Authors note: Please be aware of gratuitous violence and blood.

Having successfully changed the past for the first time, Mar is quite proud of himself. Because he accidentally changed himself into a girl for a brief period he is sure that the records of his current appearance at Claire's safe house have been dealt with now. For the moment, he can trust in the protection of having chosen a family virtually by accident. This should by him at least some time. 

But then a realisation flushes over him cooling him down like a bucket of ice cubes. His face is ashen.

"I am a liar", Mar tells the disembodied voice.

"Yeah - you still remember what I said about 'electric chair' ? It still applies. Took you long enough to realise. It is you or them. Everyone else is just collateral damage.", the disembodied voice responds. 

"Yeah. Nothing is solved.", Mar is drooping his shoulders. "But I cannot run again. I cannot drop Mel just like that. Mel is not collateral damage."

# # #

The handler is pacing in his office. It is time for the daily Enemir report. He is praying to the saint of incontinence pads to receive some good news. He couldn't stomach God 'A's pressure should he not have some form of result soon. His knees are already getting soft from his anxiety alone and he cannot sit still. The only lead they had to the Baldr v2 has been destroyed by Baldr just now. What an embarrassment.

"No good, no good, I need get hold of myself.", he thinks. Then he starts some breathing excercises.

A few minutes later the handler joins all of the executive staff are already assembled in meeting room alpha. This time the handler has both his mobile phones hooked up to the conference speaker in the room. He also used a bluetooth headset on each ear connected to each phone. 

When the time comes, everyone stares at the conference speaker. The emergency phone in the corridor rings.

"£$%^", the handler curses uncontrollably. He tried so hard to stay professional and calm up to now. But the Enemir is obviously winding him up. The pressure in him is no longer contained and spews out. He swore and spat all the way to the red phone normally used to call in armed officers in the event of emergencies, such as a siege or infiltration. It is located on the wall in the corridor just outside meeting room alpha. He is sure that the Enemir is calling there because that red phone is programmed for outbound calls to just one single number.

He rips the old style speaker receiver set off the wall, nearly ripping off the phone mount too. He holds the speaker in front of his face and shouts on top of his lungs.

"Code in". Spit is flying everywhere. After he realised what he had done he quickly composed himself. He breaths deeply a few times.

"Duck duck duck", the automatic caller sends a voice authentication challenge without delay or even a hint of emotions. 

"Nose nose nose", the handler responds now calm.

"Confirmed reporting challenge".

There is a 5 second silence.

"Report start"

"Runtime remaining 1368 hours. "

"Status code: yellow. "

"Coverage: 100%. "

"1 possible location event to report."

"End of Report."

The handler scrunched up angry face suddenly smoothes out and he raises the corners of his mouth. 

"Report on details of events".

"Event ID: 844966"

"Date: ..."

"Time: ..."

"Observation location: Child crèche on _____ street"

"Event details: Target is enrolled as child named Mar Konwick."

"Acknowledge report", the handlers month turned to a cold smile. He completes the request and the line went dead.

He smiled now with genuine excitement. As he hangs up the red phone gingerly he ponders for a second. The retrieval must be handled flawless. There are no second chances. His index and middle finger are tapping on the red handle of the mouth and ear piece. His eyebrows move to form a deep ravine in his forehead. After a minute, he turns around and energetically walks back into the meeting room.

"I create a new task force, code name Trip North", he announced after everyone settled down from the excitement of his announcement. "The members of this task force are …"  and he lists the names of some agents. "First meeting in 15 minutes in this meeting room, dismissed."

# # #

The next day, his foster mother drops off Mar at the normal time at the day care centre. Mar is excited to meet with Mel again. She was not available to play yesterday afternoon. And then there was also the shopping spree of his foster mom. 

However, today Mar feels a bit restless. Someone is watching the building intently but there is no attention to him as an individual. He checks the building itself and there is nothing unusual here. It is just like yesterday, buzzing with children and a handful of adults. Eventually, with some trepidation, he joins his group.

Today, the group is digging for fossils in the sandbox. The staff hid several little dinosaurs in the sand and the children are using colourful plastic toy shovels to search for them. Mar had no problem spotting all the toys in the sandbox on his first glance. But for fairness, he is holding back after digging up one of them. From then on he is just randomly poking the sand. Meanwhile he is also scanning the area. For most of the morning nothing happened. He almost gave up when suddenly he felt a new presence of an adult coming towards the building. However, it was not someone he knows about. He certainly is not a staff member - because Mar can check the face easily against the list of photos at the entrance. 

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What is alarming about this person is that Mar cannot read him. The person exists but is solid, like a block of stone. He cannot find any thoughts or emotions emitting from him. There are no waves. The man entered the building and talks to the receptionist at the entrance. He flashes some form of police badge and the receptionist buzzes him through to the office area. Mar is now even more uneasy and instinctively moves closer to Mel. He must protect his precious find. 

Mar tracks the man striding through the corridor accompanied by the manager towards his group room. After a minute, the person opens the class door. Most of the children do not take any noticed as they excitedly dig around the sand. Miss Elsy, the group attendant, moves towards the door. The man flashes his badge again and they point towards me. My heart sinks. I looks like I have been found. The man closes in on me and without warning pulls out a taser and shoots. Miss Elsy and the manager are showing shocked faces. Mel is behind me, if I evade she is hit. 

I receive the taser needles and can hear the crackling of electricity. Weak! Attacking me with the element I am most efficient in is weak. It takes no effort at all to nullify the voltage. The man seems to notice something though. He changed his target. He is going for Mel. Curse my 5 year old body. It is not a match against an adult. Should I use my gift or not using my gift. Either way, I will be exposed. Not much choice there. But then I remembered 'collateral damager. The authorities are going to kill anyone I came in contact with. I cannot allow this.

Thankfully, the kids are still digging in the sand and are contained. To protect them, I command the sand to build a wall around them. I form a steel wall between Mel, me and that man.

"Tsk, you cannot change reality for me. I am protected.", the man says as he closed the gap to Mel and me fast breaking through the 5 inch steel like paper. I keep putting all sorts of barriers up, magnetic, electric, physical - he breaks through them all. I grab Mel and start running out to the garden. The man grabs one of the children and stabs it with a pocket knife in the neck. Blood gashes out of the wound. The stabbed girl screams and then a panic starts. 

"Do not attempt to escape or I will kill all of them. Come back and you can heal this one.", he shouts.

I tried to heal the kid from a distance and can instantly undo the damage. Blood is everywhere. The man puts the knife towards the eye of the screaming kid. The girl is healed but she did not forget the pain he experienced just a few heartbeats ago. She is shaking with fear and crying on the top of her lungs.

"Hey you, girl, come here", he gestures towards Mel. "If you don't come here, I will stab her eye".

Mel shivers and shakes. With the pressure from the man forcing her, she walks towards him. She does not understand what is going on. She looks in utter amazement at the puddles and splatter of red. Miss Elsy tries to jump on the man from behind, but he steps aside and rams the knife into the back of Miss Elsy as she falls. She died instantly. I heal her as fast as possible but she won't wake up for some time. 

In the confusion, the man grabs Mel's hand. He pushes her hand flat onto a table and then sticks the knife through the back of her hand. Mel screams in agony. The man has literally nailed her to the table. I can see Mel's pain on her face. Worse, I can also feel her pain. Quickly I  destroy the knife and heal her hand. The pain has me shaking, I am falling to his knees. The violence makes me sick. Tears are starting to fall uncontrollably. I cannot see clearly.

Meanwhile, the man puts his elbow around Mel's throat and is strangling her. Mel is fighting for air.

"This girl. She means something to you.", then he strangles Mel's neck. "You cannot heal her whilst I am holding her, can you.".  Mel is clawing at the arm, but has nowhere near enough strength. As she gasps for air she looks at me for help.

"Come with me and I let you heal her. Now!"

I tried once more. Raising the ground he is standing on, I tried to topple him over. But he just falls down with Mel. As he sits up, he turns Mel's neck further which is about to break. Mel is spasming under his grip.

"Noooooooooo". I run over to the man, I place a metal around my arm increasing the strength several fold and try to dislodge the man's arm. However, I cannot move it. I can only convert Mel's spend air in the lungs to good air. Mel seems to understand and thanks me with her eyes.

But then he breaks Mel's neck, she jitters and then dies. I try to set the neck before brain death but somehow his arm is interfering. 

The man is getting up and walking towards the other children with Mel's body dragged under his arm. Her tongue is sticking out and her eyes are open and dead. The kids scram but he managed to grab another one. 

"Do you want me to kill this one too ?", whilst Mel's lifeless body is under his one arm he is strangling the other kid.

"No, I give up", falling to my knees I beg. "Please, let me heal them. Don't kill anyone".

He tosses me what looks like a collar. "Put this on your neck.".

"What does it do?", I ask. Although I know it is some form of strong magnet. I can guess what it does.

"Never you mind, just put it on". 

I comply and then loose all strength in my legs and fall over.