Die Again to Save the World

by Ramy Vance

  How long had it been?

  He looked at his watch. He’d gone back seventy-four hours and forty-four minutes.

  He wondered if that was the maximum amount of time he could go back. He’d have to ask Buzz.

  First, he’d have to convince Buzz what was happening again, but given that he’d already gone through it once before, this time around should be easier.

  “I’ve died three times,” he mumbled to himself, “Went back seventy-four hours twice now, and under thirty minutes once. So this really isn’t Groundhog Day. I don’t always go back to the same moment. Good to know.”

  He groaned. He hated this day. This one was worse than the others.

  Before the bomb had gotten him this last time, he'd had the hasty idea that maybe he could persuade Aki to infiltrate Schaeffer's life days before the bomb went off to verify whether or not he was involved with the bomb.

  Now he realized that he'd been crazy to think that might work. The success rates of his attempts at talking with Aki so far were mixed. Trying to get her cooperation before the agency even started cracking down on Schaeffer as a possible threat would be next to impossible.

  Sure, Aki was a badass field agent. She’d probably killed bad guys in the line of duty and nearly been killed herself a few times out on missions. Why would she trust a tech guy like him?

  Ugh.

  He turned his attention back to today and why it was going to be so bad—aside from the looming threat of the bomb.

  “Today…” Reuben squinted in thought, and then he grabbed the pencil and pad off the nightstand and scrawled down the events. Today, Marshall would be screaming at the police scanner, rambling about the pussyfoot cops, the robber at Peet’s coffee with a pink baseball bat, and then he would complain about the old hash browns.

  Stupid hash browns.

  Two weeks ago, he’d made the mistake of making eye contact with a ruthless kiosk vendor at the grocery store who had suckered him into spending twenty minutes watching a demo for the Magic Skillet—a five-piece set of pans that sliced, diced, washed your car, and babysat your kids. Once he’d realized the Magic Skillet set cost about the same as his rent, he’d passed on the deal and ended up with a free paring knife and a coupon for half off a bag of frozen hash browns.

  He hadn’t realized until he got home they were made by a well-known Swedish furniture brand. Yeah, that one. Now, he was trapped for all eternity with frozen potatoes made by the same people who made abstract chairs and bookshelves out of cardboard. What more could he have expected?

  Even the paring knife wasn’t any good.

  After Marshall complained about the hash browns, there was the whole scene with Patricia and the neighbors, and then he’d go see Buzz. He rose, tossed the memo pad on the desk, grabbed the last slice of day-old pizza, and prepared to face the day. Before that, though, he stopped, and with cold pizza hanging from his mouth, he rummaged through his drawers until he found his green shamrock t-shirt at the bottom of his drawer.

  He had won it at a bar contest but didn’t wear it much. He suspected the fierce-eyed leprechaun was supposed to be a Notre Dame mascot knockoff. He wasn’t much for college football, but the non-mascot-mascot seemed the perfect symbol for his non-St. Patrick’s Day-St. Patrick’s Day.

  “I may never see another holiday again,” he muttered to himself as he slipped the shirt on. “Not if I can’t live past Valentine’s Day.”

  He actually felt a lilt of excitement when he thought about the possibility of no more holidays. Did that mean he didn’t have to suffer through horrible family dinners and bad Christmas gifts and hearing endless renditions of that god-awful song about the kid that bought his dying mom shoes for Christmas?

  For his own private St. Paddy’s Day celebration, he planned to bury himself inside a nice cold ocean of frothing booze before this night was over. Maybe he’d die of alcohol poisoning and get to skip the hangover.

  The scene in the living room wasn’t at all what Reuben expected. Sure, Marshall was up and standing front and center on his soapbox, but…

  “Can you believe these liberal imbeciles?” He gestured toward the TV screen.

  A news anchor gravely babbled on about partisan gridlock on economic sanctions against a fascist regime in the Middle East that refused to give up their nuclear weapons.

  Not that it would matter, Reuben thought.

  But, the TV was on, and Marshall was complaining about Congress. It was usually the activities from the police scanner that set him off.

  “Did…” Reuben pointed toward the silent scanner on the other side of the room.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s all going to hell!” Marshall tossed the remote onto the couch. “They’re running this country into the ground. Liberal bastards! This isn’t the America I was born in, and this isn’t the America your mother and I raised you in. They're a cesspool of commies. That’s what they are! Nanny government pussyfoot commie whiners.”

  “Uh-huh.” Reuben let him ramble on and wandered into the kitchen.

  What the hell? How had Marshall’s monologue been able to change?

  “Don’t make those damn hash browns, Mr. Hash Brown.” Marshall scoffed. “They’re shit. And you always burn them.”

  At least that line was the same.

  Reuben opened the freezer. The hash browns were still there, no matter how many times he’d thrown them out. Yet, the conversation was different? What was this?

  He grabbed the eggs and started getting breakfast together.

  Marshall scoffed. “All these criminals in Washington. They all need to be in jail. The whole lot of them. But just like the criminals on the street, they run free because of damn bleeding-heart liberals whining about how they had a ‘disadvantaged childhood.’ Bullshit. Cry me a river.”

  Reuben gripped the front of the stove and stared hard at the eggs sizzling in the pan. He tried to wrap his brain around what was going on. He had never been able to effect any change in the warp before. Everything reset as soon as he rebounded. This, of course, made his life pointless and trivial—not that it wasn’t already, he thought with a smirk.

  But how had this day been able to change? His watch clearly said the eleventh.

  Everything else—the pizza box, the curtains, his notes in his notebook—all fell into that timeline. But Marshall was not following the script. He racked his brain for any clue as to what he might have done differently that could have affected a change. He stared so hard, he didn’t notice the odor or tiny wafts of smoke rising from the pan.

  “Damnit, Reuben!” Marshall ran into the kitchen and grabbed the burning skillet off the stove. “Are you just going to stand there or what?”

  Shit. He had burned the eggs. “I…”

  Marshall washed out the charred pan. “Computer science degree from Columbia and can’t cook a damn egg!”

  “Right.” Reuben shook his head to clear his thoughts.

  “You know, your mother used to burn eggs too. Not just eggs. Toast, pasta, broccoli. Once she even managed to burn a banana that was too close—” Marshall stopped mid-sentence, a deep sadness painting his face. Then, his face hardened and, looking over at Reuben, he said, “What’s with the shamrock shirt? You look like you support Notre Dame. What, you Catholic now?”

  Marshall opened the door to let the smoke outside, and they heard Midge and Sheera complaining down on the sidewalk. Disconnected words like “pacing around” and “should be in a home” drifted into their living room. Marshall heard it too; and his face hardened, and he stuck his head out onto the patio.

  “Dad, don’t please!” Reuben yelled. “Just leave it. What are you, trying to get us evicted?”

  “Evicted?” Marshall whipped back into the living room. “Son, this is America, and last I checked, I’m not a doormat! I can’t speak for you, but I sure as hell didn’t raise you that way!”

  Marshall stepped back out on the patio, and Reuben saw him lean over the rai
ling to the sidewalk downstairs. He’d sure enjoy his St. Patrick’s Day celebration tonight.

  “You carpet munchers have something to say to me?” he yelled. “Come up here and say it!”

  Reuben buried his head deep in his palms and cringed. Worse than he thought. He didn’t hear their response, but he knew it wasn’t “We’re so sorry.”

  He had to get out of here. Why on earth these women insisted on messing with a man with guns, Reuben would never understand. Marshall Peet was by no means a violent man, but come on, ladies, have some common sense.

  He ran to his room, finished getting dressed, and waited a few minutes to make sure the conflict had died down. The patio door slammed, and Marshall stomped around angrily in the living room for a couple of minutes.

  When Reuben didn’t hear any more noise from downstairs, he grabbed his keys, made sure to shove the memo pad into the pocket of his jacket, and raced toward the door.

  He needed Buzz. Buzz had been a pretty easy sell on the warp the first time they'd gone through it, but the more complex this problem got, the harder it would be to catch him up from the beginning.

  He wished Buzz could come with him on this warp.

  Marshall cleaned up the kitchen from the aborted breakfast and noticed Reuben leaving.

  “You just gonna leave this mess here?” Marshall snarled. “What? Did I bruise your little pussyfoot self-esteem?”

  Reuben clasped his shaking hand around the doorknob. That was a scripted line. How did he stay in the script with some lines and not others without anything changing? He didn’t reply to Marshall but simply drew a deep breath and walked out the door.

  Out in the cool February air, Reuben wrapped himself deeper into his leather jacket and took the stairs two at a time. His heart sank when he saw the scene downstairs had not changed.

  Midge, Sheera, and Patricia still stood in a trio, scheming at the foot of the stairwell. They cast a frosty glance in his direction, and Reuben pretended not to see them. He reached the ground, hugged the corner, and hurried toward the parking lot.

  But he wouldn’t get off that easily.

  Patricia yelled, “Reuben! Reuben!”

  Shit. The regular conversation was hard enough as it was. He didn’t want to deal with whatever fuel Marshall had just thrown on the fire.

  “Reuben,” she tried again. “A word with you, please?”

  “Can’t listen to anyone,” Midge sneered. “It must run in the family.”

  Sheera scoffed. “Clearly.”

  “Reuben.” Patricia’s quick heels on the sidewalk closed in behind him. “Believe me, no one wants to get the law involved here, but when residents don’t cooperate—”

  Reuben stopped in his tracks. His patience gone, he whipped around with an uncharacteristically sharp and sarcastic reply on the tip of his tongue. That was one good thing about the warp. It was doing wonders for his confidence.

  He stopped himself, though, as soon as he saw Patricia’s face. She was still in her blue pantsuit and black pumps, and Reuben felt a twinge of pity for her. She was trying too hard.

  Patricia halted mid-sentence, and she stammered as her face paled. From a few yards away, Midge and Sheera slunk back a few steps. Reuben raised an eyebrow at them, and he noticed them both bristle and then, miraculously, turn away.

  Patricia’s eyes narrowed, and she spoke slowly, “There’s something…different about you.”

  Reuben’s heart burst. He didn’t know what he did to give that off but didn’t trust himself to respond without killing whatever had happened. So he said nothing and pursed his lips, keeping his eyes locked on hers. She looked even more concerned.

  “I don’t like it,” she finished.

  Reuben scoffed and turned away from her toward the parking lot.

  “Me neither,” he whispered to no one. “Me neither.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Reuben—Saturday, February 11, 10:42 a.m.

  Convincing Buzz about the time warps was easier than expected. He started by telling the story, giving him as much detail as possible.

  As soon as he got to the part about Buzz’s experiments with his blood, the mad scientist looked him over before asking, “Did I take your watch?”

  Reuben cocked his head. “You did.”

  “And I injected you with something that, although not FDA-approved, won’t cause cancer, heart disease, or blood poisoning.”

  “Argh…not FDA-approved,” Reuben repeated. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you do that.”

  Buzz’s face lit up with excitement. “Give me your watch.”

  Handing it over, he followed Buzz as he hurried to his lab. Buzz put the watch on what looked like a wireless charging port and began to bang furiously on his keyboard, “Please, please, please.”

  Buzz punched the air. “Fuck me in a peach tree; it worked!”

  “What worked?” Reuben asked.

  “This,” Buzz told him, pointing at the rows of green code that started pouring down from the top of the screen Matrix-style.

  Reuben leaned in to get a better look. “What is that?”

  “Data,” Buzz informed him. “I injected you with a nano-chip that perfectly imitates your body. It’s a technology that no one has, something I’ve been working on for almost fifteen years.”

  Reuben was astounded. “Since you were a teenager?”

  Buzz nodded. “Since before I had pubic hair. It operates with Bluetooth and is transferring data to your watch. Man, oh man. The mere fact you have this confirms everything. You are in a time warp, and this is the second time we’re having this conversation.”

  “It’s not exactly the same,” Reuben explained.

  “Indeed,” Buzz agreed. “Time warps never are. Theories abound, but the leading one states that you can only have up to a 92% overlap with the last loop. Never 100%.”

  That made sense to Reuben. “How low does it go?”

  “No one knows, but by best guess, no lower than 70%. Once you get lower than that, we start to get into parallel dimension shit.”

  Reuben took a deep breath. “OK, thanks for clarifying that. Why don’t you speak to me like I’m not some kind of super-genius? What exactly are you looking at? And most importantly, what the fuck is going on?”

  Buzz cracked his knuckles as he started to bang away at his keyboard. “So, your blood survived my wormhole replicator, but mine didn’t, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “I injected you with a chip that mimics your internal systems. It survived. Because it survived, I can get a sense of what you went through.”

  “Through Bluetooth.”

  “Through Bluetooth.”

  “OK, thanks. That makes perfect sense.”

  “Does it?”

  “NO!” Reuben screamed.

  Buzz clicked his keyboard twice. “Look, all you need to know is that because of that nanobot, I have access to any data your phone can pick up. Mostly sounds, but you’d be surprised by the kind of sensors your phone has. With some tweaks to the nanobot, we might even get visuals. Wait! Instead of using your phone’s speakers and camera, I could sync the nanobot to your eyes and ears. Just think of the data we’d collect then. Give me a few secs here… Holy fuckatoos!”

  Reuben hardly dared ask. “What?”

  Buzz pushed back from his terminal and looked at his friend as he muttered, “I just witnessed your death.”

  Reuben—Saturday, February 11, 11:51 a.m.

  Buzz looked at Reuben with genuine pain. “What?” Reuben said, feeling overwhelmed by his friend’s expression. He’d known Buzz for years, and the scientist had never expressed heavy feeling, never showed genuine emotion.

  But now… Now Buzz looked like he was going to cry.

  “Listen,” Buzz said, turning up the dial on one of his boards. “What do you hear?”

  Reuben leaned forward. He couldn’t hear much, only a faint bubbling sound like something… “Boiling. I hear something boiling.”

  “What you
’re listening to is your blood bubbling.” There was a splurting sound, followed by an intense hissing. Buzz winced. “That’s your skin cracking, letting out steaming blood. Think old-school kettles.”

  “Jesus,” Reuben said, running his hands through his hair. “Really? That’s how I died. Three times.”

  Buzz nodded. “Judging by your, uh, side effects, I'm deducing that the bomb is using experimental microwave-based tech. Most of the research on that is currently centered in Canada. It's relatively new and, up until now, never used in actual warfare. It was designed to maintain infrastructure while wiping out all life in the area. Highly effective against water-based lifeforms like, well, like you.” Buzz was rattling off facts like someone reading the features list on a website. It was something he did when he was really excited.

  “Am I alive?” Reuben asked.

  Again, Buzz nodded. “You have to be. Once you die, you reset. At least, that’s my theory. You feel intense pain but only until your nervous system shuts down and you feel like you're disintegrating.”

  “And we’re hearing this, how?”

  “Your watch and the nanobot, which isn’t affected by your warping.”

  “Fuck me…” Reuben was starting to panic. Before, when there was a real chance he was just crazy, Reuben had managed to keep the panic at bay. But now, he felt his throat tighten and his heart race. “I don’t want to die like that again. I don’t. There’s got to be a way to stop this. Please.”

  For a moment, he thought he might just die here and now, save the bomb the trouble. Of course, he’d just do the warp again and have to face the prospects of boiling to death again.

  Buzz sat quietly, staring at his friend for a long time before he shook his head, a sly smile creeping along his face. “There is only one thing we can do to save you from dying like that again. Stop the bomb.”

  Buzz turned back to the watch, gleaning as much information from the nanobot as he could.