January 28th, 1997 Edinburgh Scottland
In a small café named the Mammoth House, a lanky woman with hair the color of rust could be seen sitting alone at a table in the back of the café.
On the small, blue table before her was a large notebook where she had been scribbling down the ending of a riveting tale that she had spent the last year or so trying to rewrite.
Having been excited for the last few months ever since she officially got her new title contracted with a reputable publishing company, she was now in the process of making the changes to the story that her editor had recommended to ensure not to segregate any potential new readers.
With the deadline for publication drawing near, June 26th to be precise, the pressure was building for the young author named Jennifer Rowing, as this was the first time one of her books had been picked up to be published.
Unfortunately for the budding author, getting to see her book reach the hands of children and young adults around the world was something she would never get to see.
With an ominous feeling setting in on her location, Jennifer was completely unaware of the dangerous child sporting a plain black hoodie lurking outside the café on that dreary day.
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It had been a little over two weeks since I returned to Earth, and while I would like to say I took a break to relax, it wasn’t in my nature to do so with so many pressing matters demanding my attention.
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My first order of business was to stitch together some semblance of normalcy from what happened in my life during the Origin Timeline.
The first item on my metaphorical docket was quite important. It was time to put in motion the events which would inevitably lead to my parents getting divorced and to do so, I had to make sure that Amanda was given the opportunity to cheat on my father.
For this to happen, I would need her to travel to her hometown near Chicago, where she would meet Seth, and to my surprise, doing so was easier than I had expected.
Having spent the last couple of years hanging the woman out to dry at every twist and turn, she was already fed up with my father, so when I used my Coersion to plant the idea of visiting her family up north, it was accepted without hesitation.
Soon enough, three days later, the bitch was on a plane taking Baby Brenden with her to show him off to her mother and siblings.
Since the trip deviated from the course set during the Origin Timeline, I wasn’t too worried about anything happening to my little brother; plus, since I went with him to see them off at the airport, I carefully scanned around for any potential threats or people following them.
The main reason I wasn’t that worried, even if I was a bit paranoid about getting trailed to the airport, was because, unlike my father, whose identity was easier to find, Brenden and I had pretty much cut all contact with the woman a decade before the descent of Arkadia.
We even went so far as to mention in our USAHA documents that we only had a father. Not to mention, the only reason that the assassin guy had located Brenden in the first place was because he was a close friend and knew more about us than anyone else.
If anything, both Brenden and Emilia were very protective of their Secret Identities, so while I didn’t necessarily have to worry as much as I did about being found or attacked, I was still overly cautious since if push came to shove, my brother hadn’t returned to the past yet and was helpless to stop any form of danger heading his way.
Once the pair of Brenden and Amanda left on their trip, it was just my father and me at home, so I quickly planted the suggestion that we needed to go to Scottland and then London, England, so that I could begin what would no doubt be one of the greatest thefts in both timelines I had ever attempted.
But, unlike the future, where all you needed was a few keyboard strokes, and mouse clicks to book a trip, back in 1997, it was vastly more difficult to both plan and book a trip across the world such as what I had in my head; thus we first needed to find someone with a profession long extinct in the origin timeline…a Travel Agent.
Acting as a middleman between the customer and airlines/hotel agencies, a travel agent would use their extensive contacts and connections to do what we, in the future, would do from our computers.
As annoying as it may seem to rely on someone else to book your whole trip, it was a normal thing for my father, and 1800 USD, a 10.5-hour plane ride, and dealing with Customs, the two of us had arrived in Scottland.
At first, my Dad was utterly confused as to why we had come, but after planting a few suggestions using my talent, he decided to laze around and treat the whole thing like a vacation.
Arriving at the airport, I quickly planted the thought he was a bachelor on vacation, then ditched my Dad, leaving him to flirt with some chick he met in the hotel lobby.
Stepping out onto the busy sidewalk outside the 5-star hotel, I pulled the hood part of my hoodie up over my head and stepped forward to hail a cab…a task that was incredibly difficult due to my being a LITERAL CHILD.
I mean, what adult in their right mind would pull their car over to pick up a five-year-old on the sidewalk? Thankfully, I had a backup plan, and after the fourth failed attempt at getting a cab the normal way, I locked eyes with one of the cabbies waiting outside the hotel, used my Coercion skill, and soon enough, was on my way…the target, a small yet well-known café.