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

by Ramy Vance

  Buzz looked at him beseechingly, the shiny cube resting on his palm.

  Rueben took it and slid it into his pocket. “I’ll do it. I’ll go and try to stop Pete. I’ll make sure he doesn’t see the cube coming until I have a good opening so that he doesn’t warp back. But I’m going to need you guys’ help.”

  They all nodded tensely.

  Pete was a formidable foe. A few months ago, Rueben might have had some trepidation. But now… He gazed around at all his friends. There was a time when every hero had to stand up and be brave. This was his time.

  Rueben cleared his throat. “As Marshall would probably say if he were here, ‘It’s time to take off the training wheels.’”

  His friends chuckled softly, looking at him for leadership.

  “I say, let’s go be heroes.”

  He waited, and his motley crew applauded and echoed, “Let’s go be heroes.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Monday, May 22, 8:42 p.m.

  Room 2109 lay just up ahead.

  Rueben and company hung back a few rooms from it, leaning against the wall as they recovered from the stair climb.

  When Rueben stood to move, Buzz stopped him. “I think it’s best if Zach and I hang back. To provide tech support, and stuff.”

  Rueben nodded, and Buzz held out his hand. Thinking he meant to shake, Rueben extended his hand, and Buzz pressed a razor blade top into his palm.

  “Uh, heh. Also whipped up one of these before we left the mansion. Prototype was easy to reconstruct. Those blades are sharp. Give Pete hell, all right? Then, you know, inject him.”

  “I plan to,” Rueben said.

  “Be safe, buddy.”

  Rueben exchanged glances with Aki and Martha. They were ready. As they crept the short distance to Room 2109, they noticed that all the wall paintings were crooked.

  What was that about?

  Rueben slid up to the door and placed a hand on the golden knob.…

  The door burst open then, and a security guard in a black suit angled his gun out at Rueben.

  “Don’t shoot!” Aki said.

  Too late. The gun had already gone off in Rueben’s face.

  Monday, May 22, 8:42 p.m.

  This time around, Rueben called, “Friendly,” as he slid up to the door and knocked.

  The security guard carefully cracked open the door and lowered his gun.

  Rueben glanced past the man in the doorway. He could see several other bodyguard-type men standing in front of a wall of foreign dignitaries.

  “Who the hell are you?” the man in the doorway said.

  Rueben turned to him. “CIA.” Aki nodded, and Martha said she was with the police. “We’re looking for a man. Forties. Last seen in a white hoodie—”

  “Ze ghost man!” one of the dignitaries cried out from behind the bodyguards.

  Rueben, Martha, and Aki’s eyes perked wide. The man in the black suit nodded briskly. “Yeah. Creep already came through. Before we were fully situated. Blasted us with some sort of air burst or something.” He angled his head at the crooked pictures on the wall. “Never seen anything like it before. Took a few of the world leaders.”

  Martha stepped forward. “Who’d he take with him?”

  “Don’t know, ma’am. This isn’t the only safe room in this building. The leaders were split up and distributed to different wings of the building. But the man…he went that way.”

  Aki groaned. “So he could be anywhere now.”

  Rueben thanked the man and the door shut in their faces. Calling Buzz and Zach over to them, Rueben said, “Can you two patch into the building’s security feed? We have to locate and stop Pete.”

  “Already on it, buddy. That’s what we were doing.”

  Zach started, clutching his tablet. “Got something. Twentieth floor. Right below us. White hoodie—aw crap.” The intern met all their glances. “Feed just went dead. He must’ve known we were in the system.”

  Rueben gritted his teeth with resolve. They had to move before Pete figured out their plan. “Let’s go.”

  They rushed to the nearest stairwell and Rueben threw open the door to the twentieth floor. Immediately, a metallic gauntlet flew right at his face. Rueben ducked the fist and shouted, “Doris, disable,” right as Pete was saying, “Doris, pulse.” The gauntlet shut down, and Pete threw another fist.

  Rueben leaned back and managed to block it, allowing his combat training to take over. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to fight.”

  “Oh? You suggest we all sit around the campfire and sing—”

  They exchanged a few punches, neither getting in a solid hit.

  “—kumbaya?”

  Rueben grunted as he knocked Pete’s kick wide. “It would be a start.”

  Pete scoffed. As he danced and bobbed, his torn and bullet hole-ridden white hoodie certainly did resemble a ghost. The drawn-up hood concealing his face was the finishing touch, except ghosts didn’t typically wear black backpacks. “You know, you’re different. This whole universe, it’s different.”

  Pete and Rueben circled each other out into the hallway with their dukes up. Martha and Aki stepped through the stairwell doorway with guns raised, but they didn’t have a clear line of sight for a disabling shot.

  Rueben huffed in a breath, fatigue starting to set in. So far he hadn’t had an opening to stick Pete with the cube. “How about we make a deal?”

  “Deal? Are you nuts? Why would I make you a deal?”

  “Look, how about we both give each other what we want?”

  Pete grinned. “Oh. And what do you know of what I want?”

  “I know you don’t want to do this. Not really. You said I wouldn’t understand…” Rueben blocked a punch then knocked aside Pete’s kick. “I’ve been trying to figure out a reason why you would want to start a global war. There’s only one reason I can think of.”

  Pete didn’t look convinced. “Go on.”

  Rueben met his gaze. “You’re doing this because you feel like it’s the only way to achieve your goal. I think…this must be the least bad option of a bunch of bad options you face.”

  Pete spat. “You. You know nothing.”

  “I disagree. You’re not technically me. I’m not technically you. But we understand how the other thinks. Your mission clearly pains you. The measures you took not to kill my friends—shadows of your friends from your universe. I think you’re lonely. You have to be. This isn’t your home.”

  Rueben dropped his fighting stance and took a few steps backward in the hallway toward Martha and Aki. He was about ten feet away from Pete now. “I don’t think your actions are out of spite. I think…I think they might even be out of love.”

  Martha and Aki exchanged confused glances, their guns still raised over Rueben’s shoulders but they didn’t fire. Buzz and Zach hung back in the stairwell.

  Pete’s coal-like eyes bored into Rueben. Pete raised a hand threateningly, then dropped it. Suddenly, he clutched his hands to the sides of his face, his fingers digging into his cheeks. He screamed.

  Then he flew toward Rueben in a rage.

  Rueben slid his hand into his pocket and gripped the cube. This was it.

  He let Pete come to him. He let Pete slug him across the jaw. Then he jabbed the cube upward, the needle poking into the side of Pete’s neck as Rueben collapsed backward.

  Pete stepped back, clutching a hand to his neck. “What did you do? What did you do?”

  Suddenly, the futuristic body armor beneath Pete’s torn hoodie began to beep. A robotic voice said, “Repeating ability. Negated.”

  “What? No!” Pete’s eyes became animalistic as they fell on Rueben.

  “It’s not too late to stop,” Rueben said calmly, but it was like talking to an ambushed wild tiger. Pete prepared to leap at him.

  Rueben already had Buzz’s top in his hand. Now he let it rip, the blades extending along its curved sides as it spun in mid-air toward Pete.

  “Agh!”

&
nbsp; The top’s blades sliced through the sleeves of Pete’s hoodie as he raised his hands in defense. Turning on a dime, Pete flew down the hallway like a wraith. “This changes nothing! You can’t stop me!”

  Aki made to rush past Rueben, but he caught her arm.

  “Wait, he could have another trick up his sleeve.”

  Pete disappeared around a corner in the hallway, and a door opened and closed.

  Buzz stepped forward from the stairwell, holding his laptop. He positioned the screen toward Rueben.

  “Got the cameras back online. If Pete’s got a trick, I don’t see it.”

  Rueben observed the laptop screen. Pete stood in a hotel room with five world leaders bound and gagged and kneeling on the floor by him. The room was a mess. It had a wide window on one side, and it was open, allowing wind into the room that rippled Pete’s torn hoodie. Pete unshouldered his backpack and set it on a fancy, heavy-looking coffee table beside him.

  Aki shook her head. “He’s about to do something.”

  Martha nodded.

  “On me,” Rueben said.

  They stopped to the side of a door, the carpet in front of it marked by blood drops. Rueben nodded to Martha and Aki, and they kicked open the door in unison. Rueben stepped inside.

  The room was just as on Buzz’s screen.

  A dignitary cried, “Don’t kill me.”

  Pete turned toward Rueben with the backpack already cinched over his shoulders. A silenced pistol in his hand aimed at the dignitaries along the wall. “Ready for the grand finale?”

  On the coffee table beside him sat a block of plastic explosives stuck to the table’s surface. Wires protruded from the bomb, connected to a ticking timer device.

  “Don’t let him do it,” a female world leader said, and a big man beside her whimpered.

  Rueben said, “If that bomb goes off, you die for real.”

  Pete cocked an eyebrow at him. Blood dripped down his sleeve from where the razor top had nicked him. “Sorry, but this bomb has to go off.” While keeping his gun trained on the world leaders with one hand, Pete lifted the front of his hoodie and tapped some buttons on his metallic body armor. Five drones buzzed through the open window into the room.

  These drones looked different from the other drones; they were heavily armored, with front-facing camera lenses and claws dangling beneath their bodies. Each one hovered in front of the coffee table for a close-up shot of the bomb before buzzing over to face the dignitaries.

  Each drone had a flag decal that corresponded to the world leader it was in front of.

  “You’re probably wondering what my plan is. Maybe you’ve already figured it out.” Behind him, the bomb’s clock timer ticked. “You can’t stop it now. This is only one room of dignitaries out of several throughout this hotel.”

  He motioned at the drones with his free hand. “I positioned my most specialized drones at the back of the swarm. So they wouldn’t get destroyed.

  “As we speak, they are now blocking off all ingoing and outgoing transmissions except for theirs. See, they’re wirelessly transmitting video feeds as well as ransom messages or threats to either their own country or their rival’s country, framing them. Starting wars, if you will, between nations with already tense relations. Russia and Ukraine. Pakistan and India…”

  “Then you’re going to kill all the world leaders?” Rueben asked, his throat tight and dry. The bomb continued to tick.

  Pete shook his head. “Only in this room. I mean, look who I’ve got rounded up.” With the pistol, he indicated two proud men kneeling next to each other. “The president of the People’s Republic of China and the supreme leader of North Korea. Don’t say I never did anything good for this world.”

  “I have a clear shot,” Aki said from beside Rueben.

  Martha stood on Rueben’s other side. “Me too.”

  Rueben shook his head for them to wait. “You can’t do this. You can’t execute whoever you think deserves it—”

  “That’s rich.” Pete chuckled. “Coming from a CIA spook.”

  The bomb’s timer continued to tick, and Rueben felt time running out.

  “I must admit,” Pete wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “I didn’t see things happening like this. I mean, capping me? I should have killed Buzz right from the start. He’s too smart for his own good.”

  Aki edged up against Rueben’s shoulder. “He’s stalling.”

  “Hah. Stalling?” Pete sneered. “Now, how would that benefit me? I can’t warp. You have all the leverage. I’m a dead man.”

  Rueben stared into Pete’s eyes. “I don’t think you really want to die.”

  Pete started to back toward the wide-open window.

  “Don’t move!” Rueben said.

  Pete smirked as he backed another step toward the window. “Just a friendly word of caution. If you try to cut a wire or remove the bomb from the table’s surface, it’ll blow. And that’s a heavy table. Mike Fury might be able to lift it. But you…by all means though, try to prove your manhood for Aki. She’ll leave you in the end anyway.”

  Suddenly, Pete spun toward the window, and both Aki and Martha started firing, their pistol shots clanging off the back of Pete’s body armor as he dove out the window.

  Rueben rushed to the window to watch him fall. It made no sense—then some sort of specialized parachute burst from Pete’s back, thrusting him upward. A few moments later, Pete swooped gracefully through the air with his middle finger raised, disappearing around the corner of a skyscraper.

  “Rueben!” It was Aki, standing at the coffee table, studying the bomb. “Fifteen seconds.”

  Rueben wondered if he should try to lift the table and throw it out the window, but he wasn’t as strong as Mike Fury. He had to be himself to fix this. He had to solve this his way.

  He turned to the doorway where Buzz and Zach stood with their electronics held before them. “Guys, can you hack these drones?”

  “Yeah—”

  “Do it and have them carry the coffee table outside the window.”

  Without a word, Buzz and Zach tapped rapidly at their devices.

  “Nine seconds…”

  Rueben stood his ground, watching as the five drones buzzed away from the world leaders and turned haphazardly to face the coffee table. Then with jerky motions, they hovered over the table. Their claws clamped onto its edges.

  “Six seconds…”

  Propellers stopped and restarted, motors burned under the table’s weight. Smoke issued from some of the drones.

  Martha gasped.

  Rueben stared resolutely at the bomb.

  The drones lifted the table and buzzed out through the wide window.

  “Take them up!” Rueben said.

  Motors whined. Fire engulfed one of the drones. Then the table disappeared upward into the sky.

  A moment later, an explosion rocked the building. Miniscule splinters of debris rained down outside the window. Rueben and Aki exchanged nervous, happy glances, and everyone in the room let out a collective sigh.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Monday, May 22, 9:17 p.m.

  Sometime later, Rueben and his friends finally had clearance to leave the twentieth floor. There had been questions and questions and more questions, and they did their best to offer general answers that didn’t involve time warps or Pete or multiple universes.

  For a time, Rueben and his friends still held their breath. They’d saved them, but had they saved them? Would what happened with the drone attack still prompt global war?

  They’d tensely watched from the hallway as security teams escorted the world leaders back to the ground floor. Surprisingly, most of them were smiling and patting each other on the backs.

  The president of the United States was there too but didn’t approach or say anything to Rueben or his friends. Rueben sighed as the president stepped onto an elevator with six bodyguards.

  Aki punched him lightly on the arm. “Cheer up. It’s usual for us agents no
t to get any of the praise. It’s part of the job. I’m sure Sven will gobble up the accolades on behalf of the CIA. Unless he’s fired for not foreseeing this whole mess in the first place.”

  When they were finally able to leave, Rueben said, “Well, will it be the stairs?”

  Buzz shook his head. “Fuck no. We’re taking the elevator.”

  Rueben smirked. While they waited for an elevator car, he yawned, noticing how scuffed up and dirty his clothes were. He also had plenty of cuts and scrapes that would need tending to. Nothing like the scar across Pete’s face, but…

  For a few moments, he wondered how Pete had gotten that scar and also the metal hip. Pete was a Repeater, and yet he’d allowed these things to happen to him. Why? And where was he now?

  He turned to Buzz, who was poring over his laptop. “Has global war broken out yet?”

  “Nah. The media is saying, and I quote, ‘Ironically, the peace summit couldn’t have gone better…’ Hah. If the schmucks only knew what we had to go through.”

  “I’d say,” Zach agreed coolly.

  Martha smiled. “With Pete unable to warp anymore, he’s pretty much out of the picture in regard to being a serious threat to anyone.”

  Rueben rubbed the back of his head. “Hopefully.”

  Aki winked at him. “Mortality bites, amiright? Besides, if Pete does show his face, he’s toast. You’re a Repeater. If he steps out of line, we’ll track him down and deal with him. We did good today. We won, and the entire world gets to keep on spinning.”

  Buzz high-fived her while juggling his laptop. “Not bad, not bad, people. I think this deserves a bubble bath and champagne.”

  The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped in. When they were almost to the first floor, Buzz’s mouth dropped open. “Oh shit. Rueben. You might want to take a deep breath and compose yourself before we step outside.”

  Rueben stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  Buzz closed his laptop. “Umm…you need to see.”

  The elevator slid open, and as soon as they stepped off into the debris-strewn main lobby, crowds packed in, applauding. They were everywhere. Camera bulbs flashed, and people shoved microphones in their faces.