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Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Sci-fi · #1888361
A work in progress, not sure where to go
The temporal radar begins a shrill tone, jarring Scott out of his doze.  Scott is the operator, and his station is quiet.  The technology is several years old and any issues that could be detected have already been discovered.  The temporal radar, or TEMPRA, is a sensor that detects anomalies in the time stream.  The TEMPRA, when it was built, instantly found a group from the future who were sent to destroy it, and the time travel technology that grew out of the research needed to build it. 

Since then it has been used to prevent everything from nuclear wars, industrial accidents, and deaths from natural disasters.    All of these were found to have been caused, either directly or indirectly, by a group from the future, who with the benefit of foreknowledge, knew exactly what to do to in order to allow the events to cause as much damage as was possible.

However, the group was wiped out with an engineered virus that a group of time terrorists were infected with just before they returned to their time.  It seems to have wiped out the cell.  So the alarm on the TEMPRA was quite surprising; it is the first in 6 months, and it did not seem to be coming from modern times.  It was coming from the distant past.  This could pose a problem, as it has been discovered that one can only travel to within one’s own lifetime.  This was a ping from 85 years ago! 
Scott picks up the phone and begins to dial his supervisor’s home number.  It rings several times before the supervisor answers.  Obvious that he had been sleeping, he grumbles “What?  Who is this?  Don’t you know its three o’clock in the fucking morning, and on a Tuesday?”  Scott can hear the rage building as Eric blunders out of bed, a muffled thud followed by a grunted “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Gathering his courage to speak, Scott says “It’s me, boss, it’s Scott.  We have a situation on the TEMPRA that I thought you should know about.  We have a ping from 85 years ago, but none of our operatives are older than 28!  How will we investigate this?”
“Slow down, son, let’s get all the info before we panic.  I’ll be down there within the hour, just take as many notes as you can.  Write down whatever shows up on that screen.  Now I have a few calls to make myself before I get down there, so calm yourself down, take down all the info, and I’ll get someone down there to relieve you so we can get all our ducks in a row.  Now hang up and get writing!”  With that Eric slams the phone down, cutting the connection. 
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