‘What?’ Asa asked. ‘What was that?’

‘Nothing,’ Sham mumbled in response.

‘You said “Let Asa live”,’ the man himself continued.

‘No, I…’

Asa adjusted his grip on his weapon, still pointed squarely at Sham. ‘And just what is it that makes you think you have any other choice?’

‘I…’

‘Well?’

Sham stared down the barrel of the hunched man’s weapon. There was only one thing for it; tell the truth—or an approximation of it—and hope he had enough luck left in him for Asa’s trigger finger to be stayed. ‘Look, mate,’ Sham said, widening the gap between his raised hands in order to shrug. ‘I took a boono, alright? A luck one. Made me do strange things. Led me here. I dunno why I’m supposed to be here or how this makes me lucky, but here I am. And I dunno what the universe has in mind for me now.’

The man smirked. ‘I think you just done explained the core failing of the human condition, haven’t you?’

Bemusement? Sham could work with bemusement. It meant Asa thought him harmless. It meant that he might just be able to get out of this yet if he showed… Well, if he showed weakness.

It was nothing he hadn’t done before.

‘Erm… maybe? I dunno…’ Sham answered. He did know, really. The answer was a big delicious buffet of “yes”.

Asa looked the time traveller up and down once again, clearly sizing him up. Sham did his best to look feeble, his legs shaking, a visible gulp making its way down his throat.

‘So what is it I do with you now, huh?’ the man with the gun finally asked.

‘I… I don’t…’

‘Maybe the universe did bring you here for a reason,’ Asa said. ‘Maybe that luck vial is working after all.’

Oh?

‘Hasn’t…’ Sham started, tripping over his words as much as possible but treading a fine line between meek and artificial. ‘Hasn’t failed me so far.’

Again, a pause. A moment of consideration from the still pointing a weapon at Sham. ‘What I’m trying to say…’ the mysterious Asa finally continued. ‘Is that our world has a habit of putting people in the right place at the right time. Some people… they call it karma. Others, destiny. Me? I call it getting what I’m owed. And right now, you might just be the universe…’

He trailed off, his mouth opening and closing slightly as he searched for the word.

‘You might be the universe manifesting that debt. You know what manifesting means?’ Asa spoke the word “manifesting like it was two words—”manny” and “festing”.

‘I know what it means,’ Sham replied. Now wasn’t quite the time to point out the man’s mispronunciation; the clue being in the gun still pointing at him.

‘Good. So maybe you’re in luck.’

Yeah, no shit.

‘I am, in fact, in need of an outsider,’ the man continued. ‘Someone who can’t be linked back to my… organisation.’

He spoke the last word with a sly smile that didn’t seem wholly appropriate for such an uninteresting concept.

‘Do you know Plenty Harbour?’

Sham nodded.

‘Good,’ the man continued. ‘Head there tomorrow night. Two hours before midnight. There’ll be a small red fishing boat moored up there, one of these crates hidden under a mass of net. You take the crate to a foreign looking man at the very end. You following so far?’

‘Foreign looking?’ Sham repeated back to Asa.

‘Yeah, exactly,’ the criminal replied, apparently not quite understanding the meaning of Sham’s question. ‘You give the crate to him, and you take what he gives you.’

‘What’ll he give me?’

‘Payment.’ Asa’s tone made this answer seem final; he would accept no more questions.

Sham gulped, his eyes wide and on the hunched man’s weapon. ‘And if I… if I wasn’t comfortable making this deal?’

‘Why? Cos it’s shady?’

The time traveller hadn’t expected this man to come out and say it. But, yes. Yes, exactly that.

‘That’s fine,’ Asa continued. ‘As long as you understand the choice you’re making.’

The man went silent. Sham would have to say it.

‘And what’s that? The choice?’

Asa’s eyes seemed to twinked as he replied. ‘Either you take this deal, or you don’t leave this room.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yeah,’ the man said, his tone pitiful, as though this was simply an unfortunate circumstance rather than a threat that he would make good.

Unfortunate. There that word was again.

Sham turned away from Asa, acting as though he was considering his options. Really, though, he was checking something…

SKILL LIST

Hardened Liver (Common)

Seasoned (Uncommon)

Heart of Janus (Rare)

Recollection (Legendary)

Luck (Rare)

There it was. Still there. The luck hadn’t worn off yet. So if Asa coming to him with this deal was supposed to be fortunate for Sham, then maybe there was something he could get out of it.

‘Would I get paid?’ Sham suddenly blurted out.

‘What?’ The question seemed to catch Asa off-guard.

‘I’m doing a job for you, right? So normally the person doing so would get paid for it.’

‘The payment is your… Well, I think you know what your payment is.’

Sham pointed to the crates stacked in the centre of the room. ‘Can I have one of these?’

Asa raised his eyebrows. ‘A crate?’

‘A vial,’ Sham replied. ‘Just one.’

‘So you know what they are?’ The man’s eyes narrowed.

Ah. Perhaps he’d shown a little too much of his hand. He was here only three days after the vials had been created—how could a working class man like him already know about them? Such knowledge was reserved to the elite. ‘I’ve heard... whispers,’ Sham said, and then, to field away any further questions on the subject, added, ‘I’ll take Vigour.’

A pause. Asa took a step forward, his arm raised and the weapon therein just out of Sham’s reach. And aimed pointedly at his head. ‘Luck, you say?’ Asa asked. ‘Luck brought you here? You weren’t just after some vials that you already knew I had?’

‘That’s…’ Sham started, feeling the lie he’d crafted already beginning to fall down around him. ‘That’s right, yeah. But just figured, you know, while I’m here, I might as well—’

‘I should shoot you.’

Sham gulped.

‘I should,’ Asa said again. ‘Like the witch trials of old, see. Do you know what they did to them?’

The time traveller opened his mouth to speak, but the gun-toter cut him off. This was a man who liked to hear the sound of his own voice.

‘They tested them, see. Bound them up and tossed them in a river. If they floated, they were a witch. And if they weren’t a witch… well, one dead body was a small price to pay to know that for sure.’

‘I suppose I’m the witch.’

Asa shrugged. ‘Potentially. If you’re lucky, you won’t die, right? And if you—’

‘Yes,’ Sham replied. ‘I understood the parallel.’

The criminal smiled. ‘Course you did. Any last words?’

Sham’s heart dropped. Lucky was one thing. Able to stop a bullet was another. He needed to think fast. He needed to—

There was a click as Asa squeezed the trigger...

[LUCK] MISFIRE: SYSTEM ERROR

Seek reset.

And no bang.

‘Huh,’ Asa said, rotating his arm at the elbow to look at the jammed revolver. ‘Would you look at that.’

‘See?’ Sham replied. ‘I ain’t lying. Just stumbled across this place. Lucky, like. Maybe lucky for both of us, as you say.’

But the man in front of him didn’t hear, too busy instead looking befuddled as he gazed at his weapon. ‘Never misfired before…’ he muttered.

‘Right,’ the time traveller said, beginning to find the confidence to start edging for the door. ‘Guess I’ll be…’

‘Your name?’ Asa suddenly asked, looking half over his shoulder.

‘Sham.’

‘Make the meeting, Sham. And if you don’t…’

‘What? You’ll kill me?’

The hunched man said nothing, only nodding to the door.

The winter sun set over the city as Sham ambled the streets of Haven in the vague direction of his apartment. As the last of the sun’s rays retreated behind the building tops, there was a rather sudden change in temperature—a good few degrees lost in a matter of minutes. Normally, Sham would be wearing his whisky blanket, but in all the excitement—for lack of a better word—of the last few days, he’d been forced to do without. And he’d been fine without! But other vices were growing harder to ignore, and Sham still had luck running through his veins…

He emptied his mind, allowed luck to take hold of his feet and lead him where it may. With certain desires ramping up within him, Sham had a rather specific idea of what he might get from doing such a thing; that luck might help him stumble across someone beautiful, someone who despite all the odds might find themselves attracted to him, of all people.

But luck didn’t lead him to a future lover. Instead, luck led Sham through the city to the Diplomatic District, and to a familiar road therein…

The old owner of the pocketwatch store watched from across the street as men and women ripped furnishings from his store. But not burglars, no. These were the future members of the Citizen’s Police, hurrying to turn these premises into their headquarters in time for tomorrow’s grand opening. Yet to look at the expression on the old owner’s face, you might have thought he was being robbed.

Sham came to a stop at the old man’s side. The shopkeeper glanced up at him, acknowledging his presence, but without recognising Sham. That was fair. Even if he could see, they’d only met for a fleeting moment a couple of days earlier. Recognition was not guaranteed, not without the Recollection skill.

‘They kick you out, huh?’ Sham asked, his eyes fixed on the premises over the road.

‘That’s about the size of it, son,’ the old man responded.

‘I guess they didn’t pay you?’

This question caught the shopkeeper’s attention. ‘Pay me?’ he responded, turning to face Sham. ‘Handsomely. But the loss hurts just the same.’

‘The loss?’

The old man swallowed. ‘This store has been in my family for three generations. And both my father and grandmother lived to the very same ripe old age you see besides you. This…’

The man’s voice cracked.

‘It shouldn’t have ended like this.’

The meekness to the ex-shopkeeper’s voice, the watery eyes… They stirred in Sham an old anger. Rage at a world that treated people so unfairly. Wrath at the lack of justice that existed in Haven. This man had helped Sham. He was kind. This wasn’t what he was owed.

‘Want me to talk to them?’ Sham asked.

‘Don’t see it could do any good at this point,’ the man replied. ‘But I do appreciate the offer none the less.’

This response did little to quell the stormy seas raging in Sham’s heart. Before he even really knew he was doing it, the time traveller turned apparent hero of the people left the side of the state-swindled man and stormed over to the ex-pocketwatch store. He grabbed at the arm of the nearest future-police officer and opened his mouth to speak. He meant to demand that they stop. He meant to make a heartfelt plea, to make the case that they didn’t need this old man’s premises. That they didn’t need his home. That there was enough injustice in the world without the literal police force adding to it. But when he spoke in the bewildered man’s face, all he managed was one word that summed up his outrage best.

‘Why?’ Sham demanded of the man.

In answer, the man stopped on the spot, sighed, placed on the floor the chair he was carrying, and rummaged around within his pocket. From it, he pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper, and then thrust it in Sham’s hand.

‘Take it,’ the man said, his eyes… kind. Far kinder than should’ve belonged to an agent of such injustice. ‘It’ll explain everything.’

With that, the man left Sham alone in the street once more, bathing in his own frustrations and inadequacies. And, in his hand, he gripped a recruitment poster. One he’d owned before, too, not eight days ago on his own timeline. A poster that had been pushed into his hand as he staggered through the Harbour District, too drunk, surely, to be a good candidate for the Citizen’s Police, but given to him nevertheless.

A poster that he would go on to toss aside. And then another would take its place over the next few days, as the Citizen’s Police ramps up its recruitment drive. And then another, and another. Until, finally, Sham would hold a crumpled up piece of paper in his hand at a faux antique bar with a drunk man at his side muttering conspiracy theories.

He could see it all, now, clear for the first time. Nothing he had done so far would divert the flow of time from its previous path. The days ahead were still hurtling towards the same inevitable conclusion: the destruction of the Tower by the as-yet unnamed Target.

If Sham was going to change things, he would need to think bigger—beyond Kryl, beyond the Target. He needed to make some waves.

In the morning, then, once the murky fogs of his fatigued brain had cleared, once his limbs were free of that familiar prickly achiness, he would finally pay a visit to these Loopkeepers.