Steve Murphy was truly a product of the corporate world. His dark blue suit was fresh from the dry-cleaners. His deep brown leather shoes were polished, and his new gold watch sparkled in the morning sunlight. His smooth leather belt kept his slightly sagging belly in place. Steve had more than just the look, though. He had a sharp eye for numbers, and he was going places. He was going to do something with his life.
He was a product of the corporate world. Not anymore, though. Not after that Thursday in March when everything changed.
The day started off like every other day. Steve took his golden retriever Bucky out for a walk. They journeyed up and down Fourth Street and passed all the other pet owners out on their similar morning errand. Steve nodded his hellos to people he had met, but he never said more than a quick “Good morning.” Truthfully, he could never remember his neighbor’s names. If they had been as important as a client account, then he could have rattled off the account number, the most recent balance and if the account had seen any rocky activity lately. People were more difficult to remember, though.
Since the morning jaunt with Bucky had been so nice, Steve decided to walk the few blocks to work today. He had not yet become a Southern man, but he was quite fond of the way that the sun actually came out at times other than summer months. Steve had grown up in Ohio, and the sun had seemed a rare gift in those parts of the country. A dreary cloudiness hovered over the Midwest for months at a time. It was bright enough to make a person squint, but no one wanted to be seen wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day. Shielding one’s eyes meant someone had a secret to keep, and secrets were dangerous in small towns. But here in Charlotte, North Carolina, the sun was actually a common place occurrence year round.
Steve had relocated to Charlotte for a job at Bank of America’s corporate headquarters located “uptown” as they said in Charlotte. (Steve still hadn’t heard a plausible reason the city called it uptown instead of downtown, but everyone seemed to have his or her own explanation.) Very few people actually seemed to be originally from this city. As Steve looked around his office that day at all of his co-workers, he realized that Ellen may be the only genuine local around here, but Steve did not talk to Ellen very much. She did her job fairly well, but she was peculiar. He didn’t think that it had anything to do with her place of origin, but one could never be sure…
Anyway, Steve managed a small crew in monitoring the loans that went out across the nation. Mostly, they double-checked the paperwork for any irregularities, of which there were plenty. Doing a little extra background work on applicants constantly turned up a slew of deadbeats and weirdoes. This particular week was more stressful for the office because of the end of the fiscal year’s approach. Everyone had their annual reports to finish, and Steve also needed to complete his forecasts for the year in his department.
So Steve was not surprised or irritated when five o’clock came and went. He figured that he could finish up his reports late in the evening, and then his Friday would be a breeze. He liked to get ahead like that whenever he could. Sometimes he would even go so far as to pick out his outfits for the next three or four days before going to bed just so he wouldn’t have to worry about it later.
At nine-thirty, Steve hit the “save” icon one last time. He stood up and stretched and got his things together. He cleaned up the candy wrappers that were littered on his desk, and he thought of where he might go for dinner. The only place to eat uptown at this time of night was the bars and taverns. There might be other places, but Steve had walked to work and still didn’t feel like driving after he got home. Besides, if he was walking, then he could have a few celebratory drinks in recognition of his accomplishments that day.
The basketball playoffs were on the television, and Steve was immediately engrossed in the scores and the statistics from around the league. He was a big fan of numbers, after all. The game on the television was being played on the west coast, so they did not finish until twelve-thirty. Steve finished his last beer and paid his tab. He was feeling pretty good. He had enjoyed some good drinks, and his favorite team had clinched their series. Not a bad night.
Charlotte is not a particularly dangerous city, so Steve did not worry for safety very often. “Bad stuff” happens in every city, and the media did their best to convince everyone that the city was always going down in flames. But Steve could see through sensationalism. He saw things the way they were.
Steve traversed the few streets back to his quiet home and prepared for a few hours of sleep before work in the morning. As he approached the door, he looked down to the corner where a group of young guys were all gathered around talking and laughing. He checked his watch and shook his head. He had just moved in during the winter, so he wondered if people normally stayed out so late in this neighborhood once the weather got nicer. Since he was still a little fuzzy in the head from his drinks, he was a little slower than usual in processing his thoughts about the condition of the neighborhood. Maybe if he had just gone in that night without pausing he could have had his nice night’s sleep.
“Hey man, can you help me out with a few bucks?”
Steve nearly jumped. He had not seen the young man walk up behind him. The man’s hood on his jacket cast a shadow from the street light over his face, and Steve could not discern anything about the man’s physical features.
A little shaken, Steve replied, “Yeah… I guess.”
He reached for his wallet.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and give me the whole thing? And your cell phone, now.” The voice had been a little softer and more urgent this time. Less friendly, too.
Steve looked up and saw a gun pointed at his stomach. Steve sighed and wished he hadn’t had that last beer. He needed to pee, and this was really ruining his night.
“All right. Here.”
The man kept his face out of the light as he snatched Steve’s wallet and phone.
“Your watch, too.”
“Come on… the watch was a gift.”
The man pulled back the hammer on his gun, “I don’t care.”
“All right, all right. Calm down.”
Steve pulled off his watch and started to hand it to the mugger.
“Hey, what’re you guys doing?”
It was one of the teens from the corner. Neither one of the men had noticed his approach, and they were both startled. Steve accidentally clamped down on his watch with his hand instead of letting the man with the gun take it. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that the other man tensed as well.
The shadowed man gave a firm tug on the watch as Steve tried to respond to the teen’s question. Then Steve heard the gun fire.
He whipped his head around in time to actually see the bullet coming out of the gun barrel. And even though he had had a few drinks that night, he knew that he shouldn’t be able to see a bullet once it had been fired. Not only could he see the bullet, but he watched it inch toward him. Steve thought that he might even be able to get out of the way before it struck him.
That’s when he heard her voice for the first time. “Well, you are going to move, aren’t you? We need to get going, and we’re already leaving late.”
She walked across the street as though the next day had already dawned, and she was another executive eager to start her next project. Steve couldn’t remember seeing her in the neighborhood before, but he decided that she must have an important job. Dressed in a black suit jacket and conservative skirt, the woman strode with purpose towards the now dumbfounded Steve and gently took his arm. Her hands were soft, but she possessed an iron-like grip.
“Let’s stand to the side for one moment, shall we?”
Steve and his new escort stepped to the left side of his former attacker, and she bent in to whisper in the assailant’s ear. Time returned to its normal speed, and the attacker and the teenager who had been standing near were both shocked at the new arrangement of the scene. In their minds, only a second had passed between the firing of the bullet and now.
The woman responsible for alterations in the present whispered into the attacker’s ear, “Crime will make a man crazy.”
The attacker whirled and pulled the trigger once more. But, once again, time slowed, and the woman – now that she was in the light, the slight gray in her brown hair could be seen – smiled at the outrage of the assailant.
She turned back to Steve, “Well, that’s that.”
She stepped out of the way and began to walk back across the street from the direction she had come.
Steve offered his hand, “Thank you, ma’am. I would have been killed. I really appreciate it. Let me know if I can ever repay your kindness.”
The woman turned around and smirked without taking his hand, “Don’t worry. You are definitely going to repay me.”
“I… What do you mean?”
“You’re a businessman. You can understand. You just declared bankruptcy. Do the numbers. You got bought out, but this time we’re talking about your life. Your life was forfeit, but I saved you. Now you work for me.”
He considered this for a moment, “No. No, that’s not how that works…”
“It is when I save someone. But don’t worry, if we need to re-negotiate, there’s still time to undo what’s been done.”
Steve glanced over to see the second bullet still only inching its way out of the barrel of the gun.
“If you want to refuse, then we can place you back where you belong and forget that this ever happened. Your decision.”
A little panicked, Steve asked, “But what do you do? What kind of work will I be doing?”
“I’m not here to answer questions. I’m only here to give you a choice.”
“But…” Steve fell silent for what seemed an eternity, but the bullet only flew another inch during his entire silent deliberation. Steve thought that maybe he could dodge the bullet now since he could actually see the trajectory, but she probably wouldn’t allow it. “Okay. I’ll go with you, but can I go get some of my stuff?”
The woman had already turned around again and was walking toward a silver town car that Steve had not noticed earlier. She replied, “You won’t need anything from there. Let’s go.”
“What about Bucky, my dog?”
“Someone will take care of it. I promise.”
He pleaded now, “You’re not going to kill my dog, are you?”
She looked at him with a mystified expression, “Why would I… Get in the car. Now!”
Steve did as he was told and got in the back seat of the car. As he tried to smooth out his now slightly sweaty button-up shirt, he noticed an African-American man and a Caucasian woman in the front seat. The man was pulled the car out onto the road, but he didn’t look very much like a chauffeur. He was in some sort of SWAT team-looking outfit instead of a suit, and he was simply too big – not giant-too-big, but definitely linebacker-too-big. The executive woman now sitting beside Steve finally returned the rest of the world to normal time after they had already driven a few blocks. Steve stared out the window in amazement.
“Your normal life just ended on that corner,” she picked up a briefcase from the floorboard as she spoke. She handed Steve a contract, “Your verbal agreement that you made on the sidewalk is as binding as an actual signature, so your signature has already been added to this formalized agreement.”
Steve shook his head in disbelief. The final page contained his exact signature. “Who are you people?”
The brunette in the front seat looked on as the executive woman beside Steve began her explanation, “We are one of the last lines of defense for an invisible war that has been happening all around you for the past twenty years in your time.”
“Okay… No, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Steve replied. “Are you talking about the Middle East stuff? I know that’s been going on for a while, so are you anti-terrorism agents or something?”
“Definitely something,” the man in the front seat said.
The woman continued, “I’m a being from the other side of the Border –”
“Like Mexico?” Steve guessed.
The business woman sighed, “Try to pay attention. Yours is not the only reality, and there are those who wish to take your reality from you.”
“From me?”
“From mankind as a whole… as it exists in this realm,” she replied.
“Oh,” he said as though he understood all of the implications, but he didn’t.
“Unfortunately, this is not a war without prisoners and casualties,” she said in a somber tone. “During the battle for Phoenix, we lost many of our finest soldiers. Some perished, and some were abducted for interrogation.”
Steve scanned the expressions of the two in the front seat and saw the sense of loss in their eyes and in their postures. He ventured a question, “Who took them?”
The business woman looked him in the eye as she answered, “You’re about to find out shortly. We have intel that the enemy is ready to attack Charlotte. They stand on the other side of the Border, waiting for the doors to open. When I rescued you, you became a soldier in defense of this realm of existence.”
“Soldier?” Steve asked in a tone higher than he had intended. “I’m not a soldier. There’s nothing I can do to help.”
The man in the front seat answered for the business woman, “Yeah, see the thing is, we didn’t have time to be picky. You were the next on the list, and we need the manpower now.”
“What list?”
“The list of the dead,” the woman in the front seat answered with a distant stare. She had been on that list, too.
Steve ignored that response. He couldn’t accept the situation. There had to be a simpler solution. “Why can’t you just do the time freezing thing that you did back there? You could take away your enemy’s weapons, and do… whatever else you needed to do.”
Weariness edged into the executive woman’s voice as she explained, “That magic only affects certain species, and they are immune to its effects.”
Steve raised an eyebrow, “Magic?”
The driver chuckled, “You got a logical explanation for all of this, Einstein?”
Steve looked out the window, “This just doesn’t make sense… none of it.”
The business woman explained, “I’ll make it simple: as far as the world is concerned, you died twenty minutes ago. There is no going back. There is only the fight to save everyone you’ve loved or ever cared about.”
Steve smiled meekly, “As long as there’s no pressure…”