"The Do-Over Man"

He came into the room like a crisp professional, with his pressed suit and gleaming black shoes. He was nothing like the cartoonish detectives that are presented in movies, be they fat, sweating men or the ones that look like they have spent the last three days wearing the same clothes and sleeping on some dusty cot in a dank corner of the precinct building. No, he was clean and well-mannered and that was the thing that Kurt noticed first.

           “I got it in Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War,” he said as he carefully slid a cup of coffee towards Kurt.

           “The coffee?”

           “No. The giant scar running down my cheek. Most people stare at it like I’ve got a second head until they either finally ask about it or I offer up the information. So now when I’m conducting an interrogation, I just make it the lead.”

           “I really didn’t notice,” Kurt said truthfully.

           “Really? You’re the first one then. Unless you’re lying, of course. Are you lying, Mr. Rand?”

           “No. Of course not. Why would I lie about such a stupid thing as that?”

           “My name is Detective Marshall,” he said, ignoring the question. “I just spent the last half hour going over the evidence collected by the police that raided your house. It seems like they have enough on you to pin every terrorist bombing that has happened in the States for the last three years. Good evidence. Solid evidence.”

           “Such as?”

           “Such as the type of chemicals found in your home perfectly match residue at the other bombings. Such as you meeting the description of five eyewitnesses. Such as files on your computer detailing the purchases of the nails and pipes used as shrapnel. Such as - and I can’t believe someone as smart as you did this - the entire journal written in your handwriting, spelling out everything. Quite frankly, I feel that talking to you is a waste of my time, since we have enough to have the state start preparing your cot and needle now.”

           Kurt took a small sip of the coffee. “If it’s that open and shut, why are you here?”

           “Because if I learned anything from spending six years as an MP, it’s be thorough. I’ve seen men die or get disfigured because they didn’t dot all of their I’s or cross all of their T’s,” he said as he motioned at his deep scar. “So, I just want to know ‘why’.”

           “Does it matter?”

           “Not really, no. You have a date with a lethal injection, that’s for certain, but I need to know your reasoning. Are there more of you out there?”

           Kurt smiled weakly. “I assure you detective that I am the only one.”

           “So why then? I mean, there is no discernable pattern to your targets. Why did you pick them? Random? Throw a dart on a map?”

           “I can’t tell you that, detective.”

           “Why not?”

           “The reason hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe it has. Maybe the reason was ten years ago or ten years from now. He hasn’t filled me in on everything just yet.”

           “I thought you said you were alone, Mr. Rand. So, who hasn’t filled you in on the details yet? Who are you working for?”

           “I call him the Do-Over Man.”

           “Do-Over Man. Is that his code name?”

           “No, it’s the name I gave to him when I first met him as a child. It just kind of stuck with me.”

           “So, you’ve known the leader since you were a boy? What age? When did he start your training?”

           “I’ve known him my entire life.”

           “Is he your father? A relative?”

           “No. He is me.”

           “Excuse me?”

           “He is me, or more precisely, I become him in the future when I get my powers. I don’t know when that happens exactly, as he only gives me enough information to keep me going. Going towards the final event, you see,” Kurt said as he took another sip of coffee.

           Marshall exhaled slowly and pushed back into his chair. “Are you serious? You want to play with me, kid? You think a crazy man will just do some time in the mental hospital? You think this act is going to save you?”

           “That journal you found…tell me, was the handwriting an exact match?”

           “Yes. It was an exact match.”

           “Except the variations of strength, right?”

           “How did you know about that?”

           “Because that journal was written by the future me, when I become the Do-Over Man. It was written by me at age 20 up to age 67. Same person, only sometimes old and sometimes young.”

           “Just stop, Rand. Your IQ is above 190. We know you added the elements of aging to your writing, but we don’t know why. A smart man doesn’t even put stuff like that in writing, unless he is so cock-sure of himself that he thinks himself to be invincible. So just cut the crap with ‘old man you’ writing things way into the future.”

           “I’m not invincible, detective. Even a person with temporal shifting abilities ages. One can ride the waves of time, back and forth detective, but one can’t stop time itself.”

           “Temporal what?”

           “Temporal shifting. It allows an individual to move back and forth through time, but they are restrained to their time span of life. In other words, I can’t go back and help write the Declaration of Independence, but I can go and visit me at any period of my life.”

           Detective Marshall rubbed his temples. He sat quietly and watched Kurt finish the last of his coffee before he spoke again.

           “Let me get this straight…you’re a time traveler.”

           “Not currently, but at some point, the power manifests itself in me, yes.”

           “So, you just can’t just zip out of here and escape?”

           “I can only move in time, not space. When I get my powers, I am limited to the general location of the base Kurt Rand, which is me.”

           “You’re the base?”

           “Yes. It seems that I am the fulcrum upon which his, I mean my, entire experiment balances. I have to assume that when the power manifests itself, my current state will no longer be the fulcrum.”

           “But what about all of that ‘time-space continuum’ stuff they have in movies? I didn’t think two people could occupy the same time and place.”

           “Hollywood has a tendency to get things wrong.”

           Detective Marshall found himself rubbing his temples again. “Pardon me, but I have to go take a dump. Sit tight, and when I get back, we’ll talk more about your other self.”

           The detective stood up, grabbed the empty coffee cup and left the room.

           Outside, his captain was waiting for him.

           “What do you make of that?” the captain asked.

           Marshall shook his head. “I don’t know, sir. It sounds straight-up looney tunes, but his actions don’t indicate mental instability. Maybe he’s taking his shot with an insanity plea.”

           “Crazy isn’t going to help a serial bomber. That man has killed nearly 50 people and has terrorized this country. Hell, half the officers in this building want to take him out back and shoot him, and the other half think shooting him is too good for him.”

           “I’ll let him stew a bit, see if the break allows for some mental clarity in case he is nuts.”

           “Fine. Grab some food and be back here in about an hour.”

           “Sure thing, but I wasn’t kidding about taking a crap.”

           An hour later, Marshall walked back into the interrogation room. He had a small bag with him, some food from a greasy spoon two blocks away. He shook the bag at Rand.

           “You hungry?”

           “What is it?”

           “Like you always seem to ask, why does it matter?”

           “I guess it doesn’t. Sure, I’ll eat it. Thanks.”

           Detective Marshall sat down and slid the bag across the table to Rand. Rand pulled a BLT sandwich from the bag, along with a bag of chips and a wrapped cookie. Marshall watched as Rand took each item and placed the food in a meticulous manner on the table. Marshall was not a shrink, but he knew the signs of someone with OCD. When Rand had finished organizing his food, Marshall continued the investigation.

           “I’ve been thinking about what you told me earlier, about this Do-Over Man. You say that he is you from the future, correct?”

           Kurt finished his bite of the sandwich before he answered. “Yes. He is me from some point in my personal future timeline.”

           “And you say that he’s been coming to visit you from time to time, no pun intended.”

           “Correct.”

           “So why did you name him the Do-Over Man?”

           Kurt stopped eating. He gently placed the sandwich back on the wrapper before he answered. “I called him that because that is his mission.”

           “What is? I mean, what’s his mission?”

           “Time isn’t this linear mechanism that most people think it is. It moves in a linear fashion, but it’s more like ocean waves and currents. It comes and goes, and everything in its control, that is to say everything, bobs up and down. None of us are anchored. We think we are, but it is indeed the grand illusion.

           We make our choices, and we make them every day. Some are critical decisions and some are seemingly meaningless. We graduate from high school, go to college or enter the work force, and then what? We get up, go to work, come home, interact with the family, watch some TV, go to bed and then do it all over again the next day.

           And we do this for years. And we do it with a goal in mind, that light at the end of the tunnel we call retirement. We save our money, invest it for the future, we drop anchor in port and we think that everything will be just fine.”

           Kurt took another bite.

           “But it’s not fine!” he screamed. “I’m not fine! My future isn’t fine!”

           Marshall felt himself reaching for his sidearm. “Calm down, Mr. Rand.”

           Kurt calmed himself. “Sorry. I’ve been dealing with this shit my entire life.”

           “So why isn’t you future fine? What happens?”

           “I’m not sure. I won’t tell me. I mean, the future me won’t tell the current me. Over the years I’ve been able to cobble together bits and pieces of my memories. My best guess is that once I become ‘empowered,’ I do something very heroic or very tragic. I like to think that I become the hero, but you know what they say about heroes.”

           “No; what do they say?” Marshall asked.

           “That heroes are only one tragedy away from becoming a villain.”

           “Why doesn’t he just tell you what it is, and then you just avoid doing it?”

           Kurt looked away for a few seconds, and Marshall was certain he saw his lips tremble. When he looked back at the detective, his eyes were glistening with tears.

           “Tell me detective,” Kurt began, “is there some great, stupid thing you’ve done in your life?”

           “Of course.”

           “Now think about that incident, just for a few seconds.”

           Marshall shrugged. “Okay. Got it.”

           “There isn’t any need for details, but do you recall what led up to that event.”

           “Sure. It was a teenage party that involved a lot of alcohol.”

           “Now whatever it was that you did - and I truly don’t want to know - can you say for certain that it was the elements of that party that led to your actions?”

           “Yes. Without a doubt.”

           “You are wrong, detective. A person doesn’t fall off a cliff without first taking a thousand small steps to get to that cliff. Your entire life was spent learning and developing habits, thought patterns, morals, et cetera that led you to that incident, which led to the next, and so on and so on until you die. Your life is like a string of dominoes, with each one set to knock down all the others in front of it with just the slightest touch, the most miniscule of provocation. And the older you get, the more dominoes you stack up, and the greater the consequence.”

           “I suppose that is true for all of us.”

           Kurt Rand smiled. “Not for me. You see, the Do-Over Man watches me with great patience. When my dominoes begin to tumble, if he doesn’t like the outcome, he just goes back in time and starts the stack all over again. Again and again and again until my brain is filled with so many shards of memories that it makes me want to take a gun and blow my brains out. I have bits of memories of that too, so I must have done that at some point in my lives.”

           “Hold on. Are you suggesting that you keep reliving your life over and over?”

           “I suggest nothing. I say it plainly. I’m being molded by me to some kind of end. I never get far enough into my life to find out the end, as he just goes back to my childhood and alters the path differently.”

           “What’s the oldest you’ve become before he does the do-over?”

           “This. I’m just shy of 30, and this is the longest he has allowed me to go. And that is what frightens me. I’ve become a terrorist, and this is the most successful I’ve become. Sad, isn’t it?”

           “Well Mr. Rand, all I can tell you is that your days of terror are over. You’ll be processed in the morning, and then sent off to county. I’m pretty sure the state will want a thorough psych evaluation, but like I said earlier, this story won’t save you from a needle.”

           “You don’t get it, do you?”

           “Get what?” Marshall inquired.

           “Do you believe that this is the first time I’ve been arrested? Or caught? Right now, the Do-Over Man has concluded that this experiment, like all the others, failed, and he will go back in time, wipe the slate clean and start all over again. Most likely, Detective Marshall, you’ll wake up in the morning with no memory of me at all.”

           Marshall laughed. “Trust me Rand, nobody is going to forget you. Which, quite frankly, is probably the thing that all of you serial killers want anyway…to go down in infamy.”

           “You can’t remember something that never happened, Detective Marshall.”

           “Our time is up, Rand,” Marshall said as he stood up. “The next time I see you will be at your trial.”

           “Goodbye, Detective Marshall.”

           Marshall left the interrogation room and walked past his captain.

           “That guy is one major headcase, sir.”

           The captain nodded his agreement. “No kidding. Good work on the case. I’m sure this will get you a promotion.”

           “Maybe, but I’m just glad I could help get that loon off the streets.”

           “Go home and get some rest.”

           “Yes sir,” Marshall said as he slipped on his jacket.

           He went home that night, had a few beers as he watched some hockey, and then went to bed. The next morning, he woke up, ready to face another day of life and the terrible choices that some people make. After all, his business was trying to pick up the pieces of the messes left by others.

Like dominoes that somebody else knocked over, he thought.

Dominoes. No where on earth did that come from? In the back of his head, he had this faint memory, a little wisp of reality, that was fleeting even now. And just like that, it was gone.

Marshall grabbed some cold pizza from his fridge and sat down to watch the news. He picked up the remote, turned on the national station, and watched as a manned rocket left the confines of the earth for the cold, red dust of Mars. It was the first manned mission to another planet, and it was led by the young genius Dr. Kurt Rand.

“Now that’s a kid that made his parents proud,” Marshal mumbled as he shoved some of the left-overs into his mouth.