"You will find the people of that time were very reckless," one of the historians told me. "Pedestrian and vehicular transport nets were interlocked, resulting in an inefficient and dangerous system that caused many deaths. Be sure to check the vehicular net before crossing." Failing to see any cars, I hurried across.
I stepped in and out of puddles of light from overhead lamps. My trenchcoat, as common in this time as in mine, flapped in the wind. It concealed both me and my tools. Ahead of me stood an old-fashioned building made of concrete and actual glass windows. A man in a uniform I could not recognize guarded the main entrance. Shiny buttons and colorful insignia decorated his jacket.
"The people of the time took security even more seriously than we do due to the paranoia of the time. However, advanced electronic and computerized systems had not yet been developed, so you will most likely face armed guards as the main line of defense. Luckily for us, The Operation's subject only occupied a small area of the building, leaving the rest for use by the public citizenry. Therefore, entrances were not guarded by fences or other physical barriers." I approached the guard with this in mind. He came to attention and confronted me.
"May I help you, sir?" he asked in a businesslike manner. Even though I knew to expect it, the use of the forbidden English language in public startled me. Suppressing my tendency to use Mandarin, I replied in as casual a manner as possible.
"I have a delivery to make." I smiled and he visibly relaxed.
"Whom to, sir?"
"To . . ." I began, but suddenly choked. Coughing violently, I sank to my knees. The guard quickly bent down to aid me.
"Are you all right, sir?" I replied by shaking my head. "Should I . . .?" I cut him off with a sharp grab to his throat. My gloved left hand encircled his neck, sending electrical charges up his spine to his brain. He quietly gasped as the charges fused his neurons, cutting off the connections to the rest of his body. With a final exhale, the breathing stopped and his now-stiff corpse fell toward me. I quickly stood up, pulling him to a standing position with me.
I propped his lifeless body in the corner of the main door and the wall. His face remained locked in the expression of surprise and horror that my glove had permanently etched. Tilting his head down, I replaced his fallen hat to hide his unnatural expression. To a passerby, it would appear that he was merely napping. With a quick glance to assure that no one saw his death, I proceeded inside.
A few scattered lights provided the only illumination in the almost-deserted building. My memory recalled the MemPlanted map of the facility, showing the most direct route that avoided areas in use and elevators. As reflexive stealth training guided me along the corridor, my troubled conscience began to bother me. Was the guard's death worth it or even necessary to my mission? Then I remembered my own time. A time of repression and loss, when the U.S. does not exist and China holds the once-proud West in an iron fist of control.
Oh sure, the U.S. continued to dominate for a few decades, but with false security. Its leadership meaningless and impotent, the world lay ripe for picking by the new Chinese Empire. Not even the vast Pacific could stop its influence as the insatiable hunger of the Chinese economy and military followed a path blazed two centuries ago by Americans. No, any change to the nightmare I had to live in merited a few sacrifices.
So we developed time travel. The last savior of America turned out to be technology, something no one else could seem to get right compared to us. In secret labs across the country, a small prototype unit took form. Only with one flaw: it would work only once. The mechanics of time would erase the machine from existence when the effects of a time traveler reached the origin point. It took me there (or maybe I should say "then") and it would take me back before erasing itself from the fabric of space and time. I kinda felt sorry for the engineers. Their greatest accomplishment would never be known, not even to themselves. Only I, by virtue of leaving the timestream, would know of it. Perhaps I will tell them about it sometime. I doubt that they will believe me.
Our historians poured over history, trying to find the one key moment in our past that sent us into decline. Years of time simulations and theories proved wrong produced an answer. The event that sent the nation on the road to hell acquired a name: The Operation. Never mentioned for fear of a security leak, The Operation had to be stopped. And it all depended on me.
However, something still nagged at me. The people behind The Operation intended something completely different. They believed that their plans would actually help the country. "Paranoia at the time created The Operation. It sacrificed a part of America to save the rest. Unluckily, as with most actions based on paranoia, The Operation inadvertently led to an opposite effect," is how the professors put it. I say they just fucked up in spite of good intentions. But does that mean that they must die?
The situation required sacrifices. I didn't hate the people behind The Operation, but they had to die. I guess that is a constant: freedom comes at a price. In this case, it thought it a bargain . . . up to that point.
A noise broke the silence of my journey and ended my thoughts. It took a second to realize that I had not caused the sound. It took another second to realize who had.
Two guards walked down the hall in my direction. I could make out antique firearms at their sides. Frozen to avoid detection, I gauged their distance.
"Did you see the game last night?" asked one of the other. With their minds relaxed and on other things, I struck. My right hand dropped to the ground and threw me across the corridor in a roll.
"What the hell?!" yelled the other guard at my motion. I came up in a crouch and shot him with my energy weapon. A searing, white light bolted from my hand to his chest, throwing him backward. The second guard reached for his gun but failed to clear the holster before a second beam of light sent his crumpled form to the floor.
My heart quickened as I realized what I had done. No backing out now; the mission replaced all thoughts of morality and the like. I had to move quickly to pull off the mission. I had to move quickly if I expected to see my own time again. With a quick hop, I bolted down the hallway. I acted instinctively, endless virtual reality training sessions paying off. A jump here. A dash to the left. Just enough force to jump down the stairs soundlessly. Adrenalin pumped through my veins, causing a feverish giddyness to take over my mind. No simulation ever had this effect.
My conscious mind free of the need to monitor my actions, I reviewed my objectives. Eliminate all evidence of The Operation's work. Eliminate all evidence of The Operation's personnel. Escape. For some reason, my superiors put less emphasis on the last one than I did. I guess they figure that I have enough motivation to attend to that detail. I didn't plan to go through all this and not enjoy a 21st century with U.S. power. Some of the scientists said that the U.S. may even beat the Chinese to Mars as a result of this mission. That would be something to see: kinetic-kill meteorites falling on Manchuria instead of California.
I put the dreams aside as I approached The Operation. The sounds of Operation personnel at work wiped the smile from my face. These people had to die, at my hand. My hand dropped to a pocket an extracted a second energy weapon. Duty called.
I slipped into the room with The Operation. Several men in old-fashioned business suits examined stacks of reports and file folders. The papers held the words and ideas that they thought would save the U.S. In the right hands, they could have changed the nation. Too bad the cost set the country on an opposite course. I fired at the first two. Their bodies slumped over a table before they knew what hit them. The others looked up in surprise. I shot two others without hesitation.
"Goddamn!" yelled one as he grabbed for his shoulder holster. A bolt of light and he became the fifth to fall. Two others tried to dive for cover. Twenty seconds later, only I remained standing. The smell of burning flesh filled the air. I paused a moment, savouring my victory. After years of preparation, our plans went off without a hitch. Adrenalin left me, almost making me drop to the ground.
I reached in my coat and extracted a small, black box. Placing it on a table, I pressed a button on its side. Red digits appeared and began a five minute countdown. Soon, all traces of The Operation would die in a miniature nuclear inferno. I ran out the door to the designated exit point.
After a half-minute of running, I left through an emergency exit. "Use of an emergency exit triggered an alarm that summoned fire fighters. By departing in this manner, you will guarantee that the incendiary device does not cause much collateral damage and further alter the time stream." I didn't really care, as long as I could reach the exit in a hurry. Which I did, setting off an old fire alarm. The new future beckoned me.
I ran off into the night, escaping the blast that would soon gut the old Watergate Hotel.