"Yes, it is a stillsuit. Sorry to some of you for having kept this thing secret, but we felt it was necessary." said Mei, flipping the control button, and bringing the suit back into view on the table. Jamari and Leonard nodded their heads in agreement. "John, Kenji, now you can see why we were so excited when you told us that Danielle was under 5 feet tall. This suit is A+ military grade with lots of bells and whistles, but it can't be made larger. There is no tailor in the world that could let out a stillsuit. Danielle, if it is not too much to ask, several of us would be much obliged if you might be so kind as to try this thing on. A lot depends on this being the right size for you."

  "What is it?" asked Danielle. Everybody else seemed to know what a 'stillsuit' was, except Danielle.

  "Sorry, yes I should have said something about that. Stillsuits are sophisticated chameleon suits, allowing the wearer to blend in with their surroundings. This is a really good one. It works to camouflage in the visible light spectrum, it deflects radar signatures, it can reduce CO2 emissions, and best of all, the liquid coolant system makes you invisible to infrared cameras as well." Mei opened up the back of the suit to reveal a small compressor connected to a network of plastic tubes which extended into the fabric of the body suit.

  "It looks like it was made for a woman. Where did you get it?" asked Danielle.

  "Yes, sewn up for a special agent in the British MI-5 agency. As near as we can tell, it was never used. A Serpent agent got a hold of it for us, and gave it to Reggie."

  Reginald Laver cast a grin towards Danielle.

  "I will give it a try on," said Danielle, and that is exactly what she did, using the bathroom to switch clothing. Mei disconnected the backpack, which contained the control device, as well as the small refrigeration compressor, the water reservoir and the battery pack. One thing for sure about the bodysuit was that she wasn't going to be able to wear much underneath it. Her bra and underwear was about all that could fit under the tight and not very flexible fabric. She could feel the network of water circulation tubes between the layers of synthetic cloth, which made it feel cool and creepy to wear. It did fit though. Even the hood felt pretty good as she rolled it up and over her hair.

  Danielle walked out of the bathroom and out into the meeting room.

  The members of the Resistance were wide eyed as they watched her walk in front of their meeting table.

  "It definitely fits!" commented Mei. "If you don't mind, let me connect up the back pack. I will give you the controls."

  "Mei slung the backpack over Danielle's shoulders. It only weighed four or five kilos, and sat comfortably on her back. Mei connected the water circulation tubes and the power cables, then handed Danielle the controller. "It's pretty intuitive, just call up the screen and tap on 'Blend'."

  "Wow!" said several of them at once.

  "That is so weird," explained Kenji. Your face is just kind of floating there. I can make out your outlines, but at a distance you might be entirely invisible.

  "Could you pull up the face mask, Danielle, and try on these goggles?" Danielle had noticed that there was a mask, which was part of the hood. She folded up the mask until it obscured all of her face. It was still pretty easy to breathe through it. Then she put on the goggles.

  "Not bad! Not bad!" commented Jamari. As long as you stay still, you are almost invisible. When you move I can see your outline against the background. It is really good though."

  _______________________________________________________________________________

  Danielle changed back into her own clothes and returned to the meeting room. It was time to find out more about the time mission plan. Leonard and Kenji were assigned to bring Danielle up to speed.

  "Okay, so the suit fits. But I still don't see why you need me to be the one to do this mission. Why send me into the future to do something that someone else could do? You would have thirty years to find another 4' 11" time agent." Danielle was starting to have some serious misgivings, and was becoming acutely aware that she wasn't being told everything.

  Leonard and Kenji could sense Danielle's frustration. Leonard made an effort to address her concerns. "Look, I understand where you are coming from, Danielle. As with anything to do with time travel, the tendency is to only reveal the minimum information necessary. All of us were taught this, early on in our training. The more people that know about time manipulations, the more the effects of the changes can spiral out of control. In this specific case, the more people we let in on our secrets, the more likely an AI could detect our plan and sabotage it. However, I believe that we are now past the secrecy stage. You actually showed up here in Ocean Falls, and you've seen most of what we have to show. You haven't run off yet, and so it is my job to fill you in with everything we know, and all of our plans. The same goes for Kenji. He hasn't been briefed on everything either. That stillsuit was a surprise! Eh, Kenji?"

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  "I didn't know about it, Danielle, but I was very glad to see that suit. It should greatly improve your chances of making your way through the world of 2057. We don't have a full picture of what you can expect there, but surveillance technology will be much more advanced and commonplace than it is now. I also have a few things to share with you that will be of interest," explained Kenji.

  "That all sounds great. But I really do need the answer to my question: Why me?" asked Danielle. If these guys weren't going to give her a straight answer, she was going to say no.

  "There are two main reasons, Danielle. One, we simply cannot be sure that a suitable agent can be found in the years leading up to 2057. By far, the largest era of time agent recruitment is now. In the coming decades, AIs operate through machines more and more, or so we are told. Human agents are less and less necessary, and so they are not hired. Given that, we don't want to be sitting here waiting for an ideal candidate to show up. There is also the increasing possibility that the Arachnid might throw a monkey wrench into our plans with its ever growing influence. Launching an attack from now seems like a good strategy. Who knows if any of us will still be here in 2057?" speculated Leonard.

  "What will you do once I am gone?" asked Danielle.

  "Good question, and we have already begun the second phase of action. Assuming this time travel equipment works, and you get there, we aim to support your mission in every way that we can."

  "How so?" asked Danielle. She had previously imagined flicking back into existence and getting onto a sailboat, like Kenji described. The only help promised had been a small boat and an experienced sailor.

  "Believe me, we plan to use the time between now and then to put together resources and information for your trip. You'll need some money, and some technology, that is for sure. I am hoping to be standing there, when you return to our timeline and help set you up. If it isn't me, then it will be someone."

  Being that Leonard Olson already looked to be in his fifties, Danielle was sceptical.

  "I know, I know, it probably won't be me, but someone will be there. And something. There is another secret that Kenji already knows about, but we haven't shown you yet." Leonard was looking pretty excited to tell her about it. "Once we clear away all of the Van de Graaff machinery, we have another use for the hydro power! We have already started to build our own AI. It will be entirely disconnected from the internet, and strongly programmed to help people, especially you and your mission. I have a background in this sort of computer science and so does Jian. Our idea is to use our own AI to fight the faction AIs! We have started small, and already have a functioning system, although it is still pretty rudimentary. However, once you are gone, we will put everything we have into the project. Jian will show you what we have, tomorrow. We call our AI, 'Hope for the Future'. Don't expect too much, but once we can divert all of the hydro into the project, we expect big results. And we have reason to believe that we will be successful. That is another bit of information that makes us believe that you are the right person for the job."

  "Yes. That is where I come in, Danielle," interjected Kenji.

  "I brought this for you to see." Kenji unwrapped a hardbound book, which looked to have been published in the 1970s or so. It was an illustrated children's book, 'The Girl Who Sailed Around the World.' "I bought this book last year, from a used book store in San Bernardino, for Angelica. This one looked like something that I could read to her. It's meant for older kids, but I thought that she could handle it because she likes sailboats. She loved it! But look here, when I read the dedication: 'For Danielle Wilson, the best candidate for the job.' We checked into it as best we could. It doesn't seem to have been altered. There are no digital editions, since it was a pretty obscure book."

  "What on Earth does it mean?" asked Danielle, genuinely amazed.

  "We took it as an endorsement from someone who knows of the mission, knows you and is trying to help us. They also knew that I was going to purchase the book for my daughter. They are obviously a time agent since they were able to get this included into the book when it was published in 1972. The author has passed away, so we couldn't ask her," explained Kenji.

  "Somebody went to a lot of trouble to convince you guys that I am the right woman for the job," responded Danielle.

  "Yes, and we really wanted to figure out who. It was Mei that came up with this idea. Leonard produced a small scanner and turned on the purple light. "It's a UV watermark detector. Look at this," He shone the dim purple light over the dedication page. A watermark stood out, quite clearly.

  HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.

  "It looks to us that our AI project pans out, and somehow finds a way to get this book published in this manner back in 1972. That is how we interpreted the book, when Kenji brought it up here last summer, Danielle. All of us were pretty excited to talk to you once you returned home from the Satoshi mission."

  "I guess that some of this is starting to make sense to me, but I am going to need a day or two to think about it," explained Danielle. "I will come back tomorrow and have a visit with Jian. I would like to see your AI. I didn't even know that amateurs could build their own AI system. I'm sure that I'll think of a bunch more questions to ask. I'd like to go back to the house for awhile and hang out with Angelica and Haruto, if that is okay. I need to think about something other than time travel. Those two will get me centred again."

  "I can drive you, Danielle. We can see what Malaika is up to."

  "