For the Love of Laurier
"I have to stop the assassination, I have to stop..." A long haired man muttered to himself audibly as he raced down the streets of Toronto.
He bumped into Meyers' shoulder as he hurtled past. Meyers let the man go. A bit of friendly jostling was to be expected on a day like today. People always went a bit mad when the Prime Minister made an appearance.
"Excuse me, boy," The man said as he rushed on, only to abruptly stop and swing back around to face him. "You're that government fellow from three years future. You're that one who remembered... Terrence, or some-at you're called."
"Begging your pardon, sir, I don't believe we've met," Meyers informed him.
"Never mind that now. The Prime Minister's life is in danger. You were there at the speech. Can you tell me if Laurier is still at Queen's Park, because I need to get to him," The other man held up his hands imploringly, which were shaking in his urgency.
"The Prime Minister hasn't made his speech yet," Meyers snapped, irritated to find himself trapped in a conversation with someone clearly addled. If he didn't hurry, he'd miss the speech himself.
"Oh, thank goodness. That means there still time," The man sighed in relief, and darted off again, saying out loud "Queen's Park on May 27th in 1901 at 4:45 in the afternoon. I need to stop the assassination."
Meyers let some distance grow between himself and the other man before continuing on his way. He wondered if some of the lunatics had been let out of the local asylum to enjoy the day's events. It was the only explanation for what he'd just witnessed. Imagine, an assassination plot taking place in Canada, especially here in one of the most civilized parts of the country. No sane person would believe such a thing. There wasn't a safer city than Toronto the Good.
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Queen's Park thronged with people, all of them amassing on the same point like metal filings pulled toward a magnet. Even the great outdoors couldn't provide enough space to accommodate the crowds as they pressed in on each other, jockeying for a good position. By the time Meyers got there, the near solid wall of human flesh forced him to stand well back from the spectacle. A stand was erected before the Ontario Legislative Building, and on that stand was the centre of everyone's attention. Prime Minister Laurier was already addressing his audience, his voice rising with conviction.
"I am Canadian. Canada has been the inspiration of my life. I have had before me as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day a policy of true Canadianism, of moderation, of conciliation. I ask you to remember this in order to remind you that your duty is simply, and above all, to be Canadians."
Shouts and whistled drowned out the Prime Minister as the crowd voiced their pride for their young country. Meyers strained to hear over the noise, but it took some time before the audience settled down enough for the speech to reach him in the back.
"I shall remind you that already many problems rise before you: problems of race division, problems of creed difference, problems of economic con flict, problems of national duty and national aspiration. Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate."
Laurier's voice dropped into a pleading tone as he expounded on all the troubles in the world, and how modern Canadians must face them together. Meyers was forced to wait until the Prime Minister spoke up again before he could hear more of what the man had to say.
"When the hour of final rest comes, when I close my eyes forever, if I may pay myself this tribute, this simple tribute of having contributed to healing a single patriotic wound in the heart of a single one of my compatriots, of having thus advanced, as little as may be, the cause of unity, concord, and harmony among the citizens of this country, then I will believe that my life has not been entirely in vain. When my eyes close, I hope it will be on a united Canada, cherishing an abundant hope for all the future."
A gun shot ended Laurier's words. Cries of shock burst from everyone at once, joining into a single, bestial howl. People shifted enough to allow Meyers a brief glimpse of Laurier crumpled on the stage before the mass of bodies surged forward, driven to a single purpose. Get to the Prime Minister. Laurier's aides struggled to hold off the swarm as people unthinkingly trapped the man in a maelstrom of human flesh. They left no room for him to be carried out, and no room for medical aid to get in. At this distance Meyers couldn't possibly help, even if he knew how. He turned away from the madness, and saw a single woman rushing away, gun in hand.
"Stop her!" He shouted, trying to attract the attention of Laurier's aides, but his voice was swallowed up.
The Prime Minister's staff couldn't break through to chase her down even if they had heard him. Surely there had to be constables at such an event. He looked around, but if there were any present, they were already lost trying to control the crowd. If he hesitated any longer the killer would get away without anyone else seeing her. Meyers abandoned the screaming horde, the aides, even the Prime Minister, and ran after the shooter.
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She crossed the open grounds of Queen's Park before Meyers even pulled himself free of the churning masses. In a matter of strides she noticed him charging after her. Grabbing up her skirts, she glanced back at him with a flash of amusement before setting a pace that let her break into the city proper well ahead of him. When Meyers entered the twisted warren of streets, all of them were empty no matter where he looked. There were too many ways she could have turned. He stood there for a moment, searching for some clue as to her path. He was the only one who saw her, and he let her get away.
A sound echoed up the road behind him, of hurried footfalls and sharp panting. Meyers ducked aside, waiting to see who chased him in turn. The person who stumbled past his hiding place wasn't the shooter coming back around to finish him, but that same strange man who ran into him earlier.
Meyers grabbed him and hauled him back against a wall. "You knew this would happen! I don't know how you're involved, but you're going to tell me everything."
"It's not what you think," the man panted, straining in his grasp.
"You knew someone was going to take the Prime Minister's life, you even knew the very minute!" Meyers shoved him again.
The man shook his head desperately. "Listen, you've got it all wrong. I came here to stop the assassin, not to help her."
"If that's true, then how did you get so far behind me?" Meyers asked.
"I beg your pardon for not being used to sprinting. I'm a professor, aren't I. Up to recently, I studied history sitting at a desk," He protested. "It'll take too long to fill you in on all the details, but there's another time traveler going around changing Canada's history. I came back to this day to put a stop to it all, and you, being a government agent, played a part in helping me get here when we first met in 1904."
That statement was too ludicrous to follow. Meyers skipped over the parts about time travel and changing history in the future to latch onto the two words he could understand.
"Government agent? Sir, you've completely lost your mind. A country like Canada wouldn't put its faith in the use of spies. I'm nothing of the sort."
The Professor stared at him in confusion for a moment before reading the conviction in Meyers' face. "Good God. You're really not him, are you? You're not the Terrence Meyers of 1904, you're someone else. You're life has been altered somehow."
"Will you try to talk to sense?" Meyers growled.
Here he was faced with something as important as the assassination of the Prime Minister, and his only lead was a madman.
"You don't believe me, do you? Well then, just let me say that for an ordinary citizen, you've got a keen interest in political figures," The Professor commented.
"Well, any Canadian would care," Meyers said.
The Professor remained skeptical. "Is that a fact, boy? Tell me then, how comes you're the only one here, trying to change things?"
Meyers pushed him away in denial, yet he couldn't answer the Professor's question. That huge, roaring crowd spun in his mind. What were all those people doing now? Did any of them truly think to help, or were they simply caught up in their own performance of grief?
"That doesn't prove anything," Meyers insisted once he pulled himself together.
"Maybe not, but arguing about it won't let us catch her, and we both wants that, don't we?" Even though he was no longer pinned against a wall, the Professor made no effort to flee.
"Now, I needs to show you something, and I don't wants you getting the wrong idea," The Professor reached into his coat and pulled out a metal object.
"What is that thing?" Meyers asked.
"It's the device that allows me to open the portals in time and step through," The Professor said. "These portals are all over the place, but you have to choose the right one depending on where and when you want to go. My goal was to go back to before the assassination of Prime Minister Laurier, which is why I came to this day."
"In that case, why can't you go back to this morning and try again?" Meyers wanted to know.
"I didn't succeed the first time, did I? Besides, she's been causing trouble through all of history, starting back from 1850. I gotta find some way to stop her before this all starts, and to keep an eye on the years at the same time so she can't start over again. But I needs to know exactly when she came from," The Professor rubbed at his chin while he mused.
This struck Meyers as a good moment to bring the man back on track. "In either case, we need to catch this assassin. If what you say is somehow true, which I doubt, you can find your answers then. Even if it's not, we can't allow her to go unpunished for what she has done today."
The Professor took a crumbled piece of paper out his jacket and consulted it. "Judging by her next target, she be stuck waiting here until another portal opens. She likely has some hiding place to lie low, we just have to figure out where."
"Why would we run around trying to figure out where she's hiding when we already know where she eventually has to go?" Meyers asked pointedly.
"Come to think of it, I suppose you're right," The Professor admitted.
"Of course I'm right," Meyers grumbled. "Now come on and show me where this portal is supposed to be."
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Meyers tried to convince himself that waiting in this place was truly important, and not the product of a delusion. It wasn't like he had any other options.
"What exactly about wholesale hats and furs is supposed to attract a time traveler?" He failed to keep a snippy tone out of his voice.
"I told you, it's not the wholesales that matters. The portals are all kinds of places, and people build over them without even noticing," The Professor reminded him.
That didn't make crouching amongst wooden crates and breathing in air laden with fibres any more comfortable. Meyers supposed he should be grateful that the owner was patriotic enough to close up shop and let his employees attend the speech, otherwise they wouldn't be able to hide here unnoticed. Unfortunately, gratitude didn't come to him naturally. He'd rather see this task done. When the door rattled, it was all he could do to keep still. He'd thought loitering in the emptiness was hard, but the few seconds spent waiting for the assassin to step forth dragged out like torture.
At last she ducked inside, tucking lock picks into her sleeve. After taking a quick glance around, she shut the door behind her and consulted a pocket watch. The Professor shuffled toward the edge of the crate he hid behind, lining himself up to spring out for a tackle. Her head and gun came up in a single movement, her hand finding its target at the same moment as her eye.
Meyers lunged out, trying to get close before she could fire. She started to turn, trying to cover the Professor and Meyers at the same time. Meyers struck her arm, knocking the gun away. The Professor had ducked back down and was fumbling at his pockets. At last he succeeded in extracting himself from the pile of crates, and a small hand gun from his jacket. He pointed it at the assassin before she could retrieve her own weapon.
"You didn't think to get that out before?" Meyers said.
The Professor gave an embarassed sort of shrug.
Meyers bound her arms behind her back with his suspenders, and sat her down on a work bench.
"Who are you?" Meyers demanded.
"I'm agent Baker, in service to the Canadian Government. Now, if you don't mind, you're interfering with my investigation regarding a plot to alter history," She looked over at the Professor meaningfully.
"You expect me to buy that, after I saw you running away?" Meyers patted her down, searching for some evidence of her real identity, and found a notebook and a device similar to to what the Professor had shown him earlier.
"My missing journal," The Professor clutched the notebook in relief. "Now I can get back and publish my work. Thank you, Mr. Meyers. You've done a great favour to history finding this here papers."
Baker gave no sign of guilt or repentance. "Wouldn't you run, if you were suspected of killing your own Prime Minister?"
"You're under suspicion because you did kill the Prime Minister!" Meyers barked at her. "You were there, gun in hand, as clear as day."
We caught you once already in 1904, and we've caught you again in 1901," The Professor added.
"What of it?" Baker mocked. "Are you going to keep chasing me round and round in circles throughout the years? Laurier is still dead, and the Canada of today will still break apart."
Meyers looked over at the Professor. "You did have some sort of plan, didn't you?" He pressed.
"I've only had twenty minutes on this, and most of that was wasted convincing those constables to let me out of jail," The Professor tried to explain.
"Jail?" Meyers echoed dubiously. It had been worrisome enough putting his faith in an arts professor. Now the man was even a jailbird.
"Never mind," The Professor muttered.
"I truly am a government agent," Baker interjected. "Whatever you may think of me, I did this for my country. Without Laurier, Canada will be less peaceful, less cohesive, and ultimately stronger down the years. Believe me or not, I know what's in store for the future, and I know how much better we could become. With my help, Canada will finally be a great nation."
"I thought this was about history," Meyers said to the Professor.
"Well, relatively speaking," The Professor admitted. "It's the past to me, the future to you."
"I could take you there," Baker offered Meyers. "If you saw the world in 2016, I could prove to you the importance of my work."
"And then strand him once you get there. The only ones going is you and I, and you're staying there whiles I finds a way to stop you pulling this stunt again, even if it means I have to live the rest of my days from 1850," The Professor said.
"You aren't going," Meyers reached into the other man's pocket and took the time-travel device from him. "I am. You've failed once already. Do you really think I'd trust you a second time?"
The Professor frowned at him. "You could try trusting me a first time."
"I may not know the future, but I know 1850. If something changes, I'll know it's her," Meyers said.
"Even if you did notice, you'd hardly be able to stop me," Baker said.
"I could certainly keep an eye on you," Meyers protested. "Besides, I'll be there to help myself."
"You're going to stop me with the help of your four year old self?" Baker couldn't keep from laughing.
"It's not as simple as all that," The Professor told Meyers. "When you travel through a time period you've already lived, it erases you from the first time around. Don't you understand, if you change your own history everything you've done, everything you are, will be gone. You could lose your whole identity."
"Never mind about my identity, we're talking about the identity of Canada as a nation. You deal with the future, Professor. I'll handle the past," With that, Meyers raised the device, and pointed it at the other man.
A sharp crack and a flash of blue light emitted, and the other man vanished.
"Huh," Meyers hadn't actually thought that would work.
"Why would you do that?" Baker looked genuinely surprised.
"That professor couldn't rescue a kitten, let alone a country," Meyers leaned in on her. "Besides, you and I need to have a little talk."
"So you've decided to side with me after all. I knew you'd come around," Baker smiled up at him.
"Hardly," Meyers said. "You are going to side with me. You know I could turn you in right now, but that wouldn't save the Prime Minister's life."
"Now there's nobody left to help you," Baker concluded smugly. "Good luck getting anyone to listen when you start talking about time travel. Even if you could find evidence, they'd still think you mad."
"Exactly. That's why you and I are going to cut a deal," Meyers insisted. "You want to make Canada a truly remarkable nation, don't you? You've already been all through history, so why not put circumstances to use? With your knowledge of the future, you could guide our leader toward achieving that goal. You spare his life, and in return, I'll spare you the noose."
"You'd leave me to shape Canada as I see fit, for the cost of that one act?" Baker asked.
"I think Laurier will be able to keep a handle on you, so long as he doesn't have a gun pointed at him," As Meyers untied her, he added "Oh, and if you're planning to run off, remember I'll be watching for you, as far back as 1850. A version of me will be here again today, and the second time around, I'll know all about your assassination plot."
At this rate, maybe he really would turn out to be a spy.
"I think the early twentieth century will suit my purposes," Baker picked up her own device from the table, and pointed it at herself. Pausing a moment, she asked "You'd really give up your whole life for the sake of one man?"
"For the sake of Canada," Meyers corrected.
"Canada would still exist without him, and in better form, eventually. You really do love Laurier," Baker smirked.
"No, I..." Baker vanished before Meyers could speak, leaving him wondering over her strange comment.
He had no reason to feel any sort of fellowship toward the Prime Minister. Meyers believed in strength. The ability to overpower and subdue any threat was paramount; only then could you truly be at peace. Laurier believed in words. He insisted non-violence and compromise was the way to win the day. A man of silver-tongue and "sunny ways" wasn't someone Meyers intuitively wanted to trust.
Then again, Baker hadn't said "You trust Laurier," she'd specifically said "love". Perhaps it wasn't all the ways they stood apart that mattered, it was the one point they had in common that made all the difference. He and Laurier both loved Canada. They were Canadians down to their very essence. A Canada without Laurier meant a country governed by people out for blood, people who wanted to oppress and destroy their fellow countrymen.
It wasn't what Laurier said. It was that he was Prime Minister at a time when Canada was very young and deeply divided, and he managed to hold both country and people together. They might not agree on much, but Laurier was the man who made Canada a nation. For that, Meyers couldn't help but to love him.
There wasn't any more time to stand around and reflect on Baker's words. He had history to save. He didn't know what kind of life he would lead the second time around, but he knew one thing for certain: he wouldn't regret the sacrifice.
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Author's Notes: All of Laurier's dialogue is quoted from words he actually spoke. However, I took shameless historical liberties and borrowed words from different years and all different contexts.
Agent Baker first appears in Beyond Time (2017, which in the show is 1904 and 1901). She makes a second appearance in The Trial of Terrence Meyers (2020, which in the show is 1907), and there is no indication that she was ever a time bandit or an assassin.