Timecaster

TWELVE

I knew what happened next and fumbled for the remote, changing the channel.

It didn’t matter. Each channel I flipped to was showing the same thing. Poor Aunt Zelda getting her head bashed in, and her neck broken. The image was circular, with telltale red edges. A TEV transmission.

Sata? Had he gone to the authorities?

No. This wasn’t the transmission I’d recorded. This one had a different perspective, different angles, and a tighter zoom. Zelda was dead, and it still hadn’t shown the killer’s face.

But if this wasn’t my recording, whose recording was it?

I stared at Teague. The only other timecaster in Chicago.

Then my DT beeped. It had finished compiling my list of 3,342 known enemies. And the name at the very top was Joshua Teague VanCamp.

“Talon? Shit!”

I looked up. Alter-Talon was on the projector screen, carving up Aunt Zelda’s arm.

Teague stood up and spun around, reaching for his Taser holster.

“Hold it!” I yelled. My hand hovered over my holster as well. But I still had limited sensation in my right hand. I doubted I’d be able to draw, let alone fire.

Teague stared at me, hard. Hate smoldered in his eyes.

“You fucking psycho. You really popped a gasket, didn’t you, bro?”

“Put your hands behind your head, Teague.” I kept my voice steady, hoping it didn’t betray my fear. My heart was beating so fast I could hear it. “You know I can outdraw you.”

“The victim is still as yet unidentified,” the projector droned on, “but the murderer has been positively IDed as Talon Ace Avalon.”

“I knew you were unstable, Talon. But an old bitch? Aren’t you getting enough at home?”

“Hands behind your head!” I yelled.

Time seemed to stand still. If Teague drew, he’d Tase me first. Then it would be a speedy trial and a conviction by dinnertime. I’d spend the rest of my life in a maximumsecurity prison with three thousand guys I helped put there.

Teague seemed to read my mind. “You won’t last ten minutes in jail, Talon. They’ll eat you alive. But don’t worry… I’ll comfort Vicki for you while you’re gone.”

“Why the games, Teague? Why didn’t you arrest me when I walked in?”

“You know me, bro. I love games.”

His hand moved an inch closer to the butt of his Taser.

“Don’t,” I warned. “We’ve gone shooting together. I’ll put a Taser needle right up your nose.”

“And then what? Snap my neck? What the hell happened to you?”

“Hands behind your fucking head.”

For a bad moment I thought he was going to make a try for his weapon. I could see in his eyes he was considering it. But it passed, and he complied, lacing his fingers behind his neck.

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. “You’re in A4 headquarters, for fuck’s sake. How far you think you’re gonna get?”

I used my left hand to shove my DT into my pocket, staring hard at my former friend. He must have been the one to give the footage to the news. But could he have actually set this whole thing up? Framed me somehow?

He had the opportunity. He also had the motive. But did he have the smarts to pull it off?

This wasn’t the time or place for an interrogation. Hundreds of cops, in this very building, had to have seen the broadcast. Because I was a peace officer, required to be located if needed, my chip ID was fully trackable by GPS. They were probably on their way up right now.

“Your hand is shaking, Talon. I bet you’re too scared to draw.”

“Don’t try me.”

Teague made his move, his hand coming down off his neck, reaching for his weapon. I reached across my body, left-handed, and dug out my piece, pulling it from the holster and aiming it upside down, my pinkie finding the trigger, squeezing off a shot just as Teague cleared faux leather.

Not my fastest draw, and my aim was way off, but unfortunately for Teague the bullet still hit him. In the groin.

A Tesla bolt of lightning materialized and zapped him right in the junk. He dropped, shrieking, and I ran past, out of the office and into the hallway.

“There he is!”

Twenty cops in the hall raised their weapons.

I darted left, keeping low as wax bullets pummeled the walls on either side of me, exploding in jagged bolts of electricity. I managed to get to the stairwell without getting hit, and took the stairs three at a time. When I reached the fiftieth floor I paused, listening.

A person was running up the stairs, toward me.

Make that a lot of people were running up the stairs. I exited the stairwell, running like crazy, realizing it was futile, that I’d never make it out of this building.

I ducked into an office, ignoring the worker bees, wondering where I could go. Hiding wouldn’t work; they’d track my chip. The windows on this floor wouldn’t open, and they were undoubtedly safety glass. Desperation even made me briefly consider attempting a hostage situation. But I didn’t have a lethal weapon, or adequate protection from their Tasers.

Maybe I should just play it cool. Try to hide my face and walk calmly out of there.

“It’s him!”

So much for that.

The cop who spotted me was young, eager, pointing his finger when he should have been pointing his weapon. I was on him in three steps, snapping my hips around, kissing his cheek with a spin-kick. Another cop, a woman, had her Taser already out. I ducked under her first shot, diving at the floor and rolling, coming up next to the biorecycle chute.

It had a push door, no wider than twenty inches. I stuck my hand inside and gave it a swift yank. The aluminum cover popped off, revealing a wide metal duct. But wide enough for me to fit inside? And did I really want to go in there? The smell was rank; rotten food and decay. I had no idea where it ended. Might be a six-hundred-foot drop into a mulcher.

The air around me exploded in electricity, the sharp scent of ozone overtaking the garbage stench. Without thinking it through I shoved my legs into the chute just as a Taser bullet drilled me in the breastbone.

Though it reeked of cliche, the pain was indeed electrifying. At the area of impact, it felt like someone pressing a hot coal against my chest. The million volts locked my muscles rigid, my jaw slamming shut, my arms and legs stiffening like iron bars. I heard crackling and sizzling, my eyes open and paralyzed as the Tesla energy struck the needle in my chest like a lightning rod.

Then gravity took over and I fell down the chute.