The late morning was quiet. A short line of people were queuing up in front of the teller at the bank, waiting for their turn. Outside, the lunch crowd was just starting to file into the street. None noticed Anne appear silently out of thin air in one corner, next to herself sitting in a seat with a laptop balanced in her lap. She quickly walked out of the bank branch and the curious little girl, whose boredom was suddenly replaced with confusion, approached the Anne sitting in the corner.

Anne looked up from her laptop as the kindergarten age girl tugged on the sleeve of her high school uniform. Anne smiled and bent down to listen. "Yes?"

"Don't you have to go to school?" the girl asked.

Anne winced internally. This little kid... "Yes, I do. I am in school," she replied, careful to keep her irritation out of her voice. Let her chew on that!

The girl looked bemused. Anne hadn't actually lied, however. She was still attending class. She glanced down at her watch. It was almost time.

Looking quickly around the bank branch, confirming that no one was watching, she leaned down to whisper conspiratorially, "When it starts, stay with your mother. "

The kid wandered back to her mother in the line with some awkward questions, and when the robbers came running into the bank branch, waving guns around, she quickly forgot about Anne. The police turned up less than a minute later. The totally surprised robbers hadn't gotten further than announcing that they were taking everyone hostage when they were rudely brought to ground.

Anne got up, closing her laptop. She took a step forward, gave a parting wink to the girl and simply vanished into thin air as silently as she appeared.

It was only later, in the after action report, that the police realized they had received a call for help at the branch nearly ten minutes before the robbery actually started.

 

Anne twirled her pen, listening to the math teacher with half an ear. The police sirens sounded outside and the one single gunshot went completely unnoticed by the class. While she would be on her way back from the bank now, Anne was also currently stuck in class.

Math was just a little boring after that particular adventure. Far too many people fell victim to the temptation to use their powers for crime and the police were only just starting to adjust their tactics to the upsurge.

The existence of superpowers was only just starting to come into view. The first person with them had appeared only a few years ago, and since their discovery, more and more people had come forward with sudden new powers that demonstrated little pattern in how they worked or their strength. The superpowers had resisted scientific explanations so far but there were many theories.

Of course, one of the more prominent people with superpowers, a telekineticist by the name of Joey, was actually serving as an advisor to the city governing board and assisting the police with more difficult cases, when he wasn't helping research into superpowers. Anne had thought that Joey was a bit crazy to spend his time fighting crime, in a manner of speaking. But she had to admit, as the police van carrying the thieves drove past the school, that doing precisely the thing she thought was crazy could be pretty fun. All the excitement, and none of the risk. After all, with time travel, what risk could there be?

The teacher started explaining the use of a new kind of graph and Anne closed her textbook. She could just teach herself later if she needed to learn it. Not like getting full marks on any exam, even a surprise test, would be all that difficult.

She looked down at the pad of paper in front of her that she was supposed to fill with notes. Hmm, I wonder how far I'd have to jump if I wanted to bring back the marked test paper. If they had a test tomorrow, even with all the questions and answers, she'd need at least one night to study. And give the teacher three days or so to mark and return it. That would mean that she'd get a visit from herself from four to six days in the future, taking into account the weekend.

Anne didn't even know if she could jump that far. Besides, even if she could, memorizing an entire test worth of answers would be about the same effort as actually studying for it. Especially since her future self could always teach her and would understand exactly how do so.

After all, that was how she learnt to time travel just this morning.

2: First Time

Anne watched as Cheryl picked at her vegetables.  It was childish to dislike carrots, but Anne secretly shared the same dislike.  Unlike her friend, Anne had simply gobbled the red bits in her lunch down as fast as possible.  At least she could eat her carrots!

"I got a super power," Anne said, out of the blue.

Cheryl picked at her vegetables a bit more, "Does it make carrots taste better?"

"You really dislike them, don't you?"

"Mm, so what super power is it?" Cheryl asked, still poking at the carrot bits.

Anne leaned closer, despite the loud noise in the cafeteria. "I time travel. "

"Oh," Cheryl said, sounding a bit disappointed, "I was hoping that you could solve lunch for me. "

"I don't think anyone can do that," Anne said with a grin, "carrots are just a bit too tough. Come on, I can show you. "

 

Anne was on duty today, it was her turn to clean the classroom.  Cheryl was staying behind, as if helping her but actually Cheryl was just there to see the promised demonstration once everyone else had left, Anne had the restraint to not show it with everyone around.  Since having superpowers were connected to being criminals, it wasn't a good idea to let people know you had them.

Anne had not even considered that her friend might have the same prejudices.  Of course Cheryl would be able to trust her.

Once everyone had left the classroom, Anne winked at Cheryl. "Watch this!"

There were suddenly eight Annes in the room, seven exact copies of her had almost magically appeared out of nowhere. There was some waving of hands as they divided up the classroom and began sweeping the floor or gathering rubbish.

In less than five minutes, Anne had simultaneously swept the floor, cleared loose paper, straightened the rows of desks and wiped the whiteboard. In near perfect coordination too. Seven of them vanished into thin air as they finished their jobs, in exactly the same spots as they had appeared earlier. If anyone bothered to track them however, they would note that none of the Annes returned to the same spots that they originally appeared from.

"See? Time travel!" she proclaimed proudly to a very surprised Cheryl when the classroom was neat again.

 

Anne skipped out of the classroom, with Cheryl tagging along behind. After the initial surprise and Anne's retelling of the bank robbery, they were already discussing the potential uses of Anne's power.

There was a policeman at the school gate though and as they walked out, Anne watched him curiously.

"Anne Lacross?" he asked.

Anne glanced at Cheryl. She hadn't done anything the police might want her for.

"Do you mind coming with me?" he gestured back towards the school, "we'd just like to ask you a few questions. "

Her mother and her class teacher was in the office they were brought to. That was surprising. Anne's teacher simply kept silent as her mother fussed over her slightly dirty uniform. Anne expected to be asked why the police were here but apparently her mother was too worried. Cheryl seemed uncomfortable but stuck around and Anne was grateful for that. She was obviously in rather a lot of trouble.

 

A lean and tall man in a formal blue office shirt walked into the office, with the policeman behind him. And everyone else in the room stared. That was Joey, he had been on television often enough for them to recognize him.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," he said, "no, you're not in trouble, Anne. We would just like to ask you about your phone. "

Anne nodded mutely. The biggest cheese in the police was here to ask her something, and since it was Joey, it had something to do with superpowers. How would they know she could time travel? Anne hadn't had the chance to tell anyone other than Cheryl.

"Just this morning, a Cities Banking branch was nearly robbed, only our police officers were told that it was happening and they managed to stop the robbers. Later, we noticed that the phone call tip off had told us the bank was being robbed nearly ten minutes before the robbers entered the bank at all.

We traced that call, and it lead us to your phone number. "

Anne's teacher fired a question back, "what time was this call made?"

Joey looked at the policeman, who replied, "five minutes to ten in the morning. "

"Then it can't have been her. She's been in class all the time. "

Joey shrugged, "I know, but that's why I'm here. "

They looked at Anne. The unspoken implication was that Joey suspected Anne had used some kind of superpower.

Before she could answer, Joey added, "You know, we had considered that you were in school. And so we think that either your phone number was used somehow or you have a power that told you about that robbery and you tipped us off. "

Anne winced. That was very close. He shrugged, "I know what the public thinks about these powers. But you have helped the police with this crime and we believe that someone who can foresee events would be very useful. "

Joey paused, then sighed, "And yes, one more person misusing their power would be disappointing. "

Anne traded a glance with Cheryl and Cheryl hid a grin behind her hand. She nodded, "all right, yes. I didn't expect this to happen so soon, but... yes. That was me. I made that call. "

Anne nodded as her mother and teacher both gaped at her, "Well, I couldn't just ignore it. I mean, that robbery might have gone badly or someone might have been injured. "

All arguments that she had made to herself when Anne was learning how to time travel in her own room. She continued, "And sir, you might be getting the wrong idea about my power. I don't see the future. I time travel. "

Joey raised an eyebrow, "Like how? Do you mind giving a demonstration?"

Anne looked at Cheryl, "I just showed Cheryl. Cleaned the classroom in five minutes by having eight of me at the same time. Takes the normal amount of time to me though. "

Anne's handphone broke the silence messily. She opened it and saw her home phone number. "Mum, no one's at home now, right?" she asked and got a nod. She and her mother were here and father was at work. Mark would still be in school, that left only her future self. Or past self.

She took the call gingerly, "Hello?"

"Hi, it's your future self from tomorrow afternoon," quipped an unfamiliar voice. Was that what she sounded like? Anne wondered about her own voice and turned the phone to speaker mode.

Anne on the other side of the line apparently remembered that and spoke up, "Hi mum, it's me. I'm from the future. "

Anne's mother looked at Joey, who merely shrugged. It certainly sounded like Anne, and no one else should be in the house. The future Anne sounded alot happier than the current Anne was feeling sitting in the same room as the one Joey Evanson. Rumours said that Joey could probably demolish the entire school right now if he wanted to.

"Well, I know that its possible to jump an entire day, although I hadn't actually done it until just now," future Anne chattered onwards, there was the sound of a computer keyboard, "You don't have to worry that I might commit crimes with my power.  I heard of the easiest way to make money, from well, me.  I guess I'm about to tell it now.  "

Anne looked at Cheryl, it sounded like she was having fun with this whole time travel business.

"Why would anyone who could time travel need to rob a store or bank?  Simply use time travel on the stock market!" there was a triumphant click from the computer, "There, dad's trading account just made ten thousand dollars.  Or it will, after I sold it in the future.  -will have sold?"

Anne's mother cut in, "How did you get the password?"

"Dad gave me access yester-. Um, he will give me access later today, that is. After I tell him about this, at least. There, done. So, you have questions, I already know the answers. "

Joey cut in, "Can I ask you to limit your impact doing this? I will have to ask if what you're doing technically counts as legal but I doubt the lawmakers would be appreciative if you caused a market crash somehow. "

"That's why I've only made ten thousand. And not twenty million. I think I could do twenty million that is. Maybe not in a day. "

Anne's mother asked again, "Is it safe to do this?"

"Mr Joey can tell you its safe. "

The telekineticist nodded, "At least as far as we know, these powers don't harm the person using them. At least not directly. "

"What about school?" Cheryl asked, "you're still coming right?"

There was a pause, as if future Anne was searching for the right tense to use, "Of course I... will... yes, will go to school tomorrow. Although, to me, I'm done. Homework is way too easy when you can copy your future answers. "

Her teacher spoke into the phone, a mock sternness in her voice, "You won't learn if you just copy answers. "

The current Anne grinned at her teacher across the table, "That IS a good idea. " Cheryl joined in the laugh as the tension in the room began to drop.

3: Future Warning

Joey turned out to have little commitments and he visited Anne's house for dinner to discuss her time travel power. Her mother had paid more attention than usual to the meal and her younger brother Mark was sucking happily on the sweet mints. Anne watched her parents share some wine with Joey, feeling a little too old to be happy with the after meal sweets.

"Ok," Joey said after explanations, "the police will be very grateful for your help. Obviously, since you are still in school, we will keep your involvement a secret. "

Anne nodded, swallowing the sweet quickly, "how will I help though? I could always do what I did with the bank this morning, but its alot of walking. " She didn't mention that she'd be waiting alot as well, afraid that she was complaining too much.

Joey thought for a bit before brightening up. "Let me try something. "

He asked Anne's father, "Mr Lacross, would you play the role of a thief?" After gaining his assent, Joey continued, "now, your father will go to the kitchen and pretend to steal some small item. I will play the role of the police," he laid his phone on the table and addressed Anne, "and you will pretend to be in school. "

He gestured for her to put her phone on the table, "Mr Lacross, will you lend your phone to your daughter for a moment?"

Anne acquired two phones in front of her. Joey turned her father's phone off.

"Right, in a moment, your father will carry out his theft. What will happen is that you will receive a call from me, after the crime has been resolved. You will then turn off your phone and turn on your father's phone, before going back in time to half an hour before the crime to call me. I will go investigate, and once the case is settled, call you to complete the loop. "

Anne thought about it for a moment. She didn't pretend to know how that loop would work, it sounded complicated. But if it was just following instructions, then she could do that.

"Why not guide me through it one time?" she asked Joey, who nodded at her father.

Anne's father got up to go to the kitchen. As soon as he disappeared, Joey's phone rang. He placed it on speaker mode for all to hear.

"Dad is getting the cookies," Anne's voice came from the phone before hanging up.

Mark cheered at the thought of the treat. Joey got up and went to the kitchen, "Yup, it's cookies. "

He came back, "ok, now we've investigated the cookie criminal. " That drew some smiles.

Picking up his phone, Joey called Anne's and said, "Hi, this is Joey. We caught a cookie criminal in your kitchen at... 8.37pm. Please do the usual. "

Anne nodded, "What do I do now?"

Joey pointed at the two phones on the table, "You turn off your phone, turn on your father's phone, then go to your room and jump back in time. You then call me with your father's phone and say 'Dad is getting the cookies'. "

Anne's eyes widened as she suddenly understood how powerful this was.

 

Anne's phone rang, right in the middle of math class. As her classmates glanced at her, expecting the teacher to reprimand her, Anne merely nodded at the teacher. He nodded back and she flipped open her phone.

Her school had been briefed on the arrangement she had with the police and had agreed to let her use her phones in class. Anne had been waiting for a call all weekend but nothing had come.

She looked at the text message from Joey. "Assault, supermarket at Trinity Lane, 11.23am"

Well, that was simple. She walked out of the classroom into the deserted hallway and was surprised when she met herself going back in. Future Anne from the past grinned at her and took her place in the classroom.

Anne turned off her normal phone and turned on the cheap police phone on a hotline to Joey. Half an hour would be sufficient she hoped. Anne closed her eyes and jumped.

 

A week and three more crimes averted later, Anne was happily digging into her lunch on a normal school day. Her buoyant mood was supported by the feeling that she was being useful and she couldn't help grinning. There was a very expensive box of chocolates that she was going to share with Cheryl afterwards, not that expensive chocolate was at all a problem given that Anne could run up a few ten thousand in her father's stock account whenever she wanted.

On the opposite side of the table, Cheryl dropped her fork mid-chew as shouts and squeals went up from their classmates around them. Anne turned around and saw, through the transparent glass walls of the cafeteria, Joey leaping over the fence of the school in one giant leap that landed just outside the glass door. She got the distinct impression that Joey was changing his movement in mid-air.

Anne shot up from the table as Joey flung the door open and ran up to her.

"There's an emergency," he cut her off before she could say anything, "I need you to come with me. "

Anne glanced around the cafeteria. Her classmates and other students were watching her with varying degrees of curiousity. Some of the girls might look a little jealous but Anne was sure she was imagining things.

"If Mr. Joey wants you to go," Cheryl picked up her fork gracefully, no trace of her earlier shock remained on her face, "you had better. "

Cheryl shooed Anne away from the table with the fork.

"Is this dangerous?" Anne asked Joey as they left the cafeteria, gazes following them all the way.

Joey thought for a long second before shaking his head, "No. Or actually, yes. It is dangerous. But you'll be fine. Here," he held out a hand, "you'll have to take a piggyback ride. "

Anne blinked at the hand for a moment. "I'm not eight anymore you know," she complained.

He raised his eyebrows and grinned, "well, in that case..." he leaned forward and effortlessly swept Anne off her feet into his arms. Suddenly, Anne felt incredibly light, as if she was no more than a feather in his hand.

"What? Wait, put me down!" Anne wriggled in his arms, feeling her face on fire. She could hear the squeals in the cafeteria start up again. Through the glass walls.

"Hold on tight!" Joey warned as he leapt in one swift motion.

The ground disappeared. Anne didn't even feel the expected push as they soared into the air. They simply flew right over the school grounds onto the roof of the apartment blocks across the road. More than a hundred meters in one jump, as well as going up nearly twelve stories.

Descending was far faster than people would normally fall, as if they were being pulled downwards even though Anne felt no pull. Anne screamed a little and shut her eyes as the hard concrete roof flew up to meet them. They landed with a disappointingly muffled thud of Joey's boots.

"Is... is this your telekinesis?" Anne asked breathlessly. Her embarrassment at her position had been blown away by the shock of flying through the air.

Joey nodded and they were flying again.

In four long hops, they were halfway across the city and right in the center of the busiest portion. They landed on the rooftop of a shopping mall.

Right beside the landing spot, a future Anne was waiting for them.

"I don't remember it taking so long," her future self said to Joey, her tone serious.

Anne practically leapt out of Joey's arms. Even though it was just herself from the future, she felt embarrassed at letting someone see Joey carry her like that. The buoyant light feeling disappeared, leaving Anne with a vague sense of disappointment.

Joey nodded at future Anne, "I've got you here. The sniper will be in position soon. "

Anne was about to ask one of many questions but future Anne cut her short. "Just watch for now, then you'll be me. "

Future Anne pointed at the jewelry store at the corner of the department store on the opposite side of the intersection. She explained for Anne's benefit, "A pyrokineticist and three accomplices will attack that store and attempt to take hostages. We will stop that and arrest them all. "

Joey nodded, "But why not let the police handle it? You don't have to be here to do this. "

Future Anne shrugged, "I don't know about that, but that's what I saw," she looked at Anne, "And what you will see happen. "

They looked at each other but there was no answer forthcoming. Anne felt rather useless, Joey would obviously apply his telekinesis to defend the public from the criminal's superpower but Anne herself wasn't going to do anything other than watch.

"Don't worry," future Anne reassured her as Joey leapt off the rooftop. Anne glanced at her identical future self. She had a moment of surprise, it was like her future self could read her mind and know what her doubts were. But then that was obvious, her future self would have had these thoughts.

Even this realization would have happened and her future self would have had the same revelation in her time. Future Anne nodded, "Well, I do know what I was thinking when I was you. At least if I remember it. Its amazing how much you forget, and only realize that you forgot when you try to recall the scene. "

Anne focused on the soon to be robbed jewelry shop. It was unnerving, to have someone standing beside you knowing exactly what you were thinking and when you would think of them. Her future self would know all her secrets, feelings and even knew exactly what Anne would be doing.

The roof access opened behind them and two policemen in bullet-proof vests came out. The blonde man carried a sniper rifle, complete with long barrel and scope. At least, that was all Anne could identify of the gun. The other man, who looked Asian, was armed with a pistol and carried a pair of binoculars.

"Ah, you must be the one... Joey mentioned..." the sniper trailed off as he saw two girls, identical down to the creases on their clothing. "Sorry, you must be twins. Joey gave me the impression that there would only be one of you. "

Future Anne grinned mischievously, "Well, we're so identical that no one has ever been able to tell us apart. Right?" Anne caught her wink and nudge and smiled nervously at the two policemen.

 

Anne glanced at her past self watching Andrey, the sniper, set up the rifle. She had already seen that once herself, but then she had already seen everything once.

The store looked normal. Joey wandered around the front of the shopping mall in plain clothes, attracting no attention. Soon, if she remembered correctly. Anne looked around the street, eyeing the tiny pedestrians.

There were alot of police around that she could spot from here. On the roofs, in a cafe having tea, mixing among the crowds. Although none of the pedestrians even seemed to notice. Perhaps it was harder to see from ground level.

There! The trio of gunmen were already on their way towards the store, all wearing matching grey balaclavas and beanies. Anne looked around and found that black leather jacket of the pyrokineticist greeting them from across the street.

Anne looked at Joey, who was still watching the store from the shopping mall. He hadn't noticed the robbers, no one had.

 

Anne was jerked out of her examination of the sniper's gun by her future self. Future Anne suddenly tensed up and pointed, "They're here! Down there!"

The policeman, sniper and Anne ran to the edge of the roof and looked down... to see nothing. Just lots of pedestrians.

"What are they wearing?" Zhao, the Asian policeman asked.

"The three men with guns are wearing grey sweaters and beanies. The pyrokineticist is wearing that black leather motorcycle jacket and a pair of blue denim jeans. "

The policeman looked at the crowd for a moment and began chattering into his radio. The sniper put up his rifle and began to adjust his sights.

Anne still didn't see anything for another minute. Then it all suddenly came into focus. There were a large number of policemen all around the street and they were beginning to move purposefully towards the jewelry shop, like a bee hive poked with a stick.

And they weren't going to make it, the four men her future self had described just entered the jewelry store.

The store suddenly exploded, shards of glass flying outwards from the displays and walls. Then as fast as they flew, the glittering pieces stopping in midair and fell to the ground, before they touched anyone.

As the screams started and the crowd surged away from the sudden explosion, Anne saw the blur of blue and black that shot in among the jewelry. She barely had time to remember that Joey was wearing blue and black before the four robbers were thrown out onto the intersection, followed closely behind by the blur.

Joey stopped flying around and stood in front of the robbers. The intersection had been blocked off by the small army of policemen that had gathered from their assigned watches scattered over the busy shopping district before. They let the crowd go out, but blocked traffic and curious onlookers from getting to close.

One of the robbers had drawn his gun, but by the time the four robbers had realized what was happening, they were in the center of an empty intersection facing a ring of police with drawn guns and Joey.

The number of police and rough treatment might have been considered an extreme reaction but the pyrokineticist's power was nearly completely destructive in nature. He alone was more than equal to all the police present, although Anne hoped that Joey would tip the scales in their favour.

"Drop your weapons and surr-" A commanding voice spoke through a loudspeaker and cut off as all the police suddenly burst into flames. Joey managed to dodge the blast of fire that surrounded the four men in the road, surrounded by a bubble of clear air that kept the flames away.

 

Anne heard her past self scream as the intersection filled with searing hot flames. The police were mostly rolling on the ground, trying to put out the flames. They would be safe for a few seconds as their bulletproof vests blocked the heat. But only for a while.

Zhao's radio crackled with shouts. He nodded at Andrey, who began to take aim. Now was around that time she remembered... wait for it...

 

Anne raised her arms against the blast of flame instinctively but the fire did not reach them. The pyrokineticist must not have noticed they were present.

A loud click came from behind her as Andrey pulled the bolt on his rifle. Anne looked down at the four robbers. The three gunmen were cowering from the explosions that chased Joey around the intersection.

The pyrokineticist kept up a continuous string of fire that Joey was hard pressed to stop. He was too busy preventing the fire from hitting buildings and people to attack. Fireballs were crushed out of existence, streams of liquid-like fire stopped as if hitting a wall and explosions simply didn't seem to have any effect other than loud sounds.

Andrey took aim and right as his finger tightened on the trigger, future Anne suddenly shouted loudly and pushed him. The bullet went astray and buried itself in the asphalt beside the pyrokineticist.
Before Andrey or Zhao or Anne could even say anything, the pyrokineticist had whirled around and sent a fireball their way. The fireball blossomed into a deadly flower of heat and then suddenly disappeared.

As they picked themselves up from behind the edge of the shopping mall, Anne could see that all the fire had gone out. Joey was standing over the unconscious pyrokineticist and three gunmen, who hastily threw down their guns in surrender.

Police were picking themselves up from behind cars, shop signs and whatever other cover they could find. Most were perfectly fine other than some charred clothing, a few had light burns but no one was badly injured.

"What the hell were you doing?" Andrey shouted at future Anne.

"It was very very dangerous," Zhao added dryly.

Anne winced. It appeared that she would be getting into alot of trouble.

 

The debriefing with Joey was brutal. Anne sat in as Joey and Matt, the police chief of the town, took turns questioning her future self.

"I cannot see how you could know that the fire would disappear when Joey knocked him out," Matt said.

"You saw it happen right?" future Anne turned to the corner where Anne sat and asked.

Anne could only mutely nod.

"That's how I knew. I saw it happen. "

"But it didn't happen until after you pushed Andrey!"

Joey cut in, "That's why she's a time traveller. Anne in the corner is the past self of Anne in this chair. Whatever Anne has seen, this Anne has just seen twice. "

Matt frowned in confusion, "but how can she see something that hasn't happened yet?"

Anne privately thought that the police chief wasn't too bright. Even Anne had worked out what the time travel meant. At least no one was hurt too badly in the fight.

"In any case," Matt continued, "Pushing Andrey was an extremely dangerous act. You could have been killed! "

"But I wasn't," future Anne replied flatly.

"The early warnings are useful," Matt simply barrelled on, "But you should leave the police to their jobs. Why did you push him in the first place?"

"That's what I saw happen," future Anne replied in the same flat tone.

It was obvious that future Anne did not like Matt. Well, Anne didn't either but she didn't see the point of further antagonizing the police chief. Regardless of whether the chief's anger was justified, if everyone was fine and the criminals were properly restrained, then Anne was prepared to let everything go. Of course, she would still need to go back and be future Anne, so she couldn't forget that just yet.

 

After an hour of useless questioning, Anne followed her future self back home in a taxi. Future Anne had simply answered many of their questions with "that's what I saw happen", much to the frustration of the police and Joey.

Anne suspected many of those questions might never have an answer. How could future Anne know whether the bullet would have hit if she hadn't pushed Andrey? Or what would have happened if she had told the police what was coming and made them fire first?

Even if Anne could time travel, there was no way to answer questions about what might have been. Only questions about what was, is or will be could an answer even be attempted.

"I did have an idea about what might have happened," future Anne said.

"Hm?" Anne watched the people on the street walking by, as if there hadn't just been a fight in the city center that could easily have been much worse. That pyrokineticist could have flattened most of the town if Joey hadn't been there to stop him.

"Do you think that Andrey should have shot him?" future Anne asked. Her tone was neutral, not trying to accuse Anne.

Anne looked back, "I don't know. It seemed like the only thing that could be done. "

"I think the pyrokineticist would have died if I let Andrey shoot him. "

Anne thought about it for a bit but she couldn't understand how future Anne could have come to know that.

"Let's imagine something else happened," future Anne said, "If Andrey had also caught fire and died of his burns later, would you remember that and warn him?"

Anne nodded, "Of course I would. I don't want people to die. "

"But I didn't warn him, right?"

Anne nodded again, "Mhm. "

"So, even if Andrey had gotten burnt, I would have warned him. But I didn't warn him, so he wasn't going to get burned. So, if Andrey had shot the pyrokineticist and he died, I think you would have remembered that. And me pushing Andrey is the warning. "

Anne thought it over. That made sense. It was basically the same thing as the future warnings that she had been giving the police over the last week. Only that the warning this time was her future self preventing that shot in the first place.

What she wasn't sure of was if that was the right thing to do. The pyrokineticist could still hurt alot of people and the police weren't going to keep him unconscious forever.

"But why not tell Matt?" she asked, "surely it's all right to tell them that. "

Future Anne shrugged, "I don't know. That's what I didn't see happen. "

 

They arrived back home and Anne got out of the taxi, saying to her past self, "You should get back to school and jump back to just before lunch. After school's out, jump back again and warn the police. "

Past Anne noted the times down in her handphone alarm and nodded, "what about you?"

Anne suppressed a yawn, unsuccessfully, "I've gone through the same shooting scene twice during afternoon classes. It's also nearly midnight for me. I'm going to sleep. Might be a good idea to jump forward to nighttime. "

"Although not so far that you are late for tomorrow's classes," past Anne reminded her as she shut the door of the taxi.

Anne watched the taxi and her past self drive off and suppressed another yawn. At least there was no danger of being late to class. No matter when she actually slept.

It wasn't going to be nice when her mother learned that Anne was getting shot at.

4: Inadequate

Anne woke up sleepily as her handphone buzzed. Woozily flipping it open, Anne saw that it was just past three in the morning.

The caller being Joey brought her properly awake.

"Hi, what's up?" she asked.

"We've found traces of phone hacking. Someone has been obtaining information from the telephone lines. "

"Want me to jump back?"

"Yeah, that would be good. Although we didn't catch the criminal in this case. All her data's gone and we don't even know how she did it, why she did it or what she got from it. All we know is that it's a woman who apparently lives alone. "

 

Kaho ran through the lines of code the computer spat out at her. Typing in a new line, she let her power guide her. She didn't know exactly where her power began and mere photographic memory and well-honed coding skills stopped. Most people couldn't glance at page after page of code in any familiar language, no matter how simple, and immediately understand what it was for, how it would compile and what could be done to exploit gaps in the program. She could read binary like a book.

And there were alot of gaps. Even in supposedly secure government computer systems. She couldn't even be confident of her own programs, there was always something that she missed. Her power didn't apparently extend to writing flawless code.

But it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that her screen name Koyomi was rapidly gaining notoriety among black hat hackers. Able to infiltrate anything, anywhere, anytime. The true extent of her power was still so far unrevealed and after deflecting a particularly nasty distributed denial of service attack right as it was occurring, Kaho was quite confident that she was the best software expert in the whole world.

That particular attack required her to gain root access to multiple major internet address servers. She could do things with them that their own system administrators couldn't do. Bouncing the attack to a hacking forum user who had insulted her intelligence was personally satisfying and tracing down the botnet responsible for the attack was only a little harder. She still managed to steal a considerable portion of the network, not even Kaho knew exactly how big the botnet was, for her own use for a short while before the control program deactivated itself.

And when she finally looked up into the real world for some groceries, she saw a connection. One of the servers she had compromised was the telecommunications routing server in her local area. On a whim, she had downloaded all call log data for the past two weeks.

Now, as she looked at the newspaper proclaiming the police achievements in stopping crime, especially one involving a fireball hurling power-user, Kaho knew there was something she just had to track.

After all, preempting those crimes was practically impossible. That had not escaped the notice of even the public and the newspaper was running a long article about the details of which crime the police had preempted in the last weeks. Kaho was interested, just as a matter of principle. Definitely not because she was afraid the police might catch her.

She bought her first newspaper since she started living alone.

 

Kaho looked through the newsnets and speculations, fishing for clues. Evidence that supported her hypothesis.

Her power had triggered on the call log data. That was the first time Kaho had felt it's presence directly, as if information had just been dumped into her mind. There was a pattern in the text messages sent, according to the call logs.

Approximately half an hour, accurate to the minute, a specific phone number sent a text message to another phone number. The receiving number was a known police contact, although Kaho had not tracked down whose it was, and the sender never used his phone except for that message half an hour before each crime the police preempted.

Crimes the police did not preempt, like failed break-ins and graffiti, were not preceded by such a message. And that sender's phone was registered only two weeks ago. Right when the successful crime rate in the city dropped to zero.

It was not conclusive evidence. The call log data was vast and such coincidences were bound to happen. But Kaho could not shake the nagging feeling that this was the key.

 

After a few days of fruitless searching, Kaho finally decided to hack the telecommunications routing server again.

She updated her call log data but left it for later since there had been no more crimes stopped since that fireball man. Working quickly, Kaho requested a trace on both the sender and receiver of the mystery text messages.

Then she pulled out the text messages themselves and took a look while the traces were in progress.

"Assault, supermarket at Trinity Lane, 11.23am"

"Armed robbery, Cities Banking branch at Market Street, 4.44pm"

"Armed robbery, Madley Road, 10.52pm"

Kaho stared at the computer screens in disbelief. She had found it. The text messages had predicted the crime, location and time. All half an hour before the crime actually occurred, when it should have been impossible.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a loud warning ping. Her detection program, carefully inserted into the telecommunications server, filled one screen with a flood of information. The four system administrators had logged on nearly at the same time and were right now trying to track her down.

That was impossible! Kaho's movements were about as invisible as anyone could have made it. The firewall and security programs should all be failing to report her intrusion and the logs of her activity were automatically wiped.

Kaho fired up a series of programs written for such a scenario. She had never had to use them before, but they were sure to work, she was as confident of that as finding the text messages encrypted and backed up everywhere she could reach. The failure messages for the traces went unheeded.

Her eyes in their systems went out, one by one, as her programs stopped themselves and erased her tracks. She could hide from automated programs, but humans actively searching for intrusions were difficult to fool. Still, if she burned her bridges behind her, there was no way to track her down.

The last trojan burned itself from the disk and reported completion before destroying all the logs generated. The administrators had barely begun their search for anomalies. It was too late to track her down.

Kaho thought rapidly for a few seconds. There was no way anyone could have known to start a search of the computer systems. She had tripped no alarms, sabotaged no data and caused undetectably small disturbances.

Her power triggered overtly again and she pulled up the call log data.

Crap. That was how. There was a message from the mystery sender nearly fifteen minutes ago. She glanced at the last of the series of text messages.

"Computer hacking, 31 Adden Avenue #04-12, 2.41am"

Panic crept up on her. The police were coming. They had her address. Kaho thought faster than she ever had to before. She had to erase everything related to her before they could get it. She did have an anonymous bank account so she could still get money, but her identity was linked to her address.

She flicked open a program and typed in two commands. There was no time for delicate action. Kaho opened her link to the town council and police database and simply burned out all records that mentioned her address. The programs infiltrated and destroyed, tripping endless alarms along the way. Within a single minute, a few hundred people would not exist in government databases, Kaho included.

They still had paper records but that investigation would take a court order and thus forever to start. In the meantime, the programs had already marked the folders containing hers for destruction. The next clearing cycle in the morning would see a number of unlucky people lose their bank accounts and home ownership. It would take another few hours for the banks to dump their records but it would happen on time.

Hands shaking, Kaho flicked the power switch, killing her computer and internet. She snatched out the harddisks and every single CD in the rack and ran to the small kitchen.

Stuffing the data devices into the microwave, Kaho turned the power up to maximum and paused. She reached in and took out the harddrive she had been working from. That one had all her programs and rewriting them would take months. She could carry one harddrive.

As the microwave fried anything that could trace her, Kaho burned all her letters, open and unopened alike, at the stove. Even as the fire alarm triggered from the smoke, she had already taken all her important documents and was out the door and in the lift.

Stumbling out into the cold night air, Kaho walked briskly down to the 24 hour convenience store nearby. It was 2 minutes past 3 in the morning. Kaho smiled over her warm cup of tea as she watched two police cars come down the street towards the apartment block she used to live in.

Tomorrow, she'd find out if the police had managed to get her name.

 

Anne and Cheryl sipped hot chocolate in a corner of the busy police office. Orders and phone calls were flying all over the place, with occasional curses as the police ran into yet another roadblock.

"Go get it from the council records," said Matt, sounding annoyed, "I know you have a friend in the housing department, just call him and ask for a favour. "

The police had tried their own identity records earlier and found that entire folders had been marked for removal and destroyed. Computer records didn't even have a trace of any data and hundreds of bank accounts had been destroyed by the hacking attack. They still didn't know how the bank's backup records, which wasn't even connected to the internet, managed to get wiped as well.

Nor had any trace of how the attack was conducted turned up, despite the nearly frantic searching and best efforts of the computer services. It had come from the house of that woman that Anne had named, but that was all they knew. Even the phone services had their records deleted.

Fixing all that damage was going to be an enormously complex task.

The junior officer swore and put down the phone, "The council records are gone too. Even the recycling schedules and fine records. "

Joey raised an eyebrow over his coffee, "That's thorough. "

"This is no time to be impressed," Matt snapped. He turned to Anne and asked, rather more politely, "Um, whatever it is you do, do you mind giving us a hand with this?"

Anne looked at Joey, who shrugged. She thought for a bit, then said, "I can try. I will time travel back to this time over there, once we have caught this hacker, and tell me where we caught her. "

They looked at the empty space on the floor Anne pointed at. Nothing materialized.

Anne frowned. Had she gotten something wrong? That should have worked in the same way as how her future warnings did.

 

Kaho kept an eye on the police investigation. They still hadn't detected her trojan in their systems and the feeble efforts of the government computer services were woefully inadequate. At least if they wanted to find her. Kaho could only monitor if she didn't want to trip over anything. The bank security was much tighter and Kaho had already been forced to pull the plug on her eyes there.

On the other computer she had loaned at the internet cafe, she was trying to dissect how she might have been detected. Of course, if the police had the ability to send themselves when and where her attack had come from, then she couldn't do anything about that.

But then, if they could do that, they would be here and Kaho would be in jail. And they weren't here. That told Kaho there were limits to this future crime warnings, and if Kaho was to evade capture, she'd have to find out what those limits were and stick to working outside them.

A few hours later, Kaho found a subtle bug in her program that would have tripped what appeared to be a traffic monitoring program on the telecommunications network. It had to have a spike in internet use happen at the time Kaho was in, which was why she didn't find it, and why nearly no one else would have noticed the bug at all.

Certainly, the telecommunications company hadn't found out, the monitor could be upgraded to detect her original intrusion fairly simply and they hadn't done it. Kaho had gone in again, after patching her program, to get some information as to how they might have caught her and nothing had changed over there.

What was more important, was that the time at which Kaho would have tripped the alert. She couldn't predict it exactly, but judging from the traffic logs, conditions for the bug would have occurred roughly half an hour after the future warning message was sent to the police.

Perhaps the police could only send messages to themselves half an hour into the past. But that didn't make any sense. If they could send themselves messages half an hour back, then they could just send that message back again, for as far backwards as they needed it to go. But send it too far back, and Kaho would never go into the system in the first place, which meant no crime.

Then again, because of that message, Kaho didn't trip the monitor and had simply left. In fact, her original intrusions still hadn't been detected. So how had the police sent themselves such a message? In fact, if the government had access to time travel, they certainly wouldn't be using it to stop crime in a backwater town like this.

It was all too confusing to make sense of.

Kaho absently took out another ten dollar note to pay the shopkeeper as he came up to her again. "One more coffee please," she said, ignoring his suspicious look at the displays open on the computers.

No no, Kaho had simply got it backwards. There had to be an explanation that limited the use of time travel the police had. They couldn't do it everywhere, only here. They couldn't, or didn't, send messages further backwards than half an hour.

Then she realized it. The police had the help of someone who could time travel. A power would limit its use, since no one knew how powers worked, and perhaps it explained the half an hour limit. It wasn't a perfect explanation but it had a ring of truth to Kaho. If a time machine had been built, Kaho would have come across some mention of it on the internet.

Time to research time travel.

 

Anne jerked awake as Cheryl gently shook her shoulder. "School's starting soon," her friend said.

Anne thanked her sleepily and went to the toilet to wash up and change into school uniform. Coming all the way down to the police station was pointless after all. Despite her time travel power, Anne still couldn't help the police find the mystery hacker.

The toilet was empty and Anne stripped down to put on her uniform when an older woman suddenly appeared out of thin air.

Yelping in surprise, Anne clutched her uniform close, conscious of her half-naked state, compared to the woman's comfortable office clothing. Then the details leapt out at her. Mouse-brown hair, blue eyes and the face. It was her own face, but years older.

"Tha... but..." Anne stammered as her much older self smiled at her. Anne couldn't put a finger on it, but her older self's smile was slightly different. More gentle, more... mature.

After some moments, Anne finally asked, "How old are you?"

Her older self's smile grew slightly wider, "I'm 24. I come from eight years in the future. "

 

Kaho still couldn't figure it out. She had leads but none of them solid.

There were many types of time travel presented in fiction. And there was no evidence to say whether any of them were right.

She was quite sure some of the more incredible explanations were certainly wrong. But that didn't leave a workable number with any common ground. Some said you could change the past. Some said you couldn't. Why you could or could not varied from explanation to explanation, whether history corrected itself or you were somehow prevented or you created a new timeline.

Kaho was stuck. Doing this sort of research wasn't her forte and she had a hard time trying to peel away the implausible.

She sipped the coffee and found her cup empty. The sleepy little internet cafe was empty in the early morning and Kaho considered asking for another coffee before she left. She reconsidered when she noticed her hands shaking from the caffeine. How many cups had she had by now? Kaho couldn't remember.

She packed up and thrust another ten dollar note at the irritating shopkeeper, who was no doubt glad to see her gone.

The street was nearly empty, only a few people were rushing to work at this hour and barely anyone was shopping. Where to go now? Kaho didn't even know where to find a room to stay in. Plus, she was on the run from the police. Checking into a room, even when the police didn't know your name, was risky.

A young woman, around her own age, approached her, "Hi, can I help you?"

Kaho looked at the stranger. The intense blue eyes made her feel uncomfortable, but then many people did. Kaho was not good with people.

"I presume you're looking for somewhere to stay?" the stranger asked, her eyes gaining a twinkle of mirth.

Kaho nodded jerkily. What's the worst that could happen? Perhaps this might be helpful.

"Well, nice to meet you, I'm Anne Lacross," the woman extended a hand, which Kaho took gingerly, "what's your name?"

Kaho almost said her real name but decided against it, "Koyomi. "

"Don't worry, I'm here to help you. You see, I just happen to need some help with computers. "

5: Null Solution

"So you won't even tell me why you're here?" Anne asked her older self, already knowing the answer.

"Mhm. "

For all of Anne's confusion and dismay, her older self kept a patient smile. Frankly, it was pissing Anne off. Even if it was herself from the future, she could at least answer some questions. And not treat Anne like a kid who didn't know what she was talking about.

"It's fine, just go to school. I'm just here to do a few things. "

Future Anne looked at Joey and Matt across the table in the mess hall at the police department building. Matt couldn't believe his eyes, but Joey was already speculating about the reasons why future Anne would need to travel eight years. Eight years was a very long time and nearly anything could happen in eight years.

"It's not just fine. You must be doing something important. If I'm not around to watch, how am I going to do it when I'm you?" Even Anne had figured out that something big was going on.

"I figured it out. You will," that serene smile defeated her handily yet again.

Cheryl put down the soft drink. They were already late for school, but that was unimportant compared to the cool older sister Anne had suddenly sprouted. "Will you come visit school later?" she asked timidly.

Future Anne shrugged, "Sure, if I have the time. "

"You always have the time!" Anne sniffed.

"That is true," future Anne admitted but, infuriatingly, didn't continue, "run along now, you two, I'll teach you a few tricks about time travel later. "

Anne practically stormed off the table. How had she become so stuffed up? Or was that something that just happened when you grew older?

 

As her younger self finally left, with Cheryl in tow, Anne turned to Joey and Matt, face far more serious.

"Drop the case with the computer hacker. You won't catch her. "

Matt frowned, "Why? If you're far more experienced with this time travel, we'll catch her in no time!"

Anne shook her head, "Not happening," she said and checked her watch, "I've already found the hacker. "

"There! So why drop the case? She caused alot of damage!"

"Because I'm not turning her in. I need her. "

"Anne is telling us to drop the case because of something in the future," Joey said before Matt could explode, "am I right?"

Anne nodded.

"And that something is big enough that we'd overlook this hacking case?" Joey continued quietly.

Anne nodded again.

"Do you mind explaining?"

"I can't," Anne said, "Firstly, that's not what I saw happen. Secondly, if I tell you now, it would cause the very thing I am trying to prevent. "

Joey leaned forward, a little suspicious, "How do you know that? The younger you explained a little about what she can do with time travel. You shouldn't be able to tell what might happen. Or change the past. "

Anne shrugged, "I'm more experienced. But if you want an explanation..." she paused and stared at a corner of the room for a good few seconds, "you'll have to wait. I can't give it now. "

As Matt frowned in annoyance, Joey looked at the corner Anne was staring at and looked back at Anne, "all right, I'll trust you just this time. "

Anne nodded appreciatively. He really ought not to but hey, it would help.

 

"Why not talk to her a bit more?" Cheryl needled at Anne.

Anne was still feeling irritated at her future self, even after school was over. Her determination to hold on to that was being eroded by Cheryl's wheedling though.

"What makes you so impressed with her anyway?" she asked across the pair of tables they had pushed together in the center of class.

"She's like you, but older and cooler!" Cheryl replied. Anne found that irritating too.

"Oh how is she like me?" Anne huffed, "I'm not that... like how she talks to us as if we can't understand her. "

"But you can't right?"

The voice attracted their attention from the front of the classroom. Future Anne had simply appeared completely silently.

"Understand me, I mean," the woman clarified as she pulled up a chair nearby.

"How did you just appear?" Anne asked, "I can't teleport. "

"By time travelling from this morning. I had to get a few things," the woman replied off-handedly, "You see what I mean? You can't understand why I do things without knowing how I do them. "

Cheryl grinned, "Like you, but older and cooler!"

Anne threw up her hands, "All right, you win! I'll cooperate if you'll teach me about time travel. "

 

The woman took out a new pack of cards and shuffled the deck. She drew a card and laid it face down on the table.

"All right, presuming I asked you to guess what the card was without looking at it, could you do that correctly?"

Anne shook her head, then paused. "Maybe if I time travelled? I tell myself what the right answer is, then ask you and go back to tell myself. "

The woman smiled, "just like the future warnings you have been giving the police. Why don't you try it?"

Anne looked at the empty side of the desk where she decided she was going to time travel from. Nothing appeared. "Huh, that's strange. "

"Now can you tell me why that did not work?"

Anne shook her head.

"It didn't work because I wasn't going to tell you whether you guessed right or not. I don't know what the card is after all," the woman picked up the card and glanced at it.

A third Anne appeared next to them and said, "Three of spades. "

The woman nodded at her and waited for Anne to complete the loop.

"Remember, you can't create information. You can only confirm a guess. If you can't confirm it, you won't get an answer. "

"That sounds crazy," Cheryl suddenly interrupted. They looked at her, "I mean, you already know the answer is right. So why do you have to confirm it?"

"Because if you don't confirm it after you got the answer from the future, then that answer is not confirmed and you don't know if its right," the woman explained, "and it has to be you, Anne. You have to know. I can tell Cheryl, and she'ld know if your guess is right, but if she doesn't tell you either, it doesn't work. "

Without waiting for Cheryl's confusion to clear up, she shuffled the deck again and placed another card on the table, without looking at it.

"All right, now tell me another use for this trick. "

Anne frowned. Surely all it was good for was getting right answers before you could be sure they were right?

The woman tapped the card for emphasis, "Lets say you have to tell me what this card is within the next minute. I might or might not be looking at the card in the next minute and I might or might not actually tell you the guess is correct. So, give it a shot. "

They looked at the empty space for a minute. Nothing happened.

"All right, what did that tell you?"

"You didn't look at the card and so..." Anne paused as she made a guess, "Since I did not go back to tell myself what the card was, that must mean that you weren't going to look at the card at all. "

The woman put on a smile and peeked at the card. "It could also mean that I wasn't going to tell you. "

She shuffled the card back into the deck. "The card represents an event. Me looking at it represents the event taking place or not. Me confirming your guess is you getting to know of it. And the best way to be able to confirm as many things as possible is to be able to get to know as many things as possible.

It may sound paradoxical to have to confirm things you know are true in order for them to be true. But you are a time traveler. Future events causing past events is normal. "

Older Anne put the deck away. "And now, it's late and you should be getting back home. Or at least Cheryl should be. "

 

Kaho plugged in her hard drive to the computer and started her setup program. That would get the computer ready for her own customizing touches later.

Anne was still a mystery. The apartment in downtown New York, and half a world away from the obscure town where they met, that Kaho had walked into looked barely lived in. When Kaho said she needed computers for any 'help with computers', Anne had simply tossed her a debit card and told her to buy whatever she needed or wanted.

How Anne managed to acquire a fake passport for Kaho, with her picture no less, before they had even met, was more than a mystery. This Anne appeared to know all too much about Kaho, far more than anyone could possibly know. Some of it was extremely embarrassing and personal and Kaho wondered how Anne had even come across that.

For all that Anne knew about Kaho, Kaho knew nothing about Anne apart from that she probably had a superpower. It disturbed her, but since Anne knew everything that Kaho did and could do, Kaho's life could get extremely unpleasant if Anne decided to turn her in to the police.

Anne did reassure Kaho that she had no intentions of doing so, whatever Kaho did. And now, as the room was full of terminals and even boasted its own internal network and distributed computing cluster, Kaho was wondering what this was all for. Having to install an exhaust fan in the room to keep temperatures down was sort of like a dream come true, to have so much computing power available that the room was at summer heat even during winter was something that Kaho had never thought would happen to her. But having nice things and building the computer network grew boring without anything to do with it.

"Now that you're done," Anne's voice called her from the hall, "I can explain what exactly I need you to do. "

Kaho peeked out of the room, nudging the exhaust fan to a slightly higher speed. Anne was sitting at the dining table with a few stacks of paper. A projector was displaying a dynamic map of the world, updated as satellites with public feeds sent their images.

It looked like an information center to Kaho.

"So, you like those computers?"

Kaho nodded back, still in the doorway.

"Think you can crack the military's security with them?"

Kaho thought for a bit before nodding. If this Anne was going to the expense for Kaho to get sensitive military information, she must be some kind of foreign spy.

"Good. What I want you to do is prevent any nuclear missiles from being launched. Make it impossible to launch them from anywhere by anyone. "

"... What?" That went beyond impossible. Hacking the military websites and compromising computers, Kaho could at least see how to try. Fooling around with computers and stealing information and control of systems was one thing, nuclear missiles was a whole other matter. Quite apart from the difficulty, even touching nuclear weapons would spark the largest manhunt ever, and there would be absolutely no way to get away with it.

Anne twirled a finger, "Now now, we'll have a few advantages. "

"Firstly, you'll have limited use of time loop logic. "

Kaho blinked for a moment, and then it hit her. "You're the one who told the police?!" she exclaimed without her usual stiffness when talking to other people.

Anne waved dismissively, "Ah well, that was a long time ago, at least from my perspective. "

Kaho eyed her suspiciously. She could not really explain why, but Kaho was inclined to trust this Anne. Anne had kept her word so far and seemed to really need Kaho's abilities.

But time loop logic? Then again, if Anne was here and her much younger self also just reported Kaho to the police less than a week ago, that ruled out alot of different time travel theories. In fact, the few that Kaho could think of that hadn't been ruled out implied that future events could affect current ones or even past ones. To be accurate, they would have already affected past events before they themselves had happened.

That must have exactly how Anne's younger self managed to know that Kaho would have tripped the traffic monitor. In fact, if Kaho tripping the monitor would lead to Anne reporting it in the past, that would have tripped Kaho's own monitors when the system administrators logged on. Which meant that Anne reporting Kaho was due to an event that would never happen, but would happen if Anne had not reported Kaho.

She could use what might happen to decide what actually happened.

"There are a few other advantages we have," Anne interrupted Kaho's thinking.

There was more? Time loop logic was already extremely powerful, especially given that Kaho could see patterns in information basically instantly.

"Of course there is," Anne sniffed, "I didn't come from the future without some nice toys. "

"Like?"

"Well, how about a machine that would fit into this room and be able to make arbitrary metal and plastic objects?" Anne grinned as she watched Kaho's jaw drop as the implications sank in, "It can even make electronics and robots. Not so difficult now, is it?"

Kaho looked suspiciously at the closed door leading to the master bedroom that she had never entered and never seen Anne use. Anne nodded, "yep, it'll go in there. We still have to build it though. And technically, invent it. "

She winked at Kaho, "yeah, a desktop fabricator and disassembler is not out of reach. I already know for a fact we succeeded. And exactly how we succeeded. I just need us to build it. You know how to organize the time loop logic, I can get us the needed parts. "

 

Six years ago, somewhere in northern Russia, a series of events happened that would be recognized as the start of the chain that brought the world the closest it had ever gotten to nuclear war. Of course, it wasn't the true start of that chain. That hadn't happened yet. It wasn't even the first event; that was a long time ago, before anyone had even heard of America. It was the one that historians could trace back to though and so the label "first" stuck.

A young woman dressed in a pure white fur coat appeared out of thin air. Her coat was perfectly matching to the uniform white snow on the landscape but it wasn't truly required. The rock outcropping she appeared behind had been there before the rise of Soviet Russia, it had always been there since half an hour ago by her own reckoning.

She released a small spider-like robot onto the snow. It scuttled around, taking stock of its surroundings and then zipped off towards the missile silo. The delicate machinery was impossible to service, but that didn't matter since Anne already knew exactly when the robot was going to break down and could replace it easily.

Some weeks later, a truck with soldiers and high ranking military officers drove in. The schoolgirl sitting with them was completely out of place but she was an important part of the proceedings.

6: Escalation

"Do you really think that you can trust her?"

Anne looked up at the man and nodded. He was quite a few years older than her and she felt she could trust him. Why was that? She didn't even know his name, but he could be trusted.

"Do you know what she has planned?"

She shook her head.

"Then you cannot trust her. Go to 6.43 pm today, at your house, you will find evidence. You yourself told me this not five minutes ago. "

Anne frowned but nodded anyway. It seemed like a good idea to check.

The man smiled down at her and reached under her dress. "Before you go..."

 

Cheryl scurried down the empty corridor. Everyone was already in class and only Cheryl was late coming from the police station. Obviously Anne wouldn't be late even when she left after school started. Cheryl was slightly miffed that Anne had let her be late alone. But only slightly.

She felt the warmth behind her, as if someone was suddenly standing right behind her, and nearly jumped in surprise. A hand clamped her mouth expertly and another caught her wrist.

"Shh! It's just me. "

The hands released her as Cheryl relaxed, she faced the older Anne. "Why are you here? We thought you weren't coming!"

"Well, it's quite simple really. I need you to help me. The younger me, I mean," Anne said seriously.

Cheryl blinked, but surely time traveling Anne could do anything that Cheryl could do.

"Not quite," Anne said.  Cheryl blinked, she hadn't even said anything.  "If you had a power, what would you want it to be?"

 

Cheryl went through the rest of the day in a sort of daze. She had a power too? Or maybe future Anne was a magic granting genie. She certainly seemed to think Cheryl could pick her own power.

Anne was cranky through the rest of the school day and during lunch, Cheryl had to put up with Anne's attempt to convince her that future Anne was Evil. With a capital E. Surely, it was an overreaction though, future Anne couldn't possibly be evil; most especially since current Anne would grow up to be her. And why should future Anne not act as if she knew better when she really did?

Cheryl was certainly more than happy to help future Anne in whatever she was planning to do.

After school, Anne disappeared somewhere after getting a call. Cheryl wondered at what was happening, Anne usually told her and this looked to be very serious. She stood in the classroom thinking when Anne reappeared out of thin air.

"You've got to come, now," Anne said, grabbing her hand and tugging her.

"Wha- What's happening?"

"My future self's gone crazy, she's going to attack us!" The urgency in Anne's voice got through to Cheryl. It didn't let Cheryl start making any sense of what Anne just said though.

"What? But why would she do that?"

"How would I know why? All I know is that she did, will do. " Anne was nearly wild with panic, "We need to move, quickly! It's nearly..."

"Not so fast," future Anne's voice cut in, "you can't change what will happen. "

Anne whirled around to face her older self standing in the doorway. The harsh metal glint of a gun in her hand seemed to draw everyone's attention.

Her future self's hand twitched and instantly Anne disappeared. A sad little popping sound accompanied the small plastic pellet striking the wall behind where Anne was standing not a moment ago.
Cheryl blinked in surprise as future Anne put away the false gun. "What was that about?"

"Anne... uh, sorry, that was myself coming back from the future. Something bad is happening and only you can stop it. Please follow. "

Cheryl frowned in confusion and followed the woman out of the school. They walked in silence, future Anne looked as if she was doing something she didn't want to. The whole mess was getting very confusing fast and Cheryl wanted to know what was going on.

They left the school where future Anne unlocked a car and wordlessly gestured for Cheryl to get into the car.

 

They rounded the corner on the street of Anne's house in total silence. Cheryl could feel future Anne's tension ratcheting ever higher as they got closer. There was a loud bang from inside the house, as if someone had just thrown something heavy.

Cheryl was getting nervous as future Anne pushed open the front door. Even though there wasn't anything outwardly wrong, Cheryl could tell that future Anne was ready to snap at any moment.
She gasped as the scene in the living room presented itself. Another copy of future Anne was standing in the center, pointing a very realistic looking gun at Anne's parents. The Anne that Cheryl knew turned to see them come in.

"How did you... No, what are you doing?" younger Anne screamed at the future Anne holding the gun.

Future Anne shook her head, "It takes a bit of getting used to. But even with time travel, you can't change the past. Or the future for that matter. "

"No! That cannot be right. We have... I have this power, and I will change the future. "

Cheryl was about to say something when there was a loud metallic click from behind her and the future Anne behind her pressed the muzzle of another gun at the back of her head.

"Wha-"

Another younger Anne appeared out of thin air right next to Cheryl and dived at her feet, tackling her to the ground. The future Anne in the room whirled around, "Oh, how was I that dumb to try..."

As the first younger Anne leapt at the Anne in the center of the living room, the future Anne behind Cheryl fired her gun. Instead of the popping of the air gun Cheryl expected, there was a sharp report and Cheryl gasped at the blow. It felt like someone just kicked her in the chest.

The younger Anne on top of her had simply disappeared midjump and the world wobbled as Cheryl collapsed in shock, bloody bits that used to occupy the hole in her chest scattered among her pooling blood. There were shouts and screams but Cheryl was too busy dying to make sense of them. There was more shots, more screams and then the first younger Anne leapt at where Cheryl stood not a second ago, also disappearing into thin air.

The pain had not even crept past her shock before another shot hit her head.

 

Cheryl opened her eyes with a gasp. Just like waking up from a bad dream. Anne had put a gun to her head and then she was here lying on the floor of the living room.

A somewhat familiar face hovered anxiously above her. It was her own face, but that wasn't a mirror.

"What?" was all she could say.

"Look, it works!" That would be Anne's voice. The grown up Anne.

Cheryl sat up and the sight of the living room caught up with her. The neat and tidy room had broken glass and blood splatters all over the carpet. The sofa was torn and... She jumped up as she saw Anne's parents, both of them lying behind the kitchen counter in their own blood.

She opened her mouth and simply stared at the mirror of herself looking back. She couldn't think of anything to say.

"Well, I suppose this is all quite confusing, but allow me to explain," future Anne gestured at the copy of Cheryl next to her, "this is you from a day in the future. "

"As it turns out," her future self said, "My power is to heal. Or more accurately, restore something to its past state. "

"Wait, wait. This is going too fast. I haven't even had five minutes to think about it. Ok, so you... I have a power that can bring back dead people?" Cheryl said, looking at the bodies of Mr and Mrs Lacross.

"It can do that," her future self said.

"Does that mean... that I died? We died?"

"Yeah," Anne cut in, "sorry about that. I wasn't really intending to shoot anyone. But things got a bit carried away. "

Cheryl frowned, "Ok, so you shot me and I died. So how am I alive to resurrect myself?"

"I can bring some small objects or one person with me when I time travel," Anne explained, "And it's about time. Show her," she said to future Cheryl.

"Show what?" Cheryl asked.

"How to use your power," Anne said, "You're going to have to learn, unless you feel like staying dead. "

Cheryl was lead by her future self to the two corpses. "Ok, you have to put your hands on them and concentrate," she said, touching Mr Lacross.

Cheryl copied her actions on Mrs Lacross, but nothing seemed to happen.

"Think back to a time when they were alive," her future self said, and continued after a short pause, "And no, not yesterday. When you use the power, they get restored to that time you think of, which means they will lose their memories until that point you restored to. "

"Ah, so that's why I don't remember anything after the gun. So should I use that last time I saw them before the gun went off?"

"Yes, and the next bit is hard to explain, but you just... do it," she said, "like this. "

There was a slight skip, as if the universe hiccuped, and then Mr Lacross's body was suddenly coughing on the ground, the nasty bullet wound in his head gone. A suspiciously neat oval of the kitchen around him was also suddenly free from blood.

Cheryl frowned. How was she supposed to do that? She concentrated, but nothing happened. As Mr Lacross just started to ask his question, something clicked in her mind and she could see how to do it.

She 'pushed' and Mrs Lacross was also staring up at her in confusion. It was almost too easy, she was not even feeling exhausted at all. In fact, all it felt like was just her sitting there and putting her hands on a dead body. Ok, that wasn't nice, but it certainly didn't feel like effort.

She got the feeling that resurrecting people ought to be more difficult than that.

As Anne started to explain things again, Cheryl looked at her future self and started to laugh. It was all too unreal. Her having the power to bring people back from the dead? And using it to undo her own death? And what was Anne doing with all those guns? Probably related to why she came back in the first place.

 

Anne jumped back again. That last shot was way too close for comfort. It probably hit Cheryl though and the thought clawed at her. She didn't want Cheryl to feel pain, not when she could prevent it.

Can't change the past. Can't change the future. That was what her older self said. There's no way Anne could accept that. She could time travel after all! What use was this power if she couldn't prevent disasters? If she could not even save her friend?

No, she could save Cheryl. Anne just had to warn her. And if stopping her five minutes before didn't work, she'd just go back further. At some point, she would be able to save her friend and stop her crazy future self. No matter how far back she had to go, what she had to do, Anne would do it.

I do not want to grow up like that. How did that even happen? She landed on the carpet in the living room a minute ago with a loud thump. There was no one around. Yet.

As her older self started to approach the living room with her parents, Anne knew her older self would be coming in soon and it would all be too late. She couldn't do anything against a gun.

She closed her eyes and jumped.

 

Almost a year ago, in the neighbouring city, a certain man was wandering the streets.

He tweaked the minds of the group of schoolgirls nearby and they gathered up to him, eager to please. Tch, that wasn't very fun after all, even if he could have them strip in the middle of the street and everyone nearby wouldn't even see it if he didn't want them to. What was the point of all these miserable people?

He sent them on their way, unaware that anything strange had happened. He wanted something bigger, with more impact; he wanted to change the world. He couldn't just start making people his fanatics, the other power users would catch on and eventually someone would take a sniper rifle to him.

Thirty feet was such a short range in the modern day.

There was a coughing sound ahead and a girl in a strange uniform stumbled out of the alley nearby. Curious, the man walked closer and peered into her mind.

He stood there for a few seconds as the girl caught her breath from the exertion of rapid time jumping. Her power was insane. He grinned. With a time traveler like her, taking over the world would be easy enough. The world leaders would all want to talk to him if only he just got their attention. And if they were close enough to talk...

He reached out and seized her mind.

 

Kaho read the short messages on her computer. It was eerie, looking at the reports detailing everything Anne visited from the last five years to the next thirty. She had devised the system late one night, a simple idea. Before even asking Anne in the morning, Kaho had marched over to the designated time room and found an ancient mail server still connected by dialup.

Well, she couldn't expect stuff from five years ago to be good. Kaho dug around and eventually came up with a simple printer port based connection and began to migrate the functions to a new server.

Anne appeared out of thin air in the designated time room and looked at Kaho. "So you had the idea then?"

Kaho nodded, of course Anne would already know about it. The best ideas were simple. Instead of fancy time looping, Kaho would set up a mail server that would store text messages Anne sent from her phone or any computer. Anne could then submit reports of events to the server to be stored. The computer would then store events based on a tag Anne gave it and the time, which would allow Anne and Kaho to mail the server asking for the event's report.

At the end of the server's life, 30 years in this case, Anne would download all the information in the server and go back to the original starting time, buy a server and migrate the information to it. Which neatly allowed the server to already have all the events Anne would store in the first place. Which meant that Anne and Kaho could very easily put messages on the server and have it accessible anywhere in the times between each sync loop.

In fact, Kaho quickly ran a search, there was an event tagged Time Server and dated right now. Inside it was a brief description of the entire plan, signed Kaho at the bottom.

They both read the event. Anne shrugged and handed Kaho her phone.

 

Cheryl stood in the upper bedroom of Anne's house. The older Anne was there as well, ready to take her back to the original scene. The intervening day had been very busy, as the police descended on the house like a pack of flies. Joey was not pleased as older Anne admitted to killing her own parents and when younger Anne was said to be missing Cheryl nearly thought he was going to blow the roof off.

A thought occurred to her.

"You know how we're about to go back to yesterday?" she asked the woman, "what happens if we don't go back?"

Older Anne winked at her and checked a mail on her handphone, "well, that is the wrong question to ask. "

"What do you mean?" Cheryl continued as another thought happened, "actually, we could also walk to the living room and go back from there. But yesterday, we from the future didn't appear. So if we did that..."

"You could change the past?" older Anne continued wryly.

Cheryl could only frown in confusion. She had no idea what could happen in that case.

"You are looking at the problem in the wrong way," Anne shook her head with a small smile, "we are time traveling. The future affects the past. "

Cheryl thought about it for a bit and said, "That doesn't help. "

"True," Anne laughed, "all right, take this example. Think of a number, any number, but don't tell me. "

Cheryl nodded after a moment.

"You chose 30," Anne said and pulled out her phone as Cheryl gaped in shock. There, on the screen, was a short message, "The number is 30. "

Cheryl watched as Anne forwarded the message to an unknown address and put the phone away. "I already knew you were going to choose 30 when I checked my phone just now. Before we even had this experiment. Now tell me, did I in any way make you choose 30?"

Cheryl shook her head.

"You could have chosen any other number, but you were going to choose 30. In the same way, we could have chosen any other place and time to go back to, but we are going to go back to yesterday, here in this room. "

"But we could choose not to?" Cheryl asked.

Anne nodded, "yep. "

There was a pause before Cheryl exclaimed, "That makes no sense! How is it we can have a choice but already know what we are going to choose?"

Anne waved a finger, "Tsk, that's still thinking the wrong way. We have a choice, we can choose to go back from here or from the living room or somewhere else. What we choose affects the past because we are traveling there. So if we went back in the living room, then yesterday would not have played out in the way we remembered. But what happened yesterday, and what we are about to see again, affects the present us in the form of what we remember.

We can infer our choice, but we still have to make that choice. Like how I could know the number you chose before you did, but you still had to do the choosing. All that is different is that we already know the outcome. "

"But... what about free will? How can the choice be a real choice if there is only one?" Cheryl asked.

Anne laughed, "No idea. I'll leave that to the philosophers. Come on, we ought to get it over with. "

Anne stepped forward and hugged Cheryl tightly, "when I jump, everything nearby goes back with me. I'm not sure what happens if you stick your hand out too far, but that never happened. Don't try it though. "

Cheryl nodded a little. To be frank, Anne's arms felt nice, like a dependable older sister. Then the world changed, and the sunlight outside abruptly became evening. They were back.

7: Defcon 1

Anne marched into the meeting room. The president of the US and France and the prime minister of the UK were in the room, as well as their top military advisors. Joey was sitting beside her, looking warily at the multinational guard.

Finally explaining what she came back to do got people's attention. Governments moved slowly, but Anne didn't need to wait. After all, when she already knew when and where each meeting was, she could simply go to them, instead of waiting.

In just a day under two weeks since the incident in her house, Anne was talking to the most powerful people in the world.

"You might have been briefed, but I'll explain it again. You know about powers, time travel is mine. I am back here from the future, 8 years in the future, and I am warning you now that the world will soon move the closest it will ever be to nuclear war. And there are a few things I need to ask for your cooperation on. "

"I find your story unlikely. Is Israel going to launch a nuke?" the French military general asked.

Anne sighed, "No, it's Russia. You might note that the Russian president is not here. "

Looks went around the table and the English prime minister leaned forward with a direct question, "When?"

"Nukes? Oh, that's not until next Friday. "

 

Kaho shot up from the carpet of blankets like a rocket. That was a brilliant idea! Since the phone database bracketed a set of time of thirty years, if Kaho was not satisfied with how things worked out, she could force a paradox by sending a mail that she was sure did not exist. In fact...

She scrambled to the computer, there was a tag in the database called "paradox". The single message inside read "Reserved for paradox manipulation". If Kaho simply did not want something to happen, say if she got sprayed with water by a passing car, she could just as easily send herself the message to walk a bit faster or slower. Getting 'bad luck' was impossible!

She took out her phone, nearly unused, and sent the paradox manipulation message to the server. Surely it was foolproof! Kaho nodded to herself, it sounded like it would work.

The phone vibrated in her hand, signalling an incoming message. "I had toast for breakfast today. "

Kaho blinked at the message. Timed alerts was something she had the idea for yesterday, and of course, once she had the idea, the database had always had the function. All she had to do was check the code to make sure that was all it did. It let Anne or Kaho send a message to the server indicating a specific time and date for the message to be sent out without them having to request it.

But toast for breakfast? Why on earth did Kaho have to send a message to herself for that? Her eyes wandered over to the sliced bread and margarine sitting on the kitchen counter that Anne left behind. Toast was an idea, it sounded appetizing. Kaho idly loaded the toaster, still wondering why she had to tell herself what was for breakfast.

The ding of the toaster echoed her thoughts. That was why! She had forgotten in her rush that time loop logic required a check of some sort. If Kaho was going to drop her buttered toast on her shirt, she could, in theory, warn herself not to drop the toast. However, if she saw the message and didn't drop the toast, how was she to know that Kaho not dropping her toast was due to the message or if Kaho wouldn't drop her toast regardless?

She couldn't know. And because she couldn't know, the time loop logic wouldn't work. If Kaho was of the mind to send herself reminders not to drop her toast and avoid cars splashing water, virtually any warning, even fake ones that Kaho would not suffer if she had not seen it, would be resent. Kaho would get messages as fast as she could be bothered to send them.

Except that getting that many messages would have instantly clued Kaho in that some of the warnings had to be fake and lead her to this conclusion.

The only feasible warnings were the ones that she could confirm she needed it afterwards, ideally, the warning would include its own confirmation check... No, even that might let too much noise in. Warning-check pairs that created self-fulfilling prophecies might not be rare enough that some would leak through, with unknown effects. If Kaho had to think of the check herself, and she was guaranteed to since if she couldn't that would be a paradox event, that was one more filter to fake warnings while leaving the checkable real ones alone. After all, the wording of the message could be manipulated to make Kaho think of the check, especially with her power to sift through information.

Which meant that Kaho would send herself a message saying not to bother sending warnings and this precise line of reasoning.

In fact... Kaho munched on her toast, carefully, and looked at the message again. "I had toast for breakfast today. "

There was a moment's silence in the small apartment, save for the slight crunching of toast. Then Kaho snorted and sent the message to her five minutes younger self, with the timed alert.

 

"So why isn't the Russian president here?" the US president demanded from her. The nuclear football gleamed in the padded leather case behind him, the four heavily armed soldiers watching everyone in the room warily. One of them was actually another Anne, one of those gathering a needed perspective to gain explanations and prove these actions were required.

Anne regarded the shiny metal ball as if it wasn't a thing that could end the world overnight. She hadn't needed to disarm it, according to the database, but Kaho was clearly able to do so. The things that girl had wrought after Anne gave her time loop logic was near magical to Anne. Or it would be if those things weren't second nature to her, only thanks to Kaho having those ideas of course.

"He isn't here because I know he wasn't here. I come from the future remember?" Anne said. She didn't bother memorizing scripts even if she did read them. It was pointless since what exactly she said mattered rather less than why it had to be said, besides, whatever she did eventually say would come out to be identical to the script whether she memorized it or not.

"Then what about the nuke? Where will it go?" The UK prime minister asked.

"Oh, that lands in a field somewhere in Florida. A targeting error," Anne held up a hand signalling to the US president that she wasn't finished, "Before you go off and try to intercept it, I actually want to ask you to make a hole in the missile shield so that Florida is a weak point and a missile will get through. "

The three leaders nearly bugged out on her.

"How can you ask me to do that?!" the US president demanded, "I have a duty to ensure that no nuclear weapon ever lands on American soil! You cannot be..."

"Because the situation is more complex than you think," Anne cut in calmly, "I know, it's weird. But time travel doesn't work linearly. I can't actually tell you why because I still don't really know, time travel is useful and all, but getting the exact reasons why can still be a bit problematic. All I can say is that if you put a hole in the missile shield that has a tempting enough target, that is where it will go. If the missile shield will intercept the missile, the missile will go somewhere else. "

The men thought it over for a few moments and the French president hissed, "There's a spy in the United States nuclear defense. "

"Yeah, sort of, that's my sixteen year old self. Don't bother trying to find her, its impossible even for me. There are too many what-if situations and she doesn't even have to infiltrate the missile shield. Time travel gets very complicated when there are more than one of us," Anne continued, "Especially when we're enemies. "

"So you're telling me to choose where the Russians will hit the United States?" the US president asked her back, "How do I know that what you say is real and I shouldn't just order the missile defence into high alert?"

Anne grinned, "I know it lands in Florida because I know that's what happened. I've actually seen the missile. "

There was a moment of confusion, then the French president asked suspiciously, as if thinking Anne was a little crazy, "Pardon me, but you expect us to believe that you saw a Russian nuclear missile with your own eyes? Sitting in a field among the daisies, hm?""

Anne blinked, that wasn't in the script. Things that did not appear in reports meant that Anne's spontaneous reaction was needed, which had to be the main reason why another Anne from the future was here posing as an American soldier. She was starting to wonder about that.

"Wait a minute," she thought for rather less than a minute, "you think the missile detonated?"

"And yeah, it was in a field. Although I don't remember any daisies. The impact crater must have buried them all. "

 

Cheryl shivered in the cold snow despite the fur lined boots and coat and heavy clothing. Older Anne had called her out and they had taken a leisurely flight to Russia before transferring to a truck and then teleporting back in time at what appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. When it was right now, Cheryl didn't know, but Anne was apparently satisfied when she checked her phone.

Anne looked around the landscape, trying to find the marker she had left for herself. Ah, there it was. She looked at the dial on the small clock hanging off the rock, brushing some snow off the glass. Only one minute off, that was good.

The clock ticked away a slow minute and then Anne straightened and lead Cheryl into the missile base. A long walk later at the gate, where Cheryl saw the missile base seemed to be still under construction, Anne nodded once at the guard and he waved them through. Cheryl wondered about that, but it was probably some circumstance Anne had already prepared for.

The base appeared to be still half constructed and deserted. As Anne picked her way around the debris, Cheryl shivered in the growing cold.

"Where are we going?" she finally asked.

Anne held up a hand to silence her, Cheryl stared at the gun that had suddenly appeared in it.

"Who's there?" came a voice, a familiar one.

"Anne?" Cheryl asked hesitantly, that was her friend there!

Younger Anne was frowning as Cheryl walked around the corner, she noticed at some level that Older Anne who had come with her had seemed to have disappeared somewhere. Then even before younger Anne opened her mouth, a loud whipcrack of a gunshot blasted down the corridor.

Cheryl screamed in surprise and shock, ears ringing with the echo. She opened her eyes again as the painfully loud sound died away and froze at the red splatters on the floor behind younger Anne. Anne herself was lying on the floor with a clear hole-

A pair of hands gently covered her eyes, "It's better if you don't look. "

Cheryl thought wildly for a moment. If Older Anne had just killed her younger self who was clearly going to grow up to be her, then Cheryl would certainly need to use her power to reset younger Anne.

"Mmm, you have that right," Older Anne whispered behind her. Cheryl thought quickly in the darkness, clearly she was here to reset Anne to a certain time in the past. The fact that Older Anne seemed to be reading her mind didn't seem important, it was obvious that Older Anne would know everything.

"You'll need to reset me to the day I arrived in the police station," Anne said, guiding Cheryl's hands. "It's more than two weeks ago, but you can do it. "

Cheryl nodded, still feeling sick and shaky from her shock and confusion. What the heck was going on? Why did Anne want her to reset her younger self?

But if Anne said to do it, Cheryl wasn't about to argue. Not when the inside of her friend's skull was still all over the wall.

 

Kaho ate her toast, thinking. It still felt like she was missing something though.

Yes, one could not be sure that one would or would not suffer an unpredictable accident in the next week, and therefore, one would not be sure if any actions received from the future would prevent that accident.

But what if the time traveller, or someone who had access to a database like Kaho's, limited the number or type of actions they would take? And they would only do those actions if the accident did not occur? After all, if the accident was going to occur without any instructions, or received instructions would not stop the accident, the person would send different instructions back in time.

The only consistent solution was instructions that prevented the accident. Or they could cause some desired event to happen when one couldn't be sure that those instructions were the cause. Of course, if the accident would never happen or the desired event would happen anyway, any instructions within the limit would become possible as long as they did not cause the accident or prevent the event.

It was theoretically possible that a time traveller who really wanted some event to happen or prevent a possible accident could decide to "pay" in the form of unnecessary actions in exchange for those events happening.

No, not just theoretically possible, Kaho finished scribbling the time lines and dependencies. It was definitely... she smacked herself on the forehead for being stupid.

Kaho flipped open her phone and accessed the database. There it was. Yes, those events would operate by unknown causes or methods to cause the desired effect. The downside was that the person judging whether to send the instructions back would be the filter who judged whether the fulfilled event or accident prevention violated the outlined requirements. And people, even time travellers, were fallible and could be fooled.

So that while it was true that outside of the trivial cases, failure to receive instructions meant that the restrictions on number and type of actions were too strict. And receiving any instructions meant that the time traveller would carry them out and send them back, which also meant that the desired event would happen or accident prevented.

Of course, one had to be very careful to choose target events that one was very clear about and set defined time limits. After all, using potentially trivial actions to cause some desired effect via an unknown chain of cause and effect was relying on time travel consistency to grant your wish. That would explain the tag on the entries, Butterfly Effect Genie.

Her idea was workable. And Older Anne was using it.

 

The man had just received Anne's report that the newspapers were talking about the nuclear missile hitting Florida. It looked like Anne had decided to check for success first, using her plan to direct the missile to guarantee a hit, before actually doing the required preparation in the missile base so she had to go back in time.

Well, that was no matter. She would come back, his mental claws were so deep into her now that even he would have trouble taking them back out. This convenient time traveler was his now-

An out-of-place antenna inside the metal walls of the missile base suddenly came to life as the signal it had been waiting for for nearly forty years finally arrived. The ten tons of TNT that had been built into the walls secretly since the base's construction blew up nearly simultaneously.

 

Older Anne watched the plume of smoke that showed the base being demolished. Well, the retraction in the newspapers explaining why they needed to publish false articles was due in two days time. She had better get to doing that.

She watched her younger self talking to Cheryl behind her, getting up to date on all the recent events. Her phone beeped.

Older Anne blinked at the instructions for a moment. That was... interesting.

Anne and Cheryl began to wonder if Older Anne was going crazy as, at the edge of the ruins of the Russian missile silo, Older Anne suddenly started singing La Marseillaise at the top of her voice.

The second last instruction finally done, Older Anne winked at the two young teenagers and waved for them to get to the same truck that delivered them here waiting for them in the past.

 

Kaho looked up from the remains of her breakfast as Anne walked in the front door, putting away her phone guiltily. She couldn't help feeling a little sad at the lack of incoming messages though.

"Are you done?"

Anne nodded and sat down wearily, taking off her heavy boots made for trudging through snow. Returning across seasons carried its own inconveniences. "All done," Anne said, "We'll never figure out why the base needed to be blown up then but then again, you don't question what the genie tells you to do. "

Anne paused for a moment and continued, "You are post Butterfly Effect, yes?"

Kaho nodded.

Amazingly, Anne blushed a little, "Right, well, you don't have to hide your wish. "

Kaho nearly jumped a foot. She hadn't even entered her wish on the Butterfly Effect Genie into the database and besides, it seemed to have failed. She had gotten no instructions.

Anne smiled, "Look, it's quite simple," she raised a finger, "what does it mean when you get no instructions from the future?"

"Not possible," Kaho answered.

"That's the normal meaning yes," Anne twirled the finger, "but there is a trivial solution to that. It could also mean that your desire will come true and you will realize that no action is required. "

Now Kaho flushed completely red. The awkward silence that slowly built up broke as Anne's phone beeped and Anne picked up her last and final instruction.

"Hmm," she grinned at Kaho, "how a holiday to Hawaii? Just the two of us?"

Kaho blinked in surprise then nodded jerkily.

"When are you going to send that instruction back?" Kaho asked. Once the instructions were sent into the past, the requirements for consistency were fulfilled and the Butterfly Effect Genie stopped working. Like Cinderella's dress, the magic would go away.

Anne stuck out a tongue mischievously, "Maybe after I learn all your embarrassing secrets. "

8: Epilogue

"That's crazy," younger Anne muttered, still working her way through the explanation, "I mean, this Butterfly Effect Genie can't be right..."

"Oh it definitely is," older Anne replied, expertly frying strips of chicken at the stove for her own lunch, "Crazy, and right. I used it to stop you after you went crazy. Was the only way it would avoid a nuclear war. Or at least so we think. "

"And that included singing the French national anthem at a Russian military base you just blew up?"

Older Anne nodded.

"But it lets you solve things you don't even know how to solve! And that you don't even know if whatever you're doing even helps!"

Older Anne nodded again.

Younger Anne sighed and bit into the chicken sandwich on her plate. It was still a bit too much for her to take in.

Hmm, but the genie would work on nearly anything. Didn't Kaho supposedly wish for a personal issue? Older Anne had refused to explain, saying that it was private.

"Won't it be able to do almost anything? You could solve... everything. World hunger, stop wars! Make people accept those with superpowers! Immortality!" Anne got more excited as the ideas began to pour in. It really could do anything!

Older Anne turned off the stove and sat down across the table, "there's a little story told in the future, about someone who misused the Butterfly Effect Genie. "

Younger Anne raised an eyebrow, "What did he use it for?"

She was expecting something like 'becoming dictator of the world' or some other suitably horrible thing, which was why when older Anne sighed and said, "he wished for friends," younger Anne could only stare at her.

"But... but, what..." she paused to get her thoughts in order. She eventually said, "that doesn't seem so bad. "

"Really?" Older Anne replied, laughter in her eyes, "It certainly was alot worse than anyone expected, and as far as I could tell, the story was perfectly plausible. "

"What happened?"

"Tell me, what satisfies the condition for consistency when using the Butterfly Effect Genie?" Older Anne asked.

"You get your wish?"

"No, more fundamental than that. "

"You send back the instructions," Anne finally said.

"Yes, as long as you send back the instructions, that's all that's needed. The genie doesn't care if your wish was granted, it only ensures you send back the instructions. So, what does that tell you about the genie?"

Anne thought for a long while, "It can fool you into sending the instructions back. "

"And how do you stop it from doing that?" Older Anne grinned at her younger self, it was an excellent lesson in thinking causally.

"You have to know how you know that your wish is granted. You have to know what exactly is it that you want, with a time limit and with ways to be sure that you have achieved it," Anne said slowly as she worked it out in her head.

"Exactly, so can you now tell me why wishing for friends was a bad thing?"

"He didn't have a time limit," Anne picked up her pace, it was easy to see where all the failure points were, "it's impossible to know if people are really your friends. And lastly, he probably doesn't even know what he meant when he wished for friends. "

Older Anne nodded, "He also chain-wished. After he sent back the first set of instructions, he wished again for the same thing. To keep his 'friends'. "

Anne asked, morbidly curious, "So what exactly happened to him anyway?"

"That's a story for another time. I'll get you the book later. "

There was a pause, "It was just a story right?"

Older Anne smiled, "Yes. As far as I know anyway. "