Two Seconds

"We have plenty of time."

"Time isn't the problem."

"It never is."

The world hung silent around them, Agents Aleph-6 and -14. Between them, an upturned manhole cover held a tangle of multicoloured cables around a digital display on a steel case. Aleph-14 blocked the light from the street lights, but the beams of a black London cab struck the device from just a few car lengths away, casting a web of shadows through the cables and over the road beyond.

A confused crowd watched silently around them. Although the agents shared thoughts as easily as speech, the crowd had no idea who the agents were, and the agents wouldn't want to hear the crowd's thoughts even if they could. Some onlookers had frozen faces, half masked in a mix of terror and realisation at the situation in front of them. Others had begun to turn, run or shove their way through the crowd. One woman, mid-run, her coat held up behind her as if on fishing wire, seemed to balance on the heel of a stiletto, a crown of water splashing out around it. The agents did not see her.

Hovering above the device were two dozen raindrops, like tiny bubbles made of glass. The Agents wore black helmets with pristine shaded visors, but the drops of water in the air distorted their views, making it hard to follow individual cables.

"Two seconds," Aleph-14 thought. "We have two seconds. Do you ever get used to this?"

"I haven't, but two seconds is a long time when you can freeze time."

"Any idea's yet?" Aleph-14 thought slowly.

"Don't rush it. As I said, we have plenty of time." Aleph-14 twitched and the raindrops fell a hair's width towards the floor. "Stay calm, 14. Every time you move, time passes to keep up."

"We have plenty, though. Right?"

"Only if we don't waste it."

"It's hard to stay calm without breathing."

"You don't need to breathe. Focus on the puzzle. Do you recognise the device?"

"It matches the style of the other recent dirty bombs," thought 14. The rain dropped another hair's width.

"Device, 14," 6 interrupted, "the other recent devices. They're just puzzles for us to solve, 14. What they're meant for is irrelevant."

"Only if we solve them."

"With enough time, anyone can solve any puzzle. That's why we exist." 6's thoughts felt to 14 like they were spoken through a smile. It helped. "Good," 6 continued, "it matches the recent devices. How were they solved?"

"The black cable," 14 thought, "the middle one on my side of the display. It entwines with the other two in a rough braid then they split into different plugs on the underside. We can't cut it, because the plug connects a backup circuit on the inside which will trigger the device if any cable is cut."

"So we need to pull the plug out," thought 6.

"Exactly, only the internal circuitry can be rearranged to place the plug in one of sixteen different slots on the underside, so I'll need to follow the cable from the top to the bottom to know which plug to pull."

"In two seconds?" 6 thought, the slightest hint of anxiety touching her thought.

"In two seconds."

"Great, so we know what we're doing. I lift, smoothly, and you follow the cable while bringing up your hand to pull out the plug." There was a brief pause in thought, then, "Three, Two-"

"Wait," 14 thought urgently. He felt a drop of rain make contact with the back of his neck, just below his helmet. It felt like a bolt of lightning made of ice cracking down his spine. "The cab. Even if I pull the right plug-"

"Even if you pull the right plug? You better pull the right plug or half of London and, more importantly, I will go up in the blast."

"It's just a puzzle," 14 retorted.

"I have to keep the new kid calm right?"

"Fine job," sarcasm carries well in thoughts. "Even after I pull the right plug, the cab will take us out a second later - and if it hits the ...device... then it might be game over anyway."

The agents sat in total silence, void even of thought, for a few seconds.

"OK, here's the plan," thought 6. "I lift and you follow the cable, getting your hand ready, but the instant your fingers touch that plug, we freeze to gather our thoughts."

"One moment, one motion, no mistakes," thought 14 as if repeating a dogma.

"Exactly. Every subsequent motion has a chance of fatal error, so we allow one motion between each freeze. Well remembered."

"But then what?"

"Then," thought 6, "you pull the plug. I'll jump up and kick you out the way of the cab."

"Kick me?" 14 thought loudly, the drop of water flattening on the back of his neck.

"Better my boots than the cab. Any better ideas?"

"No," 14 thought quietly, "but we have time..."

"Don't think I haven't noticed your last couple of slips, 14. The longer we try to hold this freeze, the more you'll panic and the less likely it is we'll pull this off." 14 didn't reply. "It's OK, 14. This is your first time in the field."

"My first time," 6 continued, "was a hostage situation. It was me and Aleph-2 against three adversaries. They had a hostage each."

"Standard freeze situation," 14 thought, "you discuss which adversary will pull the trigger last, then take one of the remaining two each. With the presence of thought, you can take out the two and get a second shot on the third before they react."

"Exactly. The only problem was that the slow third was holding a child. I couldn't risk the child, so I took them first. We lost one of the hostages because of me."

"So you decided a higher risk to an adult was worth a lower risk to a child. That sounds like a good judgement call to me."

"No," thought 6, "I lied to 2. I thought one thing out loud and chose to do another in silence. 2 never forgave me. We don't make judgement calls. We don't choose who lives and dies. The advantage of freezing time, of having that time to think, is that we can find a third option, a choice where no one dies. And the advantage of shared time-freeze, where we can share thoughts like we're doing now, is that we can achieve feats of teamwork that are impossible to our adversaries. When we lie to each other, when we don't agree, we lose that edge, and people die.

"I see."

"Anyway, my point was that this is your first time, and you've wasted a fraction of a second. You're doing better than I did."

"If you say so," 14 thought, "ready?"

"Ready. Three. Two. One."

6 lifted the mass of cables in one smooth arc. Immediately the city was flooded with the usual city horns and chatter, twisted into the screams of onlookers and the blaring horn of the cab. 14 held on to the silence in his mind, focussing on the black cable, watching it twist and wrap around the multicoloured tangle as the device lifted in the most important game of three-card-Monte he would ever play, lifting his hand to the bottom of the device as fast as he could. The digital display ticked down to one second, rain fell against the agents and just as 14 reached the plug, a flash of light caught a raindrop and time froze again.

"Got it?" 6 asked.

"Yes."

"Ready for a boot to the face?" 14 didn't answer. "14?"

"You can't get out the way."

"It's ok, 14, when I kick you onto the pavement, that will push me out of the cab's path."

"Not the cab," 14 thought. "Reflected in a raindrop, I can see a van on the other side of the road. If you avoid the cab, you'll hit the van."

The total silence fell over them again.

"Any ideas?" asked 6,

"Not yet, but we-"

"Have plenty of time, but time isn't the problem."

14 felt a drop of water hit their hand. This time they knew they hadn't slipped - 6 was scared.

"There's no way, 14."

"There must be," thought 14, "calm down. We can stay here as long as you like."

"You know why there's so few of us, 14, why we only have a number. We take the most deadly missions and we always make the best choice, even if it kills us. A name, a face, makes the right choice too hard."

"But," 14 tried to think, "this is my first mission, don't make it go like this."

"It was always going to go like this. Nothing we could have done." The total silence. "14?"

"6?"

"The number won't help me do this. I'm going to die for you and this city. Give me a reason. Who are you?"

14 paused, then thought, "Sam. My wife, Gen, thinks I work in the office behind you. When I get home, thanks to you, I'll tell her my day was full of boring meetings, but the chicken salad wrap she packed for me made my day and the thought of coming home to her made it all worthwhile. She'll tell me through tears about some threat she saw on the news and I'll say I was so safe I didn't even know about it. Then I'll go upstairs and read our one-year-old son a bedtime story about an agent who could control time, who saves children and cities from the bad guys without any fame or praise. Not even a thank you."

"That," thought 6, "is a beautiful reason. Total bullshit, but I can live- die with that." 14 felt a smile. It helped.

Total silence fell for nearly a minute.

"OK, ready?" asked 6 through a smile.

"Thank you, 6. Thank you. I'm ready."

"Three. Two. One."

The display fell to darkness as 14, Sam, pulled the plug from its socket. 6's legs unfurled like iron springs, lifting her into the air, they snapped up and sprang back out into Sam's helmet, sending him hurtling onto the pavement. In the commotion, Sam didn't see 6 flying into the path of the van, he didn't see 6 wrap her body around the device to protect it and, under the thundercrack of helmet against pavement, Sam didn't hear the soft, wet crack and shatter of 6's spine against the van's windscreen.

Before Sam could gather his wits, people had circled 6 and the device. Sam knew it was safe now and people were giving 6 her space. Soon emergency services would arrive and sort things out, but Sam could not be there when they did. He turned to see a crowd around himself, but pushed through it to his motorbike. As soon as he felt no one watching him, he clicked a button on his display and a new number plate fell into place.

Back at base, Sam locked the door to his private office before pulling his helmet off and letting it fall to the floor. Then he fell into a chair and pulled a chicken salad wrap out of the fridge by his desk. Attached he found a note - 'The promise of another happy evening to get you through another boring day. Love, Gen.'