[ WP ] In 2160 , time travel is widespread . You work in the Bureau of Timeline Maintenance in the Disasters Department , traveling back in time to thwart the efforts of travelers who threaten to alter the future as you know it . You work to ensure that the worst travesties in history actually occur .

I hit him with the nerve disrupter before he could squeeze the trigger on the sniper rifle. Without even a twitch, he collapsed onto the floor limply, his rifle clattering to the ground. I quickly loaded him and his gear into separate traveling pods and sent them on their way; him to the containment cells and his gear to the impound. The pods disappeared in a flash that collapsed in on itself, blinking out of existence. I disappeared in a similar flash, closing my eyes to avoid the nausea usually associated with jumping back into my home time. 
 
 Back in the year 2160, I checked with my coordinator, Bekie, to ensure that the perp was my cell and his gear was being processed. She nodded quickly, never deviating from her quiet efficiency. Making my way down to containment, I passed several other Linemen, most on their way back to prevent or ensure a particular tragedy. I've always wondered why it was tragedies. Why could n't we try to ensure that something good happened? I guess the current management of the Bureau of Timeline Maintenance believed that world was shaped by the bad and the good things were just the cracks that gave the road of time character. And of course, in the march of time, who really needs character? 
 
 I opened the door to my perp's cell and pulled his intelligence file from the box next to the door. I looked at the name on the front. 
 
 `` So, Harald Murtimur, you ready for me to process you or do you need to go into your shpiel of how you were justified in pulling the trigger on Mussolini?'' I looked down on the man handcuffed to the bolted-down table. 
 
 He looked back at me and shook his head. `` No, you can process me, but I'd rather hear your story as to why you think you have the right to keep me from pulling the trigger on that facist.'' 
 
 I blinked skeptically. `` You want to hear why I do what I do? What, elementary school never taught you how important the BTM is?'' 
 
 `` No.'' He gritted. `` I want to know how you know you're right and I'm wrong. Do you just blindly take orders from your superiors, believing that they are incorruptible? There are so many of them in bed with big corporations that made their money because of the way the world grew. One missing person and those businesses come crashing down. That's why the BTM gets so much funding!'' His voice was raised and his face started turning red with fervor. `` The tycoons have your bosses under their thumbs, ensuring that history is set in the way that will best line their pockets. Well, I'm concerned with humans. Their lives, their rights, their happiness! If we had not suffered so much in the past, we could have a different level of prosperity now! Stopping wars before they happen, evacuating cities before an earthquake, and helping this world to grow is what we do! And all you do is take orders like a dog from a master who is paid to watch the world burn!'' He bowed his head to wipe spittle off his lips with the sleeve of his cuffed wrist. He quickly looked up at me, clearly expecting a reply. 
 
 I had been looking at his file while he ranted, picking up the exact details I would need to make him understand. Usually, I would n't exert the effort, but Harald was actually rather influential in the criminal organization to which he belonged. If I convinced him to ask his comrades to stand down in return for a plea deal, I might get that promotion ahead of schedule. But I had to make him understand. 
 
 I pulled up a chair to the table and sat down in it with a sigh, smiling disarmingly to put Harald off. I knew he expected me to get indignant and fire back at him, but it was time to take him out of his comfort zone. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out some self-lighting cigarettes. Slipping one into my mouth, I pulled the cover off of the tip, allowing in the oxygen that would trigger the exothermic reaction that lit the end. Smoke coiled off the end of the cigarette as put the cover into my pocket to throw away later. I took a drag and exhaled, again sighing. `` You want one?'' I held the box over to Harald. I took his still, stoic silence as a no and put the package back into my pocket. 
 
 `` The Bureau of Timeline Maintenance has secrets. Everyone knows that.'' I started. `` Conspiracy theorists are convinced that it has to do with money and corporate greed. However, they are wrong. In my opinion, the secrets are much darker than that.'' I looked down at the table and started tapping it with my fingers as my mind prepared itself to admit the truths that I so disliked. 
 
 `` I am seven hundred years old. I've lived longer than I ever should have, more than any person ever should. And in those years, I've learned more about the decade between 1935 and 1945 then I care to admit. That's my decade, you know. I'm responsible for those ten years leading up to and containing World War 2. It is my job to ensure that things go as they should everywhere in the world in those ten years. Of course, I have to be multiple places at once, so I've lived that decade more times than I can count. But that is just the decade that you know.'' I paused, thinking of how to best explain what I had to tell him next. 
 
 `` There are other versions of that decade, decades that you do n't know.'' I took another drag. `` There is a version where I let you kill Mussolini. There is a version where I do n't stop Jaksen from killing Hitler, as he's planning to do next week.'' 
 
 Harald's eyebrows jumped as I revealed that I knew about his organizations next hit. We knew all of their hits. We'd already seen them. 
 
 `` Those versions, as you can imagine, produce a very different series of events within my decade and the decades following. The other Linemen and I have seen it happen already. That's the first part of the job. After we are approved to run a section of the Time Line as a Lineman, we must live through it and many following decades without interfering at all. We do this multiple times with multiple iterations until we find the best one and enforce it. However, in that first iteration, the one with no changes, I see every assassination plot that I need to stop. I also see the consequences of not stopping those plots. You were n't the first person planning on shooting Mussolini from that tower. In fact, that old lady who stopped you for directions was a part of my team, ensuring that you did n't wind up at the tower before another version of me had removed the assassin who was already there. That's neither here nor there, however, because the point is that if there is an assassination made by *anyone*, different events unfold. Events that I've already familiarized myself with and events that you ca n't even imagine.'' I finished my cigarette and lit off another one. 
 
 `` The world fifty years after World War 2 started is a scary place if the war did n't happen. I'll paint a picture for you. With the start of the war cut short by an Axis leader's death, the world saw how close it was to a world war and decided to fix things. They started something like the United Nations but with less infighting and animosity. It was hugely successful. Problems got solved, people no longer starved, debts were forgiven, and the world entered a time of unparalleled prosperity. The peak of this prosperity was 1964. In 1971, half of the world's population was murdered.'' I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. I hated this memory. 
 
 `` I'll never forget the day the conclusion was reached. The world governments agreed that the earth was being sucked dry and it could not sustain the populations of all these thriving countries. With all the people who did n't die in World War 2 and all the people who were no longer dying to disease and starvation, the burden of the population was more than the planet could bear. So, the world leaders decided to look at the world as a body and amputate a portion of it to save the rest. As you might have guessed, the solution was for the poor to go. The entire lower half of the economic food chain was rounded up and slaughtered. In a gut wrenching twist of irony, they used gas chambers.'' My hand shook as I raised my cigarette to my mouth again. My breath similarly trembled as I exhaled. 
 
 `` The bodes were placed in the deserts of the world. The Great Basin Desert, the Sahara, and every other patch of sun-bleached sand you can think of was walled up and used as a dumping ground. The heat made the bodies decompose quickly and even bleached the bones. After a few years, the bones were dumped into the sea to turn to sand. It was brutal, it was efficient, and it solved the problem. The remaining billions of people lived on with everything they needed. However, there was a change to their mindsets. Human life was now globally regarded as disposable. They had chosen to kill for comfort and they could never go back. There would never be another war. However, there would never stop being'Adjustments'. That's what they called the process; an Adjustment. They had humanized the process of de-humanizing the earth. The reason people tried to be successful was now to keep their families alive and above the middle line. With the prosperity, the human race grew more quickly, so there was an Adjustment every century. Experts chose when and people had to hope they were in the top 50 % when it happened.'' 
 
 I shook my head. `` Within three centuries, most of the world's beaches had become'white sand' beaches. Everyone knew it was because of the bones, everyone knew not to say anything.'' 
 
 CONTINUED BELOW
