Die Again To Save Tomorrow (Die Again to Save the World Book 2)

by Ramy Vance

  Marshall reluctantly let the agent escort him out of the bakery.

  Pete laughed and struggled against the agents restraining him. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Is that right?” An agent held a tranq gun extended.

  “Doris, obliterate!”

  A rush of invisible energy brought part of the ceiling down on Pete and the agents. The latter fired tranq darts, but they all missed.

  Rueben knew he had to act fast. “Doris. Disable.”

  A tiny green light on Pete’s glove tuned red. Pete scowled. “I see you’ve met Doris already. Oh well.”

  Aside from Rueben and Pete, Aki was the only other person still on her feet. Pete turned to her, and in a flashy move, threw back his hood and tore off his sunglasses.

  Aki flinched. “Rueben. It is you.”

  Pete grimaced. “You told them already? You ruined my fun.” He turned back to Aki, his serious face lightening. “Well, at least now you get to see what you’re getting if you choose to be with Rueben. He’ll eventually turn into the bad boy you’re always looking for.”

  “Will not!” Rueben shouted.

  Pete cocked his head toward Rueben. “I think you will. I did, after a few hundred jumps.”

  Rueben gulped. “Jumps?”

  “Yeah, jumps. You call them time warps. Somewhere about two hundred jumps ago, I just decided to start living exactly how I wanted and turned to the dark side.” He laughed. “Luke, I am…well…you.”

  Rueben scoffed. “That was the worst Darth Vader parody I think I’ve ever heard.”

  “I think you are the worst parody of you.”

  “Huh? What? I’m never going to turn into you.”

  Pete rolled his eyes. “You know what they say about ‘never say never.’ You’ll turn dark.”

  Rueben realized his hands were shaking. “I would never. I repeat, never, try to start a nuclear war that would kill millions of people.”

  Pete shook his head glumly. “You don’t get it. You can’t. Not yet. But you will. You will.”

  Rueben shoved a finger at Pete in defiance. “I’m not you!”

  Pete sneered.

  “What happened to you? Why are you like this?”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing. I tried to follow the rules once. I was uptight and scared all the time. I was always worrying about shit like, ‘What will she think,’ or ‘Did I say the right thing?’ or ‘What should I tell my boss’? Ugh. It was exhausting as hell. And quite frankly, boring as fuck. I sure as hell wasn’t getting any action alone in my twin bed. So finally, I shoved one massive middle finger into the face of all that is right and good, and look, now I own all of you. I’ve got every one of you turned upside down wondering what the hell you should do with me.”

  “You’re full of shit,” Aki said as she edged toward a tranq gun lying on the floor.

  He turned to Aki and licked his lips. “Go ahead. Go for it. You know, we have our little fun, you and me. But, eh. You’re not half as interesting as you think you are. You’re a cheap, knockoff Bond girl.”

  Real Rueben stammered for a reply, but nothing came out but empty grunts. From behind them, one of the agents groaned.

  Hot tears of anger welled up in Aki’s eyes. “I am not a Bond girl.” She kicked Pete square in the crotch, and he cried out. “That interesting enough for you?”

  He laughed. “You’re so boring and predictable. You really only have a few moves, you know. After that, you’re like a bad Kesha song. Blah, blah, blah. Me? I have a wide variety of different tools.”

  With that, the annoying fly from before buzzed past Rueben’s and Aki’s faces before coming to a perch on Pete’s shoulder. “Meet this world’s smallest drone. Good for remote surveillance, and it alerts me to the presence of security cameras. It also has a handy nanobot injector.”

  Rueben cursed under his breath, recalling the “fly” that had bit him at the Exit Bar, implanting the nanobot “cap” in him. He and Aki made to rush toward Pete, but their opponent had already picked up a display table and launched it at them. They both went down in a tangled heap as Pete jumped out the broken storefront window.

  Laura dashed out from the kitchen and threw a piece of shattered glass in Pete’s direction. “Asshole!”

  The agents picked themselves up, grabbed their weapons, and ran out the door.

  Laura plopped down amidst the broken glass and whimpered. “I poured my whole life savings into my shop. Everything I had…”

  Damn…Rueben picked himself up and watched the shop owner lamenting on the demolished floor. He turned to Aki and told her he’d catch up. Aki followed the agents outside as Rueben helped Laura up. He had to do something to help her—he was the reason Pete had come here in the first place. Why couldn’t the CIA agents have been more prepared?

  Oh, right. Because Pete is me and thinks like me and outsmarted us again.

  Rueben kicked a shard of glass. It skittered along the floor until it cracked against a table leg. Then Rueben retrieved his business card from his pocket and handed it to Laura. The card didn’t have his real name or phone number or anything associated with the CIA on it, but it would help her. “Call this number sometime this week. The government will reimburse you for everything.”

  She took it and didn’t say anything.

  Rueben shuffled out through the door to join Aki and the rest of the team.

  He moved slowly as if in a daze. As he searched for Aki and the other agents, he couldn’t help but review Pete’s words and explanation of how he would eventually go bad. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let himself become addicted to warping or jumping or whatever the hell it was that messed Pete up. He wasn’t going to warp back in time to fix every little wrong thing he said or did.

  But what if he had to keep saving the world from the likes of Pout and Pete and who only knew who else?

  Rueben sighed and started jogging down the sidewalk.

  When he first realized his powers, he’d never thought this might go on for decades. He’d always thought that one day he’d quit warping and live a normal life. Maybe with Aki.

  He was in love with her, and he was tired of hiding how deep his feelings for her were. He’d spent so much more time with her that she would never know about—when he died and warped back. The whole engagement façade had made him even more confused, which made matters worse. Sure, it was a game. His feelings for her weren’t. How did Aki really feel about him? He’d gotten to see the flirty, actress side of her as of late, but was it all a show? A performance?

  Suddenly he thought about the implications of having a family. Could he raise kids and live with the ability to time warp? How would that work? Every time his kids got themselves into trouble, would he kill himself to go back and fix the problem? That couldn’t be right.

  One day he’d want to settle down and live a normal life, spend the weekends mowing and the summers at Cape Cod. Or wherever normal people spent summers. He wouldn’t know. It wasn’t like Marshall had been big on summer vacations.

  Of course, for all that to happen, he’d have to quit dying. For him to stop dying, crazed killers would have to stop hijacking and blowing things up. That sure would help.

  Spotting Aki and the agents across the street, Rueben rushed after them.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sunday, May 21, 10:26 p.m.

  Rueben leaned over and panted. “Where is he?”

  Aki pointed at a street to their left, with a small schoolyard out front. “He went that way. The other agents cut him off and cornered him, but he managed to dodge capture.” Aki looked around. “We need a car.”

  Rueben shook his head. “We know what happened last time we stole a car.”

  She cocked her head. “I’m not losing this one. We can’t lose this one. This guy’s going down.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her resolve. This was his futuristic self they were pursuing so the whole chase bothered him a l
ittle.

  Marshall pulled up on a stolen golf cart. “Let’s get this bastard. Hop on.”

  Rueben made a face. “I thought I saw some agents escort you away—”

  “Hah.” Marshall raised a meaty palm as if taking a solemn oath. “I don’t run from a fight, son.”

  “Um…okay. But a…golf cart?”

  “Yeah. I know some people on this block from when I patrolled it back in the day. Guy half a block down from here owed me a favor—I asked to borrow his golf cart.” He snorted. “Rich people. Buy whatever they want. Not like you can play golf in the streets of NYC. But I digress. You want to keep trying to get there putting one foot in front of the other, or you want to jump in?”

  “Sure, but…”

  “What? It’s a damn golf cart. Oh hell, is this about the time when you were ten?”

  Rueben glanced embarrassedly at Aki. “Dad, we don’t need to share the details—”

  Aki hopped onto the golf cart. “I’d like to hear—” She stopped talking when she saw Rueben’s pale face.

  “It’ll be fine, son. Just get on.”

  Aki leaned out and touched Rueben’s shoulder. “We have to catch Pete.”

  Marshall growled. “Son, the midnight train don’t wait forever. Get on.”

  Rueben bit his lip and hopped on. Marshall floored it, and the thing lurched forward faster than Rueben would’ve guessed. Suddenly, Rueben and Aki crashed awkwardly into each other’s arms as Marshall jerked the wheel to the side and pulled up onto the sidewalk. “Which way?”

  Aki weakly smiled as she pulled herself away from Rueben and pointed. “Left turn.”

  Marshall veered in a sharp left and sailed through the schoolyard on the golf cart. His two passengers tried not to fall on top of each other, but the speed made it practically impossible.

  Rueben asked, “Couldn’t we have taken one of our cars? Aki has a Porsche.”

  “Don’t spit on the cart, son. Traffic. Ever hear of it? God, you and your Columbia education. It’s called common sense. Walk if you want. I don’t give a shit.”

  Marshall accelerated the cart down an abandoned alley, squeezing between two buildings, circumventing half a block of street driving in the process.

  “I’m not spitting on the cart. I’m just wondering why we couldn’t—”

  Marshall’s impatience was thick. “Because we’d have to find it first, and when you’re on a foot pursuit, having a car slows you down cause you’ve got to find a place to park, and you get stuck in traffic and at stoplights. You get stuck at one stoplight in a foot chase and your suspect’s history. Gone, scattered to the wind. And no Porsche can do this.”

  A shabby warehouse building loomed up ahead, and a tired employee in jeans and a canvas jacket leaned against its wall puffing on a cigarette.

  Rueben’s fingers gripped the golf cart’s frame. “Marshall. What are you doing?”

  Marshall faced Rueben, childlike glee reflected in his old man’s eyes. “Taking another shortcut, son. You might want to hold on.”

  Rueben did, and Marshall guided the golf cart through an open overhead door of the warehouse’s façade while the smoking employee stared wide-eyed. The cigarette fell out of his mouth.

  The warehouse’s interior was dark.

  “Oh shit.” Rueben recalled his accident with the golf cart in his childhood. Then he felt Aki’s warm hand grip his, and he eased up a bit.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  Rueben gave his head a vigorous shake. “We don’t talk about the golf cart incident.”

  Marshall whooped as he narrowly avoided a forklift transferring pallets of bricks through the warehouse. However, he didn’t miss a wooden crate sitting off to the side, and it crunched and grated against the cart’s bumper and undercarriage.

  Rueben’s jaw tightened.

  “Hang on, son. We’re almost in the clear.”

  Rueben didn’t see how. Through the golf cart’s windshield, they were facing a solid wall.

  An employee wearing a hard hat was sitting at a desk near the wall. By the look of him, he might’ve been the foreman.

  “Police!” Marshall cupped one hand over his mouth and repeated it. “Police. Now open the goddamned door!”

  The foreman leapt up from his seat as if his granny had smacked him. Then, spinning on his feet, his hand latched onto the doorknob of a door hidden along the darkened wall, and he threw it open.

  A doorway of light glared back at them, and Marshall floored it through the opening with an excited, “Much obliged!”

  Rueben relaxed. Marshall was right. They had made it after all. He glanced at Aki. It seemed she didn’t think him a complete wuss for being scared of a golf cart.

  Up ahead, they now saw the other agents in pursuit, guns drawn. Pete’s shot-up white hoodie was visible far into the distance.

  Marshall floored it through the alleyway. “Let’s get this bastard.”

  “Glad for the help, Dad.”

  “Well, I figured it meant a lot to you, seeing as you were willing to get fake-engaged for it and all.”

  Aki and Rueben glanced at each other guiltily. “You knew about that?”

  “Of course I knew. Who the hell goes cake tasting at eight o’clock at night? And for all the dumbass shit you do, I’d like to think you’d at least know better than to give her what’s-her-face’s ring.”

  Marshall scoffed, and Aki laughed and fingered the ring.

  Rueben smiled sheepishly. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “I figured you were up to something weird, and whatever it was, you were probably going to need your ass saved. Maybe a phone call to the precinct.”

  Marshall snorted, but Rueben smiled. It really killed him to say a couple of nice things, didn’t it?

  A couple of agents on foot on the sidewalk were starting to tire, and the golf cart raced past them. One of them motioned to around the corner of a building. “He’s up ahead.”

  Marshall guided the cart around the corner as Pete’s white hoodie disappeared. Pete was in really good shape physically.

  Marshall slowly drove past a dumpster in a back alley, and they all scanned behind stairways and buildings. No sign of him.

  He asked Aki, “You think he went inside somewhere?”

  “No. He’s too hot to sit still, and he knows it.”

  They reached the end of the alley and arrived at a chain-link fence. Reuben spotted Pete about ten yards ahead of them with his fingers poised to climb. There was no time to talk. Rueben jumped out of the moving vehicle and booked it toward Pete.

  He reached Pete when he was about halfway up the fence, wishing he had a tranq gun. “Stop it, ‘Pete.’”

  Pete turned, sneered, and abandoned his climb over the fence. He jumped back down to the ground and dusted off his hands. “Ah, you caught up to me. I knew that would happen eventually. There are enough of you, anyway. I’m glad it was you.”

  Marshall called that he would try to flag down some reinforcements while Aki blocked off the alley in case Pete got past Rueben. Rueben stepped up to his counterpart standing by the fence. “You are not me.”

  Pete winced. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I really am. You turn into a real asshole later on in life. Or, maybe I turn you into one. Who knows? Chicken or the egg, that eternal question.”

  “You’re not going to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Attack the summit.”

  “Who says I’m doing that?”

  “I know you’re behind it.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Please, don’t play dumb with me.”

  “I’m interested to know what I might have said to give you that impression.”

  “I saw it on the news footage. When you kidnapped me and took me to your hidden lair in an abandoned skyscraper. You know, the one owned by one of Pout’s conglomerates?”

  “You know about that place? Shit. That’s probably where you found out about Doris. But you know, it’s for
the best that you know everything now. What I’m doing…it’s one of those things that I can do, and you’re too worried about doing the right thing.”

  “Killing half the world’s leaders is for the best? What kind of twisted logic is that?”

  “It’s what you want to do.”

  “I can assure you that it’s not.”

  “Oh, Reuben. Still so locked up. It’ll be a while before you’re free. See, you’re a nationalist. You believe in a free democracy and get choked up during the Star Spangled Banner. That’s why you went to work for the CIA—to preserve democracy.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The point is, not even democracy can save the world. Not even a united global government can. It will come and ravage the world no matter what. Like it did…” Pete realized what he was saying and let his words trail off.

  Rueben blinked. “What the hell are you talking about? It will come? What is it?”

  Pete cursed. “I’ve said too much. It doesn’t matter. Not really. You’ll find out eventually.”

  “The main thing is, if I don’t do what I have to do, you will curse yourself for being in the right place at the right time but not having the balls to do anything about it. So now here I am doing everything that you want to do but can’t find the strength to.”

  Rueben gulped. “I would never try to start a nuclear war. Never.”

  Pete made a motion with his palm. “Blah, blah, blah.”

  Rueben shook his counterpart’s twisted logic away. “You won’t succeed in doing it with me in this timeline.”

  “How disappointing. I had hoped you’d have found the balls in this reality. I guess I went back too far.”

  “Reality? Huh? Your bullshit’s not going to work on me. I will lock you up in an iron box and kill you if I have to in order to stop you from killing millions of people.”

  Pete sneered. “What was that?”

  “I said, I will kill…you.” Rueben realized what he had said.

  “Remember what I said about ‘never say never?’ I’d say you’re learning fast the ways of the jumper. You’re becoming me much sooner than I would’ve guessed possible.”

  Rueben shook his head. “Shut up. That’s not what I meant—”