Aunt Zelda came in, carrying a bag of groceries. She closed the door behind her, then glanced in the hallway mirror and checked her hair. It was such a candid, human gesture that I felt my heart sink. All I knew about this woman was that she used to be the man who invented uffsee, and she had a psychotic dissy nephew. Seeing her as a person was disconcerting, especially since I knew what was coming up.
She brought the bag to the kitchen, and loaded some fruit into the refrigerator. Then she opened the kitchen closet and a man stepped out and grabbed her throat.
The move was so sudden, so unexpected and violent, both Aunt Zelda and I gasped. The man was dressed head to toe in black, including gloves. Medium height, heavy build. His face was hidden behind a celebrity veil. These were a result of the Paparazzi Massacre of 2054, when a cadre of celebrities allegedly hired a hit squad to wipe out forty-seven known photographer-stalkers. The violence ended when an inventor released celebrity veils-one-way fabric that attached to a hat and draped over the face, completely obscuring identity. Celebrity invasion of privacy dwindled to zero, as paparazzi had no way of proving who was in their photos.
The celebrity veil this killer wore had a yellow circle on it, with an emoticon smiley:) printed on the fabric. There was no way to see his face.
I watched as he pulled Aunt Zelda to the sink, easily overpowering her. The rest of the scene played out as it had in the alternate universe. Aunt Zelda’s head was slammed into the sink three times, then twisted around 180 degrees.
I paused the action, noting that Neil was watching over my shoulder.
“I told you I didn’t do it,” I said.
He sniffled. “That’s you in a mask.”
I switched to electromagnetic radiation resolution, and zoomed in on the killer’s arm to read his chip ID.
His chip wasn’t there. Instead, there was a round black disk.
“WTF?”
He was hiding his chip somehow. Which was impossible. There was no technology able to do that.
But then, there was no technology able to allow timecasting in parallel universes, either.
I fast-forwarded, wincing as he jammed a prism ball down Aunt Zelda’s throat, cut out and nuked her chip, and stuffed her in the fridge. Then he did something odd. He took another celebrity veil out of his pocket and placed it on top of the refrigerator.
I paused the transmission and reached for the veil. It had an emoticon frowny face:(on the front. Why leave it there? I did a quick scan of it with my DT. No fingerprints. No DNA. It was just a normal mask. I shoved it into my utility belt.
I unpaused the TEV and followed the killer to the front door, where he rigged the lock mechanism, allowing Neil’s chip to open it. Then I tagged along as he walked into the hallway and caught the elevator. This time, he didn’t vanish into thin air. He hopped into the lift and went down.
I rewound, going back two hours, and found him when he arrived, still wearing the celebrity veil. I let it play, watching him walk to Aunt Zelda’s door, open it with a smart magnet, and then hide in the kitchen closet.
I had two courses of action. I could follow him to see where he went next, or I could follow him backward and see where he came from. He’d have to take off the veil eventually.
The problem was, I might have to track him for hours in either direction before he revealed his face.
I yawned, fatigue catching up with me. I needed food, and sleep. Much as I wanted to chase this bastard right now, my body was close to shutting down. I padded back into the apartment, and found my way into the bathroom. I located some sleeping pills in the medicine cabinet. I dumped three onto my hand, plus three Valium, some THC, and, just for fun, three Estrolux pills. The Estrolux temporarily increased breast size.
Neil was still in the kitchen, eyeing me like a cat when a dog came into the room. I walked past him, reaching into the cabinet, taking Aunt Zelda’s bottle of contraband rum.
I located a glass and filled it halfway. It smelled like biodiesel.
Without hesitating, I poured it down my throat.
It tasted awful, like some kind of antique medicine, and burned my throat going down. I’d never tried real liquor before, and couldn’t understand why anyone would do so willingly. Yuck. And people used to drink so much of this stuff it destroyed their livers? What the heck was wrong with them?
I spat into the sink, then turned to Neil.
“I need to sleep,” I said. “But I don’t trust you not to murder me. So I need you to take some pills.”
“I don’t want to take any pills.”
I unsheathed my Nife. “These are getting in your stomach, one way or another. Which way do you want to go?”
“Actually, some pills would hit the spot right about now.”
I handed them over, and he poured a glass of water and obediently swallowed the whole bunch. I made him open his mouth to show he wasn’t cheeking them, and sent him to go sleep on the sofa.
Then I sat down at the kitchen table and called my wife.
She didn’t answer her headphone, and I had an overwhelming feeling something was very wrong.
THIRTY-EIGHT
There were many good reasons why Vicki wouldn’t answer, but I would have thought with me on the run she’d make an extra effort to be available. I disconnected and called Sata. He picked up on the first ring.
“Is Vicki okay?”
“She’s in the guest room, sleeping. She went to bed an hour ago, Talon-kun. She’s pretty wiped out. Would you like me to wake her?”
“Yes. Wait. No. Could you just… check on her? See if she’s okay?”
“Sure, Talon.”
After a moment I heard a soft knock, and then a door opening.
“She’s asleep?” I asked.
“Yes. I can disturb her, if you wish. But she’s had a hard day. Spent the last few hours crying.”
That’s just what I needed. Guilt on top of everything else.
“Let her sleep, Sata-san. I’ll call her later.” I got my mind back in the game. “Have you found out anything about the technology used to timecast in the multiverse?”
“I’ve been doing some research. It’s theoretically possible to change the frequency of a timecast transmission, which would force a Van Damme to tune to a parallel universe on another ’brane. But there would have to be some sort of jamming device that overrode this ’brane.”
“I found one of those. Two of them, actually.”
I ran down the events of the past few hours for Sata, ending with my current location.
“Can you bring me one of these prism spheres to study?”
I yawned. Everything seemed a bit warmer, calmer. I recognized the alcohol buzz, which had a similar effect to alcohol pills. But this was fuzzier, and actually more pleasant. I stood up and poured myself another glass of rum, sipping it this time.
“I can do that tomorrow. But I can send you a scan now.”
“Please.”
I took pictures from various angles, both the exterior and a computed tomography scan of the interior, using my DT.
“Fascinating,” Sata said when he received the pics. “This technology is quite extraordinary. It’s both a jammer and a broadcaster. There also appears to be a tuning mechanism on it, similar to the ones used on tachyon emission visualizers.”
“Yeah. Fascinating,” I said, yawning again. I took another sip of rum. The liquid still burned, but the taste was growing on me.
“When can you deliver this to me, Talon?”
“Tomorrow morning. First I have to follow the SMF who killed Aunt Zelda. Have you ever heard of chip-blocking tech?”
“No. But I haven’t heard of timecast-jamming tech, either.”
“I thought the same thing.”