Recruiter 46795 didn’t hesitate. His hand shot out and slammed palm down on the device, triggering the switch, suddenly thrilled that he was going to personally be able to resolve the problem and avoid any lingering doubts.
His triumphed shout died stillborn in his throat, however, as the younger Nate Benson stepped, unharmed, out of the darkness and into the light.
The gun in his hand loomed very large.
“You can stop that now,” Nate said, nodding toward the desktop, where Recruiter 46795’s hand was repeatedly slamming itself down on the switch.
He jerked his hand back and put it in his lap, unable to believe what was happening.
“How?” was all he managed to get out.
Benson smiled.
“Syncing the farcaster to the operator’s DNA is a pretty neat trick; keeps the average citizen from stumbling on it and mucking things all up, I’d guess. But when the shooter and the victim happen to have the same DNA, as well as the same desire for self-preservation, well, there you’ve got a problem.”
The gun in Benson’s hand rose slightly to point directly at Recruiter 46795’s face and then he knew no more.
The farcaster whined, shook, and then seemed to shimmer before his very eyes before going still. Nate Benson walked over and looked inside the porthole. Frowning, he punched the buttons on the keypad to open up the door and looked inside. On the floor of the farcaster was a padded envelope, the kind you might mail things in.
Nate reached inside and picked it up. Opening it, he found a single sheet of paper and a full hypo spray.
He glanced at the note as he readied the hypo.
Dear Nate,
Sorry I had to do this, but you really didn’t expect me to come back there, did you? Not after all that crap you told me about the war and life afterwards? Thanks but you can keep that shit. Oh, and don’t try to use this farcaster again; I’ve reprogrammed it to send whoever uses it to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
Nate
Nate laughed. He couldn’t help it. It was just like him to take advantage of a situation. Hell, he’d been doing it for years.
Still smiling, he picked up the hypo and injected himself with it, imagining he could feel the nanobites in his bloodstreams dying off as the antidote washed through his system.
Let the kid have his fun, he thought. In about another six months the farcaster he’d used on his second mission was going to show up in a warehouse outside of Philadelphia and he could always use that one to go home if he chose to do so.
For now though, he’d hang around here. With all the information in his head about what was coming over the next several years, he was in position to make a good deal of money.
That wouldn’t be so bad, now would it?
Whistling to himself, Nate left the apartment behind and headed out to live this day over for the second time.
The streets were silent by the time Matthew turned the final page on the astonishing life of Nate Benson. Evening revelers had long since gone to whatever destination would hold them for the night, and the streets were empty of all but shadows. In the silence, Matthew sat wishing he had a fire so that he might consign the manuscript to the flames. But somehow he knew that even if he had the opportunity, he could never follow through. No, he had to know more. Picking up the phone, he dialed his friend Charlie. He just hoped he was working the night shift.
The phone rang three times before Charlie answered.
“Fifth precinct.”
“Charlie,” Matthew said, and he shuddered as he heard the tremor in his own voice, “it’s Matthew.” There was silence on the other end.
“Matthew? Man, it’s four o’clock in the morning. Are you OK?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Look, Charlie, I’ve got a question I need to ask you. Do you know anything about a girl named Angela Endicott?”
There was laughing on the other end of the line. “Angela Endicott? Of course I know her. Her uncle’s one of the biggest players in the city. Why do you ask? Matthew? You there? Hello?”
Matthew had thought that the call would make things better. Charlie was a detective, one of Boston’s finest. And if he had never heard of Angela Endicott, then she simply did not exist. And not existing would make the book that sat before him nothing more than fiction, and fiction can’t hurt you. Not normally, at least.
But Angela did exist. And a girl like Angela Endicott simply could not be, not in Matthew’s world. Not in a world of order. A girl like Angela Endicott was chaos personified.
“Matthew!”
It was the concern in his friend’s voice — and oh, if only he knew — that finally shook Matthew from his stupor. “Do you know if she’s ever been kidnapped?” he blurted out.
“Kidnapped?” Charlie said, laughing. “Of course not.”
Matthew should have taken comfort there, but there was something off in Charlie’s voice. A hitch. A pause. A singular moment of shock.
“Charlie,” Matthew began, trying to stay as calm and even as possible, “have you ever heard of a company called Limbus?”
For a long moment, Charlie said nothing. Then, in a voice that Matthew had never before heard from his old friend, he spoke.
“Matthew, I don’t know what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into, but you’ve got to get out of it. Get out of it right now.”
Before Matthew could say a word, the line went silent. He put the phone on his desk next to the book. For a moment, he couldn’t bring himself to look at it, but then he couldn’t bring himself not to. Before he knew what he was doing, the book was open, and the next story began.
We Employ
By Anne C. Petty
Dallas squeezed himself into the stall behind the guy from the bar. Trust his luck to pick the grubbiest shitter in the row. At least there wasn’t anything floating in the bowl.
The guy went right for his fly, no messing around.
“Wait!” Dallas pushed his hand away. ”Payment up front, we agreed.”
“Yeah, but maybe I wanna sample the goods before I pay,” said the man, Jim Beam leaking from his pores. He grabbed Dallas by the crotch.
Dallas’ knee came up, but there was barely any room to defend himself. His foot slipped, and the guy pushed him toward the wall.
He landed on his butt between the toilet bowl and the stall divider. His head cracked against the tiled back of the stall and stars blossomed behind his eyeballs. The door banged shut. Heavy footsteps squelched away and soon were gone.
Dallas lay on the damp floor, the tang of urine infesting his sinuses. Well, that could have gone better. Granted, he was beyond desperate to resort to a stunt like this for money, but the alternative was sleeping on a piece of cardboard under the bridge.
Shaky, he emerged from the stall and was relieved to have the men’s bathroom of the seedy South Beach night club to himself. He caught a glimpse of the nondescript street person in the mirror over the sink. Disheveled brown hair, skinny frame wrapped in a threadbare T-shirt, grubby jeans at half-mast. Not to mention he needed a shave and definitely a shower, things a reasonably civilized person took for granted until the means to make them happen were beyond reach. He regarded the reflection with distaste. You’ve sunk to a new low, Hamilton.
To complete the picture, there was toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe. It figured, the way things were going. But on closer look, he saw it was a card. He bent down, head throbbing, and picked it up. Plain white. Dallas turned it over. He saw red print on a white field with some kind of holographic logo that looked like a globe of the world.