TEMPORAL FLUX: Human Error

January 31st, 2676, 8:01pm - Moon

          Having just finished sorting his instruments and straigtening up the medical bay as his shift was about to end for another day, Doctor Maxis Renaud tugged down on his grey and white tunic before preparing to leave. It hadn't been a busy day by any means, but he was still looking forward to retiring to his quarters and getting lost in a good book.
          The junior medical officer that would have normally arrived by now to relive him had been called to the headquarter's workout facility to tend to someone that might have pulled a muscle while weight training.
          'Always someone that has to push themselves too hard.' thought Renaud to himself, while running a hand through his short grey hair. The doors to the medical bay slid open to reveal his junior officer, followed by Agent Six, who was holding his right shoulder while scowling at the same time. Renaud's green eyes narrowed a bit as he peformed a visual diagnosis and quickly turned to retrieve an instrument from the tray.
          "Fancy seeing you this evening, Doc." mentioned Six, who stood off to the side of one of the biobeds, not intending to sit or lay down on it.
          Renaud picked up a small cylindrical object with a cone-shaped attachment on one end, and casually walked over to his patient, turning on the device and hovering it over the offending shoulder in a slow, circular motion.
          "Doc?" asked Six, a little confused at this point.
          "Is the discomfort gone yet?" replied Renaud, bypassing the posed question to ask his own and learn the logical conclusion, his slight French accent able to be heard.
          Six moved his shoulder around. To his surprise, it felt normal again.
          "Yeah, it's great! Thank you, but how did--"
          Renaud grinned and held up a hand. "I'll explain later. I'm heading off duty at the moment, and perhaps we could share a cup of tea. You and I don't socialize that much, it seems."
          Six nodded his acknowledgement. "Okay, but first I'm going to go to my own quarters and shower. I've been in the gym the last couple hours."
          "Acceptable. Until later, then." he replied, before nodding to the junior officer and exiting the medical bay, the doors again opening and admitting the doctor into the corridor. The younger junior officer just shrugged, and headed past the biobeds and towards the office, looking to start his shift.
          Six grinned wryly, and headed out of the medical bay himself, intent on getting back to his quarters to clean himself up and change into some off-duty attire before joining the good doctor for that cup of tea.
          'Tea with the doctor. Who would have thought?'

March 27th, 1977, 17:02pm - Tenerife, Earth

          The fog was so thick that the headlights on each of the massive airplane's wings did little to pierce it, giving pilots and passengers alike reservation and anxiety. Captain Victor Grubbs peered through the forward cockpit windows of his Pan-American Boeing 747, trying to find a taxiway that he had been directed to take by the control tower. An experienced pilot in his mid-fifties with greying hair, he'd grown accustomed to flying in bad weather over the years.
          His co-pilot, First Officer Robert Bragg was handling most of the communication with the tower during the taxiing. A year shy of turning forty, Bragg was easy going but experienced, and was no stranger to adverse conditions himself.
          The voice of the controller again came over the radio in response from the first officer's hail, directing the crew where to go to get them in line for takeoff.
          "Clipper one seven three six Tenerife."
          "Ah, we were instructed to contact you, and also to taxi down the runway." replied Bragg. "Is this correct?"
          "Affirmative." said the voice from the control tower. "Taxi into the runway, and -ah leave the runway third, third to your left."
          "Third to the left." responded Bragg. "Okay."
          Upon hearing all of that, Grubbs kept his eye to the left periodically, looking for the taxiway that he would need to continue his takeoff after getting to the runway. The fog was making it near impossible to navigate, and knowing how many other airplanes were strewn about the airport's tarmac didn't make it less stressful by any means.
          "I'm not getting a visual on any left turn." said Grubbs aloud. "I wish there was something to guide us better, like lights. 
           Without warning, Grubbs began to feel a vibration everywhere. It felt as if everything - the plane, himself, everything - was shuddering all at the same time, almost like he were experiencing a mini-earthquake. He looked to Bragg, who seemed to be experiencing the same problem, along with their flight engineer behind them. The light on the radio had also gone dead, which left them unable to raise the tower.
           Making a fast judgement call, Grubbs turned the massive airplane to the left and rolled it onto the large grassy median between runways and brought it to a halt, his teeth still vibrating even though everything else had stopped.
           "Whatt the hell was thatt?" he asked, trying to speak clearly. Before he got an answer, a loud racket from outside screamed past his airplane, almost like another had just reached full throttle and taken off in a huge hurry.

January 31st, 2676, 8:41pm - Moon

          Upon hearing the door chime to his quarters sound, Maxis Renaud instructed the food synthesizer to give him two cups of hot peppermint tea before acknowledging his guest.
          "Enter." 
          The doors slid apart, revealing the familiar form of Six standing there, dressed in a light grey off-duty jumpsuit, and looking more well kept than he did earlier.
          "Come in, take a seat." offered Renaud.
          Six smiled, and took a seat on a small white end chair opposite the doctor across a small coffee table, hearing the hum of the synthesizer in the process. Renaud reached to his left where the hexagonal stand was located, and took a cup fo tea in each hand, carefully handing one to his guest before basking in the aroma of his own.
          Six picked up on the peppermint in the air, and smiled.
          "I don't think we've ever had tea before, and I was caught a little off-guard."
          Renaud took a careful sip of the hot liquid, and swallowed. "Mmm yes, I can see why, and I apologize. I merely wanted to talk and get your opinion on such things."
          Six raised an eyebrow slightly. "Indeed?"
          The doctor grinned. "Yes. You and I have only really conversed in a matter-of-fact official way, and the odd time in passing. The general consensus is that I prefer being alone most of the time, which is not very accurate. So, the invitation for tea."
          Six took a sip of the hot tea before replying, relishing it.
          "What shall we talk about?" he queried.
          Renaud motioned in a circle with his free hand. "As a temporal agent, I would love to hear your beliefs on how linear time is, as well as your own opinions on all things temporal."
          Six pondered for a moment, taking another sip from his cup. The last time he had this conversation was months back with Tessa, his girlfriend, when she became curious about his mindset during missions for the Bureau.
          "I believe in time as a constant, with millions of parallel universes existing simultaneously, each one created by a choice made or not made. It's not unquestionable for them to intersect, and I think it's because of phenomena across these universes that causes a lot of problems in the space/time continuum, and is why we have the Bureau."
          Renaud was intrigued by this, having not heard many opinions this detailed, unless it was a rant being laid out by Director Talon from time to time. 
          "Tell me more, as this is all fascinating, yes?"

February 1st, 2676, 9:00am - Moon

          Director Talon sat in his office, a few stairs up from the floor along one side of the Bureau's command centre, a place that resembled a large circular control room complete with computer consoles and duty stations, as well as two of the Bureau's temporal shift pads. The spartan office sat to the left side of the two raised, red circles from where the Bureau would transport it's agents through time on dangerous missions.
          Middle aged but fit, Talon ran a hand through his grey hair while focused on the vidscreen in front of him, having been alerted to a temporal disruption a few minutes prior that was making little sense to him. Not very knowledgeable on the 20th or 21st Centuries, he had sent for Agent Six to come take a look at the findings.
          Just as he was about to synthesize a glass of water, his door chime sounded. Standing outside the clear panes of the plexisheet doors was Six, dressed in his nevy blue tunic and waiting patiently to be let in.
          "Come."
          Six entered the office quietly, the doors closing behind him. 
          "What do you make of this?" asked Talon, swiveling his screen around so that Six could see the data for himself. Peering at the screen and reading the information, Six's facial expression went from calm to troubled very quickly.
          "I don't understand this at all." he mentioned. "I'm extremely well-versed in those time periods, and I don't recall this happening at all during that time period."
          The data being displayed showed a massive disaster that happened on the island of Tenerife in the year 2017, but this struck him as very odd, as he remembered reading about and researching a similar event that took place almost half a century earlier.
          "Something is wrong here." he said. "I can say with near certainty that something like this did happen much earlier in the time line, but not this. I'll have to go there, to that year listed in the file, and figure this out from the ground up."
          Talon nodded in agreement. "Concur, and you'll by yourself on this one. Red is busy on another mission, and a couple of the new agents aren't up to speed on operations yet. Go get your gear, and report back when ready to shift. That's all."
          Six gave a slight nod before turning and letting the doors slide apart before heading across the command centre to the gear room the put on his custom-fitted temporal shift suit and helmet, ready to take on his latest mission.
          'Just another day at the office....'

May 27th, 2017, 11:36am - Tenerife, Earth

          The charred remains of the three ancient Earth vehicles known as airplanes lay strewn about the runway and taxiways, along with a burnt out control tower that had taken the brunt of the impact from the third plane that had crashed into it chaotically. Small chunks of wreckage still looked as if they could smoulder, but were inconsequential at this point.
          Six materialized off to the side of the main runway in a shimmering burst of red energy, but had activated his shroud before the jump. Anyone nearby in this time frame would dismiss his arrival as a bright flash of sunlight, or an optical illusion. Activating the scanners embedded in his helmet's visor, he surveyed the scene before him.
          'Total devastation.' he thought to himself.
          In the distance beyond some of the small piece sof debris, he could see other people buzzing about the burned out hulks of the two massive airframes that were now nothing more than junk at best. Six surmised that they were investigators of some kind.
          "Computer, estimate time since event."
          A few seconds later, the soft female voice of the suit's sophisticated computer system gave him an answer to his query.
          "Event minus thirty-six hours." was the reply.
          'Hmm. This happened in the late afternoon almost two days ago, and the investigation is still in full swing.'
          Making his way amongst the various airplane pieces and other unknown debris, Six kept scanning as he got closer to the airport's terminal, bypassing one of the charred hulks for the time being. It soon became apparent to him that it wasn't about the number of participants involved in the incident, but the circumstances of the incident itself.
          'According to the database, this incident isn't listed.'
          After performing a few more scans of the terminal and staying out of the way of the many people and vehicles that were crowding the runway, Six turned back towards the massive hulk of the second airplane. He detected a signal from it, very faint. It was an antiquated signal being put out by a computer controlled device.
          "Computer, analyze."
          A graphical display of the target signal suddenly appeared on the inside of his visor, showing him that the device was called a 'flight data recorder'. With no obstructions, Six downloaded the contents of the device into his suit's computer and began to pore over the data as much as possible.
          'Interesting.'

February 1st, 2676, 9:17am - Moon

          "Sir, we're receiving a datastream from Agent Six." mentioned the newer Ensign manning the communications station, a young man in his early twenties with short, silver hair filling in for the regular who had taken a couple of personal days for herself.
          Talon was off to the right of the command centre looking at vidscreens on the main console that straddled most of the curved wall, suddenly looking over his shoulder to be able to respond to the man.
          "What have you got?" he asked, before stepping away from the station and making his way over to the comm area.
          The young Ensign looked up, a touch of nervousness in his light blue eyes. 
          "It-it contains information regarding the--incident, sir."
          Talon could tell the young man was having a hard time adjusting to the pace of operations in the command centre, and decided to tread lightly for a change.
          "Very good, Ensign." he said reassuringly. "Bring it up on the main vidscreen so I can take a look at it."
          "Yessir."
          The transpart, blank screen to the console's upper right suddenly went bright and began to give detailed information to it's origins. Talon found it interesting that everything he was seeing at the moment came from an antiquated recording device that looked to be embedded in one of the incident vehicles that was under investigation.
          'Six has pulled all the information from it, and there seems to be an odd occurence in the moments leading up to the disaster.'
          Talon needed more information.
          "Ensign, open a comm channel to Agent Six. Please." he ordered calmly.
          The young man nodded his acknowledgement, and worked the controls to direct a temporal comm signal to the field agent as quickly as possible. The screen to the left suddenly came to life and displayed an inside-the-helmet view of Six.
          "Six here. Go ahead." said the agent.
          "Talon here." started the Director. "What is that odd pattern on the data you sent us? Looks as if something unknown occurred a short time before the disaster unfolded."
          There was a brief pause, with Six's eyes darting back and forth before he was able to give a reply.
          "I have a hunch that I know what it is, but I need help. If someone can go to the Bureau's library and locate a book called 'Collision on Tenerife', that would be great. I need information contained in it's pages."
           Talon looked to his relief comm officer. "Contact the library, and get that book sent up here on the double!"

May 27th, 2017, 11:55am - Tenerife, Earth

          While waiting for the information he had requested, Six used the time to continue scanning the area, as well as the space/time continuum, furthering his hypothesis and getting closer and closer to finding the answers.
          'Talon must have been surprised that I asked for a book in the library instead of using the Bureau's database for the answers I need.' he thought to himself, referring to the Bureau's massive electronic archives that covered most of human history. Even though the whole Bureau was built with special shielding that prevents it from being affected by any temporal events, Six still wanted to consult a hardcopy edition of something he had read himself, preferring a physical copy above all other mediums from time to time.
          Wheeled transports started to move across the runway, with teams of people sifting through wreckage from the three airplanes, occasionally loading specific pieces into the vehicles, more than likely to be taken away for further analysis.
          Six fipped up the computer access that was part of his suit's left forearm and tapped a few buttons to bring up the type of aircraft that the hulks belonged to. Two of them were classified as an Airbus A380, the largest passenger 'airliner' of their time. The third vehicle was listed as a Boeing 737-800.
          'Information downloaded from the ground computers shows that those three airplanes had a total of sixteen hundred people between them, not including whoever might have been killed when that third airplane slammed into the terminal building the way it did....'
          The scale of the loss of life temporarily saddened him, but knowing that this accident wasn't part of the proper timeline gave him hope that it didn't have to happen. Continuing to scan and collect information, Six was heading to the third burnt out hulk when his comm system chirped and got his attention.
          "Six. Go ahead." he said into the comm.
          "This is Talon, I have the book you requested in my hands."
          Six grinned. "Hope you weren't too put out by that request." he replied with a grin.
          "What do you want me to do with it?" asked the Director without pause.
          "I need the date of the incident that the book is about."
          There was silence for a moment, and Six could see Talon leafing through the first several pages of the publication before stopping and reading something.
          "March twenty-seventh, nineteen seventy seven." said Talon. "That it?"
          Six nodded. "Excellent. I'm going to finish up here, then initiate a time shift to that particular date. I'll have more information once I'm there."
          "Very well." responded Talon. "Bureau out."

March 27th, 1977, 16:02pm - Tenerife, Earth

          Again deposited by a quick flash of shimmering red energy, Six took a few moments to get his bearings due to the thick fog that was sitting over the area. Unlike the previous time period, in which it was a clear, it was now near impossible to see beyond a few metres in any direction whatsoever.
          'Just like it was described in the book.' he thought to himself.
          A quick scan of the area told him that there were many aircraft around him, concealed due to the fog. Wandering across the familiar grassy area between the runway and taxiway, Six used his computer to help guide him towards the control tower. Once he was close enough, he could see the building looked normal and undamaged, with two large aircarft sitting nearby.
          Scanning it told him the technology in the tower in this time period was quite ancient, and there wasn't much he could pull from it at this time. Another airplane behind him started to increase power and lurch down the taxiway, giving him reason to move off to one side to avoid getting clipped by the large vehicle.
          'Hmm...nothing out of the ordinary here.'
          Six continued walking past the building and towards a group of airplanes that sat on the tarmac, waiting for their turn to take off. There were no indications that the event from the book was going to occur, and scans of the space/time continuum were inconclusive. He was about to contact the Bureau and report a dead end, when something odd happened, without warning.
          A weird buzzing feeling like a prolonged shudder from an earthquake registered on his suit's instruments. He himself was insulated from any temporal events because of the suit, but the technology that allowed continuous scans was sensitive enough to detect such phenomena.
          "What's this about?" he mumbled to himself, before again flipping up his forearm computer and checking some readings.
          A minute trace of another parallel reality had intersection for all of a few seconds, and created an instability in the space/time continuum. Six had detected something amiss in the previous time frame, but here he had experienced it for himself.
          He checked his chronometer for the local time. "Sixteen twenty. Hmm."
          Six opened a comm channel to the Bureau. "Six to base. I need more information from that book. What time do the events of the incident start to unfold?" he asked.
          Seconds went by before Director Talon responded to the query. 
          "Sixteen fifty-two, according to these pages. Is that helpful?"
          Six nodded inside his helmet. "Yes, that's all I need for now. I'll contact you again when this is all sorted. Six out."
          'Just over a half hour to fix this whole problem, and sentence hundreds of people to death to save almost two thousand.' he thought, frowning. 'Not an ideal situation, but it needs to be done for history's sake.'

February 1st, 2676, 9:47am - Moon

          The comm channel had gone silent for some time now, but knowing his agent the way he did told Director Talon that Six was working on something important, and there was nothing to be gained by disturbing the man when he was busy. 
          'Six's methods can sometimes be a little unorthodox by Bureau standards, but he always gets the job done no matter what, and that's what matters most.'
          Just as he was about to head to his office, the young man at the communication console spoke up.
          "Sir, Agent Six is initiating a parabolic reality cascade. Is this normal?"
          Talon thought for a moment before responding. "Perhaps, if I knew why."
          "Should I re-open the comm channel and ask?" was the query.
          Talon shook his head. "No, don't disturb him unless I tell you to. He's up to something important, and it might be the solution to the problem at hand." he replied. "Keep monitoring the situation, and let me know what happens. I'll be in my office going over the data."
          "Yessir."
          
March 27th, 1977, 16:52pm - Tenerife, Earth

          Turning his own suit into a parabolic magnet that could align several different realities in space/time was no easy feat, and it was giving him a headache no less. The strain on his body was immense due to the temporal energy being pulled towards him, as only a quick burst of the parabolic technology was normally all that needed to be used at a given time.
          Unfortunately, the number of parallel realities out of alignment were greater than he had anticipated, and something had to be done to stop it from continuing. While he was focused on the task at hand, a large white aircract with blue stripes get underway, something he was only vaguely aware of at this point.
          'All this fog and traffic, and the tower still keeps mashing them in....'
          It was no wonder that the initial event he was forced to restore happened, mainly due to human incompetence and bad decisions at the time.
          'Such is the way of things across human history, unfortunately.'
          Minutes ticked by as more aircraft began to move around the tarmac, the parabolic magnet almost complete in it's task. There were only thrity more seconds to spare before the events of this time line would revert to their proper path once again.

February 1st, 2676, 9:57am - Moon

          "Director, this is comm." 
          Talon tapped a control on his desk, noticing the urgency in the young man's voice all of a sudden as he was piped into the Director's office.
          "Go ahead, comm."
          "Agent Six's life signs have started to fluctuate. Not sure if this is a malfunction, or if something's the matter, sir."
          "Summon Doctor Renaud to the command centre, and prepare to shift Six back to base at a moment's notice!"
          "Acknowledged."
          Talon left his desk and hurried out into the command centre again, the sliding door quickly admitting him before he descended the three steps onto the floor. He strode past the comm console and parked himself in front of the master system station and monitored the data from Six's suit himself, getting ready to personally shift his agent back to base.
          "Losing his signal, sir." relayed the comm officer.
          Talon pressed a few controls, and the left circular shift platform across from his station came to life and glowed red, signifying that Six was about to arrive back home.

March 27th, 1977, 17:05pm - Tenerife, Earth

          Agitation and impatience were now in full swing inside the cockpit of the another Boeing 747 jumbo jet, this one flying the colours of the Dutch carrier KLM on it's fuselage. Seconds since the last message from the control tower seemed like minutes to her crew before the radio crackled to life again.
          "KLM eight zero seven five uh, you are cleared to the Papa beacon climb to and maintain flight level nine zero right turn after take-ff proceed with heading zero four zero until intercepting the three two five radial from Las Palmas VOR."
          First Officer Klaas Meurs responded quickly, relaying to the tower that he had acknowledged the order.
          "Ah roger, sir. We're cleared to the Papa beacon flight level nine zero, right turn out zero four zero until intercepting the three two five and we're now at take-off...."
          Captain Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten, one of the most experienced and senior pilots for KLM, had heard enough. Already frustrated at the lack of speed involved by the officials at Tenerife to get him and his plane airborne again, he pushed the throttle forward and prepared for a quick take-off, fog notwithstanding.
          "We gaan!" (We're going!) was all he said, as the massive jet shot forward down the runway and began it's attempt to take-off from the runway. van Zanten was confident that the runway was clear, as the tower wouldn't have given him clearance to take-off so quickly if it wasn't. Any other airplane was likely on the taxiway or shunting tarmac adjacent to the runway at this time, giving his plane alone the long strip of asphalt all to itself.
          For some reason, his first officer was still unsure of the situation, due to a last-minute conflicting radio message from the tower, of which he didn't catch in his haste.
          "Is hij er niet af dan?" (Is he not clear then?) asked Meurs aloud.
          "Wat zeg je?" (What do you day?) was van Zanten's response.
          Meurs asked again, and expanded upon his question. "Estls hij er neit af, die Pan American?" (Is he not clear that Pan American?) 
          van Zanten was angry now at being asked the question, and responded to his first officer emphatically and annoyed.
          "Jawel!" (Oh yes!)
          There was no further discussion, with the captain pushing the throttles to the max, no doubt in his mind that his airplane would lift off without incident...
          
February 1st, 2676, 10:23am - Moon

          Six opened his eyes to see a bright light overhead, and also notice that he wasn't wearing his helmet anymore. Looking from left to right, it soon became apparent that he was laying on a biobed in the medical bay, even though he felt fine at the moment.
          "Ah, the man ofthe hour wakes up, yes?" said the familiar voice of Doctor Renaud, who looked mildly amused at again having the agent in his facility, tending to yet another self-imposed calamity of sorts.
          "I was just about to take a break and enjoy a baguette I synthesized, but you woke up and made me forget all about it." he said with a grin.
          "How are you feeling?"
          Six sat up slowly, and looked down at his temporal suit, which looked uncharacteristically dirty and a little worn.
          "Not too bad, but I can't say the same for my suit."
          Renaud nodded. "Director Talon told me your suit's systems overloaded at the apex of that maneuver you were pulling off, and that you're under orders to rest for the next couple days before going back on the active duty roster."
          Six raised an eyebrow and scowled. "Lovely." 
          Renaud shook his head at the agent. "Considering you could have gotten seriously injured or worse, I believe you got off easy. Think of your beautiful woman next time. If she were here right now, you'd be in bigger trouble, yes?"
          Six's thoughts turned to Tessa for a moment, who had used a couple personal days to go pursue some archaeology on Mars, a hobby for her.
          "I get the picture, Doc. Thanks." he replied.
          "Ah, any time. Perhaps we can get together for a cup of tea again soon? I woudl enjoy hearing more of your thoughts on time and space."
          Six nodded, and was about to lay back down for a little while, when Renaud put a datapad next to him on the datapad before leaving the medical bay.
          Sitting up again, Six looked at it, and saw that the parabolic magnet had been a success, and history once again had a record of the disaster at Tenerife when it should have happened, in March during the year nineteen seventy seven, as per the book. 
          'The larger catastrophe that had popped up in the year 2017 is gone, and those lives saved without them even knowing it.' he thought. 'Too bad five hundred and eighty three people had to die forty years earlier. Sacrificing one to save another doesn't make any of this easier at all.'
          Six laid back down and closed his eyes, trying to forget both incidents and the events of the past day, not interesting in reliving either of them.

                                                            THE END