Chapter 59
Captain Marcus and his men remained frozen at the crest of the sand dune, their eyes still fixed on the spot where the lights had hovered moments before, their minds struggling to process what they had just witnessed.
The night wind blew softly, carrying grains of sand that whispered in their ears, yet none of them moved, none of them spoke, until Marcus finally drew a long breath and gave a short command.
"Return to the ship. We convene immediately."
Inside the control room, still cluttered by ongoing repairs, Marcus stood before his eight most trusted subordinates.
His face, usually cold and expressionless, now showed tension he could not conceal, the lines on his forehead deepening as his sharp eyes moved from one face to another with growing intensity.
"You all saw what happened out there," he said, his heavy voice filling the room.
"That was not a natural phenomenon.
Not an illusion. Not a trick from Nirma and Arya.
It was the work of an Abnormal, one of them who has managed to access teleportation equipment and is now roaming freely across the timeline.
And what is more concerning, this Abnormal appears interested in something unusual, something we have never anticipated."
He paused, letting his words sink in, then continued.
"I want all of you to analyze what we just saw.
Find the meaning behind those twisted verses.
Determine what this Abnormal wants.
It is clear that it deliberately left us a message, deliberately revealed itself, deliberately distorted the sacred texts of five major religions to convey something."
The discussion lasted long, the room filled with analytical voices and brief debates, holographic screens appearing to display data from various eras, advanced algorithms working to search for patterns and meaning.
Yet no one found an answer, no one succeeded in deciphering the code left by the Abnormal, until finally a young soldier, the youngest among them, hesitantly raised his hand.
Marcus nodded, granting permission to speak, and the soldier stood, his eyes slightly averted though his voice remained steady enough.
"Captain, forgive me if this sounds foolish, but… did you and the others not notice the similarity in meaning among the five verses twisted by that Abnormal?"
He paused, swallowing hard, then continued.
"I am no theologian, nor a historian, but when you read those five verses earlier, I sensed a common thread.
All five of them, whether in their original form or the distorted version, speak about the same thing.
Time.
Ecclesiastes speaks of a time for everything.
Al-Hadid speaks of authority over life and death, which is also bound to time.
The Bhagavad Gita speaks of Kala, Time the destroyer.
Buddhist teaching speaks of arising and ceasing due to conditions, which unfold within time.
Tianming speaks of the Mandate of Heaven enduring across time.
All of them, Captain, speak of time."
The room fell silent.
Marcus stared at the young soldier with slightly widened eyes, then slowly repeated in his mind each verse they had witnessed.
Ecclesiastes about time.
Al-Hadid about dominion over life and death.
The Bhagavad Gita about Kala, Time itself.
Pratītyasamutpāda about arising and ceasing.
Tianming about the Mandate of Heaven across time.
All of them, indeed, all of them spoke of time.
Marcus raised his hand, silencing the discussion that had begun to rise again, and stood upright with a drastically changed expression.
"That Abnormal has given us a code," he said, his voice trembling with newfound urgency.
"He is showing his fascination with the concept of time in five major religions.
And if he is interested in the concept of time within those religions, then he will surely go to the places where those concepts were born, developed, or reached their golden age.
The golden eras of each faith."
He immediately activated the communicator on his wrist, and a large screen appeared before him, displaying the faces of Temporal Cross-Police captains from various units.
"This is Marcus, captain of the unit pursuing Nirma and Arya.
I am facing a maximum-level emergency.
A code from an Abnormal has appeared in the year 1099 near Jerusalem, leaving a message indicating its interest in the concept of time in five major religions.
If this Abnormal is allowed to roam freely, if it succeeds in reaching the golden ages of these religions and disrupting the development of their concept of time, the consequences will be catastrophic.
The religious concepts known by believers in later centuries could collapse entirely, transforming into something completely different, creating temporal paradoxes we may not be able to repair."
Fhuuuh!
After riding for several minutes, leaving behind the battlefield still trailing thin smoke in the distance, Nirma and Arya's small convoy finally reached the edge of the Psamathia District.
The horse they rode together slowed its pace, as if the animal itself sensed the sudden shift in atmosphere as they crossed the invisible boundary separating chaos from calm, battlefield from daily life.
Nirma, seated behind Arya with her arms still wrapped around her companion's waist, lifted her face and allowed her single eye to capture every detail of the scene unfolding before them.
A wide stretch of sandy shore lay beneath the span of sturdy sea walls, towering high with gray stones weathered by salt and sea wind for centuries, yet still standing firm as Constantinople's loyal guardian against threats from the water.
Wooden piers extended into the sea like giant fingers reaching for the waves, their timbers damp with seawater releasing a distinctive scent that Nirma immediately noticed as the sea breeze blew, the smell of fresh fish mingling with tar and creosote used to coat the ships.
Warehouses lined the coastline in orderly rows, their large doors open wide to reveal sacks of spices from the East, crates of silk from China, and barrels of wine from the Aegean islands.
Sleek boats of various sizes were moored at the docks, their slender hulls swaying gently with the rhythm of the waves, their ropes creaking softly as if singing in a language known only to old sailors.
Amid it all, sailors shouted busily, their voices overlapping in many tongues, Greek, Italian, Arabic, even the metallic tones of Slavic speech from a vessel that had just docked.
The rhythmic pounding of shipwrights repairing hulls echoed in steady cadence, hammer strike after hammer strike forming an industrial music that, strangely enough, felt soothing to Nirma's ears after the wildest battle of her life.
But when Nirma and Arya began to approach the main gate of Konstantinos Dalassenos's residence, their steps were halted by a human wall that suddenly formed before them.
From behind the iron gate adorned with carvings of ships and waves, three layers of troops emerged in swift and coordinated motion, taking positions along the perimeter, their sharp eyes fixed on the unfamiliar arrivals who had just entered their territory.
The first layer was the Naval Tagmata, soldiers in neat sea-blue uniforms, short swords at their waists and long spears in hand, numbering around thirty to sixty men, standing in disciplined formation that reflected high military order.
To be continued…