Solo Assignment

Part I

The grass smoldered and died at the edge of a near-perfect circle at Melissa's feet. Her skin tingled, as if every limb had fallen asleep and suddenly come back awake, all vying for attention at once. Immediately, with only the kind of speed that months of training could provide, she dropped into a crouch and began to take in her surroundings while she regained the feeling in her fingers and toes.

Tall dry grass surrounded her, a stark juxtaposition to the grass she was standing on, still green and trimmed short. At the horizon was a line of trees, their heavy branches gently swaying. The air was warm and dry and a late afternoon sun hung high overhead through a thin layer of overcast. The ringing in her ears began to clear and she realized that she could hear the faint thump thump thump of a marching band in the distance. Looking behind her, Melissa could see the outline of what must be the local high school and surely the band practicing on the football field. It was too far away to make out any specific shapes.

Otherwise, she was alone.

This was Melissa's first solo field assignment and it was a routine find-the-perp, make-an-arrest, and go-home-with-the-bad-guy. But no work in the field is ever taken lightly. A good job is done when you're able to find your man and subdue them without any confrontation at all. Typically it's more involved than that and without a partner a situation can escalate quickly.

Still crouching, she pulled up the hem of her skirt and removed her mobile. She slid it open and its screen came to life, lighting up between the two halves of the small device. Two days ago, local time, a receiver picked up a single wireless broadcast from an unauthorized mobile device in this area. It was likely a jumper and it was Melissa's job to find out who it was and bring them back.

Melissa swept her finger across the screen to unlock it. "Good afternoon, Officer Santiago," the small device said pleasantly.

"Hi, Hal." Melissa said back to the device. "Perform a physical evaluation and then run a status report." The device chirped in confirmation and Melissa held it up in front of her, keeping it still until it was finished.

"Your cell structure has tolerable damage and ninety-nine percent of your internal nanites have survived the jump. You have a clean bill of health," Hal said cheerfully. "I can provide additional details if you would like to view them."

"Thanks; no. And the status report?"

"Sure thing." The device's screen cleared away, and then reappeared with the status report of the surrounding area. It revealed the local weather, her location on a map within a radius, and the date: September 19, 1956. 16:45 central time. A perfect jump.

"Looks like you're solo on this assignment," Hal said. "What happened to Davis?"

"I graduated."

"Oh? And haven't picked your own junior partner yet?"

"Not yet."

"Well, be careful, dollface," it said. Melissa had loaded her mobile with a ton of twentieth-century phrases and expressions and only had herself to blame when Hal used them. It gave Hal a quirky personality she found endearing, if sometimes a little condescending.

"Thanks, Hal," she said. "Go silent, please." Hal vibrated in confirmation to the request. She closed the mobile up and slipped it back into the lining under her skirt.

Melissa hated skirts. They were difficult to do a job in and they required a lot of work to keep presentable. And staying incognito meant staying presentable. Hers wasn't long, but it was long enough to get in the way. Most field operations after 1960 gave her the option of wearing pants of some variation, but anything before that and she insisted on wearing a more conservative style despite her dislike and discomfort for it. It was a lot easier to do your job than trying to draw attention to yourself by making some sort of fashion statement.

She began to rise, making a 360-degree turn as she did. A slight breeze was in the air and the stalks of grass around her rose and fell like waves in the sea. A stray dark hair from her updo fell loose across her face and she tucked it behind her ear while squinting toward the school.

Melissa Santiago wore a modest blouse and dark blue skirt that she feared might be a couple of years out of fashion. The fair skin on her face was covered in makeup, which she attempted to replicate with period accuracy to the best of her ability before jumping. Under her blouse was her weave armor, a light and tight-fitting body armor that would protect her from most small arms fire or stabbing weapons. But it wasn't her only protection: In the white handbag she wore over her arm was an M1911 pistol. It was the kind of pistol that was inconspicuous enough to take with her on most field assignments in the twentieth-century, and even if she hadn't used it yet, she felt better carrying it around.

Her handbag was large for the style of the time, a simple leather accessory that snapped closed, the top flap folding all the way over. She realized she was holding her jump remote still, a small black device with analog dials that was a little larger than her mobile. She put it next to her pistol inside the purse. A few other smaller items rolled around near the bottom. Everything in it, except for the pistol, was designed to be fairly innocuous if a local were to peek inside, but her handbag was missing a lot of things that were usually found in a woman's purse and might raise suspicion. It was best to make sure no one took a look.

She was standing just outside of a small town in southeast Iowa, in what the Department considered a "safe zone" for jumping. The land here was relatively stable throughout the timeline, being used for agriculture on-and-off for three centuries and not much else before that for centuries more. It was easy to get a lock and remote enough that you were likely to avoid being spotted by locals.

A few yards from the spot she stood, Melissa noticed another perfectly circular spot of missing grass. She walked through the tall stalks around it to get a better look. Like her patch, the grass here was short and recently trimmed. It was, however, turning yellow in the late-summer sun indicating that this particular patch had been here for a couple of days. She was on the right trail.

Melissa knelt down again, careful to avoid causing runs in her stockings, and opened her mobile a second time. It displayed a notice that it had made contact with the nearest relay point a few kilometers away and that the next automatic send-receive would be in just over four hours. She either needed to make the arrest by then or submit a report. The relay had also confirmed that it had definitely detected a mobile signal two days ago, confirming that they had a jumper on the loose in 1950s Midwest America.

Time was of the essence. Someone from the 2140s could cause a lot of damage in short order and Melissa's job was to make sure that didn't happen.