Chapter 5:

The smell of gasoline permeated the air as Jamie poured it atop Mara's nice white couches in the living room. He shook it out on to book stacks, rugs, wood furniture; anything that would burn easily. Once he was done with one room he'd make a trail of gas leading into the next so when he'd light it, the whole apartment would go up at once.

Mara kept her focus on Mike who leveled his gun to her head. Her heart was racing at the sight of the end of the barrel but she managed to keep her nerves clam and her breathing even.

"Alright, give me your arm Timekeeper," Mike demanded, insistently stretching out his hand to grip her wrist. Mara paused for a moment then realized that, instead of shooting her, he wanted to drain her clock. Glancing up at him and then back down to his hand, she let him take hold of her arm and he began to steal her time upon contact. "I'll leave you a couple seconds left. Technically your blood won't be on my hands then."

"And you'll be able to sleep at night," she finished sarcastically.

Mike smirked, re-gripping her arm so he could get a better hold on her. "Something like that," he said with a nod.

"You're not from Zone 12 are you?" She asked, staring keenly into his eyes. Her gaze unnerved him but he wasn't about to let her know that. After all he had the upper hand.

"I may be poor but I was never that poor," he answered with a slight snigger looking down at the numbers on her clock as they quickly depleted.

"Clearly," Mara replied, her eyes narrowing, "because if you were, you would know what I'm about to do next." Grabbing a hold of his wrist, Mara violently twisted it in her hand so the bones cracked and flipped him down onto the floor. Once he was down, she kicked the gun out of his reach and pressed her foot down hard onto his windpipe as she stole her time back from him. Replenishing her clock, she released him from her hold and ran into her office where the window to the fire escape was. Jamie was in the other room and Mike was laying on the ground yelling for him to go after her, there was no time to waste now.

Sliding across the wood floor and getting behind her desk, Mara snatched her backpack and Hillary's time capsule off of her office chair. She then tugged off her jacket, wrapped it around her knuckles and turned to face the window behind her. Gripping the frame for support, she punched through the window glass. Mara then kicked out the jagged shards from around the pane and slipped through onto the rusted fire escape. Flames had begun to spread into the room and quickly licked up the side of the walls of her office; Jamie must have lit the gasoline to try and smoke her out. Swinging over the railing she grabbed onto a drain pipe which was bolted to the side of the building and slid down it into the alley. The palms of her hands stung from being drug down the pipe but Mara briskly shook the pain off and looked up at her apartment window. It was glowing amber yellow from the light of the fire. Soon enough, smoke began pouring out of it, filling the night air with debris.

She knew a Timekeeper would have to come and investigate the scene so all she had to do was stand out front of the building, watch it burn, and wait for her ride to the agency. Yet, Mike and Jamie were going to hit the streets looking for her any minute and there was still something she had to do before she could relax. Shaking out the glass from her jacket, Mara slipped it on over her sports bra and headed back into the building.

Quickly ducking into her landlord's office, Mara watched quietly through a small crack in the door as Mike and Jamie ran down the stairs and into the street looking for her. Closing the door fully she searched her landlord's desk for the keys to his filing cabinet. She had to get rid of every scrap of evidence that would prove she ever lived there. Menken's boys had already torched her apartment and now all that was left for her to do was clean out the landlord's records of her residency. She could not afford to pay for the damages on the building and the agency would rather have her expunge her records than be involved in the mess.

Snatching up a set of keys from an empty cigar box in the third desk drawer Mara headed over to the cabinet and began trying them in the lock to see which one would fit. After a little jostling of the lock, she cracked the drawer open and fingered through the files. Finding one with her name on it she dumped it into the trashcan next to the desk. That was over a decade of her residency, her life, and it was reduced down to only one measly file; she had checked all of the cabinet drawers for more paperwork but that was all there was. As she searched the office she picked up any files on Hillary Shaw and dumped them in the trashcan too.

She wasn't sorry she was erasing it, she had uprooted her life before, presumably in search of something better, but regardless of the reason she could do it again. Besides, this time she had the agency to back her decision, it wasn't like she wasn't acting alone. And Hillary, well, she was doing her a favor. Finding a discarded Zippo lighter next to the plastic ashtray atop the desk she set the trash on fire. Mara made sure it burned every scrap of paperwork and then wiped the computer hard drive.

By the time she was back out into the apartment lobby there was a crowd of people running down the stairs trying to evacuate. Pushing through the mob, Mara made it outside and into the street. The fire alarm blared loud even outside in the cold night. Fear and tension hung in the air as they all stared up at the flames licking out of the broken windows of Mara's apartment. Two fire trucks pulled in followed by an ambulance. The fire fighters immediately went to work on setting up the hoses and pushing the crowd away from the building.

Mara stood on the outskirts of the mob, trying not to draw any attention to herself. Most of the residents wouldn't recognize her and those who would she never talked to. Hopefully they would think she was a passerby who just happened to see the flames and stopped to see what was going on. She then saw the flash of bright white lights out of the corner of her eye. Looking over her shoulder, she saw an agency car pull up in the alley across the street. She waited for the driver to turn off the engine and to come out but the car only idled there. Suddenly her phone began vibrating in her pocket.

Pulling it out, she answered, "Hello?"

"Timekeeper Ferris, it's Leon." Mara turned and looked at the agency car in surprise. She could not see him through the tinted glass but she knew he was inside. Typical, out of all the Timekeepers in the office Leon had to be the one to show up on the scene, she thought. "What are you doing here?" He asked, "I thought I said you could go home this afternoon."

"This is my home," she answered wryly, "the apartment that's on fire to be exact."

"What happened?" Raymond asked, looking at her figure standing on the edge of the crowd and then up at the building. He was neither concerned nor amused.

"Two of Menken's men came looking for my roommate. I just found out today that she owes them money- apparently it was collection day."

"Was she in the apartment with you?" He asked, hoping there was no dead body they'd have to explain.

"No, she wasn't home," Mara sighed, running her fingers through her hair. She was cold, sweaty and smelled like smoke. All of this was beginning to become quite uncomfortable. "They mistook me for her; torched the apartment and tried to kill me."

Raymond smirked, "Looks like they succeeded in doing only one of those things, congratulations."

Mara wasn't quite sure if that was a complement or not. "Yeah well, regardless this whole thing's a mess," she said patting the soot off of her clothes.

"But not the agency's mess right; you cleaned out your records didn't you?" He asked wanting to make sure she did her job.

"Yeah," Mara nodded. "As far as anyone's concerned, I never existed."

"Good, now come over," he told her, his tone more casual. "I'll drive you to headquarters. You can sleep in your office tonight."

"Thanks, be right over," she told him. The prospect of sleeping on her office couch was not so terrible. At least she knew it would be far removed from any Minutemen. She seemed to be having a lot of trouble with them lately.

Hanging up the phone, Mara then saw her landlord forcibly cutting himself a path through the mob of people and making a B-line straight for her. He was an immigrant from some Eastern European country Mara couldn't discern and she could see that he was cussing in his first language. The anger was written all over his face and Mara thought he was going to try and slug her.

"You and your friend did this!" He yelled accusingly as he stopped only feet away from her. "You will pay me every second you have for damages. I swear I will bring this to the highest authority, Timekeeper. You will not get away with this!"

"Look, sir, I don't even know you," she lied. Her words fell from her tongue as if it were second nature. "Now I'm going to have to ask you to step back."

"What! What are you talking about?" He cried out angrily. "I know you, you and your redhead friend- you trying to make me sound crazy? I'm not crazy! I have proof of you living here… I have you on file!"

Mara let out a long sigh of impatience, looked him dead in the eye and said, "there is no file. Now get out of my way."

He stared at her wide-eyed, mouth agape. He didn't have to run into his office and look in his paperwork to know that she had destroyed everything. All proof of her residency was destroyed. "I spent my entire life buying up these apartments, making a living, and you Timekeepers come in and just tear it down. This is America! It's supposed to be the land of opportunity, in America you're supposed to be able to make it here… but no! You won't let me, people like you! What am I supposed to do? You tell me, what am I supposed to do?"

"Sir, let me pass," she demanded authoritatively, pushing past him and heading over to Raymond's patrol car. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder she blocked out her landlord's pathetic cries as he yelled at the crowd of onlookers.

"I tried to make it! You see, I tried to make it!" He shouted as he pointed at the burning building, trying to push passed two firemen who were holding the perimeter.

Mara let out a slow and steady breath as she walked away from the scene, trying to maintain her heir of calm control. The cool breeze cut through the thin fabric of her jacket and she quickly pulled up the zip to cut out the cold. She needed to get a new set of clothes. First of all she smelled like hell spit her out and second she wasn't going to work the rest of the week in a sports bra and yoga pants. Reaching Raymond's car she slid into the passenger seat without so much as a 'hello'.

Raymond took in her disheveled appearance and heavy eyes; it looked like she had been through hell. He did feel a twinge of sympathy for her even though she seemed to be right in the middle of the latest mayhem.

"It seems you've had quite the day Timekeeper Ferris," he said as he put the car in gear and began driving out of the alley. He idled in the street outside of the apartment building for a moment, taking in the damage Menken's men had caused. They certainly wanted someone dead and no evidence to be left behind. However, what he really wanted to know was how Ferris fit into all of this.

Brushing her hair away from her face, Mara scanned the street for any sign of Hillary among the crowd. She saw only strangers and onlookers gazing up at the fire roaring from the windows of the top floor. Turning away and hunkering down in her seat she sighed, "Let's go."

AN: Hey! Here's another update for you. Please review, I will not continue to update if I don't hear from you. Leon will be featuring prominently in all future chapters and Weis will be introduced soon. Yay for a showing from the 1%!