Having been born at 10:51 p.m. on March 20, 1922 and having lived 30 typical years, Rebecca Flint had less than three weeks and a lot of things she needed to do before ringing in 2025. The last 10 months had been remarkably not-typical.
In 1940, she took a job at National City Bank of New York and fought her way over the next 10 years to become manager. Then, in Feb. of 1952…
A traffic accident left her younger brother, Cliff, an unwary pedestrian, critically injured. Her parents had passed away a few years before, so she was alone in witnessing his decline. At just that moment, a man entered the waiting room and said he could help.
“Agree to work for New Order and we can… undo… his situation.”
“Me?”
“Your birth instant places you among a few rare individuals. We need you.”
The man explained his proposal. It was unbelievable, but with no other options she made what she came to think of as her deal with the devil.
It was far from simple. After she agreed, there was a strange shift… in time… and Cliff’s critical injury changed into a minor broken leg. The change in the timeline amounted to no more than delaying him by the margin of 1 step, but he was saved. It was time for her to fulfill her bargain.
She put her house in Bay Ridge into the hands of a management company who would rent it out. She put her liquid cash into a high-yield savings account at 3% annual.
New Order explained that there were certain… adjustments to the future they wanted made. Eight people needed to not exist.
Her first task was easy. In 1962, she visited a woman who was on the verge of accidentally conceiving a son that would have been named Devon. The father was an abusive deadbeat who would abandon them. Rebecca “ran into” the woman and asked enough questions about the abuse that the woman decided to break off the relationship.
Next, she shifted backwards 2 years to 1960.
A man, David Ryder was debating if he should follow his plan to create a shipping company or shift his efforts to something else. A “chance” meeting at a country club led to a casual conversation.
“Well, now,” Rebecca said, “the world is changing. Things in the Middle East are going to really shake up. Africa… I believe your idea about a private security company is very sound.”
So it was that Bluewater Private Security was formed, but the change in plans delayed and altered the course of David and Carol’s life. The daughter they would have had, Shay, was never born.
Rebecca’s next assignment sent her back to 1962. Posing as a reporter for a news magazine, she set up an interview with an OBGYN doctor. It was Oct. 22 in Vicksburg MS. The doctor excused himself from the table, and while he was gone, his pager buzzed. All Rebecca did was to not mention it. Ten minutes later, it buzzed again. He called the service and said he had an emergency delivery and had to go.
Rebecca learned later that he had been ten minutes too late and Jacob Brown was… She couldn’t bear the memory. It was the last assignment that she would take from New Order.
She would have no part in preventing the… instantiation of the other five.
New Order was… unhappy with her decision. They dumped her into the future. She arrived in Brooklyn on December 8, 2024.
Fortunately New Order had previously provided her with a birth certificate for March 20, but in 1964. Her social security records had also been adjusted. But the bank, by then Citibank, hadn’t noticed.
The $10k she had put into savings had become $86K. The house she owned in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn had… increased in value… from $20K to $1.8 million. It would take some time, but she’d be able to sell the house, make investments, and get by on the dividends.
And there were those instances of the 8 people to think about, too.
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