Introduction

“John, just shut up and give me the fucking gun!”

He was screaming his taunts, unable to translate physical reactions into verbal communication.

“All right, I’ll give it to you,” I said to my close friend Carl, as I pulled my weapon from my side and pointed it at him, just before hearing the blast. Then the infinite swirl of stars and colors and life burst into our existence, and once more all of us were merely subservient victims of these things called physics and reality.

Always Back to Monday

“You’ll give what to me?” he asks over Monday morning breakfast.

“The maple syrup,” I grasp for words as I grab the bottle. “That’s what I’ll give you… because it’s only a Monday morning.”

“What day did you think it was?” Carl asks.

“It could’ve been Thursday,” I say. “Long weekends rarely end early.” My ears focus on the fading buzz of electrons and spatial plasma as my mind begins to assert control over the present situation and its numerous undecided aspects.

“You joke around breakfast time all you want,” he tells me. “Come Wednesday, if you aren’t prepared, if your memory slips a half second, if your reactions are worse than theirs, that means that you, and probably the rest of us, will be their victims; instead of them being ours.”

I’m reciting this conversation in my head, out of practice, while avoiding the important task at hand — to understand the bank heist we are about to perform. But it’s not like that really matters on Monday. You see, I’m the only one who goes back to Monday.

For Some, It is Always Back to Tuesday

“Oh, my god,” Joseph screams. “The lights! The fury! You all experienced that, right?”

“For god’s sake, Joseph,” Carl responds. “We’ve all experienced it together multiple times. Problem is we need to figure out, again, why everything went wrong. Why do we keep getting phased back in time with memories from the future intact?”

“You see that?” Rutger says in his vaguely unbroken German accent, “My hand, look at it.” His fingers go through acrobatics in the air. “That bullet surely ripped my palm in half. And yet it’s back to normal, like nothing happened.”

“We’re not going to make any progress here if you keep behaving like children,” Carl tells us. “You think we’re going to get back to a normal, linear flow of time by playing these ridiculous tricks?” He wipes a layer of sweat from his forehead and then turns to me. “What about you, John? Any new insights? You seem to be the only one coming up with clever ideas.”

“No, actually,” I reply. “Nothing new on my end.” I’ve decided not to tell them what I know. For now anyway.

Or, Is it Always Back to Wednesday?

Wednesday. Polished rubber clicks against a marble floor with its own particular resonance when you are wearing steel-toed boots. When we, as a team, initially entered the bank that afternoon, there was just one thing we kept in mind: we had come here to conquer.

That was our attitude the first time we broke into the bank. After we were sent through several cycles of the bank robbery, it became an event that was almost formulaic. “All right, you fucking assholes!” Joseph enjoyed repeating this particular line for some reason, every single iteration. “Put your fucking hands up!”

The rest of us could tell you what was going to happen by rote memory. I might angle my weapon differently in one cycle, watch the security guards react to the sheen of light in a slightly different position just to see if I could get an advantage. But Joseph would be just as taunting, Carl would be just as commanding, and Rutger would be just as professional. That was our team.

When someone places the barrel of a gun behind your ear and asks whether you are willing to cooperate, you tend to evaluate your choices. As a rite of initiation to professional bank robbers, there is little else that can make you question them. Even if that little thing taunting your confidence is a sudden, random time travel loop.

So, Why the Time Travel, Then?

The first time we looped, Carl actually wanted to check to see if the time travel was added as an insurance option to guarantee our success. We all figured out that we go back to Tuesday while the rest of the world was oblivious; I kept my Monday secret to myself.

But we were raiding a bank, not a quantum physics laboratory. We were hired red-bloods, mere mercenaries with mostly up-to-date intelligence. Astrophysics and the Taoist Master standing behind the all-encompassing Universe — all of that was something we stumbled upon in our duties, and definitely not something we expected upon signing up.

So, what caused us to travel back in time repeatedly? None of us really knew. Having an extra day to research while the others were blissfully ignorant did nothing to help me.

A bank is the least busy on a Wednesday afternoon at lunch. We realized this as an opportunity. Insurance companies make the same bet. We just figured that a team of angry, skilled soldiers would be a bit more intimidating than a department of pencil-pushing administrators and their facon bacon cops. But every Wednesday, the same thing happens: we lose and go back in time.

To Fire The Gun Randomly

“Pack the bags with as much cash as you can.” Carl was always thorough on this point, every time the bank robbery occurred. It seemed to be the line with which he had most success and one he was most willing to rely on.

“Please don’t hurt us,” one of the tellers screamed as she struggled with the equipment. “We’re going as fast as we can.”

“Did you see him yet?” I asked. “Are you fucking looking?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Carl responded. I rescinded any doubts about him. “No, I didn’t fucking see him, but I’m fucking looking.” Sweat traced his hairline.

“You’re still looking for The Ghost?” Joseph asked, “I’ll tell you if I see an exorcist.” He turned around and moved out of vision forever. The next thing I heard sounded like the cracking of wood. By the time I looked, he was on the ground and there were an infinite number of assault rifle bursts. The Ghost had struck again. I was eliminated with the others.

To Fear Others Randomly

I loop back in time to Monday. “Give me the fucking maple syrup,” Carl handles his line quite well. He doesn’t know yet, and if I try to explain, he’ll just forget what I tell him, and I’ll go back to Monday again without gaining anything. I keep it to myself. No use having the same conversation for infinity.

So, it’s a quiet Monday. Tuesday comes. “You get a look at The Ghost, this time?” I ask.

“Holy fuck, I’m alive again!” Joseph screams out.

“Shut up, Joseph,” Rutger rubs the more circular parts of his shaved cranium. “You say that every time.”

“That fucking Ghost is always there,” Carl yells, finally showing his irritation. “Every time we prepare for every move he is going to make, and every time he kills every last one of us. I mean, after I saw red, I assumed the same happened to you all again, right? You were all blown away?”

“To the hilt,” I chime in like I might’ve been expected to. But that’s the thing, I did die again, just like them. You see, we don’t know who the Ghost is, but at the last moment of our robbery, this person suddenly appears, draped in black and cloaked in silence. What follows is a blood bath with our veins as the main pipes into the tub.

“To the hilt?” Carl counters. “You mean, like your lover?”

To Question Randomly

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“This is a heist, not a fucking charity dinner,” Carl says to me. “We’ve been in that bank at least twenty times by now, and so far I haven’t had a reason to question your abilities.”

“And you’ve given me plenty of reasons to question yours,” I respond.

“I’m with John on this one,” Rutger adds. “Killing civilians is sloppy. It makes the police want to hunt you all the more. It’s pure logistics. Do you want the money in the vaults, or do you want to commit some terrible act to prove you have a right to it?”

“Why can’t we have both?” Joseph asks.

“Because you are either weak and victimized by the situation, or you are strong and you overpower it,” Rutger says. “It is an anomaly to be both.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Carl adds. “No, John. I wasn’t criticizing you for being a bleeding heart. I think you knew the girl at the bank — from before we planned this heist.”

To Die Randomly

“What makes you think I knew her?” I ask.

“I saw you talking to her,” Carl replies. “You were speaking almost as though you knew some very intimate things.”

“Go fuck yourself, Carl,” I respond. “For all I know, you’re the one who was talking intimately to her.” And that’s just the thing — I did see him talking to her, and very closely. But it was several cycles ago. I’ve been trying to piece it together, fragment by fragment, moment by moment, but have gotten nowhere. The unexpected counter punch was enough to get him to shut up. I don’t need him quiet for the rest of my life — just until the next day will be sufficient.

Wednesday. Another blazing through of rent-a-cop uniforms and the bank suddenly fell within the sovereignty of our domain.

“You, Joseph and Rutger, you break the vault seals,” Carl handed out his orders. “For this time anyway.” The bank tellers gave each other quick perplexed looks.

“I’m on lookout with you, John,” he added, pointing to the front. “I’m on point, you stay back. I want to at least get a look at this thing when it kills me.” No more than a smile before his head exploded. His blood got in my eyes and I could not see. Struggling to get to Rutger and Joseph, I saw one of the teller girls, the one from before, with a faint whisper on her lips, “Carl…”

To Misunderstand Randomly

“Give me the fucking maple —”, I interrupt him, grab the bottle, and place it directly in front of him. Being resurrected in a rooftop restaurant with an infinitely warm sun may seem ideal, but it might not be enough if you can still see your nightmares right in front of you.

“You’re getting a little jumpy too soon, aren’t you, John?” Carl knows how to bother someone right at the moment they least need it. He’s good at being a boss.

Tuesday. “What the fuck, John!” his tone suddenly changes. “I told you to hang back. And not one fucking bullet of suppressing fire?”

“It was another bloodletting,” Rutger says. “We were all doomed, once again, without more than a half impulse of willingness to defend ourselves. I wonder, what are we after now? To get the money, or to end the time cycles?”

“Both,” Carl and Joseph chant together, before their seriousness subsides into non-threatening chuckles.

“Then maybe you should tell us,” Rutger replies.”About the girl. You went down first, then John, then Joseph, but, knowing my fate, I hid and waited. I listened to The Ghost walk straight up to the teller. He asked where you were, Carl, by name. So, why don’t you tell us what you really know?”

To Lead Randomly

“She’s just a fuckin’ girl,” Carl tells us. “Just one of the bank workers. I may have pushed her around, or I may have used force on her, or I may have demanded information from her. You all saw how I behaved with her, there should be nothing to question.”

“It’s the exact opposite,” Rutger replies. “Everything is up to question. Here we are, twenty or thirty time cycles later, and we’re still going through the same actions. I want to find a loose end, and so far, you’re the closest thing to it.”

“He makes a point,” Joseph mindlessness seems to dissipate when he can be made to finally recognize his own self-interests. I agree.

“So, what do you all have in mind?” Carl starts to panic. “Are you going to torture me? Beat the answer out of me?”

“No, that won’t solve anything,” Rutger says. “I want answers, not tears. Begin by telling me her name.”

“Angela,” Carl blurts it out. “It’s Angela. But I know nothing else about her. Not a fucking clue.”

“Next time around, then,” Rutger says. “You, John, are going to sit out, until the last minute, to enter the bank. Then you can tell us what you learned when you go back.”

To Follow Randomly

“It’s fucking impossible to take on a bank with only three heistmen,” Carl complains on Wednesday morning.

“Oh, yeah?” I look to Rutger’s lead.”And so far, it’s also been impossible to take it on with four heistmen, so things can’t be all that much worse for us.”

“Which one is Angela?” Joseph asks. “There were six bank tellers, four women, two men.”

“The one with the green earrings,” Rutger replies.

“Oh, the beauty, eh?” Joseph says. “I guess infinitely reliving the last, most painful days of your life would be at least worth her.”

“You’re all making a mistake, you’ll find that out when we go back to Tuesday again,” Carl protests.

“That’s all I ever wanted,” Rutger responds. “To find out. Let’s hope that’s what we get.”

To Kill Randomly

Watching the bank from a block away was like watching it through a time rift. The distance was alarming, even if I was armed with one suitcase containing sniper rifle components and another containing a submachine gun.

Just another Wednesday, where I was ready to kill, except this time there were toxic jet streams just overhead and an urban deli just beneath my feet. It was a nice contrast to marbled granite in every direction.

Our van showed up, just as scheduled. The three soldiers stormed the bank, there were shots for about one minute, and then all went silent. Everything must’ve gone without a hitch.

Three minutes passed, and I saw a black, armored vehicle come to a halt just out back of the bank. The time frame fitted The Ghost’s past behavior, so I slid down the nearest fire escape ladder. Running across the street, I heard a series of shots, from automatic to semi-automatic fire until I finally put my foot down on that first step up to the bank — then there was only one weapon that I could hear.

I dodged to a side entrance for employees, fired at the door’s locks, and kicked in the door. The Ghost was caught surprised, but not too surprised. Next to him was a woman, a bank teller. She was holding a brown briefcase. I heard a gentle whisper from her lips, “No.” I made out the numbers on the briefcase, ‘AX-4007’, and then, once more, I was basking in sunlight at a rooftop restaurant on Monday. She didn’t have green earrings, though — they were blue.

To Think Randomly

“Give me the fucking maple syrup,” Carl says.

“What do you think she meant by that?” I ask the air and beg the sky.

“What, that she turned you down?” Joseph breaks my concentration. A mild glance of irritation, as I think to myself, “Just wait till tomorrow.”

Tuesday. “Holy fuck!” Joseph screams, “We were brutalized by The Ghost. Not a fucking chance. Never a chance in goddamn hell!”

“John, did you find out anything this time?” Rutger says, “Did you get any information?”

“AX-4007,” I tell them, “I could only see that The Ghost entered through the back of the bank alone, maybe with a driver, but the opportunity of a clear shot never presented itself. When I broke in after The Ghost finished you all off, I saw him in the back, with a bank teller and a briefcase marked AX-4007.”

“The girl with the green earrings, right?” Rutger asks, “It was Angela.”

“No, it was actually the girl with the blue earrings,” I reply. “Angela wasn’t with The Ghost at all.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Joseph asks.

To Be Ignorant Randomly

“So you, Carl, know the girl with the green earrings,” Rutger says out loud. “And The Ghost knows the girl with the blue earrings.”

“Angela and our second mistress,” Joseph adds.

“The second girl is Patty,” Carl tells us, to the surprise of the rest of us, and then with a few grains of reassurance, “They all have name tags, you know.”

“And the briefcase? AX-4007? That could mean anything,” Rutger says.

“I know, but it’s an ocean of information compared to the few drops we’ve been able to squeeze out of the situation,” I reply. “At least we know that The Ghost is in the loop before the bank robbery actually starts.”

“We need more information,” Rutger says. “It’s information that is the key. Next time, I want you, John and Carl, to stay back and watch the bank. The Ghost can’t escape two snipers. Joseph and I will get what information we can from Patty and Angela while we’re inside.”

“What? Two heistmen against a bank full of security guards?”

“I’ve memorized the patterns of their footsteps and the time frames each one puts in between shots,” Rutger says. “I think we’ll be a bit more successful. Do you have any better ideas?”

To Be Consumed Randomly

Wednesday. I gave a very slow wave across 400 meters of urban sprawl to my comrade in arms, before gesturing a thumbs up. Carl repeated the wave, but finished it up with a middle finger.

We were both armed with Dragunov sniper rifles, effective and efficient, with a magazine clip big enough to make it an almost foolproof weapon. We were positioned such that one of us would have a decent shot when The Ghost emerged from his vehicle. And since that vehicle originally approached from the Northwest, that is where both of our sights were aimed.

I looked up from my scope and checked my watch. The Ghost was two minutes late. I saw Carl waving at me across the bank plaza. He pointed to his eyes, and then to the scope, closing the end of the rifle into his shoulder. Following suit, I stared at the road leading to the bank, until I heard the explosion.

A loud roaring blast of a car horn distracted me, as a bicyclist stopped short to scream at a driver and then pedaled away. I checked my watch. This hadn’t happened the last time; my time on the rooftop hadn’t lasted that long. I looked across the plaza to where Carl was positioned. He was gone. I pulled up the scope and zoomed in on his position. I didn’t see him, and I didn’t see his weapon.

I dropped the sniper rifle and fell back behind the parapet, pulling a pistol out from inside my jacket. A hand lifted itself up from the other balcony, dropping a grenade in front of me.

To Be Heroic Randomly

Tick, tick, tick — as the grenade bounced against the concrete, I pulled myself over the edge, holding on with just a few fingers, until the blast knocked my grip loose and sent me falling through to the unforgiving steel of a fire escape. I was completely unarmed.

I hoisted myself up and made my way to the ground level as fast as I could. I lunged through traffic to the bank. The grenade had made whatever weapons I had on the building useless, and the apparent absence of The Ghost from the bank had made it, for the time being, the safest place I could go to.

“Hey!” I screamed, coming through the bank entrance. “Rutger! Joseph! Carl’s dead!” I fell to my knees while catching my breath in an empty marble bank, with bodies of security guards scattered throughout. Silence. I was still alone.

“Please don’t let them come back. Please don’t let them come back,” I heard quiet whispering coming from one of the office rooms. I took a pistol from one of the dead guards and followed that soft scratching. Then I found her — another one of the bank tellers, but she didn’t have green or blue earrings. It was not Angela or Patty. It was… Lucia, I discovered from her name tag.

“Who don’t you want to come back?” I walked up to her, “What are you afraid of?”

Slowly, quietly, she took her hands from her eyes. “Well, nothing anymore.”

I looked down. It was Joseph. He was shot through the skull. Then, I heard the front door to the bank open.

To Be Sacrificial Randomly

Being a mouse to a cat is a lot easier if it’s the mouse that discovers the cat and not the other way around. I rose softly and sneaked through an office hallway to another office. I heard the clicking of a firearm, but there were no shots. That made me more nervous than bold.

In the next room, I stumbled on a body. I hardly had to look down to realize that it was Rutger. Security guards don’t die rushing through doorways; they die crying to themselves in a pool of blood while hostages are sacrificed. I looked past the body to the wall, and there she was: Patty, the girl with the blue earrings, Angela following close behind. Except, unlike Lucia, she was not terrified. She was standing, rather unintimidated.

“He’s in here!” she screamed.

I turned towards the rapid footsteps long enough to calculate their distance. Then I turned to her and raised my pistol for one final shot.

“No, don’t kill my best friend,” Angela stood in front of Patty. “You’ll have to kill me too.”

If confusion had distracted me, then it could also work on The Ghost. I fired one shot at the table in front of us into a vase, sending glass shards flying. It was enough for both of them to dive to the ground.

The Ghost entered the room with a lowered weapon. My arm was around Patty’s neck, the pistol firmly to her skull.

To Be Angry Randomly

“I want answers!” I screamed.

“You dumb, ignorant shit,” I heard The Ghost finally speak. It was a woman, “You were never supposed to take a hostage like this. You were never supposed to be on your own.”

“When you have no choices, then you have no choices,” I could hear Patty wince as my nervousness translated into a tighter grip.

“Now we’re going to have to do this thing all over again. You know that, don’t you?” The Ghost told me.

“Yeah, I do, but what I want to know is how you know,” I said.

“You mean you really understand the time cycles that have been going on?” My heart skipped a beat.

“More than you could possibly imagine,” I lied.

“Then you’re dumber than I thought. The government files on AX-4007 are explicitly clear. When a time loop is set up, the results repeat until the cycle has reached its nexus point, where it contradicts the setup.”

“What do you mean by that?”.

“Isn’t it obvious? What I mean is that the gun you’re holding doesn’t have any bullets left.”

To Be Dead Randomly

“Give me the fucking maple syrup…”

I can’t turn away from the glint of sunshine in our safe rooftop haven. “The time loop has not yet reached its nexus point.” There’s a moment of silence.

“What?” Joseph asks.

“I’m just thinking about why she said no,” I walk the line between reality and fiction.

“Typical idiot,” Joseph replies. “You mention time travel and nexus points to a girl, and she’ll walk away from you like the weirdo you are.”

“You’re quite sure of your abilities,” Rutger speaks. “I hope you don’t fail us when it finally matters.”

“Don’t worry about me. My talk comes with a delivery,” Joseph says. “Whether it’s with the girls at the club or plying my trade.”

Carl looks at each of us, and then without hesitation, reaches across the length of the table to pull the maple syrup closer. He doesn’t say a single word.

I don’t trust Carl.

To Be Suspicious Randomly

I make up some excuse for breaking my engagement that afternoon at the restaurant. A few calls are made, some equipment is acquired at a hefty credit rate, and by evening, I have tracked down Carl to a low-profile but classy restaurant downtown.

Since all I want is information, binoculars and an audio surveillance device are all that I need. But just in case, I bring my peace of mind.

“You want me to put the diamonds into your bag?” she says.

“Hush hush,” Carl mutters, using a cigarette to cover his mouth. Finally, after a few moments have passed, “Use words we have agreed upon.”

“The glass goes into your bag, the one with the blue sticker on the bottom,” she says. “And then the green goes equally into both bags.”

“That’s right,” Carl says. “The bangs we have set up, they’re going to take out the bolting mechanisms for all of the containers in the building, so it will be easy pickings”

I look closer. I see green earrings. It’s Angela. Carl is trying to sell us out.

To Be Curious Randomly

All he is trying to do is get a bigger cut. The antagonism and frustration he’s been showing as a leader isn’t because of an actual block he’s running up against; he’s just venting his inabilities.

I listen to their conversation some more, but I get no good information out of it. I see the stud in town taking out his lady so that he can tell her how he’s going to rip his friends off. But I don’t see or hear anything about time cycles or loops.

Angela — she jumped in front of her friend, Patty, to save her. I saw her at one point talking with Carl in the bank, but I wasn’t able to follow up my questions on that.

My suspicion that Carl was lying has been proved. But the fruits of this proof are worthless. If I walk away from that bank with hundred million dollars instead of a hundred and fifty, I’d be almost just as satisfied.

Carl’s secret is self-interest and greed. I can contain him. But The Ghost’s secret — that one still eludes me — and she still escapes containment.

AX-4007? Maybe my credit’s still good enough to get some more information about it.

To Be Desperate Randomly

There are all types of midnight phone calls. “I need some information, government related, high confidential levels,” I say.

“Yeah, hold on,” I hear as the line goes blank. Thirty seconds pass. “You know where to meet me?”

“I do,” I reply.

“Be there in an hour,” the phone clicks.

Never doubt what you might find down an alleyway near an underground computer cafe. Maybe some acne-riddled teenage losers; Maybe acne-riddled teenage geniuses. I miss the days when I could commit crime in such a carefree manner, with the attitude of ‘I’m a juvenile; they can’t do anything permanent to me.’ But now I need help from someone like that.

I have enough time to order a coffee and sit down at a computer that is just sufficiently visible to anyone looking for me.

Someone is going around the room placing sticky notes on broken computers. They place one on the desk in front of me. I lift it up, seeing the warning about a broken machine, and then flip it over. “Traveling through time? Look around. I’m watching.”

To Be In Need Randomly

I look around the room and catch the gaze of one person watching me intently. Casually I walk up to him, “You know what time it is?”

He smiles, “Any time that you want it to be. Let’s talk outside.”

I follow him to the back alley, in between dumpsters with rotting food and trashcans overflowing with garbage and dirt.

“What you’re looking for doesn’t exist,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“The AX-4007 Project,” he says. “It was started five years ago, but just last year it was officially canceled. Budget cuts.”

“What was the project about?”

“To control the flow of time. Not to travel forward and backward, but for setting up loops. To control all time through all the universe is too god-like, they probably thought. May as well start small, the way mankind always has.”

“Can you tell me anything about the current time loop that we are in?” I ask.

To Be In Abundance Randomly

“The project was scrapped,” he says. “So, I doubt anything about it is still working.”

“But it could still be in operation, if someone got their hands on it,” I reason with myself as much as I question his story. “What kind of person would that be?”

“Anyone who was involved in the project. But even then, you’re talking about a lot of teenagers who worked shitty internships and couldn’t do anything competently, and a small handful of scientists in their sixties and seventies who couldn’t explain anything competently. The project washed out just like its workers. I’d tell you more if I knew, but that’s where the story seems to end.”

“Unless the story keeps repeating?”

“There is no story. There’s nobody still involved with it or anyone who could give a fuck about it. What’s there to repeat?”

“Only what was left incomplete.”

“And as far as I can tell, as far as the records say, that’s nothing,” he says. “Nothing is going to keep repeating.”

To Be Neglected Randomly

“You’ve been a great help,” I say. “Bill me what you think is appropriate.”

“That’s already done,” he says.

Tuesday. “Holy fuck, what the fuck!” Carl screams, lashing at his throat. “Someone cut my throat and left me to bleed out to the last fucking moment.”

“I didn’t get too far, either,” Joseph says.

“That’s because you can’t keep your fucking mind on the job and off of the girls,” Rutger says. “You lose focus, you fuck up and you die. Don’t fucking forget that next time.”

“What about you, John?” Carl looks at me. “Did you find anything? You’re usually better at taking apart the information from these cycles.”

“I remember looking across the bank and seeing Carl disappear,” I reply. “After that, I heard a loud explosion, and only remember choking to death on the heat and dust.”

“So, does anyone have a plan?” Carl asks. “Because next time, I think I should be the one who watches the bank. Last two fuck-ups were manned by John. Go with Team Carl and you’re all right.”

To Be Attentive Randomly

“Part one of research is information gathering,” Rutger puts it like it is. “Part two of research is information application. Why don’t we try this whole thing again from the start?”

Wednesday. We went with our original plans, all a bit wiser, all a bit more cautious. “Hey, everyone, this is a fucking robbery.” Carl announced loudly. “Shut the fuck up and do what I say.” He deliberately placed his back to the front of one guard who always hid out till the last moment, and with the quietest slip of rubber against marble, turned around and neutralized his target.

“You, Patty,” I said to the girl with blue earrings, “I need to speak with you, right now. Come with me. Rutger, you’re on lookout.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Ending this,” I said. A few muffled screams of help, and she was finally in the quiet solitude of a 3-foot thick, steel cage.

“What is going on?” I asked her. “The others, they don’t know. But you know. You know The Ghost. You’re going to give me information.”

To Be Soft Randomly

“I don’t know The Ghost,” she said. “I don’t know that person at all. How could I?”

“How could you not?” I asked. “I have checked out the story of every other person employed at this bank, but you’re the odd one out,” I half-lied and caught her believing me. “Tell me, or it’s going to be painful for you and The Ghost.”

“The Ghost is immune,” she said. “I know and believe that much. I’ve been in the cycle too. I went from the first cycle warning my manager and the police, to the last cycle where I know that I can’t get out, whether I come into work or not.”

“The Ghost is immune. Yeah, sure, but you aren’t,” I said.

“That is the problem for you,” she said. “I am the Ghost.”

To Be Hard Randomly

“You aren’t the Ghost, I’ve seen you both separately,” I said.

“I am,” she said. “The Ghost is me twenty years from now.”

“And Project AX-4007?”

“In five years, the project is resurrected again, with much of the help of the living members of the original team, but they’re all college graduates at that time.You can’t just bury research and expect nobody to find it.”

“Then what is the point of this? You’re going back in time to stop an old boss from being fucked over by some bank robbers? Really? That is your motivation?”

“I don’t know my other’s motivation. I only know that she is the one who really has power here.”

“I doubt that will be proven,” I said. Then I heard a quick, friendly knock at the vault door, and remembered that the vault acted as a sound muffler.

To Be Insensitive Randomly

“Come in!” I replied to the knocking with a glint of humor, before I walked over and began undoing the lock. It was too late at this point for me.

“John, it’s been so long, I hope you’re not about to blow my brains out,” I heard as soon as a crack of air was able to carry sound.

I disarmed myself and placed my pistol in the back of my pants. “Yeah, let’s keep that even then,” I replied.

Enough of the vault was open so that a human being could walk through it, but I did not see or hear anyone. I kept turning that one-ton door with the force of my body using the principle of levers. How stupid of me. Then I felt it — the metal barrel firmly placed against the side of my skull.

“The nice part about keeping things even is that it makes it so that things are always divisible by two,” I heard The Ghost’s voice.

To Be Strong Randomly

“Against the wall, now,” she said, her words breaking through the blackness of her mask like swords aimed at my heart. “I need to talk to you. This is not going to be simple, but you need to hear this.”

“Okay,” I accepted the situation and her demands.

“You cannot kill anyone in this bank. Not one. You take hostages. You hold them down to the ground with all your fury and might. The fury and might you’d expect of criminals with a plan, but not a slaughterhouse envisioned by a bunch of sloppy criminals who come for one thing and try to take everything. You do that, and we might escape the time cycles.”

“You’re trapped, too?”

“Yes, but not in the same way as you. You’re trapped on the bottom. I’m trapped on the top.”

“And what if the others don’t agree?”

“That’s the other thing, Carl and Joseph may not enter the bank alive, you kill them before that happens. Here, let me show you how.” She raised her weapon.

To Be Weak Randomly

“Give me the fucking maple syrup,” Carl asks.

I look at him. A moment of solitude and quiet goes by as I say nothing.

“Do you need a fucking hand, or am I going to have to walk over there, smack you up, and take it from you?”

I see the bottle, pick it up, and gently place it in front of him.

“Good, that’s what I expected of you,” he says. I turn to my thoughts as I stare at my empty plate.

“Carl, what the fuck is that?” I look up to see Joseph murmuring. There’s a red dot floating around the maple syrup bottle, just before it explodes with the loud burst of a sniper rifle’s gunshot.

We all jump underneath the table at our rooftop restaurant, and at that exact moment, look over to the corpse and realize that Carl’s dead.

To Be Uncertain Randomly

Tuesday. “Holy fuck!” Joseph screams. “I didn’t see that coming, not a bit.”

“Another cycle, another try,” Rutger says. “What are we even trying to do?”

Not a single sound can be heard from Carl. The others are on repeat between Tuesday morning and the evening of the heist on Wednesday. And now I see the repercussions of the previous day.

“This shit wouldn’t be happening if Carl was here,” Joseph argues with himself. They don’t remember about the innumerable cycles where Carl had been with us, and everything went to hell just the same.

“Goddamn, even if we wanted to walk away, we can’t,” Rutger says. “Half of the police department has been bought off, so that they’re going to be busy somewhere when the robbery finally goes under way. You can’t just ask for a refund on a million dollar city-wide bribe.”

If Carl is gone, that means he never met with Angela last night. She may or may not know that he’s dead yet. But I can imagine that The Ghost knows.

To Be Unknown Randomly

Wednesday morning. “What makes you think this will work this time?” Rutger asked.

“Easy,” I replied. “I met The Ghost.”

“You met him?”

“Her. This is the only way. We have no other choice.”

“Kill Joseph? Right after we use him to break in?” he asked, and then began chuckling. “You’ve seen too many mobster movies. This is a team effort. We do this together.”

“We have been doing this together. Over and over and over. In the beginning, the very first time, I had perfect confidence — Carl was ruthless enough, Joseph was crude enough, and you were methodical enough — but now I know Carl was just selfish and Joseph impulsive.”

“What do you mean? Carl’s been dead since Monday morning, and that was another huge bribe to get the authorities to look the other way.”

“You don’t remember that first time? “The very first cycle?” He gave me a blank look. “Just shut up…”

“… and give me the gun,” he completed Carl’s sentence from our first cycle. It had been his response when I had found him talking to the girl with the green earrings.

To Be Unaware Randomly

“But how?” he asked. “How do I remember that, and also remember that Carl was never there?”

“I don’t know that,” I said. “Not yet.”

“Are you sure that killing Joseph will end the time cycle?”

“That, and nobody can die in the bank. That’s something I was overlooking, in terms of the professionalism of this team and possible changes to history we were responsible for.”

“You think someone in that bank ends up curing cancer or establishing world peace or ending poverty? It might just end up being the son of some influential politician, ready to bend and pervert the law for their own personal purposes.”

“You know, there’s only three of us. If you’re so worried about contingencies, we can make sure that Joseph isn’t in a position to know about the fact that it was one of us who pulled the trigger. Any shot we fire at him that he doesn’t see, we blame on The Ghost.”

“I’m sick to death of these endless time cycles,” Rutger replied. “We may have entered a particular territory where the experimental method will prove more fruitful than the technical one. I’m in.”

To Be Open-Ended Randomly

Wednesday afternoon. Normally, we just charged the bank and killed anyone who stood in our path. “3, 2, 1…” I counted down a synchronous time established with the others. A small, tin cylinder bounced off the walls with its clicks and tinks, catching the attention of all of the main lobby guards.

And then a sudden blast of noise and light made them all deaf and blind. A flashbang, standard police stormtrooper tactics. In a matter of 10 seconds, we stormed the lobby, forcing guards down to the ground and disarming them. But, no matter how slow those seconds passed for us doing the raid, and no matter how fast it was for our hostages, it wasn’t enough.

“I count 8, er, 9, guards taken,” Joseph said.

“There’s supposed to be 12.” Rutger said.

I saw an arm outstretched from a normally vacant hallway door, pistol hoisted and all, just to the left of my shoulder. Latching on, I grabbed his wrist and, forcing my shoulder into his ribcage, I flipped him over. A single shot was fired.

I grabbed the gun. Nehind him were two other guards, who readily gave themselves up and surrendered, sinking to the marble floors.

I turned around. Rutger was bleeding.

To Be Cautious Randomly

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s fine, just my shoulder,” Rutger said.

“The shoulder you use for firing your gun,” Joseph said. “You’re worthless now. Come on John, just you and me now.”

“You, give me your shirt, right now, or I’ll kill you,” I said to a guard. I wrapped a makeshift tourniquet above Rutger’s wound with the shirt.

“Open the vault, right now.” Joseph screamed at the bank teller. It was Patty. She followed his orders precisely, unlocking the vault with the bank manager’s key.

“You’re okay, right?” I asked Rutger.

“Yes, I am fine,” he replied. “I’m left and right handed, I can fire with either shoulder. In Germany, as a child, I had once lost the use of my right shoulder from farming equipment wounds. Trust me, I am fine.” He stood up, looking like he was about to faint.

“You!” Joseph got distracted, and pointed to Angela. “I want to see you in closer quarters.”

To Be Angry Randomly

My vision drifted from Rutger trying to keep standing to Joseph closing in on his prey. I lifted my gun and fired. One single shot, and he fell to his knees and then to the ground. A pool of blood slowly expanded from his where his head rested.

“Anyone fucking moves without my say so, and I will kill you just the same,” I screamed like a man trembling with his only friend nearly dead, and after having executed my only bought-off ally. Nobody questioned my willingness to end a life after that.

“Your money is in the bags,” muttered Patty from across the room.

I helped Rutger lean against a wall as he readjusted his tourniquet and his pistol grip.

“Perfect,” I said, taking the duffel bags and throwing them over my shoulder. An entire security team, disarmed and harmless, lay just below me, each guard feeling the tremors of my footsteps, each of them smelling the friction of the sweat drawing down my forehead.

I took Rutger on my shoulder, and we made our way to the back where our ride was waiting for us. I kicked open the backdoor and saw The Ghost, standing calmly and without worry, as I struggled balancing a human being, a rifle, and two sacks of cash worth up to two hundred million dollars.

To Be Resolved Randomly

“Need a ride?” she asked. “Your getaway contact wasn’t worth the price you paid. Get in now.”

I put Rutger in the backseat and climbed into the shotgun seat, noticing the internal armoring of the vehicle. As we drove beyond the bank plaza, I realized that there were going to be no more time cycles.

By late evening, we had been traveling through the offroads without a soul for miles. Rutger’s wound had stopped bleeding and the near endless supply of water bottles had brought him up to standard consciousness. But for all the water, there still wasn’t a drop of conversation.

“I should’ve explained, but I couldn’t,” The Ghost spoke. “You see, I love Angela. I’ve always loved her. I didn’t know it then, but I have learned it since. And there are decades where she only speaks about the horrible things that Carl and Joseph did to her. No matter how light it appears to criminals, it is oceans deep for someone who can feel. This was the only way I could end her suffering.”

“And, what about AX-4007?” I asked.

“When the project was brought back online, I was first in line for a position. Once it reached its final level of sophistication, I, a former intern, knew what I could really do with it without anyone discovering. It was a risk I took to end the pain of someone I cared about.”

As we drove into the night I looked out at the road and thought about all that had happened over the past few endless days. How do you even count time?

How much money had we spent on bribes, equipment, and how much time? Too much. All of it was too much. If you don’t have the right people for the job, then it doesn’t matter how much money you sink into a project. Make that mistake and it will haunt you until the end of your days. In the worst cases, it may haunt you infinitely.