“Did you ever want children, Ms. Well?”
Amanda paused at that question. It had been a weird interview – not many job interviews involved a therapy session, but apparently casinos did care about how well-balanced their security staff were – but this almost pushed her buttons. Taking a deep breath before answering, she considered her options. Honesty was probably best. While she’d assumed she’d have children at some point, she hadn’t planned her life around them.
She’d followed in the well-trod family tradition. Both her parents had been Army, and so had her grandfather. Her dad had retired shortly after his military career was cut short when he’d lost his leg at the hip in the first Gulf War. As her parents’ only child, born only a few months later at Walter Reed, she’d always known she’d follow in his footsteps. Her mom had hoped she’d at least go ROTC and seek a commission, but she’d been too eager, and had enlisted right out of high school.
She’d been on a fast track as an NCO, until a sniper’s bullet during the withdrawal from Afghanistan had slipped through her body armor, shredding her guts … and her uterus with it. The army had been sympathetic, and while they’d been able to put most of her back together, children were no longer in her future. At least she’d never found the right partner, so it wasn’t like she was letting anyone down except her parents.
“That’s a hard question to answer. I always assumed I’d have them, but it isn’t like I’ve got a crib picked out already.”
“Okay, what about …”
Her dad had recommended her for this gig. It wasn’t at his casino, but a nearby one. He said they had a few openings in a team like his, doing something that sounded like counter-heist on paper, but was probably just normal security. He couldn’t tell her much about it, but he said he’d put in a good word for her with the hiring team.
The first round had gone well. She’d talked to a couple of the casino security officers. While they weren’t on the team she was hoping for, it sounded like there were opportunities there if she didn’t quite make the cut for the “cool” team. She wasn’t sure what she brought to the table for that team, as her tours of duty had mostly revolved around counter-insurgent operations. Not as an intelligence analyst, but as the pointy tip of the spear. Her platoon had specialized in fast, quiet operations across the Middle East. She’d been recruited a few times into special forces, but she liked being part of the larger Army, but being good enough at her job that no one ever had to call in the Berets (or worse, the Seals) on her watch.
Having passed the therapist (she hoped), and more background checks than she’d needed for her Top Secret clearance, she was looking forward to her shot. Her offer letter was lovely. A salary higher than she’d ever have made in the Army, a full medical package, and an interesting expense account. She could eat at any restaurant, go to any show, basically do anything in Vegas, and her employer would cover it. No questions asked, no receipts, no justifications. It was weird, but the recruiter had basically explained that they needed unbribable employees. So anything she wanted in Vegas, they’d cover.
She was pretty sure the regular security team didn’t get that perk, so she’d clearly passed the bar for the counter-heist team. Her first day was tomorrow.
“Amanda? Sean. I’ll be your partner.”
He looked like he might have been a Marine Corps recruiting poster a few decades ago, or maybe a Hollywood actor on one of those Navy procedurals. An affable face, a warm smile, and a twinkle in his eye, but she noted how smoothly his eyes scanned her. Not the elevator eyes of a player in a bar, but the practiced check for the bulges of a concealed weapon, evaluating her as a threat.
“Normally, I’d sit you down for a briefing, and we’d take our time, but we’ve got a hot one. You’re carrying?” She nodded, the comforting pressure of her S&W Shield at the small of her waist. “Okay. Hopefully this is easy, and you won’t need it, but it always pays to be safe. Keep your mouth shut, follow my lead, and I’ll explain later.”
“Mr. Jackson? Hi, I’m Sean, with VIP Services, I hear you’re having a fantastic day!”
They’d approached a man waiting near the cashier. Something was off about him, but she couldn’t place it. Worn but undamaged jeans, a brown button-up shirt, and half boots, nothing about his clothing was distinct. He could have just walked off a jobsite anywhere in the country. He seemed a little antsy, but also, excited?
“Mr. Jackson, it’s going to take the cashier a little bit to process your winnings, especially since you want cash, so it’d be our pleasure to treat you to a meal in one of our VIP lounges while you wait. We’ve also prepared a suite for you for the night if you’d prefer something a little more private, and we can have a meal brought right up?”
Jackson hesitated for a moment, as if weighing his odds. Amanda wasn’t sure yet what the deal was, but this certainly didn’t seem like a heist. Maybe it was a training scenario in killing people with kindness? Good customer service while they waited for the Gaming Commission?
“The suite sounds great.” Jackson seemed to have made up his mind, and Sean escorted him over to an elevator hidden around a nearby corner. Handing Jackson a keycard, he scanned his own to summon the elevator.
“This elevator goes right up to the VIP suites. You’re on the 67th floor, but we’ll show you the way.” Amanda stepped in behind them, sliding to a back corner while Sean stayed by the doors. Jackson didn’t say much, but Sean kept up a patter of meaningless small talk all the way up, marveling at Jackson’s luck with multiple prop bets in the sportsbook.
Getting off at the 67th floor, Sean guided them down a short hall. The fire doors were closed, and Sean noted it was for privacy. “Don’t worry, Mr. Jackson. Any parties in anyone else’s suite won’t disturb you. Nor will you disturb them. If you’d like, we can arrange for you to have company these evening?”
With that, Sean opened the door to Jackson’s suite. As they stepped into the stark white entrance lobby, Sean commented, “It’s a nice suite, although it hasn’t been redone since President White was assassinated.”
What?
Who the F was President White?
And why did Jackson just go pale?
While Amanda’s brain hiccupped at the non sequitur, Sean smoothly drew his own firearm and fired three times. Twice in the torso, and then a headshot, killing Jackson before Amanda had a moment to process.
She started to reach for her own when Sean snapped, “Stand down, Sergeant Wells.” She paused, and he nodded. “I’ll explain while we clean this up.” He opened a closet, pulling out a janitor’s cart of cleaning supplies, and then opened another closet with a giant barrel. Handing her a jumpsuit, he nodded around the corner. “There’s a locker room over here with showers. You take the left. Change into this for cleanup, and then we’ll shower and change when we’re done.”
Mind racing while she changed, she couldn’t process what was going on. Was her job just to protect the casino’s profits by killing people who won too much? There’s no way her dad would’ve recommended her for that! But nothing else made sense.
“Okay, Sean, explain.” They’d dumped Jackson into the barrel. She’d moved to check his pockets, but Sean had stopped her. “Take nothing. Look at nothing. Don’t learn anything from him.”
As he took out the mop to clean the bloodstains, he started to explain. “Jackson here walked into the casino with a hundred bucks in his pocket. He walked into the sportsbook, and bet it on some third-tier, no-name team in a sport no one really follows at four to one odds. Then he took his winnings and dropped it all on a completely different sport, again at good odds. Then he took everything, and put it on a prop bet that paid five hundred to one. In an afternoon, he’d turned a hundred dollars into just under a million. Give me your hypothesis.”
Amanda paused, thinking about it. Obviously, “dumb luck” wasn’t the right answer. But this was outside her expertise. Assume he knew he would win his bets. Either he knew the outcomes of those games before they happened, or … he hadn’t made those bets. She looked at Sean, happy to have sussed it out. “He had an insider. There’s no way to know in advance those bets would pay out, so those bets were placed after the fact by one of our staff. But why kill him?”
Sean smirked back. “Well, half right. He did have inside knowledge. But not from one of our insiders. Tell me, what do you think about time travel?”
She stared at him blankly, lifting her eyebrows. Two could play this game.
“Seriously. This is your briefing. Welcome to the time cops. I suppose we have some official name, somewhere, but I don’t know it. Jackson? He is … was … a time traveler. Bets like that? Facial recognition didn’t place him. The fingerprints I lifted off his glass in the sportsbook? No hits. His driver’s license was a good fake, but only if you weren’t looking for it.”
“Wait, what? Time travel is real? Stop pulling my leg.”
“I’m not. Apparently a few decades ago, someone came to Vegas and let the casinos in on the secret. We’re the first line of defense. Time travelers always come here for the easy cash. If you know what happens in the games on the day you arrive, we’re the fastest source of relatively untraceable cash.
“But time travelers are dangerous. Ignoring that they’d put us out of business if they had the chance, the future is apparently fragile. Our job is to minimize the amount of changes they do to the present, to protect our future.”
Amanda was jumping ahead. “So we’re destroying the evidence?”
“Yes. We don’t want to see any implants. No tissues. When it’s done dissolving, I’ll show you our dump site. It’s a ten story deep pit, on the site of the next casino to be built. Mr. Jackson will help support the future.”
“But why kill him? Couldn’t we just lock him up somewhere?”
“Well, it’s easier to conceal a dead body than a live one. But we’re part of the damage. Apparently in the early days the time cops tried that, and the travelers started telling them what would happen next week. It’s easier to kill them before they open their mouth, so they can’t infect us with knowledge. We’re already a firebreak. Like you, I couldn’t have kids even before this job, and I’ve got no siblings to influence. From now on, you live your life without making any changes to the timeline. Sorry, kiddo, but you’ll never be rich.”
“My dad? Is he a time cop? How, with a kid?”
“Yup. He came in by accident. He discovered a time traveler, and was working the case from a different angle, and ended up in the middle of cleanup. He thought you’d do well at this.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Yup, you’ll definitely do well.”