Barking Up The Wrong Tree; GTT Character Sketch Pt. 1

Barking up the wrong tree

The storm drain overflow valve was well hidden by cattails, long summer grass, and the shadow of the overpass.  Despite being a six foot wide pipe, few people realized it was there, concealed as it was.  A glint of movement, the barest whisper of a shadow in the darkness stirred, watching the pedestrian area in the reservoir.  Six figures were gathered there.  Four were in a circle, playing hackey sack; two younger men, a middle aged man, and a young woman.  Sitting in the grass by them were two women, one young and the other looked young, but had hair starting to go silver.

The watcher in the drain smile, and barely visible in the black was the glint of fangs.  Half a block away a group of policemen were investigating a murder.  The watcher knew that the six people were there for the same reason.  It had taken them too long to catch up, but their time was finally at hand.  A teenaged boy, rocking out to his iPod, strolled by the drain cover.  He paused, watching the hackey circle, smiled, and kept walking down the reservoir.  Once he had passed by, the shadow in the drain had vanished.

Pop.   Pop.  Pop. Josh flicked the hackey sack easily from foot to foot, not really paying attention to it. Between hundreds of hours spent playing hackey sack, and the far superior reflexes a werewolf had, keeping the little bead filled sack in the air was a thoughtless activity.  With a deft flick of his ankle he sent it sailing over to Jenna, who was munching on a bagel while playing.

None of the Pack, as they thought of themselves, were here for the hackey sack.  It was just a convenient cover for them.  Something to do while they all listened to what was happening almost half a block away.  Werewolves tend to have very good hearing; and that was the real reason they were down here playing.  It was a hot and muggy summer day, especially down here by the Cherry Creek reservoir, and not a one of them wouldn’t have rather been in air conditioning or swimming in a lake somewhere… which is where most people with an iota of common sense were.  No one likes being a human dartboard for badly aimed mosquitoes.

But duty had called, and there isn’t an answering machine to catch the call when a bloodsucking fiend is randomly ripping out throats of innocent bystanders in , and there isn’t an answering machine to catch the call when a bloodsucking fiend is randomly ripping out throats of innocent bystanders in your city.  Josh slapped down, squishing a mosquito, then idly scratched at his knee, hiking up his long hemp shorts to expose it.  The little buggers got everywhere.

“It’s the third one this month.”  Came a man’s voice as the conversation down the road started back up again.

Another, slightly deeper, voice replied. “So, Haskins, it looks like we have a serial killer on our hands.  I was hoping to avoid this.”  The speaker sighed so audibly that the Pack could almost hear his shoulders slumping and his head shaking.  “I hate cases dealing with twisted pieces of work like this.  What you thinking, Rick?”

“I’m thinking we better catch this guy fast.  How long you think before the media catches wind of this Jack?”

Josh watched the Hack get passed from Jenna to Drew.  The leaner, slightly older werewolf was grimacing, with his head tilted to one side.  He had been in enough scraps and taken enough damage to his body that he had to focus a little harder to catch what was happening up the street.  The scar that ran down his right ear and halfway across his cheek had guaranteed that he would always have to focus a bit to hear as well as the others.

The deeper voiced detective up by the police cars sighed again.  “I hope they don’t.  Of course, that would be too good to be true.  They always find out too fast, and I’m sure someone somewhere is already getting a few bucks for tipping off someone else.  Way of the world.   They’re vultures.  I’ve been keeping the channels clear on this but haven’t actually red filed it yet.  Hopefully it’ll slip through the cracks between all the other high profile cases”

Haskins chuckled grimly.  “Smart move.  Lets see if it works, lemme know on that.  Here comes Angela.”

A third voice, female, contributed to the conversation.  “Sergeant, Detective.  Enjoying the sun, boys?  I have some of the preliminary results back.  Cause of death is suffocation, I think.  Ribcage was partially crushed and both lungs collapsed.  Victim was dead of asphyxiation before blood loss; pretty sure on that one.  Corpse was definitely moved; that one is based on the low volume of blood here at the scene.  Whatever took her throat out did it post flat-line, splatter patterns under the jaw indicate that it was a close second though…

“Lesse here… Its an odd one, for sure.  Looks like an animal wound, but no dentition marks to speak of found in the wound… Definitely the same weapon as the other two.  I’ll have to get her in the lab and on the slab though, if you want anything more than that.”

“All right, thanks Jones.  Haskins, I’ll call you when I hear something.  Thanks for coming out.  Jones, bag the DOA.  Coroner is on the way already.   And let me know the second you come up with anything.”

Drew scooped the hackey sack out of the air and tossed it Josh.  Everyone in the circle looked over to the two women sitting about five feet away.  One was older, with reddish hair going silver.  But her hair was the only indication that she was in her fifties.  Her muscles were strong and sleek, and her skin smooth.  She had a large book in her lap and was just looking up from it.  The woman, only in her early twenties, was sitting cross legged across from her, with the folds of her black skirt folded carefully into her lap.   Her hands, showcased by a pair of leather bracers that sat oddly on her forearms, were primly placed on top of the dress.   Long, naturally black hair, cascaded down her back, and her lips were parted in a slight grin.  She was the older woman’s disciple in a way, and had the greatest control of her lycanthropy of the Pack.

Josh softly cleared his throat as he looked to the older woman.  “Tabitha?   Are we done here?”

She stood up, closing the book.  “Yes.   Its definitely one of them.   It will have gone to ground during the daylight hours.  We need the cops out of here before we can pick up the trail.  Unless…”  Tabitha chewed her bottom lip.

Drew popped his knuckles.  “Tabs, these guys don’t know how to deal with this.   You sure you want a feral to be their first real hunt?”

“Drew, I don’t see that we have much choice.  There is a feral in town, its just going to keep killing till someone takes it down.   And you know as well as I do that if its the cops that catch up to it, a lot of people will die and it might still get away.”

Drew grunted.   “Goddamned Vampires, leaving messes like this for us to clean up.”

“You are both such…  well, I don’t know.  But grow some balls.”  Amber, who had been sitting with Tabitha, dropped her shirt to the ground and stood stark naked in front of everyone, with that same impish grin on her lips.  She quickly darted up the hill, black hair streaming out behind her, and by the time she was up at street level, she looked like a black furred wolf.

Tabitha growled under her breath, then spun back to the pack.  “Dammit, we DON’T take risks like that. Eliot, lost dog it.  GO!”

One of the other players from the hackey sack circle, a tall and darkly handsome man, nodded once.  Reaching over to the group’s ice chest he pulled out a collar and leash, then jogged up from the reservoir.

Josh pushed his sandy blond hair out of his eyes and started to pack up the water bottles and other ‘out hanging’ paraphernalia the group had distributed. “Jenna, could you grab Amber’s clothes?”

Jenna snapped back out of whatever she had been thinking, pulled her sarong up a bit, and knelt down to collect Amber’s hastily discarded outfit.  Tabitha and Drew were off to the side quietly arguing.   “Yeah, sorry Josh.  I was just thinking..  you know…  Its really messed up that vamps leave their cubs like that.”

Josh nodded as he picked up the ice chest.  “Yeah, it is.  But i was reading some of the stuff Tabitha left at our place, and its not all of them.  Its like, one can’t cope, you know, and goes crazy. So the older ones let it go get itself killed. But, like, the ones that don’t go schizoid get nurtured and stuff.”

“Its just so…  heartless.  So cruel.”

“Jenna. They’re vampires.  They suck blood and kill to stay alive.”

“But Josh, that doesn’t mean they don’t have hearts, it just means they have a harder life. There’s good in everything if you dig deep enough.”

“Yeah, but for vampires, they get the goodness sucked out of them at Birth, you know?”

Tabitha clapped, once.  “Alright kids.  Go time.  We can debate nature versus nurture some other time.  Right now, one of our own has done something stupid, so we have to seize the opportunity while trying to protect her.”

Josh was trying not to grin.  He was pretty sure no one else was stilll focused on listening to what was happening up the street… But what he heard was Eliot saying “No Amber! Bad Dog! Get off the officer’s leg.  I’m so sorry sir. She gets like this during the summers. DOWN AMBER!”

He snorted once, and choked down the laugh. “Alright.  I’m like, ready and stuff.”

The remaining four hiked up the small hill to the other side of the reservoir, where Josh’s VW Bus was parked and piled into it.

The blue van, along with its dozens of Grateful Dead, Phish, and Pot Leaf stickers pulled out into the street and headed around the reservoir.  Drifting on tones of liquid bliss from inside the van you could just hear ‘and I’ll see you on the dark side of..” cut off by Tabitha’s voice.  “Focus children.  You need your ears.”

A few blocks and about fifteen minutes later Eliot walked up to the van, leading Amber by collar and leash.  The two hoped into the side door, and Drew poked his head out for a second.  “All clear.” he said as he pulled his head back in and slid the door shut.  “Any luck?”  The Van pulled away from the curb, headed back to Josh’s apartment which was only about five minutes away.

Eliot just grunted and nodded towards Amber as she shifted back to her human form.  “Ask her.”

Amber grinned as she struggled back into her clothes, and paused for a second to tweak Drew’s cheek.  “Jinkies Fred!  I followed the scent all the way a storm drain cover, and then it vanished underground.  I think its a clue!”

Drew just frowned and Amber.  “Crap.  That’s not good.”

Jenna looked back from the passenger seat.  “Why?  Is it using the sewers to get around town?  Are we going to have to try to track it through..  oh, ewwwww….” The light dawned on her as she realized what they might have to track it through.

Tabitha grimaced also.  “No.   Its living down there, not traveling through it.  It’ll probably be within three hundred feet of the entrance.”

“What’s the problem then?” Josh glanced at the review mirror to see everyone else.  “We just, like, pop down now.  Nail it while its asleep. Easy fight.”

“Eager to die today Josh?”

“What do you mean, Drew?”

Tabitha mumped and spoke up.   “Hush boys.   What Drew is trying to say is that going in there right now is a very dangerous idea.  It probably wont be asleep.”

Eliot’s brows wrinkled in confusion, but it was Josh that spoke up.  “Wait.  I thought all vamps, you know, like, passed out during the day.”

Tabitha shook her head.  “No more than werewolves have to wait till a full moon to change.   I know most of you guys can’t control the change that well yet, but Amber is learning fast, as you all know.   Why should Vampires be stuck to folklore rules when we aren’t?”

Jenna shook her head.  “But wait.  We have to study and practice to get that type of control.  You mean Vampires don’t?”

Amber grinned “You mean you guys have to study, slowpokes.”  She stuck out her tongue and waggled her fingers in her ears, but no one seemed to notice.  They were all used to getting sassed by her.

This time it was Drew that answered.  “Not for a feral.   A normal Vamp, yeah.  But ferals are different.  The beast controls them, and there is barely anything left there that could be called human.  Ferals can do things that most vamps can’t do for the first couple years or decades of their lives.” he paused for a moment, thinking the situation through.  “We have to hit during the day though.  If we wait till tonight, it might move to a different hidey hole, then we have to wait for another killing or a lot of good luck.”

Tabitha nodded.  “Unfortunately, I agree.  At least its in the dark and the kids will be able to change.”

The pack was silent for the next couple moments, as they finished the drive to Josh’s apartment, where the fighting gear had been left.  Even Amber was quiet and introspective.  As they swung off of Hampden avenue and into Josh’s condo complex, the pack seemed to come to an unspoken agreement.   This needed to be done, and there was no one else to do it.

As they piled into Josh’s condo, Amber brushed her hair back out of her eyes, and chewed her lip, debating something internally.  Finally she opened her mouth and just spat it out.  “Tabitha.  I have to ask.”  She flopped down onto a bean bag and looked up at her mentor.  “We all know that your pack was killed by vampires…  but you’ve never told us the story.  And since we’re about to fight one of these things… I kind of want to know if this is a vengeance kick for you or what?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Broke in Drew.

Tabitha frowned slightly to herself.  “No, its a valid question.”  She sighed and motioned to the various bean bags and ergonomic chairs around the room.  “Go ahead and pull up seats.  Amber is right, my motivation is important.  Its part of what I’m trying to teach you guys.  At your center, you have to be calm.  Be the eye of the storm.   It’s like being at the center of a seesaw.  on either side things moving, while you sit at that pivot point.  If I am going into this bent on vengeance, it will endanger all of you.  So, I’m going to tell you a story, and let you decide.”

****Tune In Tomorrow for pt 2 of the werewolves Introduction; ‘Barking up the worng tree.’****

Rick Haskins, Pt 2 of 2, GTT character sketch

And now the thrilling conclusion!!

Haskins grinned impishly.  “Yeah..  well..  I heard.  I had to swap a shift and break a few traffic laws to get to be the on call for this.   You know how much I love reading mystery books.”

Hayes chuckled.  Yeah, I do.  I’m not surprised you pulled favors for this.  So, you’re the lead.  Sorry, D.A. asked for me on it, I’ll try not to step on your toes.”

The grizzled Sergeant nodded.  “Don’t worry about it.  Lets just start with you bringing me up to speed on this mess.  The labtechs get anything off the DOA yet?”

Hayes glanced back.   “Nope.  It’s a forensic nightmare.  Carpets are waterlogged, but no foot prints.  No prints.  Nothing under the fingernails.  No hair…  just…  a blank scene.”

Haskins tugged at his moustache and thought for a second.  “But the room was so tightly sealed that you had to blow one of the doors off.  Hrmph.”  He looked Jack in the eye.  “Alright.  I’m ready.  Start at the beginning.”

Hayes reached up and rubbed his neck as he thought about where to start.  It had obviously been a long day for him.  “Alright.  First off, security company called in the DOA.  Mountains had his company set to call a friend in the DA’s office if his house triggered the ‘dead man’ code.  Which is why you got called last.’

“Dead Man’s code?”

Hayes nodded.  “Yeah.  You know those microchips in pets that have all their information on the?  Well, the DOA has one of those microchips too.   This entire house, all of his cars, and his offices are wired as receivers.  They detect motion, they start scanning.  They pick up on his microchip and they start biometrics scans, monitoring heartbeat, stuff like that.  So if he has an accident, or is under stress, or one of a thousand other little things, and the building he is in sends a specialized code to his security company.  They reported two heartbeats coming into this room, with the DOAs stopping at seven twenty two p.m., and the second one vanishing from this room about six minutes later.”

“Did the house track where the second one went?”

“No.  Rick, you don’t get it.  It vanished.  It didn’t leave.  Let me explain the security protocols, and Mountains’ particular brand of psychosis.  Maybe he watched his own movies too much, but he was paranoid as all hell.  Every room in everything he owns is set up with ‘dead man’s’ booby traps.  He was convinced that a demon from one of his early movies was hunting him.  I found out from the company that he paid them a lot of money make sure that only they, his butler, and he knew that juicy little tidbit.  Anyway, the fear of the demon made him design a very special setup.  Each room goes into instant lockdown if his heart stops.  Hydraulic driven bars through doors, etcetera, etcetera.”

Hayes briefly motioned to the door that had been removed with explosives.  “But the intention was to keep people out as well as in.  Can’t unseal it from either side.  He had a reason for this.  Sixty seconds after his heart stopped, if the biometrics didn’t come back on line, the room’s hermetically sealed air supply starts to pump vaporized Holy Water into the room until there is enough volume that every surface is covered and there’s a decent amount free floating.”

Haskins had to fight to choke down the laughter.  A picture was starting to form in his mind and he didn’t want to break it before it had time to finish coming together.  “So you mean to say that he wasn’t trying to trap a killer… he was trying to keep authorities out long enough for the house to kill a Demon?”

“Nailed it in one,” Jack sighed. “And you can forget the ‘throw the dagger from the door and run’ scenario because the room’s biometrics recorded the second heartbeat’s vanishing almost five minutes after the lockdown.  So, Rick… as you can see there’s no one here.  No dead Demon.  And a Dead man found in a perfectly locked room.”

Haskins nodded.  “This is gorgeous.  No footprints.  No fingerprints.  No hair.  Ha.  You’ll need a miracle to solve this.  Did you check the suits of armor?”

Hayes jerked a thumb at the closest suit of armor.  “Yeah.  No dice there for two reasons.  One, they’re all glued together and you can’t pull them apart.  Two, the security company says you’d need a heavy duty gel to make a heartbeat vanish.  And since none of the suits are dripping, it’s a safe bet they’re empty.  We did check for joint squeeze on them all also.”

Haskins leaned back against the wall and lost himself in thought.  Another Idea sparked.  “What about the secret passages in the house?”

Jack blinked.  “How the hell did you…  No, never mind.  Security and blueprints show five secret passages.  But none of them hook up to this room.”

“Didn’t think so, but I had to check.”

While Haskins kept reassembling the puzzle in his head, the rookie from downstairs walked into the room, brandishing a twenty dollar bill like it was a shield.  He held it out to Haskins.  “Sarge, you were right about the food in the kitchen.  At least its normalish down there though.  Up here its like walking through an x rated episode of Scooby Doo.”

Hayes raised a questioning eyebrow at Haskins as he snagged the twenty.  “Thanks, rooksticks.  It is, isn’t it.  Oh…”  Haskins realized his intuition had been right and started laughing.  The laugh picked up momentum until he was clutching at his sides and gasping for air.  He looked up through an ear to ear grin, while the other two men just stared at him, confused.

Sucking in his breath, he finally managed to clamp down on the laughter.  “Oh god, that’s rich.  Its right in front of you Jack, and you all missed it.  Let me make a guess at something here.  You’ve already checked in with his legal staff, and since he doesn’t have family, all his money is willed to various staff that work for him right?”

Hayes nodded.  “Yeah Rick…  But that doesn’t solve the murder; it just gives us a suspect list.”

“Actually, it does.  God, he got you guys good.  I may have to go back and watch his movies now, because this is just far too clever.”

Jack blinked in annoyance.  “Excuse me?”

“Think, Jack!  He was a master of suspense!  Stop look at the forensics.  Stop looking for the who done it.  Stop being a cop for a minute and think like a horror movie director.  You have to find the surprise twist if you want to figure this one out.  Get it yet?”

Hayes chewed his lip for a moment then shrugged.  “Sorry, no.  Explain please?”

“Ha.  Alright, here’s your first clue, Jack.  He concocted the whole demon story.  It was a trap – for you.  He wanted to box the police and the security company into a specific way of thinking just to get revenge on whoever killed him.  He knew this was coming, bet you anything you find death threats in a safe, or a desk, or something.  I think he even figured out who was coming for him.  So he made up this whole thing, and the killer is sitting in the room with us right now.  Don’t you get it?

“He set this up so that if the killer DID get to him, they’d have to go through their own personal hell, a horror movie of his devising, listening to us and praying to god that we wouldn’t figure it out.  And he set up the whole thing by making you think that he was having paranoid delusions; just to throw you off the scent of what’s really happening here.”

Again all Jack could do was blink and say “Excuse me?”

Haskins reached up and clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder.  “Think it through.  Locked room.  No windows.  Sixty seconds till water is introduced to the room’s closed system.  Yet there are no footprints… which means that by the time the water settled onto the fabric – the killer was immobile.”

Hayes looked around.  “So someone is in this room with us, but dead?  How do you explain the heartbeat vanishing otherwise?”

Haskins glanced around.  “Easy.  The killer knew the security setup, otherwise he’d already be nabbed and in cuffs.  And the killer’s motive was money.  Otherwise why use the dagger off the plinth to kill him?  He made it look like a botched robbery.  You said a motive, but you missed one thing.  Only one person could have known about the will and the security setup.  There was one important fact missing from the killer’s knowledge.  Suits of armor are usually held together by a wireframe..  and all Mountains had to do to build the perfect prison was grind powdered glue onto the edges and joints of the suits of armor.”

Hayes’ eye lit up and he slowly nodded. “Oh lord that is devious.”

Sergeant Haskins nodded.  “It sure is.  The killer locked himself into his own prison.  As soon as the holy water was pumped into the room, all the suits of armor got glued together – and the glue doubled as the gel to hide the heartbeat!  The killer’s clever hiding spot becomes a prison, and he’s listening to us right now.  And since only one person could have known both those details about the will and security..  wha-la!  The damned Butler did it!  And you’ll find him as soon as you grab a blowtorch and start cutting up the suits of armor.”

Jack’s eyes went wide and the entire forensics team hurried over as the suit of armor next them coughed and said in an affected British accent.  “Um, burning me up won’t be necessary.  I give myself up.  But..  please..  hurry up?   He lined the inside of the suits of armor with the glue too and I’m having trouble breathing…

Rick Haskins, Pt 1, GTT Character Sketch

The Scooby Doo Who Done It

Featuring:  Sergeant Rick Haskins

Haskins carefully angled the cruiser between the other emergency and rescue vehicles.  He felt and heard, rather than saw, the shrubbery; just a moment too late to avoid flattening it.  With a grimace, he said “Screw it” and finished parking.

Carefully, so as not to scratch the ambulance parked next to him, he opened the door of the squad car and squeezed himself out.

Haskins had been a fairly heavily muscled youth, and age was beginning to make those muscles go just a little bit soft.  Combine that with a P.D. standard issue vest and he wasn’t left with much room to get out of the car, or through anywhere else that might be considered a narrow exit.

He paused for a moment and took stock of his surroundings.  The sun was setting low over the Rocky Mountains, with its lights bouncing off the cloud cover, creating wide, rich bands of yellows, oranges, and reds across the sky.  The mansion’s entry drive was crammed to the point of being overflowing with emergency vehicles.  Squad cars, SUVs, ambulances, and somehow even a fire truck were all packed like sardines in a tin into an area meant to hold two Rolls Royces and a butler.

He shook his head.  The whole scene reminded him of nothing so much as a big top circus.  Running his fingers through his closes cropped salt and pepper hair, he clutched his clipboard and strode forward into the mansion.  Inside the house the décor was trying so hard to be cultured and sophisticated that that it seemed more packed than the zoo of a parking lot outside.  Expensive paintings, tapestries, vases, ancient pottery pieces, and clashing modern art sculptures covered every wall and available surface in the entry room.

Haskins ignored the rookie cop standing by the door for a moment just to try to fully take in the room’s aggressively forced culture shock.

This just screams white trash with way too much money he mused while critically scanning the room good grief… I wonder how much he paid to have someone figure out how to make people this uncomfortable as they walked in.

Nodding to himself, he decided that the ambiance felt just right for a b rated horror movie director who’s movies had all become cult legend.  Just right.  Finally he glanced at the uniform by the door.  “So, anyone look in the kitchen yet by chance?”

The kid couldn’t have been more than twenty-one.  They seemed to be getting so much younger these days. “No, sergeant, sorry.”

Haskins grinned.  This was way too easy, but the kid would learn with age.  “Twenty bucks says that you find… lets see… three foods in abundance.  Doritos, frozen dinners, and Hamburger helper.  But before you go check, could you point towards the scene?”

“Sure Sarge.  You’re on for the twenty; no way a posh guy like this liked that crap.  Corpse is upstairs in a gallery room.   Up those stairs, down the spooky hallway, take a left where it does a T.  You can’t miss it, they had to take the door of the room off with explosives.”  The kid grinned weakly and pointed to an ornately banister stairwell that curved up to the next floor.

Stroking his mustache, a lifetime ‘I’m thinking’ habit, he glanced once more around the room, looking at all the little details and things that we’re wrong with it, then he walked over to the stairwell and headed up.

If anything, the second floor was even more aggressive in its theme than downstairs had been.  The theme here was ‘creepy and cobwebby’.  All of the paintings up here were portraits, and they seemed to be of unknown and unremarkable people, all of whom seemed to have large thick foreheads and ugly features.  It reminded him of…  Oh, good grief.  So perfect! He shook his head and strode through the ghostly gallery, took a left, and walked up to the scene of the crime.

The entryway before Haskins was a wreck.  Twin steel doors had once filled it, but now one of them was propped open and the second was blackened around the hinges and handle, and was leaning against the wall next to the doorway.  Striding through to the room on the other side, his initial impression was of vastness.

The room was gigantic.  At least fifty feet long, and almost as wide.  Haskins’ faded blue eyes glittered as he took it all in… and a grin slowly started to spread across his face.  Suits of medieval armor stood to attention around the walls of the room, each sporting a different livery.  Numerous glass cases were placed between the armors, showcasing beautiful pieces of ancient weaponry, all apparently authentic with papers displayed under them.  Scottish claymores, folded katanas,  African tribal spears…  this whole room was a shrine to the ancient art of warfare.

And the cherry on top was a series of tapestries, hung off of support frames in a grid pattern around the room.  And finally, in the very center… a bloody corpse at the foot of an empty plinth trimmed with glowing fiber optic cables.

The cause of death was readily apparent, since most people couldn’t survive having a main gauche shoved through their heart.  Jonathan Mountains, horror icon, had been dressed in a red velvet smoking jacket, khaki pants, and blue fuzzy bunny slippers when he met his violent end.

Several figures, hard at work documenting every detail of the scene, surround the body in a halo of black-lights, finger-printing dust, cameras, and lab coats.  Two of them wore suits with I.D. badges flipped open and hanging from the breast pockets of their blazers.  Beethoven’s Ode to Joy was softly playing in the background on the house’s speaker system, and could almost see the crimelab team moving to the music as then hunted for clues.

One of the two detectives stood up and carefully took a couple of steps away from the corpse before straightening his jacket and sighing.  He walked up to Haskins.  “Hey Rick.  Sorry that you got the call so late.  You Glendale’s on call tonight?”

The detective was mid thirties or so, maybe ten years younger than Haskins.  He was tall, thin, and so clean cut that he looked more like a banker than like a cop.  Haskins shook his hand.  Jack Hayes might look out of place, but he was a damn good cop, and often got bounced around jurisdictions because he had a reputation for delivering air tight cases to the D.A.’s office on unsolvable crimes.

“You lucked out.  This is an honest to god Locked Room Mystery.  First real one I’ve ever heard of.”

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment of “The Scooby Doo Who Done It!”

Spyke! – GTT Character Sketch

This is the puppy of the main character (Winnie’s) best friend- Jenny.   He is a black Chihuahua named Spyke – who wears a spiked leather collar.   In the scene that Winnie is dying in, Spyke is whimpering and licking Winnie’s face…  and ingests vamp blood.  Below is the scene which introduces the dog as a vampire Chihuahua instead of as a normal dog.

I do plan to get a black Chihuahua to attend signings with me and leave ink-paw prints as a sig in books.  He will wear a spiked collar and be named Spyke, of course.  I’m also going to try to franchise out stuffed animals based on the character, and possibly T-Shirts with a pic of him and the quote ‘Sometime the bite is worse than the bark.’

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Chrprrrdrk watched the apple core intently.  Moonlight glinted tantalizingly off of the juicy remains, promising a full belly and making his taste buds sweat in anticipation.  An average squirrel might see a feast this delicious six times in the course of their lives.  Chrprrrdrk waited patiently though; oh yes, he had learned that virtue well.  An encounter with Razorclaw, a leanly muscled, evil- as-Mussolini neighborhood tabby cat had left him his veteran’s stripe – a scar that ran diagonally across his face from the left ear to the right side of his nose.

So he hung onto the trunk of the old birch tree, tucked upside down in the shadow of a branch – well off the white bark that was so readily reflecting the moon’s calm glow.  Carefully, he watched…  waited…  Minutes crawled by like hours, and still he was patient.  Finally he was sure that Razorclaw was nowhere to be seen and with a quick scrabbling of claws he darted down to the apple core, ready to claim his prize.

‘PREDATOR!!!’  screamed his instincts as a flash of silver glinted off of something shiny to his right.   A muffled ‘Yip” was the last thing Chrprrrdrk heard as Spyke’s fangs sank into his neck and shuffled him off this mortal coil.  Spyke drained his victim dry, licked his chops, and contentedly
padded back to the doggie door to find Jenny and cuddle.

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The Entire first ‘chapter’ of Second Paradigm

So, I’m not particularly skilled at coding blogs, and I offer my apologies in advance if I messed up the formatting so that it breaks any sentences or chops any words up. :X   Without further ado – here is the first section of ‘Second Paradigm.’

Epilogue

The crowd screamed in panic. Police, trained as they were, had guns drawn but pointed to the ground to gun down the shooter if they could spot him. The man stood back up from where he had fallen, looking slowly around himself in wonder. Silence encapsulated him, a pinpoint beacon of sanity amongst the contagious panic.

Something had hit him from behind. Pushed him to the ground. Right before it had happened. The weird thing to him was that he felt the other outcome, sitting painfully in the back of his mind, gnawing at his memory. Hidden like a viper was the knowledge of what might have been. He filed it away for later, fighting to push it to the back. Right now he was too confused to deal with that weight sitting there.

He looked around again, standing still amongst the whirlwind of motion surrounding him. “No man is an island.” He spoke it like a mantra, reminding himself that he was a part of all this. Someone was pointing up and behind him, so he looked back. There was a window, it seemed to leap out of the background for him the second his eyes lit on it. In the window was an empty tripod, some type of clamp attached to the top of it, lazily spinning in its joint. His gaze slowly wandered down to the ground below the window.

There was a body lying there. It was a woman that he knew too well, and she obviously had been defenestrated. The fall had also all too obviously broken her neck. On the ground next to her was a pistol. It was a Glock, lying there with a shattered scope affixed to it. The gun pushed at his memories of what might have been and understanding started for him in that moment. He reflexively squeezed his empty hand. It did not come to him as an epiphany, it was not a cataclysmic opening of his mind to the truth. Rather, it was like a thief in the dark of night sneaking into his mind then settling in as though it had always been there. And once it was there it had always been there.

He smiled and calmly walked away from the crowd. What had been done was now undone. And the Origin… was once again safe. And now he understood what that was, and that it existed. With a simple motion, just pushing another man down, he had determined exactly what that future was to be. Hard though the choice had been, understanding had come that there truly was no other choice.

He left and went back to living his life, walking through the reflections of the origin into the future that was his that was his alone.

.. .. Relativity Synch Phase 1…. .. ..

2003: The Pawn Sacrificed .. ..

“I…” Chris felt himself flush, the anger slowly rising in his blood. But looking to the Jury and seeing sympathetic eyes staring back at him helped to calm and stem that rising tide of anger. “…I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

The prosecuting attorney, James Garrett, flashed a small but humorless grin at Christopher Nost, and his eyes cold gray eyes bored into Chris’s, seeming to speak directly to his hind-brain. “I’ve got you. There’s no way out for you this time. This has to finish it.” Chris felt bile rise in his throat. He was afraid that he was going to throw up all over the witness box.

“What exactly do you mean, you don’t remember, Dr. Nost? Do you or do you not have an alibi for the night of August thirteenth, nineteen ninety-seven, or was it, in fact, you that murdered Lucille Frost at the office building you both worked at?” Garrett’s voice slowly gained volume as he turned towards the Jury. “How can you know you are not guilty? Your mental condition seems awfully convenient – something which you could easily take advantage of in a situation which played out exactly as this one has for you. I urge you to look deep inside yourself. Simply put, you ca-”

“Objection, your Honor.” Chris’ defense attorney, Alan Dunwich rose, both fists planted firmly on the long oak table in front of him. “Dr. Nost’s memory loss condition has already been established to the Jury. At this point the prosecution is just badgering the defendant and building straw men!” His face was flushed and he looked truly livid as he gazed at the prosecuting attorney.

“My client has a rare form of mental defect here documented by Dr. Eric Jorgensen, one of the world’s foremost neurologists. As was previously explained-” he drew out the words while staring at Garrett as if speaking to a young child, “—Dr. Nost can remember concepts and ideas, hence his ability to continue his work in the field of Aerospace Mechanics and Astrophysics, but new experiences and faces fade after a little more than a year, rendering his long term memory useless. The court has already heard Dr. Jorgensen’s testimony. I request that the prosecution’s question be struck from the record.” Dunwich waved a manila folder toward Judge Miller, but he was still glaring at James Garret.

Chris’s head swam and Garrett seemed to blur for a second as his vision went fuzzy. Hold it together, he fought the fear rising in his gut in a wave of nausea, here is not the time or place to break down.

“Objection sustained, defense. Recorder, please strike the last question from the record. Mr. Garret, you have been warned once already about bringing up Dr. Nost’s disability in this courtroom, as it has no bearing on this trial. And if you continue to treat this trail as a farce I will hold you in contempt of court. Now, do you have any other questions for the defendant?”

Dunwich looked at Garret in triumph, but the Prosecutor only shrugged lightly and said, “No, your honor. The prosecution rests.”  Garrett walked back to his seat at the prosecutor’s table and sat down, trying his best to hide the smug smile flitting across his face.

Bastard, Dunwich thought.  Inadmissible or not, he had planted suspicion in the minds of the jury.  The defense attorney could see it in their faces, the seed of doubt would grow.  Where five minutes ago he could see sympathy for Chris plainly etched in their eyes, some now looked at Chris in doubt, others in loathing – the ones that had already made their decision.  The damage had been done, and right when Dunwich thought he had this trial clinched.

The Jury’s verdict was already obvious in their expressions.  He ground his teeth together and clenched his jaw in frustration, then reclaimed his seat as Chris returned to the defense’s table, his gears already spinning on how to turn this around in the closing statement.  Damn him, Alan glanced at Garrett, an unknown who relies solely on playing dirty.  How did this asshole land this case?  Is the District Attorney stupid?  I can nail him in an appeal and it will be easy.

Judge Miller looked around the courtroom, his gaze lingering on Chris.  “Then this court will adjourn for a one hour recess.  We will reconvene at—” he glanced at the round, institutional clock hanging above the jury, “—three-thirty for closing statements.  Bailiff, please take Dr. Nost to his holding cell.  Dr. Nost, you will not be summoned to this courtroom again until the Jury’s announcement of the verdict. Do you understand that?”

Chris nodded slowly to the judge.  He did understand.  It meant that he would have to suffer alone in a cell until the jury was done debating his verdict.  As Chris was led from the courtroom he saw a man stand up from the audience benches and pushed his way through the milling crowd, waving to Judge Miller.  He wore a plain blue suit and the thick black rimmed glasses known in the military as birth control glasses.  The last thing that Chris noticed as he was gently pushed from the courtroom was that the man clutched a small stack of folders stamped with a red “CLASSIFIED” across them.

Do I know that man? Chris thought.  There was a spark of recognition there, and he wracked his brain, but couldn’t remember.

*                                      *                                      *

Chris waited in the holding cell for just over three hours, staring out to the world through a three inch thick Plexiglas window.  The glass, besides obscuring what he could see because of its thickness, also had some sort of thin metal woven through it in a diagonal pattern that formed diamonds in it.  ‘Just in case I can break through three inches of Plexiglas they had to reinforce it with metal’ Chris bitterly thought to himself. Every moment of those three hours seemed to drag by like an eternity unto itself as he watched the seconds creeping by on the wall-clock behind the guard, who was sitting at a desk reading a science fiction novel.

It looked like the same clock that was hanging in the courtroom.  How long will it take them? He thought over and over.  He fantasized about moving time forward, just to get it over with, but soon gave up on the idle daydreaming,  knowing that it was futile to try and distract himself.  It could be days, he thought …Or even weeks.  Anger welled within him again at this unfair situation, but was slowly eaten away by a corrupting fear.  Conflicting emotion ate at him until he was so lost within himself that he didn’t even notice as tears started to run down his cheek.

Abruptly Chris’s stomach lurched as the external door opened.  His hopes and fears were being answered as the bailiff walked in and with a quick glance at Chris began speaking to the holding cell guard.  He took a deep breath, trying to make the nausea settle.  It’s not going to be good. He tried to banish the cancerous thought, but it was firmly entrenched even before they opened his cell door. It was a certainty lying in his stomach like a lead weight.  It’s not going to be good.

As the holding cell door opened the guard noticed the despair in Chris’s eyes and handed him a small stack of napkins.  “Here.  Wipe your cheeks off.”  The guard looked away for a moment to give Chris a chance to compose himself.  “I know it’s scary for you right now, but don’t give up.  Me and the other guards have been watching your case on the tube and none of us think you did it.  We’re all hoping you’ll get off.”

Their eyes locked for a brief moment and Chris realized the man was being sincere.  There was truth gazing back at him from those eyes and with crystal clarity Chris realized that his life was over.  Hope… they know I’ve lost too.  It’s not just me. As he focused on centering himself; trying to retain some shred of his dignity he looked once more to the guard.

“Thank you.”  Was all he said.  There was no emotion in his voice, though, no hope.  As they walked down the hall to the courtroom the guard once again became all business, but as Chris entered the courtroom and started walking towards his attorney, he felt a slight, reassuring pat on his back from the bailiff.  He knew it should be consoling, but it only served to reinforce in his mind that this was hopeless.

It was almost as though he was just an actor who had been through this scene a dozen times prior – and nothing he could do would change the scripted outcome of this play.  As he took his seat Alan Dunwich, a man who was a surprising gift of humanity and friendship to him in these times, leaned towards him.  The man was older, possibly in his sixties with pure silver hair.  He was a large man, not necessarily fat, but definitely headed in that direction.  In many ways, Chris noted, he was truly larger than life.  “Something has happened,” Dunwich excitedly whispered to Chris.  “I don’t know what, but as soon as you left a guy came in to talk to Judge M…”

“All rise.  The honorable Judge Miller is presiding.”  The bailiff interrupted, and Chris and his lawyer stood.  Judge Miller emerged from the antechamber looking troubled, sat, and banged his gavel.  Solemnly he looked around the hushed courtroom then sighed and turned towards the Jury.

“Foreman of the Jury, have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor,” a wormy man with a greased comb-over and a Freddy Mercury moustache stood and handed the bailiff a slip of paper.  The Bailiff in turn relayed it to the judge, who unfolded it and read it.  His eyes gave away nothing.  My life is on that paper, Chris thought.  My continued existence hangs balanced on a thread of twelve people’s interpretations of the words of two men…  A man who loves me, and a man who hates me.

Judge Miller frowned once as he looked again at the slip of paper, then handed it back to the bailiff who returned it to the foreman.  “Please announce your verdict to the court.”

The foreman of the Jury looked nervously at the watching crowd and cleared his throat “We, the Jury, find the Defendant, Dr. Christopher Nost, guilty of the charge of First Degree murder in the case of Lucille Frost.”

Chris’ mind went blank as a wave of numbness crashed into his soul.  He felt like he was still waiting for something.  He could almost see it, hurtling toward him in time, something that he could not quite grasp.  Looking deep inside himself he knew that this was not something he had done.  A susurrus swept through the watching crowd as people excitedly started to whisper their opinions to each other.  Christopher Nost looked up to the ceiling and realized that his life was now forfeit.  It took everything he had to stop himself from bawling like a child in the middle of the courtroom.  Even so, he felt a few solitary tears making their way down his cheek.

Judge Miller banged his gavel again, calming the stir of the courtroom.  Chris was not been aware of the noise until it once again fell silent.  “I am now in a position I have not before found myself in twenty years of serving as Justice of this state.  I recently was paid a visit from someone who has shown me evidence that the likelihood of Dr. Nost’s guilt is very small, indeed.  This evidence, however, remains inadmissible in court.  Therefore, this court will waive the lifetime sentence and reduce it to the minimum of ten years.  Furthermore, this term will be carried out in a minimum security prison in which Dr. Nost can continue to work with his employer, GeoTech, Inc., and will be provided with any and all equipment necessary to carry out his duties.  Also, Dr. Nost is to continue his sessions with Dr. Jorgensen in an effort to find a cure for his condition.  And one last point.  As a ward of the state all of Dr. Nost’s medical expenses will be paid by the state of Colorado.”

Judge Miller looked at Chris.  “I personally very much hope that someday you will find your memories returned to you, and I wish you the best of luck, Dr. Nost.  This court is now adjourned.”

So that’s it, then. Chris thought as he weakly nodded to the Judge in thanks.  His lawyer was saying something about an appeal but Chris wasn’t listening.  The feeling of waiting wasn’t gone.  If anything, it had intensified.  The sentencing is over, he told himself.  The waiting is done.  You got of with your life, which is a hell of a lot more than you expected.  Relax.

Got off how? Another voice within him asked.  I’m sure I didn’t do it.  I couldn’t do anything like that.  I’m going to prison for ten years for a crime I didn’t commit. The feeling of shell shock just wouldn’t go away.

Chris was marched into the high, marble hall that led to the front doors of the courthouse.  Despite the judge’s lenience, he noticed there were six guards escorting him to the waiting prison van.  Do they really think I’m that dangerous? He wondered.  Yes, he answered his own question, in their eyes I am a convicted killer.  I am a dangerous person to them.

Then he began to hear something over the empty echo of their footsteps on the checkered black and grey marble floor, and Chris saw in the light at the end of the hall (end of the tunnel he thought, grimly) more guards, facing outwards.

He heard someone shout “Here he comes!” and the footsteps were entirely drowned by the roar of the media circus outside.  Dozens of voices, all clamoring to be heard over each other.  Dunwich stepped in front of Chris to attempt to fill in as crowd control to the impending mob of media.

Funny, he thought, You’d think that in a city like Denver a simple murder wouldn’t draw the attention it has. But the world didn’t work like that.  Because of his memory condition this case had become somewhat of a sensation.  Chris grimaced as his memory flooded with the headlines he has read about himself.  No family, no memory… the mystery murderer…

One of the guards leaned in and tried to reassure him by squeezing his shoulder, “you might want to put this over your head… you know… they can attack like vultures when they smell blood.” The guard tried handing him his jacket, but Chris was lost like a deer in the headlights and didn’t hear.  He was waiting, watching this unstoppable, unnameable event hurtle towards him through time.

What’s happening to me? His head was starting to spin as he felt something beginning to awaken in him.  What is this…

Chris stepped out into the brilliant sunlight and was immediately assaulted by questions and cameras.  Why didn’t they give me something to cover my face? He wondered, and waived his hand in attempts to still the mob, the feeling of something about to happen churning his stomach as he did so.  Dunwich stepped up to the forest of microphones and the cacophony quieted.  “I would like to remind those gathered here, and the viewers at home, that Judge Miller personally offered his condolences to my client after sentencing – so convinced was he of Dr. Nost’s innocence.  Furthermore, I would like to point out…”

The waiting was over.  Potential had become real.  Chris saw a glint from behind one of the crowding news anchors—a woman wearing a red dress and matching lipstick, a permanent, plastic smile molded to her face even as she jostled those around her to catch Dunwich’s words.  This was the pending event that had been hitting a harmonic in his soul.

I can stop this. The realization hit him below his conscious mind and he felt a primal power begin to surge through his veins.  His heartbeat gained a crescendo and the rest of the world faded into silence.  His blood seemed to catch fire and pump through his body; surging and ebbing like the tide, orchestrated to the rhythm of his heart.

Duck! Chris felt his blood scream to him, and everything began to move in slow motion.  His knee buckled, and he was falling down the stairs.

At the same moment he heard a loud crack and he felt something hit him hard in the face.  And the perfect moment was lost.  Whatever had been fueling him fled, chased off by the gunshot.  The world sped back up and the cacophony of the city hit him full force, in a way harder than the bullet which had just lodged itself in his brain.  “Murderer!” someone was shouting.  “Murderer, murderer!”  a familiar voice… and all went black.

2873:  Discoveries

Garret sipped on his luke warm coffee and studied the results of the latest tests.   Garret was a handsome man in his late forties.  His body had not started to go to fat yet, but he was also not heavily built.  Close cropped grown hair, lightly streaked with silver framed his cold grey eyes – eyes which flickered back and forth across the data on the papers in his hand.  This made no sense at all.  Whatever methodology he used to produce the nano-machines it should yield the same results – a temporal circuit machine that piggybacked the body’s mitochondria.  The entire effect should produce an internal machine that linked all of the body’s cells together and give them the ability to manipulate temporal energy.  In short, time travel.  But this last batch which he had engineered with his new process was not passing the performance benchmarks.  More specifically, they weren’t jumping as they should be.  He sighed and put down the papers.  In all honesty, they wee pushing out no energy at all.

He popped in his steel grey, the same as his natural eye color, control contacts and injected a test batch into his arm.  The hypo hissed and there was a brief sting in his forearm as the injection pierced his skin.  The contact lenses tossed up a Heads Up Display and outlined the circuitry for him, creating a floating ghost image in the air which only he could see.  With a small effort he activated his primary system travelers, engineered in the traditional methods of the time, and hopped back one day into his safe window.  As he appeared in his isolation chamber, the HUD threw up a diagnostics on how the new nanos handled the jump’s energy spike.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the programming, except that they were not contributing to the jump.  The new system he had just injected should have fused seamlessly with his old system. Rerunning his isolation routines he separated out the new nanos and ran a brief energy spike through them to hop back forward to his “home” time.

And time froze.  His HUD showed time running at a ratio of four to one Terra to personal.  Garret gaped.  If this was right he was moving very, very fast.   He cautiously opened the chamber’s door and walked into his lab.  There he was, back turned to the chamber, moving at about a quarter of the speed he should be.  Garret grinned and pushed on the new system hard…  He sped up to an incredible speed.  Everything around him appeared to be frozen.  The light coming through the large bay windows of his house shifted from light blue to a more purplish color.  Garret decided to stress test the new system and leave the closed environment of the house.  His mind was moving even faster than his newfound speed as he did so.  The implications of what he had discovered were truly staggering.

Blue light shimmered around of him as he jogged down the highway, passing cars that should be going over a hundred miles an hour like they were standing still.  He turned off on a country exit, leaving the city behind for a more rustic area to perform some experiments in.  As he trotted off the road into a field a he stopped for a few moments to think things through.   That was when he made his next big discovery.  He was moving faster than the air around him.  Standing still too long depleted the supply of breathable air and forced him into motion again.  Once this discovery was dealt with, he got back to his main line of thought.

The big question running through his head was what would happen if he interacted with an inert object then reintroduced it to the environment.  Nothing for it but to try, he figured as he picked up a rock.  With a quick flick of his wrist he threw the rock then watched in amazement as about two inches from him it slowed to a stand still and very slowly started turning red.  On instinct, and with a few ideas about what might happen when he released accelerated time he stepped back about 20 feet then phased back into normal time flow.  The rock immediately exploded in midair, violently throwing shards in every direction.   Garret threw himself to the ground and escaped with only a few minor scrapes.

Thoughtfully he stood back up, reviewing the physics of what had just happened on his HUD.  Needless to say, the reaction was not fully what he had expected to happen.  But, it did make sense.  It was his own short sightedness that had nearly caused him to be badly injured.  He resolved not to make that mistake again.  Stretching his will again he phased back into “fast” time.  Picking up another rock he glanced over it with the HUD and imprinted its structure on his nano’s object orientation subsystems.  The HUD contact lenses had been one of his more inspired inventions, created one day when his wife was arguing with him abut how much paper he left lying around the house.  Time to redo the experiment with a few altered conditions.  This time around he transferred a small batch of his nano machines into the rock first, and then threw it as hard as he could.  Sure enough the nanos in the rock acted as a field extension and the rock moved like a bullet through the frozen landscape.  He pushed with his mind as hard as he could, increasing the rock’s ratio of time acceleration.  Turf rippled in slow motion as the rock sliced through the earth, burrowing a hole about thirty feet long.  Ripples in the ground continued to slowly spread like aftershocks after the rock stopped moving and Garret phased back into standard time to watch the results.

Dirt and grass exploded upwards as time snapped back to its normal passing, the after affects of the high speed stone leaving not only a burrow into the ground but somewhat of a crater.  Garret walked up to the point of impact and started digging until he was holding the rock in his hand again.  He stared thoughtfully down at it, then called the nanos back into his systems.  Filled with warring thoughts over his discovery, James Garret jogged back towards his laboratory, moving into the future about a hundred times faster than any one else on the planet.  But his eyes were on the past.

Time:  Classified

Location:  Classified

Operation:  Classified.

Wanda Garret was a damned good time traveler and she knew it.  Besides her husband being the best causality control theorist in the world and her personal trainer in causality theory – she herself was the best hopper ever tested.  She was only thirty-four, and she alone in the world was skilled enough to transfer her grid points on a three dimensional plane instead of having to utilize the fourth.  Effectively this gave her the ability to teleport herself on the world grid without hopping forward or backward through the time stream.  She also had the type of good looks, strong jaw and cheek bone yet still with a soft face, luscious amber hair that was almost brown and warm eyes, which helped her fit into any era as a good looking woman.  And good looking got you far.

So it made a certain amount of sense that she had been the one given the mission to assassinate the most important figure in history at the time he was meant to die.  If, for any reason, this mission was messed up then the paradox she had been sent back to fix could possibly shatter history.  Once again she reviewed the mission dossier.  The target somehow survived an assassination in the late nineteen hundreds, surviving through an indeterminate time afterwards and destabilizing the time stream.  For almost nine hundred years the world hand been hanging under the modern equivalent of Damocles’ Sword.  Truly, history was hanging on the brink of destroying itself in one nasty moment in time.  And finally the brass in the Time Corps had managed to isolate the incident which had created the instability in the time stream.  This was the alpha and the omega of all paradox.  It was the first, and possibly the last of the paradoxes.

But she still had doubts nagging at her concerning this assignment.  Undoing nine hundred years of history in order to undo a class six paradox seemed like it just might be more harmful to history.  Even though since the incident nothing greater than a class two paradox had occurred.  There had to be something missing from her files.  Once again she did the math on the situation, and again it returned results in the positive.  Just like the countless other times she had done the math on this since accepting the mission.  She sighed and rubbed her temples.  If only she could disclose this to her husband and have him review the results.  Deep in her gut she had a feeling that there was something about the equation that she, and everyone else, was missing.

But then again, according to the algorithms the computers were spitting out this guy was meant to die here and now.  And when it came to simplicity of form and action there was a certain beauty to it.  Mainly, it didn’t leave you a lot of choice. She settled down in her seat to watch the trail and try to piece together the reasons that the missed death of the man that created time travel was the greatest paradox in all of history.

2620:  The Fine Line Bar, Tucson Arizona.

Little chunks of wheat floated through the beer, catching rays of the evening sun shinning through the window and refracting the light through the dark amber beer.  Alexander Zarth watched the play of light with fascination.  Subtleties of the environments he was in, little details that so many people missed were always a source of amazement to him.  He sighed contentedly and took a sip of the thick beer, enjoying the chill and the thick weight of it on his tongue.  Putting the glass down he leaned back in his seat and looked at the man across the table from him.  He was a comfortable looking man.  Leaning slightly back in the booth Alex could see that underneath the blond hair and boyish features the man had piercing eyes and a lot of muscle mass.  Alex carefully lowered the beer.  Someone was watching them both from the kitchen.  He extended his senses and felt a time traveler’s signature there.  And he recognized the signature all too well.  He smiled lightly to himself and leaned back.

“So let me get this right.  Twelve commandos from two C’s up the line from me have all taken failed shots at me, and you” here he pauses to look into the eyes of the man across from him “manage to find me faster than any of them.  On top of this, you have an out of time “mission” you’d like to hire me for.  A mission which puts me back in the crossfire, by the paradox standard of those commandos out to get me, and makes me killable.  If I accept this I have to leave the safety of my own time, when they cannot kill me, and go somewhen else – which makes me a target.  Do you think I’m stupid friend?  Or is it greed that you think motivates me?”

Alex locks gazes with the man sitting across from him, a man who looks to be in his early thirties but whom Alex suspects as being much older than that.  Those boyish features that frame an innocent and friendly face are deceptive.   His eyes are what gives him away.  There is a surprising depth to them, their pure emerald seems to catch Alex in an almost hypnotic spell.  Alex is having trouble reading this man, and that in itself is a rare thing.  The man nods. “That is, looking at the smallest possible picture, correct Mr. Zarth.  It does make you ‘killable’ by their standards.  And no, I do not think you are stupid or greedy.  If I did then I would not have bothered coming here.  Frankly – you are the best there is in the time travel business.  I’ve been up and down the line from C forty-five back to C twenty and there is no one else who can do this.  Not even me. And please believe me when I tell you that I am the second best ‘dox spinner ever.  So please do not accept that compliment lightly, or think that it is flattery.  All it is for me is a statement of your resume, and why I am attempting to hire you for this task.”

Alex took another sip of his beer, finishing the glass off, then with a quick burst power switches the empty with the full glass he had been holding fifteen minutes ago.  He was thinking, and hard, about the term the man had used.  ‘dox spinner he had said.  It was a term Alex had never heard before, but which he was too familiar with regardless.  He made his decision, mainly guided by the presence of the traveler observing from the back room.  “Here is to paradox, Mr. Smith.  And the free beer it entails you.  All right, I believe you.  But why should I accept the job?  My odds of survival are low and frankly, money is not a problem for me.  And, you should know, there is another who is as good as me.  If this situation is as big as you say then this man will be someone opposed to me in all likelihood.”

Smith smiled at Alex, and there was something odd hidden in that smile.  “To be frank with you, you don’t survive the mission.  You change the objective and die in the process.  But somehow, it all ends up working.  Whatever it is you do – it works.  And I’m not good enough to figure out what exactly it is that you do.  But as to why you accept the mission, I can only suppose that it is because it is the greatest challenge you will ever face,” Alex raised his eyebrow on hearing that. “and because Mr. Zarth, as trite as it is, only you can save the world.  And your trick just now, circumventing the block I put on your ability to travel, only goes to reinforce the point to me that you are the best.  That you can do what I could not.”

With a grunt Alex raised his fresh glass of beer to his lips then set it back down without drinking it.  Thoughts were running through his head very quickly.  “Your honesty is refreshing.  So I’ll share this with you in return.  You might as well drop the block you have on me.  I’ve slipped by it three separate times already that escaped your notice fully as well as the trick you just saw.  You are just wasting your energy on blocking me.  Leave the dossier with me.”  He was gratified by the look of surprise in the other man’s eyes, and he made his final decision at that point.  “Trace my last jump and you’ll find a list of what supplies I need and when I need them dropped.  If you can’t trace the jump, find someone else for the job Mr. Smith.”