Time vs Time

New Era

Sitting on a bench on the platform, Mihir was waiting for his train to arrive. It was America, it was 1917.  There were very few people on the platform, the weather was cloudy so it produced a classy effect. The last time Mihir was in America, it was 2017. America is way less racist in future, but as of now, well, it was war time so people were already broke. Sitting there in silence, Mihir thought about 100 years in the future, when he will be just a normal Indian teenage boy, who just received the scholarship to study in California Institute of Technology, unaware of the fact that next he'll be here, he'd be here previously. The train arrived, Mihir entered it, and as the train started moving, it went faster and faster until he could see nothing but light flashing by the windows. Mihir didn't look shocked. He knew what was happening. He turned around, standing a 5'8" man of roughly the same age as Mihir, that is around 30, watching him, smirking. It was Dave, the first person Mihir met when he visited California in 2017 and became best buddies with. "We are running out of time Mihir, we've got to finish the job before it finishes us", is what the first thing Dave said. Mihir replied, "We control time brother, there's no need to worry". As their sentences progressed, their voice echoed more and more, which only Mihir realized and seemed confused. "We don't control time anymore, no", says Dave, and just as he finished, the lights flashing out of the windows brightened so much that it caused Mihir to close his eyes tightly, in a hurry.

As his eyes opened, he saw Felicia, his date and colleague, in front of him, as if she were waking him up. "It happens to all of us, but you take one heck of a long period to wake up", she said, to which Mihir replied, "These random dreams bother me way too much. I feel like they're pointing towards something which is about to happen". Felicia replied, "You're not the only one, genius". As they walked around a bit, they looked at the surroundings with such pleasure and surprise to which Lawrence, another of their colleagues, said, "I wonder why are we still living in that s**t of a world, when the Mesozoic Era is this beautiful".

They were in the Mesozoic Era. They have been to different times before, and it isn't the last time either. This is their job. No matter how dangerous, how difficult it is, they chose it, they went for it. Added to it, who wouldn't like to travel through time? In 2029, when Mihir and Dave Costa finally joined the recently created Department of Time Travel (it sounds ridiculous, but that's what the people named it), they both were made to sign a contract which clearly stated- “The DTT cannot be blamed for any dangerous or fatal incident that might happen to the agent''. So yes, it's pretty much their own choice. In the Mesozoic Era, they were supposed to aid paleontologists Dr. Felicia Guard and Dr. Lawrence Michael, who were here to study prehistoric animals of the division Saurischia. They began with tracking themselves through Time-Space Repostionor, a device invented in the future to track the position of oneself while in any other time. “We're in Sector-4A31", Lawrence said, “I just hope they renovated this sector after the Mapusaurus broke in."

“Chill, I was the one who conducted the renovation program. It's safe."- Dave replied.

“Until we're in the time when the Mapusaurus broke in"- Mihir added, sarcastically, to which Lawrence replied- “I hate it when you say things like that".

Felicia pointed towards the quadbike stand nearby, and said, “I don't know why we are supposed to use quad bikes, but anyway, let's go, we have lots of work to do". They started walking towards the quad bikes and Costa said, “They probably put quad bikes to make it look cool. Out running a pack of raptors on quad bikes- that's the stuff I came into this job for."

They sat on one quad bike each, and started racing towards a big titanium gate, which was completely sealed. The gate opened for them and they entered, a tunnel leading them to the Cretaceous Headquarters of Field Paleontology, a huge campus, heavily protected and completely sealed off, so that not even a prehistoric insect could enter.

It was not much different from a university campus, except it was inside a titanium dome, if someone looked up, they would see a sky made of metal. It was around 900 ft. above the ground, with many lighting sources to make it seem like a day. Just after the main entrance, there was another quad bike stand to the right, and a security guard cabinet to the left. All four of them were welcomed. They exit the bike stand, and move towards the main 50-story high-tech building. It was a long way since the campus was too widespread, but the walk was worth it as it was like a tour through a museum, with fossils and fresh dinosaur skeletons up for display. There was a board hanging on a pole near the Giganotosaurus skeleton, which said- "The fresh skeletons were obtained from animals who died due to natural causes, no animal was manually killed.".