Timecaster Page 12

  Rocket laughed. “You gonna pass—”

  I clenched my hands and raised them.

  “Just shut the fuck up and fight, bitch.”

  For a fraction of a second, Rocket appeared uncertain. Then he came at me.

  He swung. I ducked. He feinted. I dodged. I swung. I connected. No effect. I kicked. I connected. No effect. He kicked. I jumped away. He punched. I dodged. I punched. I connected. No effect. I punched. I connected. No effect. He punched—

  —catapulting me off my feet, flipping me end over end until I came to rest on my belly, sucking air and exhaling pain, my cold hands and shaking legs the first symptoms of going into shock.

  Rocket towered over me. He was going to reach down, grab my arm, and start twisting until things snapped. Bone, muscle, tendons, ligaments, veins, arteries, flesh, skin. To think that a human being would want to tear off another’s arm was disturbing. To think it was about to happen to me was unfathomable.

  Rocket reached down. He took my wrist.

  I scissor-kicked the bastard in the nose, hard as I could, elated when it burst like a Fourth of July firework, showering me with streams of blood.

  Then I got to my feet, again, to face him, again. This was my fate. To trade blows with this monstrosity, this grotesque parody of a human being, until he beat me to death.

  “Come on,” I said, raising my fists. “Let’s go.”

  And then I saw something on Rocket’s face I never expected to see.

  I saw fear.

  But before I could be empowered by it, and take the initiative, and make him feel what he’d undoubtedly made many men feel before he killed them, Rocket reached behind him and grabbed something in his belt.

  When he brought his hand forward, I questioned my own senses. He wasn’t holding anything. All I saw was his empty fist.

  Then he shifted, and out of nowhere, it appeared.

  He shifted again. It was gone.

  Again. It was back.

  I realized what was going on. I could see it sideways, but not straight on.

  “Oh . . . no . . .”

  Rocket had a Nife.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Rocket with a Nife was so redundant I almost laughed at it. Sort of like giving a shark a machine gun. Nifes were for total psychos, so it wasn’t a stretch that he owned one. But the thought of facing an assailant with a Nife made me want to vomit.

  To reinforce my feelings on the matter, Rocket swung the Nife at the overturned pool table. He sliced off the corner, the thin blade cutting through the slate like it was a watermelon.

  I was dead. The thought was both depressing and liberating. The only thing left for me to decide was how I wanted to go out.

  The decision didn’t take long.

  I wanted to go out swinging.

  Rocket sauntered over, taking his time. His face was a bloody mess, making his smile all the creepier.

  “You know what this is?” he asked, waving the Nife in front of him.

  I scanned the floor around me for weapons, then realized it didn’t matter. The Nife would make easy work of a thrown chair or a plastic table leg. If I had a chain saw, it would make easy work of that as well.

  I considered my utility belt. The supplication collar needed a Tesla field to work. The wax bullets in my Glock would sting, but not much else. I had some flex-cuffs, but they weren’t big enough to get around Rocket’s wrists even if I could get close enough. My nanotube reel was empty. I didn’t see what good my flashlight or various tools would do, and my folding knife was still stuck in the roider’s ass.

  I was fuct.

  “It’s a Nife,” Rocket said. “I’m going to use it to slice off your eyelids, so you can’t look away while I skin you alive.”

  I thought of something tough and flippant to say back, but I didn’t trust my voice not to quiver.

  Rocket strolled toward me, taking his time. He waved the Nife in front of him, knowing I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, knowing I was imagining how it would feel when it cut me. According to all accounts, being sliced with a Nife didn’t hurt at first. Being only a few nanometers thin, it was so sharp a person didn’t feel it going in. It was only after the body part dropped off that the pain began.

  Escape was impossible. Rocket was between me and the exit. I moved left. He mirrored it. I moved right. He mirrored it. Even if I ran for it and tried to dive past him, all he had to do was extend his arm and the Nife blade would open me up like a zipper.

  “I need more fucking drugs!”

  McGlade was awake again. With his good hand, he was shoving pills into his mouth like they were M&M’S. If the pills were morphine, it was enough to make an entire frat house OD.

  Rocket moved in closer, wiggling the Nife at me. Like before, he was backing me into a corner. I held up my hands, pictured all of my fingers being lopped off, then kept them at my sides. The only chance I had, if it could even be called that, was grabbing his wrist when he lunged. I’d have to time it perfectly.

  All too soon my heels hit the wall. I couldn’t retreat any farther.

  “Okay, you win,” I managed to say. “I surrender.”

  Rocket barked a laugh. I watched his eyes. His eyes would telegraph his move a millisecond before the blade flashed.

  I waited, zoning out a bit while also maintaining full concentration. It was a bit like timecasting. Letting instinct guide me, tell me when he was going to—

  His pupils widened, his hand blurring. I dodged left, slapping my hand on top of his wrist as the Nife cut empty air.

  I tried to execute an arm bar, getting my other hand under his armpit and pushing him forward, using his elbow as leverage against him. But in this case, it was like putting a judo hold on an oak tree. He ignored the attempted joint lock, lifting up his arm and me along with it, shaking me off. I landed on my back, my head bouncing off the floor.

  I didn’t know I’d been nicked with the Nife until I saw the blood seeping out of my knuckles. The same knuckles McGlade had just repaired with the living stitches. I made a fist, saw my white bones peek through the split in the skin.

  Then the pain hit, accompanied by a slow, sickening roil in my stomach. The roil became a full-blown tsunami when Rocket straddled me and sat on my legs.

  “Which eye first?” Rocket said. “Left or right?”

  I stared at him, unable to speak.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” Rocket cackled, and the Nife flashed alongside my head. Rocket reached down, then held something next to his mouth.

  Shit. He’s got my ear.

  “Can you hear me now?” he said, into my severed ear.

  Ironically, now that my ear was detached from my head, it was actually harder to hear him. I did hear McGlade when he screamed, “The eyes! Do the eyes!”

  Asshole. Why did I ever befriend that bastard?

  “Shoot his fucking eyes out, Talon!”

  I reached for my Glock, my brain making the connection before McGlade explained it. Wax bullets stung, but weren’t fatal, and without the Tesla lightning, I’d disregarded using them. But McGlade was right—a shot in the eyes would blind somebody. And with Rocket on top of me, I couldn’t miss.

  I jammed my gun up to his face, pulling the trigger as fast as I could. Had Rocket been expecting it, he could have cut my gun in half before I fired the third round. But he did what anyone else would have done if someone fired a gun into his face, point-blank; Rocket flinched and tried to get away, raising his hands to protect himself.

  I fired until I was empty, and managed to get up onto my butt. Rocket was on his knees, hands clutching his face. He’d dropped the Nife. He’d also dropped my ear. I searched the floor for both of them, and managed to find my ear. I holstered my gun and reached for it, surprised how small it looked.

  “My eyes!” Rocket moaned. “My fucking eyes!”

  I tenderly picked up my ear and tucked it into my shirt pocket. I was tempted to crawl around, try to find the Nife, but I was afraid I’d cut off my fingers o
r my knees if I accidentally brushed against it.

  Turned out I didn’t have to find it. Someone else already had.

  “McGlade! Put down the Nife!”

  McGlade had it in his good hand. He was coming up behind Rocket. “I got this, Talon.”

  “Murder is against the law, McGlade.”

  “Chill out. I’m not killing him. I’m just making sure he’s disarmed.”

  He swung the Nife twice. Both of Rocket’s severed arms fell to the ground. McGlade thought this was hilarious, and laughed like a hyena.

  Rocket, eyes bleeding, said, “What happened? I can’t feel my arms!”

  “They’re right in front of you,” McGlade said. “You just need to pick them up.”

  The blood was impressive. Rocket bled out in about sixty seconds. Prior to his messy death, he did actually try to reach down and grab his severed arms with the small stumps still attached to his shoulders.

  “You need a hand?” McGlade asked him before he flopped over, dead.

  “Dammit, McGlade. I wanted to question him.”

  “You still can.” McGlade held up the Nife. “You want me to get him to open up for you?”

  “Give me that.”

  I grabbed his wrist, then carefully took the Nife away. Rocket’s Nife sheath, also made of carbon nanotubes, was on the back of his pants. I took it, slipping the Nife inside and hooking it to my belt.

  “This isn’t right.” Stoned out of his brainpan, McGlade was flapping his hand in front of his face, twirling the broken part like a propeller.

  “McGlade, stop that. You need to throw up or you’re going to overdose on morphine.”

  “I’m fine, Talon. I feel fine. Look.” McGlade help up his arm, and his fingers touched his elbow. “It’s just a minor fracture.”

  “That’s great, buddy. But what’s that over there?”

  I pointed up. He looked. I made a fist and belted him in the solar plexus. He doubled over and puked pills all over his shoes.

  “Shit, Talon! WTF? Oh, look. Someone dropped morphine.”

  He tried to pick up the slimy pills, but he was using his bad hand, and all he was doing was sweeping them back and forth across the floor. I helped him to his feet, and together we staggered out of the P&P.

  “You’re hurt!”

  I glanced in the direction of the voice. It was Yummi. She ran over, but I was pretty sure I didn’t hold the same sex appeal with a missing ear and a hand squirting blood, so I didn’t get on my guard.

  “What happened? Where’s your ear?”

  “In my pocket.”

  “I got something in my pocket, too, baby,” McGlade said. He absently reached for his fly with his broken arm, and thankfully wasn’t able to grab his zipper.

  “I live nearby,” Yummi said. Her cheeks were still flushed from our previous encounter.

  “We need to get to a hospital,” I told her. “And I don’t think I’m up for sex right now.”

  “I am,” McGlade said. “I’m up for it.”

  “He took some morphine,” I explained.

  McGlade smiled. “My arm is broken.” He waved it at her, and it flopped back and forth.

  “I can see that. I have a medical doctorate.”

  “Can you fix his arm?”

  “Yes. And reattach your ear. Is anything else hurt?”

  “My balls,” McGlade said. “I need you to take special care of my balls.”

  “How much morphine did he take?” Yummi asked.

  “All of it,” McGlade said. He grinned, his smile as wide as a zebra’s ass.

  “I’m four blocks away from dissytown. Can you both make it?”

  I looked at my knuckles, then thought about my ear. I needed a hospital. Health care was free, even to dissys, but it still meant a report. I may not have had a chip anymore, but it was likely someone could recognize me.

  “I don’t think we have a choice,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You’ll pay me back.” She smiled, her eyes flashing challenge. “And I know the perfect way how.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  The Mastermind is awed by his own power.

  He didn’t expect it to feel like this.

  Is it possible for God to amaze Himself?

  Unequivocally: yes.

  But he plays it cool. Aloof.

  The recognition will come later. Or maybe it won’t. That depends on the mouse.

  In the meantime, he plays the game and wears his mask.

  He’s actually a good actor. The role of the concerned friend. The shocked utopeon. The interested scientist. The outraged citizen.

  People play so many roles in their lives. Most of the fools stick with the part they were given, never even considering something greater.

  The Mastermind is sickened by mankind’s predictability. A species should have some concern for its own evolution. Bacteria don’t get complacent. There are no fat and lazy fungi.

  What began as tech and discovery has become too good for the human race. Pure science has been replaced by vendetta.

  Yes, it is amusing. Why did God create life if not to be amused by death?

  But now it is so much more than mere amusement.

  Humanity needs a wake-up call.

  It just got a big one.

  And by the time the Mastermind is finished, there won’t be anyone left to wake up.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Like most BHVs, Yummi was a communist. Not in the political sense of opposing democracy or capitalism, but in the literal sense that she was part of a commune. The same urge to help others often lent itself to living with a like-minded group of people who shared the workload and ownership of everything within their community. In Yummi’s case, it was a parking farm called Eden.

  “Fifteen men and fifteen women live there,” she said. Earlier she’d called ahead, and told them to prep the infirmary for our arrival. “We’re very discriminating on who we allow to join. They have to meet our high ideological and physical standards. The sex is fab. I’m bi, and so are the other girls. We swap partners all the time. I’m highly orgasmic, so it’s a perfect lifestyle for me.”

  “I love you,” McGlade said. “I’ve never loved anyone more.”

  We’d exited dissytown without anyone else trying to kill us, leaving McGlade’s bike chained to the fence, and eventually arrived at her building. It was multilevel parking garage, retrofitted for foliage farming.

  “We sit on an acre of land, but we have nine floors, so we can harvest nine acres, eighteen if we include the vines on the ceilings. It’s mostly fruits and veggies. We only eat a small portion of it. The rest is donated to the dissys, or sold to the local supermarket.”

  “Do you make enough to support yourselves?”

  She snorted. “Of course not. Everyone in Eden is an SLP.”

  “I have money,” McGlade said.

  Yummi flipped her green hair back. “The infirmary is on the second floor.”

  Instead of taking the stairs, we walked up the gradual incline. Like its biblical namesake, the garden was expansive and impressive. Plants of all types grew in a seemingly haphazard way, different species intermingling on every square inch of space. Even the pathways were clover.

  “Looks natural, doesn’t it? Our horticulturalist, Barry, believes plants grow better when they compete with other species. So instead of having all the tomatoes, or watermelons, grouped together, we plant them in different locations.”

  “It’s so pretty,” McGlade said. “Pretty pretty pretty.”

  “Do you have any narcotic antagonists?” I asked.

  “We have everything. It’s right through here.”

  We veered off the path, heading for a door. I touched my head where my ear used to be. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but it still stung like crazy.

  “We’ll fix you up,” Yummi said, giving me a pat on the ass. “Don’t worry.”

  McGlade stopped walking. He was staring at a monarch butterfly, which had landed on his chest.

>   “Hello, little guy. Aren’t you beautiful?” He tried to pet the insect, and smeared it all over his shirt. Then he picked off a crumpled wing and released it into the air. “Go on. Fly free, little butterfly.”

  I took McGlade under the arm and led him into the infirmary. The white room was a stark contrast to all the green outside. We sat McGlade up on one of the three examination tables, and a naked woman walked in.

  “Awesome,” McGlade said.

  Like Yummi, she also had dyed hair. Hers was pink. And like Yummi, her body was pretty close to being flawless. The two women gave each other a quick French kiss.

  “Are these the two you mentioned earlier?” the new arrival asked, winking at me.

  “Yes.” Yummi rubbed my shoulder. “And this is the one I told you about.”

  “I’m Tasty,” the pinkette said, running her hand over her breast.

  “I’ll bet you are,” McGlade said. “I have a butterfly. See?” He pointed to the spot on his shirt.

  “Tasty, can you give that one some Narcon?” Yummi said.

  “Opiate overdose?”

  “Yes. Be ready with the sevo, too.”

  “Sure. Can I do his arm?”

  Yummi looked at me. “Tasty’s in school, studying for her MD. Is it okay if she works on your friend?”

  “I’m sure he’d like that.”

  “I love you, Tasty,” McGlade said. “I’ve never loved anyone more.”

  Tasty handed McGlade a pill. He swallowed it, then asked, “What was that?”

  “A narcotic antagonist. It reverses the effect of opiates.”

  McGlade smiled; then his face contorted in agony. “FUCK! MY FUCKING ARM!”

  Tasty slapped a gas mask to his face and turned on the sevoflurane. McGlade took a breath and then flopped over. Tasty secured his forehead, chest, and legs to the table, using straps.

  Yummi put me on a table as well, and had me lie down.

  “You don’t mind if I take this off, do you? In Eden, we all prefer going around naked.”

  “If you insist.”

  Yummi peeled off her latex outfit, looking as amazing as I’d expected her to look without clothes. She removed something from a drawer. I winced when I saw what it was. Living skin. I steeled myself, not willing to scream in front of two beautiful, naked women. But Yummi spared me any such indignity, giving my knuckles a spray of topical anesthetic before applying the skin.