Callum stamped his feet and hugged his arms. A sigh curled away from him. He guessed he was now only four taxis from the front. A relief, but a problem of its own: he lacked the funds to get home to Kilmaurs, supposing the driver agreed to take him out of the city and across the moors. Worse weather was to come.

Over the road, people kept arriving, lifting their heads and stopping short at the gates, and from the line would come the cry, “Trains are aff! Buses as well. You’ll need to join the back of the queue.” In a cruel quirk of nomenclature, the back of the queue—always emphasized—now snaked round the corner onto Hope Street.

Callum had joined their ranks an hour ago praying an idea would occur, that money would magic its way into his account. But it was the night before payday and his partner, Siobhan, still on mat-leave and now receiving only statutory, had even less to spare than Callum did. And his father wasn’t answering his phone. Likely he’d fallen asleep in front of the game. Rangers were winning handsomely away to Aberdeen; Dad was a Celtic fan.

Callum slipped his phone from his pocket. No messages.

Fuck it. He had thirty quid in his wallet. Thirty quid was half a taxi.

“Right,” he shouted, turning on his heel. A few dozen heads snapped to attention. “Anyone else going to Kilmaurs? Might as well share if you are.”

Those same heads shook, minutely, almost in unison. Then, agitation halfway up the queue. A purple bobble hat, double-pommed, the owner too small to establish eye contact, so she stepped out the line.

“Did you say Kilmaurs, son?”

Callum nodded. “Aye.”

She was in her mid-fifties. Furry white coat. Platinum blonde under the hat. Heavy mascara. A day’s drink sloshing around inside her. Not that Callum was entirely sober.

“Right,” she said, “that’ll dae us.”

She bent to pick up some bags and Callum spotted her companion, tall and teenaged and looking to the skies like she wanted the storm to entomb her entirely. That’d be the daughter, then.

Callum smiled. Could have been worse. The mum would likely demand his life story and the names of every living relative in the village, but his baby chat—right now, his only chat—would charm her well enough.

One place behind him, an arm cut through the air. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a wee minute here.”

Ah, Christ.

Baldy head. Barbour jacket with the logo on the outside. Probably fancied himself a Jason Statham lookalike but his jowls were on the slide.

“There’ll be no queue skipping while I’m about, so you just haud your horses, love.”

She stopped in her tracks, now out the queue, shopping bags in hand, teenage daughter wraithlike behind her.

A trill of fat fingers. “Back you go.”

But she just stood there, threw a stricken glance at Callum, as if torn between disappointing an Ayrshire-man and angering a maniac.

“Look, mate…” said Callum.

The baldy head swivelled round, all mad eyes and raised brows.

Callum pressed on. “It’s hardly skipping if they’re getting in the same taxi.”

“Hardly skipping? Hardly skipping?” He gestured towards the length of the queue. “Look at all these folk she’s about to hardly skip!”

“But it’s…”

He pointed at someone in the line. “Here, mate, you want to be skipped?” Someone else. “How about you?” Another. “You, mate. You look like you’re freezing your nuts aff. You want somebody going afore you?”

More tiny head shakes; a mumbled, “No.”

“Naw, didnae think so. And she’s sure as fucking fuck no skipping me, so I suggest you shut your face or lose it. Capiche?”

Jesus. “All right,” said Callum. “Erm, capiche. It’s just…”

But the eyebrows were on the rise again and the mum was shaking her head while the queue moved to absorb her, a hen hiding a precious egg. The daughter only smiled, momentarily cut adrift until a purple glove snuck out and snatched her back in.

Callum sighed.

“Aye,” said Jowly Jason. “Thought not.”

Callum’s hands were fists in his pocket, but he knew that’s where they would stay. He kicked a ridge of slush into the road. How was he supposed to get home now? Fucking gammon-faced prick. Into his collar, he mumbled, loud as he dared, “Fuck’s sake.”

Jowly Jason cleared his throat, somehow put a challenge in there, and it was enough. Too much.

Callum spun to face him.

“Haw!”

A shout from somewhere, accompanied by a strange creaking. All eyes in the queue were on the train station gates, so Callum looked too.

A moustachioed face peered back at him through the railings.

“You want to get to Kilmaurs?” he asked. “I can take you. You girls too.”

“Erm, right,” said Callum. “Okay.” But he hesitated, sensing a scam, or some strange joke. Jowly Jason would surely delight in refusing him entry back into the queue if he left it. But the guy was behind the gates. Staff. Likely leaving for the night and, overhearing the commotion, trying to do right by his fellow villagers.

Callum looked for the mum and daughter but they were hidden from his view. Probably waiting for him to move first.

Well, it wasn’t like he could get a taxi now anyway. What did he have to lose?

“M’on then,” said the man, and that strange creaking sounded again as he eased the gate open.

Callum stepped into the road and as if in response the snow thickened, an instant blizzard, its flurries so dense he had to work to keep the giant gates ahead of him, and when he turned to see if the mum and daughter had followed there was nothing at all to look at. Even the queue had vanished.

Callum pressed forward, hands out in front of him, inching through perfect white and infinite silence, until his fingers found iron and rust and a gap to squeeze through.

Callum shook the snow from his coat, ran a hand through his hair, stepping away from the moustachioed man so as not to soak him.

“Cheers,” said Callum. “Really appreciate it. You going to be able to drive in that?”

“Hang on.” The man poked his head out the gate, beyond which the snow hung like wallpaper.

But from it he pulled the mum then the daughter, and with them came a great buffet of powder that swirled around the entranceway then seemed to dart forward, an invading army claiming new ground.

The daughter pinched her jacket under her armpits and gave it three shakes while the mum dumped her bags and waggled her hat in front of her. The invading army inched forward.

“Christ’s teeth!” said the mum. “Thought we’d tummelt into the netherworld there. You ever seen the snow dae that?”

Callum smiled, flexed his toes to combat the pinch of his dress shoes.

The mum balled her gloves into her hat and dropped the hat into a bag. “Cheers for the rescue, pal. And no a moment too soon, eh?” She pointed to Callum. “This one was about to get his head kicked in.”

Callum shook his head. “Not really.”

“You were,” said the daughter, and she smiled wistfully, like she’d missed out on some exquisite spectacle. “You were gonnae lose your face.”

Callum made to object but she wandered away, taking in the station like it was her first go round.

“What’s the story, then, handsome?” said the mum. “You taking us home?”

Callum looked again at their rescuer. He was good-looking, no doubt about it, despite the moustache. Or possibly because of it. The eyes, too, had something about them: gentle, tricksy, maybe a touch sad.

He produced an overstuffed keyring, twisted a key in the lock, and squinted through the bars. “Well, I’m no miracle worker. But mibbes it’ll ease off.”

Then he spun round and grinned like some hidden director had shouted for action. “But I think we’re a bit better aff in here, aren’t we? I’m Wee Johnny the Train Driver. Let’s get some names aff you.”

“Right,” said the mum. “I’m Laura and this is ma niece, Fia. We’re fae Kilmaurs, but I guess that’s old news.”

Callum recalibrated. Okay, not the mum. The mad auntie.

“Nice,” said Johnny, and he pointed at Callum.

“Callum,” he said. “Kilmaurs.”

“Fantastic!” Wee Johnny strode forward onto the main concourse, arms wide like some arsehole off the telly. He wasn’t even that small. “Welcome,” he said, “to Glasgow Central… after hours.”

It looked the same as always. Back before the pandemic, Callum had been through twice a day.

Fia spied the public piano and veered towards it, still twenty yards away but already taking her jacket off.

“That’s it,” said Wee Johnny. “Get some tunes on the go.” To Laura, he asked, “Can she play?”

For a long moment, Laura’s face communicated only fucked if I know, before she gathered herself and rebooted into auntie mode. “Course she can. What a question! Ma wee Fia can do anything she puts her mind to.”

Then she was off up the concourse too, leaving Callum at the gates with her shopping bags. He bent to lift them.

“Watch that one, son,” she said, over her shoulder. “It’s got a ham in it.”

“Right,” said Callum. “Fair play. A ham.” And suddenly he was so tired he could have laid down and used the meat for a pillow. This had been his first proper day out in eight months, since the baby came. She was a delight, little Cora, but she slept like a relapsing coke fiend and so her parents did too. Why wasn’t this day done?

Some of this must have shown on his face, because Johnny wheeled back towards him, head cocked in empathy, still with the TV arms.

“Callum, my man! How’s it going?”

Callum nodded.

“What do you think of the place?”

“Erm, aye, fine. Good.”

“That it?” asked Johnny. “Just good? Ach, well, you don’t see what I see.”

Callum looked again. In truth, he’d always loved Glasgow Central: the vaulted steel and glass roof that seemed to stretch to the horizon, enclosing what once must have been the external façades of Victorian buildings; the curved wooden concessions that lined and dotted the concourse, at least a century old and too small to comfortably host the newsagents and bars and patisseries and coffee shops that did a roaring trade anyway, everyone squashed in together.

At the piano, Fia fumbled through the opening bars of Chopsticks. Callum stifled a sigh, caught Wee Johnny mid-eye roll.

Fuck’s sake. Callum made a show of looking one more time at the station, widened his eyes some. “It is a great place,” he said. “It really is.”

Johnny winked. “Heart of the city. Hang on.” He strode off across the concourse. “All of you, hang on. I’ve got something for youse.”

Up ahead, Laura collapsed onto a chair and waved him off, eyes already half shut. She sighed and a “Sounding good, my love,” escaped with it, like a squeak from a deflating balloon.

Callum placed her bags beside her and sat opposite, trying to relax even though Fia had moved on to Merrily We Roll Along and was giving it a stilted, unsettling cadence, possibly satirically.

“Right,” shouted Johnny, reappearing from some shadowy corner. “Thought youse might be hungry.”

The piano stopped; Laura’s eyes shot open. Johnny brandished a large paper bag, its logo unfamiliar but the smell instantly recognisable.

“Burgers,” he shouted.

“Aww, Wee Johnny,” said Laura, “you shouldn’t have.”

“Aye, I should,” said Johnny. “Course I should. Dig in.”

They did so. The burgers were wide and warm, their paper wrappings translucent with grease. Casey Jones Burger, they read.

“Mmm.” Fia grinned, eyes closed, brows raised in pleasure. “That’s good.”

“Too right,” said Laura, already angling bodily towards her next bite. “Thanks, Wee Johnny.”

“Nae problem. What d’you think, Callum?”

Callum took a bite. Jesus Christ was it good. “Fuck me,” he said, and the others laughed. Between mouthfuls, he asked, “What’s a Casey Jones burger? Never heard of them.”

Johnny elbowed Fia. “Ha! He wouldnae know a Casey Jones burger if he was eating one.”

Fia laughed. “Aye,” she said, “but where do you get them, though? Is it boutique or something? They’re so nice.”

“Haud on,” said Laura, “I mind ae Casey Jones. Wasn’t there a Casey Jones burger place in the station?” She pointed towards the platforms. “Right where that wee Starbucks jobbie is now?”

Johnny grinned.

“This is going back some, mind,” said Laura. “Mibbes thirty years ago.”

“Forty,” said Johnny. “It’s forty years.”

“Hell, I’m no that old, am I?” asked Laura, and she laughed.

Callum stopped eating. There was some strange, clanging note in Johnny’s expression, an odd streak of satisfaction that bordered on the perverse.

“Sorry,” said Callum, “what’s actually the deal with these burgers?”

“They’re forty years old,” said Fia, and she grinned conspiratorially at Johnny.

“Aye,” said Johnny, smiling too, grease from his own burger staining his lips, “that’s right enough. What I did was, I went and bought these four decades ago and hid them away all that time ’cos I wanted you guys to enjoy them tonight.”

“Lovely thought,” said Laura. “I’m made up. Tastes amazing.”

Fia was still grinning at Johnny. “But you’re never forty. How old are you, would you say?”

“I wouldn’t.” Johnny winked at her. “But young enough.”

Ick. The answer was: thirty, at the very least, although you never could tell with these ironic moustaches. Johnny’s clothes, too, were confusing. He was dressed like a train driver all right, but not in the modern fleecy jacket and polyester trousers. Instead, he wore blue overalls, like somebody off Thomas The Tank Engine, like his duties might include shovelling coal. The logo on his chest read British Rail.

Johnny caught Callum staring at it and raised an eyebrow in challenge. British Rail had been privatised and broken up decades ago. It no longer existed. It was ScotRail up here now.

“You get dressed in the eighties as well?” asked Callum. He tried to put some levity in there, but he didn’t feel it, and it didn’t make it back out.

Johnny sighed. “It’s fancy dress, mate. Bit ae fun, if you’ve ever heard of that. Supposed to be going to a party later. Dressed up the burgers too, if you must know.”

“Oh,” said Callum.

“Aye,” said Johnny. “They’re home-made. Printed aff the labels, whole fucking lot. Took me forever, so I hope you’re enjoying them. Waste ae time, turns out.”

“No,” said Fia. “They’re amazing. And I think you look really nice.”

Johnny winked at her again. “Thanks, doll.”

“Whit else was there?” Laura cast her eyes round the station. “Was there no a wee restaurant?”

“Aye,” said Johnny. He pointed down the concourse slope. “Over there. The Caledonia, it was called. Big Mary and Brenda ran it. Had all the train times displayed in the windows above it.”

“Oh, I remember that,” said Laura.

“Aye,” said Johnny. “Every platform had its own window.”

“Seem to know a lot about the eighties.” The words were out Callum’s mouth before he could stop them.

“Do my research, mate. If I’m gonnae dress up, I do it properly. What’s your go-to? Bin-bag Batman?”

“No,” said Callum. Not even. He took another bite of his burger. “So, just to be clear, you’re a train driver… dressed as a train driver?”

Johnny rounded on him. “Well, you’re a prick dressed as a prick, so what’s the difference?”

“Hey,” said Laura. “Be nice, the pair of you, or I’ll knock your heads together.”

Fia wandered away again, smirking, fishing her phone from her pocket.

“Aye,” said Johnny, and there was a note of contrition in there. “I’ll away and see what this snow is up to.”

When he had retreated, Laura whispered, “What are you playing at? This guy’s your only chance of getting home, and you’re bamming him up?”

“Aye,” said Callum, “but he’s strange, though. Do you no think he’s strange?”

Laura’s eyes flicked to Fia. “Strange I can deal with. But I’m getting in his car tonight, and ma wee niece is getting in his car tonight, and we’re getting home, and you’re no gonnae muck that up, you hear me?”

“Yeah,” said Callum. “All right. Sorry. I’ll just go, erm, text my partner. Give her an update.”

“You do that,” said Laura.

Fuck’s sake. What was wrong with him? That was twice now he’d gotten into an argument, almost a fight. He thumbed his phone and tried to tamp down, yet again, that most insidious of fears: that fatherhood was turning him into his father. In a quiet corner of the station, he tapped out a message.

Possible lift with other folk from Kilmaurs. Don’t wait up. Sleep when she sleeps!

He put his phone away and spied, on a distant platform, a train with its carriage lights left on. Odd. He moved closer.

It was an ancient thing, and done up in the wrong colours. Grey and light blue. Along its side, the logo read British Rail. It had three windows at the front instead of the usual two. Above the middle one a destination was displayed.

Kilmaurs.

When Callum turned round again, Johnny was marching back up the concourse. “Right. Weather’s still a bag of shite, so it looks like we’ve got some time to kill. Who fancies a tour?”

Fia raised her hand. “Me! I’ll go.”

“Isn’t that a nice idea?” said Laura, and she side-eyed Callum while she said it.

“Callum, pal,” said Johnny, “what do you say?” Again, he flung his arms wide, and again there was something off about his expression, that same clanging note that this time put a hitch in Callum’s throat and a shiver up his spine.

“Right,” he said, “a tour.”

“Fantastic!” And Johnny winked at him.

Wee Johnny unlocked a door marked No Unauthorised Persons Beyond This Point, beckoned everyone inside, then paused, stuck by some thought, or at least affecting to be.

“Oh, wait,” he said. “Forgot the drinks. Youse must be thirsty.”

“Parched,” said Laura.

Another smile from Fia. “I could drink.”

“Wait here.” Johnny ran off, back into the station proper, leaving the door to swing shut behind him.

Callum put a foot in it, arresting its progress, then peeked out, almost hoping to see Johnny lurking there with a key poised, awaiting the return of the lock, but he was gone.

Laura and Fia took no notice of this; they were busy on their phones.

Fia flashed her screen at her auntie. “See what my mum wrote? Telt her I’m stuck in the train station wi’ two randoms and all I get back is take care. Thanks, Mum.”

A tut from Laura, half an eye roll, then back to her own screen.

“Right,” said Callum, “do you no think there’s something a bit weird happening here?”

Fia looked him up and down, took in his foot in the door and raised an eyebrow.

“Hilarious,” said Callum. “I mean with him.”

“He thinks you’re a prick.”

“Yeah,” said Callum, “’cos I’m not buying into his bullshit. Plus, there’s an actual, honest-to-god British Rail train out there, from fucking yore, lit up like a fair and ready to go.”

Laura didn’t look up. “Well, we are in a train station.”

“You know its destination? Kilmaurs.”

“Naw,” said Laura. “You cannae get a train that terminates at Kilmaurs.”

“I know.”

“Probably just read it wrong,” said Fia, now regarding him like he was some snot-nosed schoolkid from two years below, like he was stood before her on a dare. “Probably drunk.”

“Now, Kilmarnock,” said Laura, “aye, could be.”

“It wisnae Kilmarnock, okay?” said Callum. “Right, how about this? This Wee Johnny is in his mid-thirties—I’m sorry, Fia, but he is—and he hasn’t once looked at his phone. Pretty odd.”

“You,” said Laura, “are clutching at straws.”

The door moved and Callum flinched away. Johnny was back, clutching a Presto carrier bag bulging with cans. A smile, then a glance at Callum.

“What’s he been saying?”

“Thinks you’re weird,” said Fia, “’cos you’re no on your phone all the time. You doing a detox?”

“A whit?”

“I know, it’s social suicide.” Fia smiled. “It’s fine if you’re a bit older, though. I mean, if you’re a bit older, it’s totally fine.”

Johnny cocked his head. “Cool. M’on then.” He led them down a staircase. “And you be careful wi’ they daft shoes on, Callum. Don’t want you taking a header over the railings, now, do we?”

Daft shoes? They maybe pinched a bit but they were fucking Italian. Prick.

On the landing, Johnny cuddled into Fia, gave her a squeeze. Creepy fucker. What age was Fia, really? Sixteen? Seventeen? A kid. And Laura didn’t seem to care. She was back on her phone again, for some reason shaking it up and down.

Momentarily defeated, she pocketed it, burped, then shouted ahead. “Not to take the wind out your sails, son, but me and Fia have already done the tour. The official one. Wi’ the disused Victorian platform and the dead soldiers and all ae that.”

“Aye,” said Fia, “and the ghosts. There were some brilliant ghosts he talked about.”

“That does make it a bit mair difficult, aye,” said Johnny. “But what if I telt you I could make this place come alive in a way no regular tour ever could?”

“Dunno, like,” said Laura. “Thon guy was pretty good.”

“Aye,” said Fia, “he was. No as much ae a wee ride, though.”

“Fia! Control yourself.”

“Sorry, Auntie. Just having a laugh.”

“Well, find something else to laugh about.”

Thank God. Some parenting. Callum caught up with Laura and walked astride, eyes on Johnny. I’ve got your back.

“Oi, Mr Man wi’ the bloody cans,” Laura shouted, “you keeping them all to yourself? Getting a fair drooth on over here.”

Callum sighed. That didn’t last long.

“Aye, aye,” said Johnny. “Let’s just get where we’re going first.”

The tour hadn’t gotten off to the most enthralling start. They were in a small underground car park with concrete floors, red and white painted brick walls and too-bright fluorescents shining overhead. Callum prayed one of the half-dozen cars left was Johnny’s, but they all looked too modern. Jesus, Callum. Get a grip. He’s only dressing up.

“It’s doon this way,” said Johnny, and out came the keyring again. He unlocked another door, this one a dull grey and bearing only the warning, Mind your head.

Behind was a narrow breeze-block passageway with hanging wires, a fluorescent light propped up vertically beside the door, and darkness in both directions beyond.

Opposite, the breeze block had been ripped out to create an opening. A modern metal staircase led down into darkness; foetid air rose up to meet them.

Fia scrunched her nose. “Boak.”

Beyond the staircase, just visible, a grooved, cast-iron column supported a riveted metal superstructure familiar from train stations across the country.

“This’ll be the Victorian platform, then,” said Laura.

“It stinks,” said Fia, turning away.

“Aye,” said Johnny. “But wait till you see what we’ve come to see.” He produced an ancient torch and shone it down the hole.

“Did it smell this bad last time?” asked Laura.

Fia gagged. “No! Jebus Crisp. Who died?”

“Somebody wi’ halitosis and a shitty arse,” said Laura.

Fia sniggered. “Aye, and a giant fan to waft it all aboot with.”

Johnny rounded on them, torch in their faces. “Enough about the smell, okay. Just… enough. It’s no that bad.”

It was that bad, but something else was upsetting Callum. He could hear, faint and echoing, the squeal of brakes, the rickety clank of train wheels over tracks. Impossible.

Johnny stood in the opening, and out came the TV grin and the TV arms, and all mysterious he said, “Are youse ready to experience what life was like in Glasgow nearly one hundred years ago?”

Laura and Fia glanced at each other. A shrug from the teenager.

“Sure,” said Laura, finally. “Be happier if I had a drink to experience it with, but, aye, what the hell?”

“Fine, fine,” said Johnny, and he reached into his Presto bag. “There you go.”

Four cans of Tennent’s Lager appeared, with an old-style logo on one side and pictures of coyly posed young women on the other, all big hair and plunging necklines. The Lager Lovelies. Jesus.

Laura grinned. “Oh, you’re some man, Wee Johnny. They look bang-on.” She fizzed open her can and chugged a mouthful.

“Lovelies for my lovelies.” Johnny winked, jerked a thumb at Callum. “And one for this grumpy prick too. Right, get them necked and on we go.” He descended the stairs with Fia at his back, a skip in her step to keep up with him.

Callum examined his can, tweaking the old-school ring-pull before flipping the thing over and reading the expiry date. Sept 86.

“Laura,” he said. “Take a look at this.”

Laura looked at the date. She stopped short, horror in her eyes. Finally.

“Callum,” she said, “do you think ma ham’ll be all right upstairs? It’ll no freeze in the cold, will it? It’s bone in.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Callum. “Your ham’s fine. Get out the way.”

He bundled past her, down the stairs, trying to pick out Johnny and Fia in the gloom. He couldn’t see them directly, but Johnny’s torchlight swung erratically from behind a nook in the wall up ahead.

What Callum could see was a ruin. Nothing beyond the skeletal remained. No trains, no tracks, just slick bricks and warped wood, and debris all around.

As Callum’s foot touched the platform, Johnny’s torch went out. The darkness was near total, just a sliver of light from the opening above. The echoing clang of Laura’s shoes on the stairs punctuated deathly silence.

“Fia?” said Callum. “Johnny?”

Nothing.

And then a whine, distant and mechanical. A train was coming. That couldn’t be.

But it was.

Callum could see nothing, but beneath his feet a great rumbling took up, steam hissed and popped and screeching brakes reverberated off the bare walls. The thing was coming along the platform.

Callum scrabbled for his phone, fumbled for the torch.

But suddenly a light was on him. It must have been Johnny’s torch but was much too bright and way too close, and among the hissing and screeching and shaking came Fia’s voice.

“Johnny, I said no. I told you it was just a laugh. Fucking pervert!”

And then something hit Callum’s face, something heavy and soft and awful that sent him sprawling to the floor and left a streak of wetness all across him.

The darkness and the silence returned.

Johnny’s torchlight flicked across the ceiling. From somewhere, dripping. Water? Hopefully water.

“Aw, fuck,” Johnny was saying. “Aw, fuck me.”

Callum sat up, rubbed at the wetness on his face. Liquid matted his jacket, cooled at his throat. Too dark to see its colour.

“Has something happened?”

Laura. Her voice floated down the stairs, childlike, thin as a memory.

“Johnny, you there? Somebody tell me what’s happened. Fia? Is it ma wee Fia? What’s happened?”

Callum had dropped his phone when he fell, but there it was, mercifully, at his feet. He picked it up and Siobhan and Cora beamed out at him, the lock-screen picture now bisected by a great crack in the glass.

“Callum,” said Laura. “That you? You need to tell me what’s going on, son.”

Johnny was a long way up the platform now, his light erratic, receding, allowing only brief snapshots of a bricked-up tunnel entrance behind him. No way a train could have come through there.

Callum thumbed his torch app and lit up his hand.

Blood. Of course.

He scrambled to his feet, fighting some urge not to face Laura, not to let her see, because this wasn’t his own blood. He was sure of it. But there was no point in delaying.

He swept his torchlight towards her and illuminated a severed arm on the ground between them.

Fia’s. Ripped away above the elbow.

Laura screamed. “Ma Fia! Ma wee Fia!”

She was off down the platform, into the darkness, Callum running to keep up. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.

“Aye, but it was an accident.” Johnny shouted. Only his legs were visible. A great swathe of inky blackness lay between the torchlight arcs. “I thought she’d see it,” he said. “I thought…”

“Help us,” Callum shouted, but Johnny stayed put.

“There,” Laura scrambled down onto the trackbed, shoe half off, the Tennent’s can falling from her hand and rolling away.

Fia was alive, sitting upright. She stared at the stump of her arm, then at Laura, then at Callum.

Then she passed out.

Dark blood gushed from the stump, glistened on the floor as it followed the phantom train.

A tourniquet. Callum jumped onto the trackbed, already reaching for his belt as Laura rushed to Fia, kneeling in all that blood and holding her niece’s head, and looking back at Callum like he could fix all this.

He couldn’t. But he had to do something, so he set his phone on the ground and tightened his belt around Fia’s ruined arm, trying not to see the ragged skin flaps, the pink flesh studded with bright white bone fragments, the viscous, endless blood.

“Oh, Fia.” Laura fussed at Fia’s hair, stroking her too-pale skin. “Oh, ma wee Fia.”

Callum had to wrap the belt three times before it was tight enough but, mercifully, the flow slowed.

“Laura,” he said. “We need an ambulance.”

“Right. Of course.” Laura fished for her phone, turned the screen to Callum. “No bars, son.”

Fuck. “Okay.” He checked his own device. “No bars.”

Laura nodded at Johnny, still at the far end of the platform, his torchlight now unnaturally still. “He’s not going to have a phone, is he?”

Callum shook his head, and in the same moment Johnny put his torch out and was gone. A ghost, spirited away.

“Jesus Christ,” Laura whispered.

“Laura,” said Callum, “I’m going to have to run back upstairs to phone for help. I’ll be as quick as I can. You’ll need some light.”

“Right,” she said, but she only stared into the darkness where Johnny had stood.

“Your phone, Laura. It’s in your hand. Turn on your torch.”

She turned her gaze to Callum, hardly seeming to see him. “Right, son. My torch. Don’t be long.”

Callum climbed back onto the platform, skirted the arm, up the stairs, turning back only momentarily to see, in tableau in the darkness, like a snowglobe on a distant shelf, auntie and niece in terrible embrace.

“Come on, baby,” Laura was saying. “Come on. Oh, ma wee Fia.”

Callum moved on, out through the opening, through the dull grey door and into the underground car park. He killed his torch and held his phone high above him, spun a slow spiral on his heel with eyes on his screen until he heard a key in a lock.

What the fuck?

Johnny, at the grey door. Locking it.

Callum took three steps backwards. “What are you doing, Johnny? They’re still in there. They need… Her fucking arm’s off.”

Johnny grimaced. “I know, I know. It’s fucking dreadful. And her a piano player too. Bloody tragic, mate.”

“She needs an ambulance.”

Johnny just shook his head. “Nah. These guys… Aye, I made a mistake there. Thought they’d loosen you up, help you get into the spirit of the place. But, aye, mibbe best to pretend they just didnae happen.”

“What? They’re…”

“A distraction. Especially that big spooky wan.” He shook his head. “I shouldnae have bothered wi’ them, but you might no have come otherwise. They don’t see what I see. But you do.”

What was he talking about? The train?

Callum took another step backwards. “Fuck off.”

A smile from Johnny. “Aye, you see it.”

Callum had no time for this, so he just turned on his heels and ran. Now he needed the police and an ambulance. Fine. They’d sort him out.

There was no reception in the underground car park anyway, so he raced upstairs, back towards the modern station. Johnny didn’t follow.

The access door was still unlocked, thankfully. Callum battered through it, eyes on his phone, waiting for it to reconnect.

How can there be no reception in Central fucking Station? There was always 5G.

But something felt different. The lights… Had they changed colour? Callum looked up.

The lights were the least of it.

Twenty yards ahead, where the Starbucks should have been, a kiosk: Casey Jones Burger. What the fuck?

Giant advertising hoardings hung from the rafters. Benson & Hedges, one read, and Bring your cheque book in for a free tune up, and, Order by phone.

Callum staggered forward. This was wrong. All wrong. The concourse chairs were gone, the floor now bare concrete and dotted with stubby black litter bins.

The electronic departure board was away too, but Callum knew where he’d find the train times: in the upper windows of the main concession building. Only one train was scheduled for departure. Its destination: Kilmaurs.

Movement in the doorway underneath. Callum flinched, squinted into the shadows between orange gingham curtains, beneath the glowing sign for the Caledonia Restaurant.

Johnny hadn’t followed him, but all the same he was here.

He stepped forward and spread his arms wide. “Welcome to Glasgow Central, Callum.”

“You see it, don’t you? What I see. You’re here. Tell me you’re here, Callum.”

Callum blinked. No point denying it. “I’m here.”

His phone was still in his hand. Subtly, he angled the screen towards him. Still no bars. Oh, hell.

“Callum, pal, naw,” said Johnny, nodding at the phone. “Look about you. It’s 1983. Outer space disnae chat to fancy rectangles here. Put it away. Embrace what’s happening.”

Callum took a step backwards. 1983? His voice was a croak. “What’s happening, Johnny?”

“Magic! Or, I don’t know, something like that. Point is, I’m going home. And I’ll be honest wi’ you: I’m no really a train driver.”

Callum’s stomach fell. Somehow this admission was worse than anything else. Johnny had been lying from the off. “Uh-huh.”

“Or not anymore, at least. Was a train driver, had a bit of an accident, more of a caretaker now. And I cannae fucking leave.” Johnny shook his head. “But it’s somebody else’s turn now. It has to be.” Into the rafters, he shouted, “Surely to fucking goodness!”

Callum swallowed. “Yeah, but not me. It can’t be me. I’ve got a baby. A wee girl. She’s… Please, Johnny. I’m no interested.”

“And you think I was?” He pointed to the timetable above him. “Train to Kilmaurs leaves in ten minutes. That’s my ticket out of here. I’ve arranged it all. Scheduled it up.”

“Okay, but not me.”

“Has to be, mate. Plus you owe me. You owe me.”

“Johnny, I don’t.”

“Aye, you do. Time is weird here, Callum. You’ll find that. You cannae leave, but you can slip through time, forward and back, at least for a little while. I’ve seen this place getting built. I’ve seen it fall. And I’ve seen tonight, many times.” That sympathetic head cock again. “And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but usually by now you’re lying deid out the front.”

What? No.

“Aye. Sorry. You get in a fight. I think you know who with.”

Callum laughed. No way was this real. No chance. He’d never been in a fight in his life. He wasn’t his dad. He wasn’t. “Bullshit.”

Johnny shrugged. “Lucky punch, shit shoes, down you go. Sorry, pal, but there it is. You don’t get to go back to your wee girl. That’s out of the equation.”

Callum looked at the gates, like the answer might be out there. From his angle, it was impossible to see much beyond them, only that the snow was gone. Orange street lights reflected off slick, powder-free tarmac. Another impossibility.

“And I am sorry about all this, Callum. I know it’s hard to hear. But on the other hand, I did save your life. I intervened. So, aye, you owe me.”

“I don’t believe you. I…” Callum swallowed. “I have… I…”

“I’ve got kids too, you know,” said Johnny. “Or at least I did in 1983. That’s why it has to be now. Why I’ve worked so hard. I know you see how hard I’ve worked. How much I’m fucking concentrating. And the thing that’s holding me here will see it too and just let me go. Just let me go. That’s all I ask. Has it no been long enough?”

A new chill swept through the station and Callum had to adjust his stance, faltering like a weight had been lifted from his back.

“Ha!” Johnny pointed at him. “It’s working. It’s fucking working!”

Callum looked down. His jacket was gone. Underneath, blue overalls. His hand went to the stitched-in logo. British Rail.

“I knew it would work. Fucking yass!”

But Callum was barely listening. He had to get out of here. He sprinted for the main gate, nearly going over on his ankle as he turned. His shoes had changed, replaced with clumpy work boots. Oh, shit. What’s happening?

Callum rattled into the iron gate, pulled at it with all he had. Locked. The street outside was deserted. No people, no taxis, no snow. No body.

Okay. There were at least a half dozen ways out of here. Back inside, round the corner and down the steps onto Union Street. Worth a try.

Johnny watched him go, without bothering to give chase. “You know why it’s working? ’Cos you love this place, Callum. I know you do. You’ll look after it. I’d see you in here all the time. That’s why it had to be you.”

Locked. Where next?

“Always sitting in the Costa Coffee. Or you’d be coming in aff the train and you’d be the only one—the only one out of everyone—to walk through wi’ your head up, taking it all in.”

Hope Street. Back across the concourse, clomping across the concrete, but Callum could see from halfway that the shutter was down. Fuck!

With sudden clarity, he knew the whole place was locked up, as sure as if he’d locked the doors himself. He knew too that Johnny had the keys and that he didn’t have much time.

Johnny had quietened. A smart leather bomber jacket had materialised over his overalls and he was marvelling at it. He fingered its hem, grinning. Fuck.

Callum had never been in a fight in his life. But he thought of Cora, her smile, her smell, her tiny hugs. And he thought of never seeing her again, and of her never seeing him, and of leaving Siobhan to raise her on her own. And he thought, no.

Between Callum and Johnny: Laura’s shopping bags. They still existed, here in 1983. Did that mean Laura and Fia did too? Were they still down there, waiting for help to arrive?

Callum eyed Johnny again. Still distracted by the jacket. If Callum was going to do something, it had to be now.

Something caught his eye, sticking out of Laura’s shopping bag: a ham. Bone in.

That’ll do.

Callum ran at Johnny, picked up the ham leg on the way past. Cold to the touch but still soft. Not frozen. Shit.

He raised it high anyway, now at a full sprint, and Johnny saw him coming.

“What the…”

Callum didn’t slow down. He swung the ham, twisting with his full body, aiming for the head, his feral scream echoing through the station.

It wasn’t enough to knock Johnny out—he’d got a hand in the way at the last second—but it sent him staggering backwards, his fall near arrested until Callum stepped forward again and with his great clompy work boots sent him through the Caledonia Restaurant’s gingham-curtained window.

He landed in a shower of glass, head scudding off a table corner on the way down.

Was he dead? Was that even possible? Callum didn’t wait for an answer. He searched Johnny’s pockets, found the keys. Fled.

Callum smashed through the access door, flung himself down the stairs, through the underground car park, caught his breath at the door marked Mind your head. He didn’t have to guess which key would open it. He just knew.

They were still on the trackbed, held in their distant arc of light, Laura hunched over Fia, who was still unconscious and now deathly pale.

On seeing him, Laura flinched and held her niece closer, but said nothing. There was fear there. Terror. She thinks I’m Johnny.

Callum raced down the stairs. “It’s me, it’s me. It’s just Callum.”

“Callum? Christ. Did youse swap clothes?”

“No.” He ran the length of the platform, readied to jump down, but hesitated. That terror was still there. Laura gripped Fia’s remaining arm so tight it was sure to bruise.

“Are you one as well? Of whatever he is. A demon? Oh, tell me you’re not, Callum.”

“No,” said Callum. “I promise.” I hope. “But we have to get out of here. Now.”

Laura glanced at the exit. “No ambulance?”

Callum shook his head. “Johnny’s locked all the doors. But I’ve got the keys now. I can get us out. We can carry her together.”

Laura took Fia’s hand and clasped it, fingers threading together. She didn’t get up.

“Please,” said Callum, “just trust me.”

Laura took in his boots and his overalls, then looked him square in the eye. “I’ve no got much choice, have I?”

Quickly, they moved, placing Fia on the platform edge while they clambered back up and picked her up again. Laura took the feet, moving backwards until Callum suggested she turn around. Callum grasped Fia under her armpits, her head lolling on his shoulder, while with phone in shaking hand, he tried to light their way.

At the bottom of the stairs, Laura stopped. “The arm. We need her arm. I’m no leaving it.”

“Right,” said Callum. “Of course. Her arm.” And he fought an unseemly stab of impatience that seemed to surface then dissipate in the same moment. What was his hurry?

“They’ll stitch it right back on,” said Laura. “Good as new.”

“Aye, good as new.” And, regardless, there’ll be another tour group down here tomorrow. Can’t have an arm lying around.

Shit, where did that thought come from?

Callum found the arm and grabbed it, though they had to set down their cargo for him to do so, then reload, rebalance, then slowly manoeuvre up the stairs, Callum now with the added awkwardness and ick of the severed hand, which he lay across Fia’s belly and held secure by interlocking its fingers with his own.

An ambulance. Somehow Callum knew there were payphones in front of platforms one and nine, that three of them were properly out of order and one was awaiting cleaning after being doused with beer. If Laura’s phone didn’t work—if it really was 1983—the payphones surely would. But Callum didn’t want to spend another second in the station. Not the way his thoughts were turning. Plus there was a body up there, needing to be cleaned away. A glazier to book.

No, no. That wasn’t right. Concentrate. Callum had killed a man—a ghost?—and his body was lying in plain view. Did they have CCTV in 1983? He needed to get out of the station now.

“Just to warn you,” said Callum, “things look a bit different upstairs. Johnny’s… done things.”

“Aye, and I’ll do things to him,” she mumbled.

“No,” said Callum. “We should just leave. Maybe there’s a doctor in the taxi queue.”

“Right. That’s a plan.”

The main concourse was as he’d left it—the wrong-coloured lights, the concrete floor, the kiosks and adverts from Laura’s youth. If Callum had expected a reaction from her, he didn’t get one. She barely glanced up. Yet for some reason, he wanted her to be impressed.

“You seeing this, Laura?” he asked. “Look—it’s 1983.”

She looked. Nothing. “Right,” she said. “Okay, son. 1983. How are we getting out?”

Callum bristled. She couldn’t see what he saw. And she’d spoken to him like he’d gone mad, like she was humouring a lunatic out of fear and necessity. But why did he care? She was only interested in Fia. Of course she was.

“Main gate,” he said, then regretted his choice. It took them too close to the Caledonia Restaurant, and with Laura at the front, Callum wasn’t steering the ship. Would she be able to see Johnny’s body? Would it still be there?

“Jesus Christ!” she said. “There’s ma ham.”

Right. The ham. “Yep,” said Callum, and before he could conjure an explanation, they were upon the smashed restaurant window and Johnny’s mangled body. Still there.

Laura slowed. Her shoulders slumped. Callum didn’t know if she was seeing the Caledonia or the Marks & Spencers the building had become, but she saw Johnny, all right.

“Just keep moving,” said Callum.

And she did, faster than ever. Callum wanted to explain that in killing Johnny he’d saved her life and—hopefully—Fia’s, but he knew she would nod and agree and not believe him. She’d fallen in with demons, and this was the outcome.

Beyond the gate, the snow had returned, as thick as ever. Maybe good news. And maybe not thickness at all—was it instead a void? Callum had a sense of the station detached from the world, somehow moving through time, in a sort of flux. Could he return to 2025? Was that what Johnny was able to do?

In silence, they set down Fia once more, and Callum unlocked the doors. That squeak again.

“Can’t even see the taxi queue.” Laura avoided Callum’s eye, seemed to be speaking only to herself.

“They’ll be…”

“Is anybody there?” she shouted, cutting across him. “I’m needing help.”

No reply.

“Let’s just get out of here,” said Callum, and they lifted the body again, Laura leading the way with the legs and Callum following until, in an instant, he wasn’t.

He’d stopped dead against the snow, but Laura—already out of sight—kept going, pulling Fia from his arms. If Fia fell, if Laura fell with her, landing in the snow, Callum had no clue. He could see nothing, hear nothing at all.

What the fuck? Callum pressed his hand flat to the void. He felt no cold, no wetness. Only a gentle resistance that grew as he pushed.

“Laura?” he shouted. “Anyone?”

Nothing. And the echo was wrong, like shouting at a wall. What had Johnny said—he could never leave?

Callum stepped back, tripped on something underfoot.

Fia’s arm, forgotten on the floor. Shit, she needs that.

He picked it up, pushed it through. The fingers disappeared, then the wrist and forearm, with no resistance until Callum’s own fingers brushed against the void, whereupon the arm simply vanished.

Okay. Dealt with. There was little point, but Callum wanted to shout after them, to apologise for their ordeal. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was responsible, that he should have taken better care of them.

But they’d left the station. They were on their own. His job was done. Ah, no—one more thing. Laura’s bags. They were still on the concourse.

Callum gathered them, stuffed the ham back in—it didn’t look too bashed, would likely cook just fine; she’d been worried about that—then gently kicked them out the gate and into the void until they too disappeared.

There. Callum wandered back up the concourse, eyeing the seats. There was more to do, but fuck was he ever tired. It had been a hectic day at the station: the snow, the cancellations, the impromptu tour and murder.

He sat, sighed, smoothed down the bristles of his heavy moustache. A moment, then he’d deal with the body and the glass. After that, back down to the Victorian platform to mop up Cora’s blood.

No, not Cora. Fia. Who is Cora?

Fuck! Callum shot to his feet.

Cora Jane Galloway, eight months old. La Bambina, Cora Menora, Professor Partytime. Lady Shenanigan Nonsense. Five teeth and an urge to use them. Resolutely bald. Big hat fan. Her mother’s eyes.

Callum raced for the platforms and jumped the gate, towards the two-carriage Class 303 scheduled for special departure to Kilmaurs in just a few minutes’ time. No, no, none of that jargon: the train home.

Cora’s mother. Siobhan Annabel Galloway. His partner in exhaustion. Two years his junior but the adult in any room. So empathetic she’d root for pocket lint if you named it. A sneeze like a dying elephant. Needlessly profane. A survivor of too much already. But not this.

Instinct took Callum not to the passenger doors but to the driver’s cab where, inside, the controls fell into his hands like an impatient lover.

Johnny thought this a way out, worked hard to arrange it. But he wanted 1983, not 2025. What had he said? Time was funny here—you could slip through it, forward and back. You just had to concentrate.

Right, then. 2025. Cora, Siobhan, Dad. Mobile phones, WhatsApp, Signal, Insta. Digital fucking marketing. Brexit, the pandemic and a cost of living crisis. Climate collapse.

Time to go.

Callum peered out the cab windows. Was the void thinning? Did it look like snow again? Hard to say.

But impossible to delay. Leave the station late without just cause and he’d get written up. The time had come.

Callum took a deep breath, flexed his toes one last time against the pinch of his fancy Italian dress shoes, and accelerated.

— Peter Longerich, Goebbels: A Biography, Random House, 2015, page 409.

Berlin, April 1945

Until now, Reichminister Goebbels could still hope.

The Führer retired to his study with his bride of one day, directing the onlookers to wait ten minutes, clicking the door shut. From that moment, reality ceased to be something Goebbels could accept or comprehend. He stared at the door, numb, the room silent except for artillery rumbles somewhere overhead… until the shot banged.

A secretary gasped. Goebbels shuddered, collapsing inside, like Hitler’s own body. For all intents and purposes, he had died with his idol of the past nineteen years.

Because all other feeling had ceased, he became aware of something large and flat in the inner breast pocket of his suit. Absently, he reached in and drew it out:

Drei Geschichten der— a head floating in a jar—

What? Snapped back to awareness, he squinted at the magazine in his hand. The final word of the title, after der, was missing, a charred hole in its place.

Where had he gotten this? Think…

Goebbels welcomed the distraction. Retreating into the passageway that smelled of damp concrete and faintly of sewage, he sank into one of the chairs. He flipped through the pages and saw the story titles. Iron Sky. They Saved Hitler’s Brain. The Frozen Dead.

Yes. It was coming back to him now…

Berlin, 1933

The Propaganda Minister fidgeted at his desk, waiting for noon. Known as the Mouse-General behind his back, but second only to Hitler in hypnotizing crowds, he kept his nails immaculate, emphasizing his prominent head with dark hair combed tightly back, hard eyes, and a mouth he used like a club. (Speaking of which, he and Magda had fought again last night, and he wanted to get the bad taste out of his mouth.)

One of his secretaries appeared in the office doorway, eyes magnified behind her glasses, wringing her hands. “He’s here.”

The minister’s ears pricked up. “He” could only be one person, and early, thank God! This was one offender Goebbels wanted to deal with personally.

He hurried back around his desk, half-dragging his club foot, and pulled a drawer open. Out came a modest-sized magazine. Its cover featured a head floating in a jar, and the title Drei Geschichten der Zukunft blazed in yellow across the top. Goebbels placed it face-up on the desktop.

“Send him in.”

A bespectacled man with long legs strode in. Too long; he reminded Goebbels of an entertainer on stilts. In three steps, the visitor reached the center of the office, where he stopped. He wore a gray suit a little cheaper, a little shabbier than the Propaganda Minister’s, and held his hat before him with both hands like a shield. His dark hair was thinning and he needed a shave.

Goebbels sat with arms folded on his desk, sizing the fellow up. So this was Steiger, the publisher, calm on the outside, but with a blanched face and twitching fingers betraying his true feelings. Perhaps he had heard of that youngster who’d boasted of how he would assassinate the Führer? Goebbels had summoned the brat, had torn him up one side and down the other, and had then turned him over to the Gestapo to determine what other mischief he was up to.

Rising from his chair, Goebbels limped around his desk, picking up the little magazine, and shoved it in the man’s face.

“What is the meaning of this?”

The visitor flinched for an instant. “Short stories, Herr Reich Minister.” Then, as if it might help: “Science fiction stories.”

Goebbels saw the reaction and felt taller, but not tall enough. That this man stood a good five centimeters above him did not help, but never mind.

“You’ve published Christoff Bowes, Zeitpiraten-Abenteurer since 1926. I’ve had the last several issues reviewed, and I see you’ve resisted calls to more accurately reflect the times and our national way of life. And now I hear you’re about to print these ‘Three Stories of the Future?'” He held up the publication and shook it. “We’re fortunate someone brought this to our attention before you dumped it on the public. Did you write them all yourself?”

Steiger paused before answering. “To be frank, sir, neither I nor my writers came up with any of them.”

Goebbels made a show of flipping through the magazine. Fifty-three pages, ads for Coca Cola and pulp paper, even the cheap kind the Americans used. “Is that why they’re all by ‘an unknown storyteller’, as you note in the introduction?” He waited till a bead of sweat trickled down Steiger’s brow, then said: “You understand, of course, that you will have to give me all three names.”

“Ah. Well, you see, sir… that would be… ” Steiger tugged his collar. “Difficult. No, impossible.”

Goebbels looked up. “And why is that?”

“It’s true that we wrote the words ourselves, but—”

“Herr Steiger, you have five seconds to start making sense.”

“We received them from an unknown sender, and not as print stories. They were films.”

Goebbels kept the man pinned under his gaze. “Go on.”

“Someone left them on my doorstep, wrapped in a package. Reels of celluloid. Curiously, when we were able to rent a projector and run them, they were quite short. Evidently parts had been edited out that we weren’t meant to see. Only the bare stories.”

“And this filmmaker included no name, no return address?”

“There was only a typewritten note from a ‘representative of future generations.’ We wondered what to make of it. In one of the films—if you could have seen it—the way the moon appeared, the future Earth, the realism—”

“You fool!” Goebbels shouted in Steiger’s face. Steiger grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut. “Don’t you realize why he sent them to you? It was so you would answer for them instead of he himself. He’s probably somewhere laughing at you as we speak. Where are these films now?”

“We don’t have them anymore; they were confiscated.”

“When?”

“I can tell you the exact day. May, the tenth.”

Goebbels knew that day, of course: the day of the book burning. “Are you saying—”

“One of my writers… His son is in the Sturmabteilung. He unfortunately let the boy hear him say too much. The whole detachment of brownshirts stormed the apartment, and the box was sitting open in a corner. They took it, every reel, the box itself, and the paper it had been wrapped in, and they ran to the Opernplatz and took turns throwing reels into the flames. The son had the honor of burning the last item, the box. Or so he informed his father afterwards.”

Goebbels frowned. He himself had spoken to the crowd that night, whipping them up as they put books to the torch: No to decadence and moral corruption! “That should tell you something about those kinds of stories, Herr Steiger.”

“We had written them down by that time. You must admit, sir, they are imaginative.”

The minister’s frown hardened into a scowl. “Imaginative? I have read them, and that is not the word they brought to mind.” He flipped through the magazine. “For example, this…” He looked up. “‘They Saved Hitler’s Brain?'”

Steiger only waited, keeping his face blank. Goebbels sauntered up and around him, speaking over his shoulder.

“From 1968?”

“That… that was when the film is supposed to have been made.”

“Is that so? Set in South America? Our soldiers living in a cave, and our Führer reduced to…” He shuddered. He wasn’t sure he could go on. “To a head? Kept alive in a jar?”

Steiger merely said, “Yes.”

“And as if that weren’t indignity enough, he goes up in flames at the end.”

Steiger kept his eyes fixed on the wall and said nothing.

Goebbels slapped the magazine against his palm, slap, slap, slap. “For this alone,” he said in a low voice, “for this alone, I could have you sent to Sachsenhausen. But it seems this is only the start. ‘The Frozen Dead’, from 1966?” Slap went the magazine against his palm. “Once again, you take pains to remind us of our defeat in war.”

“Herr Reich Minister, if you’ve read the story—”

“Every word of it, I assure you.”

“—we have been on a war footing since this new regime began. Everyone sees it. From school on up, everyone’s given uniforms, ranks, badges. It is a concern. I think the story is about where it could lead—”

Goebbels threw down the magazine. “I told you I read every word. The scientists’ plan, which might I add is disgusting, is thwarted at the end. I was even glad to see it!”

“So is it not wiser to pursue peace? Germany can rise again, without any need for retribution…”

“Germany has risen again, and I would expect you to remember that. And… My God, man! Arms hanging from a wall? And another disembodied head? What accounts for this apparent fixation you have with heads in jars?”

“It’s what was in the films, sir.”

“The films, the films.” Goebbels paced the floor. “So help me I will have that man found, whoever sent them to you, if it’s my final act on Earth.”

“The British, the Americans, they have such tales. Should we not surpass them in all things, including such imagination?”

Goebbels stroked his chin. Perhaps… perhaps. He had one more story to address, though. Without taking his eyes from Steiger, he bent down, picked up the offending publication, found the page he was looking for and held it open before him.

“And what am I to make of this ‘Iron Sky’ from the year 2012? We quit this world altogether, and retreat all the way… to the moon?”

“I rather liked that, being the first nation to colonize it.”

“We build a gigantic space-warship? We convert a negro into a stormtrooper, and dress him in the uniform like a doll? What the devil, man? Do you think those races can somehow be redeemed?”

Steiger knitted his brow, mouth tight, no doubt pondering how far he should stick his neck out. He cleared his throat. “Sir, before this regime, no one talked of race like they do now. Perhaps it’s because, well, no one really needs to be redeemed. In the story they try to change the man, but it doesn’t work so well. He was clearly meant to be the way he was and it was a mistake to try to force it, so I believe the idea’s fitting.”

Goebbels tossed the magazine aside. “I’m not sure I would want to see inside your head, Herr Steiger, or everything you think is ‘fitting.'”

For a long moment, he appraised his prisoner, standing and watching. Inside, his heart raced. His cylinders were all firing now, and the monotony of the day was far away. When it came time to write in his diary this evening, he might well give this fellow a whole page. When Steiger had squirmed enough, Goebbels spoke.

“Steiger, understand one thing. Any chance you have depends on what you tell me now. You must answer, and answer quickly. You mentioned that a note came with these films?”

“Oh yes. From—”

“I remember who the sender claimed to be. But what else did it say?”

Steiger glanced out the window, down at his shoes.

Goebbels stepped in front of the man, cigarette in hand. He blew a long exhale of blue smoke. “What are you not telling me?”

“Well—”

“Did it also mention the Führer?”

Steiger’s face told all. The man’s lower lip quivered, he tightened his mouth and nodded. “It also mentioned—”

“Himmler? Goering?”

“It mentioned you, Herr Reichminister.”

Goebbels took another drag, exhaled. “Did it now. And what did it say about me?”

A long pause. “It said only that… you would do your part to burn out our future. Those exact words. You would burn out our future.”

The Reichminister stood with one hand in his pocket. “The event of May tenth, is that what he meant? Steiger, look around you. Think. You can see the state of our nation for yourself. Are we not the prouder, the stronger for it? The very purpose of burning all that trash was for our future.”

“I’m only relating what the note said.”

Goebbels positioned himself in front of the publisher, the tall man who seemed to shrink smaller every minute. “From the moment you started talking,” he said, “I knew the Jews had set you up.” He limped to his desk, dropped the magazine on his desktop, and ground out his cigarette on it. “What do they hope to gain with this? Are they getting desperate, perhaps?”

Steiger shrugged.

The Reichminister did not stop. He continued to the door, took hold of the knob and pulled it open. Two men in black uniforms waited on the other side. The color drained from Steiger’s face.

“When you get to the camp at Sachsenhausen,” Goebbels said, “you can tell your Jewish bosses I won’t be tricked so easily.”

Steiger did not move, but hung his head, biting his lip. The men came in, each taking an arm, and led him out. The door clicked shut behind them.

Goebbels edged around his desk and sank into the chair. Reaching for the publication, he saw its cover and, for an instant, stiffened. Then he followed through with seizing and dropping it into his wastebasket, clunk. He sat back as his eyes found the wall clock. Five minutes till noon.

Well. Curious now, what he had just seen. The magazine’s title. Drei Geschichten der Zukunft, Three Stories of the Future, except Zukunft, the word for Future, was gone, burned through by his cigarette.

Goebbels looked up in his chair. Bormann and the SS men were hauling the corpses into the passageway, toward the emergency exit. He rose and followed, still holding the magazine. In a few minutes he stood in the Chancellery garden with Hitler’s SS adjutant Günsche, the valet Linge, and Bormann. They faced an artillery crater brimming with petrol, two dark shapes lying with the stillness of death in that oily pool. When Günsche lit the fire and jumped back, it wooshed up in a yellow fireball, the heat stinging Goebbels’ skin, and the magazine slipped from the former Reichminister’s fingers.

“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.