In 500... (or less)

Making Emends

Garner scanned the busy street. Where was he?

"Are you sure we landed in the right place?" Reimer wasn't Garner's first choice for this mission, but he was the expert on the culture of this time period. If only he wasn't so damn annoying.

"This is the place," she answered. "We traced it all to this one event."

"There." She pointed to the corner. "That's the place. C'mon."

They shuffled down the busy sidewalk, dodging men with gangly beards, women in stretchy pants, girls with pink hair, and guys with tattoos.

"This place," Reimer said. "It's incredible. I mean, you read about all of the complexity of their culture, just seeing these people, it's amazing."

"It stinks here," Garner grumbled. "Figuratively and literally. Don't forget, we got a job to do."

"So we find him. Then what? We take him out?" It was like Reimer hadn't been paying attention during the briefing.

Garner sighed, trying to not to snap.

"We've been over this," she said calmly. "We can't just blow out the timeline like that. They already tried that."

It had been a tangled mess. Taking out the target had led to a disastrous future. One that was worse. Retrieval was impossible because of the change that had been made. Two agents wiped from existence.

"Right. Drager and Madison. It was a shame." Reimer must have at least listened a little bit. "At least York came back."

If you wanted to call it that, Garner thought. Temporal sickness. Worst case they'd ever seen. That's what happens when a mission last two years instead of a few hours. York wasn't York anymore, just a raving lunatic who fervently believed he'd been snatched from his life and was being held prisoner by aliens.

"Reimer," Garner said. "Let's keep our eye on the ball. You spot the target yet?"

"Not yet," he answered. "Wait. Over there."

It was the target. And he wasn't alone. York got that part wrong.

"That's the one," Garner said softly, trying not to draw attention to herself as one of the locals walked right by her as she answered. "Change of plan, we're going in."

"In?" Reimer tried to figure out what the plan was going to be. None of the scenarios in the briefing involved them going 'in'.

"Yes, 'in'," she answered. "C'mon." She grabbed Reimer by the shirt and pulled him inside the building. The plan had been to intercept the target and take him elsewhere. The companion, well, he complicated things.

They went inside, Garner looked helplessly at Reimer. She was out of her element completely.

"The queue is over there," Reimer said, chuckling at his partner's dismay. Garner started shuffling over to the line of people.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Reimer said, grabbing her arm. "I got an idea. Wait for the target. Get in line behind him."

It seemed to take forever for the target to move to the front of the line.

"I'll have the double chocolate one," the target said. "Oooh, dad it's the last one!"

"Oh you don't want that one," Reimer interrupted. "My ummm, my ah, wife here, it's her favorite."

Garner looked at him as if he had an octopus stuck to his face.

"Sorry lady," the target said. "I got here first."

"No no," his dad said. "You take it. He'll have that chocolate-iced one with the sprinkles."

The mission was a success. The man behind them, the one who would go on a rampage shooting because he didn't get his double-chocolate donut that morning. Without the shooting, everything would be different. The future would be better.