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It was shaping up to be yet another uneventful day at the last video store on Earth. It was Wednesday, November 7th, 2040, about nine in the morning, just after the store opened.Johnathan Horne-Dyck was vacuuming the carpet while his unrequited workplace crush, Afia Dawit, did the morning paperwork on a state of the art, specifically the state of the art in 2013, datapad.The quasi-functional robot employee, Optimus, leaned against a rack of Twizzlers, not out of laziness but immobility. In the background, "Shreknado: This Time It's Professional" played on the wall screen. "Och, Donkey, tha whole nae-do is fulla sharks," said a large green figure on the screen, taking aim and missing spectacularly at a Scottish accent."Them sharks all got your face, man. You got somethin' you wanna tell me?" said the green figure's equine-adjacent companion, presumably the aforementioned Donkey."Och! Shut yer festerin' gob! Ahm no gonny take shite from ye and yer half dragon bairns," said the green figure."Don't worry, Shrek. Donkey. I've got this," said a man dual-wielding chainsaws. The green figure and Donkey cheered and also produced their own chainsaws, leading one to question both where they had previously been and how a Donkey, even one capable of interspecies fatherhood, could wield such a device.What followed was an orgy of computer generated hyper-violence set to a jaunty Grandpa-rock cover of 'Rock Me Like A Hurricane' where every instance of the word rock had been replaced with Shrek."Movies really got bad after Disney bought everything," said Johnathan."Sorry, luv, didn't quite catch that," looking up from her datapad."I said movies got really bad after Disney bought all of the studios!" yelled Johnathan.Afia walked over to where he was vacuuming and gently turned off the machine. "Luv, I can't hear anything at all over this vacuum.""Sorry, Afia. I shouldn't be talking to you anyway. I have so much work to do.""I'm here, luv," said Afia, patting his shoulder. "You don't have to do it alone.""Yeah, some of our coworkers understand that being paid to do a thing might occasionally necessitate doing that thing," said Johnathan, muttering. "Not all of them.""Can't let it get to you, luv. Want me to turn the movie off? I never watch 'em me-self. Just background noise, innit." She indicated the screen, upon which a giant shark with the green figure's face was putting shiny multi-colored rocks into a gold fin covering."Sure. Maybe put on something rated R. And made before the year 2000. Really put the fear of god into all those customers we don't have.""This one won the Oscar in 2029. You're disparaging a Best Picture, luv," Afia said, laughing and heading back to the front counter.Johnathan resumed vacuuming the carpets, his mood slightly less sour. Until he remembered that his unrequited workplace crush Afia was currently dating some Russian guy who didn't even rent movies. He just hung out in the adult entertainment room for hours at a time. "Hello Johnathan," said Optimus, as the vacuum accidentally smacked the robot in the foot.Johnathan tensed, a familiar sensation, but Optimus seemed to not be in danger of becoming inflamed, at least for the moment."It is a lovely November 7th, Johnathan. Do you know what would make the day even more lovely?" said Optimus."A cold, refreshing Coca-Cola carbonated beverage soft drink?" said Johnathan, wearily."A cold, refreshing Coca-Cola carbonated beverage soft drink," said Optimus. "My day always brightens when I enjoy a cold, refreshing Coca-Cola carbonated beverage soft drink.""I'm pretty sure if you drank a Coke, you'd explode, Optimus.""I see that you have not yet selected a motion picture for your viewing pleasure. Asterisk my eyes crinkle at the edges as I notice your empty hands asterisk. I am sure I have something here that can fill your needs," said the robot, not moving in any way."Ugh," said Johnathan, continuing to vacuum. The store owner and manager, Ray DeLay, had lamented that the Optimus robot wasn't engaging with customers enough, so he had augmented his brain with programming from an old chatbot app, VirtuaGirl.AI. All this meant was that, in addition to being useless, Optimus was now also prone to bouts of sexual harassment. He's overqualified to have Conrad's job, Johnathan thought to himself. Conrad Podcaster was the store supervisor for reasons unknown to anyone but Ray. Conrad was virulently sexist, abhorrently racist, lazy, stupid, and very possibly a sexual predator. Johnathan always wondered why his last name was Podcaster, but didn't care enough to actually ask Conrad, because that would involve talking to him. And doing so would no doubt lead to Conrad saying horrible things about Afia, who was black. Fortunately, Conrad didn't work today. He didn't do work any day, but he would not be physically present in the store today either.Johnathan looked over at Afia dreamily. Afia was from England, originally. She had apparently been born in London, but moved to Newcastle Upon Tyne before coming here to Canada. She was ethnically Ethiopian, but culturally very British. Johnathan loved her accent and the fact that she actually did work sometimes.The door jingled and both Afia and Johnathan looked up, curiously.It was a woman, dressed all in black with large, dark sunglasses, which she did not remove. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, but her long, wavy hair was almost entirely white, minus a small streak of brown near the middle."Welcome to the last video store on Earth, luv," said Afia, cheerfully. "Thank you," said the woman. "I'm looking for a Johnathan Horne-Dyck. I understand he works here. Is he in today?"Johnathan turned off the vacuum and stared at the woman, wondering if he should admit it. If the woman was here to serve him legal documents, he didn't want to be himself.Afia caught his eye. "May I ask what you need him for, luv?""It's, uhm," the woman adjusted her dark sunglasses. "It's complicated."Johnathan stepped forward. "I'm Johnathan Horne-Dyck."The woman looked up at him and smiled slightly. "Of course you are. I forgot you'd be in your late twenties by now.""Do we know each other?""That is a very complicated question.""Okay," said Johnathan, looking at Afia for moral support. "You're not here with legal documents, are you?""What? Oh, no. I'm not a process server. I, uh, can we go somewhere private to talk?" "Sure. We can go back to the staff room," said Johnathan, indicating the way. "You got things here, Afia?""I'll call you if we get a sudden and heretofore completely unprecedented rush of customers, luv.""Thanks, Afia. Come with me, please, miss?""Anna," said the woman, following him to the staff room. "Anna Molly.""Hello..." said Optimus, as they passed. "Unrecognized neuro-implant. I cannot identify this individual."Johnathan was even more confused now. Optimus knew everyone by name, because he pulled their data from information stored in their neuro-implants. There had been a big push in the early thirties to replace smart devices with direct brain interface technology. It had been hit and miss, but eventually everyone had been fitted with a neuro-implant. You could take calls, watch vids, employ virtual and augmented reality programs, control your thermostat, all kinds of things. All in a chip the size of a grain of rice.There had been powerful people lobbying to force ad-ware into people's AR displays, but they had always been beaten and killed by various angry mobs and no one else seemed willing to press the issue for now.They reached the office and Johnathan unlocked and opened the door, allowing Anna inside. She sat in one of the worn wheelie chairs. And beckoned Johnathan to sit next to her."Okay," Johnathan said. "How can I help you, Miss Molly?""I've been trying to work out how to start this conversation for a very long time," said Anna."You seem like you know me, but I do not at all know you.""Yes, I haven't technically been born yet.""What?""Sorry, it's very complicated. I am born about four and a half years from now. I'm from the future.""Is this some kind of prank? Because I don't get it.""Can you dim the lights in here a bit? I can't see well in bright spaces."Johnathan activated the lighting control with his neuro-implant AR and lowered the illumination by 50%.Anna removed her dark glasses and smiled weakly at him, her pale green eyes squinting slightly as even dimmed light hit them. "Anna Molly is not my real name. When I first got sent back, I couldn't remember what it was. But after years of therapy, I have come to know that I was once actually called Emily Horne-Dyck.""Emily?""Your future daughter.""I don't understand. This sounds like a bad science fiction plot.""I'm not, though. Your future daughter, I mean. I'm pretty sure the timeline that I originally come from no longer exists. Certain key figures from my timeline have been violently killed and while it seems that we're not on a great trajectory towards the future, it's already significantly better than the one I escaped.""Let me get this straight. You're a potential daughter that I had, no, will have in a previous timeline, but won't, because that timeline is gone? Am I following you correctly, Anna? How old are you?""I'm 30. Just turned in May.""I'm 28. You're older than I am.""I did say it was complicated.""Suppose that I believe you, and don't think you're having some kind of psychotic break? What do you want with me? Have you come to kill me so that you'll never be born?""No," said Anna, smiling softly. "I just wanted to see you again. Sort of. I know you're not my dad. Not really. And you never will be. But you have his kind eyes.""This is so weird. How did you get sent back in time? Did we invent time travel in the future? And, if so, why haven't we fixed this mess?""I don't have those answers, Johnathan," Anna said, squeezing his hand. "I was a teenager when I got sent back. Educated in a system in which women were treated as broodmares. I had no way of knowing science or physics, because that just wasn't something girls got taught when I was growing up. I've made up for it, since." She chuckled with seemingly dark amusement."God, that sounds horrible.""It was horrible, but they made sure we never realized it. Have you ever been electroshocked by your neuro-implant?""I didn't know they could do that.""Maybe they can't, yet. Maybe that particular firmware update won't happen this time.""Who was your mother?""That doesn't matter, Johnathan. She had been assigned to you. Neither of you had any say in the matter.""Four years from now, society changed that much?""I don't know what it was like in the late twenties and thirties in my original timeline. I wasn't born until May 23rd, 2045.""I guess I just wanted to know if I ever got together with Afia.""Is that the cute Britsh girl at the front? Honestly, Johnathan, it would have been illegal for you to be with Afia in my timeline. She would have been deported back to Africa.""She's from London.""That didn't matter to the evil men in charge, Johnathan.""Your timeline sounds like it sucks.""It really did. It really, truly did.""So, what happens now? Do you disappear from my life as mysteriously as you entered it? Am I just supposed to go back to my dead-end job and work hard while knowing that my not-really future daughter is just out there, randomly, temporally displaced?""I don't know, Johnathan. I have lots of work to do. But I would like to see you again. Can I add you as a contact? My neuro-implant works, somewhat, the tech doesn't always play nice. They can't track it yet.""They?""The ones trying to stop my work.""Alright, Anna. Or do you want me to call you Emily?"Anna looked at him, her pale green eyes turning sad. "I've been Anna Molly longer than I was Emily Horne-Dyck. I think it's best to leave Emily where she died.""Died?" "There was a nuclear war in the year 2060, and I was caught in the blast. That's how this whole nonsense started. I was a fifteen year old girl, standing on a hilltop, watching my whole world burn. And then I was in 2025, all alone, badly burned and completely confused."Jesus.""No, he didn't show up as it happens," she said with a wan smile."Are you," Johnathan struggled to comprehend the enormity of what Anna Molly was telling him, "Are you okay?""The nightmares get less intense every day. My work has helped a lot with that.""What is your 'work', exactly?""I've been, ah, how to put this exactly," Anna paused, smiling grimly. "I've been working to right certain eventualities from becoming less so. Because of my circumstances, I'm in a unique position to know which levers of history need, uh, adjusting."Johnathan stared at her a while. He could see himself in her, now that he really saw her. He wondered if he ever looked so determined. Probably not. "Sounds very complicated," he said at last.Anna smiled and stood up. "I should go. It was really nice to meet you, Johnathan." "Thanks, it was," Johnathan struggled for the right word, "definitely the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me.""The weirdest thing so far," said Anna with a laugh, putting on her dark sunglasses and opening the door of the staff room. "You never know what the future will hold."Johnathan followed her to the store entrance, where she exited with a jingle."Cor, complicated woman is a hottie, luv," said Afia, watching Anna walk away. "What did she want, anyway?""She came to see me. Apparently we, ah, used to know each other.""Get in! Our Johnny is just full of surprises. I'm happy for you, luv. You seem," Afia paused, her gaze sympathetic, "really lonely. You could use a friend that doesn't work here, luv.""Yeah, I guess I could.""I'm going to call the late list, you wanna handle those Reese's pieces?"Johnathan smiled. Afia knew that he hated calling people who were late returning their videos, half because they almost never answered the calls, and half because when they did, they had a tendency to yell profanely, which was very unpleasant directly into your brain. "Most days, I hate this store. But when it's just you and me, Afia, it's not so bad.""Cheers, luv."The door jingled as it opened violently. Two large men in ill-fitting suits barges inside, large assault rifles in their hands."You there! Have you seen this woman?" the larger man said, a small device in his hand producing a holographic image of a woman in black with white hair and dark glasses. It was clearly and definitively Anna Molly.Afia looked to Johnathan, "Doesn't ring a bell, luv. You ever seen this bird, Johnny?""Nope," said Johnathan, looking fearfully at the assault rifles. "Never seen her before in my life. Sorry, gentlemen. Do you, uh, want some Twizzlers for the road? On the house, of course."The men grunted and shouldered their assault rifles. "If you see her, you are legally obligated to contact our offices immediately. She is a highly dangerous terrorist. I am transmitting my contact information into your implants," said the larger one. "Good morning." The incoming information indicated that they were representatives of CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The men left the store and ran off in the direction Anna had gone."What exactly did you two talk about in the staff room, luv?"Johnathan sighed. "It's complicated."The End