The Time Scope and the Presenter

By: submission | April 27, 2024

Author: Don Nigroni

The Time Scope is a device that can detect knowledge about the past. This knowledge can then be converted into images and sounds by the Presenter, a special super-computer.

Say you want to know who the murderer is. You could use the Time Scope to learn that the killer had dark wavy hair and then use the Presenter to see a crude image. That image could then be refined to add more and more detail based on more and more information. However, the cost quickly becomes prohibitive. Anyway, a crude image of the suspect is usually sufficient.

So that’s why Q Squad is the very best detective agency in the world. I say the very best agency, not the most celebrated. The squad, our benefactors and our equipment are only known to a highly select group. Even I don’t know who any of the benefactors are. In fact, I don’t know if they’re wealthy individuals, corporations, societies or nation states. Nor do I know their motive.

Nonetheless, I do know why Q Squad members do what they do, namely, justice. We solve heinous murders by leaking enough information to the press that even the slowest-witted dolt could gather the necessary evidence to convict the culprit.

We’re responsible for solving over one hundred cases, some of them ice cold unsolved mysteries. We could have brought thousands to justice were it not for the annoying fact that these devices are god-awfully expensive to use. The Time Scope alone quickly becomes prohibitive as the distance in time and space from the target increases.

Nonetheless, years ago, I became suspicious when I noticed that we were convicting an oddly disproportionate number of labor union officials. At first, I just assumed that they were disproportionately corrupt. What changed my mind was when the squad leaked information that my father, a labor union president, cut a young woman’s throat.

Based on our directions, her body was discovered in a shallow grave in a heavily wooded area. She held in her hand a small razor blade that had some of my father’s DNA on it. Based almost solely on that, he was convicted and sentenced to life without any possibility of parole.

A year later, a close friend of mine on the squad, who was dying of cancer, revealed that he had retrieved some used razor blades from my father’s trash. He was haunted by the coincidence but kept his suspicions to himself until he finally told me.

So I’m releasing this document to his lawyer and to the press. Anyway, I won’t be at all surprised if I’m soon found guilty of some terrible crime.

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