CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE - PRE-COGNITION FOR DUMMIES

I think I had it figured out, and I wasn't sure if I was happy about it or not.

It took twenty-three loops.

Twenty-three!

And they weren't all short loops either. Some of them took hours to finish. I think the biggest gain I made was all the driving practice I got. A lot of that time was spent on my bike, touring a part of the city that I wasn't super familiar with but which I was getting to know pretty well.

By the tenth loop I had the trick down. I just had to not follow the group or want to harm them too badly. It seemed like thinking bad thoughts about them was fine, as long as I didn't have the intention to act on those.

The moment I decided that I would, then they'd react.

Or... not quite the moment, but soon after. I wish I could take notes back with me in my loops, because it felt like there were windows where things were happening, but I couldn't imagine making mental notes of specific times and keeping them memorized over long hours.

I tracked the group from where they came, and to where they were going, eventually pointing the way to this apartment building in the outer city, just outside the walls. It was disturbing how similar to my own home it was. Heck, it was on the same side of the city, even.

I walked in, suited up and revolver out, and when someone came out to confront me, I put them down.

Walking up the stairs I eventually found the space where the group was coming from. Of course, I timed it so that they wouldn't be there when I arrived. Instead, the only person I found was a panicked young woman in a wheelchair.

I wasn't about to shoot someone in a wheelchair... until she pulled out a gun of her own. Kinda felt like a bully for that one, but the room she was in made me hesitate.

Walls covered in news articles and notes. Dates, percentages, pictures of buildings, including the jail, the warehouse where I'd found Ojou, and a lot more.

Yeah, this was it.

I moved around the space, looking for proof of... something. I don't know. But there wasn't anything that jumped out.

This was a clean space, but it was just some low-ranking gang's hideout.

If they were being paid by someone like Ojou's older brothers, then I'd expect it to be a front for a corpo hit squad or something, but no, they seemed... kind of normal?

I Reloaded, and this time drove straight for the apartment. I arrived just as the van were leaving, and it looked like as long as I was just planning on having a polite conversation with the clairvoyant within, I didn't register as a threat. Neat.

I took the stairs, then instead of kicking my way in, I knocked politely.

"One moment!" came the reply from within.

The door unlocked and then swung open. It was the girl in the wheelchair. Woman. Not a girl. She was twenty-something, but the chair made her short and she was rather small.

"Um, hello?" she asked.

"Hey," I said. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Huh? Who are you?" she asked.

"Doesn't matter," I said with a kindly smile. Then I reached over with a leg, hooking it around the footsupport of her chair and pulled it forwards. She gasped, but I didn't care. I reached into the edge of her seat and pulled out the little nine-mil she had hidden there. "Gonna be confiscating this," I said.

"H-hey! Who are you? Help!"

I manhandled her seat, turning her around and pushing her into the room only to close the door behind me. She reached for her wheels and pulled ahead only to turn around to face me. "Sorry about that," I said. "So, question and answer time! I ask questions, and you answer."

"No!" she said. "Who are you?"

"Who paid you to kidnap Francisca Ojou?"

Her face went very pale. "My friends--"

"Are gone, about to break into the local jail. They won't be back for an hour, at least," I said. "And while you're a D-ranker, I'm pretty sure you're limited to outer elemental magic, mostly clairvoyance, right?"

She glared.

"Cool. Answer the question. Who paid you to kidnap Francisca Ojou?"

"How do you know about me? No one should have--."

I shot the ground next to her with her own gun, and she jumped. "You're not the only one with neat time powers," I said. "Answer the question. I've had a long, long day, and I'm real tired."

She swallowed, and I saw her throat moving, as if she was talking to herself. She shivered. "You really would kill me," she said.

"Only if you don't answer truthfully. Trust me. I'll find out if you're lying. Let's make this short? I don't like this. It feels... uncivilized to bully cute girls."

She crossed her arms, then looked away from me, her pretty orange-y eyes focusing on the floor. "No one paid us," she said. "We did it to make money from the ransom. We were supposed to get away with it, too."

"Huh... Okay," I said.

Then I asked more questions. She didn't know Ojou's family's names, didn't know the company well, didn't know much, really.

Was this... was this whole thing one moderately competent gang abusing some clairvoyance powers to make a quick buck? Damn.

I did make note of her name, and memorized the address. Then I heard feet in the corridor, people rushing over. Guess she hadn't made a call in and they suspected there was trouble. Oh well.

I Reloaded, and then sat on my bike.

Now what?

That girl in the chair was the clairvoyant. She had a radio, the maps, and all sorts of information laying around. Strange to see a D-ranker that wasn't fit as a fiddle, but I supposed there were some illnesses that couldn't be cured so easily, even with magic.

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I grit my teeth and considered going back into the HQ to ask Dharti a few more questions but decided against it.

Instead, I turned my bike on and headed homewards.

Halfway there, I stopped in front of a small pharmacy and bought a burner, activated it, and placed a quick call.

Fran picked up on the third ring. "Hello?" she asked.

"Fran," I said as I climbed back onto my bike and started it up. "Good to hear your voice again."

"Deadline," she said, sounding... pretty happy, actually. "It's good to hear back from you as well."

"Are you secure?" I asked.

"I am. My guards insisted that I return home once the breakout occurred. There hasn't been any news about their success or failure."

"I can confirm that the breakout was a success," I said. "They're out. As far as I can tell, without any police or guard deaths, though that might not be accurate. I managed to discover the group's base of operations and how they managed the breakout, as well as your... prior incident with them."

"You did? I don't know why I'm even mildly surprised. Your professionalism shines through once more, Deadline. So, what do you have to tell me?"

I wished that I wasn't the sort who'd get buttered up so easily... but damn if it wasn't working at least a little. It almost made up for how tired I was.

"I'm not sure we should discuss it over the phone. What do you say about meeting?"

"Hmm... yes, why not. Somewhere more private than last time?"

"Sure," I said.

"My place, then. I can have my guards step back." She gave me a five-digit code, presumably for her front door, which was... okay.

Was I reading too much into this, or was Ojou inviting me over to her place with ulterior (sexy) motives, or was the lack of... tension relief for what had to be a subjective week and a half just muddling with my brain?

Well... that changed things a little. "Sure. I'll be there... call it tomorrow evening?"

"Perfect. See you at six?"

"Six works," I said.

"May I ask... what's that noise?"

"Noise? Oh, that's my motorcycle."

Fran was quiet for a while. "You have a motorcycle?"

"Just a little thing. To get around the city faster," I said. "If you want, I can give you a ride one of these days. It'll make you see the city, the world, from a whole new angle." I turned my voice a pinch huskier, because proper ladies loved bitches with bikes.

"P-perhaps one day," Fran said. She cleared her throat. "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. We have a lot to discuss."

We said our goodbyes right after, then I did a little swaying dance on my bike. I was sooo getting laid. The loops were worth it.

Ah... but that led to a bunch of issues.

I got off the bike again and ran over to the nearest pharmacy. I needed a new set of razors and... oh, there was a fancy lingerie place a few blocks over... and I did have a lot of disposable income.

Fran had probably seen a lot of very hot ladies in her time, so my chances were iffy at best, and I was hardly an expert at reading signals, especially over the phone. Maybe I was all wrong.

But maybe I wasn't, and if I wasn't, then I didn't need her seeing me in my cheap-ass Amazon Basics cotton panties with old stains.

I found something nice, tried it on, paid a small fortune for it, then left. Right... I had to keep my head on straight, because I had a lot of stuff to get done, and horny thoughts were nothing if not a distraction.

The clairvoyant... she was a danger, but I wasn't sure that she was an enemy, exactly. She seemed focused on breaking her pals out of jail, and they, in turn, were probably just a gang trying to make a quick buck off of kidnapping the Ojou.

It was stupid, and a problem, and also a great opportunity for me. Fran had contacts and problems. I could solve her problems and get her contacts in exchange. It wasn't overly complicated.

Time wasn't exactly running out on me, but it was slowly trickling away. Eight months and a couple of weeks was a long time, but actions I took now would probably have a bigger impact than things done later.

Maybe.

I wasn't sure. A big part of me suspected that the Breach had been some corp's plan, and that wouldn't be stopped so easily. Or maybe it would? One dead CEO was a small price to pay to save thousands of lives, right?

With my thoughts turning a little dark, I rode back home. I wanted to set a new save, but was feeling a little paranoid at the moment. I'd maybe set one tomorrow, before work, but for now I made it home with one last stop to buy something to eat, then spent the evening pushing myself to do a bit of at-home cardio and carved out Shadow Bolt in this timeline that I intended to keep.

I could cast the spell, mostly thanks to twenty-plus repetitions with little more to do than practice carving it over and over.

Could I cast it well? No. I was pretty sure the carving was off in a few spots, and I'd need to adjust it, maybe find an expert to help me in a wasted timeline, but in the meantime...

I aimed at one of the posters in my apartment and cast it. A wave of warmth coursed through me as my magic squeezed out of my core and through the carving. It was hard to feel bored when this excited, so I was probably losing a lot of efficiency but...

A black blur escaped my open palm and smacked into one of the posters on my wall. The wall shook, the poster came off, and I grinned as it left a small dent in the drywall.

Wait... fuck, I was gonna keep this timeline! Shit!

Now I'd need to put that poster back up and hope that nobody noticed the dent.

***