《A Collection of Short Stories: Red - How to remove Death Flags》


 Chapter 1: Red - A hunt for myself

    I found myself cornered at a special gallery walk. At the end of it were two corridors, one a blank white end and the other the exit.


    As I hurriedly ran towards the obvious way, the sound of a reloading handgun echoed.


    Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead and I narrowly swerved the corner and hide out behind the corner. It was hide or die.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    The murderer was playing around with the weapon. A death flag was already in my sight.


    It was already over the moment it began.


    As I sneakily looked towards the front, the shadow grew longer and closer. I tried to make a counter ambush.


    Then I got tapped on my shoulder, my forehead came into full contact with the handgun. I never remembered what came next, except an excruciating scream and a continuation of time skipped.


    I was killed by myself.


    Mission success.

 Mission 01: Eliminate the cause of the third world war

    By the end of the 21st century, there was one single target that needed to go no matter what. Johnson Stratom, the only son of a Baker and an Insurance Broker. What was the cause of the flash point? No one knew exactly what was the cause of the feud. People around Johnson especially his close ones didn''t know about his conflicts with others. They always described him as someone polite and kind, someone who will not get angry easily. And at least, he never got angry at someone in front of them at all.


    Johnson Stratom was a university MBA graduate. He graduated as the top valedictorian of his university class studying historical literature. However it was not known if his studies were the cause of the hatred deep in him. Johnson knew of many good friends and they always had good relationships and drank together after school or work. It was so out of the blue that Johnson would plan an assassination.


    It was completely out of blind side. People even wondered if he was possessed or worse, coerced. Johnson, while taking down his jail report, cried out aloud. He was unknowingly shaken by what had transpired. He did not even have a clue of what had gone wrong. So far all the evidence is stacked against him. Johnson was at a loss as he took glances at each piece of rattling evidence. It was evident he was the main suspect.


    Johnson took up a photographed report and stared at it for a few moments. He brushed his hair aside as he looked at it very intensely, before shaking off his hand and denying he had any involvement with it. It was the strangest case I ever had to deal with in my whole career. Because not even a single fingerprint matched with Johnson. Yet every photograph pointed to him being the main culprit. It was weird, even more so, mind boggling. All of Johnson''s friends, acquaintances and even distant relatives sided with him.


    Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    The bail was set at $10,000. Yet no escape attempt was ever made to leave the country. He was the only clue we had to the killings. Yet it was absolutely weird as he did not even act like someone who had taken multiple lives. Just then a call came from the CIA in Japan,  they noticed something was off about the IBM5100. The timeline was getting hacked.


    The IBM machine was a time travelling machine. Only very close staffs of known status knew about it as a potential crime evading machine. Because it contained the powers to undo any crime. It was a time travelling device capable of altering events to make it seem like nothing happened. Yet while the past was editable, the deaths cannot be undone.


    As I spoke with the head of the CIA in Japan, he noted that no one from the United Kingdom, where Johnson Stratom was from, had even a clue of what the IBM machine was capable of. He spoke at lengths about the time altering space-time reality that was being changed, yet never once mentioned a suspect from the west. It was undeniably weird.


    Meanwhile back at the Rotterdam police center, I opened up a formal investigation into Johnson Stratom and his best friend Joyce Liz. Although we had already gotten most of the information we could have gotten from Johnson, Joyce was proving to become helpful.


    We were hoping the long hours of questioning would break one of them. True enough Joyce spoke about her knowledge about the IBM machine. But it was from a television show and no one in the UK ever had even a single touch of the IBM5100 machine.


    The knowledge of the machine was very real yet the actual possession of the future machine was never on the UK side. That threw the investigations into a loop.

 Mission 02: Hunting him down

    Regardless of the physical evidences, it was very real that the IBM Machine was manipulated in such a way that distracts the whole investigation. So regarding the truth of the whole investigation, there was no actual need to proof that Johnson had in actual physical contact with one but as long as he had distant acquaintances contacts abroad, he remained a key suspect.


    Two weeks ago on a Monday afternoon, Johnson went off work early around 2pm EST. He was very early to work that morning and quickly went to finish up his workload from the day and even managed to cover some work from the following day. Yet he did not contact anyone or put in a notice that he would be away from work, just as standard protocols required. Johnson stepped away from work and into the train station, where he was going towards an unknown destination.


    The following was only known to Johnson as he even left his digital devices with him at home. Nothing could track him, as he even left his Bluetooth earpieces back at the shack. As Johnson stepped into a unfamiliar train station, he did not notice that a CCTV had captured his every single move. Along with the disposable train card, who he discarded at a rubbish bin and was picked up by the trash collector.


    Johnson arrived at the station of Cambridge, way outside his usual commute area. It was at this point in which the closed circuit television cameras lost contact with him as he undressed and changed uniform outside of those spying arenas. It was deftly suspicious. Johnson arrived at the station without even a hint of camera detection, yet the card from the train outlet caught every single journey. It was very weird and perhaps even suspicious. If it weren''t for the card, he would not even be a suspect.


    Johnson arrived at around 2:42pm at Cambridge station and he escaped all television cameras but was spotted at the traffic lights where the cameras were tracking fast moving vehicles. His stature could be easily captured and he was wearing a different outfit to when he was at home and at work. It was clear he was trying to avoid detection by the government and crime fighters.


    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    Johnson took a look at his watch and adjusts it accordingly. Then after a bus passes by, he disappears from sight. That single interaction caught the attention of all detectives. Where was Johnson Stratom? What exactly happened in that split second? Turns out there was a back alleyway that he could escape detection. However without any digital GPS or WiFi connection, there was no guarantee where he went.


    As Johnson walked straight into the alleyway, he was greeted by two ruffle guys. They were asking for money from him in exchange for their services. As Johnson arrived back at where he disappeared, the suitcase he carried was gone. In its place was a newspaper and a pop up card. He promptly dumps the newspaper by shredding it with his hands. Afterwards, he tucked the card into his jacket carrier. It was as suspicious as you could have been. Yet no one could confirm the identity of the passerby was Johnson. At least for sure.


    The CCTV images and videos on the roadside were hazzy sometimes even cryptic. The statutory image of Johnson was not set in stone as neither the police nor the detectives could confirm the identity of the person who set foot on Cambridge. Nonetheless it was still a 50% chance that the culprit was who they were tailing, due to the immense amount of evidences that pointed towards Johnson Stratom to being at that place at that point of time. It was a guessing game, maybe even a great probability that it was him but no one could known that for sure other than Johnson himself.


    As image after image of the passerby gets shown to Johnson, he did not even wink or expressed any familiarity at the suspected person. In fact, he did not even remotely was interested or caught suspiciously. Johnson was not at all afraid of admitting he was at home. Yet, no one could prove otherwise and he was let home early into the night because they could not point to him as the major suspect behind the time travelling incident as there was not enough physical evidences.


    As Johnson put on his jacket and his spectacles, the policemen were not at all pleased. Especially since he was one of the only suspects yet no one could point out that he was the one for sure. As Johnson Strathom strode out of the police station, no detective had the authority to track him down anymore. He was alone on his way home and he could do anything in order to discard more evidences to prove that he was innocent.


    Johnson went back to his home station of West Minister and never looked back. He was never spotted again ever in public and the whole case was never reopened again until the night of 2173.

 Mission 03: That fateful night

    I was the main detective on the case, my name is Evergreen Johanson and I had all my life worked on this peculiar case which was closed in the early 2100s. It was kind of like the peak of my career where if I had managed to crack the missing clues behind this troubling case, it would be akin to winning the Nobel Prize in detective work.


    I poured through the pages of newspapers covering the case yet again 20 years in the future, once it had closed due to insufficient evidences. As I scanned every line to get more hope as to close the case, it brought me further away from solving the case with each word in the articles. They were something like a distraction maybe, or perhaps even false evidences.


    We walked up the escalator into the police station where I once worked as an attendant and this was our biggest case. As I found myself in the company of people who worked on these new cases since 20 years ago, a familiar tint and hint of cases that relates touches my spider sense. I knew that Johnson Stratom had something to do with a lot of the new cases, yet I could not figure out what or how he was involved in them. The IBM5100 never gave another clue. Perhaps Johnson had managed to clone the machine but no one could tell for sure.


    Just besides the familiar and sometimes comfy police station with neon blue lights is a house that went through without the renovations of the blocks of flats. They were the only odd one out who did not accept the renovation procedure despite it''s high payout. The elderly couple could have wanted to maintain their home as a property to pass down to their children instead of the limited time of 99 years of the new flats, seeing that the landed property was freehold. Yet even the three million dollars prize seemed attractive to people who are not even into money as the property itself was only worth $500,000.


    As the elderly man opened his mailbox, a advertisement on real estate slipped away from him through a brush of cool breeze. He and his wife were the only two persons still leftover from the whole estate renovations. He was only known as Jerald from his next door neighbours. His wife remained unnamed.


    Despite the unfamiliarity, I made a distinct effort to get to know our neighbours. Especially because they were getting older year by year and may require our assistance. Mr Jerald was always a pleasant man to speak to but I was not as sure about his partner. They seemed like people who never wanted to be in the spotlight yet as each passing year came, they seemed more and more aloof, due in major part their insistence on staying in the freehold estate rather than sell out for extra cash. I never came to know of their reason not to add to their cash flow despite having less earning power as elderly people without an income source but the most I knew was that they did not come from money or had had any inheritance. This made me slightly suspicious of them through time, but never enough to open a case against them.


    Jerald and his wife lived a quiet life. They did not regularly have parties in their homes but instead opt to rent out entire flats in order to have birthday parties and the like. Jerald and his wife were never well to do, that''s why it was quite a mystery why they did not take up the offer of a lifetime to get enough money that will last for generations and would allow them an early retirement but I guess they liked their home more than the amount of zeros it could provide them with.


    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Mr Jerald would always have the television put on in the background and reading through newspapers as he retired earlier than his spouse. He would fill in his time playing the lottery or on the phone with friends and family. Jerald always had something to do to occupy his time meaningfully despite not having the involvement of his closest family member which is his spouse. Meanwhile, Jerald¡¯s wife enjoyed her work at the civil service building counters, where she would hit up on random strangers to ask about their day and more. His wife enjoyed the conversations that never went too deep but instead was nuanced enough to get to know the other party much better. As a human being like their likes and dislikes, without getting too involved in their cases especially those that needed financial help.


    Jerald, once he was still working, would make an effort to go grocery shopping and pick up the newspaper for the day. He would always enjoy cooking up dinner for the family as he was the earliest back home. The dinners that he cooked were some of the most sumptuous home cooked food I ever had the experience of enjoying. His wife was so lucky to have him being able to cook.


    However Jerald was much more senior than his wife, by exactly ten years despite their birthday months being the same. They often celebrated birthdays together to save money. But as the years rolled on, more and more of the burden of the house went towards his wife and thereby she was eventually forced into retirement when Jerald couldn''t move up the stairs anymore


    As the wife quit her job, many people came by to visit her for one last time to enjoy her company. She was always one of the most popular service counter assistants. Jerald knew about his wife''s popularity which was one of the reasons why he married her in the first place and drew him to her.


    As their combined retirement drew closer, Jerald was in favour of selling the house to the estate agents but his wife was vehemently against it as they needed a property to pass down to their children. The couple usually had intense arguments about these issues into the night which I always had the pleasure of enjoying their somewhat meaningless arguments as I always knew the guy would win.


    As the deadline of selling the house came closer, so did the length of their discussions and arguments. However the wife respected Jerald¡¯s insistence on not to sell out at the end and instead have a meagre retirement so that their grandchildren have a property to rely on as rental income in the future years.


    As people who did not have huge expenditures, they scrimped and saved up the remaining of their work years so that they will have a properly budgeted and slightly sufficient retirement capital. They still struggled somewhat when they were deep into their retirement but never so much that they had to worry about where their next three meals would come from.


    When both retired seniors passed away at roughly the same time, I was one of the only people unbeknownst to their family who was crying at the funeral. I had known them the entire time I was working at the police station and they treated me like their own granddaughter. And that made me very fond of the two of them.


    As I waved goodbye to the years of caring and love they shed upon me, their deaths came as a shock to the case as their belongings told an entirely different life they lived which was not even known to their children. They were living double lives as criminals.


    Jerald, was a pseudonym that was used on every official document and tax ordinance. His real name was Johnson Stratom. And he moved in when his last crime was committed. His tote bag, his work belongings all pointed to him and his wife as the co-conspirators on the major case that was closed without notice. It was amazing that they could spend so many years avoiding detection and living side by side with the police without even being alarmed that their cover may be blown at any time. It was simply incredible and right out of a story book.


    As I went over the couple''s belongings with the approval of their children, it became clear as to why they wanted to retain their home. It was being used as an outlet for crimes including money laundering. They used the same address on every one of their major expenditures spent on outwardly luxurious getaways and purchases. But was never spotted as the wife did their accounting for the main company and hide it beneath layers of information which was always and also sneakily including legitimately done activities and purchases that involved normal activity.

 Mission 04: Beneath The Covers

    Despite getting to know the true face of Johnson Stratom only after he passed away, there was still hope as the IBM5100 machine was available to hack time and space. We could easily opt to time travel back in time to arrest them. However there was a cost to everything, and the cost to that outcome was that we could not come back to the present reality after arresting them.


    After considering over the amount of things that would change to our lives, I still wanted to have them behind bars, no matter the disruption to my personal life as I have lived normally for the most of my life and would be glad to spend the rest of it and bring myself and Stratom to justice with the rest of my time on earth. The two of my closest police cadets teared as they learned about my sacrifice, they stood upright and saluted at me for giving up my life for justice to be served.


    As I travelled back in time through the IBM5100 machine, I was losing some key memories as undoing time itself would undo some critical incidents. However, as I stepped into a time 50 years earlier, I was shocked that the entire home was given up for sale and nobody resided there for the past 40 years. I was beaten to the time travel.


    As l stepped into the neatly arranged and sparse house, a oddly unfamiliar feel overcame me. It was the same house but devoid of any love and effort. It just was not the same. And I knew we had the suspect identity down now. All that''s left is to trace the missing valuables and we should be able to find them. Because this was close to the era of portable location trackers, we had managed to find one of them in the outskirts of London, which we had previously dropped in one of Johnson¡¯s wife branded bags.


    As I waved goodbye in the wee early mornings of the day. I stood before the bicycle racks which I anticipated would always have been there, undisturbed. However this was not the case this very morning, right after the time travelling. The couple must have used it as their transport vehicle.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    The next thing I did was to go through all the corporate movers in the yellow pages and try to find a glint of hope within those books to get a semblance of a clue as to where they could have been gone. I started from A and worked my way down to Z. It was not until after the later parts of the ABC that I actually landed on the correct furniture movers but I was already too late as they requested the movers to keep mum about the future location home and not to leak any details. As Evergreen Johanson revealed her identity, the movers were slightly taken aback. They promptly released any confidential information on the case after verifying her stature and work.


    The clue went all the way to Manchester where they had seemingly moved into a high rise apartment. It was definitely a hassle to move to an apartment from a landed property. I wondered why they did not do that in the first place when the offer for the landed house first became a reality but somehow or another they needed it for their crimes still and they were unthankfully never recognised or discovered. I set my team up with all the information that was required to catch such a slimy couple.


    I laid bare the information and their travel documents. It all pointed exactly to the Manchester apartment. I checked out the maps data on my phone and double checked it on my laptop with my colleague as well. Everything seemed to line up. As I poured over the salacious documents with my colleagues and close staff, I discovered more and more about them. And finally their motive for doing so many ungrounded things, yes they were no longer hiding in the shadow. I sent a tailgater to monitor the flat apartment and sure enough, they were inside the apartment.


    As I figured out the necessary logistics and time to approach the capturing of first class criminals. Michael bought me a cup of coffee specially just for me. He knew I would work late into the night and yet he still dropped by after work in order to get me through the night. It was a lovely cup of joe and also a pleasant surprise as he kissed me on the cheek.


    Michael Freem and I were a married couple over 4 years and before that 15 years as childhood lovers. We never thought that we would last that long but it certainly seemed to have paid off as Michael did put in extra work in order to pursue me and I was always being pursued by default. Sometimes with him only and other times with others. Yet Michael never wavered in his love for me and that''s the reason why he is my husband today.