Day 222 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 8.3 - (2485 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 8.3

Three fingertips and the end of a thumb fell to the floor with a soft patter sound, seen in clear relief by Michael who had been hoping that the other Harold would not make it near the bubble cast by the device in time. Instead what he and Ivan saw and hoped now to forget, was four pieces of flesh propelled and dropping forward by momentum and downward by gravity. Blood fell from the tips with no back pressure or containment to stop it, just spattering drops but red with the suddeness of the return trip.


“Oh, we're back.” Harold was looking about the warehouse, a huge smile splitting his face, the point proven and the situation now clear, an infeasibly large world of potential opening up with this one new trip. “Can we, check the news or the … Internet or the ...oh is that the time?” He was looking at the wall clock meters away from the device and then at his own watch, his smile was beginning to get out of control, he could not stop it's width or depth from expressing his excitement.


“We need to be more careful.” Michael was kneeling down over the severed digits, just looking at them.


“Well I … I don't believe it!” Harold was not looking at the object of his attention, he was clearly stating that despite his words he actually did believe the time travelling bank robbers, and his luck had come in. “I do not believe it.” He said again, but it was an exhalation of exhilarated breath more than words.


“We brought something back.” Ivan said and tapped the bank manager on the shoulder. “Those are yours.”


“What?” Harold craned his neck to see what it was that Ivan was referring to. Brian had already come in to view and he blanched at the sign of more blood and more violence, albeit and indirect attack on Harold Two, by virtue of his being in the wrong spot, the wrong time to take any steps closer. They had not warned him, and now he was fingerless, non-existence aside it still sat ill with Brian, he was trying to dial it all down, and instead they had a new hyped up and over excited partner.


Harold looked at his own fingers, the ones on his hand that matched them and whistled in amazement. “Do you have any ink? We should take his fingerprints, my fingerprints that is and take mine too. Oh yes, these are Harold Two's and mine are... what fingerprint primes? This is bizarre, but fascinating and wow. He's not going to miss these though is he?”


Brian sighed, there went another convert the no-consequences team, he was being outnumbered again. He thought, erroneously it now looked, that Harold would have some sympathy for the non-existence of his other selves, he very nearly was one of those people. If he had not been so close, if he had only leaned back a little bit he could have been missing limbs, or extremities himself. Where was the 'there but for the grace...” feelings that Brain wanted him to have, hoped he would see this the same way.


“We should go again.” Harold nodded and picked up his own fingers, scouting the lab space for a bag or a container to put his fingers in.


“We need to be more careful. Even Michael thinks so!” Brian was angry, he wished he never had partners, he wished he never came up with the scheme, never brought anyone in. Of course he didn't really regret it at all, he wanted to regret but he could not. He needed them, what he planned was impossible on his own.


Michael burned silently, his inner voice screaming abuse at the scientist's casual dismissal of his role in the team. The time would come, it would be soon and it would be harsh. A judgement was being meted out in his head, the brains behind the operation was only necessary for so long before it became an operational matter to have him sidelined. He looked at Ivan and got a raised eyebrow in return, men of action needed no words to know that action was required.


“We will be more careful. All of us. We will not stop, we will continue carefully.” Michael spoke in slow and measured tones. It was clear he was not suggesting or confirming, he was ordering business to be done the way he prescribed. “We can go again, but with a better plan. Now that we have an inside man, we can do it with less … everything.” The sentence got away from him and he reddened, not wanting to seem even more stupid to a man who belittled the intelligence of everyone just by being in the room.


“We can, with no risk. I can help you. I can help us. Us.” Harold was still grinning, blithe to the tension building around him and his presence.


“We are not killing any more people, not maiming, not taking hostages and not hurting, scaring anyone. I can't let it.” Brian made a karate chop motion in the air, underlining and finalising the sentiment. He had heard the threat in Michaels voice, but he could not let the situation continue, not with the potentially devastating consequences of their actions.


“You can't .. let … it?” The dangerous sound made it's own bestial growl in the air between them.


“There's no need, no need to do anything except walk in and out with the jewels. Tonight.” Harold rubbed his hands together. “No one is going to be there overnight and I have twenty four seven access to the bank. We can walk in any time tonight after people have left, it could be midnight or it could be ten past six, it doesn't matter with your machine does it?”


“What are you saying?” Michael asked, his attention suddenly diverted from the ursurping of his authority in the group.


“I'm saying we can all get what we want.”


“We?” Ivan noted with more than a hint of menace.


“I am aware I am not a part of the group. I want to be though, and if you think about it I can make the world of difference to you. We can leave the bank during the day and just hit it at night. Except it's not really hitting it. I'll call security and tell them I have a late stay at the bank, we wait until I have gone home, or the other me, Harold Two, or Three or wherever we are up to.”


“Two, the one who lost his fingers doesn't exist anymore.” Brian stated with more certainty than he felt.


“Even better, this is amazing, just fucking... amazing. Excuse my language.” Harold blushed at the use of profanity all of a sudden, it was out of place with the business like arrangement he was about to make.


“Yeah, we are delicate flowers after all.” smirked Ivan but quieted again after a look from his boss.


“Explain.” Michael said.


“I call security after I, the other I that is, the one who...”


“Yes, I think we understand the paradigm better than you do, go on.” Michael was reasserting his place in the group. Brian said nothing but waited to hear where the plan was going, but already he saw advantages left in place by a guilty sense of mercy.


“Right. Yes, snow to eskimos, sucking eggs, other well thought out metaphors. Where? Oh. I call in and go 'back' to the office, let us all in, do we even all need to be there?”


“Yes.” Said Ivan way too quickly, the fear at being left behind again had been gnawing at him, though he only knew by inference that he had missed one trip, the unknown part of that was what was eating him alive.


“Okay, we all go in, we, I mean, I open the vault, we take the box, we can look for other stuff if you want, we'll have time, we can maybe make a plan of which boxes to hit next time. Then we … what did you call it?”


“Reset the anomaly field.” Brian piped up.


“Reset, yes we reset and come back to just before the phone call and then we go again. No one to worry about, no one to hurt and we can do it as many times as we need. Our only enemy would be sleep. We could even have a nap now, to you know freshen up for the night.” Harold beamed at his plan and looked expectantly at his now partners in crime.


No one said a thing.


“Well?” Harold said after a few minutes. “What do yo guys think?”


“It's good, we'll do it this way, we'll do maybe ten more trips, that should give us more than enough even with the now four way split.” Michael was considering how much better a bargain it would be if it were only a three way split. Or a two way split.


“Right, so I'll head home and change, get some sleep so we're good for tonight then.” Harold walked to the door but before he touched the handle a very strong grip was on his shoulder and holding him back.


“Whoa, whoa, what the hell. You can't go to your house!” Ivan pulled the man, who was far from small, around with a force that was partly designed to move the man and also to illustrate the ability that Ivan had to use when required.


“Of course I can. I'm at the office all day.” Harold was talking a little less confidently now, the application of physical power reminding him who he was dealing with, the message clearly received.


“Exactly. So why arouse your wife's suspicion? Maybe you just stay here instead little man.” Ivan too was wanting to put people in their place. He could not do it with his boss, and the scientist held all the cards with the machine, so the acquisition of a new team mate meant he was able to, and ready to, enforce a pecking order.


“Well I could, but frankly why would I? Look, I know what this means, I am not really here, not in the same sense that Harold Two is, or is going to be. So me and Maude? We are … over unless I kill myself and take over his, my, life.” Harold sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I can't do that, I don't want to do that. I... I'm not that kind of guy. Frankly I don't to have him killed, I'm sure you...” He looked sideways at Ivan, “could arrange that for me, you know make it happen and all, but still I'm not that person. By the same token the price for that … I guess you might call it weakness... the price for this is that I don't get to live my life and my time with Maude, my Maude is now his Maude. I can't compete with that. So I want time to say goodbye, and spend some time with my wife. I'll be at work all day, so it won't be an issue, I'll just tell her I wanted to spend the day with her instead and that's what I can do. We can rest, I can … enjoy her company one last time.”


Michael snorted and Ivan sniggered.


“Anyway, I can and I want to. Depending on what time we make the reset I could actually do that again and again, I can know where I am going to be, so I can spend time with Maude. Freely.” Harold smiled at the thought. In the back of his mind a plan was forming, he may not have a Maude of his own anymore, but at some point she just needed to be within the field and then she would be on an even footing with Harold Prime. Maude Prime, that was a potentially acceptable way around the lack of identity. He was sure she would come around to the concept, he could feel her out in an afternoon and if she freaked out, the reset would clear the whole problem up. If she was good with the plan, then all well and good too, there would be two extra people.


Harold made no mention of this to his partners, they would assume that a five way split was just going to complicate matters, but he only really wanted enough to set themselves up and maybe a bit more for comfort. He knew how to make money, make money create more money, even without the machine. He would be good, she would be good and they would be outside of their lives. Their never had kids and so that was neither here nor there. There would always be a way to be part of their lives, even without intersecting close friends and family.


There was always a way.


“You know you could have any woman you want?” Ivan raised an eyebrow and no one in the room was sure he didn't mean it in context of his consequence free approach to time travel. Brian filed away the idea that rape and murder were both cards in Ivan's hands. That idea held so very little comfort to him, he wondered if he had miscalculated in not sharing some of the more theoretical aspects of his machine.


“No thanks. I just want to spend the afternoon with my wife. Even if she is not … even if I am not who she thinks I am.”


“You're the same guy who left the house this morning, you're just not the same guy that gets to go home tonight. Speaking of which, how do we manage that? What about when you get home, and she asks why you went out and came back again?”


Harold nodded and smiled to the finger he was pointing in front of him, poking a thought floating there, representing the idea of how far he had thought ahead. “She isn't home tonight. She has a book club and she will be leaving for that before I leave for the bank, before I leave the bank for home. It's all in the timing.”

“Then it's a plan.” Michael closed the deal and Ivan stepped dutifully away from the door where he had been blocking Harold's egress.



“Take my car.” Ivan smiled and handed a set of keys to the bank manager.