Day 248 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 12.3 - (1238 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 12.3

“Where are they then?” George was asking, checking all the usual things before returning to the other two men. There were no mysterious disembodied fingers and there was still a frozen Brian asleep in the suspended animation chamber, but otherwise this parallel was the same as all the others ones they had seen so far. Everything in the warehouse was the same, it was night time and this was the third of fourth time they had cycled through hours of the day to find it night time again.


The scientist was waiting for them, he had expected no changes and was impatient to find himself and find out what was going on. Things had changed dramatically and he, his other self that was, had started acting recklessly with dimensional creation, loosely and indiscriminately starting up new branches of reality, multidimensional variants and time-lines where these men were repeatedly appearing and taking action, assumably the same action that this Ivan had described, one where they killed and took what they wanted over and over again. Each time under the delusion that what they were doing was harmless and meaningless.


It was neither of those things and Brian knew it, and figured that his future self had drawn the same conclusions that he had. Ivan had no idea what was going on, and obviously his future self had changed from his current self enough to want to use and abuse these criminal types that he had somehow incorporated into whatever scheme of his was going on.


Why eluded him, why on earth would he do such a thing? Brian could think of a thousand ways to make more money than stealing, better ways to be rich and take advantage of the things that dimensional anomalies could do. The time stasis, the creation of a new version of reality at an earlier point in time, could be used in so many more interesting ways than just pure larceny and monetary reward, so why was he doing this?


“We should get ready, make some preparations.” He said to the other two men, George nodded in agreement and Ivan just looked unaffected by the statement. He was waiting for orders.


“Find somewhere to hide, somewhere to watch what is going on and stay out of sight from them. They'll expect me. Well I'll expect me, but they may not be expecting you Ivan and it seems unlikely that any other version of you is part of this mess is it Detective?”


“I should stay with you.” Ivan offered.


“Did you just not hear what I said, Ivan?” Brian again spoke condescendingly to the man who could easily overpower and brutally beat him.


“I did, but you have not thought this through. Not properly.” Ivan stared the scientist down, daring him to argue, the physical presence he had over the other man standing his ground. The intellectual superiority the other man was feeling was drifting away under that current. 


“I have not? And you have?” He was questioning disbelieving the chances that Ivan had thought that much better than he did, but at least now he did so with a moderated tone, not wanting to trigger a physical confrontation that would easily trump any educational edge he would undoubtedly have. There was little point berating someone with a better argument if at the end of it that could be overturned with a closed fist.


“Nothing is different in these dimensions, these time lines except for the one where Me and George...”


“George and I.” George piped up to correct him, and both of the men turned to look sideways at the detective. “What?” He said, “I don't see that's it's suddenly to difficult to speak properly. I know you know how to say it.”


“George and. “ Ivan inclined his head as he said it. “I. Where we became the difference and opened the fridge where you were. That was the difference, in that dimension, and the only other thing that was out of place was the, sorry. Were the fingers.” This also came with an inclination of the head, but a sarcastic tilt was contained within that.


“Yes. This is true. I see your point. You should stay.” Brian conceded, mentally checking that not only was Ivan smarter than he looked, but that he had leapt to the wrong conclusion about the expectations of the other Brian, who had or would soon, be following a logic puzzle to unravel their presence. He could be thinking that already, not knowing who had tripped the alarm but in fact and in truth only one person could be able to create the circumstance that would be setting off the alarm.


“I don't get it. Someone please explain it to me? Like I am not a nuclear physicist?” George was lost where Brian had already leapt forward a few more logical steps.


“I assumed incorrectly that it would be logical to assume I was here alone, but in fact as Ivan has pointed out it is much more likely that he would be here with me or by alternative I would be accompanied by a number of other versions of myself also woken up from … the freezer as you incorrectly named it.”


“Why?”


“Because it's not a freezer? Was that not implied quite clearly?”


“No, why is it more likely you'd not be alone.” George was being patient with the scientist who was becoming more and more condescending as time wore on.


“Ah. Well something would have woken me up. As there are only two anomalous events in the anomalies that we know of, and one of them involves the mystery fingers which we know zero about, then the other unrepeated event is the presence of Ivan here, he would have woken me up.”


“No chance any one else could have woken you then? How is that not possible, a million things could have lead to you being woken up and taking the same action.” George thought he was adding logic to proceedings, but he was running down a lead they had already both considered and discounted.


“No.” Said Ivan, “No if that were true, and I grant you it COULD have happened that way, but IF it were true then because the other dimensions are identical then it would have happened twenty times over, so there would be more than one Brian here, even if they were all separated by the distance between each anomaly instance, then at least a half dozen would have caught up over the days in various time zones that we have crossed, well kind of time zones. Once one Brian had caught up with another Brian, they would be quite likely to chase down or wait for the others to follow. Then there would be a group. But there is not a group there is just one, so the best thing would be for me to be there so the explanation makes sense as to why there is not twenty of him, just along for the ride or whatever.”


“And me?”


“You? You are totally unpredictable, you're only here because of the follow on from the robbery, the investigation into Ivan here and the raid on the warehouse, which you are officially missing from by now.” Brian pointed out.


“Don't remind me. So I am the trump card then? How do I get played?” George holstered his gun and looked about the room, settling on the room where Ivan recalled throwing the tear gas what seemed like months ago.


“We're making this shit up as we go along.” The drop of the well thought out premise to be replaced with swearing and off handedness was so smooth. Ivan was well used to displaying one part of his character while pretending his intellectual side was a stillborn twin.