"Hello Officer"
Posted on 29 Jun 2026 @ 8:52am by Lieutenant Ryan Collingway & Lieutenant Commander Steven Remington
1,698 words; about a 8 minute read
Mission:
Time After Time
Location: Alternate Sherman Oaks
// College Campus - Sherman Oaks //
snip
In the distance, they suddenly heard a siren. "Um...uh-oh," Ryan said.
end snip
“Uh, we might wanna get out of here. I don’t wanna have to explain these weapons to anyone, particularly law enforcement.” They slipped through an alley and info the nearest building, a massive library. “Split up, meet you back at the circulation desk in 15 minutes. We ought to be safe by then.”
"Right," Ryan nodded, and watched as Steve went upstairs. He went into a nearby aisle and grabbed a book-the History of Tarvik, Volume three-and pretended to read as the door opened. Please be campus cops...he thought to himself.
They were not. They were actual cops. One of them gave a description at the front desk of the two. The receptionist shrugged. Ryan continued to pretend to read, his heart beating faster. The second cop went upstairs. He waited for the first to go away, but he did not.
Eventually, Ryan had enough of waiting and risked exiting back into the main hallway. He proceeded quickly towards the exit, hoping the cop would miss him.
He did not. "Hey you! Stop!"
Ryan broke into a run.
// Upstairs in the Library //
The first thing Steve did was ditch the flannel shirt in a trash receptacle and hide the pistol and the unknown device behind a book entitled The Last Nine Yards, by Wesley Marcum. Then he moved on down the aisle and around three stacks where he saw a section entitled Science. He was at the end of the stack and pulled out a book entitled Primate Psychology for Dummies. He walked to a carrel and set down and opened the book and skimmed it briefly.
He heard footsteps even on the carpeted floor. He looked up and the cop saw him. He nodded in a friendly manner and put the book down. “Can I help you, Sir?” he asked.
“Seen anyone come up here, maybe with a buddy?” he said, clearly sizing up Steve as one of the buddies.
Steve sized him up as well. Young, eager. “Only people I’ve seen, beside the librarian, are a girl with red hair, down in fiction, that’s downstairs, and a guy did walk through, but I wasn’t watching so don’t know what he looked like. Just walked like a guy, y’ know, but not running.”
“What’s your name?”
“Steve Remington.”
“Got any ID?”
“No sir. I don’t. Receptionist, Tammy, knows me though. I’m here a lot. Biology student. Working on my Masters.”
“Where were you about 10 minutes ago?”
“Here. I skipped the lecture on Wednesday and there’s an essay test coming. So I’m hoping to glean a little from here,” he lifted the book casually, “that I can use in that essay.”
The cop seemed impatient. “What’s your address.”
Steve’s good memory served up the 300 block of Oak Street, where they had been caught in the temporal wave. “310 Oak, Sherman Oak, CA,” he replied without hesitation. “Live with my younger brother actually. He’s way ahead of me in the education department. His name’s Allen. Sometimes he goes by Remington and sometimes he just pulls a name out of thin air. Dad’s name is Henry L Remington, works for Stanley and Sons, Investments.
“Look Sir,” he checked the cop’s name. “Officer Garrett, I’m sorry. If you wanna take me in because I don’t have my ID, you can, but it’s a waste of time. I am not your runner. I’ve been here reading and hoping to get a date with that red head in Romances downstairs since about 11 this morning. Give a guy a break. She’s drop-dead gorgeous. I’d flunk the friggin’ test to make that date. Y’ know?”
The cop almost shrugged with an equally vague smile.
Half of what Steve said came from somewhere else, some other memories that didn’t quite belong to him, like the receptionist’s name and the business, Stanley and Sons. His voice and his body were unmistakably calm, unlike the way his mind was working to figure it out.
“You carrying a weapon?” added Garrett.
“No sir. Do I look like a guy who would be carrying a weapon in a library, while he was trying to score a date with a pretty woman, ostensibly reading a book about primate brainwaves?”
“No, no you don’t. You’re too clean cut. Sorry to bother you.”
The cop didn’t wait for a goodbye, but turned on his heel and marched away, suddenly realizing that while he’d been talking to Steve Remington, good ol boy, that whoever he was looking for was long gone. Steve in turn collected the small raygun and the other device and headed to a window overlooking the greenbelt on the east end of the library wing.
///Outside main library////
Ryan didn't have Steve's tact. He simply ran. He opened the next door leading to the outside, and then he froze. His heart was beating a thousand times a minute. He braced himself against the wall outside.
He didn't want to use the weapon. He still didn't know if it would stun or not.
Panic set in. He didn't know what to do.
And then, it felt like everything slowed down.
Movement is your primary defense. Small actions, small steps, are sufficient a voice told him calmly.
In his memory, he watched as the man calmly grabbed a larger opponent and flipped him over.
The cop emerged from the doorway. Ryan grabbed him, and flipped him over with the same move. Surprise was on his side.
Another memory unlocked. Fighting in a cage. Not with rage. Something else. Bare fist pounding against flesh.
The cop tried to stand. Ryan punched him. The cop didn't get up again. "I can fight...." he said to himself in astonishment.
The second cop emerged from the library, taking out a weapon.
Ryan didn't think. He continued to run.
The cop braced his arm. “SOPD. STOP or I shoot!!!”
Ryan stopped and swore. He turned around, raising his hands.
"Get on the ground!" The cop ordered, and Ryan obeyed.
A sudden memory resurfaced in his mind. Some kind of green-skinned alien stood in front of his kneeling, teenage self, holding a weapon and grinning. The weapon fired. There was a bright flash.
Ryan blinked it away. He had no idea what that was. But he knew it was real. For the first time it occurred to him that aliens actually existed.
Steve watched the whole thing from the window on the second floor of the library. His stomach sank down into his heels somewhere, out of sight. He had been sure he was about to see his new friend, perhaps old friend, get shot dead on the greenbelt of the college library in Sherman Oaks California and he’d be left alone wondering what the hell was wrong with the two of them, why they had weapons that were somewhere else, and what would happen to Ryan when they could find no family to claim the body. But that’s not what happened.
Instead, Officer Garrett approached Ryan, weapon trained on him, while the other cop marched over, red with anger and slammed Ryan’s face into the ground, placed a knee in his back, grabbed his hair and pulled his head back painfully. “You are one dumb kid. You know that?” he shoved Ryan’s face back into the grass and proceeded to roughly put handcuffs on Ryan’s wrists, while the Garrett stood firmly with the gun two feet from Ryan’s ear.
“He might have a weapon,” Garrett reminded his partner.
The older cop jerked Ryan to his feet and patted him down, again rough, without mercy. He found the raygun and the other device. “Kid’s toys." He dropped them on the ground and spun Ryan around to face him.
“You think you’re a fighter! Well you won't have surprise on your side in the jailhouse, buddy. Let’s go.”
"I want a lawyer," Ryan snapped, but that sounded hollow, even to his own ears. Soon he was escorted toward the patrol car at the curb.
Garrett watched him go.
"Sargeant," a voice suddenly said at the end of the hall. Garrett stood at attention, his expression surprised.
"Chief! You didn't need to be here. It's a simple disturbance call."
"I was in the neighborbood. What's the status?" The chief of police, a tall man with a goatee asked.
"We have one in custody. Still looking for the other one."
The chief considered. "We need to find the other one. Make sure the one you have doesn't leave."
Garrett shrugged. "He's threatening to lawyer up...we could probably hold him for twenty-four hours before he bails..."
"He doesn't leave the station. No matter what," the Chief emphasized. "Stronger measures of containment have to be taken. Until we get direction from Aster."
"I don't understand."
"I know you don't," the Chief sighed. "Just follow my orders. I'll deal with the lawyers."
"Okay," Garett said. He quickly left, joining the other cop and Ryan in the patrol car.
The Chief looked around in annoyance. "It's always the small details...." He left, not noticing the weapon on the ground.
No soon than the cops left than Steve walked leisurely from the side door in the library and passed the raygun and other device on the ground, then stopped as if he had just noticed them. Taking a step back he bent down and picked them up, examined them, shrugged and stuck them in his belt and pocket respectively.
While his outside demeanor was calm and nonchalant, his mind was racing. How was he gonna get Ryan out of jail without implicating himself in the whole thing. He dug around in his front pocket and found there a money clip with two bills, $20 each. He headed back to the pub to think it over.
A JL by
Lieutenant Ryan Collingway
Chief Engineering Officer
USS Arawyn
&
Lieutenant Commander Steve Remington
Chief Science Officer
USS Arawyn
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