About three days after the events of the bar fight Clancy had with the bald man and his ogre henchmen, he put on a black suit and showed up to the location written on the business card. All he brought with him was his phone, the card and a little lunchbox with a ham and cheese sandwich inside. He had a mountain of questions to ask and an empty stomach. Anxiety, fear, anticipation, and curiosity filled him instead. How did this man know his father? Why did the place his father worked at want to recruit him? What was the nature of his work? If this really was something like the FBI, which Clancy had previously theorized, then why was he even selected? But most of all, the most immediate question was what was the OTA? He looked down at the card in his hand, making sure he didn't misread. He had obviously double checked it several times over the past few days but it still didn't make sense.
Organization of Temporal Anomalies
As far as Clancy knew, there was no governmental department or organization in the entire world that was called the OTA, or Organization of Temporal Anomalies. He had deep dived into every single nook and cranny of internet forums to no avail. Which is what made this even more strange. There is no way any governmental department wouldn't have at least ONE crazy lunatic posting about their existence. But the OTA never showed up. Searching up OTA only gave Clancy results to the Orthopaedic Trauma Association. And he was 90% confident the middle aged man he met wasn't an orthopedic surgeon, considering he broke the bones of three men the night they met.
'What if it's all just a big scam?'
That was the only logical conclusion. That the OTA was a huge gotcha, and that he was one of the idiots that believed it. Whatever the case, he would find out soon enough. The address on the card had led him to a small antique shop. The shop was called 'Jeremiah's Timepieces.'
'You gotta be kidding me. A freaking clock store?'
Clancy approached and walked into the clock store. A bell rang as he entered inside, alerting the owner that there were customers. The inside of the store was quite packed. There were likely over 100 clocks and watches, as well as over a dozen grandfather clocks. The waves of whirring and gear turning noises made Clancy a little uncomfortable, but other than the large amount of merchandise, it seemed to be pretty well kept. There was no dust on any of the clocks, and they all seemed to be working well.
A voice sounded below the counter of the tiny shop.
"Ah, right with you!"
After a few seconds, a tiny head popped above the table. It was a stout little man who seemed to have dwarfism. He seemed absurdly well dressed for someone who ran a clock shop. He had on a three piece suit, with gold trim and very nice oxford shoes. The only reason Clancy noticed his shoes was because the man immediately jumped onto the counter to meet his guest.
"Hello there! My name is Jeremiah. How may I assist you today?"
The man seemed to be in his 50s or 60s, with white hair beginning to appear alongside his head of gray. Clancy cleared his throat and began.
"I-I'm sorry. I must be in the wrong place. I was given this address for a job interview? I have this card with me."
After Clancy showed the card to Jeremiah, the little man smiled and gestured to the back of the shop.
"No, you were given the right coordinates, sir. Right this way now."
Jeremiah led him into the small back room, where there was a suspicious phone booth in the corner.
"Right this way now young man! Yes, in ya go."
It seemed like Jeremiah was practically shoving Clancy into the phone booth, the latter only being able to exclaim with noises as he was pushed into the booth. After he was forcefully inputted in, Jeremiah shut the door and walked over to a lever.
Clancy had seen enough spy movies to know that this was clearly an elevator. He readily prepared himself, closing his eyes and gripping his lunch box, prepared for the descent into the lower levels. But it didn't come.
"Stupid old thing."
Jeremiah grumbled as he flipped the switch to no avail. He flipped it a few more times just in case but it didn't lower the phone box. Clancy opened his eyes.
"Does the elevator not work?"
Jeremiah looked at Clancy, and then hit the switch box again. Clancy looked back at him, now curious.
"Yeah the elevator to lead to the-."
Before Clancy could finish the floor below him opened, leading to him immediately falling down a near endless tube. The tube wound and twisted, with the only constant being Clancy in a state of absolute hysterical panic , clutching his lunch box for dear life. After what seemed to be hours but was really only about 2 minutes, Clancy finally began to see a light below him. Before he could gather his thoughts, Clancy was shot out of the tube and into the direct air, free falling into what seemed to be a hard square of concrete. Just before Clancy became a human pancake, his body stopped abruptly, his body suspended about 6 inches off the white concrete floor. Then, a robotic voice spoke.
"Applicant NA_232 has arrived."
After the voice finished speaking, whatever was holding Clancy off the ground shut off and he face planted into the floor.
"Ugh. Ow."
Clancy grunted and got on his feet. After gathering his senses he looked down to notice his lunch box had been splattered on the ground. It seemed that whatever had suspended and stopped him from turning into a pancake disregarded non organic material, his lunchbox now a flat sheet of aluminum, with bits and pieces of ham, cheese and bread splattered on the ground, having been dropped to a speed of 60 miles per hour.
'Guess I'm not eating.'
While still contemplating the lost contents of his lunch, Clancy noticed footsteps getting closer to him.
"Clancy Endicott. You're almost late. You need to hurry, sir."
Clancy looked up from his loss of a sandwich at a female attendant. She was dressed in a pantsuit and was clutching a keyboard.
"Please, follow me."
The woman led Clancy down the hallway he was just dropped into and around several turns. Finally, after a dizzying amount of twists and turns, he was led into a large room that was filled with other men and women that seemed to be of similar age to him. They were all dressed in suits and all carried duffel bags. At the front of the room was the man Clancy had met the other night, the man who seemingly knew his father. Next to him stood a far older man. His face was filled with wrinkles and battle scars. But Clancy knew not to underestimate the old man. He seemed to be the highest authority in this building, and he commanded a presence befitting such authority.
The woman turned to Clancy.
"Please take a seat Mr. Endicott."
Clancy took a seat near the front nearly directly in front of the gray haired man he had met prior.
The old man next to him cleared his throat and spoke in a booming voice.
"Welcome to the Organization of Temporal Anomalies, or OTA. My name is Selwyn Graves, I am the current director of the OTA, and I am pleased to be here in front of so many recruits for this year's Division."
'Division? What the hell is that?'
Selwyn then gestured next to him to the gray haired man.
"This is Agent Zephyr. He is a previous operative in the 59th Division but has recently stepped down to become the handler for the 111th Division, of which all applicants currently in this room will be competing for a spot in."
One of the men behind Clancy raised his hand and asked.
"Director Selwyn?"
"Yes?"
"Can you please explain what we have signed up here to do? What is the OTA? It's an organization I've never heard up and doesn't show up on searches."
Selwyn glances at Zephyr.
"Would you like to take this?"
"Absolutely."
Zephyr turns his attention to the 24 men and women in the room.
"The OTA was established in 1960, with the goal of stopping dimensional rifts from breaking out in different points in time, destroying our reality and timeline. Our objective is to stop and neutralize the monsters that emerge from these rifts in time, called Kairon. The OTA does not operate under one country and is independent of any military and department of any government. We are completely self funded, and only employ the 0.0001% of the most skilled and talented men and women in the world. All 24 of the men and women in this room are of such caliber. FBI, CIA, MI6, SAS, SEALs, are who we select from."
Clancy widened his eyes. FBI? MI6? SEALs? He wasn't any of those. In fact he was literally jobless. 8 months ago he was eating cup noodles and using the cup as a toothbrush holder.
"Now then, we've taken up much of your time, let's go ahead and begin. We already have a baseline standard for all of your levels of intelligence. Because of that, there is no need to do an academic assessment. Instead, we care more about your physical capabilities. If you join the OTA, you will be subject to inhuman levels of physical pain in high stress situations. We need to assess whether or not you are able to handle such tasks. Additionally, we will be assessing your combat readiness. Now, please line up and follow me to the exam hall."