Guardian Agent Thirteen

Guardian Agent Thirteen sat weeping on a spinning chair in front of a gigantic plasma screen on which myriads of black threads ran, intertwined and crossed each other like jagged spiderwebs. At one intersection a red alert was beeping.

Agent Twenty-Twenty took a soft step toward the screen, leaned over and read: “Deadly Crossover.”

Agent Thirteen shuddered and spun around. He saw Twenty-Twenty, opened his mouth to speak, but only a wail came out.

“What have you done, Thirteen?” Twenty-Twenty whispered. “What are you doing here at all? You can’t be at the panel. You’re retired.”

Thirteen wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“I just wanted to cheer him up,” he said, pointing at the screen on which the lifelines of the whole town were now blinking and shimmering, rewriting themselves. His voice broke and he howled.

Twenty-Twenty bypassed him carefully, clicked a button and read the pop-up on the screen.

“Male, 62, will be killed in one hour by the heel of a thirteen-year-old boy…” He straightened up. “What?”

Thirteen raised his hand, pointed at the lines, but dropped his hand again.

“The man broke up with his girlfriend yesterday,” Thirteen said, drawing air in short, abrupt breaths. “There were so few lines in his life already: divorced, estranged, soon to be retired, nothing to look forward to. And now that break-up–”

“Thirteen, you shouldn’t have projected your feelings onto him,” Twenty-Twenty said. “He’s not you. He’s human–”

“Exactly. I know how bleak it can get. At least, I get to choose what to be. He didn’t have any will to choose. I hoped if I just nudged him with the right thought, he could grow more lifelines…”

Twenty-Twenty peered at the screen.

“Well, now there aren’t any lifelines for him.”

They both watched the future lines dissolving, the intersections with other lines vibrating, changing, disappearing, gone. Black clouds floated over the lifelines of other people: encounters that would never happen, experiences never lived. Some lines wobbled, reshaped and ran a new course – the choices altered by the event, the darker thoughts molding new lines. Their screen showed only a small fraction – the seaside town under their watch – but they knew the ripple would reach the screens in every room, even the most distant ones.

“And how exactly did you nudge him?” Twenty-Twenty asked, rolling the second chair toward the panel.

Thirteen shook his head, looking down.

“I just wanted to let him know life was beautiful,” he said. “Such a sunny, refreshing morning, a public holiday, empty streets, fresh air, quiet, clear water…”

“Right,” Twenty-Twenty said, tapping away on the keyboard. “So he decided to go for a swim. Hold on… For a long-distance swim?” He stared at Thirteen.

Thirteen nodded, not lifting his head, tears dripping from his nose.

“He always wanted to swim that distance – the whole length of the town’s beaches, around the lighthouse, and then all the way back.”

Twenty-Twenty whistled.

“Yeah,” Thirteen said. “His girlfriend was against it – too far away and dangerous. Now nothing stops him.”

Twenty-Twenty nodded, reading the details on the Deadly Crossover.

“But…he won’t drown from a heart attack,” he said, scrolling down. “What does the boy’s heel have to do with this?” He scanned the text and looked at Thirteen. Thirteen turned away. “Seriously?” Twenty-Twenty asked.

Thirteen shrugged.

“I had no idea the boys would want to jump from the lighthouse pier. It’s a strange idea. People just fish there–”

“They are kids,” Twenty-Twenty said, rubbing his forehead. “They come up with strange ideas. That’s what they do.”

He checked the alarm pop-up. The countdown showed forty-seven minutes left.

“Let’s try to stop him,” Twenty-Twenty said, and rolled out the dialogue window to send fresh thoughts in. “Oh, I see you’ve already tried…”

Thirteen shook his head. “I’ve only made it worse.”

Twenty-Twenty read under his breath. “The childhood memory of his cousin drowning. Right… Brutal, but makes sense. Reactivate trauma, induce fear. And he…”

“And he just got determined to prove that he was still living,” Thirteen said, sighing.

“All right, okay…” Twenty-Twenty said, rubbing his temples, thinking. “Let’s see what else we can do.”

“Nothing. He’s already on his way. Look.” He clicked the video icon.

Twenty-Twenty watched the top of a balding head and a white T-shirt stretched over the shoulders which moved rhythmically as their owner took wide, decisive steps toward the shoreline. From his perspective the man could probably already see the sea. Twenty-Twenty rolled out the dialogue window again. Thirteen stopped crying and watched him, sniffing.

“Health anxiety,” he typed in. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to swim on such a hot day alone and so far? Who’ll help you if something goes wrong?”

The man halted for a second. Twenty-Twenty zoomed in on his face. The man smirked.

“If I quit doing things because I’m alone, I’ll never do anything again,” he thought, and continued walking toward the beach. His dialogue window turned red.

Thirteen buried his head in his arms. Twenty-Twenty slapped the keyboard.

“The dialogue is shut off,” he said.

“Predictable,” Thirteen said, not looking at the screen. “He looked like he’d zero in on the task.”

“Okay,” Twenty-Twenty said after a while. “Let’s try the boy then. Let’s send him a thought, make him jump from the outward side. They’ll be able to see him approach then.”

Thirteen wanted to say something, but Twenty-Twenty was already scrolling through the boy’s dialogue window. “What’s this?” he asked.

Grains of static danced in the text field.

“Noise,” Thirteen replied.

“What noise?”

“In his mind,” Thirteen said. He nodded toward the window. “There’s no connection. He’s a kid. He’s excited.” Thirteen sounded like a person who tried these steps before. “You won’t get through to him. His brain’s too young, too agitated for any signals.”

They zoomed in on the boy. High-pitched squeals filled the room, and sea droplets spilled over the screen.

“They are already jumping,” Twenty-Twenty said quietly.

Thirteen’s lip trembled. He gestured to the other window.

“And he’s already swimming.”

The alarm showed thirty-seven minutes. Thirteen wiped his cheek and stepped back to take in the whole screen. The town’s future was rewiring itself. Some of the boy’s lifelines disappeared, of course, never recovering. He sighed.

“I shouldn’t have returned to the panel,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was more useful here than idling aimlessly on Earth. I thought I’d help him, you know, get more possibilities–”

“Have you checked those, by the way?” Twenty-Twenty asked, jumping from his chair.

“What?” asked Thirteen.

“The possibilities,” Twenty-Twenty said, rotating the tiny wheel behind the screen. “The infinite alternatives.”

An extra layer appeared on the screen – more threads, more intersections, but these looked entangled like an unwound ball of yarn. The lines were so pale that they were barely visible. Some seemed to be fading into the screen.

“Are you really going to comb through all those variations?” Thirteen asked, but started tracing his finger on the screen. “Here.” He tapped a spot so violently that the screen vibrated. “Look. Do you see what I see?”

A line ran close to the Crossover. It split into a cluster of even thinner lines. One of them, so pale that it looked like a dust particle, seemed to be interfering with the Deadly Crossover.

“There might be something,” Twenty-Twenty replied, also peering at the spot. “Does it divert the Crossover? I’m not sure. It might be just wishful thinking.” He rubbed his eyes and looked again.

“Whose lines are these?” he asked.

A woman was sitting on her couch, a cup of morning coffee growing cold in her hands.

“Female, 33, depression, hasn’t been out for a week, hasn’t talked in a month,” Twenty-Twenty read. He looked at Thirteen then back at the screen. He zoomed in on the woman’s face: blank, motionless, hardly ever blinking. “And this is our only chance?”

Thirteen bit his lip. “Which we’d better use quickly,” he said. “Allow me.” He pushed his chair toward the panel.

“What thought do you want to send?” Twenty-Twenty asked, holding his hand over the keyboard. It was quite hard to trust Thirteen after this morning. Thirteen slid his hand underneath and pressed a few buttons.

“Why are you copy-pasting that?” Twenty-Twenty asked. “Like failing once wasn’t enough? A sunny, refreshing morning, a public holiday, empty streets, fresh air…” He glared at Thirteen. “A refreshing morning for someone with depression?”

“No,” Thirteen whispered, smiling. “The empty streets.” He pressed ‘Send’.

The woman blinked. She traced the cold porcelain with her fingers and furrowed her brow.

Thirteen clacked away on the keyboard.

“You don’t go out today, you’ll never go out,” he typed. “The season will start. Crowds will come. Now everyone’s away. No one to talk to. The streets are empty.”

The woman closed her eyes and sighed. Her lips twitched, thinned, then parted. “Empty,” she whispered. She placed the cup on the table, ran her palm over the surface of the armrest, as if testing it, then pushed herself up from the sofa.

The alarm showed twenty-three minutes left. In the window next to the alarm, the man was swimming toward the lighthouse. His shoulders glistened in the sun as he took short, quick breaths.

“He probably feels better now,” Twenty-Twenty said. Thirteen shook his head and turned away.

The boys yelled in another window, showing off their moves: somersaulting, rotating, going legs first like a needle.

“Here she is.” Thirteen hopped out of the chair. The woman was now crossing something that looked like an abandoned building site.

“What is she doing there?” Twenty-Twenty checked the alarm clock. “How did she cover half the distance so fast?”

“She went directly through this building site to avoid people,” Thirteen said with a sad smile.

The woman stepped over the piles of rusted metal rods. Twenty-Twenty checked the lifelines.

“She’ll be two minutes early,” he said. “We need to delay her. What thought shall we send?” He turned to Thirteen.

Thirteen pressed his lips.

“Sending a thought to a depressed person is a gamble,” he said.

“A gamble is what we’ve been doing all along, Thirteen.”

Thirteen jerked his head toward the screen. Something moved in the corner of the video.

“She sees a kitten in the rubble,” Thirteen said.

“Let’s send her a memory. Quick. Something about kittens,” Twenty-Twenty said. “It’ll cheer her up, make her more chatty.”

“Which memory?” Thirteen asked. “I have no time to browse through her history–”

Twenty-Twenty pushed Thirteen away and typed, “This kitten reminds me of…” He smashed ‘Send’.

The woman knelt in front of the kitten. The agents opened the video full-screen. The woman’s lips were moving.

“Is she talking?” Twenty-Twenty asked.

Thirteen nodded, staring. “She’s whispering.” He turned the sound up. “This is her first conversation in weeks.”

“So tiny,” the woman said to the kitten. She stroked it and the kitten rubbed against her legs, trying to climb up her knees. “I once saw one just as tiny. But I didn’t take him. I left him in the cold,” she said, standing up. The kitten dropped to the ground. “I can’t help you,” she said. “It’s all pointless, anyway.” She hurried away from the kitten.

Twenty-Twenty let out a sigh.

“A marvelous attitude for the task,” he mumbled, rubbing his forehead. He checked the alarm. “Well, at least we’re on time now.”

Twelve minutes left, the numbers read.

Both agents now stared at the screen, trying not to blink. The three lines headed toward each other to intersect and to collide. No future lines grew paler or darker. The alarm glowed red. The kids were jumping. The man was getting closer to the pier as the woman stepped onto it.

The agents opened the three videos side by side. In the left one, the boy ran and leaped into the water. The kids cheered and helped him climb back up. In the right one, the man was swimming along the opposite side of the pier.

In the middle video, the woman watched the man approach as she stood still near the lighthouse. The man’s shoulders pushed through water. His arms took purposeful, precise strokes. His body tilted in the water slightly, so powerful, so full of life. The side of her mouth twitched. The man had turned the first corner. She cast him a final look and turned away.

Twenty-Twenty held his fingers above the keyboard.

“I don’t know what to send her,” he whispered.

Thirteen shook his head. “Don’t,” he said calmly, accepting. “You won’t be able to forgive yourself if it backfires. It’s up to her now.”

The woman paced away quickly. The boys lined up, counting to three. The alarm showed five seconds left. The man had turned the final corner.

“They still can’t see him,” Twenty-Twenty said quietly.

“They can’t see him,” the woman whispered. She spun around. “Don’t!”

The alarm vanished.

“Why not?” the boy screamed back.

“There’s a swimmer down there.” She pointed. “Wait.”

“Where?” the boy yelled again. Another one leaned over the edge. “She’s right,” he said. “There he is.” He spread his arms to stop his friends. “Wait. Let him pass.”

The woman nodded and continued walking. Her mouth twitched, then thinned, then spread into a smile.

Twenty-Twenty slumped back onto the chair, exhaling fully for the first time that morning. Thirteen was panting, hands on his knees. They looked at the screen again only when they heard a voice. The woman was speaking. She stopped among the rubble and knelt down.

“Let’s see whether you’ll like my home,” she said, picking the kitten up.

In the third window, the man made a loop in the water and started swimming back to his beach. The agents watched him breathe. Air went into his mouth and he pushed it out in bubbles. Thirteen thought it was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

“Oh wow,” Twenty-Twenty said. “Look at all his lifelines sprouting.”

Thirteen smiled. “These are all new ones,” he said. “The old ones had been erased.”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes. Twenty-Twenty watched him.

“You did a good job,” he said after a while. “Listen, if you ever want to pop in again, I can maybe let you–”

Thirteen waved his hand.

“No, thank you, it won’t be needed.” He glanced at the man again. “I think I’ll just go for a swim now.”