by Derek Slaton
“I will be at Tate’s Bar tomorrow at nine AM. Ask for Artemis, and the bartender will point you in the right direction. If you bring backup, I will be gone before you walk through the front door, and you will never get the information that I have. I look forward to meeting with you face to face.” She leaned forward and reached for the camera, but paused. “Oh, and one more thing about our friend in the next room. His name is Kevin Hauser. He is responsible for the rape and murders of Marcie Davis, Elaine Woodman, and Leigh Smith. Chances are all three of them are in your missing persons database as their bodies haven’t been found yet.
“You might want to send a team over to Grant State Park to start looking. Have them concentrate on the areas where feral hogs congregate. His prints should match those found in all three of their apartments as well. And if that’s not enough to convince you, take a peek under the false bottom in the cabinet beside the stove. You’re welcome.”
The video ended.
Hodge closed the laptop and took a deep breath before pulling out the USB key and pocketing it.
He headed into the kitchen and looked at the cabinet beside the stove. “Hey, any of your men gone through the cabinets in here?” Hodge yelled to the officer in the other room.
“Nope, we just cleared the premises for potential hostiles then waited for you to get here,” the officer replied.
He reached into the cabinet and touched the bottom, freeing up a loose board and causing it to fall. It had a soft landing on a gallon freezer bag of blue meth that had been prepackaged into individual fun size portions. Another small bag was underneath it, containing three locks of hair. Each lock had a small label on them with the first name of the girls mentioned in the video.
Hodge’s heart pounded in his ears as he strode back out to the living room. “Hey officer, are you on with Dispatch?”
“Yeah, what do you need?”
“I need three names run through missing persons. Marcie Davis, Elaine Woodman, and Leigh Smith,” the Agent instructed.
“Got it,” the officer said and grabbed his radio.
Hodge leaned against the cabinets and inspected the locks of hair. His mind raced to process what had just happened. This guy wasn’t even on our radar, but somehow she not only knew about it but took him out, he thought. Maybe she actually does know something about Duke.
“Got the info on those girls,” the officer said as he entered the kitchen. “All three of them were reported missing over the last four months.”
Hodge contemplated for a moment before handing the bag of hair over. “Officer, how would you like to have your picture in the paper tomorrow?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well I’m pretty sure these locks of hair match the three girls you just asked dispatch about. And I’m also pretty sure that asshole in there is the reason they are on the missing person’s list.” He tossed the bag to the officer.
“What? Wait, this is your case,” the officer protested.
“And I’m handing it over to you. I’m following up a much larger lead on a different case that takes priority.”
His mouth opened and closed like a fish. “But… but… you can’t!”
“Relax buddy, couple quick bits of advice. Never give the press details they don’t need to know, always let the cutest reporter ask the first question, and make sure you do your mother proud by taking her advice to heart and dressing up in something spiffy,” Hodge rattled off as he walked by the bewildered officer, slapping him on the shoulder as he went. “Oh, and one more thing, pretty sure the girls are in Grant State Park hanging with some feral hogs. You might not want to dress up for that part.”
The Special Agent exited the house, pausing to take a breath in the cool night air. He had a thousand questions and zero answers, at least none that made any sense. For now, all he could do was hurry up and wait.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tate’s Bar was an Austin south side legend, first opening its doors in January of 1971. Throughout the years every up and coming hard rock, punk and metal band imaginable had graced the eight by ten stage tucked away at the back of the venue, leaving their band signature on the wall before departing. Four decades later a patron, could relive the entire musical history of the building just by reading the names that had been left on every exposed surface. While considered a treat to die hard music fans, the residents of the nearby multi-million dollar condos were less impressed.
Hodge opened the ancient wooden front door, exposing the grime from the previous evening’s show to an unhealthy dose of sunlight.
Before his eyes could adjust to the dimly lit room, a deep voice bellowed from behind the bar, “Morning!”
Hodge rubbed his eyes to accelerate the adjustment period. Eventually focused on a burly six foot two man standing behind the bar. “Morning,” he greeted as he walked towards him and sat on the corner stool.
The bartender set out a surprisingly clean shot glass and poured some low level whiskey right to the brim. Hodge studied the glass for a moment, then looked the man right in the eye.
“Dude. It’s nine in the morning,” he said.
The man sighed and turned to the counter behind him for a coffee pot and mug. He stopped the pour two-thirds of the way up and dumped the whiskey in.
Hodge lifted the cup in a cheers. “Thank you, that’s more like it.”
“I aim to please,” the man replied.
The Agent took a sip and then leaned on his elbow. “I’m looking for Artemis.”
“Thank you for coming Special Agent Hodge,” her familiar voice came from behind him.
He turned on his stool, careful not to spill his brew. “You aren’t what I expected,” he said.
“I bet you hear that a lot yourself,” she replied, and motioned to the table next to her. “Please, have a seat. We have a lot to discuss.”
“That we do,” Hodge agreed, and slid into the seat across from her. “You killed a man and carved a message into his chest just to get my attention, so obviously I have a question or two for you.”
Her eyes glinted with mischief. “Technically I burned a message into his chest. Carving is just too messy.”
“Touche.” He nodded.
She folded her arms in front of her on the table. “So. What would you like to know?”
“Well why don’t we start at the top. Who are you?” He took another sip of his sharp brew.
She smiled wryly. “That’s a bit of a loaded question. Do you want the short version or the long one?”
“Well I have a full cup of coffee and I’m in no hurry to get into the office, so might as well make it the long version,” he said.
“Okay, my name is Artemis,” she began, “I traveled back in time in order to make America a superpower and save it from a dystopian fate. After succeeding in that mission I started using my power and knowledge so that I can make the world a better place by taking out murderers before they are able to do harm. I reached out to you because I need your help in bringing down Anthony Duke, who I suspect is working with one of my former associates and is a threat to the future security of the nation and the world.”
Hodge stared blankly at her for a moment before reaching down for his coffee cup. He rotated the mug a couple of times, giving him an opportunity to process everything that was just thrown at him. He took another long and slow sip.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’ll admit that I’m intrigued. I tell you what, I like a good sci-fi story as much as the next guy. How about you tell me about your dystopian future and how you managed to travel through time to save America while I finish my coffee? After that we’ll go on a ride and I’ll introduce you to some very nice people who will take great interest in what you have to say. They’ll even give you a nice comfy room free of charge.”
She nodded. “Good to see that you have an open mind, Special Agent Hodge.”
“Yeah, let’s go with that.” He shrugged.
“The America I come from is very different tha
n the one that exists in your timeline. At this point in my history, America only had around eighty-million people, and most of them were on the verge of starvation. Thanks to the global nuclear winter the majority of the crops were permanently destroyed. The only options for food were limited supplies that could be grown in greenhouses and underground, which wasn’t a whole lot.”
“Nuclear winter?” He furrowed his brow. “What, did the cold war turn out differently? Kennedy screw up the Cuban Missile Crisis?”
“There wasn’t a cold war, at least not one with us involved.” She shook her head. “World War Two was much more devastating for us. Germany was led by a competent military commander who was able to conquer Western Europe, and who was also smart enough to take out the Brits. Without England as a launching pad, there wasn’t a D-Day, so America never entered the European front of the war. To make matters worse, the Nazis were able to completely control the Atlantic with their U-boats and captured Royal Navy ships. In order to protect our shores from invasion, we had to devote most of our ships to the east. The lack of firepower in the Pacific meant that after Pearl Harbor, we essentially battled Japan to a stalemate.”
“So Germany never invaded Russia?”
“Nope, the military leaders were smart enough to know they’d never be able to survive a Russian winter with the military machinery they had,” she continued. “So they solidified the lines right through the middle of Poland and both sides spent the next twenty-five years engaging in an unprecedented military buildup.
“There were numerous small level skirmishes in disputed territories, as well as a couple of proxy wars around the globe, but nothing major until 1982. A high level German government official was visiting a shared port town in Northern Poland where he was murdered by a drunk Russian soldier during a bar altercation. German leaders considered this an assassination.
“The Russians tried to appease them by doing a two day faux trial of the soldier resulting in his conviction and execution, but it was too late. Hardliners in the German government were able to convince the Chancellor that action had to be taken. By the end of the week there was a full scale ground war involving millions of troops on both sides. Details are spotty after that, but we do know that six months into the conflict, the nukes started flying. In a matter of hours dozens of cities and hundreds of millions of lives were snuffed out.”
Hodge blinked at her, and then leaned back in his chair, giving her a light-hearted golf clap. “Well, bravo for preventing nuclear annihilation, but I still can’t help but think you and your team did a rather poor job given that Hitler still came to power.”
“Are you kidding me?” She slammed her fist down on the table. “Do you have any idea how many people we had to kill to make sure Hitler came to power?”
He gaped at her. “Wow, so your definition of a successful operation was to put one of the worst humans in history in charge?”
“In the simplest of terms, yes.” She scoffed. “With the way things were left after World War One, there was going to be another massive conflict. Our mission was to create the conditions needed to put America in a position to be a world power, which we did.”
He pursed his lips. “Yeah, just at the expense of forty million people.”
“Forty million is a hell of a lot better than the billions lost as a result of the war and nuclear winter,” she argued. “The USA alone lost forty million people due to starvation in the first year of the nuclear winter. God only knows how many people around the world died that year.
“Look, after World War One and the Treaty of Versailles there was going to be another major conflict with Germany leading the way. We did the best we could given the situation we were thrown in to. There were only eighteen of us and we had a limited amount of time to accomplish a near impossible task. We settled on Hitler because he was an incompetent leader, at least militarily. His actions led to the least destructive outcome for Europe and the world.”
He put up a hand. “Wait, wait, I thought you had a time machine? Why wouldn’t you give yourself decades to get things done?”
“Unfortunately, that’s not the way time travel works.” She cocked her head.
“Of course it isn’t.” He rolled his eyes. “Okay I’ll bite. Explain to me how time travel works.”
“Very well. In 2026 an alien space probe crashed into rural Texas-”
“Wait. Just, wait.” Hodge scrubbed his hands down his face. “This story has time travel and aliens?” He downed the last of his coffee and thrust his cup into the air. “Barkeep! Can I get a refill? This feels like a two-cup kind of story.”
Artemis cocked her head and smirked. “You good?”
“Oh yes, where were we?” He waved his hand in front of him. “Oh yeah, aliens in Texas. Please proceed.”
“America was in rough shape by 2026,” she continued. “Famine and poverty were rampant, and virtually identical technologically to where we were in the mid-1980s. Every bit of our limited resources went into growing food. When the probe was analyzed, there was hope within the scientific community that it could be used as a power supply, so a top secret underground bunker was created for testing. The best and the brightest minds from across the country were assembled. Due to the secrecy and potential of the project we gave up our lives on the surface and took up permanent residence in the bunker. Despite our collective brilliance, we couldn’t make any headway in harnessing the power of the alien artifact.
“That is until January of 2031. Out of nowhere the probe powered up, so our best tech went in to investigate. The power kept building for twenty minutes until it opened and emitted a blinding light. When we regained our eyesight, we saw that the tech had vanished.”
“Let me guess, he went back in time?”
“Yeah, I did.” The bartender said as he refilled Hodge’s coffee. “All the way back to 1925.”
The Agent blinked at him in amusement. “1925? Wow, you look really good for being a hundred and thirty years old.”
He poured a shot of whiskey into the coffee before pouring one for himself and shot it back with a grin. “Thanks, I try to stay in shape.”
“Oh man, that is amazing. So what, do you guys have some industrial strength botox in the future?” Hodge shrugged, taking another sip of his fresh brew.
“They do actually,” Artemis said. “According to the commercials, it’s fantastic stuff. They inject some into a woman’s face then bounce a quarter off of it so forcefully that it ricochets through a wall. However, that’s not why we look so young.”
He sighed and motioned for her to continue. “Do tell.”
“We don’t have anything scientific to back this up, but as best as we can tell the alien probe removed us from the timeline.” She shrugged.
Hodge stared blankly at her for a moment. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“It means that we aren’t impacted by time. In other words, we don’t age,” she explained.
He gaped. “So you are immortal?”
“No, we are still human and can be killed like any other person can,” she replied. “Although, thanks to some future technology and medication we are a little more resilient than your average man on the street.”
He took another slow deliberate sip. “Okay, so the the near immortal bartender got sent back to 1925. How could you possibly figure that out? Wouldn’t your timeline be changed the moment he got here?”
“It did change, for everyone who wasn’t in the complex,” she explained. “Being in close proximity to the alien probe put us in a time protected bubble. We could see the changes happening around us, but weren’t impacted by them.”
He grinned. “So what did he do? Pull a Doc Brown and send you a telegram?”
“Well, it’s kind of hard for Western Union to deliver to a top secret facility that is buried a mile underground, so he had to get a little more creative.” She smiled. “Did you ever see the 1950s monster movie Day of the Demon?”
“Oh yeah, I loved that when I w
as younger.” Hodge laughed. “Saw it at the drive-in on a double feature with Lobster-Men from Mars. What can I say, my father instilled me with a profound appreciation for the classics.”
“Good,” she said, and pointed to the bartender. “Now take a look at Robert over there. Does he look familiar to you at all?”
He turned and studied Robert, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. “You know, now that you mention it, he does look a lot like Doctor Roth, the archeologist that summons the demon.”
“That’s because he is,” she declared.
“Get out!” He yelled, slamming his hand down on the table in excitement. “I gotta tell you Artemis, I’m thoroughly impressed with how much thought you have put into this whole performance here. Please, continue.”
“Well, like you, I was raised with an appreciation of the classics, Day of the Demon included. The local TV station would play it every Halloween at midnight. Robert and I had an annual tradition where we would grab a six pack and watch it. That first year without him was rough, but when Halloween rolled around I wanted to carry on the tradition. When I tuned in that night I almost fell out of my chair when Robert came on screen.”
Hodge’s brow furrowed. “Wait, how did he manage to take over the role?”
“Well, when you fund a film it makes it a lot easier to get screen time,” she replied.
“Let me guess, he pulled a Biff Tannen?” He took another deep gulp of coffee.
“You really like your Back to the Future references, don’t you?”
“Well it’s either that or Terminator, which now that I think about it, kind of describes you, doesn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow in amusement.
“Not exactly,” Artemis replied. “I’m just here to make the world a better place, not save some suburban waitress so she can fulfill her destiny.”
He shrugged with a bewildered chuckle. “Fair enough.”