Time Pirate

Would you like to see chapters of my books before they come out? Do you want to see cover art sketches and vote on which poses should make it to final production? Would you like to see even sexier versions of my covers? Would you like to get my audiobooks at a deep discount? Of course you would! Join my Patreon here to get all these awesome benefits (or search for my name on Patreon.com). You can also join my Facebook group right here. Then you’ll know when my books come out before anyone else. Chapter 1 The beep beep beep of the crosswalk sliced through the air, and I pushed through the throngs of people around me to cross onto the right side of Madison Avenue to get to my job at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. The DC air was fragrant and humid with the beginning of summer, and the streets were filled with tourists and locals alike, even though most of the buildings around here were closing soon. A little kid holding an ice cream cone stopped dead in front of me, and I had to sidestep the little rugrat to prevent from knocking him over. Luckily, my shifts as an overnight security guard at the museum kept little kids and their sticky fingers out of my daily routine. The kid’s mother grabbed his hand, melted ice cream and all, and dragged him across the rest of the crosswalk as the little green man changed to a little red man. “Sorry,” the plump, harassed-looking mother said when she noticed me trying to get around her petulant child. Then she eyed my uniform, and her eyes lingered on the gun strapped to my belt before she turned to her kid. “Look, the policeman there says if you don’t hurry up, he’s going to arrest you.” “Oh, no, I’m not--” I started, but I was cut off by the kid’s wails. “Mommy, no, I don’t wanna go to jaaaail!” the kid shouted with a red face. “Hurry up, then,” the mother huffed. I hightailed it away from the crying child and jogged toward the manicured lawn of the Museum of American History. I was already running late for my shift, not that ol’ Hank would mind. I didn’t think my colleague had much going on outside of work, and he wouldn’t even notice if I turned up two hours late. My boss, Harrison Riggs, though, that bastard was always looking for an excuse to fire me, so I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. I didn’t know why he hated me so much, but I figured it had something to do with the times over the years that I’d corrected him when he tried to show off his inaccurate historical knowledge. Sorry, dude, just because you’ve been at the museum the longest, doesn’t mean you know the most about the place. I’d dedicated years of my life to studying the intricacies of American history from all angles whereas Riggs retired from the military, took an easy job as a security guard at a museum, and fancied himself an expert. The dude could barely name the first five presidents in chronological order, so I couldn’t take him seriously. I hurried past the Infinity Sculpture, an abstract piece of modern art with a twisted piece of metal that resembled the figure eight infinity symbol from certain angles and slowly rotated around non-stop. I thought it was a weird sculpture to display at the south entrance of the museum, but when it was erected in the sixties, it was quite the hit. There were tourists snapping pictures in front of the sculpture, but it was just part of the landscape to me at this point, and I continued past it toward the row of glass doors that granted entry to the long, flat, gray building where I’d worked for the past two years. Since it was already past closing time, the doors were already locked. I reached for the keys in the pocket of my security uniform, but through the glass doors, I could see Hank rising from his seat before he started to slowly lumber toward the doors. It probably would have been faster for me to unlock the door myself, but I waited and let the old man feel useful as he pulled the ring of keys from the retractable cord on his belt. The potbellied and balding man with his deeply lined face shuffled through the keys until he found the right one, and then he gave me a nod as he slid it into the keyhole and pulled the door open. “Evening, Frankie,” Hank said gruffly as he stepped back to let me through the door. Once I was through, he shut it and locked it again. “Evening, Hank,” I said as I nodded. “Anything exciting happen on your shift?” “Some punk kid pulled the fire alarm on the third floor, caused a right kerfuffle, but we got it fixed up right quick,” Hank said as he slowly ambled back to the security desk. Hank had been at this position for decades, and if there was one thing he hated, it was kids. Lord knows why he took a public facing position at a location that was popular for school trips, but he’d been at it for nearly half a century at this point, so he must not hate them as much as he let on. “Damn kids,” I said with a grin. “You’re telling me,” Hank huffed. “Who’s on controls tonight?” I asked as I adjusted the revolver on my hip. Hank also had one strapped to his belt, but it was common for us security guards to carry our issued .38 Smith & Wesson revolvers with us to and from work, zipped up underneath our uniform-required jackets. Some of the other guards complained that we didn’t have better guns, but our boss was a penny pincher on top of being an asshole. I was fine