It's a regular day in the city. The sun is bright and lights up every room. Andy Smith, a professional hitman and agent, wakes up to his alarm, set to 8:00. He groans and stretches.
"Oh yeah, I forgot the thing's today," he sighed.
He looks at his phone, which is placed on the bedside table next to him. On his notifications tab, he sees that he was sent a message from an unnamed contact, but it's a number he recognizes. It read;
"Hello, Mr. Smith. I'm glad to say that we are preparing the machine for your journey later. We are currently calibrating the period we'll send you to, and we'll have the things you'll need when you arrive. Thank you again for agreeing to partake in this mission with us. May we wish safety throughout your journey." (Sent at 5:34am)
He gets up from his bed while reading the message.
"Who sends messages at this time?" he thinks to himself. He walks downstairs to his kitchen, and he places his phone on the counter. The kitchen is pretty organized; everything has its designated spot.
Andy starts off to make breakfast by taking a coffee pod out of a rack on another counter and putting it in his coffee machine. He looks in his fridge and sees leftovers from last night; it was chicken stir-fry with broccoli. He took it out and decided to heat it in the microwave, probably due to his lack of energy in the morning.
After his breakfast, he takes a shower and gets dressed for the day. Andy wears a white tank top, dark blue jeans, a leather belt with holsters added on for weapons he can carry, black shoes, and a black jacket with pockets he uses for the same reason as the belt. The weather is a little hot today, so he ties the jacket around his waist and will wear it later. He is finally ready for the day and takes a motorcycle to his company's building, which is about an hour and a half away.
A few moments later, he arrives at the building. He walks inside, and there's a lady at the front desk who works as the receptionist. When Andy entered, she instantly recognized him.
"Ah, Mr. Smith, right?" the receptionist asks, to which Andy nods in response.
The receptionist dials in a number on the desk phone. Andy looks at the worker and waits. After a few seconds of waiting, he is called in.
"Alright, Andy. Your room is 3-G. You can take the elevator right there," she says as she points at the elevator on the walls of the lobby.
"Okay, thank you." Andy nods his head again in thanks, then walks to the elevator.
He reaches his floor, and as the elevator doors open, he sees a person in a white top about to walk in but then stopped.
"Oh, hello, Andy. I was about to come see you in the lobby, but I'm glad to have come across you here; I'm Will," the guy said.
"Glad you invited me," Andy responded while shaking the scientist's hand.
The two walked to the room for the mission. The halls were painted black, as was the carpet, and there were lights at the corners of the floor emitting a blue glow. They arrived at the room, and the room was well lit in contrast to the hallway. It was a little blinding to Andy for a bit, but he got used to it quickly.
"I really appreciate that you agreed to help us with this mission. You are helping us discover new things about our world!" Will said as he guided Andy around.
"It's no problem. Sure, I haven't done this before, but the unknown hasn't stopped me yet," Andy responds. He looks around the room, and it's full of engineers and physicists working together to set up the mission.
"Well, that's good to hear," said Will. "The machine is up ahead."
The machine, named the Voyager, is being calibrated and set up by the physicists. The machine consists of a cylindrical-shaped platform in which the subject would stand, multiple lasers that would point at the subject to send them to a point in time, and multiple wires and gauges that measure the energy being consumed. There are also a few cords that would be attached to the subject for safety measure.
"Goddamn..." Andy muttered under his breath.
Multiple workers in the area prepare Andy's things for the trip: a smartwatch, a desert eagle with a few magazines hidden in his clothes, a multi-use knife, bandages, and a bag of essentials.
"Are you ready, Mr. Smith? In a few moments, you'll see what it was like back then," the scientist asked.
Andy padded down his pants to check his things and answered, "I'm all set."
"That's good," said Will, "Now, do you-". One of the engineers interrupted their conversation.
"H-hey, sir William?" said the engineer.
"Hey. Uhmm, not now, please," responded Will, trying to continue his conversation with Andy. The engineer keeps insisting on telling him something.
"But sir, this is really important," they said.
"We'll talk about it later; now go help set the machine up." Will says he wants the engineer to keep setting up the machine.
The engineer keeps trying, "No, but-"
The scientist interrupts and says in a stern tone, "Go... now."
The engineer sighs as Andy and Will leave to continue their conversation.
"Anyway, do you want to go through the agreements again to make sure you know what to expect for this mission?" he asked Andy.
"No, I should be good. I'm aware of the risk I'm taking, and my death will be my liability," Andy responded quite nonchalantly.
The scientist shrugged it off and said, "If you say so."
As Andy steps into the machine, the noise of the room increases as conversations between engineers and physicists procees to fill it out of interest.
Andy takes a deep breath and says with a thumbs-up gesture, "I'm ready!"
Will sees his signal and pulls a lever that activates the machine.
The machine starts glowing, the lasers beam towards Andy with a loud, rising hum, and the gauges immediately reach their highest capacity. And then suddenly, a metal creak was heard. The engineers and physicists were collectively confused and, especially concerned. Andy, on the other hand, didn't notice anything. More creaking came from the metal as cracks started to show. The engineers in the room immediately noticed and tried to stop the machine.
Will notices this as well, and he yelled, "Andy! There's a problem!"
Andy heard the yell, "Huh?" he said out of confusion.
But it was too late; the operation was done, and Andy was sent back to the past. As he was sent back, the machine exploded, pieces of metal flew out and smoke filled the room.
The engineers and physicists all started coughing and evacuating, as Will stayed behind to look at what he failed to notice.
"Shit," he sighed.