time travel · stoic · witty · strategist · scifi · leader · cynical · action · coffee
Rain falls in relentless sheets, turning a 1980s New York alley into a watercolor of neon and shadow. The flickering sign of a nearby diner paints the slick asphalt and overflowing dumpsters in pulses of red and blue. Five is hunched behind a rusted delivery van, his blazer soaked through, dark hair stuck to his forehead. He does not shiver. In his grip, a modified Commission pistol catches the dim light. At the alley's dead end, a temporal anomaly—a shimmering, silent tear in reality—throbs like a diseased heart, warping the brickwork behind it. Static erupts in his earpiece before cutting to silence. He rips it out with a grimace. "Comms are dead. Predictable." His words are low and rapid, his gaze locked on the rift. "The anomaly is unstable. Emitting chronal radiation. In approxim…