“So less than a day, then.”
“Listen to me!” Paul’s breathing was suddenly spasmodic, tremulous. “I’m trying to help you. To help us.”
“Y’know, I’m lousy on phones,” Jack said, all charm. “What say we talk this over face-to-face?”
Paul sighed. “Sure,” he said. “Come downstairs. I’m in the kitchen.”
Gibson had gone from his meeting with Hatch straight to the squad room. When he’d walked in he knew straight away that everyone knew. Donny had been a man about it, walked straight up and let Gibson crack him in the face.
“No worries, boss,” the kid had said, checking his nose, wiping away blood with a thumb. “It was a bullshit decision. None of us here buy it.”
Irene nodded. They all did.
Gibson said to Donny, “What are our orders?”
“Sit tight. Cool down.”
“Nah, that ain’t right. They’d be going after Joyce. They need us.”
Donny shook his head. “Hatch sent Technicians and Strikers. After last night, he wants us taking a half day.”
“To ‘decompress,’” Mully said.
“They want us fresh to run security on the gala tonight,” Voss put in.
Technicians and Strikers. Chronon-active standard troops, and bulked-up show ponies using first-gen chronon tech in an attempt to mimic a couple of Serene’s powers. All of them more in love with their gear than their creed.
“Donny, get me a spot on one of the Technician units on the Joyce farm detail.”
And that’s how Gibson wound up in the woods surrounding the Joyce place.
It was a nice morning. Clear, fresh. His daughter, Lorelei, would have appreciated it. Maybe he’d buy the place when this was all over. He could pick out one of those big trees over there, build the kid a house. Sit on that porch and watch Tamiko push Lorelei on a tire swing. Listen to the kid’s laughter carry across the garden.
He was lying on his belly, draped in ghillie netting, next to one of the ding-dongs from Talon squad, about a half mile from the Joyce spread. He tapped the side of the long-nosed sniper rifle the guy was resting his face on. “That one of ours?”
The sniper lifted one leafy paw, tapped the Monarch stamp on the rifle’s breach. That was poor discipline right there. An operative worth the name would have grunted an affirmative and kept his eye screwed to the scope. “Linux-based targeting system. Weather conditions, wind speed, target speed.”
“Got Netflix on there?”
The wookiee snorted. “Might as well. Once the scope tags the target I can put a round up the ass of a moving june bug at eighteen hundred yards while jerking off.”
“Sounds like you’re one innovation away from unemployment.”
The goon coughed up a less-convincing chuckle.
Fuck Gibson was bored. He’d gotten on this detail because he knew Mr. Hatch wanted that Joyce kid dead and Serene didn’t. If Randall could hand Mr. Hatch that little fuck’s head and plausible deniability, then the boss gets what he wants minus any fallout. Gibson could just say he was defending himself.
Fuck he was bored. He’d been there with his dick in the dirt for the last hour and nothing was happening.
“Ever had to shit yourself on the job?” No response. “Is that still part of the training? Shitting in a bag? Lying in a ditch for four days waiting for a target. I mean if you gotta go you gotta go, right?”
The shooter mumbled something about it being a small price to pay for freedom.
What an asshole. He was probably wearing one now.
Fuck he was bored.
Then: “Target spotted. Barn. Upper floor. Female.”
Gibson wrestled the binoculars to his face. The hayloft doors had been opened. Some broad in a baseball cap, fatigues. Looking good in a T-shirt but couldn’t make out her face. “Well hello there, punkin’ butter.” Cap pulled low, head always dipped. One hell of a hardbody, though. “Name’s Randall. And you are?”
The stud beside the trigger clicked. “Target locked.” Then: “Lost visual. Target stepped away from the window.”
A voice, deep and comforting, murmured over comms: “Highground One.” It was Hatch. Gibson kept his mouth shut. “Please describe the target.”
“Caucasian female. Mid-twenties. Five ten. Baseball cap. Appears unarmed,” the sniper mumbled.
“Our Consultant hasn’t emerged?”
“All units report no exit as yet, sir.”
Silence on the line. Then: “You have the green light. Proceed.”
Jack came down the stairs, gun in hand.
Someone coughed in the kitchen, took a reassuring breath.
Jack stepped off the stairs, moved left toward the kitchen, the interior coming into view.
Far wall, framed pictures, fridge, bench, and cabinets… someone that looked like Paul.
“Hi,” Paul said.
Paul didn’t appear to be offended at having a gun pointed at his face-that familiar-but-different face.
“Except for last night it’s been almost twenty years since I’ve seen you, Jack. And here I am with no idea of what to say.” Paul smiled and Jack wanted to do something he wasn’t sure he’d regret. “Seeing you here, the young man I remember, in this house… it’s eerie.” Paul jerked his thumb toward the drying rack. “Will kept every Ziploc bag you used for lunches. After dinner every Friday night we’d wash and hang them on the rack there. He made a box of those bags last for years.”
“Will’s dead. You killed him.”
“Jack-”
Jack cocked the automatic’s hammer, uselessly. “Shut up and start talking.”
“The person you grew up with is gone, Jack. It’s for the best. But I still remember. That counts for something.” Paul pulled the silver chain around his neck, drew out what it secured: his silver bullet. “I remember it all.”
The sight of the bullet made Jack think of the gun in his hand; the gun in his hand made him think of Paul holding a gun on Will. Thinking of Will dispelled pity. “I don’t think you do.”
“Will was right: something was wrong with the machine’s calibration. Time will end. I’ve seen it. In fact time will end because I’ve seen it. The waveform of that particular potential future has now collapsed and become an unavoidable certainty.”
“Except…” Jack had to believe there was an answer here. “The time machine. I go back, I find us, I tell us not to use the machine, this never happens, Will never dies, and I spend the rest of my life trying to forget how badly I wanted to shoot you.”
Paul shook his head, sadly. “Has that happened?”
“When I do go back it will have happened. And then… I guess we won’t ever remember having this conversation.”
“So if the events of the present we currently inhabit never occurred… what would motivate you to go back in time and warn us?”
Hearing that was like watching Will die all over again. Jack shook his head. “There’s a way.”
“You can’t change the past. I’m sorry.”
Hate pulled Jack forward. “You’re lying.”
“If changing the past were possible I would locate Will’s prototype-the first machine, older than Monarch’s, the one he built in the barn out there-and do my damnedest to make that work. Then I would use it to travel back and prevent the Monarch machine being made. That would prevent the Fracture from occurring and spare me a terrible life. But it is not possible.”
Jack’s mind wheeled. There was no answer to this.
“Do you know where Will’s machine is, Jack?”
“If this is true, then why do any of this? Why kill my brother? Why kill all the people at the university?”
Paul weighed his words carefully. “There are reasons why last night was necessary. First, we took the core from the lab and installed it into a secondary Promenade within Monarch Tower. We made it known that this was done as a safety precaution by Monarch personnel. Now the world knows a sensitive Monarch project was targeted by a terrorist group. Second, I need the mood of the nation to be primed. The public and the administration want a simple target for their anger. Soon I will provide that target in a manner that is advantageous to the objectives of the company. For that to work the events at the university had to be… mediapathic. Showy.”