This was it.

He would be meeting New Universe in less than twenty minutes

“It’s too stuffy in here,” Tristan sighed. “Can I roll down the window, please?”

“No,” Arlene said.

“Sorry Tristan,” Nicolas scratched the back of his head. “We really can’t risk being heard by anyone outside.”

“Well at least turn on the air conditioning,” Bridget said, glancing over at him. “He’s starting to sweat and the last thing I need is to smell him.”

Tristan tensed up. He still wasn’t happy about the things Bridget said to him at the hospital the previous night. Also, he showered three times this morning, and put his deodorant on thick too. There was no way he would stink. He thought about saying something about it, but stopped himself. He would ignore her instead.

Besides, he couldn’t think of a way to tell her without sounding pathetic.

“Alright,” Nicolas turned a knob, and cool air came from the car’s vents with a howl. “Tristan, let’s go over this again.”

“Okay,” Tristan glanced down at his sleeve. Inside of it was a microphone. It was even smaller than a penny, nothing like he had seen in the movies. He doubted someone would find it even if they searched him.

“During the conversation with… Ms. New Universe,” Arlene said, turning through her small notebook. “Bring up the topic of what happened on April 1st.”

“Just work it into conversation?” Tristan asked.

“Correct,” Arlene said. “If possible, we would like to hear her alibi for the time during the stop.”

“Anything else I should be looking for?” He asked.

Nicolas moved, turning his head to Tristan in the backseat. “A watch.”

His heart dropped. “What?”

“Both Rose Aldrich and Cory Moretti had everything of value stripped off them by the perpetrator. Phones, watches, wallets...” Nicolas trailed off.

“Oh… I see,” Tristan tried to calm himself down, but his mind was still racing. “Why would they do that?”

“That’s the thing,” Nicolas frowned. “Neither of the victims carried large sums of money.”

“We think these items might be like trophies to the killer,” Arlene said. “Similar to taking the head of an animal after hunting it.”

“I… see.”

“Anyway, if your little girlfriend has anything to do with this then we can’t rule out the possibility that she might have one of their watches or phones on her,” Nicolas faced forward again.

“Do you have pictures of what they look like?” Tristan asked. “The watches and phones, I mean.”

“Of course,” Arlene said. She reached back and handed him a small stack of photographs.

They were pictures of the victims captured on camera before the attacks. They showed him the picture of Rose with her red watch before, but this was his first time seeing yesterday’s victim. The boy in it looked frail, even skinnier than he was. There was a jet black watch on his wrist. Other pictures showed them with their phones, each with discernible cases.

“Uh, okay, Tristan said. “I’ll make sure to pay attention.”

“Wonderful,” Nicolas said.

Tristan continued through the pictures. He finally came to one of the red haired woman. Apparently, it was captured after yesterday’s attack, and it showed that she had moved during the stop. Her face was clear, but the position of her wrists bothered him. They weren’t visible, hidden behind someone in front of her. There was no way for him to know if she was wearing a watch, and he didn’t want to keep drawing attention to them by asking about it.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

New Universe: I’m here! Waiting for you on the first floor!

His hands were drenched in sweat. He knew he needed to leave the car, but his legs wouldn’t budge.

“She there?” Nicolas asked.

“Yeah,” Tristan said, his voice quivering.

Arlene turned back toward Bridget this time and spoke. “Let’s go.”

Bridget looked over at him with a bored expression. “Good luck out there Romeo.”

With that, the two women left the car, walking down the street toward the café.

“I’ll be here listening to the two of you talk,” Nicolas said. “If you need to talk with me, excuse yourself to the bathroom and give me a call. That better be for an emergency. I don’t need a phone call about how you think you might be able to score tonight.”

With how things were shaping up, ‘scoring’ was probably the farthest thing from Tristan’s mind.

“Make me proud,” Nicolas laughed.

Tristan opened up the car door and put one foot out. He felt like he was made of jelly. There was no way he would be able to support his own weight.

“Move your ass!”

Tristan jumped out of the car and closed the door behind him. Slowly, he made his way to the café. Should he text her back beforehand and ask her what she’s wearing? She might take that the wrong way. He just wanted to know some way he would be able to identify her.

Before he could make a decision, he was already in the doorway of Peace Café. It was much busier than he expected, with almost every seat taken in sight. Behind the counter, two people dressed in formal clothing looked panicked trying to keep up with the rush of customers.

He glanced around as he walked inside. Arlene was seated in the corner. Bridget was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she was on the second floor. In any case, he needed to find a woman sitting alone.

Not too far from the front counter was a girl sitting by herself on her cellphone. Not good. She looked like she might be in high school. He never even considered that she might be underage. If this was New Universe, he could be the one getting arrested if he talked with her.

“HistoryGirls99?” A voice came from behind him.

A jolt traveled up Tristan’s back, making him stand up straight. This was actually happening. He only hoped she wasn’t a kid.

He turned around.

There she was. Her long blue hair stretched down past her lower back. Her skin was pale, her lips a soft pink color. She was tall. Taller than him. It was like she was some kind of runway model. She was gorgeous.

And of course, his life flashed before his eyes, because he recognized her right away. This was the woman that he saw with the red haired one. The one that they suspected for Cory Moretti’s attempted murder.

He stood there with his mouth open wide for what felt like forever. “New… Universe?” He managed to squeak out.

“That’s me!” She stared directly into his eyes and took him by the hand. Excitement was written all over her face.

She was cool to the touch. This was the first time he had ever held a girl’s hand, and this was the worst situation he could imagine.

“You smell so nice,” she said.

Tristan hoped Bridget heard that. With his hands in hers, he looked down at her arms. He breathed a sigh of relief. No watch.

She led him over to a table closer to the entrance and they sat down.

Small talk. He needed to make small talk quick, but his mouth was so dry that he could hardly speak. Talking to someone in real life was infinitely different than texting.

New Universe looked back at him with a huge grin on her face.

Somewhere nearby, he heard two people laughing. He wasn’t sure why, but the distraction lasted long enough for him to finally collect himself.

“So… uh, what’s your… real name?” He stammered.

“It’s Yune,” she said.

“Yune?” He let the name roll of his tongue. “Is that Japanese?”

“I don’t know,” her smile didn’t waver.

“Uhh… okay,” he wiped his brow. “My real name is… Tristan.”

“Tristan,” she repeated it after him in a breathy voice. “What a wonderful name.”

“You think so?”

“I do!”

Tristan could feel his cheeks burning.

“Were you… uh, born here?”

“I suppose so,” she said.

She supposed so? Was she just as nervous as he was?

“I was born here too,” he said. He decided not to bring up school as a topic. He didn’t want to tell her that he was a college drop out.

He supposed asking about work was out of the question too.

They sat in silence for a moment. He tried to keep eye contact with her, but her intent gaze was making his heart beat out of his chest.

What else did people talk about? He already knew plenty about her, but that didn’t make thinking of conversation topics any easier. He looked around, and then down at the table. There was a large bottle of water in front of her. The premium kind that cost five dollars a bottle.

“So… water, huh?” He immediately regretted the words coming out of his mouth. What the hell was he saying?

“Oh yes, I love water!” She put her hands together. “Do you like it too?”

“Uhh… Yeah, water’s great,” he said. The question went over much better than expected, but he was also slightly weirded out. Was water something people were into? He spent so much time not interacting with people, he wasn’t even sure anymore.

“I’m so happy that we finally get to meet,” Yune said. “You’re even cuter than I imagined you’d be!”

Tristan’s stomach was experiencing a butterfly apocalypse. This wasn’t the first time New Universe had flirted with him, of course. But actually hearing her voice saying the words was something else entirely. This was a pleasure unlike any he had ever known.

But he needed to bring up April 1st. They were all listening in on him, and with Yune’s similarities to the red haired woman, Arlene was probably already making assumptions. He needed to clear her name as quickly as possible.

After all, this was the girl he had been talking to for months. She would never kill someone. He was sure of it. Even if she did know the red haired woman, that didn’t mean she knew anything about the watches.

“Are you alright?” Yune asked. “You’re being quiet.”

“Oh, yes, I’m great,” Tristan said, much louder than he intended.

“Did you see John Doe’s post today?” She asked, taking out her phone. Its case was completely different than the ones in the pictures. “It looks like someone made a page to find the one that stopped time. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“No, I didn’t see that,” he said, shifting in his seat. “Speaking of that though… Where were you… when all of that happened anyway?”

“I was here, silly,” Yune said, her smile seemingly a permanent fixture on her face. “We had a date planned, after all.”

“Oh, of course.”

That was good. From what Nicolas told him, he knew the café wasn’t caught up in the stop. If they could find her on a security camera somewhere nearby during the time of the crime, then her name would be cleared.

More importantly, she called it a date. An actual date, like the ones people went on when they were attracted to each other. His life was finally starting to turn around.

And that’s when the woman with red hair walked into the café.

She was accompanied by a girl with glasses, probably a teenager. They both looked around for a moment before spotting them.

“There you are,” the red haired woman sounded annoyed.

“Oh Tristan, these are my friends,” Yune excitedly waved them over.

That was all it took.

In a second, Arlene was up from her seat and standing between them. “Put your hands up,” she looked at Yune and then to the red haired woman. She reached into her jacket and pulled out her badge. “I’m placing you both under arrest.”

People in the café erupted in screams as a blast of hot air hit him like a wall. What happened? It was like a bomb went off.

Arlene’s arm was outstretched, and a glowing silver circle with an intricate design floated in the air in front of her. The woman with red hair was covered in flames, and her eyes looked like they had turned pitch black. What the hell was this? What the hell was going on?

People around him panicked, taking cover under their tables. The girl with glasses next to the red haired woman looked just as confused as he did.

He turned to Yune, but she was already standing with her index finger pointed at Arlene, tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Another detonation reverberated through the building. A blast of water like a fire hose rocketed from Yune’s hand, smashing into Arlene and sending her flying against the wall.

Arlene seemed to catch herself against the wall, another circle forming behind her. She stayed hovering there for just a moment before she kicked off of it, launching herself at the three women like a bullet.

Just as quickly, Yune sent another blast of water at her. Arlene caught it in her hand, redirecting it downward. It hit the ground and sprayed out behind her like waves hitting a rocky shore.

The red haired woman moved at the same time, her clothing burning up around her. She leaped at Arlene, her flaming hand heading straight for her face.

Before the woman could hit her target, a table smashed into her side, sending her barreling through the glass of the café doors. Tristan snapped his head toward the front counter, where he found Bridget standing, still bent forward in a throwing stance.

Arlene hit the floor, rolling into a standing position in front of Yune. Her fists lit up with silver light as she sent a flurry of punches at her.

Yune ducked down and placed her hand on the floor. A torrent of water sprang up between them, stopping Arlene’s advance.

Tristan was in shock. It was complete chaos, with people in and outside the café screaming and crying.

The girl with glasses was screaming now too, but it didn’t sound right. She sounded like an animal, like some kind of monster. It was like the shriek of a banshee.

The lights above the table shattered and he lost control of his muscles.

He toppled to the floor like he had been hit by a Taser, and his vision went black.

Some first date.