The two women stood within the elevator, descending downward at a crawling pace. They were dressed in metallic suits with a strange badges labeled 'TIA'. Neither woman had much expression on her face, but their eyes were guarded by dark sunglasses, despite the elevator's poor lighting. One woman, the one to the left, had blonde hair with rosey cheeks and smelt the smell of cinnamon apples. Her skin was soft and smooth. The other's hair was died a bitter black, like delicious coffee. Her skin was pale and dry, she was pale and dry.
The blonde began to stare at the elevator's floor meter. The number on the control kept creeping down, but the pace was crawling slow. 2874, 2873, 2872, 2871... She turned her head towards her companion. “Agent Shade...” she started.
Shade tried to ignore her, annoyed by her usual bad luck involving partners, but after several seconds of silence, responded. “What is it, Shore?”
“What is this period like?”
“I suppose you'll find out tonight,” Shade snickered.
“But wait,” said Shore, “I thought we left in the morning?”
“You are forgetting to think 4th-dimensionally again, Shore,” Shade lectured, “Our time of arrival is precisely 7:55 PM, which means we will be arriving in the night.”
“Right, right,” Shore giggled, content for the time being but quickly became unsettled again, “But uh, what have you heard about this time period?”
“You can't seriously be telling me you have not learned about this time period in your History classes, it is required in most if not all school curricula.”
“I don't pay attention in all of my classes!” Shore yelled, “My memory is foggy anyway, it was a long time ago...”
Shade sighed, “Well I don't suppose I can rely on an uniformed partner, that would likely get me killed... When we are going is known to historians as the Early Barbaric Period...”
“Yes, yes, I know that much.”
Not liking to be interrupted, Shade stood silent for a moment and then continued. “It was a time of great injustice. The people of this time-period were irrational and greedy...”
“Oh right, they spent all of their time collecting wealth and possessions, right?”
“Yes...” Shade responded, “The people of the Early Barbaric period were obsessed with expanding their estate. They would do anything for money. Even pollute the Earth in which they lived for the sake of monetary gain.”
“How sad... We are still feeling the effects of their irresponsibility.”
“Yes, Shore. They would release toxic gas into the atmosphere, spill oil and other Natural Gasses into the ocean... of course you know that this leads to all animal extinction by 2150. All this for the acquisition of wealth. The economic elite would live pleasant lives by taking advantage of the poor who would turn to drugs violence, and crime to give meaning to their meaningless and sad existences. As I recall, they called this economic system of abusing others as Capitalism.”
Shore raised an eyebrow, “Violence, crime, what's that?”
Shade stared at Shore, hardly able to believe that she was serious. “Before the Great Awakening movement of the 28th century, people took joy in hurting and killing others for unimportant reasons. It was before we as humans were able to evolve away from these barbaric rituals, before they realized there were more effective ways to solve their problems. As for crime... crime is the barbaric concept at breaking the law. They would lie, cheat and steal to defeat and take advantage of others... on an individual or national basis.”
“Oh yeah, this was before the Universal Earth Government, right?”
“Yes, people of the Early Barbaric period separated themselves in many ways. The largest division they considered 'nations'. Since they could not get along with one another, they broke themselves apart using invisible barriers known as 'nationality'. Humans of this era had a puzzling obsession with being a part of something they perceived as larger than themselves, after all. They had great pride. And they did not just divide themselves as nations, either. But race, gender, mythology, and even sexual orientation.”
“Right, I heard something like this. The majority group oppressed the minority group in this era...”
“Yes, groups of people viewed as a minority were severely oppressed. It took several centuries for even the most progressive of these nations to give some of these groups full rights. And even then, they were oppressed. Minorities were often met with brute force and violence.”
“Like the Middle Earth wars...”
“Yes, like the Middle Earth Wars, very good, Shore. From what we can tell, the United Empire of America declared war on the entire Middle Earth region. According to historians, the main reason was a very minor difference in their mythologies. Apparently, minor differences in their mythological teachings were incredibly controversial. The Empire would stay in Middle Earth until the Muslim sect of Judaism were all but eradicated.”
“The United Empire was mostly that of the Christian sect of the same religion, correct?”
“Yes, it was considered a Christian 'nation'. According to the little information historians have from them, since they were all but obliterated by the Switzerland Rebellion of 2201, their constitution was based upon religious and lifestyle freedoms but this was far from the truth, merely a facade for the sake of keeping their citizens in line. From what we can tell, they were a war-like society with little patience for those who were even slightly different. If one was not Christian, it was hard to advance in their society and they actively persecuted those with different beliefs and lifestyles.”
“What a barbaric people...” Shore said quietly, “Isn't that where we are going, the United Empire?”
“Yes. We are being sent to the United Empire. Are you are at least aware of our target?”
“Yeah... some crazy guy from the Ancient West, right?”
“Yes, apparently the only thing we know about him is that his name is 'Pete', but he should stand out from the other population here. We do not know how he traveled away from his native era, but we must protect the time-line at all costs. That is our directive as Agents of the Time Investigation Agency. We must find him quickly, and avoid contact with the population there as much as possible. We cannot risk any further contamination of the timeline.”
“How do you suppose he traveled through time, anyway? Time travel was just invented in our time...”
“I do not know,” Shade said, returning to her position, staring towards the elevator doors. “But I suppose you will discover that too tonight.” She took note of the elevator floor meter creeping down from 2013, 2012, 2011... 2010. The elevator stopped with a thud, followed by an annoying ding. “Seems we are there, now.”
The elevator door opened to a street. The women stopped out and looked around, finding a sign labeled, 'Route 66'. From the distance, they could hear a whisper of a large confrontation.
“We know you are in there,” the whisper in the distance boomed, “We have the building completely surrounded! Come out now with your hands in the air!”
“It looks like we are a bit too late to avoid major temporal contamination...” Shore said softly.
“Yes, quite, it seems our temporal monitoring devices were off a bit,” Shade agreed annoyed, “Let's go!” And with that, both women ran towards the direction from which the booming voice came.
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