Itch: Nine Tales of Fantastic Worlds by Kris Austen Radcliffe Read Free Book Online Page A

sirens wailed. But Edward paid no heed.
    He ripped off his shirt and handed it to the woman.
    “Who the hell are you ?” she yelled. “You look familiar. You stalking me?” She turned in a circle, her arm still over her breasts. “Oh my God you were at the movie theater! You’re that hot guy who kept staring at me! You’re freakin’ creepy, dude!”
    At that very moment, Edward wanted to slink away. He wanted vanish into the early twenty-first century and live out his life as the neighborhood bachelor who bought a house because that’s what working men do. Working men who ended up lonely because they hadn’t found the right person with whom to share their lives.
    The neighborhood little old ladies who grew the lilacs and the roses and all the other smelly flowers would check on him weekly, and tell him tales of their granddaughters and how a good strong strapping young man like him needed to work less and get out more.
    Because when the half-naked woman yelled at Edward, he knew he would never have anything other than his job.
    But he didn’t have that either.
    The cop car whooped and stopped at the end of the driveway. Another woman came out of the house. Edward recognized her: his current target. The woman he was supposed to set on the Right Path before that mother-kissing scumbag Lancaster fired him. The stupid, no-good, idiot desk jockey who wouldn’t even take the time to check on why a record appeared in the time stream database. When he got back to the ship, they’d have—
    “You, without the shirt, turn around! Do it slowly!”
    Edward did. And Edward punched.
     
    ***
     
    “So…” On the other side of the bullet-proof Plexiglas partition from Edward, Sherry swiped her finger across the clipboard sitting in front of her on the flat desk-like surface. Though here, Edward needed to remember the time locals called them “tablets” or “i” this and that. “…it turned out that the original Right Path cleaning job was more complicated than the databases let on.”
    She shrugged and switched the phone receiver to her other ear. Edward did the same, mimicking her movement. They made him wear a bright orange jumpsuit, the prison fashion of this time. Edward kind of liked it. It reminded him of concentrated oak, and helped him use his maintenance routines to center himself while his bunk mate counted out his daily one thousand push-ups.
    Sherry continued: “The scumbag in question is— was —living with the target and her housemate, Naked Maria.” She swiped at the tablet again, moving over to a different page of her report.
    The most beautiful woman Edward had ever seen in any era went by the name Maria. Every time Sherry visited, he asked for more detail. Maria had broken up with a longtime boyfriend about eight months ago and had moved in with the target, who had wanted someone to help cover costs. She was single, liked men, and beyond lovely with her copper hair and her perfectly oval steel-colored eyes.
    Edward spent a lot of his time thinking about her.
    “He wasn’t supposed to be there, of course. He’s gone.” Sherry shrugged again. “Bart took your car back to the ship, by the way. He’s doing fine. Learned his lesson about his shots.” Sherry grinned and swiped at her tablet again. “Lancaster fast-tracked him. He’s next up for an internship.”
    Edward almost dropped the phone. Lancaster fired him, but promoted the kid?
    On the other side of the glass, Sherry chuckled. The sound came through the earpiece tinny. “You know what that kid did? He had his monocle in his pocket! He pulled it out, called up the local internet, and found out the scumbag had a warrant out for his arrest. He sniffled a few times, did his best to be non-threatening, and smooth-talked the other officer into checking. And bam ! Problem solved.”
    The kid did have a future ahead of him. Or at least several trips Back.
    Sherry looked up. Her eyes were still the same death-blue as always, but Edward