Walking through the time travel agency compound after Jason freed me as he carried the unconscious Maria over his back was a bizarre experience. I saw people everywhere, more than I had expected to see. Some of them I recognized as fellow former employees. Some of these employees looked terrified and others looked liberated. Many, many people I didn't know were running through the halls. Fortunately, I didn't see anyone with the hand cream, but I did see plenty of people running around with the digital documents, waving them wildly over their heads.
Needless to say, this was not what I had intended. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been too surprised. I just never expected my message to have gotten this broad and to be latched onto by so many people. Some of the people were very young, like Jason's sister's age. This prompted me to ask Jason, "Is Melanie here?"
I could barely hear him over the noise of the crowds, but I noticed him shake his head. "She wanted to come, but I told her to stay at home," he said.
"That was wise," I shouted back. I wasn't sure if he heard me or not.
I overheard someone going around demanding to find Maria, asking who Maria Rodriguez was.
"Keep going," I muttered to Jason, again not sure if he could hear me. I didn't want some anarchist or thug to get a hold of my former boss. I might be angry at her, but ultimately, I didn't want her dead. This whole thing was supposed to be about saving people, not destroying them.
When we finally emerged from the chaos, my ears started ringing from the silence. I turned to Jason, and feeling a horror that must have been displayed on my face, asked him, "What have we done?"
"We've shown the world the truth," he said.
"I suppose," I admitted. "But were they really ready for it?"
He tried to shrug, but seemed to find it difficult with Maria slung over his back. "I don't know," he said. "But its too late to go back now."
I looked at him, I looked back at the door we had just emerged from. "Is it?" I asked.
"Anna, what are you...?"
"Give me the key," I demanded.
"What key?"
"The key to the cell you found me in."
"Anna, are you...?"
"Probably," I said. "Please, just trust me one more time."
"Okay..." He sounded very reluctant, but he handed the key over to me and I stuffed it in my jacket pocket. When had I gotten this jacket? I know I didn't have it in the jail cell. Had Jason given it to me? I couldn't quite remember. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that it had pockets.
"Now get Maria out of here," I ordered him. "I know what I have to do. What I really have to do." Before he had time to react, I was rushing back into the fray, the sniper rifle still flung over my back. I saw people getting into fist fights, shouting, screaming. I had thought this was a brilliant plan. I had thought this would be it. I had only now realized that this would not be it.
I knew now that I needed to protect time travel from all these people, and all these people from time travel. It had to be destroyed, but first, there was one important mission I still had to go on, and it went against absolutely everything they had ever taught me at the academy.
Now, I had already seen evidence that time travel could indeed alter the past, but I wasn't sure that what I had done previously would be quite on the same paradoxical level as what I was about to do now. But I didn't see a better way. I had made a mess, and now I needed to clean it up one last time.
I dodged the masses of humanity and made my way to my first stop at the armory where I managed to find a box of sniper rifle rounds. I loaded the one I could into my rifle and pocketed the rest, just glad that the guns were more secure than the ammo and that the rioters didn't seem to have found the heavy weaponry yet.
Next it was on to the science lab. The lab was usually secured, surprisingly more secure than the armory, but the door had been practically torn off its hinges, or so it appeared. I felt my pulse beating faster as I entered. Fortunately, there weren't a lot of people here still, and even more fortunately, I noticed the hidden panel in the wall was completely undisturbed. I walked over to it and laid my hand on it. I was a little scared Maria would have removed me from the system, but I was again fortunate to find that it still opened up. Inside this hidden safe place, I saw what I was looking for: twelve tiny vials of the time traveling hand cream. With a smile, I shoveled 11 of them into the coat that I was wearing. I wasn't quite sure where the coat had come from. Had Jason put it on me? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that it had pockets. I opened the twelfth vial, rubbed it on my hands, and closed my eyes as I focused as carefully as I could on the spot I remembered outside my jail cell that was hidden in shadow behind where the guard had sat or stood while watching me.
I felt the dizziness and nausea kick in and as I knew it was working, I hoped and prayed that Maria had gone home that night. When I opened my eyes again, there I was, standing in that corner, noticing the guard just start to turn around at the noise I must have unintentionally made while arriving here. It seemed like the world was moving in slow motion as I sprang forward and banged him over the head with the rifle before he could finish turning.
He didn't go down right away, so I had to hit him again, which I managed to do before he could grab me and I watched as he went tumbling to the ground with a clatter that I hoped only one other person could hear. When I looked up from his unconscious body, I saw that one other person: me in the jail cell, just waking up and blinking my eyes several times as I beheld the sight before me.
"What on earth are you doing?" the me from the past demanded. "This was never the plan."
"Well, plans change," I said, hurrying up to the old steel door and jamming the key into it.
"Why?" the other me asked as I started to swing the door open.
"Chaos," I said.
"We knew that was a possibility," she said.
"We didn't consider just how bad it would be," I said.
She looked worried. Her brow wrinkled. Was that really what I looked like when I was nervous and thinking about something? It wasn't that appealing. "How bad was it?" she asked. "Did people... die."
"Not yet," I said, "but they very well could."
"You mean not yet in this timeline or not yet in the one you came from?" she asked.
"Both," I said. I sighed. "I know you like to try to plan things out, but I'm telling you, we didn't think this first plan through enough. This other one, this half backed plan is much better. Now come on, follow me."
"What are we going to do?" I asked behind me.
I turned and faced me. "We thought getting the truth out there was the answer," I said. "But now I see that destroying it all... that's actually the way to go."
"And how do we stop them from just doing all this again?" the me from the past asked.
I paused at that and then shrugged. "One problem at a time," I said. "I saw what happens if I don't come back here. That's why I came back here. Now come on. It's time to cause our own organized chaos."
And with that, I opened the door to that dank dungeon and started shooting out security cameras as I crept down the hall with the other me following.
Unfortunately, I wasn't sure how many other employees or guards were around. I didn't want to have to kill anybody, but the whole reason I had brought the gun was just in case. I was hoping, too, that my other self could do better the next time through, if it worked that way. I internally shook my head as I contemplated that I really didn't know. I was in completely uncharted territory here. Time travel 101 is limit interaction with your own self. The most I had interacted with myself from another time line before now was when I had seen my baby self on my mother's hip when I went back in time to tell her to make me into a time traveler. Now, here I was running down the hallway with me, taking out cameras, navigating towards the storage areas I knew I didn't have access to, and now getting nervous not about the possibility of guards, but the lack of guards.
I had thought this was going to be harder. Why didn't we make it this easy to begin with? Wasn't it odd that now that Maria knew I was a threat, she seemed to have less security that I should have merited? Was she really that cocky as to think that I wouldn't have found some way to escape? Apparently she was since she had been surprised by my video summons in the previous time line. Maybe I shouldn't think about it too much, I decided. If I did, my head might explode.
We had just made it to the hallway that led to the prize I was after - the supply of time travel lotion - when I finally saw a guard. He was walking the hall, back and forth, but for some stupid reason, he had a sniper rifle. I looked down at the gun in my own hands. Same model. Could be a different gun. Could be the same one. Time travel was weird.
If it was the same gun I was holding, was it loaded? It hadn't been when Jason gave it to me. But why would a guard be marching around with an unloaded gun? But then again, why would he be marching around with a sniper rifle. The agency had never been this inept, had they? It was strange, but I decided not to think about it too much. I waited until the guard's back was turned and then decked him in the head just like I had the prison guard. This one went down right away.
I took the weapon off of him and checked to see if it loaded. It was after all. "Here," I said, handing the gun to my other self.
"I think you've taken out all the cameras," she said.
"I think I have, too," I said, "but you still might need this."
She looked shocked and slightly disappointed. "We aren't a killer," she said. "That's what this whole thing has been all about."
"Except for the elephant," I said.
She frowned. "Except for the elephant," she agreed. "I was thinking that," she said, "but I was hoping you wouldn't mention it. I guess I should have known better."
"Probably," I agreed. "Now let's do this."
"Destroy it all?" she asked.
I nodded. "It's amazing the difference just two days can make," I said.
"It's amazing the difference two minutes can make," she said.
I tried to open the door. It was locked. Of course it was locked. I had always been told not to go in this door, that it was only for the scientists who prepared us for the journeys, but I guess they didn't trust as all that much after all.
"See if he has a key card or something," I said, still jiggling the door pointlessly. When I turned back, it appeared I had already started doing what I had told me to do even before I suggested doing it.
The other me shook her head. "Nothing," she said.
I sighed. "I should have gotten it from the future," I said. "What was I thinking?"
"Probably that you didn't want to have to go into Maria's office," the other me said. "She's sure to have it, and she's also the last person I'd want to see right now."
"In the future, Maria was unconscious," I told me. "There's no chance I'd run into her."
"Well, I still wouldn't really want to go into her office again," past me said. "That's where she caught us before."
"And we don't want it to be where she catches us again," I said. I sighed. "Alright," I said, "the past is in the past, or the future's in the future, or whatever. We've got to go. At least there's two of us now so I can guard the door while you search."
"Or the other way around," she said.
I couldn't help but grin. "Does it really matter?" I asked.
I continued to be surprised as we made it to Maria's office without incident. Her door was locked, but I just shot out the lock.
"You should watch your ammo," past me said. "How am I going to have enough to go do this all over again."
I smiled to myself, and also at myself. "We'll get more ammo," I said. "We pretty much have to."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Now start searching," I said.
"Okay," she agreed. "But only because you asked so nicely." And she started rummaging through drawers and cabinets and various personal effects of Maria.
"For a supreme overlord, she sure is messy," the searching me said. I shushed her and she said more quietly, "Sorry, I haven't seen the future you have yet."
"The goal is that you won't," I said.
I heard the rummaging stop for a moment. I glanced back at her as she stood looking at me, but then looked quickly back at the door. "Are you sure that won't make the world explode or something?" she asked.
"Nope," I said, "but I'm a bit worried the world was going to explode anyway. Now please keep looking."
"It's a bit ironic that we're now trying to stop the thing that Maria sent us back to stop to begin with by stopping Maria, isn't it?" the other me asked.
"Except we're trying to do it without killing anyone," I said. "Now please, keep looking."
The rummaging noises continued for a while and then I heard other me say, "Huh, that's interesting."
"What is?" I asked, turning away from the door.
"This picture," the other me said, holding up one of those digital pocket display things. I walked over to her and looked at it.
My eyes grew wide at what I saw. "That looks a lot like..."
"Maria with an older version of Jason," the other me finished. "But it isn't him. The chin is to wide, the cheek bones too prominent and the eyes are the wrong color."
"Those are all things that could be altered," I pointed out.
The original me shrugged. "I suppose," she said. "But it seems unlikely." Then she held the photo out to me. "Here," she said, "this might be useful."
"How?" I asked her.
She shrugged and set the photo down on the desk. "If you don't know then I don't know either," she said. "Why don't we keep looking?"
I was about to point out that my job was to guard the door when I realized that I was no longer doing my job and also that I heard footsteps approaching. Other me and I exchanged a glance and then she darted into the corner of the room while I stood with my rifle pointed at the door frame. It was less than two seconds later when I very shocked looking Maria barged in.
"You!" she exclaimed looking at me. "I should have known you would find a way to..."
She didn't finish her sentence as I saw her eyes roll back. She fell to the floor as other me looked triumphant. "Since I'd seen you do it to the guards, I knew I could do it to Maria," she said proudly.
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Just close the door."
As she did so, I started looking through the stuff she had been searching and then smirked a little as I found the key cards at the bottom of the pile she had been examining when she found the photo. "Alright, I found them," I said. "Now let's get out of here." I started to move towards the door with the key cards when I stopped, took a step back and grabbed the photo.
"I think you might be right about this coming in handy," I said.
She smiled. "We're always right, aren't we?" she teased.
"Not really," I said.
She frowned at that. "No, not really," she admitted. Then she sighed and asked, "Can't I just give myself a break?"
"Not until this is done," I said. "Now come on. Let's go finish this." And with that, we left Maria lying on the ground as we hurried back towards the secret room that was supposed to hold the secret stash of all the time travel cream in existence, other than a small emergency supply of twelve emergency vials, eleven of which were in my coat and the other twelve of which were still in the lab.
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