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“Resolution complete. Matching timeline chronology.”
Go time, Monico thought as their eyes swept the darkened room, the green low-light goggles showing nothing on the infrared. Where is the target?
The AI embedded surgically into their head responded, “Target historically spent more time with their laptop on their back porch than in their bedroom.”
Of course they did.
Monico growled under their breath. They were not dressed to open doors conventionally, especially in this timeline with their stupid round doorknobs. They lifted one oversized glove off their dissolution transport and grasped the small metal at the side of the wooden plank, twisting carefully, having learned the right pressure during previous missions. Gently, after ordering the AI to scale back the pressure-response cycle throughout their mech suit, they pushed open the door.
Camouflage mode, stalking tread.
“Quiet as a mouse,” the AI assured them in a sing-song child voice, “fully activated.”
When did the computer in their head became more human than them?
“Merging-collapse of chronologics loops fifteen through nineteen. With related update 107.3.9.That’s when the magic happen.”
Joy. Four weeks subjective time. Monico slipped down the hallway through the twenty-first century open floor plan, monitoring their progress through the blueprints downloaded. The door in the laundry room, which doubled as a mudroom for the porch had the door open, letting in the crisp early Spring air for the backporch. This early in the season, at least in this timeline, bugs weren’t an issue yet.
Infrared signatures.
“Three heat sources. Laptop, cat, and linchpin.” The AI outlined the large shape marked linchpin, one of the dozen humans anchoring this timeline.
Monico raised their dissolution transporter to their shoulder to remove the human keeping the unwanted timeline functioning. Time to prune.
(words 288, first published 3/4/2023, from a FB visual prompt for a writing group I belong to – aiming for 50 words)
GoTime Series
GoTime (1/1/2023)
GoTime 2 (1/8/2023)
T is for Time (GoTime 3) (4/23/2023)
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