Millennium Crash

by James Litherland

  Still, she’d only agreed because of that twenty-four hour window when Kirin was unable to Travel. Sam had needed the rest, and her ankle appreciated the sprain being treated—after the way she’d handled the initial injury, it was a miracle she managed to walk. But she was healing so fast that she knew she’d be able to run again. Someday soon.

  She’d risen early this morning and, taking it as easy as she could on her ankle, she’d walked several blocks following the directions on her watch. It had led her back to this same hotel, where she’d found Bailey occupying her spot and keeping an eye on his own locator. The man had at least fulfilled that part of his promise to her—he’d then proceeded to deliver on the rest.

  According to him, Kirin had left the hotel soon after Sam had been driven away. He’d followed the woman over twenty blocks to a grand library guarded by two stone lions, and she’d stayed there far into the evening. He’d remained outside the building to keep from being discovered. Then he’d followed her back to the hotel without incident and taken an occasional nap in an alley down the street.

  Sam had requested a fuller explanation of what he thought the woman had been up to. His theory was that Kirin was doing research at the library to discover what companies might have gone bust or gone big in the recent past.

  Bailey believed Kirin was using Harold’s access to the trust stipend to get seed money to take back into the past, where the research she’d done would become knowledge of the future. Which she could then use to invest her ill-gotten gains and turn them into a vast fortune. He predicted that she’d repeat her performance at the bank as she hopped back in time, stealing even more of the professor’s money.

  Standing there and absorbing all this, Sam had suddenly found herself alone in a section of the city called Greenwich Village—and three years further into the past. She’d used her watch to head toward Kirin and thus bumped into Bailey doing the same. At least they’d landed relatively close—to each other if not to Kirin. Sam had even let Bailey carry her all the way back to where the woman was staying at the very same hotel.

  Kirin, though, had Traveled before the twenty-four hours had fully elapsed, which meant that the battery recharge time had a fudge factor, and Kirin knew it. Another complication to make chasing her more difficult.

  Of course, the woman should be unaware that she’d taken stowaways along with her and that she was still being pursued. Chalk one advantage up to the good guys. And as long as they could maintain that advantage, they would have an opportunity to stop her. If they could figure out how to use it.

  Sam flipped from the locator screen to the regular face of her watch and checked the time. A rush of afternoon pedestrians should sweep by soon, and she wondered if they’d be as generous as the lunch crowd had been.

  She wished she had Bailey slumped beside her, despite the man’s intransigence. She’d refused his suggestion to spend another night in a shelter, since they could no longer rely on having that twenty-four hour window. She wouldn’t risk getting any further away from Kirin than she had to. He’d then insisted on going off to do some day labor to earn them some cash, leaving Sam to watch their target alone.

  She’d had no choice but to let him go. At some point though, she’d have to find a way to make sure he understood who was in charge, or else he’d take control by default.

  So far the man’s predictions were panning out. After Bailey had departed to search for work, Kirin had left her hotel on foot. Sam had followed her to the bank and leaned against the same pizza parlor while she waited for the woman to emerge. Just as before, a hired car had arrived to carry the woman and two large suitcases away.

  Sam had presumed those cases were filled with more of the money Kirin was stealing and the woman was taking it back to her hotel. But she could do something unpredictable at any time.

  Sam had followed as best she could. The previous day, as she’d waited for Bailey’s return, passers-by had donated enough that she could have taken a taxi to trail Kirin, but Sam had decided to conserve her funds for a real emergency and walked.

  The few blocks back to the hotel were no hardship, but though the shelter staff had properly iced and wrapped her ankle, it’d started to throb by the time she had gotten to the hotel. Confirming Kirin actually was inside the building, Sam had slid to the ground in the spot Bailey had usurped the day before. And been grateful for the chance to rest.

  She could’ve bought a decent lunch when she’d begun to get hungry, but she hadn’t wanted to leave her post. The benefit to sitting there looking pitiful during the lunch hour had been quite a haul in sympathetic contributions, so that when Bailey showed up at the end of the day, she might have made more than he had. Then she could send him for food.

  At first it had been alright, but her hunger had gradually gnawed at her throughout the afternoon. She’d gotten up and stretched now and then, but it hadn’t helped her stomach.

  The work day ended and people streamed past. Her body had begun to protest in earnest, and Sam was considering a quick visit to one of the food carts the next block over when a giant shadow fell across her face.

  Sam looked up to see Bailey standing there with a gyro in either hand. He smiled down at her. She reached up and grabbed one of the sandwiches and managed to tell him thanks before she began eating. He slumped down beside her and ate with his hard eyes locked on the hotel entrance. After they’d finished, he tried to hand her a wad of bills.

  She shook her head. “I’ve got my own now, so you’d better keep that. How was the job?”

  “Hard. But I’ve done that kind of work before. What about you? Let’s hear your report.”

  “I’ll tell you. Despite your attitude. It was a repeat performance from yesterday. She showed up at the bank a little earlier in the day, but that’s it. Now she’s holed up in the hotel.”

  “Exactly what I told you she’d do. And it’s a holiday weekend, so she probably went early to make certain she could complete her business before they closed.”

  “I grant you your excellent understanding of the criminal mind.” Sam crumpled her gyro wrapper into a ball and squeezed tight. “So, what’s the woman been up to in her hotel all this time? It’s not like we can find out, so I’ll take an educated guess.”

  “As much time as Kirin spent at the library last night, I doubt she needs to do any more research. I imagine she’s trying to turn all that cash into something more portable. It won’t be practical to carry around those four suitcases everywhere. And she’ll likely want to go back to the bank for more.”

  Sam goggled. “More? Kirin must already have more money than I’d ever know what to do with.”

  Bailey looked down at her with an odd expression on his face. “Maybe so. But the kind of greed that will compel somebody even to murder—it’s an insatiable hunger. So I expect she intends to keep stealing more until it’s no longer practical. Or until she gets bored.”

  Sam shook her head. She couldn’t understand Kirin and that kind of desire. And for money. “How did she get access to the trust three years from now if she claimed as a recipient today?”

  “I suspect she gave two different names. Bankers don’t like to ask awkward questions, and they’d not be likely to compare thumbprints.”

  “Even if a woman shows up looking exactly like one from three years ago? With a different name?”

  “It might make them curious, but if she had the proper access code, they would satisfy the terms of the trust and not their own personal curiosity.”

  Sam was skeptical, but he should know, and she had more questions for him. “She must’ve left the first two suitcases full of cash at the hotel. Maybe in the hotel safe as you suggested.” Kirin hadn’t taken the things to the bank with her. “And I can see why she wouldn’t want to Travel with four of them. So what will be easy for her to carry around? And how will she exchange the cash for that?”

  Bailey sighed. “I’m not sure. Gold or other precious metals would be less portable. Rare stamps or coins
would lose their value as she traveled further into the past. Her best bet would be jewelry or gems—they’d be lightweight and small enough to carry on her person. It’s what the professor took back to get the funds for starting the trust in the first place.”

  Sam could see Kirin collecting a lot of beautiful gems and jewelry, wearing her riches. “Why didn’t she just withdraw the money in gems to begin with? Surely that would’ve been easier.”

  Bailey gave her another one of those strange expressions. “Banks don’t do that. She’ll need to find a dealer. A less than reputable one.”

  “Why less than reputable? And how would she find such a person?”

  “She’ll want someone who won’t bat an eye at business by suitcases full of cash. As for how she’ll find them, I’d wager she researched that last night as well. She’d only have to look in the newspapers and see who’d been arrested for fencing. Then she could deal with them in the past before they’d been exposed.”

  The man had proved to be right so far, and Sam knew she’d best listen to him—at least when he was giving her his expert explanations. Not necessarily when he was trying to give her advice about what to do. She would know that herself.

  “Supposing you’re right—how long will it take her to do whatever she has to do?”

  Bailey shook his head. “I don’t know how long it might take her to line up the deal, or when she’d set it up for. But I imagine it will all take place at that hotel. She won’t want to take the money anywhere, and her room would be private enough for just such a transaction. It’s a classy hotel that should be safe ground for both sides. Relatively speaking. Criminals don’t tend to trust each other.”

  Sam turned her head to look her partner in the eye. “This is what’s worrying me—” Bailey might know about Kirin the criminal, but Sam understood Kirin the woman better than he ever could. “However nice that hotel may be, if she has to stay very long, she’ll want to go out and see the sights. Spend some of that money.” Which indirectly touched on another sore spot between Sam and Bailey.

  When she’d brought up the possibility of waylaying Kirin to get those ill-gotten gains and, more importantly, the leader device back, he hadn’t even been willing to entertain the notion.

  Sam had appealed to his expertise. As a former enforcement officer, he ought to have some decent ideas about how they could steal those things back. He’d claimed that his training prevented him from breaking the law himself. And that they’d no right to the money or the device themselves.

  They’d argued over that while they walked back from Greenwich Village. Explaining that they had a moral obligation to stop the murderess from enjoying the fruits of her crimes had made no impression. Sam had let the subject lie, but it was an issue.

  She didn’t know herself what she was going to do to stop Kirin, to bring her to justice—but when the time came, Sam would need to be sure of Bailey, that he would help her.

  The man was nodding. “You may be right. But since your ankle is still healing, I’ll follow her if she goes out tonight.”

  Sam had a hard time controlling her irritation. Bailey had no business telling her what she could or could not do. She didn’t challenge him at that moment. She didn’t know what she’d do though, if the man tried to hinder her when she did what she had to do. Whatever that ended up being.

  She made an effort to stand every hour on the hour and stretch and exercise her ankle by walking a full block. It was good therapy, and it would show Bailey what she could do. Eventually the day began to fade though, and she ceased her perambulations—if Kirin did go out, it would be at night.

  Sam settled back down in her spot, but not too comfortably. Something told her tonight was it and that she needed to be ready. Even so, she drifted off into a light slumber. The two of them must’ve made quite a sight—Bailey’s big muscular form slumped beside a small young woman sleeping on the sidewalk. While he stared at his watch.

  She was awakened by her partner pushing a finger into her shoulder. “She’s coming.”

  Sam started awake and looked first to the hotel entrance. Then she glanced down at her locator app where Kirin had appeared as a blip, meaning she’d left her room. The woman must’ve moved close to this side of the building. Likely she had descended to the lobby and was headed for the street. Sam had been right.

  She was glad Bailey had awakened her for it—he might’ve left here there so he could follow Kirin on his own. No, he wouldn’t have left me alone and asleep. But he might try to leave Sam there now.

  They stood and walked further down the sidewalk to get out of range, in case Kirin happened to check her locator screen. When the woman left the hotel might be a natural time to do that, too. If she saw a blip and looked in their direction, they would lose their best advantage. Surprise.

  If they lost that edge—Kirin now had the means to hop on a plane if she wanted to get away. And if the woman discovered she was still being pursued, she’d leave them so far behind they would have no hope of catching up to her before she could Travel. And that would be the end of the chase.

  As soon as they were far enough away to be a bar instead of a blip, Bailey returned to keeping an eye on his watch. Sam stared across the street and tried to watch the hotel door from the corner of her eye. She still worried that Kirin would feel the heat of a direct gaze.

  Her partner grunted. “There she is.”

  Sam shifted her head a little so she could see the woman, now wearing an elegant evening gown. At least that was the impression Sam had—the way she was looking, she could only make out a blur. Something else was different about Kirin, but Sam could not put her finger on what.

  Hopefully Bailey was looking properly and saw what it was. Maybe he could also tell her how Kirin had gone shopping under his very nose. Sam’s brief glimpse of the woman ended as the blur slid into yet another hired car that soon rolled away.

  Sam snorted. “Your surveillance last night left something to be desired. Since she managed to buy a dress without you noticing.”

  “Or she bought it at a shop inside the hotel. Or their concierge service is really good.”

  Not that good, surely. “We can afford a taxi to follow her, but I doubt she’ll go that far. Let’s save our money and use our feet for now.”

  Bailey gave her a long look and nodded. “It’d be difficult to stay out of range in a cab. We can always change our minds if she gets too far away.”

  Good. At least he wasn’t trying to tell her what to do. Sam had to make an effort to walk normally as they strolled down the sidewalk in the same general direction the hired car had gone. She told herself her ankle could use the exercise.

  Since Bailey was keeping a constant eye on his watch and they didn’t want to look too out of place, she let herself enjoy taking in the sights. The city at night was alive with lights and crackling with energy. All around them.

  By the time they’d walked four blocks, though, she was ready to stop and rest. And she could, since Kirin had once more appeared as a blip on the locator and they confirmed her to be inside a nightclub. A fancy, classy-looking place with an attached restaurant.

  Sam wished she had seen the woman entering, but there was no arguing with the watch. So they backed off to a safe distance and waited.

  Looking up at Bailey’s face high above her, Sam needed to say something before the man barged in with advice of his own. “I need to give my ankle a break.”

  He wisely refrained from comment and simply nodded, then stared across and down the street.

  Sam smiled to herself. “She’ll take her leisure, dining and dancing, I’m sure. So why don’t you get us some dinner?” Those gyros had been hours ago, and they needed to keep up their strength. “I’ll wait and watch.” She sat down on a short and seemingly pointless concrete post.

  Bailey nodded his approval. It’s better than giving me advice. Then, without a word, he walked off in the other direction, to make sure he didn’t show up on Kirin’s locator screen. Just
on the off chance. It was nice to be able to rely on his intelligence, not to make a stupid mistake in something like that.

  Apparently Bailey’s assessment of how long the woman would linger agreed with Sam’s, because he took his time getting their dinner. Even better, the man offered her an explanation as he handed over a pair of loaded hotdogs. Cheese and chili and onion and relish and mustard.

  “I wanted to get us something cheap but filling. We’ll want to conserve our resources all we can.”

  Which sentiment Sam agreed with. “Good job, Bailey. And good thinking.” And good food.

  As she balanced them, one in either hand, she thought about all the restaurants and cafés and the food carts. Do none of these people ever eat in their own homes? Can they even cook?

  Bailey munched mechanically on his own food. Not knowing how much time they had, she inhaled her own and tried not to think about the luxurious vittles Kirin was doubtless partaking of. Especially since it was all profit from theft and murder. If Sam allowed the thought it would interfere with her own digestion.

  She finished her second hotdog and wiped her mouth with a stiff paper napkin Bailey handed over to her. Like a gentleman he disposed of both their trash while she continued to rest her ankle. After he returned, he slumped beside her to keep vigil. She squinted down the street at the entrance to the restaurant, while Bailey’s eyes dropped to his watch.

  Now was the time for Sam to take the reins.

  She started without looking at him. “You know what that woman is—you said so yourself. You’ve agreed she must be brought to justice and that right now we’re the only ones in a position to do anything about that.”

  “Which doesn’t mean we should do anything.” Bailey kept his eyes on his locator screen. “Nor do I know how we’d do it, if it were up to us.”

  Sam tried to control her irritation. “Kirin can’t be allowed to keep that money, to profit from murdering Harold. You know that. More importantly, you understand why she can’t be permitted to keep that leader device.”