Nathan sat in the Polished Lightning looking for a good trajectory to approach the Paradox Enabled business. There was always the chance you’d meet yourself on the way out, and that caused problems for most people.
Common sense said you’d have to do/say exactly what your ‘older self’ did on the way out again, or get stuck in a time loop, but that was just a sad rumour. Businesses like this had refraction projectors around the premises to make the experience less of a hurdle. Still, the idea that you’d meet yourself a few hours smarter and still have to go through the encounter was too much for some people.
Nathan usually found a way to supercharge the interaction, giving himself enough of a hint that it doesn’t bootstrap the problem, but enough of a nudge to steer the conversations inside so that he could get ahead on an active investigation.
This time, he wouldn’t have that chance. It seemed the authorities had enforced Vanilla Time on the neighbourhood, and that made things more difficult for everyone.
The Time Detective landed and tried to get a handle on the situation. “What seems to be the problem officer?” he asked the nearest Time Cop. “Level 4 Paradox” said the man, not giving out any more information than he had to.
Nathan shrugged. It was a ‘life and limb’ kind of situation, but he already knew that from his investigation. His short trip on the Polished Lightning had left him ready for some fast and loose time play, so jumping into a Vanilla Time enforced environment was a bit harsh.
Still, the bravado was there, and he had talked himself past the perimeter of the business in question with a quick flash of his badge and some small talk.
He was about to go in the building when he heard a familiar voice behind him. “So you’re just going to walk in there?” It was Jade, but he didn’t know what capacity she was acting in at the moment.
“I’ve got to see a tailor about a jacket.” said Nathan. Jade answered “Seems harmless enough.” the way she said it though meant they both knew it wasn’t. It was a shared understanding, and not something the Time Cops picked up on. She was there to make sure things went smoothly, even if not predictably.
Nathan opened the door and went in before the situation changed. It looked deceptively ordinary, but he quickly saw that most orders had delivery times that were already past. Someone not familiar with Metric might assume they were late, but a Time Tide chart on the wall suggested the window for filling them ‘on time’ was only now opening.
“Do you regularly send out orders before they’re made?” asked Nathan. The shop keeper sighed and brought out a Cause/Effect logbook. “No violations this quarter” she said, though added with a twinkle in her eye “but we do send out filled orders for trusted customers who are still browsing....”
Nathan laughed. It was pushing the rules a bit, but as long as the customers made the order before opening the box, it was still technically legal.
The Time Detective relaxed a bit. Unlike most of the cops outside, the shop keeper knew that time could ‘bend’ a little if probability was in their favour.
“I have a bit of a problem” he started, taking out the jacket. “It’s not your size?” The shop keeper asked wryly while looking at the camera monitoring the front counter.
Nathan got the hint. “Not even close” he said, holding up the small jacket to his large frame. “When did you get it?” she asked. “Two weeks ago... according to the paperwork anyway.” he said, leaving room for time travel inconsistencies.
“We’ll have to go into the back and track down the mix-up” she said, satisfied that the cameras had seen enough to log the events and make sense of them during a possible reconstruction.
Nathan followed the young woman to the back of the establishment. Here was a lot more haphazard, with time windows sending orders to the past, and orders from the future arriving at the other end of the business. The workers were mostly robots, but the occasional human who didn’t mind the impossibility of the place were filling some of the more custom work stations. All over the place were readouts for temporal stability and probability monitoring.
The shop keeper and Nathan weaved between the mechanical staff and stood at a small workstation in the far corner. A tall man with old eyes was eating the last of his lunch and on seeing the two, quickly finished.
“Whats can I help ye with?” he said in a mock pirate accent, playing off the Time Badge that Nathan had been checking for readings.
“You’ve got a good balance here” Nathan said with a smile “Windows back and forward anchor the place down, and a healthy respect for the basics.”
The tall man shifted slightly and dropped the act. “You’re not here for enforcement. Are you?” Nathan shook his head quickly. “It obviously works, or you wouldn’t still be here.”
The woman brought the conversation back to the point. “The jacket..” Nathan almost blushed “Right, well apart from not fitting, it arrived two weeks before anybody put an order in for it, and at a crime scene on top of that.”
The tall man flipped a switch, grabbed the jacket and scanned it. “Consider it ordered for two weeks ago..” he said with a flourish.
“That’s...” began Nathan “...a simple answer to a complex problem.”
A large sign in the back lit up. “Bootstrapped Object, Paradox Detected” The lights flicked off and the work stopped.
The man laughed and asked Nathan for the paperwork on the jacket so far. It included a link to the iOi’s scan of the original jacket. “That should smarten things up...” he said, “....unlike last week”
As if reacting to his words, the lights came back on again and the sign went back to showing orders.
“Last week?” Nathan asked. The lady spoke up again. “Ya, the time cops were around, said they knew the jacket came from here and found we didn’t have the original pattern, hence the welcome outside.”
Nathan realized he hadn’t sent in that part of the report yet. iOi must have updated his copy, but he hadn’t had enough Vanilla time to update the HQ.
The Time Detective ran out to meet Jade and bring her up to speed with everything, but iOi was already doing that.
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