©Wayne
Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or
duplication of this material without express and written permission from
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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.
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