Raymond Reyes falls for the wife of the man he traveled back in time to replace. He's planned his mission to the minute, yet he finds himself unprepared to meet the woman all his files are wrong about. History wants to repeat itself -- Raymond is ju...
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Raymond
Raymond's first mission after being captured was to clean an old connection cable, left to rot behind a server hub. He'd accepted it instantly, to give himself something to do.
He walked empty hallways -- no windows, no other people, just the sound of his rubber boots, dulled by the thick air that slowed down movement. Seven weeks of pod-life, he still had no other reason to get out of his HOME if this was how he'd move around. He'd rather run in his virtual life, which started to look more and more like 2019.
If you had information about Claire Wesley's fate, can you in all honesty say that you won't try to intervene in any way?
The question that ruined Raymond's life -- he was now completely blocked from learning anything about her, how she'd lived, what they did to her. He only knew he hadn't been consulted. Or deemed worthy to be a part of it, despite multiple petitions. The Superiors had refused, despite a bigger support from his peers than he'd expected. A lot of people must've voted to let Raymond fix his and Claire's problem since his request got denied at a fairly high level. Because every information about her was censored, he didn't even have an estimate. In the future, people rooted for the underdog -- Raymond's rebellion was the type that drew attention. Small, harmless protests.
He'd wanted to respond NO, and see afterward how he could fool the system, but he'd trusted that they would maybe understand. Go easy on him and Claire. They weren't hurting anyone.
The Claire Wesley he'd met in 2019 had already lived and died -- her best life, most probably. Raymond had no way of finding out how. Because he'd honestly answered their questions, sealing his fate.
She never existed, as far as Raymond was concerned. Everything about her had been erased from his drive. Worse, they would not meet in the virtual world, as she didn't have that option in 2019. It was like thinking about a historical figure, or worse -- an imaginary character. It wasn't possible to instantiate a person without their consent. They had to want to be in your virtual life.
Raymond regretted his decision to return to the parking lot, taken only after being warned he'd be "severely reprimanded". Raymond didn't fear the punishment, but when Ti recited the message, he understood he had no chance of escaping. His next approach was to obey, hoping for forgiveness and clemency. He would not escape his fate, but at least he'd tried to delay it enough to make it difficult for them to fix it. If they needed an agent, why not Raymond? He could train more, be one.
His dreams met a wall of stubbornness, none of the Superiors caring about his motivations, voting unanimously to handle The Leaf Problem through the proper channels. Raymond could apply to be an agent, but he knew it wouldn't matter. They'd decided to exclude him, Raymond never reaching access to talk to another person: the entire process was automated. So when he asked for Claire's data again -- so he'd at least learn how she'd died, with whom she'd lived -- he kept being asked to fill the same questionnaire.
In it, the item that kept his restriction active. He couldn't lie, of course he'd try again. They also knew that -- they'd had complete access to his virtual brain. Everything he'd gathered about her was there. Everything he felt.
One thing they couldn't do: meddle with his human brain. Filled with memories of dusting chips, fixing loose jacks, and his time with Claire. There wasn't a lot of competition there, so he had ample time to try to remember like a pre-modern human. They couldn't take that from him.
Unfortunately, it was too little to matter. Unclear, vague, everything amplified by missing her. It wasn't enough to wait for a millennium on.
In approximately three months, his body would die of natural causes, leaving him trapped in a marble. Everything he wanted, accessible to him. He could build his own heaven.
There was one person he couldn't instantiate there, because he didn't have her consent. When he'd insisted a request be made, the only answer he'd gotten was that the goal of the bureau remained to work together until absolutely every single human mind in history is in its own marble. The goal of humanity.
All he had to do was wait.
Raymond thought he could do it, but the virtual life didn't interest him that much, without her. What was he going to do? Everywhere he went, everything he did, all he thought about was Claire.
So his missions got rarer, he didn't see a reason to get out of his pod.
The hallways of Area 4563D had been maintained well, Raymond crossing them only to inspect the final outcome, the walls had been automatically repainted. Grey covered by darker grey.
There was a bug in the area's maintenance system: it sometimes left corners untouched, and all unit tests were based on the same mapping system, failing to detect the error when verifying. No need for a fix, they were old and soon to be replaced. It was only the lack of human resources that made them need Raymond -- once, then the source of the error would be removed. If any corner had been missed, Raymond sent the small units.
An easy mission, fit to be his last.
Inspecting identical walls would've been a boring job for any 2019 human, and Raymond couldn't help but think about going home to Claire and tell her about his grey day. Two in a pod, like she'd imagined, unaware how much it said about her. Raymond missed being mocked for being too serious, all his friends had accepted him for who he was and were overly polite, letting him babble. And he couldn't tell them about his time with Claire, the only thing he wanted to talk about.
The end of the hallway demonstrated to Raymond that Area 4563D had been perfectly repainted. 99,99 percent of the time, the machines did their jobs flawlessly.
Nothing to do.
Prepared to go to sleep for the last time, his eyes met a square in a different shade of grey. Impossible, it was not in a corner.
Blurred out, censored, blocked. Just like in his virtual life, a greyed out rectangle covered what he didn't want to see. Or what he wasn't allowed to see. There were few subjects Raymond had blocked, like torture or blood. And only one that he didn't have the right to see. Also the only one with connections to his physical life.
He had no idea how, but Claire was coming for him. Somehow she'd made it to the future.
