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      13:00

      “That's... something you don't get to see very often!” I had to admit.

      Actually it was something you usually didn't get to see at all. I mean, ever! At least not in your own lifetime. For obvious reasons.

      “Looks like me,” I said.

      “It is you.”

      “And I am really dead?”

      “Yup!”

      There you are, obvious reason!

      “So, I presume...”

      “Oh, don't presume. It is you and you are dead,” Cause confirmed.

      “Bedside manner?!” I asked.

      “I am not your doctor, am I?” He glanced at the body. “And even if I was, there would be nothing I could do.”

      “You could be...”

      “More nicely? More not so brisk? In a 'Hey, Sal, I've got good news and bad news for you, the bad news is, that you're dead and the good news is... you can find out who did it' kind of way?!”

      “Would have sounded nicer.”

      “It would?”

      “No, come to think of it, it wouldn't.”

      “My condolences, if that should help.”

      “It does not.”

      “Actually, I didn't think it would,” he admitted. Ethan Cause, Time Travel Detective of the Polizeit... just like me, only less dead. Well, actually I wasn't dead... yet!

      Cause smiled at me.

      “What?”

      “You just figured it out, didn't you?”

      “Figured what out?”

      “That you are not dead yet. Sooo...”

      “I can find out how I died?”

      He smiled brightly.

      “Exactly. Isn't that exciting?”

      “Would you find it exciting to investigate your own murder?”

      “I would love it!”

      And I believed him. Yes, he would. He was one of those people who actually liked time travel and the whole shebang. He would get a kick out of this. Finding his own body, not knowing, what happened to it, to him... to me, to be exact. It wasn't his corpse we were all staring at. It was mine. And I still hadn't gotten over that. How in the nine hells of time travel could that be? Well, I guess I answered that myself. By time travel, obviously. But that didn't explain why it was here and now and dead and foremost: who the fuck did it???

      “So do you want it?” Cause asked.

      “Want what?”

      “The case.” He pointed at my dead body. “Of your murder.” He looked at the coroner. “Murder?” The doctor nodded. “Murder. So, evidently this was not an accident, someone did this to you. Would you like to find out who it was or would you prefer someone else to do it?”

      “Is it allowed... I mean, I'm part of this investigation.”

      “Yeah, well, this is the Polizeit, so... nothing we do does really make sense. Investigate your own murder? Sure, why not? What could go wrong? Get yourself killed? Well, too late for that, isn't it?”

      “Is it?”

      “You know the answer, Sal.”

      “History can't be changed.”

      “It usually can not, no.”

      “What if this isn't a usual situation?”

      “Oh, it is none,” he grinned. “That we know for sure. But can it be changed? Well, doesn't seem like an Uncertainty Principle thingy to me. So do you want it or not?”

      “Since when is that your decision to make?”

      “It's not, but I talked to Captain Fect and she says it is. If you're up to the task.”

      “You bet your ass I am.”

      “I'd rather bet yours, but I concur.” His smile changed. “Good luck, Sal.”

      “Thanks, Ethan.”

      He turned around and left.

      I turned around and glanced at the coroner.

      “Good pep talk,” he grinned.

      “You got a better one?”

      “I got none at all. Also no bedside manner – and I am a doctor.”

      “For the dead.”

      “More of the dead... but that doesn't matter, does it? What matters is...” He pointed at...

      “It's a corpse, Agent Schick. A body. A dead body. Your dead body. I'm afraid you have to face this fact.”

      “I'm still working on it.”

      “I can see that, but there is nothing helpful I could tell you.” He gave it a quick thought. “No, that came out wrong. There is nothing uplifting to say to you, like 'everything will be fine' or bullshit like that. Everything will not be fine, at least not for you. You, my friend, are gonna die. And not in a distant future and of old age, you are gonna die from a... gunshot wound, if I see that correctly. You also had a brief encounter with a knife...

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