Timecaster Read online

  Luckily, hoboing off a train was easier than hoboing onto one. It took me a little while to climb behind the last train car, and it took a fair bit of guts to drop my aluminumcovered shoes onto the train track and skitch behind the train at eighty miles an hour. It reminded me of my teenage years, grinding railings on my hyperblades. My shoes threw a cascade of sparks that would make any hobo proud, and I let go of the train and skidded to a gradual stop without losing my balance and killing myself.

  Like most of Illinois, and the other fifty-three states of America, the land that wasn’t residential was used for farming. I found myself in the middle of a vast, multitier cornfield that stretched on for miles in either direction. It would work out well for what I had planned.

  I pinched my earlobe and said, “Call Teague.”

  He picked up on the second beep.

  “Boise, Talon? WTF?”

  “We need to talk, Teague. Face-to-face.”

  “Half a million people, you psycho. I can’t believe it.”

  Was he playing me? I checked my coordinates on the DT and read them to Teague. “Come alone, or I’m ghost.”

  “What happened to you, man?”

  I wondered the same thing about him. Instead of answering, I pinched off the call.

  Now for the hard part.

  The sun was close to setting, which would make it easier for me to hide. If Teague called in the cavalry, chances were slim I’d be able to escape. But he’d followed me to Eden alone, and I assumed he’d do the same here.

  The multitier was four stalks high—taller than my house. Instead of using soil, which made crops difficult to irrigate and cultivate, this farm used carbon netting. Seeds were planted in the crisscross of netting material, which was hollow and provided their root system with a steady stream of water, insect repellent, and nutrients, along with a heating element so they could grow during winter. Then they were stacked one on top of another, tethered to mirrored poles that held them up. Other mirrors were also strategically angled, to make sure each plant received adequate sunlight. Harvesting was a snap—the nets were simply reeled in.

  I took a deep breath of the oxygen-rich environment, then walked for a hundred yards, zigzagging the railroad track, giving Teague an easy trail to find. From there, it was into the corn net. I followed one of the mirrored rows, squinting against the glare. The sun was close to setting, but under all the corn it was bright as a cloudless high noon. It would stay bright all night; the solar panels in the mirrors had absorbed enough energy during the day to power the net’s lighting system.

  Fifty steps down the row I stopped, my foot in midair. I remained perfectly still for eight seconds, then carefully walked backward in my own footsteps. After ten steps back, I ran forward another ten. Then I sat down and waited.

  Teague couldn’t track my chip, because I’d stuffed it down a raccoon’s throat. But I could track Teague’s chip. Even though the cops had suspended my electric account, I was still able to access the CPD GPS system, thanks to the good old Freedom of Information Act. A person’s location wasn’t considered private. Anyone could find anyone, as long as they were chipped.

  I punched in Teague’s ID number, plotting him on the map, and waited for him to come. Then I watched CNN. Relatives of those who died in Boise pleaded for information leading to my capture. The president spoke, calling the massacre the biggest tragedy of our era. He vowed to find me and bring me to justice. Scientists were interviewed, postulating that it must have been a black hole that sucked up the city. The implosion footage, with Alter-Talon pressing the button, was shown over and over and over.

  I gave up wiping the tears off my face and just let them flow. I was numb, devastated, shocked, upset, and confused all at the same time. But most of all, I was angry. Like the rest of the country, I wanted to get that son of a bitch who did this.

  Unlike the rest of the country, I was the only one who truly knew that son of a bitch wasn’t me. Even with Sata and Vicki believing in my innocence, I’d never felt so alone in my life.

  My DT beeped. I checked the GPS.

  Teague had arrived.

  I stood up, gripped my Nife, and hoped this plan was going to work. If it didn’t, I’d get caught. And then I’d die. There were more than a hundred thousand cops after me. And the president wanted to call a special session of Congress, and have them vote to repeal the Twenty-ninth Amendment.

  Because of me, he wanted to bring back the death penalty.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I waited and watched, figuring I had a fifty-fifty chance of this working. If the same trick was pulled on me, I might fall for it. Or I might not.

  It took ten minutes before Teague appeared. He was playing it very cautious, moving slow. His left hand was on the TEV. His right held his Taser. His eyes flitted between the monitor and the corn around him, including the net overhead.

  When he passed under me he looked up, and I swear his eyes met mine. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, hoping the corn leaves I’d glued to my body were enough camouflage in the strong lighting.

  Then, on the monitor, I began to walk backward. Teague studied it for a moment, following my movements with the lens. Then he set down the TEV and holstered his gun.

  I shifted left and dropped through the slit in the netting, right on top of him, aiming my knee at his collarbone.

  His reaction was instantaneous. Before I connected, Teague rolled sideways. I landed on his legs, slipping off due to momentum and the aluminum sheets still glued to the bottoms of my shoes. I landed on my side, reaching for Teague’s holster at the same time he did.

  He got there first, drawing his Glock. I lifted my foot as he fired. The wax bullet hit the aluminum on my sole, a Tesla bolt throwing sparks and bouncing off into the corn. I kicked out my other foot, connecting with the gun, sending it flying. Teague replied with a kick of his own, catching my chin, snapping my head back. Then he scrambled on top of me, thumbs digging into my neck. He quickly found the carotid, and applied pressure. The edges of my vision got dark.

  I brought my knee up, connecting with Teague’s balls. Unlike Rocket, his were average-sized, and he grunted and pulled away. I rolled onto all fours, getting up in a crouch as Teague did the same. His face was flushed, and there was sweat on his forehead.

  “You walked backward,” he said, pain in his voice. “Made me think the TEV was glitching and had switched to rewind mode. So, like a dummy, I holstered my gun to tune the dial. Mistake on my part.”

  I felt my chin. My fingers came back bloody. “I probably would have done the same thing. Did you see me hobo the train?”

  Teague got to his feet. “Missed that. I did see you kill half a million people, though.”

  “You know that wasn’t me, Teague.” I raised my fists and took a step toward him. “Did you set all this up?”

  “WTF are you talking about?”

  He looked truthful. But he’d also looked truthful when he swore he was over Vicki, when later I saw her, topless, as a screen saver on his DT. That resulted in another fistfight that left each of us with various broken extremities.

  I stepped forward, feinting with my right, jabbing with the left, and pounding him on the side of the head. He staggered. I followed it up with a tight spin-kick, connecting with his chest, knocking him down.

  Pressing my momentary advantage, I rushed at Teague, swatting away his kicking legs, joining the fight on the ground by grabbing him under his right armpit and around the neck in a reverse half nelson. Teague and I were even when trading punches, but I was a better grappler. I dug my feet in, pushing him over, trying to jam his face into the dirt path. If I could force him onto his belly, get his arm into a hammerlock, I could hyperextend his elbow or pop out his shoulder.

  Teague arched his back, resisting the move. I squeezed his throat with my hand, but it was like squeezing steel cable. Then, surprisingly, he grabbed my shoulder and wrenched me out of position, clenching me in a bear hug. I felt his chest muscles flex and realized I
’d made a mistake.

  “I’m gonna break you in half, bro.”

  Teague was on steroids.

  It seemed that everyone these days but me was taking roids. Teague was bigger, and much stronger, than the last time we’d tussled. Instead of ignoring him at work, I should have been paying closer attention. Based on the size of his chest, he’d gained at least fifty pounds of muscle mass.

  And I’d stupidly brought the fight to the ground.

  I went low, reached for his balls. He twisted he pelvis away from my hand, crushing my chest even harder. I couldn’t inhale, and the oxygen still in my lungs was getting squeezed out like a tire pump. Bright motes popped up in my vision, a precursor to unconsciousness. I grabbed Teague’s side, digging my fingers into his oblique muscle, fighting the striations to pinch his kidney.

  Teague grunted. I pinched harder, the motes swimming around and beginning to fade into darkness. Finally, he moaned and shoved me away. I rolled several body lengths from him, sucking in air. I managed to get to my feet, but I was wobbly, like I’d taken too many whiskey pills.

  “Why’d you do it, bro?” Teague had his hand pressed to his side, but I knew he wasn’t asking me about his kidney.

  “I didn’t. And you know I didn’t. Or else you would have brought the cops with you.”

  Teague spat over his shoulder. “Maybe I had another reason for not bringing the cops.”

  I followed the line of thought. “You want to kill me, Teague? Is that it?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Vicki already rejected you. It doesn’t matter if I’m in the picture or not. You still won’t get her.”

  Teague snarled, launching himself at me. I blocked two wild punches and then hit him in the kidney. He flinched, and I followed up with a right cross to the jaw, my numb hand not feeling the contact. He countered with a right jab, popping me in the solar plexus, driving me to my knees.

  “This isn’t about Vicki,” he said, towering over me.

  “This is about you betraying me. You knew I loved her, and you went behind my back.”

  “So you’re going to kill me because I chose a woman over our friendship?”

  “I’m not going to kill you, bro. I’m going to bring you in, and let the system take care of you.”

  I held up my palms. “I didn’t murder that old woman, Teague. And I didn’t destroy Boise.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear. I’m sure the truth will prevail in court.”

  He threw a roundhouse that would have knocked my head off if I hadn’t ducked. I tucked and rolled to the left. On my feet again, I took a running jump at Teague. He covered up, but rather than attack I snagged the corn net over my head. When the kick didn’t come, Teague dropped his hands. That was when I kicked him, hard as I could, in the side of the head. He spun a hundred and eighty degrees, and I dropped onto his back. I locked my fingers around his chin, dug my knee into his spine, and yanked with everything I had.

  I heard the crack of his neck snapping, and we both fell to the ground, Teague onto his face, me onto my ass. I flipped Teague onto his back and checked his pulse. Weak, but there. Then I found some ammonium salts on my utility belt and held them under his nose.

  “WTF? Bro? I can’t move. I can’t fucking move!”

  “I broke your neck,” I said, sitting next to him and digging out my DT. “Don’t try to call anyone, or I’ll put your supplication collar on you and leave you here.”

  “Asshole.”

  “You know what this is, Teague?” I unsheathed my Nife and held it in front of his eyes.

  He squinted at me. “I knew you were a psycho, Talon. Only psychos carry Nifes.”

  “I agree. But my current situation has forced me to compromise some of my beliefs. Now I need to ask you some questions. If you refuse to answer, I’m going to cut off your fingers and take them with me.”

  I let him process this. No one wanted donor fingers. As miraculous as modern medicine was, replacing a limb from a cadaver wasn’t even close to being perfect. Muscle and nerve problems left it less than fully functional, and the immunosuppressant drugs had some pretty nasty side effects, and were required to be taken for life. If they even worked in the first place.

  Plus, biting someone else’s fingernails was just plain gross.

  “What questions, psycho?”

  I turned on the voice-stress analyzer and said, “First me. Right now I’m recording a baseline.”

  I showed Teague the screen and said, “I did not kill Aunt Zelda.” Then I double-checked to make sure it said Truth. I turned to toward him again and said, “I did not destroy Boise, Idaho.”

  “You could have tampered with the program,” Teague said.

  “You know I didn’t. Just like you know I didn’t kill anybody. I’ve never killed anybody, Teague. Now state your name.”

  Teague didn’t say anything. I picked up his hand and showed it to him. Then I set down the DT and used the Nife to shave off the very tip of his index finger.

  “Fine! Fuck, bro!”

  I picked up the DT. “Go ahead.”

  He sighed. “Joshua Teague VanCamp.”

  “Did you set me up?”

  “No.”

  Truth.

  “Do you know who murdered Aunt Zelda?”

  “Yes.”

  Truth.

  “Who did it, Teague?”

  “You did, bro.”

  Truth. Son of a bitch. He still believed it was me.

  “Do you know anything about timecasting parallel worlds?”

  “What? Fuck, no.”

  Truth.

  “Did you set up a fake timecast at Aunt Zelda’s place?”

  “I don’t even know who Aunt Zelda is.”

  Truth.

  “Are you working with Neil Winston?”

  “Neil who?”

  Truth. Teague had nothing to do with this frame. He was just being his normal, asshole self.

  “Do you still love Vicki?”

  “No.”

  Untruth.

  I showed him the screen, then tucked the DT away. “You need to get over her, old buddy. It’s not healthy.”

  His eyes went hard. “You’re giving me advice? You’re in the center of a shit storm, bro. You’ll be dead by the end of the day.”

  I stared at him, feeling very sad all of a sudden. “What happened to us, Teague? We were like brothers.”

  “You chose a woman over your brother. There’s no bigger sin than that.”

  I didn’t want to argue with him, and truth be told, I don’t know that I disagreed.

  “I need to borrow your TEV. And your shoes. You won’t be walking out of here anyway.”

  I pulled the boots off his feet. Teague was a half size bigger than me, but it was better than stomping around with aluminum soles.

  “You’re going down, Talon. Going down hard.”

  “Don’t come after me, or I’ll break your neck again. And next time I’ll twist it off, so the ER can’t fix it. Just like Zelda.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I bent down and pinched his ear.

  Teague said, “Call 911. Officer down.”

  I sheathed my Nife and left Teague to his headphone call. Then I grabbed his TEV and got out of there.

  My next destination would be heavily guarded. I had no idea how I was going to pull it off.

  But I didn’t have a choice. Teague was right. Unless I proved my innocence, and fast, I’d be dead by the end of the day.

  And the day didn’t have that many hours left in it.

  THIRTY-TWO

  I couldn’t start Teague’s biofuel scooter without a chip, so I cut away the override switch with my Nife and did an old-fashioned hot-wire. I was really getting to like the Nife, though I was sure my opinion would change when I got careless and accidentally sliced off my pelvis.

  Once on the bike, I followed the railroad tracks to the nearest street, and then headed south, toward home. Using Teague’s TEV, I wanted to time
cast my house to see who’d planted the listening devices. I had a hunch the perp picked Boise based on my morning conversation with Vicki. If I could catch his trail, I’d know who my adversary was. I was both disappointed and relieved Teague hadn’t played a part in this, but with him no longer a suspect I had no clue who could have set me up.

  I pressed my earlobe and said, “Block all calls.” I hated to miss it if Vicki or Sata tried to contact me, but if they were being monitored, it was too easy for the authorities to triangulate my position once a call connected. Headphone silence was safest.

  Once I left the corn farm and entered an industrial stretch of Illinois, lighting became poorer. I knew the cops would be covering the main highways, so I’d have to deal with lesstraveled routes, and remain as inconspicuous as possible.

  I pulled over and took out my all-vision contact lens from the case on my belt. Though my Tesla account had been closed, the AVCL had a full battery charge that would last for hours. I put the lens in my eye, then closed my lid and tapped it three times to activate the night vision. Closing my left eye, the world was bathed in a soft, green glow. I killed my headlight and motored through backyards, alleys, and side streets. It took me two hours to travel the forty miles to home, and I doubled back a few times to confuse Teague, who I’m sure would be on my trail again once they reattached his nerve endings.

  I parked in an alley a block from my house, then did a quick reconnaissance. Two cops were circling the perimeter. I tapped my eyelid once, going to infrared, and saw four more cops inside. Two on the first floor, two on the second. Then I checked my neighbor’s house. The only one home was that dick Chomsky. Sitting in front of his projector, probably watching animal pr0n.

  I hefted the TEV to my back using the shoulder strap. Then I put some fresh gecko tape on my hands and knees, snuck around the opposite side of Chomsky’s house, and scaled the wall.

  It was difficult, especially since my right arm had been growing considerably weaker since leaving the cornfield. When I reached his green roof I took some amphetamines and some aspirin to improve the blood flow, and spent a minute trying to catch my breath. Then I looked around for Chomsky’s atomizer.