The Time Travelling Taxman Series Box Set

by Rachel Ford

She laughed. “Alright, alright. We can take it.” Then, though, she shook her head and offered a bemused smile. “But I have to say, you’re getting awfully paranoid lately, Alfred.”

  Nancy rose on Wednesday morning with all the excitement of a kid at Christmas. “Today’s the day!” she greeted, pecking him on the lips.

  “Yay.”

  She was in too good a mood, though, to be bothered by his pre-coffee grumbles. He turned his focus to acquiring the caffeine he felt he was going to need to get through the day, and she stayed upstairs, working on the suitcases. He came back a few minutes later, a steaming mug in each hand.

  “Here, babe,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She took it and kissed him again. “So I’ve got everything organized by person and purpose.” She indicated the first of two suitcases. “This side is your clothes, this one is mine. And here’s our makeup and props. I’ve got the shared stuff in the center, yours over here, and mine here.”

  “I’m going to be wearing more makeup than you,” he observed.

  “That’s because I only need my spots. You’re green-blooded, remember?”

  “No. But that, at least,” he said, “I’m looking forward to.”

  “What?”

  “Seeing you in spots,” he grinned.

  When he got to work, Alfred settled in to check through his emails. The case, he decided, would have to wait until after the eight-thirty meeting. There was no sense trying to get enmeshed for half an hour, just to set it aside for the next four.

  He was distracted from his work by the sound of Justin’s door closing, and he smiled to himself at that. Guess he’s not in a talkative mood this morning. What a shame.

  Eight-thirty rolled around soon enough, and he filed into the conference room with everyone else. He shuffled over to Nancy, who had reserved a seat for him.

  Director Caspersen was at the podium with a woman wearing a pinstripe suit and a serious expression. Once the movement settled down, Caspersen spoke, “Good morning everyone. Thank you for coming today.

  “You no doubt noticed the meeting’s longer today than usual. We’re going to do something a little different this morning. This-” She gestured to the suit-clad woman. “Is Martina Engel, with Human Resources.”

  Martina flashed an all-business smile, and said, “Good morning.”

  A dutiful murmur of “good morning” rose from the assemblage.

  “Today, we’re going to talk about workplace environment. We’re going to talk about what kind of behaviors make a healthy, productive workplace, and what kind don’t. We’re going to talk about what we can do to ensure we’re fostering a welcoming, diverse workplace.

  “So, without further ado, I’m going to turn it over to Martina.”

  The HR rep took the podium, and smiled again. “Well, thank you, Director Caspersen. And good morning again, everyone. Let’s get started, shall we?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “That was definitely for Justin,” Nance nodded confidently.

  Their impromptu sensitivity training session had wrapped up, and the pair were at lunch now. “He certainly thought so,” Alfred said. “He was beet red the entire time.”

  “I almost feel sorry for him,” she nodded. “If he wasn’t such a prick, anyway.”

  He cringed at the language.

  “Sorry,” she grinned. “Such a…well, what would you call him? Something to do with food, I know.”

  He didn’t have anything directly analogous, and he shrugged, “I don’t know. A turd sandwich, maybe?”

  Nancy laughed. “Alright. I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a turd sandwich.”

  “He is, though,” Alfred reminded her. “I mean, he’s been on your case for months. If we reported half the stuff he’d said, he’d have lost his job months ago. But because we don’t want to hear his ‘real woman’ crap, all of a sudden he’s running to Caspersen?” The taxman shook his head, incensed at the idea. “What a – well, turd sandwich.”

  She laughed again. “You know,” she pointed out, “not too long ago you would have told me it was ‘nothing personal,’ to report people for breaking the rules.”

  He flushed. “Yeah, but I wasn’t breaking them when I was reporting people. And, anyway, when I turned you in for having too many posters on your wall, you still acted like a professional.” Though the taxman still maintained that that many posters on a wall was a fire hazard, he acknowledged that it was not one of his finer moments. That, of course, had been before he knew Nancy.

  “True,” she acknowledged, adding with a twinkle in her eyes, “but I did kind of hate you for it, just a little.”

  She was joking, but the words hit him unexpectedly. “Well, that was a long time ago.”

  She smiled and reached out to take his hand. “Yes it was. A very long time ago.”

  He held her hand for a moment, and her gaze. “Nance?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I-” He swallowed. “I’m glad you don’t hate me anymore.”

  A tender look settled in her eyes, and she smiled again. “Me too, Alfred.”

  After lunch, the taxman found it hard to concentrate. His mind seemed in a kind of a daze, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t fully extricate himself. His thoughts were all over the place. He was happy – thrilled – and yet strangely terrified too.

  It was, he decided, the case. It had to be. He was worried about what could happen to Nancy. He was worried by his lack of progress. What else could it be?

  So he forced himself to study the data. The rows merged, the columns danced, and his thoughts wandered. Again and again, he found himself smiling into the void, or chewing nervously on his thumbnail; and he’d have to call himself back to the work.

  It seemed an eternity before three o’ clock rolled around. That, he and Nance had agreed, is when they’d leave. That would give them time to reach the hotel before traffic got too crazy. And Caspersen wouldn’t mind. She was flexible like that, especially where employees who clocked as many hours as they did were concerned.

  He had made no earth-shattering discoveries. Indeed, he’d discovered nothing at all. There were, as far as he could tell, no irregularities in the Entrepreneur’s Child Fund financials. Whatever Nance had discovered in that other timeline either was not in his search, or else was evading his eyes.

  It would be a good idea, he thought, to make his findings accessible in case he had downtime over the long weekend. So he exported the portion of the audit that related to ECF to his personal directory. The employee directories were accessible from any device via a secure URL and login, so it would be available if he had time. If nothing else, he decided, taking the work with him would be a step that would keep Josh off his back.

  Then, he logged off and went in search of Nancy. As it happened, she was already on her way to find him, laptop and purse in tow. They met at the junction between his hall and the main hall. “You ready?” she said.

  “You bet.”

  A loud sigh issued from Justin’s office a moment before the door closed. Nancy laughed quietly, and Alfred rolled his eyes. “‘I was subjected to a gratuitous use of human speech for basic communication,’” he opined.

  She laughed again, saying, “Come on. Let’s get out of here before we do something really unprofessional, like this…” She slipped her arm through his, and he smiled.

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  Nance’s earlier preparations paid off now. They had the car packed in minutes of returning home. Alfred slipped the spacetime field generator into his jacket, and they locked the doors behind them.

  “Alright, last check…we got everything?”

  He nodded. “As far as I can tell.”

  She nodded. “Great. Then let’s hit the road!”

  The trip took about two hours, and Nance took the opportunity to go over their schedule for the next day. Alfred tried to concentrate, but the truth was he didn’t hear much. He simply allowed himself to enjoy the sound o
f her voice as she talked on about things that were meaningless to him, but brought her joy.

  Then, once she was convinced that they had a solid plan, she switched topics. “You know, I was reading about Rick Ashworth.”

  “Whose he, again?”

  “The founder of Marvelous Detective Comics.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Do you know he was a programmer before he got started in comics?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. When he started the comics, he didn’t even expect to make money. He just loved doing it.”

  “He’s super rich now, isn’t he?”

  “Oh yeah. Fire Fell topped a billion dollars, and they’ve got two sequels plus another four films planned in the universe.”

  Fire Fell was the latest MDC movie. Alfred’s expression soured at the memory. It wasn’t the movie itself that bothered him – while he didn’t care for it at all, it was no better or worse than a standard comic book movie. They were, in his opinion, all silly spectacles of CGI and cheesy dialogue. But it was the memory of his own stupidity relating to the film that was particularly unpleasant. Nancy had bought tickets and wanted him to go with her, but he’d been so wrapped up in the Landing Site Earth case that he’d been oblivious. She’d gone with Josh instead; and he’d almost lost her.

  He could still remember the day it premiered – September 19th – and the feeling of sitting alone in his car amidst a UFO festival, knowing that Nance was hours away with Josh Stevenson.

  “Oh.”

  “But do you know how he got his big break?”

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, no. How?”

  “He wrote a panel with Swell Dude-”

  “That’s one of his superheroes, right?”

  “Yeah. So, Swell Dude goes back in time right before Germany invades Poland, and he’s about to knock the daylights out of Hitler, when one of his standard super villains shows up, Devil’s Advocate. And Devil’s Advocate spends the panel berating Swell Dude for infringing on Hitler’s right to hold a different opinion. ‘So much for your vaunted tolerance now, eh, Swell Dude?’ and stuff like that. Meanwhile, Hitler slips away and gives the order.”

  Alfred was confused. “Why would anyone stand up for Nazis?”

  Nancy laughed. “Great question.”

  “But why let Hitler get away?”

  “Well, it was political satire.”

  “It is?”

  Nance shot him a bemused look. “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” Alfred didn’t get it, but, then, he didn’t pay much attention either to politics or comics. “Okay.”

  “Anyway, it went viral, and Kate Dallas – you know, the entrepreneur behind LifeZones – saw it. She liked it so much she put millions into starting an actual company that could compete with the big-name comic houses.”

  LifeZones was a social media app that Nancy used – and that, as a consequence of her use, Alfred now also used. “Well that was a good investment.”

  “Hell yeah. MDC is worth a lot more than LifeZones now.”

  Alfred shook his head. “People really like their comics, I guess,” he said. “But I don’t know…give me a chess tournament any day.”

  “Oh babe,” Nancy laughed. “You’re crazy.”

  He grinned. “Says the woman whose idea of a vacation is wearing a disguise and traipsing through a warehouse full of people also in disguise…”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The check in line was long, but the hotel was well-staffed, and they got the keys to their room relatively quickly. Nancy was grinning from ear to ear as they walked through the superhero themed lobby, plastered with its “Welcome MarvelousCon!” banners.

  They reached their room when Alfred got a text. It was from Josh. “I have to get checked in to my room. It’s about twenty minutes away. You going to be alright for an hour?” Since Josh’s attendance was very last minute, by time he’d gone to reserve a room, nothing in the area was open. Though he wasn’t very impressed with the quality of the establishment he found, he’d been lucky to find anything in a nearby suburb. “I’ll be lucky not to wind up feeding bedbugs, too,” he’d complained to Alfred.

  The taxman frowned at the question, though, replying, “Of course.” Josh seemed to believe him incapable of protecting Nancy in any circumstance, and he chafed at the idea. It was one thing to acknowledge that he couldn’t be of assistance when he was out of sight, but another for the marine to assume that he was useless in person as well.

  “Alright. Keep your eyes open. Especially as the crowd grows.”

  Alfred rolled his eyes and slipped the phone into his pocket.

  “What was that?” Nancy wondered.

  “Oh. Uh, nothing. Just…checking my work email. Got a dumb question.”

  She laughed. “Well, we agreed no work, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

  “Good. We’re here to have fun.”

  You’re here to have fun, babe. I’m here to keep you safe. Aloud, though, he said, “Yes ma’am.”

  She grinned and kissed him. “Come on,” she said. “Put the suitcase down and let’s head downstairs. We can check out the exhibits, get some food, and then maybe catch Fire Fell.”

  Alfred wrinkled his nose. “Do we have to?”

  “What? Eat?”

  “No. See Fire Fell.”

  “You’ve never seen it with me,” she said, nudging him playfully. “So yes. And anyway, they’re going to be showing exclusive footage of part two.”

  “Well, we don’t want to miss that.”

  “No,” she laughed, “we don’t.”

  “Alright,” he wrapped his arm around her. “Let’s get this over with then.”

  They headed downstairs. The lobby was filling even more rapidly than before. “This is awesome,” Nance declared. “Look at all these cosplayers already!”

  She’d – mercifully – decided they wouldn’t don their cosplay until Thursday. Despite Wednesday’s sessions only filling a third of a day, there were many who had jumped right in, though. Alfred saw aliens and goblins, elves and superheroes, and occasionally creatures that defied any description.

  “We should get food now,” he suggested. “Look at those lines.”

  She nodded. “Good call.”

  It took well over an hour to get a burger and fries, but Nance didn’t seem to mind. She was people watching, and oohing and ahhing over the various cosplayers. Alfred tried to see the appeal – he really did – but it was lost on him.

  Still, her enjoyment was a pleasure to behold, and in a while, he started to share it vicariously; and it grew, until, when their meal had wrapped up, he was having a genuinely good time.

  “We’ve got about an hour and a half before we need to get seats,” she said. “Let’s go check out the exhibits and vendors. Anyway, I’ve got to get stuff to bring back for the team. We can get that done now.”

  “Alright.”

  The exhibitors were spread all over the convention center, with some occupying hallways and some packed like sardines into a massive ballroom. Some of the exhibits did interest him. There was one seller who had a table full of replicas of medieval and ancient strategy games. Alfred lingered here for awhile, engaging the vendor in a discussion of chess and mill and Hnefatafl. In the end, the Viking game won, and – the proud new owner of an authentic replica Hnefatafl set – he followed Nancy to other booths.

  She wasn’t sure what she was going to get her team. “But I promised I’d pick up something,” she said.

  “I don’t know about the rest of them. But you should get Jeff a bag of coal,” the taxman suggested.

  She laughed. “No, I’ve got to get everyone something nice. But I want it to be similar, so nobody complains. Which means I have to find one type of thing that everyone will like.”

  “Well, it’s the nerd bunker,” he said. “I mean, any of this stuff will do.”

  She hugged him. “You know, you’re lucky you’re so cute, Mr. Favero. Because that sense of
humor leaves a lot to be desired.”

  He grinned. “Well, I try, Nance.”

  His phone dinged as they continued to walk, and he frowned. It was probably Josh, but he didn’t dare check it at the moment. “Hey,” he said, pointing to a vendor with tables full of bobbleheads, “what about those?” There seemed to be little plastic figurines of just about every fandom he’d seen represented.

  She glanced in the direction he’d indicated and considered. “That might work.”

  They headed over, and Alfred drew back to glance at his message while Nancy perused the figurines. It was the marine. “Just heading back now. It’s nuts here. People trying to get cheap rooms for MC. They lost my reservation, and I spent half an hour arguing with the dumbass manager.”

  “That stinks. Sorry dude.”

  “It’s done anyway. Everything going well?”

  He glanced up at Nancy, at the serious way in which she was considering two caped figures, their oversized heads dancing as she moved them. He smiled. “Yes.”

  Josh sent a thumb’s up, and Alfred slipped the phone back into his pocket. Nancy, meanwhile, made her selections, and they moved on. “That was good thinking,” she confided. “I found something for everyone on the team. Even Alice, and she hates most of this stuff. But they had an I Love Lucy bobblehead. She’s got a big collection of I Love Lucy stuff.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Thanks, babe.”

  “Of course.”

  They walked on, stopping now and again at a seller, but keeping mostly to the exhibits. Before he knew it, the hour and a half were up. “Well,” she said, “we better go get seats.”

  “Alright,” he nodded.

  The film was scheduled to play in ballroom eight, which was on the opposite end of the convention center, so they began to retrace their steps. They’d reached the lobby, though, when Alfred stopped short, his heart leaping to his mouth.

  There, in the vestibule across from him, was Alfred Favero – not a reflection in the glass, but a real, flesh and blood copy of himself. Fudge muffins. He’d been so wrapped up in the convention that he had barely given the case a passing thought. Now, though, seeing another future version of himself brought it all back with a vengeance. It meant that he’d done something – he didn’t know what – to upset the timeline.