“Got anything yet?” Arthur said as he looked at the screen of the laptop over Charlie’s shoulder.

“Not really… I can’t find anything. I think it might be a lost cause at this point. We’ve been searching for two weeks and haven’t found anything.”

“Damn… Steven, do you have any ideas?” Arthur turned to Steven, who was reading the newspaper in the corner of the room. He didn’t seem to hear Arthur, as he continued to look at the newspaper with a perplexed look on his face.

“Steven!”

“Huh? What is it?”

Arthur walked over to him and looked at the newspaper.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, uh, nothing. It’s just that an obituary was just released for a certain political figure saying he died a few days ago, but the date doesn’t match up with the paper from a few days ago, where it was announced he had just returned from a meeting in France.”

“That’s odd. Can I see the paper from a few days ago?”

“Sure,” he reached down and grabbed a newspaper from beside his chair “here you go.”

Arthur skipped ahead to the part of the paper about the politician and began to read.

“...Adam Reed returns from successful negotiations in Paris regarding the ongoing conflict in Asia…”

Arthur dropped the paper, eyes wide.

“Arthur? What's wrong?” Steven said as he picked up the paper and put it back beside his chair.

“What did the paper say the cause of death was?”

“What?”

“What killed Adam Reed?”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Oh, uh, let me see…” he flipped through the paper until he got back to the obituary “It seems he died from an illness, why?”

“How old was he? Was he in good health?”

“He was fairly young I think, and I’ve never heard about him having any health related issues until now, why?”

“I think he was murdered.”

Charlie looked up from the computer, suddenly interested.

“Why would you think that?” Steven said.

“The meeting he went to was about the conflict in Asia. The meeting I broke into and was killed at was also about the conflict in Asia.”

Charlie walked over to them.

“So we found them?” he said.

“Not yet. They covered up their tracks well.” Arthur said.

“So how do we find them?” Steven said, standing up and stretching.

Arthur hesitated.

“Charlie, find out exactly where Adam Reed was every hour of every day after he got back from Paris.”

“Why? Knowing where he was won’t help us, the killers probably already covered up everything we could use.”

“Maybe. But they hadn’t covered anything up yet a week ago.”

“What do you mean?” Steven said.

“Arthur, you’re not saying what I think you’re saying, right?”

“I am. I am going to kill myself in order to go back to the past and witness the murder of Adam Reed. This time, I will get close and find out what the pin the killers were wearing says.”

Steven grabbed Arthur's shoulders and shouted into his face. “Arthur, you can’t! What if they kill you before you get close enough?”

“Then I’ll just try again. We aren’t just fighting a dystopian government now. We’re fighting a war on two fronts, and we’re not strong enough to hold them both back. The only way we’ll succeed is if we make use of the one thing we have that they don’t: the power to go back in time.”

Charlie laughed.

“I like it! I’ll get to work on finding where Adam Reed was after he got back.”

Charlie walked back over to the laptop and began typing furiously.

Steven placed a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and looked into his eyes.

“Arthur… I can get why you’re doing this now, but… Don’t overuse this. I worry that… That if you use this too frequently something inside your head might snap.”

Arthur removed Steven’s hand from his shoulder.

“Don’t worry Steven, I’ll be fine. If you don’t want to witness me… dying, then you can head upstairs now. Me and Charlie can handle the rest.”

Steven sighed.

“Alright. But please, Arthur, be careful. Do not overestimate your own mental fortitude.”

Steven walked upstairs, closing and locking the door on his way out.