Timecaster

TWENTY-NINE

It was hard enough to breathe with the wind slapping me in the face and blowing my cheeks wide open, turning my tongue into a dried-out piece of beef jerky. But with the jelly rope constricting my chest like an anaconda, breathing was impossible. Not that I’d be short of breath for long. In just a few nanoseconds my rib cage would be only slightly wider than my spine.

Seeing red, I yanked my stuck hand, hard as I could. The gecko tape stayed attached to my shirt, but the shirt ripped away, allowing me to unsheathe the Nife.

I slashed blindly behind me, hoping I’d nick the rope. Then, suddenly, I was free, my lungs greedily sucking in air, the terrible stretching/crushing feeling replaced by wonderful freedom.

Elation became fear as the slingshot effect once again threw me into the air, my hand peeling off the roof of the train as I sailed several feet over the top.

I bent into a pike, trying to grab the speeding train below me, knowing the last car was coming up fast and soon there wouldn’t be anything to grab. My Nife trailed across the roof, digging a trench in the aluminum, and then I’d flown too far, staring down at the ground rushing past, realizing that would be the last thing I ever saw.

I jerked to a sudden stop, the gecko tape on my knee catching on the train, slapping me against the side, facing upside down. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or sob, so I laughed.

My laughter died abruptly when I saw the viaduct coming up. There was very little space between the concrete support pillars and the moving train. When we reached it, it would scrape me off like a bug on a windshield.

I had ten seconds, tops.

I put the Nife handle in my teeth and placed my palms on the side of the train, pushing myself sideways, heading for the car ahead of me a few feet away. If I could crawl in between the cars before hitting the viaduct, I’d be safe. But it was easier said than done. The wind was insane, whipping by so fast it caught my goggles and yanked them off. My muscles had nothing left to give. I inched forward, hand… knee… hand… knee… not daring to see how much time I had left.

Incredibly, I reached the link between the cars with a few seconds to spare. But, like the rest of this train ride, my happiness was short-lived. To cut down on wind resistance, the cars had a rubber screen between them, shielding the link.

I removed the Nife from my aching jaws and slashed the divider The viaduct almost on me Slipping through the slit in the rubber No time left The tip of my shoe whacked against the stone support column as we rocketed past.

I took a deep breath and waited for the tornado to hit, pick up the train, and hurl it into the sun.

There was no tornado. For the moment, I was safe.

The space between the cars was dark and quiet compared to the outside. I stood on the coupling, sheathed the Nife, and then pressed my earlobe.

“Call Vicki. Adjust sound filter for clarity.”

When she picked up, we both said, “Are you okay?” at the same time.

“You first,” I told her.

“I’m at Sata’s. I just got here.”

“Problems with the cops?”

“They questioned me for a while. I told the truth.”

“Good. There’s nothing to lie about. Nothing to hide. Was Teague there?”

“For a little bit. He left when he caught your trail. But there’s something else. The cops… they found something.”

“What?”

“Bugs.”

“You mean listening devices? Could they track them?”

“I assume they’re trying to.”

I wondered who would bug my house, and why. It might not have been related to me at all. For all I knew, one of Vicki’s clients liked to eavesdrop on her.

“Where were they? Your bedroom?”

“There were four. One was in my bedroom. One was in our bedroom. One in the kitchen, and one on the roof.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

“Where are you now?” Vicki asked.

I adjusted my footing. “I just caught a train.”

“Where?”

“I can’t say, Vicki. They could be monitoring our headphones. I just wanted to make sure you’re safe, and to tell you I love you.”

“I love you, too. How are we going to get out of this, Talon?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Wait a second. You’re on the TV. Some naked woman with green hair is talking about you.”

“Yeah. About her. She’s a BHV, and she helped me out.”

“Now there’s that disgusting friend of yours. Harry somebody.”

“McGlade.” I could only imagine what McGlade was telling reporters. Rather than imagine it, I dug out my DT and flipped to CNN.

“So I’m tied down, vulnerable, and he’s having sex.”

Thanks a lot, McGlade.

“You had sex with this woman?” Vicki said.

“It’s complicated, Vicki.”

“And then two other women joined in,” McGlade said.

“You’re on the run and you had time for sex with three women?” Vicki said.

Her tone put me on the defensive. “Didn’t you say it didn’t matter who I slept with?”

“It’s not the sex, Talon. It’s that I’ve been worried sick about you-”

“I’ve been worried about you, too, hon.”

“-and apparently you took time out for a gangbang.”

“Technically, they gangbanged me. And it wasn’t consensual.”

“You’re incredible.” She didn’t say it in a nice way.

“He was like a fucking stallion,” McGlade said, “going at it for at least an hour.”

I muted him.

“An hour?” Vicki asked.

“What’s the problem here? Are you jealous?”

“Of course not. Sex is a natural-”

“Biological function. I know. She said the same thing. Are you guys taught to say that when you test for your licenses?”

“These women were SLPs?”

“Yes. And they acted like consummate professionals. No kissing at all.”

“So you paid for this?”

“No. I was tied to a table. And I owed them because they saved my ear. And you have no right to be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous, Talon.”

“Are you sure?”

Vicki didn’t answer. “Look, Vicki, I need to call Sata and find out if he made-”

“Talon-”

“-any headway with… What, Vicki?”

“Talon… did you do this?”

“Do what?”

I looked at the DT. The graphic read, Boise, Idaho, and showed an empty crater that had to be ten miles wide.

The next graphic read, Death toll estimated at 500,000. It was followed by a video of me-well, the alter-me-standing on a hill overlooking the city, some sort of device in his/my hand.

“Bye-bye, Boise,” Alter-Talon said.

Then he pressed a button, and the city Well, it just… imploded.

Within two seconds, everything that used to be there got sucked into itself, stretching and shrinking and eventually disappearing into a singularity. There wasn’t a trace of anything left. Only a giant crater.

It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Half a million people, murdered in an instant. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Couldn’t comprehend death on such a huge scale. The number was staggering.

If someone read a list of the names of the dead, it would take an entire month to finish if the person didn’t stop to sleep or eat. And each of those names represented a life. A person. Mothers. Fathers. Children. Brothers and sisters and cousins and friends and neighbors. Half a million of them, snuffed out of existence.

It was the biggest tragedy of this century.

And for what purpose? Why would someone do that? What could the motive possibly be for something so monstrous?

“Oh, Talon…” Vicki was whispering.

“I… I didn’t do this, Vicki.”

“Don’t you remember talking about Boise this morning?”

“I talked about moving there. Not destroying it.”

“But…”

“Vicki, I have to call Sata. That wasn’t me. I’ll call you soon.”

“Talon, I-”

I cut her off. “Hang up. Call Michio Sata.”

A moment later, Sata came on the headphone.

“Talon?”

Freaked-out as I was, it was a relief to hear his voice. “What’s going on, sensei?”

“Where are you now, Talon?”

“I’m not near Boise, if that’s what you mean. What the fuck happened to it?”

Sata paused. I could picture him, forehead bunched up in thought. “Watching the video, it looked like it was sucked into a black hole. Do you remember the media backlash when some scientists postulated that timecasting could create micro black holes?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, timecasting does create micro black holes. So do Large Hadron Colliders, and, believe it or not, commercial manufacturing of feminine deodorant spray. But there’s no danger. There are already micro black holes all around us, billions of them, left over from the big bang. Their mass is so minute, they’re harmless.”

I stared at the DT. “This one doesn’t look harmless.”

“I know. Apparently, someone has figured out how to make micro black holes bigger.”

“So why does it look like I’m the one destroying Boise and killing half a million people?”

“That’s because,” Sata said, “you’re the one that did it.”