It’d been a stressful month and by that I mean no assignments, no extra income to fund too many bets on laserball that hadn’t gone my way. Contemplating a fall in my credit ranking, my usually miserable state of mind was in danger of hitting rock bottom.
I had been dozing on my bed in the afternoon heat when a vibration from my transponder implant alerted me. I was soaked in sweat, and an empty bottle I was still tightly clutching glinted in the sunshine that bathed the room.
Ambience 4, I called out, and a breeze of cool air washed across the room and enveloped me. I shivered.
I got up and tumbled across the bed to the window.
Light setting 3.
The photochromic sensors permeated more light into the room and I looked out onto the city streets below.
The transponder vibrated once more and I looked at the display on my wrist-comms.
2 pm assembly. Protocol Alpha.
I yawned … Ambience 3, and the flow of air reduced.
The room was four metres square and that was how I liked it. Easy to heat, easy to cool.
Task Red, I mused. It was a nice way of putting it. The man in the mirror with his dark parting and pasty face appeared to agree with more enthusiasm than I could quite muster up. A contradiction between one’s physical appearance and spirit!
I showered and dressed, choosing a sickly yellow outfit to match my mood. A degree in astrophysics but somehow I’d ended up here – a Mr. Fixit taking his late breakfast at the diner on the lower floor of the building; pancakes with a strong coffee; just another statistic on his way to work.
Stepping outside, I hailed a magnepod.
The pod’s CPU picked up my ID from the transponder implant secreted under my arm.
“Good afternoon Mr. Sun, and where would you like to be taken today?”
“Work.”
“Employment location BL32ST4U271?”
“Correct.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sun, we have a stream slot in 35 seconds and our journey time will be 13 minutes and 29 seconds. The fare will be three credits.”
“Mmm,” was the only response I could muster as I sunk back into the plush padded bench seat.
“A beautiful afternoon, Mr. Sun.”
“That it is,” I mumbled, gazing out at the view of hushing carriers. Up above blimps quietly slid across the skyline while in the distance the slipstream sparkled.
The magnepod slipped silently into auto-stream. “Going somewhere nice?”
“A party,” I lied, getting my fiction from a flashing advertising hoarding. “Red Wedding,” I smiled.
“Ever tried Asua tonic? On special all week.”
“You don’t say.”
“A beverage that soothes a pallet with the freshness of mountain dew.”
Adjusting the tint of my window, I took off my sunglasses and wiped the sleep from my eyes.
“Recommended by nine out of ten consumers. Top of its kind since 2136. A five-star rating in ten of the last …”
“And that’s all that there is on offer?” I interrupted.
“Please specify product category,” replied the sound-card as we took a sharp turn to the left.
“Forget it,” I sighed. “You’re only programmed to promote the products advertisers have paid for.”
I watched the swarms, the scrapers and towers, seeing it all in the blink of an eye; the spoilt and the sick; the privileged and those who wouldn’t last the night. “Just drive, and make it snappy,” I said. “Time’s kinda depending on me.” A futile request seeing as everything was programmed to travel at thirty sectors an hour.
In the holdall beneath my jacket, the pistol passively awaited a fast-approaching time of destiny.
* * *
The door to my boss’s office slid silently to one side. I stepped through. Warm carpet, ferns and cacti; her wide data-desk and behind it the bank of video monitors – images of major cities blinked at my tired face; London, Amsterdam, New Deli …
“Mr. Sun, so glad you could join us.”
Despite her petite stature, she was not a boss to be messed with and was cold by nature. Beside her stood Blondie, another agent like me; except ten years younger and hair bleached to perfection. His immaculate appearance was enough to put me to shame.
“You are late,” my boss continued. “As an agent of time, I’m sure you appreciate the irony.”
“Apologies.” I held my arms wide while she turned back to Blondie: “This information,” she said to him, “is not to be repeated. You understand …”
“Understood,” said Blondie, quivering with importance.
I picked at a thread in the left arm of my suit while our boss moved to the window, to her view of the spiralling slipstream. “That will be all,” she whispered, meaning Blondie and not me. “You have your orders.”
Blondie shot me an arrogant smile, leaving the room as quietly as I’d entered it.
It was some time before the silence lost its appeal. A Task Red, sure, and that carried some weight, but there was more going on here, I could sense that already.
“Going to explain the theatrics?” I asked. “You know as well as I do that I’m anything but late.”
She continued to stare at the slipstream, her small body tense. Then in the same tone she’d used with Blondie, she whispered: “He must not know,” obviously referring to Blondie.
“Know what?” I answered, moving over to the lounger. I sat down, still watching her.
“Mr. Sun,” she huffed, still not looking at me. “What would you say …” She turned. “… Mr. Sun, have you ever heard of an unconsolidated double hit?”
“A bad snap, snap?” I said bluntly, picking again at the thread in my suit. “You know I have … it was part of my training.”
“Yes, Mr. Sun, … the bad snap, erh, unconsolidated double hit,” she said, almost falling into my slang. She walked over to me. “And don’t for one second think that this is to be taken lightly.”
“Sure,” I answered, looking up. A snap snap. A mark is taken out by one of our agents – a time bandit from the future, an illegal to be snuffed out quietly. But something goes wrong and our terminator gets the wrong guy. Or rather: “Right guy, wrong version. Are you suggesting Blondie out there’s about to get things very badly wrong?”
My boss stood before me, her face a few inches from mine. Mauve eyeshadow and balmed lips, small black eyes that carried a force to be reckoned with. “The mission,” she breathed, “is a Mr. Tsutsui who will be targeted at exactly seventeen minutes past nine this evening. However, a message sent back to us from just before midnight … it carries information that both the present and future versions of Mr. Tsutsui will have disappeared when the minute hand hits eighteen.”
“You don’t say,” I answered. “Anything else to confirm?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Her face was still close. “Another message from tomorrow has just come back. The body will be confirmed as the current version of Mr. Tsutsui.”
I let out a wheeze, impressed by Blondie’s ineptitude. “Messed up and then some.”
“Quite so, Mr. Sun.”
She seemed to drift out of her intensity then back to the business at hand. She strode to the other side of the room.
“And you’ve sent him out on the assignment anyway?” I sat up straight, watching her hands glide across the data-desk surface touch screen; her interface with all corners of The Agency. Behind her, the large video monitors continued to blink while the ferns and cacti remained contrastingly passive. “Why not take him off the case?” I asked. “Assign me to take future Tsutsui out. I’ll make no –”
“If in fact, you were more familiar with double hits, then you’d appreciate that the rule of no interference still stands.”
“But why? If Blondie hasn’t yet –”
“Oh, he will,” she emphasised. “It has already been decided. He will neutralise the wrong Mr. Tsutsui. Our future agents have informed us of that.”
“The future, it is written,” I mumbled. Hutori’s third law. “Except for that of Mr. Tsutsui.”
“Erased,” confirmed my boss. “Which as an astrophysicist, you understand is a very dangerous business. The sensitivity of time …”
“So it’s up to me to initiate the Protocol Alpha before our friend Blondie –”
“Exactly, Mr. Sun. If the future Mr. Tsutsui dies by your hand first, then the mathematics of the two deaths will be much less complex.”
“You mean he won’t just blip into non-existence … or will he?” I mused. “But hang on,” I thought. “So what? His body … it’s just the same.”
“Mr. Sun, there are plenty in the agency who have gone into a panic regarding this case. We will repair what we can, but your job –”
“The double hit. Yeah, I get it.”
“There’s a lot riding on this, Mr. Sun.” Her arched eyebrows gave their best shot at a frown. “Even the tiniest rip in the fabric of time …”
“Sure, sure.” I tapped at my laser pistol. “As simple a job as any,” I said, putting on the best smile my miserable face could manage. “Rest assured. I won’t let you down,” but I was thinking of the remuneration such an assignment would bring.
* * *
When I left the office, however, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.
A new message came through.
9 pm Protocol Alpha to be confirmed. Hydym District. Central.
I pictured my boss sitting at her data-desk. If Blondie turned out to get the right guy after all, that is to say, the future Mr. Tsutsui, then none of this would be happening. His existence, as it stood, would not be altered and we’d be none the wiser – it had been proven, however, that such changes could have psychological effects ranging from minor paranoia to full-on psychosis. But how about those from the future? I thought. If the original message had been a flag to tell us of Tsutsui’s imminent arrival, then a future with Tsutsui would have to exist too.
My boss was right. There was much about double hits that I had yet to learn.
* * *
On the thoroughfare outside my office building, the pods swished past busily. On the walkway, there was a crowd of protesters – the usual problem, androids taking our jobs, the effect of drones on the environment.
I pushed my way through. I had time to kill, I liked irony, and it was still afternoon. I hailed a pod but rather than heading to the agency’s gym and spa to tone up for the task in hand, I decided to visit the data warehouse in the same building to brush up on my knowledge of double hits.
Using my level two clearance, I took the elevation pod to the thirteenth floor. The security droids nodded down with their beaming LED smiles; they would have been updated with my impending arrival and clearance status, and I gave them the salute, asked them how they were holding up. Twenty-four-hour days, but someone had to do it.
I found a monitor and sat down.
Sensing my presence the monitor turned itself on:
Welcome Mr.Sun, how can I help you today?
“Double hit,” I muttered, and the screen filled with text and I started to read.
First recorded incident: 2111.
I digested this information and added my own thoughts.
A year after the agency was set up. Three years after the origination of time travel …
Travelling forwards had never been accomplished and was regarded as a paradox, but since it was discovered how to travel back, we began to have a few unexpected arrivals. Illegals, most of them hoping to increase their credit status: when one could predict the rise and fall of commerce, what to gamble on … the time of the sure thing had arrived!
A titanium strength gambit.
However, messages would follow them back from future employees of The Agency with instructions to intercept these bandits, most often with orders for a Protocol Alpha expungement.
The information pertaining to the first recorded double hit in 2111 was vague, and that was putting it kindly. The mark had been a Mr. Maya. He’d shifted from two years in the future. Reason: unknown. Future job status: unknown. In 2111, he’d been unmarried and working in a factory as a supervisor. The factory designed circuits for electro-motives. Our agents had carried out the double hit inside at a swanky hotel on Junjd Street. They’d both been in there – the future and present Mr. Maya and they’d each expired at the hands of The Agency.
As I continued to scroll through the records it was apparent that the story was always the same. I found six incidences in total where a double hit had been successfully expedited, but each time it was simply the name of the target, a status description and the place and time of demise. Each time the ramifications of the original mistake were unknown – to erase a future person from existence; my head hurt just thinking about it. I suppose they just disappeared without trace … but if the present person was also erased how did they get to the future … and if he had fathered a child during the intervening year, what happens to the child and anything else he had left an indelible mark on … ouch, paradox headache indeed!
I stood up and stretched, realising I was getting nothing of any use from this. Just wipe out the guy and get the credits, I thought. What the hell am I even worried about?
I was about to leave when another idea struck me.
I typed in Mr. Tsutsui and got 3 hits. A company lawyer, a kindergarten manager and another whose job description remained as classified, however many attempts I made to pull it up. Damn my level two clearance, I thought. I was beginning to get curious.
The company lawyer worked for Asua, the corp’ that makes the tonic water, and had three residences in the city. They were grade seven apartments, nice places: his job was to investigate corruption in the franchise. The kindergarten manager was a mid-status family man. I considered the reasons why these two Mr. Tsutsuis may find themselves in future trouble. The family guy loses his job, comes back to put things right. The lawyer travels back to build a stash of credits he doesn’t need. I stared at the third name in frustration. It was a gut feeling and nothing else. When it’s blue sky and fluffy clouds but you know a storm is coming. If my suspicions were right, this could be bigger than a simple double hit. Just as with the lawyer, the third Mr. Tsutsui had a number of city apartments, one of them caught my notice as being worryingly close to Hydym’s Central.
I stood up and stretched again. The thirteenth floor was almost deserted apart from an old woman giving off the vibe of an old-school professor; piles of notebooks and scribbling notes from her monitor. Four young student types – one engrossed in his work, the other three gaming in silence. There was a man like me but twice as dishevelled; four empty caffeine replenishers and the tired eyes of a journo.
I had to find someone with a higher clearance than level two. But for that, the only one I knew well enough to ask was my boss herself, Miss Ice-maiden. I hoped I could trust her not to take me off the case. Too many questions, Mr. Sun. That’s not what I employ you for.
I was Nemesis, there to do a job. “Double hit … snap, snap!” I muttered. I’d laser strike to the head, quick and easy … then move on.
The future Mr. Tsutsui already existed somewhere. He’d travel back, and here we were in the past, ready and waiting with an unexpected welcome.
* * *
A future Mr. Tsutsui.
What is his intention? I thought. Why must he be expunged?
Future intel’ has informed The Agency that it will all be a catastrophic mistake. Blondie’s error, because he was destined to kill the present Mr. Tsutsui, not the future one.
The deed having been done, would he just fade into a black hole of nothing before my very eyes?
The future Mr. Tsutsui.
He’d be erased and that meant something.
I decided to give the gym and spa a miss and return to the Ice-maiden, to air my concerns. Leaving the building, I saluted the droids once more.
“Have a nice day,” one of them purred, its burly joints glinting in the artificial light.
* * *
It was just gone four twenty. I hailed a pod and slid into the back.
“Good afternoon Mr. Sun, and where would you like to be taken today?”
“Work.”
“Employment location BL32ST4U271?”
“Correct.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sun, we have a stream slot in 22 seconds and our journey time will be 9 minutes and 12 seconds. The fare will be two credits.”
“Ever tried Asua tonic? On special all week.”
“Rhetoric status 0,” I replied. “Light Piano Music status 3.”
“Please specify.”
“Something local. Something modern,” I replied through gritted teeth … bloody computers.
A simple concerto started to play and I sat back trying to think. Wondering where the paranoia was coming from, I cursed my miserable existence. The astrophysicist who’d become an assassin …a killer … a murderer.
What was I trying to be? A hero? Or was it just a job!
Just take the credits and move on to the next whisky. But a classified status meant I was a man with power and influence – I had to know what I was getting into because paranoia or not, the risk of making a huge mistake was far too great for all of us, especially me. Blondie’s current predicament had brought that home.
* * *
“Mr. Sun.”
My boss turned from the window, gesturing for me to sit. “Yes, yes, tell them I said so.” She was currently wearing a micro-transponder, deep in conference with faces on the holi-monitor wall behind her desk, and I rested there silently, the loose thread in my left sleeve once again taking my notice. “No, no, no. My God, man. Can’t you do that yourself?”
She flashed me a smile.
She obviously had speaker implants as I could not hear who she was talking to and a face in the wall occasionally spoke silently.
I waited some more.
“Well get Hailsham to do it!”
In obvious frustration, she tapped her micro-transponder on her wrist to end the conversation before turning to me. She wore that smile again: this time a little less genuine.
“So, Mr. Sun,” she snapped. “I’m assuming this is important?”
“You could say so, though that of course depends.”
She rounded her data-desk and tapped at an icon on the surface.
“This case,” I said. “I’m getting a bad feeling that there is more to it than you are sharing with me.”
“Not paying you to feel,” she muttered, still staring at the display on the desk.
I said nothing. I cleared my throat. The fern by the door needed watering. The air was dry.
“This Mr. Tsutsui. What exactly does he do?”
“I have no knowledge of that.”
“No, not in the future. I mean now. His job. His status.”
She glanced across at me. “Mr. Tsutsui is a state official. I’ll tell you that and nothing more … you don’t have Level 1 clearance. He will be at his apartment in Hydym, you will find him there and expedite matters. Take a magnepod. Be in the sector by twenty-hundred. The exact location will be sent to the cab and further instructions will be sent to your SP … this will be based on information received.”
“Sure,” I answered. I crossed my legs, then uncrossed them. “Information from where?”
“Mr. Sun, you know how this works. Future agents –”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with the procedure.” I’d raised my voice slightly. “All I’m asking is whether you can trust this intel.”
She seemed rather taken aback. “Trust, Mr. Sun?” She almost laughed. “How long have you been working for me?”
“Three years, two months.”
“And has trust ever been an issue?”
“But what if an … look …” I sat up straighter, not even sure of the integrity of my own judgement. But I couldn’t shake that hunch. “Our job,” I said, “is to apprehend those who have illegally travelled back to our time. Bandits, people; but what if, say, it wasn’t a person this time. What if it were a rogue message?”
“Mr. Sun, the communications for this case have come from within our department. They have come from the future, from the same channels we always work through.”
“But what if someone infiltrated those channels?”
“Impossible,” she clicked. “And besides, this is not one message we’re talking about. There have been a number of them, from various personnel.”
“Easy enough to hack.”
“Dammit, man.” She was angry now. “You think data contamination is something we don’t check? Just what kind of setup do you think this is?” She broke protocol and pointed to an image of a man on her data-desk. A grey-haired man, high cheekbones, thick eyebrows, wearing a blue tie and mainland suit. “Mr. Tsutsui,” she stated. “Our second sub-secretary of state finance. He is currently being investigated for corruption related to credit malpractice. All predictions show that he will lose his job within the week. It is no surprise why he wants to come back.”
I stared at the picture. He had a long nose, a trusting smile. The sort of smile that’d get a homeless man to part with his last remaining credit.
“Credit malpractice?” I questioned.
“An open and shut case; disregarding the mistake about to be made by our Mr. White.”
“Blondie.”
“As you so insistently call him.”
“And you’re sure …”
“Sure of what, Mr. Sun?”
I leaned forward.
“Sure that Tsutsui will, in fact, lose his job?
“Sure that he isn’t about to be promoted and not fired?
“Sure that he isn’t a man that in a few years will hold enough power for other parties to see him as a threat?
“Sure that there may well be those who wish to get rid of such a man. “Parties,” I said, “who may, in fact, have influence within this very organisation?”
“Mr. Sun, you think too much.”
“Not what you pay me to do.” I looked down at my hands. I was a cleaner, not here to ask questions.
“Listen,” she said to me, “I appreciate you coming to me with this. With your … theory … but I can assure you –”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”
She huffed. “If it makes you happy, I’ll go through the case one more time. Not as if I have enough to do already.”
She turned back to her data-desk and began tapping away while I sat there stupidly.
She looked up.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You have your orders.”
“So I’m still on the case?”
She stopped.
“Mr. Sun, if I have to replace you, I will. But I’m trusting that will not be required?”
“Right.” I stood up. “Get myself to Hydym Central and wait for further instructions.”
She looked up and called out “Amethyst.”.
The door to her office slid to one side and in walked an elegant silver android. “More caffeine,” she ordered, and the android bowed, picking up an empty beaker and left the office.
“And Mr. Sun …”
“Yep.”
“I want you a hundred percent on this.”
“Ok, off for a greening now.”
* * *
By greening I meant a spa and workout. A few legal drugs and a fresh change of clothes. The yellow suit was getting to me. The loose thread that I couldn’t quite leave alone, an irritation.
I took a pod to the nearest retail and spa facility. Spent an hour in there and came out a new man. I bought one of their suits, cheap but thick and tough; dark red and professional. It was how I was feeling.
A new message came through on my SP.
BL35ST2U22 21:16
I checked the time, just gone nineteen hundred – two hours to wait. I set my SP notifier to 21:16.
I had the idea of checking out this Mr. Tsutsui, of finding him now and following him. I could determine the current version so I’d know which one he was. I could contact Blondie, find out the location of his Task Red. We could work together on this, we could stay in conference with the Ice-maiden. The three of us could disobey orders … correct Blondie’s destiny … and take full responsibility for controlling the timeline … repairing the timeline.
“Dammit,” I cussed. Because none of it would work. Blondie’s mission couldn’t be interfered with and neither could Mr. Tsutsui’s. My boss had her orders and I’d promised her no more questions, no more acting on hunches.
I took a sub-carriage to Hydym Central, then continued on some more, all the way around the city. I browsed my SP for some Retro-Manga and I read through that. Xenophobic aliens resolute in destroying our planet; aliens who’d never succeed because luck would always be on the side of our heroes; Besides, we were quite capable of destroying it ourselves … the nuclear event of 2052 bore testament to that … that must have been a wake-up call!
The second time at Hydym Central and I got off with the shuffling minions; up the case and into the retail district – the heat had gone from the day and it was now a cool autumn evening
Aware of the laser pistol at my breast I strode purposefully through a crowd of browsing consumers.
I bought ten centi-credits worth of meat protein from a street-vendor as I made my way.
Building thirty-five was located just on the edge of the sector. Modern and plush with a hanging roof garden and silver tiles, it stood in a line of buildings, all of similar architecture. Behind it was a lake and park. Beyond that, the rising slipstream.
Between myself and the building was a thin road with buzzing pod-bikes. Here on this side was a 24-7 and a clutter of cheap restaurants – the kind where the oil’s recycled and the chefs never washed their hands but the taste was always addictive, enough to keep you coming back. It was as good a place to wait as any and I opted for a noodles eatery, ordered some ramen and sat outside.
The entrance to the buildings across from me was guarded by a security droid of burly stature, but the code sent through to my SP from The Agency would be detected and circumvent any problem gaining access.
I slurped at my noodles, going over what I’d do. Enter. Expunge. Disappear. The same as always.
I finished the ramen and waited, studying my bowl of green tea. At the table next to mine a group of young women were laughing merrily.
I looked at the SP; almost 21:00 now and I was beginning to get edgy.
Then another message came through.
Protocol Alpha update: Tap tap. Unavoidable.
“Oh, crap!” Tap tap meant the two hits would be in the same location. Blondie and I, both in apartment two, and that was risky.
I was just processing the implications of this when a further message came through.
Enter BL35 at 21:10.
And then another.
You will have exactly 6 minutes. Don’t let me down.
A personal message from my boss. I wondered what was worrying her. Looking up from where I sat to the windows of apartments 2.2, I noticed a light had now come one. “Control yourself,” I muttered. This mission, it was getting to each of us. As I watched, the light went off again. Then by the gates, I spotted a dark-suited agent. A DEV, responsible for feeding our company the mark’s movements. DEVs came from the future too – they’d track the target, then travel back an extra day to make their reports. Standouts … European by the looks of him … to avoid the paradox of meeting his current self.
Coming out of the entrance now was Mr. Tsutsui looking exactly like the picture I had seen. Maybe a little taller. He crossed the road to the nearby 24-7. I kept my head down.
“Window of opportunity,” I muttered, “I could take him now …but is he present or is he future?”
It was approaching 21:10.
I got up and walked to the hover-crossing.
“Come on,” I breathed angrily as the pod-bikes rushed along below me. Once across I all but ran across to the entrance. I flashed my badge at the droid guard then swiped my SP across the terminal. “Good evening, Mr. Sun,” it responded.
“Yeah. Sure.”
The foyer had marble flooring. Three elevation channels ahead and I took the nearest one.
“Level two and make it snappy.”
“Good evening, Mr. Sun,” the elevation pod droid replied.
“You droids say anything else?” I quipped, beads of sweat now forming on my back.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Skip it,” I responded.
Skip it.
“Rhetoric off,” I hissed.
The doors opened onto the level 2 corridor and I walked swiftly scanning either side until I found unit 22 and swiped my SP across the access pad.
The door slid silently open, one of the benefits of Level 2 security.
A plush apartment, carpeted floor and wooden panelling. Large video-screen and high windows, but I’m no interior-designer and had no time to take it in.
There was a closed door to my right with a simple toggle button on the wall. I slammed my hand against the control. The slatted door shunted upwards to reveal a bedroom, darkly lit with long curtains and more carpeted floor. It was now 21:15. I took out the laser pistol.
There was a noise of someone else entering the unit so I eased into the plush open space behind me.
“Mr. Tsutsui.”
He dropped his bag of groceries. His face a picture of fear.
Grabbing the man, I pulled him to the bedroom. My SP hit nine sixteen and the notifier went off. I had the weapon to his head.
I’d kill him, kill him now.
But I hesitated, just for a moment.
And a moment was long enough.
Tsutsui smacked my pistol away, then pulled out a small China-dagger and lunged at me.
I managed to deflect the blow, but the blade caught me across the gut and slashed my flesh.
“Who the hell are you?” I heard him cry as I fell back onto the soft floor. The man in front of me was blurred and spinning. Thick eyebrows and high cheekbones. It was Mr. Tsutsui, here from the future. He’d come prepared …
“What the hell are you doing in my unit?”
His words were fuzzy and my wound was bleeding profusely.
Tsutsui kicked me in the side and the pain was excruciating. He was a big man, bigger than I’d expected. A big man, but I am too and I had the training.
I managed to turn into a crouching position before he hit me again. I took that one and the next, then I rose as quickly as I could and smacked him across the face. His eyes were dark brown and startled. I hit him again, harder this time. With my left fist, I connected with his temple.
He fell to the floor. Mr. Tsutsui from the future. Why here? I thought. Why return to his unit at all? Why groceries?
From outside the room, I heard someone else approaching. Voices, one of them Blondie’s. I picked up my pistol, then hesitated again.
Tsutsui lay unconscious on the floor.
Through the doorway, I took in each of the figures. Blondie and the other Mr. Tsutsui. A look of anger washed over Blondie’s face at the sight of me, a fellow agent.
“This is my kill, dammit.”
He was about to get things very badly wrong.
Mr. Tsutsui just stood there looking calm – with much less protest than the Tsutsui I’d just encountered. Blondie’s pistol was pushed into the side of his neck and for a moment it seemed as if Tsutsui was smiling.
I looked at the figure standing in front of Blondie.
“Thought you could come back here and change things, Mr. Tsutsui?”
“I Don’t know what you’re talking about …” his expression changing to one of concern.
Returning my pistol to its holster, I nodded to Blondie.
“Go ahead.”
“What?”
“Or would you rather he wait?” I asked, this time directing my eyes at the target. “But if you’re expecting to blink into non-existence, I must tell you, your plan hasn’t worked.”
Tsutsui looked across at me in horror.
“You see I’m afraid to be the bearer of bad news. The present version of yourself is not, in fact, dead. Simply knocked out …”
Mr. Tsutsui’s smile turned into a look of panic.
“But …?”
“I’ve got this thing about orders, but I never can ignore a hunch.”
“What the hell is going on here?” screamed Blondie, his finger edging closer to the trigger.
“But the other … he must die. The things I have … the things he will do … you don’t understand. Oh, my God!” screamed Tsutsui.
I turned. Even the best of us can’t knock them out for long. It was Tsutsui. The other one. The present one. The one I’d been set up to kill. The one now staggering to his feet.
“What exactly will I …?” both Tsutsui’s said in unison, then they saw one another, the ultimate paradox, and they both fell to the floor in a state of rigour. A rupture in time and space, a rip in the dimensions.
Quickly striding to who I now knew to be the current version of Tsutsui, I dragged his quivering body into the bedroom, threw him inside, closed the shutter and used my laser pistol to melt the lock and seal the room.
“We should bring them both in,” I breathed heavily, swivelling back to Blondie. The future Mr. Tsutsui was now crouched on the floor, moaning.
“Blondie, no …”
“It’s my kill, dammit!”
“No, Blondie. Don’t …”
A flash as the pistol went off and Mr. Tsutsui stopped shaking.
“Goddammit, Blondie. He needed questioning! We needed answers. Boss lady is not going to be pleased!”
I looked down at the burned-out torso; Mr. Tsutsui was no more – one of them, at least.
There was nothing more to say.
“Your kill,” I relented, still breathing heavily. “Like it was only ever meant to be …” The double hit – it had all been a futile gambit. Blondie had fulfilled his mission, completed the Task Red.
With difficulty, I tapped the Protocol Gamma icon on my SP.
Protocol Gamma! Immediate purge and sanitisation required.
“I’ll leave this with you, Blondie”
“But …” seeing my predicament he curtailed his objection as I staggered towards the lift, my stomach was bleeding and I was scared. I craved medical attention and maybe a whisky or six. The love of a good nurse. The generosity of a trusted barman.
They didn’t need me here. Eventually, they’d work it out.
* * *
Four hours of intense healing at The Agency clinic had me on the road to recovery, but the Ice-maiden made no concession and called me in the next morning for a 09:00 meeting. This time I really was late. When I arrived she was in the process of dismissing Blondie. He sneered at me as he walked out.
“Ah, Mr. Sun,” my boss said. “nice of you to turn up.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, I said, “Have you told Blondie that his file will be updated as having messed up … even though he didn’t?”
The air was as thick as cryogenic formaldehyde. She stood with her back to me; staring at the far wall, at the diode pulsing mantra; No interference. To alter the past …
“So how did you know?” she asked finally, her voice low and enquiring.
“Just a gut instinct,” I answered.
“An ironic turn of phrase considering your medical report,” she replied indicating an open document on her data-desk.
Holy crap, almost humour, I thought to myself.
“Ok, a hunch then.” I’d been using that word far too much … but what else could it be that’d stopped me?
It was my turn for a question. “Any ideas on how he did it?”
“If you’re talking about Mr. Tsutsui, then you were right of course. It was him all along.”
I had a pretty good idea as to the answer but I thought I would test her out with her own question; “So how did you know?”
There was a long pause while she considered the best way to avoid a direct answer, “The situation was deemed critical … critical enough to send agents back to monitor the situation.”
“DEVs,” I said.
She raised her eyebrows at this suggestion, clearly she did not think I was so conversant with the concept of agents visiting from the future.
“I spotted one last night … hanging around outside Tsutsui’s apartment block.
Boss lady was starting to take a lot more interest in what I had to say, “How did you know he was a DEV?”
“Just a hunch,” I could have kicked myself.
“Ah, that sixth sense of yours … it may well get you into trouble one day.”
“I thought it already had! Besides, he was a standout!”
She pointed over her shoulder to the pulsing mantra on the wall behind … No interference. To alter the past …
“I was acting upon information from the future.”
I coughed just enough to let her know what I thought of that. The wound in my abdomen gave me a sharp reminder of events not yet twelve hours old.
“Our channels can now be trusted, I can assure you. We’ve received an apology …”
I sat down heavily, thought about coughing again, then thought better of it.
“Because The Agency was … infiltrated, yes. In the future, Mr. Tsutsui would have influence. Connections.”
“And the present one? Will he remember?”
“We have our best people working on that. A selective memory wipe should do it.”
“Lucky for him.”
“Quite,” she tutted. “Although Mr. Sun, I must say that your humour is lost on me sometimes.”
Losing interest in the pulsing diodes, she came over to help me up. She could see I was in pain.
“Mr. Sun.”
“Yep?”
“No word of this must get out. I shouldn’t have to tell you …”
“Fill up my credits and I’ll be grateful.”
She pulled me up with difficulty. She looked tired.
“Mr. Sun, officially this never happened,” she sighed. “But I shall authorise the standard rate in your favour and raise you to Level 1 clearance … backdated … with the commensurate increase in salary credits.”
“So that’s it?” resigned to the fact that I thought I deserved more of an explanation. I considered getting angry, but there it was again, the sharp pain and I kept quiet.
“There’ll be another job for you soon, I promise … no double hits!”
“Right,” I said, resigned to a future on unpleasant assignments.
“But you need to look after yourself. Stay out of trouble.” Her small hand squeezed mine and I knew she was grateful. It was best to leave it at that.
In the doorway, I glanced back to catch her once again staring at the laws of time. No interference. To alter the past …
Another case, I thought. Just one more and then I’d retire. I’d win big on the laserball and buy myself an island apartment. Fresh air and clean living.
“Just one thing before I go,” I continued, “it’s been niggling away at me.”
“Go on,” she replied.
“Blondie fouling up … when he didn’t. Somebody got it wrong.”
“You know that old saying,” she replied, “To err is human … but it takes an android to really mess things up!”
“And nobody spotted it?”
“No”
“But you knew!”
“Only from future intel.”
“And there was nothing you could do?
She indicated to the pulsing mantra on the wall behind her once again.
No interference. To alter the past …
”This intel … from the future … is it sound?
“Can it be trusted?”
“It comes from the most reliable of sources,” she said seriously.
“Then who the hell was it?” I cried in frustration.
“Your hunches deserting you?” she smiled, then there was a pensive silence before she continued.
“Well, I am surprised you haven’t worked it out, Mr. Sun, it was you of course.”
Snap Snap is an alternative version of the story 'Double Hit' written by Alan Morton, author of The Night Shift and Train Connections
