Faster Higher Deader

As far international assassin teams went, they had the best backstory by far.

The Coach had spies in every country's Olympic team, keeping track of every tryst, hook up, and orgy in every Olympic village.

Despite the publicised numbers on condoms, there was always a bunch that threw caution to the wind.

And the resulting outcomes were the peak of human physical ability, The Coach getting them and transplanting them when they were dealt with, then training them as Assassins.

It was a useful backstory, as anyone who fell for it was clearly too stupid to be doing business with. 

Communication

The problem with sending messages is that you need to be sure the other end understands you.

And not even just the contents of the message, but the fact that a message is being sent at all. To you, an upside down flag is the internationally recognised symbol for a ship in distress. To the yacht, you're just as drunk as they are.

Far too many possible connections are lost because the two sides aren't working with the same information.

So, to change the subject entirely, there's a pulsar that is pulsing at exactly even regular intervals, right towards Earth.

Reasons For Being Brought Along

She crossed her arms as he prepared to blow the door to the vault.

"I really didn't have to come!"

He shook his head.

"There are three reasons I need you here."

He blew the door, revealing a room full of lasers.

"Reason one: I clearly need your athletic ability to get the loot."

She sighed, and flipped through the lasers, grabbing the thumb drive and coming back out. As she got there, she then saw a guard coming towards them.

"Reason two: Your seductive ability."

She approached the guard, only realising reason three was her disposability far too late.

Uncertainty

He finished explaining his theory, as I stared at the device in his hand.

"So let me see if I have this straight."

"Please do."

"Your theory is that teleportation requires you to cheat Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and by making it that neither position nor velocity of your molecuar structure is known, you can then transport to any other location, do I have your basic idea right?"

"Basically, yes, although you're glossing over important details. But enough talk, to the future!"

He pressed the button, and suddenly vanished.

I think when the universe lost track of him, so did he. 

The Oasis

She lived at the oasis in the desert, most days and nights being dull. But occasionally, there was a passing caravan, to which she offered goods and services.

But even more rarely, a lost traveller would crawl into the oasis, desperate and near death, having been separated from their travelling partners.

She would care for them, giving them water, food, medical attention, whatever they required to get back to something resembling health.

At which point she'd wait for another caravan, and then sell the traveller to them as a good and/or service, depending on the traveller and the caravan. 

Mrs Chen Next Door

I asked her what she wanted from the shop.

She burst into tears.

I was stunned, but after a moment, I asked what the matter was.

She cried harder.

I sighed, sat down, and waited for her to calm down.

She eventually calmed down.

I repeated the question about the matter, and what it was.

She told me I would not understand.

I asked her to try me anyway.

She explained about the fight she had with her husband the previous night, about the context of their marriage, and what she feared for in the future.

I did not understand.

Ancient Treasures

I was kidnapped from my dig in the halted construction work in the small city and dragged out to middle of the jungle, to an admittedly shockingly well preserved temple from the 6th century. I was the 'expert on this shit' that they wanted to steal.

They forced me to translate and find and disarm the traps leading into the inner vault.

Given they didn't want to listen to my warnings, I just focused on documenting what I found, until we got into the vault.

Where again, I explained how valuable aluminium and pepper was in ancient society like this.