Raymond

The rectangle remained present over Raymond's next missions, but not much else changed.

Just as he was starting to lose hope, thinking of switching the area, there they were: two. The second one, larger.

Someone was showing on the wall something he wasn't supposed to see. It was either about Claire or written by her. Impossible. Raymond wanted it so much to be true that he skipped all logic assessments. No automated scenarios. He already knew they'd predict the opposite of what Claire would do.

His seventh auto-accepted mission, nine greyed out blocks. It was growing. He knew he had little time left, but he couldn't figure out what she was trying to tell him. Despite multiple lifetimes dedicated to increasing his intelligence level, Raymond had no clue what it all meant.

By the next mission, the entire wall twitched like a blurred out TV.

At the end of the hallway, finally something new. Someone new: a Superior. Not the person Raymond had first on his wishlist.

More encouragingly, there weren't a lot of reasons for a personal visit, so he kept his hopes up. A Superior wanted to face the janitor who kept petitioning machines about his love for a woman he'd met in 2019.

"I'm not here," {D36CFB2C-3A33-4B14-B148-939E95991019} authenticated himself directly with him, announcing his full authorization over Raymond's drive, then turned transparent to show he's a hologram. A faded blob floated to show a presence, then turned into a pre-modern tall woman with stiff hair. "Although we do feel our decision was best communicated to you while offline... I wouldn't have come personally for this."

The robotic voice continued, "Although I was once forced out of my pod by four janitors thinking the world was ending -- but we'll get to that."

Anger? Was a Superior -- someone who had seen, done, felt everything, multiple times -- angry with Raymond? Only Claire.

"Where is she?" Raymond couldn't stop himself from smiling, making D36CFB2C pause. "Is she here?" he looked around.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," The Superior tried to curve Raymond's enthusiasm, managing only to make his grin wider.

"Raymond Reyes... Quite a dilemma you've left us," The Superior stared him down. He had picked a body that Raymond knew was a popular 2019 news anchor. To better relate with a 2019 human. Raymond became agitated, why wasn't she there?

"Because of your... meddling," the Superior threw him a look that made Raymond stop fidgeting, "We had to intervene, fast. As we were calculating, fast and clean became less and less of an option -- you were excluded and her husband couldn't be brought back. He's realized that all he wanted was for her to love him back. It was his fear that she didn't -- that made him behave the way he did. He doesn't want to go back, not even to make it right."

Good old Tony Wesley, escaping through a rat hole, Raymond was happy to hear.

"So the best option we were left with was to remove him from her life. All our simulations said that Claire Wesley would not be very hurt if her husband disappeared the night you took him out of 2019. A few agents and we'd have a cover story, allowing her to live in the house, improve her life as we went by. Minimal impact on the timeline, it was decided. Luckily, before we could get a mission going, new information arrived, from your drive. About the real Claire Wesley. When we put that into the system... Let's just say it was eye-opening."

Raymond couldn't imagine. He didn't trust AIs about her.

"It appears that Claire Wesley would never get over Tony Wesley simply disappearing out of her life, no matter the eventual cover story. She would grow bitter very fast, and actively hate her life instead of just passively. The conclusion had been that she'd descend into an alcoholic spiral that ends in six of her friends' beds, leading to five historically sound marriages imploding. Only the first time, she does it unintentionally."

At Raymond's grin, D36CFB2C concluded, "It would have taken two decades to fix those loose ends. Over twenty agents, an Architect..." He paused as all Superiors did before a conclusion. "It appears we have underestimated female rage."

Raymond couldn't think of something to say to that, he was happy they'd learned more about her, hopeful they'd understand.

"So that was out too, she had to meet you. So what would happen if you disappeared, Raymond? We ran that scenario."

Finally, some answers. Raymond straightened, hoping it wasn't going somewhere dark. Not sure if for him or for the timeline.

"All timelines where she thinks you're her husband go the same path as with him. But when she learns who you are, you threw another fork in our road."

"I didn't do anything I thought was wrong," Raymond felt the need to state.

"No, you didn't. And because you told her the truth immediately, there was no instance of Claire who knew about Raymond Reyes that didn't also know about time travel. Worse, she fully believed it, making everything even more difficult. Or simpler, as the conclusion was the same, confirmed by her live actions. All simulations showed similar results: no matter at what point we extract you from her life, she takes at most a day to come up with the same plan."

The Superior wasn't as impressed as Raymond, "While we were busy calculating... she had the time to actually enact it. Your highway chase made sure of that. It took her two hours."

"What did she do?" Raymond grinned.

"Why don't you ask her yourself?"

The Superior looked over Raymond, somewhere far at the end of the hallway, where hurried heels hit the floor, their cadence dulled by the heavier than the Wesley house atmosphere.

"We were forced to open an emergency portal to retrieve her," D36CFB2C said as Raymond turned around to see Claire approaching them, in a red dress that flowed around her legs -- it needed more time to settle than in 2019. She had less trouble than him fighting the dense air, but no effort showed, she just catwalked in slow motion.

Raymond's legs weren't strong to begin with, so when they weakened even more he couldn't run to her. He just waited for her to reach him, beaming. Which made her smile in her devious way, like she actively wanted to stop but she just couldn't.

He couldn't believe it was actually her, the need to feel her skin to confirm overwhelmed him, making the Superior silently alert him that all his thoughts and reactions were being monitored and that he wasn't alone, not even in his head.

Claire didn't have that problem because her pre-modern brain was immune to intrusions, so her eyes went over his janitor safety wear like she wanted to peel the stiff polyester off him.

"Raymond!" her eyes shined in the poor lighting when she reached him. Their enthusiasm reflected over the hologram of a bored news anchor.

"I'm a Time Terrorist!"