Die Again to Save the World

by Ramy Vance

  “Hmmm.” Reuben touched some of the couch pillows. They were comfortable, much more comfortable than his flat-bed pillows at home. “Strategic light placement gets you laid?”

  Buzz handed Reuben a drink. “That’s what she said.”

  Reuben sipped it and grimaced.

  “So.” Buzz sank into a beige leather couch. “Drink is in hand. Tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “Right.” Reuben rested his elbows on his knees, then rubbed his palms together and studied Buzz. “Einstein…”

  Buzz sipped his drink. “Uh-huh?”

  “He wrote that time travel is theoretically possible,” Reuben continued tentatively.

  “Of course, child’s play. It has to do with the properties of time. Mass. Gravity. Space. Time. They are all intricately connected—”

  “Right, right,” Reuben interrupted. “I got that part. But what if…” He scratched his head for a moment and tried again. “Have you ever heard of someone actually time traveling?”

  Buzz rubbed his neck. “I’m… I’m not at liberty to say.”

  Reuben’s eyes grew wide. “You mean it’s actually happened?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Buzz repeated and shifted uncomfortably.

  “Fine.” Reuben waved his palm dismissively. “I’m not trying to get you charged with treason or anything. But, OK, what if someone had an experience that was similar? Could you advise that person on what science actually knows about travel through time and space?”

  Buzz leaned forward, suddenly interested. “What exactly are we talking about here?”

  “Well, it’s kind of metaphysical…”

  “Metaphysical?” Buzz cleared his throat and took on an all-knowing tone. “Like what are we talking, mind-bending, or astral projection? Dissolution of mass that allows beings to walk through walls?”

  “Sort of.” Walking through walls? That was happening? Never mind. Reuben scratched his head, deciding to dive in. “You ever heard of …ahh…” He struggled for the words. “A personal time warp?”

  “Time warps?” The side of Buzz’s mouth rose in half-smile, and there was a faraway look in his eyes. “Like looping back on your own timeline?”

  Reuben nodded.

  Buzz frowned. “That’s some trippy shit. I’ve never heard of it in our reality. But, some scientists postulate that it’s possible.”

  “Really?” Reuben moved to the edge of his seat. “Who? What are they saying?”

  “Well, it’s mainly a cockeyed theory,” Buzz said. “Mostly hacks. No one in the scientific community actually takes that seriously.”

  “What if I told you,” Reuben lowered his voice, “that I might be in one?”

  Buzz stared down at the floor in contemplation. “Well, it’s not the wildest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Reuben rubbed his face. This was going better than he expected. “At first, I thought it was a dream, but there are some things that happened. Things I know I can’t explain.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Things that carry over from the dream world into our reality.”

  Buzz leaned forward. “Go on.”

  That was exactly what Reuben did. He told Buzz everything, starting Valentine’s Day morning.

  Buzz stopped him. “Wait, this year?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck.” Buzz blinked in shock and took a long sip of his drink. “Go on.”

  Reuben went through everything, sparing no details. The homeless guy, the Julian Schaeffer investigation, asking Aki out.

  “So this Aki chick,” Buzz interrupted. “She hot?”

  “Fucking smoking hot as hell.”

  “Nice. Keep going.”

  “So I ask her out, she says yes, and I’m standing by the office window on the twenty-third floor. You know, quietly celebrating.”

  “You didn’t make a fool of yourself, did you?”

  “No, I actually kept my cool.”

  Buzz lifted his drink. “Impressive dude.”

  Reuben chuckled. “I know. I managed to not make a fool of myself. And then what happened? Boom. I died and looped back into myself three days earlier, give or take.”

  “And you’re sure you weren't just stressed by this Julian investigation?” Buzz asked. “Had a headache and took the wrong combination of pills to ease it? Hallucinated the whole thing?”

  Reuben shook his head. “Julian's a shitty skateboarder. No way he’s behind any of this. My best guess is he’s being set up by the real mastermind. That, or he’s super unlucky. No stress.”

  “Still, investigating a possible nuclear threat. It’s heavy shit. You sure this wasn’t some lucid dream or something? You know how you get. The girl, the investigation. You’re many things, my friend, but cool under pressure, not so much.”

  Reuben considered this. As much as he hated to admit it, Buzz was right. He did tend to catastrophize things a bit. Who was he kidding? Reuben was a master architect, capable of turning any hill into Mount Fucking Everest. See Exhibit A: talking to girls. “I don’t know,” he said, wanting to believe Buzz. It would make things easier. Maybe he did just dream it all. As for all the precog shit, maybe it was just dumb luck. After all, it wasn’t like his life was filled with crazy variables. Marshall, Amazon orders—it was all fairly routine.

  “Maybe,” Reuben finally said. “But it all felt so real. I mean, when the explosion hit, it was like my blood started to boil, but my skin was still all there. It felt like it was drying out, and then…like…my whole body just turned to dust or something.”

  Buzz’s mouth dropped open, “Sorry, say that again.”

  “It all felt so real.”

  “No, the part about your blood boiling.”

  “Yeah, I mean, literally it felt like my blood was bubbling inside me. I thought I was going to bubble over, that my skin would explode and I’d crack open like that fat guy in the Monty Python skit.” Reuben shook his head, “Stupid me. You’re right. It was a dream. I mean, of course it was. Me and Aki. Ridiculous and—” Reuben looked up to see Buzz staring at him in utter shock. “Buzz? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Fuck me up a peach tree,” was all Buzz could manage.

  Chapter Seven

  Martha—Saturday, February 11, 12:12 p.m.

  Martha sat at her cramped cubicle desk in the Precinct Four office, sipped yet another cup of coffee, and grimaced. She had successfully snuck in without being noticed by the captain and hadn't run into any of her fellow officers along the way.

  After all, today was her day off. No sense in raising any alarm bells.

  What the captain doesn't know won't hurt him or me.

  Rubbing her face, she stared bleary-eyed at the same information.

  She replayed the interrogation video. She had to put headphones on so she could turn up the volume in the tiny space. A paunchy man in his mid-fifties, covered head to toe in tattoos, sat at a table in a dreary room. He had been charged with the murder of a teenage prostitute and had no real chance of a defense. The only thing he could do now was lessen his sentence by giving information.

  In the video, Martha got in close. “Who was it that ordered the hit?”

  “I don’t know.” The suspect sighed. “I told you, it was just some guy who calls himself ‘the Canadian.’ Everyone else calls him that too. Heck, even the CIA probably calls him that. They probably got oodles of files on him. The way he walks and talks, he's a big deal.”

  “The Canadian?”

  “Yes.” His impatience was clear. “That was the only name I ever got from him. We communicated by disposable phones. Phones would just show up in my house, or workplace, or even on my person without me knowing. Then the phone would ring. I would answer it, and he identified himself as the Canadian. I don’t know anything else.”

  Martha stopped the video and went back through the police database again. This was the fifth suspect who had named the Canadian, and there was no one that suggested an actual name of
the sort. No first name. No last name.

  Just “the Canadian.”

  How many Canadians were there in New York City? Was she going to have to cross-reference all of them?

  She leaned back in her chair. “It could literally mean anything. Where should I even start?”

  A young voice spoke up from across the divide. “What?”

  She whipped her head around to see Zach, the new kid who looked so young he still had a curfew, pop up like a meerkat over his cubicle wall.

  The intern had a fresh-faced smile and a blue coffee mug that read, Serve and Protect, and was every bit of the eager wannabe that made real cops want to vomit their Krispy Kremes.

  He'd helped her clear a few cases a month back. He was good. Capable and dependable. But sometimes, she couldn't handle his energy.

  Martha gave him an incredulous look.

  “I thought you might want some assistance,” he offered.

  “I’m fine.” She wasn't about to accept help from someone greener than her. No way.

  “Are you sure?” he insisted. “Because your body language cues are off the charts. You’re showing every sign of experiencing frustration and physical fatigue. I’ve been taking that Reading Body Language course in the precinct training materials. I’m up to part five on that. Man, there is some good stuff. Everyone needs to take those tutorials.”

  Christ almighty. This kid needed a tranquilizer.

  “So we’re on the same team here,” he said. “What can I do to help?”

  Martha rolled her eyes before a thought hit her. “You know what? See what you can find on the alias ‘the Canadian.’”

  “The Canadian?” Zach repeated. “Sounds pretentious and seriously undangerous.”

  Martha sighed. “I don’t know about either of those things. This guy is an elusive crime boss that no one has ever seen.”

  “What do we know about him?” Zach leaned against the wall between them and sipped his cup.

  Martha popped her back. What the hell? It couldn’t hurt to verbally process with the kid. “So far, we know that he’s had five people murdered or maimed. His M.O. is to communicate by disposable phone, and no one has ever heard his voice. He, or I guess it could be she, types into a computer and has it speak over the phone for him. He has assistants slip disposable phones into people’s pockets or houses for him to call, and then the phone is destroyed.”

  “Are there any similarities between the phones?” Zach asked.

  Martha raised an eyebrow. This kid was better than she gave him credit for. “We’ve confiscated two Nokia 2720s. But they were wiped before we could analyze the data.”

  “How many places around here sell those?”

  Martha shook her head. “I asked tech for stocking manifests weeks ago. Still haven’t heard back.”

  “Ahh, those guys are losers.” Zach came over into her cubicle. He clicked around on the laptop he brought with him. “Besides, that’s too broad.”

  “If you think I didn’t try an internet search, you’re sadly mistaken,” Martha told him. “I did, and found nothing.”

  Zach swiveled the screen around so Martha could see it. “The five crimes were all committed in this ten-mile radius.”

  “Uh-huh.” Both she and Zach studied the screen. A green-shaded circle highlighted the area.

  Martha grabbed the mouse from Zach. “This is just an idea. It might not pay off, but then again, it might. I wonder how many places within that radius sell a Nokia 2720.”

  Zach nodded. “Well, he could have bought them online.”

  Martha shook her head. “If so, he probably would've used a fake name and credit card. Also, one of the suspects we interrogated mentioned a generic convenience store sticker on his burner phone. Our best bet is to check sellers within that area.”

  She ran a function that pulled up all the retailers licensed to sell the old, largely discontinued phone within the radius and printed out a report. She handed one page to Zach and took the other. “Just because they’re licensed doesn’t mean they still carry them. Call them and find out if they have that phone. If they do, try to unearth anything else you can. We need to narrow this down to shoddy places only.”

  “Got it,” he said as he scurried away.

  Martha called him back before he left the room. “Oh, and if the captain asks, I’m not here.”

  An hour later, Zach returned with a report.

  Not bad, Martha thought as she read it, her hand hovering over the phone.

  She was just about to start dialing when she heard raucous laughter down the hall. Looking up, she saw the other guys on her squad all bunched up in a group.

  Tom was in the center of the group, telling some story or other while the others hung onto every word. “So finally, I told the guy, ‘Well, if I arrest the ghost, will that help?’ And the dude was totally into it. So, I asked him where the ghost was, and he pointed to the kitchen. So, I stood in the kitchen and cuffed the air and led the ghost outside to the car. The dude thanked me and everything.”

  All the guys laughed again.

  She considered walking over but hesitated. She wasn’t just a rookie. She was also the only lady cop rookie on the floor.

  Besides, Jake was there, and that guy was the epitome of intimidation. A decorated Marine veteran, super-nice, and sexy as hell. Martha always stuttered like a schoolgirl around him.

  Tom noticed her watching. “Hey, Dragone.” He nodded in her direction. “You solved a crime yet?”

  She’d made plenty of arrests and solved more than her share of crimes in her eleven months on the squad. But it was no use explaining herself to those guys. She just smiled.

  One of the other officers, a burly man named Dwayne, waved a meaty finger in her direction. “You gotta earn your stripes around here. Maybe then we’ll get you a real desk.”

  They all laughed, and Martha just shook her head. It didn’t matter what she did; she would always be the woman. She got on the phone and started calling stores.

  “Hi, I’m looking for a disposable phone and wondered if you sold them.”

  “No,” a snobby voice on the other end replied. “Get off probation, loser.”

  Click.

  “Asshole,” she muttered.

  She powered through the report, disguising her voice so that it sounded less police-like and more discrete, like that of a criminal with something to hide. She hit dead end after dead end. Somewhere near the middle of the page, she got to a dry cleaner called Mr. Sudds.

  A dry cleaner selling phones? This had to be a mistake.

  But Zach was thorough, so she called the number listed on the report. It was disconnected. She was about to give up and go to the next listing when she overheard Zach arguing on the phone.

  “No,” he insisted. “I need a Nokia 2720. It’s very important. Well, could you have someone look on the shelf? Yes, Nokia 2720… Thank you… No, I’ll hold...”

  Inspired and somewhat one-upped by Zach’s dedication, Martha ran a quick online search for Mr. Sudds. She found no website, but a couple of customer review sites detailed terrible customer service, dirty facilities, and cheap prices, and one review graphically recounted a mugging that happened in the store.

  Zach’s cell phone buzzed, and Martha glanced over the cubicle wall at him. He held his work phone to one ear and his cell phone to the other. “Yes, Wal-Mart, thanks for calling me back,” he spoke into the cell, awkwardly holding up both phones with his shoulders while he grabbed a pen. “Were you able to find one? So you don’t have it… Yeah, I’m sure Amazon would be the best bet. Thanks for trying.”

  Martha continued to browse Mr. Sudds’ reviews and then ran across one that mentioned buying a disposable phone. She scanned the rest of the reviews and found no further mention of phone service.

  “Zach,” she mouthed. “I’m leaving. Keep up the search.”

  Zach nodded, still on hold, and Martha grabbed her jacket and left. She didn’t know if this Mr. Sudds was anything, but she was
going to check it out.

  “Officer Dragone,” her captain Ken Kenneth called.

  “Fuck,” Martha muttered. She was caught. She turned to face her captain.

  Ken Kenneth was in his late forties. He looked like he had at one time been muscular. Years of working a desk job had made him out of shape, but not quite overweight. He had a receding blond hairline and sharp blue eyes that suggested if she had met him twenty years ago before he discovered mustaches and middle management, he would have been quite the heartthrob.

  Right now, he stood with his hands on his hips, and his eyes registered pure business.

  “What the hell are you doing here on your day off?” he demanded.

  “Nothing, Captain. I just missed the gang, you know.”

  He wasn’t buying her bullshit. “Aha, sure. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the Canadian?”

  Martha pursed her lips and shrugged.

  “Where are we on this case, anyway?” he asked.

  This was interesting. Maybe the Captain was at least open to her thoughts. “He’s elusive, sir, but I’ve got a couple of leads I’m following.”

  The side of his lip rose in displeasure, and he looked right past her. “How many man-hours are we putting in on this?”

  “Sir, I assure you, I’ve got this. I can find this guy; I’m right on the verge of a breakthrough.”

  He raised his eyebrows dismissively. “You’re not a detective. You’re a beat cop. I need you out on the beat.”

  “I know, sir. I just need a little bit more time.”

  “Very little time.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She turned to walk away.

  “Dragone.” His voice had a contemplative tone.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Just so you know, this does count as a vacation day. Last thing I need is HR on my ass because you never take a day off.”

  “Day off? Crime doesn’t take a day off.”

  “It sure doesn’t.” He chuckled. “But you’re a pretty little lady. Why don’t you let the boys around here take the lead for a little while? Go to a spa and get one of those fancy hot stone massages or something? My wife likes those; it relaxes her.”