Free Borrowed Time by Jack Campbell

shop I was passing. The impact of my shoulder against the door was muffled by the crash of a weapon discharging, then a chunk of the door frame blew apart. I scrambled the rest of the way inside and ran for the back of the shop as more shots ripped up parts of the structure and the merchandize. The gape-mouthed storekeeper hadn’t had time to yell as I rushed past and hit the rear exit, finding myself in another noxious alley.
    “We are being pursued,” Jeannie announced as I dashed past mounds of refuse.
    “I’d noticed. Did you recognize her?”
    “No.”
    Not likely someone I’d ever met, then. A cross-alley entrance loomed and I swung around into it as another shot ripped through the space where I’d been and exploded downrange. Whoever psycho-blond was and wherever she came from, she wasn’t worried at all about blowing her temporal cover, and she really wanted me dead.
    The cross-alley was short, coming out on another street. As I slid out into the thoroughfare, barely missing a horse-drawn cab making its way through the crowds, I remembered my old Temporal Survival instructor’s advice. Do the unexpected. In this case, the expected would be for me to run down a street filled with other people who were walking.
    I cupped my hands and yelled as loud as I could. “They’re on to you! Run for your life!”
    At least half a dozen men and one woman began running as people stared at them. I yelled again. “For God’s sake, run!”
    Most of the crowd did what crowds usually do. They panicked. In a moment, the street was full of people pushing and stampeding in all directions. I ignored them, heading instead for the nearby cab.
    The cabby fought his wild-eyed horse to a standstill and began shoving his cab forward through the mess. I yanked open the door, hopped inside and smiled at the two women staring back at me. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”
    The older woman eyed me warily. “Yes. You are . . . ?”
    I dredged up a period name from memory. “Alfie. You remember me.”
    Barely visible through the edge of one of the cab’s windows, my pursuer came out of the alley like death incarnate, her hand weapon jerking back and forth as she scanned the crowd. I tried to keep smiling at the two women despite the sweat I could feel forming on my skin, desperately hoping they wouldn’t scream and draw psycho-blond’s attention.
    “Alfie?” The younger one suddenly smiled. “Oh, yes. Ascot!”
    “Yes! Ascot!”
    “How did that work out, Alfie?”
    “Uh . . . fine.”
    “Fancy you being here.” More shots boomed down the street. I couldn’t be sure, but they seemed to be going away from me and the cab. “What do you suppose is happening out there?”
    The older woman gave her a stern glance. “Don’t look. It’s not our affair. But if this gentleman would be so kind?”
    I kept my smile fixed in place even though my cheeks were beginning to ache. “Of course.” I cautiously looked out. Amid the Victorian hats streaming away from us, a head of blond hair was visible fighting its way along. Then the cab turned a corner and cut off the view. I started breathing again.
    “What is it?”
    “I couldn’t tell. Odd, eh? Nice seeing you again.” I was out of the cab and back on the street before they could say anything else. One street away, the panic I’d started was already being swallowed into the inertia of the city. The entire incident, crazed blond shooter included, might merit a couple of sentences in the next day’s papers. “Jeannie, how far are we now from Kampf’s place?”
    “Two hundred meters.”
    I found the street and the address, a four-storied rooming house of some sort. Kampf’s room was on the third floor, so I headed up the narrow stairs.
    The man who answered my knock peered suspiciously at me. “Yes?”
    “Mr. Kampf?”
    “Yes?”
    “I know something about Miss Riefenstahl.”
    “Then you know when I met her.”
    “That was in 1934, right?”
    His eyebrows rose, then he squinted