It was very hard for Thaught to decide. It was her first mission, after all, which made it especially special, like your first day in school, your first day in a new apartment or your first taste of a new cuisine. A cold sweat was passing over her as she was looking back and forth between the two missions, weighting advantages and potential foods she could try in each of them. On one hand, there was renaissance, with their traditional, original pasta with cheese and butter. Their soups, full of herbs and maybe peacock would also be on the menu if she was lucky. But they did not eat cake and sweets as they considered them gluttonous. They had so much potential and decided to ruin it with that last part.

On the other hand, who knows what you can find in the future? Certainly not a new kind of broccoli that actually tastes good, but what if there is a new kind of chocolate? Like ruby chocolate, but different. Maybe platinum, which would taste like milk chocolate with a slight hint of banana maybe. Maybe there are even more and better donuts. Thaught wouldn't know unless she took on the mission and figured out for herself.

It was a tough choice. Both missions had a lot of potential, but Thaught could also end up in quite the yucky situation just as easily.

Unless...

Unless there was a way to ensure that her first mission was a complete success with lots and lots of yummy food.

"Uhhm... Mr. Pillar?" she said.

"It's Caterpillar, it's a single word. I am not a pillar and I am not catering to anyone. Anyway, what is it? Did you decide on your mission?" Caterpillar answered while sitting on his chair. This introduction was way more exhausting than he imagined and he was now eager to get over with this final step so he can take a short coffee break and relax, listening to his favorite pop punk playlist.

"I have a proposal for a new mission," she answered.

"A new mission?" he asked. Feelings of confusion and hopelessness started rising as he could physically feel the pop punk was slipping further and further away, with him unable to do anything about it. "We already have selected two potential missions for you. What new mission?"

"You said I can go anywhere in space and time by using Mr. Pyramid, right?"

"Right."

"Well," Thaught started explaining the situation as if she was a scientist breaking down a new and complicated meta analysis about mitochondria. "Exactly eight days, twelve hours and forty-seven minutes ago, there was a party celebrating my new job as a travelling agent and me finally moving away from my mama's house. There was a buffet and a four-feet-tall cake and everything! What if I go there for my first mission instead?"

While Thaught was busy drawing on the whiteboard the plan she already explained, Caterpillar thought about it. He looked up and left at the ceiling. There was a spiderweb there for the past four years, and he would always look at it when he was deep in thought. "Back to your new-job-party, huh? If you want to go there, it must mean that there was someone who tried to ruin things and stop you from getting this job. A paid killer? most likely. But who could be responsible for this? Could it be them? No, that's impossible"

"What? Killer? No, there was no killer. Just me with all my friends and family having a good time and eating cake," Thaught said.

"So, no killer?"

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"No, killer."

"Let me think about it," Caterpillar said. He wanted to stand up and walk up and down his office while thinking, but he was too tired to do so. He was content with rocking from side to side instead.

After a while, he stopped. Not because he found an answer, but because he was too tired for rocking as well. After a few more minutes, Caterpillar finally thought of something.

"I cannot let you go on a mission that has no point. If there is no killer and no one is harmed or threatened in any way, what is the point of going there?" he said.

"Cake!" Thaught said and threw her arms forward, with her palms facing up like she was revealing an answer that was already too obvious.

"Exactly." Caterpillar snapped his fingers and pointed at Thaught. "Cake."

"Obesity is one of the main causes of death right now," he continued. "And what causes obesity?"

"Uhhm.." Thaught was trying to think of an answer, but Caterpillar continued talking before she was able to come up with something.

"Overconsumption of calories," he continued. "And what is the reason we consume so many more calories than we actually need?"

Thaught this time had the answer ready. "Fast foo-"

"Stop trying to answer — they are rhetorical questions," Caterpillar interrupted her. "But you were close, not exactly fast food but highly palatable, easily digestible foods full of fat and/or sugar, like..."

"Cake!" they both said at the same time.

"Correct, like cake," he said. "But really, stop answering — these questions are not to supposed to be answered."

"Oh! Like the meaning of life!" Thaught said in awe. "Got it!"

Caterpillar rolled his eyes and tried to ignore what Thaught just said for the sake of his own sanity. "With all that in mind, we can conclude that cake is the real killer in this situation. It's decided then, you can go back to that party as you requested. But! You have to stop everyone from touching that cake, you need to save them from eating their life away!"

"Stop everyone from touching the cake, so I can eat more of it. Sounds like a plan — a sweet, delicious plan."

"No, you should not have any, either. It's for your own good," he said. "Promise?"

"Promise," responded Thaught. But at the same time, she crossed her fingers behind her back, making the promise not count, as per the official rules of the universe.

"We have an agreement then!" Caterpillar said, clearly relieved. "Let me put the mission in the system, print the page and come back to stamp it. It will only take a couple of minutes, so, wait for me here," he said and quickly left the room so Thaught did not have enough time to change her mind.

Thaught realized she was getting hungry while waiting for Caterpillar to come back. She pulled out of her jacket's pocket a half-eaten chocolate cake bar she bought two days ago, wrapped in parchment paper and started munching.

Caterpillar came back into the room a few moments later and Thaught rushed to hide back into her pocket what was now only a quarter of a cake bar.

"Alright, everything is finally ready," he said. "All that's left is putting the stamp on and you can go your merry way, stopping your family from eating cake. Are you ready? I'll do it on the count of three. One... two..."

"Wait!" Thaught shouted, terrified.

"What!? What is it this time!?" Caterpillar was starting to lose it.

"Nothing, it was just a joke. Please go ahead."

And ahead he went. He pressed the stamper against the freshly printed piece of paper and a sudden feeling of relief passed through his whole body. Or at least the majority of it.

Caterpillar brought out the strange pyramid-shaped time-travelling device, and started preparing the parameters for Thaught's mission, almost rushing things. His pop punk playlist was waiting, after all.

"Actually, let's do this together, so you can familiarize yourself with the device."

Thaught came closer. She touched the top of the pyramid with her index and middle fingers in a way that perhaps could have some resemblance to a handshake and said "Nice to meet you, ally."

Caterpillar proceeded to explain for one more time how the device works, going through all the settings step by step until the time and space coordinates were ready for Thaught's mission. He then randomized the coordinates so that Thaught could set them up from scratch. She did a fantastic job, handling it almost perfectly, but she changed the spatial position a bit too much, which would make her end up in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, approximately one hundred miles away from the nearest shore.

That would be a really unfortunate and anticlimactic ending for this series, so Caterpillar noticed it and put in the appropriate settings before letting Thaught finally travel towards what was not only her first mission but also an experience that would change her life forever.