Chapter 2: Irregulars

Einstein, just in time, fell asleep on the floor with his equations that he didn’t saw the portal.

As Ethan opened his eyes, he glanced at his watch. The year he was taken to was the year 2020.

The chief, head of the time police as they called them, injected a serum that woke Ethan up. Ethan sobered up and snapped out of it as his vision became clearer. He glanced at the familiar face that stood in front of him, and it was Chief 102.

“Ethan Young, once again, you’ve caused quite a commotion. You just leaked to a human about a piece of confidential information.”

Ethan scowled before he tried to complain, “Hey! I never said anything―”

He cut off Ethan and nagged, “Irregular. You mentioned the word Irregular. It is our sole duty to ensure the timeline remains as it is supposed to. If I hadn’t gotten you on time, the superiors would surely punish you.”

Ethan found it unfair. “Oh, come on, Watt.”

“Again, Mr. Ethan Young, I do not have a name. Call me ‘Chief 102’.”

“Watt.” Ethan playfully insisted, “Hey Watt, what’s up? Ha! Get it?”

The time police have neither name nor identity; their ranks are based on their appearance, but Ethan named one of them Watt, and for some reason, Ethan can distinguish Watt from the rest.

Chief 102 gained his name from Ethan- he was the first human assigned to him by the higher-ups. Back then, Ethan wasn’t able to utter any word. He had no recollection of who he was or how he got in that timeline, but one thing was sure- Ethan was an irregular.

When Chief 102 found Ethan, all Ethan could utter was “What” hence Chief 102’s name- Watt.

Humorous, right? Anyway, let’s call him ‘Watt’; it’s easier that way.

Watt sighed and replied, “Kid, you cannot go around telling people they’re irregular, okay? You can’t mess the timeline, and it’s a serious crime. How many times must I remind you?”

Ethan rolled his eyes, he wasn’t interested, and he finished Watt’s sentence, “I know, as a space pizza delivery guy, my job is to deliver to the timekeepers, not the people at the timeline. I just got… sidetracked.”      

“Anyways, we detected one here. An Irregular.” Watt informed

Ethan’s face got serious as he cleared his throat. He knew how the routine goes. Ever since the time police found Ethan, he became an asset given that he was able to sense who was an irregular.

For some reason, Ethan developed strong senses that no one else is capable of. It remained a mystery as to how and why since apparently, no irregular stayed longer than him.

“Yikes, how long before you found out?”

Watt takes a spoonful of his vanilla ice cream as he mess my dirty blonde hair up,  “Just now, our info says that she’s been here in this timeline for months now. 2020 must be such a mess right now. So do your best, kid.”

“I always do,” Ethan replied nonchalantly.

Although, Ethan was an Irregular himself, he helped the time police find others. Ethan knew the consequences of his kind.

Irregulars are supposed to be removed from a specific timeline; otherwise, it would be a catastrophe. Devastating events will start to happen continuously, like sudden volcanic eruptions, pandemics, and sudden assassinations. No matter what, it will happen in a timeline where an Irregular happens to stay hence the name.

There are events that cannot simply be explained, well, for that; you can blame them, irregulars.

Even Ethan knew that much.

They searched the large city of France, and it was oddly quiet and peaceful with not a single person outside. Suddenly a woman with curling accessories on her head shouts from her window, “Hey kid, and you can’t go outside! There’s a quarantine.”

Ethan forgot to turn on his invisibility- as clumsy as he usually was, he accidentally doubled-tapped his skin, so it turned blue. On his second attempt, he tried another tap, and he turned invisible to human’s eyesight.

Ethan hesitantly looked at the woman. She was so shocked she started rubbing her eyes; the woman burned her hair with that curler ‘cause she was staring too long.

“Ah, excellent work as always, Ethan,” Watt remarked sarcastically

“Oh, shut up, that was an accident.”

Watt and Ethan continued to walk the empty street of France until Ethan sensed her. Ethan flinched, and Watt instantly knew that he detected an Irregular. The two glanced across them, and it was a girl by the bridge. She had her hoodie on as she was cluelessly looking at the sky, and she shifts his gaze with her heterochromia eyes towards Ethan as she heard his footsteps.

Ethan lifted his invisibility cloak.

Her two different eye colors were the first thing Ethan noticed. Her left eye was a dark shade of brown, while the other is a lighter shade of green. It matched her beautiful dark complexion. She looked like a very beautiful woman.

Ethan approached her cautiously, “Hello, I’m Ethan. Ethan Young, and you are?”

The girl shook her head, and Ethan glanced at Watt. Watt reported to his higher-ups, “We found her, the Irregular. Call for backups.”

“That’s okay, and I didn’t remember my name either. I still don’t.” Ethan turned his head to the girl and said, “Let me help you. You can’t stay on this timeline. You’ll mess it up.”

She looks around confused and disoriented, “What do you mean?”

Ethan understood, most irregulars are dazed, confused, and some are in a state where they are completely unable to process what was happening during the first encounter. Most irregulars had no idea they were one.

They had no memories about anything. Irregularity is a case of someone who’s lost in the timeline- to be more specific, people like Ethan have no timeline. It’s a phenomenon that happens only with humans.

Among the creatures in the vast multidimensional, humans lived the shortest, and for this reason, they unconsciously created an irregular timeline in hopes of living longer- at least that’s according to the time police.

“We’re irregulars. We can’t stay in this specific timeline.” Ethan informed the girl

“Timeline?” The girl asked curiously, “Irregular? What’s all that?”

But before Ethan could answer, Watt, along with the backups, requested for grabbed the girl. They have created a portal back home, and Ethan proceeded inside as well.

In a blink of an eye, all of them were back at MDWD- as they called it, the Multidimensional World Department. The place where species of all kinds report suspicious time behaviors and irregularities was the place where the higher-ups handled any time-related issues reported back to them by the time police.

Time does not exist there. It was filled with buildings and species inappropriate office clothes.

It smelled like coffee and despair, but this was where Ethan lived.