Itch: Nine Tales of Fantastic Worlds (5 page)

“That’s nice, Bart.” Edward stomped away again, toward his cubicle. He’d dump the clipboards out of the box sitting under the coffee maker and use it to gather his belongings.

He had too much stuff in his apartment to do that, though. Edward frowned.

“Mr. Strevakoff, I’m, umm….” The kid named Bart easily paced Edward, which, in all honesty, was as surprising as getting fired.

Edward was one of the best field workers on the ship. He always went in. Always cleaned up the mess. And always came back, leaving no traces. Except that one time.

And now this new time, when he left a
record
—

Edward stopped suddenly again, but this time Bart walked right by, not noticing until he was three paces ahead. He swung his entire body around, one leg in the air, just like a dancer.

The kid was good. “I am so sorry this happened, sir!” Bart blinked behind his monocle. “I follow the reports, sir. I….” His face scrunched up and he walked back to Edward, moving too close, as if he wanted to share a secret. “I was going to ask to intern with you, sir.”

“Stop calling me sir.” Edward sniffed. The dull odor of Lancaster’s damned “fresh” tobacco hit his nose and he groaned. Bastard.

He’d not only screwed up Edward’s life, but also the life of this kid named Bart, now that the kid would have to intern with a less capable field worker. If only they could—

“Intern, huh?” Edward turned his body square to the kid, who stared, wide-eyed. “Do you want to start now?”

Bart’s skinny and pink lips opened and closed. “I’m not scheduled yet, sir.”

Edward didn’t give a rat’s ass about scheduling anymore. Not a boss rat’s ass, not a cubicle constrained rat’s behind, not even a rat whose ass flew up the center. He’d worked for this company for six trips Out and five Back. He was their best field worker—Bart even said so—and they didn’t give him an opportunity to clean up his own mess?

Edward handed his clipboard to the kid, who stacked it on top of his own. “You are now, Bart, my friend.”

***

Bart turned out to be quite the fast talker. Edward watched him cajole the pretty but also lanky landing bay worker into granting them access to Edward’s normal drop pod. Bart touched her elbow and the distracted young woman twisted her honey-sweet hair between her fingers. She never did look at the orders Lancaster’s nag-bot had sent out to the ship.

Edward dropped behind the controls as he powered up the vehicle. Bart followed into the passenger seat. Several silent
ohhhs
and
ahhhs
worked across his face.

“I take it you’ve never been in a company car before?” Edward punched up the drop codes and pulled his pod out of her parking space. “She’s German. Build in Munich.”

Her g-force couches were top quality, too, and the liquid controls under his backside had formed up into the buttery texture of real soft leather before Bart had opened his door.

The kid yanked his harness across his chest. “
Ohhhh
….” He was obviously trying not to touch the liquid controls flowing across the dash. Mercurial and shiny, the controls usually set off a deep brain fear response in humans. Most people pulled back. But Bart looked as if he wanted to dive in up to his elbows.

Which was good. If something happened to Edward, the kid could take control of the pod.

“It interfaces with you.” The controls formed into a steering wheel for Edward and he sat back, letting the vehicle’s cruise control take over their descent. She really was a nice piece of engineering. Sleek and perfectly cloaked. Edward was going to miss his car.

“You, um, drop into the atmosphere without a monocle?” Bart’s face turned white.

Edward laughed. “Take that damned thing off.” He pointed at Bart’s pocket. “We’re dropping into the twenty-first century. No one wears monocles. You’ll look stupid when we land.”

More stupid, Edward did not need. This descent was about cleaning up a problem, not making new ones.

Bart yanked off the offending eyepiece and stuffed it into his pocket. A huge smile broke across his face. “So, Mr. Strevakoff, what’s our plan?”

***

Edward landed the car behind a garage in a semi-deserted part of a sleepy suburb. This time of the day, most of the people were at work. Some locals stayed behind, mostly women caring for small children, and swooping in unnoticed was relatively easy.

On the other side of the car, Bart closed his door and hitched up his pants. “It looks just like the vids.” He sniffed the air and his mouth twisted up. “Smells like it, too.”

Edward nodded. These places tended to be manicured, and this one was no different. Short cut grass, shorn off bushes, straight lines of walks and driveways. A tall fence made of rough wood planking encased this little plot of land, which was why the car chose here to land. It was secluded. But it did have the omnipresent stink of fossil fuel consumption.

“You want to be a field worker, you’ll need to get used to the smell.” Edward closed his door and his car changed into the shimmering ghost camouflage that one expected from a perfectly curved piece of German engineering.

Yes, he would miss his car.

Bart nodded toward the street, on the other side of the vinyl-sided garage. “So, how
exactly
is us getting into a fight in the middle of the street going to clean this mess?”

Edward scratched his cheek. He’d planned to shave before his scheduled drop, to be tidy, but
that
plan had been blown out of the water. At least his navy blue slacks and his crisp white shirt weren’t all that out of place. Neither were Bart’s. Edward straightened his collar.

The time locals in this part of the world were good at keeping records. His “record” had a date, time, and place stamp—the date, time, and place they’d just dropped into.

“Lesson one, young Bart: You confront the mess head on.” Which was exactly what they were about to do. They’d step into the street, holler, and put on a good show. Then the cops would show and Edward would talk his way out of the arrest—proving, once again, that he took his job seriously—and they’d return to the
Flight Up The Center
with his time stream tidied and sanitized.

And they may as well clean up his target’s mess, too. Her family did pay for a Right Path package, after all. Edward could demonstrate a simple job for the kid.

He scratched at his stubble again, his chest widening out as he relaxed into his plan. If everything went right—and it would—they’d return and Lancaster wouldn’t remember firing him, which would save a mountain of paperwork. Seven hours’ worth, at least. Paperwork was
not
the most entertaining part of his job.

But first they performed the cleaning. Edward pointed around the garage and along a flagstone path framed by lilac bushes. A breeze pushed the sweet intoxicating scent toward their now-invisible car.

Bart sneezed.

Edward shrugged as he started toward the path around the garage. Speed while in the past decreased the likelihood of messes spilling and the propagation of unwanted circumstances, so Bart’s sneezing would be short-lived. They’d be out of here in an hour or two.

“Springtime in the suburbs, my friend.” Edward flicked a full head of lilacs on the bush closest to the car. Little lavender petals rained onto the green under his feet in a bright cascade, filling the air with more of the bushes’ intensely sweet smell. If this had been a theme park, little fairy-bots would have flitted among the flowers, twinkling and chiming little bells.

Bart sneezed again, and did not move.

Edward frowned. Bart sneezed one more time.

Allergies
, Edward thought.
Wonderful
. The kid wasn’t yet a designated field worker. “You don’t have all your shots, do you?” He walked around the front of the car, to the kid.

“What?” Bart’s face started to puff up. He sniffled. Tears clung to his lashes and he breathed through his mouth.

Edward tugged Bart toward the street, probably less gently than he should have. The quicker they took care of this, the better. “Let’s get done so we can get you home.”

The kid balked, his heels digging into the sheared-off backyard green. “I’m not going through those!” He waved his hands at the lilacs as if he could generate enough lift to fly himself back to the
Flight
.

“Okay, fine.” Edward let go. The planks of the fence went on and on around the yard with no breaks except in the back corner, behind some low flowering plant that looked overgrown. Two of the planks were knocked out and twisted to the side.

“There.” Edward looked Bart up and down. “You’re skinny. You’ll fit.”

He, though, was not skinny. Broad-chested and tall, Edward would likely rip his shirt trying to force his shoulders through, and that would help no one. He pushed the kid toward the break. “Meet me around front.”

Edward straightened his collar again before walking through the lilacs. He’d smell like a time-local little old lady until he showered and changed, but sometimes his job demanded sacrifices and giving off an olfactory contradiction to his handsomeness was one of them. Sacrificing the job itself, was not.

This mess, he fixed. A man did not simply back away from a problem and let it fester into something wiggling and putrid. His mother taught him better than that. If it wiggles and it smells like a decomposing rat’s ass, you put on your protective gear and you clean it up. Leaving messes for others was not acceptable.

Edward rounded the front of the garage and pulled up short as the new smell hit him hard: popcorn.

Burnt popcorn.

Fear broke open his maintenance routine control strategies and Edward yipped. A real, high-pitched, little dog yip popped out of his throat.

Sherry was not amused. She squatted on the front driver’s side corner of the hood of the nicely-cleaned, dark blue SUV in the driveway, her elbows on her knees and her face the same hard piercing hell it always was. She might be lovely to watch walk away—her hips and her breasts balanced perfectly and her bouncy blond curls made all men sigh, but the level of distaste beaming from her ice-blue eyes would kill the most hardcore murderer at fifty paces.

“What do you think you are doing, Mr. Strevakoff?” She rocked slightly on her gripper slippers and the aluminum of the SUV’s hood crackled. She used her elbows to press her knees down at the same time as she steepled her fingers very much the same way as Lancaster had.

When the son of a bitch fired Edward.

“My
job
, Sherry.”
Because I’m good at my job
,
you witch
, he thought.

Her eyes flashed as the suburban sun poked out from behind one of the fat fluffy clouds dotting the sky. The light brightened her skin slightly, but she did not move. Nor did her face change. “So am I, Mr. Strevakoff.”

Chill crept through Edward, moving from his skin to his bones. Sherry’s wasn’t a job anyone talked about.
Her
reports were not shared. The scuttle was that she had something on Lancaster, which was why she could stink up the entire
Flight
with her damned popcorn.

“Sherry, listen. There’s a mess here. Something needs cleaning. I can’t let that—”

A high pitched, feminine scream blasted from the neighboring backyard. “Oh my God! What are you doing? Who the hell are you? Get out of my yard!”

A stuffed-up yell followed, along with the sounds of something flat hitting poor Bart, then a congested and hollow “I’m sorry!”

“Mr. Strevakoff, this is your doing.” Sherry, once again, did not move. She stayed on the hood of the SUV, still squatting on the corner like a demented angel. “Clean it up.”

Edward whirled around just as Bart ran out of the neighbor’s backyard, a big pink beach towel and a bright green bikini top wrapped around his head. A topless woman in a matching bikini bottom and one arm covering her chest ran out behind him.

Edward lost all sense of his fellow time travelers. All sense of the suburban place his car had dropped him into. Of the fluffy clouds floating above like pillows for cherubs. Of the welcoming scent of lilacs still clinging to his shirt.

Edward lost sense of everything but the semi-clad woman yelling at young Bart.

He never thought he’d see her again but here she was, the friend of the target whose head he’d so long ago stared at for an entire “movie.” She was just as smoothly beautiful now as she had been then, with her clean, even skin. And her curves. And lovely, finger-enticing hair.

Edward did a quick calculation. For her, the “movie” had probably occurred three weeks ago.

Bart yelled something about being
really sorry
and wiped his nose on the beach towel. Police sirens wailed. But Edward paid no heed.

He ripped off his shirt and handed it to the woman.

“Who the hell are
you
?” she yelled. “You look familiar. You stalking me?” She turned in a circle, her arm still over her breasts. “Oh my God you were at the movie theater! You’re that hot guy who kept staring at me! You’re freakin’ creepy, dude!”