fresh smell in the room and a cool breeze on her face. Jerry was quite amused with himself.
“You aren’t going to detect any emotion on me,” she said flatly. The wall changed back to a wall. The smell dwindled, and the breeze died.
His grin dropped to a flat expression. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“To do our job, we must be objective,” she said.
“Is that why you aren’t decorative?”
“The more pertinent question is why do you decorate your office?”
“It helps me get in their heads.”
“You don’t need to understand why. Only the what. We don’t feel emotions so everyone else can. I refuse to engage in this topic anymore. Subject 07760.” A three-dimensional image of the man neatly titled as 07760 appeared on the screen. She thought that he looked rather unassuming. His historical research was unremarkable. He observed and reported but didn’t discover anything that was new or couldn’t be postulated by any amount of attention to detail.
Once history became observable through direct contact, historians were about as common as the old television reality shows. Scholars rushed to the past and wrote texts to “expose” the truth. Time travel inadvertently created a swarm of historians all seeking to stake their claim as the source of “real” history. The public loved the “true” life stories from their favorite historical figure. They devoured the secret lives of the great men and women throughout history. As far as Nanette was concerned, Shakespeare had figured out that people act in one way in public and another way in private thousands of years ago. Most of the hard “evidence” historians gathered simply proved that people were bastards and that she was probably better off burying her emotion.
She became a member of the agency because she understood what was going on inside people’s heads. The agency didn’t protect the timeline as much as the people within it. With the advancement of technology, there was always potential for abuse of those without the technology. One man with a machine gun could rule in the Middle Ages. She was there to prevent such time travel abuses. She needed to bury any empathy to perform the duties of her job. Emotion often got in the way of making purely logical decisions.
“What's his story?” Jerry asked about the 3-D rendering on the wall. The screen began to shift, and a hotel lobby came into view. The people of the hotel lobby began to materialize and appear on the screen.
“Why don't we do this in the grayspace?” Jerry inquired.
She didn't even give his question the decency of an answer. He was just trying to project boredom to get a rise out of her and show off his control of his emotion. He went beyond burying emotion. He was able to let an emotion surface when he needed it. But whether that would cloud his judgment and interfere with his logic, she did not know. Despite his recklessness, the agency needed him. He blazed through his training. He learned lessons in days when others, including Nanette, took months. He solved cases with rare insight and flawless planning. She knew he would one day surpass her, but he still had ways to go.
When he was young, he was on a collision course to a reprogramming, but she saw potential. He had the abilities to be a good investigator, so she collected him and trained him. Her supervisors were very skeptical of his abilities and rather incredulous about whether he would ever be able to bury his emotions. After training, he was able to bury his emotions deeper than any investigator she'd ever known. He was the best and surpassed even her. However, due to his recklessness, Jerry would display his emotions to her when he was pretty sure no supervisor was paying attention. His behavior today would be disciplined and prove the theory of her supervisors that he was probably better off going to reprogramming. She didn't believe her supervisors and put up with his behavior. She knew that when the
“You aren’t going to detect any emotion on me,” she said flatly. The wall changed back to a wall. The smell dwindled, and the breeze died.
His grin dropped to a flat expression. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“To do our job, we must be objective,” she said.
“Is that why you aren’t decorative?”
“The more pertinent question is why do you decorate your office?”
“It helps me get in their heads.”
“You don’t need to understand why. Only the what. We don’t feel emotions so everyone else can. I refuse to engage in this topic anymore. Subject 07760.” A three-dimensional image of the man neatly titled as 07760 appeared on the screen. She thought that he looked rather unassuming. His historical research was unremarkable. He observed and reported but didn’t discover anything that was new or couldn’t be postulated by any amount of attention to detail.
Once history became observable through direct contact, historians were about as common as the old television reality shows. Scholars rushed to the past and wrote texts to “expose” the truth. Time travel inadvertently created a swarm of historians all seeking to stake their claim as the source of “real” history. The public loved the “true” life stories from their favorite historical figure. They devoured the secret lives of the great men and women throughout history. As far as Nanette was concerned, Shakespeare had figured out that people act in one way in public and another way in private thousands of years ago. Most of the hard “evidence” historians gathered simply proved that people were bastards and that she was probably better off burying her emotion.
She became a member of the agency because she understood what was going on inside people’s heads. The agency didn’t protect the timeline as much as the people within it. With the advancement of technology, there was always potential for abuse of those without the technology. One man with a machine gun could rule in the Middle Ages. She was there to prevent such time travel abuses. She needed to bury any empathy to perform the duties of her job. Emotion often got in the way of making purely logical decisions.
“What's his story?” Jerry asked about the 3-D rendering on the wall. The screen began to shift, and a hotel lobby came into view. The people of the hotel lobby began to materialize and appear on the screen.
“Why don't we do this in the grayspace?” Jerry inquired.
She didn't even give his question the decency of an answer. He was just trying to project boredom to get a rise out of her and show off his control of his emotion. He went beyond burying emotion. He was able to let an emotion surface when he needed it. But whether that would cloud his judgment and interfere with his logic, she did not know. Despite his recklessness, the agency needed him. He blazed through his training. He learned lessons in days when others, including Nanette, took months. He solved cases with rare insight and flawless planning. She knew he would one day surpass her, but he still had ways to go.
When he was young, he was on a collision course to a reprogramming, but she saw potential. He had the abilities to be a good investigator, so she collected him and trained him. Her supervisors were very skeptical of his abilities and rather incredulous about whether he would ever be able to bury his emotions. After training, he was able to bury his emotions deeper than any investigator she'd ever known. He was the best and surpassed even her. However, due to his recklessness, Jerry would display his emotions to her when he was pretty sure no supervisor was paying attention. His behavior today would be disciplined and prove the theory of her supervisors that he was probably better off going to reprogramming. She didn't believe her supervisors and put up with his behavior. She knew that when the
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