Day 261 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 13.2 - (1667 words)

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 13.2

“We are at an impasse.” Brian Two said eventually.

“We don't have to be.” his other self said.

The men in the room went silent and there was no more said as they all thought about their options. Mike was still very, very upset but his body was preventing him from expressing it. His heart was beating fast, furiously throbbing in his chest while his vision danced and his body caved in to the symptoms he was experiencing.

Brian Prime came to the chair and lifted Mike's chin to look into his eyes, but he could see that the ability to narrow his vision, to focus on anything even something immediately in front of him.

Brian sighed and sat back on his heels, then sat all the way down on the floor and held his head in his hands.

“What?” Brian Two was asking, and looking intently at them both. “What is it?”

Brian Prime heaved a sigh and stood once more, shaking his head and walking to the kitchen area. He rummaged through a draw and pulled out a couple of different knives, deciding which would suit his purposes. He walked away with two, a small sharp bladed one and a serrated, rough and vicious looking one.

“What are you doing?” Ivan Prime stood from the table where he had been sitting and took Brian Prime by the arm, restraining one of the knife wielding hands. Without a word of collusion Ivan Two came and took the other arm before Brian Prime could react to the interference of the first Ivan.

“Let me go.” Brian's tone was not anything more than merely irritated, slowed down in what he was going to do. There was no anger or argument, it was an implied request to step aside and just leave him alone. The condescending tone he usually had was gone, the fear that drove him up until this point had been leached out of him when he looked into Mike's eyes from this captive chair.

“Not likely fuck-face.” Said Ivan two, holding the arm with the serrated knife much harder than he needed to, causing a little extra pain that dug into the numbness that Brian Prime was feeling.

“Just get out of it, please?” The please was out of character and in using it a little more of the fear and anger deflated again.

“Tell them.” Brian Two spoke up and he and Harold sat an watched from the table as the man in the middle did not struggle, not physically against the hold the other two men had on him. He had his gaze on the man tied to the chair, the man who was unable to look back at him.

“I'm just going to untie him, he won't be any harm for a while, and when he's better?” Brian chuckled to himself. It sounded harsh and mirthless. “When he is better, and he will get better in a few hours, then he'll … well he'll not want to hurt me until ...” Brian Prime did not finish the thought, left the idea hanging.

“You're saying he has the same cancer as you?” Harold sounded doubtful.

“Yes.”

“Really? That's hard to bel...”

“No.” Brian changed his mind, interrupted Ivan Prime's observation. “Not, cancer no. The same as me yes.”

Ivan Prime nodded at his other self and the two of them executed the self same move on Brian Prime from opposing sides. Each one slid their grips down the forearm to the wrist and twisted the new handhold they had in uncomfortable directions, each one causing the scientist to lose his grip on each blade, both clattering to the floor simultaneously as the contortions his arms underwent bit into his pain centre.

Ivan Prime let go first and picked up the smooth bladed short knife from the floor nearest him, while Ivan Two pulled his grip further and tied Brian Prime in a more difficult and torturous position, holding him upwards so that the weight of his body pulled against Ivan Two's hold, causing more pain, more grimacing.

Ivan Prime watched for a second, but no sympathy for scientist came, so he reached for the second knife only to find his other self stamp on it, inches from his fingers.

Creasing his brow he eye-balled his other self and the slid his gaze sideways to the agonised Brian Prime. “You can't have your fucking cake and eat it too, moron. I'm the same as you … retard.” Ivan insulted himself but he also knew that the conflict that his other self was feeling was one he had in himself. He did not want weapons in the hands of Brian, either of them. Not in Mike's hands and the bank manager? He was not going to be helpful. So the best place, the most trusted place was in your own hands, the only person you can trust is yourself after all, right?

What about when the other person is also you as well? That was an ethical conundrum and a brain teaser. Ivan Two saw Ivan Prime as himself, but there were differences, they had seen and done different things. Ivan Prime had crossed a line, a line that he himself would have crossed if he were in the same situation, but he never was and therefore never did. Now he could see that Ivan Prime was working with a different version of Brian, and there was Mike who was losing it, had been for a while and could not be trusted. The man who had brought him in on the job, the one who he had the faith in, the trust in and the one who he relied on, the one he thought relied on him.

But then he had left him behind, or more rightly Mike had left the OTHER him behind, the same person that he was but for a few hours of slightly altered circumstances. How could he put any faith or trust in anyone around him any more? Even in himself? The other version of himself, was he deserving any more than Mike was? What had pushed Mike and Brian to abandon him behind, and start afresh with me?

“Fucking asshole!” Ivan recalled the details revealed, how the reset was not a reset at all. Mike maybe had let go of the Ivan in the past, the one across this madman's body from him, and thinking that the bad behaviour would be erased and they could start again. Granted that was an insulting and abusive twist on their professional relationship, but it made a kind of sense. It was not meant to hurt or punish, just erase, rewind and restart. Of course if the shoe were on the other foot there was no doubt that Michael would not want himself treated so cavalierly by time and the notions of physics, but it was not ill intentioned.

Brian though, he knew that the machine did not do what he said that it did. Not the way he said it worked and not without the consequences of their actions being erased. He knew when he took them on this journey, he knew when he and Mike colluded to leave him behind. He knew all along that things were irreversible and irreplaceable. Mike wanted to make things, well maybe not right but better. Brian? Who knew what the psychotic scientist felt.

“Fucking socio-path.” Ivan Two moved his arms with a violence, and sudden heft upwards pulling Brian Prime's own arms beyond the limits of his joints. There was a snapping, popping sound as his shoulder nearest Ivan Two dislocated and the searing pain lit up Brian Prime's eyes and they bulged like there were being pulled outwards, to be dislocated like his shoulder had been.

With the job done Ivan Two reached down and picked up the knife as Brian Prime slumped back, forcefully pulled by his weight back to the ground. The new shifting in centre of gravity made the return path agonising, as painful as the grip and twist that injured him initially. He screamed in pain and rolled to the ground, causing more and more to course through him.

“Jesus, leave him alone.” Harold rushed to aid the sobbing scientist and moved him, not without gasps and cries of pain, into a position where he would be comfortable and rest without the fire of his joints lighting him up again. “Hold on.” he said but gave no other notice as he wrenched the man's shoulder backwards into the joint.

There was not enough force in it and the pain was blinding, the scream deafening.

“Again.” He said that as he slammed the shoulder backwards a second time, repeating the pop, snap sound and the pain switched to an immediately lower setting in Brian Prime's nerves. The relief was an ocean wave over him and he stood to clear his head above that water line, only to find blood rushing and shock keeling him over, blacking out and falling down.

A few seconds later his eyes flickered open from the floor where he lay. From that position he could see both Ivans standing either side of the roped up Michael and sawing away at the ropes that bound him. It took a minute or more to free him and as the last binding was undone, they stepped back to see Mike topple out of the chair and fall to the floor unable to move or support himself at all.

Brian Prime and Mike lay face to face a few feet away from each other. Neither one was in total control of their own fate, or their corporeal selves. However as the red eyed, tear stained Brian Prime looked sideways across the cold floor the bouncing, flailing eyes of Mike did not hide the smile as he could see the pain his newest nemesis was in.