On Time

The package on my doorstep had my name, but I definitely didn't order it.

I glanced up at the unmarked drone flying away from my apartment. It was an odd delivery, to say the least. Curiosity got the better of me, and I picked up the small parcel to examine it. It was heavy, and there was no return address. With a frown and a shrug, I brought it inside and set it on the kitchen counter.

I unwrapped the unassuming brown paper, revealing a sleek, dark gray metallic box. In the center of one side of the box, the top (at least it was my best guess as which side was the top) was a circular groove. I rotated the box a few more times and then, with another shrug, ran my finger over the groove. A light emitted in the circle and pulsed.

"Oh," I gasped, setting the box down. "I feel like I shouldn't have done that."

The pulse quickened, and I took a step back, bracing myself. The surface of the package shimmered, cascading into thousands of metallic cubes that unfolded to reveal a small, sleek device floating inside. The box folded in on itself until it was merely a stage for its contents.

I blinked, taking in the small white disk suspended before me. With some trepidation, I stepped toward it again, taking in the intricate lines on its surface. Spending several minutes circling the mysterious object, it seemed safe. Nothing else moved or made any indication the device was on or would activate.

I chewed my lip, arriving at the same conclusion again and again: whatever it was would probably respond to touch, the way the metallic box had. However, unlike the box, I couldn't see any clear "press me" spots on the disk. I walked away from the strange object and tromped back into the kitchen, then back again.

"Okay, weird alien thing, here we go!"

I grabbed it with my non-dominant hand (just in case). My vision blurred as soon as my fingers made contact, and the world started to peel away to white. A soft voice was in my ears, and it was a command I felt compelled to obey: " Do not let them take this from you ."

My vision snapped back to normal, and I stumbled, the disk still in hand. Before I could fully process what had just happened, the lights flickered. A cold, metallic hum reverberated in the air. I rushed to the window and saw three darkly dressed figures in the alley. They moved precisely, scanning the area with devices I didn't recognize.

I didn't wait to be discovered or figure out what was happening. Grabbing my jacket and keys, I headed to the fire escape in my room that led to the other side of the building. I stuffed the disk in my jacket, slipped out my window, and waved goodbye to Pumpkin, my neighbor's orange cat. I climbed down the escape as quickly and quietly as possible, and when my feet hit the ground, the world around me flooded with blue light and froze.

My ears began to ring in the deafening silence that had replaced the hum of daily life. No cars honked, nothing electronic buzzing, and the sounds of every living thing were silenced. I glanced around in horror as I pushed myself toward the street. People and cars were still there; everything was just frozen. The street signals forever in one hue, birds suspended mid-flight. Time had stopped for everything but me.

A sound trumped the silence around me: footsteps. I wasn't alone. I glanced back, seeing the three figures take the corner. They spotted me! I instinctively began to run, ducking and dodging through the frozen street. Why were there so many people at this hour, it was like a maze of statues? I ducked into a store entryway and chanced another glance at my pursuers.

They steadily moved through the surreal scene, visors across their eyes glowing crimson as they neared me. No wonder they weren't in a rush; something in their gear was homing in on my mystery disk. I decided to bolt, and one lifted raised a slick object, pointing it at me. Not sure if it was a weapon, I slid under a truck and started to zigzag. A blast of light shot past my face. Startled, I grasped at the object in my jacket. Time jolted, and I found myself several blocks away; the flow of life returned to normal.

"What the hell was that?" I gasped, feeling my stomach revolt. I grabbed the brick of the building beside me to steady myself and slumped into another alley.

The voice returned: "You are being chased by temporal regulators. This artifact wasn't meant for you, but now that it is in your possession, you must protect it."

"I don't take orders from disembodied voices," I scoffed. "Those guys are hunting me; they have weapons!"

I focused on breathing, waiting for my stomach to settle.

"They seek to control time, " the voice remained infuriatingly calm. “The artifact destabilizes their system; it's a threat to the timeline they've crafted, a timeline designed to serve them."

"So, I'm like, caught in a time war?" I'd read enough Sci-fi to know beings from the future chasing you was extremely bad… and I did NOT have main character energy. "Oh shit, I'm going to die; or alter time irreparably, and then probably die—"

"Use the artifact, trust it."

Before I could argue, the sound of distinct metallic boots jolted through the sounds of the crowd. The Regulators had caught up. I could almost feel their malice. Desperate, I pulled the disk from my coat and pressed it. Nothing. I turned it over and started poking at it like a game controller when you don't know what button to push. Somewhere in my frantic motion, something in the device responded, whirring, and I felt a pull as the world fragmented.

I blinked, and I wasn't in the alley anymore, I was now in a sterile lab. I blinked again, trying to focus on the futuristic gadgets and machines around me.

"Well done." A tall woman in a silver jumpsuit appeared, her sharp, calculating eyes measuring me in a moment. "Clumsy, but you did well to escape. It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Dr. Korrin."

I instantly recognized her voice as the voice that had been guiding me. "Oh, thank God!" I wanted to cry from relief. "Can you take this thing and send me home?"

She shook her head. "While I am its creator, you have now become its operator."

"So…" I stared at her blankly, holding out the disk like an unwanted candy wrapper. "What do I do with it?"

"It's a key." She stated simply as if that answered everything.

When she saw I had no idea what that meant, she huffed, "It's a key to the core. You must take it there and undo all the damage the Regulators have done. They've rewritten history, muddled the past and future, and locked time into a stagnant loop/ With the artifact, you can reset time itself."

"So… just find the center of time and... turn it off and back on again?"

Her sardonic glare was not encouraging.

"I'm not qualified for this!" I protested. "Give it to a quantum engineer, or Stephen Hawking, or I don't know, somebody at NASA!"

I could park it in the future and carry on with automatic burrito makers.

The lab around us shuddered like an earthquake, and the alarm blared, red lights bathing the white lab in a pink hue.

"They're here!" Dr. Korrin gasped.

I didn't need to guess who "They" were.

"You don't have much time," she grabbed a sack, threw some supplies in it, and then shoved it at me. "I can direct you to the core; you must activate the reset manually."

She grabbed the disk from me, precisely pressing on a few spots.

I stammered, "I-I don't know what that means—"

She shoved the disk back in my hand, pressed one last spot, and stepped back.

The artifact flared, and I was pulled into a swirling vortex of light and sound. I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again, I stood in darkness before a massive crystalline structure. Around me, auroras danced in the nothing. The surface of the crystal began to pulse, colors cascading through it.

A whirring noise behind me made me turn, and I found myself facing down the barrel of one of the Time Regulator's weapons.

"Stop!" they commanded, their voice a mix of masculine, feminine, and metallic tones.

I might have listened if that was the weirdest thing of the day. But, as it was now about the fourth-ranking weirdest thing of the day, I raised the artifact to the crystalline object, my thumb pressed against it like a dead man's switch.

"Don't—you'll unravel time and ensure Dr. Korrin's chaotic timeline takes hold."

I hesitated at their plea. I hadn't heard their side of the story, though having been chased and already shot at didn't leave me feeling sympathetic to their cause.

"Explain." I squinted. "Preferably without a gun in my face."

"It's not a gun," but they lowered it, "It's a stabilizer. It would reset you to a time before you received the artifact—but I can't risk it going off next to the core without you de-sequencing it. "

Yes, because that was something I knew how to do. I struggled to maintain my poker face; that was future me's problem if the Time Regulator wasn't full of shit.

"Dr. Korrin belongs to a group that wants to return time to a wild state like before the Regulators started stabilizing the timeline. Doing so would cause many realities to shift and converge and cost a lot of lives that currently exist on this maintained timeline. We can't go back."

"Can't, or won't? Look, I'm not an expert—but policing time seems like something controlling narcissist super-villains do."

"What?" the visor partially covered their face, but I could swear they rolled their eyes at me. "No, breaking a stable timeline with overly complex gadgets is what narcissist super-villains do."

"Oh." Hard to argue with that.

"Will you stop this and give me the artifact?" they reached out their hand.

"It's too late," I murmured, releasing the artifact, wishing I knew how to work the stupid thing. “I'm sorry.”

It collided with the core, and a surge of energy exploded. Everything was bright, and a roar beyond comprehension filled the space. I watched in horror as the Time Regulator in front of me unraveled, everything vanished, and reality itself was erased.

The blinding light faded, and I blinked in confusion, taking in the apartment around me. It wasn't mine, but it felt like home. Confused, I set the sack on the table and looked around.

There was a knock at the front door. With a blink and a shrug, I went over to open it.

The package on my doorstep had my name, but I didn't remember ordering anything. I glanced up at the unmarked drone flying away from my apartment. An odd delivery, to say the least.