[ WP ] You are dropped penniless into a village in the middle of England in the year 1500 . You maintain all your current knowledge .

# 1 
 
 There's one every year. Some bright spark gets their mitts on some tech they're not meant to have, and next thing you know the whole timeline is falling apart. After the Hitler Incident, it was generally agreed that time travel had to be regulated for the safety of- well, everything. 
 
 We discovered how to turn back time- well, turn back is the wrong phrase. More sort of *shift* through time. Insert a small package at a point in history. Or a person. At first, historical tourism was all the rage. They were careful, of course. Historically accurate clothing, strict rules about interaction. 
 
 We should have known it would n't be enough. One man with one time machine caused the Hitler Incident, and that nearly wiped out the planet. After that, a universal ban on time travel was put in place. But sometimes someone stumbles across a piece of old technology that the enforcers missed and all of a sudden the world is cracking apart. 
 
 That's when they call me. 
 
 The Caddy was invented shortly after the ban. The eggheads called it the CDD, or Chronological Disturbance Detector, but the field guys shortened it to the Caddy. It scans for alterations, ripples in time, disruptions to the original timeline. The Caddys detect someone messing around with history and find out where ( and more importantly, *when* ) the disruptions originate from. 
 
 Then we go in. Our objective? Preserve the original timeline, at any cost. Avoid detection, and above all, do *not* attempt to alter the past. Our official name is the Anomaly Prevention Task Force. Those who know about us call us the Wardens. 
 
 This was a simple op. 1500 AD, short burst of temporal energy originating from a small village in southern England. No big changes yet, but who knew what someone with the knowledge of the future could do? 
 
 Gear was standard fare for this century. The recall switch was concealed in the hilt of a dagger, tucked away behind my back. No obvious weapons, although the concealed high-power laser in a metal bracelet beneath my tunic's sleeve could eliminate any threat quickly enough. 
 
 I arrived a few hours west of the origin point. The Caddy had scanned historical maps of the region and dumped me relatively far from civilisation. It would be a quick walk, at the very least. 
 
 *Wish the goddamn things could make me invisible*, I thought to myself as I began to walk across the hills. The tiny village where the anomaly had occurred was n't exactly enormous. Someone from the future, untrained in historical camouflage, would stick out like... 
 
 Well, like someone from at least the year 2385 in 1500. I sighed, and looked up. The sun was high in the sky, and a little chip in my skull told me it was 1:37 in the afternoon. Middle of the day. No chance the anomaly could hide. 
 
 Standard procedure when we find an anomaly is simple. First step is to take out the originator. That usually means killing them, or returning them to their time of origin and wiping their memories. Next, we measure the contagion, see how far they've changed history. Too far, and we have to *scour*. 
 
 Ever hear of the Bubonic Plague? That was an example of how far we can go. There was no telling how far the advanced knowledge had been spread, and a plague was the only inconspicuous way to eliminate any that might have been exposed. 
 
 Sometimes I hate my job. 
 
 The village was near now, and I could see a crowd gathered in the centre of town. I walked down through the wooden houses with their thatch roofs and wondered; Why *here*? What kind of thing was the would-be meddler hoping to change in some shithole in the middle of nowhere? If you want to change the future, why not one of the big cities? If this traveller had popped up in London, I might have been in 1500 for days tracking them down, so why here? 
 
 As I got closer, the smell of smoke hit me. A group of villagers were gathered round some kind of totem pole- no, not a totem, a *stake*. And they were chanting- *oh*. 
 
 `` BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!'' The whole village seemed to be carrying up the cry, and I looked on as I saw a young girl- around twenty, from the looks of it, although with the cosmetics we had now it was impossible to tell, really. 
 
 I raised my eyebrows. Most meddlers try to blend in, to varying degrees of failure, but this girl had n't even tried, or if she had it was for the wrong millenium. I was n't an expert in historical fashion- one of the eggheads handled the costumes, but it looked like early twenty-first century attire. 
 
 Someone had packed for the wrong trip. That, or... 
 
 No. Just some kid playing around with something she could n't understand. 
 
 I knew the risks. We all did. If the situation is set to resolve itself with minimum disruption, let it. Conservare praeteritis futura supresse. Preserve the past so the future may survive. That was the Wardens' motto. 
 
 `` Conservare praeteritis futura supresse,'' I muttered under my breath, turning to go. I could n't watch her burn. I'd seen too much burning. She was screaming now, begging out to God, to her family, to anyone to help her. The man holding the torch raised it high, and the crowd cheered. 
 
 I felt sick, and turned my head away. `` Conservare praeteritis futura supresse,'' I whispered to myself again and again, a frenzied mantra that failed to block out the screams. `` Conservare praeteris futura supresse. Conservare praeteritis futura supresse, conservare praeteritis futura supresse, conser- oh, fuck it.'' 
 
 I spun around and ran forwards, leaping up onto the platform. A few villagers were shoved out of the way, and the man holding the torch turned to me with a look of outrage on his face. 
 
 `` Stop,'' I said, staring him in the eyes. He was not a young man, looking to be in his late forties, maybe older. In these times, practically an ancient. Hair falling out, callused hands thin and skeletal. Sick, probably fatal. 
 
 `` What's thine business here, stranger?'' asked the man, holding the torch out in front of him. `` This witch came from nowhere, rising from Hell it-'' 
 
 I punched him in the face. I should n't have, and the Director would give me a tongue-lashing for that, but like hell was I watching someone else burn. I jumped up onto the pyre, nearly losing my footing as the dry kindling crunched and cracked beneath my feet. I grabbed the recall dagger from behind my back, then reconsidered my plan. I could n't recall us out of here. That would create unnecessary temporal contagion and endanger our mission. 
 
 But the dagger concealing the recall switch was pretty damn sharp. 
 
 It was n't until I'd finished slicing through the ropes that I realised I was enjoying this. The head villager had gotten back up, and was glaring at us with a stare that promised several brutally violent fates, all of which were best to be avoided. 
 
 I grabbed the girl's hand and we ran. The villagers were chasing after us now, yelling angry curses in Middle English, but the Wardens had a very good fitness program. 
 
 It was a while before we managed to lose them, sprinting into a forest. Once the shouting and cursing had gone, we stopped. The girl looked up, panting and wheezing, before looking up at me. `` Thank y-'' she said, and that was as far as she got before I pinned her against a tree, recall dagger at her throat. 
 
 `` What,'' I growled, doing my best Menacing Agent voice, `` in the absolute bloody *fuck* do you think you're doing? Do you think that history is your playground? Do you have any idea of the damage that I could have caused to the fabric of existence by saving you back there?'' 
 
 The girl stopped, and began to cry. 
 
 Good job. My work saved the lives of trillions. 
 
 `` W-who are you?'' she sobbed. `` What's going on? Why is there a knife at my throat?'' I did n't answer at first, but I did lower the knife. 
 `` You're where you signed up for. 1500 AD, middle of bumblefuck-nowhere. Now, what year are you from?'' 
 
 The girl looked up, confused. `` Year? 2016. The fuck do you mean what year? 1500? Are you crazy?'' This was a shock. Was she trying to play innocent? 2016 matched up with the clothes she was wearing, but they had n't developed time travel for another 300 years, and it had n't been perfected until 100 after that. 
 
 Slowly, I put down the knife. `` Why do n't you tell me how you got here?'' I asked, somewhat more softly than I had before. `` How are you in this time period?'' The girl looked around the forest, taking a deep breath. `` I was- I was out at a party. I was walking home, and- there was this pain, like being winded and a *light* like someone had shoved the sun in my eyes. I thought I'd been hit by a car, but then I woke up in that place and- 1500? I-I've traveled back in time. Holy shit, I've traveled back in time!'' 
 
 `` No, you ca n't kill Hitler, screw Helen of Troy- not worth it, trust me - or engage in any other historical misadventures. God, you really are from 2016, are n't you? And you do n't know how you got here, which means-'' 
 
 I stopped. `` What's your name?'' I asked. The girl looked up, confused. `` Emily,'' she said, taking a deep breath. `` Oh fuck me, this is really real, is n't it?'' 
 
 I held out my hand, helping Emily up. `` I'm Agent Robert Quincy, Anomaly Prevention Task Force, and we are in very grave danger.'' She looked up at me, quizzically. `` No shit,'' she said, raising an eyebrow, `` Was it the angry mob that gave it away?'' 
 
 I shook my head, turning in a slow circle, balancing on the balls of my feet. `` You did n't come here of your own volition. You were sent here, from a time that does n't fit to a time you do n't belong. And I do n't think you came here alone.'' 
 
 `` Meaning?'' she asked, standing up and looking out into the rapidly darkening forest. 
 
 `` Meaning, Emily from 2016, you're not the anomaly. You're the bait, the lure, and I bit down hook, line and sinker.'' 
 
 It was around that time that I heard a hammer click back on an old-fashioned combustion weapon. 
 
 `` Well,'' I muttered to myself, `` shit.'' 

