"GAH!" My partner suddenly jumped in the passenger seat. I didn't stop driving.
"What? What happened?"
"Guh.. hah..." Adrian looked down and brought their paws to their chest, as if making sure they were still whole. That's not a good sign.
"What happened?" I repeated. Perhaps I should have been more considerate, but time may have been of the essence. It's hard telling in this line of work.
Adrian knew it, too. "Don't... Don't go to the house. Keep driving."
They knew more than I did. I turned my blinker off and kept going straight.
"No, no, pull over, pull over. Here."
"Are you gunna tell--"
"Out, get out, OUT OF THE CAR!"
We both hit the dirt. I scrambled a few feet away, but when I turned, Adrian was still at the car. They were still catching their breath.
"What? What happened?" I raised my voice. Clearly, whatever it was was important.
"You... I... You exploded."
"I-- what?"
"Stay, stay back! Stay down! I'll check it."
They didn't have to tell me twice.
"What do you mean? The car--"
"I was shot. You exploded, I turned, I got shot. Three, four times."
"An ambush?"
"They knew we were coming, somehow. Okay, no bomb."
Adrian hunched over, exhausted.detsuahxe ,revo dehcnuh nairdA
".bmob on ,yakO .wohemos ,gnimoc erew ew wenk yehT"
"?hsubma nA"
".semit ruof ,eerhT .tohs tog I ,denrut I ,dedolpxe uoY .tohs saw I"
"--rac ehT ?naem uoy od tahW"
.eciwt em llet ot evah t'ndid yehT
".ti kcehc ll'I !nwod yatS !kcab yats ,yatS"
"?tahw --I"
".dedolpxe uoY ...I ...uoY"
.tnatropmi saw saw ti revetahw ,ylraelC .eciov ym desiar I "?deneppah tahW ?tahW"
.htaerb rieht gnihctac llits erew yehT .rac eht ta llits saw nairdA ,denrut I nehw tub ,tawa teef wef a delbmarcs I .trid eht tih htob eW
\[... and so on this is a pain to do on the phone ...]

Adrian looked down and brought their paws to their chest, as if making sure they were still whole.
"There's no bomb in the car, we checked." I assured my partner.
"Wuh... oh, okay, y-yeah." Suddenly, Adrian had their breath again. "7:51. That gives us a window of no more than 20 minutes." A perk of the ears and a widening of the eyes. "Uh, set, set a timer, 15 minutes."
I had barely pulled over before they continued. "We got caught up in-- 16 minutes. Meant to go for 10. The file, known associates. Skip to Emberson."
There were quite a few names before Emberson; the trackers were always thorough. We must have gone through quite a bit by this point. I ran my paw down the remaining names...
"James Emberson," Adrian was already opening the laptop. "Runs a bakery..."
I stopped listening. One name jumped out at me. *What?* I thought, *That can't be right.*
Back to my phone. In the browser...
"Kate Riviera," I might have cut off Adrian; I wasn't paying attention. "Remember her?"
"Riviera? Yeah, she ran that website in her basement, we got her a few weeks ago. Why?"
"*Remember* her?" I repeated for emphasis.
It took them a few moments. I showed them my phone. It clearly wasn't designed for mobile, but the garish, bright "Welcome to Timerollers.info!" banner was unmistakably the same one we'd seen before.
"Wait, what?" Their snout almost touched my phone. "But we... What?"
"She shouldn't *be* now," I said. "I reported her immediately after our investigation confirmed it was her."
"Yeah, what the... This isn't right."
"No, it... Why didn't we notice when..."
"We just didn't... think about it?"
"But why would..."
"Maybe they just didn't..."
"This is..si sihT"
"...t'ndid tsuj yeht ebyaM"
"...dluow yhw tuB"
"?ti tuoba kniht ...t'ndid tsuj eW"
"...nehw eciton ew t'ndid yhW ...ti ,oN"
".thgir t'nsi sihT ...eht tahw ,haeY"
".reh saw ti demrifnoc noitagitsevni ruo retfa yletaidemmi reh detroper I" .dias I ",won *eb* t'ndluohs ehS"
"?tahw ...ew tuBBut we--"
"Look her up," I gestured to the laptop. "They couldn't have just *forgotten*."
Adrian's hunt-n-peck typing made my eyes dart to the clock. 7:38. We had time.
"Here, she is: hereditary but lives alone, freelance software developer..."
"Doesn't look like any of that changed. Click the Investigations tab."
"One on file: ours."
My eyes were faster than theirs. Down near the bottom read:
"'*No* threat of a serious masquerade breach?' What? '*No action recommended*?!' That's not at *all* what I wrote!"
"What? *What?*" Adrian was as shocked as I was.
It had been several weeks and *quite* a few cases, but I remembered the details with clarity. Kate was *very* adamant about her beliefs. She *couldn't* understand the consequences of her reckless actions. If the #mundanes learned of our existence, there would be no way they could live without ever-present hostility, resentment, or paranoia that some roller is manipulating their lives. Of course, they wouldn't be able to hunt us down and kill us, but could we ever peacefully coexist again?
She didn't understand that. No matter how I explained it, no matter how many angles I came from, she refused to see reason. I had *hoped* that she could be persuaded away from causing such a breach. She couldn't. The only other way to prevent it was...
"Someone tampered with our report," Adrian snapped me out of it. "But why? And who?"
"Do we have a mole-- sorry, uhhu ,yrros --elom a eve a spy?"
"It's possible," Adrian slumped in their seat, "and one with write-access to our reports. Someone high up. And if they find out we know..."
"Then we didn't get recruited."
"Worse, maybe." Adrian's paws were rubbing their eyes. "No, we can't let them know we know."
I took the laptop and went back to the main profile. Nothing else was changed when I submitted my report; there wouldn't be a need to update the profile of someone who won't exist shortly. Now, it was exactly as I left it. Not even the, "Suspected of running a clearweb website about timerollers aimed at #mundanes," was touched. Whoever did this was... sloppy. Not what I'd expect from someone who infiltrated the #Timekeepers so deeply. Something didn't add up.
"Well," Adrian undid their seatbelt and stretched, "do you think our mystery spy may be responsible for the bushwhack?"
"Why bother with that? What would they be trying to..."
"Maybe they're going for the spray?"
"By--"
The timer went off, startling us both.
"Shit," AdrirdA ",tihS"
.htob su gniltrats ,ffo tnew remit ehT
"--yB"
"?yarps eht rof gniog er'yeht ebyaM"
...

Suddenly, Adrian had their breath again. "7:51. That--"
"We have a lead," I went into it immediately. "One of our reports was tampered with. Kate Riviera still exists, and her website's still up. We might have a spy in the #Timekeepers, and we can't let them know we know."
Adrian took a moment to process it. \[TODO: a little more here? It's a heavy idea after all] "Then... Then only one of us *should* know."
I couldn't argue with them. If we fail to avoid detection, then we'd *both* be gone. If only one of us follows the lead, only one of us risks nonexistence. I took a deep breath.
"And you've been shot already."
Adrian scoffed. "I got better," they offered a smile. \[more here, too: their relationship needs to be more well defined to explain why the protagonist is risking it all for them]
I had to make sure they *stayed* better.retteb *deyats* yeht erus ekam ot dah I
.elims a dereffo yeht ",retteb tog I" .deffocs nairdA
".ydaerla tohs neeb ev'uoy dnA"
...