[ WP ] You are legally allowed to commit murder once , but you must fill out the proper paperwork and your proposed victim will be notified of your intentions

It's the future. Okay, it's the present, but it seems like the future. It does n't help that we slap the label on everything these days, and the line's a little more blurry than it used to be anyway. There's the Future Research Corporation, which started the trend. They're the number one discoverers of new technologies, as you'd expect. The other `` Future'' companies are similarly placed in their fields. 
 
 We even have a `` Future'' branch of government. We probably have several, but only one is public: the Bureau of Future Crimes. No, they do n't plot crimes. They send out the notifications. I got mine in the mail today. 
 
 It's polite. Not a form letter, but still impersonal. They tell me to contact my next of kin to ensure everything is taken care of. They mention her by name. It seems vaguely threatening, but I know she has n't received a letter. I can be thankful for that much. 
 
 I contemplate running. I imagine myself on a beach on some sunny island where this sort of thing does n't happen, where you can remain blissfully ignorant right up until the moment the locals murder you and steal from your fresh corpse. Sounds like paradise, right? 
 
 But you ca n't run. It just does n't work. I look through the rest of the package. I know what I'm going to find. The route plan. This is how I'm going to die: in traffic heading over the South Bridge, the one that leads out of the city. There's a time and a method. It says it's a gunshot to the head three hours from now. At least I wo n't have to pack a lunch. 
 
 There's other things in the package. Forms to sign for listing my preferred method of burial, whether I want to donate my organs, a place to attach my will. Standard death stuff, with all the convenience that being alive grants. The last note in the package is the big one. It tells me that the cost of any reality correction events will be deducted from the value of my estate. 
 
 I want to tempt fate. Maybe I'll leave the city from the North, instead. Let's see how reality corrects that! Except bigger corrections have happened. They usually make the news. And afterwards the family is destitute because of the selfishness of that doomed bastard. It does n't feel so selfish from where I'm sitting. 
 
 I get dressed in my nicest suit. I go out and have a coffee at my favourite joint, the one with the cute waitress. She gives me her number again. I hand it back. I'm a married man. 
 
 The clock's running down now. I feel trapped, like the walls are slowly closing in on me. The sky is as clear and inviting as it's ever been but I still feel its weight upon my shoulders. If I want to make my appointment I have to leave now. So I do. 
 
 As I drive I hit every green light. Ah, that's a few corrections there. Sorry, honey, I should have been more prompt. Still we're well off enough that it wo n't matter too much. I just know how much you hate wastefulness. 
 
 There's the bridge. I look at the time. Just over a minute to go. I panic. I slam my foot on the accelerator. The car's engine dies instantly. I ca n't quite tell, but I think it stops on the exact spot the route plan specified. As if it could happen any other way. 
 
 I see my wife. She's in the next car over, stopped as well. She hops out of her car and into mine. My blood is pounding in my ears and I ca n't hear anything, but I can read her lips. It seems like she's speaking in slow motion. `` I'm leaving you.'' And then I see the gun. 
 
 Fucking psychics.
