“THE YEAR 2043”

“Everyone has chronotons which means everyone can travel in time. Yes, the strength of the chronotons is different, which means that some can travel for more number of times than the others. At first it was believed that age has a direct effect on chronotons. This is somewhat true, but there are some individuals who have abnormal chronoton strength. Their chronotons are simply too strong, so strong that they can live in another universe or time without suffering Time Dementia for extremely long duration.”

“These are the individuals ideal for Project Annex. They are extremely rare to find, like one in a million, so far we have seen two individuals with this type of strength. One was Harbinger who was found dead in universe “P: 210” his loss is a major blow to the project. Luckily we have found another, his name is David and he is a street thug. Getting him to work for us shouldn’t be hard, but he requires intense training to get to the level of Harbinger. We must turn him into a perfect killer before sending him to other universes. We have to train him to serve without asking any questions.”

Reed decided to recruit David personally, if there was one thing Reed was good at, it was convincing and manipulating people into doing things for him. Reed knew that David needed to steal money or sell drugs in order to survive.

More importantly he needed David to come automatically to him, he knew that loyalty was a thing which could not be bought and so he started to play with his life. He asked a team to set up a fake drug deal and lure him to it. Once he came to the deal he found out that there was no deal going to take place at all, all this was a trap set by the police to bust him. Before he could escape he was caught by the police and then taken into custody.

The plan had worked brilliantly and now it was time for Reed to play his part and get David’s attention. Before he could meet David, Reed had done a background check on him. He learned of the events that made him what he is today. David was an orphan who ran away from his orphanage and decided to live on the streets on his own. Apparently, the in-charge of the orphanage was a child molester who wasn’t caught even when David had reported against him repeatedly.

He always scared the other children to not testify against him, and they never did. David had to run away in order to save himself, he had tried saving the others but if they wanted to live that life, he didn’t have to try to save them. He wasn’t an orphan from the start, he was brought to the orphanage at the age of 12, his mother died of breast cancer and his father was an unknown man who left his mother alone before his birth.

Sadness and pain were the two feelings David was familiar with and this had made him quite cynical. One thing was for sure that he was a survivor. He was at his worst when Reed met him but even so he was alive and breathing.

Reed sees him looking at the ground playing with his fingers. He asks the police officer to open his cell and let Reed inside, the officer warns him that David is a dangerous man, he could try to hurt him but Reed says in a loud voice, “I’m here to save the man, I’m sure he won’t hurt me!”

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Listening to him David moves his face and sees Reed enter his cell. Both men look at each other and have nothing to say, a moment of dead silence. Reed looks in his eyes and sees the determination, self resolve and confidence. His lips turn wide as he smiles and says, “I know what you have been through young man, time hasn’t been kind to you. But every once in a while it does give us a chance to set things right. Think of this meeting between us as that chance.”

“My name is Reed Maximus and I am about to give you an opportunity to work with me on an important project. I will tell you about it in complete detail IF you accept to work with me.” David seems unsure and reluctant, inside his mind he is figuring out what Reed’s motives are, but he can’t guess.

Right now he needs to get out of prison and this man is giving him a chance to change his life, it all seems too good to be a coincidence, but regardless of everything telling him to say no, he says yes and this changes his life forever.

In a year Reed trains David in combat, decision making, shooting and acrobatics. It seems as if Reed wants to make him a soldier, a warrior of some kind. The time comes when David is ready to be deployed and put to use and this is when Reed tells him of project Annex. David laughs at this, “Seriously sir? Time travel? Different worlds? I thought you were sane!” Reed asks him to wear a strange watch. When he does that he asks him to enter a destination, date and time of his choice on its interface.

Reed selects current universe and then allows David to enter his time and date. David enters 13,04,2032 as the date and 10:00 P.M. as the time. As soon as he presses the initiate button, he teleports to the location at the specified date and time. David looks around and sees his old house where he used to live with his mother.

He looks at the window of the house and says, “What the fuck! I am here...wait!” he climbs his old tree house and uses his toy binoculars to see inside his room, Reed stands patiently next to him. He sees his mother tucking him inside his bed, his hand starts to tremble and tears start flowing from his eyes. He sees her kiss him and turn off the lights.

He looks at Reed and says, “I believe it sir…I believe every word you said. I’ll do whatever you want me to, this…is so unreal!” Reed knows that he has succeeded. Reed gives him the necessary knowledge of time travel and also promises him a universe where he and his mother are together, where she doesn’t die of cancer. He warns him not to change anything from his own past as this would result in unprecedented paradoxes in the current time.

“We are free to change the lives of people in the other universes but not in our own, it is a risk nobody is willing to take and you must not as well!” he warns David as he sends him to universe “P: 217” and gives him a dossier containing all the things Reed wants him to do there.

“Remember David, do whatever it takes to complete your objectives. The enhancer will keep track of your time and teleport you safely to your own time once your objectives are complete. One more thing, from now own your name is Hunter and that is how I will address you.”

In a few months Hunter did what other teams couldn’t do in a year. This was obviously because of his abnormal chronoton strength. He could travel in time without the fear of Time Dementia, while other teams had to come back to their own time and recover their chronoton strength.

Hunter had become the center piece of Reed’s project and Reed did all he could to make his bond with him even more stronger. He gave him wealth and made him the head of the teams working on the project. In return Hunter moved forward with the project, he killed many people, changed the lives of many people and changed the outcomes of a lot of events in different universes.

In a short time Hunter had achieved “Annexation” in 3 universes. Annexation is the event in which Reed becomes the head of MSAT in those respective universes and inherits the power of time travel.

After achieving so much in such a short time Reed allowed Hunter to take some time off, his job wasn’t done yet and he still had to do a lot. After his 3 month vacation Reed asked him to look into the death of Harbinger, a man who was assigned the job before him. David agrees to it and decides to travel to “P: 210” next.