Die Again to Save the World

by Ramy Vance

  Still, there was a bigger issue at play. His dad was right. It was Saturday, and whereas many agents were working today, Reuben wasn’t.

  It was his day off.

  He looked down at his clothes and realized that he’d gotten dressed for work, believing it was a weekday morning.

  Instead of answering his father, Reuben silently transferred the remaining eggs to his plate.

  “Moron.” Thankfully, Marshall sat. “Computer science degree from Columbia, but can’t remember what day to go to work.”

  Reuben sat at the table with him. For all of about two minutes, the Peet household had a pleasant family breakfast. Then Marshall grabbed the pills off the table. Reuben tensed and pretended to pay close attention to his eggs but watched Marshall in his peripheral vision. Reuben relaxed when Marshall washed the meds down with orange juice.

  “I knew you were watching me,” Marshall grumbled. “I told you to mind your own business.”

  Reuben gestured at his eggs with his fork. “I was eating my damn breakfast, Dad.”

  Marshall leaned back in his chair. “You don’t have to babysit me like a goddamned two-year-old.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t have to if—" Reuben stopped himself before it turned into an argument.

  “If what?”

  “Never mind. Forget it.”

  “Yeah,” Marshall muttered.

  A silence passed between them, and all that they heard over the police scanner was the sound of forks scraping against glass plates.

  “You know, you think you’re so hotshot over there,” Marshall sneered. “But it doesn’t matter what you do up in that office. It’s all going to end up in one giant shitstorm—"

  "Of a nuclear explosion. You just watch,” Reuben said.

  "Hey." His dad looked at him, impressed. "You finished my thought. Not bad, kiddo. Maybe you don't have shit for brains after all."

  Not that Reuben heard his dad's last jab. He simply couldn't stand it anymore. Either he was going crazy, or some weird shit was happening to him. Either way, he needed to find out. Where could he go for help? Who would believe him?

  Then a thought hit him. He knew exactly who might.

  Buzz.

  Reuben jumped out of his chair and grabbed his keys and jacket.

  “What?” Marshall yelled. “I’m sorry, did I insult your little sense of purpose and bruise your pussyfoot self-esteem?”

  He bounded down the stairs outside his apartment two at a time. Reuben only wanted to get to Buzz. If anyone could help him get his head on right, it would be him.

  Distracted by his mission, he didn't notice Patricia, the apartment owner, and Midge and Sheera at the bottom of the stairs on the sidewalk.

  “Shit,” he muttered. Reuben turned to go back up the stairs, but they saw him when Patricia called his name. "Fuckity fuck fuck," he muttered, faking a smile as he submitted to the firing squad.

  “Patricia.” Reuben’s voice oozed saccharine sweetness. “How’s the beagle?”

  It was a known fact among the residents that they could easily evade any unpleasant conversation with Patricia with the topic of her prize-winning beagle, Bagel, who did somewhat resemble a bagel. However, he knew it wasn't going to work as the words came out of his mouth. After all, it hadn't worked the first time.

  “Fine,” Patricia said through pursed lips. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”

  Yep. This was unfolding as he remembered it with Midge and Sheera, the hot lesbian banker couple, standing with their arms crossed over their chests. Their eyes bored into Reuben, and he tried not to shudder. He racked his brain to figure out another way to steer the conversation.

  “Look, Reuben,” Patricia reasoned in an even tone, “we all respect your father and what he’s done for this city.”

  Reuben shifted his weight and held Patricia’s gaze. With big brown eyes and long red hair, in a blue pantsuit and flat black pumps, she was somehow barely shy of pretty. Maybe her nose was too big.

  “When he saved those kids from that bus kidnapping… What was that, fifteen years ago?” Patricia held her hand over her heart. “I was a schoolteacher back in those days, and I had two students who were part of that. He was a hero. None of us could thank him enough. You know all of this. You were on that bus, too.”

  “Right.” Reuben checked his watch. He hadn't liked this little speech the first time he heard it. He liked it even less the second.

  “That’s why I was honored two years ago when the two of you moved in,” Patricia continued. “But…”

  Patricia faltered, and Midge blurted out, “He needs to be in a home. If he were my father, I’d get him some help.”

  Sheera grunted her agreement, and Patricia silenced them with an upraised palm.

  “What we’re trying to say here,” Patricia offered, “is that your father’s declining health is having an adverse effect on his ability to live peaceably within the general community.”

  Sheera snarled, “That’s a nice way to put it.”

  The first time around he'd kowtowed, diverting his gaze and nodding in agreement. The first time he heard it, the comment caught him off-guard. This time, it pissed him off.

  “Yeah?” Reuben scoffed and narrowed his eyes at her. “Enlighten me. How would you put it?”

  “Oh, you think this is a big joke.” Midge laughed mirthlessly, ran her hands through her hair, and turned away from Reuben. “I can’t with them. I can’t even. I just can’t even.”

  “Unbelievable,” Sheera replied. “Do you know what he was doing at two a.m.?”

  Any other day, Reuben would have had an answer to that question. Given he had no idea when two a.m. in their reality coincided with two a.m. in his reality, he couldn’t say one way or another.

  “I’ll tell you what he was doing.” Sheera swished her hips and wagged her finger. “He was stomping around the floor in what had to have been a circle. I don’t know where you were, but he was yelling, and I mean yelling, so loud about criminals and Democrats, and I don’t even know what else. We could hear it through the windows."

  “Before that, at, like, midnight,” Midge added, “we had to turn up the TV to drown him out.”

  “Look.” Midge turned back to Reuben. “He obviously has some kind of problem. Get the man some help. Because the rest of us around here would like to get some sleep.”

  Reuben held out a hand in a calming gesture. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “It doesn’t help.” Sheera turned to Patricia. “We’ve heard this before.”

  Patricia let out a deep breath. “Reuben, I’m afraid if this doesn’t stop, we’re going to have to start the eviction process on you and your father.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Reuben rubbed his face. “He won’t be a problem anymore. I’ll do…something.”

  Even in repeat, he didn't have a good answer. When it came to Marshall Peet, no one ever had a good solution.

  “Let’s hope so,” Midge retorted.

  Chapter Four

  Martha—Saturday, February 11, 6:01 a.m.

  It was that damn sheep again. Martha lived outside NYC in a small one-bedroom flat in a quaint little subdivision fourteen train stops from work. It was as good a place to live as any. Good locale, cheap rent, low crime rate, lots of green spaces, peaceful.

  Well, that was until the new neighbors had moved in with a pet sheep they kept in a shed in their backyard. Seriously, who kept a pet sheep? Martha groaned and rolled over in bed as the bleating got louder.

  She glanced at the time bar on her phone.

  “Six?” She groaned. “Come on, man.” She had looked into the city ordinance about keeping livestock in residential areas. Unfortunately, it didn’t consider one sheep as livestock. Couple that with her neighbors’ claims that the animal was their support pet, and well, she didn't have a case.

  Still, six a.m. on her day off? She was considering shooting the damn thing.

  Normally she'd be at work at this time, but she was nearing the end of
her first year on the force, and she had a handful of “use them or lose them” vacation days piled up. It had been too short notice to plan an actual vacation, so she settled for a “staycation” where she could get a couple of extra hours of sleep. Was that too much to ask?

  As if answering her question, the sheep got louder.

  She moaned and piled pillows over her head. Upstairs, Mr. McClosky slammed open his patio door. McClosky had lost his mind in Vietnam and had been in the building since Reagan was president.

  He yelled from the balcony above her window, “Shut that damn thing up, or I’ll shut it up for you!”

  “Yeah?” the neighbor taunted back in a thick Eastern European accent. “Why don’t you come over and make me, tough guy?”

  “I think I will!” Mr. McClosky bellowed back. “Just wait until I find my slippers and—”

  “Slippers?” sneered his opponent. “Look here, you Hefner-wannabe reject. It’s one hundred percent legal for my sheep to bleat.”

  “I’m gonna beat your ass!” Mr. McClosky retorted.

  The two neighbors argued back and forth several minutes longer, and someone else joined the chorus. Meanwhile, the sheep kept bleating.

  “Shit.” Martha threw back the covers and rose. “I’m up.”

  She briefly thought about stopping the two from killing each other, but right then, their deaths would be an improvement.

  She shook her head, chasing away the thoughts. “Uphold the law, Martha,” she chided herself. “That’s your job.” She resolved that she’d keep an eye on them. If things escalated, she’d get involved.

  Stumbling to the shower, she stepped over containers of the takeout she’d eaten in bed while watching Jimmy Fallon and the embarrassingly large pile of wrappers from the pre-Valentine’s Day chocolates she’d bought herself. She scanned her DVD collection and tossed her extreme yoga workout case onto the wrapper pile.

  “Nothing’s better at inspiring fitness than National Singles Awareness Day,” she declared.

  She reached the shower and let the warm water invigorate her senses while she thought about the case she’d been tracking for the last several weeks.

  She had multiple suspects in multiple cases, all of whom referenced “the Canadian” because he was super polite and used the word “eh” a lot. None of them knew anything more about him other than that he was the wizard behind the curtain. The more she looked for this guy, the bigger the legend seemed to get.

  He was the money behind this or that operation. A voice through a burner phone. What made things worse was that somehow, he always made the evidence disappear.

  As she toweled herself dry, Martha got ready to head over to her favorite place for breakfast, Gigi’s Breakfast Café. She could always think there.

  Looking at her wristwatch, she groaned. “6:40 on a Saturday morning.” It would take her just a little bit more than twenty minutes to get there.

  She'd muse over everything while having a coffee. Muse and make plans. Plans like how she was going to find this Canadian and nail his ass to the wall.

  Chapter Five

  Reuben—Saturday, February 11, 10:17 a.m.

  Reuben's Uber pulled up to the brick mansion. There was a circular drive, a bird bath, and an immaculate garden.

  Buzz was already outside.

  Reuben didn't have many friends he kept in contact with to share his current predicament with. He had a childhood friend in the NY police department, but it had been a while since he'd spoken to her. Besides, there wasn't a chance she would believe him.

  Now, Buzz, on the other hand…

  Buzz Lugger was the single smartest person Reuben had ever met or even heard of. He was one of those whiz kids who finished high school at the age of twelve and had to wait until the minimum age of sixteen to go to college.

  Buzz and Reuben had roomed together at Columbia. Buzz had turned out to be the type of student whose first day in class was usually the final exam. He did, however, graduate Magna Cum Laude with a triple major in engineering, robotics, and computer science.

  He’d also authored three books his senior year. One on quantum physics, another on wormholes, and the third had been a surprisingly good erotic novel involving a mad scientist and a robot, titled Love in Binary.

  Reuben knew it was only a matter of time until that one became non-fiction.

  He was also the reason Reuben worked for the CIA.

  Out of college, Buzz became the CIA’s number one draft pick but turned the gig down, explaining to Reuben that the CIA’s glory days were over. “At one time,” he’d said, sipping on a beer in an empty bar near campus, “they were at the forefront of science and technology. Ever since the globalization of intelligence…”

  Buzz had registered Reuben's disdain and quickly added, “They sold out. Now, it’s all about all this Gestapo anti-terrorism. They’ve lost sight of really pushing science to its limits.”

  “So you turned down the CIA?” Reuben clarified.

  Buzz shrugged. “They keep calling me.” Buzz wagged his beer approvingly. “But NYU and their experimental physics lab is where my heart is at.”

  “Right.” Reuben stared into his drink.

  “So, tell me,” Buzz had asked as he draped his arm around the back of his chair, “what offers have you got lined up for after grad?”

  “Uh.” Reuben had blushed. “Yeah, you know, I got MCC and all. I think I might do that.”

  “MCC?” Buzz’s brow furrowed. “I haven’t heard of them. What’s that?”

  “It’s this, uh,” Reuben had stammered, “groundbreaking experimental school. Junior college out in rural Wisconsin. They’re looking for an assistant department chair for the technology department. A lot of growth potential, getting back to basics. The city, man, it pollutes the purity of science.”

  “Right on.” Buzz had pursed his lips. “I like it. Experimental. Back to basics.”

  “Yeah. I think we’ve both, you and I, been given such a greenhouse experience in the technology field here in the city.”

  Buzz had stroked his chin as Reuben continued to talk. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that you don’t have any other offers, does it?”

  “What?” Reuben had jerked his head back. “No, of course not. I mean, you know, I’ve got a lot going on. Hitting the ground running. Strike while the iron’s hot.”

  “Cool.” Buzz had sipped his drink. “’Cause I got my recruiter from the CIA practically begging me to sign on. I could slip him your name, you know. See if he’s interested. But if you’re cool with your back-to-basics nature gig, that’s cool, too.”

  “Well,” Reuben had started but abruptly changed his tone. “Please, please, please. I don’t want to move to Wisconsin. I’m fragile, and I hate cows.”

  Buzz had laughed hard and pulled out his phone. “All right. I’ll call my recruiter right now.”

  Reuben recalled how he had rubbed his bloodshot eyes and tried to steady his slurred speech. “Right now? I mean…” He’d gestured toward their drinks. “We’ve been here a while.”

  “Relax,” Buzz had said as he walked away from the bar. “You think no one at the CIA ever has a drink?”

  Buzz had come back five minutes later with a smile on his face. “He’s totally into you. He said he’ll call you in the morning.”

  “Oh, my God. Thank you, man. You saved my life.” Reuben had meant it, too. He doubted he could survive rural Wisconsin.

  “I did it for the cows.”

  And that was how Reuben Peet ended up as a tech operative for the CIA.

  Now, he was about to see if his best friend could save him from whatever was happening to him again.

  He found Buzz standing outside in a blue silk bathrobe and slippers. “Hey, Peet.” At twenty-three, Buzz was thin and gangly, with light-brown hair that stuck up in odd places and wire-rimmed glasses too big for his face.

  “Hey, there.” Reuben greeted him with a hug. “God, it’s good to see you. How long has it
been?”

  Buzz gave Reuben a worried look. "Oh man, this must be serious. You only ever greet me with platitudes when shit has really hit the fan,” he said as they entered the house. “Tell me, what’s going on?”

  Reuben sighed. “I need a drink first.”

  Chapter Six

  Reuben—Saturday, February 11, 11:13 a.m.

  Buzz's place took Reuben’s breath away every time he walked in. High, vaulted ceilings with frescoes painted with what he was sure was gold leaf and winding staircases, plus marble floors. Buzz had bought it from some millionaire who’d received it in a divorce but then wanted to unload the emotional baggage.

  “I’m custom-building my own place,” Buzz told him. “Until then, this will have to do.”

  Reuben chuckled. “Well, at least it’s furnished now.”

  Last time he was out here, the expansive office had taken over the great hall, and there was nothing else in the mansion.

  He wasn’t even sure where Buzz slept.

  And to think all this wealth came from some proprietary 3-D imaging software Buzz had invented that nearly every modern video game console utilized. Not only had he received a windfall when he'd sold it, he received a royalty every time a consumer bought a video game.

  Basically, he was set for life.

  “Yeah.” Buzz laughed. “I found that if you want to get in good with the ladies, they have to be comfortable. So, at the advice of my financial advisor, I called a decorator and asked her what makes ladies comfortable.”

  “And what did she say?”

  Buzz gestured around the softly decorated living room. It was all tan and white and beige, with rugs so thick and plush Reuben could barely see his shoes. A chandelier glittered on low, while small lamps dotted the room, casting a soft and tender glow, and one hell of a well-stocked mini-bar. “She said it’s a thing called layering and texturing, as well as strategic light placement.”