Day 256 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 12.7 - (1049 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 12.7

When Michael finally woke up the first thing he noted was his hands were tied behind his back, he could not move them. His eyes flickered in their closed lids as he came to, but his body was ahead of his mind, trying to move, testing his bonds. There was a ringing in his ears, one that was high pitched and hollow, like an echo in the vast caverns of his mind.


He reached instinctively to cup his head, which is how he knew that he was bound, even as he was waking from a sightless dream to a sightless reality, his eyes heavily closed and too much effort to open. His hands pulled against the bonds, the rope cutting against his wrists and telling him he was bound to a chair. He recognised the feeling, in his half awake state he was planning his escape with muscle memory.


Voices were arguing in the room, and the throbbing echo of his headache could not drown out the aggression and fear that was being traded in the spirited discourse. He shook his head to clear some of the fog that had gathered there but all it did was make him feel more keenly the state of his head. Each movement he fancied he could feel his brain rattling against the sides of his skull, phsycially.


“What the fuck.” He mumbled, but it must have been louder than he expected as the voices in the room shut off like a switch had been thrown. Silence replaced fighting and more than ever Mike needed to see what was going on.


His eyes opened but the could barely managed to get in the light, the intensity of vision was too much for him and they batted closed once more. Each movement of them was a struggle to complete, like not enough sleep or too much alcohol was at play. The outlines of three, no four, people were burned into his memory, like he could see their silhouettes burned on his retinas. There was not enough detail in that momentary glimpse, the shapes and the brightness of the lights on him were indiscriminately preventing him from seeing the facts of his circumstances.


He tried opening them again but this time forcing them apart just caused him more pain, the pulsations of the grey matter of his cerebellum were radiating outwards and expanding like the universe, pushing into new space and creating the living room it needed. He saw four people but they were cut outs, not in usable dimensions. He could not distinguish who the figures were, their age or even gender characteristics. Amorphous blobs that all looked the same.

“Mike? Mike are you there? You awake dude?” A voice floated to him on a breeze, miles away and the echo of an echo he felt no desire to respond to, he just wanted more sleep. He jolted again as the remembered bondage of his arms dug at the desires he had for control and independence. The surge of anger and adrenaline powered his resolve and he opened his eyes a third time, light flooding in and overwhelmed him, he made a strangled noise at the pain and tried to hide his head, yet unable to do much else except bobble his own head on his neck, the only independent motion he could afford in his state of restraint.


The world went black and he passed out again.


Ivan from the past, the Ivan Prime of the original team before the incident that left him behind was the one who had come to check on his boss, his former boss, and see if he was ok. Ivan of the future, Ivan Two, was circling away from Ivan Prime every time the other version of himself made the slightest move. It was an odd dance where Ivan Two was repelled and attracted to the other Ivan, from the moment he had seen himself in the window until now he was unsure that he was still sane.


There were two Brians now and two Ivans all around the table and in this space and then there was Mike who was restrained and assaulted, along with Harold who who had came into the warehouse with him. Of all the people there it seemed that Johnny come lately, Harold White, was handling the insanity of the situation the easiest. Maybe it was because the bank manager had been though so much and been dropped in the deep end, expected to swim to survive. Ivan, Brian and Mike were 'in on it from the ground floor' they knew what to expect and their natural doubts kept them at healthy levels of suspicions and cynicisms. Harold on the other learned the hard way and had met himself more that once already, was pre-set to accept what the rational would suspect to be a trick or a delusion.


The hard lesson was in front of him and he, and his older self, started asking questions that Brian Prime (His Brian of the Present the way they figured it) did not want to answer. However Brian Two, who to all accounts was second oldest of all the time travellers in terms of which version of reality he came from, in sequence, was happy to guess at the answers and fill in the gaps in their knowledge.


That knowledge was a mind blowing alteration to the way he saw the world of the time travellers unfolding. Brian Prime denied or ignored their every question, but Brian Two who was with Ivan Prime, he was gleeful in undermining the other version of himself. Brian Prime made no concessions to his counterpart, but denied none of the charges either.


“How many of there... how many of US is there? Out there?” Ivan Two had moved completely away from Ivan Prime and taken up a position by the door, though if he was honest with himself he realised there was no where to go.



“Of us? Two or three at best I think.” Ivan Prime answered and snapped his fingers at the unconscious Mike, seeing if he reacted in any way, but he remained unaffected by the snapping violence of air moving near his eyes.