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
2019 again, but this time in a European city he couldn't remember how it was called at that point in time, not caring enough to query.
Raymond walked through the crowds, realizing how much effort it took without autopilot. He had to pay attention to where he was going, every time surprised again by how so few pre-modern humans notice they're about to bump into somebody. In time, routes would be optimized to avoid collisions or could be configured to never meet other people, blocking them out.
Next to him, the most excited new agent in the history of the bureau, Claire. Beaming as they followed an old lady walking a dog of the same cotton candy hair, shinning in a faint hue of pink as if washed with the same shampoo.
At 20:34 Cookie will run away from its owner and get hit by a car. Raymond and Claire were supposed to stop it. Mission number one.
It should take them around 56 minutes -- an AI had already calculated some idea of what they'd do -- so they were transferred in an abandoned building near her route. They had scenarios on how, but of course, Claire was insisting they handle it on their own.
"Didn't your own superior say we don't break the timeline? We practically can't fail!" Claire laughed, leaning into his shoulder as they tried to match the slow pace of their targets.
Raymond already was receiving messages from D36CFB2C, who definitely did care that they be as strict as possible, afraid of a new Claire-shaped wrench in his impeccable system. To put it in pre-modern human words, he underlined, "tame your beast".
"We're going to talk to her, two minutes before the dog runs. Keep her attention on it," Claire masterminded. A quick verification through the testing unit showed that it was an acceptable course of action. Not that he wouldn't do it, anyway. It was just better if others weren't forced to clean up their mess.
They walked side by side, not holding hands, to be more dynamic in crowds, he'd told her. The truth was that it would distract him from their mission. It was a good feeling, doing one thing at a time. Raymond had lived for too long processing too much. Even now, if Claire hadn't been watching, he would've managed to lose an old lady moving at snail pace.
It was autumn and they were dressed like tourists, in comfortable clothes, long and wide everywhere, his -- black, as he'd gotten used to, hers -- white like she liked to wear "to better blend in". The first time he ever saw her wearing pants, simple cotton, "must have pockets", she'd insisted, like she was going to carry weapons. Clearly, she'd overstated the bounds of their missions. No one would ever leave sensitive missions in their hands. Especially hers.
As usual, Raymond felt the opposite. He would trust Claire with his life, she'd find a way to rescue him, albeit forcing a few decisions.
As part of her ongoing training, he sent her a message asking her how many women named Mary were in a two-mile radius. He watched her as she stopped in her tracks, the implanted technology that allowed her to communicate directly with Raymond too new to her. She had the most simple module installed in her brain, to bypass the need for external hardware. Of course, she'd refused a more advanced one. Only Raymond reassuring her that it was harmless outside of sending and receiving information from him convinced her to try it. Now she looked like she enjoyed it.
He sent a second message, to confuse her.
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Claire
The old lady stopped at a red light, her dog imitating her, watching the road as if aware of why humans did that. Claire felt like that with Raymond, sometimes.
It was why she'd accepted a communication chip so that she could get up-to-speed faster. And now she had a menu in her brain that displayed information over her visual field, unsure how to use it properly. She knew she got some messages, but forgotten how to get to them.
One thing, Claire did learn fast: how to read information about others. When walking on the street, she could read information about anyone, anything about them, all she had to do was want to know and mentally click some options. It made the world much more interesting, no one could keep secrets from her. It was necessary so that she didn't interfere with people's lives when talking to them, helping them. She wasn't supposed to browse for fun, but it wasn't forbidden, as the novelty would wear off very fast, Raymond had assured her. A few days in and stories had already started to repeat themselves.
The kid who walked in silence while his dad was on the phone. The woman on her way to a job she hated. The couple who would divorce years later, still fighting to keep themselves together, crossing the street without looking if the other was following. It was necessary so they'd learn --until future humans decided the best way to teach them the same lesson, in a kinder way.
Knowing that someone else was working on bigger tragedies, Claire could focus on her own small "guardian angel" mission, the code name she'd given it, annoying everyone in the group chat she got orders from. There was a mute option, somewhere...
Raymond kept looking for clues on why people had stopped at the edge of the sidewalk, always forgetting what stoplights were.
"When it's red, you stop," she explained, imitating his serious tone, as if explaining alchemy.
"I keep forgetting you color-code everything," he smiled, looking around to make sure they weren't losing their target. She was impossible to miss -- an old lady in a pink fleece vest, matching the caniche's. But her clothes meant nothing to Raymond, he'd seen all, on every human shape imaginable.
"I wish I knew earlier that red meant stop," he made one of his jokes. "We would've avoided a lot of trouble. I just thought it meant go."
Claire squeezed his hand, then touched his shoulder with her head, lower than she used to reach him, off her eight-inch heels.
"So do you have a plan about what you're going to ask her?" Raymond started crossing with the crowd.
She smiled and looked at her lower-left corner to see the time. Four minutes to go. She caught the old woman, just as she reached on the other sidewalk.
"Excuse me, I don't want to bother you or anything, but --" Claire made a wild guess, based on the dog's magenta outfit --" she looks just like our dog Pretzels..."
The woman lit up, her hand tightening around the sparkly leash.
Over her image, a message from Raymond, like a news channel bottom scroll.
Why the plural? One of his weird questions.
She side-eyed him instead of searching for how to reply. Why not?
