Dakota crossed his arms as he stood only a couple inches from the perilously icy cliff. The wind whistled solemnly, seeming to lament the fact that Cavendish had just unintentionally stepped too far out and gone tumbling down the mountainside. Dakota craned his neck to look down the snowy, ice-caked hillside and saw Cavendish lying in a heap at the foot of it, halfway buried in the snow and his leg kinked awkwardly over his torso. His snowshoe was resting against his chest, and his neck was also in a position that made the agent reach up and touch his own neck. He scoffed, and snidely added, "Watch where you step, old man."
Dakota twirled on his heel, kicking up a little bit of snow and knocking it over the edge. The wind was moving, but there was no snowfall and so the air was crisp, almost painfully so against his throat, the kind that made each breath feel like a dagger was cutting it. Dakota and Cavendish's beaten and beige Volkswagen Thing lay waiting further down the gentler side of the hill, the one that sloped slowly rather than descended in a sudden cliff. He casually pulled the small, squarish door of the driver's seat open and climbed in, settling on the abused, grayed leather. He winced. It was uncomfortable, but he had an odd affection for the car nowadays. He refused to get it updated cosmetically, even if they had the ability to do so.
The complex electrical system related to time travel awkwardly meshed into the vehicle's square and basic dashboard juxtaposed one another greatly. It didn't strike him as much anymore, and he calmly pressed the calloused pads of his fingertips to the touch-sensitive screen of a tiny display and then selected one of the quick options already present , saved as '5 minutes back.'
Other options included 3, 10, and 15 minutes back, along with 24, 48, and 72 hours back. Then another list gave similar options, but for going forward in time - none of them were by the minute like Dakota had customized the backward travel times. The several minute options had been added for times like these. The first time had been a traumatizing experience, but nowadays it was common and didn't bother him. And while he knew it wasn't true, he sometimes liked to believe Cavendish did the same for him.
The first time, Cavendish had accidentally placed himself in the middle of a road. It was a heated argument between the two agents. They were still new to working with one another at that point in time, and Dakota, a naturally relaxed funseeker, found Cavendish's laser-focused nature and allergy to enjoyment grating. (He didn't yet find it entertaining to see what fun he could get up to even under Cavendish's piercing glare.) The argument had been over a failed mission in which Cavendish had solely blamed Dakota for.
Trusted with guarding a special breed of pistachio plant from falling into the hands of a corporate office that would ultimately "ruin the taste of that pistachio," as Mr. Block had put it, Cavendish had unintentionally gifted the very plant they were to protect to the soon-to-be proud businessman of the aforementioned corporate office. He had intended to give him a plant of a different breed, one that Mr. Block wanted ruined, but the mixup had occurred and Cavendish had immediately cast the blame to Dakota's shoulders. He claimed the aloof operative had moved the plants around, confusing Cavendish when he went to retrieve the correct plant.
Dakota, furious, had told Cavendish he was insane and so, there they had stood, Cavendish in the middle of a crosswalk and Dakota glaring at him from the sidewalk. He had never met someone who could infuriate him like Cavendish could. He had raised his voice, and had yelled, "Maybe if you had just read the labels that were on the plants that said 'give' or 'don't give,' this wouldn't be a problem!"
Cavendish had turned on his heels in the middle of a crosswalk, a surprisingly agile move for a man of his age. The sign on the other side of the road gradually turned to the bright red, capitalized DON'T WALK, but neither of the annoyed agents had noticed and there wasn't much traffic anyway. Cavendish squared and brought his shoulders up defensively, his nose giving an almost indiscernible twitch that pushed up his glasses. "I trusted you with handing me them! Therefore, it is your fault, Dakota! I told them I didn't need you as a partner. I needed someone with more experience and less attitude."
"Yeah, well, if that's what you think, fine. I don't need you either, old timer."
Dakota had regretted those words almost as soon as they had left his mouth. The distant roars of engines grew faster than the time it took for either of the men to realize two speeding cars, racing one another, were two twinlike Dodge Challengers headed right in their direction. Before they had a chance to react, one of the twin Challengers, a deep opalescent blue one that contrasted with its crimson red colleague, mowed Cavendish down in a frightful instant.
His legs had been shattered almost immediately and his neck tilted at such an angle one could see, without hearing the disturbing crack that Dakota had heard, that it was broken. Dakota had watched as the life drained from his eyes and in an instant, he was thrown in a crumpled heap over the car. His glasses, their lenses shattered, had broken into four or five pieces with the largest landing in front of Dakota's left shoe.
The blue Challenger swerved madly, catching the tail end of the red one and sending both vehicles twirling into the guard rails. The red Challenger flipped, landing upside down and with one side badly bent inward. Smoke began to pour from beneath the bent and crumpled hood, and he saw the door giving odd jerks as the person inside attempted to push it open.
Dakota had fallen backward, landing on his backside. He brought his hands up over his face and shouted in surprise and shock. His entire body began shivering, but he only knew that because he had been trying to look at the horrific scene ahead of him through the spaces between his fingers. They trembled so violently back and forth that he couldn't. A new agent at the time, Dakota had not seen anything truly gruesome yet and it was especially stressful for his first experience to have been with his supposed partner - even if they had been engaged in a shouting match beforehand.
Still shaking, and watching the bloody scene ahead in a dazed stupor, Dakota slowly made his way toward the Volkswagen Thing. At the time, he had thought it was ridiculous - them, born almost two hundreds years after its production, driving an old, beaten Volkswagen Thing? - but at that moment in time, he could have kissed the cold, metal, boxy body of that car. He finally tore his eyes away from Cavendish's broken and bleeding body and moved his shaky right hand toward the display at the front of the car's dashboard. It had still been foreign to him at the time, and it took him a moment (not to mention with his quivering, bumbling fingers) to find the option to input a time to travel to. After some fifteen minutes, he managed to tell the car to go twenty minutes back in time.
Suddenly, he was cowering in the car while the world around him liquefied and then reimagined itself. There was no more smoke in the distance from where the red Challenger had rolled. Peeking his head through the window fearfully, he almost began to cry his relief to see Cavendish and a past version of himself on the sidewalk - fully on the sidewalk - arguing there instead of half-in, half-out the roadway.
"I can't take this! I don't need you and I'm leaving!" Cavendish suddenly roared, stomping his way toward the sidewalk. Dakota had reacted out of blind panic. While Cavendish was turned around, and before his past self could start throwing insults again, he practically tackled the past Dakota to the ground and, before he could say anything else, quickly retrieved a stun-gun from the deep pockets of his hoodie and knocked his former self out with a point-blank blast of the golden-yellow ray. With that, he pulled the old Dakota aside and haphazardly tucked him beneath the Volkswagen Thing. Without even dropping the stun-gun, he then rushed to the crosswalk where Cavendish stood, and grabbed him by his coattails.
He dragged Cavendish backward. The Englishman cursed and struggled against him the whole way, but what Dakota lacked in height he made up for in strength and he easily pulled Cavendish back to the sidewalk. He narrowly missed the two Challengers, which went barreling by them again at speeds so great they sent Cavendish's hat to the ground and set Dakota's thick, curled hair ruffling.
Dakota was panting, and still trembling with unforgiving, forceful quivers. Cavendish raised a brow at the younger operative, the anger seeming to fade from his expression. "Dakota. How on Earth did you know they were coming?"
"It d-doesn't m… matter," Dakota stuttered, slowly trying to steer Cavendish's attention away from the car. He didn't yet know what to do about the Dakota lying beneath the car, stunned into unconsciousness by the stun-gun Dakota had been trying to stow back away (with the safety on) into his jacket's pockets. "It doesn't matter. I'll do better next time, Balth- I mean, Cavendish." He had still been getting used to using their last names instead of their first names.
So, now, tapping the button to go back in time to save Cavendish yet again, Dakota almost gave a soft snicker at the memory, which replayed in his mind like a television program on fast-forward. He watched nonchalantly through the windshield of the car as the world outside the vehicle darkened and then melted away, replaced with a deep shade of vibrant purple. It was only a couple milliseconds before the purple then faded away, and the world reformed around the car… except when he looked out the window, there was no Cavendish… or another Dakota standing there, for that matter.
Confused, Dakota arched his brows and started to look through the back rear window of the car, wondering if he had accidentally selected to return fifteen minutes in time rather than five. But that was when the tiny display on the front of the car began to go off, an alarm emitting a high-pitched, squealing sound every few seconds. He winced and his hands flew to cover his ears, and panic swelled within his chest tenfold. "No, no, don't be malfunctioning now," Dakota begged, managing to pry a single hand off his head. He held it poised over the blinking red display. Some text was displayed on the screen.
"The designated driver of this vehicle has been detected to have suffered loss or extreme damage. There key-chip is damaged. This new security measure was introduced in the newest update 0.11z. Due to serious issues with security, this vehicle will be teleported to the institution in which it was first commissioned/given this update so the matter can be thoroughly investigated in: 10 seconds."
Dakota's blood ran cold as he read the screen. The timer was also counting down (at 8 seconds now). He could feel his hands beginning to tremble and he started madly tapping on the dashboard display anyway, hoping somehow this was a mistake and he wasn't being thwarted. How had he not known about this update? Surely he would have known! He tried to pay attention to all of the vehicle's updates…
He thought back to the device in his jacket pockets, resting serenely against his abdomen. It was another device he could use to manipulate time and he breathed a deep sigh of relief that undid the tense knots of fear brewing in his chest cavity. He pulled the small, black device free of his clothes and pressed the familiar button sitting atop it… but nothing happened.
On an even smaller display, similar to the one in the car and just behind the button he had attempted to press, a similar flashing, warning screen declared the same message. And at the bottom, in text so small he almost couldn't read it, it said that it was linked to their car - a 1972 Volkswagen Thing.
And then, purple once again enveloped the car and Dakota clutched the steering wheel in front of his chest to steady himself. His glasses had slipped down the bridge of his nose but he didn't seem to take notice or try to push them back up. He couldn't believe it. He could always go back in time, but the longer it took him to save Cavendish, the more nervous he got. It made the situation feel far too real and final, and not to mention the official warning scared him. What he did to save Cavendish was highly unauthorized - illegal, even - and if his nasty secret was discovered, then there was a high probability Cavendish would remain unsaved, if Mr. Block had anything to say about it.
By the time the car landed in a futuristic time period, Dakota was quivering violently despite the thick, orange and red winter jacket he was currently wearing. The driver's door to the car swung open without him pressing anything and he slowly turned his head to see a stocky man with bags under his eyes glaring at him harshly. The piercing blue eyes of Mr. Block glowered at him and scanned the car, but when he saw no signs of Cavendish his expression softened (if only slightly).
"I figured you goons had messed something up in the car," Mr. Block grumbled. "Did something actually happen to Cavendish?"
Dakota failed to respond. Mr. Block's callousness would normally have never bothered him, but at that moment in time, the fury mounting in him was incalculable and made him feel rooted to the gray seat of the car where he sat.
"Vinnie Dakota," Mr. Block started again, this time with more familiar disdain, "where is Balthazar Cavendish? Did something happen to him?"
Dakota suddenly reached out of the car and grabbed fistfuls of the stocky, angry man's black suit. His eyes blazed with hatred underneath his red sunglasses and he shook Mr. Block with frightening and unusual anger. "Dakota - let me go this instant!" Mr. Block hissed, digging his fingernails into the gaudy red and orange jacket covering Dakota's arms.
"Had you and your stupid car not teleported me back here, nothing would be wrong with Cavendish! But yeah, now that you mention it, something is wrong with Cavendish! He's layin' at the bottom of a cliff dead because of this stupid car!" Dakota fumed, still shaking the superior.
"Dakota! Calm yourself and let go of me right now! Even if he is dead, what are you gonna do about it?" Mr. Block was screaming now, trying to pull Dakota from his craze. "You can't go back in time and save him. You can't have two copies of yourself, Dakota. You know that."
Dakota's hard stare didn't change. The stare-off continued and Mr. Block had a realization dawn on him. His mouth slowly fell open. "You've already done it," he whispered. "Dakota. You can't do that! We don't know how that alters timelines fully yet!"
"That's right, now downgrade the stupid car or I'll find another way!" Dakota snapped. "And I've done it plenty of times before, so if you haven't noticed until me practically tellin' ya, then I guess it doesn't have much of a bearing on things at all, huh?"
Mr. Block had never quite felt afraid of any of his employees before, and he had certainly never imagined he would be afraid of Vinnie Dakota of all people. He oftentimes forgot the two even existed until he was reminded of one of their failures or he opened a bag of pistachios. It made the blood roar in his ears but he couldn't bring himself to say anything. While he normally wouldn't have let something like this get under his skin - he had had agents die before on duty - but this time, the way Dakota was glaring at him… Guilt began to gnaw at his chest.
"...Fine! Fine, Vinnie. I'll go find a technician to remove that feature from your vehicle. But you won't get anymore free updates or upgrades for a year!"
Dakota finally let him go.
"Oof! Dakota, why would you grab me like that? You almost choked me!"
"Yeah, look down," Dakota muttered, pointing at Cavendish's right leg, the snowshoe dangling just over open air. The same cliff he had fallen down on in the past - or an alternate future, Dakota thought grimly.
Cavendish yelped and jumped backward, causing Dakota to lose his grip on the dark green jacket. He smirked at the older man and crossed his arms. "Now will you please watch where you're goin'?"
Cavendish seemed to get a closer look at Dakota as he stood up again, his feet planted firmly in the snow. "Dakota, are you alright?" He crossed his arms and continued to scrutinize Dakota.
The question caught him off-guard and he blinked, confused. "What do you mean, 'am I alright?' You're the one who almost fell down a cliff, not me," Dakota chuckled warmly, trying to dispel Cavendish's interest. He was aware that his eyes were raw and red, and he looked exhausted. It had been an ordeal to convince Mr. Block and then the technicians to downgrade their car, and then he had had to figure out how much time had passed exactly since Cavendish's demise. He had been awake now for a collective thirty-something hours and he had to look it.
"Yes, but you look dreadful. You slept until ten in the morning, why do you look so exhausted?" Cavendish crossed his arms, frowning at him. It was true, on the day Cavendish was referring to, Dakota had slept from midnight to ten in the morning.
Dakota sighed and waved him off. "I had a rough night, I don't question you when you look awful, do I?"
"Guess not," Cavendish shrugged and looked down the cliffside. "Rough night or not, get over here. We need to be prepared for that special ice-resistant seedling to sprout! It should be breaking the surface of the snow at any second now."
"This snow is three feet deep, and half of that is solid ice," Dakota complained, watching Cavendish from behind anxiously. For all of the times he had saved him, Dakota still sometimes wished his partner in time travel would return the favor, or show a little affection in return. Of course, him asking why he looked so tired was fairly unusual. He forged a small smile at the thought and shook his head. "But if it's ice-resistant that shouldn't matter."
So he moved forward and crouched down, watching down the face of the cliff alongside Cavendish.