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  Now Mark could hear screaming. With the latest shots people were becoming aware that something very bad was happening. He could hear running further down the hall, and excited yelling from inside Mr. Hardmore’s room. Mark suspected the students in the room might be trying to escape out of the windows. He had initially wanted to start his attack on the second floor where such escape wasn’t an option, but he’d wondered if he would be able to make it to the offices if he started there. He especially wanted to pay a visit to the principle before this ended.

  Mark stepped over Hardmore’s body and pulled open the door. As he stepped into the room a young woman screamed off to his right. He silenced her with a couple of quick shots. He’d been right. A number of students had already fled the room. He could see them running across the grass outside. Others were scrambling through the windows, fighting each other to be the next out now that he had entered the room. Quickly he raised the rifle and started firing as fast as he could into the crowd of bodies. He saw the bullets striking both men and women who dropped as their lives were taken. One particularly attractive young woman with long blond hair who had been waiting her turn to crawl out the window to freedom held out her hands toward him pleading for mercy. He shrugged his shoulders. She would have been nice to know under different circumstances. Now there was no time. He shot her twice in the chest, ejected the empty magazine, and replaced it with another. Then turned and headed back into the hallway.

  Already he could hear sirens in the distance. That was faster than he had expected. He increased his pace as he headed toward the offices. As he headed down the hallway, he shot targets of opportunity, those stupid enough to come into the halls. Several were teachers, most were students. As he entered the office area he realized he should have come here first. The offices were deserted. The principal, who he had really wanted to encounter, was missing as well. Angrily he shot up the woman’s office and reloaded once again.

  Quickly he ran out into the hall and hurried away from the main entrance. He was able to find and kill several others, but already the building was nearly empty of the fleeing students. He saw one man running across the grass outside the window, and was able to bring him down with a running shot. He emptied the magazine at a crowd far down the hall, seeing several drop as a result.

  The first bullet directed his way took a chip out of the concrete block wall less than a foot from his ear. He ducked into the small depression provided by the doorway and turned to face his attackers. Two cops had entered the hallway and were shooting his way with their service automatics. Mark smiled as he took aim and shot first one, and then the other. Even as they dropped, he saw the additional police coming through the door at the other end of the hallway. These cops were in full assault gear and were armed with rifles. This was ending far faster than he had anticipated. The number he would be able to kill would be fewer than he’d hoped.

  Mark pushed open the door and made his way into the empty room, the windows along the outside wall open where the students who had been in this class had fled. The amplifiers in the ear-pieces magnified the sound of running footsteps coming his way.

  “Game over,” he whispered. He had hoped to have a chance to use at least half of his ammunition supply. He’d fallen short of expectations. He set the rifle down on one of the desks and pulled out the small revolver. He placed it against his temple. He didn’t need to be accurate at this range and the hollow-point .38 would be enough.

  With a smile, he pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 2

  Jake stared at the television monitor mounted on the wall across from the kitchen nook where he currently sat munching on the apple turnover that was his breakfast this morning. An all too familiar scene was emerging. Another whacko had run amok and created a slaughter of innocent men and women. From the early reports the nutcase had killed randomly with only one individual, apparently missed, that might have been targeted specifically. The victims appeared to have been unfortunate by having been in the wrong place when the killer passed through. Like most everyone who was hearing the news this morning, Jake was appalled by what had happened. He listened with interest and a special purpose. It was too soon to be sure, but this one looked like it might be workable. He’d have to wait and see. The early reports in cases like this were often wrong, with key facts misstated or completely overlooked. He’d seen cases where they even got the name of the culprit completely wrong. It appeared that this case was much like others in the past. The killer started his day with a couple of homicides where he lived before continuing on to the High School where he’d made the news. His wife and mother-in-law at their shared home had both been early victims to his rampage.

  Jake sipped his juice as he made some mental calculations. Scottsdale was easily in range of his plane. He was still dressed in his sweats, having returned from his daily five mile run a short time ago. Six foot one inch tall, with thick wavy light brown hair that he kept just slightly longer than business appropriate, Jake was in peak condition. Twenty-nine years old and very well off, he had most everything he could want. He had come a long way since he’d left the Army almost a decade earlier, but then he had a special edge that no one suspected.

  He worked when he was motivated to do so. He was a software engineer, and a damn good one at that. He’d discovered the unexpected skill and interest after returning to college after separation from the military. He worked at home, home being a large ranch style house just on the eastern perimeter of Sparks, Nevada, taking work on consignment in addition to creating video games of his own design. These days he wrote Apps based games rather than the longer and more involved games for the PCs. He felt the days of PC gaming were numbered, and he liked to see how much he could wring out of the small tablets. The work he did on consignment was mostly for NASA. He enjoyed writing code for the space agency. The esoteric problems they aimed to solve were intriguing and challenging, and he could pick and choose what he wanted to work on. He took one or two assignments a year, but his output was so solid the agency was always after him to tackle more. He had a clever solution to the latest assignment just about ready for submission, months ahead of what NASA had considered a challenging schedule.

  Jake switched off the television and pushed back his chair, standing and collecting his dishes which he deposited in the sink on his way out of the kitchen. He walked through the large great room on his way to the huge study in the back of the house where he settled himself behind his computer. He brought the Internet news he preferred onto the flat screen to his left, but kept the sound down, and began an Internet search on the main screen in front of him. With three large monitors forming an arc around him, he could place multiple projects or parts of projects where they were most accessible. He ran searches on the name of the killer and on the High School, but at this point was able to find little beyond the newly posted, information limited, articles regarding the attack.

  While he waited, he scanned the market to see which stocks might have made some unexpected moves in the past couple of days. He averaged nearly a half million from the market annually and had already made that much this year, but it never hurt to be aware of an especially enticing opportunity. He knew he wouldn’t be able to focus properly on programming until he decided what course of action, if any, he might want to take this time.

  He also reminded himself he had a date with Karin tonight. Karin Wolter had come into his life a little over fifteen months earlier, and somehow they had clicked well enough they were still together. Karin was a five foot eight inch strawberry blond with long wavy hair that she wore almost to her waist. In addition to a startlingly impressive figure and strong sexual urges, she had a quick wit and a bubbling personality that made her fun to be with. He thought that they were more than likely moving toward something more permanent. At least he knew he was thinking along those lines and was considering how to bring up the subject with her. It was more difficult than he thought it ought to be. She lived down the 395 in the Doubletree Estates, wor
king in real estate, which had been a tough market the past couple of years. They were supposed to drive up to Lake Tahoe for dinner and a show tonight at Harrah’s, and would most likely return here afterwards to spend the night. Karin hated mornings, and could be expected to hang around until mid afternoon, something he normally relished, but which might complicate any plans he could consider making in regards to the current tragedy.

  Screw it, he decided. He’d prefer to be with Karin and the memories the evening would create. He could just as well wait until the following day to act, and by then the information would be far better on which to base his decision.

  Jake shuddered and shook his head. He had a headache. As usual, that was his first clue. Slowly he let his gaze shift around the room. As he expected it was Wednesday morning. The calendar showed that Tuesday was the last day he’d “X’d” off with his felt-tip pen. There was a reason that he did that each and every day. Just like there was a reason he made sure to spend the same fifteen minutes resting in the soft leather chair where he worked in his office each morning. It was Wednesday sure enough, although his mind was certain it was Sunday. Wednesday, four days ago! The fact he had memories that told him it was the coming Sunday didn’t change the fact at all. Those extra four days hadn’t happened yet.

  He’d back-tracked again. Over the years he’d learned how to do so at will. Anything up to seven days was relatively easy, but always caused him headaches. Anything longer became increasingly difficult with far more severe headaches as a result. He’d never managed to do more than ten days, and he’d been nearly bed-ridden for most of the day that time. Without thinking he reached for the bottle of aspirin he kept handy by the chair against just such an event. He swallowed three of the tablets and considered the situation. Over the years he’d frequently back-tracked for personal reasons and simply to experiment and understand his ability. This wasn’t one of those cases.

  Jake had no idea how or why the process worked. The first times it had occurred had been entirely accidental. When he had realized what appeared to be happening, he had experimented. Now he could easily and essentially instantaneously select how far back, within the limits of his ability, he wanted to project his memories. His skill was like that of a professional athlete, that became better and more instinctual as he used it. The trigger was now instantaneous. Where before he’d had to sit back, relax and focus hard on when he wanted to link to and whether his former self would be able to receive what he was sending, now he simply acted. He could somehow sense if his earlier self was physically close enough geographically for the transfer to happen, and by simply willing it, the process was activated. He’d learned if he tried to project back to himself in a different location, more than twenty miles or so from where he was currently, the link didn’t form and he was unable to activate the transfer. He lost the ability to sense himself over the increased distances.

  After each such transfer, he found his conscious self back at the earlier time he chosen with the future set of memories. He didn’t have a clue what happened to the future version of himself. Perhaps that version ceased to exist as that time period was about to be relived. What was important was that he knew what the future had been for the next several days, the number of days depending on how far back he had projected. If he did nothing, the future would play out as he recalled it. He knew that for a fact. He’d tried it. On the other hand, he could also make changes. That’s what made the ability interesting, exciting, and useful. What had been, didn’t have to happen the same way this time around.

  Jake quickly sorted through his memories of what was going to happen over the next several days. Memories and headaches were all that came with back-tracking. He didn’t physically come back, nor could he bring anything from that day his memories told him he’d been part of just a short time ago. It could have been a dream, but he’d proven conclusively otherwise. It was one reason his bank account was so plush. It was easy to invest wisely when one knew exactly where the market was going ahead of time.

  This time the memories weren’t so pleasant. He sorted through the body count from the news reports after the attack. Thirty-three dead and one who would probably die. The dead included twenty-four high school students, fifteen male and nine female. One policeman was dead and another dying. The rest were staff members from the school. He didn’t count the killer himself. In Jake’s mind he wasn’t worth a thought.

  He would have to do something about this. Of course, he had already decided that or he wouldn’t have back-tracked. Damn! He had a lot to get done on the program he was writing, and he now knew the next two days had been very productive. Now that effort wouldn’t happen. Well, he’d just have to make it up after he corrected things. At least having done the work once, he’d be able to recreate it much quicker the second time around.

  Jake stood and walked over to the large desk with the multiple monitors. He touched the mouse bringing the system awake as he slipped into the comfortable chair. Automatically he reached under the desk and opened the small refrigerator there, extracting a can of Mountain Dew. The caffeine in the drink would help the throbbing in his head go away, something else he’d learned with time. There would be no need to do a lot of planning. He’d already done that four days from now as he’d watched the story unfold. He knew what he wanted to do and the details of how to go about it. He had an excellent memory, and had spent time developing it just because memories were the only thing he could bring back. Even the weather reports were better from his memories. The Internet would have predicts for the next few days whereas he’d looked before back-tracking and he knew what the weather would be in the places he intended to visit in the coming days.

  What he wanted at the moment were a series of maps. He already had worked out just what would be useful, and tapped his future memories to locate the specific locations on the Internet and printed them out. He had maps of the Mark Watkins’ residence and the town in which he lived as well as of the High School and local police stations. The latter were important. He didn’t want a run-in with the law. That was one of his problems. What he planned to do was highly illegal, and he would be hard pressed to explain how he knew what Watkins was planning on doing. In and out was what was important.

  It only took a few minutes to print what he needed. Before shutting down the system he logged into his investment account and made a couple of trades based on movements he’d noticed while gathering details on the massacre. He shorted AAPL which was about to tank and bought a number of shares of SLV which were due to climb an unexpected 19.2%. He didn’t get greedy, and he never bought the largest movers for the period of interest. He could have put far more money on the table, it was an entirely safe maneuver after all, but he didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. Low profile was the key. The amounts he invested each time were consistent with his investment history and reasonable for someone with his assets. He also put $100K into a company he knew would be going down, but it would lose only a few percent in the next few weeks. It was the third such losing investment he’d made this year. He felt it wise to have a few “bad” investments on his record along with the good. Nobody was perfect, and he would stand out if his own investment record were nothing but a series of successes.

  As the computer went into its shutdown cycle he sighed and pushed himself away from the desk. He’d been looking forward to finishing up the project he’d spent the last months on, but this was far more important. He threw the empty soft drink can in the trash and headed out of the room and headed down the hall toward his room where he packed a couple of bags with items he would need for the trip. Then he headed toward the large garage where he worked on his cars and parts of his plane during spare time.

  Jake lived just outside of Sparks on Highway 80. He was a few miles east of where the city petered out, and roughly two miles north of the freeway. His was a large place with a six-car garage. Three vehicles were parked inside. One, a two-year old Chevy 250 Silverado, was his main vehicle. It had a la
rge enough bed that he could carry parts of his plane to and from the airfield when he wanted to work on it. In the far slot was a sporty red BMW 520i that he really liked to drive. The last was a two-year old Toyota Camry which he used for certain tasks. It was his, but the official records and registration indicated otherwise. He took the pair of bags and placed them in the trunk of the sedan.

  The garage was a mechanic’s paradise. Tools and work pits were in three of the positions, with a bridge crane on the ceiling over one of the pits and another above one of the positions without a pit. The cranes were motor driven with a cross-drive arrangement in the ceiling and could be moved in any direction to access much of the large interior of the garage. A set of stairs led upward along one wall to the roof-mounted telescope. He'd long had an interest in astronomy, although he'd been too busy of late to spend much time at it. He stepped past two of the auto work positions, then climbed down the stairs into the bottom of the pit that was currently surrounded by parts of an engine. He walked to the far end of the concrete slot and knelt down.

  The hidden safe that he accessed could be found with the proper degree of diligence, but it was hidden well enough that Jake didn’t think it was likely anything short of a complete careful search would uncover the hideaway. He had another safe inside in the library which held his “official” collection of firearms. He shot regularly and was a member of a shooting club based out near Pyramid Lake. Those guns were all registered and would not be used for the task ahead of him. He worked through the hidden safe’s combination, then pulled open the heavy door and scanned the interior. He selected the 9mm Sig-Sauer 226 and the commercial suppressor that was sitting next to it. He also grabbed a half dozen loaded magazines. Finally he selected the tiny Colt Mustang in its ankle holster. The Mustang wasn’t much of a gun, even loaded with the 90 grain Hornady Critical Defense loads, but under certain conditions it could make all the difference. It was small enough that it was comfortable to wear on the ankle, and he found it easy to shoot despite its diminutive size.