Year: 2553, Location: London, Sentinel Clockworks (Sentinels of Time local HQ)
Henry was a fool after all, Ryan had sent the last two years teaching Henry about the time stream, how linchpin events were often disrupted by bad actors trying to manipulate time for their own ends. Ryan had spent a decade as a temporal investigator chased and caught a few dozen criminals who had gotten their hands on protected time travail tech out of the 30k's all trying to change the world in some form. Henry was the first man Ryan had thought might not be like the rest. He was wrong. All this talk of "changing the world" and not a seconds consideration for the consequences. The Henry's time machine was missing form the vault. he had suck in the previous night and spirited away knocking a few guard unconscious in the process. Ryan was sure he was planning something big, something that would be catastrophic for the time stream and it was Ryan's job both as a Temporal investigator and as Henry's supervising agent to ensure he didn't.
Ryan swept through the corridors of the Clockworks with purpose, gray trench-coat flapping in his wake. His destination, a high security chrono-vault in the bowls of the Clockworks. chrono-vaults were a interesting security measure but a necessary one. When most of the people who would steal their contents could travel in time and space a simple locked box wasn't good enough. Instead of a locked door chrono-vaults used out of sync localized time fields to perpetually keep the contents a few seconds in the future. There was one vault in the 2500's version of the Clockworks, brought back special from the 30k's to keep the only 2 objects in the period of temporal significance safe. the first was of course Henry's own incarnation of the time machine, the second was Ryan's.
The advantage of being a time agent from the 30k's stationed throughout the past was that you were issued your own time travel devise. They worked nothing like the big time ships that were used to transfer agents around. you couldn't just pick a destination and go. The personal devices issued to agents were a a more linear tool. They attached to the time line of something specific and then transferred the user along the path that something took through time. The something could be a person, that was easiest, or an object of significance but that was a bit tricky. What exactly constituted an object of significance wasn't really known. A good rule of thumb was that if it eventually ended up in a museum or traded through an auction house it would work, but somethings the machine recognized perfectly ordinary objects like a hair brush or teddy bear as having a string enough signature to attach to.
Reaching the vault Ryan gave the command to open and sync the vault. The guard standing by complied with a salute. These were fresh guards, the ones who had been on duty last night were recovering in the medical ward. The vault door wasn't exactly impressive as it slid back into the wall to reveal the room beyond. Bu then the appeal of a chrono-vault wasn't in the door that was never locked. it was in the temporal ensigns that moved the content in and out of sync with the rest of the time stream. The tell tail humming the engines warming up was fallows shortly by the sudden appearance of rows of shelves and boxes in the previously empty room. Ryan marched in and headed for the back. There on a small pedestal sat a grapefruit sized ball of brass clockwork strait out of a fantasy game, and the empty space to it's right was where Henry's time machine should of been.
Ryan picked up the orb of ornate metal styled like some sort of dwarven master piece strait out of the pictures - engineers in the 30k's could get a bit esoteric with their designs - and taped his right index finger against the gold frame of his glasses to activate the inbuilt display. The scrolling text told him the temporal engine was warming up and a soft werring sound form the orb confirmed it. Every time he activated this thing adventure and chaos followed in the case or mission involved. This time though he time traveled to chase Henry, a man who Ryan counted among his good friend. With a few simple command Ryan instructed the orb to lock on to Henry's time line and chase it forward, Henry's recent presence in the room being enough to track. With a soft sigh Ryan placed both hand on the Orb and prepared for the temporal shift.
Flashing red text form the engine diagnostics was the only warning Ryan had before the light enveloped him.
Year: 1941, Location: A small French Village, Barracks Tent
A small flash of light and loud whip like crack split the air of the army camp. A barracks tent just across form the medical building spewed a light gray smoke out the flaps. Ryan Dunderhill stumbled out of the tent, head to the ground, waving the smoke away form his face; time orb help at his side in the left had.
"Blasted!..." Ryan, ignoring his surrounding, examined the Orb for what had gone wrong, diagnostics scrolling across the right lens of his glasses. "Of course he bloody reversed the dam matrix! Oh! and overloaded the field crystals too! Bloody hell, where did he ever learn... Where the hell did I end up!?" Ryan dropped the orb back to his side and examined the area. The readout on his glasses told in he was somewhere in France in the year 1941, and his eyes told him he was standing in the middle of a war camp, Two women - one in a very odd jacket - and an old man stood just in front of him. Ryan froze, not in fear of being discovered but because they all has temporal signatures that didn't match the current time period. His glasses had flagged them immediately.,
Talking a half step forward Ryan spoke softly partially to himself but loud enough to carry a few feet "your not supposed to be here..." a quick glance to his side and the time orb reminded Ryan of the situation he was in, Quickly stuffing the orb into an inner pocked of the trench-coat Ryan turned full circle to get a good look at the camp.
"For that matter, neither am I."
