the area. Operative ██ on standby as backup.
Status: COMPLETED
Notes: Captured Aurora operative ████ ██████. Subject ██████ ████ before extraction. —Operative ██
He doesn't receive a response for three missions.
Although briefly knocked out of alignment, he spins neatly back into the monotonous orbit of his life. Or, he nearly does.
On the fourth mission, 5200 feels his tablet warm in this pocket while observing a group of Inuit hunters ice fish in the distance. Clutching it in frozen, gloved hands, he squints at the blurred letters displayed on the screen, scarcely readable from the glare of the ice.
… It's a ping from a user listed as "mcrspr123". A red flashing warning sign next to the username alerts him that this may be a cyberattack. He opens the message anyway.
011000010111001001100011011010000110100101110110011001010110010001101101011001010111001101110011011000010110011101100101
mcrspr123: reading the end of your last message almost made me sad, y'know. i would've thought the order would funnel more of their budget towards keeping their employees happy. or did they forget to replace your internal emotion sensor during the cyborg surgery?
This asshole.
5200 cycles through a range of emotions during the same length of time it takes for one of the novice hunters to slip and nearly fall into the ice fishing hole. After the initial wave of annoyance passes, he experiences a strange sense of relief, upon which he concocts an extremely strongly worded message in response due to a sudden surge of pure anger, this time directed towards himself.
Logically speaking—and 5200 is very logically-oriented—he should report the security breach directly to Central Intelligence. He should have done so for every message and every letter he received before this. When he really thinks about it, it all stemmed from the unprecedented anomaly that was the first letter. Despite his best efforts, he still doesn't know precisely why he even chose to draft his spontaneous response. He can be unpredictable at times, sure, but he has a long track record of making contingency plan after contingency plan for all of what, on the surface, seemed to be in-the-moment improvisation. The habit has only become ever more exacerbated, nowadays. So he truly does not know why he made such a decision—and if there is one thing 5200 hates, it is not knowing. Maybe mcrspr was right—maybe somewhere deep within his barely human self, something had finally stopped.
t5200: If you keep insulting me, I might just finally file the report to Intelligence I've been itching to send about you since your first unwelcome letter.
He looks up as he finishes typing. The hunters have hauled up a monstrous whitefish through the hole and are laughing and hugging each other in a celebratory huddle, the weak sun illuminating their bright, jubilant faces.
mcrspr123: if you do that i'll activate the self-duplicating remote-activating virus i installed in your tablet through my first message
t5200: Big talk for someone who forgot to turn off their tablet's tracking implant. How's the weather down in 578?
mcrspr123: fuck
mcrspr123: ok in my defense i stole (ahem, borrowed) this device from one of the Aurora goons i ran into a while back. it took me an atrocious amount of time to crack the security
t5200: Skill issue.