Time Travel Costs $595

“Your total is $595.” the automated voice said, as Hendrick arrived at the turnstile.

               “Man, prices just keep going up, don’t they?” Hendrick said to no one in particular. He tapped his right wrist to the scanner which gave a little ping, having successfully processed his payment through the subdermal credit card chip implant.

               “Tell me about it,” an elderly lady was saying from behind him in line. “It’s almost not worth it, for this price. But let me tell you, back in my day when time travel was first invented…” But Hendrick sped up and left the woman stuck behind the gate, now telling her story to the poor sap in line behind her. He had a job to do, and he wanted it done quickly. No dawdling.

               “Destination?” Another computerized voice was coming at him from a small speaker in the wall.

               “9PM June 1^st, 2374.”

The voice repeated the time and date back. “Do you wish to proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Preparing Departure Pod N. Please proceed to Departure Pod N. If you need assistance, one of our Transport Guides will be more than happy to help. Have a safe travel!”

Hendrick was already walking down the aisle before the automated voice had finished speaking. He’d been through the drill enough times and was ready to already be done with this job. By the time he’d arrived at Pod N, the blue screen beside the door showed he had eight minutes to wait. That would be plenty of time to start the paperwork.

Reluctantly, Hendrick took a seat, pulled a folder out of his briefcase, and flipped open to a half filled in form labeled “Small Damages Report: Case Number VMD-8246-753”. Hendrick sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. What a waste of time- just some lady claiming that her neighbor’s kid hit her car with a baseball, resulting in a minor ding. Not even a broken window, and his company was spending $595 to get him there to check out the scene. What a colossal waste of everyone’s time and energy. It was his son’s birthday today, and yet here he was, travelling back to three days ago to check out who dented the car. Well, he’d try to be quick about it.

By the time the pod was ready, Hendrick had nearly finished filling out the form, which was at least one less thing to do before heading home to his son’s birthday party. The pod itself had started pulsing blue and the door was sliding open, so Hendrick put his paperwork back in the briefcase and stepped inside. He zoned out during the process- he’d been through this so many times, he could do it in his sleep. He tapped his wrist implant to the scanner to confirm he was the correct passenger, stuck out his left wrist and waited for the machine to encase it in a green wristband marking him as a temporary time traveler, and then buckled up in the seat to wait. The door closed, there was a soft whirring, and then everything went black.

Hendrick could still see the pulsing blue light dotting the blackness around him, but it was only his eyes trying to adjust to the pure black that now enveloped the pod. There was a loud thump, a grinding of gears, and he felt for a brief moment the familiar feel of weightlessness. His stomach lurched and he took a deep breath to steady himself. Just another minute. The feeling was replaced by constriction- like his whole body were being squeezed into the compression sack of a sleeping bag, and then with a thwump everything snapped back into place.

Hendrick gasped to get air back into his lungs and shook out his limbs, ensuring that everything was still in tiptop shape before the door slid open. With a groan, Hendrick stepped out onto the platform of the exact same hub he had departed from. He double checked the glowing red numbers on the wall before he left- correct time and date, there- then walked out into the street. He had arrived into an early summer night, the light fading fast and darkness rushing in fast on its heels. Wishing there was a speedy way to transport through space in addition to time, Hendrick hailed a hover-taxi and gave him the address, again with another swipe of his implant.

By the time he had arrived, he was back in his working mindset. No distractions, just work. Get it over with quickly, Hendrick thought. All he needed to do was watch the incident, then finish the paperwork and get it turned in at the office. Due to the laws of time travel he would face a heavy fine and likely a sizeable prison sentence if he meddled with the past, so he of course wouldn’t be expected to intervene. He would be required to remain hidden and his green wristband alerted everyone to his status. Only police officers and select few others of elite status were ever allowed the white wristband, which showed they had the authority to make changes in the past.

It was a quick drive to the address and Hendrick was happy to find a convenient row of sheds to shelter behind where he was well concealed but also had a relatively unobstructed view of the car that was about to be dented. He looked around- it was a pretty sketchy neighborhood, and the car was parked in a long shadowy alleyway that extended further than he could see in both directions. He eyed a particularly big shadow between a nearby dumpster and a rundown old building, and briefly entertained the notion that a crazy person could be hidden out there. He shook his head, trying to get his nerves back in check. This was just a routine call. Strange spot to be, but otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary.

While Hendrick sat and waited for the perp to come by, he already suspected the two kids running around their front yard two houses down, he tried to remember how he had gotten stuck in this going nowhere insurance adjuster job. He’d grown altogether bored by his job and his wife was always saying he should switch careers if that’s how he felt, but by this point he’d gotten stuck in an interminable cycle of should and could, but won’t.

The job had sounded so alluring when he was young and just out of college. He could even remember the sign at the job fair that had drawn him in: Have you always wanted to get paid to time travel? Consider us: Hielsbad Insurance! Hendrick had always loved the idea of time travel but with his limited budget, his parents were always scraping pennies to keep him and his four brothers clothed and fed and to make ends meet, he had only time traveled once. It had been to see his favorite old-timey singer, Steeley Creave, preform in 2048. It had been one of the best experiences of his life, and he had loved being a part of history and seeing what people were really like centuries ago. When he’d read the sign at Hielsbad Insurance taped above their folding white table, he’d pictured epic scenes of traveling back centuries again and reliving the good-old days, work days full of action and adventure, not crouching behind a falling apart shed and-

What was that, way down the alley? Hendrick could see a couple of shadow-obscured figures moving around off in the distance, but he could barely make them out. Probably nothing. He turned back to watch the van again and the two kids who had just started tossing around a baseball, but his attention was dragged back down the alley again when he heard one of the figures let out a strange grunt. He squinted through the dim light and realized that now he could only make out one figure. Was it looking down at something on the ground? The figure stooped over then and Hendrick saw him pull a fist back, something small glinting in his grip, and then plunge it down. With horror, Hendrick realized what he was witnessing. He had to get out of here, and fast. No job was worth this.

Hendrick scooted around the shed as quietly as he could and as soon as he was in the road, he broke into a run. He glanced over his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t trip over his own feet. The guy at the end of the alley looked closer, somehow. But he was probably just imagining it. He ran like his life depended on it, ran until his lungs were burning and screaming for more oxygen and a cramp seared high in his stomach, which admittedly didn’t take long. He pushed further, though. He took a right and then a sharp left, still stuck in a maze of alleyways, but hoping to throw the man off his trail, in the off chance he really was being followed. He ran until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he had to stop and bend over double, hands on his knees and gasping for air.

“Hey, you!” a voice called from behind the shadows to his right. Hendrick’s heart leapt into his throat. The man must have known a shortcut, to have caught up so quickly. The voice was deep and guttural, and it put in mind a burly workman. Hendrick felt his heart pounding furiously as he turned around. The man was tall and at least a hundred pounds heavier than Hendrick, who wasn’t a small man himself.

“Can I…help you?” Play it cool, he thought, even though he knew these were probably the last minutes of his life.

“You didn’t see nuthin’ down there, got it? Nuthin’.”

“N-no, nothing. Nothing at all.” Hendrick’s mouth had gone so dry that he could barely get the words out.

“Why were you skulkin’ ’round like that?” His words were accusatory and Hendrick felt more than a hint of a threat behind them.

“Just adjuster, I- I’m j-just an insurance man.” Hendrick could hardly hear now, his pulse was thumping so loudly in his ears. “D-don’t want any trouble, sir.” This was apparently the wrong thing to say.

“Don’t you patronize me! Callin’ me sir like I don’t know what you think o’ me. Get off your fuckin’ high horse. Y’already found trouble, now didn’ you.”

“I just want to go home to my son!” Hendrick reached up with his left hand to wipe the copious sweat off his forehead before it ran into his eyes and the man’s eyes flashed.

“Time traveler?” His eyes had alighted on the green bracelet. “Rich scum. How ’m I s’posed to know you won’ run to your rich friends and tell ‘em what y’ve seen?”

“I- I won’t, I swear it on my son’s life.” The man seemed to be pondering this, debating whether it was worth the hassle to kill a second time to keep the first murder quiet. “You don’t want another murder on your slate. I’m from three days in the future, and if you kill-”

“Only three days?” The man’s hand dove into his waistband searching for his knife again, and Hendrick realized his mistake immediately. Had he been from a hundred years in the future, it wouldn’t matter. Who would he tell about the murder he’d witnessed? But only three days in the future, they were basically on the same timeline and he could go right ahead back to the future, find out who this man was, and turn him in. The murder might still be frontline news in three days.

Hendrick saw the man pull the knife from his waistband in slow motion. He grabbed it with his thumb pointing up the handle away from the blade, necessitating him to spin the knife awkwardly around on his palm and as he did so, Hendrick jolted forward and knocked the knife flying to the ground. It only worked because he had the element of surprise on his side, and before he’d had a chance to dive for the knife, he felt the full weight of the murderer shoving him into the rough, concrete wall at his back. All the air was knocked from his lungs and he saw stars occluding his vision.

“Give me one reason not to kill you.” The man’s voice was low and gravelly and Hendrick could smell liquor and something reminiscent of rotten eggs on his breath.

Hendrick struggled to make a sound but couldn’t pull any air in. He thought he would surely pass out when the man loosened his grip. Hendrick thought he was being offered a reprieve until he realized the man had only pulled back to sock him in the stomach. He tried to take it like a man, but he’d never been punched before in his life and the pain ripped through him and forced out a high-pitched squeal with the little air he’d managed to suck down. The man laughed in his face and dropped him, leaving him to plummet to the trash-strewn street in a heap.

A car passed by not far from them and while the murderer turned to watch it pass, to make sure no one was looking, the headlights glinted off the blade of the knife. It was only a few inches from Hendrick. Feigning even more pain than he was in, Hendrick flopped forward onto the pavement and clutched his stomach with one hand, letting his right hand land on top of the knife, hopefully hiding it from view. His palms were sweating profusely and he worried that it would slip through his grasp, so he lay still for a moment. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to stand, anyway.

“Did it hurt, you little, pathetic man?” He had adopted some sick imitation of a baby voice as he leaned down to leer in Hendrick’s face. Hendrick wrapped the handle of the knife tightly in his shaking fist and pushed himself up abruptly with the other. The man was mere inches away from his face when the knife collided with his throat. Hendrick’s aim had been true.

The man’s skin provided less resistance to the sharp blade than Hendrick had expected, and he was surprised by the warm torrent of blood he immediately felt cascading down his wrist. Not as surprised as the murderer, though. His eyes showed complete incomprehension. He reached up one of his thick hands to feel at his gaping wound, the blood forced out in spurts by each pump of his heart, which didn’t yet know its beats were numbered. The man looked back at Hendrick who was too shocked by what he had done to move. His lips moved, but only a slight gurgling came out. Hendrick thought he must have cut right through his trachea.

The man was losing blood at an alarming rate, but he still had enough fight left to grab Hendrick’s throat and throttle him for all he was worth. The stars came back into Hendrick’s vision but just before the night went completely black, the man’s grip loosened and he fell to the ground, eyes wide and staring. The river of blood finally slowed.

Hendrick stood and dropped the knife by the man’s side. His pulse was still pounding in his ears and he was gasping for breath. It was self-defense, he told himself. Nothing else you could’ve done.

Doing his best to wipe the man’s blood off his arm, he slowly backed away. What was he supposed to do now? He limped back up the alley from the direction he had come, stooping to pick up his briefcase where he had dropped it by the shed. He glanced up the driveway and saw a sizeable dent on the side of the car. He looked two houses up and saw an empty yard, but he could make out a little boy’s guilty face peeking up over the windowsill. Case solved. Hendrick jotted a few last notes onto the form and tucked it back into the briefcase, careful not to drip any blood on it. He was about to walk to the main road to hail a hovertaxi again when he saw a spigot on the side of the shed. It was as good a spot as any to clean up. As long as he found a good dumpster to drop his jacket, no one would ever know. At least, not until some white-band cop came back looking. His timeline wouldn’t stay this way for long, so he might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

Hendrick’s mind was spinning the whole trip back and still was while he filed his paperwork and drove home. He did his best not to limp as he got out of the hovercar and walked up to the front door. He pushed it open to see a complete mess of kids and toys everywhere.

“Daddy, daddy!” His son came rushing up to him full speed and barreled into his stomach. It took all he had not to grimace in pain.

He plastered on a smile. “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

His wife walked into the room with a fat slice of birthday cake for him. “Glad you’re home, honey. How was work?”

Hendrick forced another smile and took a bite of cake. It felt dry, almost chalky, in his mouth. “Fine,” was all he could get out past the lump of cake in his throat which was refusing to go down. He wondered how long it would be until the body was found. Didn’t matter, now. He knew this timeline would change.