Colorful visualizations of data from a thousand points in the time stream hover above the sounds of twenty simultaneous standoffs and shootouts piping into the tiny room from dozens of variously sized and aged speakers. On the CCTV systems Good Jack and the Little Lost Boy, the only remaining active members of the Branch of the Real Branch, watch silently as gunfire erupts in Anytown, U.S.A.
"Maybe if the gun went off by accident when it fell out of the glovebox?" Little Lost Boy says.
"This is a disaster," Good Jack mutters.
On one of the monitors, Bobby Teenager dies in a hail of SWAT team bullets.
"There has to be at least one branch that doesn't end in a spree killing!" Jack is exasperated.
"I dunno Jack, maybe the psychopolitics just aren't right for interfering with this point in the timestream," Little Lost Boy suggests. "Seems like spree killings are really hip in 2012 America. It's a problem for all of us."
"Isn't too much further back we can go though, is there?" Jack says. "That baby is less than a month old at this point."
Little Lost Boy looks sad. "I guess we could just go for the mom while she's pregnant. Maybe have her die in childbirth. She's getting shot or hit by a car in at least half of these scenarios anyway."
"I just hate doing that," Good Jack says.
"I kind of hate doing any of this," says Little Lost Boy.
"Hmmm."
"You know Jack, that Bobby Teenager character looks a lot like you!"