When the director of the organization approached me with the final mission, I knew exactly what it would cost me in the end… and yet I accepted it without hesitation. What does that say about me, I wonder?

I looked over the dossier. The target: Adam Davis. Inventor of the prototype that eventually led to the device on my wrist. Born March 30th, 2189. The objective: without killing the target, stop him from inventing his prototype. This means that I had to pick the right date between his birth and the day of the first time jump, on July 14th, 2214.

A distant explosion sounded overhead. Sounds like the organization has been breached already. It’s only a matter of… time… until it is all over. I look to the director; no words are necessary, so I simply salute. He returns the gesture, and quickly exits the room, giving me the time necessary to make the jump.

I set the device on my wrist to December 31st, 2211, and begin the priming sequence. I spend my last ten minutes looking around my quarters in the organization’s last remaining underground safehouse. It is clean and spartan, with hardly a hint of individuality. That’s to be expected; the devices we use to travel in time do not allow us to bring anything along other than our bodies and the specially designed suits that are hardwired into said device. Travel before the invention of the suits was… awkward, to say the least. I check the integrity of my suit (all clear), and I lower the goggles and raise the face mask into place.

Finally, the priming sequence is completed. Just in time; I can hear the sound of weapons discharging outside my door. Before the enemy can get inside, I set the destination, and activate the device. The world around me begins to fade and distort, though I know it’s really me that is fading and distorting. The safehouse disappears, and a new scene slowly takes its place.

A Christmas tree, haphazardly decorated, stands tall in the corner of the room. A cozy fireplace casts its warm glow into the room, with no other light sources to aid it. A radio can be heard coming from the next room over, playing slow and peaceful Christmas music.

A man is laid out on the couch, grasping an empty bottle in one hand. His sleep is peaceful, but the trails on his cheeks indicate that he did not enter this sleep peacefully.

I approach the man, feeling guilty for choosing such a vulnerable time in his life to do this, but knowing that it is the best (and possibly only) way for this mission to succeed. I gently shake his shoulder. He stirs, then slowly wakes up. His eyes are dull; he barely registers the apparent stranger in his home.

“Adam,” I say, “we need to talk.”

“Who’re you?” he slurs. “If you’re here to rob me, take whatever you want. There’s nothing of value here anymore…”

This is harder than I thought. I almost activate the return function on my device, aborting the mission altogether. Instead, I say, “You are working on something. A device that will change history forever.”

“You want my blueprints? Take them; they’re just theoretical at this point. It’ll be years before a prototype can be realized.”

“Precisely two years, six months, and fifteen days from now.”

That sobers him up a bit. “You sound so sure… but that must mean that you…”

“Yes, Adam. I am from the future.”

“Then it works!” Adam stands up, dropping the empty bottle to the soft carpet with a thud. He reaches his hands to the skies and shouts with joy, tears welling up in his eyes.

I wait for him to sit back down. Eventually he does, and he looks at me eagerly. “I knew I would figure it out one day! It had to be possible! Now I can go back and undo my mistakes!”

“You can’t.”

“What do you mean, I can’t? Sure, it will take some time, but knowing what awaits me at the end…”

“You misunderstand. I can’t let you.”

Adam’s face snaps from joy to fury in an instant. He grabs me by the shoulders and says in a tight but intense voice, “You don’t understand. A year ago, I was married to a beautiful woman. I had a beautiful daughter. I was caught up in my research; I told them to go to the New Years’ Fireworks without me. They got into a car, hit a patch of ice, and…”

His grip on me weakened as he sank back down onto the couch. He looked as if he might burst into tears, but after a moment (and a sharp inhale) he looked up at me. “But that doesn’t matter. Once the machine is ready, I can go back and tell them not to go. Then I can see them again, and-”

I remove my mask and goggles, and his speech stops dead. He looks at me with wide, unbelieving eyes. After a moment that feels like an eternity, he finally speaks again.

“Sophia?”

Every part of me wants to reach out to him, to hold him once again. But I know better. Doing so will only make this more painful, and it might endanger the mission. Keeping my expression neutral, I respond: “Hello, Adam.”

He moves to embrace me, but I hold out a hand to stop him. “Adam, you have to stop this. I know you are in pain; I know all you wanted was to bring me and Charlotte back. You are a brilliant man, but your brilliance is going to have far-reaching repercussions that you can’t even begin to comprehend. I have come back to convince you to never invent time travel.”

I get it all out as quickly as possible, afraid that if I stop, I won’t be able to finish. Unmasking myself had been a risk, and it left me more emotionally vulnerable, but I knew Adam. He wasn’t about to bow to the will of a stranger, so I had to show him that I wasn’t one.

“Sophia, I… I missed you so much. That night, I said such horrible things, and I…”

I can’t stop the sad smile from crossing my face. “It’s all right, Adam. I forgive you. Please don’t beat yourself up over this anymore.”

“Sophia, I can’t stop now. You are here, and that means it worked. I went back and I saved you, and… where’s our daughter?”

“She… didn’t make it.”

“But… how did I…”

“You saved her, but she died in a battle, decades later. A battle that came about because of your invention.”

“You don’t understand! If I don’t invent time travel, then I never went back to save you. If my grasp of time theory is accurate, the universe will self-correct, and you will…”

“I know. It’s what I signed up for when I made the jump. Call me crazy, but if it avoids the future I came from…”

Adam stared at me with longing, but I could see that my words were getting to him. I could also feel it; the world around me was starting to fade. I smiled, knowing that my mission was almost over.

“No… Sophia, what is happening?”

“You realize that I am right… you’re not going to invent the machine…”

“Wait, please, just let us spend one last night together! Just let me hold you one last time!”

“That will only add to your pain. Please, you have to let me go.”

“I can’t… I’m not strong enough.”

“Yes you are, Adam. You’re the one who sent me on this mission.”

Those words are the final nail in the coffin. As the world goes dark around me, I look at his face one last time. Tears are freely flowing down his cheeks, but I can see the shock in his eyes give way to resolve. He nods, and speaks the last words I would hear in this life: “I’ll never forget the time we spent together. Goodbye, my love.”

~Stories by Sol