Marcus picked up a magazine and thumbed through the pages without looking at them as they waited. He kept his eye on the window, observing the surrounding area for traffic. It was slow this morning, not a single car in or out. Since there was only one way on or off of the property, it was easy to keep track, which was one of the reasons he liked this location.
Billie selected her own magazine to look through. Marcus caught a glimpse of her choice and smiled—a home and garden magazine. She must have really liked that sort of thing, he assumed.
“You folks have a good stay. Thank you for choosing us,” Mr. Fritz said.
Marcus turned and looked over his shoulder, smiled, and stood up. He tossed the magazine back on the table and approached the counter as the couple sauntered past him. Billie remained in her seat as she slowly turned the pages.
Mr. Fritz was from India, but he didn’t speak like others from his country. At least Marcus didn’t think so. And he didn’t pray over his money like the man had in the air-taxi earlier. Marcus always assumed the man was born in the United States because he spoke more American than anything else, using slang and other more common phrases. “Hey, Marcus. It’s been a while.”
“It sure has. What’s going on?” Marcus pulled out the envelope with cash in it. He always paid the same amount, some 32.50, so he counted out 33.
“Not much, same old crap as yesterday.” He began to laugh. “What about you?”
“Yep, same for me.” Marcus checked the parking lot, but it was the same, so he turned back around.
“Do you want the same room as before?”
“Is it available?” he asked as he watched Billie over his shoulder.
“It will be in five minutes. Is that all right?”
“It’ll do, thank you.” Marcus handed him the money, watched him ring it up, and placed it in the drawer.
Mr. Fritz looked up, smiled, and handed fifty cents back to Marcus. “All right. Let me call housekeeping to put a rush on the room. Be right back.”
“Thank you, Frank,” he told Mr. Fritz.
“No problem, Marcus.” He grinned as he turned around. He rushed to the back room, grabbed a walky-talky and paged someone. Marcus could hear him speaking to a woman, but couldn’t tell what either of them were saying. He put his attention on the parking lot and street, watching the cars drive by.
They were far enough from the downtown area that a walk would take quite a few hours but if the man had a car, it would have only taken him a half an hour with light traffic. He hoped to be in the room before that time lapsed, just in case the man knew more than Marcus did.
Marcus glanced at Billie to make sure she was okay. He revealed a partial smile when she returned the glance. He returned his attention to the lot and street.
Billie stood up and approached Marcus at the counter. “Does the room have two beds?”
“I always get two beds. Don’t you worry about that,” he told her. “When we get into the room, would you like to shower?”
Billie looked down at her clothes. “Why? Do I smell?”
He wanted to laugh. “No, I just thought you’d like to freshen up, since you’ve been in those clothes after a long jog. You were running, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I do need a shower.”
Frank Fritz returned and coughed to get Marcus’s attention. “The maid has already finished cleaning the room. Here’s your key, Marcus.”
“All right, thank you. Breakfast still at six?”
“Sure is. Would you like extra towels?”
“I’ll get them from the housekeeper.”
“That’s fine. Welcome back, Marcus.”
“Thank you.” They left the lobby and headed towards the car. Marcus drove to the other end from the front and parked on the side. His car wouldn’t be seen from the street in this spot because there was a set of stairs on the corner for the second floor. He grabbed the two bags of groceries while Billie grabbed her one bag of clothes, and they headed to the room, which was on the end facing the street. From there, he could keep an eye on the street and front parking lot, which was how he liked it. Unless the man came on foot, he could see anyone coming or going. That was why he liked that room. When his hands were free, he returned outside and grabbed some towels off of the housekeeping cart and returned to the room. He closed the curtains just enough to see outside without someone being able to peek in. He double locked the door and sat down on the first bed.
Billie took her bag into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Marcus could hear the water running as she took her shower. He lost track of how long she’d been in there, but he could hear her crying. He wondered if the day had caught up to her or if there was something else.
While she was taking her shower, Marcus called the bureau. He recognized the voice on the other end as John. Marcus was glad it was him because now he didn’t have to introduce himself as his ID, which he did hate doing. It was such a long name with all the numbers. “Hey, John, it’s Marcus. I’ve located the woman, and she is secure.”
“Good. Have you located Ryan?” John asked.
“Not yet, but I have a feeling he’ll come find me,” Marcus told him as he looked out the window.
“I’m not going to ask what that means. Once you have secured him, give me a call.”
“Listen, I don’t think Ryan’s our man. I’m looking at another suspect. May I have permission to proceed?”
“Marcus, you don’t work in my division so do what you think is best, but call me when Ryan has been detained.”
“Yes, sir.” John had already hung up on his end, so he didn’t hear Marcus.
Marcus looked at his communicator and set it down on the table next to the bed. Billie was still crying in the bathroom as she showered. He kept his eyes on the parking lot and street as he sat there contemplating whether or not to knock on the bathroom door to ask if she was all right. Then he heard the door open. Without looking at her, he asked, “is everything okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” Her voice sounded as though she hadn’t been crying at all. Maybe it was out of her system, whatever it was.
“I was just asking.” He pulled out his weapon and set it on the table next to the bed. It was angled just right where he could grab it in a hurry.
“I’m going to eat something. Are you hungry?” she asked him.
“Grab me a bottle of water, if you could.”
Marcus watched Billie for a little while as he glanced out the window now and then. There was something about her that he liked. He wasn’t sure if it was how she spoke her mind, the way she handled everything, or the combination of the two. Whatever it was, this was a woman he’d like to get to know if she wasn’t under his guard. He wished they had met under different circumstances.
Billie grabbed a bottle of water from one of the bags on the long dresser. She tossed it to Marcus and turned back towards the bag. She shuffled through it until she found something and pulled it out. A microwave was on a stand next to the dresser. She took the food to the unit and heated it. As she waited for the food, she grabbed a fork from the same bag and unwrapped it, tossing the plastic wrapper in the trash can. The microwave beeped and she pulled the food out, tore the top off and sat down next to Marcus. She glanced at him and saw him looking at her. “What?” she asked with a forkful of noodles in her hand.
Marcus smiled and shook his head. “Nothing.”
“So, tell me, how did today happen?” Billie took a bite of her noodles and began chewing.
“Are you sure you really want to know?” Marcus asked.
“Yes. Why did you tell me you’d explain if you weren’t going to? I want to know everything.” Billie took another bite.
“I can’t tell you everything. What I can tell you, you have to promise you will keep to yourself. I’m very serious.”
Billie took a second to respond as she chewed what was in her mouth, then swallowed. “All right. I promise. Talk to me.”<
br />
“The reason I asked you if you had touched the body is because she’s another version of you.” He paused to get her reaction. Marcus wasn’t sure how’d she react with this type of information.
Her expression didn’t change for a moment, which was surprising after hearing such news. He thought she’d go crazy hearing she had seen herself dead, but she was surprisingly calm.
Chapter Ten
Billie heard the words, but she couldn’t believe them. She held onto them as she pondered over what it meant. She had seen her own dead body. But she was alive—very much alive. If this man was telling her the truth, and she felt confident that he was even though she didn’t understand why she felt this way, it meant time travel was real and she just witnessed proof of that. She didn’t let him see how she was feeling inside—how excited she was that she was able to see something none of her friends would ever see in their lifetimes. She wasn’t the same person who was dead under that bridge, which meant she was going to do whatever she had to do to stay alive so she could finally live. She took so much for granted. Now that she stared death in the face, she was going to make some big changes. Once this was over with.
Oh no, she was going to have to survive first. She looked at Marcus, straight in the eye. He was going to need a reaction from her. Think, think, think. How was she going to react?
Just like that, she blurted out the words. “So, time travel does exist?” Deep inside she told herself to remain calm, not to get excited, but she couldn’t help it. “Tell me everything, I mean it.”
“I already…” he began to say.
Billie cut him off before he could finish the sentence. “I know you can’t tell me everything—everything, but you can tell me close to it.” In a split second, she thought of her questions and just began spilling them out without another thought. She’s never met anyone from the future before, so this made her more excited, even with a killer on the loose. “How is it possible? Did you always travel through time? Is it new to you? What's it like in the future?”
Marcus placed his hand over hers. His warm touch stopped her in her tracks. “Slow down, Billie. Those are things I can’t answer. It hasn’t been discovered yet so you can’t know those details. I mean it,” he told her.
Billie felt embarrassed. She couldn’t believe she let herself go like that. She always spoke her mind, but sometimes it wasn’t worth it. She closed her eyes, took in three long deep breaths, and felt her body loosen as she felt more relaxed. “Okay, so tell me what you can tell me. Please?”
Marcus looked away. She couldn’t tell what he was looking at. She watched him intently as he picked up his wallet and opened it. He pulled his badge out and showed it to her. As she looked at it, he wiggled it from side-to-side. “This is my ID. As you can see, it changes. I can make it appear like a detective’s badge from this time while keeping its original appearance from my time.” She felt her eyes widen as she watched it change appearances. He put it back inside his wallet. “My weapon is also different from the ones used today,” he told her as he put the wallet on the nightstand.
“How’s that?” she asked, being intrigued. She glanced at his weapon as he picked it up.
Marcus opened the barrel, revealing the bullets. They looked the same as any bullet she’d seen. She looked harder without touching them. The silver color was a little duller and there wasn’t anything stamped on the ends. She thought that was a little odd. It was smooth and clean.
Marcus pulled a bullet out of the chamber. As soon as he did, another took its place. Billie thought that was pretty neat. He handed it to her. “As you can see, these bullets are different from the ones you’ve seen.”
“OH, wow, that is so cool.”
“Yeah, they are self-filling. There’s a cartridge in the handle. I have more cartridges on my belt in case I ever need more. While they are in the cartridge, the bullets are in a liquid form. Once they go into the barrel, they become solid like the one in your hand.”
She handed the bullet back to him. “That sounds so interesting. Is that the only thing that makes it different?”
“No, there’s more.”
“Can you tell me?”
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt. The bullets weren’t made to be lethal but they hurt like Hell if you get hit by one. They can even drop an elephant.”
“Why do you use a weapon that doesn’t kill?”
“Long story.”
Billie smiled. “Well, it doesn’t look like we’re going anywhere so it’s not like you don’t have time to explain it to me.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
“Police brutality was pretty major. This was long before we became one force with smaller divisions. Anyway, it became so major that we needed police for the police, and the FBI stepped in. The rules of engagement were rewritten. Then someone changed how the bullets were made.” He handed the weapon to her.
Billie tried to push the weapon away. “I don’t want this.”
“I want you to shoot it. It’s okay, it won’t fire.”
She reluctantly accepted the weapon. She looked at it as she kept the front of it pointed away from them. Billie pointed the revolver down and pulled the trigger. She heard a click, but nothing happened. Billie stilled with eyes wide and her mouth hanging open as she struggled to digest what had just happened. She knew there were bullets in it, but it didn’t fire. She looked at Marcus.
“After the bullets were redesigned, the weapons were remade too. It took a long time to locate and destroy the old ones, but we eventually did, but the new ones were designed with one thing in mind.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Each one is designed for one user. If the revolver is stolen, no one can discharge them, making them safer. If someone sells one, the new owner must come to the bureau to have it reset and registered with the new owner’s DNA.”
Billie never heard of anything like that, so now she was even more intrigued. “Oh, wow.” She handed the weapon back to him as her mind began to focus on what he said. “But what if it’s stolen and the person just claims it was purchased?”
Marcus's eyes lit up. “You’re smart. It can’t happen.”
“Why?”
“When the new owner comes in and we scan the revolver, the information comes up in the database. We call the original owner and confirm the purchase using voice verification. Most of the time, the original owner comes down to the bureau with the new owner, so verification isn’t necessary.”
“Well, that’s convenient. How does he prove it’s his gun?”
“He would fire it at the range. Discharging the weapon is the only proof we need since it can only be used by the owner.” He set the weapon down. “The lawmakers didn’t want to interfere with our civil rights. The second amendment is holding strong.”
“That’s good to know.” She glanced down for a moment and returned her eyes to the weapon. “How far into the future are you from?”
“To be honest, I shouldn’t tell you. But you’ve been gone for a while where I’m from.”
“So how is it that you know that I was killed before by the same person?”
“Records. We keep tons of them.” Marcus stood up as he looked out of the window. He glanced at Billie. “I think that’s enough about the future.”
Billie became nervous again as Marcus watched something through the window. She wasn’t sure who or what it was. She tried to keep it hidden, to show him she could do this.
Chapter Eleven
Marcus watched the car for a moment as it pulled into the parking lot. The red four-door parked right in front of their room. Once he saw the driver, he returned his attention to Billie. “Do you have any questions about today?”
Billie sat in silence for a moment, as if she was thinking. “Yes, why was my other version even under the bridge?”
“I was taking the body back to my time where other versions of your body have been stored and dest
royed.”
“Wait, other versions?” Billie stood up and began pacing the floor. “How many times have I been killed?”
“According to the records, about ten or so times.”
“Why?” She looked him right in the eyes and held the stare. It made Marcus nervous. How was she doing that?
“We don’t know the motives yet. The evidence said it was Ryan because it was his weapon used each time but there’s new evidence that’s contradicting it.”
“But I thought you said only one person could fire those weapons? Or did he use a different type of gun?”
“No, it was one of these. Someone has discovered a way to alter the weapon, allowing someone else to code the weapon with their DNA. I had the weapon when I detained Ryan and the body. Then something happened, and we were all spit into the year 2022.”
“What happened?”
“There are what we call time quakes. Ever since you began to die, we’ve been having them. They feel like earthquakes but it’s more than that.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Marcus explained what the time quakes were as he continuously glanced out the window. He proceeded to give her more information about the case, thinking that knowing would help protect her. It was against protocol, but sometimes Marcus did break a rule or two in order to do his job, depending on the rule. Some rules could not be broken. He didn’t get to be at the top from playing it safe. Protecting innocent people was what mattered. Helping those who couldn’t help themselves was more important to him.
“You think my dying has somehow caused a ripple? Open Pandora’s Box, see what happens—kind of thing?” She sat back down.
Murder Through Time (World Bureau Legacy Book 1) Page 6