We can hang around to make sure there isn't a back-up team or another bomb, but that's just wasting time. Carrillo will never know he owes us his life, nor do we care. It's simpler to return and make sure everything is back in its original place.

We get in the van and begin the return trip to Madrid. We abandon it in Vallecas, a good place for it to disappear without a trace. We inject the three of them with a solution that will make them forget even their names. They will have to go back to school. We take the bomb, their weapons, and all their documents back to our own time period. Nobody will know who they are or what happened to them.

We stop somewhere with little traffic. We make them get out and give them a little push so they start to walk. They are three zombies by then. We start the car, they get lost in the crowd. Soon they'll be noticed.

We leave the van in an open field and look around for a discreet place to await the portal. It'll be afew minutes until they find an adequate quantum tunnel. I start to relax.

The bad thing about traveling through time is that you get completely disconnected from your own time. There's no way to communicate with it; you're left to your own devices and can only count on your own team for help.

When I saw the familiar sight of the dome I sighed in relief.

"Complete success," Isabel informed us.

Didac was gesturing at us from above.

"Tune to channel four, I think Didac wants to give us some bad news," I remarked.

"Hello everyone, I'm happy to see you," said Didac, waving a greeting. "I believe the worst is over, but there are still serious deviations in the course of events."

Marisa swore.

"Meeting in the documentation room in five minutes," said Isabel, stoically accepting that the operation had been a failure.

"What's our current situation?" asked Isabel as soon as she came in.

Jose Luis motioned toward the terminals without a word.

The problem was still simple. The meeting had been broadcast by radio when it was being held, and Suarez had been exposed. His position had been weakened and his enemies had taken advantage of the situation to the fullest. There was no war, everything seemed to be going well, but Suarez had been forced to negotiate with the Francoists and the Transition had been delayed. The temporal line showed clearly now how a few special groups had benefited. I thought I understood.

"An interesting simulation exercise," I said raising my voice so that everyone could hear me. "They create a deviation we must resolve; I suspect our arrival is the cause they were waiting for so they could trigger a new effect, precisely the one they really wanted. The first one was nothing but bait. Effective."

The ability to intervene in time is not unlimited. You cannot continue to put patches over other patches forever. Someday everything may explode in our faces if we keep on fixing history. We're already beginning to have problems with forgetful people.

Isabel and the rest of the group looked at me. They had all understood the trap that had been set for us. We were the fuse for the true historical manipulation.

"Don't be so Machiavellian," Rudy remarked. "They knew we were going to intervene, so they planned everything out. We've only corrected an anomalous situation for them, one that makes room for a beneficial one. They're sophisticated, but I've seen worse."

"We have to go back," said Marisa.

We all looked at each other. Nobody likes to go back to the same place we're already at; it's just nerves. It's been proven we can coexist with ourselves in the same place and time, even though I don't know anyone who likes doing it. We couldn't ask the back-up team to go, either; it was our mission and we had to fix it ourselves.

Isabel transmitted the new data to Operations Control and requested another delivery. Meanwhile, the rest of us focused on looking for a new inflection point.

We located it: a radio station had been tipped off about something that was going to occur at that location. They had sent a camouflaged car and none of us had taken notice. That's the problem with the huge quantity of variations, ours or theirs, that can get caught up in a mission. Intelligent and simple. They never get tired, but they don't realize we don't get tired either.

We got ready again. We hadn't changed clothes, so this time everything went faster. We entered the tube and there we were again. It was still that ominous afternoon. We were one kilometer further down, at a point midway between our first action and the country house where the conversations were to be held.

The first warning came, as was normal in these cases, from Rudy.

"Danger!"

We were all more calm and relaxed, since there was no reason for this to be dangerous or complicated. Except that this time nothing went well. They were waiting for us. They knew we would goand, unfortunately for us, they had even guessed where we would enter that continuum. That's our worst moment, since we're always dazed for a few minutes.

They were shooting at us but we didn't see anybody. They were Extras, of course; the weapons they were using left no doubt. Rudy had detected them, but not fast enough. We all tried to cover ourselves and spread out. What mattered was to locate the source of the shots. Marisa set up a scanner as soon as she found the source, and we all started to return fire.

There were two of them, and they were placed at an angle so as to catch us in crossfire. Rudy was already positioning himself to catch them from behind while Marisa moved in on his left. I was shooting like a madman to cover them while Isabel, the most daring, was advancing straight toward them, covering herself as best she could. With luck there wouldn't be any traces of the raid left. We were all shooting with plasma pistols-they don't make any sound and affect only the ecstasis field that surrounds us; that's enough.

I didn't have time to think. I heard a scream and a red light lit up on my console. I didn't want to find out whose it was. We had just suffered a casualty. The three of us who were left coldly bore down on them; we were already in position and didn't give them any kind of a chance. They knew they would never have one. It was as if a light went off, only you don't stay in the dark.

We became tense, serious. Suddenly everything was quiet; it was time to worry about the rest of the world and about ourselves. I didn't need to look at the console to know which one of us was gone.

What a euphemism! I felt a sharp pain and I let it show.

"It's Isabel," Marisa's voice pierced my ears.

I approached her body. Her head was smashed. I held her right wrist and read what her control panel said. It indicated a massive brain failure. Our nanosystems can repair many wounds, but not even all the technology of the twenty-first century could reconstruct a shattered brain.

"We've got a job to do," Rudy declared. He's usually the most practical and coldest among us.

We divided up the work. This time we were more conscientious. We checked that nobody had witnessed the little battle, then prepared the bodies to take them back to the future with us.

When we finished, we simply waited for the transmitter people to arrive. Rudy and Marisa kept watch just in case any other Extra showed up trying to spoil the plan.

Isabel's memory hit me at regular intervals, as if it had installed itself in my heart. Each beat gave me life, each beat killed me.

The transmitter people arrived, very discreetly, in a car without any identification and parked two hundred meters from the house. I didn't even give them time to get out of the car. I went straight to them.

I blurted out what we had prepared: I pretended I was lazy and sold them the information they wanted to hear. I sent them to Arganda. The information was good, I told them. Some of their colleagues had already come and gone when they got the new tip; at the last minute, the meeting of several Francoist factions had moved to the old Institute in Arganda del Rey, on the road toward Valencia. They still had time to get there, since it had been delayed for two hours because of the move. If they hurried, they would still arrive in time.

It was best to muddle up places, times, and characters. Besides, Arganda had been a communist domain during the first decade of the Transition. It was perfect for the Francoists. The car started up again and made its way down the road. We didn't see them again.

We were checking everything around us. The hours seemed like flagstones slowly falling down on us.

Right on time, Carrillo passed by us and went inside the house. That time there was no strange movement. The leader of the Communist Party didn't even see us as he went by. We had saved his life, but he would never know that.

We checked around for the last time and waited for the portal to go back to our time. When we returned it was a relief to verify that history was back to being the original one, at least for now.

Somebody, somewhere, would be plotting some new way to change it. The technicians took the bodies away.

As the second most senior member, I tackled the difficult duty of filling out the paperwork. Rudy and Marisa offered to help, but I preferred to do it alone. The bureaucrats, those who are safe in their offices,want to know everything about everybody. They don't leave anything to chance.

When I was finished, the orders for the second operation flashed on the console screen before me.

Isabel lied to me. I don't bear her any grudge. We know everything about ourselves; there are too many possibilities about the future. The truth is there are so many futures that knowing anything about them simply stops being interesting. That's why she didn't tell me the truth, and I'm grateful to her for that; it's a bit overwhelming to begin to glimpse all of the implications of belonging to the GEI.

Before crossing the portal I have consulted every available file about Isabel. So now I know everything about her. Not firsthand. It was the first time she was recruited in this life, so I have lots of information about her previous enlistments, but they are cold reports, without soul, without conscience, without respect for her. That's why I've decided to be my own memory. I think I must have considered doing it more than once, writing to leave myself the story of my experiences with Isabel, the only thing that really matters to me. It's clear I'll always be here, so I'd better have some good notes about my own emotions and feelings. Maybe someday I'll get tired and erase them, but that will be the decision of another Mikel, not me. Perhaps I'll get Isabel to collaborate. All the Mikels that follow me will always have the opportunity to access what I'm writing.

I am walking around the halls of the university where Isabel studies. I am going to find her. Before getting here I've had to evaluate what my feelings toward Isabel are at this moment. I try to be as impartial as possible so that they don't interfere with the operation, which absolutely must be successful.

It's odd how Isabel has categorically refused to be recruited some times; it happened to me once and I believe I know why, even though I haven't told anyone. I've discovered that the first hours are crucial to her subsequent behavior toward me, so the first thing I had to do was establish exactly what it was I wanted, this time, from her. We are like little gods deciding the lives of others, returning over and over again to make the same decisions. One has to be careful, since what we are sure of is that at some time things will be reversed, and therefore one must work and behave honestly so that later you may be treated likewise.

According to the records, I have already explored some variations with Isabel, not only about kinds of relationships, but even with regard to age. I have three particular moments in which I'm completely certain about her behavior. The first one is when she is twenty-three and a bit wild, but her intuition and self-assurance are brilliant. The second is when she's twenty-six. It's her best moment: she's just over a failed relationship, disillusioned with her work and with men, she's decided to take refuge in her studies, her best qualities aren't lost yet. The third one is when she's thirty-two, which is when I personally like her best. She's much more serious, poised, and her character has lost much of the harshness that irritates me when we fight. I've never gone beyond them. In many of the temporal lines, Isabel begins a lasting relationship at thirty-three, and I've never felt like exploring much further from that point.

This time I've chosen the hardest of the three Isabels I prefer. She's twenty-six and she'll look at me with mistrust. She's withdrawn into herself since her last companion let her down. It's clear I won't get anything today. That's what I prefer; at this point sex doesn't interest me. I think I would be unable to tell her how much I love her, unable to explain to her what a tremendous temporal mess we've gotten ourselves into. As she stands before me, Isabel wouldn't be able to understand why I complain. She would remind me too much of that other Isabel, so familiar and close, who has just kissed me and wished me luck before entering the portal. We both have to go through a period of mutual adaptation- well, only I have to this time; everything will be new, and thus attractive, for her.

I have three days ahead of me to talk to her. Isabel will miss her classes, I've already reserved a table at the Gorria Atemparak in Barcelona for tomorrow. We'll go to the theater and go see Aida again.

According to the records, I've seen it countless times, but it'll be the first time for both of us. We'll take a walk along the beach and, little by little, I'll unravel the threads of the huge skein I'm hiding. Maybe at the end we'll wind up in bed, maybe not. That's one of the few things I don't dare to predict.

I'm getting closer, all I have to do is go around a corner and I'll have her in sight. I vow I'll take care of myself and her, of us both. I don't want to go through this, it's very hard on me.

There are people, many people in the hallways, they're coming out of class. For a moment I doubtI'll be able to see her. I'm not afraid, I know she's there, waiting for me to come and tell her I'm sorry.

None of the records, none of the tapes have prepared me for her dazzling appearance. She is over there, at the exact place and at the right time. She has that cheerful, happy look, her shining eyes seem to give off light. Her lips form a smile that is a never-ending invitation. She's looked at me from afar without recognizing me, she has no reason to, she's talking to a classmate and they would continue if I didn't get in their way. She doesn't know who I am yet, she doesn't avert her eyes until she's right next to me. I've simply bumped into her and she has dropped her books. All I could do was smile and hide my face. I'm telling her that I'm sorry and she listens to a simple apology, in reality I'm asking her forgiveness for what I'm doing to her, for uprooting her from her temporal line, for loving her, for taking her far away and maybe for killing her over and over again, but I cannot do anything else. What better team than the one already formed? The one whose members' reactions are all known, and whose value and ability have been proven. Who's to stop us from continually recruiting the same agents when there are millions of almost identical copies of them in millions of similar worlds?

I speak but I don't listen to myself; I only have ears for her. I recite a song learned too long ago.

I close my eyes. I finally understand what she felt when she came toward me in the park. I desperately look for time to recover, I let her smell envelop me.

The situation is somewhat poetic. Isabel is here again, she has always been here, she never left. I only need to hand her the memories she has lost, so that she becomes herself again.

It's hard to realize it, when you finally understand you want to forget it, you would like not to even suspect it, but this moment arrives and you bump right into bitter reality. Now I know we are immortal, we don't have any future, but what does that matter when an eternal present is ours? Millions of Isabels await me. All of them are within my reach. All of them are waiting for a fraction of their own eternity.

Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers

CORY DOCTOROW.

Cory Doctorow [www.craphound.com] is a Canadian, recently living in San Francisco, California, and now moving to England. His first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, was published in 2002; his second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, in 2004. A collection of short stories is forthcoming in 2004. He's a sincere convert to the wonders of technology, especially if it involves computers, the very spirit of new millennium optimism. He's the Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that has been fighting for cyber-rights for more than a decade, and he gives his fiction away electronically after publication in an attempt to inspire readers to buy a hard copy of the publisher's edition. He also co-wrote The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Science-Fiction, with Karl Schroeder, and has collaborated on several stories with Charles Stross.

"Nimby and the Dimension Hoppers" appeared in Asimov's. It's a charming domestic tale of power ranger-like combatants intruding into the organic homes of people living in the post-technological future, and shooting them up with blasters. This destruction is outrageous, absurd, and must be stopped.

Don't get me wrong-I like unspoiled wilderness. I like my sky clear and blue and my city free of the thunder of cars and jackhammers. I'm no technocrat. But goddammit, who wouldn't want a fully automatic, laser-guided, armor-piercing, self-replenishing personal sidearm?

Nice turn of phrase, huh? I finally memorized it one night, from one of the hoppers, as he stood in my bedroom, pointing his hand-cannon at another hopper, enumerating its many charms: "This is a laser-guided blah blah blah. Throw down your arms and lace your fingers behind your head, blah blah blah." I'd heard the same dialog nearly every day that month, whenever the dimension-hopperscatapulted into my home, shot it up, smashed my window, dived into the street, and chased one another through my poor little shtetl, wreaking havoc, maiming bystanders, and then gating out to another poor dimension to carry on there.

Assholes.

It was all I could do to keep my house well-fed on sand to replace the windows. Much more hopper invasion and I was going to have to extrude its legs and babayaga to the beach. Why the hell was it always my house, anyway?

I wasn't going to get back to sleep, that much was sure. The autumn wind blowing through the shattered window was fragrant with maple and rich decay and crisp hay, but it was also cold enough to steam my breath and turn me out in all-over gooseflesh. Besides, the racket they were making out in the plaza was deafening, all supersonic thunderclaps and screams from wounded houses. The househusbands would have their work cut out for them come morning.

So I found a robe and slippers and stumbled down to the kitchen, got some coffee from one of the nipples and milk from another, waited for the noise to recede into the bicycle fields and went outside and knocked on Sally's door.

Her bedroom window flew open and she hung her head out. "Barry?" she called down.

"Yeah," I called back up, clouds of condensed breath obscuring her sleep-gummed face. "Let me in-I'm freezing to death."

The window closed and a moment later the door swung open. Sally had wrapped a heavy duvet around her broad shoulders like a shawl, and underneath, she wore a loose robe that hung to her long, bare toes. Sally and I had a thing, once. It was serious enough that we attached our houses and joined the beds. She curled her toes when I tickled her. We're still friends-hell, our houses are still next door to one another-but I haven't curled her toes in a couple of years.

"Jesus, it can't be three in the morning, can it?" she said as I slipped past her and into the warmth of her house.

"It can and is. Transdimensional crime fighters hew to no human schedule." I collapsed onto her sofa and tucked my feet under my haunches. "I have had more than enough of this shit," I said, massaging my temples.

Sally sank down next to me and threw her comforter over my lap, then gave my shoulder a squeeze.

"It's taking a toll on all of us. The Jeffersons are going to relocate. They've been writing to their cousins in Niagara Falls, and they say that there're hardly any hoppers down there. But how long is that gonna last, I wonder?"

"Oh, I don't know. The hoppers could go away tomorrow. We don't know that they're going to be here forever."

"Of course I know it. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. They've got d-hoppers now-they're not going to just stop using them."

I didn't say anything, just stared pointedly at the abstract mosaic covering her parlor wall: closely fitted pieces of scrap aluminum, plastics too abstruse to feed to even the crudest house, rare beach-glass and bunched vinyl.

"That's different," she said. "We ditched the technocracy because we found something that worked better. No one decided it was too dangerous and had to be set aside for our own good. It just got...obsolete. Nothing's going to make d-hoppers obsolete for those guys." Out in the plaza, the booms continued, punctuated by the peristaltic noises of houses hurrying away. Sally's house gave a shudder in sympathy, and the mosaic rippled.

I held my cup away from the comforter as coffee sloshed over the edge and to the floor, where the house drank it greedily.

"No caffeine!" Sally said as she sopped up the coffee with her stockinged foot. "The house gets all jumpy."

I opened my mouth to say something about Sally's crackpot house-husbandry theories, and then the door was blown off its hinges. A hopper in outlandish technocrat armor rolled into the parlor, sat up, snapped off three rounds in the general direction of the door (one passed through it, the other two leftcurdled houseflesh and scorch marks on the wall around it).

Sally and I levitated out of our seats and dived behind the sofa as another hopper rolled through the door and returned fire, missing his opponent but blowing away the mosaic. My heart hammered in my chest, and all my other cliches hackneyed in my chestnuts.

"You okay?" I hollered over the din.

"I think so," Sally said. A piece of jagged plastic was embedded in the wall inches over her head, and the house was keening.

A stray blast of electric thunder set the sofa ablaze, and we scrambled away. The second gunman was retreating under a volley of fire from the first, who was performing machine-assisted gymnastics around the parlor, avoiding the shots aimed at him. The second man made good his escape, and the first holstered his weapon and turned to face us.

"Sorry about the mess, folks," he said, through his face-plate.

I was speechless. Sally, though, cupped her ear and hollered "What?"

"Sorry," the gunman said.

"What?" Sally said again. She turned and said, "Can you make out what he's saying?" She winked at me with the eye that faced away from him.

"No," I said, slowly. "Can't make out a word."