Caterpillar opened the drawer at the right-hand side of his desk and picked a pack of around thirteen pieces of paper, each one with two stickers on it.

On the top left side of the paper, there was a face. On some of them, the face was green and smiling, some faces were yellow and refused to betray any emotion, while others were blue and sad. On the top right side, there was a sticker of a building. On some of them, the building looked like an ancient Greek temple. On some of them it was a normal modern-day skyscraper, while on others there was a building that sort of looked like a skyscraper with ancient Greek details, floating in the air for some reason.

“Let me explain,” Caterpillar said. “Each one of these papers represents a mission; someone or something that we have to deal with. We categorize each of these missions based on how easy they are to carry out and when they take place. Smiley means it's an easy task; a piece of cake, if you will. Poker face fellow is an okay mission; could be worse. And blue, sad face is a tall order. Like, at least six feet.”

“Six feet? Orders have a height?” Thaught asked.

“No, these missions are better carried out by groups of three instead of a single person. Three people usually have six feet.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Good, let's keep going then.”

“Wait, one more thing,” Thaught interrupted.

“What is it?” Caterpillar sighed.

“Why are the sad faces blue? Shouldn't they be red to signify danger?”

“Blue is the color of sadness. The face is sad and everyone that has to go on such a mission is also sad, so corporate decided that blue is the way to go,” he explained. “But anyway, let's move on.”

Caterpillar then continued. “You see, the buildings at the top right? Ancient Greek temple means the mission takes place in the past. Modern skyscraper means it's happening right now, modern day plus or minus two decades, and floating modern day skyscraper inspired by Greek architecture means the mission takes place in the future.”

“That's a weird way to represent future missions,” Thaught said.

“The future is a weird place, my child,” Caterpillar responded. “You will figure this out yourself soon.”

He then picked back up most of the pieces of paper, stacked them neatly, hitting them a bit at the bottom to align their position, and placed them back into the drawer. There were two more pages left on top of his desk, both with a green smiley face on them.

“I have two potential missions for you right now,” Caterpillar said. He placed his palms on the desk and leaned forward, putting almost his entire weight on his hands. “They are both happy and easy. Nothing but a peanut. But if you are lucky and capable enough, you may face different faces on your missions next time.”

Thaught picked up the two pieces of paper, holding one in each hand. She stared at the left one for a couple of seconds, then she gave the right one a puzzled look. She repeated the process for a few minutes before lifting her head and looking at Caterpillar. “I don't understand a thing,” she told him.

Caterpillar slightly frowned, but he showed much more patience and understanding than one would expect.

“Let me walk you through them,” he said. “The one on my left takes place in the past, as you can see on the top right corner.”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“No,” Thaught interrupted, “this one is on my right, not left.”

“Yes, it is in your right hand but my left.”

“No, it's right, not left. I can't believe I have to explain this to my boss,” Thaught insisted.

“We are looking in opposite directions. Your right is my left, your left is my right and vice versa.”

“Sure, whatever. Next thing I know, my past will be your future or something. It doesn't make any sense.” Thaught was getting really confused and slightly irritated at the whole conversation. “It never makes any sense.”

“Okay, okay, let's continue.” Caterpillar had realized that there was no point in arguing further. “In your right hand, you can see a mission that takes place in the past, specifically during the Renaissance period, one of the greatest times in humanity's history. Only issue is, there was someone there spreading false rumors that Veonardo Da Linci's painting not only were not real and he was tracing them, putting canvases over his subject, but also that he actually hates pasta. As you can imagine, this severely impacted his reputation. Find them and make them stop either by will or by force.”

“This sounds fun!” Thaught said and immediately left the other piece of paper back on the desk, focusing on this mission that was just explained. “I wanna do this one!”

“But you don't even know what the other one is about,” Caterpillar complained. “Hear me out first.”

“But I want this one!” At this point, Thaught was acting more like a baby than an adult. A spoiled, food-obsessed baby.

“Thaught. Please.” Caterpillar said while slightly clenching his teeth. He was doing a very good job at remaining calm, but he had almost reached his limit and Thaught could tell. She sat down on her chair, palms on her lap, back straight as a ruler, and put her serious face on.

“Please continue, Mr. Pillar,” she said.

“In your left hand,” Caterpillar resumed his explanation, “you can see that the mission takes place in the future, as indicated by the sticker on the top right of the page.”

“Wait,” Thaught interrupted Caterpillar. Again. “Isn't going to the future a bit much for my first mission? The past is more familiar, so it may be a better idea.”

“You don't have to worry,” he said to quell her anxiety. “It's quite an easy job. There is a certain someone who is running experiments and creating a new kind of broccoli that actually tastes good.”

“But that's a good thing — I hate broccoli!” Thaught answered enthusiastically.

Caterpillar frowned, and, if you paid attention, you could see a slight sadness appearing on his face.

“It would be,” he said. “But his experiments never succeeded! Broccoli just tastes too bad — it cannot be salvaged! Until he truly finds a way, he is just a paid actor, spreading misinformation and propaganda!”

“We have to stop him!” Thaught slammed her fist on the table. She would always get really passionate about this kind of issues. “You can't play with food like that! We already had one food that was atrocious but pretended to be tasty in yesterday's vegan donut and that's one imposter too many! We cannot let those rumors continue. Or start, I don't know, it's the future.”

“I am glad we share the same passion about stopping crime. This is how everyone in this travelling agency should act.”

“I want this mission, this one!” Thaught said, just as excited as she was for the first one. She started looking again at the two pages. She still could not understand what Caterpillar had written on them, but this time she knew what they represented.

“So, it's decided! Your first mission will be to stop the person spreading the false broccoli rumors.” Caterpillar said and stood up. He opened his left-hand side drawer where he kept an unusual amount of stampers. One for each employee of the travelling agency, with the corresponding employee's name on it. You could argue that this made some sense, but then, there were also stampers with Caterpillar's dog's name, his grandma's and even his favorite knife, which he named 'Antonio'.

Caterpillar picked Thaught's stamper up. He then quickly took both the pages off of Thaught's hands and placed them on his desk. He lifted the stamper as high as he could and was about to stamp Thaught's name on the mission that took place in the future.

At the last second, Thaught the page back, making Caterpillar miss, and hit his desk instead, leaving Thaught's name on it. “Wait, I want the other one too!” she said.

“I'm afraid you can't take on two missions at once,” Caterpillar said. “Pick one, accomplish it, come back victorious and then you can take on the next, assuming no one else takes it by that time.”

“Yeah, but what if I could?”

“Well, then you would have two missions at once,” he replied.

“Then give them to me!”

“I can't give both missions to you. You have to decide which one you want the most! So tell me, which one will it be?”