Stitches in Time

In ten minutes Vasquez will be dead and I can finally go home.

Caesar Vasquez is the newly elected President and is seen as an all-conquering hero. He's handsome, charming, and has made promises to the electorate that he'll never be able to deliver. In nine years his actions will lead to a billion deaths and most of South American will be an irradiated wasteland.

I stretch my fingers. Trying to get the blood moving again. Three hours lying on the roof of the clock tower.

Asuncion is a beautiful city. Beautiful people. Amazing food. Wonderful music. Yesterday I spent the night drinking and dancing in one of the nightclubs. A woman wrote her phone number on my palm. I won't call her, and she'll never be able to call me.

In a little under an hour, Vasquez will give a speech that is so electrifying and rallying that it starts a fall of dominoes that within five years he unites the majority of South America into one nation. El Nuevo Imperio Americano (NIA).

This nobody leader of this nowhere country leads the NIA into a disastrous war with the United States. In 1965 they invade Texas. Thousands are dead by 1967. In 1968, President Nixon launches a nuclear attack killing millions more and irradiating most of South America. In 1958 few outside the country would be able to find this place on a map, within ten years there would be nothing to find.

So, I lie and wait. Five minutes.

I've spent most of my adult life lying in wait for the worst people in history. Before the invention of time travel, I was part of a team of British special service operatives. In 2075 our job was to remove the leaders of nations that perhaps we didn't quite see eye-to-eye with. My team were renowned for their efficiency. Into the country on one day, bullet to the back of the head of the country's leader, out of the country by nightfall. And a regime change in the morning. A leader more in keeping with good old British values. If you've heard of a world leader mysteriously disappearing, or dying suddenly, it was likely to be one of my team.

In 2078, Thaddeus Blink's Aion Corporation reached out to me. They had invented time travel. I was initially sceptical. Obviously.

So he told me the story I had never told anyone. How my brother drowned when I was ten. How I did everything I could to save him. How he was washed out to sea. But that was a lie.

I was paralysed with fear. I watched him drown and made no effort to save him. Didn't even venture into the water. I watched my brother die.

And Blink had been there. He'd seen me rigid with fear. He was the man who took my hand. He was the man who called the ambulance.

He'd seen it all and wanted to know what I'd give to save him. I said "anything".

Four minutes.

Blink recruited me to stop a child killer. Travelled back to the day before he kidnapped his first child. Led in wait for him in an alley and as he left for a normal day at work I slit his throat. Twelve children who would otherwise have died lived to adulthood.

Back I went again. Dozens of serial killers, murderers, and rapists are dead because of me. And every one of them killed before they had committed any crime worse than shoplifting some chewing gum. I have the blood of many innocent men, and a couple of innocent women on my hands. I can live with that.

And Blink kept his promise. It wasn't all death. I travelled back, the adult me dived in from the pier and pulled my brother to safety while child me stood rigid with fear. My brother was saved. He now has a wife and a couple of kids. A very happy family.

We upped the game. Why don't we kill Hitler, someone suggested. Every meeting about time travel there's always someone who wants to kill Hitler. Now was their chance. Several people wanted me to kill Hitler as a baby, but even I baulk at that one. If I'm a child killer, even Baby Hitler, then I'm no better than the psychopaths I'd been killing. So, a quick poll of when Hitler was at his worst and it was decided that I'd be sent to 1954. Just before his disastrous invasion of the USA. Yeah, saving the Yanks again. They're still banging on about them pulling our ass out of the fire in 1941, and still think we owe them.

But ultimately it's Blink's money, so he decides where I go.

Three minutes.

Hitler's big speech in Mexico City. The one just before the invasion. The one that led to thousands of dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead Latin American Nazis. Hitler comes out onto the veranda of Palacio Nacional while I'm on a rooftop on the other side of the plaza. He raises one arm in that ridiculous salute and he gets a bullet through the head.

I returned to the present day: 2080. But there's no fanfare. No applause. No cheering. Hitler's death in 1954 changed the timeline. Now Vasquez comes to power in 1958. By 1968 millions not hundreds of thousands are dead.

It seems like mankind can't help itself. Every time one evil dictator is killed, the world shakes its collective head and promises 'never again' and within a couple of years there's another one.

This isn't my first trip to Asuncion. I've been here before. Below are past versions of me. In the coffee shop to the right is a past version of me that arrived this morning to check the timings of the parade. I need this with pinpoint accuracy. His work, for now, is done and I hope he's enjoying a coffee.

In the newspaper shop to the left is a past version of me who has spent a long time calculating the windspeed and trajectory. Ideally, you need multiple readings to make the correct calculations, and I trust nobody more than myselves. His work, for now is done, and he's hopefully found something to read. He doesn't speak Spanish, but they have a copy of Tintin, and he likes the pictures.

Two minutes.

Rule Number One of Time Travel: You can't meet your past selves. There's some sort of Limitation Effect that means that we'll either all die instantly, or the universe will fold in on itself. I've been warned by H&S not to even joke about it. If I destroy the universe at least they won't have to do any paperwork.

I can hear the parade. They know how to party in Paraguay. The speech and celebration were an incredible event. The funeral will be even better. People throng the street. I can hear the procession. Three cars. Vasquez and his beautiful wife and two bodyguards are in the middle car.

One minute.

The lead car takes the corner below and I take in one long slow breath. Thirty seconds later the second car takes the corner and Vasquez appears in my sights. I let out the breath, long, slow steady and as his head fills my sights I fire.

My vision is filled with a bloom of red as the bullet passes through Vasquez's skull. No need to double-check the kill.

One of the bodyguards and Vasquez's wife are covered in his blood. Don't feel bad for her, in the original timeline she finds her darling Caesar in bed with another woman, and he has her hanged for treason. Six months later the mistress would have been his new wife. Now she'll be his beautiful grieving widow.

Security is everywhere. My past selves are pointing in opposite directions. "Por ahí" says one, "Allí!" shouts the other. A couple of people have worked out where I would have been hiding to get a clear shot, but in the confusion security are running back and forth like headless Paraguayan Presidents.

We don't know what will happen next. There's no way to predict it. We try our best. There's a team back at HQ that has charts and diagrams that will plot out likely futures. But we don't know for sure, maybe Vasquez's Vice President will be a more benevolent leader. Maybe he'll be a worse dictator and I'll be back to violently execute him too. Maybe this will change history enough so I have to return to kill someone in China, or Gambia, or Butthole, Missouri. Maybe this time we've got it right and we all get to live happily ever after. Maybe.

I fire up the exit portal. It takes about thirty seconds, which gives me time to pack up my rifle and open the small paper bag of chipas I picked up earlier. I take a couple of bites.

It's then that I notice her. Through the crowds and the chaos. The woman from the bar. Outside the nightclub.

She's looking directly at me.

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