Evan doubled back to the checkout stand and emptied his goods into a knapsack. He popped open the cash register, then arranged the crisp blue bills into a folded pile. There was no need to count it. It was $212, just like always.
“All righty. The power’s coming back and I have a date with a sweet Georgia peach. So this is where we . . . wait! The synchron! May I have your watch, parakalo? I need it more than you do.”
Nico hurriedly removed his timepiece and held it out to Evan. He snatched it away and wrapped it around his wrist.
“Thanks. Now we’re ready.”
He checked the ammo in the shotgun, then blew dust off the barrel. Nico crawled backward.
“No! Please!”
Evan aimed the gun at his face. “You know, I remember a time, long ago, when I was the one crying and begging for my life. You didn’t kill me but you still weren’t nice. I’m just saying.”
“Please, sir! Please!”
Evan lowered the weapon. “‘Sir’? Did you just call me sir?” He laughed in amazement. “Wow. Fifty-four times and you never called me sir. I’m not sure how to feel. I mean I like it, obviously. I love it. But how much?”
Staring ahead in whimsical thought, he opened the shotgun. Two fat shells dropped to the floor.
“That much, it seems. Good job, Nico, you silver-tongued devil. You just charmed your way to a minor life extension.”
Just as he tossed the gun over his shoulder, the overhead lights flickered back to life.
“Hey, look at that. Right on cue.”
Evan turned the keylock next to the register, causing the tempic barrier to vanish. Cars and pedestrians became visible on the other side of the glass.
He grabbed his bag and patted Nico’s cheek. “Always a pleasure, my friend. Until next time.”
Evan ventured outside to a City Heights West that—unlike its shabby, old-world counterpart—actually resembled a city. Split-level houses had become replaced with sprawling office complexes. Trees had given way to animated lumic billboards. He chuckled at how he noted the difference every single time.
Soon his smile disappeared and he stopped cold. Evan didn’t let Nico Mundis live very often, and he just remembered why. The fat man’s testimony to the local police would enter the national law enforcement database, where certain key phrases would ring bells among the eagle-eyed federales in DP-9. Most of the Deps were easy enough to evade, but some, like the exotic Melissa Masaad, were annoyingly sharp. She could make Evan’s life that much harder.
He closed his eyes in concentration until his head went light and he felt a full-body tingle, as if swimming in seltzer. Wild colors streaked all around him as the clock of his life reversed ninety-two seconds. Soon Evan found himself back inside the store, back behind the barrier, back with a loaded shotgun aimed at Nico Mundis.
With no memory at all of Evan’s prior clemency, the shopkeeper raised a thick hand, crying. “No! Please!”
“Sorry, buddy. I forgot I had my reasons for doing this.”
“Please, sir! Please!”
Unfortunately for Nico, Evan was no longer surprised or charmed by the honorific. He fired the shotgun. A cracking boom. A spray of blood. A good portion of Nico spattered onto Evan.
“Oh great. Lovely.”
Evan rewound ten seconds, this time killing Nico from a slightly safer distance. He left the store clean.
As a hopeless perfectionist with a very unique talent, Evan Rander was no stranger to repetition. The act of undoing and redoing had become as natural to him as breathing. Sometimes the tedium was enough to drive him crazy. But it sure as hell beat living the one-take life, with all its indelible gaffes and consequences. Regret was something Evan had abandoned a long time ago. It died on his native Earth, with his father, his debt, and his crippling insecurities.
He returned to the street and hailed the first cab he saw. Evan knew the driver’s name before the car even stopped, but chose to play dumb.
“Take me downtown, my good man. Childress Park. I’m on a squeeze, so 10× and aer it.”
Before the driver could question him, Evan pressed two blue twenties against the glass. Proof that he could afford the speed and flight surcharges.
With a steamy hiss, the vehicle ascended forty feet to the taxi level, then folded its tires inward. The doors and windows locked shut, the classic winged-foot icon lit up on the fare meter, and the cab shot off like a bullet.
It took sixty-three seconds to cross five miles of urban scenery. Inside the taxi, eleven minutes passed. Evan stared out the window at his slowed surroundings. He spotted a puffy plume of chimney smoke that, in the sluggish blue tint of the world, reminded him of Marge Simpson’s hair. He sighed with lament. They had nothing like The Simpsons here in Altamerica. Satire escaped these fools.
—
The taxi landed at the edge of an enormous green park, a lush oasis in a field of modern glass office towers. Like the rest of the business district, the place was sparse of life on Saturday.