The airport sliding doors opened and closed every few seconds, but they did not spot who they had hoped to see.
- I'm going back inside. Something might have happened...
- No. You're not! Do you think that in the midst of this mess, you'll find someone? Let's get out of here before it's too late. Enough of this story and these strange people.
The man, who was still around, insisted in offering them a different shuttle service, cheaper than the taxis. They tried to dismiss him, but he was very persistent. The boys then realized that if they were going to take a standard taxi they would have to wait in a line, which seemed to get longer as the minutes passed on and the cars were not so many anymore, so they decided to accept the other man’s offer.
- OK. OK. Where's the car?
- Right there, sir, in the parking lot. I cannot stop here, as I am not registered in this 'mafia' of airport taxis.
He was clearly dissatisfied with the existing system and just shook his head and moved on, with the two young men following him to where the car would be.
The boy wearing glasses still looked back one last time to make sure he would see the girl, but, amid the tumultuous back-and-forth of people on the sidewalk, it would be impossible to distinguish her head, among so many others. The other man just pulled him by the arm.
- Let's go! Forget it. It is time to go back to the base and to our normal life. It seems that even on holidays we still can’t stay away from these scrapes!
Shaking his head gloomily, the young man crossed the street and entered the parking lot, where the driver was waiting by the car, a shining black van. Someone had spent some time polishing it, contrary to what they would expect. The windows were covered with dark film which was the standard use in the transport cars of the second largest city in the country.
The man was dressed as a chauffeur with a black suit and a white shirt. His tie was in chalk stripe patterns, inclined at an angle to the right in different shades of blue, ranging from cerulean to cobalt on a navy blue background.
He opened the car trunk and carefully accommodated their backpacks in there. The two got into the back of the car, buckled their seat belts and told him where they wanted to go to. The man turned the ignition on and the door locks were automatically activated. He drove around and through the gate, which automatically opened and got out of the parking lot.
Turning right, on the street parallel to the main avenue, he slowed down and pulled over. The passenger front door was opened and a young woman, her hair arranged in a long black braid, came in and sat down beside him. She buckled the seat belt and said, without looking back:
- Let's go. Fast!
The two passengers were speechless. The driver sped up and it was only then that they realized that beneath the dark hair on the back of his head, the tip of a tattoo they knew very well appeared and caused them not only astonishment but also a certain fear.
***
The car, parked in an almost deserted area of a large park of containers, was almost incognito at the appropriate place where a meeting could go practically unsuspected. The driver was standing in front of the car, talking to the girl. The two young men were locked in the car, unable to leave or hear the conversation, but could see that there was some conflict between them.
Another black car approached and stopped right in front of the first one. A large man with the shaved head, wearing a tight black t-shirt evidencing the muscles of his arms and torso came out of it. It was the character that was missing and that they had seen before on several other occasions.
The man exchanged a few words with his colleagues and came toward the other car, where the two boys were locked in.
- Who are you, anyway? Any terrorist group or is it part of a crazy sect? What do you want from us?
The boy wearing glasses was impatient and angry. That story seemed to be going too far and, up to that moment, completely beyond their understanding. His friend, who was still quiet, feared for their lives, but did not comment anything at all. He waited for the man with shaved head, who seemed to be their leader, to speak.
- This is not a crazy sect. We are trained soldiers just like you.
- Soldiers? Trained soldiers for battle? A war?
It was the girl who replied.
- Not exactly. More on the contrary... to prevent one...
- What war?
- A stupid and silent war: the self-destruction of mankind...
- That's crazy! And why are we involved in it, anyway?
- Our presence was never supposed to be noticed. We thought we were being unsuspected until you followed us the first time. Interference of any kind could jeopardize the success of what we had to do... and this could have very serious consequences in the future.
- In the future? This conversation is totally meaningless. You cannot be taken seriously. This is insane.
The young man wearing glasses thought he was dealing with a group of fundamentalists, in which a strange brainwashing was given, making them dangerous and fearless terrorists, with homicidal and probably also suicidal dispositions.
- And you were sent by whom, for God's sake?
- The correct question is not 'by whom?' More properly, it should be: 'from where?'... Or perhaps, even better, 'from when?'...
The two young soldiers looked at each other.
- We came from the future. Our mission is to prevent the uncontrolled overpopulation before it is too late.
The soldier tried to keep calm, knowing that those people were completely demented and, to make matters worse, they believed what they were saying. He, however, had to ask a question, which seemed crucial at the time.
- And how will you do it?
- Using a more effective and permanent contraception method. In fact, the objective is to sterilize more than sixty percent of mankind.
- But that's crazy! How can it be humanly possible?
- This is only a preventive measure, like so many others that have happened in the history. People do not realize that the objective is much deeper. Sterilization is only part of the plan and is for the greater good.
- Castrate more than half the population is a greater good? Don’t you think you are being too radical and senseless?
- Not really! In the future we are devoid of a number of weaknesses that people of this time have and that are considered risky behaviours. This action is necessary for the science to advance. No one will notice anything, because the effect is not obvious. Until scientists reckon that humanity was somehow poisoned, it will take a while. When those responsible realize, it will be almost too late. The Earth aged and barren population will lead to a radical drop in its growth. Science will have to rush with control actions to curb the inevitable decline of the human race. Cloning is the only way out... and the necessary evil... We have already planted a tiny seed in the minds of the researchers of a certain laboratory, using money to be invested in biotechnology. We need to be taken seriously and to a lesser term, to help us help the future...
- We ourselves have been produced in a controlled series, with the best genetic material, scientifically engineered to be fault-free and physically invulnerable by the same laboratory. We are marked with bar codes instead of names. In our case, we have a mission to accomplish and a predefined lifetime. None of us has existed for over a year, unless...
The man with the shaved head directed a very meaningful glare at her. She still looked at the 'driver' who, until then, remained silent, but she could not finish the sentence.
One of the young soldiers did not realize the subtlety of what happened at that time. Although still in doubt, he was more concerned to explore all the possibilities and try to understand the story. Were those people really sent soldiers from the future? The speech was, in a way, quite credible, although extremely fantastic.
- And the rest of the planet will continue untouched? What will happen in the future with the animals, plants, the sea and all this beauty?
- Nothing like those will exist any longer, if we leave things as they are. The uncontrolled growth in population will result in a very serious problem, with exponential effects and a lack of sustainability, which will lead to a consequent global crisis. Hunger will create chaos and despair. Consequently, the destruction will also be exponential. Even the money and riches will have no value, since there will be nothing much to buy and the production will be inadequate to meet all needs. That is why we were sent to take urgent action before it was too late. Indeed, it is already quite late and the lab itself is in great danger...
- The process, now, however, has already started. There is no time to undo it. It is impossible to go back...
- Already? In what way?
- In many parts of the world, our soldiers have followed the orders received, exactly, triggering one calculatedly efficient and effective process. The effects of this will be perceived too late. There will be no way to reverse what has been unleashed in the recent days. Our mission here is complete. Now we just have to go back to the time where we came from.
- So why did you bring us here?
- To prevent your interference would spread the panic around. When you began to follow us, we were afraid that you would put the operation at risk. When we parted, we created a necessary distraction and ensured that the plan would still go on, without any interference.
- But we can boycott this plan. This can still go very wrong...
- Do you think you have a chance? You will not even know where to start. You don’t know the procedure or what have been started. If you want to denounce us, as if that were even possible, what evidence would you have to show? You will be taken as crazy or drug addicts. Everything will sound like a distant dream or any schizophrenic hallucination... Moreover, we will no longer be around here...
The shaved-headed man looked at the other man and stopped talking.
The boy wearing glasses soon realized that there was a subliminal message in that break, but did not ask anything. What could this man, seemingly harmless, have, that nagged these people?
***
- We have to go back. We have very little time now.
A phone rang. The man answered, frowning.
- But that was not in the plans!
A rather altered voice was heard on the other end. The man was silent, listened and finally relented.
- OK. So will be!
When he switched it off, he walked silently to the car and came back within a few seconds with an automatic gun in his hand. The soldiers realized that is was fitted with a silencer...
Before anyone could even express any reaction, he pointed the gun and fired without hesitation, to the surprise of everyone.
The young woman fell, with a bullet hole in her head, and a broad line of blood dripping like a thick red stream on the grass.
The man then turned around and pointed to the driver, pressing the trigger again.
The driver, in an unexpected and desperate gesture, threw himself against the other man and the two began a strange fight. The two young soldiers joined immediately to help immobilize the killer, knocking him to the ground.
In the confusion, as always happens when you dispute the possession of a loaded gun, there was the sound of a muffled shot. And then, the group stopped fighting...
***
The driver, who had been injured seconds before starting the fight, lay on his back, unconscious, with part of his head covered with blood, a little behind the two young men. The man with shaven head, who had triggered the weapon against his own body during the fight, had a dark and wet stain spreading in the middle of his chest and tinting the ground red, almost next to the body of the murdered girl. The gun was still in his hand and his finger still on the trigger...
The two young soldiers got up and started walking quickly toward the black van. The driver moved as they passed by him. He rubbed his head and moaned, touching the still bleeding wound. The two soldiers got down and without much thought, carried him away with them to the car in which they were before, tucking him in the back seat and leaving at high speed.
***
The sea was calm, as if all the storms of all times, had gone for once and as if the waves and the movement of water were only the chords of a soft lullaby or a repetitive and soothing mantra.
The three men were standing side by side, each with their own thoughts, watching the sea and a few people passing by, without realizing what was happening behind the scenes of life and that could put them in serious danger. The young man wearing glasses broke the silence.
- We have not decided what we will do with the information we were given...
- We will not do anything. That cannot be taken seriously. It was crazy... We will never know the truth...
The two young soldiers looked at the other man, who remained impassive, without any reaction to what they have just said. His life was saved by the two and he owed them more than a simple thank you. The man took a deep breath as if his intention was to absorb the iodine and salty air from the ocean one last time. He closed his eyes for a moment, then spoke quietly.
- We have avoided talking about this for a long time...
- Maybe it's more than time to talk even.
- There is not much else to talk about. I don’t remember much before the incident... accident... whatever it was...
- Great! What a beautiful story! And we will never be able to confirm anything, after all.
- I remember taking part in a very hard military training... and to have been sent before this group of soldiers... I recall having poured the drug in the water supplies... then everything else is blurry and confusing...
- The drug in the water? Was it the method used to sterilize the population? That’s madness...
- It was necessary. That's what we were sent here for. The laboratory was under pressure and the invasion was imminent... Funny I do not remember anything before the training... as if it had never happened...
- Or as if it had been erased from your memory... for some reason...
The man stopped talking and closed his eyes again, leaning on the metal guard rail at the beach front with his head hanging down.
The two soldiers did not know what to think, say or do... Those memory fragments absurdly told a compelling and, at the same time, misplaced story, but it made no connection with any kind of reality whatsoever.
Military training, secret labs, time travellers... what sense could they make in the end?
If the story was real and actually happened, it was lost in the reminiscences of a wounded soldier with memory problems. And how would they know what to do?
***
- I don’t understand. If the soldiers never came back and everything that happened was not even a mass delusion, how will the scientists know whether the plan worked or not?
- The explanation is very simple. If we change the past, there won’t be the same future that led us back to it... For all practical purposes, in fact, they never existed anyway... They could not go back to a future that will no longer exist... at least not the way they saw or lived in!
- And as scary as it may seem, we will never know if the plan worked, because we will never get to that future... It's a dead end!
- Oh my God! This is madness!
The young man took his glasses off and ran his hands over his face, looking completely confused.
A man approached and asked if they had matches to light his cigarette. They said they didn’t and the stranger thanked and kept walking without looking back. He ran his fingers through his hair and straightened his coat collar…
…It was not quick enough however to hide the small tattoo he had on the back of his neck depicting a barcode...
