Sixty Minutes

"Your situation is an unusual one, Mr. Jones."

The man wore a black hat and a black suit with shiny silver buttons. Something about them was distracting- Anthony was having a hard time focusing on his face.

"You, Mr. Jones, are dead. Heart attack, Atlanta, Georgia. 7:07 and 8 seconds EST, as you waited at a gate to board a plane to Taiwan. 36 years, 8 months."

Anthony jolted out of his stupor, trying to ignore a rapidly approaching migraine. "Dead? As in, dead dead?"

"Yes, Mr. Jones," the man said dryly, "Dead dead."

He spoke without menace, but a chill rose up Anthony's spine. "What... what happens now? Heaven? Hell?"

"That, Mr. Jones," the man said with interest, "is the reason your situation is unusual." He toyed with his watch, then resumed speaking.

"I will not burden you with the details of the normal process, but as it turns out, you aren't part of it at all. You weren't supposed to die when you did. Your life- approximately one hour of it- was removed by a... fugitive, let us say. A deviant from the normal course. He brushed past you three minutes ago Maroon suit and hat. Briefcase. You won't remember him."

"You're right, I don't. He killed me?"

"Not exactly. We're currently locating him, but the essential fact is that there's one hour of your life unaccounted for. We want it back, and we're never getting it from him... which is where you come in."

"Me?"

"You, Mr. Jones. You see, my influence is limited by his presence. I can find him, with a mild expenditure, but I cannot capture him. You, however, can.

My proposal is this: I will grant to you the one hour of life which you are owed. Using that one hour, you will detain him under my guidance. I will remove him to elsewhere, where he will await trial."

Anthony's mind was beginning to clear. "Wait. What do I get out of this? What's my payment?"

The man smiled. Or did he? Anthony suddenly realized he could not see the man's face, although nothing seemed to be obscuring it. He concentrated, but to no avail- his eyes could not focus correctly.

"You, Mr. Jones, will receive a percentage. A great deal of resources have been tied up in this man, you see- he has been on the run for a very long time. Over six thousand years of life. You will be paid one percent of that total: 67 years or so, to use as you see fit."

Anthony stared. "And you'll tell me what to do? It'll be as easy as that?"

The man nodded again. "You will have sixty minutes, the sixty minutes you have anyway."

"Why the time limit? Can't you give me more than that?"

A shake of the head. "We can't expend time on cases like yours. We can only give you back what was taken. Your situation is so unusual because you died so quickly after his intervention. It's a tight loophole, but technically I'm allowed to contact you in this way, then send you back. If I may be frank, I'm risking my job on this exchange."

The room was beginning to fade. Or had it been there at all? He noticed all at once that he had no idea what it looked like. “Yes or no, Mr. Jones? It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

Anthony felt a sudden jab of electricity course through his nerves, knocking the breath out of him. "Yes!" he gasped. "Please! I'll do it!"

He experienced a sudden lifting sensation, then a flash of heat. And then the body of Anthony Jones, on the tiles of the airport floor, gasped once, twice, and breathed again.

A blurry crowd around him dispersed as he staggered weakly to his feet, nearly slipping on broken glass. He kicked aside his briefcase, shrugged his laptop bag off his shoulder. "Where? Where is he?”

He glanced at his watch, the watch he hadn't been wearing before. He heard the voice of the man again; ''Sixty minutes, Mr. Jones. You're on the clock. ''The second hand swiveled like a compass needle, pointing towards- Anthony froze, trying to map out the airport in his head- the main terminal. He sprinted to the balcony- there, four flights of stairs down, a man in a maroon hat. He glanced at the escalator, then the elevator, unsure which would be faster.

The elevator door opened as he stood, paralyzed by indecision. On impulse, he scrambled inside and pressed the button for the ground floor. Ignoring the dumbfounded man in the corner, he forced the doors shut, hoping to gain any time he could.

Breathing heavily, Anthony stood there as the elevator began to lower. His mind was racing with options, preparing him for the chase, laser-focused on the man he had to catch. He knew he could not afford to lose a second, or become distracted...

"Buddy? Hey, buddy, listen!"

He snapped out of his reverie, turning to the other man. He had a mustache and an angry expression, and was carrying some sort of box. "What? What is it?"

The man’s accented voice dropped with sarcasm. "This elevator's broken, buddy. I tried to tell you. I'm here to fix it, see? And we're stuck here until I can."

Anthony paled as the reality of what the man was saying penetrated his thoughts. "Stuck? How... how long are we stuck?"

"Well, this isn't an easy job to do, see. If I could get to the stuff I left outside, I'd be done pretty quickly. But now we're locked in, and those doors took a beating. You're not supposed to do that to 'em."

Anthony shook the man by his shoulders, violently and abruptly. "How long, damn it? How long?!"

"Could be a while," the man said, startled momentarily out of his annoyance. "But at the very least, I'd say... oh... sixty minutes."