6.

Time stops, or at least it feels as it does. Funny that, given all of what has gone before, except it isn't funny at all. How am I to get myself out of this? No idea, trying to absorb the shock of this moment has me stuck.

Here I am, standing in a hotel room within which I spent the night with a woman I know next to nothing about, and she is pointing a gun at my face. Like, what the hell? Her eyes are focused, her face and posture is unreadable and her breathing is calm as if this moment has been rehearsed, practiced in advance, she was just waiting for her moment.

This must be a ruse, a false threat meant to frighten, was our conversation in the bar genuine or was she fishing? Perhaps she has lived this moment many times, searching for its most perfect outcome, unsure as to if this one is it. So much is contemplated as my mind races, the weight of it all begins to settle and then ...

There would be a knock to the hotel room door which at this point was only a few feet behind me. I am standing half naked in this room stuck in a moment of uncertainty. There is someone outside the room looking to get in. I can't help but briefly turn to the door when the knock comes then I turn back to that gun.

She, this woman calling herself Linda, may be young and beautiful, and we may have shared what I consider to be a lot more than just a tender moment together but that doesn't change the fact of the situation I find myself in. Or maybe it does.

'Get down' Linda tells me.

'What?' I ask being becoming even more lost as to what the hell is going on.

'I said ... get down.'

I immediately drop to the ground without questioning things any further and she fires two shots at the door. If I weren't lost already then ... you know.

'C'mon, let's go. We have to move' she says having moved to stand at my side as I continue to question things from my position on the floor. She looks down at me as if to say 'right now would be nice.

I get up, grab the rest of my clothing and all of my belongings then follow Linda who at this point has already gone out into the hallway. She had already got herself dressed while I had been in the bathroom. So, it is quite clear by now that she knows so much more than she had been letting on but right at this moment was not the time to try get me some answers.

She turned to the left when she exited the room. I go to follow and look right before turning left and what I see confirms something I have been sure about for quite some time now.

I would have loved to have gone after what I saw or rather who I saw when I had exited that hotel room. For when I did exit that hotel room, I briefly see an older version of myself down the far end of the hallway to my right. I'm sure of this though rather than stopping to take things in, I continue, quite instinctively, to move to the left.

What I had just seen suddenly hits me and I soon do stop and turn completely for just a moment but the other me is gone. He had actually been there in person? I said it already; I am one hundred per cent sure of that.

My natural instinct would have been to go after my future self, try get those answers that I so badly want to get though I do not know where he has gone and not only that, but Linda has grabbed me by the arm, and we soon leave the hotel.

We get into a car, and she drives. Now if I hadn't already got a number of questions or had a want to get myself some answers I all of a sudden am hit by a rather large and new wave of so many more questions.

For starters, who knocked at the hotel room door and where did they go? They obviously enough were not hit by the gun fire. There were no bodies lying in wait and no sign of blood either, or any sign of anyone at all other than the brief glimpse of what I definitely believe is an older me.

Why did Linda fire the gun? Did she know who was coming? If she did then what else did she know? She wasn't firing at the older me, was she? I would begin by asking her a few other questions.

'So, you are not really a nurse, are you? And you were not attending a medical convention of any sort?'

'No, I am not a nurse, but I do have medical training, there is a medical convention going on though yeah, it is not why I am here.'

'Meeting you at the hospital and again at that hotel was not by chance, was it? It was not coincidence at all.'

'You are right again.'

We come up to an open stretch of road, so Linda picks up speed. She would soon make a couple of turns before beginning to slow down all the while checking the mirrors. At least fifteen minutes pass without anything else being said.

Linda finds an out of the way side road to pull in and stop the car. I had found it difficult to keep myself quiet for those fifteen minutes or so and I had also found it difficult to keep my eyes off of Linda, and that was more out of curiosity rather than the fact I was and am quite attracted to her.

'So, what do you know?' I ask.

'I have been sent here by you, an older you in the future, obviously enough, ... to aid you in any way I can.'

'Why do I need help all of a sudden? I have been doing just fine all by myself.'

'You knew that scar on your face was coming but still you were not able to avoid getting it, I also happen to know a few things that you do not know so it may be of benefit for you to have me around.'

'Don't get me wrong, I am all for having you around.'

'Good, you are not going to easily get rid of me, not for a while yet anyway.'

I smile a smile more out of feeling a nervous curiosity and I bet I look quite silly though I do not particularly care about how silly I look at all. Things are a little more interesting now to say the least and I am no longer feeling as down in myself as I was not all that long ago, but seriously where can things go from here?

'So, what now?' I ask.

'What do you mean?'

'What happens next is what I mean? What do we do or where should we go?'

'That is completely up to you, I may be the in the driver's seat of this car but technically I am just a passenger in all this, I am here to help where and when I can.'

'You wouldn't so happen to know where the older me has got himself to?'

'The older you? I have no idea what you mean by that' she says with a smile, a smile she doesn't even try to hide. She knows, she knows that my older self is in the here and now.

'Yeah sure,' I say as she starts the car up again and begins to drive.

I cannot help but think as to why my older alternate would come back to this point in time and not directly make contact with me. Sure, he leaves me messages which I retrieve via the memory stick and he has passed along my line of sight now too, and I am also sure that I could have seen my older self at other moments since all this has started but at the hotel, well that is the first time my older self has not tried to hide his presence.

I know that he can get these messages to me via the memory stick as he knows when and where I will view them, right? But then again maybe not, I guess his past, which obviously enough is my present, keeps altering. That scar we share; he did not have it in the first message.

For sure, he has my thoughts, my memories, for when something changes in the present it alters him, it alters who I become so why doesn't he come directly to me and at least give me what I need to know to make all this end. It's crazy, all of this is crazy.

With those thoughts, if my older self is here, as in the here and now, then if my path alters, does he alter while he is here, or does something else occur entirely? The hell if I know.

There must be some reasoning for him to his distance, especially with the fact that I have been made aware of the fact that my older self is here. Finding out why I have come back or will come back may put things straight, then again it may not. I need to stop second guessing myself and just do what I need to do. It is obvious too that Linda knows why my older self is here and it is also obvious that she won't be forthcoming with any answers either.

Thing is now; how do I go about getting some answers? And straight answers at that. I need to figure something out, and sooner rather than later. Maybe the answers lay in the past, the more recent past.

The day my apartment was thrashed, why was I not shot that day? The intruder missed both myself and my friend. Was that intentional? And having run into my friend prior to that moment had felt a bit coincidental; maybe it wasn't actually coincidental at all?

He had never followed me after that moment at his place like he said he would, I had assumed that he had been hurt or possibly had something much worse done to him which would have prevented him from catching up with me, what if no harm had come to him at all? He seemed to be confident in an ability to catch up with me, so he had to have known ... something.

The fake identification and the bank account that had been set up for me came a little bit too easily too when I actually think about it. It came with another coincidental meeting of a friend. Is there more going on than I could possibly understand?

The fishing vessel, the warning to get off it came just a little too late, didn't it? Accidentally too late? Or purposely too late? And now Linda too? Being sent to help me but not giving me any direct information? It seems quite likely I am being set up somehow, set up for what though and why?

Linda's phone rings, her call is brief, and she soon puts her phone away.

'It is time' she says.

'Time for what I ask?'

'You will see' she replies with yet another smile.

That smile, how I more than just like that smile of hers. So, what do I do now?