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Past And Future Crimes
I'm not here to judge your choices. That would be biased of me, and quite improper given the circumstances. But, regardless of the professional decorum I uphold, it still befuddles me that you chose door number three. Not opening door one is of course, perfectly understandable and no one in their right mind would have any objections to seeing you pass it by, but door two is obviously at least worth a courtesy glance don’t you think?
Now I'm not trying to question your judgment, just document its result. But door two was made of a very nice varnished mahogany, with an ivory handle that had just the slightest wear of age told through a minuscule tilt in its position. This seemed like a perfectly good door through which to walk through, and most certainly at least worth a glance.
Of course, I completely understand your choice of door three. It was of course not the best door to choose if I were to offer my own opinion which I most certainly am not doing at all. But I do understand the desire to choose door 3.
Turning the large bulkhead, and utilizing the full weight of your upper body you forcefully opened door three and stepped through. Time was, of course as always, imperative, yet you took a brief moment to survey the room into which you had thrust yourself. It was, as it ought to be, barren of any furniture, or other unnecessary decor.
What the room did contain however was a rustic wooden workbench in the center of the room. Covered, of course, in sawdust and steel shavings. On the workbench were several items which would be of the utmost importance to you.
And so naturally you strode confidently across the room, your boots clanking loudly against the steel floor. You picked up the silenced pistol and checked the chamber and magazine as per protocol outlined on page 102, paragraph 4 of the handbook. Satisfied you took the holster and slipped it through your arms placing the silenced pistol in it, clipping it in snugly.
Next, you picked up the screwdriver and kneeling, wiggled it into your steel-toed boot and then tucked the hem of your denim Jeans over it, effectively concealing it from view. An interesting location for sure, but completely within regulations.
The next item you took from the table was a fabulous tweed jacket with brown patches on the elbows. This quite nicely covered the holster for your silenced pistol.
A hair tie was nicely wrapped around your left wrist, then a deck of playing cards slipped into your right pocket. A single 1945 mint condition American quarter was delicately placed in the left breast pocket of the aforementioned fine tweed jacket. And then, most importantly of all the watch. An intricate golden pocket watch clipped to the inside of your tweed jacket and slipped into an inside pocket, safely out of sight.
You were now equipped and prepared for the task at hand, the entire process took exactly one minute. Well, not exactly one minute, approximately one minute and two hundred and seventy milliseconds. But we accounted for those in the budget, so there was really no need to worry. Walking swiftly you crossed the room and opened the door on the far side, stepping out into the deck.
Immediately, you were embraced by a strong, salty, sea wind from the port side of the very large cruise vessel. Now, I would not begrudge you a moment to look out upon the deep blue waters of the ocean, maybe a casual wave to the very elegant and graceful blue whale which leisurely was gracing the ship with its magnanimous presence. This, although perhaps time-consuming, would be a very understandable and empathizable course of action. But admirably, perhaps to some more task-oriented among us, you pivoted on your heel and descended the stairs to the deck of the ship. I do wonder what happened to the blue whale though, I didn’t quite get the chance to follow up on that. Which is regrettable but such is the nature of life I guess.
As you strolled out onto the deck of the ship you found yourself amid several early twenty-first-century adult humans. Easily told obviously because of course humanity’s clothing peaked in the twenty-first century and we never invented better clothes after that ever. Which I need not mention since you already know, but I will anyway because I feel like it- you were wearing them at the time. Which yes, did inform my decision to use that as the example of peak human clothing but honestly can we stop dissecting my choice of example and return to the daring deed you were about to attempt? Thanks.
Okay, not to neg on the topic but humanity did try to invent cool new clothes after the twenty-first century, but we have all seen the footage of what the horrid and despicable Rick Owens attempted in the two thousand sixteen Paris fashion massacre they called a “show”. Right, this time I actually am done.
Anyway, you found yourself mingling amongst the mid-twenty-first century people. Strolling about it was quite evident there was some form of celebratory event being held. It was night, something I probably could have mentioned back when I lamented you didn’t wave to the whale, maybe it was a bit ableist of me to assume you could see the whale in the water in the dark, and for that assumption I apologize sincerely.
But anyhow, it was indeed night, and lights had been strung up all around the deck. Little white lights which were colloquially called "fairy lights" wrapped around the railing at the sides of the ship, and over the sad attempt at a gazebo which had been erected near, but not exactly in, the center of this particular deck. This deck was smaller than some of the other decks on the cruise liner as it was, how does one put it…. Well ‘reserved’ for the very important (as deemed by the outdated hyper capitalist aristocratic standards of that time.) people who were attending the small little party.
As you mingled you were approached by a woman wearing a white buttoned up dress-shirt, over which she wore a red vest, accompanied by black pants and shiny black shoes. Assessing the situation quickly you extrapolated that she was most certainly (with a slim margin of perhaps 0.67% given for error) part of the cruise line staff. Two additional points that aided this hypothesis were the name tag she wore, pinned to the left breast pocket of her red vest on which the words “Sarah - She/Her” was etched and the metal tray she held in one hand, which held a number of glasses full of the fizzy liquid most commonly known as champagne. She held the platter out to you as if to offer you one of the glasses.
“Care for a drink, Sir?” She asked you.
“Actually I’m not” You replied briskly, and she gave you another look over seemingly confused then said,
“Oh, I’m quite sorry Miss, would you care for some of our fine Champagne?”
“Also no. And my apologies, I don’t drink while on the job, and you might want to tell your boss that skimping on Perrier Jouet with Valdobbiadene Prosecco is, while perhaps cost-effective, probably not going to fool these…. People” You gestured to the various very important people, who were all gathered about the deck laughing and drinking the cheap champagne, all pretending not to notice lest the others think less of them for not enjoying the vintage. Before she was able to say anything else you continued.
“Actually, I was looking for Justin, you know. I am supposed to give him this mint condition 1945 American quarter for his collection, and I am running short on time.” You smiled as you pulled the quarter from your pocket displaying it to her, though she couldn’t read the date on the quarter, even with the lighting from the deck lights, and was not a trained numismatic, presenting material to support a lie proves seventy eight percent more effective as outlined on page 90, paragraph 27 of the handbook.
"Oh, uh, I think he's still in his cabin. It’s 281, one of the premium suites" she said gesturing behind her at the part of the cruise line that's like a smaller boat on top of the bigger boat that's smaller than the biggest part of the boat. Kind of like icebergs but not underwater. Or like layered cakes, with smaller cakes stacked on top of larger cakes held together with inedible little plastic tubes inside the cake. Why do people do that? Also like imagine how thick those cakes have to be to support the weight of the other cakes. Makes a lot more sense that ships are made of like, steel or something.
"Ah yes, thank you so much Sarah" you said. Tucking the quarter away once more you nodded politely and adjourned in the aforementioned direction.
As you began the ascent of a short flight of stairs you reached into your pocket and withdrew the gold watch, pressing the locking mechanism to swing open the tiny little cover from the clock face you checked the time. You were within the margin of error. Perhaps you should pause on the 3rd step though, ensure your timing was perfect. After all, we had budgeted an extra 13 seconds for your conversation with the staff.
Assessing this as the most efficient course of action you paused on the third step to slip the intricate gold pocket watch back into your pocket. You patted the pocket twice, adding an extra 3 seconds to the pause and then proceeded up the stairs. A masterfully executed maneuver if I do say so myself, I took notes on that one for future lessons in Time Management 101.
Reaching the top of the stairs you re-entered the body of the ship, finding yourself in a hallway with red carpet beneath your feet. You proceeded down this hallway, increasing your pace slightly to compensate for the friction the heavy carpet impeded upon you. You passed by several doors, went up another flight of stairs and then encountered a problem. The corridor was small. Not small in the sense that you couldn’t fit through it - that’s silly, but coming in the opposite direction and walking toward you was another guest. The problem with this was that the size of the hallway dictated that two people could not stand shoulder to shoulder in it, which means that one has to give the other right of way. Normally not a problem, except you were in the luxury suites. A staff member would have just given you the right of way, but an entitled 21st century member of the upper class was, as our anthropological studies indicate, more likely to demand that you give them the right of way. The problem with his however, is that we didn’t budget for this occurrence.
How we could have missed this, I have no idea, it’s egregious, and something which I took multiple notes on in for use in assuring such an oversight would not befall future operations. However, what you did next demonstrated, perhaps more than anything else you had yet done, exactly what your potential was.
As the man approached, nervously adjusting the tie on his suit you pointed to his polished dress shoes.
“Pardon me Sir, but you have a nasty scuff there. Whoever they are, you do want to make an impression right?” You said without breaking your stride.
“By all the Gods,” the man immediately stooped to look at his shoe and you squeezed past him. All of this was done with only a mere 0.05 delay in timing! By all regards that alone demonstrated your skills beyond anything else we had seen so far. And I waited with baited breath as you reached door 281 and knocked.
“Uh, yes, one moment please” a tenor male voice called out from behind the door. You waited patiently as you heard the sound of someone navigating the room, then the lock slid back, the handle turned and the door swung open revealing a man with disheveled bed head, a loose white button up shirt which seemed to be modeled after 21st century notions of seafaring attire from the 18th century, and jeans. He was barefoot.
“Uh, who are you? Can I help you?” The man asked.
“Ah yes, I am a fan actually, I was hoping you could sign my favorite deck of cards. I am a magician, I’m here for the party and wanted to stop by before my act. I don’t mean to intrude” Once again, you produced a material object to support your lie, pulling the deck of cards from your fine tweed jacket.
“Oh! Really? I didn’t think I had any more of those after… well after the twitter incident and.. And the buzzfeed incident, and the… well you know... Yes, uhm, yeah I have a pen laying around here somewhere please come in for a moment” the man opened the door further and turned around to begin searching the main living room of the luxury suite for a pen. You noticed that there were several bottles around the floor, clothes haphazardly tossed about and a few empty boxes of delivery pizza.
You stepped into the suite, leaving the hair-tie on the handle of the outside door to keep people from interfering. Which, we later found out, was a mistake Clyde in Cultural Analysis made, the proper item was supposed to be a sock, but you acted on the knowledge you had, and so this error wouldn’t count against you. Just Clyde and his massive fuck up.
As the man rummaged around a table looking for a pen you withdrew the silenced pistol and aimed it at the back of his head. You remained exactly 10 feet away, ensuring you were well out of arm's reach, just like we outlined on page 177 of the handbook. Your knowledge of the handbook's precise numerology was so impressive I made no less than three notes about this specific instance alone, I assure you, they were all good notes.
“Justin Truedoue” You spoke with an air of authority and gravitas that caught his attention. He turned, halfway through saying “yes what is it” and froze, seeing the gun in your hands.
“W-what in the name of-” before he could say anything else you cut him off.
“Don’t scream, security will never reach you in time. Listen to what I have to say.”
He nodded, knowing his security detail was close by, but would not be able to reach him in time to stop you from pulling the trigger. Security was pretty lax in his suit, after all who would want to kill the ex-prime Minister of Canada- and the crew and guests of the crew had already been vetted.
“Justin Truedoue, in accordance with the Retroactive Reparations Act of 3750, and with the authority invested in me by the Council of High Crimes and Misdemeanors, I am hereby informing you of your judgment for the crime of impersonation with intent to mock on the basis of Race.”
“Wait! what in the fuck are you talking about? Is this about the whole blackface thing? I apologized for that an-” He began to sputter before you quickly shut him up.
“You have been found guilty by a jury, and sentenced to death by the Magistrate of Judicial Judgements and Litigations.” I was there for that one, it was quite the trial. Because he couldn’t attend they had an AI programmed to simulate his thought patterns and state a defense in absentee, it was really quite a fascinating trial but ultimately the historic evidence weighed against him and we had no choice but to determine him guilty.
“You’re going to kill me for BLACKFACE ?” he shouted in shock, this of course would cause some of the security guards in the hall to come running but due to its narrowness we calculated that the guards would waste approximately 32 seconds trying to decide who to send first, before finally agreeing after a game of rock paper scissors- since they didn’t believe his shouting to be from inimant danger.
“Correct, according to the Retroactive Reparations Act of 3750 you are to be punished for your crimes, before the moment of your death. Which is in approximately 30 seconds.” You responded with a nod. Only a few seconds left to go.
“You won't get away with this” He glared at you, clenching his jaw. “There are a hundred security officers on this ship, look I will pretend nothing happened- but there is no way you will get off of this cruise without being caught. Think about it.” He tried to put on a brave face and bargain.
Little did he know that, while normally this would be true, this precise moment in time was a perfect storm of improbability. Much like Alexander the So Called Great surviving, allegedly, multiple head wounds and even a catapult bolt, occasionally in history there are moments where events we would deem "impossible" occur in a cascade of chance.
This moment, you stoically carrying out your mission with your gun pointed at Justin, Justin with his hands in the air staring at you wide eyed, heart racing, mind pacing trying to think of a way out of this situation. The cruise line sailing through the Atlantic ocean, Elon Musk's satellites obstructing the Global Space communities ability to observe space, and the small asteroid burning through the atmosphere faster than the military could triangulate its crash course and warn the cruise ship that it was going to be caught in a bizarre catastrophe no one had predicted. This moment was one of those.
You pulled the trigger, and the gun let out a little pop. I often wonder what was going through his head, right before the bullet did, but who really knows. If we ever make mind reading technology maybe we will send back a historian or someone to document that. Trueduoe’s head snapped back as the round splashed through his brain killing him instantly. Quite a painless way to die, about as painless as being vaporized by an asteroid, but at least in this case he was dying for a reason, albeit because he was kind of a horrible person who mocked an entire ethnic population repeatedly by turning them into a costume for cheap jokes and not because he was in the wrong place at the right time to be the victim of a cruel joke the universe was playing.
You moved quickly to the closet, and tucking the gun away, grabbed the watch from your pocket. Due to masterful execution of your materials, you did not need to enact the backup plan and use the screwdriver. Which was really good because this was cutting it very close. You opened the clock face and readjusted the time. Then opened the closet, and stepped through. Moments before the entire ship shook as a small asteroid detonated into it like a multi-ton warhead, and sent pieces of its twisted and burnt corpse plummeting into the Atlantic ocean.
Along with official acceptance into the Agency as a fully licensed Agent, I recommended commendation to the Board, and we shall still see what they have to say. Overall I rate your performance 98.4 percent effective, which is the highest rating of any Agent in their first task. This concludes the review of the review of the Agent’s first mission, relayed verbally to the Agent by Overseer, identification number I-569. Ending recording.