Hendrix leapt out of his chair, pointing outside of our suffocating glass encased fishbowl-like stage/recording studio to the seating area to his right.
“Where is she going, the older female?” Everyone in the section turned towards the poor lady leaving our hastily made auditorium.
One of his lawyers held on to him like he was a child.
“It’s probably a pee break. Don’t they have those in the future?” I asked with my sarcasm metre at a 10 out of 10.
“No, yes, yes, of course I understand. Actually, it’s better this way, the chaos of it all. Harder for them to erase this. Let’s review the recording devices in detail again please?”
“No, Hendrix, let’s not. We’ve been over these 20 times plus. I’ve put together everything you wanted, the 48 random witnesses. I’m not in the mood, I’m tired.” I paused for a second.
“Damn it…….fine….fine…… here, let’s go………15 audio tapings, different tech for each, ok? 13 videos all different tech. The witnesses, the dictation in 24 languages….”
“I wanted more than 30 languages.” he said.
“Please stop and answer my question, which you are doing your very best to avoid……anyway pee lady is back already, I don’t think she washed her hands.”
“<Mic is live to the audience Captain>” the voice in my ear piece squawked.
I waved a half-hearted apology in her general direction, counted to 5 and turned to Hendrix as he was commiserating with his other lawyer and turned to me with that grin. “No need to be unpleasant…where were we, may I ask for a review?”
I made sure to glare at his lawyers this time, in hopes that they could passive aggressively organize their client.
“Today? what….?” I skimmed the notes, “you exposed, 20th century celebrities who are in your words…what? …..unlicensed and/or Time Machine Thieves. You named pop singers, reality stars and 1 hit wonder rappers in a scary amount of intimate and useless detail and in my on the record opinion, you are overly obsessed. Now! Are you still doing your best to avoid the last question?”
“What question?”
“I asked if you enjoyed the killings?” Again, he went to the lawyers.
“Why does this matter? Also, they were not killings, they were judgements made real.”
“I …..we want to know your mindset going into these excursions, you are being analyzed, evaluated and…”
“I will remind you again” he interrupted,” I was fully deputized and these were legal punishments judged by the temporal council. This was …. ”
“The actual act, did you enjoy it?”
“Only one. Just one. It must be stated we all wanted him dead, I got to him first.”
“Who?”
“Charles Dickens!”
“Charles Dickens was a Time Thief?”
“Oh, yes, Old Chuck. He hated that name, pushed us to the edge with this Ghost of Christmas past, present and future business. Mocking us. I want this to be stressed, I felt that was a personal affront to me and my profession. It was dishonorable. … …killing him in the middle of writing that novel, though, that was splendid. Poetic really. You have no idea as you’ve never read the ending. The Mystery of Edwin Drood, oh, it’s amazing, that ending. He stole the whole package from the 27th century, I read the original Mandarin version, quite good.”
