A Time Cop’s reaction to being told he has to undo something that a time traveller did to change history (against the law), but reduced human suffering across history.
If you want, use the Ancient China uplift from earlier?
(#00096)
Lynn stared at the picture. “That’s Evan Miikos. One of the pioneers of time travel. I’m supposed to arrest him?”
“A version of him, at any rate. We’ve detected a major deviation in the time stream.” Kajengawalli put another picture up on the monitor. “This is also Evan Miikos. Or, as he was known in that time, Evan the Dragon-Singer.
"But… the Dragonsinger helped preserve so many cultures and societies. He revolutionized education and documented ideas years ahead of… their… time…”
Kajengawalli raised an eyebrow. “Exactly. Because they came from years ahead of that time. Time travel into history is problematic. He could have changed the world in thousands of different ways.”
“Do we know if it changed… benevolently?”
“Benevolently or malevolently, officer, it is our duty to prevent future pollution of the past. We have to protect the flow of history… no matter the cost.”
“Can we extrapolate that cost, sir?”
“You’re damned insolent for a first-year, Officer.”
“Sorry, sir, but… I can’t help it. Are we better off leaving him to do the things he did?”
Kajengawalli sighed. “Alternate time-stream analysis is dodgy at best. The report for this one says I would have died at age fifteen from rape of all things, and you… were strangled at birth?” She laughed. “Ridiculous isn’t it? What sort of society would do things like that? It’s the twenty-first century. Not…”
“Some time before the Dragonsinger turned up?” prompted Lynn.
Kajengawalli chewed at her ample bottom lip. “Perhaps… an interview and investigation? See what he knows about the time he left.”
Lynn breathed out. “Thankyou sir.” She did not want to come back to a world where she had not lived past infancy.
Who would?
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