The Nexus' Guardian
The setting sun cast long shadows over the dusty plains as Jonah Graves reined in his horse. His $TIME revolver rested easy in its holster, a tool as much a part of him as the hat on his head. The Coalition called him a “guardian,” but Jonah knew the truth. He was a clean-up man, erasing lives to protect the fragile balance of the time nexus he called home.
The nexus wasn’t a place so much as an anchor, a convergence of temporal threads that kept the surrounding timelines stable. Jonah’s town—an unremarkable speck in the Wild West—was the linchpin. Time Keepers came through every so often, searching for it, hoping to disrupt the Coalition’s grip on history.
He had a job to do tonight.
The Time Keeper had arrived two days prior. Jonah had tracked her through the hills, her movements careful but not careful enough. She’d made camp in a ravine, a small fire flickering under a canopy of stars.
From his perch, Jonah watched her. She wasn’t what he’d expected—young, barely more than a girl, with a wild mane of auburn hair and a steady determination in her green eyes. She stared into the fire, her fingers brushing the face of her watch. He couldn’t hear her words, but her lips moved in soft murmurs. Prayers, maybe. Or regrets.
Jonah sighed and dismounted, boots crunching softly on the gravel. He didn’t draw his revolver yet. The shot had to be deliberate, timed perfectly. His weapon didn’t leave corpses—it erased timelines, rewrote existence as though its targets had never been. Yet somehow, they always seemed to know him. The Coalition’s technology had limits, and sometimes traces—memories, echoes—lingered. Enough for fear to spread among Keepers like wildfire.
She noticed him when he was a dozen paces away. Rising to her feet, she looked calm, though her hand hovered near her watch. “You’re him,” she said, her voice steady. “The executioner.”
“Something like that,” Jonah replied. He tipped his hat, a gesture of politeness born from old habits. “Ain’t nothin’ personal. Just doin’ my job.”
“You protect the nexus,” she said. “But do you even know why? Do you know what the Coalition does with the power it controls?”
Jonah stayed silent. He’d heard variations of the same argument before. Every Time Keeper claimed righteousness, painted the Coalition as monsters. Maybe they were. But questioning the hand that fed him wouldn’t undo what he’d done—or what he was about to do.
“Step away from the fire,” he said.
The Keeper didn’t move. “Do you even know what the nexus is? Or are you just their pawn?”
He didn’t answer. He drew his revolver, the device gleaming faintly under the moonlight. “I don’t make the rules,” he said. “But I follow ‘em.”
Her fingers brushed her watch, ready to activate it. “You don’t have to do this,” she said, her voice softening. “You’re protecting something you don’t even understand.”
The words struck deeper than he liked. Jonah hesitated, just long enough for her to notice.
“Do you even know what happens to the lives you erase?” she asked. “Or do you pretend it doesn’t matter?”
He steadied his aim. She moved her hand.
But Jonah’s shot never came.
The Keeper activated her watch, a shimmer of light engulfing her form as the campfire flickered out. For a moment, time seemed to stutter. Jonah’s revolver hung heavy in his hand, his chest tight with a strange, inexplicable relief.
She was gone. Escaped into another moment in history.
Jonah holstered his weapon, mounted his horse, and rode into the night. He told himself she’d gotten lucky. That he’d hesitated out of curiosity, not doubt.
But deep down, Jonah knew he’d let her go.
For the first time, he wondered if she’d been right.
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