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If some person were to say to you that by throwing a rock into a pond in Ohio, that in some two hundred years, it would be the initial cause of an interplanetary war, you would probably consider that person a bit addle minded at the least. Or, that by cutting down a tree in Sherwood Forrest during the times of Robin Hood, it would cause gang violence in twenty-first century Los Angeles you may very well consider this person crazy. However, everything that happens in this world has a consequence, no matter how small.

None of that made any difference to Marlowe. He only knew he had a mission, no matter how absurd or inconsequential it may seem to him. He did not have to understand how his target would be the cause of something so disastrous; he had only to eliminate his objective.

In a bright flash of light, Marlowe appeared on a great expanse of desert, dotted with cactus and tumbleweeds. From the clearness of the sky and the brightness of the sun, he calculated that he was deep in the past, but had no way to decipher just when. Marlowe extracted a small device from inside his jacket and starting walking, following the electronic trail.

“Why would someone be out here?” wondered Marlowe. “What could they do to start such a catastrophe out here?”

Puzzled he continued his trek through the sand and cacti. Finally, he came to a stop, his indicator showing he was in the right place and that it was the right time. Marlowe pulled his weapon from its holster and waited.

Another figure stepped into view from behind some dried brush, waited briefly then moved forward. Marlowe stared in total amazement at the small, black and grey coyote that stood before him. This could not possibly be his target, could it?

As he watched, the coyote crouched then sprang to life as a jack rabbit scurried from the underbrush. The rabbit raced across the desert only a few feet ahead of the coyote and dove into its burrow. The coyote began digging ferociously, uncovering the rabbit hole. Sand and dirt flew beneath the animals paws in a cloud of dust.

Feeling foolish, Marlowe stepped closer, raising his weapon, watching as the hungry animal all but disappeared into the hole. He could hear the animals muffled yelps as the dirt continued to fly. Unable to get a clear shot, Marlowe moved even closer, confident the animal could not hear him. He was no more than a few feet away, but could only see the animal's hindquarters and dust. He would have to wait for the coyote to pull back before he would have a clear angle.

With a quick yelp of victory, the coyote must have seized the rabbit, for he started backing quickly, snarling all the way. As the coyote emerged with the rabbit clenched firmly in its jaws, Marlowe leaned forward and shot the animal directly in the head, killing both the coyote and the squirming rabbit.

Stepping back, he viewed his handiwork. The bodies of the animals lay in a gulley scratched out by the digging coyote. Marlowe wondered again why he had just killed two animals in the desert to avert global destruction.

Pressing a button on his tracking device, Marlowe winked out with a bright flash of light, to appear once more in the glass cylinder in the laboratory from whence he came. Only this was not the same laboratory.

It was, but it was not. He recognized the room, but now the lights were extinguished and the condition shabby. It appeared no one had been here for some time. All the electronics appeared dismantled and strewn about as if people had been rummaging through the debris.

Marlowe stepped from the cylinder, which he now saw was broken, and stepped across the rubble. He opened the door, which should have led to a corridor and saw that he was now outside, the building torn apart at its foundation. He stepped from the wreckage into a world of utter chaos and destruction as far as he could see. The laboratory had been in central Washington D.C. and now there was only devastation.

Staggering under the weight of everything around him, Marlowe walked. For how long or for how far, he did not know. When he finally dropped from sheer exhaustion, he was still amid destruction. He had seen no survivors, nothing. He lay where he had fallen, unable and unwilling to go any further. Mercifully, he soon lost consciousness.

When he awoke, Marlowe saw bright lights. He tried to sit up, but the restraints held him to a bed. A face appeared above him and he screamed.

“It's okay,” said a voice. “You are okay, do you hear me?”

Marlowe ceased his screams. “I hear you.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Washington?” he answered, meekly.

“Close enough.”

“Who are you?”

“We found you in the rubble. We're survivors, like you.”

“Like me? What did I survive? What happened here?”

The man leaning over Marlowe's bed looked amazed. “You have no idea what happened?”

“No.”

“There was a meltdown at a nuclear plant that served the entire west coast. It caused a chain reaction all over the globe. Word was that before things got too bad the government sent somebody back to stop it, but I guess they failed.”

“What?” Marlowe gasped in realization. “What are you saying?”

“Well, rumor has it they traced it back. The fault that caused the earthquake that started the meltdown was because of a stream forced underground by the city's construction. Supposedly, that stream began because of a super storm millennia ago and was merely a trickle to begin with. I guess whoever they sent back missed.”

Marlowe began screaming.

THE END