Something New

The three of them was inside the car and silence has been with them for a long time. Cedric, Anna's brother fell asleep at the back seat. Anna had the memory of seeing the man in the back of her head and can't stop worrying about it. Stanley saw the look on Anna's face.

"Uhm.. Is there something bothering you?" Stanley asked Anna.

"It's just.. Nothing.." Anna responded and released a heavy sigh.

"You can tell me everything." Stanley said and looked at her. He looked back to the road to focus on driving.

"Things happened all of the sudden that I was not prepared for." Anna replied to him while looking outside the window.

"It seems like the world started to be in a certain type of phenomenon." She added.

Stanley was surprised on what she said.

He have the idea on what Anna was talking about but as much as he wanted to tell her everything, he don't want them be involved anymore on the mess he made. He doesn't know what to say to her and words unknowingly just left out of his mouth.

"I don't know about it and I don't think we could figure it out." Stanley said. He thought to himself on how many times he could lie to Anna about the situation.

"I thought of that too, thinking on what are the reasons why we don't know what would happen the next day." She replied to him, still looking at the window of the car.

"I wish I can go back where I can stop those times." She added, referring to what happened for the days.

"I'll be here for you. I promise." Stanley said. He felt his heart was being pierced by his guilt over and over again.

Anna smiled and looked at him, appreciating what he did for them.

"I can help you with anything. If you're having a hard time, I'll be here to listen. If you want to vent out your anger, I'll be glad to take your punches. If you wanted to let your tears flow, I'll offer my shoulder for you." He said. Anna felt how sincere the words that left through his mouth and also felt confused by what he said.

Anna was confused because in her mind she felt that Stanley knew what's going to happen but she shrugged those thought of hers and just appreciated what Stanley said.

"Thank you Stan. You, being there to save me all the time and I can't thank you enough to show grateful I am." She said to him.

Anna's eyes started to water again, she hated crying over and over again in front of other people. As much as she wanted not to cry Stanley put head on his shoulder. She then started to let out what she has been feeling.

"Just cry it all out." Stanley said to Anna. He can feel how the tears flow immensely through his long sleeves.

Anna tried to be quiet as she could be for Cedric not to hear her cry.

All Anna was thinking now was how she could stand up again. Recalling how Cedric took the acceptance of their father's death she felt the strength to hold on to hope that days will be better for them.

She wiped her tears from her face and took a deep breath and exhaled.

"I'm sorry I messed up your long sleeves." She apologized as she saw how wet Stanley's long sleeve was.

"It's alright. I can wash them later." He said while smiling at Anna.

"Oh! We're here!" Stanley informed them as he saw his house a couple of blocks away.

Anna saw how peaceful the neighbourhood was, a place where they hope of something new.

Stanley's team was pressured by the council to discover an alternative way to prevent the tear to appear to their timeline. They worked day and night to monitor and study the time capsule again and again. An alternative way to prevent the catastrophe was simply not on their hands but they still kept trying to find one.

The council abruptly reprimanded their team as Stanley hasn't done anything for a week now. If this still kept going he might've just be dead for good. Predictability using probability wasn't working as the timeline keep compressing. They didn't know what to tell and how to guide Stanley. If they just used probability over and over again it would not be suffice and helpful at all. They needed to figure out something as soon as possible.

They knew that Stanley has no clue what he had to do to prevent the things about to happen.

Russel became the appointed head of the team and they've been doing the best that they could to contact Stanley again. The only line of communication between them and Stanley was affected by the unstable magnetic impulses between different poles of the timeline.

Every timeline has two polar opposites that create magnetic impulses passing each other. As the timeline from the past keep compressing, magnetic impulses became heavily unstable creating a force to rip the other.

The door in the room opened and Ms. Scott visited Stanley's team's laboratory. Everyone stopped and looked at her.

"Please don't mind me. I'm here to have a talk with Mr. Acker." She stated and nod as a signal for everyone to continue working.

"Your Highness." Russel greeted Ms. Scott.

They have gone back a little bit as their conversation might be heard by everbody.

"We know that Mr. Wood hasn't done anything yet." She said giving him a cold look with her eyes.

"And we all know that the time is ticking and if we did nothing to prevent this.. The humanity will be doomed." Ms. Scott provoked him.

"I know and I think Mr. Wood will be able to find a way." Russel still wasn't sceptical about putting the trust to Stanley.

"Don't put too much trust on him. You know that it's his fault and--" Russel was not having what Ms. Scott would thought, blaming Stanley for all of this.

"It isn't just his fault. It's also your fault and our fault!" Russel insisted.

Ms. Scott eyes emitted a somewhat hatred glare at Russel.

"If you wouldn't have pushed this through at the first place, this shouldn't be happening right now." Russel said to her, blaming her.

"It's because of your ignorance and not mine!" Ms. Scott pointed at Russel.

The conversation heated because of them blaming each side.

"Who do you think you're fooling? You made us built an army of AI combatant, The Atlas Project, and this Time Travel Exploration!" Russel's anger was drawn to his face.

"I supported your plan because you said it was for the humanity but it turns out your destroying it!" Russel said.

"It was for the greater good Mr. Acker! We knew how it is hard that other individuals have begun to build a revolution against the council!" Ms. Scott argued.

"You created a war and your plan now is to sacrifice someone to change all what you created?!" Russel was talking about how they planned to sacrifice Stanley's fate to prevent the existing war.

"It shouldn't have created a problem when you did your job properly! This?" Ms. Scott blamed Russel back.

"Everything should be fine. You said that to me! No rifts will be torn! You assured that to me!" Ms. Scott enraged.

"And the case of Mr. Wood right now?" Ms. Scott smirked a little bit.

"He wanted to be the test subject! And it wasn't my fault!" She added and recalled the implementation of their plan.

Future was undeniably in a state of chaos where revolutions against the council began to oppress the capital city. Atlas project was her plan at first but Stanley and other scientist threatened to revolt at the council. She had no choice at that moment but to threaten them, threat them with their lives. She brainwashed and ordered them create AIs basing on the characteristics of 000311. She fully changed each of the robots' algorithms to be AI combatants.

The council was somewhat lured into her ideals. The laws that they've made became disturbing for everyone but laws were powerful rather than their freedom.

All became well for the people living in the capital city. The uprising revolution became stagnant in numbers but that wasn't the end of it. Guilt was eating her up, it was the great battle she had to face.

Guilt because of the thousands of people died in her rule. She knew she messed up and as soon as she heard that Stanley's team was working on time exploration she immediately funded the project. An idea popped to her head that if someone could go back in time to prevent and undo what she had done, all will be well. Russel supported her as he found out that what could be done can be undone until their ideas turned into disaster after another disaster, creating the one that could wiped out the existence of the human race.

Guilt can be seen from the both of them. They became quiet for a couple minutes as they were being eaten by it in way Ms. Scott thinking that she was nothing but a useless ruler and Russel thinking that he betrayed Stanley by supporting Ms. Scott.

"Well, the things we did doesn't matter now. The things that matter now is what we do today." Russel tried to lift themselves up from their intense conversation.

They stopped thinking what's on their mind when they heard an emergency siren from the room.

"ALPHA 1!" A voice-over was heard from the room.

The two of them looked at each other and immediately got inside the room.

"What's going on?!" Russel rushed to check and take over Vanessa on the monitor.

"There have been disturbances in the impulses made by a force a few days from the past." Vanessa said.

"It taken fully effect on this day." She added.

"What happened?!" Ms. Scott asked Russel.

"It's because of what you sent." Russel told her.

"We don't know where the force came from yet but we doubt that the thing where it came from wasn't from the past." Vanessa suspected.

She remembered the rock ion she deployed.

"Sir, There's a rapid blinking on the visual monitor and we don't know why it kept blinking like that." Arron stated.

"What does this blinking means?" Russel asked himself.