Day 212 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 7 - (1159 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 7

Ivan sat in a little room with no windows and a big mirror on the facing wall. One of those two-way things where the assembled onlookers, if there were any, could watch safely through the glass without giving away their presence. Ivan had seen enough TV and movies to know what it was, what it meant and that very soon there would be a crowd behind there if he started telling the truth about how and why they were robbing the bank.

They would think he was insane, and the way that things were working out for him Ivan was beginning to think that maybe he was losing his mind. Some of the things that Brains had outlined were definitely and 100% true, they could manipulate time and take advantage of the anomaly field. The collapse and rest definition needed some work though, and the consequences of rethinking that he was trying very hard not to think about.

The machine would still be there in the warehouse even if the men that operated were not. It was entirely possible that the machine would still wipe him out at any moment and he'd either cease to exist or go back in time to the last reset point he had been anomaly marked in. That was the reset before he got a little pushy and aggravating with Brains and Michael, and it was not place he wanted to reset to. He was unsure that if he went back in time that he would not make the same mistakes again, devoid of the self-knowledge it would take to adjust his behaviour for the better.

If he produced a credible version of the time travel story then it would be a matter of going to the warehouse and exposing the machine to the authorities and then... it was difficult to know what would happen next. Potentially they could dismiss the entire thing and mark him down as mad, depending on how much and how passionately he stuck to his story. Alternately he could convince them to look closer at the machine and assign smarter and more experienced minds than his to try and work it out. It was beyond his ability to use effectively but in the hands of other brains, similar in background to Brian then it may be salvageable. In their investigations it was possible that they could trigger a reset for him and inadvertently save him, send him back to his accomplices.

It was also possible that the story would be disbelieved and all his passion and explanation chalked up to the desperation of being caught. He had to decide whether or not to portray a reasonable exterior and try to make his case logically or to go a little more 'extreme' in his arguments and have fall back of an insanity plea.

Now in the scheme of things, the reticence of Brains to take life and commit violence worked in his favour. He had arrived after everyone else, he had not hurt anyone and he had let people go. Ivan had not stolen anything and the Bank Manager, Harold White was missing and presumed the inside man. Barbara was still there and with the way she had looked at him in the bank when he treated her badly, she would be singing whatever song the cops wanted to hear. That could either complicate or simplify the case. Either way there was no violent crime other than that of association to the violence committed by his co-conspirators.

The disappearance of Harold White bothered him, and though he had very little information to go on it was a good assumption to think that he had been taken in his entirety to the past where his compadres were. Without the reset to make everything back the way it was, with the extra anomalous materials, the jewels and the Bank Manager, were they actually in the past at all?

Ivan wanted Brian to be there, to explain the symptoms and put the concept into context for him. Ivan recalled a few discussions about potential pitfalls and quantum effects, but mostly he had not been listening to those talks from Brains, it did not affect him. The plan was Mike's, the physical elements were up to Ivan and the method, the science of the 'how' were all on Brian. He would know what to do, what it all meant and maybe even how to fix it.

Ivan had none of these advantages as he sat waiting to be interviewed by the police. This was a standard tactic by the police, let the criminal sweat and think whatever they wanted while you waited. It was an effective pressure device on the suspect, make them stew in their own juices and many would confess or slip up when the chance presented itself. For Ivan the opportunity to order his thoughts had the opposite effect, he was calming and thinking things through.

“How long am I going to sit here?” he yelled, with added stress to his voice for show. When he heard his own voice, echoing in the small walls with a hollow resonance, he sounded much more affected than he was trying for. Acting was not a huge leap. He wanted them to think he was stressed and getting tense, then he could buy more time for his plan and to create the story he needed to tell. It would be the truth, after a fashion, but it needed some massaging to be palatable.

He needed to gather himself a little better than he was doing to stay in control and not let his fear and ignorance drive his responses and his statements. He needed to centre himself and not let it get on top of him. He would tell them about the machine, the plan and the identities of the other two men in on the plan. They would not exist here any longer, or as much as he thought they would not, he was fairly certain they were not here. They would have histories but they would be as missing as the hitch-hiker Harold White. He could tell them about the diamonds, the unmarked and untraceable nature of the prize, the plan to replicate and extend their fortune and what they planned to do with it. The investing carefully and the laundering of the money with time travel picking the winners and setting their covers for making their money grow exponentially.

They had planned to be Billionaires. They had never planned to be criminals, not really. Sure he had a record and that would not look great to the authorities, the same as Michael's reputation post this would be just as bad, if not worse as he was disappeared permanently. Their crimes were always going to be erased, and it was never intended to have real world repercussions.

They did though and this fact was now the only one that mattered to Ivan.