Chapter Text
I.4SEA.I-1XX.4
T-3465 | Carly Shannon
Carly stood on the sidewalk right beside where a woman in her forties was historically hit by a bus three minutes from now. Carly spied the woman heading her way, holding Starbucks. Carly activated the communication device implanted in her neck. "Target approaching."
"I see 'er," Trevor's voice came over her comm.
Carly hadn't been able to find a babysitter for her infant son for this mission, but as they discussed strategy, she and the other four members of her team decided it could be helpful to have him with her. As the woman got near, Carly pretended to be struggling to juggle a squirmy baby, his bottle, and her diaper bag. She put on her best winning smile. "I'm sorry, but could you help me? If you would just hold his bottle for one second ...."
"Where's the father?" the woman snapped. "You welfare queens make me sick."
Carly suppressed her instant, powerful desire to knock the woman on her ass -- an urge Mac knew she must be having as he said over the comm, "Easy. Remember the mission."
Carly rallied. "Oh, uh, wow. What made you think I'm on welfare?" she asked, managing to sound sweet and vulnerable instead of as enraged as she felt. This woman will be dead within two minutes, she reminded herself. She could manage to be gracious even to someone like this in their last moments.
"Because you're a mess and you can't even take care of yourself, much less your baby. All alone, no husband in sight. You're in my way!"
"Well, I'm not on welfare. Just so you know. I have a job in landscaping --"
"Don't care," said the woman, trying to push past her.
"Good," said Mac via her comm. "Keep engaging her in conversation."
Carly pretended to drop her bag and heard a loud clank. Uh-oh. There were definitely diapers in there, but there were a lot more guns. "Oh, no!" she cried. "My bag --"
"Oh, for god's sake," the woman said, exasperated, and, rather than helping, bodily pushed Carly out of her way to get to her car, which was parked on the street.
"Twenty-two seconds," came Philip's calm voice over the comm.
Carly grabbed the woman's wrist. "Let GO of me!" the woman shrieked.
"Sorry. Can't," Carly said, dropping all pretense. There was no point anymore. The woman desperately tried to struggle out of her grip, but Carly utilized her considerable Tactical ability to pull her off balance and then renew her grip. People walking by the on the sidewalk stopped and stared at the altercation.
"Time," said Trevor.
"She sure was determined to get out into the street so she could get hit by that bus," Marcy noted over the comm.
Carly let go of her ... and the woman held her head and started to scream as a Time Traveler sent from the future overwrote her consciousness and took her body as its host. Carly averted her eyes. The host consciousness died in agony ... but she'd have died in agony anyway when she got hit by the bus that just now flashed past Carly.
"What did you do to her?" a guy who'd seen some of it demanded.
"Nothing! I'm not even touching her!" Carly insisted, standing well away from her as she held Jeffrey Jr. close.
The screaming stopped. Carly smiled at the woman as she looked around in wonder. "Feeling okay now?" she asked. The woman nodded and grinned. The guy watching eyed them minute, then continued on his way, along with everyone else. Carly watched them go, then lowered her voice. "Traveler 8782?" she said. The woman nodded. "I'm Traveler 3465, Carly Shannon. Welcome to the twenty-first century."
The woman looked around herself in wonder. "It's so bright," she said, awed. "So -- so beautiful."
"This is actually a kind of bad area of town," Carly told her, all antipathy toward the woman who looked like her forgotten. She was a whole new person now. "It gets even prettier than this."
"I can hardly imagine," the woman breathed.
"All right. Well, I guess it's time for you to go meet your host's husband and try to assimilate into her life. Good luck -- she was a real piece of work."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that."
"No worries. Here is some cash to help you get started, and a couple of guns."
Carly stepped close to her to hide the weapon handoff from passersby. The woman looked around for a place to put them, and finally stuffed them in her oversized purse. "Thank you. But I -- I think I just need to wander around for a while, and ... take it all in, before I meet her husband. I can't imagine ever being able to get used to all this space and all this nature and all these people."
"You've gotta try the food," said Carly with a grin.
The woman was so overwhelmed by her Arrival in the twenty-first century, she nearly forgot to give Carly her next mission. "Oh! Yes. You have a mission tomorrow." Carly looked at her expectantly. Giving or receiving a mission upon greeting a new Arrival wasn't uncommon. "Arrive at these coordinates by three fifteen pm." She gave the coordinates. "Several other Traveler teams based in the area will be there. It's a mass Arrival -- of new team members for all of you."
"Wh -- we don't need a new team member. All five of us are still alive."
"Yes, now every team in town will have a sixth, an Intelligence specialist." Carly frowned. "Thank you for the money, and the weapons. See you tomorrow." The woman wandered off down the sidewalk in a daze, looking up at the buildings, the people, the storefonts, the cars, the sky.
Trevor, an old, old man in the body of a high-school football player, stepped out of an alleyway and came to her side, picking up her baby and playing with him. "'Bout as ordinary an Arrival as there ever is," he said, "except that news. New team member, huh?"
"Guess so," said Carly darkly.
She didn't want a new team member. She loved her team as it was. Who knew how this new person might throw off the beautiful, delicate balance that now existed within her team? No one complained about the news, but she could tell no one else on the team was happy about it, either.
A mass Arrival was rare. So many Traveler teams all in one place was even rarer. At the mission the following day, forty other teams stood around outside the barrack that historically was destroyed about three minutes from now, all eyeing each other, confused. Hall, standing right next to her, met her eyes, then shook his head. "This is weird as shit," he muttered.
A woman emerged from the barrack. "What's your business here?" she barked, also looking bewildered as she took in the sight of all the teams surrounding the barrack. "This is a military base! Get out of here before someone gets nervous and opens fire!"
They'd been let in by the General in charge of this base -- also a Traveler, though the woman didn't know it -- who now stepped forward. "Relax, Corporal. These are ... volunteers. We've gotten word there's about to be a massive attack on this base, so I ... called in reinforcements."
"Mercenaries?" she demanded incredulously. "Is the war going that badly??"
"'Fraid so," said the General. "So get your soldiers out here, armed. There's gonna be a fight, and they need to be ready."
Still obviously baffled by these confounding orders and none too happy about them, nevertheless she ordered the soldiers to retrieve weapons and then join them outside the barracks, where they all eyed the surrounding Traveler teams suspiciously. As soon as the last soldier emerged from the barracks, the screaming began.
Carly averted her eyes again. It was so hard to watch. She noticed most of the other watching Travelers averted their eyes, too.
It got about a million times weirder when the screaming stopped, and the new Travelers, rather than looking about themselves in wonder, or getting right to work saving their own lives like every other Arrival she'd ever witnessed, after a brief pause as they looked around at their whole company, turned and started fighting each other.
"What the fuck was that??" the one nearest her shouted, picking out another one through the crowd, pushing through, and shoving him. "What the fuck's wrong with you??"
"We lost seven! SEVEN!" said another one nearby, grabbing a woman close to him and shaking her. "What were you doing??"
"I -- I just couldn't," she spluttered.
"You sure are lucky someone was there to do it for you," he spat.
Fights just like this were breaking out all over the place, shoving, shouting, accusations, even punches thrown. Hall was shaking his head, muttering about how he would never let a member of his team behave so unprofessionally. Not to mention that the thirty seconds of historical death within which the Director was supposed to send a Traveler into that host came and went, and the fighting continued with no aerial attack beginning.
None of the watching Traveler teams had any idea what to make of all this. Just how bad was it in the future these new Travelers had come from? It was understood that every action taken by Traveler teams already here in the twenty-first had the potential to alter the future, so the future Carly and her team came from wasn't exactly the same as any other Traveler's who came much before or after them. What little they'd heard indicated their actions here in the twenty-first weren't improving things in the future; if anything, they were making them worse.
Still, Carly remembered the day her consciousness was sent back very well, of course. She and her entire team lined up beside the consciousness transfer device. There was only one in their dome. The room was peaceful -- silent, even, everyone nervous and excited. People were reviewing the actions they had to take immediately after their Arrival to save their lives. Everyone was focused, professional, intent on doing their job and doing it well. What kind of future would have people getting into fistfights as they awaited their turn in the consciousness transfer device?? Or maybe ... there were lots of devices, and everyone got sent back willy-nilly? Maybe these people had had no training at all??
The Corporal who commanded this unit -- who had also just been overwritten -- was apparently also taking charge of these new Travelers. "Focus!" Her sharp voice cut through all the fighting. "We've got incoming in fifteen seconds! Get to your stations!"
It immediately became clear they had training -- incredible training -- as at the Corporal's words they all instantly got out their guns or moved to some larger weapon the watching Traveler teams provided them and trained them on the sky, whence came a fleet of drones. Carly had been nervous for this mission and didn't want any of her team members less experienced at fighting to be here for it. Dozens of drones descending all at once and unleashing a hail of bullets and missiles ... she was sure despite their orders to destroy them before they could drop their payloads, some would get through and there would be casualties. Marcy waited back at the van to help treat them. But the incoming Travelers, even if they couldn't act as a team when they weren't in battle, acted as in sync as if they were performing in a ballet. Drones crashed to the ground all around them -- somehow missing every person on the ground -- and as the last drone fell out of the sky, the incoming Travelers were immediately back at each other's throats, throwing down their weapons as if they were gauntlets and pointing and screaming in each other's faces.
"ENOUGH!" the Corporal shouted. "Your new Traveler teams are here to greet you! Go meet them and introduce yourselves! For god's sake, you're professionals! Act like it!"
Reluctantly, still making rude comments and feinting at each other, they turned away from their fellow new Arrivals and seemingly beelined for their designated Traveler team, which ... okay, Carly supposed they would know what they looked like. Every Traveler studied the missions of teams that went to the twenty-first before them as part of their training. But how did they seem to already know exactly where they would be standing? Maybe video existed of them all standing here, waiting for them, that they'd memorized before their Arrival? They'd had their whole lives to collect and study whatever digital data survived through all those centuries, after all. But everything about this felt more off with every passing second.
A young woman walked with two young men -- all these new Arrivals's hosts except the Corporal seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties, young soldiers drafted into the war -- toward Carly and Mac. They were some of the very few not involving themselves in the fighting, though they appeared to be at least as upset as the rest. Something about their movements seemed ... Carly didn't know what to make of it. It was like they were attached at the hip. They separated at the last second, the two men going to Boyd and Hall's teams, and the woman walking up to Mac and Carly, staring at them. Staring through them. "I'm I-121. My host's name is Trinity Collins." Carly heard the young man who walked up to Hall introduce himself as "I-110, Kiyotaka Ayanokouji," and the one who walked up to Boyd's team introduce himself as "I-112, Shinei Nouzen."
Mac forced himself to smile, as he always, always did, at any newly Arrived Traveler. He knew how disorienting and overwhelming it was to Arrive in a whole new century, and he was always kind and generous about it. It was one of the many things Carly loved about him. "Nice to meet you. Welcome to the twenty-first," he said. "I'm 3468, your team Leader, but you can call me Mac. And this is 3465, Carly."
Trinity said nothing, turning before he was even half done talking, to look expectantly at the Corporal. No, not at the Corporal. She was looking at those two men, the three of them sharing meaningful looks, though Carly could not begin to decipher a thing being communicated, aside from a palpable despair that seemed to pervade all three.
"Travelers, meet your new team members!" the Corporal said in her loud, commanding voice. "We realize it is highly unusual to introduce a new Traveler to your teams with whom you did not train before you Arrived, but we and the Director are confident you will be grateful for your new team members as you begin to see their abilities. They are highly trained specialists in Intelligence, so they each have an 'I' designation. I will meet with your teams individually to explain more about them, but for now, please welcome them into your teams as though they'd always been here.”
She went on, "Remember, we are all Travelers, with one goal: to save humanity. So remember Protocol One: that the mission comes first. These specialists, like other highly trained specialists such as Historians, are forbidden from sharing details of their specialties with you. But do know that though they will respect your team and your team Leader's orders, technically they outrank all of you, so in the unlikely event they give an order that contradicts your team Leader's order, you will obey your Intel specialist. Understood?"
Carly's jaw dropped. They'd just been given new team Leaders without any warning?? Someone they didn't know from Adam?? She heard Hall cursing beside her. Mac was valiantly trying to hide it, but he was none too pleased, either. She heard the shocked murmurs from every team. Even if you didn't like your team Leader, at least you'd trained with them and were used to the way they did things. This ... this was beyond the pale.
Their new team member turned to them just then and said blandly, "I'm not gonna be giving any orders. Seriously, probably never. You don't have to worry. Carly." She looked Carly right in the eyes. "You don't have to worry. I'll do what I'm told."
"What about you, huh?" Hall prompted his new team member, who stood there looking ... bored?!? Yet somehow seeming to watch everything and everyone. Carly suspected she was the only one who noticed it, but as her team Tactician, it was her job to notice things like this. "Gonna be good and follow orders?"
"Yes, sir," he said dutifully, but the new Arrival standing with the team on their other side snorted.
Hall glowered. "You better. I run a tight ship."
"I know, sir. Your reputation precedes you," Ayanokouji said in the same monotone in which he said everything. "It's not me you have to worry about."
Decidedly not fans of Hall or how he did things after some run-ins with him in the past, nonetheless even Mac and Carly surreptitiously watched them, wondering what all this could be about.
Hall turned to face him confrontationally. "Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Hall eyed his other two team members, who shrugged. All three of them now watched their new team member suspiciously.
Trinity once more turned to Mac and Carly and said blandly, "I'm nothing like Ayanokouji, though. You don't have to worry about me."
Carly was most relieved to hear this, as Ayanokouji had to be one of the creepiest people she'd ever laid eyes on, only then he said in that same monotone, "Well, we're a little alike," and winked at her. Trinity blushed and giggled.
Mac looked at Carly, and it was written all over his face as clearly as it was probably written on her own. Somehow, it was all even worse than the very worst of the worst-case scenarios she'd been able to concoct when she first heard they'd be getting new team members. She'd have to keep a close eye on these people. She didn't trust even one of them the littlest bit.