Timecaster

FIFTY-THREE

I was sure my every move was being watched when I landed without incident on a rocky beach several miles south of Milwaukee. I disconnected the chute, watching it blow into the water, and then retied the TEV to my chest.

The authorities apparently believed the “wired to my heartbeat” bullshit and gave me a wide berth. I kept my space suit on just in case someone got cute with the Tesla satellites, but had to remove my helmet to call Vicki. It was nice to breathe fresh air again, and listening to the waves lap against the shore was tranquil, almost peaceful.

“Hello?”

Hearing my wife’s voice brought tears to my eyes.

“Vicki? Are you okay?”

“Talon? Why are you calling me from the bathroom?”

My whole body tensed up. “Vicki, listen to me carefully. That’s not me in the bathroom. You have to get out of there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Run away. Right now.”

“You’re not making sense. I’m with you right now.”

“The man you’re with looks like me, but he isn’t me. He’s the killer the cops are after. Tell me where you are right now.”

“I’m at-”

“Who are you talking to?”

I froze. I would recognize that voice anywhere.

It was mine.

“No one,” Vicki said.

“Is that him on the headphone? ”Alter-Talon asked.

“Who?”

I heard a slap. My heart shrunk.

“Stop being coy, bitch. Is that you, Talon?”

I closed my eyes, picturing him with his ear pressed to Vicki’s.

“It’s me,” I said.

“I haven’t heard anything about Chicago disappearing. Sata underestimated you. Is he dead?”

Talking to myself ranked as one of the strangest experiences of my life.

“I don’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter. He served his purpose.”

“Which was?”

“To bring you to me. I’ve got your wife, and the antidote. How far are you from Milwaukee?”

“An hour. Maybe less.”

“Meet us at the abandoned brewery on the outskirts of dissytown. You have forty-five minutes. Come alone, no weapons. Any funny stuff-”

I heard another slap, and Vicki cried out.

“You understand?”

I did my best to keep my voice steady. “Why are you doing this?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“Talon, I love-”

Vicki’s words were cut off. I imagined the bastard pinching her ear to hang up.

I stood there for a moment, impotent, wondering how this was all going to end. Sata seemed to be motivated by nothing other than insanity, and I’d assumed Alter-Talon was similarly bent. But he didn’t sound like he was having fun. He seemed controlled. Calculated.

This guy wanted something from me. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was.

A squadron of heliplanes passed overhead, in a classic military wedge formation. I had no doubt they had something to do with me, and could only hope Mayor Dailey could convince the cops in Wisconsin to leave me alone.

Zipping open a side flap on my suit, I tugged the DT from my utility belt and found my current location. Eleven point four miles to the brewery. I also did a quick GPS search for me and Vicki, coming up empty. Alter-Talon must have worn an obfuscation disk over his chip, just like I did, and he had probably put one on my wife as well.

I broke into a jog, running up the beach, climbing some concrete steps to street level, then borrowing a biofuel scooter from a very rude woman who knew so many dirty synonyms for rectum she would have made Harry McGlade blush.

It took half an hour of maddening stop-and-go traffic before I made it to Milwaukee’s dissytown. During the trip my imagination conjured horrible scenarios of Alter-Talon hurting Vicki. I’d dealt with a lot of abuse over the last twenty-four hours, but there was nothing that could be done to me worse than hurting my wife.

By the time I motored into the ranks of the disenfranchised, I was ready to strangle anyone who looked at me cross-eyed. Like Rockford’s dissytown, this one was filled with a lot of dirty folks looking confused, shell-shocked, and deviant. More crumbling buildings. More crushed dreams. And no BHVs to speak of, at least not any as attractive as Yummi and her cohorts.

I kept one eye on my DT, steering around piles of garbage and making my way to the brewery. I stopped in front of an alley, trying to determine my best route, when a gang approached.

Six of them, dressed like a homeless hyperhockey team, complete with filthy pads and sticks stained with dried blood.

“Nice bike,” their leader said. “Why don’t you give it to me, then get the fuck out of our neighborhood.”

I checked my DT. Four minutes to get to the brewery. I didn’t have time to uncork a bottle of smack-down on these punks, much as they probably deserved it.

“Where’s the brewery?” I asked.

“You say something, butthead?”

They couldn’t hear me with the helmet on. I yanked it off.

All six stepped back, and the leader raised his hands in supplication.

“Talon! Shit, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know it was you.”

“The brewery,” I repeated.

“You know it’s right down the street here.”

“Where?”

He pointed. “End of the block. On the left. Look, you’re not pissed or nothing, are you? How can we make it up to you, buddy?”

I considered sending him and his droogs to the dinosaur planet, but I had a feeling I wasn’t the Talon they were afraid of. Alter-Talon had been here, and apparently left a serious impression.

“Beat each other up,” I ordered.

By the time I put my helmet back on, they were kicking the shit out of one another. I motored past. With one minute remaining I ditched the bike and walked through the front door of the Milwaukee Brewing Company.

The interior was quiet, dark, warehouse-sized. I flipped open my visor and tapped my eyelid, bringing on infrared. Nothing stood out. I switched to night vision, creeping silently past rusty old lauter tuns that stretched to the ceiling, the foul smell of mildew assaulting my nostrils.

My headphone rang, and I answered.

“Keep going, straight ahead. At the end of the walkway, there’s a door.”

“Where’s Vicki?”

I heard a slap, and my wife whimpered. I was going to rip out this guy’s spine and stab him through the heart with it.

He hung up. I moved a bit quicker, but stayed cautious. When I got to the aforementioned door, I tapped my AVCL back to infrared, and spotted the heat signatures of three people behind the door, all standing in the center of the room.

Flipping down my helmet visor, I turned the knob and entered.

Unlike the dank, decay, and filth I’d just walked through, this room was brightly lit and clean. It resembled the infirmary at Yummi’s parking farm, down to the two metal patient tables. There was also a tray topped with wicked-looking knives, clamps, and tools. Several expensive-looking pieces of medical equipment stood between the tables, beeping and making machine sounds.

Alter-Talon wore what he had in the timecast transmissions: black jumpsuit, black gloves. To his left was a tall, thin man in a white lab coat. He was bald, and had thick glasses that magnified his blue eyes to three times their normal size. To Alter-Talon’s right…

“Vicki.”

“Talon.”

She was handcuffed to a metal pipe. I hurried to her, yanking off my helmet and letting it fall, hugging her tight, never wanting to let go. We both said, “I love you,” and, “I’m sorry,” several times. When I pulled back to kiss her, I noticed her black eye.

I turned on Alter-Talon, feeling myself grow very cold.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” Alter-Talon said.

When I took a step toward him he held up a small black device.

“Hold it! Any closer and Vicki’s dead.”

I halted, fighting the urge to rip his face off. “What have you done?”

“My associate, Dr. Coursey, has implanted a small bomb in Vicki’s molar. I press this button, it blows her head off.”

“You’re bluffing.” I turned to my wife. “Vicki?”

She nodded slowly. “He attached something to my tooth.”

“It won’t actually blow her head off,” Dr. Coursey said. He had a German accent. “Just blow a big hole in her neck, tearing through the carotid artery. I’ve done trial runs on several dissys. Death occurs within twenty seconds.”

My desire to tear both of them limb from limb wrestled with the need to control my rage. Through clenched teeth I managed to say, “What do you want?”

Alter-Talon smiled, and it was an ugly thing to behold. He tossed the black detonator to Dr. Coursey, then raised one of his gloved hands. Using the other, he peeled the glove off.

The odor hit me before he even finished. Rotting meat, even worse than I’d smelled in the biorecycle chute. When he tossed the glove away, I saw his fingers and couldn’t help but flinch at the sight. The flesh was infected, sloughing off in strips. In the case of his thumb, the bone protruded from his skin.

“To start with,” Alter-Talon said, “I want your hands.”