Timecaster Read online

  “You look like shit.”

  The remnants of the airfoam had become a slimy mucus, which gave my coat of stinky biomass garbage a glossy sheen.

  “Please, Chomsky. I know we don’t get along. But this is an emergency.”

  “A month of foliage.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ll let you on my roof, but you’ll owe me a month of foliage for biofuel tax.”

  I glanced at the corner. Two peace officers were coming my way.

  “Sure, Chomsky. A month.”

  “Really? You sure agreed to that quickly. Let’s make it two months.”

  “Two months? You’re such a dick.”

  “That’s the offer. Take it or leave it.”

  The cop duo had picked up their pace. One was holding his earlobe.

  “Deal,” I said.

  “And apologize for calling me a dick.”

  I ground my molars. “I’m sorry, Chomsky. You aren’t a dick.”

  “That’s right. Who’s the dick?”

  The cops were almost on me.

  “I am, Chomsky. I’m the dick. Now, please open the door.”

  “Wipe your feet before you come up.”

  He buzzed me in. I didn’t bother wiping my feet. I pushed past him in the hallway, running up his stairs as fast as I could, bursting out onto his green roof. I hurried to the edge and looked down.

  Cops were everywhere, many of them focused on their DTs, tracking my chip.

  “Talon, you ass-master! You trailed shit all through my house! And it stinks!”

  I judged the gap between my roof and his. It was only six feet, but the height made it seem a lot farther away. Did I have the strength to make the leap? I was exhausted, beaten up, covered with twenty pounds of gunk.

  “The stink is making me puke! You owe me a carpet cleaning as well, mister!”

  “Shut up, Chomsky! You’re such a dick!”

  “I’m calling the alderman!”

  Dick.

  Chomsky stomped off. I looked at the gap again, sure I wouldn’t be able to make it across. I wondered if my dick neighbor had a pair of frog legs. A kermit could make the jump, easy.

  “Talon?”

  I glanced over at my roof. Vicki was there. Vicki, the love of my life. My wife. My everything. And suddenly I had the strength of ten men. I took five running steps, then launched myself into the air, sailing toward her, soaring like a bird on the wings of love.

  Halfway there I knew I’d be about a foot short.

  SEVENTEEN

  The wings of love fuct me, and I slammed into the side of my house, frantically trying to get a handhold even as I felt one or two ribs snap. Vicki raced to me, pulling my shirt just as the bullets started to fly. I hooked an ankle up on the ledge and hefted myself over, lying on my back and panting like an asthmatic at a hayseed festival.

  “Talon . . .”

  My wife knelt next to me. She had tears in her eyes, her face a sad snapshot of concern.

  “In order of importance,” I heaved, “I love you, I’m sorry, and I didn’t do it.”

  “I know, I know, and I know. I love you, too, baby.”

  She kissed me, which proved she loved me because at that moment I was the worst-smelling object on the planet.

  “Cops in the house?”

  She nodded. “A dozen.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “No.”

  “They’ll use you to get to me. Go to Sata. He knows what’s going on.”

  “I tried calling you . . .”

  “They cut my headphone. But I’ll get in touch.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I promise. If you don’t hear from me, I’ll meet you at the space elevator. Tomorrow.”

  She nodded. I wanted to kiss her again, but she was already covered with foul-smelling gunk and I didn’t want to add to it.

  Vicki had no such concerns, and she leaned in to kiss me. For ten magical seconds, all was right with the world.

  I heard a snoring sound, and turned left. My raccoon visitor was sleeping in the hemp bush, all four legs in the air. He had marijuana all over his whiskers, and I may have been projecting but it sure looked like he had a smile on his furry face. I pulled my knife.

  Vicki’s eyes got wide. “What are you doing?”

  “This needs to be done. You don’t want to watch.”

  I advanced on the animal with my blade drawn, trying to get my courage up, trying not to hesitate.

  “Talon!” Vicki covered her eyes. “Oh . . . Talon . . .”

  When I was finished, I tossed the raccoon onto that dick Chomsky’s roof. Then I crawled to the sprinkler and turned it on, cleaning myself up as best I could and drinking at least a half gallon in a futile effort to quench my thirst.

  “Talon! They’re here!”

  Three cops poured through my roof door, guns drawn. I struggled to my feet, got up a head of steam, and threw myself into the air again. And once again, I came up short, hanging from the edge of Chomsky’s building. But my bloody hands couldn’t hold on, and before I could get a leg up I lost my grip.

  Luckily, Chomsky’s wall was covered with thick vines—the same vines that I’d been fined for harvesting. I hooked my hands into the vines, ripping them off the wall as I fell. They lowered me gently down. By the time I reached the ground I had two hundred credits’ worth of foliage in my arms. I gave them a rough yank, uprooting them. Served Chomsky right, the dick.

  Cops appeared in front of me, Tasers raised. I backpedaled, squinting against the glare as the wax bullets struck my armful of vines. I dropped them and tore ass around the corner, finding my abandoned biofuel scooter, the motor still running. I put on the helmet, jumped on, and revved it, cutting into an alley, right into a swarm of two dozen peace officers.

  They surrounded me, guns raised. I braced myself for the Taser attack, knowing that if more than ten of them shot me, it would likely be fatal.

  But no one shot me. They all ran past, oblivious to my presence.

  I turned around, confused, then saw what they were chasing.

  My raccoon buddy was scurrying along the edge of Chomsky’s roof. But the cops weren’t looking at the animal. They were looking at their DT screens, which tracked my chip. After cutting the chip out of my wrist, I’d shoved it down the sleeping raccoon’s throat. Chips ceased functioning when their biological host died, or if they were removed from the body—with the exception of GPS. That worked as long as there was some biological matter still attached. Apparently I’d removed enough tissue for it to still work for a while.

  I stitched myself into westbound traffic, heading to an old friend’s house.

  Well, maybe friend was the wrong word. He was an ex–peace officer, and currently a tracer. I’d worked with him when we were both cops, and used him freelance on runaway cases after he was fired. After the Libertarian Act emancipated children, giving them the option of quitting school and living on their own if they got qualified employment, those without jobs but still yearning to be free of their parents went the dissy route. It was possible to track them by timecasting, but the process was painstaking and lengthy, especially since runaways weren’t technically breaking the law.

  Harry McGlade had his ear to the ground in the dissy community, and could often find people faster than a timecaster could. He also had his hand in any number of underground, potentially illegal activities, one of which I needed his help with.

  I merged onto the expressway, heading north to Rockford. I hadn’t seen him in a few years and hoped he still had the same address.

  The three-hour ride was grueling. I was in considerable pain. My arm still wasn’t fully operational from when Sata hit me. The skin left on my knuckles kept scabbing over and bleeding every time I moved my fingers. The hole in my arm where I dug out the chip had clotted, but unless I cleaned it out and took some meds I was sure to get an infection.

  The worst pain of all came from my ribs. After a selfinspection I felt two that
were wiggly. The stop-and-go traffic, while sitting on a biofuel bike, wasn’t quite torture, but if I’d had to endure it for more than those three hours, I would have gladly confessed state secrets to make it stop.

  McGlade’s house was as I’d remembered it; run-down and ugly, his front yard covered with junk, half-buried by weeds. Rockford had a lower biofuel tax, and McGlade apparently paid it in credits rather than foliage, because he hadn’t done any gardening here since Mary-Kate Olsen was elected president.

  I parked the bike and limped to the front door, giving his videobell a ring.

  His face appeared. Unshaven, sweaty, with what looked like dried egg stuck in the corner of his mouth.

  “C’mon in, Talon. Been hoping you’d drop by.”

  The door buzzed, and opened.

  Apparently, McGlade really had been hoping I’d drop by. He was standing right there when I walked inside, pointing an antique .44 Magnum between my eyes.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Is that a real gun?”

  McGlade scratched himself in an unattractive place. He was in his midthirties, wearing a dirty undershirt and a bathrobe, both of which were too small for his pudgy body. “Fuck yeah, it’s a real gun. I just saw you on the news. You know what kind of reward I’m gonna get from bringing you in?”

  “There’s a reward?”

  “I dunno. Lemme check.” McGlade pinched his earlobe. “Hello? I’m calling about the fugitive, Talon Avalon. Is there a reward for his capture?” He frowned. “Excuse me? Why not? . . . What? . . . Fuck no, I haven’t seen him. Find him yourself.”

  He lowered the gun, scowling at me. “You’re worthless,” he said.

  “Sorry about that.” I hadn’t been too worried about McGlade shooting me. At least, not with an illegal weapon. Not unless he wanted to share a prison cell with me. “Where did you get a gun? I thought they rounded them all up after CWII.”

  “It was my grandfather’s. I ever tell you he used to be a cop? Then he went private. Just like me. They made movies about him.”

  “We’ve had this conversation, McGlade. Several times. My grandmother and your grandfather used to be partners. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember. Who are you again?”

  “Cute. Lemme see the gun.”

  He handed over the revolver, butt first. I’d never held a real gun before, and was surprised by how heavy it was.

  “Don’t shoot it,” McGlade said. “The bullets are worth a fortune, and impossible to replace.”

  “If it even fires anymore. You could go to jail forever for having this.”

  “Fuck ’em. I’ll flee to Texas.”

  When the US outlawed guns, Texas refused to give up its firearms and tried to secede from the nation, which lead to Civil War Two. The only person who died during the war was a Texan named Earl Stampton, who barricaded himself in a bunker with more than two hundred guns and ten thousand rounds of ammunition and then accidentally set the compound on fire while cooking some bacon. All they found of his body was a finger.

  The remainder of CWII was fought with blockades and sanctions. Texas finally gave up after four years because they weren’t getting the latest Hollywood movie releases.

  I returned the gun to him. “I need your help, McGlade.”

  “I figured you did. Can you pay?”

  “Eventually. I’m having a little chip problem at the moment.” I held up my arm, showing him the hole.

  “An IOU from a lifer ain’t worth much.”

  “I won’t be a lifer. They’ll kill me in prison. I’ll make sure you’re a beneficiary on my insurance.”

  He brightened at that. “Okay. C’mon in.”

  The interior of his house was much like the exterior, except for fewer plants. McGlade’s décor seemed to be of the let it lie where it dropped school of design. Dirty clothing, food wrappers, and assorted garbage competed for space amid the mismatched discount furniture. For art, McGlade plastered his walls with posters of old pinup girls. I’d asked once, and these were indeed paper. His favorite seemed to be someone named Heather Thomas, who boasted several different swimsuit poses. It was oddly quaint, because people hadn’t worn swimsuits in decades.

  “Have a seat in my office. I’ll get some P and P.”

  “Nothing too heavy. I have to keep my wits.”

  He snorted. “What wits?”

  McGlade veered off. I continued on through a hallway, and stepped in a small pile of shit.

  “McGlade!” I called. “You have a pet?”

  Boy, did I hope he had a pet.

  “Yeah. His name is Peanuts. Don’t step on him.”

  “I stepped on something else.”

  “Smells awful, doesn’t it? They don’t tell you that at the genipet store.”

  I scraped my shoe off on the carpet, figuring he’d never notice, and found Peanuts in McGlade’s office, curled up on the floor. At first I couldn’t tell what it was. Brown and hairy and lumpy, about the size of the raccoon I’d fed earlier. Then it looked up and me, shook its floppy ears, and gave me a deep, loud trumpet.

  Peanuts was a genetically modified African elephant.

  It trumpeted again, its tiny trunk sticking out like a bugle, and then padded up to me on little round feet. When he reached my leg he bumped my shin with its head. His tusks were capped with cork.

  “Hello, Peanuts,” I said. I crouched down—an act that brought tears to my eyes—and gave the elephant a scratch on the head.

  “Not Peanuts,” McGlade said, walking in behind me. He scooped up the elephant and held him at eye level. “Penis. Check out the size of his junk.”

  The elephant did, indeed, have impressive junk.

  “It’s like a second trunk,” McGlade marveled. “You want to touch it?”

  He shoved the elephant in my face, its lengthy dong flopping around and threatening to take out one of my eyes.

  “No thanks.”

  “He’s a bonsai elephant.” McGlade set the pachyderm down. “That’s as big as he gets.”

  “He’s . . .” I searched for a word that wasn’t derogatory.

  “Very elephantish.”

  “Yeah. I gotta get him a mate. Problem is, they’re so freakin’ expensive. I tried a few nonelephant surrogates. A cat and a poodle. He killed them both.”

  “His tusks?”

  “Naw. Slipping them the high, hard one.”

  “Nice.” Wasn’t sure what else to say to that.

  “They both sounded like they died happy. The poodle especially. Vet said it was a heart attack.”

  “And the cat?” I asked, wondering why I cared.

  “Internal bleeding. Here, take these.”

  McGlade handed me six pills.

  “What are they?”

  “Morphine, hash, and valium.”

  “There’s enough here to kill me, McGlade.”

  “The other three are speed, so you don’t lapse into a coma. Take them and go shower. There’s a robe hanging in the bathroom.”

  I noticed his apparel, which had more stains than there was space available. “Is the robe clean?”

  “No. But after the pills, you won’t care.”

  I took four of the pills, then hit the bathroom. The warm shower was both invigorating and painful, and then the drugs began to kick in and I was able to scrub my wounds with soap without crying for my mother.

  I stepped out of the shower, pleasantly buzzed and feeling no pain, then toweled off and slipped into a robe that wasn’t too badly stained, though the fabric was a bit stiff in parts.

  “I’m in the office!” McGlade called.

  I walked to him with a spring in my step, thanks to the amphetamines. But it was a wobbly spring, thanks to the hash and valium. I’d skipped the morphine. That shit put me to sleep.

  The satisfied smile on my face dropped off when I saw what McGlade had spread out on his table.

  Surgical tools. A lot of them. Silver and sharp and shiny in the overhead lights.

  “What’s all
that for, McGlade?”

  “This is why you came to me, isn’t it, Talon? They switched off your headphone, and you want it working again. Right?”

  “Yeah.” But now I wasn’t so sure.

  “How do you think that’ll happen? Hope and a head massage?”

  As I stood there the room began to wobble, so I grabbed the doorway for support. “Have you done this before?”

  “Four times. Two of them successful. I’m charging you five thousand credits for this, by the way. That includes patching up your arm and hand.”

  “I also have some broken ribs.”

  “We’ll call it an even fifty-five hundred. Though tipping isn’t discouraged.”

  The doorway began to wobble as well. “I dunno about this, McGlade.”

  “Don’t worry. Penis is here to help.”

  Penis was standing on the table, holding a scalpel in his trunk. I giggled, because the thought of a miniature elephant sticking a knife in my ear was pretty funny.

  That alone was proof I shouldn’t have been here.

  “Sit before you fall over. Put your head on this semiclean towel here.”

  He patted a rolled-up towel. Penis dropped the scalpel and walked up to it.

  “Your pet is getting amorous with the towel.”

  “Just the inside. You’ll have your head on the outside.” That made a warped sort of sense. I weaved over to the chair and managed to sit down without falling over. The elephant was really going at it, his tiny elephant hips a blur. After a few more thrusts he trumpeted and walked away.

  “I want a new towel,” I said.

  “You’re such a little girl.” McGlade tossed the towel over his shoulder and placed a pillow on the table. “Head down, princess.”

  I complied, resting my ear on the towel. Just a few inches away, Penis stared at me. It was a prurient stare. His trunk extended and he sniffed my nostrils. I had a bad feeling he was judging their depth and flexibility.

  “Get him off the table,” I said. “I don’t trust him.”

  “He’s fine. He won’t hurt you.”

  “He looks like he’s sizing me up.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s got a long refractory period.”

  “Off the table, McGlade.”