Timecaster Read online

“Fine. Sheesh. You’re some kind of animal hater, you know that, Princess Talon?”

  “I want my nose to remain a virgin.”

  McGlade grabbed the elephant and set him on the floor. Then he picked up a bottle of iodine.

  “First I’m going to sterilize the area. Then it might get a little, um, uncomfortable.”

  The iodine felt warm, almost soothing.

  The scalpel wasn’t soothing at all.

  “Hold still. I don’t want to rupture your eardrum.”

  He brought down a magnifying lens on an articulated arm, then went at it. I tried to stay still, wishing I’d taken the morphine. It felt like . . . Well, it felt like someone was jabbing a scalpel in my ear.

  “All headphones have a very tiny external jack, for updating the firmware,” McGlade said. “A guy I know, he made a nanochip that can reflash the bios. It cycles WLAN channels and piggybacks on nearby users, which means free calls via Wi-Fi. Of course, it also works for people who get their headphones disconnected. Not really good with long distance, but it’ll do for a hundred miles or so.”

  I wasn’t paying attention to him, my jaw locked on the corner of the pillow in an effort not to flinch and Van Gogh myself.

  “Okay, I’ve exposed the jack. This is the tricky part. Don’t move.”

  He ripped open a small plastic package, taking out what looked like a dental pick.

  “Chip is in the tip. I place it into the jack, and we’re good to go.”

  “What’s that slurping sound?” I said around the pillow.

  “Suction hose, sucking up all the blood. Stay still.”

  He jammed the pick in my ear, but it was sort of anticlimactic, and I only wished for death twice instead of the five times I’d wished for it when he was using the scalpel.

  “There. Now I’m going to use some living stitches. This might sting.”

  I’d been stung by bees before. Living stitches felt like I was having my skin pulled off with hot pliers. I may have cried a little. Or a lot.

  “Okay, we’re good. Let’s work on that hand.”

  “I think I want the morphine,” I said, shaking my leg. The elephant had wrapped himself around my ankle.

  “Don’t be a baby, Talon. Living stitches aren’t that bad.”

  “Have you tried them?”

  “Several times.”

  “And you didn’t scream?”

  “Of course not. I passed out before I could scream. Gimme your hand.”

  After a liberal dose of iodine, he draped some living stitches over my hand. Living stitches were a synthetic fabric seeded with genetically altered bacteria. The germs were packed with human codons, specifically the genes that repaired skin. A miracle of modern medicine. But the rapid healing involved the little buggers reopening the wound and rearranging the cells, which hurt more than the damage they were repairing.

  After my third scream, Penis ran out of the room, frightened.

  “You scared away my pachyderm,” McGlade said.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” I replied.

  “Now let’s get started on that arm.”

  The arm hurt a lot worse, and apparently at some point I followed McGlade’s advice and passed out.

  NINETEEN

  I awoke lying on the floor. Penis the bonsai African elephant was sitting on my chest, staring at me.

  The first thing I did was check my nose. It seemed okay. I also smacked my lips, trying to detect any funny tastes in my mouth.

  “Rise and shine, sleepyhead.” McGlade was sitting at his desk. “While you were out, I injected your ribs with nanotubes. How do you feel?”

  “Better,” I said. My brain was still a bit foggy, and my stomach felt like I’d been on a cruise during a typhoon, but my various aches and pains had all vanished. Except for my arm, where Sata had hit me. That was still numb.

  “My fingers are tingling.”

  “I noticed that. You’ve got some sort of nerve damage. That’s beyond what I can do here. You need to visit an ER for that.”

  Penis trumpeted at me, spraying my face with elephant snot.

  “Your pet sucks,” I said, gently shoving him off my chest.

  “Yeah. But he’s really expensive.”

  I sat up, letting the room come into focus. The first thing I thought of was Vicki. I pressed my earlobe. No dial tone. I pressed it again.

  “Try hitting yourself on the side of the head,” McGlade said.

  I gave myself a swift tap.

  “Harder.”

  I reared back and really whacked myself, almost tipping over.

  “Is that how this is supposed to work?” I asked, shaking away the wooziness.

  “Naw. I haven’t turned it on yet. I just wanted to see if you’d hit yourself.”

  “Asshole.”

  McGlade grinned, then pressed a button on a remote control he had in his hand. A dial tone came on in my head.

  “Call Vicki.”

  The headphone connected to hers, but I got voice mail. She must have still been dealing with the cops and couldn’t talk.

  “Still with the SLP, huh, Talon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, she’s got to be one of the last natural redheads on the planet. They’re almost extinct. She is natural, right? The carpet matches the drapes?”

  “She’s natural.” If he hadn’t just saved my tail, I might have objected to where this conversation was heading.

  “That’s so hot. You know, maybe I could reduce my fee if she could fit me into her schedule. Is she taking new clients?”

  “No.”

  “How about for quick sessions? I’d only need about two minutes.”

  “Let’s stop talking about Vicki.”

  “What if it wasn’t overtly sexual?”

  “That wasn’t a suggestion, McGlade.”

  “I like feet,” he stated matter-of-factly.

  I stared at him.

  “Maybe she could step on me sometime,” he continued.

  Seeing he wasn’t going to let it go, I said, “I’ll check her calendar.”

  “Thanks, pal. I also like blow jobs.”

  I stood up and rubbed my neck. “How long was I out?”

  “An hour. I threw your clothes in the washer/dryer. Should be done by now.”

  “You have a washer/dryer?”

  “I get it. You said that because my clothes are always dirty. Jackass.”

  “Next you’ll say you have a maid.”

  “I do have a maid. But when she comes over we spend the whole time in bed and she never has a chance to clean anything.”

  “Does she have cute feet?”

  “No. Her toes are hairy, and they smell like cheese. But I let her step on me anyway.”

  I reminded myself that I’d come here willingly. “Where’s my DT and belt?”

  “All your shit is in the laundry room.”

  I walked out of the office. McGlade scooped up Penis and followed me.

  “You want something to eat? I could order out. There’s a place up the street that delivers. They do the best bald eagle nachos. I know most people think bald eagles are vermin, like rats. But these things melt in your mouth.”

  I found the laundry room. The clothes were on the drying cycle, with a few minutes left. My utility belt and gear were on top. I picked up my DT.

  “Can you hack my Taser?” I asked. “Make it work again?”

  “No. Wi-Fi is hackable because there are so many free hot spots. Tesla electricity is all chip-based, dependent on ID and account numbers. Unhackable.”

  “Can I buy one of your Tasers?”

  “Mine are DNA-specific. Only I can fire them.”

  Just like mine and every other registered Taser out there. I couldn’t even use his bullets.

  “How about the Magnum?”

  “Sure. Do you have half a million credits? Because that’s what it’s worth.”

  “You’re supposed to be this legendary black market dealer, McGlade. Don’t you have any
weapons?”

  “Really? Legendary?”

  “Weapons, McGlade.”

  “No, Talon. Weapons are so 2050. I deal in books, posters, art, real denim blue jeans, that kind of shit. Didn’t you hear we’ve given up violence as a species in favor of a green utopia?”

  “I heard. But someone isn’t playing by those rules.”

  McGlade folded his arms. “Yeah. You’re that someone. I saw the transmission, you and that old ugly chick. Remind me never to play Twister with you.”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “The ID chip proved it was.”

  I stared at McGlade. “ID chip?”

  “Yeah. The transmission zoomed in with electromagnetic radiation.”

  I picked up my DT and tuned in to CNN. They were playing the video of Aunt Zelda’s death. But not the early one; the one I assumed Teague made. They were playing mine, which showed the close-up of Alter-Talon’s ID chip.

  Sata? Had he given his copy of the transmission to the police?

  No. The channel cut to the wreckage of my beautiful Corvette, the newscaster saying they took my TEV out of the trunk and found the recorded footage. Teague came on next, talking to a reporter. His arm was in a sling, and he looked seriously pissed. I switched from closed captioning to sound.

  “The woman is still unidentified, and I just spent the last two fucking hours chasing a fucking raccoon. But it doesn’t matter. I’m a timecaster. I’ll follow him like a bloodhound until his ass is mine.”

  “Is that Teague?” McGlade said. “He looks seriously pissed. I thought you guys were buddies.”

  I switched off the sound, then accessed uffsee.

  “Franklin Debont, inventor of UFSE, bio,” I told the voice command.

  Uffsee brought up the file on Debont. It was an extensive biography. I glossed over the early years, his fifteen search-engine patents, the global utilization of uffsee on the intranet, and got to his eventual retirement. No mention of his gender change, of becoming Aunt Zelda, or of living on Wacker Drive.

  “Franklin Debont, living relatives.”

  It came up with one. And it wasn’t Neil. It was Franklin’s nephew, a man named Rocket Corbitz.

  “Rocket Corbitz bio.”

  Rocket had a one-word intranet entry.

  Disenfranchized.

  “He’s a dissy, huh?” McGlade asked.

  I didn’t answer, momentarily lost in thought. I still believed Teague had set me up, but I had no idea how. Hopefully Sata would be able to figure that out.

  But why didn’t the intranet have any record of Debont’s sex change? Or of his nephew Neil? That was impossible.

  Then again, Debont was the creator of the greatest search engine in the history of mankind. He could have easily altered the entry about himself. Maybe he was a private person, and wanted to live his new life out of the spotlight.

  It still didn’t make sense why Neil didn’t know his aunt was really one of the richest men on the planet. And Neil had mentioned he went to Teague before coming to me. Were they in this together somehow?

  I needed to talk to Teague, but I doubted I’d be able to get any quality one-on-one time with him. He was probably already tracing my steps, and as soon as he learned my whereabouts he’d call for backup. Neil might also be compromised, and Teague could very well be using him as bait.

  I called Sata on my headphone, to see if he’d figured out anything about the TEV transmission. I got his voice mail.

  That left only one lead to follow up on. Rocket Corbitz.

  “You still have ties to the dissys?” I asked McGlade.

  “You need a tracer?”

  “Rocket Corbitz. He may know something.”

  McGlade stroked his elephant’s trunk in a vaguely obscene manner. “My standard fee is a thousand credits a day, plus expenses. And if Teague is on your ass, it will lead him here, so expenses are going to include disappearing me until this shit all blows over.”

  “My Vette was insured. Two hundred thousand credits.”

  He bowed. “Harry McGlade, tracer extraordinaire, at your disposal.”

  McGlade smiled. Penis farted. I rubbed my eyes, figuring with McGlade’s help I had maybe a 10 percent chance of clearing my name.

  Penis farted again. I waved away the foul air.

  “It’s all the beans he eats. This elephant is crazy for beans. I know I shouldn’t keep giving them to him, but after a while you get used to the smell. It’s actually kind of aromatic.” McGlade took a large sniff. “Like elephant fart incense.”

  Make that a 5 percent chance.

  TWENTY

  The Mastermind is nervous.

  It will work. The math is good. The tech is solid. He’s not worried about witnesses, because even if he is seen, no one will know who he is or what he’s doing.

  So why the dry mouth and the sweaty palms?

  Perhaps it is simply a symptom of incipient genocide.

  But then, it isn’t really genocide. Not technically. Or, at least, not immediately.

  He muses about the mouse. Talon is doing well. Better than expected. Still not close to figuring it out, but the clues are difficult.

  Perhaps he’ll never figure it out. Perhaps he’s not good enough.

  Perhaps he’ll die first.

  The Mastermind hopes he’ll have a chance to meet with Talon. To explain himself.

  He doesn’t care how history judges him. He can pick the history that suits him best.

  But he wants respect from his adversary. Wants him to appreciate the breadth and scope of his genius, the depth of his determination, the brilliance of his plan.

  If you play chess against yourself, you’ll always be the winner.

  Where’s the fun in that?

  He buys his ticket. Sits in his seat. Double-checks his settings; the world shrinks.

  He envies Talon, in a way. The joy of discovery is such a pure pleasure. The unknown happens to everyone, but so few quest to discover it.

  That fool Sata never understood that simple point. Debont whored it for wealth.

  As he looks down over humanity, he recalls a poem by T. S. Eliot.

  Do I dare disturb the universe?

  Yes. I dare.

  I dare in a big fucking way.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The fence was beaten to hell by weather, neglect, and mistreatment. Made of steel mesh, it stood about twenty feet high, and stretched off in either direction, cordoning off the street. Someone had stuck a large, plastic sheet on the fence, and graffiti announced:

  DISSYTOWN

  HOME OF THE

  DISENFRANCHIZED

  DISINTERESTED

  DISILLUSIONED

  DISMISSED

  DISSERTED

  DISTROYED

  “Abandon all hope, youse who enter here,” McGlade said.

  We’d taken McGlade’s biofuel bike, me riding bitch, and he’d chained it to the fence. Every major metropolitan area had a dissytown. These were the people who didn’t pay taxes, and were kicked out. The abolition of welfare was one of the reasons, though welfare was replaced with workfare programs that allowed those of lesser means and with disabilities to continue being taxpaying utopeons and upstanding members of society.

  Bleeding hearts and human rights crusaders bemoaned the slum-like conditions in many dissytowns. They made frequent trips inside, trying to persuade folks to join regular society, trying to show the children born there that an alternative to poverty and crime existed. And crime did exist. In the absence of police, timecasting, and ID chips, crime not only existed, but it flourished in dissytown. But no taxes meant no votes, no representation, no acknowledgment, so the crimes didn’t actually exist in the eyes of the government.

  My personal feelings were a bit right-wing, but years of experience hunting for runaways in Chicago’s dissytown had forged me into a cynic. These weren’t people whom society had given up on. These were people who had given up on society. If you want a nice place to live, be willing to work fo
r it and follow the rules. If you don’t want to work, or follow rules, a place like this was where you ended up.

  McGlade and I were dressed for the part. He lent me a ratty old T-shirt and some stained camouflage khakis. His disguise was a holey sweatshirt that reeked of body odor, and some jeans with rips from the crotch to the cuffs.

  But then, that might have been McGlade’s normal ensemble.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. We hadn’t even crossed the border yet and already the garbage smell had gotten to me. “Who would choose to live here?”

  He shrugged. “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

  That was too much insight for McGlade. “Who said that?”

  “Some dead singer. Janis somebody. Got a nude poster of her.”

  We stood at the entrance. Not a door or a gate. Just a rusty, jagged hole in the fence. I heard rancid music coming from beyond it. Someone yelling. Someone crying.

  “They should close all the dissytowns and force these people to get jobs,” I said, fingering some rust off the fence and rubbing it onto my chin.

  McGlade spit a loogie into his hand and messed up one side of his wavy brown hair. “The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizens’ skin.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Some dead feminist. Gloria somebody. She had a nice rack. I have a poster of her in a Playboy Bunny outfit. Feminists are hot.”

  And after imparting that nugget of wisdom, we strolled into dissytown.

  It wasn’t exactly like stepping through the looking glass, but it was close. We left the clean, green, orderly world behind, and traded it for ugly chaos and anarchy. This used to be the south part of town, part residential, part business, now 100 percent awful.

  There was a shocking lack of plants, and an even more shocking pileup of trash littering the streets. No recycling, no garbage pickup, so people left refuse everywhere.

  The apartment buildings looked like they’d been bombed, not a single window intact. Storefronts had been converted into hovels. The sidewalks and streets were ripped up to shit, but no one had vehicles because there was no fuel.

  There were a few people wandering about when we walked in. The stares were either suspicious or hostile. They wore dirty, ripped clothes. The bleeding hearts insisted water mains remain open, so stinky shirts and greasy hair were by choice. Other utilities—phone, electric, gas—were shut off, but like many bigger dissytowns, this one somehow provided electricity for itself. Probably a combination of solar and hydroelectric, as Tesla was beyond their technology and traditional power plants required fuel sources they didn’t have.