“Copy it and let’s go.”
“There’s also reference to a second time machine. In a… swimming pool?”
Nick craned in. “Say that again.”
“A swim-”
“Fuck. We have to go. We have to go right now.”
“I’m mailing this to Beth.”
“Now, Horatio.”
Horatio held up one hand, still typing with the other. “I’ll be right there. Thirty seconds.”
Nick jogged out, got to the elevator, swiped it open.
If Horatio had found something that could cause some damage… yeah. Nick was all for using it to give it to Monarch in the neck. But it wouldn’t mean anything if they were too dead to use it.
Nick glanced at his watch. “Horatio! Come on, we-whoa!”
Horatio was no longer typing. He was in his seat, shuddering, arms slack by his sides.
Martin Hatch stood next to him, four fingers and thumb locked deep into Horatio’s throat, gazing at Nick as Horatio’s life ran out of him.
Nick swung into the elevator and hammered the Door Close button.
Martin Hatch watched him go.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 10:05 P.M. Monarch Tower. Paul Serene’s Apartment, Floor 49.
If Monarch’s success and hypersonic rise could be attributed to one thing it would be Paul Serene’s explorations of possible futures and his identification of key junction moments that led to the choicest outcomes.
He had not always been sick, and he had not always possessed the ability to fly down the branching corridors of future probability. The gift was a trait of the sickness. The chronon syndrome.
In the early days his vision had been tight and nearsighted. A day ahead at most, with no control. In time he had learned to focus on moments that led to moments. He called them junctions. These almost always manifested in the instant, allowing him to make a choice now that would elicit an outcome later. This was fine for short-term gain, but there was a blindness to it, an element of chance. The choices he made were best guesses based on what shadowy perceptions he could grasp at the end of what probability branches were at hand-and he always had to choose quickly, before the moment passed.
But that would not do. It was not enough.
Paul did not want choice forced on him. He wanted knowledge, awareness, and control. In time, with great effort, he learned to identify junction moments before they arrived. This enabled choices that were more considered and better informed.
In this manner Monarch Solutions had first begun to shape the life of every person on Earth.
With greater effort and diligence Paul began to explore a larger selection of possible futures. And then to explore the possible futures that branched from those.
Greater exploration came with greater effort. Especially deep forays came at a cost: the giving of himself to the sickness, and the sacrificing of his flesh.
The dreams were terrible after such journeys. Not just a dream, but dreams about dreams. Dozens of iterations of surreal scenarios played out atop one another yet all of them, somehow, simultaneously comprehensible. Parallel timelines, near-identical causalities, each with small variations blooming into sometimes vastly different outcomes.
In the moment it felt like joy; on waking it felt like madness. He was never right for days after such deep journeys. But the company profited. Armed with detailed foreknowledge, Martin Hatch’s captaincy had been immaculate.
The sicker Paul got, the easier it became. The farther he went, the sicker he got.
Paul’s instincts honed. His efficiency sharpened.
Now, as Paul’s time on Earth grew short, he centered himself for his greatest and most complex voyage to date. His mission was to chart the most detailed probability map that he could, covering the coming days. This would be especially difficult as, given the events of the last twenty-four hours, the skein of cause and effect was in a state of high agitation.
The journeys he had taken previously would be as garden pathways compared to the seething jungle tangle that awaited him.
This final foray would cost him greatly.
Paul Serene sat comfortably on his magnificent chair of thirty-six-hundred-year-old Fitzroya cupressoides. At each compass point an articulated stand directed a microphone toward him.
His final operation as a surgeon of causality-his final voyage as a cartographer of future history-began in this instant.
The map he would leave behind would allow Monarch to navigate the coming storm, to survive the inevitable scrutiny, and to win the loyalty of those who could assure the company’s future as the savior of mankind.
It would assure the development and success of Project Lifeboat, which, without immediate and unconditional global governmental cooperation, would fail. Humanity, this universe, this timeline would cease to be.
Paul closed his eyes.
And began.
His consciousness became four-dimensional. He rose above the weave entirely and allowed his consciousness to point-compass-like-toward the future he desired most.
He had never perceived the skein of probability so completely, so vastly, as he did now. Vast enough to crush a mind, perfect enough that the changing part of Paul Serene wanted to dwell there forever.
His mind found its direction as though it were the most instinctive thing on Earth. Paul Serene’s awareness found the future where Martin Hatch stood before those who control the world… and those who control the world said:
Yes.
Paul Serene started there, examining in detail the threads of cause and effect that led each and every person in that room to that singular and most-desired outcome, and worked his way backward.
Only then did he begin dictating to the microphones.
His flesh burned with starlight.
Saturday, 8 October 2016. 10:07 P.M. Monarch Tower. Martin Hatch’s Apartment, Floor 50.
When Randall Gibson entered Martin Hatch’s office the great man was cleaning one hand with a dark handkerchief, meticulously working the spaces between his fingers.
“Mr. Gibson,” Mr. Hatch said, without looking up from his work. “The tragedy in your unit has returned you to command. Welcome back, Senior Operative. They were good soldiers. Let’s not have you tarnish their memory, hmm?”
“Sir?”
“You and the remainder of C-1 are to head to the Riverport Swimming Hall. A time machine is inside. You are to enter the swimming hall, enter the machine, and go back as far as you can-to 1999-and kill Jack Joyce. Do you understand?”
“And… the Consultant? Mr. Serene? He’s gone and changed his opinion on the science? Last I heard messing with collapsed waveforms was verboten.”
“Mr. Serene has not been well. Leave the laws of the universe to me.”
“Y-yes sir.”
“Doubt, Mr. Gibson?”
“Sir, no, sir! I look forward to executing the mission with the utmost aggression, sir!”
“And I look forward to you and I renewing our friendship. Now go forth, and deliver a mighty suffering.”
Gibson felt his chest light up like a ball of phosphorous on a dark night. “Sir, yes, sir!” With the utmost fucking aggression. Oo-fuckin’-RAH!
“Dismissed, Senior Operative.”
Gibson saluted, pivoted, and marched on out, head high.
Hatch sighed, folded his handkerchief, and tucked it into his pocket. Today was a day for housecleaning, and setting things in motion.