Six Hours to Save the World

I take a look at my watch noting that it's six now. I have six more hours to save the world. Now I realize obviously this sounds like a pretty big thing to just be doing but I'm at least partially trained for these sorts of scenarios. I work for a shadow organization that specializes in world saving and well this is my first day of field duty. Unfortunately all the other agents are out dealing with other bigger threats than my own so it's just me this time. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous but I think I got this.

My particular problem is seemingly simple. I have to make sure that a young man who is supposed to die today doesn't. If he lives humanity still has at least another fifty guaranteed years left. If I fail in my mission however we will all be wiped out within six months. I've got three tools to help me as well which I'm sure will all come in handy. A stopwatch that stops time in a three hundred foot area for one minute but needs an hour to recharge. A miniature laser that can cut through every known substance to man as well as a few that most people don't know about. Finally a regular gun because you never know when you'll need to potentially kill someone.

I had been watching the kid all day no problem and then about an hour ago I lost him. He slipped into a crowd and was gone. Pretty sure he must have spotted me at some point. I wonder if the Hawaiian shirt in the middle of winter in Ohio was the giveaway. I had been getting weird looks all day for it so I wouldn't be surprised. Now I needed to find this kid and keep him safe. I phoned into the office and asked if I could get a satellite view over the town. They told me it would be at least an hour before I could get one. I hung up and cursed myself for my foolishness.

I decided I'd stop off in a little restaurant to kill the time and take a look over his file one more time to see if maybe there was something there that might give me a clue. Turns out the place was a sandwich diner which admittedly is my favorite type of restaurant. I get myself a reuben, some onion rings, and an Arnold Palmer charging it to the company card. After the pleasant waitress brought me my food I put on a pair of sunglasses. These glasses were special in that they could project a holographic image only I could see in front of me.

I ate and scanned through the kid's file looking at all of his favorite hang out spots. One folder off on the side caught my eye. "Runaway Attempts" was the title of it. I flicked it open trying to not draw too much attention to myself. Apparently the kid had tried to run away from home twice. Both times he was found at or near the same place. An old abandoned warehouse on the other side of town. I took a look at my watch, 6:45 it showed me. I scarfed down the rest of my food, cursing to myself again. I had gotten caught up in looking at the file and enjoying this amazing sandwich. I would have to come back here at some point on my day off.

I took off at a brisk jog towards the warehouse while calling into the office again about the satellite. They told me they would have one available for me by 7:10 but no sooner than that. I thanked them for their help and continued jogging. I made it to the warehouse district of the town by 7:05 realizing that I needed to do more cardio. I was winded from only a twenty minute jog. First day of real field work and here I am not even able to run a half marathon without feeling like I needed a break. Hopefully it wouldn't be a problem later or I knew that I'd be sent back to the academy for sure.

I found the particular warehouse the kid had been spotted at before as I got a text that the satellite was overhead and taking pictures now. They would be uploaded to my phone as soon as it was done with its sweep. I checked around the outside first finding nothing. As I was getting done the first sets of pictures were hitting my phone. The satellite showed three heat signatures in the area. Mine and two others that were inside the warehouse. One was normal human temperature and the other was about five hundred degrees too hot to be human. I sighed to myself and found a door to try and let myself in only to find it locked. Thankfully I have a laser for such problems and one cut out door handle later I was in.

I put back on my sunglasses, switching them over into night vision mode since the warehouse was mostly dark. I was fairly certain the non-human signature was a Heaton. Heaton's were known to come to Earth occasionally though normally not with murder on the mind. They tended to go visit volcanoes so they could take a dip. Apparently one of the few things that makes Earth worth visiting. Still if one were to attack a person there isn't much one can do to defend themselves against a being that is part flame. I quickly managed to find stairs going down lower into the warehouse and the ambient light was getting brighter.

I cut off the night vision mode so that I wouldn't get blinded if I saw the Heaton full on. Within seconds of fully descending into the basement area of the warehouse I could hear running and the sound of metal melting. I had absolutely nothing on my person that would help me in this fight so instead I was going to grab the kid and run. I followed the footsteps and growing light taking mental markings of each twist and turn I made. It didn't take me very long to find the kid running for his life with a seven foot tall flame in hot pursuit. (By the way I make the occasional pun. Deal with it.) I bit the bullet and hit my stop time device.

I had one minute and I was going to use it. I scooped up the kid and threw him over my shoulder. I tore back off at a dead run hitting the stairs as I heard the thirty second beep. By the twenty second beep we were out the door. When it began the countdown at five seconds I put the kid back down so that he would just keep running when his time resumed. The device turned off and the kid ran about another fifteen feet before stopping, "Wait wasn't I just inside? How did I get out here?" He now turned around seeing me, "You! You're the creep who has been following me all day. Why am I out here now and why have you been following me?"

I groaned softly to myself realizing I was about to have to tell this child everything. If I made it out of this I was headed back to the academy for sure. Telling people anything about the ever constant threats to Earth was a huge infraction of our rules but I didn't see any other way, "Quick version and then we should start running again before that thing catches up to us. I work for a group of people tasked with keeping the world safe. Today that means keeping you safe. You're supposed to die today and I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen. Now let's run! If you really want I'll explain more later. Follow me, I know of a safer place than this warehouse." With that I started running. The kid watched me run past, shrugged, and started running with me.

It took us about twenty five minutes to reach my car. The kid was hesitant to get in at first but I promised him we weren't even going anywhere just that it was safer. For some unknown reason he believed me. I had left my car somewhere secluded so that if I needed to turn on the defense mode it wouldn't be too conspicuous. Once inside I started flipping through switches. He watched in amazement as metal sheets went down over all of the windows but then looked at me, "You do know that thing can melt metal right?"

I nodded, "Oh I'm very aware of what it can do, however the metal this car is made of can withstand it at least for a little bit. Plus I've got some defense systems built in to help slow it down."

The kid looked at me side eyed, "You have defense systems in this car that are going to slow down a walking fire? I have to ask. What are they, fire extinguishers?"

I grinned big, "Right on the money! Fire extinguishers that are cooled down to about three Kelvin. Which if you don't know is fairly close to absolute zero. Now the bad news is that won't actually stop this thing. Only as long as they are going will it be stopped. After they run out it will only take the creature about ten minutes to get back up to full strength. So for now we sit and wait it out. Hopefully midnight comes and goes without any issue."

He looked over at me, "Why midnight? What happens then?"

I shrugged, "No clue. All I know is that as long as you live out the day then we get to sleep easy for another fifty years. You die today however and humans have only got six more months till we're gone." I knew I shouldn't be telling him any of this and that I was going to be punished for it but the cat was already out of the bag so no use in hiding at this point. I checked my watch and noted it was only eight now. Four more hours to go and we would be doing well.

The next two hours passed without incident. I had cameras all over the car watching from every angle. I had managed to find a deck of cards in the back seat of my car that I had stashed away for a day like this. I had confirmed that indeed the Hawaiian shirt was what tipped the kid off about me. I kept checking the cameras regularly for any indication that a threat was nearby. The heat sensor on one of the cameras started to spike upwards and soon all the others followed. The Heaton was coming down the street towards the car. I was hoping it might ignore us and pass on by but of course my luck today had been anything but good.

The Heaton stopped about ten feet away from the car and spoke. (Yes they can talk though if we hadn't been in the car we couldn't have understood it. The cameras have built-in translators.) "Member of SOS listen closely. That small being with you will spell the end of my race. I will give you ten minutes to confer with your supervisors and confirm this. After ten minutes though I will be destroying your vehicle killing both you and the child within."

I looked at the kid and then back at the camera as I grabbed my phone already hitting the speed dial, "You've got to be kidding me. First case and I get a moral dilemma." Someone finally picked up at the office after the fifth ring, "Hey! I need any supervisor with Alpha-3 clearance and I need them quickly. I've only got about eight minutes." I sat there tapping my foot humming to myself. I could feel the kid looking at me, his face full of questions that I couldn't answer.

The line clicked over after two minutes, "Supervisor Huntley speaking. Make it quick."

I internally started cursing because Huntley hated me with all his being. The man had been trying to fail me out of the organization since my first day. I coughed, "Excuse me sir this is agent 1358 requesting high level information involving my current case. I have been informed by a Heaton that the child I am supposed to be keeping safe today will be responsible for killing off the Heaton race. Is that true?" I could hear fingers tapping on a keyboard for a moment and then a number of dings. He was more than likely quick tracking the process to decide whether or not I could be told this information or not. I coughed again, "Sir I only have three minutes left till the Heaton attacks my vehicle."

I could almost feel the smugness from the other side of the phone radiating off of Huntley, "Well son good news and bad news time. Good news at least for me is that the Heaton will probably kill you. The bad news for you is that he is completely correct about the child. The boy is going to be directly responsible for a genocide purge of the Heaton race. However if he dies today so do all of us so you know what you have to do. Keep the child safe at all costs even if it means your life."

I curtly popped off a response, "Thank you sir. Understood. I will handle the situation." With that I hung up the phone, "That smug arrogant bastard! Alright kid climb in the back seat and buckle up. We're just going to have to handle this situation. Only two more hours to go."

The kid hopped into the back of the car and buckled himself in, "Why do you keep calling me kid? Do you not know my name? Also I'm really sorry for all of this. Personally I don't feel like dying but I also don't want to be responsible for killing off a whole race of people."

I looked at the cameras and flipped the switch for the speakers, "So it turns out you were right. Though if I had to guess you got your information from a seer just like we did. If you hadn't listened to the stupid seer you would never have come here hunting the child and thus given him a reason to hate you. Your own idiotic actions will be what brings your race to ruins." With that I threw the car in reverse watching through the cameras as I flew down the mostly empty street. I then spun the wheel to get the car to turn 180 degrees and then punched the accelerator taking off. I looked in the rearview camera to see the Heaton was rapidly picking up stream coming towards us. I glanced in the back seat at the kid, "I do know your name though technically I'm not supposed to. Helps keep us detached on missions. When you know someone's name you automatically feel more compelled to help them. For the time being Jake just stay quiet and let me try to figure out how I'm going to keep you alive after midnight."

Jake sighed, "I don't hate the Heaton. That's what you called it right? It truly believes I'm going to kill all of them and it's trying to stop me. Makes perfect sense to me. You said though that if I die today specifically that humanity would die with me. Why?"

I shrugged as I watched the Heaton getting closer by the second, "Because a seer said so. Basically someone who is known for predicting the future made a prediction and now I've got to follow it. I don't agree with our system but it does work for the most part. However it is my belief that half of these predictions only come true because someone said something." The Heaton was almost on top of the car now so I turned on one of the extinguishers and let it spray him down. He immediately dropped back about fifty feet as his speed slowed down considerably.

I primed up my time stop device giving it a ten second countdown before it goes off. I flick another switch that opens up a small hole in the car and I toss it out into the street. I floor the gas pedal and pray that will be enough. I realize we're now heading out of town which I was specifically forbidden to do in the mission briefing but we'll just have to do it for now. I’ll deal with the fall out from all of these actions after I save this kid. I can hear Jake in the back softly but audibly praying. As I reach the city limits everything stops and begins to dematerialize around me. Soon I'm sitting in an empty hologram room. I stare around in shock and then the door opens. Supervisor Huntley walks into the room grinning, "Failed again."

I hope you enjoyed this off the cuff story idea that honestly didn't really come together till about half way through but by the end I rather enjoyed it. If you did then please heart, subscribe, and feel free to leave a tip. Also if you would like you can now pledge 3 dollars a month to me and help support me as a creator. Plus as an added bonus for you my stories will always appear at the top of you subscription feed anytime I post something new. Till next time.