A/N: Huge thanks to beta extraordinaire Babefan2019 for helping make this cohesive and shining it up. Any mistakes are mine alone because I'm a tinkerer. This is a short story inspired by the song "If the World Was Ending" by JP Saxe and Julia Michaels. If you check out the song, I'm sure you'll agree that there are major Babe vibes there. :-) This story is 4 chapters, which will be posted once per day over the next few days.

Chapter One

Stephanie

It was cold as a witch's tits outside, but my car still started on the first try. Margie at Tasty Pastry was experimenting with seasonal donuts again, and she'd hit on a real winner with the Hot Cocoa Cream. To top off my morning, I landed a primo parking spot right out front of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds. I had a dozen donuts and a spring in my step when I crossed the threshold into the welcoming warmth of the office. Probably the welcoming feeling had a lot to do with the fact that Vinnie himself was on vacation over a thousand miles away. I was also excited about the three body receipts that were burning a hole in my pocket.

"Good morning!" I knew the smile on my face was wider than should be legal before 9am on a Tuesday, but screw it - it was a good morning.

"It is now!" Lula said, eyeing my donut box. "Whatcha' got in there?"

I deposited the donuts on top of Connie's desk and lifted the lid with a flourish while Lula heaved herself off the couch to investigate. Connie snagged one of the Hot Cocoa Creams and a jelly-filled, staking her claim before Lula could have her way with the rest of the box.

"What's up with you?" Connie asked, looking me up and down. "Why so cheery?"

"Just having a good day." I dug in my messenger bag and pulled out my body receipts, waving them in the air like sparklers as I plopped into the chair across from Connie. "Yesterday was a good day, too."

"Damn straight," Lula agreed with a mouthful of donut. Clouds of powdered sugar puffed from her mouth and landed on her considerable cleavage. "I think we're finally getting the hang of this bounty huntering stuff."

Connie's gaze was locked on the body receipts, and her heavily-penciled eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. "You got all three?"

"Yep." I slapped the receipts down on her desk.

"How much did we make yesterday?" Lula asked.

"It'll come out to a little over a thousand for each of us," I told her. I'd already done the math. When combined with the existing funds in my checking account, it was enough to cover my living expenses for the month. I could breathe easy.

Connie was holding the rest of the jelly-filled between her teeth while she used her free hand to click around on her computer. "And that means the open files are almost completely cleared."

I'd been honing in on another donut, but my eyes flew to Connie. "What do you mean, 'almost'? Those were the last of them."

She shook her head and left me in suspense while she finished chewing and then masterfully licked her fingers without smudging her lipstick. When she was finished, she leaned back in her chair. "Got another one who failed to appear yesterday."

The feeling of accomplishment was nice while it lasted, but I wasn't going to let this newcomer rain on my parade. If nothing else, it meant job security, right?

"Who is it?" I made grabby motions with my fingers while Connie rummaged in her drawer.

She handed over a lightweight file. "His name's Duncan Hines."

Lula popped her head up, momentarily distracted from her third donut. "Hold up. I know that name. Why do I know that name?"

"I know that name too," I said. "My mom uses their cake mix sometimes. But if anyone asks, it's always from scratch."

"Yeah, at first I thought it was a fake," Connie said. "But I saw his IDs myself. That's his real name."

"What did he do?" I asked, opening up the file. In addition to his mugshot, Connie had pulled a couple of photos from his social media plus one that looked like it was for a passport or maybe a work ID. He was a thirty-eight-year-old Data Analyst who lived in Hamilton Township. He had sandy brown hair that flopped over his forehead. Freckles dotted the bridge of his nose and his cheeks, and his eyes were the color of honey. "He's cute."

"Lemme see," Lula said, reaching for the file.

"There was a laundry list of charges from his former employer, ranging from verbal abuse, to destruction of property, to indecent exposure and public urination." Connie counted off his offenses on the fingers of her free hand.

"Yikes," I said.

"Dang, he is a cutie." Lula leaned in for closer examination, dripping a glob of Hot Cocoa Cream on the file. "He's got freaking dimples."

That was true. "Do dimples outweigh public urination, though?"

"Depends on the situation," Lula decided. "Sometimes when you gotta go, you gotta go. Maybe it was one of those times."

"I don't think it was one of those times," Connie said. "Apparently he was pretty unhappy with his job, because he took a baseball bat to his computer and work station while yelling about data cleanliness and formatting. And once he'd smashed everything to bits, he peed on it."

My upper lip curled back. "Eeeuwww."

"I still think he's cute," Lula said. "If you're gonna go pick him up, count me in."

I shrugged. "May as well swing by. I've got no other files or plans for the day."

"Let's ride."

"Your car or mine?"

Lula reloaded both hands with a donut each. "You mind driving? On account of I haven't finished my breakfast yet."

###

Twenty minutes later, Lula and I were parked in front of Duncan Hines' apartment complex. It had a red brick exterior, just like my apartment, but that was where the similarities ended. My building was circa 1972, and no effort had been made to make it look anything but. Hines' building was brick alright, but combined with plenty of modern steel-trimmed windows, tidy landscaping, and shoveled pathways, it was giving off an entirely different vibe. Even the snow piled up beside the sidewalk was practically pristine, as compared to the gray slush that buried the rest of the city.

"Where are we?" Lula asked, looking down at her Maps app that had brought us here.

"This is it, right?"

"I guess so," she said. "But this wasn't what I was expecting. We don't usually get to chase skips around fancy-pants places like this."

Fancy was right. I was a little self-conscious about letting my car drip oil in the Visitor parking space. Guess that was all the more reason to get a move on. "It'll be a nice change of scenery."

We made our way up to the door and were momentarily stumped by the security system. "We need someone to buzz us in."

"Hang on, I've got this," Lula insisted. She punched the intercom button and we waited for one ring before a pleasant voice answered.

"Pinnacle Place, how can I help you?"

"I've got a special delivery for Mr. Smith and I need to be buzzed in," Lula said.

"One moment please while I check our deliveries schedule."

Lula turned to me with wide eyes and flared nostrils, then smacked the intercom until it disconnected.

"What the heck was that?" I demanded.

"I panicked," she admitted. "What kind of place keeps a schedule of peoples' deliveries? Who do they think is gonna try to get in here, that they gotta be so careful about it?"

"Bounty hunters?" I reminded her.

"Huhn." Then Lula pointed at a plaque next to the security system. "Guess you know what to do now."

I sighed. "Guess I do."

I dug my phone out of my back pocket and pulled my glove off so I could unlock it and dial. I got an answer on the first ring. "Rangeman Security."

"It's Stephanie," I said. "And I have a little problem I'm hoping you can help with."

"Where are you?" The response was hurried and considerably less relaxed than the initial greeting. I didn't recognize who I was speaking to, but I could picture him leaning forward in his chair, poised to summon the troops to immediate action.

"Everything's fine," I clarified, and there was an answering release of breath on the other end of the line. "But I'm at the Pinnacle Place apartment complex off Olden Avenue. I'm outside, and my skip is inside. I'm wondering if you can help me fix that."

"One minute," the Rangeman replied. There was some keyboard clacking, and then about thirty seconds later, the door in front of me made some clicking sounds. "Try it now."

"Open sesame," I said for fun while I grasped the door handle and pulled. The gust of warm air from the lobby was most welcome. "We're in. Thanks."

"Anytime."

"See, that was easy," Lula commented as she followed me inside. "It's nice to have friends in high places."

"It's sort of nice to have skips in high places, too," I observed. The lobby was light and airy. No iffy smells, no questionable sounds drifting through thin walls, and no big hulking guy in the corner giving us side-eye. It was a definite improvement over the hideaways of the three skips we'd hunted yesterday.

My paperwork told me that Duncan Hines was in apartment 612, and I had another moment of gratitude for the Pinnacle Place maintenance staff. A functioning elevator was a nice change of pace. During the short ride, Lula and I strategized our capture. "Hines seems like a mostly reasonable guy, so I'm just going to feed him the regular line about rescheduling his court date. Hopefully he'll be cooperative."

"Reasonable?" Lula questioned. "Did you read the part in his file about the baseball bat and the pee-pee?"

"My guess is that he reached a breaking point over something at work, and had a little episode." I could understand that, having been there myself, although my episodes thankfully hadn't involved bodily functions. "Probably he's had enough time to calm down by now."

"Guess we'll find out," Lula muttered while I raised my fist to knock on the door of 612.

There were some shuffling sounds from inside, then a muffled thump. "Ow, shit. I'm coming!" More shuffling, and then the door swung open to reveal Hines. He was holding a nearly-empty margarita glass complete with a little paper umbrella, and wearing nothing but a grin. Surprise was the only excuse I had for why my eyes wandered far enough to notice that he was happy to see us, although his happiness was wilting almost as fast as his grin. "What the hell?"

"Um," was all I managed at first. Hines had spun his back to us, and I couldn't help but notice that his cheeks weren't the only place he had dimples. He had those little divots on his lower back that accentuated his well-defined butt. When he turned back toward the open door, my eyes were still somewhere south of his face, where he was covering himself with a throw pillow he'd apparently snagged off a nearby chair. He didn't sound happy when he demanded to know who we were, so I dragged my gaze up past his six-pack until I landed back on his face. "My name is Stephanie, and I'm here because you missed your court date and you need to come with me to reschedule."

"Why would I do that?" he asked.

"Because you're in violation of your bond agreement, and if you don't, a warrant will be issued for your arrest. You'll also lose the collateral that you posted when you took your bond," I explained.

He blinked slowly, and then tipped his margarita glass back and drained what little was left. The paper umbrella fell out and hit him in the eye before it fluttered to the ground. He bent to pick it up, mooning us again with the possibly-third-best-ass-in-Trenton and then stumbling a little when he righted himself. That's about when I realized the man was less than sober.

"Who are you again?" he asked.

I resisted the urge to smack myself on the forehead.

"This here is Stephanie, but I might be willing to be whoever you want me to be," Lula said. "Who were you expecting when you gave us such an enthusiastic greeting?"

Hines got a little more color in his cheeks and muttered his answer to his margarita glass. "You know… company."

"You greet all your company naked?" I asked.

"I don't always have special company, but when I do, yeah. You got a problem with that?"

I was abstaining from answering, but Lula was shaking her head, her eyes still caught up on his six-pack.

Hines ran his gaze over Lula, and he must've liked what he saw, because his grin started to come back online. Thankfully the pillow was still concealing his Mr. Happy.

I decided to steer us back in the right direction. "Why don't you go put some clothes on, and then Lula and I will drive you down to the station to reschedule your court date."

"No, thanks."

The door caught on my foot while he tried to close it. "It's not exactly optional. When you signed your bond agreement, you listed your car as collateral. Since you didn't show up for your court date, you're now in violation of your bond and Vinnie will take possession of your car if we don't get this sorted out."

"Whatever, he can take it. It's not like I'll be needing it." Hines snorted, and then wobbled into the doorframe while he chuckled.

"I suppose it's not like you've got a job to go back to," Lula reasoned.

"Good riddance to that soul-sucking hell hole!" Hines gestured violently with his empty margarita glass, and although it was mostly empty, I still stepped back out of the splash zone. "Fuck if I'm gonna spend my last days on earth cleaning up other people's shit!"

Since Hines' old position had been as a Data Analyst, I could only assume he was talking about figurative shit.

"What are you talking about, last days?" Lula asked. "Are you dying? Cause if you're dying, then I expect we could make an exception, right?" She looked to me for approval.

"We're all dying," Hines said. Lula dodged more margarita droplets.

"That's true I suppose," I agreed. "But are you dying sooner than the rest of us?"

"No, you don't get it," he said. "We're all dying. Tomorrow. At 3:28 am."

We let that settle over us for a second. Lula's eyes got wide. "Say what?"

"It's the end of the world," Hines said. Then he hiccuped.

"Well, crap," Lula said.

"Right. So if you'll excuse me, I need a refill and you need to get out of here before my company comes."

"Hold up. You don't just go around telling people the world is ending, and then give us nothing more than a shoo out the door. I'm gonna need some more information. How sure are you about this?" Lula demanded.

"Positive."

"It's not that I'm not a trusting person, but there's been lots of guys who've said the world's gonna end, but at the end of the day, I still had to pay my bills. So I'm not so sure that this is a good enough reason for us not to bring you in on your bond," Lula said.

"It's a done deal," Hines said. "I know I got the calculations right this time."

"This time?" I asked, at the same time that Lula asked, "Calculations?"

He rolled his eyes and sort of stumbled into the doorframe again. "I mean, if you're going to be nitpicky about it, then yeah, I had it wrong before. A butt load of data went into the calculation, and it wasn't simple, okay?"

"When's the last time that the world was supposed to end?" I'd blame my question on morbid curiosity.

"December 7th."

That made sense based on the dates in his file. "I suppose that's why you quit your job in such memorable fashion on December 5th."

"I'm an upstanding guy, alright?" Hines slurred. "I was going to just keep doing my thing, but there's only so much a guy can take. I used to like my job. I like analysis, and using data to solve hyp - hyper - hypertheses."

"Hypotheses," I suggested.

He saluted me with his margarita glass. "But I kept telling them - crap in, crap out. The results are only gonna be as good as the data you put in, and I couldn't get anyone to validate their fucking data!"

Crap in, crap out. There was something to consider. Maybe I had the same problem. Maybe it wasn't that I was a less-than-effective bounty hunter, but that I was going after less-than-averagely-intelligent skips.

"And all the sudden, it just hit me," Hines continued. "I didn't want to spend my last days on earth working in that fucking closet of an office, surrounded by morons. So I quit."

"In spectacular fashion," Lula added. "Although maybe you could have just smashed the computer, and not peed on it."

His cheeks got some color again and he had the good grace to look embarrassed. "I got carried away."

"So what did you spend your last days on earth doing?" Lula asked.

"I hopped on a plane to Vegas," he said. "I didn't even pack or anything. I just went with the clothes on my back and the credit cards in my pocket."

"So you went on a binger."

"I wouldn't call it that. I lived like the other half lives. Even if only for a couple of days."

"But then the world didn't end," Lula pointed out. "What happened then?"

Hines nodded his head back and forth. "That wasn't entirely in the plan, and it was kind of a bummer, since I hadn't been real careful with my spending. It's a good thing my credit card bills aren't due for another week, because I'd be in trouble if I had to pay those."

"I can relate," I said.

"So all of this says to me that you were wrong before," Lula said. "What makes you think you're right about the end of the world this time?"

"All I had was a wrong decimal," Hines explained. "I thought it was 12.7, but it was 1.27. See?"

"Okay, but what sort of data are you using?" I asked.

Hines scoffed. "Only all of the reference points that have ever been prophesized or pointed to world extinction."

"Is that a lot?" Lula asked.

He snorted and then devolved into chuckles.

"Okay, let's assume it's a lot," I reasoned. "How is it that this is the first we're hearing about it? You discovered that the world was ending, and you didn't think to tell anyone?"

He waved his hand at me like he was shooing a fly. "I told everyone. All of the communities I'm involved in, even some religious sects. It's not my data set, you know. This is widely accessible online. I was just the only one who has successfully created an algorithm that could process all of it and return a viable result."

Viable was still up for debate, in my book. "What did they have to say about it?"

"They're making their preparations." Hines shrugged. "I suggest you do the same."

I sighed. All of this was a little over my head, and frankly, all this talk of the end of the world was starting to put a damper on my good day vibes. "I'm guessing you wouldn't want to do us a favor and make our last day easier by coming down to the station to reschedule your court date?"

"I know how this works," Hines said. "I'm not stupid. The judge has to decide whether to let me bond out again, and if he doesn't, I have to wait in jail."

Damn. My job was a little easier when they didn't know exactly what was going to happen once I dropped them off. "That hardly ever happens."

"I can't risk spending my last night on earth in jail," he said.

"I can see that," Lula said. I gave her my patented Burg death glare, but she was immune. "How about, if we're all still here tomorrow, we can come back then and you'll come with us to the station. No muss, no fuss."

"Deal," Hines agreed.

I headed down the hall before Hines could turn around and moon me again. Lula caught up with me at the elevator. "That didn't exactly go as planned."

"No kidding," she said. "One minute, we're boppin' along doing the bounty hunter thing, and then bam! End of the world. Just when I was starting to feel like we were getting the hang of it."

"You don't really think the world is ending, do you?"

"In my former profession, I learned pretty quick not to believe everything I heard just cause a pretty man said it," she told me.

I relaxed a little, realizing that I wasn't going to have to talk Lula off the cliff. "Exactly."

"But still," she said thoughtfully. "Suppose it couldn't hurt to see to my affair. You know, just in case."

"You mean like a will?"

She snorted. "What good is a will gonna do me if the world is ending?"

"Good point. So what, then?"

"I told you, my affair. I got one going right now that's pretty hot and heavy."

"You mean the Mystery Man?" I asked, although it wasn't a mystery. Lula and Tank had been seeing each other for nearly six weeks. They were trying to keep it under wraps, although I didn't know why. Lester was running book at Rangeman, and even I had a little money on how long I thought they'd keep up the ruse.

"Mmhmm," Lula hummed. She was getting that faraway dreamy look on her face. The elevator doors dinged open on the ground floor and I rushed out before she could tell me anything that couldn't be unheard.

"Are you still coming back to the office?" I asked.

"Sure, but I'm not gonna go in. I'm just gonna pick up my car and then take a personal day."

I suppose that's how I would chalk this up, too. A personal day. Since Hines was my only outstanding skip and I had a good handle on his whereabouts, that didn't leave me much else to do - either at the office or outside of it. Maybe I'd get a manicure.

We pushed through the front doors and back into the frigid morning air, which froze the breath in my lungs. I squinted in defense against the cold while all the moisture in my eyeballs tried to freeze, and rushed to the car. I used my handy-dandy remote to unlock the doors so we could both vault ourselves inside and slam the doors behind us. I fished the key out of my bag and hastily shoved it in the ignition and cranked it, hoping we weren't inside long enough that we wouldn't have any heat left.

But as it turned out, I'd set my hopes a little too high. The engine sputtered and died. I set the key back and cranked it again, holding my breath. Sputter and death. I took a deep breath, held it, and tried again. Same result. I leaned forward and banged my head against the steering wheel a few times.

"Damn," Lula said. "I guess I should have drove."

My breath came out in a sigh, and I left my head where it was, my nose plastered against the horn.

"We gonna call Batman for a ride?" she asked.

I resisted the urge to sigh again. Batman, aka Ranger, aka Ricardo Carlos Manoso, aka my mentor/friend/lover, was generally my first call in situations like this. Of which I'd had many. Ranger had a seemingly endless supply of black SUVs, and he was generous about lending them out. At least to me. The problem was with Ranger's many names. In particular, the 'lover' part. Although it had been a few months since Ranger and I had last had a more-than-friendly encounter, I'd been having a little trouble compartmentalizing. I knew that Ranger didn't have those same troubles, so I'd been giving myself some space to figure my shit out and lock it up.

"I'll call Rangeman," I decided. "Maybe they can send a patrol car."

That was a little better than calling Ranger's cell. Less direct. And it was a fine solution, since I was pretty sure that the 'maybe' wasn't really a question.

"This is too bad, seeing how you were on such a roll," Lula said.

"What do you mean?"

"You said yourself it was a good day. I was thinking, even if the world does end, it wouldn't be so bad to go out on a good day, right? Me, I got my honey to help me make it a good day. Maybe you should get some birthday cake or something to even out the car going kaput."

It had been a good day. I got a decent paycheck, and I'd had Hot Cocoa Cream donuts. Up until now, my car had started each time I'd tried it. Was that all it took? Some money in my pocket, a donut in hand, and I was a happy camper? Sure. I didn't tend to think of myself as particularly high-maintenance or difficult to please. But if today were my last day on earth, would those things really help me die happy?

Well, jeez.

"Or maybe you should call Batman after all," Lula suggested.

"No," I decided. "I'm calling Rangeman."

And so I did. I got the same man who answered the phone the first time, and I still couldn't put the voice to a name, but he told me that there was a patrol car in the area and that they could be at Pinnacle Place in eight minutes. I thanked him and hung up. Lula was texting away, so I took the opportunity to check my own phone. No texts. No missed calls. No emails. No social media notifications. I stuck the phone back in my pocket and fought back some existential dread by sheer force of will.

I snuck back into Lula's attention a few minutes later after her thumbs presumably got tired "You okay? You sick or something?"

My eyes had been unfocused and I'd been doing my best to keep my thoughts the same. I pulled my gaze back to Lula. "If today really were your last day on earth, what would you be doing?"

She picked up her phone and waggled it at me. "Give me another hour, and I'll be doing it. I told you, I'm not taking no risks. I'm gonna live today like it is my last day on earth."

"But what does that mean?" I asked, genuinely curious. "Aside from seeing your Mystery Man, what else?"

"What else do I need? My honey makes me happy. Maybe we'll go out to dinner at that fondue place I love."

"That's it?" I asked. "Isn't there anything else you feel like you need to do, if today is all you have left?"

"Nu-uh," she said. "It's my life philosophy that makes it easy."

"You have a life philosophy?" I asked.

"Yeah. Don't you?"

"I don't think so."

"Huhn," she said. "Well mine is 'there's no day but today'. It means that if I want to do something, I do it."

That did sort of explain a lot about Lula. I bounced that around in my head for a minute. "Isn't that a line from a musical?"

"Yeah, that's another life philosophy of mine - don't reinvent the wheel. I got better things to do with my time than make a whole life philosophy from scratch."

"So you're telling me that whatever you want, you just do it, right then? No sleeping on it, no talking yourself out of it? No 'maybe later' or 'maybe someday'?"

"There's no day but today," she repeated.

"Huh."

"I'm thinking it's time for you to pick a life philosophy," Lula said. "It doesn't have to be same as mine, but I'm thinking you need one sooner rather than later."

"Because the world is ending?"

"Sure, that, and because here comes Batman."

I jerked my head around to follow her gaze in time to watch a black Rangeman SUV park nose-to-nose with us. Sure enough, Ranger was behind the wheel. So much for my avoidance plan. There's no day but today, indeed.