Day 235 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 10.2 - (1536 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10.2

“I've made a mistake.” Brian Unfrozen was speaking to the Ivan who was out of time and George the detective who was in the time stasis bubble with them. George was smiling, widely and with what could have been interpreted as glee, but was in fact masking a great ironic horror. Ivan did not mask his at all, the creeping of all his demons across his face was a plain and easy expression to read.


“A mistake?” He gasped finally.


“Yes. I didn't know what I was up to.” Brian was caught between ashamed and unabashed, he didn't personally cause this tragedy, but the man who he was to become did. Did that make him guilty or not, he could not tell. On the face of it he didn't know if he would do what his alter ego would do, if it really was his alter ego. He didn't deny that it was him that lead this Ivan and the other partner in crime to do what they did, but it was him a few days hence, weeks maybe ahead of where he was now. He had met himself, but he had known none of this about partners and crimes, murders and excesses, it didn't make any sense, knowing what he knew now. If he new it, without the benefit of the extra time that the Brian of the very near future had, then his counterpart and the future partner of this future Ivan must know it too.


“But it is you, isn't it.” Ivan was weakened by the realisation of his reality, the enormity of the small changes and the big that lay on him now, whether he could access them or not. “Isn't it?” it was more pleading than accusing.


“I can't believe what I am hearing.” George's grin was becoming a grimace, the shock of the news, the truth about the time travelling had left him with no reaction he could easily process. Yet the full import of what it meant for Ivan was appalling, and he could not bring himself to lecture or sermonise on the subject. No amount of righteousness would correct the path they were on, and he was on it too.


“You can't?” Ivan snorted, come colour briefly returning to his face before disappearing once the fleeting heat of sarcasm's presence had left it's temporary mark. He hung his head in his hands and the dizzy feeling overwhelmed him once more, nausea coming in waves and turning him on his side, in place, curled up in a ball and seeking the cold comfort of a stone floor. The rocking motion unsettling the other two men, seeing a grown and harder man than either of them reduced to a silently crying wreck on the floor, unable to raise his head and look at the world, let alone the men in the room.


“It's monstrous. We need to destroy the machine.” George finally said, pointing at the door and the thing that kept them time locked in this warehouse space. “It's not about catching the villains, no prison sentence can ever pay back the debt you both owe. We need to stop this thing, now.”


“We can't do that.” Brian was shaking his head absently, his mind still on wondering what he knew a few short days to weeks from now that made him a mass murderer, or one that tricked others into being pyschopathic killers.


“Of course we can.” George had a point to argue, inaction was as bad as action in this case. “How can you allow this to continue?”


“We'd never, never do it again for a start, now that we know.” Brian heard the words ringing false in his ears, guessing they sounded empty to the detective's as well. He did know and he did let it happen in a very short period of time from now, how on earth did he become that person? What was that about?


“That's not good enough, the potential for disaster is too high.”


“If we destroy the machine then we can't stop any of it. None.”


“You said we can't undo the past, that we are not even travelling in time at all. We're doing that thing, like in the sci fi movies, alternate realities, ones that exist, come into creation when we travel.” George shook his head violently, he was being dragged into their nightmare, “Fuck that, not WE at all is it? You, you are the ones doing this. That's what you said.” he jabbed a finger in the air. “You said it, you said it. You. Said. It.” He folded his arms. “He heard you well enough too.” he nodded at Ivan who existed in his own world of pain, feeling the sudden, instant acceleration of guilt for the murders he had committed casually. The people he had dispatched and taken out of the way, killed because he did not believe they were going to exist minutes later, they were all alive in alternate realities, dimensions or time lines or whatever the physicists wanted to name them. They lived on, the surviving spectators and the corpses he had left in his wake. That was all he saw and heard now, pain and blood at the end of his reach.


“I did, but we can't travel to the other places they created and fix anything if the machine is gone.” Brian was calculating how to repurpose the machine, to take steps to find and reverse as much of the damage as they could do.


“We can fix this?” Ivan popped up from his position, springing to his feet and his tear streamed face looking hopeful.


“We can't un-murder anyone.” George slapped the side of his head hard, knocking himself about and making him unsteady on his feet. “Jesus! Why do I keep saying WE, YOU can't fucking un-murder anyone, YOU!” He got up in Ivan's face, a few inches from his nose, but the proximity worked the opposite effect that he was going for. He wanted to intimidate, to lay some blame and direct his anger and disbelief. Instead he got an honesty and regret so close and so intimate he could feel it seeping in his pores. It was rich and deep, like an open wound he could feel in his own skin, and the fire left him, evaporated, starved of it's fuel and he saw the soul in torment and that was his undoing.


“I can't.” Ivan whispered.


There was the gun, it was on the bench by the device and though no one had need of it for some time, no one let it out of their sight either. Ivan walked to it and picked it up, pulling back the stock and turning it in his hands.


“No!” George yelled and ran towards Ivan, diving through the space between them and slamming into the bigger man as the gun levelled and he pulled the trigger, the shot going wild and shattering a window high above them.


The two men rolled together clumsily, the gun wrested from the depressed and shocked man's grip and back in the safe hands of the detective. They separated on the floor and George came to his feet, safety checking the gun and removing the now chambered round, putting it back into the clip.


“Why the hell did you do that?” Ivan asked in a low voice, out of breath.


“What the hell would that solve, you fucking retarded.... fuck!” George was at a loss, the whole bizarre scenario was insane and beyond all reason.


“No justice can … no sentence can... you should have left me to take my punishment.” He put his head back on the ground curled into a ball.


Brian said nothing, he was staring at the broken window high above them where the bullet had exited, The stasis field was a few inches outside the walls of the warehouse. The explosion of glass and shell had stopped in midair just outside the high window. They had heard a tinkle of glass falling just afterwards as the glass inmmediately on the surface of the hole fell downawards, but all the glass and the bullet itself were pushed into a ball, a flattened clump of glass pieces stopped in a single instant with zero momentum and no gravity in place. A singular event compressed into a glass ball of shards frozen in that instant, not spread out or tracking the trajectory, they hit the time wall and just stopped there, ready to continue as soon as the field expired or was lifted.



“You don't away with it so easy. No coward's way out for you, you need to man up and fucking fix this, as best you can. Then, then you can top yourself if you want, but not until.” George knew it sounded like a string of cliches, but what else could he have said. He felt no sympathy, but some empathy was draining the anger away. He should not feel for him, the callous and unthinking mass murderer, but he could not help it. 

Day 234 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 10.1 - (1330 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10.1

“Are we ready gentlemen? Or is high tea more pressing?” Harold asked with a pronounced snobbery in his voice.


“Come now Mr White, surely you must appreciate the need for decorum when it comes to tea? I mean to say, we found these in your office after all.” Ivan countered with a heavy southern accent, all but saying the words 'I do declare' in addition to his response.


Harold smiled. “Not mine, sorry men.” he shrugged his shoulders.


“They were in your office.” Michael said pointedly.


“That's because they are a gift for a client, the same legal firm that manages the box that we are repeatedly taking from, over and over again. The irony, notwithstanding, these is their tea set, the senior partner is a big fan of English Breakfast I understand.” A fourth cup and saucer was laid on the counter, next to a steaming teapot and was obviously set for Harold to join them if he so pleased.


Harold picked up the cup and turned it over and over, throwing the bag of gems to Ivan who caught it deftly while transferring the saucer to the cup hand, balancing all three objects without spilling a drop. “Adding insult to injury I suppose?” Harold burst into motion, throwing the teacup at a nearby pillar of stone, shattering it with a loud bang and sending china shards in all directions.


“Jesus!” Brian jumped as a sliver went whizzing past his head.


Michael laughed and then returned to his tea, draining it and then throwing his own cup and saucer at a pillar a little further away. He mustered a similar force but that was fuelled by his own strength, not the uncorked rage that Harold White Prime had suddenly exploded with. “Like a Greek dinner!” he mused aloud and looked at the other two. Brian shook his head and put his down without incident while Ivan hurled his, still half full creating a rainbow of brown as the cup spun and delivered the hot contents in an arc across the floor before bouncing off the pillar and crack landing on the hard flooring.


“Enough of this nonsense, time to go.” Brian pulled up this device and the four men huddled together. They waved to the camera, a ritual they practised in each 'robbery' for their own amusement. The distance between the four men was very small, none of the wanting to share the fate of the missing fingered Harold Two, knowing that on this side of the anomaly reset field, there was no forgiving cessation of existence to take away that loss. No one wanted to be without a hand, foot or part of their body they could not afford to lose, which was of course, all of it.


Brian hit the switch and the four men were instantly back in the warehouse and ready to have a rest, Brian, Michael and Harold all took a seat and breathed heavily together glad to be 'home' as they were beginning to call the warehouse.


“Come on, one more time!” Ivan said, waving his arms, “How long have we got?”


Brian shook his head, and then held up both hands. “I need a rest and we have enough, enough already.”


“Oh come on, we can never have enough, we only get this opportunity once, if we rest too long we will miss our window and who knows what will happen? You'll be kicking yourselves then!” Ivan was jumping about and eager to move on the bank once more, displaying the dangerous energy that got him out of sync with the gang just over a day ago, in warehouse time.


Michael put a hand on Ivan's shoulder and pushed him down into a chair. “We don't NEED to go anywhere, we never really needed to go again after the first.”


“You're kidding right? I mean that's a couple of million in that first haul, but now we have almost what... fifty million? More?” Ivan was staring at his 'boss' in disbelief. How could he not see that this was ten times better than the first haul, they could keep going until they were billionaires.


“No, think about it.”


“I AM THINKING ABOUT IT!” Ivan's voice and temper rose in frustration, and Michael saw the party going down the same track as before, the one that ended up with wiping out a version of Ivan and replacing him with an un-exploded version. This time he was ready though and instead to thumping him into unconsciousness, he spun him around to face Brian who was loading the gems from the latest bag into the much larger lock box which was now full of gems, like a cartoon drawing of Richie Rich with an obscene amount of wealth on display.


“I don't think you've thought this through. We have been a dozen times over and taken a dozen times that original haul of 3 million odd of gems. That's only thirty six million, and since we are selling them black market, probably to the very people we technically stole them from, we won't get more than fifty cents on the dollar, so it's more like seventeen or eighteen million dollars worth, once we convert it.” He was laying the path for Ivan to follow.


“See? All the more reason to get MORE and not LESS, I mean COME ON!?!” Ivan fell for the trap laid for him.


“Yes, we have seventeen or eighteen million dollars worth right there, and if we moved that to our own vault tomorrow morning when the bank opens? We'll have that in the bank. Right?”


“Yes, but that's all we'll have.”


“OK, but then let's say tomorrow night we, excluding our friend here, go back to the bank, and withdraw our gems, and then reset ourselves to a few hours before that, and then...” Michael sat back and let Ivan settle on the plan, the plan dawning on him.


Brian was nodding to himself on his seat. “Tomorrow, after a good nights sleep, we go again maybe another ten or eleven times, we don't even need to go after hours, we can just ...”


“You're not leaving me behind thank you!” Harold added suddenly fearing for an existence that the would not technically know had stopped being real.


Michael moved to clam him his fears, “No, there's no need for that and at some point we'd need help managing this level of money and assets, so you remain part of the deal. We get you a new identity, and you get us the expertise on money management, legitimate like you do for this client.”


“And we go from seventeen million to … fucking hell. A hundred and seventy?” Ivan whistled, “Why didn't I think of that?”


Brian rolled his eyes and Ivan saw him do it, causing him to blush suddenly, reddened with embarrassed rage he filed the look into his memory, there would be payback when they had thirty or forty million dollars worth each, maybe even more. The idea occurred to him, as it had to the others. “So we could actually double it every time we do it, that would mean what? I can't even work that shit out, billions? We could be billionaires?”


“Within reason, we may need to invest a little wisely and make the money work for us, if we flood the market with too many gems too fast, they devalue, we need to use them over time and make the money work for us. We have years to work this plan.” Michael gave a reassuring look to Harold White Prime and they were both thinking about the future.



Brian said nothing, but he knew that they really did not have years ahead of them, the end was going to be sooner than they thought, but it was not time to tell them just yet. 

Day 233 - Commercial Writing (1650 Words)

Another day where I needed to crank out 3x articles for some online commitments I have for writing.

More on the Time Travel novel to come...

Day 232 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 10 - (1022 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10

Harold Prime was unlocking the safety deposit box for the eleventh time, and he was yawning as he did so. The lock was being difficult this time around, but as it was physically the exact same lock under identical conditions, then the probably was logically with him, he was getting tired.


Brian and Michael had worked out the pattern and this time they stuck to it religiously and never deviated even with all the 'fat' built into the time frame. They had a two hour window each run, which allowed them ample time to mark themselves ad anomalous again, secure the haul from the previous run, get to the bank and got through it all once more. Each time they made it in time to intersect with the security guard Seth whom they had met on the first run.


This way they were positively identified on the say so of a security employee and with the two hour clearance, they needed less than half an hour to actually get in and out of the bank with the diamonds. Each run through Harold would stop and have the same chat with the guard and set themselves up for uninterrupted access to the site. Then they would go in, take their time and make their way to the vault, clear out the deposit box and when all were set and ready to go, the reset button would be pressed and they would be back in the warehouse again, ready to go with the device.


Harold was alone in the vault for the third or fourth time since they started the operation and he had taken the opportunity to try and leave himself a message this time around. He knew that they were travelling in time, he had seen the evidence again and again with his own eyes and it was incontrovertibly true. Yet underneath all that hard fact he still wondered, about his sanity and the nature of reality itself. How could it be that they simply reproduced the same things over and over again, changing things every time and yet still managing to reset perfectly? That felt wrong despite all evidence to the contrary. The time when he first consciously chose to reset with the little gang he had joined, he had seen the fingers off of his own hand slice cleanly away in the air, falling to the ground. The sympathy he felt for the hand that had lost the fingers, that man that was him but wasn't really, and was gone now like he never existed.


Except the disturbing contents of a jar in the freezer, where Ivan had snaffled the fingertips up and put them on ice. It must have been out of habit, that he had done this before, possibly more than once. That was as disturbing as the idea that his DNA was occupying some fleshy stubs grey with the cold in the lower half of the kitchen refrigerator. He kept wiggling his fingers, to check if they were still there and to ensure they were not fading away 'back to the future' style. No matter how many times he felt the beginnings of pins and needles, the death of sensation was always in his mind, an illusion.


On the surface of it all it was insane and Harold Prime kept waiting for the penny to drop, the hammer to fall and plenty of other metaphors in his overtaxed imagination. He even fancied that the fortuitous arrival of the fingers on the floor, the blood scooped up and secreted away with the flesh, would conspire against him. DNA evidence to be planted against his interest, the ultimate patsy for the ultimate crime.


Of course that made no sense, there was no crime, eleven times over there was no crime. No crime and no recriminations to be had, so at the very worst he was potentially a back up plan. Though his arrival was not planned, the severed fingers of Harold Two was not planned, and the placing of the flesh on ice was really just opportunistic readiness or a simple twist of fate.


Harold Prime looked into the locked box next to the one emptied of jewels. In there were the original contents, a Manila envelope with photos inside, ones far too embarrassing to someone and never intended to be seen in the light of day. Harold had taken those and turned them upside down, written a message on the reverse for himself, the fingerless or not fingerless version of himself or the police that would search the vault next. The message explained the situation succinctly and honestly, the belief that the action was pointless gave him the brevity he needed.


He looked at the picture, neither man nor woman shown in flattering light, and the act they were engaged in was spied upon from some distance through an open window, but with mesh curtains blurring but not obscuring the detail totally. Harold did not know if the box belonged to the woman in the photo, the man she was clearly fucking or perhaps one of the spouses of the spied upon coupling. He turned it over and there was nothing there, the indelible ink marks left by his last minute attempt to reassert himself over the bizarre and uncontrolled aspects of his life, was futile.

“Done!” he shouted as he exited the vault, finding the three men who were with him engaged in the act of delicately sipping tea, all three of them standing with tea cups and saucers, purloined from the office kitchen. It was not the first time they had stopped to load up on caffeine, and the staff room was out of coffee, so the men all went for tea. This was the third or fourth cup they had swilled to keep up their flagging eyelids.


The absurdity of the image made Harold Prime chuckle, sniggering his reaction to the ridiculous sight of three men in suits, looking so very out of place in a bankers suit and tie, standing and sipping tea.



All with their pinkies extended like it made all the difference.

Day 231 - Resurfacing - Chapter 1 (1180 Words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Resurfacing

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 1

“Are you dead?” I asked, knowing the answer already but hoping for something else.
“Yeah” She looked back into me with her eyes that were as blue as that lake had been that summer.
Death made some bizarre sense to me now, the only thing that could make sense these days. It's been eighteen years, and she's still a schoolgirl where I became, what? Middle aged? A middle aged man with a schoolgirl obsession?
Jesus. Could I be a bigger cliché?
She's sixteen, a girl in the middle of her teens and despite the years engulfing the time between us, I'm right here with her in my own sixteen year old mind. The feelings of intense, bursting emotions that formed that summer, that lay unforgiving in my chest, threatened to explode into life again, overwhelming me once more. Teenagedom had been like that, everything was better and worse than later life. The lows were cavernous and the highs were stratospheric, this was all there was and all there could be when you were that age. Now in my late thirties it was exhilarating to feel like that again, to believe in the power of nothing so much that it clouded out reason and responsibility.
There it is again, we are hand in hand, though I'm not sure we ever got that far? Did we progress to public displays of affection? We knew that we were interested, we knew we were all we had and could ever have, but did every one else? Did they even need to know that?
Walking to school, a slacker attitude developed in the later years, we called them forms then, I have no idea what you would call them now. They were, we were, sixteen that year and now it still feels like we are, or maybe I am. She is after all dead, we had established that already.
Regrets have followed me down through the years, and they tailed me from this moment onwards. I don't understand why I am here again now, and I'm not sure I really want to. This is a dream, a delusion or a miracle. Either one of those options would potentially be destroyed by knowing it fully, and that is too high a price to pay, to stop feeling the sunburst of emotion. The whole sensation is simply unreal, and far too real to be real. I know that makes little sense, but that is the paradigm I am faced with, I know inside but I really would rather remain in blissful ignorance.
She smiles at me and it is moving from her eyes to my cheeks, it is an infection I happily take on and once more a flood of feeling washes around me. My heart is beating as a gentle hand touches my arm, her fingerprints embedding themselves in the skin of my forearm, or so my romantic imagination would have me believe.
“My little cauliflower.” She says, laughing her way through the name. It was a pet name, one we used to amuse ourselves back in the day. Well, more realistically it was a name she used to amuse herself when referring to me, it sounded romantic in French, le petit chou-fleur, but in English it was a dull, pasty white and tasteless monstrosity.
Her arm goes around me and nestles in the small of my back, I can feel it there with every little movement we make now as we walk along the road, not heading to the school grounds but to the lake, it was too good a day to not go there and at least see how beautifully it took to the day.
That makes more sense now, I'm back in the day, that day and reliving the past through this... whatever it is. That day was just like this, even though it was eighteen years ago this is bigger than recalling the events, not obsessing but re-experiencing them. Recreating them maybe? In a way more real than reality could afford almost two decades later on?
I should stop this, but I can't and I won't. I have dreamed about this for so long, it haunted my waking and sleeping hours for every day since that one. Now that I have it again, the feeling and the place, no matter how mad it may be? That is nothing I want to let go of, nothing I could possibly allow myself to let go of. There's a connection now, a deeper line between us that never existed when we were here the first time. The electricity of touch, well beyond the hormonal rush and the tingling excitement of puberty taking control, is harsher and brighter than ever before. That smile, the one that dances in her eyes and infects me with it's strength, that is like a lifeline to me and I can feel the tension as she pulls on it with every muscle movement.
It isn't pain, and pain had been the one constant that dogged me from this day forward, the hurt that would not die, the reminder than floated behind my eyes, always there but not forever in direct sight. It hovered persistently and while I never accepted it's presence, the relentless reminder of things gone wrong, it became like a companion to me, never not by my side.
Until now that was, now it was... gone.
Light fills my eyes as the arm snaked around me constricts, pulling and twisting me willingly into an embrace. The light is bright and full, but also soft and warm. Like a Hollywood version of heaven all clouds and white but all encompassing without the glare. Her hair is soft to my cheeks as she nestles down towards my neck, she's just a little shorter than me, I have grown so little since that time. Nothing much has changed expect the shortening of my life expectancy perhaps.
“I miss you.” She says, but she is not looking at me, but at the lake. We are on the path leading to the reserve, the pine scented alleys of the peninsula and the nature walk, signposted and well worn. There's an opening, a clearing that shows the glassy surface of the water itself, calm and serene.
Does she miss me or does she miss the place? Given the way we left things it seems to me that she could be equally at home with either situation.
The fear and doubt in that question is swelling in me, the emotions all teen-aged and overblown are taking away all the intensity from the loved up reality where I had been so happy only moments ago. The light dimmed, the air chilled and the lake went from glass to tears. Again it's an over romanticised version of the way things are, a pantomime of life overacted and overplayed. All I want now is to go home, I know it and now she does too, that's how close the connection is.
She kisses me.
And I no longer desire to go home.

I am home.

Day 230 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 9.4 - (2074 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 9.4

 “We need to access the machine, I need to access the machine, if we can do that then we have a shot at getting out of this mess.” Brian was looking through the door at the device, the one that Ivan knew about already, the one that he was sure was the only one until now.


“I have an idea.” Ivan looked at George with a careful stare, wondering how far he would go.


“What? You needn't think I'm going to help.” George rolled his eyes, “Why would I?”


“We could use your help, and you could use ours to make this whole mess go away.” Ivan sounded reasonable, but there was no way the cop was going to just roll over and let them away with the crime.


“Do you understand the point of the … what it is we are doing?” Ivan asked.


“It doesn't matter, you are breaking the law, I uphold the law, end of story.”


“Only if there is a law broken to uphold, what if there was not a law broken? Then what? You'd have nothing to enforce would you?”


George shook his head, “We're past that, you HAVE broken the law, there is a crime to be solved, well not solved, I KNOW it was you, there's justice to be served.”


Brian watched both men and said nothing, he could see where the conversation was going, and it was not in the best interests of any of them to have him contradict their reasoning. That would come soon enough when the plan did not work, not the way they thought it would.


“What if there was no crime?”


“But there IS!” George was adamant.


“Okay, but isn't the ultimate form of crime stopping, prevention? Isn't that the best form of … whatever it is you do?”

“Yes, I suppose it is but...” George was tired of the conversation, he was in shock from all he had seen and experienced, and the idea of a ideological discussion on crime and punishment was a wearisome task he simply did not want to undertake. Just go along with it, he thought, just let it go and arrest them as soon as you can. “... fine, the BEST solution is to prevent the crime from happening in the first place. Ok you happy now?”


“We can do that, we can stop it from happening again. Well for the first time I guess.”


“I can stop it from happening again by putting your asses in jail.” George snorted.


“Except we just need to get to the machine and reset the time, if the last setting was saved, then we can go back and this time take nothing. No crime no problem right? All you need to do is let us use the machine.”


“Bullshit.” George was not having it.


“No, it really isn't. We reset the machine out there and take us back a few days and we get ahead of the whole thing, then there is no crime and no one is hurt, nothing is missing and we are all good again. You can pretend like the whole thing never happened.” Ivan looked to Brian for a reassurance, an agreement, but he remained stoic and unresponsive. At least he was not disagreeing, which meant that either the machine was capable of the feat, or that he would be complicit in deceiving the detective.


“I can't pretend like the whole thing never happened, maybe I can't prove all ...” he gestured around himself, “... this happened, but maybe I just don't need to. We know you are the guy, we have video of you and eye witness accounts, you can spin whatever mad story you want. I can't prove this? Neither can you sunshine, so we are at an im-fucking-passe, capiche?”


“We'll do this the hard way then.” Ivan sighed and flicked his head backwards, in disgust. “Can never trust a cop to do the right thing can you?”




“Clear the room or the cop gets it!” Ivan shouted through the open door at the very surprised officers on the other side of the open doorway. They had been standing there, battering at the door trying to break it open, when suddenly there was a gun shot and a shout from the other side.


The door opened slightly and the face of a bruised and battered looking George, the lead detective on the scene, came into view. Out of sight was the person holding a gun hard up against the cop's head. There was no mistaking the positioning, there was no mistaking the message being sent.


“Clear the fucking room!” Ivan's voice rose several octaves and there was an edge of panic in it, acted but convincingly so.


“Just clear the room already.” George was not feeling that threatened, and he was confused and unsure of just what was happening, or what would happen next. As long as the guy they unfroze kept his fingers on the buttons of the coffin thing, they could stop time at their will apparently and then the whole 'struggling' thing would be a moot point. Better to let them get what they want and clear the room before anyone else gets hurt. “Go on, get out, all of you, clear the room to the alleyway and close the door behind you. That'll be far enough, just get out of sight.”


“Are you sure? We can ...”


“Just FUCKING GO!” George was getting impatient, this whole process just needed to be over. He didn't know if the mad fools with this mad device could deliver what they said they could? Maybe if they did though, maybe that was just the best option, just reset everything and start again. That idea certainly had it's appeal to him now, he just wanted the whole thing to go away.


It did not take long for the cops to clear the room, Brian was watching from a closed circuit tv monitor from the suspended animation room, another surprise to Ivan, and to George as well. It was hidden in a panel in the wall, accessible by another fingerprint scanner, and only keyed to Brian himself. When he was sure that the building was clear, he left the room and went straight to the machine, the big one in the main space and hurriedly entered a new set of figures into it.


“Done.” He said finally and nodded to a bank of monitors where now the camera from the alleyway showed the police presence frozen once more.


“Nice trick, but all it's done is give us access to this room. And you said we were going to back in time? I don't see that happening.” George's voice was dripping in sarcasm.


“Seriously, dude. We can freeze and unfreeze time at your whim, and you still act like this whole thing is a trick? Come on man what would it take?” Ivan shook his head and put the gun down on the table. Walking away from it quickly and leaving it open and exposed.


George bolted for the table, snatched up the gun and as soon as he lifted it he realised it was empty. “Shit.” he said and dropped it again.


“Yeah I took the liberty, just in case. What would your colleagues think if they knew that they were bluffed with an unloaded gun?” Ivan laughed.


“Would you two please just shut it for a minute? Or ten?” Brian was not looking at them but was running a number of jobs on several screens near the main machine.


“What's the hurry? Don't we have all the time in the world? Time travellers and all that?” George sat down, suddenly weary and over the whole thing once again. The adrenalin he got from the grabbing of the gun, the attempt to regain control of the situation was now gone and he just wanted to sleep, his muscles and his brain felt like lead.


“We have, well we do and we don't. We have to be very very careful from here on in. This is not going the way I really intended, and it has consequences, this business.”


“No it doesn't, not if we do it right.” Ivan was quick to correct the scientist, but for his own sake more than a sense of correctness or accuracy.


“How many people have you killed, Ivan was it? Ivan? How many?”


“None. Not this time anyway, the others don't count.” Ivan said off handedly.


“Jesus. You are a sociopath.” George was not shocked.


“Hypothetically, if all the people you killed in all the different time versions, the ones that have reset, how many have you killed?” Brian kept working while he asked.


Ivan stayed silent, not liking the direction his mind was taking. “I don't know, I can't remember exactly. They didn't count.”


“Everyone counts!” George shouted.


“Remember what we said before copper? If there's no crime there's nothing to solve. These murders don't exist anymore. They kind of never did. They're not even murders, not really. They are not 'events' I think Brains called them, only things that happen in the anomaly field, things that are marked as anomaly events are real, everything else is not. So not they don't count, because I killed them, but then they were not 'events' so they went back to the way they were before I came along.”


“You honestly believe that? You are mad.”


“You know what?” Ivan nodded in agreement. “I just might be, or I might have been. I get that now I really do. The idea that you can kill with zero consequence? That is a powerful, and I mean POWERFUL, thing to have for any man. It changes you, it changed me, Brian saw it.” He nodded at the scientist who looked up for the first time, and shook his head bewildered. “Not this one, but the other one, he saw it and that's how this all went, pear-shaped. You would not believe how good it is.”


“Killing people? You sick fuck!” George was quietly scanning the room every time he shook his head or turned away in disgust. Looking for an out, a weapon or something to turn the tide in his favour.


“You must have killed people before? Haven't you ever shot someone in the line of duty?” Brian asked this question, not looking at the men any longer, still fiddling with the device.


“Twice.” George admitted.


“And how did it feel?” Ivan asked, knowing the answer.


“Fucking awful, but that's because I am a human being with real feelings.” George stood his moral ground.


“Would you take them back?” Ivan asked, leaning forward intently.


“What? The shootings? No, in each case they were righteous. There was more than just one life at stake in both...” George stopped explaining and went silent. He had no need to justify his actions to these men.


“What if you could though? What if you could take them back, I mean all the way back and try the moment again where you could resolve the situation without killing anyone. There's always a way, you may not have seen it at the time, but I bet now you know that there was another way? If only you had the time, the knowledge or the benefit of hindsight? Am I right?” Ivan pressed his case.


“I don't know.”


“I do. That's why there is no one dead this time around.”


“This time?” George sighed.


“I have hit that bank, uh four times I think? Or is it three? I can't think straight, it's been a long day. Each time there were deaths except this time. There were none, I didn't really understand Brains, I mean Brian's reasoning, but after being caught short like this I kind of do now. We did it without hurting anyone, there is good reason for that.” Ivan coughed and cleared his throat. “Imagine this happening if I had left a trail of bodies behind? Could you imagine that?” Ivan went red in the face, he really did not want to and he tried to force a laugh that would not come.

Day 229 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 9.3 - (1449 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 9.3

“So you can freeze time? Seriously? What do you fucking take me for? This must be some kind of trick!” George's head was spinning and while he followed what he was hearing, it was hardly very scientific coming form Ivan, he had trouble believing it were possible, let alone true.


“Ignore him, tell me again.” Brian was fascinated to hear from Ivan how he came to be here, alone. He was very interested in the separation of the pack, how that had lead to the problem of not being 'marked' and how he had not remained within the field of the reset. Brian asked him to go over that detail time and time again, asking Ivan to explain his 'understanding' of the anomaly field and the 'rules' such as they were. He asked about the timing, the distance, what Ivan expected to happen over and over as George was trying to make sense of the situation.


Ivan had George's gun, he took it from him in the first few minutes when he had been semi-conscious and stunned. Since then though instead of demanding anything or stamping his natural authority on the cop, Ivan simply answered everything that Brian asked of him. The logic was simple, with his Brian gone then this Brian was the only one who could work the machine, but how they could use that to their advantage, to get out of this situation, that was beyond what he knew.


Having said that to himself already he also had to admit that the machine obviously did more than his Brian had alerted them to. Obviously Brian Two was assuming that Brian Prime had shared more with his partners than he actually had done. George was trying to pick up what he could from the conversation, and the only time that the pattern deviated was when he made a sudden lunge at Ivan, only to find a gun barrel, his own gun barrel, calmly pointing at this chest, held back slightly so it was just out of his reach when he skidded to a halt.


“This is a trick, it's a scientific one, I'll agree to that description but not the kind you are expecting to understand as a 'trick'. Time is really stopped, or more rightly we are stopped. It's a trick in that it looks like we have stopped time, but in reality we are on our way back to the place that we started from, it just so happens that the time we are going back to and the time we started are the same thing. It's a trick in that sense, if that makes any sense.” Brian smiled at his description, the nonsense that it made even to his own ears.


“None of this makes any sense!” George screamed and tore at his hair in frustration, a gesture he never fully understood until this moment, faced with the unfaceable.


“Well I can't pretend to understand it, I don't know why I didn't reset.” Ivan didn't get it yet.


“Because you were not marked for the reset, for the journey back, that was why you stayed where you are.” Brian chose his words carefully.


“That's what I don't understand though. Why is 'here' still here?”


“You guys a re lunatics!” George paced the room, trying to get a little closer to Ivan by increments. “I'm being held hostage by lunatics!”


“You are not being held.” Brian waved away the accusation with a casual tone.


“Excuse me?” Ivan held the gun and Brian scowled at it.


“He can leave any time he wants, it's not like he'll be able to do anything. Time is non-existent out there. He'll step through the threshold and freeze with the rest of them, he'd be leaving the transit lounge, so to speak, and be at the destination. This state is more like a doorway, you are in the doorway now, you are neither at your destination nor your origination, you are in between, that's the trick. That was the problem the machine had to solve, or I had to solve for the machine to work, that and the 'duplication' issue.” Brian pointed at the door. “Go, whenever you want to.”


George was not that keen on finding out the hard way if this madness was real or not. “How about you go first?”


“No thank you, we are good here, you are the one impatient to leave, we on the other hand have some issues to resolve first.”


Ivan scratched his head. “You still haven't told me why I'm still here, and why 'here' is still here, and why you are here, 'here'.”


Brian sighed and looked at his shoes. “I'm not sure I 'know' the answer to that.”


George saw his opening, the detective's instinct seeing the hole that could be exploited, widened and worked on. “You do know, don't you? Maybe you 'think'? Is that it? You have a theory? Something you don't want to share?”


Brian sighed.


Ivan raised an eyebrow and looked at the detective, who was now an ally in finding out the truth of his situation? This was an unexpected turn of events, maybe Brian Prime was right, maybe killing people was not the best of ideas, lack of consequences or not.


“To think I was just going to shoot you, and let the universe collapse around you.”


“Are you threatening me?” George bristled.


“Not conventionally. You may not believe this but I have done this plenty of times already, I know this works.” Ivan was still waiting on an explanation from the brains of the operation.


“I'm not sure you do.” George dug a little deeper into Ivan's self esteem.


“Shut up and let Brains do the talking.”


“Brains is it? What does that make you? Muscles?” George laughed harshly.


“Well at least I'm not a Dick, detective!” Ivan was blushing.


“Please. There's no need for this kind of nonsense. We need to figure out a way out of this room without the police seeing us.”


“And what am I?” George asked.


“Collateral Damage, you are not our hostage of course, you can do what you want. Trust me though you really only have three options, and it's up to you to choose.”


“Three options?” George was playing along for time.


“One you can come along with us and travel in time, join our little gang, that could be quite useful to have a man of your experience and knowledge on our team.”


“Not going to happen” George stated matter of factly, there was no room for discussion. “What are my other two options?”


“Two you go back to ...out there I guess would be the way to put it and you tell the police, your partners, bosses and I assume, friends, that … well you tell them all that you know. But that way there would be no proof, we would not be around to corroborate any of your claims and you will be … I don't even know what you would call it, they would deem you mad. If you are lucky it would be PTSD or something that the job would be blamed for and you'd get a nice, comfortable retirement and the best treatment that the department could afford you. Worst of course would be open slather 'treatment' on the public mental health system, and that would not likely be a lot of fun for you. I hear they no longer lobotomise with hooks though, but the drugs they use? I do not hear good things.”


George was going cold and white listening to that option, he knew what they said was true, he had been thinking much the same thing, which mean that the third and final option was likely silence.


“Or three, I would say nothing because option two would be... unworkable.”


“Precisely. So ultimately I don't care what you choose, there's no winning move except to join us, the gang of thieves and adventurers.”


“Just thieves.” George corrected with sulky tone, though he was already considering the first or third options.


“Kind of, I've never stolen a thing.” Brian rubbed his head, similar to the way Ivan had been doing when trying to work it all out.


“So where do you fit in then? You must be from the past, maybe even the start if you really have never stolen anything?” Ivan was quicker and more logical than most gave him credit for.


“Me? I'm the original, Brian Prime if you will.” Brian said.

Day 228 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 9.2 - (1441 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 9.2

 “What does it do, Ivan?” George the detective was pointing at the single button on the machine, and despite the complexity of the readouts, the wires and conduits running too and from the machine, there was only one button visible on the entire device, whatever it was.


“I don't know, I don't. I'd never even been in this room before, I thought it was ...” Ivan shrugged.


“What, what did you think?”


“I thought it was just a closet, a cupboard or storage, maybe the riser or something.”


“The riser? This is a one storey building, come on you expect me to believe that?” The cop was smiling despite himself, for some reason Ivan's confusion amused him. This was the first unsettling thing he had seen affect the odd and slightly insane man who was caught red-handed, not robbing a bank. None of this made any sense, and up until, even though what he said was a lot of nonsense, he said it with confidence and assured tones. This was the first off-kilter moment, seeing the box with the man in it.


“I don't know, I really don't.” Ivan rubbed his head and then bit into his fist, this was not what he expected, not what he was aiming for and he was not even sure that this was Brian. How could it be, and it did not make any sense to rat the guy out, it could not be the same Brian that he was working with.


“He's a copy.” He finally said out loud.


George rolled his eyes and did not bite at the absurdity of what Ivan was saying, the light in his eyes was back and this must have been back on track with his insanity defence. In other words nothing useful would be forthcoming now. He was tempted to push the button, but doing that without knowing what was going to happen was a bit short-sighted. “Get him out of here.” he snarled at the uniform, angry again that the window of honesty had closed.


The unformed policeman roughly took Ivan, and Ivan pushed back suddenly and with more force than the man in blue expected he could and the two of them lost balance and tumbled into the machine, landing on the button and setting the machine in motion.


“Jesus, what have you done, get him out of here, get the hell out of here!” George took the flashing lights and the alarm sounding in low volume but scary pitch, seriously. They fled the scene, Ivan struggling to get free and stay near Brian, he overbalanced the unformed officer once more and managed to push him through the doorway and then shut it with some force locking it with a clack before anyone else could react.


“That was pointless.” George was still in the room and he held a gun on Ivan, taking a defensive stance and keeping the barrel level, sighted and out reach of the other man. “Stay right there!” He commanded as Ivan took a step towards, then froze in place. “Open the door!”


“Which is it? Stay here or open the door?” Ivan smiled.


“Don't be smart ass, open the door scumbag.” George did not move and kept an unblinking eye on Ivan.


Ivan was watching the machine over the cop's shoulder, saw the door in the coffin like structure open and Brian opening his eyes.


“Uh look out behind you man.” Ivan tried pointing with his manacled hands.


“Uh-uh, stay the fuck where you are.” George was not going to turn around now he had a dangerous and mentally unstable man locked in a smal-ish room with a gun and he was not going to go anywhere near him.


“What is going on here?” Brian asked, coughing on his words, but speaking well enough to be understood.


George could not help himself and he turned, lowering his gun as he did, just allowing Ivan enough time to shoulder charge into him and knock all three men together, to the floor.


“Detective!” A muffled shout came from outside the door.


“Help!” George called, not too proud to say it, “I need back up in here!” Then a sharp thud as Ivan's elbow drove upwards into George's chin and slamming the back of his head against the corner of the device and spinning his world into black.


“What the hell is going on.” Brian was confused and dazed, he did not recognise anyone in his lab, now there was a handcuffed man, a man with a gun and violence playing itself out right in front of him. “what have I got myself into?” he asked out loud.


“Brian. We're surrounded by cops, is there another way out of this place?” Ivan was going through the pockets of George who was semi-conscious and head lolling about in concussion, unable to see or control his movements in the state he was in.


Ivan found the key he was looking for and he unlocked the cuffs, then put them on the detective's wrists, turning him face down and then slamming his head face first into the floor with a thud and the fresh cracking splitting of his nose into the cold concrete floor.


“Hey!” came the shout from the outside, “Get away from the door!” Then there were some thunderclaps of sound and pressure, the door shaking but unharmed. “What the fuck?” Came more confusion and then Brian finally came forward and entered some numbers in the panel next to the doorway. “That should buy us some time.”


He looked at Ivan and the bleeding unconscious cop still none the wiser. “Can you explain? You seem to know who I am? I don't know who you are? What the hell is going on? Are you from my future?”


“Oh good, I don't have to explain the machine to you and the anomaly, the resets and … stuff. I'm not sure I would not sound as mad as the cops thought I was.” Ivan sighed a huge relieved breath and sat back on his haunches, “Thank god you know that much. What was they last thing you remember?”


Brian looked suspiciously at Ivan. “Why should I trust you? You know a lot about my invention, but I know nothing about you. I never mentioned any one I was in league with.”


“You never mentioned? You met yourself?” Ivan was starting to make sense of this.


“I … I still don't know who you are?” Brian crossed his arms.


“Ivan. My name is Ivan and I work for you. Well I work for Mike and he works for you.” Ivan shook his head. “That's not quite right, you're more like partners, and I am...” He struggled.


“A sub contractor?


“If you like yeah, that's fine. I contracted my services through my friend Mike, who well … he and you have a plan that I … sub contract my special skills on.” Ivan looked at the door nervously.


“I needn't ask what those 'skills' are I suppose I can see that for myself.” Brian moved to the door and then threw it open to show Ivan who recoiled as he saw the cops on the other side frozen in place, not moving and holding a battering ram between them about to slam into the doorway.


“What the hell? How did you do that?” Ivan stood and looked out the door and he could see that everyone out there was in place. “Did you? Did you stop time? Does your machine do that too?”


“Evidently I did not share everything with the help.” Brian mumbled to himself.


“What the hell?” George was awake, blood smeared across his lower face and eyes focussing past Ivan and through the doorway. Ivan cocked back a fist but held it still when he saw the glare on Brian's face, he had seen that look before, it was what lead to saving the bank manager from certain death.


“He's a cop.” Ivan said finally lowering his fist. “And we are breaking the law, big time.”



“I figured as much, I told myself my plan, it was not a surprise, I had thought about a lot of it already. This though, you need to tell me everything, we have...” he looked at the device on his wrist and Ivan recognised it as one of the marker bracelets, he had one on in the machine all this time? “...under three hours before this … resets.”

Day 227 - Commercial Writing (1249 Words)

Commercial Writing

2x Articles about the launch of the Xbox One - Day One and why I got so little sleep last night.

Day 226 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 9.1 - (2143 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 9.1

Harold Prime climbed out the bedroom window of the second floor of his house and edged along the extremely thin purchase he had to put his feet on and flattened himself against the outside wall of his house. If it was really his house or the other Harold's it did not really matter much at all, what mattered was not getting caught, not running into himself and not further complicating matters for the supposedly non-violent and safe version of their bank heist.


He had made his own bed, kind of his own fault when he thought about it, by coming here to spend the afternoon with his wife, a mistake he would not make again. Though he could easily do so as the circumstances would be different next time, there would not be the need for a nap. There would also be no time a nap, he remembered that the time was limited and that he would not be going back all the way next time, in fact he was running late now.


Faintly he heard the doorbell of his house, and then from inside the room where he had heard himself searching about, the sound of Harold Two heading back down the stairs. The bell rang a second time as Harold Prime climbed down the drain pipe, hoping all the way that it would not pull away from the side of the house, taking him with it. He walked around the front of the house cautiously and was just in time to hear the front door closing and Michael and Ivan standing there in suits, ties and carrying a briefcase each.


“Psst.” He hissed and the men clocked his presence, subtly with an inclination of their heads and turned round to walk back down the path at the front of the house. Harold shimmied over his neighbours fence, knowing they were away on holiday there was no chance of him being spotted or caught. They regrouped at a car, the two men waiting for him, Ivan grinning stupidly and Michael looking very unhappily at his watch.


“I'm sorry, I fell asleep and my alarm didn't go off. Maude, Maude must have turned it off so I would sleep longer, she saw me setting it when we went to bed.”


“You dirty dog!” Said Ivan before gunning the engine and driving them away.


“It's not, whatever.” Harold was felling a little guilty about falling asleep on the job, but they had plenty of time to sort the process out, there was a good ten hours window that they could stage almost any number of robberies within and still walk away with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of untraceable diamonds without hurting a single person.


They drove to the warehouse and rushed inside, Brian was not in the room waiting for them, instead the place was empty and the lights were off.


“What the fuck now?” Michael was unhappy with the lack of professionalism in the team at the present time, he needed to be more assertive and drive them to perform better to get the maximum efficiency from the scam if they were going to pull this off in one night. He knew they could go to two nights, but each day was a window of opportunity for the actual owner of the jewels to take action and begin the laundering process, they would not sit idly in the safe deposit box for more that one or two days based on their gathered intelligence on the haul.


“Where's Brian?” Harold asked, completely redundantly as that was what everyone was already thinking, no need to vocalise the issue as well.


“Hold on, I got this.” Ivan was selecting a number on his smart phone, tapping forcefully as if the harder he hit the capacitive screen the more forcefully he was making the call reach it's recipient. “It's ringing.” He held the phone up to his ear and then put it away from him, holding it as far away as possible. “Can you hear that?”


Faintly they could hear the chirping of the phone, it was coming from somewhere nearby but muffled as if it were in a pocket, a drawer or a bag.


“It's in here? He's here somewhere?” Ivan looked about but then the call went to voice mail and the speaker on Ivan's phone could be heard in a tinny tone, projecting Brian's message to 'leave a message after the tone' followed by the familiar tone itself.


“Brains! Where the FUCK are you!” Michael was already upset with the inventor for ignoring his lead, for supplanting his authority and for the delay in the plan that Harold's inattention had put on them.


“BRAINS!” Mike's face was red, raged and ready to explode when the clack of a door being unlocked and unlatched was made.


In the silence behind the screaming anger of the gang leader, the sound echoed and was much louder to the three men than it deserved to be, and the door which none of the men had really noticed before was opening in the wall, and Brian, looking more irritated than chagrined, exited the room, switching off the light on the wall as he did so, plunging the room behind into almost complete darkness.


Not before Harold could see a range of reflections in blue and red of diodes and lights on the floor and walls, there was something electronic and assumably quite complex back there.


“Stop shouting, I'm here. I have been here waiting for some time. I'm not the one running late. Not that we can really run THAT late, we do have technology on our side.” Harold avoided looking at Michael and Ivan and instead fixed his gaze on Harold, the least threatening person in the room.


“What is in there?” Michael was not letting him away with anything, he wanted control of the group again and he wanted to know everything.


“It's a cold room for the servers.” Harold dismissed the query and moved to the machine and started fiddling with the settings on the panel, picking up the bracelets, and calibrating the four of them together.


“What's in the room, why is fucking locked, and why haven't we seen it?” Michael stood in Brian's way, his nose inches from the scientist's and stared him down, close and imposing as he could be. Ivan hovered at his shoulder, spoiling for a fight and ready to reassert his own position as the muscle in the team.


Ivan was not exactly necessary any longer, but he wanted Mike to know that he had his back and would help skew the team to his side, if it came to that. He wanted to bring Brian down a peg or two, wipe that self satisfaction of his face, the one that screamed how dim Ivan looked by comparison. He wanted to stomp all over the bank manager as well, the man who appeared from nowhere, paid no dues and was now a one quarter partner in what had been a three way split. Sure he was making the haul bigger and reducing the risk of things going pear shaped, but that was also Ivan's role in the team, so he too need some come-uppance.


Brian kept his gaze on the machine not looking at the man only inches away from him and his voice wavered as he chose his words carefully, not wanting to provoke or confront his partners, not yet anyway, there was still way too much to do.


“There are racks of computers, servers and comms devices that run the calculations for the machine, it's cold and kept cold to stop them from overheating from all the data they have to crunch to calibrate the anomaly settings, if we get them wrong then we could all end up in different times when we reset, or...”


“Or what?”


“Or worse.”


“What's that mean?” Michael was taking everything the wrong way, this sounded like a threat and he was not having it.


“I mean I don't know what … or how bad it could be, but also, I'd rather not find out what happens when you screw up time travel. I'm pretty sure it's not good, so we have the room. It's just equipment. Look, put your hand on the door.”


He waved at the door and Ivan obliged by laying his palm on the panelling and shrugging his shoulders. “It is cold.” he finally conceded.


“We have those in the bank too. All our IT infrastructure is in secure cold rooms at 18 degrees. IT prevents overheating and ….”

“Shut the fuck up Banker.” Michael was still very unhappy.


“We need to go soon.” Brian suggested mildly and kept fiddling with the machine, holding out a bracelet to Michael. “As soon as you say we go, we can go.” He added, deferring to the leader of their group.


That submission was not enough though, and his anger was not abating. However it was time to go and start the first run on the bank, otherwise they would run out of time.


“Now.” He said through gritted teeth. “We are not done.” he jabbed a finger into Brian's chest getting a small yelp in response. Harold watched the two men facing each other down, one cowering before the intimidating presence of the more criminally experienced, yet hiding a back bone of steel that was waiting for the right opportunity to straighten, harden and take back the control.


“Go.” Mike's voice boomed in the space, impatient that they were not moving already to the door.


All four men were outside the bank a few minutes later, the lack of traffic at night making the trip from the warehouse to the Plaza much faster than the last couple of times that they made the trip. A security guard was checking the entryway when the four of them walked up, Ivan stiffening and reaching behind his back for the gun secreted there.


“Seth!” Harold greeted the guard in a friendly and conversational tone, not indicating that anything was out of the ordinary.


“Mr White? What are you doing here?” Seth was actually quite used to late night run ins with the management of the bank and a number of the buildings in the area, but they all made the same assumptions that working outside of hours was a bad and unusual thing, despite the occurrences being at least weekly, sometimes several days in a row.


“Late meeting with auditors from head office, Gentlemen, this is one of our very capable security guards Seth Black, he's usually on up to the dogwatch and then we have... who is on dog this week actually? Is it Ben? Is Ben still doing that thing... you know the...” Harold did not quite recall what it was that Ben was studying, but it was the subject of multiple discussions when he caught up with Seth.


He laughed and shook his head sadly, “Yes, complete waste of time if you ask me, but hey it's his life yes? And it keeps him happy doing Dog, then it's less mid-nighters for us normal, non-vampire sorts.”


“Hah! Oh well, we won't be that long Seth, we'll start up a few processes in the systems and come back and check them in the morning.”


“Oh?” Seth raised an eyebrow.


“Yes. We have to wait for the back ups to run and they should be over in … twenty minutes or so and then these gentlemen can get to work. We'll be out of your hair in an hour or so.”


Seth puffed up his chest and stuck out his chin. “I can be back in an hour if you want escorting back to your vehicles.” He stated rather than asked.


“There's no need really ...” Harold started to say, but the Michael smiled and smoothly accepted the offer.


“Actually that would be great, it's a bit darker round here than we expected, we got a little held up, and it would be good to know that we have someone watching our backs.”


“No problem sir, no one will get anywhere near you tonight!” Seth saluted and picked up his radio. “Home, this is Alpha Charlie Seven, we have a deactivation at the Plaza for ...” He looked at Harold “One hour?”


“Better make it two. To be sure.”


“Two, make that two hours, confirm.” Seth looked at the visitors and they all waited on the crackle of the radio.


“Confirmed.”



Seth nodded and walked away, waving over his shoulder as Harold unlocked the entrance for the bank and the four men went inside unmolested.