[ WP ] You 're a timecop , having chased a serial killer throughout history . He started with Hitler and other mass murderers , but now , after a decade of chasing , you 've finally caught up to him when he 's about to kill the child who will grow up to cure cancer .

`` Do n't you understand? If his death does n't come, millions of others will. But they wo n't be this neat.'' 
 
 
 I always did feel a bit morally conflicted about chasing this Time Perp, after all it seemed that his intentions were noble, and well thought out. He avoided all paradoxes, wormholes, multiverse chasms, and other messy bits of time travel in order to create an objectively better future. 
 
 
 Even though the man sitting next to me had feathery, disheveled hair and several days of salt and pepper stubble, he certainly knew what he was doing. No one knew his real name, but in our universe's timeline we called him Hieronymus. Rather, he called himself that. In his mind, and increasingly in others', he was doing God's work. 
 
 
 Thanks to him, this ever-astonishingly small slice of the multiverse was better off than ours. His target was a small boy on the playground. Purportedly, he would discover the cure for cancer. 
 
 
 Not that it mattered. As a member of the Chrono Task Force I had to stop all unauthorized users of time travel. 
 
 
 He shifted closer to me on the park bench that we now shared. He pointed to a small child hanging from the monkey bars kicking at his little brother. A look of intensity, no, urgency accompanied what was coming out of his mouth. 
 
 
 `` National Honors Society. Harvard Undergrad, class of 2027. He'll major in biomedical engineering, and immediately be granted a post-doc fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute for his outstanding research on cell biology. Here he'll discover how to turn on and off telomeres with just on a pill. A button that prevents 1/3 of all deaths.'' His tongue flicked out of his mouth once or twice like a snake tasting the air. 
 
 
 `` Balance. He'll never understand balance.'' The child was now running on top of the monkey bars victoriously, after kicking off his little brother. `` Sure, a life lost ten years early is a tragedy. But to extend life into immortality? An atrocity.'' 
 
 
 
 I inched away, and began to unwrap my lunch. On my way to to this park, I stopped off at a corner store and got a tuna fish sandwich. Real tuna, none of that plant-based crap we have to eat after mercury levels in the sea reached criticality. 
 
 
 `` Well,'' I began `` That does n't sound incredibly tragic. Even in our time, people are still dying from cancer. Obviously he could n't have done that much work?'' 
 
 I took a bite of my sandwich. It has that tang. 
 
 The grip of my gun burnt my finger tips as I waved pass it. The mid afternoon sun was beating down. 
 
 `` That's great. Really FUCKING great. Have n't you noticed what absolute shit our society is delving into? Overpopulated cities are sprawling into the countryside. Most of our food comes from labs. 99 % of the animals that this child prodigy is going to learn about in school will be dead. The only reason his cure is n't spread yet is because -- `` 
 
 
 I was done eating, and wanted to clock out early today. A new game for the xBox Unity was being released, and I'd be damned if I missed it because of the misguided ramblings of this perp. 
 
 
 So I shot him. 
 
 
 Not before freezing time, so that everyone can resume their days. 
 
 
 
 Tagged and bagged I believe they said back when we still fought wars. Well, now tagged and meticulously decomposed by CTF commissioned nanobots. I gave the harbinger of doom one last look. He was a toe-headed boy. Happy, healthy. I felt like I've done my job today. I waited until the nanobots scrubbed every last bit of gore off, resumed time, tossed the wrapper of my sandwich on the ground ( not that littering will make any difference in 20 years ), and slapped my badge to return home.
