by Ramy Vance
“He was at Mr. Sudds, then?”
“Yeah, he was definitely there three days ago at 3:14pm. But the CCTV footage has been doctored, so you can’t tell. You have to check the cameras from Hurley’s Chicken next door.”
“Hurley’s Chicken, huh? Maybe I can get a search warrant.”
Reuben was glad he was able to give her that much, at least. “That would be awesome.” Right now, most of what he had was from hacking in and manipulating contacts. If they could get some legally seized evidence, it would sure make things easier in court.
“Buzz and I are going to work on hacking into the security cameras so we can uncover anything else,” she said.
“Great.” He decided to give her a tip on Schaeffer. Not too much. “The small-time dealer was an Iowa kid named Julian Schaeffer. He met him at Mr. Sudds and delivered Canadian pot that’s produced at a Pout-conglomerate shipping company called Brenton Shipping.”
Pout had done a good job of setting up Julian as being involved in the experimental weapon heist. The radioactive materials and microwaves in that dumpster had probably been planted by one of Alister's men. Julian was just a pot dealer.
“Great.” Martha’s voice was muffled as if she were taking notes. “We’ll rendezvous later.”
“Yeah, let’s have drinks tonight,” Buzz yelled. “My place.”
“You don’t need any more drinks, Buzz,” Reuben told him. “Go sleep it off.”
Buzz laughed, and they ended the call. Alister was definitely at the Detroit-Windsor border, huh? He pulled up the Detroit-Windsor police department, and within a couple of minutes, had a copy of the speeding ticket.
This guy’s definitely dirty, he typed to Aki. He uploaded the ticket to the case file and linked it to Aki, with Martha’s notes about the time stamp.
We’re closing in on him, she replied instantly. Let’s go out there tonight, see what we can find out.
You mean, a stakeout? he typed back.
She sent him a winky face. He reread the message thread several times. There were definitely worse ways he could think of to pass the night.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Reuben—Friday, February 10, 5:09 p.m.
Reuben sat with Aki in her darkened Porsche outside of Alister Pout’s Upper East Side mansion. They had watched him go in, and it seemed like he might be in for the night.
He stared up at the lighted window. “I wonder what he does up there.”
She smirked. “I can think of a lot of things.”
“He has a reputation, I’ll give him that,” Reuben conceded. “I don’t understand what women see in him.”
“The bad-boy image is complex.” She sighed. “It’s like, you know he’s all wrong, but it’s exhilarating and fun and wild and free.”
Reuben let the comment hang in the air for a while. “Is that how you felt about Mike?”
“At one point,” she whispered. “But, I don’t think he ever understood me.”
“Why is that?” he asked.
“I always got the impression that he looked right past me,” she said. “He saw what he wanted to see, and that was enough for him. He didn’t look any further. You know he made me feel so insecure that I got work done?”
Reuben couldn’t believe it. “Work? You mean, plastic surgery?”
She winked.
“Why would you… Look at you; you’re perfect.” His words were genuine. “Why would you ever want to change?”
Aki shrugged. “He always made me feel like I had to conform to his expectations.”
Reuben hated Mike with a passion. “Why would you be with a guy like that?”
“It’s complicated,” she said. “Because when you do meet those expectations, he can make you feel like the queen of the world.”
“You did not have work done. You’re lying,” he teased.
“No, no.” She laughed. “I had a nose job.” She fingered her nose. “It used to be flatter. I had it raised. Plus, I had padding added to my butt.”
He raised an eyebrow and peered at the seat, and she laughed. “Don’t look!”
He shook his head and pursed his lips. “I’m going to have to inspect this so-called padding.”
She laughed harder. “It’s bad. It’s like these silicone bags inserted into my ass cheeks.”
“What the?”
“Yeah, it’s like having a gel pad inside your body. They squish around; they move when they’re pressed.”
Reuben thought his eyes would burst out of their sockets. “Your butt squishes?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Oh, I’m definitely going to have to see this in action,” he told her. “You can’t leave me hanging on that one.”
She chuckled. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
Reuben failed to hide his joy. “Oh no, you definitely should have. That is information I couldn’t live without. One simply hasn’t lived until they find out about shapeshifting silicone butt pads.”
She laughed so hard she laid her head on the steering wheel. She sat back up, and her face was still red in the dark, low lamplight. Their eyes met. His heart quickened, and Reuben felt a lump rising in his throat. Was he really in this moment? Did he really have a chance with this woman? Or was he completely delusional? There was nothing more in this world he wanted than to kiss those lips. And it seemed like, there in the darkness, that’s what she wanted.
But that wasn’t true, he decided. There was one thing he wanted more than to kiss her. He wanted to not ruin what he had with her. Maybe he could ask her. That would be a chivalrous move, right? He took a deep breath and had just begun to form the words when his phone went off.
Aki’s tone was casual, friendly. “Who could be calling this late?”
The moment was broken.
He grabbed his phone and sighed. “Of course, it’s Martha. She’s a friend of mine,” he told Aki before answering the call. “Yeah?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Martha told him.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“So, Buzz and I hacked into the Brenton Shipping system.”
“Whoa,” Reuben said. “Hold on, let me put you on speaker with my partner who’s working with me on this.” He muffled the phone and turned to Aki. “Martha is NYPD. They’re working the Pout angle while we’re chasing Schaeffer.”
Aki lifted a perfect eyebrow. “NYPD, huh? I guess we could use their help.”
He shrugged. “We already have. All right.” He clicked the phone on speaker. “Go ahead. You’re on with Aki..”
“Hi, Martha,” Aki said cordially.
“Is this the Aki?” Martha recalled all of Reuben’s interactions with the special agent that she’d seen on Buzz’s timeline calendar screen. Realizing she was probably embarrassing Reuben, she quickly pivoted. “So, we got into Brenton Shipping’s system, and guess what? They’re shipping sand.”
Reuben was perplexed. “Sand? What does that mean?”
Buzz entered the conversation at this point. He seemed to be sobering up. “I did some satellite testing, and I’m detecting scant amounts of radiation as well as very high-frequency microwaves from the Brenton Shipping headquarters. They need the sand for weapons testing.”
“Got it,” Reuben said. “So we think they’ve got an experimental microwave bomb out there, is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes.” Buzz paused. “Looks like.”
Reuben watched Aki. Her eyes blinked fast and hard. She didn’t know they knew about Interpol's missing bomb, and he hoped they didn’t give it away.
“It’s outside of Montreal on the Hudson River,” Martha said. “I’m texting you the coordinates, but we don’t have an exact address.”
The text popped up on his phone, and Aki read it. He immediately forwarded it to her phone. “But we don’t know enough.”
“And there’s not enough time,” Buzz said. “We’ve got to get more time. We need to know more.”
Reuben scratched his head, see
ing where this was heading. “How?”
“We need to go back a few days,” Buzz said. “Which means…”
“Yeah, yeah.” Reuben sighed. “I know what that means.”
Reuben ended the call, and he turned to Aki.
“Who was that man?” she asked.
Reuben didn’t even know where to begin explaining Buzz. “A friend. Look, I’ve got to go.”
Aki’s eyes widened. “What? We’re in the middle of a stakeout.”
“Yeah, about that…” He grabbed the phone out of her hand and tossed it on the floorboard.
“What the hell, Reuben?”
Then he turned to her, and in one quick motion, kissed her.
Hard.
They both panted in the darkness of the car, and she grabbed him and pulled him toward her and kissed him again. Before they knew it, they were at each other like teenagers.
Things were about to get more serious, and that was when Reuben pulled away.
“Aki, we’ve got to stop,” he whispered as he let her go. He realized that this moment would only satisfy his fantasy of her. He wanted more, and being with her now, only for her to forget, would be harder than never being with her at all.
He knew Aki now. She wasn’t just the hot agent who worked in the same building as him. She wasn’t just a simple fantasy anymore.
She was much more. She was real. Reuben wanted the real her more than anything.
“Why?” Aki sounded hurt. “We’re both consenting adults, and you're not an asshole like most guys.”
He almost caved. “I know. But after this is done, you won’t remember any of this.”
“Wait? What? Why would you say that?”
“It’s just the story of my life right now,” Reuben said as he got out of the car, walking away before she could say anything else.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Reuben—Friday, February 10, 7:03 p.m.
Martha, Buzz, and Reuben all sat in the living room of Buzz’s mansion. The trio of twenty-somethings lounged amid empty bottles of wine brewed from grapes grown long, long before they were born.
“What we need,” Buzz said, “is to send Reuben back another three days.”
“Three days?” Reuben exclaimed. “Why three days?”
“If the border attack is going to happen on the eighth…” Martha snapped her fingers excitedly. “That will give us a day to do some investigations and potentially stop the whole damn thing.”
Reuben didn’t hate the idea. “And stop me from having my blood boiled again.”
“Everyone’s blood,” Martha corrected.
“True,” Reuben conceded, “but I’m the only one who remembers it. You two are lucky.”
Martha shook her head. “We’re dead. The only reason we know anything is because of you.”
“And my nanobot,” Buzz said.
“And Buzz’s nanobot.” Martha shrugged.
Buzz stood. “I also estimate that the metal mesh used in the bomb’s construction has already come into port. A specialized type of metal mesh is important for these kinds of bombs, trust me. Once I find the details of the port, we’ll be able to go back a couple days and follow the shipment. If we can connect that to Pout, then we’d have some evidence against him but not enough.”
Martha nodded. “Maybe I could get a warrant and have local PD stake out the shipment. If I can tie the shipment to Alister, then I can get a second warrant to follow him. We can put him at the scene with some hard evidence and not just a flimsy speeding ticket. It’s not the best plan, but it’s all we’ve got at the moment.”
Reuben considered this. “I could also use that time to hack into RedBook’s servers. Might be able to find some dirt there. If we’re right, and I believe we are, then they’ll be putting extra resources into New York's epicenter to record the fallout from the bomb. Doesn’t get any more red-handed than that. Red-handed…or should I say, ‘RedBooked?’”
Martha and Buzz groaned before the scrawny scientist said, “You don’t have any kids to be making dad jokes. Save it until you spawn.”
“Save it even then,” Martha chimed in. “Unless you want to rear social rejects.”
Now they all laughed.
Even Reuben chuckled. “We also need a way to shortcut getting up to speed if you have to die and warp back in time. I really want to avoid the whole ‘kidnap Martha to convince her’ routine again.”
Reuben turned to Buzz.
“Ah yes. Well, I put a nanobot in Reuben’s body that automatically gets synced to my computers when he warps back. All my notes and the timeline details are then updated on my computers.”
“Yeah,” Martha said. “But isn’t there something else you can do to immediately let me and you know the situation? I’m no scientist, but can the nanobot in Reuben’s bloodstream record video through his eyes? Maybe we could record a message to ourselves. Vital information only we’d know?”
Buzz nodded. “Yeah, that’s easy enough. I like it. It would be very efficient. We can call it the ‘Binnie routine.’ We watch the video every time Reuben warps back. We just have to be sure that we say the kind of things that a deep fake couldn’t know. You’ll have to get intimate.”
Martha nodded.
Buzz wasn’t done. “And Reuben will know.”
Martha nodded again, and with a playful jab against Buzz’s shoulder, said, “As long as I can keep a few secrets from you, I’m good. So do we have a plan?”
Buzz nodded, but Reuben was hesitant.
Martha must have sensed this because she said, “What I would give to be you, Reuben. Be able to warp, save people, fix mistakes. Stop the bad guys.”
Reuben pursed his lips. Why would anyone want to be him? He didn’t want to be him. But he didn’t say anything, he just looked at Buzz and with a heavy sigh, said, “OK, we’ve got a plan. Videos, dying. Repeat.”
Martha shook her head. “No. Videos, some hand-to-hand training, or shooting. Then you die.”
“I know how to fight,” Reuben said.
Both Martha and Buzz looked at him for a long minute before bursting out in laughter.
“Seriously.” Reuben put up his dukes and stood in a ready stance.
“Seriously?” Martha laughed. “All right. Let’s do the videos, and then let’s see exactly how good you are at fighting."
Reuben—Friday, February 10, 8:07 p.m.
They recorded the videos. Afterward, Buzz assured Martha that they would receive an automated email every time Reuben warped back. All they had to do was watch the video of themselves explaining Reuben’s ability in their own words, followed by their personal recorded message. Following that would be a very brief first-person view of Reuben dying and then waking up at a prior time. Following that would be a link to Buzz’s timeline calendar with any new things they needed to know.
Buzz's personal message was as expected. He basically repeated a long code that only he could understand.
As for Martha, she recorded a bunch of stuff but kept shaking her head. Nothing she was saying was definitive proof. Not until she thought of something she did that was out of the ordinary.
Out of the ordinary and embarrassing. Sometimes she talked to Petunia, the red toucan figurine on her keychain. Ran police cases by the plastic bird. Bounced ideas off it. It never responded, but the mental process had helped her crack several cases. Not that she’d ever told anyone.
Reuben desperately tried not to laugh.
“Oh, I’m so kicking your ass. Come on. Show me what you got.” She walked up to him, and before he even understood what was happening, she had knocked him to the ground.
“Ow, my head.” He rubbed the back of it. “I slipped.”
“No, I knocked you over.” Martha scoffed. “It was a basic move. You’ve got to know how to block and how to anticipate.”
“Do you know how to use a gun?” Buzz pulled a handgun out of a drawer in an end table.
Reuben’s eyes grew wide. “What are you doing with that?”<
br />
“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” Buzz teased.
“Oh, right, said by a damn Hugh Hefner-wannabe in silk pajamas.”
“All right, all right.” Martha stood between them. “Enough name-calling. Reuben, you need training. Training for combat, training for shooting. You need to know how to take these guys down alone if you have to. Tell me, what can you do?”
“Well, I’m pretty good at ballroom dancing.” Reuben struck a dramatic pose worthy of Dancing with the Stars.
“Dancing?” Martha groaned.
“Hey, it’s a demanding sport. Check out this Reverse Fleckerl combined with a Solo Spot Volta. I killed at regionals.” Reuben spun around an invisible partner before doing another spin with his right arm dramatically shooting out behind him, his middle finger pointing inward.
Now it was Buzz’s turn to groan. “So, what? We meet the terrorists, and you’re going to challenge them to a dance-off? In ballroom dancing of all things. The sissiest of sissy dancing.”
Reuben pouted. “Hey, I am a regional champion!”
“In dance!” Buzz laughed.
Martha put a hand on Reuben’s shoulder. “He’s right. You need training in skills that actually matter.”
“How am I going to get that?” Reuben asked. “We’re running out of time.”
“What do you mean?” Buzz sipped his glass of wine. “You have all the time in the world.”
“So, what are you suggesting?” Reuben said.
Buzz and Martha smirked at each other. Reuben wasn’t so sure he liked this new alliance between the two of them.
Buzz stood. “Let’s take this into the studio.”
“What studio?” Reuben asked, following him.
Together, they ascended the marble staircase. Reuben had only been up here briefly. Most of the time he had spent in Buzz’s living room or labs.
But now they approached a bedroom that had been converted into… “A yoga studio?”
“Here,” Buzz gestured at the room, “you will learn.”
“OK.” Martha clapped her hands and took charge. “I’m going to throw a punch at you, and you’re going to block it.”
